Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

confusing woe, with which it was in vain to cope. The conviction of her helplessness prostrated her. She sat her down upon the steps before the door of that dreary house, within the railings of that gloomy court, and buried her face in her hands: a wild vision of the past and the future, without thought or feeling, coherence or consequence: sunset gleams of vanished bliss, and stormy gusts of impending doom.

The clock of St. John’s struck seven.

It was the only thing that spoke in that still and dreary square; it was the only voice that there seemed ever to sound; but it was a voice from heaven; it was the voice of St. John.

Sybil looked up: she looked up at the holy building. Sybil listened: she listened to the holy sounds. St. John told her that the danger of her father was yet so much advanced. Oh! why are there saints in heaven if they cannot aid the saintly! The oath that Morley would have enforced came whispering in the ear of Sybil⁠—“Swear by the holy Virgin and by all the saints.”

And shall she not pray to the holy Virgin and all the saints? Sybil prayed: she prayed to the holy Virgin and all the saints; and especially to the beloved St. John: most favoured among Hebrew men, on whose breast reposed the divine Friend.

Brightness and courage returned to the spirit of Sybil: a sense of animating and exalting faith that could move mountains, and combat without fear a thousand perils. The conviction of celestial aid inspired her. She rose from her sad resting-place and re-entered the house: only, however, to provide herself with her walking attire, and then alone and without a guide, the shades of evening already descending, this child of innocence and divine thoughts, born in a cottage and bred in a cloister, she went forth, on a great enterprise of duty and devotion, into the busiest and the wildest haunts of the greatest of modern cities.

Sybil knew well her way to Palace Yard. This point was soon reached: she desired the cabman to drive her to a street in the Strand in which was a coffeehouse, where during the last weeks of their stay in London the scanty remnants of the National Convention had held their sittings. It was by a mere accident that Sybil had learnt this circumstance, for when she had attended the meetings of the Convention in order to hear her father’s speeches, it was in the prime of their gathering and when their numbers were great, and when they met in audacious rivalry opposite that St. Stephen’s which they wished to supersede. This accidental recollection however was her only clue in the urgent adventure on which she had embarked.

She cast an anxious glance at the clock of St. Martin’s as she passed that church: the hand was approaching the half hour of seven. She urged on the driver; they were in the Strand; there was an agitating stoppage; she was about to descend when the obstacle was removed; and in a few minutes they turned down the street which she sought.

“What number. Ma’am?” asked the cabman.

“ ’Tis a coffeehouse; I know not the number nor the name of him who keeps it. ’Tis a coffeehouse. Can you see one? Look, look, I pray you! I am much pressed.”

“Here’s a coffeehouse, Ma’am,” said the man in a hoarse voice.

“How good you are! Yes; I will get out. You will wait for me, I am sure?”

“All right,” said the cabman, as Sybil entered the illumined door. “Poor young thing! she’s wery anxious about summut.”

Sybil at once stepped into a rather capacious room, fitted up in the old-fashioned style of coffee-rooms, with mahogany boxes, in several of which were men drinking coffee and reading newspapers by a painful glare of gas. There was a waiter in the middle of the room who was throwing some fresh sand upon the floor, but who stared immensely when looking up he beheld Sybil.

“Now, Ma’am, if you please,” said the waiter inquiringly.

“Is Mr. Gerard here?” said Sybil.

“No. Ma’am; Mr. Gerard has not been here today, nor yesterday neither”⁠—and he went on throwing the sand.

“I should like to see the master of the house,” said Sybil very humbly.

“Should you, Ma’am?” said the waiter, but he gave no indication of assisting her in the fulfilment of her wish.

Sybil repeated that wish, and this time the waiter said nothing. This vulgar and insolent neglect to which she was so little accustomed depressed her spirit. She could have encountered tyranny and oppression, and she would have tried to struggle with them; but this insolence of the insignificant made her feel her insignificance; and the absorption all this time of the guests in their newspapers aggravated her nervous sense of her utter helplessness. All her feminine reserve and modesty came over her; alone in this room among men, she felt overpowered, and she was about to make a precipitate retreat when the clock of the coffee-room sounded the half hour. In a paroxysm of nervous excitement she exclaimed, “Is there not one among you who will assist me?”

All the newspaper readers put down their journals and stared.

“Hoity-toity,” said the waiter, and he left off throwing the sand.

“Well, what’s the matter now?” said one of the guests.

“I wish to see the master of the house on business of urgency,” said Sybil, “to himself and to one of his friends, and his servant here will not even reply to my inquiries.”

“I say, Saul, why don’t you answer the young lady?” said another guest.

“So I did,” said Saul. “Did you call for coffee, Ma’am?”

“Here’s Mr. Tanner, if you want him, my dear.” said the first guest, as a lean black-looking individual, with grizzled hair and a red nose, entered the coffee-room from the interior. “Tanner, here’s a lady wants you.”

“And a very pretty girl too,” whispered one to another.

“What’s your pleasure?” said Mr. Tanner abruptly.

“I wish to speak to you alone,” said Sybil: and advancing towards him she said in a low voice, “ ’Tis about Walter Gerard