A DEVOTEE
An Episode in the Life of a Butterfly
BY
MARY CHOLMONDELEY
AUTHOR OF
'DIANA TEMPEST,' 'SIR CHARLES DANVERS,' AND 'THE
DANVERS JEWELS'
_SECOND EDITION_
EDWARD ARNOLD
LONDON NEW YORK
37 BEDFORD STREET 70 FIFTH AVENUE
1897
_All rights reserved_
To
FLORIE,
UPON WHOSE KIND STRONG HAND
I HAVE SO OFTEN LEANT.
'That day is sure,
Though not perhaps this week, nor month, nor year,
When your great love shall clean forgotten be,
And my poor tenderness shall yet endure.'
WILFRID S. BLUNT.
A DEVOTEE.
CHAPTER I.
'Yet to be loved makes not to love again;
Not at my years, however it hold in youth.'
TENNYSON.
The cathedral was crammed. The tall slender arches seemed to spring out
of a vast sea of human heads. The orchestra and chorus had gradually
merged into one person: one shout of praise, one voice of prayer, one
wail of terror. The _Elijah_ was in mid-career, sailing like a
man-of-war upon the rushing waves of music.
And presently there was a hush, and out of the hush a winged voice
arose, as a lark rises out of a meadow, singing as it rises:
'O rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him, and He shall give thee thy
heart's desire.'
The lark dropped into its nest again. The music swept thundering upon
its way, and a large tear fell unnoticed from a young girl's eyes on to
the bare slim hand which held her score. The score quivered; the slender
willowy figure quivered in its setting of palest violet and white
draperies threaded with silver. Only a Frenchwoman could have dared to
translate a child's posy of pale blue and white violets, tied with a
silver string, into a gown; but Sibyl Carruthers' dressmaker was an
artist in her way, and took an artist's license, and the half-mourning
which she had designed for the great heiress was in colouring what a
bereaved butterfly might have worn.
Miss Carruthers was called beautiful. Perhaps she was beautiful for an
heiress, but she was certainly not, in reality, any prettier than many
hundreds of dowerless girls who had never been considered more than
good-looking.
Her delicate features were too irregular, in spite of their obvious high
breeding; her figure was too slight; her complexion was too faintly
tinted for regular beauty. But she had something of the evanescent charm
of a four-petalled dog-rose newly blown--exquisite, ethereal, but as if
it might fall in a moment. This aspect of fragility was heightened by
what women noticed about her first, namely, her gossamer gown with its
silver gleam, and by what men noticed about her first--her gray eyes,
pathetic, eager, shy by turns, always lovely, but hinting of a sword too
sharp for its slender sheath, of an ardent spirit whose grasp on this
world was too slight.
And as the music passed over her young untried soul, she sat motionless,
her hands clasping the score. She heard nothing of it, but it
accompanied the sudden tempest of passion which was shaking her, as wind
accompanies storm.
The voice of the song had stirred an avalanche of emotion.
'And I will give thee thy heart's desire.'
She knew nothing about waiting patiently, but her heart's desire--she
must have it. She could not live without it. Her whole soul went out in
an agony of prayer to the God who gives and who withholds to accord
her this one petition--to _be his wife_. She repeated it over and over
again. To be near him, to see him day by day--nothing else, nothing
else! This one thing, without which, poor child! she thought she could
not live. It seemed to Sibyl that she was falling at God's feet in the
whirlwind, and refusing to let Him go until He granted her prayer. But
would He grant it? Her heart sank. Despair rushed in upon her like a
flood at the bare thought of its refusal, and she caught yet again at
the only hope left to her--a desperate appeal to the God who gives and
who withholds.
Presently it was all over, and they were going out.
'We were to wait for the others here,' said Peggy, the girl who had been
sitting with Sibyl, as they emerged into the sunshine with the crowd.
'Mother and Mr. Doll were just behind us.'
Lady Pierpoint, Sibyl's aunt, presently joined them with Mr. Doll
Loftus, an irreproachable-looking, unapproachable-looking fair young
man, who, it was whispered, was almost too smart to live, but who
nevertheless bore himself with severe simplicity.
He went up to Sibyl with some diffidence.
'You are tired,' he said anxiously.
Doll's remarks were considered _banal_ in the extreme by some women, but
others who admired fair hair and pathetic eyes found a thoughtful beauty
in them.
It would be difficult from her manner to infer which class of sentiments
this particular remark awoke in Sibyl.
'Music always tires me,' she replied, without looking at him, dropping
her white eyelids.
'Are we all here?' said Lady Pierpoint. 'Peggy, and Sibyl--my dear, how
tired you look!--and myself, and you, Mr. Doll; that is only four, and
"we are seven." Ah! here come Mr. and Mrs. Cathcart. Now we only want
Mr. Loftus.'
'The Dean caught him in the doorway,' said Doll. 'He is coming now.'
The tall thin figure of an elder man was slowly crossing the angular
patch of sunshine where the cathedral had not cast its great shadow. The
nobility of his bearing seemed to appeal to the crowd. They made way for
him instinctively, as if he were some distinguished personage. He was
accompanied by a robust clerical figure with broad calves.
'Mr. Loftus makes everyone else look common,' said Peggy plaintively.
'It is the only unkind thing I know about him. I thought the Dean quite
dignified-looking while we were at luncheon at the Deanery, but now he
looks like a pork-butcher. I'm not going to walk within ten yards of Mr.
Loftus, mummy, or I shall be taken for a parlourmaid having her day out.
I think, Sibyl, you are the only one who can afford to go with him.'
But Doll thought differently, and it was he and Sibyl who walked the
short distance to the station together through the flag-decked streets
in the brilliant September sunshine. People turned to glance at them as
they passed. They made a striking-looking couple. Mr. Loftus, following
slowly at a little distance with Lady Pierpoint, looked affectionately
at the back of his young cousin, who was also his heir, and said to
her, with a smile:
'I wish it could be. Doll is a good fellow.'
'I wish indeed it could,' said Lady Pierpoint earnestly, with the slight
slackening of reserve which is often observable in the atmosphere on the
last afternoon of a visit with a purpose.
Lady Pierpoint had not come to spend a whole week with a Sunday in it
with Mr. Loftus at Wilderleigh for nothing. And she was aware that
neither had she and her niece and daughter been invited for that long
period without a cause. But the week ended with the following morning,
and she sighed. She had daughters of her own coming on, as well as her
dear snub-nosed Peggy, who was already out, and it was natural to wish
that the responsibility of this delicate, emotional creature, with her
great wealth, might be taken from her and placed in safe hands. She
thought Doll was safe. Perhaps the wish was father, or rather _aunt_, to
the thought. But it was no doubt the truest epithet that could be
applied to the young man. It was a matter of opinion whether he was
exhaustingly dull in conversation or extraordinarily interesting, but he
certainly was safe. He belonged to that class of our latter-day youth of
whom it may be predicted, with some confidence, that they will never
cause their belongings a moment's uneasiness; who may be trusted never
to do anything very right or very wrong; who will get on tolerably well
in any position, and with any woman, provided there are means to support
it and--_her_; who have enough worldliness to marry money, and enough
good feeling to make irreproachable husbands afterwards; in short, the
kind of young men who are invented by Providence on purpose to marry
heiresses, and who, if they fall below their vocation, dwindle, when
their youth is over, into the padded impecunious bores of society.
There was a short journey by rail through the hop country. Sibyl watched
the rows of hops in silence. Cowardice has its sticking-point as well as
courage, and she was undergoing the miserable preliminary tremors by
which that point is reached. Mr. Loftus, sitting opposite her, and
observing her fixity of gaze, glanced at her rather wistfully from time
to time. He saw something was working in her mind. He looked tired, and
in the strong afternoon light his grave, lined face seemed more worn
and world-weary than ever. He had the look of a man who had long
outlived all personal feeling, and who to-day had been remembering his
youth.
The Wilderleigh omnibus and Doll's spider-wheeled dogcart were waiting
at the little roadside station, which was so small that the train very
nearly overlooked it, and had to be backed. Doll was already holding the
wheel to protect Sibyl's gown as she got up, and looking towards her,
and Lady Pierpoint was hurrying Peggy, who had expressed a hankering
after the dogcart, into the omnibus, when Mr. Loftus observed that he
thought he would walk up.
Sibyl's face changed.
'May I walk up with you?' she asked instantly.
Mr. Loftus looked disappointed; everybody looked disappointed. Lady
Pierpoint put her head out, and said:
'My dear child, the drive in the open air will refresh you; you are
looking tired.'
'May I go in the dogcart if Sibyl doesn't want to?' put in Peggy in an
audible aside to her mother.
'I think you are tired,' said Mr. Loftus, looking at Sibyl and shaking
his head. 'And,' he added in a lower voice, 'Doll will be much
disappointed.'
A faint colour covered her face, which quivered as she turned it towards
him.
'Let me walk up with you,' she said again, with a tremor in her voice.
He met her appealing eyes with gentle scrutiny.
'It is not far,' he said aloud; 'not more than half a mile through the
park. I will take care of her, Lady Pierpoint. We shall be at
Wilderleigh almost as soon as you are.'
'Oh, mummy, may I go in the dogcart _now_?' implored Peggy from the
depths of the omnibus.
And Mr. Loftus and Sibyl set out together.
They were in the park in a few minutes, and were walking down towards
Wilderleigh, on the opposite side of the river, an old house of
weather-beaten gray stone, of twisted chimneys and uneven roofs and
pointed gables, with quaint carved finials, standing above its terraces
and its long stone balustrade. The sun was setting in a sky of daffodil
behind the tall top-heavy elms of the rookery and the tower of the
village church. Little fleets of clouds lay motionless in high heaven,
looking towards the west. The land in its long shadows dreamed of
peace. The old house beyond the river was in shadow already. So was the
river.
'Sometimes,' said Mr. Loftus to himself, 'a young girl feels more able
to confide in an old friend than a relation. She has often talked to me
before. Perhaps she is going to do so again.' And he felt comforted
about Doll and the dogcart.
Presently as he glanced at her, wondering at her continued silence, he
saw that she was greatly agitated.
'Something troubles you,' he said gently.
She looked at him half in terror, as if deprecating his anger.
They were walking down a narrow ride in the tall bracken. A trunk of a
tree lay near the path among the yellowing fern.
He led her to it and sat down by her, looking at her with painful
anxiety and with a sense of growing fatigue. Emotion of any kind
exhausted him. If it had not been for Doll, he would have dropped the
subject, but for his sake he made an effort.
'Tell me,' he said, and he took her thin young hand and held it in his
thin older hand. It was the last afternoon; both were conscious of it.
She trembled very much, but she did not speak. His heart sank.
'You wish to tell me something about Doll, perhaps,' he said at last.
'Do not be afraid of paining me by talking of it. You like him, perhaps,
but not enough, and you are grieved because you see how much he loves
you. Is that it?'
'I don't like him,' gasped Sibyl. 'I have never thought about it. That
is only Aunt Marion.'
Mr. Loftus sighed, and his gray cheek blanched a little. He had built
much on the hope of this marriage. He had a tender regard for Sibyl,
whose emotional and impulsive nature appealed to him, and filled him
with apprehension as for a butterfly in a manufactory, which may injure
itself any moment. And he knew Doll was genuinely in love with her. It
would be grievous if she were married for her money. And Wilderleigh was
dying stone by stone and acre by acre for want of that money.
As he looked mournfully at Sibyl, an expression came into her wide eyes
like that which he had seen in the eyes of some timid wild animal
brought to bay. He recognised that, like a shy bird near its nest, she
was defending in impotent despair of broken white wings something which
was part of her life, which was going from her, which _he_ was taking
away.
'It is you I love,' she said, and her small hand ceased trembling and
became cold in his.
For a moment both were stunned alike, and then some of the grayness of
age and suffering crept suddenly from his face to hers as she felt his
hand involuntarily slacken its clasp of hers.
'My child,' he said at last, with great difficulty and with greater
tenderness, 'it is very many years since I gave up all thought of
marriage. I am old enough to be your----' He might have said
'grandfather' with truth. He meant to say it, but as he approached the
word he could not wound her with it.
'I know,' she interrupted hurriedly. 'I don't mind. That is nothing to
me.'
'And my life,' he said, 'what little there is left of it, hangs by a
thread.'
'I know,' she said again--'I have thought of that. I have thought of
nothing but you since I first met you a year ago. But if I might only
love and serve you and be with you! And I am so rich, too. If I might
only take away those money troubles which you once spoke of long ago! If
I might only give you everything I have! The money is the smallest part
of it--oh, such a little, little part compared to----' And she looked
imploringly at him.
He was deeply moved.
'My child,' he said again, and the ominous repetition of the word shook
her fragile edifice of hopes to its brittle foundation, 'you have
always looked upon me as a friend, have you not?'
She shook her head.
'Well, then,' he added, correcting himself, 'as one who cared for and
understood you, and whose earnest wish was to see you happy?'
She did not answer.
He had known difficult hours, but none more difficult than this. He felt
as if he were trying with awkward hands to hold a butterfly without
injuring it, in order to release it from the pane of glass against which
it was beating its butterfly heart out.
'To see you happy,' he went on, with authority as well as tenderness in
his level voice. 'I should never see that; I should have no real'--he
hesitated--'affection for you at all if I allowed you to make such a
woeful mistake in your early youth before you know what love and life
are. They are terrible things, Sibyl; I have known them. This beautiful
generous feeling which you have for me is not love, and I should be base
indeed to allow you to wreck your life upon it, your youth upon the rock
of my age. You offer you know not what; you would sacrifice you know not
what.' He smiled gravely at her, endeavouring to soothe her growing
agitation. 'It would be like taking the Koh-i-Noor out of the hand of a
child. I could not do it.'
Her mind was in too great a tumult wholly to understand him, but one
thing was clear to her, namely, that he was refusing to marry her. She
snatched her hands out of his, and, starting wildly to her feet with an
inarticulate cry, ran a short distance and flung herself down on her
face among the bracken.
He looked after her, but he did not follow her. He could do no more, and
a sense of exhaustion and distress was upon him. He had been clumsy. He
had hurt the poor butterfly, after all.
He sat a long time on the tree-trunk, the low sunshine on his worn,
patient face, on which the refinement of suffering and of thought had
set their indelible stamp. And now the thin high features wore a new
look of present distress over the old outlived troubles, a new look
which anyone who really loved him would have been heart-stricken to have
called into it. But when love ceases to wound its object, and bears its
own cross, it has ceased to be young.
As he sat motionless the sun sank. Far in the amber west the heavens
had opened in an agony of glory. The knotted arms of the great oaks,
upraised like those of Moses and his brethren, shone red as flame
against the darkness of the forest. The first hint of chill after the
great heat came into the still air.
Mr. Loftus rose and went slowly towards the prostrate figure in its
delicate gleaming gown.
'Sibyl,' he said gently, but with authority, 'you must get up. I see
Doll and your cousin coming up the glade to meet us.'
Sibyl started violently and raised herself, turning a white, hopeless
face towards him. Her entire self-abandonment, which would have brought
acute humiliation to another woman, brought none to her. Her despair
was too complete to admit of any other feeling.
'Like a child's,' he thought, as he looked at her sorrowing.
He helped her to smooth her gown, and he set her hat straight, and took
some pieces of dried bracken out of her crumpled shining hair. She let
him do it, neither helping nor hindering him. She evidently did not care
what impression might be made on the minds of the two young people
leisurely approaching them. She would have lain on the ground if it had
been a bog instead of dry turf until the ice fit of despair had passed.
His thoughtfulness for her, and the ashen tint of his face, were nothing
to her, any more than the moonshine is to the child who has cried for
the moon and has been denied it.
At Mr. Loftus's bidding they went slowly to meet the others.
'Doll,' said Mr. Loftus, lingering behind as Peggy and Sibyl walked on
together, 'give me your arm. I feel ill.'
'Won't she have me?' said Doll, biting his lip.
'No, my poor boy, she won't.'