'Je suis l'amante, dit-elle.
Cueillez la branche de houx.'
VICTOR HUGO.
'When all the world like some vast tidal wave withdraws.'--BUCHANAN.
Many persons prophesied that the marriage between Mr. Loftus and Sibyl
would not take place, but it did.
On a burning day late in July they were married in London, for Sibyl's
country place, where Mr. Loftus had hoped the wedding might have taken
place, was shut up.
Lady Pierpoint did all in her power to make the wedding a quiet one,
for his sake. Very few invitations were sent out, and there was no
reception afterwards. But, nevertheless, though the season was at its
last gasp, when the day came the unfashionable London church was crammed
with that 'smart' world, half of which had condemned Mr. Loftus, while
it showered invitations upon him.
Many hundreds of eyes were fixed upon his stately feeble figure as he
moved slowly forward to place himself beside the young girl, whose
emotion was plainly visible, and whose bouquet shook in her hand. The
contrast between the two, as they stood together, was of that glaring
description which appeals to the vulgar and conventional mind, on which
shades of difference are lost.
Mr. Loftus went through the ceremony with equanimity. His grave face
betrayed nothing except fatigue and the fact that he was suffering from
a severe headache. Lady Pierpoint and Doll watched him with anxiety,
while Peggy, standing close behind the bride, wept silently, she knew
not why.
'Oh, mummy,' she said afterwards when it was all over, and Sibyl,
anxious, preoccupied, had left Lady Pierpoint and Peggy and Molly, who
had been mother and sisters to her, without a tear, without a regret,
without a backward look, absorbed in the one fact that Mr. Loftus was
ill--'oh, mummy, you say Sibyl loves him so much. Is that why she did
not mind going away from all of us a bit? I know he had a headache, but
she never used to mind when you had a headache, and when she was ill, do
you remember how she always sent for you, even when I told her you were
resting? And yet she used to be a little fond of us. But since he came
she does not seem to care for us any more. If one loves anybody, does
one forget the others?'
'Some women do,' said Lady Pierpoint, taking Peggy's red, tear-stained
face in her hands and kissing it. She could not bear to own, even to
Peggy, how wounded her warm maternal heart had been because Sibyl, whose
delicacy had given her so many anxious hours, had shown no feeling at
parting with her. Mr. Loftus had shown much more, when he had come to
speak to her alone for a few minutes in her sitting-room, when the
carriage was at the door.
'Some women,' said Lady Pierpoint, looking wistfully at her daughter,
'forget everyone else when they marry, and are very proud of it. They
think it shows how devoted they are. A little cup is soon full, Peggy,
and a shallow heart, if it takes in a new love, has no room left for the
old ones. The new love is like the cuckoo in the nest--it elbows out
everything else.'
'I will not be like that,' said Peggy, crushing her mother and her
mother's bonnet in an impulsive embrace. 'I will have a deep, deep
heart, mummy, and no one shall ever go out that once comes in--and--oh,
mummy, you shall have the best bedroom in my heart always!'
'I have a very foolish girl for a daughter,' said Lady Pierpoint,
somewhat comforted, smiling through her tears, 'and one who has no
respect for my best bonnet.'
* * * * *
At Sibyl's wish she and Mr. Loftus went straight to Wilderleigh. They
reached it after several hours' journey on the evening of their
wedding-day. And gradually the nervous exhaustion and acute headache
from which he had been suffering, and which had become almost unbearable
in the train, relaxed their hold upon him. They were sitting in the
cool, scented twilight on the terrace. Through the half-darkness came
the low voice of the river talking to itself. Noise and light and other
voices, and this dreadful day, were gone at last.
He gave a sigh of relief and smiled deprecatingly at her. They had
hardly spoken since they were married. She was sitting near him, a
slender figure in her pale gown, that shimmered in the feeble light. But
there was light enough for her to see him smile, and she smiled back at
him with her whole heart in her lovely eyes. No thought of self lurked
in those clear depths, and Mr. Loftus, looking into them, and
remembering how, on this her wedding day, her whole mind had been
absorbed, to the entire oblivion of a bride's divided feelings, in the
one fact that he was suffering, was touched, but not with elation.
The long listless hand lying palm upwards on his knee made a slight
movement, and in instant response to it her hand was placed in his. His
closed over it. Perhaps nothing could have endeared her more to him than
the mute response that had waited on his mute appeal, and had not
forestalled it.
His hand clasping hers, he drew her slightly, and, obeying its pressure,
she leaned towards him.
'My Sibyl!' he said, and she involuntarily drew closer to him, for
something in his voice and manner, in spite of their exceeding
gentleness and tenderness, seemed to remove him from her. 'Fate has been
hard upon you that I should have been ill on your wedding-day.'
'No,' she said, timidly pushing off from shore into the new world upon
her little raft. 'Fate was kind, because to-day has been the first day
when I could be with you and take care of you.'
'You take too much care of me.'
'I care for nothing else,' she said, her voice faltering, adoration in
her eyes.
One white star peered low in the western heaven through the violet dusk.
'Once long ago, before you were born,' said Mr. Loftus, 'I loved
someone, and she said she loved me, and we were married. But after a
time she brought trouble upon me, Sibyl.'
The great current had caught the little raft, and was hurrying it out to
sea.
'I will never bring trouble upon you,' said the young girl, her lips
trembling as she stooped to kiss his hand. 'When you are tired you shall
lean on my arm. When your eyes are tired I will read to you. I will take
care of you, and keep all trouble from you.'
'Till I die,' he said below his breath, more to himself than to her.
'Till you die,' she answered.
And so, but this time very lightly, Mr. Loftus leaned once again, or
made as if he leaned, on the fragile reed of human love.