Agitated and overcome by these unexpected and passionate appeals, andthese outrageous ebullitions acting on her at a time when she herselfwas labouring under no ordinary excitement, and was distracted withdisturbing thoughts, the mind of Sybil seemed for a moment to deserther; neither by sound nor gesture did she signify her sense of Morley'slast words and departure; and it was not until the loud closing of thestreet door echoing through the long passage recalled her to herself,that she was aware how much was at stake in that incident. She dartedout of the room to recall him; to make one more effort for her father;but in vain. By the side of their house was an intricate passage leadinginto a labyrinth of small streets. Through this Morley had disappeared;and his name, more than once sounded in a voice of anguish in thatsilent and most obsolete Smith's Square, received no echo.
Darkness and terror came over the spirit of Sybil; a sense ofconfounding and confusing woe, with which it was in vain to cope. Theconviction of her helplessness prostrated her. She sate her down uponthe steps before the door of that dreary house, within the railings ofthat gloomy court, and buried her face in her hands: a wild visionof the past and the future, without thought or feeling, coherenceor consequence: sunset gleams of vanished bliss, and stormy gusts ofimpending doom.
The clock of St John's struck seven.
It was the only thing that spoke in that still and dreary square; it wasthe only voice that there seemed ever to sound; but it was a voice fromheaven; 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 herfather was yet so much advanced. Oh! why are there saints in heaven ifthey cannot aid the saintly! The oath that Morley would have enforcedcame whispering in the ear of Sybil--"Swear by the holy Virgin and byall the saints."
And shall she not pray to the holy Virgin and all the saints? Sybilprayed: she prayed to the holy Virgin and all the saints; and especiallyto the beloved St John: most favoured among Hebrew men, on whose breastreposed the divine Friend.
Brightness and courage returned to the spirit of Sybil: a sense ofanimating and exalting faith that could move mountains, and combatwithout fear a thousand perils. The conviction of celestial aid inspiredher. She rose from her sad resting-place and re-entered the house: only,however, to provide herself with her walking attire, and then alone andwithout a guide, the shades of evening already descending, this child ofinnocence and divine thoughts, born in a cottage and bred in a cloister,she went forth, on a great enterprise of duty and devotion, into thebusiest and the wildest haunts of the greatest of modern cities.
Sybil knew well her way to Palace Yard. This point was soon reached: shedesired the cabman to drive her to a Street in the Strand in which wasa coffee-house, where during the last weeks of their stay in London thescanty remnants of the National Convention had held their sittings. Itwas by a mere accident that Sybil had learnt this circumstance, for whenshe had attended the meetings of the Convention in order to hear herfather's speeches, it was in the prime of their gathering and when theirnumbers were great, and when they met in audacious rivalry oppositethat St Stephen's which they wished to supersede. This accidentalrecollection however was her only clue in the urgent adventure on whichshe had embarked.
She cast an anxious glance at the clock of St Martin's as she passedthat church: the hand was approaching the half hour of seven. She urgedon 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 fewminutes they turned down the street which she sought.
"What number. Ma'am?" asked the cabman.
"'Tis a coffee-house; I know not the number nor the name of him whokeeps it. 'Tis a coffee-house. Can you see one? Look, look, I pray you!I am much pressed."
"Here's a coffee-house, Ma'am," said the man in a hoarse voice.
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"How good you are! Yes; I will get out. You will wait for me, I amsure?"
"All right," said the cabman, as Sybil entered the illumined door. "Pooryoung thing! she's wery anxious about summut."
Sybil at once stepped into a rather capacious room, fitted up in theold-fashioned style of coffee-rooms, with mahogany boxes, in several ofwhich were men drinking coffee and reading newspapers by a painful glareof gas. There was a waiter in the middle of the room who was throwingsome fresh sand upon the floor, but who stared immensely when looking uphe 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 to-day, nor yesterdayneither"--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 ofassisting her in the fulfilment of her wish.
Sybil repeated that wish, and this time the waiter said nothing. Thisvulgar and insolent neglect to which she was so little accustomeddepressed her spirit. She could have encountered tyranny and oppression,and she would have tried to struggle with them; but this insolence ofthe insignificant made her feel her insignificance; and the absorptionall this time of the guests in their newspapers aggravated her nervoussense of her utter helplessness. All her feminine reserve and modestycame over her; alone in this room among men, she felt overpowered,and she was about to make a precipitate retreat when the clock of thecoffee-room sounded the half hour. In a paroxysm of nervous excitementshe 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," saidSybil, "to himself and to one of his friends, and his servant here willnot 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, asa lean black-looking individual, with grizzled hair and a red nose,entered the coffee-room from the interior. "Tanner, here's a lady wantsyou."
"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 himshe said in a low voice, "'Tis about Walter Gerard I would speak toyou."
"Well, you can step in here if you like," said Tanner verydiscourteously; "there's only my wife:" and he led the way to theinner room, a small close parlour adorned with portraits of Tom Paine,Cobbett, Thistlewood, and General Jackson with a fire, though it wasa hot July, and a very fat woman affording still more heat, and whowas drinking shrub and water and reading the police reports. She staredrudely at Sybil as she entered following Tanner, who himself when thedoor was closed said, "Well, now what have you got to say?"
"I wish to see Walter Gerard."
"Do you indeed!"
"And," continued Sybil notwithstanding his sneering remark, "I come herethat you may tell me where I may find him."
"I believe he lives somewhere in Westminster," said Tanner, "that's allI know about him; and if this be all you had to say it might have beensaid in the coffee-room."
"It is not all that I have to say," said Sybil; "and I beseech you, sir,listen to me. I know where Gerard lives: I am his daughter, and the sameroof covers our heads. But I wish to know where they meet to-night--youunderstand me;" and she looked at his wife, who had resumed her policereports; "'tis urgent.
"I don't know nothing about Gerard," said Tanner, "except that he comeshere and goes away again."
"The matter on which I would see him," said Sybil, "is as urgent as theimagination can conceive, and it concerns you as well as himself; butif you know not where I can find him"--and she moved as if abou
t toretire--"'tis of no use."
"Stop." said Tanner, "you can tell it to me."
"Why so? You know not where he is; you cannot tell it to him."
"I don't know that," said Tanner. "Come, let's have it out; and if itwill do him any good. I'll see if we can't manage to find him."
"I can impart my news to him and no one else," said Sybil. "I amsolemnly bound."
"You can't have a better counseller than Tanner," urged his wife,getting curious; "you had better tell us."
"I want no counsel; I want that which you can give me if youchoose--information. My father instructed me that if certaincircumstances occurred it was a matter of the last urgency that I shouldsee him this evening and before nine o'clock, I was to call here andobtain from you the direction where to find him; the direction," sheadded in a lowered tone, and looking Tanner full in the face, "wherethey hold their secret council to-night."
"Hem!" said Tanner: "I see you're on the free-list. And pray how am Ito know you _are_ Gerard's daughter?"
"You do not doubt I am his daughter!" said Sybil proudly.
"Hem!" said Tanner: "I do not know that I do very much," and hewhispered to his wife. Sybil removed from them as far as she was able.
"And this news is very urgent," resumed Tanner; "and concerns me yousay?"
"Concerns you all," said Sybil; "and every minute is of the lastimportance."
"I should like to have gone with you myself, and then there could havebeen no mistake," said Tanner; "but that can't be; we have a meetinghere at half-past eight in our great room. I don't much like breakingrules, especially in such a business; and yet, concerning all of us,as you say, and so very urgent, I don't see how it could do harm; and Imight--I wish I was quite sure you were the party.
"How can I satisfy you?" said Sybil, distressed.
"Perhaps the young person have got her mark on her linen," suggestedthe wife. "Have you got a handkerchief Ma'am?" and she took Sybil'shandkerchief and looked at it, and examined it at every corner. It hadno mark. And this unforeseen circumstance of great suspicion might havedestroyed everything, had not the production of the handkerchief bySybil also brought forth a letter addressed to her from Hatton.
"It seems to be the party," said the wife.
"Well," said Tanner, "you know St Martin's Lane I suppose? Well, you goup St Martin's Lane to a certain point, and then you will get into SevenDials; and then you'll go on. However it is impossible to direct you;you must find your way. Hunt Street, going out of Silver Street, No. 22.'Tis what you call a blind street, with no thoroughfare, and then you godown an alley. Can you recollect that?"
"Fear not."
"No. 22 Hunt Street, going out of Silver Street. Remember the alley.It's an ugly neighbourhood; but you go of your own accord."
"Yes, yes. Good night."
Book 5 Chapter 6