Cecil by Elizabeth Eliot

Author:Elizabeth Eliot [Eliot, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2019-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

In the following year, on June 3rd 1895, Sir David died in Baden. Immediately after the event Lady Guthrie and Cecil accompanied the body to England and themselves stayed for several weeks at The Manor.

During most of that time Lady Guthrie, reported to be prostrate with grief, remained in seclusion, but just before she and Cecil returned to Cannes, where they were to pass the remainder of the summer, Charlie and I spent an afternoon at Windsor. The meeting was a sad one, Lady Guthrie was extremely low-spirited and Cecil, although he made some effort to rouse himself for our sakes, was obviously very depressed and unhappy. He had been ill for some months during the spring and although he assured me that he was now fully recovered I thought that he was looking very far from well.

At the end of September I had a letter from Lady Guthrie saying that Cecil had started for Italy, begging me to go to her. When the letter arrived we were up at Kildonan. We had a house full of people and my leaving at that particular moment was far from convenient. Directly breakfast was over I caught Charlie alone, showed him the letter and we reluctantly agreed that it was probably my duty to do as she asked. The thought of it depressed me and Sybil, who happened to come into the room while we were discussing it, was loud in her protests, wanting to know why Aunt Edythe, if she was lonely, didn’t come here instead of dragging me out to Cannes.

‘You forget that she is in mourning and in any case is not well enough to travel.’

‘She’s always said that, ever since I can remember. But it never seems to stop her doing anything if she really wants to.’

Charlie, because he himself was annoyed, rebuked Sybil for speaking disrespectfully and for giving her opinion about something which was no concern of hers.

Sybil’s face flamed red and she went out of the room without saying anything further. Charlie announced that everything was intolerable and said he couldn’t understand why Cecil, who had nothing whatever to do, couldn’t stay at home and look after his mother himself. He then went off to join the men who were going to spend the day on the moor and I sat down to write to Lady Guthrie.

‘Mother, did you know that when we were all up here last summer Cecil fell in love with Julie and asked her to marry him?’

After I had finished my letter I had gone to look for Sybil and had found her sitting alone in the room which used to be the schoolroom.

‘No I didn’t. What an extraordinary thing.’ Wondering why Sybil had chosen this particular moment to tell me I sat down at the table.

‘I don’t see it was extraordinary at all and I rather think Captain Helbert was in love with her at the same time, but of course that didn’t come to anything.’

As Sybil spoke I

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.