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BY
WHITING, BEAUFORD HOUSE, STRAND.
ing how calm she was, and how, after a season, she fell into her old pursuits and her kindly duties to all around, used to say, "Who would have thought that Miss Rothesay would have forgotten her mother so easily?"
But she did not forget. Selfish, worldly mourners are they,
who think that the memory of the beloved lost can only be kept green by
tears. Olive Rothesay was not of these. To her, her mother's departure
appeared no more like death, than did one Divine parting--with
reverence be it spoken!--appear to those who stood and looked
heavenward from the hill of Bethany. And thus should we think upon all
happy and holy deaths--if we fully and truly believed the faith we
aver.
Olive did not forget her mother--she could as soon have forgotten
her own soul. In all her actions, words, and thoughts, this
most sacred memory abided--a continual presence, silent as sweet, and sweet as holy. When her many and most affectionate friends had beguiled her into cheerfulness, so that they fancied she had lost thought of her sorrow, she used to say in her heart, "See, mother, I can think of thee and not grieve. I would not, that, looking down from heaven, it should pain thee to know I suffer still!"
Yet human feelings could not utterly be suppressed; and there were many
times, when at night-time she buried her face on the now lonely pillow, and
blindly stretched out her arms into the empty darkness, crying, "My
mother, oh my mother!" But then strong love came between Olive and
her agony, whispering, "Child, wherever her spirit abides, thy mother
forgets not thee!" And so the desolate one grew calm.
She looked very calm now, as she sat with Mrs. Gwynne in the bay-window
of the little drawing-room at the Parsonage, engaged in some light work,
with little Ailie reading a lesson at her knee. It was a lesson, too, taken
from that lore--at once the most simple and most divine--the
Gospels of the New Testament.
"I thought my son would prove himself right in all his
opinions," observed Mrs. Gwynne, when the lesson was over and the
child had run away. "I knew he would allow Ailie to learn everything
at the right time."
Olive made no answer. Her thoughts turned to the day--now some
months back--when, stung by the disobedience and falsehood that lay
hid in a young mind which knew no higher law than a human parent's
command, Harold had come to her for counsel. She remembered his almost
despairing words,
"Teach the child as you will--true or false--I care not; so that she becomes like yourself, and is saved from those doubts which rack her father's soul."
Harold Gwynne was not singular in this. Scarce ever was there an
unbeliever who desired to see the image of his own scepticism reflected in
his child.
Mrs. Gwynne continued--"I don't think I can ever
sufficiently thank you, my dear Miss Rothesay."
"Say Olive, as you generally do," was the
affectionate whisper.
It seemed that her Christian name sounded so sweet and homelike from
Harold's mother; especially now that, save from these kind lips, its
sound had ceased on earth.
"Olive, then! My dear, how good you are to take Ailie
so entirely under your care and teaching. But for that, we must have
sent her to some school from home, and, I will not conceal from you, that would have been a great sacrifice, even in a worldly point of view, since our income is so diminished by my son's resigning his duties to his curate." Mrs. Gwynne had learned to talk to Olive with more unreserve than to any other human being. "But tell me, do you think Harold looks any better? What an anxious summer this has been!"
And Olive, hearing the heavy sigh of the mother, whose whole existence
was bound up in her son, felt that there was something holy even in that
deceit, or rather concealment, wherein she herself was now a sorely-tried
sharer. "You must not be anxious," she said; "you know
that there is nothing dangerous in Mr. Gwynne's state of health, only
his mind has been overworked."
"I suppose so; and perhaps it was the best plan for him to give up
all clerical
duties for a time. I think, too, that these short excursions of his do him good."
"I hope so," said Olive, observing that the anxious mother
looked for an acquiescence.
"Besides, seeing that he is not positively disabled by illness,
his parishioners might think it peculiar that he should continually remain
among them, and yet discharge none of his duties. But my Harold is a
strange being; he always was. Sometimes I think his heart is not in his
calling--that he would have been more happy as a man of science than
as a clergyman. Yet of late he has ceased even that favourite pursuit; and
though he spends whole days in his study, I sometimes find he has not
displaced one book, except the large Bible which I gave him when he went to
college. God bless him--my dear Harold!"
Olive's inmost heart echoed the blessing,
and in the same words. For of late--perhaps with more frequently hearing him called by the familiar home appellation, she had thought of him less as Mr. Gwynne than as Harold. Alas! it is a serious thing for any woman, when, thinking of some friend, to her heart comes unconsciously not the name he bears in the world, but that which is uttered only by household affection or love.
"I wonder what makes your blithe Christal so late," observed
Mrs. Gwynne, abruptly, as if, disliking to betray further emotion, she
wished to change the conversation. "Lyle Derwent promised to bring
her himself--much against his will, though," she added, smiling.
"He seems quite afraid of Miss Manners; he says she teazes him
so!"
"But she suffers no one else to do it. If I say a word against
Lyle's little peculiarities, she is quite indignant. I rather think
she
likes him--that is, as much as she likes any of her friends."
"There is little depth of affection in Christal's nature. She
is too proud. She feels no need of love, and therefore cares not to win it.
Do you know, Olive," continued Mrs. Gwynne, "if I must unveil
all my weaknesses, there was a time when I watched Miss Manners more
closely than any one guesses. It was from a mother's jealousy over her
son's happiness, for I heard her name coupled with
Harold's."
"So have I, more than once," said Olive. "But I
thought at the time how idle was the rumour."
"It was idle, my dear; but I did not quite think so
then."
"Indeed!" There was a little quick gesture of surprise; and
Olive, ceasing her work, looked inquiringly at Mrs. Gwynne.
"I knew that a man must love; that,
hav-
ing once been wedded, Harold's necessity for a wife's sympathy and affection would be the greater. I always expected that my son would marry again, and therefore I eagerly watched every young woman whom he might meet in society, and be disposed to choose. All men, especially clergymen, are better married--at least in my opinion. Even you yourself, as Harold's friend, his most valued friend, must acknowledge that he would be happier with a wife."
What was there in this frank speech that smote Olive with a secret pain?
Was it the unconscious distinction drawn between her and all other women on
whom Harold might look with admiring eyes, so that his mother, while
calling her his friend, never dreamed of her being anything
more?
Olive knew not whence came the pain, yet still she felt it was there.
"Certainly he would," she answered, speaking in a
slow, quiet tone. "Nevertheless, I should scarcely think Christal a girl whom Mr. Gwynne would be likely to select."
"Nor I. At first, deeming her something like the first Mrs.
Harold, I had my doubts; but they quickly vanished. My son will never marry
Christal Manners."
Olive, sitting at the window, looked up. It seemed to her as if over the
room had come a lightness like the passing away of a cloud.
"Nor, as I believe now," pursued Mrs. Gwynne, "does it
appear to me likely that he will marry at all. I fear that domestic
love--the strong, yet quiet tenderness of a husband to a wife, is not
in his nature. Passion is, or was, in his youth; but he is not young now.
In his first hasty marriage I knew that the fire would soon burn itself
out--it has left nothing but ashes. Once he deceived himself with a
mistaken passion, and sorely he has reaped the fruits of his folly. The
result
is, that he will live to old age without ever having known the blessing of true love."
"Is that so mournful, then?" said Olive, more as if thinking
aloud than speaking.
Mrs. Gwynne did not hear the words, for she had started up at the sound
of a horse's hoofs at the gate. "If that should be Harold! He
said he would be at home this week or next. It is--it is he! How glad
I am--that is, I am glad that he should be in time to see the Fludyers
and Miss Manners before their journey to-morrow."
Thus, from long habit, trying to make excuses for her overflowing
tenderness, she hurried out. Olive heard Mr. Gwynne's voice in the
hall--his anxious, tender inquiry for his mother; even the quick,
flying step of little Ailie bounding to meet "papa."
She paused: her work fell, and a mist came before her eyes. She felt
then, as she had sometimes done before, though never so
strongly, that it was hard to be in the world alone.
This thought haunted her a while; until at last it was banished by the
influence of one of those pleasant social evenings, such as were often
spent at the Parsonage. The whole party, including Christal and Lyle, were
assembled in the twilight, the two latter keeping up a sort of Benedick and
Beatrice warfare; Harold and his mother seemed both very quiet--they
sat close together, her hand sometimes resting caressingly on his shoulder
or his knee. It was a new thing, this outward show of affection; but of
late, since his health had declined (and, in truth, he had often looked and
been very ill), there had come a touching softness between the mother and
son.
Olive Rothesay sat a little apart, a single lamp lighting her at her
work; for she was not idle. Following her old master's
ex-
ample, she was continually making studies from life for the picture on which she was engaged. She took a pleasure in filling it with idealised heads, of which the originals had place in her own warm affections. Christal was there, with her gracefully-turned throat, and the singular charm of her black eyes and fair hair. Lyle, too, with his delicate, womanish, but yet handsome face. Nor was Mrs. Gwynne forgotten--Olive made great use of her well-outlined form, and her majestic sweep of drapery. There was one only of the group who had not been limned by Miss Rothesay.
"If I were my brother-in-law I should take it quite as an ill
compliment that you had never asked him to sit," observed Lyle.
"But," he added in a whisper, "I don't suppose any
artist would care to paint such a hard, rugged-looking fellow as
Gwynne."
Olive looked on the pretty red and white
face of the boyish dabbler in Art--for Lyle had lately taken a fancy that way too--and then at the noble countenance he maligned. She did not say a word on the subject; but Lyle, hovering round her, found his interference somewhat sharply set aside during the whole evening.
When assembled round the supper-table they talked of Christal's
journey. It was undertaken by invitation of Mrs. Fludyer, to whom the young
damsel had made herself quite indipensable.
Her liveliness charmed away the idle lady's ennui, while her pride and love of aristocratic
exclusiveness equally gratified the same feelings in her patroness. And
from the mist that enwrapped her origin, the ingenious and perhaps
self-beguiled young creature had contrived to evolve such a grand fable of
"ancient descent," and "noble but reduced family,"
that everybody regarded her in the light that she regarded
herself. And surely, as the quick-sighted Mrs. Gwynne often said, no daughter of a long illustrious line was ever prouder than Christal Manners.
She indulged the party with a brilliant account of Mrs. Fludyer's
anticipations of pleasure at the gay sea-side watering-place whither the
whole family at the Hall were bound.
"Really, we shall be quite desolate without a single soul left at
Farnwood, shall we not, Olive?" observed Mrs. Gwynne.
Olive answered, "Yes,--very," without much considering
of the matter. Her thoughts were with Harold, who was leaning back in his
chair absorbed in one of those fits of musing, which with him were not
unfrequent, and which no one ever regarded, save herself. How deeply solemn
it was to her at such times to feel that she alone held the key to this
great soul--that it lay open, with
all its secrets, to her, and to her alone. What marvel was it if this knowledge sometimes moved her with strange sensations; most of all, while, beholding the reserved exterior which he bore in society, she remembered the times when she had seen this cold, quiet man goaded into terrible emotion, or softened to the weakness of a child.
At Olive's mechanical answer, "Yes," Lyle Derwent
brightened up amazingly. "Miss Rothesay, I--I don't intend
going to Brighton, believe me!"
Christal turned quickly round. "What are you saying, Mr.
Derwent?"
He hung his head and looked foolish. "I mean, that Brighton is too
gay, and thoughtless, and noisy a place for me--I would rather stay at
Harbury."
"You fickle, changeable, idle creature! 'Tis only an excuse
to get out of your pupils' way;" and reckless Christal burst
into a fit
of laughter much louder than seemed warranted by the occasion.
"I assure you, Miss Manners, this is to be instead of my regular
yearly holiday. I arranged it all with Mrs. Fludyer a week ago."
"A week ago! Mr. Derwent turned a schemer! How could he keep the
mighty secret in his innocent breast for seven long days!"
"I can, and more secrets too," muttered Lyle, in a tone
varying between anger and sentimentality, as he looked alternately from
Christal to Miss Rothesay. Whereupon the latter considerately interposed,
and passed with a smile to some other subject, which lasted until the hour
of departure.
The three walked to the Dell together, Christal jesting merrily, either
with or at Lyle Derwent, compelling him, perforce, to laugh and be amused.
Olive walked beside
them, rather silent than otherwise. She had been so used to walk home with Harold Gwynne, that any other companionship along the old familiar road seemed unwelcome. Remembering how they two had talked together, the light laughter beside her was even painful to her ear. As she passed along, from every bush, every tree, every winding of the lane, seemed to start some ghostlike memory; until there came over her a feeling almost of fear, to see how full her thoughts were of this one friend, how to pass from his presence was like passing into gloom, and the sense of his absence seemed a heavy void.
"It was not so while my mother lived," Olive murmured,
sorrowfully. "I never needed any friend save her. What am I doing!
Whither is my mind whirling?"
She trembled, and dared not answer the question.
At the Dell they parted from Lyle. "I shall see you once again
before you leave, I hope," he said to his blithe companion,
Christal.
"Oh, yes; you will not get rid of your tormentor so easily, Sir
Minstrel."
"Get rid of you, fair Cruelty! Would a man wish to put out the sun
because it scorches him sometimes?" cried Lyle, lifted to the seventh
heaven of poetic fervour by the influence of a balmy night and a glorious
harvest moon. Which said luminary shining on Christal's face, saw
there,--she only, pale Lady Moon,--an expression fine and
rare;--quivering lips, eyes not merely bright, but flaming as such
dark eyes only can.
As Miss Rothesay was passing up the steps to the hall-door, Christal, a
little in the rear, fell, crying out as with pain. She was quickly assisted
into the house, where, recovering, she complained of having sprained
her ankle. Olive, full of compassion, laid her on the sofa, and hurried away for some simple medicaments, leaving Christal alone.
That young lady, as soon as she heard Miss Rothesay's steps
overhead, bounded to the half-open window, moving quite as easily on the
injured foot as on the other. Eagerly she listened; and soon was rewarded
by hearing Lyle's voice carolling down the road, in most sentimental
fashion, the ditty,
"Io ti voglio ben assai,
Ma tu non pensi a me!"
"'Tis my song, mine! I taught him!" said Christal,
laughing to herself. "He thought to stay behind and escape me and my
'cruelty.' But we shall see--we shall see!"
Though in her air was a triumphant, girlish coquetry, yet something
there was of a woman's passion, too. But she heard a descending step,
and had only just time to
regain her invalid attitude and her doleful countenance, when Olive entered.
"This accident is really unfortunate," said Miss Rothesay.
"How will you manage your journey to-morrow?"
"I shall not be able to go," said Christal, in a piteous
voice, though over her averted face broke a comical smile.
"Are you really so much hurt, my dear?"
"Do you doubt it? I am sorry to have to trouble you; but I really
cannot leave the Dell," was the girl's half-indignant
speech.
Very often did she try Olive's patience thus; but the faithful
daughter always remembered those feeble, dying words, "Take care of
Christal."
So, her gentle nature excusing all, she tended the young sufferer
carefully until midnight, and then went down stairs secretly to perform a
little act of self-denial, by giving up an engagement she had made
for the morrow. While writing to renounce it, she felt, with the former sense of vague apprehension, how keen a pleasure it was she thus resigned--a whole long day in the forest with her pet Ailie, Ailie's grandmamma, and--Harold Gwynne.
They were letters which at intervals, during his various absences, she
had received from Harold Gwynne.
Often had she read them over--so often, that, many a time waking in
the night, whole sentences came distinctly on her memory, vivid almost as a
spoken voice. And yet, scarce a day passed that she did not read them
still. Perhaps this was from their tenor, for they were letters such as man
rarely writes to woman, or even friend to friend.
Let us judge, extracting portions from them at will.
The first, dated months back, began thus: "You will perhaps
marvel, my dear Miss Rothesay, that I should write to you, when for some
time we have met so rarely, and then apparently like ordinary acquaintance.
Yet, who should have a better right than we to
call each other friends? And like a friend you acted, when you consented that there should be between us for a time this total silence on the subject which first bound us together by a tie which we can neither of us break if we would. Alas! sometimes I could almost curse the weakness which had given you--a woman--to hold my secret in your hands. And yet so gently, so nobly have you held it, that I could kneel and bless you. You see I can write earnestly, though I cannot speak. * * *
"I told you, after that day when we two were alone with death (the
words are harsh, I know, but I have no smooth tongue), I told you that I
desired silence for weeks, perhaps months! I must 'commune with my
own heart, and be still.' I must wrestle with this darkness alone.
You assented; you forced on me no long argumentative homilies--you
preached to me with your life, the
pure, beautiful life of a Christian woman. Sometimes I tried to read, with open eyes and keenly-searching heart, the morality of Jesus, which I, and sceptics worse than I, must perforce allow to be perfect of its kind, and it struck me how nearly you approached to that divine life which I had thought impossible to be realised."
"I have advanced thus far in my solemn seeking. I have learned to
see the revelation--imputedly divine--as clear and distinct from
the mass of modern creeds with which it has been overladen. I have begun to
read the book on which--as you truly say--every form of religion
is founded. I try to read with my own eyes, putting aside all human
interpretations, earnestly desiring to cast from my soul all long-gathered
prejudices, and to bring it, naked and clear, to meet the
souls of those who are said to have written by divine inspiration. * * *
"The book is a marvellous book. The history of all ages can
scarcely show its parallel. What diversity, yet what unity! The stream
seems to flow through all ages, catching the lights and shadows of
different periods, and of various human minds. Yet it is one and the same
stream--pure and shining as truth. Is it truth?--is it
divine?"
"I will confess, candidly, that if the scheme of a world's
history--with reference to its Creator, as set forth in the
Bible--were true, it would be a scheme in many things worthy of a
divine benevolence: such as that in which you believe. But can I imagine
Infinity setting itself to work out such trivialities? What is even a
world? A mere grain of dust in endless space? It
cannot be. A God who could take interest in man, in such an atom as I, would be no God at all. What avails me to have risen unto more knowledge, more clearness in the sense of the divine, if it is to plunge me into such an abyss as this? Would I had never been awakened from my sleep--the dull stupor of materialism into which I was fast sinking. Then I might, in the end, have conquered even the last fear, that of 'something after death,' and have perished like a soulless thing, satisfied that there was no hereafter. Now, if there should be? I whirl and whirl; I can find no rest. I would I knew for certain that I was mad. But it is not so."
"You answer, my kind friend, like a woman--like the sort of
woman that I believed in in my boyhood--when I longed for a sister,
such an one as you. It is very
strange, even to myself, that I should write so freely as I do to you. I know that I could never speak thus. Therefore, when I return home, you must not marvel to find me just the same reserved being as ever--less to you, perhaps, than most people, but still reserved. Yet, never believe but that I thank you for all your goodness most deeply. * *
"You say that, like most women, you have no power of keen
philosophical argument. Perhaps not; but there is in you a spiritual sense
that may even transcend knowledge. I once heard--was it not you who
said so?--that the poet who 'reads God's secrets in the
stars,' soars nearer Him than the astronomer who calculates by
figures and by line. As, even in the material universe, there are planets
and systems, which mock all human ken; so in the immaterial world there
must be a boundary where all human reasoning fails, and we can trust to
nothing but that inward inexplicable sense which we call faith. This seems to me the great argument which inclines us to receive that supernatural manifestation of the all-pervading spirit which is termed revelation. And there we go back again to the relation between the finite--humanity, and the infinite--Deity. * * * *
"One of my speculations you answer by an allegory--Does not
the sun's light make instinct with life not only man, but the meanest
insect, the lowest form of vegetable existence? But is it therefore needful
that every ray should pierce, impelled by the force of individual will, to
an individual object? The sun shines. His light at once revivifies a blade
of glass, and illumines a world. If thus it is with the created, must it
not be also with the Creator? There is something within me that answers to
this reasoning. * * * *
"If I have power to conceive the existence of God, to look up from
my lowly nothingness unto His great height, to meditate, to argue, to
desire nearer insight into His being, there must be in my soul something
not unworthy of Him--something that, partaking His divinity,
instinctively turns to the source whence it was derived. Shall I suffer
myself to be guided by this power? Shall I seek less to doubt than to
believe? * * * *
"My whole education has been contrary to this. I remember my first
mathematical tutor once said to me, 'If you would know anything,
begin by doubting everything.' I did begin, but I have never yet
found an end."
"I will take your advice, my dear friend; advice given so humbly,
so womanly, that it touches me more than ever did that of any
living being. Yet I think you deal with me wisely. I am a man who never could be preached or argued into belief. I must find out the truth for myself. And so, according to your counsel, I will again carefully study the Holy Bible, trying to look upon it--not as an ingenious work of man, but as the clearest revelation which God has allowed of Himself on earth. Finding any contradictions or obscurities, I will remember, as you say, that it was not, and does not pretend to be, written visibly and actually by the finger of God, but by His inspiration conveyed through many human minds, and of course always bearing to a certain extent the impress of the mind through which it passes. Therefore, you say, of all its prophet-histories, none convey the sense of all-perfect righteousness save that of Him who came in latter days to crown what was before holy with the example of the Divine.
"You see how my mind echoes your words, my friend! I am becoming,
I think, more worthy to call you by this name. There is a child-like peace
creeping into my heart. All human affections are growing closer and dearer
unto me. I can look at my good and pious mother without feeling, as I did
at times, that she is either a self-deceiver or deceived. I do not now
shrink from my little daughter, nor think with horror that she owes to me
that as yet undefiled being which may lead her one day to 'curse God
and die.' Still, I cannot rest at Harbury. All things there torture
me, while my mind is in this chaos. As for resuming my duties as a
minister, that seems all but impossible. What an accursed hypocrite I have
been! If this search after truth should end in a belief anything like that
of the Church of England, I shall marvel that Heaven's lightning has
not struck me dead."
* * * * "You speak joyfully and hopefully of the time when
we shall be one in faith, and both give thanks together unto the merciful
God who has lightened my darkness. I cannot say this yet; but
the time may come. And if it does, what shall I not owe to you, who first
revived my faith in humanity? Many other things you have taught
me--less in words than by your holy life. It has solved to me many of
those enigmas of Providence which in my blindness I thought impugned the
justice of God. Now I see how goodness is sufficient to itself, and how the
trials which seem the wrongs of fortune are but tests ordained by Heaven to
elicit the strength and devotion of its creatures. All circumstances
reflect the nature of the soul. Hardship becomes sweet unto patience;
content creates abundance out of poverty; faith translates death into
immortality. My friend, is not this a creed
something approaching yours? It ought to be, since it is drawn from the silent teaching of your own life. If ever I lift up a prayer worthy to reach the ear of God, it is that He may bless you, my comforter."
Olive refolded the letters, and sat long in mute thought. Then broken
words came from her of thanksgiving and joy. Amidst them she often uttered
the name which on her lips was now silent evermore, save at solemn seasons
like this, when, clear above all earthly strife and turmoil, rose the
unforgotten memory of the departed.
"Oh, mother, mother!" she murmured, "surely it would
rejoice thee in thy heaven to know that even thy death left a blessing
behind, and that I, out of my bitter grief, have been able, God helping me,
to bring faith and peace unto this erring soul."
And here, reader, for a moment, we pause. Following whither our subject
led, we have gone far beyond the bounds usually prescribed to a book like
this. After perusing the present chapter, you may turn to the title-page,
and read thereon, "Olive, a Novel." "Most
incongruous--most strange!" you may exclaim. Nay, some may even
accuse us of irreverence in thus bringing into a fictitious story those
subjects which are acknowledged as most vital to every human soul, but yet
which most people are content, save at set times and places, tacitly to
ignore. There are those who sincerely believe that in such works as this
there should never once be named the Holy Name. Yet what is a novel, or,
rather, what is it that a novel ought to be? The attempt of one earnest
mind to show unto many what humanity is--ay, and more, what humanity
might become; to depict what is true in essence through imaginary
forms; to teach, counsel, and warn, by means of the silent transcript of human life. Human life without God! Who will dare to tell us we should paint that?
Authors, who feel the solemnity of their calling, cannot suppress the
truth that is within them. Having put their hands to the plough, they may
not turn aside, nor look either to the right or the left. They must go
straight on, as the inward voice impels; and He who seeth their hearts will
guide them aright.
tended in the light battle of wits. How much older, and graver, and sadder, she seemed than they!
Harold Gwynne did not come. This circumstance troubled Olive. Not that
he was in the habit of paying long morning visits, like young Derwent; but
still, when he was at Harbury, it usually chanced that every few days they
met somewhere, or on some excuse; and so habitual had this intercouse become, that a week's complete
cessation of it seemed a positive pain.
Ever, when Olive rose, the morning-gilded spire of Harbury Church
brought the thought, "I wonder, will he come to-day!" And at
night, when he did not come, she could not conceal from herself, that
looking back on the past day, over all duties done therein, all little
pleasures planned, there rose a pale mist. She seemed to have only half
lived. Alas! it is an awful thing when
one's own life becomes insufficient--when all in the world grows dull, save where one other life interpenetrates--all dark, save where one other presence shines!
Olive knew, though she scarce would acknowledge it to herself, that for
many months this interest in Harold Gwynne had been the one great interest
of her existence. At first it came in the form of a duty, and as such she
had entered upon it. She was one of those women who seem born ever to
devote themselves to some one. When her mother died, it had comforted Olive
to think there was one other human being who stretched out to her
entreating hands, saying, "I need thee! I need thee!" Nay, it
even seemed as if the voice of the saint departed called upon her to
perform this sacred task. Thereto tended her thoughts and prayers. And thus
there came upon her the fate which has come upon many another
woman,--while thus devoting herself
she learned to love. But so gradual had been the change that she yet knew it not.
"Why am I restless?" she thought. "One is too exacting
in friendship: one should give all and ask nothing back. Still, it is not
quite kind of him to stay away thus. But a man is not like a woman. He must
have so many conflicting and engrossing interests, whilst I--"
Here her thought broke and dissolved like a rock-riven wave. She dared not
yet confess that she had no interest in the world save what was linked with
him.
"If he comes not so often," she re-commenced her musings,
"even then I ought to be quite content. I know he respects and
esteems me; nay, that he has for me a warm regard. I have done him good,
too; he tells me so. How fervently ought I to thank God if any feeble words
of mine may so influence this noble soul, as in time
to lead it from error into truth. My friend, my dear friend! I could not die, knowing or fearing that the abyss of eternity would lie between my spirit and his. Now, whatever may part us during life--"
Here again she paused, for there came upon her a consciousness of pain.
If there was gloom in the silence of a week, what would a whole life's
silence be? Something whispered, that even in this world it would be
bitterness to part with Harold Gwynne.
"You are not painting, Miss Rothesay; you are thinking. What
about?" suddenly cried Lyle Derwent.
Olive started almost with a sense of shame. "Has not an artist a
right to dream a little?" she said. Yet she blushed deeply. Were her
thoughts wrong, that they needed to be thus glossed over? Was there
stealing into her heart a secret that taught her to feign?
"What! are you, always the idlest of the
idle, reproving Miss Rothesay for being idle too?" said Christal, somewhat sharply. "No wonder she is dull, and I likewise. You have not half amused us to-day. You are getting as solemn as Mr. Gwynne himself. I almost wish he would come in your place."
"Do you? Then 'reap the misery of a granted prayer,'
for there is a knock. It may be my worthy brother-in-law
himself."
"If so, for charity's sake, give me your arm, and help me
into the next room. I cannot abide his gloomy face."
"O woman--changeful--fickle--vain!" laughed
the young man, as he performed the duty of supporting the not very fragile
form of the fair Christal.
Olive stood alone. Why did she tremble? Why did her pulse sink, slower
and slower? She asked herself this question, even in self-disdain. But
there was no answer.
Harold entered.
"I am come with a message from my mother," said he, in a
rather formal apology; but added, anxiously, "How is this, Miss
Rothesay? You look as if you had been ill?"
"Oh, no; only weary with a long morning's work. But will you
sit?"
He received, as usual, the quiet smile--the greeting gentle and
friendly. He was deceived by them as heretofore.
"Are you better than when last I was at the Parsonage? I have seen
nothing of you for a week, you know."
"Is it so long? I did not note the time." These words of his
fell carelessly, as it seemed; but they wounded Olive's heart. He
"did not note the time." And she had told every day by
hours--every hour by minutes!
"I should have come before," he continued, "but I have
had so many things to occupy me. Besides, I am so dreary and dull. I should
only trouble you."
"You never trouble me."
"It is kind of you to say so. Well, let that pass. Will you now
return with me and spend the day. My mother is longing to see
you."
"I will come," said Olive; and a brightness shone over her
face. There was a little demur about Christal's being left, but it was
soon terminated by the incursion of a tribe of the young lady's
"friends" whom she had made at Farnwood Hall.
Soon Olive was walking with Mr. Gwynne along the well-known road. The
sunshine of the morning seemed to gather and float around her heart. She
remembered no more the pain--the doubt--the weary waiting. All
was happiness now!
Gradually they fell into their old way of conversing. "How
beautiful all seems," said Harold, as he stood still, bared his head,
and drank in, with a long sighing breath, the
sun-
shine and the soft air. "I would that I could be happy in this happy world."
"You feel it is so, then; that it is God's world, and as He
made it--good," answered Olive, softly.
"Much that you say I see like a vision afar off. I cannot realise
it. But I pray you, do not speak to me of these things. My soul is in a
wild labyrinth, from which it must work its way out alone. Nevertheless, my
friend, keep near me!" Unconsciously, she clung closer to his arm. He
started, and turned his head away. The next moment he added, in a somewhat
constrained voice, "I mean--let me have your
friendship--your silent comforting--your prayers. Yes! thus far I
believe. I can say, 'Pray God for me,' doubting not that He
will hear,--you, at least, if not me. Therefore, let me go on and
struggle through this darkness."
"Until comes the light! It will come--I
know it will!" Olive looked up at him, and their eyes met. In hers was the fulness of joy, in his a doubt--a contest. He removed them, and walked on in silence, pride sitting on his brow. The very arm on which Olive leaned seemed to grow coldly rigid--like a bar of severance between them.
"I would to Heaven!" Harold suddenly exclaimed, as they
approached Harbury--"I would to Heaven I could get away from
this place altogether. I think I shall do so. My knowledge and reputation
in science is not small. I might begin a new life--a life of active
exertion. In fact, I have nearly decided it all."
"Decided what? It is so sudden. I do not quite understand,"
said Olive, faintly.
"To leave England--to enter as tutor in some academy of
science abroad. What think you of the plan?"
What thought she? Nothing. There was
a dull sound in her ears as of a myriad waters--the ground whereon she stood seemed reeling to and fro--yet she did not fall. One minute, and she answered him.
"You know best. If good for you, it is a good plan."
He seemed relieved, and yet disappointed. "I am glad you say so. I
imagined, perhaps, you might have thought it wrong."
"Why wrong?"
"Women have peculiar feelings about home, and country, and
friends. I shall leave all these; perhaps for ever. I would not care ever
to see England more. I would put off this black gown, and with it every
remembrance of the life of vile hypocrisy which I have led here. I would
drown the past in new plans--new energies--new hopes. And, to do
this, I must break all ties, and go alone. My poor mother! I have not dared
yet to tell her this. To her, the thought of parting
would be like death, so dearly does she love me."
He spoke all this rapidly, never looking towards his silent companion.
When he ceased, Olive feebly stretched out her hand, as if to grasp
something for support, then drew it back again, and, hid under her mantle,
pressed it tightly against her heart. On that heart Harold's words
fell, rending away all its disguises, laying it naked and bare to the cold,
bitter truth. "To me," she thought--"to me, also,
this parting is like death. And why? Because I, too, love him--dearer
than ever mother loved son, or sister brother; ay, dearer than my own soul.
O miserable me!"
"You are silent," said Harold. "You think I am acting
cruelly towards one who loves me so well. Men often act so. Human
affections are to us secondary things. We scarce need them; or, when our
will demands, we can crush them from our hearts--thus."
He stamped fiercely on the ground, not heeding that there had fluttered
to his feet from the hedge a young, tender-winged autumn butterfly. As he
passed on before her to open the churchyard-gate, Olive saw the poor
crushed insect lying dead. She took it up tenderly, and sighed. She might
even have wept, but that her tears seemed all scorched up.
"Poor thing, poor thing! But he has done no wrong. He knew it not:
he never shall know it. It is best so!"
She laid the dead butterfly on a mound of grass, followed Harold, and,
at his silent gesture, again linked her arm in his.
"I think," she said--when, without talking any more,
they had nearly reached the Parsonage--"I think, that wherever
you go, you ought to take your mother with you; and little Ailie, too! With
them your home will be complete."
"Yet I have friends to leave--one friend at
least--yourself," he said, abruptly.
"I, as others, shall miss you; but all true friends should desire,
above all things, each other's welfare. I shall be satisfied if I hear
at times of yours."
He made no answer, and they went in at the hall door.
There was much to be done and talked of that afternoon at the Parsonage.
First, there was a long lesson to be given to little Ailie; then, at least
an hour was spent in following Mrs. Gwynne round the garden, and hearing
her dilate on the beauty of her hollyhocks and dahlias.
"I shall have the finest dahlias in the country next year,"
said the delighted old lady.
Next year! next year! It seemed to Olive as if she were talking of the
next world!
In some way or other the hours went by;
how, Olive could not tell. She did not see, hear, or feel anything, save that she had to make an effort to appear in the eyes of Harold, and of Harold's mother, just as usual--the same quiet little creature--gently smiling, gently speaking--who had already begun to be called "an old maid"--whom no one in the world suspected of any human passion--least of all, the passion of love.
After their early dinner Harold went out. He did not return even when
the misty autumn night had began to fall. As the daylight waned and the
firelight brightened, Olive felt terrified at herself. One hour of that
quiet evening commune, so sweet of old, and her strength and self-control
would have failed. Making some excuse about Christal, she asked Mrs. Gwynne
to let her go home.
"But not alone, my dear; you will surely wait until Harold comes
in?"
"No, no! It will be late, and the mist is
rising. Do not fear for me; the road is quite safe; and, you know, I am used to being alone," said Olive, feebly smiling.
"You are a brave little creature, my dear. Well, do as you
will."
So, ere long, Olive found herself on her solitary homeward road. It lay
through the churchyard. Closing the Parsonage-gate, the first thing she did
was to creep across the long grass to her mother's grave.
"Oh! mother, mother, why did you go and leave me? Else this misery
had not befallen me. I should never have loved any one if my mother had not
died!"
And burning tears fell, and burning blushes came. With these came also
the sense of self-degradation which smites a woman when she knows, that,
unwooed, unrequited, she has dared to love.
"What have I done?" she cried. "O earth, take me in
and cover me! Hide me
from myself--from my misery--my shame." Suddenly she started up. "What if he should pass and find me here! I must go. I must go home."
She fled out of the churchyard and down the road. For a little way she
walked rapidly, then gradually slower and slower. A white mist arose from
the meadows; it folded round her like a shroud; it seemed to creep even
into her heart, and make its beatings grow still. Down the long road, where
she and Harold had so often passed together, she walked alone.
Alone--as once had seemed her doom through life--and must now be
so unto the end.
It might be the certainty of this which calmed her. She had
no maiden doubts or hopes; not one! The possibility of Harold's loving
her, or choosing her as his wife, never entered her mind.
Since the days of her early girlhood, when
she wove such a bright romance around Sara and Charles, and created for herself a beautiful ideal for future worship, Olive had ceased to dream about love at all. Feeling that its happiness was for ever denied her, she had bravely relinquished all those airy imaginings in which young maidens indulge. In their place had come the intense devotion to her Art, which, together with her passionate love for her mother, had absorbed all the interests of her secluded life. Scarcely was she even conscious of the happiness that she lost; for she had read few of those books which foster sentiment or passion; and in the wooings and weddings she heard of, were none that aroused either her sympathy or her envy. Coldly and purely she had moved in her sphere, superior to both love's joy and love's pain.
Reaching home, Olive sought not to enter the house, where she knew there
could be
no solitude. She went into the little arbour--her mother's favourite spot--and there, hidden in the shadows of the mild autumn night, she sat down, to gather up her strength, and calmly to think over her mournful lot.
She said to herself, "There has come upon me that which I have
heard is, soon or late, every woman's destiny. I cannot beguile myself
any longer. It is not friendship I feel; it is love. My whole life is
threaded by one thought--the thought of him. It comes between me and
everything else on earth--almost between me and Heaven. I never wake
at morning but his name rises to my heart--the first hope of the day;
I never kneel down at night but in my prayer, whether in thought or speech,
that name is mingled too. If I have sinned, oh God! forgive me! Thou
knowest how lonely and desolate I was--how, when that one best love
was taken away, my heart ached and
yearned for some other human love. And this has come to fill it. Alas for me!
"Let me think--will it ever pass away? There are feelings
which come and go--light girlish fancies. But I am six-and-twenty
years old. All this while I have lived without loving any man. And none has
ever wooed me by word or look, except my master, Vanbrugh, whose feeling
for me was not love at all. No! no! I am, as they call me, 'an old
maid,' destined to pass through life alone and unloved.
"Perhaps, though I have long ceased to think on the
subject--perhaps my first girlish misery was true, and there is in me
something repulsive--something that would prevent any man's
seeking me as a wife. Therefore, even if my own feelings could change,
there will never come any soothing after-tie to fill up my heart's
affection, and chase away the memory of this utterly hopeless love.
"Hopeless I know it is. He admires beauty and grace--I have
neither. Yet I will not do him the injustice to believe he would contemn me
for this. Even once I overheard him say, there was such sweetness in my
face, that he had never noticed my being 'slightly deformed.'
Therefore, did he but love me, perhaps--O fool!--dreaming fool
that I am! It is impossible! * *
"Let me think calmly once more. He has given me all he
could--kindness, friendship, brotherly regard; and I have given him
love--a woman's whole and entire love, such as she can give but
once, and be beggared all her life after. I to him am like any other
friend--he to me is all my world. Oh! but it is a fearful
difference!
"I will look my doom in the face--I will consider how I am to
bear it. No hope is there for me of being loved as I love. I shall never be
his wife--never be more to him
than I am now; in time, perhaps, even less. He will go out into the world, and leave me, as brothers leave sisters (even supposing he regards me as such). He will form new ties; perhaps he will marry; and then this silent, secret love of mine would be--sin!"
Olive pressed her hands tightly together, and crushed her hot brow upon
them, bending it even to her knees. Thus bowed, she lay until the fierce
struggle passed.
"I do not think that misery will come. His mother, who knows him
best, was surely right when she said he would never take a second wife.
Therefore I may be his sister still. Neither he nor any living soul will
ever know that I loved him otherwise than as a sister might love a brother.
Who would dream there could be any other passion in me--a pale,
unlovely thing--a woman past her youth (for I seem very old
now)?--It ought not to be so; many women are counted
young at six-and-twenty; but they are those who have been nurtured tenderly in joyous homes, while I have been struggling with the hard world these many years. No wonder I am not as they--that I am quiet and silent, without mirth or winning grace--a creature worn out before her time-pale, joyless, deformed. Yes! let me teach myself that word, with all other truths that can quench this mad dream. Then, perhaps, knowing all hope vain, I may be able to endure.
"What am I to do? Am I to try and cleanse my heart of this love,
as if it were some pollution? Not so. Sorrow it is--deep, abiding
sorrow; but it is not sin. If I thought it so, I would crush it out, though
I crushed my life out with it. But I need not. My heart is pure--O
God, Thou knowest!
"Another comfort I have. He has not deceived me, as men sometimes
deceive, with wooing that seems like love, and yet is only
idle, cruel sport. He has ever treated me as a friend--a sister--nothing more! Therefore, no bitterness is there in my sorrow, since he has done no wrong.
"I will not cease from loving--I would not if I could. Better
this suffering than the utter void which must otherwise be in my heart
eternally, seeing I have neither father, mother, brother, nor sister, and
shall never know any nearer tie than the chance friendships which spring up
on the world's wayside, and wither where they spring. I know there are
those who would bid me cast off this love as it were a serpent from my
bosom. No! Rather let it creep in there, and fold itself close and secret.
What matter, even if its sweet sting be death?
"But I shall not die. How could I, while my heart's beloved
lived, and might need aught that I could give? Did he not say, 'Keep
near me!' Ay, I will! Though a
world lay between us, my spirit shall follow him all his life long. Distance shall be nothing--years nothing! Whenever he calls 'Friend, I need thee,' I will answer, 'I am here!' If I could condense my whole life's current of joy into one drop of peace for him, I would pour it out at his feet, smile content, and die.
"And then, after death, I shall await him in the land of souls.
Oh, Harold! whom in this world I never may call my Harold,
with full and perfect love my spirit shall meet thee
there."
Thrice, with an accent of most divine tenderness, she sighed his name;
and then rose up and went forth, her step wavering not, her countenance
serene and clear.
The mist had all passed away, and over her shone the dark night-blue
heaven, with its eternal stars.
But the thing is quite possible--aye, and
chances sometimes--that a woman unselfish in her nature, in all her affections more prone to give than to receive, free from idle notions of lovers and weddings, may be unconsciously attracted by some image of perfection in the other sex, and be thus led on through the worship of abstract goodness until she wakes to find that she has learned to love the man. For what is love, in its purest and divinest sense, but that innate yearning after the ideal which we vainly dream is realised in some other human soul? Why should not this be felt by woman as by man? Ay, and by hearts most pure from every thought of unfeminine boldness, vanity, or wrong.
I know, too, that from many a sage and worthy matron my Olive has for
ever earned her condemnation, because at last discovering her mournful
secret, she did not strive in horror and shame to root out this misplaced
love. Then, after years of cruel self-martyrdom, she might at last have pointed to her heart's trampled garden, and said, "Look what I have had strength to do!" But from such a wrecked and blasted soil what aftergrowth could ever spring?
Better, a thousand times, that a woman to whom this doom has come,
should lift her brow and gaze upon it without fear. It is vain to wrestle
with it--she cannot! Let her meet it as she would meet
death--solemnly, calmly, patiently. Then let her draw nigh and look
upon the bier of her life's dead hope, until the pale image grows
beautiful as sleep; or, perchance, at last rises from the clay,
transfigured into a likeness no longer human, but divine.
It is time that we women should begin to teach and to think thus. It is
meet that we--maidens, wives, mothers, to whom the lines have fallen
in more pleasant places--
should turn and look on that pale sisterhood--some carrying meekly to the grave their heavy unuttered secret, some living unto old age, to bear the world's smile of pity, even of derision, over an "unfortunate attachment." Others, perhaps, furnishing a text whereupon prudent mothers may lesson romantic daughters, saying, "See that you be not like these 'foolish virgins;' give not your heart away in requital of fancied love; or, madder still, in worship of ideal goodness--give it for nothing but the safe barter of a speedy settlement, a comfortable income, a husband, and a ring."
Olive Rothesay, pale virgin martyr! hide the arrow close in thy
soul--lay over it thy folded hands and look upwards. Far purer art
thou than many a young creature, married without love, living on in decent
dignity as the mother of her lord's children, the convenient mistress
of his household, and so sink-
ing down into the grave, a pattern of all matronly virtue. But thou, unwedded and childless woman, envy her not! A thousand times holier and happier than such a destiny is that silent lonely lot of thine.
With meekness, yet with courage, Olive Rothesay prepared to live her
appointed life. At first it seemed very bitter, as must needs be. Youth,
while it is still youth, cannot at once and altogether be content to resign
love. It will yearn for that tie which Heaven ordained to make its
nature's completeness; it will shrink and quail before the long dull
vista of a solitary, aimless existence. Sometimes, wildly as she struggled
against such thoughts, there would come to Olive's fancy dreams of
what her life might have been. The joys of lovers' love, of wedded
love, of mother-love, would at times flit before her imagination; and her
heart, still warm, still young, trembled to picture the
lonely old age, the hearth blank and silent, the utter isolation from all those natural ties whose place not even the dearest bonds of adopted affection can ever entirely fill. But, whenever these murmurings arose, Olive checked them; sometimes almost with a feeling of shame.
She devoted herself more than ever to her Art, trying to make it as once
before the chief interest and enjoyment of her life. It would become the
same again, she hoped. Often and often in the world's history had been
noted that of brave men who rose from the wreck of some bitter love, and
found happiness in their genius and their fame. But Olive had yet to learn
that, with women, it is rarely so.
She felt more than ever the mournful change which had come over her,
when it happened that great success was won by one of her later
pictures--a picture unconsciously
created from the inspiration of that sweet love-dream. When the news came--tidings which a year ago would have thrilled her with pleasure--Olive only smiled faintly, and a few minutes after went into her chamber, hid her face, and wept.
There was not, and there could not be, any difference made in her
ordinary way of life. She still went to the Parsonage, and walked and
talked with Harold, as he seemed always to expect. She listened to all his
projects for the future--a future wherein she, alas! had no part.
Eagerly she strove to impress this fact upon her mind--to forget
herself entirely, to think only of him, and what would be best for his
happiness. Knowing him so well as she did, and having over him an influence
in which he seemed rather to rejoice, and which, at least, he never
repelled, she was able continually to reason, encourage, and sympathise
with him. He
often thanked her for this, little knowing how every quiet word of hers was torn from a bleeding heart. Walking home with her at nights, as usual, he never saw the white face turned upwards to the stars--the eyes wherein tears burned, but would not fall; the lips compressed in a choking agony, or opened to utter calm ordinary speech, in which his ear detected not one tremulous or discordant tone. When he sat in the house, absorbed in anxious thought, little he knew what mournful looks were fastened on his face, as if secretly to learn by heart every beloved lineament, against the time which his visible likeness would be beheld no more.
Thus miserably did Olive struggle. The record of that time, its every
day, its every hour, was seared on her heart as with a burning brand.
Afterwards, she never thought of it but with a shudder, marvelling
how she had ever been able to endure all and live.
At last the inward suffering began to be outwardly written on her face.
Some people said--Lyle Derwent first--that Miss Rothesay did not
look so well as she used to do. But indeed it was no wonder, she was so
engrossed in her painting, and worked far too much for her strength. Olive
neither dissented nor denied; but she never complained, and still went
painting on. Harold himself saw she was ill, and sometimes treated her with
almost brotherly tenderness. Often he noticed her pale face, paler than
ever beneath his eye, or in wrapping her from the cold observed how she
shivered and trembled. And then Olive would go home and cry out in her
misery,
"How long, how long? Oh, that this struggle might cease, or else I
die!"
She was quite alone at the Dell now, for
Mrs. Fludyer had paid a flying visit home, and had taken back with her both Christal and the somewhat unwilling Lyle. Solitude, once sweet and profitable, now grew fearful unto Olive's tortured mind. And to escape it she had no resource, but that which she knew was to her like a poison-draught, and for which she yet thirsted evermore--the daily welcome at the Parsonage. But the web of circumstance, which she herself seemed to have no power to break, was at length apparently broken for her. One day she received a letter from her father's aunt, Mrs. Flora Rothesay, inviting, nay entreating her to visit Edinburgh, that the old lady might look upon the last of her race.
For a moment Olive blessed this chance of quitting the scenes now become
so painful. But then, Harold might need her. In his present conflict of
feeling and of purpose he had no confidant save herself. She would
have braved years of suffering, if her presence could have yielded him one hour's relief from care. But of this she must judge, so she set off at once to the Parsonage.
"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Gwynne, with a smiling and
mysterious face, "of course you will go at once! It will do your
health a world of good. Harold said so only this morning."
"Then he knew?"
"Yes, your aunt wrote and told him. In fact, I half suspect him of
originating the plan. So kind and thoughtful as he is, and such a regard as
he has for you! You must certainly go, Olive."
Then he had done it all. He could let her part from him,
easily, as friend from friend. Yet, what marvel! They were nothing more.
She never thought of opposing anything he seemed to wish, so she answered,
quietly, "I will go."
She told him so when he came in; he appeared much pleased; and said,
with more than his usual frankness,
"I should like you to know aunt Flora. You see, I call her
my aunt Flora, too, for she is of some distant kin, and I have
dearly loved her ever since I was a boy."
It was something to be going to one whom Harold "dearly
loved." Olive felt a little comfort in her proposed journey.
"Besides, she knows you quite well already, my dear,"
observed Mrs. Gwynne. "She tells me Harold used often to talk about
you during his visit with her this summer."
"I had a reason," said Harold, his dark cheek changing a
little. "I wished her to know and love her niece, and I was sure her
niece would soon learn to love her."
"Why, that is kind, and like yourself, my son. How thoughtfully
you have been planning everything for Olive."
"She will not be angry with me for that, will you, Olive?"
he said, and stopped. It was the first time she had ever heard him utter
her christian name. At the sound her heart leaped wildly, but only for an
instant. The next, Harold had corrected himself, and said,
"Miss Rothesay," in a distinct, cold, and formal
tone. Very soon afterwards he went away.
Mrs. Gwynne persuaded Olive to spend the day at the Parsonage. They two
were alone together, for Harold did not return. But in the afternoon their
quietness was broken by the sudden appearance of Lyle Derwent.
"So soon back from Brighton! Who would have thought it?"
said Mrs. Gwynne, smiling.
Lyle put on his favourite sentimental air, and muttered something about
"not liking gaiety, and never being happy away from
Farnwood."
"Miss Rothesay is scarcely of your opinion, at all events she is
going to try the experiment of leaving us for awhile."
"Miss Rothesay leaving us?" And Lyle, looking troubled and
alarmed, came hastily to Olive's side.
"It is indeed true," she said, with an effort. "You
see I have not been well of late, and my kind friends are so anxious for
me; and I want to see my aunt in Scotland."
"Then it is to Scotland you are going--all that long dreary
way! You may stay there weeks, months! and that while what will become of
me--I mean, of us all at Farnwood?"
His evident regret touched Olive deeply. It was something to be missed,
even by this boy--he always seemed a boy to her, partly because of old
times, partly because he was so unsophisticated in mind and manner.
"My dear Lyle, how good of you to think of me in this manner! But
indeed I will not forget you when I am away."
"Oh no; I hope not! And you will not go and make other friends,
and never come back to Farnwood? You promise that?" cried Lyle,
eagerly.
Olive promised;--with a sorrowful thought, that none asked this
pledge, none needed it, save the affectionate Lyle!
He was still inconsolable, poor youth! He looked so drearily pathetic,
and quoted such doleful poetry, that Mrs. Gwynne, who in her matter-of-fact
plainness had no patience with any of Lyle's "romantic
vagagaries," as she called them, began to exert the dormant humour by
which she always quenched his little ebullitions. Olive at last
considerately came to the rescue, and proposed an evening stroll about the
garden, to which Lyle eagerly assented.
There he still talked of her departure, but his affectations were now
tempered by real feeling.
"I shall miss you bitterly," he said, in a low tone,
"but if your health needs change, and this journey is for your good,
of course I would not think of myself at all."
--The very expressions she had herself used to Harold! This
coincidence touched her, and she half reproached herself for feeling so
coldly to all her kind friends, and chiefly to Lyle Derwent, who evidently
regarded her with such affection. But all other affections grew pale before
the one great love. Every lesser tie that would fain come in the place of
that which was unattainable, smote her with only a keener pain.
Still, half remorsefully, she looked on her old favourite, and wished
that she could care for him more. So thinking, her manner
be-
came gentler than usual, while that of Lyle grew more earnest and less dreamy.
"I wish you would write to me while you are away, Miss Rothesay;
or, at all events, let me write to you."
"That you may; and I shall be so glad to hear all about Harbury
and Farnwood." Here she paused, half-shaming to confess to herself
that for this reason chiefly would she welcome the letters of poor
Lyle.
"Is that all? Will you not care to hear about me? Oh,
Miss Rothesay," cried Lyle, "I often wish I was again a little
boy in the dear old garden at Oldchurch."
"Why so?"
"Because, because,"--and some inexplicable feeling
brought the quick blood, crimsoning his boyish cheek. "No, no, I
cannot tell you now; but perhaps I may, sometime," he murmured.
"Just as you like," answered Olive,
ab-
sently. Her thoughts, wakened by the long-silent name, were travelling over many years; back to her old home, her happy girlhood. She almost wished she had died then, and never known this bitter love. But her mother!
"No, I am glad I lived to comfort her," she
mused. "Perhaps it may be true that none ever pass from earth until
their ministry here is no longer needed. So I will even patiently live
on."
Unable to talk more with Lyle, Olive reentered the Parsonage. Harold sat
there reading.
"Have you long come in?" she asked in a somewhat trembling
voice.
He answered, "About an hour."
"I did not see you enter."
"Of course not, you were too much engaged in conversation.
Therefore I would not disturb you, but took my book."
He spoke in the abrupt, cold manner he
sometimes used. Olive thought something had happened to annoy him and in her gentle, womanly fashion, she sat down and talked with him until the cloud passed away.
Many times during the evening Lyle renewed his lamentations over Miss
Rothesay's journey; but Harold never uttered one word of regret.
Bitter, bitter was the contrast to Olive's heart. When she departed,
however, Mr. Gwynne offered to accompany her home.
"You need not. It is a cold night, and I have Lyle's kindness
to depend upon."
"Very well, since you choose it so," and he sat down again.
But Olive saw she had wounded his pride--only his
pride;--she said this to her heart, to keep down its unconscious
thrill. Yet never for a moment would she grieve him in anything; so she
went up to him with a sweet, contrite look,
"You know I am always glad to talk to
you, and be with you, my dear friend. We shall not have many more walks home together, therefore will you come?"
And he came. Moreover, he contrived to keep her beside him. Lyle, poor
fellow, went whistling in solitude down the other side of the road, until
at the Dell he said good-night, and vanished.
Harold had talked all the way on indifferent subjects, never once
alluding to Olive's departure. He did so now, however, but carelessly,
as if with an accidental thought.
"I wonder whether you will return to Harbury before I start for
Heidelberg--that is, if I should really go. I should like to see you
once again. Well, chance must decide."
Chance! when she would have controlled all accidents, provided against
all hindrances, woven together all purposes, to be with him for one single
day!
At once the thought broke through the
happy spell which, for the time, his kindness had laid upon her. She felt that it was only kindness; and as such, he meant it, no more! In his breast was not the faintest echo of the devotion which filled her own. A sense of womanly pride arose, and with it a pang of womanly shame. These lasted while she bade him good-night, somewhat coldly; then both sank at once, and there remained to her nothing but helpless sorrow.
She listened, as she ever did, for the last sound of his footsteps down
the road. But she heard them not; and thought, half-sighing, how quickly he
must have walked away! What if an hour hence she had seen or
known--but how could she, with her poor heart crushed beneath the
weight of a love so great, yet so humble--her eyes blinded with the
mist of perpetual tears?
A very few days intervened between Miss Rothesay's final decision
and her departure.
During this time, she only once saw Harold Gwynne. She thought he might have met her a little oftener, seeing they were so soon to part. But he did not; and the pain she suffered from this warned her that all was chancing for the best. Her health failing--her cheerful spirit broken--even her meek temper growing embittered with this mournful struggle, she saw that in some way or other it must be ended. She was thankful that all things had arranged themselves so plainly before her feet. There was a Father's care over her still. Though, remembering her own unworthiness, and feeling that this intense human love had been nigh unto idolatry,--often when she knelt down at night she could offer unto Heaven nothing but speechless tears.
There was planned no farewell meeting at the Parsonage; but Mrs. Gwynne
spent at the Dell the evening before Olive's departure.
Harold would have come, his mother said, but he had some important matters to arrange; he would, however, appear some time that evening. However, it grew late, and still his welcome knock was not heard. At last there sounded one; it was only Lyle, who came to bid Miss Rothesay good-bye. He did so, dolorously enough, but Olive scarce felt any pain. The one pang absorbed all the rest.
"It is of no use waiting," said Mrs. Gwynne. "I think
I will go home with Lyle--that is, if he will take my son's place
for the occasion. It is not quite right of Harold; he does not usually
forget his mother."
Olive unconsciously urged some excuse. She was ever prone to do so, when
any shadow of blame fell on Harold.
"You are always good, my dear. But still he might have come, even
for the sake of proper courtesy to you."
Courtesy! Alas! a poor balm for the breaking heart!
Mrs. Gwynne entreated Olive to call at the Parsonage on her journey next
morning. It would not hinder her a minute. Little Ailie was longing for one
good-bye, and perhaps she might likewise see Harold. Miss Rothesay
assented. It would have been so hard to go away without one more look at
the beloved face--one more clasp of the beloved hand.
Yet both seemed denied her. Trembling with the excitement of parting
from home, and of taking that long journey--her first journey
alone--Olive reached the Parsonage. But Harold was not there. He had
gone out riding, little Ailie thought; no one else knew anything about
him.
"It was very wrong and unkind," said Mrs. Gwynne, in real
annoyance.
"Oh no, not at all," was all that Olive
murmured. She took Ailie on her knee, and hid her face upon the child's curls.
"Ah, dear Miss Rothesay, you must come back soon," whispered
the little girl. "We can't do without you. We have all been much
happier since you came to Harbury; papa said so, last night."
"Did he?"
"Yes; when I was crying at the thought of your going away, and he
came to my little bed, and comforted me, and kissed me. Oh, you don't
know how sweet papa's kisses are! Now, I get so many of them. Before
he rode out this morning he gave me half-a-dozen here, upon my eyes, and
said I must learn all you taught me, and grow up a good woman, just like
you. What, are you crying? Then I will cry too."
Olive laid her thin cheek to the rosy one of Harold's daughter; she
wept, but could not speak.
"What kisses you are giving me, dear Miss Rothesay, and just where
papa gives me them, too. How kind! Ah, I love you--I love you
dearly," murmured the little affectionate voice, haunting Olive long
after she had torn herself away.
"God bless and take care of you, my dear child--almost as
dear as though you had been born my own," was Mrs. Gwynne's
farewell, as she bestowed on Olive one of her rare embraces. And then the
parting was over.
Closing her eyes--her heart;--striving to make her thoughts a
blank, and to shut out everything save the welcome sense of blind
exhaustion that was creeping over her; Olive lay back in the carriage, and
was whirled from Harbury.
She had a long way to journey across the forest-country until she
reached the nearest railway-station. When she arrived, it was
already late, and she had barely time to take her seat ere the carriages started. That moment her quick ear caught the ringing of a horse's hoofs, and as the rider leaped on the platform she saw it was Harold Gwynne. He looked round eagerly--more eagerly than she had ever seen him look before. The train was already moving, but they momently recognised each other, and Harold smiled--his own frank affectionate smile. It fell like a sunburst upon poor lonely Olive Rothesay.
Her last sight of him was as he stood with folded arms, intently
watching the winding northward line. Fervently she blessed him in her
faithful heart, that, giving so much, was content with so little; and then,
feeling that this one passing sight of him had taken away half her pain,
she was borne upon her solitary journey.
loveliness which charms at eighteen, to know that we all have it in our power to be beautiful at eighty.
Miss, or rather Mrs. Flora Rothesay--for so she was always
called--appeared to Olive the most beautiful old lady she had ever
beheld. It was a little after dusk on a dull wet day, when she reached her
journey's end. Entering, she saw around her the dazzle of a rich warm
fire-light, her cloak was removed by light hands, and she felt on both
cheeks the kiss of peace and salutation.
"Is that Olive Rothesay, Angus Rothesay's only child? Welcome
to bonnie Scotland--welcome, my dear lassie!"
The voice lost none of its sweetness for bearing, strongly and
unmistakably, the "accents of the mountain tongue," such as
still lingers with ancient Scottish ladies. Mrs. Flora used, without a
trace of vulgarity,
the tones and some of the phrases of her native Doric, as spoken a century ago.
Surely the mountain breezes that rocked Olive's cradle had sung in
her memory for twenty years, for she felt like coming home the moment she
set foot in her father's land. She expressed this to Mrs. Flora, and
then, quite overpowered, she knelt and hid her face in the old lady's
lap, and her excitement melted away in a soft dew--too sweet to seem
like tears.
"The poor lassie! she's just wearied out!" said Mrs.
Flora, laying her hands on Olive's hair. "Jean, rin awa'
and get her some tea. Now, my bairn, lift up your face, and let me see ye.
Ay, there it is--a Rothesay's, every line! and with the golden
hair, too. Ye have heard tell o' the weird saying, about the Rothesays
with yellow hair? No? Ah well, we'll no talk of it now." And the
old lady suddenly looked
thoughtful--even somewhat grave. When Olive rose up, she made her bring a seat opposite to her own arm-chair, and there watched her very intently.
Olive herself noticed with curious eyes the outward likeness of her
aunt. Mrs. Flora's attire was quite a picture, with the ruffled
elbow-sleeves and the long, square boddice, above which a close white
kerchief hid the once lovely neck and throat of her whom old Elspie had
chronicled--and truly--as "the Flower of Perth." The
face, Olive thought, was as she could have imagined that of Mary Queen of
Scots when grown old. But age could never obliterate the charm of the soft
languishing eyes, the almost infantile sweetness of the mouth. Therein sat
a spirit, ever young and lovely, because ever loving; smiling away all
natural wrinkles--softening down all harsh lines. You regarded them no
more than the faint
shadows in a twilight landscape, over which the soul of peace is everywhere serenely diffused. There was peace, too, in the very attitude--leaning back, the head a little raised, the hands crossed, each folded round the other's wrist. Olive particularly noticed these little hands, shrunk but not withered. On the right was a marriage-ring, which had outlasted two lives, mother and daughter; on the left, at the wedding-finger, was another, a hoop of gold with a single diamond. Both seemed less ornaments than tokens--gazed on, perhaps, as the faint landmarks of a long past journey, which now, with its joys and pains alike, was all fading into shadow before the dawn of another world.
"So they called you 'Olive,' my dear," said Mrs.
Flora. "A strange name! the like of it is not in our
family."
"My mother gave it to me from a dream she had."
"Ay, I mind it weel; Harold Gwynne told me, saying that Mrs.
Rothesay had told him. Was she, then, so sweet and dainty a
creature--your mother? Once Angus spoke to me of her--little
Sybilla Hyde. She was his wife then, though we did not know it. That was no
richt. Poor Angus, we loved him very much--better than he thought.
Tears again, my dearie? Then we'll speak nae mair o' the like
o' that."
"And so you know my dear Alison Balfour. She was a deal younger
than I, and yet you see we are both grown auld wives thegither. Little
Olive--I think I will call you so, such a wee bit thing as you
are--little Olive! know you that you have come to me on my birth day.
This ae day I have lived just eighty years in a dark, dowie world, as they
ca' it. And yet 'tis no sae dark nor dowie while there's aye
light in the lift aboon."
The old lady reverently raised her pale
blue eyes--true Scottish eyes--limpid and clear as the dew on Scottish heather. Cheerful they were withal, for they soon began to flit hither and thither, following the motions of Jean's "eident hand" with most housewifely care. And Jean herself, a handmaid, prim and ancient indeed, but youthful compared to her mistress, seemed to watch the latter's faintest gesture with most affectionate observance. Of all the light traits which reveal characters none is more suggestive than the sight of a mistress whom her servants love.
After tea, Mrs. Flora insisted on Olive's retiring for the night.
"I hae gi'en ye a room wi' a bonnie prospect owerlooking
the Braid Hills. They ca' them hills here; but oh! for the broad blue
mountains sweeping in waves from the old castle in Perth. Night and day I
was wearying to see them, for years
after I came to live at Morningside. But ane must e'en dree one's weird! My puir brother was dead and gane, and I had tint a' the rest of my kin, save some young folk in Edinburgh, that were sib to my mother--she was a Lowland woman, ye see. Thae puir bairns were wanting me sair, so I left the dear auld hame, for gude and a'!"
She always spoke in this rambling way, wandering from the subject, after
the fashion of old age. Olive could have listened long to the pleasant
stream of talk, which seemed murmuring round her, wrapping her in a soft
dream of peace. She laid down her tired head on the pillow, with an
unwonted feeling of calmness and rest. Even the one weary pain that ever
pursued her sank into momentary repose. Her last waking thought was still
of Harold; but it was more like the yearning of a spirit from another world
than the passionate longing
of one who struggles with the misery of a hopeless love.
Just between waking and sleeping Olive was roused by what seemed an
almost spiritlike strain of music. Her door had been left ajar, and the
sound she heard was the voices of the household, engaged in their evening
devotion. The tune was that sweetest of all Presbyterian psalmody,
"plaintive Martyrs." Olive caught some words of the
hymn--it was one with which she had often been lulled to sleep in poor
old Elspie's arms. Distinct and clear its quaint rhymes came back upon
her memory now:
The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want,
He makes me down to lie
In pastures green, and leadeth me
The quiet waters by.
Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale,
Yet will I fear none ill;
For Thou art with me, and Thy rod
And staff me comfort still.
Poor lonely Olive lay and listened. Then rest, deep and placid, came
over her, as over one who, escaped from a stormy wrack and tempest, falls
asleep amid the murmur of "quiet waters," in a pleasant
land.
She awoke at morning, as if waking in another world. The clear cold air,
threaded with sunshine, filled her room. It was the "best
room," furnished with a curious mingling of the ancient and the
modern. The pretty chintz couch laughed at the oaken, high-backed chair,
stiff with its century of worm-eaten state. On either side the fire-place
hung two ancient engravings, of Mary Stuart and "bonnie Prince
Charlie," both garnished with verses, at once remarkable for devoted
loyalty and eccentric rhythm. Between the two was Sir William Ross's
sweet, maidenly portrait of our own Victoria. Opposite, on a shadowy wall,
with one sunbeam glinting on the face, was a large, well-painted
likeness, which Olive at once recognised. It was Mrs. Flora, then young Flora Rothesay, at eighteen. No wonder, Olive thought, that she was called "the flower of Perth." But strange it was, that the fair flower had been planted in no good man's bosom; that this lovely and winning creature had lived, bloomed, withered--"an old maid." Olive, looking into the sweet eyes that followed her everywhere--as those of some portraits do--tried to read therein the foreshadowing of a life-history of eighty years. It made her dreamy and sad, so she arose and looked out upon the sunny slopes of the Braid Hills until her cheerfulness returned. Then she descended to the breakfast-table.
It was too early for the old lady to appear, but there were waiting
three or four young damsels--invited, they said, to welcome Miss
Rothesay, and show her the beauties of Edinburgh. They talked continually
of "dear
Auntie Flora," and were most anxious to "call cousins" with Olive herself, who, though she could not at all make out the relationship, was quite ready to take it upon faith. She tried very hard properly to inform herself concerning the three Miss M'Gillivrays, daughters of Sir Andrew Rothesay's half-sister's niece, and Miss Flora Anstruther, the old lady's third cousin and name-child, and especially little twelve-years-old Maggie Oliphant, whose grandfather was Mrs. Flora's nephew on the mother's side, and first cousin to Alison Balfour.
All these conflicting relationships wrapped Olive in an inexplicable
net; but it was woven of such friendly arms that she had no wish to get
free. Her heart opened to the loving welcome; and when she took her first
walk on Scottish ground, it was with a sensation more akin to happiness
than she had felt for many a long month.
"And so you have never before seen your aunt," said one of
the M'Gillivrays;--for her life, Olive could not tell whether it
was Miss Jane, Miss Janet, or Miss Marion, though she had tried for
half-an-hour to learn the difference. "You like her of
course--our dear old Auntie Flora?"
"Aunt to which of you," said Olive, smiling.
"Oh, she is everybody's Auntie Flora; no one ever calls her
anything else," observed little Maggie Oliphant, who, during all
their walk, clung tenaciously to Miss Rothesay's hand, as most
children were prone to do.
"I think," said the quiet Miss Anstruther, lifting up her
dreamy brown eyes, "that in all our lives put together,
we will never do half the good that Aunt Flora has done in hers. Papa says,
every one of her friends ought to be thankful that she has lived an old
maid!"
"Yes, indeed, for who else would have
taken care of her cross old brother, Sir Andrew, until he died?" said Janet M'Gillivray.
"And who," added her sister, "would have come and been
a mother to us when we lost our own, living with us, and taking care of us
for seven long years?"
"I am sure," cried blithe Maggie, "my brothers and I
used often to say, that if Auntie Flora had been young, and any
disagreeable husband had come to steal her from us, we would have hooted
him away down the street, and pelted him with stones."
Olive laughed; and afterwards said, thoughtfully, "She has then
lived a happy life--has this good Aunt Flora!"
"Not always happy," answered the eldest and gravest of the
M'Gillivrays. "My mother once heard that she had some great
sorrow in her youth. But she has outlived it, and conquered it in time.
People say such
things are possible,--I cannot tell," added the girl, with a faint sigh;--that of unbelieving youth just beginning to find out the difference between romance and reality. Olive thought how some other time she would have a little quiet talk with Marion M'Gillivray.
There was no more said of Mrs. Flora, but oftentimes during the day,
when some passing memory stung poor Olive, causing her to turn wearily from
the mirth of her young companions, there came before her in gentle reproof
the likeness of the aged woman who had lived down her one great
woe--lived, not only to feel, but to impart cheerfulness.
A few hours after, Olive saw her aunt sitting smiling amidst a little
party which she had gathered together, playing with the children,
sympathising with those of elder growth, and looked up to by old and young
with an affection passing that of mere kindred. And then there came a balm
of hope
to the wounded spirit that had felt life's burden too heavy to be borne.
"How happy you are, and how much every one loves you!" said
Olive, when Mrs. Flora and herself were left alone, and their hearts
inclined each to each with a vague sympathy. "Yours must have been a
noble woman's life."
"I hae tried to mak it sae, as far as I could, my dear
bairn," answered the old lady. "And a' the little good I
hae dune has come back upon me fourfold. It is always so."
"And you have been content-- nay, happy?"
"Ay, I have! God quenched the fire on my own hearth, that I might
learn to make that of others bright. My dear lassie, one's life never
need be empty of love, even though, after seeing all near kindred drop
away, one lingers to be an old maid of eighty years."
"Aunt Flora's house has grown quite home-like to me,"
said Olive, affectionately. It was true. She had sunk down, nestling into
its peace like a tired, broken-winged dove. As she sat beside the old lady,
and drank in the delicious breezes that swept across from the Lothians, she
was quite another creature from the pale drooping Olive
Rothesay who had crept wearily up Harbury Hill. Still, the mention of the place even now took a little of the faint roses from her cheek.
"I am weel pleased that you are sae happy, my dear niece,"
answered Mrs. Flora; "yet I wadna like that they should forget you at
hame."
"They do not. Christal writes now and then from Brighton, and Lyle
Derwent indulges me with a long letter every week," said Olive,
trying to smile. She did not mention Harold; she would fain have hidden how
much his silence grieved her. It felt like a mist of cold estrangement
rising up between them. Yet--as sometimes she tried to
think--perhaps it was best so! She would thus earlier learn to bear
meekly the burden which must last through life.
"Alison Gwynne was aye the worst of all correspondents,"
pursued the old lady, "but
Harold might write to you; I think he did so once or twice when he was living with me here, this summer."
"Yes!" said Olive, "we have always been good
friends."
"I ken that, my dearie. It wasna little that we talked about you.
He told me all that chanced long ago atween your father and himsel. Ah,
that was a strange, strange thing!"
"It was so. But we have never once spoken of it--neither I,
nor Mr. Gwynne."
"Harold could not. He was sair grieved, and bitterly he repented
having 'robbed' you, as he ca'd it. But he was no the same
man then that he is noo. She cost him muckle dule, that gay young wife of
his--fair and fause, fair and fause. It's ill for a man wha in
his young days comes to love sic a woman. I would like unco weel to see my
dear Harold wed to some leal-hearted
lassie--winsome and winning. But I fear me it will never be."
Thus the old lady's talk gently wandered on. Olive listened in
silence, her eyes vacantly turned towards the wide open country that sweeps
down from Duddingston Loch. The yellow, harvest-clad valley smiled; but
beneath the same bright sky the loch lay quiet, dark, and still. The
sunshine passed over it, and entered it not. Olive wistfully regarded the
scene which seemed a symbol of her own fate. She did not murmur at it, for
day by day a solemn peace was gathering over her spirit. She tried to
respond with cheerfulness to the new affections that greeted her on every
side; to fill each day with those duties, that by the alchemy of a meek
nature are so often transmuted into pleasures. Still, at her heart's
core, lay ever one long sighing thought of Harold Gwynne.
The rest of the drive was rather dull, for Mrs. Flora, usually the most
talkative, cheerful old lady in the world, seemed disposed to be silent and
thoughtful. Not sad--sadness rarely comes over the face of old age.
All strong feelings, whether of joy or pain, belong to youth alone.
"Noo, my bairn, ye maun bide wi' Marion M'Gillivray the
day," said Mrs. Flora, after a somewhat protracted silence.
"Twa young things thegither will be aye happier alane, than wi'
an auld wifie like me."
Olive disclaimed this, affirming, and with her whole heart, that she was
never so happy as when with her good Aunt Flora.
"'Tis pleasant to hear ye say the like o' that. Ye are a
sweet, sweet lassie, Olive! But it must be even as I say--I hae kept
this 20th of September in my ain house alane for five-and-forty
year," said the old
lady, unconsciously gliding more than usual into the speech of her youth. And then she was silent until the carriage stopped at the house of the M'Gillivrays.
"I will see ye again the morn," she once more observed, as
her niece descended. And then, after looking up pleasantly to the window
that was filled with a whole host of juvenile M'Gillivrays vehemently
nodding and smiling, Aunt Flora pulled down her veil and drove away.
"I thought you would be given up to us for to-day," said
Marion, as she and Olive, now grown almost into friends, strolled out
arm-in-arm along the shady walks of Morningside.
"Indeed! Did Aunt Flora say--"
"She said nothing--she never does. But for years I have
noticed this 20th of September; because, when she lived with us, on this
day, after teaching us in the mornings
she used to go to her own room, or take a long, lonely walk, come back very pale and quiet, and we never saw her again that night. It was the only day in the year that she seemed to keep away from us. Afterwards, when I grew a woman, I found out why this was."
"Did she tell you?"
"No; Aunt Flora never talks about herself. But from her maid and
foster-sister, an old woman who died awhile ago, I heard a little of the
story, and guessed the rest--we women easily can," added quiet
Marion, whose grave young brow already "told a tale."
"I think I guess, too. But let me hear," said Olive
Rothesay; "that is, if I may hear."
"Oh yes. 'Tis many, many years ago. Aunt Flora was quite a
girl then, and lived with Sir Andrew, her elder brother. She had
'braw wooers,' in plenty, according to Isbel Grærme (you
should have seen old
Isbel, cousin Olive.) However, she cared for nobody; and some said it was for the sake of a far-away cousin of her own, one of the 'gay Gordons.' But he was anything but 'gay'--delicate in health, plain to look at, and poor besides. While he lived he never said to her a word of love; but after he died,--and that was not until both were past their youth,--there came to Aunt Flora a letter and a ring. She wears it on her wedding-finger to this day!"
"And this 20th of September must have been the day he died,"
said Olive.
"I think so. But she never says a word, and never did."
And the two walked on silently. Olive was thinking of the long
woe-wasted youth--the knowledge of love requited come too
late--and then of the noble spirit which after this great blow could
gird up its strength and endure, for nearly fifty years. Ay, so as to
find in life not merely peace, but sweetness. Her own path looked less gloomy to the view. From the depths of her forlorn heart uprose a feeble-winged hope; it came and fluttered about her pale lips, bringing to them
The smile of one,
God-satisfied; and earth-undone.
Marion turned round and saw it. "Cousin Olive! how very mild, and
calm, and beautiful you look! Before you came, Aunt Flora told us she had
heard you were 'like a dove.' I can understand that now. I
think, if I were a man, I should fall in love with you."
"With me; surely you forget! Oh no, Marion, not with me; that
would be impossible!"
Marion coloured a little, but then earnestly continued, "I
don't mean any one who was young and thoughtless, but some grave, wise
man, who saw your beautiful soul shining in your face, and learned, slowly
and quietly, to
love you for your goodness. Ay, in spite of--of--" (here the frank, plain-speaking Marion again hesitated a little, but continued boldly) "any little imperfection which may make you fancy yourself different to other people. If that is your sole reason for saying, as you did the other day, that--"
"Nay, Marion, you have talked quite enough of me,"
interrupted Miss Rothesay.
"But you will forgive me! I could hate myself if I have pained
you, seeing how much I love you, how much every one learns to love
you."
"Is it so? Then I am very happy!" And the smile sat long on
her face, until some chance word, or thought, awoke as ever the olden
sting. Poor Olive! her spirit changed within her every hour. Yet how brave
and meek a spirit it was, Heaven only knew!
"Can you guess whither I am taking you?" said Marion, as
they paused before a large
and handsome gateway. "Here is the Roman Catholic convent--beautiful St. Margaret's, the sweetest spot at Morningside. Shall we enter?"
Olive assented. Of late she had often thought of those old tales of
forlorn women, sorrow-stricken or wronged, who, sick of life, had hidden
themselves from the world in solitudes like this. Sometimes she had almost
wished she could do the same. A feeling deeper than curiosity attracted her
to the convent of St. Margaret's.
It was indeed a sweet place; one that a weary heart might well long
after. The whole atmosphere was filled with a soft calm--a silence
like death, and yet a freshness as of new-born life. When the heavy door
closed it seemed to shut out the world; and, without any sense of regret or
loss, you passed, like a passing soul, into another existence.
They entered the little convent-parlour. There, from the plain,
ungarnished walls, looked the two favourite pictures of Catholic worship;
one, thorn-crowned, ensanguined, but still Divine; the other, bearing the
pale endurance of womanhood, the Mother lifted above all mothers in
blessedness and suffering. Olive gazed long upon both. They seemed meet for
the place. Looking at them one felt as if all trivial earthly sorrows must
crumble into dust before these two grand images of sublimated woe.
"I think," said Miss Rothesay, "if I were a nun, and
had known ever so great misery, I should grow calm by looking at these
pictures."
"The nuns don't pass their time in that way I assure
you," answered Marion M'Gillivray. "They spend it in
making such things as these." And she pointed to a case of quaint
baby-like ornaments, pincushions, and artificial flowers.
"How very strange," said Olive, "to think that the
interests and duties of a woman's life should sink down into such
trifles as these. I wonder if the nuns are happy?"
"Stay and judge, for here comes one, my chief friend here, Sister
Ignatia." And Sister Ignatia--who was, despite her quaint dress,
the most bright-eyed, cheerful-looking little Scotswoman
imaginable--flitted in, kissed Marion on both cheeks, smiled a
pleasant welcome on the stranger, and began talking in a manner so simple
and hearty, that Olive's received notions of a "nun" were
quite cast to the winds. But after a while, there seemed to her something
painfully solemn in looking upon the serene face, where not one outward
line marked the inward current which had run on for forty years--how,
none could tell. All was silence now.
They went all over the convent. There was a still pureness pervading
every room.
Now and then a black-stoled figure crossed their way, and vanished like a ghost. Sister Ignatia chattered merrily of their work, their beautiful flowers, and the pupils of the convent school. Happy, very happy, she said they all were at St. Margaret's; but it seemed to Olive like the aimless, thoughtless happiness of a child. Still, when there came across her mind the remembrance of herself--a woman, all alone, struggling with the world, and with her own heart; looking forward to a life's toil for bread and for fame, with which she must try to quench one undying thirst--when she thus thought, she almost longed for such an existence as this quiet monotony, without pleasure and without pain.
"You must come and see our chapel, our beautiful chapel,"
said sister Ignatia. "We have got pictures of our St. Margaret and
all her children." And when they reached
the spot--a gilded, fairy-like, flower-strewn, garden temple, she pointed out with great interest the various memorials of the sainted Scottish Queen.
Olive thought, though she did not then say, that good St. Margaret, the
mother of her people, the softener of her half-savage lord, the teacher and
guide of her children, was more near the ideal of womanhood than the
simple, kind-hearted, but childish worshippers, who spent their lives in
the harmless baby-play of decking her shrine with flowers.
"Yet these are excellent women," said Marion
M'Gillivray, when, on their departure, Olive pursued her thoughts
aloud. "You cannot imagine the good they do in their restricted way.
But still, if one must lead a solitary maiden life, I would rather be Aunt
Flora!"
"Yes, a thousand, thousand times! There is something far greater
and holier in a
woman who goes about the world, keeping ever her pure nun's heart sacred to Heaven, and to some human memories; not shrinking from her appointed work, but doing it meekly and diligently, hour by hour, through life's long day; waiting until at eve God lifts the burden off, saying, 'Faithful handmaid, sleep!'"
Olive spoke softly, but earnestly. Marion did not quite understand her.
But she thought everything Miss Rothesay said must be true and good, and
was always pleased to watch her the while, declaring that whenever she
talked thus her face became "like an angel's."
Miss Rothesay spent the evening very happily, though in the noisy
household of the M'Gillivrays. She listened to the elder girl's
music, and let the younger tribe of "wee toddling bairnies"
climb on her knee and pull her long gold curls. Finally, she began to think
that some of these days there would
be a sweetness in becoming an universal "Aunt Olive" to the rising generation.
She walked home, escorted valiantly by three stout boys, who guided her
by a most circuitous route across Bruntsfield Links, that she might gain a
moonlight view of the couchant lion of Arthur's Seat. They amused her
the whole way home with tales of High-school warfare. On reaching the
garden-gate she was half surprised, yet glad, to hear the unwonted
cheerfulness of her own laugh. The sunshine she daily strove to cast around
her was falling faintly back upon her own heart.
"Good-night, good-night! Allan, and Charlie, and James. We must
have another merry walk soon!" was her gay adieu as the boys
departed, leaving her in the garden-walk, where Mrs. Flora's tall
hollyhocks cast a heavy shadow up to the hall-door.
"You seem very happy, Miss Rothesay,"
said a voice. It came from some one standing close by. The next instant her hand was taken in that of Harold Gwynne.
But the pressure was very cold--scarcely that even of a friend.
Olive's heart, which had leaped up within her, sank down heavily, so
heavily, that her greeting was only the chilling words,
"I did not expect to see you here!"
"Possibly not; but I--I had business in Edinburgh. However it
will not, I think, detain me long." He said this sharply, even
bitterly.
Olive, startled and overwhelmed by the suddenness of this meeting, could
make no answer, but as they stood beneath the lamp she glanced at the face,
whose every change she knew so well. She saw that something troubled him.
Forgetful of all else, her heart fled to him in sympathy and
tenderness.
"There is nothing wrong, surely! Tell me, are you quite well,
quite happy? You do not know how glad I am to see you, my dear
friend?"
And her little gentle hand alighted on his arm like a bird of peace.
Harold pressed it and kept it there, as he