Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

During this ebullition, Mr. St. Lys had surveyed the apartment and recognised Sybil.

“Sister,” he said when the wife of Warner had ceased, “this is not the first time we have met under the roof of sorrow.”

Sybil bent in silence, and moved as if she were about to retire: the wind and rain came dashing against the window. The companion of Mr. St. Lys, who was clad in a rough great coat, and was shaking the wet off an oilskin hat known by the name of a “southwester,” advanced and said to her, “It is but a squall, but a very severe one; I would recommend you to stay for a few minutes.”

She received this remark with courtesy but did not reply.

“I think,” continued the companion of Mr. St. Lys, “that this is not the first time also that we have met?”

“I cannot recall our meeting before,” said Sybil.

“And yet it was not many days past; though the sky was so very different, that it would almost make one believe it was in another land and another clime.”

Sybil looked at him as if for explanation.

“It was at Marney Abbey,” said the companion of Mr. St. Lys.

“I was there; and I remember, when about to rejoin my companions, they were not alone.”

“And you disappeared; very suddenly I thought: for I left the ruins almost at the same moment as your friends, yet I never saw any of you again.”

“We took our course; a very rugged one; you perhaps pursued a more even way.”

“Was it your first visit to Marney?”

“My first and my last. There was no place I more desired to see; no place of which the vision made me so sad.”

“The glory has departed,” said Egremont mournfully.

“It is not that,” said Sybil: “I was prepared for decay, but not for such absolute desecration. The Abbey seems a quarry for materials to repair farmhouses; and the nave a cattle gate. What people they must be⁠—that family of sacrilege who hold these lands!”

“Hem!” said Egremont. “They certainly do not appear to have much feeling for ecclesiastical art.”

“And for little else, as we were told,” said Sybil. “There was a fire at the Abbey farm the day we were there, and from all that reached us, it would appear the people were as little tendered as the Abbey walls.”

“They have some difficulty perhaps in employing their population in those parts.”

“You know the country?”

“Not at all: I was travelling in the neighbourhood, and made a diversion for the sake of seeing an abbey of which I had heard so much.”

“Yes; it was the greatest of the Northern Houses. But they told me the people were most wretched round the Abbey; nor do I think there is any other cause for their misery, than the hard hearts of the family that have got the lands.”

“You feel deeply for the people!” said Egremont looking at her earnestly.

Sybil returned him a glance expressive of some astonishment, and then said, “And do not you? Your presence here assures me of it.”

“I humbly follow one who would comfort the unhappy.”

“The charity of Mr. St. Lys is known to all.”

“And you⁠—you too are a ministering angel.”

“There is no merit in my conduct, for there is no sacrifice. When I remember what this English people once was; the truest, the freest, and the bravest, the best-natured and the best-looking, the happiest and most religious race upon the surface of this globe; and think of them now, with all their crimes and all their slavish sufferings, their soured spirits and their stunted forms; their lives without enjoyment and their deaths without hope; I may well feel for them, even if I were not the daughter of their blood.”

And that blood mantled to her cheek as she ceased to speak, and her dark eye gleamed with emotion, and an expression of pride and courage hovered on her brow. Egremont caught her glance and withdrew his own; his heart was troubled.

St. Lys. who had been in conference with the weaver, left him and went to the bedside of his wife. Warner advanced to Sybil, and expressed his feelings for her father, his sense of her goodness. She, observing that the squall seemed to have ceased, bade him farewell, and calling Harold, quitted the chamber.

“Where have you been all the morning, Charles?” said Lord Marney coming into his brother’s dressing-room a few minutes before dinner; “Arabella had made the nicest little riding party for you and Lady Joan, and you were to be found nowhere. If you go on in this way, there is no use of having affectionate relations, or anything else.”

“I have been walking about Mowbray. One should see a factory once in one’s life.”

“I don’t see the necessity,” said Lord Marney; “I never saw one, and never intend. Though to be sure, when I hear the rents that Mowbray gets for his land in their neighbourhood, I must say I wish the worsted works had answered at Marney. And if it had not been for our poor dear father, they would.”

“Our family have always been against manufactories, railroads⁠—everything,” said Egremont.

“Railroads are very good things, with high compensation,” said Lord Marney; “and manufactories not so bad, with high rents; but, after all, these are enterprises for the canaille, and I hate them in my heart.”

“But they employ the people, George.”

“The people do not want employment; it is the greatest mistake in the world; all this employment is a stimulus to population. Never mind that; what I came in for, is to tell you that both Arabella and myself think you talk too much to Lady Maud.”

“I like her the best.”

“What has that to do with it, my dear fellow? Business is business. Old Mowbray will make an elder son out of his elder daughter. The affair is settled; I know it from the best authority. Talking to Lady Maud is insanity. It is all the same for her as if Fitz-Warene had never died. And then that great event, which ought to be the foundation of