“Dear mamma, is not this a pretty house, even though it is in a town?—so pretty, one need hardly pine after Merri-vale.”
Thus said Olive when they had been established some time in their new abode, and sat together, one winter evening, listening to the sweet bells of Oldchurch—one of the few English parishes where lingers “the curfew's solemn sound.”
“A pretty house, if any one came to see us in it, my dear; but nobody does. And then we miss the close carriage so much. To think that I have been obliged to refuse the Stantons' ball and the dinner-party at Everingham. How dull these long winter evenings will be, Olive!”
Olive answered neitheryesnorno, but tried quietly, by her actions, to disprove the fact She was but a child—scarcely would have been called a clever child; was neither talkative nor musical; and yet she had a thousand winning ways of killing time, so sweetly that each minute died, dolphin-like, shedding glorious hues.
A very romantic simile this—one that would never have crossed Olive's innocent brain. She only knew that she loved her mother; and therefore tried to amuse and make her happy, so that she might not feel the change of circumstances—a change so unimportant to Olive, so vital to Mrs. Rothesay.
Olive, this night, was peculiarly successful in her littleruseof love. Her mother listened while she explained a whole sketch-book of designs, illustrative of half-a-dozen modern poets. Mrs. Rothesay even asked her to read some of the said poets aloud; and though not of an imaginative temperament, was fain to shed a few womanly tears over Tennyson's “Queen of the May” and the “Miller's Daughter.” Finally, she was coaxed into sitting to her daughter for her portrait, which Olive thought would make a design exactly suited to the heroine of the latter poem, and chiefly at the verse—
“Look through mine eyes with thine. True wife, Round my true heart thine arms entwine; My other dearer life in life, Look through my very soul with thine.”
And, reading the verses over and over again, to bring the proper expression to her mother's face, the young girl marvelled that they brought likewise a look so sad that she would fain have made some excuse, and terminated the sitting.
“No, no, my dear; it amuses me, and I can talk with you the while.”
But Mrs. Rothesay did not talk much; she was continually falling into a reverie. Once she broke it with the words—
“Olive, my child, I think, now we lead a quieter life, your papa will stay at home more. He seems to like this house, too—he never liked Merivale.”
“Dear old Merivale!” said Olive, with a sigh. It seemed ages since she had left the familiar place.
“Do not call itdear. It was a dreary home. I did not think so at first, but I did afterwards.”
“Why, mamma?” asked Olive. She was glad to lure her mother on to talk a little, if only to dispel the shadow which so ill became Mrs. Rothesay's still fair face.
“You were too young to know anything then—indeed, you are now, almost. But, somehow, I have learned to talk with you as if you were quite a little woman, Olive, my dear.”
“Thank you, mamma. And what made you dislike sweet Merivale?”
“It was when your papa first began to take his long journeys—on business you know. He was obliged to do it, I suppose; but, nevertheless, it was very dull for me. I never had such a dreary summer as that one. You could not remember it, though—you were only ten years old.”
Olive did remember it faintly, nevertheless—a time when her father's face was sterner, and her mother's more fretful, than now; when the shadow of many domestic storms passed over the child. But she never spoke of these things; and, lest her mother should ponder painfully on them now, she began to talk of lighter matters. Yet though the sweet companionship of her only daughter was balm to Mrs. Rothesay's heart, still there was a pain there which even Olive could not remove. Was it that the mother's love had sprung from the ruins of the wife's happiness; and that while smiling gaily with her child, Sybilla Rothesay's thoughts were with the husband who, year by year, was growing more estranged, and whom, as she found out too late, by a little more wisdom, patience, and womanly sympathy, she might perhaps have kept for ever at her side?
But none of these mysteries came to the knowledge of little Olive. She lived the dream-life of early girlhood—dwelling in an atmosphere still and pure as a grey spring morning ere the sun has risen. All she learnt was from books; for though she had occasional teachers, she had never been sent to school. Sometimes she regretted this, thinking how pleasant it would be to have companions, or at least one friend, of her own age, to whom she might talk on the various subjects of which she had of late begun to dream. These never passed the still sanctuary of her own thoughts; for some instinct told her that her mother would not sympathise with her fancies. So she thought of them always by herself, when she was strolling about the small but pleasant garden that sloped down from the back of the house to the river; or when, extending her peregrinations, she went to sit in the summer-house of the garden adjoining, which belonged to a large mansion close by, long uninhabited. It was quite a punishment to Olive when a family came to live there, and she lost the use of the beautiful deserted garden.
Still, it was something new to have neighbours. She felt quite a curiosity respecting them, which was not diminished when, looking out one day from the staircase window (a favourite seat, from which every night she watched the sun set), Olive caught sight of the new occupants of her former haunts.
They were two little boys of about nine or ten, playing noisily enough—as boys will. Olive did not notice them much, except the youngest, who appeared much the quieter and gentler of the two; but her gaze rested a long time on a girl, who seemed to be their elder sister. She was walking by herself up and down an alley, with a shawl thrown over her head, and her thick, black hair blown about by the March winds. Olive thought she looked very picturesque—in fact, just like some of her own fantastic designs of “Norna on the Fitful head,” “Medora watching for Conrad,” etc. etc. And when the young stranger drew nearer, her admiration was still further excited, by perceiving under the shawl a face that needed but a little romantic imagination to make it positively beautiful. Olive thought so, and accordingly sat the whole evening drawing it from memory, and putting it into various characters, from Scott, Byron, Moore, and Coleridge.
For several days after, she took a deep interest in watching the family party, and chiefly this young girl—partly because she was so pretty, and partly because she seemed nearly about her own age, or perhaps a year or two older. Olive often contrived to walk in her garden when her neighbours were in theirs—so that she could hear the boys' cheerful voices over the high hedge. By this means she learnt their Christian names, Robert and Lyle—the latter of which she admired very much, and thought it exactly suited the pretty, delicate younger brother. She wished much to find out the name of their sister—but could not; for the elder girl took little notice of them, or they of her. So Olive, after thinking and talking of her for some time, as “my beauty next door,” to Mrs. Rothesay's great amusement, at last christened her by the imaginary name of Maddalena.
After a few weeks it seemed as though the interest between the young neighbours became mutual—for Olive, in her walks, sometimes fancied she saw faces watchingher, too from the staircase window. And once, peering over the wall, she perceived the mischievous eyes and pointed finger of the elder boy, and heard the younger one say, reproachfully—
“Don't—pray! You are very cruel, Bob.”
And Olive, deeply blushing—though at what she scarcely knew—fled into the house, and did not take her usual garden walks for some days.
At last, when, one lovely spring evening, she stood leaning over the low wall at the garden's end, idly watching the river flow by beneath, she turned round, and saw fixed on her, with a curiosity not unmingled with interest, the dark eyes of “Maddalena.” Somehow or other, the two girls smiled—and then the elder spoke.
“The evening was very fine,” she said; “and it was rather dull, walking in the garden all alone.”
Olive had never found it so; but she was used to it. Her young neighbour was not; she had always lived in a large town, etc. etc.
A few more simple nothings spun out the conversation for ten minutes. The next day it was resumed, and extended to twenty; during which Olive learnt that her young beauty's name, so far from being anything so fine as Maddalena, was plain Sarah—orSara, as its owner took care to explain. Olive was rather disappointed—but she thought of Coleridge's ladye love; consoled herself, and tried to console the young lady, with repeating,
My pensive Sarah! thy soft cheek reclined, etc.
At which Miss Sara Derwent laughed, and asked who wrote that very pretty poetry?
Olive was a little confounded. She fancied everybody read Coleridge, and her companion sank just one degree in her estimation. But as soon as she looked again on the charming face, with its large, languishing Asiatic eyes, and delicate mouth—just like that of the lotus-leaved “Clytie,” which she loved so much,—Olive felt all her interest revive.
Never was there any girl over whom every form of beauty exercised more fascination. By the week's end she was positively enchanted with her neighbour, and before a month had passed, the two young girls had struck up that romantic friendship peculiar to sixteen.
There is a deep beauty—more so than the world will acknowledge—in this impassioned first friendship, most resembling first love, the fore-shadowing of which it truly is. Who does not, even while smiling at its apparent folly, remember the sweetness of such a dream? Many a mother with her children at her knee, may now and then call to mind some old playmate, for whom, when they were girls together, she felt such an intense love. How they used to pine for the daily greeting—the long walk, fraught with all sorts of innocent secrets. Or, in absence, the almost interminable letters—positive love-letters, full of “dearest” and “beloveds,” and sealing-wax kisses. Then the delicious meetings—sad partings, also quite lover-like in the multiplicity of tears and embraces—embraces sweeter than those of all the world beside—and tears—But our own are gathering while we write—Ah!
We also have been in Arcadia.
Gracious reader! grave, staid mother of a family!—you are not quite right if you jest at the days of old, and at such feelings as these. They were real at the time—and most pure, true, and beautiful. What matter, if years sweeping on have swept them all away or merged them into higher duties and closer ties? Perhaps, if you met your beautiful idol of fifteen, you would see a starched old maid of fifty, or a grandame presiding over the third generation; or perchance, in seeking thus, you would find only a green hillock, or a stone inscribed with the well-known name. But what of that? To you the girlish image is still the same—it never can grow old, or change, or die. Think of it thus; and then you will think not mockingly, but with an interest almost mournful, on the rapturous dream of first friendship which now came to visit Olive Rothesay.
Sara Derwent was the sort of girl of whom we meet some hundreds in a lifetime—the class from whence are taken the lauded “mothers, wives, and daughters of England.” She was sincere, good-tempered, and affectionate; not over-clever, being more gifted with heart than brains; rather vain, which fault her extreme prettiness half excused; always anxious to do right, yet, from a want of decision of character, often contriving to do wrong.
But she completely charmed the simple Olive with her beauty, her sparkling, winning cheerfulness, and her ready sympathy. So they became the most devoted friends. Not a day passed without their spending some portion of it together—Olive teaching the young Londoner the pleasures of the country; and Sara, in her turn, inducting the wondering Olive into all the delightful mysteries of life, as learnt in a large home circle, and a still larger circle of society. Olive, not taking aught from the passionate love with which she looked up to her mother, yet opened her warm heart to the sweetness of this affection—so fresh, so sudden, so full of sympathetic contact. It was like a new revelation in her girlhood—the satisfying of a thirst, just beginning to be felt. She thought of Sara continually; delighted in being with her; in admiring her beauty, and making interests out of every interest of hers. And to think that her friend loved her in return brought a sensation of deep happiness, not unmixed with gratitude.
Sara's own feelings may be explained by one sentence of a letter which she wrote to an old schoolfellow. Therein she told how she had found “such a dear, loving, gentle thing; a girl, not pretty—even slightly deformed; but who was an amusing companion, and to whom she could confide everything. Such a blessing in that dull place, Oldchurch!”
Poor little Olive!
As the summer advanced, Olive Rothesay and her new friend, sanctioned by the elders of both families, took long walks together, read, and practised. Not that Olive practised, for she had no voice, and little knowledge of music; but she listened to Sara's performances for hours, with patience, if not with delight. And when they talked—oh, what talks those were!
Now, reader, be not alarmed lest we should indulge you with the same. Go back into your ownrepertoireof early friendships, and that will suit us quite as well Still, we may just say that these young friends flitted like bees over every subject under heaven, and at last alighted on the subject most interesting at their age—love.
It is curious to note how the heart first puts out its tendrils and stretches them forth toward the yet unknown good which is to be in after-life its happiness and its strength. What folly of parents to repress these blind seekings after such knowledge—this yearning which nature teaches, and which in itself involves nothing wrong. Girlswillthink of love, whether or no! How much better, then, that they should be taught to think of it rightly, as the one deep feeling of life. Not, on the one hand, to be repressed by ridicule; nor, on the other, to be forced by romance into a precocious growth; but to be entered upon, when fate brings the time, rationally, earnestly, and sacredly.
Olive Rothesay found, with considerable pain, that Miss Derwent and she did not at all agree in their notions of love. Olive had always felt half-frightened at the subject, and never approached it save with great awe and timidity; but Sara did not seem to mind it in the least. She talked of a score of “flirtations” at quadrille parties—showed her friend half-a-dozen complimentary billets-doux which she had received, and all with the greatest unconcern. By degrees this indifference vanished under the influence of Olive's more earnest nature; and at last, when they were sitting together one night, listening to the fierce howling of the wind, a little secret came out.
“I don't like that equinoctial gale,” said Sara, shyly. “I used to hear so much of its horrors from a friend I have—at sea.”
“Indeed. Who was that?”
“Only Charles Geddes. Did I never speak of him? Very likely not—because I was so vexed at his leaving college and running off to sea. It was a foolish thing. But don't mention him to papa or the boys.” And Sara blushed—a real, good, honest blush.
Olive did the same—perhaps from sympathy. She continued very thoughtful for a long time; longer even than Sara. They were not many days in making out between them the charming secret for which in their hearts they had been longing. Both were thirsting to taste—or at least to see each other taste—of that enchanting love-stream, the stream of life or of death, at whose verge they had now arrived.
And so, it somehow chanced that, however the conversation began, it usually glided into the subject of Charles Geddes. Sara acknowledged that he and she had always liked one another very much, though she allowed that he was fonder of her than she was of him; that, when they parted, he had seemed much agitated—and she had cried—but they were mere boy and girl then. It was nothing—nothing at all.
Olive did not think so; and, contrasting all this with similar circumstances in her pet poems and novels, she wove a very nice romance round Charles Geddes and her beloved Sara, whom she now began to look upon with greater interest and reverence than ever. This did not prevent her reading Sara a great many lectures on constancy, and giving her own opinions on what true love ought to be—opinions which were a little too ethereal for Miss Derwent's comprehension, but which she liked very much, nevertheless.
Olive took quite an affectionate interest in her friend's lover—for lover she had decided that he must be. Not a day passed that she did not eagerly consult theTimes''“shipping intelligence;” and when at last she saw the name of Charles Geddes' vessel, as “arrived,” her heart beat, and tears sprang to her eyes. When she showed it to Sara, Olive could hardly speak for joy. Little simpleton! she counted her friend's happiness as if it were her own. She kept the secret even from her mother; that is, in the only manner Olive would conceal aught from any one so beloved, by saying, “Please, mamma, do not ask me anything.” And Mrs. Rothesay, who, always guided by some one, was now in a fair way to be entirely guided by her daughter, made no inquiries, but depended entirely upon Olive's wisdom and tenderness.
Charles Geddes came to Oldchurch. It was quite a new life for Olive—a changed life, too; for now the daily rambles with her friend were less frequent. Instead of which, she used to sit at her window, and watch Sara and Charles taking long strolls in the garden, arm-in-arm, looking so happy, that it was beautiful to see them.
Who can describe the' strange, half-defined thoughts which often brought tears to the young girl's eyes as she watched them thus! It was no jealousy of Sara's deserting her for Charles, still less was it envy; but it was a vague longing—a desiring of love for love's own sake. Not as regarded any individual object, for Olive had never seen any one in whom she felt or fancied the slightest interest. Yet, as she looked on these two young creatures, apparently so bound up in each other, she thought how sweet such a tie must be, and how dearly she herself could love some one. And her yearning was alwaysto loverather thanto be loved.
One morning, when Olive had not seen Sara for a day or two, she was hastily summoned to their usual trysting-place, a spot by the river-side, where the two gardens met, and where an over-arching thorn-tree made a complete bower. Therein Sara stood, looking so pale and serious, that Olive remarked it.
“Has anything happened?”
“Nothing—that is, nothing amiss. But oh, Olive, what do you think? Charles put this letter into my hand last night. I have scarcely slept—I feel so agitated—so frightened.”
And in truth she looked so. Was there ever a very young girl who did not, on receiving her first love-letter?
It was an era in Olive's life, too. She even trembled, as by her friend's earnest desire she read the missive. It was boyish, indeed, and full of the ultra-romantic devotion of boyish love; but it was sincere, and it touched Olive deeply. She finished it, and leaned against the thorn-tree, pale and agitated as Sara herself.
“Well, Olive?” said the latter.
Olive threw her arms round her friend's neck and kissed her, feeling almost ready to cry.
“And now, dear, tell me what I must do,” said Sara, earnestly; for of late she had really begun to look up to Olive, so great was the influence of the more thoughtful and higher nature.
“Do! Why, if you love him, you must tell him so, and give him your whole life-long faith and affection.”
“Really, Olive, how grave you are! I had no idea of making it such a serious matter. But, poor Charles!—to think that he should love me so very much!”
“Oh, Sara, Sara!” murmured Olive, “how happy you ought to be!”
The time that followed was a strange period in Olive's life. It was one of considerable excitement, too; she might as well have been in love herself, so deeply did she sympathise with Sara and with Charles. With the latter, even more than with her friend; for there was something in the sincere, reserved, and yet passionate nature of the young sailor, that answered to her own. If he had been her brother, she could not have felt more warmly interested in Charles Geddes and his wooing. And he liked her very much, for Sara's sake first, and then for her own, regarding her also with that gentle compassion which the strong and bold delight to show to the weak. He often called her “his faithful little friend;” and truly she stood his friend in every conceivable way, by soothing Sara's only parent—a most irascible papa—to consent to the engagement, and also by lecturing the gay and coquettish Sara herself into as much good behaviour as could be expected from an affianced damsel of seventeen.
Charles Geddes went to sea again. Poor little Olive, in her warm sympathies, suffered almost as much as the young man's own betrothed, who, after looking doleful for a week, consoled herself by entering, heart and soul, into the gaieties of the gayest Christmas that ever was spent by the society of Oldchurch. Everywhere Miss Derwent was the belle, and continually did her friend need to remind her of the promise which Olive herself regarded as such a sacred, solemn thing.
The love-adventure in which she had borne a part had stirred strange depths in the nature of the young girl. She was awakening slowly to the great mystery of woman's life. And when, by degrees, Sara's amusements somewhat alienated their continual intercourse, Olive was thrown back upon her own thoughts more and more. She felt a vague sadness—a something wanting in her heart, which not even her mother's love could supply.
Mrs. Rothesay saw how dull and pensive she was at times, and with a tender unselfishness contrived that, by Sara Derwent's intervention, Olive should see a little more society; in a very quiet way, though; for her own now delicate health and Captain Rothesay's will, prevented any regular introduction of their daughter into the world. And sometimes Mrs. Rothesay, pondering on Olive's future, felt-glad of this.
“Poor child! she is not made for the world, or the world for her. Better that she should lead her own quiet life, where she will suffer no pain, and be wounded by no neglect.”
Yet, nevertheless, it was with a vague pleasure that Mrs. Rothesay dressed Olive for her first ball—a birthday treat—coaxed by Sara Derwent out of her formidable papa, and looked forward to by both girls for many weeks.
No one would have believed that the young creature, on whom Mrs. Rothesay gazed with a tenderness, not unmingled with admiration, had been the poor infant from which she once turned with a sensation of pain, almost amounting to disgust. But, learning to love, one learns also to admire. Besides, Olive's defect was less apparent as she grew up, and the extreme sweetness of her countenance almost atoned for her bad figure. Yet, as the mother fastened her white dress, and arranged the golden curls so as to fall in a shower on her neck and bosom, she sighed heavily.
Olive did not notice it; she was too much occupied in tying up a rare bouquet—a birthday gift for Sara.
“Well, are you quite satisfied with my dress, dearest mamma?”
“Not quite;” and Mrs. Rothesay fetched a small mantle of white fur, which she laid round Olive's shoulders. “Wear this, dear; you will look better then—see.” She led her to the mirror, and Olive saw the reflection of her own figure, so effectually disguised, that the head, with its delicate and spiritual beauty, seemed lifting itself out of a white cloud.
“'Tis a pretty little mantle, but why must I wear it, mamma?—the night is not cold.” So little did she think of herself, and so slight had been her intercourse with the world, that the defect in her shape rarely crossed her mind. But the mother, so beautiful herself, and to whom beauty was still of such importance, was struck with bitter pain. She would not even console herself by the reflection, with which many a one had lately comforted her, that Olive's slight deformity was becoming less perceptible, and that she might, in a great measure, outgrow it in time. Still it was there. As Mrs. Rothesay looked at the swan-like curves of her own figure, and then at her daughter's, she would almost have resigned her own once-cherished, but now disregarded, beauty, could she have bestowed that gift upon her beloved child.
Without speaking, lest Olive should guess her thoughts, she laid the mantle aside, only she whispered in bidding adieu, “Dear, if you see other girls prettier, or more admired, more noticed than yourself, never mind! Olive is mamma's own pet—always.”
Oh, blessed adversity! oh, sweetness, taught by suffering! How marvellous was the change wrought in Sybilla's heart.
Olive had never in her life before been at a “private ball,” with chalked floors, rout seats, and a regular band. She was quite dazzled by the transformation thus effected in the Derwents' large, rarely-used, dining-room, where she had had many a merry game with little Robert and Lyle. It was perfect fairyland. The young damsels of Oldchurch—haughty boarding-school belles, whom she had always rather feared, when Sara's hospitality brought her in contact with them—were now grown into perfect court beauties. She was quite alarmed by their dignity, and they scarcely noticed poor little Olive at all. Sara, sweeping across the room, appeared to the eyes of her little friend a perfect queen of beauty. But the vision came and vanished. Never was there a belle so much in request as the lively Sara.
Only once, Olive looked at her, and remembered the sailor-boy, who was, perhaps, tossing in some awful night-storm, or lying on the lonely deck, in the midst of the wide Atlantic. And she thought, that when her time came to love and be loved, she would not take everything quite so easily as Sara.
“How pleasant quadrilles must be!” said Olive, as she sat with her favourite Lyle, watching the dancers. Lyle had crept to her, sliding his hand in hers, and looking up to her with a most adoring gaze, as indeed he often did. He had even communicated his intention of marrying her when he grew a man—a determination which greatly excited the ridicule of his elder brother.
“I like far better to sit here quietly with you,” murmured the faithful little cavalier.
“Thank you, Lyle; still, they all look so merry, I almost wish some one had asked me to dance.”
“You dance, Miss Rothesay! What fun! Why nobody would ever dance with you,” cried rude Bob.
Lyle looked imploringly at his brother: “Hush! you naughty boy! Please, Miss Rothesay, I will dance with you at any time, that is, if you think I am tall enough.”
“Oh, quite; I am so small myself,” answered Olive, laughing; for she took quite a pride in patronising him, as girls of sixteen often affectionately patronise boys some five or six years their junior. “You know, you are to grow up to be my little husband.”
“Your husband!” repeated Bob, mischievously. “Don't be too sure of getting one at all. What do you think I overheard those girls there say? That you looked just like an old maid; and, indeed, no one would ever care to marry you, because you were”—
Here Lyle, blushing crimson, stopped his brother's mouth with his little hand; whereat Bob flew into such a passion, that he quite forgot Olive, and all he was about to say, in the excitement of a pugilistic combat with his unluckycadetIn the midst of which the two belligerents—poor, untaught, motherless lads—were hurried off to bed.
Their companionship lost, Olive was left very much to her own devices for amusement. Some few young people that she knew came and talked to her for a little while, but they all went back to their singing, dancing, or flirting; and Olive, who seemed to have no gift nor share in either, was left alone. She did not feel this much at first, being occupied in her thoughts and observations on the rest. She took great interest in noticing all around. Her warm heart throbbed in sympathy with many an idle, passing flirtation, which she in her simplicity mistook for a real “attachment.” It seemed as if every one loved, or was loved, except herself. She thought this, blushing as if it were unmaidenliness, when it was only nature speaking in her heart.
Poor Olive! perhaps it was ill for her that Sara's “love affair” had aroused prematurely these blind gropings after life's great mystery, so often
Too early seen unknown, and known too late.
“What! tired of dancing already?” cried Sara, flitting to the corner where Olive sat.
“I have not danced once yet,” Olive answered, rather piteously.
“Come—shall I get you a partner?” said Sara, carelessly.
“No, no; every one is strange to me here. If you please, and if it would not trouble you, Sara, I had much rather dance with you.”
Sara consented with a tolerably good grace; but there was a slight shadow on her face, which somewhat pained her friend.
“Is she ashamed of me, I wonder?” thought Olive. “Perhaps, because I am not beautiful. Yet, no one ever told me I wasverydisagreeable to look at. I will see.”
As they danced, she watched in the tall mirror Sara's graceful, floating image, and the little pale figure that moved beside her. Therewasa contrast! Olive, who inherited all her mother's love of beauty, spiritualised by the refinement of a dawning artist-soul, felt keenly the longing regret after physical perfection. She went through the dance with less spirit, and in her heart there rung the idle echoes of some old song she knew:
“I see the courtly ladies stand,With their dark and shining hair;And I coldly turn aside to weep—Oh, would that I were fair!”
The quadrille ended, she hid herself in her old corner; and Sara, whose good nature led her to perform this sacrifice to friendship, seemed to smile more pleasantly and affectionately when it was over. At least Olive thought so. She did not see her beautiful idol again for some time; and feeling little interest in any other girl, and none at all in the awkward Oldchurch “beaux,” she took consolation in her own harmless fashion. This was hiding herself under the thick curtains, and looking out of the window at the moon.
Sara's voice was heard close by, talking to a young girl whom Olive knew. But Olive was too shy to join them. She greatly preferred her friend the moon.
“I laughed to see you dancing with that little Olive Rothesay, Miss Derwent. For my part, I hate dancing with girls—and as forher—But I suppose you wanted to show the contrast.”
“Nay, that's ill-natured,” answered Sara, “She is a sweet little creature, and my very particular friend.”
Here Olive, blushing and happy, doubted whether she ought not to come out of the curtains. It was almost wrong to listen—only her beloved Sara often said she had no secrets from Olive.
“Yes, I know she is your friend, and Mr. Charles Geddes' great friend too; if I were you, I should be almost jealous.”
“Jealous of Olive—how very comical!” and the silver laugh was a little scornful. “To think of Olive's stealing any girl's lover! She, who will probably never have one in all her life—poor thing!”
“Of course not; nobody would fall in love with her! But there is a waltz, I must run away. Will you come?”
“Presently—when I have looked in the other room for Olive?”
“Olive is here,” said a timid voice. “Oh, Sara, forgive me if I have done wrong; but I can't keep anything from you. It would grieve me to think I heard what you were saying, and never told you of it.”
Sara appeared confused, and with a quick impulse kissed and fondled her little friend: “You are not vexed, or pained, Olive?”
“Oh, no—that is, not much; it would be very silly if I were. But,” she added, doubtfully, “I wish you would tell me one thing, Sara—not that I am proud, or vain; but still I should like to know. Why did you and Jane Ormond say just now that nobody would ever love me?”
“Don't talk so, my little pet,” said Sara, looking pained and puzzled. Yet, instinctively, her eye glanced to the mirror, where their two reflections stood. So did Olive's.
“Yes, I know,” she murmured. “I am little, and plain, and in figure very awkward—not graceful like you. Would that make people hate me, Sara?”
“Not hate you; but”——
“Well, go on—nay, Iwillknow all!” said Olive firmly; though gradually a thought—long subdued—began to dawn painfully in her mind.
“I assure you, dear,” began Sara, hesitatingly, “it does not signify to me, or to any of those who care for you; you are such a gentle little creature, we forget it all in time. But perhaps with strangers, especially with men, who think so much about beauty, this defect”——
She paused, laying her arm round Olive's shoulders—even affectionately, as if she herself were much moved. But Olive, with a cheek that whitened, and a lip that quivered more and more, looked resolutely at her own shape imaged in the glass.
“I see as I never saw before—so little I thought of myself. Yes, it is quite true—quite true.”
She spoke beneath her breath, and her eyes seemed fascinated into a hard, cold gaze. Sara became almost frightened.
“Do not look so, my dear girl; I did not say that it was a positivedeformity.”
Olive faintly shuddered: “Ah, that is the word! I understand it all now.”
She paused a moment, covering her face. But very soon she sat down, so quiet and pale that Sara was deceived.
“You do not mind it, then, Olive—you are not angry with me?” she said soothingly.
“Angry with you—how could I be?”
“Then you will come back with me, and we will have another dance.”
“Oh, no, no!” And the cheerful good-natured voice seemed to make Olive shrink with pain. “Sara, dear Sara, let me go home!”
“Well, my love, was the ball as pleasant as you expected?” said Mrs. Rothesay, when Olive drew the curtains, and roused her invalid mother to the usual early breakfast, received from no hands but hers.
Olive answered quietly, “Every one said it was pleasant.”
“But you,” returned the mother, with an anxiety she could scarce disguise—“who talked to you?—who danced with you?”
“No one, except Sara.”
“Poor child!” was the half involuntary sigh; and Mrs. Rothesay drew her daughter to her with deep tenderness.
It was a strange fate, that made the once slighted child almost the only thing in the world to which Sybilla Rothesay now clung. And yet, so rich, so full had grown the springs of maternal love, long hidden in her nature, that she would not have exchanged their sweetness to be again the petted, wilful, beautiful darling of society, as she was at Stirling. The neglected wife—the often-ailing mother—dependent on her daughter's tenderness, was happier and nearer to heaven than she had ever been in her life.
Mrs. Rothesay regarded Olive earnestly. “You look as ill as if you had been up all night; and yet you came to bed tolerably early, and I thought you slept, you lay so quiet. Was it so, darling?”
“Not quite; I was thinking,” said Olive, truthfully, though her face flushed, for she would fain have kept her bitter thoughts from her mother. Just then, Mrs. Rothesay started at the sound of the hall-bell.
“Is that your father come home? He said he might, today or to-morrow.”
Olive went down-stairs. It was only a letter, to say Captain Rothesay would return that day, and would bring—most rare circumstance!—some guests to visit them. Olive seemed to shrink painfully at this news.
“What, my child, are you not pleased?—It will make the house less dull for you.”
“No, no—I do not wish; oh, mamma! if I could only shut myself up, and never see any one but you”—— And Olive turned very pale. At last, resolutely trying to speak without any show of trouble, she continued—“I have found out something that I never knew—at least, never thought of before—that I am different from other girls. Oh, mother! am I really deformed?”
She spoke with much agitation. Mrs. Rothesay burst into tears.
“Oh, Olive! how wretched you make me, to talk thus. Unhappy mother that I am! Why should Heaven have punished me thus?”
“Punished you, mother?”
“Nay, my child—my poor, innocent child! I did not mean that,” cried Mrs. Rothesay, embracing her with a passionate revulsion of feeling.
But the word was said,—to linger for ever after on Olive's mind. It brought back the look once written on her childish memory—grown faint, but never quite erased—her father's first look. She understood it now.
Mrs. Rothesay continued weeping, and Olive had to cast aside all other feelings in the care of soothing her mother. She succeeded at last; but she learnt at the same time that on this one subject there must be silence between them for ever. It seemed, also, to her sensitive nature, as if every tear and every complaining word were a reproach to the mother that bore her. Henceforth her bitter thoughts must be wrestled with alone.
She did so wrestle with them. She walked out into her favourite meadow—now lying in the silent, frost-bound mistiness of a January day. It was where she had often been in summer with Sara, and Charles Geddes, and the little boys. Now everything seemed so wintry and lonely. What if her own future life were so—one long winter-day, wherein was neither beauty, gladness, nor love?
Page 88, She Walked out Into Her Favourite Meadow
“I am 'deformed.' That was Sara's own word,” murmured Olive to herself. “If this is felt by one who loves me, what must I appear to the world? Will not all shrink from me—and even those who pity, turn away in pain. As for loving me”——
Thinking thus, Olive's fancy began to count, almost in despair, all those whose affection she had ever known. There was Elspie, there were her parents. Yet, the love of both father and mother—how sweet soever now—had not blessed her always. She remembered the time when it was not there.
“Alas! that I should have been, even to them, a burden—a punishment!” cried the girl, in the first outburst of suffering, which became ten times keener, because concealed. Her vivid fancy even exaggerated the truth. She saw in herself a poor deformed being, shut out from all natural ties—a woman, to whom friendship would be given but in kindly pity; to whom love—that blissful dream in which she had of late indulged—would be denied for evermore. How hard seemed her doom! If it were for months only, or even years; but, to bear for a whole life this withering ban—never to be freed from it, except through death! And her lips unconsciously repeated the bitter murmur, “O God! why hast thou made me thus?”
It was scarcely uttered before her heart trembled at its impiety. And then the current of her thoughts changed. Those mysterious yearnings which had haunted her throughout childhood, until they had grown fainter under the influence of earthly ties and pleasures, returned to her now. God's immeasurable Infinite rose before her in glorious serenity. What was one brief lifetime to the ages of eternity? She felt it: she, in her weakness—her untaught childhood—her helplessness—felt that her poor deformed body enshrined a living soul. A soul that could look on Heaven, and on whom Heaven also looked—not like man, with scorn or loathing, but with a Divine tenderness that had power to lift the mortal into communion with the immortal.
Olive Rothesay seemed to have grown years older in that hour of solitary musing. She walked homewards through the silent fields, over which the early night was falling—night coming, as it were, in the midst of day, where the only light was given by the white, cold snow. To Olive this was a symbol, too—a token that the freezing sorrow which had fallen on her path might palely light her on her earthly way. Strange things for a young girl to dream of! But they whom Heaven teaches are sometimes called—Samuel-like—while to them still pertains the childish ephod and the temple-porch.
Passing on, with footsteps silent and solemn as her own heart, Olive came to the street, on the verge of the town, where was her own dwelling and Sara's. From habit she looked in at the Derwents' house. It had all the cheerful brightness given by a blazing fire, glimmering through windows not yet closed. Olive could plainly distinguish the light shining on the crimson wall; even the merry faces of the circle round the hearth. And, as if to chant the chorus of so sweet a scene, there broke out on the clear frosty air the distant carillon of Oldchurch bells—marriage-bells too—signifying that not far off was dawning another scene of love and hope; that, somewhere in the parish, was celebrated the “coming home” of a bride.
The young creature, born with a woman's longings—longings neither unholy nor impure, after the love which is the religion of a woman's heart—the sweetness of home, which is the heaven of a woman's life—felt that from both she was shut out for ever.
“Not for me—alas! not for me,” she murmured; and her head drooped, and it seemed as though a cold hand were laid on her breast, saying, “Grow still, and throb no more!”
Then, lifting her eyes, she saw shining far up in the sky, beyond the mist and the frost and the gloom, one little star—the only one. With a long sigh, her soul seemed to pass upward in prayer.
“Oh, God! since Thou hast willed it so—if in this world I must walk alone, do Thou walk with me! If I must know no human love, fill my soul with Thine! If earthly joy be far from me, give me that peace of Heaven which passeth all understanding!”
And so—mournful, yet serene—Olive Rothesay reached her home.
She found her friend there. Sara looked confused at seeing her, and appeared to try, with the unwonted warmth of her greeting, to efface from Olive's mind the remembrance of what had happened the previous evening. But Olive, for the first time, shrank from these tokens of affection.
“Even Sara's love may be only compassion,” she bitterly thought; but her father's nature was in the girl—his self-command—his proud reserve. Sara Derwent only thought her rather silent and cold.
There was a constraint on both—so much so that Olive heard, without testifying much pain, news which a few days before would have grieved her to the heart. This visit was a good-bye. Sara had been suddenly sent for by her grandfather, who lived in a distant county; and the summons entailed a parting of some weeks—perhaps longer.
“But I shall not forget you, Olive. I shall write to you constantly. It will be my sole amusement in the dull place I am going to. Why, nobody ever used to enter my grandfather's house except the parson, who lived some few miles off. Poor old soul! I used to set fire to his wig, and hide his spectacles. But he is dead now, I hear, and there has come in his place a young clergyman. Shall I strike up a little flirtation withhim, eh, Olive?”
But Olive was in no jesting mood. She only shook her head.
Mrs. Rothesay looked with admiration on Sara. “What a blithe young creature you are, my dear. You win everybody's liking. I wish Olive were only half as merry as you.”
Another arrow in poor Olive's heart!
“Well, we must try to make her so when I come back,” said Sara, affectionately. “I shall have tales enough to tell, perhaps about that young curate. Nay, don't frown, Olive. My cousin says he is a Scotsman born, and you like Scotland. Only his father was Welsh, and he has a horrid Welsh name: Gwyrdyr, or Gwynne, or something like it. But I'll give you all information.”
And then she rose—still laughing—to bid adieu; which seemed so long a farewell, when the friends had never yet been parted but for one brief day. In saying it, Olive felt how dear to her had been this girl—this first idol of her warm heart. And then there came a thought almost like terror. Though fated to live unloved, she could not keep herself from loving. And if so, how would she bear the perpetual void—the yearning, never to be fulfilled?
She fell on Sara's neck and wept. “You do care for me a little—only a little.”
“A great deal—as much as ever I can, seeing I have so many people to care for,” answered Sara, trying to laugh away the tears that—from sympathy, perhaps—sprang to her eyes.
“Ah, true! And everybody cares for you. No wonder,” answered Olive.
“Now, little Olive, why do you put on that grave face? Are you going to lecture me about not flirting with that stupid curate, and always remembering Charles. Oh! no fear of that.”
“I hope not,” said Olive, quietly. She could talk no more, and they bade each other good-bye; perhaps not quite so enthusiastically as they might have done a week ago, but still with much affection. Sara had reached the door, when with a sudden impulse she came back again.
“Olive, I am a foolish, thoughtless girl; but if ever I pained you in any way, don't think of it again. Kiss me—will you—once more?”
Olive did so, clinging to her passionately. When Sara went away, she felt as though the first flower had perished in her garden—the first star had melted from her sky.
Sara gone, she went back to her old dreamy life. The romance of first friendship seemed to have been swept away like a morning cloud. From Sara there came no letters.
Olive wrote once or twice, even thrice. But a sense of wounded feeling prevented her writing again. Robert and Lyle told her their sister was quite well, and very merry. Then, over all the dream of sweet affection fell a cold silence.
In Olive's own home were arising many cares. A great change came over her father. His economical habits became those of the wildest extravagance—extravagance in which his wife and daughter were not likely to share. Little they saw of it either, save during his rare visits to his home. Then he either spent his evenings out, or else dining, smoking, drinking, disturbed the quiet house at Oldchurch.
Many a time, till long after midnight, the mother and child sat listening to the gay tumult of voices below; clinging to each other, pale and sad. Not that Captain Rothesay was unkind, or that either had any fear for him, for he had always been a strict and temperate man. But it pained them to think that any society seemed sweeter to him than that of his wife and daughter—that any place was become dearer to him than his home.
One night, when Mrs. Rothesay appeared exhausted, either with weariness or sorrow of heart, Olive persuaded her mother to go to rest, while she herself sat up for her father.
“Nay, let some of the servants do that, not you, my child.”
But Olive, innocent as she was, had accidentally seen the footman smile rudely when he spoke of “master coming home last night;” and a vague thought struck her, that such late hours were discreditable in the head of a family. Her father should not be despised in his servant's eyes.
She dismissed the household, and waited up for him alone. Twelve—one—two. The hours went by like long years. Heavily at first drooped her poor drowsy eyes, and then all weariness was dispelled by a feeling of loneliness—an impression of coming sorrow. At last, when this was gradually merging into fear, she heard the sound of the swinging gate, and her father's knock at the door—A loud, unsteady, angry knock.
“Why do you stay up for me? I don't want anybody to sit up,” grumbled Captain Rothesay, without looking at her.
“But I liked to wait for you, papa.”
“What, is that you, Olive?” and he stepped in with a lounging, heavy gait.
“Did you not see me before? It was I who opened the door.”
“Oh, yes—but—I was thinking of something else,” he said, throwing himself into the study-chair, and trying with an effort to seem just as usual. “You are—a very good girl—I'm much obliged to you. The pleasure is—I may truly say on both sides.” And he energetically struck the table with his hand.
Olive thought this an odd form of speech; but her father's manner was grown so changed of late—sometimes he seemed quite in high spirits, even jocose—as he did now.
“I am glad to see you are not much tired, papa. I thought you were—you walked so wearily when you first came in.”
“I tired? Nonsense, child! I have had the merriest evening in the world. I'll have another to-morrow, for I've asked them all to dine here. We'll give dinner parties to all the county.”
“Papa,” said Olive, timidly, “will that be quite right, after what you told me of our being now so much poorer than we were?”
“Did I? Pshaw! I don't remember. However, I am a rich man now; richer than I have ever been.”
“I am so glad; because then, dear papa, you know you need not be so much away from home, or weary yourself with the speculations you told me of; but come and live quietly with us.”
Her father laughed loudly. “Foolish little girl! your notion of quietness would not suit a man like me. Take my word for it, Olive, home serves as a fantastic dream till five-and-twenty, and then means nothing at all. A man's home is the world.”
“Is it?”
“Ay, as I intend to show to you. By-the-by, I shall give up this stupid place, and enter into society. Your mother will like it, of course; and you, as my only child—eh, what did I say?” here he stopped hastily with a blank, frightened look—then repeated, “Yes, you, my only child, will be properly introduced to the world. Why, you will be quite an heiress, my girl,” continued he, with an excited jocularity that frightened Olive. “And the world always courts such; who knows but that you may marry in spite of”——
“Oh, no—never!” interrupted Olive, turning away with bitter pain.
“Come, don't mind it,” continued her father, with a reckless indifference to her feelings, quite unusual to him. “Why—my little sensible girl—you are better than any beauty in England; beauties are all fools, or worse.”
And he laughed so loud, so long, that Olive was seized with a great horror, that absorbed even her own individual suffering. Was her father mad? Alas! there is a madness worse than disease, a voluntary madness, by which a man—longing at any price for excitement, or oblivion—“puts an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains.” This was the foe—the stealthy-footed demon, that had at last come to overmaster the brave and noble Angus Rothesay. As yet it ruled him not—he was no sot; but his daughter saw enough to know that the fiend was nigh upon him—that this night he was even in its grasp.
It is only the noblest kind of affection that can separate the sinner from the sin, and even while condemning, pity. Fallen as he was, Olive Rothesay looked on her father mournfully—intreatingly. She could not speak.
He seemed annoyed, and slightly confounded. “Come, simpleton, why do you stare at me?—there is nothing the matter. Go away to bed.”
Olive did not move.
“Make haste—what are you waiting for? Nay, stay; 'tis a cold night—just leave out the keys of the sideboard, will you, there's a good little housekeeper,” he said, coaxingly.
Olive turned away in disgust, but only for a moment. “In case you should want anything, let me stay a little longer, papa; I am not tired, and I have some work to do—suppose I go and fetch it.”
She went into the inner room, slowly, quietly; and when safe out of sight, burst into tears of such shame and terror as she had never before known. Then she sat down to think. Her father thus; her mother feeble in mind or body; no one in the wide world to trust to but herself; no one to go to for comfort and counsel—none, save Heaven! She sank on her knees and prayed. As she rose, the angel in the daughter's soul was stronger than the demon in her father's.
Olive waited a little, and then walked softly into the other room. Some brandy, left on the sideboard, had attracted Captain Rothesay's sight. He had reached it stealthily, as if the act still conveyed to his dulled brain a consciousness of degradation. Once he looked round suspiciously; alas, the father dreaded his daughter's eye! Then stealthily standing with his face to the fire, he began to drink the tempting poison.
It was taken out of his hand! So noiseless was Olive's step, so gentle her movement, that he stood dumb, astonished, as though in the presence of some apparition. And, in truth, the girl looked like a spirit; for her face was very white, and her parted lips seemed as though they never had uttered, and never could utter, one living sound.
Father and daughter stood for some moments thus gazing at each other; and then Captain Rothesay threw himself into his chair, with a forced laugh.
“What's the matter, little fool? Cannot your father take care of himself? Give me the brandy again.”
But she held it fast, and made no answer.
“Olive, I say—do you insult me thus?” and his voice rose in anger. “Go to bed, I command you! Will you not?”
“No!” The refusal was spoken softly—very softly—but it expressed indomitable firmness; and there was something in the girl's resolute spirit, before which that of the man quailed. With a sudden transition, which showed that the drink had already somewhat overpowered his brain, he melted into complaints.
“You are very rude to your poor father; you—almost the only comfort he has left!”
This touch even of maudlin sentiment went direct to Olive's heart. She clung to him, kissed him, begged his forgiveness, nay, even wept over him. He ceased to rage, and sat in a sullen silence for many minutes. Meanwhile Olive took away every temptation from his sight. Then she roused him gently.
“Now, papa, it is time to go to bed. Pray, come upstairs.”
He—the calm, gentlemanlike, Captain Rothesay—burst into a storm of passion that would have disgraced a boor. “How dare you order me about in this manner! Cannot I do as I like, without being controlled by you—a mere chit of a girl—a very child?”
“I know I am only a child,” answered Olive, meekly. “Do not be angry with me, papa; do not speak unkindly to your poor little daughter.”
“My daughter! how dare you call yourself so, you white-faced, mean-looking hunchback!”——
At the word, Olive recoiled—a strong shudder ran through her frame; one long, sobbing sigh, and no more.
Her father, shocked, and a little sobered, paused in his cruel speech. For minutes they remained—he leaning back with a stupefied air—she standing before him; her face drooped, and covered with her hands.
“Olive!” he muttered, in a repentant, humbled tone.
“Yes, papa.”
“I am quite ready. If you like, I'll go to bed now.”
Without speaking, she lighted him up-stairs—nay, led him, for, to his bitter shame, the guidance was not un-needed. When she left him, he had the grace to whisper—
“Child, you are not vexed about anything I said?”
She looked sorrowfully into his hot fevered face, and stroked his arm. “No—no—not vexed at all! You could not help it, poor father!”
She heard her mother's feeble voice speaking to him as he entered, and saw his door close. Long she watched there, until beneath it she perceived not one glimmer of light. Then she crept away, only murmuring to herself—
“O God! teach me to endure!”