Olive and Harold parted at Mrs. Flora's gate. He had business in town, he said, but would return to dinner. So he walked quickly away, and Olive went in and crept upstairs. There, she bolted her door, groped her way to the bed, and lay down. Life and strength, hope and love, seemed to have ebbed from her at once. She felt no power or desire to weep. Once or twice, she caught herself murmuring, half aloud,
“It is all over—quite over. There can be no doubt now.”
And then she knew, by this utter death of hope, that it must have livedonce—a feeble, half-unconscious life, but life it was. Despite her reason, and the settled conviction to which she had tutored herself, she must have had some faint thought that Harold loved her. Now, this dream gone, she might perhaps rise, as a soul rises from the death of the body, into a new existence. But of that she could not yet think. She only lay, motionless as a corpse, with hands folded, and eyes firmly closed. Sometimes, with a strange wandering of fancy, she seemed to see herself thus, looking down, as a spirit might do upon its own olden self, with a vague compassion. Once she even muttered, in a sort of childish way,
“Poor little Olive! Poor, crushed, broken thing!”
Thus she lay for many hours, sometimes passing into what was either a swoon or a sleep. At last she roused herself, and saw by the shadows that it was quite late in the day. There is great mournfulness in waking thus of one's own accord, and alone; hearing the various noises of the busy mid-day household, and feeling as if all would go on just the same without thought of us, even if we had died in that weary sleep.
Olive wished she had!—that is, had Heaven willed it. She could so easily have crept out of the bitter world, and no one would have missed her. Still, if it must be, she would try once more to lift her burden, and pursue her way.
There was a little comfort for her the minute she went downstairs. Entering the drawing-room, she met Mrs. Flora's brightest smile.
“My dear lassie, welcome! Have you been sleeping after your weary walk this morning?”
“This morning!” echoed poor Olive. She had half forgotten what had happened then, there had come such a death-like cloud between.
“Ye were both away at the Hermitage, Harold said. Ah! poor Harold!”
Olive stood waiting to hear some horrible tidings. All misfortunes seemed to come so naturally now; she felt as though she would scarcely have wondered had they told her Harold was dead.
“My dear Harold is gone away.”
“Gone away,” repeated Olive, slowly, as her cold hands fell heavily on her lap. She gave no other sign.
“Ah,” continued the unconscious old lady, “something has gone ill with the lad. He came in here, troubled like, and said he must just depart at once.”
“He was here, then?”
“Only for a wee while. I would have sent for ye, my dearie, but Jean said you were sleeping, and Harold said we had best not waken you, for you had seemed wearied. He could not wait longer, so he bade me bid you farewell, Lassie—lassie, stay!” But Olive had already crept out of the room.
He was gone then. That last clasp of his hand was indeed the last. O miserable parting! Not as between two who love, and loving can murmur the farewell, heart to heart, until its sweetness lingers there long after its sound has ceased; but a parting that has no voice—no hope—wherein one soul follows the other in a wild despair, crying, “Give me back my life that is gone after thee;” and from the void silence there comes no answer, until the whole earth grows blank and dark like an universal grave.
For many days afterthatday, Olive scarcely lifted her head. There came to her some friendly physical ailment, cold or fever, so that she had an excuse to comply with Mrs. Flora's affectionate orders, and take refuge in the quietness of a sick-chamber. There, such showers of love poured down upon her, that she rose refreshed and calmed. After a few weeks, her spirit came to her again like a little child's, and she was once more the quiet Olive Rothesay, rich in all social affections, and even content, save for the one never ceasing pain.
After a season of rest, she began earnestly to consider her future, especially with respect to her Art. She longed to go back to it, and drink again at its wells of peace. For dearly, dearly she loved it still. Half-smiling, she began to call her pictures her children, and to think of the time when they, a goodly race, would live, and tell no tale of their creator's woe. This Art-life—all the life she had, and all she would leave behind—must not be sacrificed by any miserable contest with an utterly hopeless human love. Therefore she determined to quit Harbury, and at once, before she began to paint her next picture. Her first plan had been to go and live in London, but this was overruled by Mrs. Flora Rothesay.
“Bide here with me, my dear niece. Come and dwell among your ain folk, your father's kin.”
And so it was at last fixed to be. But first Olive must go back to Farnwood, to wind up the affairs of her little household, and to arrange about Christal. She had lately thought a good deal of this young girl; chiefly, perhaps, because she was now so eagerly clinging to every interest that could occupy her future life. She remembered, with a little compunction, how her heart had sprung to Christal on her first coming, and how that sympathy had slowly died away, possibly from its being so lightly reciprocated. Though nominally one of the household at the Dell, Miss Manners had gradually seceded from it; so that by degrees the interest with which Olive had once regarded her melted down into the mere liking of duty. Whether this should be continued, became now a matter of question. Olive felt almost indifferent on the subject, but determined that Christal herself should decide. She never would give up the girl, not even to go and live in the dear quiet household of Aunt Flora. Having thus far made up her mind, Miss Rothesay fixed the day for her return to Farnwood—a return looked forward to with a mixture of fear and yearning. But the trial must be borne. It could not be for long.
Ever since his departure Olive had never heard the sound of Harold's name. Mrs. Flora did not talk of him at all. This, her niece thought, sprang from the natural forgetfulness of old age, which, even when least selfish, seems unconsciously to narrow its interest to the small circle of its own daily life. But perhaps the old lady was more quick-sighted than Olive dreamed; for such a true and tried heart could hardly be quite frozen, even with the apathy of eighty years.
A few days before Olive's journey Mrs. Flora called her into her own room.
“I have something to say to ye, lassie. Ye'll listen to the auld wife?”
“Aunt Flora!” said Olive, in affectionate reproach, and, sitting down at her feet, she took the withered hand, and laid it on her neck.
“My sweet wee lassie—my bonnie, bonnie birdie!” said the tender-hearted old lady, who often treated her grand-niece as if she were a child. “If I had known sooner that poor Angus had left a daughter! My dearie, come back soon.”
“In a month, Auntie Flora.”
“A month seems long. At eighty years one should not boast of the morrow. That is why I will tell ye now what rests on my mind.”
“Well, dear aunt, let me hear it.”
“'Tis anent the worldly gear that I will leave behind me. I have been aye careful of the good things Heaven lent me.”
—She paused; but Olive, not quite knowing what to say, said nothing at all Mrs. Flora continued:
“God has given me great length of days—I have seen the young grow auld, and the auld perish. Some I would fain have chosen to come after me, have gone away before me; some have enough, and need no more. Of all my kith and kin there is none to whom the bit siller can do good, but my niece Olive, and Harold Gwynne. Does that grieve ye, lassie? Nay, his right is no like yours. But he comes of blood that was sib to ours. Alison Balfour was a Gordon by the mother's side.”
As Mrs. Flora uttered the name, Olive felt a movement in the left hand that lay on her neck; the aged fingers were fluttering to and fro over the diamond ring. She looked up, but there was perfect serenity on the face. And, turning back, she prayed that the like peace might come toherin time.
“Before ye came,” continued Mrs. Flora, “I thought to make Harold my heir, and that he should take the name of Gordon—for dearly I loved that name in auld lang syne. Ah, lassie! even in this world God can wipe away all tears from our eyes, so that we may look clearly forth unto the eternal land.”
“Amen, amen!” murmured Olive Rothesay—ay, though while she uttered the prayer, her own tears blindingly rose. But her aunt's soft cold hand glided silently on her drooped head, pressing its throbbings into peace.
“I am wae to think,” continued the old lady, “that ye are the last of the Rothesay line. Thenamemust end, even should Olive marry.”
“I shall never marry, Aunt Flora! I shall live as you have done—God make my life equally worthy!”
“Is it so? I thought it was different. Then, Olive, my child! may God comfort thee with his peace.”
Mrs. Flora kissed her on the forehead, and asked no more. Shortly afterwards, she again began to speak about her will. She wished to be just, she said, and to leave her property where it would be most required. Her heart inclined chiefly to her niece, as being a woman, struggling alone through the world; whereas Harold, firmly settled in his curacy, would not need additional fortune.
“Oh, but he does need it; you little know how sorely!” cried Olive.
“Eh, my dear? He, a minister!”
Olive drew back, afraid lest she had betrayed too much of the-secret so painfully shared between her and Harold Gwynne. She trembled and blushed beneath the old lady's keen eyes. At last she said, beseechingly,
“Aunt Flora, do not question me—I cannot, ought not, to tell you any more than this—that there may come a time when this money might save him from great misery.”
“Misery aye follows sin,” said Mrs. Flora, almost sternly, “Am I deceived in him, my dear Harold—poor Alison's son?”
“No, no, no! He is noble, just, and true. There is no one like him in the whole world,” cried Olive; and then stopped, covered with blushes. But soon the weakness passed. “Listen to me, Aunt Flora, for this once. Harold Gwynne,”—she faltered not over the name,—“Harold Gwynne is, and will be always, my dear friend and brother. I know more of his affairs than any one else; and I know, too, that he may be in great poverty one day. For me, I have only myself to work for, and work I must, since it is the comfort of my life. As to this fortune, I need it not—how should I? I entreat you, leave all to him.”
Mrs. Flora wrapped her arms round her niece without speaking—nor did she again refer to the subject.
But the night before Olive left Edinburgh, she bade her farewell with a solemn blessing—the more solemn, as it was given in words taken out of the Holy Book which she had just closed—words never used lightly by the aged Presbyterian.
“The Lord bless thee and keep thee!The Lord cause His face to shine upon thee!The Lord give thee thy heart's desire, and fulfil all thy mind.”
Olive rose with an indescribable sense of hope and peace. As she left the room she looked once more at her aunt.
Mrs. Flora sat in her crimson chair, her hands laid on her knee, her face grave, but serene, and half-lifted, like one who hearkens to some unseen call A secret consciousness struck Olive that in this world she should never more hear the voice, or see the face, of one who had been truly a saint on earth.
It was indeed so.
Coming home!—coming home! In different ears how differently sound the words! They who in all their wanderings have still the little, well-filled, love-expectant nest whereto they may wing their way, should think sometimes of the many there are to whom the whole wide world is all alike; whose sole rest must be in themselves; who never can truly say, “I am going home,” until they say it with eyes turned longingly towards a Home unseen.
Something of this mournfulness felt Olive Rothesay. It was dreary enough to reach her journey's end alone, and have to wait some hours at the small railway station; and then, tired and worn, to be driven for miles across the country through the gloomiest of all gloomy November days. Still, the dreariness passed, when she saw, shining from afar, the light from the windows of Farnwood Dell. As the chaise stopped, out came running old Hannah, the maid, with little Ailie too; while awaiting her in the parlour, were Christal and Mrs. Gwynne.No one else!Olive saw that in one moment, and blamed herself for having wished—what she had no right to hope—what had best not be.
Mrs. Gwynne embraced her warmly—Christal with dignified grace. The young lady looked gay and pleased, and there was a subdued light in her black eyes which almost softened them into sweetness. The quick restless manner in which she had indulged at times since she came to Farnwood seemed melting into a becoming womanliness, Altogether, Christal was improved.
“Well, now, I suppose you will be wanting to hear the news of all your friends,” said Miss Manners, with smiles bubbling round her pretty mouth. “We are not all quite the same as you left us. To begin with—let me see—Mr. Harold Gwynne”——
“Of that, Miss Christal, I will beg you not to speak. It is a painful subject to me,” observed Mrs. Gwynne, with a vexed air. “You need not look at me so earnestly, dear, kind Olive! All is well with me and with my son; but he has done what I think is not exactly good for him, and it somewhat troubles me. However, we will talk of this another time.”
“More news do you want, Olive?” (Christal now sometimes called her so.) “Well, then, Dame Fortune is in the giving mood. She has given your favourite Mr. Lyle Derwent a fortune of £1000 a year, and a little estate to match!”
“I am so glad! for his sake, good dear Lyle!”
“DearLyle!” repeated Christal, turning round with a sparkle either of pleasure or anger in her glittering eyes; but it was quenched before it reached those of Olive. “Well, winning is one thing, deserving is another!” she continued, merrily. “I could have picked out a dozen worthy, excellent young men, who would have better merited the blessing of a rich uncle, ay, and made a better use of his money too.”
“Lyle would thank you if he knew.”
“That he ought, and that he does, and that he shall do, every day of his life!” cried Christal, lifting up her tall figure with a sudden haughtiness, not the less real because she laughed the while; then with one light bound she vanished from the room.
Olive, left alone with Mrs. Gwynne, would fain have taken her hands, and said as she had oft done before. “Friend, tell me all that troubles you—all that concerns you andhim.” But now a faint fear repelled her. However, Harold's mother, understanding her looks, observed,
“You are anxious, my dear. Never was there such a faithful friend to me and to my son! I wish you had been here a week ago, and then you might have helped me to persuade him not to go away.”
“He is gone, then, to America?”
“America!—who mentioned America?” said Mrs. Gwynne, sharply. “Has he told you more than he told me?”
Olive, sorely repentant, tried to soothe the natural jealousy she had aroused. “You know well Mr. Gwynne would be sure to tell his plans to his mother; only I have heard him talk of liking America—of wishing to go thither.”
“He has not gone then. He has started with his friend Lord Arundale, to travel all through Europe. It is a pity, I think, for one of his cloth, and it shows a wandering and restless mind. I know not what has come over my dear Harold.”
“Was it a sudden journey?—is it long since he went?” said Olive, shading her eyes from the fire-light.
“Only yesterday. I told him you were coming to-day; and he desired me to say how grieved he was that he thus missed you, but it was unavoidable. He had kept Lord Arundale waiting already, and it would not be courteous to delay another day. You will not mind?”
“Oh no! oh no!” The hand was pressed down closer over the eyes.
Mrs. Gwynne pursued. “Though I have all confidence in my son, yet I own this sudden scheme has troubled me. His health is better;—why could he not stay at Harbury?”
Olive, wishing to discover if she knew anything of her son's sad secret, observed, “It is a monotonous life that Mr. Gwynne leads here—one hardly suited for him.”
“Ah, I know,” said the mother, sighing. “His heart is little in his calling. I feared so, long ago. But it is not that which drives him abroad; for I told him if he still wished to resign his duties to his curate, we would give up the Parsonage, and he should take pupils. There is a charming little house in the neighbouring village that would suit us. But no; he seemed to shrink from this plan too. He said he must go entirely away from Harbury.”
“And for how long?”
“I cannot tell—he did not say. I should think, not above a year—his mother may not have many more years to spend with him;” and there was a little trembling of Mrs. Gwynne's mouth; but she continued with dignity: “Do not imagine, Olive, that I mean to blame my son. He has done what he thought right. Against my wish, or my happiness, he would not have done it at all. So I did not let him see any little pain it might have given me. 'Twas best not. Now we will let the subject rest.”
But, though they spoke no more, Olive speculated vainly on what had induced Harold to take this precipitate journey. She thought she had known him so thoroughly—better than any one else could. But in him lay mysteries beyond her ken. She could only still rest on that which had comforted her in all she suffered;—an entire faith in him and in his goodness.
Mrs. Gwynne sat an hour or two, and then rose to return to the Parsonage. “We must be home before it is dark, little Ailie and I. We have no one to take care of us now.”
Some pain was visible as she said this. When she took her grandchild by the hand, and walked down the garden, it seemed to Olive that the old lady's step was less firm than usual. Her heart sprang to Harold's mother.
“Let me walk with you a little way, Mrs. Gwynne. I am thoroughly rested now; and as for coming back alone, I shall not mind it.”
“What a little trembling arm it is for me to lean on!” said Mrs. Gwynne, smiling, when, after some faint resistance, she had taken Olive for a companion. “'Tis nothing like my Harold's, and yet I am glad to have it. I am afraid I shall often have to look to it now Harold is away. Are you willing, Olive?”
“Quite, quite willing;—nay, very glad!”
Olive went nearly all the way to Harbury. She was almost happy, walking between Harold's mother and Harold's child. But when she parted from them she felt alone, bitterly alone. Then first she began to realise the truth, that the dream of so many months was now altogether ended! It had been something, even after her sorrow began, to feel that Harold was near! that, although days might pass without her seeing him, still hewasthere—within a few miles. Any time, sitting wearily in her painting room, she might hear his knock at the door; or in any walk, however lonely and sad, there was at least the possibility of his crossing her path, and, despite her will, causing her heart to bound with joy. Now, all these things could not be again. She went homeward along the dear old Harbury road, knowing that no possible chance could make his image appear to brighten its loneliness; that where they had so often walked, taking sweet counsel together as familiar friends, she must learn to walk alone. Perhaps, neither there nor elsewhere, would she ever walk with Harold more.
In her first suffering, in her brave resolve to quit Harbury, she had not thought how she should feel when all was indeed over. She had not pictured the utter blankness of a world wherein Harold was not. The snare broken and her soul escaped, she knew not how it would beat its broken wings in the dun air, meeting nothing but the black, silent waste, ready once more to flutter helplessly down into the alluring death.
Olive walked along with feet heavy and slow. In her eyes were no tears—she had wept them all away long since. She did not look up much; but still she saw, as one sees in a dream, all that was around her—the white, glittering grass, the spectral hedges, the trees laden with a light snow, silent, motionless, stretching their bare arms up to the dull sky. No, not the sky, that seemed far, far off; between it and earth interposed a mist, so thick and cold that it blinded sight and stifled breath. She could not look up at God's dear heaven—she almost felt that through the gloom the pitying Heaven could not look at her. But after a while the mist changed a little, and then Olive drew her breath, and her thoughts began to form themselves as she went along.
“I am now alone, quite alone. I must shut my life up in myself—look to no one's help, yearn for no one's love. What I receive I will take thankfully; but I have no claim upon any one in this wide world. Many pleasant friendships I have, many tender ties, but none close enough to fill the void in my heart—none to love as I could love—as I did love for many years. Oh, mother, why did you go away? Why did I love again—lose again? Always loving only to lose.”
Many times she said to herself, “I am alone—quite alone in the world;” and at last the words seemed to strike the echo of some old remembrance. But it was one so very dim, that for a long time Olive could not give it any distinct form. At last she recollected the letter which, ten years ago, she had put away in a secret drawer of her father's desk. Strange to say, she had never thought of it since. Perhaps this was because, at the time, she had instinctively shuddered at the suggestions it gave, and so determined to banish them. And then the quick, changing scenes of life had prevented her ever recurring to the subject Now, when all had come true, when on that desert land which, still distant, had seemed so fearful to the girl's eyes, the woman's feet already stood, she turned with an eager desire to the words which her father had written—“To his daughter Olive when she was quite alone in the world.”
Reaching home, and hearing Christal warbling some Italian song, Olive went at once to her own apartment, half parlour, half studio. There was a fire lit, and candles. She fastened the door, that she might not be interrupted, and sat down before her desk.
She found some difficulty in opening the secret drawer, for the spring was rusty from long disuse, and her own fingers trembled much. When at last she held the letter in her hand, its yellow paper and faded ink struck her painfully. It seemed like suddenly coming face to face with the dead.
A solemn, anxious feeling stole over her. Ere breaking the seal, she lingered long; she tried to call up all she remembered of her father—his face—his voice—his manners. Very dim everything was! She had been such a mere child until he died, and the ten following years were so full of action, passion, and endurance, that they made the old time look pale and distant. She could hardly remember how she used to feel then, least of all how she used to feel towards her father. She had loved him, she knew, and her mother had loved him, ay, long after love became only memory. He had loved them, too, in his quiet way. Olive thought, with tender remembrance, of his kiss, on that early morning when, for the last time, he had left his home. And for her mother! Often, during Mrs. Rothesay's declining days, had she delighted to talk of the time when she was a young, happy wife, and of the dear love that Angus bore her. Something, too, she hinted of her own faults, which had once taken away that love, and something in Olive's own childish memory told her that this was true. But she repelled the thought, remembering that her father and mother were now together before God.
At length with an effort she opened the letter. She started to see its date—the last night Captain Rothesay ever spent at home—the night, which of all others, she had striven to remember clearly, because they were all three so happy together, and he had been so kind, so loving, to her mother and to her. Thinking of him on this wise, with a most tender sadness, she began to read:
“Olive Rothesay—My dear Child!—It may be many—many years—(I pray so, God knows!) before you open this letter. If so, think of me as I sit writing it now—or rather as I sat an hour ago—by your mother's side, with your arms round my neck. And, thus thinking of me, consider what a fierce struggle I must have had to write as I am going to do—to confess what I never would have confessed while I lived, or while your mother lived. I do it, because remorse is strong upon me; because I would fain that my Olive—the daughter who may comfort me, if I live—should, if I die, make atonement for her father's sins. Ay, sins. Think how I must be driven, thus to humble myself before my own child—to unfold to my pure daughter that—But I will tell the tale plainly, without any exculpation or reserve.
“I was very young when I married Sybilla Hyde. God be my witness, I loved her then, and in my inmost heart I have loved her evermore. Remember, I say this—hear it as if I were speaking from my grave—Olive,I did love your mother. Would to Heaven she had loved me, or shown her love, only a little more!
“Soon after our marriage I was parted from my wife for some years. You, a girl, ought not to know—and I pray may never know—the temptations of the world and of man's own nature. I knew both, and I withstood both. I came back, and clasped my wife to the most loving and faithful heart that ever beat in a husband's breast. I write this even with tears—I, who have been so cold. But in this letter—which no eye will ever see until I and your mother have lain together long years in our grave—I write as if I were speaking, not as now, but as I should speak then.
“Well, between my wife and me there came a cloud. I know not whose was the fault—perhaps mine, perhaps hers; or, it might be, both. But there the cloud was—it hung over my home, so that I could find therein no peace, no refuge. It drove me to money-getting, excitement, amusement—at last to crime!
“In the West Indies there was one who had loved me, in vain,—mark you, I saidin vain,—but with the vehemence of her southern blood. She was a Quadroon lady—one of that miserable race, the children of planters and slaves, whose beauty is their curse, whose passion knows no law except a blind fidelity. And, God forgive me! that poor wretch was faithful unto me.
“She followed me to England without my knowledge. Little she had ever heard of marriage; she found no sacred-ness in mine. I did not love her—not with a pure heart as I loved Sybilla. But I pitied her. Sometimes I turned from my dreary home—where no eye brightened at mine, where myself and my interests were nothing—and I thought of this woman, to whom I was all the world. My daughter Olive, if ever you be a wife, and would keep your husband's love, never let these thoughts enter and pollute his mind. Give him your whole heart, and he will ask no other. Make his home sweet and pleasant to him, and he will not stray from it. Bind him round with cords of love—fast—fast. Oh, that my wife had had strength so to encircle me!
“But she had not; and so the end came! Olive, you are not myonlychild.
“I have no desire to palliate my sin. Sin, I know it was, heavy and deadly; against God's law, against my trusting wife, and against that hapless creature on whom I brought a whole lifetime of misery. Ay, not on her alone, but on that innocent being who has received from me nothing but the heritage of shame, and to whom in this world I can never make atonement. No man can! I felt this when she was born. It was a girl, too—a helpless girl. I looked on the little face, sleeping so purely, and remembered that on her brow would rest through life a perpetual stain; and that I, her father, had fixed it there. Then there awoke in me a remorse which can never die. For, alas, Olive, I have more to unfold! My remorse, like my crimes, was selfish at the root, and I wreaked it on her, who, if guilty, was less guilty than I.
“One day I came to her, restless and angry, unable to hide the worm that was continually gnawing at my heart. She saw it there, and her proud spirit rose; she poured on me a torrent of reproachful words. I answered them as one who had erred like me was sure to answer. Poor wretch! I reviled her as having been the cause of my misery. When I saw her in her fury, I contrasted her image with that of the pale, patient, trusting creature I had left that morning—my wife, my poor Sybilla—until, hating myself, I absolutely loathedher—the enchantress who had been my undoing. With her shrill voice yet pursuing me, I precipitately left the house. Next day mother and child had disappeared! Whither, I knew not; and I never have known, though I left no effort untried to solve a mystery which made me feel like amurderer.
“Nevertheless, I believe that they are still alive—these wretched two. If I did not, I should almost go mad at times.
“Olive, have pity on your father, and hearken to what I implore. Whilst I live, I shall continue this search—but I may die without having had the chance of making atonement. In that case I entreat of my daughter Olive to stand between her father and his sin. If you have no other ties—if you never marry, but live alone in the world—seek out and protect that child! Remember, she is of your own blood—she, at least, never wronged you. In showing mercy to her, you do so to me, your father; who, when you read this, will have been for years among the dead, though the evil that he caused may still remain unexpiated. Oh! think that this is his voice crying out from the dust, beseeching you to absolve his memory. Save me from the horrible thought, now haunting me evermore, that the being who owes me life may one day heap curses on her father's name!
“Herewith enclosed you will find instructions respecting an annuity I wish paid to—to the woman. It was placed in——'s bank by Mr. Wyld, whom, however, I deceived concerning it—I am now old enough in the school of hypocrisy. Hitherto the amount has never been claimed.
“Olive, my daughter, forgive me! Judge me not harshly. I never would have asked this of you while your mother lived—your mother, whomI loved, though I wronged her so grievously. In some things, perhaps, she erred towards me; but I ought to have shown her more sympathy, and have dealt gently with her tender nature, so unlike my own. May God forgive us both!—God, in whose presence we shall both be, when you, our daughter, read this record. And may He bless you evermore, prays your loving father,
“Angus Rothesay.
“Celia Manners was her name. Her child she calledChristal.”
It ceased—this voice from the ten years' silent grave of Angus Rothesay. His daughter sat motionless, her fixed eyes blindly out-gazing, her whole frame cold and rigid, frozen into a statue of stone.
Rivetted by an inexplicable influence, Olive had read the letter through, without once pausing or blenching;—read it as though it had been some strange romance of misery, not relating to herself at all. She felt unable to comprehend or realise it, until she came to the name—“Christal.” Then the whole truth burst upon her, wrapping her round with a cold horror, and, for the time, paralysing all her faculties. When she awoke, the letter was still in her hand, and from it still there stood out clear the name, which had long been a familiar word. Therefore, all this while, destiny had been leading her to work out her father's desire. The girl who had dwelt in her household for months, whom she had tried to love, and generously sought to guide, was—her sister.
But what a chaos of horror was revealed by this discovery! Olive's first thought was of her mother, who had showered kindness on this child of shame; who, dying, had unconsciously charged her to “take care of Christal.”
With a natural revulsion of feeling, Olive thrust the letter from her. Its touch seemed to pollute her fingers.
“Oh, my mother—my poor, wronged mother!—well for you that you never lived to see this day. You—so good, so loving, so faithfully remembering him even to the last. But I—I have lived to shrink with abhorrence from the memory of my own father.”
Suddenly she stopped, aghast at thinking that she was thus speaking of the dead—the dead from whom her own life had sprung.
“I am bewildered,” she murmured. “Heaven help me! I know not what I say or do.” And Olive fell on her knees.
She had no words to pray with; but, in such time of agony, all her thoughts were prayers. After a while these calmed her, and made her strong to endure one more trial—different from, perhaps even more awful than, all the rest.
Much sorrow had been her life's portion; but never until this hour had Olive Rothesay stood face to face with crime. She had now to learn the crowning lesson of virtue—how to deal with vice. Not by turning away in saintly pride, but by boldly confronting it, with an eye stern in purity, yet melting in compassion; remembering ever—
How all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He who might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy.
Angus Rothesay's daughter read over once more the record of his sin. In so doing, she was struck with the depth of that remorse which, to secure a future expiation, threw aside pride, reserve, and shame. How awful must have been the repentance which had impelled such a confession, and driven a father to humble himself in the dust before his own child! She seemed to hear, rising from the long-closed grave, that mournful, beseeching cry, “Atone my sin!” It silenced even the voice of her mother's wrongs.
This duty then remained, to fulfil which—as it would appear—Olive had been left alone on earth. The call seemed like that of fate; nay, she half-shuddered to think of the almost supernatural chance, which had arranged everything before her, and made her course so plain. But it had often happened so. Her life appeared as some lives do, all woven about with mysteries; threads of guidance, first unseen, and then distinctly traced, forcing on the mind that sweet sense of invisible ministry which soothes all suffering, and causes a childlike rest on the Omnipotence which out of all evil continually evolves good.
With this thought there dawned upon Olive a solemn sense of calm. To lay down this world's crown of joys, and to take up its cross—no longer to be ministered unto, but to minister,—this was to be her portion henceforth, and with this holy work was her lonely life to be filled.
“I will do it,” she cried. “O my poor father, may God have forgiven you, as my mother would, and as I now do! It is not mine to judge your sin; enough for me is the duty to atone it. How can this be best fulfilled?”
She sat long in silence, mournfully pondering. She tried to collect every scattered link of memory respecting what she had heard of Christal's mother. For such, she now knew, was the woman who, for the time, had once strongly excited her girlish imagination. That visit and its incidents now came vividly back upon her memory. Much there was which made her naturally revolt from the thought of this unhappy creature. How could it be otherwise with her mother's child? Still, amidst all, she was touched by the love of this other most wretched mother, who—living and dying—had renounced her maternal claim; and impressed upon her daughter's mind a feigned story, rather than let the brand of illegitimate birth rest upon the poor innocent.
Suddenly she heard from the next room Christal's happy, unconscious voice, singing merrily.
“My sister!” Olive gasped. “She is my sister—my father's child.”
And there came upon her, in a flood of mingled compassion and fear, all that Christal would feel when she came to know the truth! Christal—so proud of her birth—her position—whose haughty nature, inherited from both father and mother, had once struggled wrathfully against Olive's mild control. Such a blow as this would either crush her to the earth, or, rousing up the demon in her, drive her to desperation. Thinking thus, Olive forgot everything in pity for the hapless girl;—everything, save an awe-struck sense of the crime, which, as its necessary consequence, entailed such misery from generation to generation.
It seemed most strange that Christal had lived for so many years, cherishing her blind belief, nay, not even seeking to investigate it when it lay in her power. For since the day she returned from France, she had never questioned Miss Vanbrugh, nor alluded to the subject of her parentage. Such indifference seemed incredible, and could only be accounted for by Christal's light, careless nature, her haughtiness, or her utter ignorance of the world.
What was Olive to do? Was she to reveal the truth, and thus blast for ever this dawning life, so full of hope? Was her hand to place the stigma of shame on the brow of this young creature?—a girl too! There might come a time when some proud, honourable man, however loving, would scruple to take to his bosom as a wife, one—whose mother had never owned that name. But then—was Olive to fix on herself the perpetual burden of this secret—the continual dread of its betrayal—the doubt, lest one day, chance might bring it to Christal's knowledge, perhaps when the girl would no longer be shielded by a sister's protection, or comforted by a sister's love?
While she struggled in this conflict, she heard a voice at the door.
“Olive—Olive!”—the tone was more affectionate than usual. “Are you never coming? I am quite tired of being alone. Do let me into the studio!”
Olive sprang to her desk and hid the letter therein. Then, without speaking—she had no power to speak—she mechanically unlocked the door.
“Well, I am glad to get at you at last,” cried Christal, merrily. “I thought you were going to spend the night here. But what is the matter? You are as white as a ghost. You can't look me in the face. Why, one would almost imagine you had been planning a murder, and I was the 'innocent, unconscious victim,' as the novels have it.”
“You—a victim!” cried Olive, in great agitation. But by an almost superhuman effort she repressed it, and added, quietly, “Christal, my dear, don't mind me. It is nothing—only I feel ill—excited.”
“Why, what have you been doing?”
Olive instinctively answered the truth. “I have been sitting here alone—thinking of old times—reading old letters.”
“Whose? nay, but I will know,” answered Christal, half playfully, half in earnest, as though there was some distrust in her mind.
“It was my father's—my poor father's.”
“Is that all? Oh, then don't vex yourself about any old father dead and gone. I wouldn't! Though, to be sure, I never had the chance. Little I ever knew or cared about mine.”
Olive turned away, and was silent; but Christal, who seemed, for some reason best known to herself, to be in a particularly unreserved and benignant humour, said kindly, “You poor little trembling thing, how ill you have made yourself! You can scarcely stand alone; give me your hand, and I'll help you to the sofa.”
But Olive shrank as if there had been a sting in the slender fingers which lay on her arm. She looked at them, and a slight circumstance, long forgotten, rushed back upon her memory,—something she had noticed to her mother the first night that the girl came home. Tracing the beautiful hereditary mould of the Rothesay line, she now knew why Christal's hand was like her own father's.
A shiver of instinctive repugnance came over her, and then the mysterious voice of kindred blood awoke in her heart. She took and passionately clasped that hand—the hand ofher sister.
“O Christal! let us love one another—we two, who have no other tie left to us on earth.”
But Christal was rarely in a pathetic mood. She only shrugged her shoulders, and then stroked Olive's arm with a patronising air. “Come, your journey has been too much for you, and you had no business to wander off that way with Mrs. Gwynne; you shall lie down and rest a little and then go to bed.”
But Olive was afraid of night and its solitude. She knew there was no slumber for her. When she was a little recovered, feeling unable to talk, she asked Christal to read aloud.
The other looked annoyed. “Pleasant! to be a mere lady's companion and reader! Miss Rothesay forgets who I am, I think,” muttered she, though apparently not meaning Olive to hear her.
But Olive did hear, and shuddered at the hearing.
Miss Manners carelessly took up the newspaper, and read the first paragraph which caught her eye. It was one of those mournful episodes which are sometimes revealed at the London police-courts. A young girl—a lady swindler—had been brought up for trial there. In her defence came out the story of a life, cradled in shame, nurtured in vice, and only working out its helpless destiny—that of a rich man's deserted illegitimate child. The report added, that “The convict was led from the dock in a state of violent excitement, calling down curses on her parents, but especially on her father, who, she said, had cruelly forsaken her mother. She ended by exclaiming that it was to him she herself owed all her life of misery, and that her blood was upon his head.”
“Itwasupon his head,” burst forth Christal, whose sympathies, as by some fatal instinct, seemed attracted by a case like this. “If I had been that girl, I would have hunted my vile father through the world. While he lived, I would have heaped my miseries in his path, that everywhere they might torture and shame him. When he died, I would have trampled on his grave and cursed him!”
She stood up, her eyes flashing, her hands clenched in one of those paroxysms which to her came so rarely, but, when roused, were terrible to witness. Her mother's soul was in the girl. Olive saw it, and from that hour knew that, whatever it cost her, the secret of Christal's birth must be buried in her own breast for evermore.
Most faithfully Miss Rothesay kept her vow. But it entailed upon her the necessity of changing her whole plans for the future. For some inexplicable reason, Christal refused to go and live with her in Edinburgh, or, in fact, to leave Farnwood at all. Therefore Olive's despairing wish to escape from Harbury, and all its bitter associations, was entirely frustrated. It would be hard to say whether she lamented or rejoiced at this. The brave resolve had cost her much, yet she scarcely regretted that it would not be fulfilled. There was a secret sweetness in living near Harbury—in stealing, as it were, into a daughter's place beside the mother of him she still so fervently loved. But, thinking of him, she did not suffer now. For all great trials there is an unseen compensation; and this last shock, with the change it had wrought, made her past sorrows grow dim. Life became sweeter to her, for it was filled with a new and holy interest. It could be so filled, she found, even when love had come and vanished, and only duty remained.
She turned from all repining thoughts, and tried to make for herself a peaceful nest in her little home. And thither, above all, she desired to allure and to keep, with all gentle wiles of love, her sister.Her sister! Often, yearning for kindred ties, she longed to fall on Christal's neck, and call her by that tender name! But she knew it could never be, and her heart had been too long schooled into patience, to murmur because in every human tie this seemed to be perpetually her doom—that—save one who was gone—none upon earth had ever loved her as much as she loved them.
Harold Gwynne wrote frequently from Rome, but only to his mother. However, he always mentioned Miss Rothesay, and kindly. Once, when Mrs. Gwynne was unable to write herself, she asked Olive to take her place, and indulge Harold with a letter.
“He will be so glad, you know. I think of all his friends there is none whom my son regards more warmly than you,” said the mother. And Olive could not refuse. Why, indeed, should she feel reluctance? He had never been her lover; she had no right to feel wounded, or angry at his silence. Certainly, she would write.
She did so. It was a quiet, friendly letter, making no reference to the past—expressing no regret, no pain. It was scarcely like the earnest letters which she had once written to him—that time was past. She tried to make it an epistle as from any ordinary acquaintance—easy and pleasant, full of everything likely to amuse him. She knew he would never dream how it was written—with a cold, trembling hand and throbbing heart, its smooth sentences broken by pauses of burning blinding tears.
She said little about herself or her own affairs, save to ask that, being in Rome, he would contrive to find out the Vanbrughs, of whom she had heard nothing for a long time. Writing, she paused a moment to think whether she should not apologise for giving him this trouble. But then she remembered his words—almost the last she had heard him utter—that she must always consider him “as a friend and brother.”
“I will do so,” she murmured. “I will not doubt him, or his true regard for me. It is all he can give; and while he gives me that, I shall endure life contentedly, even unto the end.”