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BY
WHITING, BEAUFORD HOUSE, STRAND.
THE AUTHOR.
"This book is charming. It is written with deep earnestness, and pervaded by a noble and loving philosophy; while in giving form to her conceptions, the writer evinces at once a fine and subtle imagination, and that perception of minute characteristics which gives to fiction the life-like truth of biography. Nor does she want the power to relieve her more serious view by one of genial and well-directed humour."--Athenæum.
"It is a pleasure to speak, as we are bound to speak, of the book before us--viz., in terms of high and cordial praise."--Weekly News.
"A tale of intense passion, powerfully written, evidently by one whose acquaintance with the mysteries of the human heart, with its infirmities and its inconsistencies, is long and deep."--John Bull.
"A clever novel... No class of reader will be disappointed."--Literary Gazette.
Such was the first greeting ever received by my heroine, Olive Rothesay.
However, she would be then entitled neither a heroine, nor even
"Olive Rothesay," being a small nameless concretion of
humanity, in colour and consistency strongly resembling the "red
earth," whence was taken the father of all nations. No foreshadowing
of the coming life brightened her purple, pinched-up, withered face, which,
as in all new-born children, bore such a ridiculous likeness to
extreme old age. No tone of the all-expressive human voice thrilled through the unconscious wail that was her first utterance, and in her wide-open meaningless eyes had never dawned the beautiful human soul. There she lay, as you and I, reader, with all our compeers, lay once--a helpless lump of breathing flesh, faintly stirred by animal life, and scarce at all by that inner life which we call spirit. And, if we, every one, were thus to look back, half in compassion, half in humiliation, at our infantile likeness--may it not be that in the world to come some who in this world bore an outward image, poor, mean, and degraded, will cast a glance of equal pity on their well-remembered olden selves, now transfigured into beautiful immortality.
I seem to be wandering from my Olive Rothesay; but the time to come will
show the contrary.
Poor little spirit! newly come to earth, who knows whether that
"waesome welcome" may not be a prophecy? The old
nurse seemed almost to dread this, even while she uttered it, for with the superstition from which not an "auld wife" in Scotland is altogether free, she changed the dolorous croon into a "God guide us!" and, pressing the babe to her aged breast, bestowed a hearty blessing on her nursling of the second generation--the child of him who was at once her master and her foster-son.
"An' wae's the day that he's sae far awa', and
canna do't himsel, my bonnie bairn! It's ill coming into the
warld without a father's blessing."
Perhaps the good soul's clasp was the tenderer, and her warm heart
throbbed the warmer to the new-born child, for a passing remembrance of her
own two fatherless babes, who now slept--as close together, as when,
"twin-laddies," they had nestled in one mother's
bosom--slept beneath the wide Atlantic which marks the sea-boy's
grave.
Nevertheless, the memory was now grown so dim with years, that it
vanished the moment the infant waked and began to cry.
Rocking to and fro, the nurse tuned her cracked voice to a long-forgotten lullaby--something about a "boatie." It was stopped by a hand on her shoulder, followed by the approximation of a face which, in its bland gravity, bore "M.D." on every line.
"Well! my good--excuse me, but I forget your name."
"Elspeth, or mair commonly, Elspie Moray. A very gude name,
doctor. The Murrays o' Perth were--"
"No doubt--no doubt, Mrs. Elsappy."
"Elspie, sir. Ye maunna ca' me out o' my
name, wi' your unceevil English tongue," added the pertinacious
old dame.
"Well, then, Elspie, or what the deuce you like," said the
doctor, vexed out of his proprieties. But his rosy face became rosier when
he met the horrified and sternly reproachful stare of Elspie's keen
blue eyes as she turned round--a whole volume of sermons expressed in
her, "Eh, sir?" Then she added, quietly,
"I'll thank ye no to speak ony mair sic
words in the ears o' this puir innocent new-born lassie. It's no canny."
"Humph!--I suppose I must beg pardon again. I shall never get
out what I wanted to say--which is, that you must be quiet, my good
dame, and you must keep Mrs. Rothesay quiet. She is a delicate young
creature, you know, and must have every possible comfort that she
needs."
The doctor glanced round the room, as though there was scarce enough
comfort for his notions of worldly necessity. Yet though not luxurious, the
antechamber and the room half-revealed beyond it seemed to furnish all that
could be needed by an individual of moderate fortune and desires. And an
eye more romantic and poetic than that of the worthy medico might have
found ample atonement for the want of rich furniture within, in the
magnificent view without. The windows looked down on a lovely champaign,
through which the many-winding Forth span its silver network, until,
vanishing in the distance, a white sparkle here
and there only showed whither the river wandered. In the distance, the blue mountains rose like dim clouds, marking the horizon. The foreground of this landscape was formed by the hill, castle-crowned--than which there is none in the world more beautiful or more renowned.
In short, Olive Rothesay shared with many a king and hero the honour of
her place of nativity. She was born at Stirling.
Perhaps this circumstance of birth has more influence over character
than many matter-of-fact people would imagine. It is pleasant, in
after-life, to think that we first opened our eyes in a spot famous in the
world's story, or remarkable for natural beauty. It is sweet to say,
"Those are my mountains," or "This is
my fair valley;" and there is a delight almost like that
of a child who glories in his noble or beautiful parents, in the grand
historical pride which links us to the place where we were born. So this
little morsel of humanity, yet unnamed, whom by an allowable prescience we
have called Olive,
may perhaps be somewhat influenced in her nature by the fact that her cradle was rocked under the shadow of the hill of Stirling, and that the first breezes which fanned her baby brow came from the Highland mountains.
But the excellent presiding genius at this interesting advent
"cared for none of these things." Dr. Jacob Johnson stood at
the window with his hands in his pockets--to him the wide beautiful
world was merely a field for the exercise of the medical profession--a
place where old women died, and children were born. He watched the shadows
darkening over Ben Ledi--calculating how much longer he ought in
propriety to stay with his present patient, and whether he should have time
to run home and take a cosy dinner and a bottle of port before he was again
required.
"Our sweet young patient is taking a nice sleep, I think,
nurse," said he, at last, in his most benevolent tones.
"Ye may say that, doctor--ye ought to ken."
"I might almost venture to leave her, except that she seems so
lonely, without friends or attendance, save yourself."
"And wha's the best nurse for Captain Angus Rothesay's
wife and bairn, but the woman that nursed himsel?" said Elspie,
lifting up her tall gaunt frame, and for the second time frowning the
little doctor into confused silence. "An' as for friends, ye
suld just be unco' glad o' the chance that garr'd the leddy
bide here, and no amang her ain folk. Else there wadna hae been sic a dowie
welcome for her bonnie bairn. Maybe a waur, though, God forgie me;"
added the woman to herself, with a sigh, as she once more half buried her
little nursling in her capacious embrace.
"I have not the slightest doubt of Captain Rothesay's
respectability," answered Dr. Johnson. Respectability!
applied to the scions of a family which had had the honour of being nearly
extirpated at Flodden-field, and again at Pinkie. Had the trusty follower
of the Rothesays heard the term, she certainly would have been inclined to annihilate the presumptuous Englishman. But she was fortunately engaged in stilling the cries of the poor infant, who, in return for the pains she took in undressing it, began to give full evidence that the weakness of its lungs was not at all proportionate to the smallness of its size.
"Crying will do it good. A fine child--a very fine
child," observed the doctor, as he made ready for his departure,
while the nurse proceeded in her task, and the heap of white drapery was
gradually removed, until from beneath it appeared the semblance of a
very--very tiny specimen of babyhood.
"Ye needna trouble yoursel to say what's no true," was
the answer; "it's just a bit bairnie--unco' sma'.
An' that's nae wonder, considering the puir mither's
trouble."
"And the father is gone abroad?"
"Just twa months sin' syne. But eh doctor, look ye
here," suddenly cried Elspie, as with her great, brown, but tender
hand
she was rubbing down the delicate little spine of the now quieted babe.
"Well--what's the matter now?" said Dr. Johnson,
rather sulkily, as he laid down his hat and gloves. "The child is
quite perfect, rather small perhaps, but as nice a little girl as ever was
seen. It's all right."
"It's no a' richt," cried the nurse, in a tone
trembling between anger and apprehension. "Doctor, see!"
She pointed with her finger to a slight curve at the upper part of the
spine, between the shoulder and neck. The doctor's professional
anxiety was aroused--he came near and examined the little creature,
with a countenance that grew graver each instant.
"Aweel?" said Elspie, inquiringly.
"I wish I had noticed this before; but it would have been of no
use," he answered, his bland tones made earnest by real feeling.
"Eh, what?" said the nurse.
"I am sorry to say that the child is
deformed--born so--and will remain so for
life."
At this terrible sentence Elspie sank back in her chair, overpowered
with blank dismay. Then she started up, clasping the child convulsively,
and faced the doctor.
"Ye lee, ye ugly creepin, Englisher! How daur ye speak so of ane
o' the Rothesays,--frae whase blude cam the tallest men an'
the bonniest leddies--ne'er a lamiter amang them a'. How
daur ye say that my master's bairn will be a --. Wae's me! I
canna speak the word."
"Poor woman!" mildly said the doctor, "I am really
concerned!" He looked so, and considerably frightened besides.
"Haud your tongue, ye fule!" muttered Elspie. While she
again laid the child on her lap, and examined it earnestly for herself. The
result confirmed all. She wrung her hands, and rocked to and fro, moaning,
aloud.
"Ochone, the wearie day! O, my dear master, my bairn, that I
nursed on my knee! how will ye come back an' see your firstborn, the
last o' the Rothesays, a puir bit crippled lassie."
A faint call from the inner room startled both doctor and nurse.
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the former. "We must think
of the mother. Stay--I'll go. She does not, and she must not know
of this. What a blessing that I told her the child was a fine and perfect
child. Poor thing, poor thing!" he added, compassionately, as he
hurried to his patient, leaving Elspie hushed into silence, still
mournfully gazing on her charge.
It would have been curious to mark the changes in the nurse's face
during that brief interval. At first it wore a look almost of repugnance as
she regarded the unconscious child; and then that very unconsciousness
seemed to awaken her womanly compassion.
"Puir hapless bairnie, ye little ken what ye're coming to!
Lack o' kinsman's love, and lack o' siller, and lack o'
beauty. God forgie me--but why did He send ye into the waefu'
warld at a'?"
It was a question, the nature of which has perplexed theologians,
philosophers, and
mnetaphysicians, in every age, and will perplex them all to the end of time. No wonder, therefore, that it could not be solved by the poor simple Scotswoman. But as she stood hushing the child to her breast, and looking vacantly out of the window at the far mountains which grew golden in the sunset, she was unconsciously soothed by the scene, and settled the matter in a way which wiser heads might often do with advantage.
"Aweel! He kens best wha's made the warld and a'
that's in't; and maybe He will gie unto this puir wee thing a
meek spirit to bear ill luck. Ane must wark, anither suffer. As the
minister says, It'll a' come richt at last."
Still the babe slept on, the sun sank, and night fell upon the earth.
And so the morning and evening made the first day of the new existence,
which was about to be developed, through all the various phases which
compose that strange and touching mystery--A woman's life.
Any poet, painter, or sculptor, would certainly have raved about Mrs.
Rothesay, had he seen her in the days of convalescence, sitting at the
window with her baby on her knee. She furnished that rare sight--and
one that is becoming rarer as the world grows older--an exquisitely
beautiful woman. Would there were more of such!--that the
ideal of physical beauty might pass into the heart, through the eyes, and bring with it the ideal of the soul's perfection, which our senses can only thus receive. So great is this influence--so unconsciously do we associate the type of spiritual with material beauty, that perhaps the world might have been purer and better if its onward progress in what it calls civilisation had not so nearly destroyed the fair mould of symmetry and loveliness which tradition celebrates.
It would have done any one's heart good only to look at Sybilla
Rothesay. She was a creature to watch from a distance, and then to go away
and dream of, scarce thinking whether she were a woman or a spirit. As for
describing her, it is almost impossible--but let us try.
She was very small in stature and proportions--quite a little
fairy. Her cheek had the soft peachy hue of girlhood; nay, of very
childhood. You would never have thought her a mother. She lay back,
half-buried in the great arm-chair; and then,
suddenly springing up from amidst the cloud of white muslins and laces that enveloped her, she showed her young, blithe face.
"I will not have that cap, Elspie; I am not an invalid now, and I
don't choose to be an old matron yet," she said, in a pretty,
wilful way, as she threw off the ugly ponderous production of her
nurse's active fingers, and exhibited her beautiful head.
It was, indeed, a beautiful head! exquisite in shape, with masses of
light-brown hair folded round it. The little rosy ear peeped out, forming
the commencement of that rare and dainty curve of chin and throat, so
pleasant to an artist's eye. A beauty to be lingered over among all
other beauties. Then the delicately outlined mouth, the lips folded over in
a lovely gravity, that seemed ready each moment to melt away into smiles.
Her nose--but who would destroy the romance of a beautiful woman by
such an allusion? Of course, Mrs. Rothesay had a nose; but it was so
entirely in harmony with the rest of her face, that you never thought
whether it were Roman, Grecian, or aquiline. Her eyes--
"She has two eyes, so soft and brown--
She gives a side-glance and looks down."
But was there a soul in this exquisite frame? You never asked--you
never cared! You took the thing for granted; and whether it were so or not,
you felt that the world, and yourself especially, ought to be thankful for
having looked at so lovely an image, if only to prove that earth still
possessed such a thing as ideal beauty; and you forgave all the men, in
every age, that have run mad for the same. Sometimes, perchance, you would
pause a moment, to ask if this magic were real, and remember the calm, holy
airs that breathed from the presence of some woman, beautiful only in her
soul. But then you never would have looked upon Sybilla Rothesay as a woman
at all--only a flesh-and-blood fairy--a Venus de Medici
transmuted from the stone.
Perhaps this was the way in which Captain Angus Rothesay contrived to
fall in love
with Sybilla Hyde; until he woke from the dream to find his seraph of beauty--a baby-bride, pouting like a vexed child, because, in their sudden elopement, she had neither wedding-bonnet nor Brussels veil!
And now she was a baby-mother; playing with her infant as, not so very
long since, she had played with her doll; twisting its tiny fingers, and
making them close tightly round her own, which were quite as elfin-like,
comparatively. For Mrs. Rothesay's surpassing beauty included
beautiful hands and feet; a blessing which nature--often niggardly in
her gifts--does not always extend to pretty women, but bestows it on
those who have infinitely more reason to be thankful for the boon.
"See, nurse Elspie," said Mrs. Rothesay, laughing in her
childish way; "see how fast the little creature holds my finger!
Really, I think a baby is a very pretty thing; and it will be so nice to
play with until Angus comes home."
Elspie turned round from the corner
where she sat sewing, and looked with a half-suppressed sigh at her master's wife, whose delicate English beauty, and quick, ringing English voice, formed such a strong contrast to herself, and were so opposed to her own peculiar prejudices. But she had learned to love the young creature, nevertheless; and for the thousandth time she smothered the half-unconscious thought that Captain Angus might have chosen better.
"Children are a blessing frae the Lord, as maybe ye'll see,
ane o' these days, Mrs. Rothesay," said Elspie, gravely;
"ye maun tak' them as they're sent, and mak' the best
o' them."
Mrs. Rothesay laughed merrily. "Thank you, Elspie, for giving me
such a solemn speech, just like one of my husband's. To put me in mind
of him, I suppose. As if there were any need for that! Dear Angus! I wonder
what he will say to his little daughter when he sees her; the new Miss
Rothesay, who has come in opposition to the old Miss Rothesay--ha!
ha!"
"The auld Miss Rothesay! Ye speak a wee bit too lightly, seeing
she's your husband's aunt," observed Elspie, feeling it
necessary to stand up for the honour of the family. "Miss Flora was a
braw, braw leddy ance, as a' the Rothesays aye were."
"And this Miss Rothesay will be too, I hope, though she is such a
little brown thing now. But people say that the brownest babies grow the
fairest in time, eh, nurse?"
"They do say that," replied Elspie, with another and a
heavier sigh; while she bent closer over her work, and her hard coarse
features softened into a look of deepest compassion.
Mrs. Rothesay went on in her blithe chatter. "I half wished for a
boy, as Captain Rothesay thought it would please his uncle; but that's
of no consequence. He will be quite satisfied with a girl, and so am I. Of
course she will be a beauty, my dear little baby!" And with a deeper
shadowing of mother-love piercing through her childish pleasure, she bent
over the
infant; then took it up, awkwardly and comically enough, as though it were a toy she was afraid of breaking, and rocked it to and fro on her breast.
Elspie started up. "Tak' care, tak' care! ye'll
hurt it, maybe, the puir wee--Oh, what was I gaun to say!" and
she stopped hastily, with an expression of anguish which showed how hard
was concealment to her honest nature.
"Don't trouble yourself," said the young mother, with a
charming assumption of matronly dignity; "I shall hold the baby safe.
I know all about it."
And she really did succeed in lulling the child to sleep; which was no
sooner accomplished than she re-commenced her pleasant musical chatter,
partly addressed to her nurse, but chiefly the unconscious overflow of a
simple nature which could not conceal a single thought.
"I wonder what I shall call her--the darling! We must not
wait until her papa comes home. She can't be 'baby' for
three
years. I shall have to decide on her name myself. Oh, what a pity! I, who never could decide anything. Poor dear Angus! he does all--he had even to fix the wedding-day!" And her musical laugh--another rare charm that she possessed--caused Elspie to look round with mingled pity and affection.
"Come, nurse; you can help me, I know. I am puzzling my poor head
for a name to give this young lady here. It must be a very pretty one. I
wonder what Angus would like? A family name, perhaps, after one of those
old Rothesays that you and he make so much of."
"Oh, Mrs. Rothesay! And are ye no proud o' your
husband's family?" said Elspie, reproachfully.
"Yes, very proud; especially as I have none of my own. He took
me--an orphan, without a single tie in the wide world--he took me
into his warm loving arms"--here her voice faltered, and a sweet
womanly tenderness softened her eyes. "God bless
my noble husband! I am proud of him, and of his people, and of all his race. So come," she added, her childish manner reviving, "tell me of the remarkable women in the Rothesay family for the last five hundred years--you know all about them, Elspie. Surely we'll find one to be a namesake for my baby."
Elspie--pleased and important--began eagerly to relate long
traditions about the Lady Christina Rothesay, who was a witch, and a great
friend of "Maister Michael Scott," and how, with spells, she
caused her seven step-sons to pine away and die; also the Lady Isobel, who
let her lover down from her bower-window with the long strings of her
golden hair; and how her brother found and slew him;--whence she laid
a curse on all the line who had golden hair, and such never prospered, but
died unmarried and young.
"I hope the curse has past away now," gaily said the young
mother, "and that the latest scion will not be a golden-tressed
damsel. Yet look here"--and she touched the soft down beneath her infant's cap, which might, by a considerable exercise of imagination, be called hair--"it is yellow, you see, Elspie! But I'll not believe your tradition. My child shall be both beautiful and beloved."
Smitten with a sudden pang, poor Elspie cried, "Oh my leddy, dinna
think o' the future. Dinna!--" and she stopped,
confused.
"Really, how strange you are. But go on. We'll have no more
Christinas nor Isobels."
Hurriedly, Elspie continued to relate the histories: of noble Jean
Rothesay, who died by an arrow aimed at her husband's heart; and
Alison, her sister, the beauty of James the Fifth's reckless court,
who was "no gude;" and Mistress Katharine Rothesay, who hid two
of "the Prince's" soldiers after Culloden, and stood with
a pair of pistols before their bolted door.
"Nay, I'll have none of these--they
frighten me," cried Sybilla, hiding her pretty face with a pretended alarm; "I wonder I ever had courage to marry the descendant of such awful women. No! my sweet innocent! you shall not be christened after them," she continued, stroking the baby-cheek with her soft finger. "You shall not be like them at all, except in their beauty. And they were all handsome--were they, Elspie?"
"Ne'er a ane o' the Rothesay line, man or woman, that
wasna fair to see--the fairest in the land," cried Elspie.
"Then so will my baby be!--like her father, I hope--or
just a little like her mother, who is not so very ugly, either; at least,
Angus says not." And with a charming consciousness, Mrs. Rothesay
drew up her tiny figure, patted one dainty hand--the wedded
one--with its fairy fellow; then--touched perhaps with a passing
melancholy that he who most prized her beauty, and for whose sake she most
prized it herself, was far away--she leaned back and sighed.
However, in a few minutes, she cried out,
her words showing how light and wandering was the reverie, "Elspie, I have a thought! The baby shall be christened Olive!"
"It's a strange, heathen name, Mrs. Rothesay."
"Not at all. Listen how I chanced to think of it. This very
morning, just before you came to waken me, I had such a queer, delicious
dream."
"Dream! Are ye sure it was i' the morning-tide?" cried
Elspie, aroused into interest.
"Yes; and so it certainly means something, you will say, Elspie?
Well, it was about my baby. She was then lying fast asleep in my bosom, and
her warm, soft breathing soon sent me to sleep too. I dreamt that somehow I
had gradually let her go from me, so that I felt her in my arms no more,
and I was very sad, and cried out how cruel it was for any one to steal my
child, until I found I had let her go of my own accord. Then I looked up,
after awhile, and saw standing at the foot of the bed a
little angel--a child-angel--with a green olive-branch in its hand. It told me to follow; so I rose up, and followed it over a wide desert country, and across rivers and among wild beasts; but at every peril the child held out the olive-branch, and we passed on safely. And when I felt weary, and my feet were bleeding, with the rough journey the little angel touched them with the olive, and I was strong again. At last we reached a beautiful valley, and the child said, 'You are quite safe now.' I answered, 'And who is my beautiful comforting angel?' Then the white wings fell off, and I only saw a sweet child's face, which bore something of Angus's likeness and something of my own, and the little one stretched out her bands and said, 'Mother!'"
While Mrs. Rothesay spoke, her thoughtless manner had once more softened
into deep feeling. Elspie watched her with wondering eagerness.
"It was nae dream; it was a vision. God send it true," said
the old woman, solemnly.
"I know not. Angus always laughed at my dreams, but I have a
strange feeling whenever I think of this. Oh, Elspie, you can't tell
how sweet it was! And so I should like to call my baby Olive, for the sake
of the beautiful angel. It may be foolish--but 'tis a fancy of
mine. Olive Rothesay! It sounds well, and Olive Rothesay she shall
be."
"Amen; and may she be an angel to ye a' her days. And
ye'll mind o' the blessed dream, and love her evermair. Oh, my
sweet leddy, promise me that ye will!" cried the nurse, approaching
her mistress's chair, while two great tears stole down her hard
cheeks.
"Of course I shall love her dearly! What made you doubt it?
Because I am so young? Nay, I have a mother's heart, though I am only
eighteen. Come, Elspie, do let us be merry; send these drops away;"
and she patted the old withered face with her little hand. "Was it
not you who told me the saying, 'It's ill greeting ower a new
born wean.' There! don't I succeed charmingly in your northern tongue?"
What a winning little creature she was, this young wife of Angus
Rothesay! Probably the only person who did not think so was the old
Highland uncle, Miss Flora's brother, who had disinherited his nephew
and promised heir for bringing him a Sassenach niece.
"A charming scene of maternal felicity! I am quite sorry to
intrude upon it," said a bland voice at the door, as Dr. Johnson put
in his shining bald head.
Mrs. Rothesay welcomed him in her graceful, cordial way. She was so
ready to cling to every one who showed her kindness--and he had been
very kind; so kind that, with her usual quick impulses, she had determined
to stay and live at Stirling until her husband's return from Jamaica.
She told Dr. Johnson so now; and, moreover, as an earnest of the friendship
which she, accustomed to be loved by every one, expected from him, she
requested him to stand godfather to her little babe.
"She shall be christened after our English fashion, doctor, and
her name shall be Olive. What do you think of her now? Is she growing
prettier?"
The doctor bowed a smiling assent, and walked to the window. Thither
Elspie followed him.
"Ye maun tell her the truth--I daurna. Ye will?" and
she clutched his arm with eager anxiety. "An' oh! for Godsake,
say it saftly, kindly. Think o' the puir mither."
He shook her off with an uneasy look. He had never felt in a more
disagreeable position.
Mrs. Rothesay called him back again. "I think, doctor, her
features are improving. She will certainly be a beauty. I should break my
heart if she were not. And what would Angus say? Come--what are you
and Elspie talking about so mysteriously?"
"My dear madam--hem!" began Dr. Johnson. "I do
hope--indeed, I am sure--your child will be a good child, and a
great comfort to both her parents;--"
"Certainly--but how grave you are about it."
"I have a painful duty--a very painful duty," he
replied. But Elspie pushed him aside.
"Ye're just a fule, man!--ye'll kill her. Say your
say at ance!"
The young mother turned deadly pale. "Say what,
Elspie? What is he going to tell me? Angus--"
"No, no, my darlin' leddy! your husband's safe;"
and Elspie flung herself on her knees beside the chair. "But, the
bairnie--(dinna fear, for it's the will o' God, and a'
for gude, nae doubt)--the sweet wee bairnie is--"
"Is, I grieve to say it, deformed," added Dr. Johnson.
The poor mother gazed incredulously on him, on the nurse, and lastly on
the sleeping child. Then, without a word, she fell back, and fainted in
Elspie's arms.
ardently to care for attracting the petty admiration of others. She took it quite as a matter of course; and was no more surprised at being worshipped than if she had been the Goddess of Beauty herself.
But if Sybilla Rothesay gloried in her own perfections, she no less
gloried in those of all she loved, and chiefly in her noble-looking
husband. And they were so young and impassioned, so quickly wed and so soon
parted, that this emotion had no time to deepen into that soul-united
affection which is independent of outward semblance; or, rather, becomes so
divine, that instead of beauty creating love, love has power to create
beauty.
No marvel then, that not having attained to a higher experience, Sybilla
considered beauty as all in all. And this child--her child and
Angus's, would be a deformity on the face of the earth, a shame to its
parents, a dishonour to its race. How should she ever bear to look upon it?
Still more, how should she ever dare to show the poor cripple
to its father, and say, "This is our child--our first-born." Would he not turn away in disgust, and answer that it had better died?
Such exaggerated fancies as these haunted the miserable and erring
mother, when she passed from her long swoon into a sort of fever; which,
though scarce endangering her life, was yet for days a source of great
anxiety to the devoted Elspie. To the unhappy infant this madness--for
it was temporary madness--almost caused death. Mrs. Rothesay
positively refused to see or notice her child, scorning alike the tearful
entreaties and the stern reproaches of the nurse. At last Elspie ceased to
combat this passionate resolve, springing half from anger and half from
delirium--
"God forgie ye, and save the innocent bairn--the dochter He
gave, and the whilk ye're like to murder--unthankfu' woman
as ye are," muttered Elspie, under her breath, as she quitted the
room and went to succour the almost dying babe. Over it her heart yearned
as it had never yearned before.
"Your mither casts ye aff, ye puir wee thing. Maybe ye're no
lang for this warld, but while ye're in it ye sall be my ain lassie,
an' I'll be your ain mammie, evermair."
So, like Naomi of old, Elspie Murray "laid the child in her bosom
and became nurse unto it." But for her, the life of our Olive
Rothesay,--with all its influences, good or evil, small or great, as
yet unknown,--would have expired like a faint-flickering taper.
Perhaps, in her madness, the unhappy mother might almost have desired
such an ending. As it was, the disappointed hope, which had at first
resembled positive dislike, subsided into the most complete indifference.
She endured her child's presence, but she took no notice of it; she
seemed to have forgotten its very existence. Her shattered health supplied
sufficient excuse for the utter abandonment of all a mother's duties,
and the poor feeble spark of life was left to Elspie's cherishing. By
night and by day the child knew no other resting-place than
the old nurse's arms, the mother's seeming to be for ever closed to its helpless innocence. True, Sybilla kissed it once a day, when Elspie brought the little creature to her, and exacted, as a duty, the recognition which Mrs. Rothesay, girlish and yielding as she was, dared not refuse. Her husband's faithful retainer had over her an influence which could never be gainsaid.
Elspie seemed to be the sole regent of the babe's destiny. It was
she who took it to its baptism;--not the festal ceremony which had
pleased Sybilla's childish fancy with visions of christening robes and
cakes, but the beautiful and simple "naming" of Elspie's
own church. She stood before the minister, holding the desolate babe in her
protecting arms; and there her heart sealed the promise of her lips, to
bring it up in the knowledge and fear of God. And with an earnest
credulity, which contained the germs of purest and loftiest faith, she,
remembering the mother's dream, called her nursling by the name of
Olive.
She carried the babe home and laid it on Mrs. Rothesay's lap. The
young creature, who had so strangely renounced that dearest blessing of
mother-love, would fain have put the child aside; but Elspie's stern
eye controlled her.
"Ye maun kiss and bless your dochter. Nae tongue but her
mither's suld ca' her by her new-christened name."
"What name?"
"The name ye gied her yer ain sel."
"No, no. Surely you have not called her so. Take her away; she is
not my sweet angel-baby--the darling in my dream." And Sybilla
hid her face; not in anger, or disgust, but in bitter weeping.
"She's your ain dochter--Olive Rothesay," answered
Elspie, less harshly. "She may be an angel to ye, yet."
While she spoke, it so chanced that there flitted over the infant-face
one of those smiles that we see sometimes in young children--strange,
causeless smiles, which seem the reflection of some invisible
influence.
And so, while the babe smiled, there came to its face such an
angel-brightness, that it shone into the mother's careless heart. For
the first time since that mournful day which had so changed her nature,
Sybilla Rothesay sat down and kissed the child of her own accord. Elspie
heard no maternal blessing--the name of "Olive" was never
breathed; but the nurse was satisfied when she saw that the babe's
second baptism was its mother's repentant tears.
There was in Sybilla no hardness or cruelty, only the disappointment and
vexation of a child deprived of an expected toy. She might have grown weary
of her little daughter almost as soon, even if her pride and hope had not
been crushed by the knowledge of Olive's deformity. Love to her seemed
a treasure to be paid in requital, not a free gift bestowed without thought
of return. That self-forgetting maternal devotion, lavished first on
unconscious infancy, and then on unregarding youth, was a mystery to her
utterly incom-
prehensible. At least it seemed so now, when, with the years and the character of a child, she was called to the highest duty of woman's life. This duty comes to some girlish mothers as an instinct, but it was not so with Mrs. Rothesay. An orphan, and heiress to a competence, if not to wealth, she had been brought up like a plant in a hot-bed, with all natural impulses either warped and suppressed, or forced into undue luxuriance. And yet it was a sweet plant withal; one that might have grown, ay, and might yet grow, into perfect strength and beauty.
Mrs. Rothesay's education,--that education of heart, and mind,
and temper, which is essential to a woman's happiness,--had to
begin when it ought to have been completed--at her marriage. Most
unfortunate it was for her, that ere the first twelvemonth of their wedded
life had passed, Captain Rothesay was forced to depart for Jamaica, whence
was derived his wife's little fortune; their whole fortune now, for he
had quitted the army on his marriage. Thus Sybilla
was deprived of that wholesome influence which man has ever over a woman who loves him, and by which he may, if he so will, counteract many a fault and weakness in her disposition.
Time passed on, and Mrs. Rothesay, a wife and mother, was at twenty-one
years old just the same as she had been at seventeen--as girlish, as
thoughtless, eager for any amusement, and often treading on the very verge
of folly. She still lived at Stirling, enforced thereunto by the
entreaties, almost the commands, of Elspie Murray, against whom she
bitterly murmured sometimes, for shutting her up in such a dull Scotch
town. When Elspie urged her unprotected situation, the necessity of living
in retirement, for the "honour of the family," while Captain
Angus was away, Mrs. Rothesay sometimes frowned, but more often put the
matter off with a merry jest. Meanwhile she consoled herself by going as
much into society as the limited circle of Dr. and Mrs. Johnson allowed;
and therein, as usual, the lovely, gay, winning
young creature was spoiled to her heart's content.
So she still lived the life of a wayward, petted child, whose natural
instinct for all things good and beautiful kept her from ever doing what
was positively wrong, though she did a great deal that was foolish enough
in its way. She was, as she jestingly said, "a widow
bewitched;" but she rarely coquetted, and then only in that innocent
way which comes natural to some women, from a universal desire to please.
And she never ceased talking and thinking of her beautiful, noble
Angus.
When his letters came, she always made a point of kissing them
half-a-dozen times, and putting them under her pillow at night, just like a
child! And she wrote to him regularly once a month--pretty, playful,
loving letters. But there was in them one peculiarity,--they were
utterly free from that delicious maternal egotism which chronicles all the
little incidents of babyhood. She said, in answer to her husband's
questions, that "Olive was well;" "Olive could just
walk;"
"Olive had learned to say 'Papa and Elspie.'" Nothing more.
The fatal secret she had not dared to tell him.
Her first letters,--full of joy about "the loveliest baby
that ever was seen,"--had brought his in return echoing the
rapture with truly paternal pride. They reached her in her misery, to which
they added tenfold. Every sentence smote her with bitter regret, even with
shame, as though it were her fault in having given to the world the
wretched child. Captain Rothesay expressed his joy that his little daughter
was not only healthy, but pretty; for, he said, "He should be quite
unhappy if she did not grow up as beautiful as her mother." The words
pierced Sybilla's heart; she could not--dared not tell him the
truth; not yet, at least. And whenever Elspie's rough honesty urged
her to do so, she fell into such agonies of grief and anger, that the nurse
was obliged to desist.
Sometimes, when letter after letter came from the father, full of
inquiries about his
precious first-born,--Sybilla, whose fault was more in weakness than deceit, resolved that she would nerve herself for the terrible task. But it was vain--she had not strength to do it.
The three years extended into four, and still Captain Rothesay sent gift
after gift, and message after message, to his daughter. Still he wrote to
the conscience-stricken mother how many times he had kissed the
"little lock of golden hue," severed from the baby-head;
picturing the sweet face and lithe, active form which he had never seen.
And all the while there was stealing about the old house at Stirling, a
pale, deformed, child; small and attenuated in frame--quiet beyond its
years, delicate, spiritless, with scarce one charm that would prove its
lineage from the young beautiful mother, out of whose sight it
instinctively crept.
Thus the years fled with Olive Rothesay and her parents; each month,
each day, sowing seeds that would assuredly spring up, for good or for
evil, in the destinies of all three.
do what was right, and to return to his dearly-loved wife as soon as ever he could. And, though scarce acknowledging the fact to herself, her husband's return involved such a humiliating explanation of truth concealed, if not of positive falsehood, that Sybilla dared not even think of it. Whenever the long-parted wife mused on the joy of meeting--of looking once more into the beloved face, and being lifted up like a child to cling round his neck with her fairy arms, for Angus was a very giant to her--then there seemed to rise between them the phantom of the pale, deformed child.
To drown these fancies, Sybilla rushed into every amusement which her
secluded life afforded. At last she resolved on an exploit at which Elspie
looked aghast, and which made the quiet Mrs. Johnson shake her
head--an evening party--nay, even a dance, at her own home.
"It will never do for the people here; they're
'unco gude,'" said the
doctor's English wife, who had imbibed a few Scottish
pre-
judices by a residence of thirty years. "Nobody ever dances in Stirling."
"Then I'll teach them," cried the lively Mrs.
Rothlesay; "I long to show them a quadrille--even that new dance
that all the world is shocked at. Oh! I should dearly like a
waltz."
Mrs. Jacob Johnson was scandalised at first, but there was something in
Sybilla to which she could not say nay,--nobody ever could. The matter
was decided by Mrs. Rothesay's having her own way, except with regard
to the waltz, which her friend stanchly resisted. Elspie, too, interfered
as long as she could; but her heart was just now full of anxiety about her
nursling, who seemed to grow more delicate every year. Day after day the
faithful nurse might have been seen trudging across the country, carrying
little Olive in her arms, to strengthen the child with the healing springs
of Bridge of Allan, and invigorate her weak frame with the fresh mountain
air--the heather breath of beautiful Ben-Ledi. Among these
in-
fluences did Olive's childhood dawn, so that in after-life they never faded from her.
Elspie scarce thought again about the gay party, until when she came in
one evening, and was undressing the sleepy little girl in the dusk, a
vision appeared at the nursery door. It quite startled the old Scotswoman
at first, it looked so like a fairy apparition, all in white, with a green
coronet. She hardly could believe that it was her young mistress.
"Eh! Mrs. Rothesay, ye're no goin' to show yoursel in
sic a dress," she cried, regarding with horror the gleaming bare
arms, the lovely neck, and the tiny white-sandalled feet, which the short
and airy robe exhibited in all their perfection.
"Indeed, but I am! and 'tis quite a treat to wear a
ball-dress. I, that have been smothered up in all sorts of ugly costume for
nearly five years. And see my jewels! Why, Elspie, this pearl-set has only
beheld the light once since I was married--so beautiful as it
is--and Angus's gift too."
"Dinna say that name," cried Elspie,
driven to a burst of not very respectful reproach. "I marvel ye daur speak of Captain Angus--and ye, wi' your havers and your jigs, while yer husband's far awa', and your bairn sick! It's for nae gude I tell ye, Mrs. Rothesay."
Sybilla had looked a little subdued at the allusion to her husband, but
the moment Elspie mentioned the little Olive, her manner changed.
"You are always blaming me about the child, and I will not bear it.
She is quite well. Are you not, Baby?"--the mother never would
call her Olive.
A feeble, trembling voice answered from the little bed, "Yes,
please, mamma!"
"There, you hear, Elspie! Now, don't torment me any more
about her. But I must go down stairs."
She danced across the room in a graceful waltzing step, held out her
hand towards the child, and touched one so tiny, cold, and damp, that she
felt half inclined to take and warm it in her own. But Elspie's
hawk-eyes were watching her, and she was ashamed. So
she only said, "Good night, Baby!" and danced back again, out through the open door.
For hours Elspie sat in the dark room beside the bed of the little
child, who lay murmuring, sometimes moaning, in her sleep. She never did
moan but in her sleep, poor innocent! The sound of music and dancing rose
up from below, and then Mrs. Rothesay's clear, bird-like voice was
heard in many a blithe ditty.
"Ye'd better be hushin' your puir wee bairnie here, ye
heartless woman!" muttered Elspie, who grew daily more jealous over
the forsaken child, now the very darling of her old age. She knew not that
her love for Olive, and its open tokens shown by reproaches to Olive's
mother, were sure to suppress any dawning tenderness that might be awakened
in Mrs. Rothesay's bosom.
It had not done so yet, for many a time during the dance and song did
the touch of that little cold hand haunt the young mother,
rousing a feeling akin to remorse. But she threw it off again and again, and entered with the gaiety of her nature into all the evening's pleasure. Her wild enjoyment was at its height, when an old acquaintance, just discovered--an English officer, quartered at the Castle--proposed a waltz. Before she had time to say "Yes" or "No," the music struck up one of those enchanting waltz-measures which, to all true lovers of dancing, are as irresistible as Maurice Connor's "Wonderful Tune." Sybilla felt again the same blithe young creature of sixteen, who had led the revels at her first ball, dancing into the heart of one old colonel, six ensigns, a doctor, a lawyer, and of Angus Rothesay. There was no resisting the impulse: in a moment she was whirling away.
In the midst of the dizzy round the door opened, and, like some evil
spectre, in stalked Elspie Murray.
Never was there such an uncouth apparition seen in a ball-room. Her grey
petticoat exhibited her bare feet; her short upper
gown, that graceful and picturesque attire of the Scottish peasantry, was thrown carelessly over her shoulders; her mutch was put on awry, and from under its immense border her face appeared, as white almost as the cap itself. She walked right into the centre of the floor, laid her heavy hand on Sybilla's shoulder, and said,
"Mrs. Rothesay, your husband's here!"
The young wife stood one moment transfixed; she turned pale, afterwards
crimson, and then, uttering a cry of joy, sprang to the door--sprang
into her husband's arms.
Dazzled with the light, the traveller resisted not, while Elspie half
led, half dragged him--still clasping his wife--into a little
room close by, when she shut the door and left them. Then she burst in once
more among the astonished guests.
"Ye may gang your gate, ye heathens! Awa wi' ye, for Captain
Rothesay's come hame!"
Sybilla and her husband stood face to face in the little gloomy room,
lighted only by a
solitary candle. At first she clung about him so closely that he could not see her face, though he felt her tears falling, and her little heart beating against his own. He knew it was all for joy. But he was strangely bewildered by the scene which had flashed for a minute before his eyes, while standing at the door of the room.
After a while he drew his wife to the light, and held her out at
arm's length to look at her. Then, for the first time, she remembered
all. Trembling--blushing scarlet, over face and neck--she
perceived her husband's eyes rest on her glittering dress. He regarded
her fixedly, from head to foot. She felt his expression change from joy to
uneasy wonder, from love to sternness, and then he wore a strange, cold
look, such a one as she had never beheld in him before.
"So, the young lady I saw whirling madly in some man's
arms--was you, Sybilla--was my wife."
As Captain Rothesay spoke, Sybilla distinguished in his voice a new
tone, echoing
the strange coldness in his eyes. She sprang to his neck, weeping now for grief and alarm, as she had before wept for joy; she prayed him to forgive her, told him with a sincerity that none could doubt, how rejoiced she was at his coming, and how dearly she loved him--now and ever. He kissed her, at her passionate entreaty; said he had nothing to blame; suffered her caresses patiently; but the impression was given, the deed was done.
While he lived, Captain Rothesay never forgot that night. Nor did
Sybilla; for then she had first seen that cold, stern look and heard that
altered tone. How many times was it to haunt her afterwards!
"Just as much a child as ever, I see," said Angus Rothesay,
with a rather wintry smile.
And then, looking in his face by daylight, Sybilla had opportunity to
see how changed he was. He had become a grave, middle-aged man. She could
not understand it. He had never told her of any cares, and he was little
more than thirty. She felt almost
vexed at him for growing so old; nay, she even said so, and began to pull out a few grey hairs that defaced the beauty of his black curls.
"You shall lecture me presently, my dear," said Captain
Rothesay. "You forget that I had two welcomes to receive, and that I
have not yet seen the little girl."
He had not indeed. His eager inquiries after Olive overnight had been
answered by a pretty pout, and several trembling, anxious speeches about
"a wife being dearer than a child." "Baby was asleep, and
it was so very late--he might, surely, wait tills morning." To
which, though rather surprised, he assented. A few more caresses, a few
more excuses, had still further delayed the terrible moment; until at last
the father's impatience would no longer be restrained.
"Come, Sybilla, let us go and see our little Olive."
"Oh, Angus!" and the mother turned deadly white.
Captain Rothesay seemed alarmed. "Don't
trifle with me, Sybilla--there is nothing the matter? The child is not ill?"
"No; quite well."
"Then, why cannot Elspie bring her?" and he pulled the bell
violently. The nurse appeared. "My good Elspie, you have kept me
waiting quite long enough; do let me see my little girl."
Elspie gave one glance at the mother, who stood mute and motionless,
clinging to the chair for support. In that glance was less compassion than
a sort of triumphant exultation. When she quitted the room Sybilla flung
herself at her husband's feet.
"Angus, Angus, only say you forgive me, before--"
The door opened, and Elspie led in a little girl. By her stature she
might have been two years old, but her face was like that of a child of ten
or twelve--so thoughtful, so grave. Her limbs were small and wasted,
but exquisitely delicate. The same might be said of her features; which,
though thin, and wearing a look of premature age, together
with that quiet, earnest, melancholy cast peculiar to deformity, were yet regular, almost pretty. Her head was well-shaped, and from it fell a quantity of amber-coloured hair--pale "lint-white locks," which, with the almost colourless transparency of her complexion, gave a spectral air to her whole appearance. She looked less like a child than a woman dwarfed into childhood; the sort of being renowned in elfin legends, as springing up on a lonely moor, or appearing by a cradle-side; supernatural, yet fraught with a nameless beauty. She was dressed with the most care, in white, with blue ribands; and her lovely hair was arranged so as to hide, as much as possible, the defect, which, alas! was even then only too perceptible. It was not a humpback, nor yet a twisted spine; it was an elevation of the shoulders, shortening the neck, and giving the appearance of a perpetual stoop. There was nothing disgusting or painful in it, but still it was an imperfection, causing an instinctive compassion--an involuntary "Poor little creature, what a pity!"
Such was the child--the last daughter of the ever-beautiful
Rothesay line--which Elspie led to claim the paternal embrace. Olive
looked up at her father with her wistful, pensive eyes, in which was no
childish shyness--only wonder. He met them with a gaze of frenzied
unbelief. Then his fingers clutched his wife's arm with the grasp of
an iron vice.
"Tell me! for God's sake, deceive me no longer. Is that our
daughter, Olive Rothesay?"
She answered, "Yes." He shook her off angrily, looked once
more at the child, and then turned away, putting his hand before his eyes,
as if to shut out the sight.
Olive saw the gesture. Young as she was, it went deep to her
child's soul. Elspie saw it too, and without bestowing a second glance
on her master or his wife, she snatched up the child and hurried from the
room.
The father and mother were left alone--to meet that crisis most
fatal to wedded happiness, the discovery of the first deceit.
Cap-
tain Rothesay sat silent, with averted face; Sybilla was weeping--not that repentant shower which rains softness into a man's heart, but those fretful tears which chafe him beyond endurance.
"Sybilla, come to me!" The words were a fond husband's
words; the tone was that of a master who took on himself his prerogative.
Never had Angus spoken so before, and the wilful spirit of his wife
rebelled.
"I cannot come. I dare not even look at you. You are so
angry."
His only answer was the reiterated command, "Sybilla, come!"
She crept from the far end of the room, where she was sobbing in a
fear-stricken, childish way, and stood before him. For the first time she
recognised her husband, whom she must "obey." Now, with all the
power of his roused nature, he was teaching her the meaning of the word.
"Sybilla," he said, looking sternly in her face, "tell me
why, all these years, you have put upon me this cheat--this
lie!"
"Cheat!--lie! Oh, Angus! What cruel, wicked words!"
"I am sorry I used them, then. I will choose a lighter
term--deceit. Why did you so deceive your
husband?"
"I did not mean it," sobbed the young wife. "And this
is very unkind of you, Angus! As if Heaven had not punished me enough in
giving me that miserable child!"
"Silence! I am not speaking of the child, but of you; my wife, in
whom I trusted; who for five long years has wilfully deceived me. Why did
you so?"
"Because I was afraid--ashamed. But those feelings are past
now," said Sybilla, resolutely. "If Heaven made me mother, it
made you father to this unhappy child. You have no right to reproach
me."
"God forbid! No, it is not the misfortune--it is the
falsehood which stings me. All these five years I have toiled and
toiled--comforting myself with thoughts of you and our child, dreaming
over your letters--oh, Heaven! what a dupe I have been!"
And his grave, mournful tone, rose into one of bitter anger. He paced
the room, tossed by a passion such as his wife had never before seen.
"Sybilla!" he suddenly cried, pausing before her; "you
do not know what you have done. You little think what my love has been, nor
against how much it has struggled these five years. I have been true to
you--ay, to the depth of my heart. And you to me have been--not
wholly true."
Here he was answered by a burst of violent hysterical weeping. He longed
to call for feminine assistance to this truly feminine ebullition, which he
did not understand. But his pride forbade. So he tried to soothe his wife a
little with softer words, though even these seemed somewhat foreign to his
lips, after so many long-parted years.
"I did not mean to pain you thus deeply, Sybilla. I do not say
that you have ceased to love me!"
Would that Sybilla had done as her first impulse taught her; have clung
about him, crying
"Never! never!" murmuring penitent words, as a tender wife may well do, and in such humility be the more exalted! But she had still the wayward spirit of a petted child. Fancying she saw her husband once more at her feet, she determined to keep him there. She wept on, refusing to be pacified.
At last Angus rose from her side, dignified and cold, his new, not his
old self; the lover no more, but the quiet, half-indifferent husband.
"I see we had better not talk of these things until you are more
composed--perhaps, indeed, not at all. What is past--is past, and
cannot be recalled."
"Angus!" She looked up, frightened at his grave manner. She
determined to conciliate him a little. "What do you want me to do? To
say I am sorry? That I will--but," she added with an air of
coquettish command, "you must say so too."
The jest was ill-timed; he was in too bitter a mood. "I thank you,
but you exact too much, Mrs. Rothesay."
"Mrs. Rothesay! oh, call me Sybilla, or
my heart will break!" cried the young creature, throwing herself into his arms. He did not repulse her; he even looked down upon her with a melting, half reproachful tenderness.
"How happy we might have been! How different had been this coming
home if you had only trusted me, and told me all from the
beginning."
"Have you told me? Is there nothing you have kept
back from me these five years?" said the young wife, in her pretty,
wilful way.
He started a little, and then said resolutely, "Nothing, Sybilla!
I declare to Heaven--nothing! save, perhaps, some trifles that I would
at any time tell you; now, if you will."
"Oh no! some other time, I am too much exhausted now,"
murmured Sybilla, with an air of languor, half real, half feigned, lest
perchance she should lose what she had gained. In the sweetness of this
reconciled "lovers' quarrel," she had almost forgotten
its hapless cause. But Angus, after a pause of deep and evidently conflicting thoughts, referred to the child.
"She is ours still. I must not forget that. Shall I send for her
again?" he said, as if he wished to soothe the mother's wounded
feelings.
Alas, in Sybilla's breast the fountain of mother's feeling was
as yet all sealed. "Send for Olive?" she said, "oh no! Do
not, I implore you. The very sight of her is a pain to me. Let us be happy
together, and let the child be left to Elspie."
Thus she said, thinking not only to save herself, but him, from what
must be a constant pang. Little she knew him, or guessed the after-effect
of her words.
Angus Rothesay looked at his wife, first with amazement, then with cold
displeasure. "My dear, you scarce speak like a mother. You forget,
likewise, that you are speaking to a father. A father who, whatever
affection may be wanting, will never forsake his duty. Come, let us go and
see our child."
"I cannot--I cannot!" and Sybilla hung back, weeping
anew.
Angus Rothesay looked at his wife--the pretty, wayward idol of his
bridegroom-memory--looked at her with the eyes of a world-tried,
world-hardened man. She regarded him too, and noted the change which years
had brought in her almost boyish lover of yore. His eye wore a fretful
reproach--his brow, a proud sorrow.
He walked up to her and clasped her hand. "Sybilla, take care! All
these years I have been dreaming of the wife and mother I should find here
at home; let not the dream prove sweeter than the reality."
Sybilla was annoyed--she, the spoiled darling of every one, who
knew not the meaning of a harsh word. She answered, "Don't let
us talk so foolishly."
"You think it foolish? Well, then! we will not speak in this
confidential way any more," said Angus, shrinking back into his
reserve. "I promise, and you know I always keep my
promises."
"I am glad of it," answered Sybilla. But she lived to rue
the day when her husband made this one promise.
At present, she only felt that the bitter secret was disclosed, and
Angus' anger overpast. She gladly let him quit the room, only pausing
to ask him to kiss her, in token that all was right between them. He did
so, kindly, though with a certain pride and gravity--and departed. She
dared not ask him whether it was to see again their hapless child.
What passed between the father and mother whilst they remained shut up
together there, Elspie thought not--cared not. She spent the time in
passionate caresses of her darling, in half-muttered ejaculations, some of
pity, some of wrath. All she desired was to obliterate the impression which
she saw had gone deeply to the child's heart. Olive wept not--she
rarely did; it seemed as though in her little spirit was a pensive repose,
above either infant sorrow or infant fear. She sat on her nurse's
knee, scarce speaking, but continually falling into those reveries which we
see in quiet children even at that early age, and never without a mysterious wonder, approaching to awe. Of what can these infant musings be?
"Nurse Elspie," said the child, suddenly fixing on
Elspie's face her large eyes, to look into which seemed like looking
into a spring, not knowing what secrets may lie--depth within
depth--beneath the dark blue waters. "Elspie, was that my papa I
saw?"
"It was just himsel, my sweet wee pet," cried Elspie, trying
to stop the little girl's question with impassioned caresses; but
Olive went on.
"He is not like mamma--he is great and tall, like you. But he
did not take me up and kiss me, as you said he would."
Elspie had no answer for these words--spoken in a tone of quiet
pain--so unlike a child, in whom are the springs of anger and revenge,
but rarely of wounded feeling. It is only after many years that we learn to
suffer and be silent.
Was it that nature, ever merciful, had im-
planted in this poor girl, as an instinct, that meek endurance which usually comes as the painful experience of after-life?
A similar thought passed through Elspie's mind, while she sat with
little Olive at the window, where, a few years ago, she had stood rocking
the new-born babe in her arms, and pondering drearily on its future. That
future seemed still as dark in all outward circumstances--but there
was one ray of hope, which centred in the little one herself. There was
something in Olive which passed Elspie's comprehension. At times she
looked almost with an uneasy awe on the gentle, silent child, who rarely
played; who wanted no amusing, but would sit for hours watching the sky
from the window, or the grass and waving trees in the fields; who never was
heard to laugh, but now and then smiled in her own peculiar way--a
smile almost "uncanny," as Elspie expressed it. At times the
old Scotswoman--who, coming from the debateable ground between
Highlands and Lowlands, had united to the rigid piety of
the latter much wild Gaelic superstition--was half inclined to believe that the little girl was possessed by some spirit. But she was certain it was a good spirit; such a darling as Olive was--so patient, and gentle, and good--more like an angel than a child.
If her misguided parents did but know this! Yet Elspie, in her secret
heart, was almost glad they did not. Her passionate and selfish love could
not have borne that any tie on earth, not even that of father or mother,
should stand between her and the child of her adoption.
While she pondered, there came a light knock to the door, and Captain
Rothesay's voice was heard without--his own voice, soothed down
to its soft, gentleman-like tone; it was a rare emotion, indeed, that could
deprive it of that peculiarity.
"Nurse, I wish to see Miss Olive Rothesay."
It was the first time that formal appellation had ever been given to the
little girl. Still, it was a recognition. Elspie heard it with
joy, for her excited and indignant fancy had almost pictured the parents disowning their child. She answered the summons, and Captain Rothesay walked in.
We have never described Olive's father--there could not be a
better opportunity than now. His appearance did not belie his race, which,
though of late generations somewhat mingled with Lowland blood, had been
originally pure Gaelic. His tall, active form--now subsiding into the
muscular fulness of middle age--was that of a Hercules of the
mountains. The face combined Scottish beauties and Scottish defects, which,
perhaps, cease to be defects when they become national peculiarities. There
was the eagle-eye; the large, but perfectly-chiselled
features--especially the mouth; and also there was the high
cheek-bone, the rugged squareness of the chin, which, while taking away
beauty, gave character to the whole.
When he came nearer, one could easily discern that the features of the
father were strangely reflected in those of the child.
Altered the likeness was--from strength into feebleness--from manly beauty into almost puny delicacy; but it did exist, and, faint as it was, Elspie perceived it.
Olive was looking up at the clouds, her thin cheek resting against the
embrasure of the window, gazing so intently that she never seemed to hear
her father's voice or step. Elspie motioned him to walk softly, and
they came behind the child.
"Do ye no see, Captain Angus," she whispered,
"'tis your ain bonnie face--aye, and your mither's,
wha dee'd when ye were a bit laddie. Ye mind her weel?"
Captain Rothesay did not answer, but looked earnestly at his little
daughter. She, turning round, met his eyes. There was something in their
expression which touched her, for a rosy colour suffused her face; she
smiled, stretched out her little hands, and said, "Papa!"
How Elspie then prided herself for the continual tutoring which had made
the image of the absent father an image of love!
Captain Rothesay started from his reverie at the sound of the
child's voice. The tone, and especially the word, broke the spell. He
felt once more that he was the father, not of the blooming little angel
that he had pictured, but of this poor deformed girl. However, he was a man
in whom a stern sense of right stood in the place of many softer virtues.
He had resolved on his duty--he had come to fulfil it--and fulfil
it he would. So he took the two little cold hands, and said--
"Papa is glad to see you, my dear."
There was a silence, during which Elspie placed a chair for Captain
Rothesay, and Olive, sliding quietly down from hers, came and stood beside
him. He did not offer to take the two baby-hands again, but did not repulse
them, when the little girl laid them on his knee, looking inquiringly,
first at him, and then at Elspie.
"What does she mean?" said Captain Rothesay.
"Puir wee lassie! I tauld her, when her father was come hame, he
wad be fair to tak' her in his arms and kiss her."
Rothesay looked angrily round, but recollected himself. "Your
nurse was right, my dear." Then pausing for a moment, as though
arming himself for a duty--repugnant, indeed, but necessary--he
took his daughter on his knee, and kissed her cheek--once, and no
more. But she, remembering Elspie's instructions, and prompted by her
loving nature, clung about him, and requited the kiss with many another.
They melted him visibly. There is nothing sweeter in this world than a
child's unasked, voluntary kiss!
He began to talk to her--uneasily and awkwardly--but still, he
did it. "There, that will do, little one! What is your name, my
dear?" he said, absently.
She answered, "Olive Rothesay."
"Aye--I had forgotten! The name, at least, was true."
And he spoke bitterly. The next moment, he set down the
child--softly--but as though it was a relief.
"Is papa going?" said Olive, with a troubled look.
"Yes; but he will come back to-morrow.
Once a day will do," he added, to himself. Yet, when his little daughter lifted her mouth for another kiss, he could not help giving it.
"Be a good child, my dear, and say your prayers every night, and
love nurse Elspie."
"And papa too, may I?"
He seemed to struggle violently against some inward feeling, and then
answered, with a strong effort, "Yes."
The door closed after him abruptly. Very soon Elspie saw him walking
with hasty strides along the beautiful walk that winds round the foot of
the castle rock. The nurse sat still for a long time thinking, and then
ended her ponderings with her favourite phrase--
"God guide us! it'll a' come richt at last."
Poor, honest, humble soul!
calls, at which the grim phantom of the husband frowned from a corner, and suppressed all idle chatter. Sybilla's favourite system of killing time by half-hours in various idle ways, at home and abroad, was terminated at once. She had now to learn how to be a duteous wife, always ready at the beck and call of her husband, and attentive to his innumerable wants.
She was quite horrified by these at first. The captain actually expected
to dine well and punctually, every day, without being troubled beforehand
with "What he would like for dinner?" He listened once or
twice, patiently too, to her histories of various small domestic
grievances, and then requested politely that she would confine such details
to the kitchen in future; at which poor Mrs. Rothesay retired in tears. He
liked her to stay at home in the evening, make his tea, and then read to
him, or listen while he read to her. This was the most arduous task of the
two, for, dearly as she loved to hear the sound of his voice, Sybilla never
could feel in-
terested in the prosy books he read, and often fell half asleep; then he always stopped suddenly, sometimes looked cross, sometimes sad; and in a few minutes he invariably lighted her candle, with the gentle hint that it was time to retire. But often she woke, hours after, and heard him still walking up and down below, or stirring the fire perpetually, as a man does who is obliged to make the fire his sole companion.
And then Sybilla's foolish, but yet loving heart, would feel itself
growing sad and heavy; and her husband's image, once painted there in
such glittering colours, began to fade. The real Angus was not the Angus to
her fancy. Joyful as was his coming home, it had not been quite what she
expected. Else, why was it that at times, amidst all her gladness, she
thought of their olden past with regret, and of their future with doubt,
almost fear?
But it was something new for Sybilla to think at all. It did her good in
spite of herself.
While these restless elements of future pain were brooding in the
parents, the little, neglected, unsightly blossom, which had sprung up at
their feet, lived the same unregarded, monotonous life as heretofore. Olive
Rothesay had attained to five years, growing much as a daisy in the field,
how, none knew or cared, except Heaven. And that Heaven did both know and
care, was evident from the daily sweetness that was stealing into this poor
wayside flower, so that it would surely one day be discovered through the
invisible perfume which it shed.
Captain Rothesay kept to his firm resolve of seeing his little daughter
in her nursery, once a day at least. After a while, the visit of a few
minutes lengthened to an hour, even two. He listened with interest to
Elspie's delighted eulogiums on her beloved charge, which sometimes
went so far as to point out the beauty of the child's wan face, with
the assurance that Olive, in features, at least, was a true Rothesay. But
the father always stopped her with a dignified, cold look.
"We will quit that subject, if you please."
Nevertheless, guided by his rigid sense of a parent's duty, he
showed all kindness to the child, and his omnipotent sway over his wife
exacted the same consideration from the hitherto indifferent Sybilla. It
might be, also, that in her wayward and informal nature, the chill which
had unconsciously fallen on the heart of the wife, caused the mother's
heart to awaken. Feelings unwonted began to dawn faintly in Mrs.
Rothesay's bosom; they were reflected in her eyes; and then the mother
would be almost startled to see the response which this new, though
scarcely defined, tenderness created in her child.
For some months after Captain Rothesay's return, the little family
abode in the retired old-fashioned dwelling on the hill of Stirling. Their
quiet round of uniformity was only broken by the occasional brief absence
of the head of the household, as he said, "on business."
Business was a word conveying such distaste, if not horror, to
Sybilla's ears, that she asked no questions, and
her husband volunteered no information. In fact, he rarely was in the habit of doing so--whether interrogated or not.
At last, one day when he was sitting after dinner with his wife and
child--he always punctiliously commanded that "Miss
Rothesay" might be brought in with the dessert--Angus made the
startling remark:
"My dear Sybilla, I wish to consult with you on a subject of some
importance."
She looked up with a pretty, childish surprise.
"Consult with me! Oh, Angus! pray don't teaze me with any of
your hard business matters; I never could understand them."
"And I never for a moment imagined you could. In fact, you told me
so, and therefore I have never troubled you with them, my dear," was
the reply, dignified, with just the slightest shade of satire. But its
bitterness passed away the moment Sybilla jumped up and came to sit down on
the hearth at his feet, in an attitude of comical attention. Thereupon he
patted her on the head, gently and smilingly, for he
was but a young husband still, and she was such a sweet plaything for an idle hour.
A plaything! Would that all women considered the full meaning of the
term--a thing sighed for, snatched, caressed, wearied of, neglected,
scorned! And would, also, that every wife knew that her fate depends less
on what her husband makes of her, than what she makes herself to him!
"Now, Angus, begin--I am all attention."
He looked one moment doubtfully at Olive, who sat in her little chair at
the further end of the room, quiet, silent, and demure. She had beside her
some purple plums, which she did not attempt to eat, but was playing with
them, arranging them with green leaves in a thousand graceful ways, and
smiling to herself when the afternoon sunlight, creeping through the dim
window, rested upon them, and made their rich colour richer still.
"Shall we send Olive away?" said the mother.
"No, let her stay--she is of no importance."
The parents both looked at the child's pale, spiritual face, felt
the reproach it gave, and sighed. Perhaps both father and mother would have
loved her, but for a sense of shame in the latter, and the painful memory
of deceit in the former.
"Sybilla," suddenly resumed Captain Rothesay, "what I
have to say is merely, how soon you can arrange to leave
Stirling?"
"Leave Stirling?"
"Yes; I have taken a house."
"Indeed! and you never told me anything about it," said
Sybilla, with a vexed look.
"Now, my little wife, do not be foolish; you know that you never
wish to hear about business, and I have taken you at your word; you cannot
object to that?"
But she could, and she had a thousand half-pouting, half-jesting
complaints to urge. She put them forth rather incoherently; in fact, she
talked for five minutes without giving her husband opportunity for a single
word, and yet she loved him dearly, and had in her heart scarce any
objection to being saved the
trouble of thinking beforehand; only she thought it right to stand up a little for her conjugal prerogative.
He listened in perfect silence. When she had done, he merely said,
"Very well, Sybilla; then we will leave Stirling this day month. I
have decided to live in England. Oldchurch is a very convenient town, and I
have no doubt you will find Merivale Hall an agreeable
residence.
"Merivale Hall. Are we really going to live in a Hall?"
cried Sybilla, clapping her hands with childish glee. But immediately her
face changed. "You must be jesting with me, Angus. I don't know
much about money, but I know we are not rich enough to keep up a
Hall."
"We were not rich, but we are now, I am happy to
say," answered Captain Rothesay, with a look of dignified
triumph.
"Rich! very rich! and you never told me!" Sybilla's
hands fell on her knee, and it was doubtful which expression was dominant
in
her countenance--womanly pain, or womanly indignation.
Angus looked annoyed. "My dear Sybilla, listen to me
quietly--yes, quietly," he added, in a resolute tone, seeing how
her colour came and went, and her lips seemed ready to burst out into
petulant reproach. "When I left England, I was taunted with having
ran away with an heiress. That, I did not do, since you were far poorer
than the world thought--and I loved little Sybilla Hyde for herself,
and not for her fortune. But the taunt stung me, and, when I left you, I
resolved never to return until I could return a rich man on my own account.
I am such now. Are you not glad, Sybilla?"
"Glad--glad to have been kept in the dark like a baby--a
fool! It was not proper treatment towards your wife, Angus," was the
petulant answer, as Sybilla drew herself from his arm, which came as a mute
peace-maker to encircle her waist.
"Now you are a child, indeed. I did it
from love--believe me or not, it was so--that you might not be pained with the knowledge of my struggles, toils, and cares. And was not the reward, the wealth, all for you?"
"No; for yourself."
"Pray, hear reason, Sybilla!" her husband continued, in
those quiet, unconcerned tones, which, to a woman of quick feelings, and
equally quick resentments, were sure to add fuel to fire.
"I will not hear reason. When you have these four years been
rolling in wealth, and your wife and child were--oh, Angus!" and
she began to weep.
Captain Rothesay tried at first, by explanations and by soothings, to
stop the small torrent--the "continual dropping" of
fretful tears and half-broken accusations. All his words were misconstrued
or misapplied. Sybilla would not believe but that he had slighted,
ill-used, deceived her.
At the term the husband rose up sternly.
"Mrs. Rothesay, who was it that deceived me?"
He pointed to the child, and the glance of both rested on little
Olive.
She sat, her graceful playthings fallen from her hands, her large soft
eyes dilated with such a terrified wonder, that both father and mother
shrank before them. That fixed gaze of the unconscious child seemed like
the reproachful look of some angel of innocence sent from a purer
world.
There was a dead silence. In the midst of it the little child crept from
her corner and stood between her parents, her little hands stretched out,
and her eyes full of tears.
"Olive has done nothing wrong? Papa and mamma, you are not angry
with poor little Olive?" said the faint, sweet voice, falling like
oil on the troubled waters.
For the first time, as she looked into the poor child's face, there
flashed across the mother's memory the likeness of the angel in her
dream. She pressed the thought back, almost angrily, but it came again.
Then Sybilla stooped down, and, for the only time
since her babyhood, Olive found herself lifted to her mother's embrace.
"The child had better go away to bed," said Captain
Rothesay, restlessly, but yet gently.
Olive was carried out, nestling closely in her mother's arms.
When Sybilla came back the angry pout had passed from her beautiful
face, though a grave, troubled shadow still remained there. She made tea
for her husband, tried to talk on common topics once or twice, but he gave
little encouragement. Before retiring to rest, she said to him,
timidly--
"There is no quarrel between us, Angus?"
"Not in the least, my dear," he answered, with that composed
deprecation of any offence, given or received, which is the most painful
check to an impulsive nature; "only, we will not discuss matters of
business together again. Women never can talk things over quietly. Good
night, Sybilla."
He lifted his head a little, a very little, for her accustomed kiss. She
gave it, but with it there came a sigh. He scarcely noticed
either one or the other, being apparently deep in a large folio "Commentary on the Proverbs," for it was Sunday evening. He lingered for a whole hour over the last chapter, and chiefly the passages,--
"Who can find a virtuous woman: for her price is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her: so that he shall have no
need of spoil.... She openeth her mouth with wisdom: and in her tongue is
the law of kindness."
At this, Captain Rothesay closed the book, laid his arms upon it; and
sighed--oh, how heavily! He did not go to bed that night until his
young wife had lain awake for hours, regretting and resolving; nor until,
after many determinations of future penitence and love, she had at last
wept herself to sleep for very sorrow.
Olive's childhood was passed in the place mentioned by her father.
Merivale! Oldchurch!
In her future life the words, whenever heard, always sounded like an echo of that dreamy time, whose sole epochs are birthdays, Christmas-days, the first snowdrop found in the garden, the first daisy in the field. Such formed the only chronicle of Olive's childhood.
Its earliest period was marked by events which she was too young to
notice, troubles which she was too young to feel. They passed over her like
storm-clouds over a safely sheltered flower--only perceivedby the
momentary shadow which they cast. Once--it was in the first summer at
Merivale--the child noticed how pleased every one seemed, and how papa
and mamma, now always together, used to speak more tenderly than usual to
her. Elspie said it was because they were so happy, and that Olive ought to
be happy too, because God would soon send her "a wee wee
brother." She would find him some day in the pretty cradle, which
Elspie showed her. So the little girl went to look there every morning, but
in vain. At last her nurse said she need not look there any more, for God
had taken away the baby-
brother as soon as it came. Olive was very much disappointed, and when she went down to her father that day she told him of her trouble. But he angrily sent her away to her nurse. She looked ever after with grief and childish awe on the empty cradle.
At last it was empty no longer. She, a thoughtful child of seven, could
never forget the impression made, when one morning she was roused by the
loud pealing of the Oldchurch bells, and the maids told her, laughing, it
was in honour of her little brother, come at last. She was allowed to kiss
him once, and and then spent half her time, watching, with great joy and
wonderment, the tiny face, and touching the tiny hands. After some days she
missed him; and after some more Elspie showed her a little heap in the
nearest churchyard, saying, that was her baby-brother's cradle now.
Poor little Olive!--her only knowledge of the sweet tie of brotherhood
was these few days of silent watching, and the little green mound left
behind in the churchyard.
From that time there came a gradual change over the household, and over
Olive's life. No more long, quiet hours after dinner, her father
reading, her mother occupied in some light work, or resting on the sofa in
delicious idleness, while Olive herself, little noticed, but yet treated
with uniform kindness by both, sat on the hearthrug fondling the sleepy
cat, or gazing with vague childish reverie into the fire. No more of the
proud pleasure, with which, on Sunday afternoons, exalted to her grave
papa's knee, she created an intense delight, out of what was to him a
somewhat formal duty, and said her letters from the large family Bible.
These childish joys vanished gradually, she scarce knew how. Her papa she
now rarely saw, he was so much from home, and the quiet, dreamy house
wherein she loved to ramble, became a house of feasting, her beautiful
mamma being the centre of its gaiety. Olive retreated to her nursery and to
Elspie, and the rest of her childhood was one long, solitary, pensive
dream.
In that dream was the clear transcript
of all the scenes amidst which it passed. The old hall, seated on a rising ground, and commanding views which were really beautiful in their way, considering that Merivale was on the verge of a manufacturing district, bounded by pastoral and moorland country. Those strange furnace-fires, which rose up at dusk from the earth, and gleamed all around the horizon, like red fiery eyes open all night long, how mysteriously did they haunt the imaginative child! Then the town, Oldchurch, how in her after-life it grew distinct from all other towns, like a place seen in a dream, so real and yet so unreal! There was its castle-hill, a little island within a large pool, which had once been a real fortress and moat. Old Elspie contemned alike tradition and reality, until Olive read in her little "History of England" the name of the place, and how John of Gaunt had built a castle there. And then Elspie vowed it was unworthy to be named the same day with beautiful Stirling. Continually did she impress on the child the glories of her birth-place, so that Olive in
after-life, while remembering her childhood's scenes as a pleasant land of earth, came to regard her native Scotland as a sort of dream paradise. The shadow of the mountains where she was born, fell softly, solemnly, over her whole life; influencing her pursuits, her character, perhaps even her destiny.
Yet there was a curious fascination about Oldchurch. In the cloudy
memories of her childhood it rose up, as she used to go there with Elspie,
at far distant intervals. The two great wide streets, High-street and
Broadstreet, intersecting one another in the form of a cross: the two
churches--the Old Church, gloomy, and Norman, with its ghostly
graveyard; and the New Church, shining white amidst a pleasant
garden-cemetery, beneath one of whose flower-beds her baby-brother lay. The
two shops, the only ones she ever visited, the confectioner's, where
she stood to watch the yearly fair, and the bookseller's, whither she
dragged her nurse on any excuse, that she might pore over its incalculable
treasures.
Above all, there was fixed in her memory
the strange aspect the town wore on one day--a Coronation-day--the grandest gala of her childhood. One king had died and been buried. Olive saw the black-hung pulpit and heard the funeral sermon, awfully thundered forth at night. Another king had been proclaimed, and Olive had gloried in the sight of the bonfires and the roasted sheep. Now, the people talked of a Coronation-day. Simple child! she knew nothing of the world's events or the world's destinies, save that she rose early to the sound of carolling bells, was dressed in a new white frock, and taken to see the town--the beautiful town, smiling with triumphal flower-arches, and winding processions. How she basked in the merry sunshine, and heard the shouts, and the band playing "God save the King," and felt very loyal, until her enthusiasm vented itself in tears.
Such was one of the few links between Olive's early life and the
world outside. Otherwise she dwelt, for those seven years of childhood, in
a little Eden of her own, whose
boundary was rarely crossed by the footsteps of either joy or pain. She was neither neglected nor ill-used, but she never knew that fullness of love, on which one looks back in after-life, saying deprecatingly, and yet sighing the while, "Ah, I was indeed a spoiled child!" Her little heart was not positively checked in its overflowings; but it had a world of secret tenderness that, being never claimed, expended itself in all sorts of wild fancies. She loved every flower of the field and every bird in the air. She also--having a passionate fondness for study and reading--loved her pet authors and their characters, with a curious individuality. Mrs. Hofland stood in the place of some good aunt, and Sandford and Merton were regarded just like real brothers.
She had no one to speak to about poetry; she did not know there was such
a thing in the world. Yet she was conscious of strange and delicious
sensations, when in the early days of spring she had at length conquered
Elspie's fears about wet feet and muddy
fields, and had gone with her nurse to take the first meadow ramble, she could not help bounding to pluck every daisy she saw; and when the violets came, and the primroses, she was out of her wits with joy. She had never even heard of Wordsworth; yet, as she listened to the first cuckoo note, she thought it no bird, but truly "a wandering voice." Of Shelley's glorious lyric ode she knew nothing; and yet she never heard the skylark's song without thinking it a spirit of the air, or one of the angels hymning at Heaven's gate. And many a time she looked up in the clouds at early morning, half expecting to see that gate open, and wondering whereabouts it was in the beautiful sky.
She had never heard of Art, yet there was something in the gorgeous
sunset that made her bosom thrill; and out of the cloud-ranges she tried to
form mountains such as there were in Scotland, and palaces of crystal such
as she read of in her fairy tales. No human being had ever told her of the
mysterious links that reach from the finite to
the Infinite, out of which, from the buried ashes of dead Superstition, great souls can evoke those two mighty spirits, Faith and Knowledge; yet she went to sleep every night believing that she felt, nay, could almost see, an angel standing at the foot of her little bed, watching her with holy eyes, guarding her with outspread wings.
O Childhood! beautiful dream of unconscious poetry; of purity so pure,
that it knew neither the existence of sin nor of its own innocence; of
happiness so complete, that the thought, "I am now happy," came
not to drive away the wayward sprite which never is, but
always is to come! Blessed Childhood! spent in peace and loneliness and
dreams! We would fain look back lovingly on our own, as Olive Rothesay may
yet look on hers--feeling that hidden therein, lay the germs of a
whole life.
weep. She even tried to make a few delicious sorrows for herself; and when a young girl--whose beautiful face she had watched in church--died, she felt pensive and mournful, and even took a pleasure in thinking that there was now one grave in the new churchyard which she would almost claim to weep over as her own.
Such were the strange tendencies of this child's mind--ever
toward the melancholy and the beautiful united. Quietly pensive as her
disposition was, she had no young companions to rouse her into mirth. But
there was a serenity even in her sadness; and no one could have looked in
her face without feeling that her nature was formed to suit her apparent
fate, and that if less fitted to enjoy, she was the more fitted for the
solemnity of that destiny, to endure.
She had lived twelve years without knowing sorrow, and it was time that
the first lesson, bitter, yet afterwards sweet, should be learned by the
child. The shaft came to her through Elspie's faithful bosom,
where she had rested all her life, and did rest now, with the unconscious security of childhood, which believes all it loves to be immortal. That Elspie should grow old, seemed a thing of doubtful future; that she should be ill or die, was a thing that never crossed the child's imagination.
And when at last, one year in the fall of the leaf, the hearty and
vigorous old woman sickened, and for two or three days did not quit her
room, still Olive, though grieving for the moment, never dreamed of any
serious affliction. She tended her nurse lovingly and cheerfully, made
herself quite a little woman for her sake, and really half enjoyed the
stillness of the sick-room. It was a gay time--the house was full of
visitors--and Elspie and her charge, always much left to one
another's society, were now alone in their nursery, night and day. No
one thought the nurse was ailing, except with the natural infirmity of old
age, and Elspie herself uttered no word of complaint. Once or twice, while
Olive was doing her utmost to enliven the sick-chamber, she saw her nurse
watch her with
eager love, and then sink into a grave reverie, from which it took more than one embrace to rouse her.
One night, or rather morning, Olive was roused by the sight of a white
figure standing at her bedside. She would have been startled, but that
Elspie, sleeping in the same room, had many a time come to look on her
darling, even in the middle of the night. She had apparently done so
now.
"Go to your bed again, dear nurse," anxiously cried Olive.
"You should not walk about. Nay, you are not worse?"
"Aye, aye, just a wee bit aur, maybe; but dinna fear, dearie,
we'll bide till the morn," said Elspie, faintly, as she tried to
move away, supporting herself by the bed. But soon she sank back dizzily.
"It's nae use, I canna gang. My sweet lassie, will ye help your
puir auld nurse."
Olive sprang up, and guided her back to her bed. When she reached it,
Elspie said, thoughtfully, "It's strange, unco' strange, my
strength is a' gane."
"Never mind, Elspie dear, you are weak with being ill; but you
will get better soon. Oh, yes, very soon!" answered the child, with
the eager certainty of desire.
"It's no that;" and Elspie took her child's hands
and looked wistfully in her face. "Olive, what suld ye say gin ye
were to tine your puir auld nurse, an' I were to gang far
awa'?"
"Go where?"
"Unto God," said Elspie, solemnly.--"Dearie, I
wadna grieve ye, but I'm aye sure this sickness is unto
death."
It was strange that Olive did not begin to weep, as many a child would
have done; but though a cold trembling crept through her young frame at
these words, she remained quite calm. For Elspie must be kept calm
likewise, and how could she be so if her child were seen to suffer. Olive
remembered this, and showed no sign of grief or alarm. Besides, she could
not--would not believe a thing so fearful as Elspie's death. It
was impossible.
"You must not think thus--you must
think of nothing but getting well. Lie down and go to sleep," she said, in a tone of almost womanly firmness, which Elspie obeyed mechanically. Then she would have roused the household, but the nurse forbade. By her desire Olive again sought her pillow.
It had always been her custom to creep to Elspie's bed as soon as
she awoke, but now she did so long before daylight, in answer to a faint
summons.
"I want ye, my bairn. Ye'll come to your auld nurse's
arms--maybe they'll no haud ye lang," murmured Elspie. She
clasped the child once, with an almost passionate tenderness, and then,
turning away, dropped heavily asleep.
But Olive did not sleep. She lay until broad daylight, counting hour by
hour, and thinking thoughts deep and strange in a child of her
years--thoughts of death and eternity. She did not believe
EIlspie's words; but if they should be true--if her nurse should
die--if this should be the last time she would ever creep to her
living bosom!
And then there came across the child's mind awful thoughts of death
and of the grave. She struggled with them, but they clung with fearful
tenacity to her fancy. All she had heard or read of mortality, of the
coffin and the mould, came back with a vivid horror. She
thought,--what if in a few weeks, a few days, the hand she held should
be cold, lifeless; the form, whose faint breathings she listened to, should
breathe no more, but be carried from her sight, and shut up in a
grave--under a stone? And then where would be Elspie--the tender,
the faithful--who seemed to live but in loving her? Olive had been
told that when people died, it was their bodies only that lay in the grave,
and their souls went up to heaven to be with God. But all her childish
reasoning could not dissever the two.
It was a marvel, that, loving Elspie as she did, such thoughts should
come at all--that her mind was not utterly numbed with grief and
terror. But Olive was a strange child,
there were in her little spirit depths of which no one dreamed.
Hour after hour she lay in these ponderings, so horrible, yet fraught
with such a strange fascination, and starting with a shudder every time
they were broken by the striking of the clock below. How awful a clock
sounds in the night-time, and to such a watcher--a mere child too!
Olive longed for morning, and yet when the dusk of daybreak came, the very
curtains took ghastly shapes, and her own white dress, hanging behind the
door, looked like a shroud, within which--. She shuddered--and
yet, all the while, she could not help eagerly conjecturing what the
visible form of death would be.
Utterly unable to endure her own thoughts, she tried to rouse her nurse.
And then Elspie started up in bed, seized her with burning hands, and asked
her who she was, and what she had done with little Olive.
"I am little Olive--indeed, I am," cried the terrified
child.
"Are ye sure? Aweel then, dearie, dinna greet," murmured
poor Elspie, striving vainly against the delirium that she felt fast coming
on, "My bairn, is it near morn? Oh, for a wee drappie o' milk or
tea."
"Shall I go and call the maids. But that dark, dark
passage--I dare not," cried Olive, whose wild imagination often
exposed her to the terrors of a superstition far beyond mere childish fear
of darkness.
"It's no matter, bide ye till the daylight," said
Elspie, as she sank again into heavy sleep.
But the child could not rest. Was it not cruel to let her poor nurse lie
suffering burning thirst, rather than encounter a few vague terrors? and if
Elspie should have a long illness, should die--what then would the
remembrance be? Without another thought the child crept out of bed and
groped her way to the door.
It is easy to laugh at children's fancies about
"ghosts" and "bogie," but Dante's terrors in
the haunted wood were not greater
or more real than poor little Olive's, when she stood at the entrance of the long gallery, dimly peopled with the fantastic shadows of dawn. None but those who remember the fearful imaginings of their childhood, can comprehend the self-martyrdom, the heroic daring, which dwelt in that little trembling bosom, as Olive groped across the gloom.
Half-way through, she touched the cold handle of a door, and could
scarce repress a scream. Her fears took to positive shape, but she felt
surrounding her Things before and Things behind. No human courage could
give her strength to resist such terrors. She paused, closed her eyes, and
said the Lord's Prayer all through. But "Deliver us from
evil," she repeated many times, feeling each time stronger and
bolder. Then first there entered into her heart that mighty faith
"which can remove mountains;" that fervent boldness of prayer
with the very utterance of which an answer comes. And who dare say that the
Angel of that child, "always behold-
ing the face of the Father in Heaven," did not stand beside her then, and teach her in faint shadowings the mysteries of her life to come.
Olive's awe-struck fancy became a truth--she never crept to
her nurse's bosom more. By noon that day, Elspie lay in the deathly
torpor which marks the last stage of rapid inflammation. She did not even
notice the child, who crept in and out of the thronged room, speaking to no
one, neither weeping nor trembling, but struck with a strange awe, that
made her countenance and mien almost unearthly in their quietness.
"Take her away to her parents," whispered the physician. But
her mother had left home the day before, and Captain Rothesay had been
absent a week. There were only servants in the house, and they looked at
her often, said, "Poor child!" and left her to go where she
would. Olive followed the physician downstairs.
"Will she die?"
He started at the touch of the soft hand--
soft but cold, always cold. He looked at the little creature, whose face wore such an unchildlike expression. He never thought to pat her head, or treat her like a girl of twelve years old, but said gravely, as though he were speaking to a grown woman:
"I have done my best, but it is too late. In three hours, or
perhaps four, all will be over." He quitted the room, and Olive heard
the rattle of his carriage-wheels. They died away down the gravel road, and
all was silent. Silent, except the twitter of a few birds, heard through
the stillness of a July evening. Olive stood at the window and mechanically
looked out. It was so beautiful, so calm. At the west, the clouds were
stretched out in pale folds of rose colour and grey. On the lawn slept the
long shadows of the trees, for behind them was rising the round, red moon.
And yet, within the house was--death.
She tried to realize the truth. She said to herself, time after time,
"Elspie will die!" But even yet she could not believe it. How
could the little birds sing and the sunset shine, when Elspie was dying. At last the light faded, and then she believed it all. Night and death seemed to come upon the world together.
Suddenly she remembered the physician's words. "Three
hours--four hours." Was that all? And Elspie had not spoken to
her since the moment when she cried and was afraid to rise in the dark.
Elspie was going away, for ever, without one kiss, one goodbye.
Weeping passionately, Olive flew back to the chamber, where several
women stood round the bed. There lay the poor aged form, in a torpor which,
save for the purple face and the loud, heavy breathing, had all the
unconsciousness of death. Was that Elspie? The child saw, and her tears
were frozen. The maids would have drawn her away.
"No--no," Olive said, in a frightened whisper;
"let me look at her--let me touch her hand."
It lay outside the bedclothes, helpless and rigid, the fingers falling
together, as they always do in the hour of parting life. Olive touched
them. They were cold--so cold! Then she knew what was death. The maids
carried her fainting from the room, and she entered it no more.
Mrs. Rothesay had returned, and frightened and grieved, now wept with
all a woman's softness over the death-bed of the faithful old nurse.
She took her little daughter to her own sitting-room, laid her on the sofa,
and watched by her very tenderly. Olive, exhausted and half insensible,
heard, as in a dream, her mother whispering to the maid:
"Come and tell me, when there is any
change."
Any change. What change? That from life to death--from
earth to Heaven! And would it take place at once? Could they tell the
instant when Elspie's soul departed, "to be beyond the
sun?"
Such and so strange were the thoughts that floated through the mind of
this child of twelve
years old. And from these precocious yearnings after the infinite, Olive's fancy turned to earthly, childish things. She pictured with curious minuteness how she would feel when she awoke next morning, and found that Elspie was dead;--how there would be a funeral; how strange the house would seem afterwards; even, what would be done with the black bonnet and shawl which two days since Elspie had hung up against the nursery-door, never to put on again.
And then a long silent agony of weeping came upon the child. Her mother,
thinking she slept, sat quietly by; but in any case, Olive would never have
thought of going to her for consolation. Young as she was, Olive knew that
her sorrow must be borne alone, for none could understand it. Until we feel
that we are alone on earth, how rarely do we feel that we are
not alone in heaven. For the second time this day, the child
thought of God. Not merely as of Him to whom she offered her daily prayers,
and those repeated after the clergyman in church on Sunday, but
as One to whom, saying "Our Father," she could ask for anything she desired.
And she did so, lying on the sofa, not even turning to kneel down, using
her own simple words. She prayed that God would comfort her when Elspie
died, and teach her not to grieve, but to be a good patient child, so that
she might one day go to her dear nurse in heaven, and never be parted from
her any more.
She heard the maid come in and whisper to her mamma. Then she knew that
all was over--that Elspie was dead. But so deep was the peace which
had fallen on her heart that the news gave no pang--caused no
tears.
"Olive, dearest," said Mrs. Rothesay, herself subdued into
weeping.
"I know all, mamma," was the answer. "Now I have no
one to love me but you."
The feeling was strange, perhaps even wrong; but as Mrs. Rothesay
clasped her child, it was not without a thrill of freedom and exultation
that Olive was all her own now.
"Where shall Miss Rothesay sleep tonight," was the whispered
question of the maid. Olive burst into tears.
"She shall sleep with me. Darling, do not cry for your poor nurse;
will not mamma do instead?"
And looking up, Olive saw, as though she had never seen it before, the
face which, now shining with maternal love, seemed beautiful as an
angel's. It became to her like an angel's evermore.
How often, in our human fate, does the very Hand that taketh, give!
But the child knew none of these, and therefore she crept, awe-struck,
about the silent house, and, when night fell, dared not even to pass near
the chamber--once her own
and Elspie's--now Death's. She saw the other members of the household enter with solemn faces through the perpetually-locked door. What must there be within? Something on which she dared not think, and which nothing could induce her to behold. At times she forgot her sorrow; and, still keeping close to her mother's side, amused herself with her usual childish games, piecing disjointed maps, or drawing on a slate; but all was done with a quietness, sadder than even tears.
The evening before the funeral, Mrs. Rothesay went to look for the last
time on the remains of her faithful old servant. She tried to persuade
little Olive to go with her; the child accompanied her to the door, and
then weeping violently, fled back and hid herself in another chamber. From
thence she heard her mother come away--also weeping, for the feeble
nature of Sybilla Rothesay had lost none of its tender-hearted softness.
Olive listened to the footsteps gliding downstairs, and there was silence.
Then the passionate
affection which she had felt for her old nurse rose up, driving away all childish fear, and strengthening her into a resolution which until then she had not dared to form. Tomorrow they would take away Elspie--for ever. On earth she would never again see the face which had been so beloved. Could she let Elspie go without one look, only one? She would enter the awful room now, and alone.
No tongue can tell the intensity of love that must have been in that
young child's heart to nerve her thus!
It was about seven in the evening, still daylight, though in the
darkened house dimmer than without. Olive drew the blind aside, took one
long gaze into the cheerful sunset landscape to strengthen and calm her
mind, and then walked with a firm step to the chamber-door. It was not
locked this time, but closed ajar. The child looked in, a little way only.
There stood the well-remembered furniture, the room seemed the same, only
pervaded with an atmosphere of
silent, solemn repose. There would surely be no terror there.
Olive stole in, hearing in the stillness every beating of her heart. She
stood by the bed. It was covered, not with its usual starry counterpane,
the work of Elspie's diligent hand through many a long year, and on
which her own baby-fingers had been first taught to sew--but with a
large white sheet. She stood, scarce knowing whether to fly or not, until
she heard a footstep on the stairs. One minute, and it would be too late.
With a resolute hand she lifted the sheet, and saw the white fixed
countenance, not of sleep, but death.
With a shriek so wild and piercing that it rang through the house, Olive
sprang to the door, fled through the passage, at the end of which she sank
in convulsions.
That night the child was taken from the house, and never entered it
until some weeks after, when the grass was already springing on poor
Elspie's grave.
It is nature's blessed ordinance, that in the mind of childhood the
remembrance of fear or sorrow fades so fast. Therefore, when Olive came
back to Merivale, and saw the house now smiling within and without amidst
the beauty of early autumn,--the horrors of death passed from her
mind, or were softened into a tender memory. Perhaps, in the end, it was
well for her that she had looked on that poor dead face, to be certain that
it was not Elspie. She never thought of Elspie in that awful chamber any
more. She thought of her as in life, standing knitting by the
nursery-window, walking slowly and sedately along the green lanes, carrying
the basket of flowers and roots, collected in their rambles, or sitting in
calm Sunday afternoons with her Bible on her knee.
And then passing from the memory of Elspie once on earth, Olive thought
of Elspie now in heaven. Her glowing imagination idealised all sorrow into
poesy. She never watched the sunset, she never looked up into
the starry sky at night, without picturing Elspie as there. All the foibles and peculiarities of her poor old Scottish nurse became transmuted into the image of a guardian invisible, incorporeal; which seemed to draw her own spirit nearer to heaven, with the thought that there was one she loved, and who loved her, in the glorious mansions there.
So do pure hearts ever feel when the first beloved goes; and oh, how
ought we to feel when we have many beloveds passed thither, each following
the other's holy footsteps, and heralding ours to the one home!
From the time of her nurse's death, the whole current of
Olive's life changed. It cast no shadow over the memory of the deep
affection lost, to say that the full tide of living love now flowed towards
Mrs. Rothesay as it had never done before, perhaps never would have done
but for Elspie's death. And truly the mother's heart now thirsted
for that flood.
For seven years the little cloud which appeared when Captain Rothesay
returned, had risen up between husband and wife,
in-
creasing slowly but surely, and casting a shadow over their married home. Like many another pair who wed in the heat of passion, or the wilful caprice of youth, their natures, never very similar, had grown less so, day by day, until in mature age their two lives, instead of flowing onward in one bright loving current, had severed wider and wider. There was no open dissension that the wicked world could take hold of, to glut its eager eyes with the spectacle of an unhappy marriage; but the chasm was there, a gulf of coldness, indifference and distrust, which no foot of love would ever cross.
Angus Rothesay was a disappointed man. At five-and-twenty he had taken a
beautiful, playful, half-educated child
forgetting that at thirty-five he should need a sensible woman to be his trust-worthy sympathising wife, the careful and thoughtful mistress of his household. When hard experience had made him old and wise, even a little
His bride and his darling to be,
before his time, he came home expecting to find her old and wise too. The hope failed. He found Sybilla as he had left her--a very child. Ductile and loving as she was, he might even then have guided her mind, have formed her character, in fact, have made her anything he liked. But he would not do it; he was too proud. He brooded over his disappointed hope in silence and reserve; and though he reproached her not, and never ceased to love her in his own cold way, yet the respect, the sympathy were gone. Her ways were not his ways, and was it the place of a man and a husband to bend? After a few years of struggling, less with her than with himself, he decided that he would take his own separate course, and let her take hers.
He did so. At first she tried to win him back, not with a woman's
sweet and placid dignity of love, never-failing, never-tiring, yet
invisible as a rivulet that runs through deep green bushes, scarcely heard
and never seen. Sybilla's arts--the only arts she knew, were the
whole armoury of girlish coquetry,
or childish wile, passionate tenderness and angry or sullen reproach, alternating each other. Her husband was equally unmoved by all. He seemed a very rock, indifferent to either sunshine or storm. And yet it was not so. He had in his nature deep, earnest, abiding tenderness; but he was one of those people who must be loved only in their own quiet, silent way. A hard lesson for one whose every feeling was less a principle than an impulse, Sybilla could not learn it. And thus the happiness of two lives were blighted, not from evil, or even lack of worth in either, but because they did not understand one another. Their current of existence flowed on coldly and evenly, in two parallel lines, which would never, never meet!
The world beheld Captain Rothesay in two phases--one as the grave,
somewhat haughty but respected master of Merivale Hall; the other as the
rash and daring speculator, who was continually doubling and trebling his
fortune by all the thousand ways of legal gambling in which men of capital
and mer-
chandise can indulge. There was in this kind of life an interest and excitement. Captain Rothesay sprang to it as many another man would have sprung to far less sinless means of atoning for the dreary blank of home.
In Mrs. Rothesay the world only saw one of its fairest
adornments--one of those "charming women" who make society
so agreeable; beautiful, kind-hearted--at least as much so as her
thoughtless life allowed; lively, fond of amusement--perhaps a little
in the extreme, for it caused people to note the contrast between the
master and the mistress of the Hall, and to say what no wife should ever
give the world reason to say. "Poor thing! I wonder if she is happy
with her husband?"
But between these two stood the yet scarce recognised tie which bound
them together--the little deformed child.
"My dear?"
Reader, did you ever notice the intense frigidity that can be expressed
in a "my dear!" The coldest, cruellest husband we ever knew
once impressed this fact on our childish fancy, by our always hearing him
call his wife thus--poor, pale, broken-hearted creature! He
"my-deared" her into her grave.
Captain Rothesay also used the epithet with that formality which was
chilling enough in its way. He said it without lifting his eyes from the
book, "Smith's Wealth of Nations," which had become his
usual evening's study now, whenever he was at home. That
cir-
cumstance, rare enough to have been welcome, and yet it was not welcome, now subdued his wife and daughter into silence and quietness. Alas! that ever a presence which ought to be the sunshine of a household should enter only to cast a perpetual shade.
The firelight shone on the same trio which had formed the little
after-dinner circle years ago at Stirling. But there was a change in all.
The father and mother sat--not side by side, in that propinquity which
is so sweet, when every breath, every touch of the beloved's garment
gives pleasure; they sat one at each corner of the table, engrossed in
their several occupations of reading with an uncommunicative eagerness, and
sewing in unbroken silence. Each was placed within a chilling circle of
thoughts and interests in which the other never entered. And now the only
point of meeting between them was the once-banished child.
Little Olive was growing almost a woman now, but she was called
"little Olive" still. She retained her diminutive stature,
together
with her girlish dress, but her face wore, as ever, its look of premature age. And as she sat between her father and mother, now helping the one in her delicate fancy-work, now arranging the lamp for the other's reading, continually in request by both, or when left quiet for a minute, watching both with anxious earnestness, there was quite enough in Olive's manner to show that she had entered on a woman's life of care, and had not learned a woman's wisdom one day too soon.
The captain's last "my dear" found his wife in the
intricacies of a Berlin wool pattern, so that she did not speak again for
several minutes, when she again appealed to "Captain Rothesay."
She rarely called him anything else now. Alas! the time of
"Angus" and "Sybilla" was gone.
"Well, my dear, what have you to say?"
"I wish you would not be always reading, it makes the evening so
dull."
"Does it?" and he turned over another leaf of Adam Smith,
and leisurely settled himself for its perusal.
"Papa is tired, and may like to be quiet. Suppose we talk to one
another, mamma?" whispered Olive, as she put aside her own
work--idle, but graceful designings with pencil and paper--and,
drawing near to her mother, began to converse in a low tone. She discussed
all questions as to whether the rose should be red or white, and what
coloured wool would form the striped tulip, just as though they had been
the most interesting topics in the world. Only once her eyes wandered
wistfully to the deserted "Sabrina," which, half sketched, lay
within the leaves of her "Comus." Mrs. Rothesay observed this,
and said, kindly--
"Let me look at what you are doing, love. Ah!--very pretty!
What is it, Sabrina? Tell me all about her." And she listened, with a
pleased, maternal smile, while her gratified little daughter dilated on the
beloved "Comus," and read a passage or two in illustration.
"Very pretty, my love," again repeated Mrs. Rothesay, stroking
Olive's hair. "Ah! you are a clever child.
But now come and tell me what sort of winter dresses you think we should have."
If any observer could have seen a shade of disappointment on
Olive's face, he would also have seen it instantly suppressed. The
young girl closed "Comus" with the drawing inside, and came to
sit down again, looking up into the eyes of her "beautiful
mamma." And even the commonplace question of dress soon became
interesting to her, for her artistic predilection followed her even there,
and no lover ever gloried in his mistress's charms, no painter ever
delighted to deck his model, more than Olive loved to adorn and to admire
the still exquisite beauty of her mother. It stood to her in the place of
all attractions in herself--in fact, she rarely thought about herself
at all. The consciousness of her personal defect had worn off through
habit, and her almost total seclusion from strangers prevented its being
painfully forced on her mind.
"I wish we could leave off this mourning," said Mrs.
Rothesay. "It is quite time,
seeing Sir Andrew Rothesay has been dead six months. And, living or dying, he did not show kindness enough to make one remember him longer."
"Yet he was kind to papa, when a child; and so was Auntie
Flora," softly said Olive, to whose enthusiastic memory there ever
clung Elspie's tales about the Perthshire relatives--bachelor
brother and maiden sister, living together in their lonely, gloomy home.
But she rarely talked about them; and now, seeing her mamma look troubled,
as she always did at any reference to Scotland and the old times, the
little maiden ceased at once. Mrs. Rothesay was soon again safely and
contentedly plunged into the mysteries of winter costume.
"Yours must be handsomer and more womanly now, Olive; for I intend
to take you out with me now and then. You are quite old enough; and I am
tired of visiting alone. I intended to speak to your papa about it
to-night; but he seems not in good-humour."
"Only tired with his journey," put in the sweet little
mediator. "Is it not so, papa?"
Captain Rothesay started from a dull, anxious reverie, into which his
reading had merged, and lifted his face, knitted and darkened with some
inward care, heavy enough to make his tone sharp and angry, as he said,
"Well, child, what do you want?"
"Do not scold Olive; it was I who wished to speak to you."
And then, without pausing to consider how evidently ill-timed the
conversation was, Mrs. Rothesay began to talk eagerly about Olive's
"coming out," and whether it should be at home or abroad;
finally arguing that a ball at Merivale would be best, and entering at
large on the question of ball-costume. There was nothing wrong in anything
she said, but she said it at the wrong time. Her husband listened first
with indifference, then fidgeted restlessly in his chair, and at last
subsided into an angry silence.
"Why don't you speak, Captain Rothesay?" He took up the
poker and ham-
mered the fire to small cinders. "Of course, you will be reasonable. Say, shall it be as I have arranged?"
"No!" The word came thundering out--as Captain Rothesay
rarely thundered; for he was calm and dignified even in his wrath.
Immediately afterwards he rose up and left the room.
Sybilla grew pale, sorrowful, and then melted into tears. She tried not
to let Olive see them. She was still too faithful a wife to seek in any way
to turn the child against her father. But yet she wept; and drawing her
young daughter closer to her arms, she felt the sweetness of having a
child--and such a child--left to love her. In proportion as the
wife's heart closed, the mother's opened.
Ere long, Captain Rothesay sent for little Olive, to read the evening
newspaper to him in his study.
"Go, love," said Mrs. Rothesay; and she went. Without fear,
too; for her father never said a harsh word to her. And as,
each year of her life, the sterling truth and stern uprightness of his character dawned upon her, she could not fail to respect him, even while she worshipped her sweet-tempered, gentle mother.
Captain Rothesay made no remark, save upon the subject she was reading,
and came in with Olive to tea, just as usual. But when he had finished, and
was fast sinking back into that painful reverie which seemed to oppress
him, his weak, ill-judging wife recommenced her attack. She talked gently
when speaking of Olive, even affectionately--poor soul! She persuaded
herself, all the time, that she was doing right, and that he was a
hard-hearted father not to listen to her. He did listen, apparently; and
she took his silence for consent, for she ended with--
"Well, then, it is quite settled; the ball shall be at Merivale,
on the 20th of next month?"
Angus turned round, his blue eyes glittering, yet cold as
steel--"Mrs. Rothesay, if you will worm the truth out of me, you
shall.
By next month you may not have a roof over your head."
He rose up and again quitted the room. Mrs. Rothesay trembled--grew
terrified--but tried to reassure herself. "He only says this in
anger, or else to frighten me. I will not believe it." Then
conscience whispered, that never in her whole life had she known Angus
Rothesay to tell a falsehood; and she trembled more and more. Finally, she
passed into a violent fit of nervous weeping--a circumstance by no
means rare. Her health was weakened by the exciting gaieties of her outward
life, and the inward sorrow which preyed upon her heart.
This night--and not for the first time either--the little
maiden of fifteen might have been seen, acting with the energy and
self-possession of a woman--soothing her mother's hysterical
sufferings--smoothing her pillow, and finally watching by her until
she fell asleep. Then Olive crept downstairs, and knocked at her
father's study-door. He said, "Come in," in a dull,
subdued tone.
She entered, and saw him sitting, his head on his hand, jaded and exhausted, leaning over the last embers of the fire, which had gone out without his noticing it. If there had been any anger in the child's heart, it must have vanished at once, when she looked upon her father thus.
"Oh! is that you, Olive?" was all he said, beginning to turn
over his papers, as if to make a show of occupation. But he soon relapsed
into that unknown thought which oppressed him so much. It was some minutes
before he completely roused himself, and saw the little elfin-like figure
standing beside him, silent and immoveable, with the taper in her hand.
"Shall I bring your candle, dear papa? It is eleven o'clock
and more."
"Where is your mother, Olive?"
"She is gone to bed;" and Olive paused, uncertain whether
she should tell him that her mamma was ill. Again there was a
silence--during which, do what he would, Captain Rothesay could not
keep his eyes
from the earnest, wistful, entreating gaze of his "little Olive." At last, he lifted her on his knee, and took her face between his two hands, saying, in a smothered tone,
"You are not like your mother; you are like
mine--aye, and seem more so as you grow to be a
woman.
"I wish I were a woman, that papa might talk to me and tell me
anything which he has on his mind," whispered Olive, scarcely daring
to breathe that which she had nerved herself to say, during many minutes of
silent pondering at the study-door.
Captain Rothesay relapsed hastily into his cold manner. "Child,
how do you know?"
"I know nothing, and want to know nothing, that papa does not wish
to tell me," answered Olive, gently.
The father turned round again, and looked into his daughter's eyes.
Perhaps he read there a spirit equal to, and not unlike, his own--a
nature calm, resolute, clear-sighted; the strong will and decision of a
man, united to the tenderness of a woman. From that
hour father and daughter understood one another.
"Olive, how old are you?--I forget."
"Fifteen, dear papa."
"Ah! and you are a thoughtful girl. I can talk to you as to a
woman--pah! I mean, a sensible woman. Put out your candle; you can sit
up a while longer."
She obeyed, and sat with him for two whole hours in his study, while he
explained to her how sudden reverses had so damaged his fortune, that it
was necessary to have a far smaller establishment than Merivale Hall.
"Not that we need fear poverty, my dear child; but the future must
be considered and provided for. Your mother's jointure, should I
die--nay, do not look sad, we will not talk of that--and then,
too, your own portion, when you marry."
Olive blushed, as any girl of fifteen will do, when talked to on such a
topic, even in the most business-like way. "I shall not marry,
papa," said she, expressing the thought which had come to her, as it
does
to most young girls who love their parents very dearly, too dearly to imagine a parting.
Captain Rothesay started, as if suddenly recollecting himself. Then he
regarded her earnestly, mournfully; and in the look was something which
struck on Olive's memory as though she had seen it before.
"I had forgotten," muttered Captain Rothesay to himself.
"Of course, she will never marry. Poor child!--poor
child!"
He kissed her very tenderly, then lighted his candle, and went upstairs
to bed, holding her hand all the way, until they parted at her room-door,
when he kissed her a second time. As he did so, she contrived to
whisper--
"Mamma is sure to wake; she always does when you come in. Kiss
mamma, too."
Olive went to bed, happier than she could have believed possible, had
any one told her in the morning that ere night she would hear the ill news
of having to leave beautiful Merivale. But it was so sweet to feel herself
a comfort to both parents--they who,
alas! would receive no comfort from each other.
Only, just when she was falling asleep, the thought floated across
Olive's mind--
"I wonder why papa said that of course I should never
marry!"
Thus said Olive when they had been established some time in their new
abode, and sat together, one winter evening, listening to the sweet bells
of Oldchurch--one of the few English parishes where lingers "the
curfew's solemn sound."
"A pretty house, if any one came to see us in it, my dear; but
nobody does. And then we miss the close carriage so much. To think that I
have been obliged to refuse the Stantons' ball, and the dinner-party
at Everingham. How dull these long winter evenings will be,
Olive!"
Olive answered neither yes nor no; but tried
quietly, by her actions, to disprove the fact. She was but a
child--scarcely would have been called a clever child; was neither
talkative nor musical; and yet she had a thousand winning ways of killing
time, so sweetly that each minute died, dolphin-like, shedding glorious
hues.
A very romantic simile this--one that would never have crossed
Olive's innocent brain. She only knew that she loved her mother; and
therefore tried to amuse and make her happy, so that she might not feel the
change of circumstances--a change so unimportant to Olive, so vital to
Mrs. Rothesay.
Olive, this night, was peculiarly successful in her little
ruse of love. Her mother listened while she
explained a whole sketchbook of designs, illustrative of half-a-dozen
modern poets. Mrs. Rothesay even asked her to read some of the said poets
aloud; and though not of an imaginative temperament, was fain to shed a few
womanly tears over Tennysons delicious
home-lyrics, especially "The Queen of the May," and "The Miller's Daughter." Finally, she was coaxed into sitting to her daughter for her portrait, which Olive thought would make a design exactly suited to the heroine of the latter poem, and chiefly at the verse--
"Look through mine eyes with thine. True wife,
Round my true heart thine arms entwine;
My other dearer life in life,
Look through my very soul with thine."
"No, no, my dear, it amuses me, and I can talk with you the
while."
But Mrs. Rothesay did not talk much; she was continually falling into a
reverie. Once she broke it, with the words--
"Olive, my child, I think, now we lead a quieter life, your papa
will stay at home more. He seems to like this house, too--he never
liked Merivale."
"Dear old Merivale!" said Olive, with a sigh. It seemed ages
since she had left the familiar place.
"Do not call it dear. It was a dreary home. I did not
think so at first, but I did afterwards."
"Why, mamma?" asked Olive. She was glad to lure her mother
on to talk a little, if only to dispel the shadow which so ill became Mrs.
Rothesay's still fair face.
"You were too young to know anything then--indeed you are
now, almost. But somehow, I have learned to talk with you as if you were
quite a little woman, Olive, my dear."
"Thank you, mamma. And what made you dislike sweet
Merivale?"
"It was when your papa first began to take his long
journeys--on business, you know. He was obliged to do it, I suppose;
but, nevertheless, it was very dull for me. I never had such a dreary
summer as that one. You could not remember it, though--you were only
ten years old."
Olive did remember it faintly, nevertheless--a time when her
father's face was sterner, and her mother's more fretful, than
now; when the shadow of many domestic storms passed over the pure spirit of
their unconscious child. But she never spoke of these things; and, lest her
mother should ponder painfully on them now, she began to talk of lighter
matters. Yet though the sweet companionship of her only daughter was balm
to Mrs. Rothesay's heart, still there was a pain there which even
Olive could not remove. Was it that the mother's love had sprung from
the ruins of the wife's happiness; and that while smiling gaily with
her child, Sybilla, Rothesay's thoughts were with the husband who,
year by year, was growing more estranged, and whom, as she found out too
late, by a little more wisdom, patience, and womanly sympathy, she might
perhaps have kept for ever at her side?
But none of these mysteries came to the knowledge of little Olive. She
lived the dream-life of early girlhood--dwelling in an atmosphere
still and pure as a grey spring morning, ere the sun has risen. All she
learnt was from books; for though she had occasional teachers, she had
never been sent to school. Sometimes she regretted this, thinking how
pleasant it would be to have companions, or at least one friend of her own
age, to whom she might talk on the various subjects of which she had of
late begun to dream. These never passed the still sanctuary of her own
thoughts; for some instinct told her that her mother would scarce
sympathise with her wild imaginations in Art and Poetry. So she thought of
them always by herself, when she was strolling about the small but pleasant
garden that sloped down from the back of the house to the river; or when,
extending her peregrinations, she went to sit in the
summer-house of the garden adjoining, which belonged to a large mansion close by, long uninhabited. It was quite a punishment to Olive when a family came to live there, and she lost the use of the beautiful, deserted garden.
Still, it was something new to have neighbours. She felt quite a
curiosity respecting them, which was not diminished when, looking out one
day from the stair-case window (a favourite seat, from which every night
she watched the sun set), Olive caught a sight of the new occupants of her
former haunts.
They were two little boys of about nine or ten, playing noisily
enough--as boys will. Olive did not notice them much, except the
youngest, who appeared much the quieter and gentler of the two; but her
gaze rested a long time on a girl, who seemed to be their elder sister. She
was walking by herself up
and down an alley, with a shawl thrown over her head, and her thick, black hair blown about by the March winds. Olive thought she looked very picturesque--in fact, just like some of her own fantastic designs of "Norna on the Fitful Head," "Medora watching for Conrad," &c. &c. And when the young stranger drew nearer, her admiration was still further excited, by perceiving under the shawl a face that needed but a little romantic imagination to make it positively beautiful. Olive thought so, and accordingly sat the whole evening drawing it from memory, under various characters, from Scott, Byron, Moore, and Coleridge.
For several days after, she took a deep interest in watching the
family-party, and chiefly this young girl--partly because she was so
pretty, and partly because she seemed nearly about her own age, or perhaps
a year or two older. Olive often contrived to walk
in her garden when her neighbours were in theirs--so that she could hear the boys' cheerful voices over the high hedge. By this means she learnt their Christian names, Robert, and Lyle--the latter of which she admired very much, and thought it exactly suited the pretty, delicate younger brother. She wished much to find out that of their sister--but could not; for the elder girl took little notice of them, or they of her. So Olive, after thinking and talking of her for some time, as "my beauty next door," to Mrs. Rothesay's great amusement, at last christened her by the imaginary name of Maddalena.
After a few weeks, it seemed as though the interest between the young
neighbours became mutual--for Olive, in her walks, sometimes fancied
she saw faces watching her, too, from the staircase window.
And once, peering over the wall, she perceived the mischievous eyes and
pointed finger of the elder
boy, and heard the younger one say, reproachfully--
"Don't--pray! You are very cruel, Bob."
And Olive, deeply blushing--though at what she scarcely
knew--fled into the house, and did not take her usual garden walks for
some days.
At last, when, one lovely spring evening, she stood leaning over the low
wall at the garden's end, idly watching the river flow by beneath, she
turned round, and saw fixed on her, with a curiosity not unmingled with
interest, the dark eyes of "Maddalena." Somehow or other, the
two girls smiled--and then the elder spoke.
"The evening was very fine," she said; "and it was
rather dull, walking in the garden all alone."
Olive had never found it so; but she was used to it. Her young neighbour
was not; she had always lived in a large town, &c. &c.
A few more simple nothings spun out the
conversation for ten minutes. The next day it was resumed, and extended to twenty; during which Olive learnt that her young beauty's name, so far from being anything so fine as Maddalena, was plain Sarah--or Sara, as its owner took care to explain. Olive was rather disappointed--but she thought of Coleridge's ladye love; consoled herself, and tried to console the young lady, with repeating
At which Miss Sara Derwent laughed, and asked who wrote that very pretty poetry?
My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined, &c.
Olive was a little confounded. She fancied everybody read Coleridge, and
her companion sank just one degree in her estimation. But as soon as she
looked again on the charming face, with its large, languishing Asiatic
eyes, and delicate mouth--just like that of the lotus-leaved
"Clytie," which she loved so much,--Olive felt all her
interest revive.
Never was there any girl over whom every form of beauty exercised more fascination. By the week's end she was positively enchanted with her neighbour, and before a month had passed the two young girls had struck up that romantic friendship peculiar to sixteen.
There is a deep beauty--more so than the world will
acknowledge--in this impassioned first friendship, most resembling
first love, whose faint shadowing it truly is. Who does not, even while
smiling at its apparent folly, remember the sweetness of such a dream? Many
a mother with her children at her knee, may now and then call to mind some
old playmate, for whom, when they were girls together, she felt such an
intense love. How they used to pine for the daily greeting--the long
walk, fraught with all sorts of innocent secrets. Or, in absence, the
almost interminable letters--positive love-
letters, full of "dearest"s and "beloved"s, and sealing-wax kisses. Then the delicious meetings--sad partings, also quite lover-like in the multiplicity of tears and embraces--embraces sweeter than those of all the world beside--and tears, but our own are gathering while we write--Ah!
We also have been in Arcadia.
Gracious reader! grave, staid mother of a family!--you are not
quite right if you jest at the days of old, and at such feelings as these.
They were real at the time--and most pure, true, and beautiful. What
matter, if years, sweeping on, have swept them all away, or merged them
into higher duties and closer ties? Perhaps, if you met your beautiful idol
of fifteen, you would see a starched old maid of fifty, or a grandame
presiding over the third generation; or, perchance, in seeking thus, you
would find only a green
hillock, or a stone inscribed with the well-known name. But what of that? To you the girlish image is still the same--it never can grow old, or change, or die. Think of it thus; and then you will think, not mockingly, but with an interest almost mournful, on the rapturous dream of first friendship which now came to visit Olive Rothesay.
Sara Derwent was the sort of girl of whom we meet some hundreds in a
life-time--the class from whence are taken the lauded "mothers,
wives, and daughters of England." She was sincere, good-tempered,
affectionate; not over-clever, being more gifted with heart than brains;
rather vain, which fault her extreme prettiness half excused; always
anxious to do right, yet, from a want of decision of character, often
contriving to do wrong.
But she completely charmed the simple Olive with her beauty, her
sparkling, winning cheerfulness, and her ready sympathy. So
they became the most devoted friends. Not a day passed without their spending some portion of it together--Olive teaching the young Londoner the pleasures of the country; and Sara, in her turn, inducting the wondering Olive into all the deligtful mysteries of life, as learnt in a large home circle, and a still larger circle of society. Olive, not taking aught from the passionate love with which she looked up to her mother, yet opened her warm heart to the sweetness of this affection--so fresh, so sudden, so full of sympathetic contact. It was like a new revelation in her girlhood--the satisfying of a thirst, just beginning to be felt. She thought of Sara continually; delighted in being with her; in admiring her beauty, and making interests out of every interest of hers. And to think that her friend loved her in return, brought a sensation of deep happiness, not unmixed with gratitude.
Sara's own feelings may be explained by one sentence of a letter
which she wrote to an old school-mate. Therein she told how she had found
"such a dear, loving, gentle thing; a girl, not pretty--even
slightly deformed; but who was an amusing companion, and to whom she could
confide everything. Such a blessing in that dull place,
Oldchurch!"
Poor little Olive!--
Now, reader, be not alarmed lest we should indulge you with the same. Go
back into your own répertoire of early
friendships, and that will suit us quite as well. Still, we may just say,
that these young friends flitted like bees over every subject under heaven,
and at last alighted on the subject most interesting at their age--love.
It is curious to note how the heart first puts out its tendrils and
stretches them forth toward the yet unknown good which is to be in
after-life its happiness and its strength. What folly of parents to repress
these blind seekings after such knowledge--this yearning which nature
teaches, and which in itself involves nothing wrong. Girls
will think of love, whether or no! How much better, then, that
they should be taught to think of it rightly; as the one deep feeling of
life. Not, on the one hand, to be repressed by ridicule; or, on the other,
to be forced by romance into a precocious growth; but to be entered upon,
when fate brings the time, rationally, earnestly, and sacredly.
Olive Rothesay found, with considerable pain, that Miss Derwent and she
did not at all agree in their notions of love. Olive had
always felt half-frightened at the subject, and never approached it save with great awe and timidity; but Sara did not seem to mind it in the least. She talked of a score of "flirtations" at quadrille parties--showed her friend half-a-dozen complimentary billet-doux which she had received, and all with the greatest unconcern. By degrees this indifference vanished under the influence of Olive's more earnest nature; and at last, when they were sitting together one night, listening to the fierce howling of the wind, a little secret came out.
"I don't like that equinoctial gale," said Sara, shyly.
"I used to hear so much of its horrors from--from a friend I
have--at sea."
"Indeed. Who was that?"
"Only Charles Geddes. Did I never speak of him? Very likely
not--because I was so vexed at his leaving college and
run-
ning off to sea. It was a foolish thing. But don't mention him to papa or the boys." And Sara blushed--a real, good, honest blush.
Olive did the same--perhaps from sympathy. She continued very
thoughtful for a long time; longer even than Sara. They were not many days
in making out between them the charming secret for which in their hearts
they had been longing. Both were thirsting to taste--or at least to
see each other taste--of that enchanting love-stream, the stream of
life or of death, at whose verge they had now arrived.
And so, it somehow chanced that however the conversation began, it
usually glided into the subject of Charles Geddes. Sara acknowledged that
he and she had always liked one another very much, though she allowed that
he was fonder of her than she was of him; that, when they parted, he had
seemed
much agitated, and she had cried--but they were mere boy and girl then. It was nothing--nothing at all.
Olive did not think so; and, contrasting all this with similar
circumstances in her pet poems and novels, she wove a very nice romance
round Charles Geddes and her beloved Sara, whom she now began to look upon
with greater interest and reverence than ever. This did not prevent her
reading Sara a great many lectures on constancy, and giving her own
opinions on what true love ought to be--opinions which were a little
too ethereal for Miss Derwent's comprehension, but which she liked
very much, nevertheless.
Olive took quite an affectionate interest in her friend's
lover--for lover she had decided that he must be. Not a day passed
that she did not eagerly consult the Times'
"shipping
intelligence;" and when at last she saw the name of Charles Geddes' vessel, as "arrived," her heart beat, and tears sprang to her eyes. When she showed it to Sara, Olive could hardly speak for joy. Little simpleton! she counted her friend's happiness as if it were her own. She kept the secret even from her mother; that is, in the only manner Olive would conceal aught from any one so beloved, by saying, "Please, mamma, do not ask me anything." And Mrs. Rothesay, who, always guided by some one, was now in a fair way to be entirely guided by her daughter, made no inquiries, but depended entirely upon Olive's wisdom and tenderness.
Charles Geddes came to Oldchurch. It was quite a new life for
Olive--a changed life, too; for now the daily rambles with her friend
were less frequent. Instead of which, she used to sit at her window, and
watch
Sara and Charles taking long strolls in the garden, arm-in-arm, looking so happy, that it was beautiful to see them.
Who can describe the strange, half-defined thoughts which often brought
tears to the young girl's eyes as she watched them thus! It was no
jealousy of Sara's deserting her for Charles, still less was it envy;
but it was a vague longing--a desiring of love for love's own
sake. Not as regarded any individual object, for Olive had never seen any
one in whom she felt or fancied the slightest interest. Yet, as she looked
on these two young creatures, apparently so bound up in each other, she
thought how sweet such a tie must be, and how dearly she herself could love
some one. And her yearning was always to love rather than
to be loved.
One morning, when Olive had not seen Sara for a day or two, she was
hastily
summoned to their usual trysting-place, a spot by the river-side, where the two gardens met, and where an over-arching thorn-tree made a complete bower. Therein Sara stood, looking so pale and serious, that Olive remarked it.
"Has anything happened?"
"Nothing--that is, nothing amiss. But oh! Olive, what do you
think? Charles put this letter into my hand last night. I have scarcely
slept--I feel so agitated--so frightened."
And in truth she looked so. Was there ever a very young girl who did
not, on receiving her first love-letter?
It was an era in Olive's life, too. She even trembled, as by her
friend's earnest desire she read the missive. It was boyish, indeed,
and full of the ultra-romantic devotion of boyish love; but it was sincere,
and
it touched Olive deeply. She finished it, and leaned against the thorn-tree, pale and agitated as Sara herself.
"Well, Olive," said the latter.
Olive threw her arms round her friend's neck and kissed her,
feeling almost ready to cry.
"And now, dear, tell me what I must do," said Sara,
earnestly; for of late she had positively begun to look up to Olive, so
great was the influence of the more thoughtful and higher nature.
"Do! Why, if you love him, you must tell him so, and give him your
whole life-long faith and affection."
"Really, Olive, how grave you are! I had no idea of making it such
a serious matter. But, poor Charles!--to think that he should love me
so very much!"
"Oh, Sara--Sara!" murmured Olive, "how happy you
ought to be!"
The time that followed was a strange period in Olive's life. It was
one of considerable excitement, too; she might as well have been in love
herself, so deeply did she sympathise with Sara and with Charles. With the
latter, even more than with her friend; for there was something in the
sincere, reserved, and yet passionate nature of the young sailor, that
answered to her own. If he had been her brother, she could not have felt
more warmly interested in Charles Geddes and his wooing. And he liked her
very much, for Sara's sake first, and then for her own, regarding her
also with that gentle compassion which the strong and bold delight to show
to the weak. He often called her "his faithful little friend;"
and truly she stood his friend in every conceivable way, by soothing
Sara's only parent--a most irascible papa--to consent to the
engagement, and also by lecturing the gay and coquettish
Sara herself into as much good behaviour as could be expected from an affianced damsel of seventeen.
Charles Geddes went to sea again. Poor little Olive, in her warm
sympathies, suffered almost as much as the young man's own betrothed,
who, after looking doleful for a week, consoled herself by entering, heart
and soul, into the gaieties of the gayest Christmas that ever was spent by
the society of Oldchurch. Everywhere Miss Derwent was the belle, and
continually did her friend need to remind her of the promise which Olive
herself regarded as such a sacred, solemn thing.
The love-adventure in which she had borne a part had stirred strange
depths in the nature of the young girl. She was awakening slowly to the
great mystery of woman's life. And when, by degrees, Sara's
amusements somewhat alienated their continual intercourse, Olive was thrown
back
upon her own thoughts more and more. She felt a vague sadness--a something wanting in her heart, which not even her mother's love could supply.
Mrs. Rothesay saw how dull and pensive she was at times, and with a
tender unselfishness contrived that, by Sara Derwent's intervention,
Olive should see a little more society; in a very quiet way, though; for
her own now delicate health, and Captain Rothesay's will, prevented
any regular introduction of their daughter into the world. And sometimes
Mrs. Rothesay, pondering on Olive's future, felt glad of this.
"Poor child! she is not made for the world, or the world for her.
Better that she should lead her own quiet life, where she will suffer no
pain, and be wounded by no neglect."
Yet, nevertheless, it was with a vague pleasure that Mrs. Rothesay
dressed Olive
for her first ball--a birthday treat--coaxed by Sara Derwent out of her formidable papa, and looked forward to by both young girls for many weeks.
No one would have believed that the young creature, on whom Mrs.
Rothesay gazed with a tenderness, not unmingled with admiration, had been
the poor infant from which she once turned with a sensation of pain, almost
amounting to disgust. But, learning to love, one learns also to admire.
Besides, Olive's defect was less apparent as she grew up, and the
extreme sweetness of her countenance almost atoned for her figure. Yet, as
the mother fastened her white dress, and arranged the golden curls so as to
fall in a shower on her neck and bosom, she sighed heavily.
Olive did not notice it; she was too much occupied in tying up a rare
bouquet--a birthday gift for Sara.
"Well, are you quite satisfied with my dress, dearest
mamma?"
"Not quite;" and Mrs. Rothesay fetched a small mantle of
white fur, which she laid round Olive's shoulders. "Wear this,
dear; you will look better then--see." She led her to the
mirror, and Olive saw the reflection of her own figure, so effectually
disguised, that the head, with its delicate and spiritual beauty, seemed
lifting itself out of a white cloud.
"'Tis a pretty little mantle, but why must I wear it,
mamma?--the night is not cold," said Olive, unconsciously. So
little did she think of herself, and so slight had been her intercourse
with the world, that the defect in her shape rarely crossed her mind. But
the mother, so beautiful herself, and to whom beauty was still of such
importance, was struck with bitter pain. She would not even console herself
by the reflec-
tion, with which many a one had lately comforted her, that Olive's slight deformity was becoming less perceptible, and that she might, in a great measure, outgrow it in time. Still it was there. As Mrs. Rothesay looked at the swan-like curves of her own figure, and then at her daughter's, she would almost have resigned her own once-cherished, but now disregarded, beauty, could she have bestowed that gift upon her beloved child.
Without speaking, lest Olive should guess her thoughts, she laid the
mantle aside, only, with a trembling affection, she whispered in bidding
adieu, "Dear, if you see other girls prettier, or more admired, more
noticed than yourself, never mind! Olive is mamma's own
pet--always."
Oh, blessed adversity! oh, sweetness, taught by suffering! How
marvellous
was the change wrought in the mother's heart!
Olive had never in her life before been at an orthodox "private
ball," with chalked floors, rout seats, and a regular band. She was
quite dazzled by the transformation thus effected in the Derwents'
large, rarely-used dining-room, where she had had many a merry game with
little Robert and Lyle. It was perfect fairy-land. The young damsels of
Oldchurch--haughty boarding-school belles, whom she had always rather
feared, when Sara's hospitality brought her in contact with
them--were now grown into perfect court beauties. She was quite
alarmed by their dignity, and they scarce noticed poor little Olive at all.
Sara, sweeping across the room in all the blaze of her remarkable
loveliness, to say nothing of her mother's long-hidden jewels,
appeared to
the eyes of her little friend a perfect queen of beauty. But the vision came and vanished. Never was there a belle so much in request as the lively Sara.
Only once, Olive looked at her, and remembered the sailor-boy, who was,
perhaps, tossing in some awful night-storm, or lying on the lonely deck, in
the midst of the wide Atlantic. And she thought, that when her time came to
love and be loved, she would not feel everything quite so lightly as
Sara.
"How pleasant quadrilles must be!" said Olive, as she sat
with her favourite Lyle, watching the dancers. Lyle had crept to her,
sliding his hand in hers, and looking up to her with a most adoring gaze,
as indeed he often did. He had even communicated his intention of marrying
her when he grew a man--a determination which excited the great
ridicule of his elder brother.
"I like far better to sit here quietly with you," murmured
the faithful little cavalier.
"Thank you, Lyle; still, they all look so merry, I almost wish
some one had asked me to dance."
"You dance, Miss Rothesay! What fun! Why nobody would ever dance
with you," cried rude Bob.
Lyle looked imploringly at his brother: "Hush! you naughty boy!
Please, Miss Rothesay, I will dance with you at any time, that is, if you
think I am tall enough."
"Oh, quite; I am so tiny myself," answered Olive, laughing;
for she took quite a pride in patronising him, as girls of sixteen often
affectionately patronise boys some five or six years their junior.
"You know, you are to grow up to be my little husband."
"Your husband!" repeated Bob, mischievously.
"Don't be too sure of getting one at
all. What do you think I overheard those girls there say? That you looked just like an old maid; and, indeed, no one would ever care to marry you, because you were--"
Here Lyle, blushing crimson, stopped his brother's mouth with his
little hand; whereat Bob flew into such a passion, that he quite forgot
Olive, and all he was about to say, in the excitement of a pugilistic
combat with his unlucky cadet. In the midst
of which the two belligerents--poor, untaught, motherless
lads--were hurried off to bed.
Their companionship lost, Olive was left very much to her own devices
for amusement. Some few young people that she knew came and talked to her
for a little while, but they all went back to their singing, dancing, or
flirting; and Olive, who seemed to have no gift nor share in either, was
left alone. She did not feel this much
at first, being occupied in her thoughts and observations on the rest. She took great interest in noticing all around. Her warm heart throbbed in sympathy with many an idle, passing flirtation, which she in her simplicity mistook for a real "attachment." It seemed as if every one loved, or was loved, except herself. She thought this, blushing as if it were unmaidenliness, when it was only nature speaking in her heart.
Poor Olive! perhaps it was ill for her that Sara's "love
affair" had aroused prematurely these blind gropings after
life's great mystery, so often
Too early seen unknown, and known too late.
"What! tired of dancing already?" cried Sara, flitting to
the corner where Olive sat.
"I have not danced once yet," Olive answered, rather
piteously; for she was a blithe little lassie in the main, and began to
long for a quadrille.
"Come--shall I get you a partner?" said Sara,
carelessly.
"No, no; every one is strange to me here. If you please, and if it
would not trouble you, Sara, I had much rather dance with you."
Sara consented with a tolerably good grace; but there was a slight
shadow on her face, which somewhat pained her friend.
"Is she ashamed of me, I wonder?" thought Olive.
"Perhaps, because I am not beautiful. Yet, no one ever told me I was
very disagreeable to look at. I will see."
As they danced, she watched in the tall mirror Sara's graceful,
floating image, and the little pale figure that moved beside her. There
was a contrast! Olive, who inherited all her mother's
love of beauty, spiritualised by the refinement of a dawning artist-soul,
felt keenly the longing regret after physical perfection. She went through
the dance
with less spirit, and in her heart there rung the idle echoes of some old song she knew:
I see the courtly ladies pass, with their dark and shining hair;
And I coldly turn aside to weep--"Oh, would that I were fair!"
The quadrille ended, she hid herself in her old corner; and Sara, whose
goodnature led her to perform this sacrifice to friendship, seemed to smile
more pleasantly and affectionately when it was over. At least Olive thought
so. She did not see her beautiful idol again for some time; and feeling
little interest in any other girl, and none at all in the awkward Oldchurch
"beaux," she took consolation in her own harmless fashion. This
was hiding herself under the thick curtains, and looking out of the window
at the moon.
--Sara's voice, close by, talking to a young girl whom Olive
knew. But Olive was too
shy to join them. She greatly preferred her friend, the moon.
"I quite smiled to see you dancing with that little Olive
Rothesay, Miss Derwent. For my part, I hate dancing with girls--and as
for her--But I suppose you wanted to show the contrast
between you."
"Nay, that's ill-natured," answered Sara. "She is
a sweet little creature, and my very particular friend."
Here Olive, blushing and happy, doubted whether she ought not to come
out of the curtains. It was almost wrong to listen--only her beloved
Sara often said she had no secret in the world that she had not told to
Olive.
"Yes, I know she is your friend, and Mr. Charles Geddes'
great friend too; if I were you, I should be almost jealous."
"Jealous of Olive--how very comical!" and the silver
laugh was a little scornful.
"To think of Olive's stealing any girl's lover! She, who will probably never have one in all her life--poor thing!"
"Of course not; nobody would fall in love with her! But there is a
waltz, I must run away. Will you come?"
"Presently--when I have looked in the other room for
Olive."
"Olive is here," said a timid voice. "Oh, Sara,
forgive me if I have done wrong; but I can't keep anything from you.
It would grieve me to think I heard what you were saying, and never told
you of it."
Sara appeared confused, and with a quick impulse kissed and fondled her
little friend: "You are not vexed, or pained, Olive?"
"Oh, no--that is, not much; it would be very silly if I were.
But," she added, doubtfully, "I wish you would tell me one
thing, Sara--not that I am proud, or vain; but still, I should like to
know--why do I
seem different from other girls? Why did you and Jane Ormond say just now that nobody would ever love me?"
"Don't talk so, my little pet," said Sara, looking
pained and puzzled. Yet, instinctively, her eye glanced to the mirror,
where their two reflections stood. So did Olive's.
"Yes, I know," she murmured, "I am little, and plain,
and in figure very awkward--not graceful, like you. Would that make
people hate me, Sara?"
"Not hate you; but--"
"Well, go on--nay, I will know all!" said
Olive, firmly; though, gradually, a thought--long subdued--began
to dawn painfully in her mind.
"I assure you, dear," began Sara, hesitatingly, "it
does not signify to me, or to any of those who care for you; you are such a
gentle little creature, we forget it all in time. But perhaps with
strangers, especially with
men, who think so much about beauty, this defect--"
She paused, laying her arm round Olive's shoulders--even
affectionately, as if she herself were much moved. But Olive, with a cheek
that whitened and a lip that quivered more and more, looked resolutely at
her own shape imaged in the glass.
"I see, as I never saw before--so little I thought of myself.
Yes, it is quite true--quite true."
She spoke beneath her breath, and her eyes seemed fascinated into a
hard, cold gaze. Sara became almost frightened.
"Do not look so, my dear girl; I did not say that it was a
positive deformity."
Olive faintly shuddered: "Ah, that is the word! I understand it
all now."
She paused a moment, covering her face. But very soon she sat down, so
quiet and pale that Sara was deceived.
"You do not mind it, then, Olive--you are not angry with
me?" she said, soothingly.
"Angry with you--how could I be?"
"Then you will come back with me, and we will have another
dance."
"Oh, no, no!" And the cheerful goodnatured voice seemed to
make Olive shrink with pain. "Sara, dear Sara, let me go
home!"
Olive answered quietly, "Every one said it was
pleasant."
"But you," returned the mother, with an anxiety she could
scarce disguise--"who talked to you?--who danced with
you?"
"No one, except Sara."
"Poor child!" was the half involuntary
sigh; and Mrs. Rothesay drew her daughter to her with deep tenderness.
It was a strange fate, that made the once slighted child almost the only
thing in the world to which Sybilla Rothesay now clung. And yet, so rich,
so full, had grown the springs of maternal love, long hidden in her nature,
that she would not have exchanged their sweetness to be again the petted,
wilful, beautiful darling of society, as she was at Stirling. The neglected
wife--the often-ailing mother--dependent on her daughter's
tenderness, was happier and nearer to heaven than she had ever been in her
life.
Mrs. Rothesay regarded Olive earnestly. "You look as ill as if you
had been up all night; and yet you came to rest tolerably early, and I
thought you slept, you lay so quiet. Was it so, darling?"
"Not quite; I was thinking," said Olive,
truthfully, though her face flushed, for she would fain have kept her bitter thoughts from her mother. Just then, Mrs. Rothesay started at the sound of the hall-bell.
"Is that your father come home? He said he might, to-day or
to-morrow." And she positively trembled.
Olive went down-stairs. It was only a letter, to say Captain Rothesay
would return that day; and would bring--most rare
circumstance!--some guests to visit them. Olive seemed to shrink
painfully at this news.
"What, my child, are you not pleased?--It will make the house
less dull for you."
"No, no--I do not wish; O mamma! if I could only shut myself
up, and never see any one but you--" And Olive turned very pale.
At last, resolutely trying to speak without any show of trouble, she
con-
tinued--"I have found out something that I never knew--at least, never thought of before--that I am different to other girls. Oh, mother! am I then so painful to look upon? shall I, indeed, cause people to dislike me wherever I go?"
She spoke with much agitation. Mrs. Rothesay burst into tears.
"Oh, Olive! how wretched you make me, to talk thus. Unhappy mother
that I am! Why should Heaven have punished me thus?"
"Punished you, mother?"
"Nay, my child--my poor innocent child! I did not mean
that," cried Mrs. Rothesay; embracing her with a passionate revulsion
of feeling.
But the word was said,--to linger, for ever after, on Olive's
mind. It brought back the look once written on her childish memory--
grown faint, but never quite erased--her father's first look. She understood it now.
Mrs. Rothesay continued weeping, and Olive had to cast aside all other
feelings in the care of soothing her mother. She succeeded at last; but she
learnt at the same time that on this one subject there must be silence
between them for ever. It seemed, also, to her sensitive nature, as if
every tear and every complaining word were a reproach to the mother that
bore her. Henceforth her bitter thoughts must be wrestled with alone.
She did so wrestle with them. She walked out into her favourite
meadow--now lying in the silent, frost-bound mistiness of a January
day. It was where she had often been in summer with Sara, and Charles
Geddes, and the little boys. Now everything seemed so wintry and lonely.
What if her own future
life were so--one long winter-day, wherein was neither beauty, gladness, nor love?
"I am 'deformed.' That was Sara's
own word," murmured Olive to herself. "If this is felt by one
who loves me, what must I appear to the world? Will not all shrink from
me--and even those who pity, turn away in pain. As for loving
me--"
Thinking thus, Olive's fancy began to count, almost in despair, all
those whose affection she had ever known. There was Elspie, there were her
parents. Yet, the love of both father and mother--how sweet soever,
now--had not blessed her always. She remembered the time when it was
not there.
"Alas! that I should have been, even to them, a burden--a
pang!" cried the girl, in the first outburst of suffering, which
became ten times keener, because concealed. Her vivid fancy even
exaggerated the truth. She saw in herself a poor deformed being, shut
out from all natural ties--a woman, to whom friendship would be given but in kindly pity; to whom love--that blissful dream in which she had of late indulged--would be denied for evermore. How hard seemed her doom! If it were for months only, or even years; but, to bear for a whole life this withering ban--never to be freed from it, except through death! And her lips unconsciously repeated the bitter murmur, "O God! why hast thou made me thus?"
It was scarcely uttered before her heart trembled at its impiety. And
then the current of her thoughts changed. Those mysterious yearnings which
had haunted her throughout childhood, until they had grown fainter under
the influence of earthly ties and pleasures--returned to her now.
God's immeasurable Infinite rose before her in glorious serenity. What
was one brief lifetime to the ages of eternity?
She felt it: she, in her weakness--her untaught childhood--her helplessness--felt that her poor deformed body enshrined a living soul. A soul that could look on Heaven, and on whom Heaven also looked--not like man, with scorn or loathing, but with a Divine tenderness that had power to lift the mortal into communion with the immortal.
Olive Rothesay seemed to have grown years older in that hour of solitary
musing. She walked homewards through the silent fields, over which the
early night was falling--night coming, as it were, in the midst of
day, where the only light was given by the white, cold snow. To Olive this
was a symbol, too--a token that the freezing sorrow which had fallen
on her path, might palely light her on her earthly way. Strange things for
a young girl to dream of! But they whom Heaven teaches are sometimes
called--Samuel-like--while to them still
pertains the childish ephod and the temple-porch.
Passing on, with footsteps silent and solemn as her own heart, Olive
came to the street, on the verge of the town, where was her own dwelling
and Sara's. From habit she looked in at the Derwents' house. It
had all that cheerful brightness given by a blazing fire, glimmering
through windows not yet closed. Olive could plainly distinguish the light
shining on the crimson wall; even the merry faces of the circle round the
hearth. And, as if to chant the chorus of so sweet a scene, there broke out
on the clear frosty air the distant carillon of
Oldchurch-bells--marriage-bells, too--signifying that not far off
was dawning another scene of love and hope; that, somewhere in the parish,
was celebrated the "coming home" of a bride.
The young creature, born with a woman's longings--longings
neither unholy or impure,
after the love which is the religion of a woman's heart--the sweetness of home, which is the heaven of a woman's life--felt that from both she was shut out for ever.
"Not for me--alas! not for me," she murmured; and her
head drooped, and it seemed as though a cold hand were laid on her breast,
saying, "Grow still, and throb no more!"
Then, lifting her eyes, she saw shining far up in the sky, beyond the
mist and the frost and the gloom, one little star--the only one. With
a long sigh, her soul seemed to pass upward in prayer.
"Oh God! since Thou hast willed it so,--if in this world I
must walk alone, do Thou walk with me! If I must know no human love, fill
my soul with Thine! If earthly joy be far from me, give me that peace of
Heaven which passeth all understanding!"
And so--mournful, yet serene--Olive Rothesay reached her
home.
She found her friend there. Sara looked confused at seeing her, and
appeared to try, with the unwonted warmth of her greeting, to efface from
Olive's mind the remembrance of what had happened the previous
evening. But Olive, for the first time, shrank from these tokens of
affection.
"Even Sara's love may be only compassion," she bitterly
thought; and her calm endurance was again changed into grief and
humiliation. She betrayed neither; for her father's nature was in the
girl--his self-command--his proud reserve. Sara Derwent only
thought her rather silent and cold. Little she wondered at this, though her
regret rose at having been so foolish as to talk to her poor little friend
in the way she did.
There was a constraint on both--so much
so that Olive heard, without testifying much pain, news which a few days before would have grieved her to the heart. This visit was an adieu. Sara had been suddenly sent for by her grandfather, who lived in a distant county; and the summons entailed a parting of some weeks--perhaps, longer.
"But I shall not forget you, Olive. I shall write to you
constantly. It will be my sole amusement in the dull place I am going to.
Why, nobody ever used to enter my grandfather's house, except the
parson, who lived some few miles off. Poor old soul! I used to set fire to
his wig, and hide his spectacles. But he is dead now, I hear, and there has
come in his place a young clergyman. Shall I strike up a little flirtation
with him, eh--Olive?"
But Olive was in no jesting mood. She only shook her head.
Mrs. Rothesay looked with admiration on
Sara. "What a blithe young creature you are, my dear. You win everybody's liking. I wish Olive were only half as merry as you."
Another arrow in poor Olive's heart!
"Well--we must try to make her so when I come back,"
said Sara, affectionately. "I shall have tales enough to tell;
perhaps, about that young curate. Nay, don't frown, Olive. My cousin
says he is a Scotsman born--and you like Scotland. Only his father was
Welsh, and he has a horrid Welsh name--Gwyrdyr, or Gwynne, or
something like it. But I'll give you all information."
And then she rose--still laughing--to bid adieu; which seemed
so long a farewell, when the friends had never yet been parted but for one
brief day. In saying it, Olive felt how dear to her had been this
girl--this first idol of her warm heart. And then there came a thought
almost like terror. Though
fated to live unloved, she could not keep herself from loving. And if so, how would she bear the perpetual void--the yearning, never to be fulfilled?
She fell on Sara's neck and wept. "You do care for me a
little--only a little."
"A great deal--as much as ever I can, seeing I have so many
people to care for," answered Sara, trying to laugh away the tears
that--from sympathy, perhaps--sprang to her eyes.
"Ah, true! And everybody cares for you. No wonder," answered
Olive.
"Now, little Olive, why do you put on that grave face? Are you
going to lecture me about not flirting with that stupid curate, and always
remembering Charles. Oh! no fear of that."
"I hope not," said Olive, quietly. She could not talk more,
and they bade each other good-bye; perhaps not quite so
enthu-
siastically as they might have done a week ago, but still with much affection. Sara had reached the door, when with a sudden impulse she came back again.
"Olive, I am a foolish, thoughtless girl; but if ever I pained you
in any way, don't think of it again. Kiss me--will you--once
more?"
Olive did so, clinging to her passionately. When Sara went away, she
felt as though the first flower had perished in her garden, the first star
had melted from her sky. It seemed a foreshadowing of that lonely fate, the
portion of some humble ones, unblessed with the power to inspire other
hearts with their own warmth. Alas! for that love which ever sees its
objects come and go, brighten and fade, while it alone endures, and its
very constancy becomes its deepest woe. Yet, not so. Greater--far
greater--than the rolling, changing planets, is the sun;
that burns on in its eternal loneliness, an emblem of that One Love which, from its infinite solitude, guides and sustains the universe.
Sara gone, Olive went back to her old dreamy life. The romance of first
friendship seemed to have been swept away like a morning cloud. From Sara
there came no letters--save a brief one, during her first week at
Waterton. Olive wrote once or twice, even thrice. But a sense of wounded
feeling prevented her writing again. Some tidings she gained from Robert
and Lyle, that their sister was quite well, and very merry. Then, over all
the dream of sweet affection fell a cold silence.
It might have utterly frozen so young and sensitive a heart, but that in
Olive's own home were arising many cares. A great change came over her
father. His economical habits became those of the wildest
extravagance--
extravagance in which his wife and daughter were not likely to share. Little they saw of it either, save during his rare visits to his home. Then, he either spent his evenings out, or else dining, smoking, drinking--horrible orgies of dissipated men--disturbed the quiet house at Oldchurch.
Many a time, till long after midnight, the mother and child sat
listening to the gay, tumult of voices below; clinging to each other, pale
and sad. Not that Captain Rothesay was unkind, or that either had any fear
for him, for he had always been a strict and temperate man. But it pained
them to think that any society seemed sweeter to him than that of his wife
and daughter--that any place was become dearer to him than his
home.
One night, when Mrs. Rothesay appeared exhausted, either with weariness
or sorrow of heart, Olive persuaded her mother to go
to rest, while she herself sat up for her father.
"Nay, let some of the servants do that, not you, my
child."
But Olive, innocent as she was of all worldly guile, had accidentally
seen the footman smile rudely when he spoke of "master coming home
last night;" and a vague thought struck her, that such late hours
were discreditable in the head of a family. Her father should not be mocked
in his servants' eyes.
She dismissed the household and waited up for him alone.
Twelve--one--two. The hours went by like long years. Heavily at
first drooped her poor drowsy eyes, and then all weariness was dispelled by
a feeling of loneliness--an impression of coming sorrow. At last, when
this sense was gradually merging into fear, she heard the sound of the
swinging gate, and her father's knock at the door.
A loud, unsteady, angry knock--one that made her feet fly swifter
even than by the impulse of affection.
"Why do you stay up for me? I don't want anybody to sit
up," grumbled Captain Rothesay, without looking at her.
"But I liked to wait for you, papa."
"What! is that you, Olive?" and he stepped in with a
lounging heavy gait--that of a person overpowered with fatigue as his
young daughter thought.
"Did you not see me before? It was I who opened the
door."
"Oh I yes--but--I was thinking of something else,"
he said, throwing himself into the study-chair, and trying with an effort
to seem just as usual. "You are--a very good girl--I'm
much obliged to you. The pleasure is--I may truly say--on both
sides." And he energetically struck the table with his hand.
Olive thought this an odd form of speech;
but her father's manner was grown so changed of late--sometimes he seemed quite in high spirits, even jocose--as he did now.
"I am glad to see you not much tired, papa. I thought you
were--you walked so wearily when you first came in."
"I tired? nonsense--child! I have had the merriest evening in
the world. I'll have another to-morrow, for I've asked then all
to dine here. We'll give dinner parties to all the county."
"Papa," said Olive timidly, "will that be quite right,
after what you told me of your being now so much poorer."
"Did I? Pshaw! I don't remember. However, I am a rich man
now; richer than I have ever been."
"I am so glad; because then, dear papa, you know you need not be
so much away from home, or weary yourself with the
speculations you told me off; but come and live quietly with us."
Her father laughed loudly. "Foolish little girl! your notion of
quietness would not suit a man like me. Take my word for it, Olive, home
serves as a fantastic dream till five-and-twenty, and then means nothing at
all. A man's home is the world."
"Is it?"
"Ay, as I intend to show to you. By-the-bye, I shall give up this
stupid place, and enter into society. Your mother will like it, of course;
and you, as my only child--eh--what did I say?" here he
stopped hastily, with a blank, frightened look--then repeated,
"Yes--you, my only child, will be properly introduced to the
world. Why, you'll be quite an heiress, my girl," continued he,
with an excited jocularity that frightened Olive. "And the world
always
courts such; who knows but that you may marry in spite of--"
"Oh, no--never!" interrupted Olive, turning away with
bitter pain.
"Come, don't mind it," continued her father, with a
reckless indifference to her feelings, quite unusual to him.
"Why--my little sensible girl--you are better than any
beauty in England; beauties are all fools, or worse."
And he laughed so loud, so long, that Olive was seized with a great
horror, that absorbed even her own individual suffering. Was her father
mad? Alas! there is a madness worse than disease, a voluntary madness, by
which a man--longing at any price for excitement or
oblivion--"puts an enemy into his mouth to steal away his
brains." This was the foe--the stealthy-footed demon, that had
at last come to overmaster the brave and noble Angus Rothesay.
As yet it ruled him not--he was no sot; but his daughter saw enough to know that the fiend was nigh upon him--that this night he was even in its grasp.
It is only the noblest kind of affection that can separate the sinner
from the sin, and even while condemning, pity. Fallen as he was, Olive
Rothesay looked on her father mournfully--intreatingly. She could not
speak.
He seemed annoyed, and slightly confounded. "Come, simpleton, why
do you stare at me--there is nothing the matter. Go away to
bed."
Olive did not move.
"Make haste--what are you waiting for? Nay, stay; 'tis a
cold night--just leave out the keys of the sideboard, will you,
there's a good little housekeeper," he said, coaxingly.
Olive turned away in disgust, but only for a moment. "In case you
should want any-
thing, let me stay a little longer, papa; I am not tired, and I have some work to do--suppose I go and fetch it."
She went into the inner room, slowly. quietly; and when safe out of
sight, burst into tears of such shame and terror as she had never before
known. Then she sat down to think. Her father thus; her mother feeble in
mind and body; no one in the wide world to trust to but herself; no one to
go to for comfort and counsel--none, save Heaven! She sank on her
knees and prayed. As she rose, the angel in the daughter's soul was
stronger than the demon in the father's.
Olive waited a little, and then walked softly into the other room. Some
brandy, left on the sideboard, had attracted Captain Rothesay's sight.
He had reached it with a noiseless hand, as if the act still conveyed to
his dulled brain a consciousness of degradation. Once he looked round
suspiciously;
alas, the father dreaded his daughter's eye! Then stealthily standing with his face to the fire, he began to drink the tempting poison.
It was taken out of his hand! So noiseless was Olive's step, so
gentle her movement, that he stood dumb, astonished, as though in the
presence of some apparition. And, in truth, the girl looked like a spirit;
for her face was very white, and her lips seemed as though they never had
uttered, and never could utter, one living sound.
Father and daughter stood for some moments thus gazing at each other;
and then Captain Rothesay threw himself into his chair, with a forced
laugh.
"What's the matter, little fool? Cannot your father take care
of himself? Give me the brandy again."
But she held it fast, and made no answer.
"Olive, I say--do you insult me thus?"
and his voice rose in anger. "Go to bed, I command you! Will you not?"
"No!" The refusal was spoken softly--very
softly--but it expressed indomitable firmness; and there was something
in the girl's resolute spirit, before which that of the father
quailed. With a sudden transition, which showed that the drink had already
somewhat overpowered his brain, he melted into complaints.
"You are very rude to your poor father; you--almost the only
comfort he has left!"
This touch even of maudlin sentiment went direct to Olive's heart.
She clung to him, kissed him, begged his forgiveness, nay, even wept over
him. He ceased to rage, and sat in a sullen silence for many minutes.
Meanwhile Olive took away every temptation from his sight. Then she roused
him gently.
"Now, papa, it is time to go to bed. Pray, come
up-stairs."
He--the calm, gentlemanlike, Captain Rothesay--burst into a
storm of passion that would have disgraced a boor. "How dare you
order me about in this manner! Cannot I do as I like, without being
controlled by you--a mere chit of a girl--a very
child."
"I know I am only a child," answered Olive, meekly.
"Do not be angry with me, papa; do not speak unkindly to your poor
little daughter."
"My daughter! how dare you call yourself so, you white-faced,
mean-looking hunchback--"
At the word, Olive recoiled--a strong shudder ran through her
frame; she moaned one long, sobbing sigh, and no more.
Her father, shocked, and a little sobered, paused in his cruel speech.
For minutes, they
remained--he leaning back with a stupified air--she standing before him; her face drooped, and covered with her hands.
"Olive!" he muttered, in a repentant, humbled tone.
"Yes, papa."
"I am quite ready. If you like, I'll go to bed
now."
Without speaking, she lighted him upstairs--nay led
him; for, to his bitter shame, the guidance was not unneeded. When she left
him, he had the grace to whisper--
"Child, you are not vexed about anything I said?"
She looked sorrowfully into his hot, fevered face, and stroked his arm
with her pale hand. "No--no--not vexed at all! You could
not help it, poor father!"
She heard her mother's feeble, sleepless voice speaking to him as
he entered, and saw
his door close. Long she watched there, until beneath it she perceived not one glimmer of light. Then she crept away, only murmuring to herself--
"God! teach me to endure!"
"How dull the girl seems!" again observed Captain Rothesay,
looking after his daughter,
with a tenderness of which he afterwards appeared rather ashamed.
"Dull, is she?" said the mother; "oh, very likely,
poor child! She is grieving to lose her chief friend and companion, Miss
Derwent. News came to her this morning that Sara is about to be
married."
"Oh, indeed!" and Captain Rothesay made an attempt at
departure. He hated gossiping, even of the most harmless kind. But his
wife, pleased that he condescended to talk to her at all, tried to amuse
him in her own easy way.
"Poor Sara! I am glad she is going to have a home of her
own--though she is young enough to marry. But I believe it was a very
sudden affair; and the gentleman fell so desperately in love with
her."
"More fool he!" muttered Captain Rothesay.
"Nay, he is not a fool at all; he is a very
sensible, clever man, and a clergyman too; Miss Derwent said so in her brief note to Olive. But she did not mention where he lived; little indeed she told, but that his name was Gwynne--"
Captain Rothesay turned round quickly.
"--And Sara speaks of his mother being a stiff old
Scotswoman. Ah, you are listening now, my dear. Let me see, I think Miss
Derwent mentions her maiden name. The silly girl makes quite a boast of her
lover's ancient family, on the maternal side."
"There is no silliness in that, I hope, Mrs. Rothesay?"
"Certainly not--was I not always proud of yours?" said
the wife, with a meekness not newly learnt. She hunted in her reticule for
Sara's letter, and read.
"Ah, here is the name--Alison Balfour: do you know
it?"
"I did once, when I was a boy; but that
is long ago," said Captain Rothesay, in a suppressed tone.
"Stay! do not go away in that hasty manner. Pray, talk to me a
little more, Angus; it is so dull to be confined to this sickroom. Tell me
of this Alison Balfour; you know, I should like to hear about your
friends."
"Should you?--that is something new. If it had been always
so--if you had indeed made my interests yours, Sybilla!" There
was a touch of regret and old tenderness in his voice. She thought he was
kind on account of her illness, and thanked him warmly. But the thanks sent
him back to his usual cold self; he did not like to have his weakness
noticed.
Mrs. Rothesay understood neither one state of feeling nor the other, so
she said, cheerfully, "Come, now for the story of Alison
Balfour."
"There is no story to tell. She was merely a young companion of my
aunt's, Flora. I knew her for some years--in fact, until she
married Mr. Gwynne. She was a noble woman."
"Really, Angus, I shall grow jealous," said Mrs. Rothesay,
half in jest, half in earnest. "She must have been an old love of
yours."
Her husband frowned. "Folly, Sybilla! She was a woman, and I a
school-boy!"
And yet the words galled him, for they were not far off the truth. True,
Alison was old enough to have been his mother; but many a precocious lad of
sixteen conceives a similar romantic passion, and Angus Rothesay had really
been very much in love, as he thought, with Alison Balfour.
Even when he quitted the room, and walked out into the road, his
thoughts went backward many years; picturing the
old, dull mansion, whose only brightness had come with her presence. He remembered how he used to walk by her side, in lonely mountain rambles--he a little boy, and she a grown woman; and how proud he was, when she stooped her tall stature to lean upon his arm. Once, she kissed him; and he lay awake all night, and many a night after, dreaming of the remembered bliss. And, as he grew a youth, what delicious sweetness in these continued dreams! what pride to think himself "in love"--and with such a woman! Folly it was--hopeless folly--for she had been long betrothed to one she loved. But that was not Owen Gwynne. Alas! Alison, like many another proud, passionate woman, had married in sudden anger, thereby wrecking her whole life! When she did so, Angus Rothesay lost his boyish dream. He had already begun to find out that it was only a
dream; though his first fancy's idol never ceased to be to him a memory full of all that was noble and beautiful in womanhood.
For many years, this enchanted portion of Captain Rothesay's past
life had rarely crossed his mind; but when it did, it was always with a
half-unconscious thought, that he himself might have been a better and a
happier man, had his own beautiful Sybilla been more like Alison
Balfour.
This chance news of her awakened memories connected with other scenes
and characters, which had gradually melted away from Angus Rothesay's
life, or been enveloped in the mist of selfishness and worldliness which
had gathered over it, and over him. He thought of the old uncle, Sir Andrew
Rothesay, whose pride he had been; of the sweet aunt Flora, whose pale
beauty had bent over his cradle with a love almost like a mother's,
save that it was so very, very sad. One had died
estranged; the other-- He would not let many weeks pass before he sought out Miss Flora Rothesay: that he was determined on! And, to do so, the best plan would be, first to go and see Alison--Mrs. Gwynne.
Captain Rothesay always kept his intentions to himself, and transacted
his matters alone. Therefore, without the aid of wife or daughter, he soon
discovered in what region lay Mr. Gwynne's curacy, and determined to
hasten his customary journey to London, that he might visit the place on
his way.
The night before his departure came. It was really a melancholy evening;
for he had stayed at home so long, and been most of the time what his wife
called "so good," that she quite regretted his going. The more
so, as he was about to travel by the awful railway--then newly
established--which, in the opinion of poor Mrs. Rothesay, with her
delicate nerves and easily-roused terrors, entailed on him the
certainty of being killed. She pleaded so much and so anxiously--even to the last--that when, in order to start at daybreak, he bade "goodbye" to her and Olive overnight, Captain Rothesay was softened even to tenderness.
"Do you really care so much about me, Sybilla?" said he,
half mournfully.
She did not spring to his arms, like the young wife at Stirling, but she
kissed his hand affectionately, and called him "Angus!"
"Olive!" said the father, when, having embraced his wife, he
now turned to his daughter, "Olive, my child! take care of your
mother! I shall be at home soon, and we will be very happy again--all
three!"
As they ascended the staircase, they saw him watching them from below.
Olive felt so content, even though her father was going away. She kissed
her hand to him, with a blithe gesture, and then saw him go in and close
the door. When the house sank into
quietness, a curious feeling oppressed Captain Rothesay. It seemed to take rise in his wife's infectious fears.
"Women are always silly," he argued to himself. "Why
should I dread any danger? The railway is safe as a coach--and yet,
that affair of poor Huskisson! Pooh! what a fool I am!"
But even while he mocked it, the vague presentiment appeared to take
form in his mind; and sitting, the only person awake in the slumbering
house, where no sound broke the stillness, except the falling of a few
cinders, and the occasional noise of a mouse behind the wainscoat, somewhat
of the superstitions of his northern youth came over him. His countenance
became grave, and he sank into deep thought.
It is a trite saying, that every man has that in his heart, which, if
known, would make all his fellow-creatures hate him. Was it this
evil spirit which now struggled in Captain Rothesay's breast, and darkened his face with storms of passion, remorse, or woe? He gave no utterance to them in words. If any secret there were, he would not trust it even to the air. But, at times, his mute lips writhed; his cheeks burned, and grew ghastly. Sometimes, too, he wore a cowed and humbled look, as on the night when his daughter had stood like a pure angel to save him from the abyss, on the brink of which he trod.
She had saved him, apparently. That night's shame had never
occurred again. Slowly, his habits were changing, and his tastes becoming
home-like. But still his lonely hours betokened some secret hidden in his
soul--a secret which, if known, might have accounted for his having
plunged into uproarious excitement, or drunken oblivion.
At length, as by a violent effort, Angus Rothesay sat down and began to
write. He
wrote for several hours--though frequently his task was interrupted by long reveries, and by fits of vehement emotion. When he had finished, he carefully sealed up what he had written, and placed it in a secret drawer of his desk. Then he threw himself on a sofa, to sleep during the brief time that intervened before daybreak.
In the grey of the morning, when he stood despatching a hasty breakfast,
he was startled by a light touch on his arm.
"Little Olive!--why, I thought you were fast
asleep."
"I could not sleep when papa was going away; so I rose and
dressed. You will not be angry?"
"Angry--no!" He stooped down and kissed her, more
affectionately even than was his wont. But he was hasty and fidgety, as
most men are when starting on a journey. They were both too busy for more
words,
until the few minutes during which he sat down to wait for the carriage. Then he took his daughter on his knee--an act of fatherly tenderness rather rare with him.
"I wish you were not going, or that I were going with you,
papa," Olive whispered, nestling to him, in a sweet, childish way,
though she was almost a woman, now. "How tired you look! You have not
been in bed all night."
"No; I had writing to do." As he spoke, his countenance
darkened. "Olive," he said, looking at her with sorrowful,
questioning eyes.
"Well, dear papa."
"Nothing--nothing. Is the carriage ready?"
"Not yet. You will have time just for one little
thing--'twill take only a minute," said Olive,
persuasively.
"What is it, little one?"
"Mamma is asleep--she was tired and ill; but if you would run
up-stairs, and kiss her once again before you go, it would make her so much
happier--I know it would."
"Poor Sybilla!" he muttered, remorsefully, and quitted the
room, slowly--not meeting his daughter's eyes; but when he came
back, he took her in his arms, very tenderly.
"Olive, my child in whom I trust, always remember I did love
you--you and your mother."
These were the last words she heard him utter, ere he went away.
Verbal landscape painting is rarely interesting to the general reader;
and as Captain Rothesay was certainly not devoted to the picturesque, it
seems idle to follow him during his ten-mile ride from the nearest
railway station to the place which he discovered was that of Mrs. Gwynne's abode, and where her son was "perpetual curate."
Her son! It seemed very strange to imagine Alison a mother; and yet,
while he thought, Angus Rothesay almost laughed at himself for his folly.
His boyish fancy had, perforce, faded at seventeen, and he was
now--pshaw--he was somewhere above forty. As for Mrs. Gwynne,
sixty would, probably, be nearer her age. Yet, not having seen her since
she married, he never could think of her but as Alison Balfour.
As before observed, Captain Rothesay was by no means keenly susceptible
to beauty of scenery; otherwise, he would often have been attracted from
his meditations by that through which he passed. Lovely woodlands, just
bursting into the delicate green of spring; deep, still streams, flowing
through meadows, studded with cattle; forest-roads
shadowed with stately trees, and so little frequented, that the green turf spread from hedge to hedge, and the primroses and bluebells sprung up almost in the pathway. All these composed a picture of rural loveliness, which is peculiar to England, and chiefly to that part of England where Harbury is situated. Captain Rothesay scarcely noticed it, until, pausing to consider his track, he saw in the distance a church upon a hill. Beautiful and peaceful it looked--its ancient tower rising out against the sky, and the evening sun shining on its windows and gilded vane.
"That must surely be my landmark," thought Captain Rothesay;
and he made an inquiry to that effect of a man passing by.
"Aye, aye, measter," was the answer, in rather
unintelligible Doric; "thot bees Harbury Church, as sure as moy
name's John Dent; and thot red house--conna ye
see't?--thot's our parson's."
Prompted by curiosity, Rothesay observed--"Oh! Mr.
Gwynne's. He is quite a young man, I believe? Do you like
him--you good folk hereabouts?"
"Some on us dun, and some on us dunna. He's not much of a
parson, though; he wunna send yer to sleep wi' his long preachings.
But oi say the mon's a good mon: he'll coom and see yer when
you're bad, an' talk t' ye by th' hour; though he dunna
talk oot o' th' Bible. But oi'm a lad o' t'
forest, and 'll be a keeper some toime. That's better nor
book-larning."
Captain Rothesay had no will to listen to more personal revelations from
honest John Dent; so he said, quickly--"Perhaps so, my good
fellow." Then he added, rather hesitatinoly--"Mr. Gwynne
has a mother living with him, I believe. What sort of person is
she?"
"Her's a good-enough lady, oi reckon;
only a bit too proud. Many's the blanket her's gen* to poor folk; and my owd mother sees her every week--but her's never shook hands wi' her yet. Eh, measter, won ye+ go?"
This last remark was bellowed after Captain Rothesay, whose horse had
commenced a sudden canter, which ceased not until its owner dismounted at
the parsonage-gate.
This gate formed the boundary of the garden--and a most lovely spot
it was. It extended to the churchyard, with which it communicated by a
little wicket-door. You passed through beautiful parterres and alleys,
formed of fragrant shrubs, to the spot
Where grew the turf, in many a mouldering heap.
It seemed as though the path of death were indeed through flowers.
Garden and churchyard covered the hill's summit; and from
___________________* She has given.
___________________+ Will ye.
Page 232
both might be discerned a view such as is rarely seen in level England. It was a panorama--extending some twenty or thirty miles across the country--where, through woodlands and meadow-lands, flowed the silver windings of a small river. Here and there was an old ruined castle--a manor-house, rising among its ancestral trees--or the faint, misty smoke-cloud, that indicated some hamlet or small town. Save these, the landscape swept on unbroken, until it ended at the horizon in the high range of the D--shire hills.
Even to Captain Rothesay, this scene seemed strangely beautiful. He
contemplated it for some time--his hand still on the unopened gate;
and then he became aware that a lady, whose gardening-dress and
gardening-implemerts showed she was occupied in her favourite evening
employment, was looking at him with some curiosity.
The traces of life's downward path are easier to recognise than
those of its ascent. Though the mature womanhood of Alison Balfour had
glided into age, Rothesay had no difficulty in discovering that he was in
the presence of his ancient friend. Not so with her. He advanced, addressed
her by name, and even took her hand, before she had the slightest idea that
her guest was Angus Rothesay.
"Have you, then, so entirely forgotten me--forgotten the days
in our native Perthshire, when I was a bit laddie, and you, our guest, were
Miss Alison Balfour?"
There came a trembling over her features--ay, aged woman as she
was! But at her years, all the past, whether of joy or grief, becomes
faint; else, how would age be borne? She extended both her hands, with a
warm friendliness.
"Welcome, Angus Rothesay! No won-
der I did not know you. These thirty years--is it not thus much?--have changed you from a boy into a middle-aged man, and made of me an old woman."
She really was an elderly lady now. It seemed almost ridiculous to think
of her as his youth's idol. Neither was she beautiful,--how could
he ever have imagined her so? Her irregular features--unnoticed when
the white and red tints of youth adorned them--were now, in age,
positively plain. Her strong-built frame had, in losing elasticity, lost
much of grace, though dignity remained. Looking on Mrs. Gwynne for the
first time, she appeared a large, rather plain woman. Looking again, it
would be to observe the noble candour that dwelt in the eyes, and the
sweetness--at times even playfulness--that hovered round the
mouth. Regarding her for the third time, you would see a woman whom you
felt sure you must perforce respect, and
might, in time, love very much--if she would let you. Of that gracious permission you would long have considerable doubt; but once granted, you would never unlove her to the end of your days. As for her loving you, you would not be quite clear that it did not spring from the generous benevolence of her nature, rather than from any individual warmth toward yourself; and such was the reserve of her character, that were her affection ever so deep, she might possibly never let you know it until the day of your death.
Yet she was capable of attachments, strong as her own nature. All her
feelings, passions, energies, were on a grand scale: in her, were no petty
feminine follies--no weak, narrow illiberalities of judgment. She had
the soul of a man, and the heart of a woman.
"You were gardening, I see?" said Captain Rothesay, making
the first ordinary remark
that came to his mind, to break the awkward pause.
"Yes; I do so every fine evening. Harold is very fond of
flowers--and that reminds me I must call him to you at once, as it is
Wednesday,--service-night, and he will be engaged in his duties
soon."
"Pray, let us enter the house; I should much like to see your
son," said Angus Rothesay. He gave her his arm; and they walked
together, through the green alleys of holly, to the front-door. Then Mrs.
Gwynne stopped, put her hand over her eyes for a moment, removed it, and
looked earnestly at her guest.
"Angus Rothesay! how strange this seems!--like a
dream--a dream of thirty years. Well, let us go in."
Mechanically, and yet in a subdued, absent manner, she laid her bonnet
and shawl on the hall-table, and took off her gardening-gloves,
thereby discovering hands, which, though large, were white and well-formed, and in their round, taper delicacy, exhibited no sign of age. Captain Rothesay, without pausing to think, took the right hand.
"Ah! you wear still the ring I used to play with when a boy. I
thought--" and, recollecting himself, he stopped, ashamed of his
discourtesy in alluding to what must have been a painful past.
But she said, quietly, sadly, though without any agitation, "You
have a good memory. It was left to me, ten years since, on the death of
Archibald Maclean."
Strange that she could thus speak that name! But over how many a buried
grief does the grass grow green in thirty years!
In the hall, they encountered a young man.
"Harold," said Mrs. Gwynne, "give
wel-
come to an old--a very old friend of mine--Captain Angus Rothesay. Angus, this is my son--my only son, Harold."
And she looked upon him as a mother, widowed for twenty years, looks
upon an only son; yet the pride was tempered with dignity, the affection
was veiled under reserve. She, who doubtless would have sustained his life
with her own heart's blood, had probably never since his boyhood
suffered him to know a mother's passionate tenderness, or to behold a
mother's tear.
Perhaps that was the reason that Harold's whole manner was the
reflection of her own. Not that he was like her in person; for nature had
to him, been far more bountiful; and Harold Gwynne, though not above
mediocre height, was considerably above mediocre beauty. But there was a
certain rigidness and harshness in his mien, and a slightly repellant
atmosphere around him. Probably, not one of
the young lambs of his flock had ever dreamed of climbing the knee of the Reverend Harold Gwynne. Though he wore the clerical garb, he did not look at all apostle-like; he was neither a St. Paul nor a St. John. Yet a grand, noble head it was. It might have been sketched for that of a young philosopher--a Galileo or a Priestley, with the heavy, strongly-marked brows. The eyes--hackneyed as the description is, no one can paint a man without mentioning his eyes: those of Harold Gwynne were not unlike his mother's, in their open, steadfast look; yet they were not soft, like hers, but of a steel-grey, diamond clear. He carried his head very erect; and these eyes of his seemed as though unable to rest on the ground; they were always turned upwards, with a gaze--not reverent or dreamy--but eager, inquiring, and piercing as truth itself.
Such was the young man with whom Cap-
tain Rothesay shook hands, congratulating his old friend on having such a son.
"You are more fortunate than I," he said; "my marriage
has only bestowed on me a daughter."
"Daughters are a great comfort sometimes," answered Mrs.
Gwynne; "though, for my part, I never wished for one."
The quick, reproachful glance of Harold sought his mother's face;
and shortly afterwards, he re-entered his study.
"My son thinks I meant to include a daughter-in-law," was
Mrs. Gwynne's remark, while the concealed playfulness about her mouth
appeared. "He is soon to bring me one."
"I know it--and know her, too; by this means I found you out.
I should scarcely have imagined Sara Derwent the girl for you to
choose."
"He chooses, not I. A mother, whose
dutiful son has been her sole stay through life, has no right to interfere with what he deems his happiness," said Alison, gravely. And, at that moment, the young curate reappeared, ready for the duties to which he was summoned by the sharp sound of the "church-going bell."
"I will stay at home with Captain Rothesay," observed Mrs.
Gwynne. Her guest made a courteous disclaimer, which ended in something
about "religious duties."
"Hospitality is a duty too--at least we thought so in the
north," she answered. "And old friendship is ever somewhat of a
religion with me. Therefore I will stay, Harold."
"You are right, mother," said Harold. But he would not that
his mother had seen the smile which curled his lip as he passed along the
hall, and through the garden towards the churchyard. There it faded into a
look, dark and yet mournful; which, as it turned from the
dust beneath his feet to the stars overhead, and then back again to the graves, seemed to ask despairingly, at once of heaven and earth, for the solution of some inward mystery.
While Harold preached, his mother and Captain Rothesay sat in the
parsonage and talked of their olden days, now faint as a dream. The rising
wind, which, sweeping over the wide champaign, came to moan in the
hill-side trees, seemed to sing the dirge of that long-past life. Yet the
heart of both, even of Angus Rothesay, throbbed to its memory; as a
Scottish heart ever does to that of home and the mountain-land.
Among other long unspoken names came that of Miss Flora Rothesay.
"She is an old woman now--a few years older than I; Harold
visits her not infrequently; and she and I correspond now and then, but we
have not met for many years."
"Yet you have not forgotten her?"
"Do I ever forget?" said Alison, as she turned her face
towards him. And looking thereon, he felt that such a woman never
could.
Their conversation, passing down the stream of time, touched on all that
was memorable in the life of both. She mentioned her husband--but
merely the two events, not long distant each from each, of their marriage
and his death.
"Your son is not like yourself--does he resemble Mr.
Gwynne," observed Rothesay.
"In person, yes, a little; in mind--no! a thousand times
no!" Then recollecting herself, she added, "It was not likely.
Mr. Gwynne has been dead so many years that my son"--it was
always my son--"has no remembrance of his
father."
Alas! that there should be some whose memories are gladly suffered to
perish, with the falling of the earth above them.
A thought like this passed through the mind of Angus Rothesay. "I
fancy," said he, "that I once met Mr. Gwynne; he
was--"
"My husband!" Mrs. Gwynne's tone suppressed all further
remark--even all recollection of the contemptible image that was
intruding on her guest's mind--an image of a young, roistering,
fox-hunting fool. Rothesay looked on the widow, and the remembrance passed
away, or became sacred as memory itself. And then the conversation glided
as a mother's heart would fain direct it--to her only son.
"He was a strange creature ever, was my Harold. In his childhood
he always teazed me with his 'why and because;' he would come
to the root of everything, and would not believe anything that he could not
quite understand. Gradually I began to glory in this peculiarity, for I saw
it argued a mind far above the common order. Angus, you are a
father; you may be happy in your child, but you never can understand the intense pride of a mother in an only son."
While she talked, her countenance and manner brightened, and Captain
Rothesay saw again, not the serene, stern widow of Owen Gwynne, but the
energetic, impassioned mountain-girl, Alison Balfour. He told her this.
"Is it so? Strange! And yet I do but talk to you as I often did
when we were young together."
He begged her to continue--his heart warmed as it had not done for
many a day; and, to lead the way, he asked what chance had caused the
descendant of the Balfours to become an English clergyman?
"From circumstances. When he was very young and we two lived
together in the poor Highland cottage where he was born, my boy made
acquaintance with an Englishman, one
Lord Arundale, a great student. Harold longed to be a student, too."
"A noble desire."
"I shared it too. When the thought came to me that my boy would be
a great man, I nursed it, cherished it, made it my whole life's aim.
We were not rich--I had not married for money"--and there
was a faint show of pride in her lip--"yet, Harold must go, as
he desired, to an English university. I said in my heart, 'He
shall!' and he did."
Angus looked at Mrs. Gwynne, and thought that a woman's will might
sometimes be as strong and daring as a man's.
Alison continued--"My son had only half finished his
education when fortune made the poor poorer. But Scotland and Cambridge,
thank Heaven! were far distant. I never told him one word--I
lived--it matters little how--I cared not! Our fortune lasted, as
I had calculated it would, till he had taken his
degree, and left college rich in honours--and then--"
She ceased, and the light in her countenance faded. Angus Rothesay gazed
upon the aged mother as reverently as he had done upon the good angel of
his boyish days.
"I said you were a noble woman, Alison Balfour."
"I was a mother, and I had a noble son!" was her only
answer.
They sat a long time silent, looking at the fire, and listening to the
wind. There was a momentary interruption--a message from the young
clergyman, to say that he was summoned some distance to visit a sick
person.
"On such a stormy night as this!" said Angus Rothesay.
"Harold never fails in his duties," replied the mother, with
a smile. Then turning abruptly to her guest--"You will let me
talk, old friend, and about him. I cannot often
talk to him, for he is so reserved--that is, so occupied with his clerical studies. But there never was a better son than my Harold."
"I am sure of it," said Captain Rothesay.
The mother continued--"Never shall I forget the triumph of
his coming home from Cambridge. Yet it brought a pang, too; for then first
he had to learn the whole truth. Poor Harold! it pained me to see him so
shocked and overwhelmed at the sight of our lowly roof and mean fare; and
to know that even these would not last us long. But I said to
him--'My son, what signifies it, when you can soon bring your
mother to your own home.' For he, already a deacon, had had a curacy
offered him, as soon as ever he chose to take priest's
orders."
"Then he had already decided on entering the church?"
"He had chosen that career in his youth.
Towards it his whole education had tended. But," she added, with a troubled look, "my old friend, I may tell you one doubt, which I have never yet breathed to living soul--I think at this time there was a struggle in his mind. Perhaps his dreams of ambition rose higher than the simple destiny of a country clergyman. I hinted this to him, but he repelled my questionings. Alas! he knew, as well as I, that there was now no other path open for him."
Mrs. Gwynne paused, and then went on, as though speaking more to herself
than to her listener.
"The time came for Harold to decide. I marvelled not at the
trouble and restlessness which oppressed him, for I knew how strong
ambition must be in a man like him. God knows I would have worked, begged,
starved, rather than he should be thus tried. I told him so, the day before
his ordination;
but he entreated me to be silent, with a look such as I never saw on his face before--such as I trust in God I never may see again. I heard him all night walking about his chamber; and the next morning he was gone ere I rose. When he came back, he seemed quite excited with joy, embraced me, told me I should never know poverty more, for that he was in priest's orders, and we should go the next week to the curacy at Harbury."
"And he has never repented?"
"I think not. He is not without the honours he desired; for his
fame in science is extending far beyond his small parish. He fulfils his
duties scrupulously; and the people respect him, though he sides with no
party, high-church or evangelical. We abhor illiberality--my son and
I."
"That is clear, otherwise I had never seen Alison Balfour quitting
the kirk for the church."
"Angus Rothesay," said Mrs. Gwynne, with dignity, "I
have learned, throughout a long life, the lesson that trifling outward
differences matter little--the spirit of religion is its true life.
This lesson I have taught my son from his cradle; and where will you find a
more sincere, moral, or pious man than Harold Gwynne?"
"Where indeed, mother?" echoed a voice, as Harold, opening
the door, caught her last words. "But come, 'no more o'
that, an thou lovest me!'"
"Harold!" She looked at him commandingly, and the light tone
in which he had spoken was quelled. The coldness of reserve grew up between
mother and son once more.
The breakfast-room was Harold's study. It was more that of a man of
science and learning than that of a clergyman. Beside Leighton and Flavel,
were placed Bacon and Descartes; dust lay upon John Newton's Sermons,
while close by, rested in honoured well-thumbed tatters, his great
namesake, who read God's scriptures in the stars. In
one corner lay a large unopened packet--marked "Religious Society's Tracts;" it served as a stand for a large telescope, whose clumsiness betrayed the ingenuity of home manufacture. The theological contents of the library was a vast mass of polemical literature, orthodox and heterodox, including all faiths, all variations of sect. Mahomet and Swedenborg, Calvin and the Talmud, lay side by side; and on the farthest shelf was the great original of all creeds--the Book of Books.
On this morning, as on most others, Harold Gwynne did not appear until
after prayers were over. His mother read them, as indeed she always did
morning and evening. A stranger might have said, that her doing so was the
last lingering token of her sway as "head of the
household."
Harold entered, his countenance bearing
the pallid restless look of one who lies half-dreaming in bed, long after he is awake and ought to have risen. His mother saw it.
"You are not right, Harold. I had far rather that you rose at six
and studied till nine, as formerly, than that you should dream away the
morning hours, and come down looking as you do now. Forgive me, but it is
not good for you, my son."
She often called him my son with a beautiful simplicity,
that reminded one of the holy Hebrew mothers--of Rebekah or of
Hannah.
Harold looked for a moment disconcerted--not angry. "Do not
mind me, mother; I shall go back to study in good time. Let me do as I
judge best."
"Certainly," was all the mother's reply. She
reproved--she never "scolded." Turning the conversation,
she directed hers to Captain Rothesay, while Harold ate his
break-
fast in silence--a habit not unusual with him. Immediately afterwards he rose, and prepared to depart for the day.
"I need not apologise to Captain Rothesay," he said, in his
own straightforward manner, which was only saved from the imputation of
bluntness by a certain manly dignity--and contrasted strongly with the
reserved and courtly grace of his guest. "My pursuits can scarcely
interest you, while I know, and you know, what pleasure my
mother takes in your society."
"You will not stay away all this day too, Harold. Surely that is a
little too much to be required, even by Miss Derwent," spoke the
quick impulse of the mother's unconscious jealousy. But she repressed
it at once--even before the sudden flush of anger awakened by her
words had faded from Harold's brow. "Go, my son--your
mother never interferes either with your duties or your
pleasures."
Harold took her hand--though with scarce less formality than he did
that of Captain Rothesay; and in a few minutes they saw him gallop down the
hill and across the open country, with a speed beseeming well the age of
five-and-twenty, and the season of a first love.
Mrs. Gwynne looked after him with an intensity of feeling that in any
other woman would have found vent in a tear--certainly a sigh. But
neither was easily awakened in her nature; it was too deep.
"You are thinking of your son and his marriage," said
Angus.
"That is not strange. It is a life crisis with all men--and
it has come so suddenly--I scarcely know my Harold of two months since
in my Harold now."
"To work such results, it must be an ardent love."
"Say, rather,a vehement passion--love does
not spring up and flower, like my hyacinths there, in six weeks," answered Mrs. Gwynne, smiling with that quiet humour which formed a curious and apparently contradictory trait in her character. "But I murmur little. Reason, if not feeling, tells me that a mother advancing in years cannot be all in all to a young man. Harold needs a wife--let him take one! They will be married soon; and if all Sara's qualities equal her beauty, this wild passion will soon mature into affection. He may be happy--I trust so!"
She folded her hands over her breast, less in meekness than to press
down its swelling emotion. Well she knew that woman's deepest love, as
mother, sister, wife, is often but another name for self-denying
martyrdom.
"But does your son's affianced return his love?" asked
Rothesay.
"Is there any girl who would not love my Harold?" spoke the
quick-rising maternal
pride. But she almost smiled at it herself, and added--"Really, you must excuse these speeches of mine. I talk to you as I never do to any one else; but it is all for the sake of olden times. This has been a happy week to me. You must pay us another visit soon."
"I will. And you must take a journey to my home, and learn to know
my wife and Olive," said Rothesay. The pure influence of Alison
Gwynne was unconsciously strengthening to all good; and though, from some
inexplicable feeling, he had spoken but little of his wife and child, there
were growing up in his mind many schemes, the chief of which were connected
with Olive. But he now thought less of her appearing in the world as
Captain Rothesay's heiress, than of her being placed within the shadow
of the noble nature of Alison Gwynne, and so reflecting back upon her
father's age
that benign influence which had been the blessing of his youth.
He went on to tell Mrs. Gwynne more of his affairs and of his plans than
he had communicated to any one for many a long year. In the midst of their
conversation came the visitation--always so important in remote
country districts--the every-other-day's post.
"For you--not me. I have few correspondents. So I will go to
my duties, while you attend to yours," said Mrs. Gwynne, and
departed.
When she came in again, Captain Rothesay was pacing the room with a
vexed and disordered aspect.
"No ill news, I hope," said the voice, which, when it chose,
could soften to all a woman's sympathy.
"No, my kind friend--not exactly ill-news, though vexatious
enough. But why should I trouble you with them?"
"Nothing ever troubles me that can be of use to my friends. I ask
no unwelcome confidence. If it is any relief to you to speak, I will gladly
hear. It is sometimes good for a man to have a woman to talk to."
"It is--it is! Would that I had been blessed with common
sense at home," thought Rothesay in his heart. And that heart opening
itself more and more, he told her his cause of annoyance. A most important
mercantile venture would be lost to him for want of what he called "a
few paltry hundreds," to be forthcoming on the morrow.
"If it had been a fortnight--just till my next ship is due;
or even one week, to give me time to make some arrangement! But where is
the use of complaining? It is too late."
"Not quite," said Alison Gwynne, looking up after a few
moments of deep thought; and, with a clearness which would have gained for
her the repute of "a thorough woman of business," she questioned Captain Rothesay, until she drew from him a possible way of obviating his difficulty.
"If, as you say, I were in London now, where my banker or some
business friend would take up a bill for me; but that is
impossible!"
"Nay--why say that you have friends alone in London?"
replied Alison,with agentle smile. "That is rather too unjust, Angus
Rothesay. Our Highland clanship is not so clean forgotten, I hope. Come,
old friend, it will be hard if I cannot do something for you. And Harold,
who loves Flora Rothesay almost as much as he loves me, would gladly aid
her kinsman."
"How--how! Nay, but I will never consent," cried Angus,
with a resoluteness through which his first eager sense of relief was
clearly discernible. Truly, there was coming upon
him, with this mania of speculation, the same desperation which causes the gambler to clutch money from the starving hands of those who even yet are passionately dear.
"You shall consent, friend," answered Mrs.
Gwynne, composedly. "Why should you not? It is a mere form--an
obligation of a week, at most. You will accept that for the sake of Alison
Balfour."
He clasped her hand with as much emotion as was in his nature to
show.
She continued--"Well, we will talk of this again when Harold
comes in to dinner. But, positively, I see him returning. There he is,
dashing up the hill. I hope nothing is the matter."
Yet she did not quit the room to meet him, but sat apparently quiet,
though her hands were slightly trembling, until her son came in. In answer
to her question, he said--
"No, no; nothing amiss. Only Mr. Fludyer would have me go to the
Hall to see his new horses; and there I found--"
"Sara!" interrupted the mother. "Well, perhaps she
thought it would be a pleasant change from the dulness of Waterton during
your absence; so never mind."
He did mind. He restlessly paced the room, angry with his mother,
himself--with the whole world. Mrs. Gwynne might well notice how this
sudden passion had changed his nature. A moralist looking on the knotted
brow, which indicated the most majestic intellect, would have smiled to
see--not for the first time--a great and wise man making of
himself a slave, nay, a very fool, for the enchantments of a beautiful
woman.
His mother took his arm and walked with him up and down the room,
without talking to him at all. But her firm step and firm clasp seemed to
soothe--almost force him into com-
posure. She had over him at once a mother's influence and a father's control.
Meanwhile, Captain Rothesay busied, or seemed to busy himself, with his
numerous letters, and very wisely kept nearly out of sight.
As soon as her son appeared a little recovered from his vexation, Mrs.
Gwynne said,
"Now, Harold, if you are quite willing, I want to talk to you for
a few minutes. Shall it be now or this evening?"
"This evening I shall ride over to Waterton."
"What! not one evening to spare for your mother, or--"
she corrected herself speedily, "for your beloved books?"
He moved restlessly.
"Nay, I have had enough of study; I must have interest, amusement,
excitement. I think I have drunk all the world's pleasures
dry, except this one. Mother, don't keep it from me; I know no rest except I am beside Sara."
He rarely spoke to her so freely, and, despite her pain, the mother was
touched.
"Go, then, go to Sara; and the matter I wished to speak upon we
will discuss now."
He sat down and listened, though often only with his outward ears, to
her plan, wherewith Captain Rothesay might be saved from his
difficulty.
"It is a mere nominal thing; I would execute it myself, but a
wonman's name would scarcely do. Yours will. My son Harold will at
once perform such a trifling act of kindness for his mother's
friend."
"Of course--of course. Come, tell me what to do; you
understand all these business affairs--wise woman that you are,
mother!" said Harold, as he rose up to seek his guest.
Captain Rothesay scrupled a while longer;
but at length the dazzling vision of coming wealth absorbed both pride and reluctance. It would be so hard to miss the chance of thousands, by objecting to a mere form. "Besides, Harold Gwynne shall share the success," he thought; and he formed many schemes for changing the comparative poverty of the parsonage into comfort and luxury. It was only when the pen was in the young man's hand, ready to sign the paper, that the faintest misgiving crossed Rothesay's mind.
"Stay, it is but for a few days--yet life sometimes ends in
an hour. What, if I should die, at once, before I can requite you? Mr.
Gwynne, you shall not do it."
"He shall--I mean, he will," answered the
mother.
"But not until I have secured him in some way."
"Nay, Angus; we 'auld acquaintance' should not thus
bargain away our friendship," said
Mrs. Gwynne, with wounded pride--Highland pride. "And besides, there is no time to lose. Here is the acceptance ready--so, Harold, sign!"
And Harold did sign. The instant after, glad to escape, he quitted the
room.
Angus Rothesay sank on a chair with a heart-deep sigh of relief. It was
done now. He eyed with thankfulness the paper which had secured him the
golden prize.
"It is but a trifle--a sum not worth naming," he
muttered to himself; and so, indeed, it seemed to one who had "turned
over" thousands like mere heaps of dust. He never thought that it was
an amount equal to Harold's yearly income for which the young man had
thus become bound.
Yet he omitted not again and again to thank Mrs. Gwynne, and with
excited eagerness to point to all the prospects now before him.
"And, besides, you cannot think from what
you have saved me--the annoyance--the shame of breaking my word. Oh! my friend, you know not in what a whirling, restless world of commerce I live! To fail in anything, or be thought to fail, would positively ruin me and drive me mad."
"Angus--old companion!" answered Mrs. Gwynne, regarding
him earnestly, "you must not blame me if I tell you this is wrong. In
one week I have seen far into your heart--farther than you think. Be
advised by me; change this life for one more calm. Home and its blessings
never come too late."
"You are right," said Angus. "I sometimes think that
all is not well with me. I am growing old, and business racks my head sadly
sometimes. Feel it now!"
He carried to his brow her hand--the hand which had led him when a
boy, which in his fantastic dream of youth he had passionately kissed; even
now, when the pulses were
grown leaden with age, it felt cool, calm, like the touch of some pitying and protecting angel.
Alison Gwynne shook her head gently. "My friend, you say truly all
is not well with you. Let us put aside all business, and walk in the
garden. Come!"
Captain Rothesay lingered at Harbury yet one day more. But he could not
stay longer, for this important business-venture made him restless.
Besides, Harold's wedding was near at hand; in less than a week the
mother would be sole regent of her son's home no more. No wonder that
this made her grave and anxious--so that even her old friend's
presence was a slight restraint. Yet she bade him adieu with her own
cordial sincerity. He began to pour out thanks for all
kindness--especially the one kindness of all, adding--
"But I will say no more. You shall see or hear from me in a few
days at farthest."
"Not until after the wedding--I can think of nothing till
after the wedding," answered Mrs. Gwynne. "Now, farewell,
friend! but not for another thirty years, I trust!"
"No, no!" cried Angus,warmly. He looked at her as she sat in
serene, subdued age, by the light of her own hearth--life's
trials conquered--life's duties fulfilled--and she appeared
not less divine a creature than the Alison Balfour who had trod the
mountains full of joy, and hope, and energy. Holy and beautiful she had
seemed to him in her youth; and though every shadow of that passionate
idealisation, once called love, was gone, still holy and beautiful she
seemed to him in her age.
Angus Rothesay rode away from Harbury Parsonage, feeling that there he
had gained a new interest to make life and life's duties more sacred.
He thought with tenderness of his home--of his wife, and of his
"little Olive;"
and then, travelling by a rather circuitous route, his thoughts rested on Harold Gwynne.
"The kind-hearted, generous fellow! I will take care he is
requited double. And to-morrow, before ever I reach Oldchurch, I will go to
my lawyer's and make all safe on his account."
To-morrow! He remembered not who sayeth, "Boast not thyself of
to-morrow."
won and lightly lost are hearts like that of Sara Derwent!
But to Olive this change seemed a positive sin. She shuddered to think
of Sara's wicked faithlessness; she wept with pity, remembering poor
Charles. The sense of wrong, as well as of misery, had entered her world at
once; her idols were crumbling into dust. She mourned now, not only the
hopelessness of being loved, but the hopelessness of finding aught to love
with the adoration that requires nothing less than perfection to fulfil all
its aspirings. To love--not to be loved--could now be her only
blessing; was this, also, to be denied? Life grew painful to her, and a
morbid bitterness was settling on her soul.
She read the account that Sara had somewhat boastfully written, of her
prospects, her pretty home, and of Harold's devotion to her.
"This clever man--this noble man (as people call him, and most
of all his mother)--I
could wind him round my little finger. What think you, Olive? Is not that something to be married for? You ask if I am happy. Yes, certainly, happier than you can imagine."
"That is true indeed," murmured Olive; and there came upon
her a bitter sense of the inequalities of life. It seemed that Heaven to
some gave all things; to others, nothing! But she hushed the complainings,
for they seemed impious. Her spirit grew calm beneath the faith she had
been taught by Elspie, which, though carried by the old Scotswoman into all
the mystic horrors of Calvinistic predestination, yet had sweetness at its
root. For it was a faith that taught the peace of resting childlike beneath
the shadow of that Omnipotent Will, which holds every tangled thread of
fate within one mighty Hand, which rules all things, and rules them
continually for good.
While thinking thus, Olive was sitting in her "bower," as
she called her favourite place of solitude. It was a garden-seat, placed
under the thorn-tree, and shut out from sight of the house by an espalier
of apple-trees. Not very romantic, certainly, but a most pleasant spot,
with the sound of the "shallow river" gliding by, and of many a
bird that "sang madrigals" in the meadows opposite. And Olive
herself, as she sat with her hands crossed on her knee, her bending head
and pensive eyes out-gazing, added no unmeet picture to the still beauty of
the scene. Many a lovely woman might have coveted the meek yet heavenly
look which cast sweetness over the pale features of the deformed girl.
Olive, sitting with her eyes cast down, was some time before she became
conscious that she was watched--long and earnestly; but by an innocent
watcher--her "little knight,"
as he had dubbed hinself, Lyle Derwent. His face looked out from the ivy-leaves at the top of the wall. Soon he had leaped down, and was kneeling at her feet, just like a young lover in a romance. Smiling, she told him so; for in truth she made a great pet of the child, whose delicate beauty pleased her artist-eye, while his gentleness won her affection.
"Well, and I will be your lover, Miss Olive," said he,
stoutly; "for I love you very much indeed. I should so like to kiss
you--may I?"
She stooped down; the little clinging arms, the sweet childish kiss,
moved her almost to tears.
"Why are you always so sad, Miss Rothesay? why do you never laugh,
like Sara, or the other young ladies we know?"
"Because I am not like Sara, or like any other girl. Ah! Lyle, all
is very different
with me," said Olive, sighing softly. "But, my little knight, this can scarcely be understood by one so young as you."
"Though I am a little boy, I know thus much, that I love you, and
think you more beautiful than anybody else in the world--even than
Sara."
And speaking rather loudly and energetically, he was answered by a burst
of derisive laughter from behind the wall.
Olive crimsoned; it was one more of those passing wounds which her
sensitive nature now continually received. Was even a child's love for
her deemed so unnatural, and worthy to be mocked at thus cruelly? Lyle,
with a quickness beyond his years, seemed to have divined her thoughts, and
his gentle temper was roused into passion.
"I will kill Bob, I will! Never mind him, sweet, dear, beautiful
Miss Rothesay; I love you, and I hate him."
"Hush! Lyle, hush! that is wrong." And then she was silent.
Her heaving breast and white cheek alone revealed how deeply the arrow had
entered. The little boy stood by her side, his face still burning with
indignation.
Soon Olive's trouble subsided. She whispered to herself, "It
must be always thus--I will try to bear it," and then she became
composed. She bade her little friend adieu, telling, him she was going back
into the house.
"But you will forgive all, you will not think of anything that
would tease you?" said Lyle, hesitatingly.
Olive promised, with a pale, patient smile.
"And to prove this, will you kiss your little knight once
again?"
"If you desire it."
Her soft drooping hair swept his cheek; her lips touched his.
Afterwards, when, in his
childish but most fanciful musings, Lyle Derwent used to dream of an angel's kiss, it always seemed to him like this of Olive Rothesay's--her last!
The young girl entered the house. Within it rested the slumberous quiet
of a Sunday afternoon. Her mother had gone to a distant church, and there
was none left "to keep house," save one of the maids and the
old grey cat, that dosed on the window-sill in the sunshine. The latter was
a great pet of Olive's; and the moment it saw its young mistress, it
was purring round her feet, following her from room to room, never resting
until she took it up in her arms. The love even of a dumb animal touched
her then. She sat down on her own little low chair, spread on her lap the
smooth white apron which Miss Pussy loved--cats have delicate and
refined tastes sometimes--and so she leaned back, soothed by the
monotonous song of her purring favourite, and
think-
ing that there was at least one living creature who loved her, and whom she could make happy.
She sat at the open window, seeing only the high, green privet hedge
that enclosed the front-garden, the little wicket-gate, and the blue sky
beyond. How still everything was! By degrees the footsteps of a few late
churchgoers vanished along the road; the bells ceased--first the
quick, sharp clang of the new church, and then the musical peal that rang
out from the grey Norman tower. There never were such bells as those of
Oldchurch! but they melted away in silence; and then the dreamy quietness
of the hour stole over Olive's sense.
She thought of many things--things which might have been sad, but
for the slumberous peace that took away all pain. It was just the hour when
she had used to sit on the floor, leaning against Elspie's knees,
generally
reading aloud in the Book which alone the nurse permitted on Sundays. Now and then--once in particular she remembered--old Elspie fell asleep; and then Olive turned to her favourite study, the Book of Revelations. Childlike, she terrified herself over the mysterious prophecies of the latter days, until at last she forgot the gloom and horror, in reading of the "beautiful city, New Jerusalem."
She seemed to see it--its twelve gates, angel-guarded, its crystal
river, its many-fruited tree--the Tree of Life. Her young but glowing
fancy, unable to separate truth from allegory, created out of these marvels
a paradise, material in itself. She knew not that heaven is only the
continual presence of the Eternal. Yet she was happy; and in her dreams she
never pictured the land beyond the grave, but there came back to her, as
though the nearest foreshadowing of its deep,
holy rest, the visions of that Sunday afternoon.
She sat a long time thinking of them, and of herself--how much
older she felt since then, and how many troubles shehad passed through.
Troubles! Poor child!--how little knew she those of the world! But
even her own small burthen seemed lightened now. She leaned her head
against the window, listening to the bees humming in the garden--bees,
the only Sunday workers, and even they seemed to toil with a kind of
Sabbatic solemnity. And then, turning her face upwards, Olive watched many
a fair white butterfly, that, having flitted awhile among the flowers,
spread its wings and rose far into the air, like a pure soul weary of
earth, and floating heavenward. How she wished--girlish
dreamer!--that she could do likewise; and leaving earth
behind--its flowers as well as weeds, its sunshine as its
storm--soar into another and a higher existence!
Not yet, Olive--not yet! None receives the guerdon, save he who has
won the goal!
A pause in the girl's reverie--caused by a light sound that
broke the perfect quietness around. She listened; it was the rumbling of
carriage-wheels along the road--a rare circircumstance; for the people
of Oldchurch, if not personally devout, lived in a devout atmosphere, which
forbade pleasure-drives on the day of rest.
A momentary hope struck Olive that it might be her father returning
home, where he was now daily expected. But he was a strict man; he never
travelled on Sundays. Nevertheless, Olive listened mechanically to the
wheels: they dashed rapidly on--came near--stopped. Yes, it must
be her father.
Full of joy, she flew to the hall-door, to
welcome him. There, stood, not her father, but a little hard-featured old man, Mr. Wyld, the family lawyer. Olive drew back, sorely disappointed; for if in her gentle heart lingered one positive aversion, it was felt towards this man--partly on his own account, partly because his appearance seemed always the forewarning of evil in the little household. He never came, but, at his departure, Captain Rothesay wore a frowning brow, and indulged in a hasty temper for days and days. No marvel was there in Olive's dislike; yet she regretted having shown it, and said courteously--
"Pardon me, Mr. Wyld, but I thought it was my father. I am sorry
that he is not at home to receive you."
"Nay, I--I did not come to see Captain Rothesay,"
answered the lawyer, betraying some confusion and hesitation beneath his
usual smooth manner. "The fact is, my dear young lady, I bring a letter for your mother."
"From papa?" cried Olive, eagerly.
"No, not exactly; that is--. But can I see Mrs.
Rothesay?"
"She is at church. She will be at home in half an hour, probably.
Will you wait?"
He shook his head.
"Nay, there is nothing wrong--nothing about papa?" said
Olive, growing frightened.
"Don't alarm yourself, my dear."
Olive shrank from the touch of his.hand, as he led her into the
parlour.
"Your papa is at my house. But I think, Miss Rothesay, as your
mother is not at home, you had better read the letter yourself."
She took it with a hand that trembled despite her will. Slowly,
silently, she read it through--twice; for the words seemed to
dazzle and blaze before her eyes. Then she looked up helplessly. "I--I cannot understand."
"I thought the doctor wrote plainly enough, and broke the matter
cautiously, too," muttered Mr. Wyld; adding aloud, "Upon my
honour, my dear, I assure you your father is alive. It is a painful
task--a very painful task, to bring this news."
"Tell me--I cannot read, I cannot see--Oh, my poor
father!" And then she sank down slowly where she stood, as if pressed
by some heavy, invisible hand. Mr.Wyld thought she had fainted--but it
was not so. In another moment she stood before him, quiet, cold, nerved by
this great woe to a firmness which was awful in its rigid composure.
"I can listen now. Tell me everything!"
He told her in a few words how Captain Rothesay had come to his house
the night before, and while waiting his return, had taken up
the newspaper. "Suddenly, my clerk said, he let it fall with a cry, and was immediately seized with the fit from which he has not yet recovered. There is hope, the doctor thinks; but, in case of the worst, you must come to him at once."
"Yes, yes, at once!" She rose and walked to the door.
guiding herself by the wall, and groping as if she were blind.
"Nay, Miss Rothesay, what are you doing? You forget we cannot go
without your mother."
"My mother! Oh, heaven! it will kill my mother!" And the
thought brought tears, the first that had burst from her. It was well, or
her bewildered brain might have reeled beneath the sudden blow.
She awoke to consciousness and strength. In this great crisis, there
came to her the wisdom and forethought that lay dormant in her nature. She
became a woman--one of
those of whom the world contains few--at once gentle and strong, meek and fearless, patient to endure, heroic to act.
She sat down for a moment and considered. "Fourteen miles it is to
B--. If we start in an hour, we shall reach there by sunset."
Then she summoned the maid; and said, speaking steadily, that she might by
no sign betray what might in turn be betrayed to her mother--
"You must go and meet mamma as she comes from church; or, if not,
seek her there. Tell her there is a message come from my father, and ask
her to hasten home on his account. Make haste yourself I will keep house
the while.--There, that is done;--she will not guess
anything," added Olive, as the woman left the room, murmuring a
little, but never thinking to disobey her young mistress--so sudden,
so all-constraining, was the dignity which had come upon the girl. Even
Mr. Wyld felt it; and his manner changed from smooth, patronising condolence, to a respect not unmingled with awe.
"What can I do, Miss Rothesay?" he said, humbly. "You
turn from me. No wonder, when I have had the misfortune to be the bearer of
such evil tidings."
"Hush!" she said; for there was tenfold bitterness in the
sound of his harsh voice, croaking regret and sympathy. Mechanically she
set wine before him--he eagerly swallowed it; even then prating,
between the draughts, of his deep sorrow, and earnest hope that no serious
evil would befall his good friend, Captain Rothesay.
Olive could endure no more. She fled away, shut herself up in her own
room, and fell on her knees; but no words came, save the bitter cry
"O God, have pity on us!" And there was no time, not even to
pray, except with the silent voice of her heart.
She pressed her hands on her brow, and once more thought what she had to
do. At that moment, through the quietness of the lonely house, she heard
the clock striking four. Never had time's passing seemed so awful. The
day was fleeting on whose every moment perhaps hung a life.
Something she must do, or her senses would have failed. She thought of
little things aught that might be needed when they reached her father.
Quietly she went into Mrs. Rothesay's room, and put up some clothes
and necessaries, in case they stayed more than one day at B--; her
mother's large, warm shawl, too, for she might have to sit up all
night. In these trifling arrangements what a horrible reality there was!
And yet she scarce felt it--she was half stunned still.
It was past four, and her mother had not come. Every minute seemed an
eternity. Olive walked to the window and looked out.
There was the same cheerful sunshine--the bees humming, and the butterflies flitting about, in the sweet stillness of the Sabbath afternoon, as she had watched them an hour ago. One little hour, to have brought into her world such utter misery.
She thought of it all, dwelling vividly on every accompaniment of
woe--even as she remembered to have done when she first learned that
Elspie would die. She pictured her mother's coming home; and almost
fancied she could see her now, walking across the fields. But no; it was
some one in a white dress, strolling by the hedge-row's side; and Mrs.
Rothesay that day wore blue--her favourite pale blue muslin, in which
she looked so lovely. She had gone out, laughs ing at her daughter for
saying this. What if Olive should never see her in that pretty dress
again!
All this, and more, clung to the girl's mind, with a horrible
pertinacity. And then, through the silence, she heard the Oldchurch-bells
awaking again, in the dull minute-peal which told that service-time was
ended, and the afternoon funerals were taking place. Olive, shuddering,
closed her ears against the sound; and then, gazing out once more, she saw
her mother stand at the gate. All unconscious still, Mrs. Rothesay looked
up at the window and smiled.
Olive had never thought of that worst pang of all--how she should
break the news to her mother--her timid, delicate mother, whose feeble
frame quivered beneath the lightest breath of suffering. Scarcely knowing
what she did, the daughter flew down stairs.
"Not there, mamma--not there!" she cried, as Mrs.
Rothesay was about to enter the par-
lour. Olive drew her into another room, and made her sit down.
"What is all this, my dear?--why do you look so strange? Is
not your papa come home? Let us go to him."
"We will, we will! But, mamma"--One moment she looked
speechlessly in Mrs. Rothesay's face, and then fell on her neck,
crying, "I can't, I can't keep it from you any longer. Oh,
mother, mother! there is great trouble come upon us; we must be patient; we
must bear it together. God will help us."
"Olive!" The shrill terror of Mrs. Rothesay's voice
rung through the room.
"Hush! we must be quiet, very quiet. Papa is dangerously ill at
B--, and we must start at once. I have arranged all. Come, mamma,
dearest!"
But her mother had fainted.
There was no time to lose. Olive snatched
some restoratives, and then made ready to depart. Mrs. Rothesay, still insensible, was lifted into the carriage. She lay there, for some time, quite motionless, supported in her daughter's arms--to which never had she owed support before. As Olive looked down upon her, strange, new feelings came into the girl's heart. The natural instinct of filial tenderness seemed transmuted into a devotion passing the love of child to mother, and mingled therewith was a sense of protection, of watchful guardianship.
She thought, "What if my father should die, and we two should be
left alone in the world! Then she will have none to look to save me, and I
will be to her in the stead of all. Once, I think, she loved me little;
but, oh! mother, dearly we love one another now."
When Mrs. Rothesay's senses returned, she lifted her head, with a
bewildered air.
"Where are we going? What has happened? I can't think clearly of anything."
"Dearest mamma, do not try--I will think for us both. Be
content; you are quite safe with your own daughter."
"My daughter--ah! I remember, I fainted, as I did long years
ago, when they told me something about my daughter. Are you she--that
little child whom I cast from my arms? and now I am lying in yours!"
she cried, her mind seeming to wander, as if distraught by this sudden
shock.
"Hush, mamma! don't talk; rest quiet here," was the
soothing answer.
Mrs. Rothesay looked wistfully in her daughter's face, and there
seemed to cross her mind some remembered sense of what had befallen. She
clung helplessly to those affectionate arms--"Take care of me,
Olive!--I do not deserve it, but take care of me!"
"I will, until death!" was Olive's inward vow.
And so, travelling fast, but in solemn silence, they came to B--.
Alas! it was already too late! By Angus Rothesay's bed of death they
stood--the widow and the fatherless!
"Tell me only one thing!" cried Olive to Mr.Wyld, with whom,
after the funeral, she was holding conference--she only--for her
mother was incapable of acting, and this girl of sixteen was the sole ruler
of the household now. "Tell me only that my father died unblemished
in honour--that there are none to share misfortune with us, and to
curse the memory of the ruined merchant."
"I know of none," answered Mr. Wyld. "One fear your
father had was vain--the missing ship has come safe to land. True,
there are still remaining many private debts, but they may be paid."
And he cast a meaning glance round the luxuriously furnished room.
"I understand. It shall be done," said Olive. Misery had
made her very wise--very quick to comprehend. Without shrinking, she
talked over every matter connected
with that saddest thing--a deceased bankrupt's sale.
The lawyer was a hard man, and Olive's prejudice against him was
not unfounded. Still, the most stony heart has often a little softness
buried deep at its core. Mr. Wyld looked with curiosity, even with
kindness, on the young creature who sat opposite to him, in the dim
lamp-light of the silent room, once Captain Rothesay's study. Her
cheek, ever delicate, was now of a dull white; her pale gold hair fell
neglected over her black dress; her hand supported her care-marked brow, as
she pored over dusty papers, pausing at times to speak, in a quiet,
sensible, subdued manner, of things fit only for old heads and worn hearts.
Mr. Wyld thought of his own two daughters, whom he had left at home, blithe
in their untried youth, and felt a vague thankfulness that they were not as
Olive Rothesay. Tenderness
was rare in his nature; but in all his intercourse with her, he could not help treating with a sort of reverence the dead merchant's forlorn child.
When they had finished their conversation, he said, "There is one
matter--painful, too--upon which I ought to speak to you. I
should have done so before, but I did not know it myself until
yesterday."
"Know what? Alas! alas! is there more trouble to come upon
us?" answered Olive, sighing bitterly. "But tell me
all."
"All, is very little. You know, my dear Miss
Rothesay, that your late lamented father--" he puckered his face
into an expression of condolence, but seeing Olive's restless gesture,
smoothed it out again--"your father was quite speechless and
senseless, until his death--that is, almost. But my wife, who never
quitted him--ah! I
assure you she was a devoted nurse to him, was Mrs. Wyld."
"I thank her deeply, as she knows."
"Well, she has just told me, that a few minutes before his death,
your poor father's consciousness returned; that he seemed struggling
in vain to speak; at last, she placed a pencil in his hand, and he
wrote--one word only, in the act of writing which he died. Forgive me,
my dear young lady, for thus agitating you, but--"
"The paper--give me the paper!" gasped Olive.
Mr. Wyld pulled out his pocket-book, and produced a torn and blotted
scrap, whereon was written, in characters scarcely legible, the name
"Harold."
Olive wept over the blurred letters, seeming almost to behold the
quivering, death-struck hand which had formed them.
She wearied herself in agonized conjecture over the mystery, now apparently for ever sealed.
"Do you know any one who bears that name?" asked the
penetrating lawyer.
"No. Yes--one," added she, suddenly remembering that
the name of Sara's husband was Harold Gwynne. But between him and her
father she knew of no single tie. It must be a mere chance-coincidence.
Nevertheless, she would have asked something concerning him, save that the
whole Derwent family were gone to their sister's wedding, which took
place, not at Oldchurch, but in a distant county.
"It is hopeless!" cried Olive. "I know no clue, and I
dare not tell this to my mother yet. We must let the matter
rest."
Mr. Wyld, feeling his professional acuteness at stake, took up the
paper, with an air
of mysterious importance. "If it were a woman's name, now--I executed a little commission once."
"What did you say?" asked Olive, looking up at him with her
innocent eyes. He could not meet them; his own fell confused, for he
remembered that she was her father's child.
"What did I say, Miss Rothesay? Oh, nothing--nothing at all;
only that if I had a commission--to--to hunt out this secret. We
lawyers are acute sometimes, you know," said Mr. Wyld, ingeniously
twisting his words to an opposite meaning.
Olive thought he was angling for more fees; and inwardly disgusted, she
resolved to put a stop to his interference. "I thank you, Mr. Wyld;
but a daughter would not willingly employ any third person to "hunt
out" her father's secret. His papers will doubtless inform me of
all needful things that he might
wish executed; therefore we will speak no more of this subject."
"As you will." He gathered up his blue bag and its
voluminous contents, and made his adieux, leaving to welcome solitude the
young creature whom a hard fate had made his assistant in tasks so unsuited
for her sex and years.
But Olive had scarcely sat down again, and, with her head leaning on her
father's desk, had given vent to a sigh of relief, in that she was
freed from Mr. Wyld's presence,--when the old lawyer again
appeared.
"Miss Rothesay, I merely wished to say, if ever you find out
anything--anything that you don't know now--or need any
advice or information about that paper, or any other, I'm the man to
give it. Good evening!"
Olive thanked him coldly, somewhat proudly, for what she deemed a piece
of unnecessary impertinence. However, it quickly
passed from her gentle mind; and then, as the best way to soothe all her troubles, she quitted the study, and sought her mother's side.
Of Mrs. Rothesay's affliction we have as yet said little. Many and
various are earth's griefs; but there must be an awful individuality
in the stroke which severs the closest human tie, that between two whom
marriage had made "one flesh." And though some coldness had
loosened this sacred tie, still no power could utterly divide it, while
life endured. Angus Rothesay's widow remembered that she had once been
the loved and loving bride of his youth. As such, she mourned him; nor was
her grief without that keenest sting, the memory of unatoned wrong. From
the dim shores of the past, arose ghosts that nothing could ever lay,
because death's river ran eternally between.
Sybilla Rothesay was one of those women whom no force of circumstances
can ever
teach self-dependence or command. She had looked entirely to her husband for guidance and control, and now for both she looked to her child. From the moment of Captain Rothesay's death, Olive seemed to rule in his stead--or rather, the parent and child seemed to change places. Olive watched, guided, and guarded the passive, yielding sorrow-stricken woman, as it were, with a mother's care; while Mrs. Rothesay trusted implicitly in all things to her daughter's stronger mind, and was never troubled by thinking or acting for herself in any one thing.
This may seem a new theory of maternal and filial bond, but in the world
it is frequently so. If we look around on those daughters who have best
fulfilled that holy duty, without which no life is or can be blest, are
they not women of firm, steadfast nature--able to will and to act?
Each of them could
say, "I am as a mother unto my mother. I, the strongest now, take her in her feeble age, like a child to my bosom--I shield her, and cherish her, and am to her all in all."
And so, in her heart, resolved Olive Rothesay. She had made that vow
when her mother lay insensible in her arms; she kept it faithfully; until
eternity, closing between them, sealed it with that best of earth's
blessings--the blessing that falls on a duteous daughter, whose mother
is with God.
When Captain Rothesay's affairs were settled, the sole wreck of his
wealth that remained to his widow and child was the small settlement from
Mrs. Rothesay's fortune, on which she had lived at Stirling. So they
were not left in actual need; or even Olive's brave spirit might have
quailed, and her sweet nature been stung into evil by the bitterness of
want.
Still, she and her mother were poor--poor enough to make them
desire to leave prying, gossiping Oldchurch, and settle in the solitude of
some great town. "There," Olive said to herself, "I shall
surely find means to work for her--that she may have not merely
necessaries, but comforts." And many a night--during the few
weeks that elapsed before their home was broken up--she lay awake by
her sleeping mother's side, planning all sorts of schemes; arranging
everything so that Mrs. Rothesay's vacillating mind might not be
annoyed with arguings or consultations. When all was matured, she had only
to say, "Dearest mother, should we not be very happy living together
in London?" And scarcely had Mrs. Rothesay assented, than she found
everything arranged itself, as under an invisible fairy hand--so that
she had but to ask, "My child, when shall we go?"
The time of departure at last arrived. It was the night but one before
the sale. Olive persuaded her mother to go to rest early; for she herself
had a trying duty to perform--the examining of her father's
private papers. As she sat in his study--solitude and darkness around
her--the young girl might have been forgiven many a pang of grief,
even of superstitious fear. But Heaven had given her a hero-soul, not the
less heroic because in all things it was so entirely a woman's.
Her father's business-papers she had already examined: these were
only his private memoranda. But they were few; for, throughout his whole
career, Captain Rothesay had lived within himself. His thoughts never found
vent in words; there were no data of any kind to mark the history of a
life, which was almost as unknown
to his wife and daughter as to any stranger. Of letters, she found very few; he was not a man who loved correspondence. Only, among these few, she was touched deeply to see some, dated years back, at Stirling. Olive opened one of them. The delicate hand was that of her mother when she was young. Olive only glanced at the top of the page, where still smiled, from the worn, yellow paper, the words, "My dearest, dearest Angus;" and then, too right-minded to penetrate further, folded it up again. Yet, she felt glad; she thought it would comfort her mother to know how carefully he had kept these letters. Soon after, she found a memento of herself--a little curl, wrapped in silver-paper, and marked with his own hand, "Olive's hair." Her father had loved her then--aye, and more deeply than she knew. It soothed her heart to re-
member the love once borne to her by the dead. She knew that no change could take that love from her now.
The chief thing which troubled Olive was the sight of the paper on which
her father's dying hand had scrawled "Harold." No date of
any kind had been found to explain the mystery. Once she had tried to talk
with her mother on the subject, but it affected Mrs. Rothesay to a degree
so agonising that Olive was obliged to cease. She determined to think of
the matter no more, but to put the paper by in a secret drawer.
In doing so, she found a small packet, carefully tied and sealed. She
was about to open it, when the superscription caught her eyes. Thereon she
read her father's solemn desire--nay, entreaty--that it
should after his death be burnt unopened.
His faithful daughter fulfilled his will.
In-
stantly, without pausing to think, she threw the packet on the fire; even turning aside, lest the flames, while destroying, should reveal anything of the secret which seemed guarded by her dead father's prayer. Only once, forgetting herself; the crackling fire made her start and turn, and she caught a momentary glimpse of some curious foreign ornament; while near it, twisted in the flame into almost life-like motion, was what seemed a long lock of black hair. But she could be certain of nothing, she hated herself for even that involuntary glance. It seemed an insult to the dead.
Still more did these remorseful feelings awake, when, her task being
almost done, she found one letter addressed thus:
"For my daughter, Olive; but I charge her not to open it until she
is alone in the world."
Alone in the world! His fatherly tenderness had looked forward, then,
even to that bitter time which might come one day, when, her mother safely
laid to rest, Olive would be alone--a woman no longer young, without
husband, or child, or smiling home. She doubted not that her father had
written this letter to counsel and comfort her at such a season of
desolation, years after he was in the dust.
His daughter blessed him for it; and her tender tears fell upon words
which he had written,as she saw by the date, on that night,--the last
he ever spent at home. She never thought of breaking his injunction, or of
opening the letter before the time; and after considering deeply, she
decided that it was a mystery too sacred even for the ear of her mother, to
whom it would only give pain. Therefore she placed it in the private drawer
of her father's desk--now her own--to wait
until time should bring about the revealing of this solemn secret between her and the dead.
Then she went to bed, wearied and worn; and, creeping close to her
slumbering mother, thanked God that there was one warm living bosom to
which she could cling, and which would never cast her out.
O mother! O daughter! who, when time has blended into an almost sisterly
bond the difference of years, grow together, united, as it were, in one
heart and one soul by that intense love which is beyond even
"honour" and "obedience," because including
both--how happy are ye! How blessed she, who, looking on her
daughter--woman grown--can say, "Child, thou art bone of my
bone, and flesh of my flesh, as when I brought thee into the world!"
And thrice blessed is she who can answer, "Mother, I am all thine
own--I desire no love but thine--I bring to
thee my every joy; and my every grief finds rest on thy bosom."
Let those who know this happiness rejoice! Let those who only know its
memory pray always, that God would make that memory live, until the eternal
meeting at the resurrection of the just!
END OF VOL. I.