“Io ti voglio ben assai,Ma tu non pensi a me!”
“Tis my song, mine! I taught him!” said Christal, laughing to herself. “He thought to stay behind and escape me and my cruelty.' But we shall see—we shall see!”
Though in her air was a triumphant, girlish coquetry, yet something there was of a woman's passion, too. But she heard a descending step, and had only just, time to regain her invalid attitude and her doleful countenance, when Olive entered.
“This accident is most unfortunate,” said Miss Rothesay, “How will you manage your journey to-morrow?”
“I shall not be able to go,” said Christal in a piteous voice, though over her averted face broke a comical smile.
“Are you really so much hurt, my dear?”
“Do you doubt it?” was the sharp reply. “I am sorry to trouble you; but I really am unable to leave the Dell.”
Very often did she try Olive's patience thus; but the faithful daughter always remembered those last words, “Take care of Christal.”
So, excusing all, she tended the young sufferer carefully until midnight, and then went down-stairs secretly to perform a little act of self-denial, by giving up an engagement she had made for the morrow. While writing to renounce it, she felt, with a renewed sense of vague apprehension, how keen a pleasure it was she thus resigned—a whole long day in the forest with her pet Ailie, Ailie's grandmamma, and—Harold Gwynne.
Midnight was long past, and yet Olive sat at her desk; she had finished her note to Mrs. Gwynne, and was poring over a small packet of letters carefully separated from the remainder of her correspondence. If she had been asked the reason of this, perhaps she would have made answer that they were unlike the rest—solemn in character, and secret withal. She never looked at them but her expression changed; when she touched them she did it softly and tremulously, as one would touch a living sacred thing.
They were letters which at intervals during his various absences she had received from Harold Gwynne.
Often had she read them over—so often, that, many a time waking in the night, whole sentences came distinctly on her memory, vivid almost as a spoken voice. And yet scarcely a day passed that she did not read them over again. Perhaps this was from their tenor, for they were letters such as a man rarely writes to a woman, or even a friend to a friend.
Let us judge, extracting portions from them at will.
The first, dated months back, began thus: “You will perhaps marvel, my dear Miss Rothesay, that I should write to you, when for some time we have met so rarely, and then apparently like ordinary acquaintance. Yet, who should have a better right than we to call each otherfriends? And like a friend you acted, when you consented that there should be between us for a time this total silence on the subject which first bound us together by a tie which we can neither of us break if we would. Alas! sometimes I could almost curse the weakness which had given you—a woman—to hold my secret in your hands. And yet so gently, so nobly have you held it, that I could kneel and bless you. You see I can write earnestly, though I speak so coldly.”
“I told you, after that day when we two were alone with death (the words are harsh, I know, but I have no smooth tongue), I told you that I desired entire silence for weeks, perhaps months. I must 'commune with my own heart and be still.' I must wrestle with this darkness alone. You assented; you forced on me no long argumentative homilies—you preached to me solely with your life, the pure beautiful life of a Christian woman. Sometimes I tried to read carefully the morality of Jesus, which I, and sceptics worse than I, must allow to be perfect of its kind, and it struck me how nearly you approached to that divine life which I had thought impossible to be realised.”
“I have advanced thus far into my solemn seeking. I have learned to see the revelation—imputedly divine—clear and distinct from the mass of modern creeds with which it has been overladen. I have begun to read the book on which—as you truly say—every form of religion is founded. I try to read with my own eyes, putting aside all received interpretations, earnestly desiring to cast from my soul all long-gathered prejudices, and to bring it, naked and clear, to meet the souls of those who are said to have written by divine inspiration.”
“The book is a marvellous book. The history of all ages can scarcely show its parallel. What diversity, yet what unity! The stream seems to flow through all ages, catching the lights and shadows of different periods, and of various human minds. Yet it is one and the same stream—-pure and shining as truth. Is it truth?—is it divine?”
“I will confess, candidly, that if the scheme of a worlds history with reference to its Creator, as set forth in the Bible, were true, it would be a scheme in many things worthy of a divine benevolence: such as that in which you believe. But can I imagine Infinity setting itself to work out such trivialities? What is even a world? A mere grain of dust in endless space! It cannot be. A God who could take interest in man, in such an atom as I, would be no God at all. What avails me to have risen unto more knowledge, more clearness in the sense of the divine, if it is to plunge me into such an abyss as this? Would I had never been awakened from my sleep—the dull stupor of materialism into which I was fast sinking. Then I might, in the end, have conquered even the last fear, that of 'something after death,' and have perished like a soulless clod, satisfied that there was no hereafter. Now, if there should be? I whirl and whirl; I can find no rest. I would I knew for certain that I was mad. But it is not so.”
“You answer, my kind friend, like a woman—like the sort of woman I believed in in my boyhood—when I longed for a sister, such a sister as you. It is very strange, even to myself, that I should write to any one as freely as I do to you. I know that I could never speak thus. Therefore, when I return home, you must not marvel to find me just the same reserved being as ever—less to you, perhaps, than to most people, but still reserved. Yet, never believe but that I thank you for all your goodness most deeply.”
“You say that, like most women, you have little power of keen philosophical argument. Perhaps not; but there is in you a spiritual sense that may even transcend knowledge. I once heard—was it not you who said so?—that the poet who 'reads God's secrets in the stars' soars nearer Him than the astronomer who calculates by figures and by line. As, even in the material universe, there are planets and systems which mock all human ken; so in the immaterial world there must be a boundary where all human reasoning fails, and we can trust to nothing but that inward inexplicable sense which we call faith. This seems to me the great argument which inclines us to receive that supernatural manifestation of the all-pervading Spirit which is termed 'revelation.' And there we go back again to the relation between the finite—humanity, and the infinite—Deity.'”
“One of my speculations you answer by an allegory—Does not the sun make instinct with life not only man, but the meanest insect, the lowest form of vegetable existence? He shines. His light at once revivifies a blade of grass and illumines a world. If thus it is with the created, may not it be also with the Creator? There is something within me that answers to this reasoning.
“If I have power to conceive the existence of God, to look up from my nothingness unto His great height, to desire nearer insight into His being, there must be in my soul something not unworthy of Him—something that, partaking His divinity, instinctively turns to the source whence it was derived. Shall I, suffering myself to be guided by this power, seek less to doubt than to believe?
“I remember my first mathematical tutor once said to me, 'If you would know anything, begin by doubting everything.' I did begin, but I have never yet found an end.”
“I will take your advice, my dear friend; advice given so humbly, so womanly. Yet I think you deal with me wisely. I am a man who never could be preached or argued into belief. I must find out the truth for myself. And so, according to your counsel, I will again carefully study the Bible, and especially the life of Jesus of Nazareth, which you believe the clearest revelation which God has allowed of Himself to earth. Finding any contradictions or obscurities, I will remember, as you say, that Scripture was not, and does not pretend to be, written visibly and actually by the finger of God, but by His inspiration conveyed through many human minds, and of course always bearing to a certain extent the impress of the mind through which it passes. Therefore, while the letter is sometimes apparently contradictory, the spirit is invariably one and the same. I am to look tothat, first? Above all, I am to look to the only earthly manifestation of Divine perfection—Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all men?I will.
“You see how my mind echoes your words, my friend! I am becoming, I think, more like you. All human affections are growing closer and dearer unto me. I can look at my good and pious mother without feeling, as I did at times, that she is either a self-deceiver or deceived. I do not now shrink from my little daughter, nor think with horror that she owes to me that being which may lead her one day to 'curse God and die.' Still I cannot rest at Harbury. All things there torture me. As for resuming my duties as a minister, that seems all but impossible. What an accursed hypocrite I have been! If this search after truth should end in a belief anything like that of the Church of England, I shall marvel that Heaven's lightning has not struck me dead.”
... “You speak hopefully of the time when we shall hold one faith, and both give thanks unto the merciful God who has lightened my darkness. I cannot say thisyet; but the time may come. And if it does, what shall I owe to you, who, by your outward life, first revived my faith in humanity—by your inward life, my faith in God? You have solved to me many of those enigmas of Providence which, in my blindness, I thought impugned eternal justice. Now I see that love—human and divine—is sufficient to itself, and that he who loves God is one with God. There may be a hundred varying forms of doctrine, but this one truth is above all and the root of all.—I hold to it, and I believe it will save my soul. If ever I lift up a prayer worthy to reach the ear of God, it is that He may bless you, my friend, and comforter.”
And here, reader, for a moment, we pause. Following whither our object led, we have gone far beyond the bounds usually prescribed to a book like this; After perusing the present chapter, you may turn to the title-page, and reading thereon, “Olive, aNovel” may exclaim, “Most incongruous—most strange!” Nay, some may even accuse us of irreverence in thus bringing into a fictitious story those subjects which are acknowledged as most vital to every human soul, but yet which most people are content, save at set times and places, tacitly to ignore. There are those who sincerely believe that in such works as this it is profanity even to name the Holy Name. Yet what is a novel, or, rather, what is it that a novel ought to be? The attempt of one earnest mind to show unto many what humanity is—ay, and more, what humanity might become; to depict what is true in essence through imaginary forms; to teach, counsel, and warn, by means of the silent transcript of human life. Human life without God! Who will dare to tell us we should paintthat?
Authors, who feel the solemnity of their calling, cannot suppress the truth that is within them. Having put their hands to the plough, they may not turn aside, nor look either to the right or the left. They must go straight on, as the inward voice impels; and He who seeth their hearts will guide them aright.
Some days passed in quiet uniformity, broken only by the visits of good-natured Lyle, who came, as he said, to amuse the invalid. Whether that were the truth or no, he was a frequent and always welcome guest at the Dell. Only he made the proviso, that in all amusements which he and Christal shared, Miss Rothesay should be in some way united. So, morning after morning, the sofa whereupon the invalid gracefully reclined was brought into the painting-room, and there, while Olive worked, she listened, sometimes almost in envy, to the gay young voices that mingled in song, or contended in the light battle of wits. How much older, graver, and sadder, she seemed than they!
Harold Gwynne did not come. This circumstance troubled Olive. Not that he was in the habit of paying long morning visits, like young Derwent; but still when he was at Harbury, it usually chanced that every few days they met somewhere. So habitual had this intercourse become, that a week's complete cessation of it seemed a positive pain.
Ever, when Olive rose in the morning, the sun-gilded spire of Harbury Church brought the thought, “I wonder will he come to-day!” And at night, when he did not come, she could not conceal from herself, that looking back on the past day, over all its duties and pleasures, there rose a pale mist. She seemed to have only half lived. Alas, alas!
Olive knew, though she hardly would acknowledge it to herself, that for many months this interest in Harold Gwynne had been the one great interest of her existence. At first it came in the form of a duty, and as such she had entered upon it. She was one of those women who seem born ever to devote themselves to some one. When her mother died, it had comforted Olive to think there was still a human being who stretched out to her entreating hands, saying, “I need thee! I need thee!” Nay, it even seemed as if the voice of the saint departed called upon her to perform this sacred task. Thereto tended her thoughts and prayers. And thus there came upon her the fate which has come upon many another woman,—while thus devoting herself she learned to love. But so gradual had been the change that she knew it not.
“Why am I restless?” she thought. “One is too exacting in friendship; one should give all and ask nothing back. Still, it is not quite kind of him to stay away thus. But a man is not like a woman. He must have so many conflicting and engrossing interests, whilst I”—— Here her thought broke and dissolved like a rock-riven wave. She dared not yet confess that she had no interest in the world save what was linked with him.
“If he comes not so often,” she re-commenced her musings, “even then I ought to be quite content. I know he respects and esteems me; nay, that he has for me a warm regard. I have done him good, too; he tells me so. How fervently ought I to thank God if any feeble words of mine may so influence him, as in time to lead him from error to truth. My friend, my dear friend! I could not die, knowing or fearing that the abyss of eternity would lie between my spirit and his. Now, whatever may part us during life”——
Here again she paused, overcome with the consciousness of great pain. If there was gloom in the silence of a week, what would a whole life's silence be? Something whispered that even in this world it would be very bitter to part with Harold Gwynne.
“You are not painting, Miss Rothesay; you are thinking,” suddenly cried Lyle Derwent.
Olive started almost with a sense of shame. “Has not an artist a right to dream a little?” she said. Yet she blushed deeply. Were her thoughts wrong, that they needed to be thus glossed over? Was there stealing into her heart a secret that taught her to feign?
“What! are you, always the idlest of the idle, reproving Miss Rothesay for being idle too?” said Christal, somewhat sharply. “No wonder she is dull, and I likewise. You are getting as solemn as Mr. Gwynne himself. I almost wish he would come in your place.”
“Do you? Then 'reap the misery of a granted prayer' for there is a knock It may be my worthy brother-in-law himself.”
“If so, for charity's sake, give me your arm and help me into the next room. I cannot abide his gloomy face.”
“O woman!—changeful—fickle—vain!” laughed the young man, as he performed the duty of supporting the not very fragile form of the fair Christal.
Olive was left alone. Why did she tremble? Why did her pulse sink, slower and slower? She asked herself this question, even in self-disdain. But there was no answer.
Harold entered.
“I am come with a message from my mother,” said he; but added anxiously, “How is this, Miss Rothesay? You look as if you had been ill?”
“Oh, no! only weary with a long morning's work. But will you sit!”
He received, as usual, the quiet smile—the greeting gentle and friendly. He was deceived by them as heretofore.
“Are you better than when last I was at the Parsonage? I have seen nothing of you for a week, you know.”
“Is it so long? I did not note the time.” He “did not note the time.” And she had told every day by hours—every hour by minutes!
“I should have come before,” he continued, “but I have had so many things to occupy me. Besides, I am such poor company. I should only trouble you.”
“You never trouble me.”
“It is kind of you to say so. Well, let that pass. Will you now return with me and spend the day? My mother is longing to see you.”
“I will come,” said Olive, cheerfully. There was a little demur about Christars being left alone, but it was soon terminated by the incursion of a tribe of the young lady's “friends,” whom she had made at Farnwood Hall.
Soon Olive was walking with Mr. Gwynne along the well-known road. The sunshine of the morning seemed to gather and float around her. She remembered no more the pain—the doubt—the weary waiting. She was satisfied now!
Gradually they fell into their old way of conversing. “How beautiful all seems,” said Harold, as he stood still, bared his head, and drank in, with a long sighing breath, the sunshine and the soft air. “Would that I could be happy in this happy world!”
“It is God's world, and as He made it—good; but I often doubt whether He meant it to be altogether happy.”
“Why so?”
“Because life is our time of education—our school-days. Our holidays, I fancy, are to come. We should be thankful,” she added, smiling, “when we get our brief play-hours—our pleasant Saturday afternoons—as now. Do you not think so?”
“I cannot tell; I am in a great labyrinth, from which I must work my way out alone. Nevertheless, my friend, keep near me.” Unconsciously she pressed his arm. He started, and turned his head away. The next moment he added, in a somewhat constrained voice, “I mean—let me have your friendship—your silent comforting—your prayers-Yes! thus far I believe. I can say, 'Pray God for me,' doubting not that He will hear—you, at least, if not me. Therefore, let me go on and struggle through this darkness.”
“Until comes the light! It will come—I know it will!” Olive looked up at him, and their eyes met. In hers was the fulness of joy, in his a doubt—a contest. He removed them, and walked on in silence. The very arm on which Olive leaned seemed to grow rigid—like a bar of severance between them.
“I would to Heaven!” Harold suddenly exclaimed as they approached Harbury—“I would to Heaven I could get away from this place altogether. I think I shall do so. My knowledge and reputation in science is not small. I might begin a new life—a life of active exertion. In fact, I have nearly decided it all.”
“Decided what? It is so sudden. I do not quite understand,” said Olive, faintly.
“To leave England for ever. What do you think of the plan?”
What thought she? Nothing. There was a dull sound in her ears as of a myriad waters—the ground whereon she stood seemed reeling to and fro—yet she did not fall. One minute, and she answered.
“You know best. If good for you, it is a good plan.”
He seemed relieved and yet disappointed. “I am glad you say so. I imagined, perhaps, you might have thought it wrong.”
“Why wrong?”
“Women have peculiar feelings about home, and country, and friends. I shall leave all these. I would not care ever to see England more. I would put off this black gown, and with it every remembrance of the life of vile hypocrisy which I have led here. I would drown the past in new plans—new energies—new hopes. And, to do this, I must break all ties, and go alone. My poor mother! I have not dared yet to tell her. To her, the thought of parting would be like death, so dearly does she love me.”
He spoke all this rapidly, never looking towards his silent companion. When he ceased, Olive feebly stretched out her hand, as if to grasp something for support, then drew it back again, and, hid under her mantle, pressed it tightly against her heart. On that heart Harold's words fell, tearing away all its disguises, laying it bare to the bitter truth. “To me,” she thought—“to me, also, this parting is like death. And why? Because I, too, love him—dearer than ever mother loved son, or sister brother; ay, dearer than my own soul. Oh miserable me!”
“You are silent,” said Harold. “You think I am acting cruelly towards one who loves me so well Human affections are to us secondary things. We scarcely need them; or, when our will demands, we can crush them altogether.”
“I—I have heard so,” said she, slowly.
“Well, Miss Rothesay?” he asked, when they had nearly reached the Parsonage, “what are you thinking of?”
“I think that, wherever you go, you ought to take your mother with you; and little Ailie, too. With them your home will be complete.”
“Yet I have friends to leave—one friend at least—yourself.”
“I, like others, shall miss you; but all true friends should desire, above all things, each other's welfare. I shall be satisfied if I hear at times of yours.”
He made no reply, and they went in at the hall door.
There was much to be done and talked of that afternoon at the Parsonage. First, there was a long lesson to be given to little Ailie; then, at least an hour was spent in following Mrs. Gwynne round the garden, and hearing her dilate on the beauty of her hollyhocks and dahlias.
“I shall have the finest dahlias in the country next year,” said the delighted old lady.
Next year! It seemed to Olive as if she were talking of the next world.
In some way or other the hours went by; how, Olive could not tell. She did not see, hear, or feel anything, save that she had to make an effort to appear in the eyes of Harold, and of Harold's mother, just as usual—the same quiet little creature—gently smiling, gently speaking—who had already begun to be called “an old maid”—whom no one in the world suspected of any human passion—least of all, the passion oflove.
After this early dinner Harold went out. He did not return even when the misty autumn night had begun to fall. As the daylight waned and the firelight brightened, Olive felt terrified at herself. One hour of that quiet evening commune, so sweet of old, and her strength and self-control would have failed. Making some excuse about Christal, she asked Mrs. Gwynne to let her go home.
“But not alone, my dear. You will surely wait until Harold comes in?”
“No, no! It will be late, and the mist is rising. Do not fear for me; the road is quite safe; and you know I am used to walking alone,” said Olive, feebly smiling.
“You are a brave little creature, my dear. Well, do as you will.”
So, ere long, Olive found herself on her solitary homeward road. It lay through the churchyard. Closing the Parsonage-gate, the first thing she did was to creep across the long grass to her mother's grave.
“Oh, mother, mother! why did you go and leave me? I should never have loved any one if my mother had not died!”
And burning tears fell, and burning blushes came. With these came also the horrible sense of self-degradation which smites a woman when she knows that, unsought, she has dared to love.
“What have I done,” she cried, “O earth, take me in and cover me! Hide me from myself—from my misery—my shame.” Suddenly she started up. “What if he should pass and find me here! I must go. I must go home.”
She fled out of the churchyard and down the road. For a little way she walked rapidly, then gradually slower and slower. A white mist arose from the meadows; it folded round her like a shroud; it seemed to creep even into her heart, and make its beatings grow still. Down the long road, where she and Harold had so often passed together, she walked alone. Alone—as once had seemed her doom through life—and must now be so unto the end.
It might be thecertaintyof this which calmed her. She had no maiden doubts or hopes; not one. The possibility of Harold's loving her, or choosing her as his wife, never entered her mind.
Since the days of her early girlhood, when she wove such a bright romance around Sara and Charles, and created for herself a beautiful ideal for future worship, Olive had ceased to dream about love at all. Feeling that its happiness was for ever denied her, she had altogether relinquished those fancies in which young maidens indulge. In their place had come the intense devotion to her Art, which, together with her passionate, love for her mother, had absorbed all the interests of her secluded life. Scarcely was she even conscious of the happiness that she lost; for she had read few of those books which foster sentiment; and in the wooings and weddings she heard of were none that aroused either her sympathy or her envy. Coldly and purely she had moved in her sphere, superior to both love's joy and love's pain.
Reaching home, Olive sought not to enter the house, where she knew there could be no solitude. She went into the little arbour—her mother's favourite spot—and there, hidden in the shadows of the mild autumn night, she sat down, to gather up her strength, and calmly to think over her mournful lot.
She said to herself, “There has come upon me that which I have heard is, soon or late, every woman's destiny. I cannot beguile myself any longer. It is not friendship I feel: it is love. My whole life is threaded by one thought—the thought of him. It comes between me and everything else on earth—almost between me and Heaven. I never wake at morning but his name rises to my heart—the first hope of the day; I never kneel down at night but in my prayer, whether in thought or speech, that name is mingled too. If I have sinned, God forgive me; He knows how lonely and desolate I was—how, when that one best love was taken away, my heart ached and yearned for some other human love. And this has come to fill it. Alas for me!
“Let me think. Will it ever pass away? There are feelings which come and go—light girlish fancies. But I am six-and-twenty years old. All this while I have lived without loving any man. And no one has ever wooed me except my master, Vanbrugh, whose feeling for me was not love at all. No, no! I am, as they call me, 'an old maid,' destined to pass through life alone and unloved.
“Perhaps, though I have long ceased to think on the subject—perhaps my first girlish misery was true, and there is in me something repulsive—something that would prevent any man's seeking me as a wife. Therefore, even if my own feelings could change, it is unlikely there will ever come any soothing after-tie to take away the memory of this utterly hopeless love.
“Hopeless I know it is. He admires beauty and grace—I have neither. Yet I will not do him the injustice to believe he would despise me for this. Even once I overheard him say, there was such sweetness in my face, that he had never noticed my being 'slightly deformed.' Therefore, did he but love me, perhaps—O fool!—dreaming fool that I am! It is impossible!
“Let me think calmly once more. He has given me all he could—kindness, friendship, brotherly regard; and I have given him love—a woman's whole and entire love, such as she can give but once, and be beggared all her life after. I to him am like any other friend—he to me is all my world. Oh, but it is a fearful difference!
“I will look my doom in the face—I will consider how I am to bear it. No hope is there for me of being loved as I love. I shall never be his wife: never be more to him than I am now; in time, perhaps even less. He will go out into the world, and leave me, as brothers leave sisters (even supposing he regards me as such). He will form new ties; perhaps he will marry; and then my love for him would be sin!”
Olive pressed her hands tightly together, and crushed her hot brow upon them, bending it even to her knees. Thus bowed, she lay until the fierce struggle passed.
“I do not think that misery will come. His mother, who knows him best, was surely right when she said he would never take a second wife. Therefore I may be his friend still. Neither he nor any one will ever know that I loved him otherwise than as a sister might love a brother. Who would dream there could be any other thought in me—a pale, unlovely thing—a woman past her youth (for I seem very old now)? It ought not to be so; many women are counted young at six-and-twenty; but it is those who have been nurtured tenderly in joyous homes. While I have been struggling with the hard world these many years. No wonder I am not as they—that I am quiet and silent, without mirth or winning grace, a creature worn out before her time, pale, joyless,deformed. Yes, let me teach myself that word, with all other truths that 'can quench this mad dream. Then, perhaps knowing all hope vain, I may be able to endure.
“What am I to do? Am I to try and cleanse my heart of this love, as if it were some pollution? Not so. Sorrow it is—deep, abiding sorrow; but it is not sin. If I thought it so, I would crush it out, though I crushed my life out with it. But I need not. My heart is pure—O God, Thou knowest!
“Another comfort I have. He has not deceived me, as men sometimes deceive, with wooing that seems like love, and yet is only idle, cruel sport. He has ever treated me as a friend—a sister—nothing more! Therefore, no bitterness is there in my sorrow, since he has done no wrong.
“I will not cease from loving—I would not if I could. Better this suffering than the utter void which must otherwise be in my heart eternally, seeing I have neither father, mother, brother, nor sister, and shall never know any nearer tie than the chance friendships which spring up on the world's wayside, and wither where they spring. I know there are those who would bid me cast off this love as it were a serpent from my bosom. No! Rather let it creep in there, and fold itself close and secret. What matter, even if its sweet sting be death?
“But I shall not die. How could I, while he lived, and might need any comfort that I could give? Did he not say, 'Keep near me!' Ay, I will! Though a world lay between us, my spirit shall follow him all his life long. Distance shall be nothing—years nothing! Whenever he calls, 'Friend I need thee.' I will answer, 'I am here!' If I could condense my whole life's current of joy into one drop of peace for him, I would pour it out at his feet, smile content, and die. And when I am dead—he will know how I loved him—Harold—my Harold.”
Such were her thoughts—though no words passed her lips—except the last. As she rose and went towards the house, she might even have met him and not trembled—she had grown so calm.
It was already night—but the mist had quite gone—there was only the sky and its stars.
I know that I am promulgating a new theory of love; I know that in Olive Rothesay I dare to paint a woman full of all maidenly virtues, who has yet given her heart away unrequited—given it to a man who knows not of the treasure he has never sought to win. The case, I grant, is rare. I believe that a woman seldom bestows her love save in return for other love—be it silent or spoken—real or imaginary. If it is not so, either she has deceived herself, or has been deceived.
But the thing is quite possible—ay, and happens sometimes—that a woman unselfish, unexacting in all her affections, more prone to give than to receive, thinking perhaps very little of love or marriage, may be unconsciously attracted by some imagined perfection in the other sex, and be thus led on through the worship of abstract goodness until she wakes to find that she has learned to lovethe man. For what is love in its purest and divinest sense, but that innate yearning after perfection which we vainly hope to find in some other human soul; this is as likely to be felt by a woman as by a man—ay, and by one most pure from every thought of unfeminine boldness, vanity, or sin.
I know, too, that from many a sage and worthy matron my Olive has for ever earned her condemnation, because, at last discovering her mournful secret, she did not strive in horror and shame to root out this misplaced attachment. Then, after years of self-martyrdom, she might at last have pointed to her heart's trampled garden, and said, “Look what I have had strength to do!” But from such a wrecked and blasted soil what aftergrowth could ever spring?
Better, a thousand times, that a woman to whom this doom has come unwittingly, without her seeking—as inevitably and inexorably as fate—should pause, stand steadfast, and look it in the face, without fear. She cannot disguise it, or wrestle with it, or fly from it Let her meet it as she would meet death—solemnly, calmly, patiently. Let her draw nigh and look upon the bier of her life's dead hope, until the pale image grows beautiful as sleep; then cover it—bury it—if she can. Perhaps it may one day rise from the grave, wearing a likeness no longer human, but divine.
It is time that we women should begin to teach and to think thus. It is meet that we—maidens, wives, mothers, to whom the lines have fallen in more pleasant places—should turn and look on that pale sisterhood—some carrying meekly to the grave their heavy unuttered secret, some living unto old age, to bear the world's smile of pity, even of derision, over an “unfortunate attachment.” Others, perhaps, furnishing a text whereupon prudent mothers may lesson romantic daughters, saying, “See that you be not like these 'foolish virgins;' give notyourheart away in requital of fancied love; or, madder still, in worship of ideal goodness—give it for nothing but the safe barter of a speedy settlement, a comfortable income, a husband, and a ring.”
Olive Rothesay, be not ashamed, nor afraid. Hide the arrow close in thy soul—lay over it thy folded hands and look upwards. Far purer art thou than many a young creature, married without love, living on in decent dignity as the mother of her husband's children, the convenient mistress of his household, and so sinking down into the grave, a pattern of all matronly virtue. Envy her not! A thousand times holier and happier than such a destiny is that silent lot of thine.
With meekness, yet with courage, Olive Rothesay prepared to live her appointed life. At first it seemed very bitter, as must needs be. Youth, while it is still youth, cannot at once and altogether be content to resign love. It will yearn for that tie which Heaven ordained to make its nature's completeness; it will shrink before the long dull vista of a solitary, aimless existence. Sometimes, wildly as she struggled against such thoughts, there would come to Olive's fancy dreams of what her life might have been. The holiness of lovers' love, of wedded love, of mother-love, would at times flit before her imagination; and her heart, still warm, still young, trembled to picture the lonely old age, the hearth blank and silent, the utter isolation from all those natural ties whose place not even the dearest bonds of adopted affection can. ever entirely fill. But, whenever these murmurings arose, Olive checked them; often with a feeling of intolerable shame.
She devoted herself more than ever to her Art, trying to make it as once before the chief interest and enjoyment of her life. It would become the same again, she hoped. Often and often in the world's history had been noted that of brave men who rose from the wreck of love, and found happiness in fame. But Olive had yet to learn that, with women, it is rarely so.
She felt more than ever the mournful change which had come over her, when it happened that great success was won by one of her later pictures—a picture unconsciously created from the inspiration of that sweet love-dream. When the news came—tidings which a year ago would have thrilled her with pleasure—Olive only smiled faintly, and a few minutes after went into her chamber, locked the door, and wept.
There was not, and there could not be, any difference made in her ordinary way of life. She still went to the Parsonage, and walked and talked with Harold, as he seemed always to expect. She listened to all his projects for the future—a future wherein she, alas! had no part Eagerly she strove to impress this fact upon her mind—to forget herself entirely, to think only of him, and what would be best for his happiness. Knowing him so well, and having over him an influence which he seemed rather to like, and which, at least, he never repelled, she was able continually to reason, to cheer him, and sympathise with him. He often thanked her for this, little knowing how every quiet word of hers was torn from a bleeding heart.
Walking home with her at nights, as usual, he never saw the white face turned upwards to the stars—the eyes wherein tears burned, but would not fall; the lips compressed in a choking agony, or opened to utter ordinary words in which his ear detected not one tremulous or discordant tone. When he sat in the house, absorbed in anxious thought, little he knew what looks were secretly fastened on his face, to learn by heart every beloved lineament, against the time when his visible likeness would be beheld no more.
Thus miserably did Olive struggle. The record of that time, its every day, its every hour, was seared on her heart as with a burning brand. Afterwards she never thought of it but with a shudder, marvelling how she had been able to endure all and live.
At last the inward suffering began to be outwardly written on her face. Some people said—Lyle Derwent first—that Miss Rothesay did not look so well as she used to do. But indeed it was no wonder, she was so engrossed in her painting, and worked far too much for her strength. Olive neither dissented nor denied: but she never complained, and still went painting on. Harold himself saw she was ill, and sometimes treated her with almost brotherly tenderness. Often he noticed her pale face, paler than ever beneath his eye, or, in wrapping her from the cold, observed how she shivered and trembled. And then Olive would go home and cry out in her misery,
“How long? how long? Oh, that this would cease, or else I die!”
She was quite alone at the Dell now, for Mrs. Fludyer had paid a flying visit home, and had taken back with her both Christal and the somewhat unwilling Lyle. Solitude, once sweet and profitable, now grew fearful unto Olive's tortured mind. And to escape it she had no resource, but that which she knew was to her like a poison-draught, and for which she yet thirsted evermore—the daily welcome at the Parsonage. But the web of circumstances, which she herself seemed to have no power to break, was at length apparently broken for her. One day she received a letter from her father's aunt, Miss Flora Rothesay, inviting—nay, entreating—her to visit Edinburgh, that the old lady might look upon the last of her race.
For a moment Olive blessed this chance of quitting the scenes now become so painful. But then, Harold might need her. In his present conflict of feeling and of purpose he had no confidant save herself. She would have braved years of suffering if her presence could have given him one hour's relief from care. But of this she must judge, so she set off at once to the Parsonage.
“Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Gwynne, with a smiling and mysterious face, “of course you will go at once! It will do your health a world of good. Harold said so only this morning.”
“Then he knew of the letter?”
“Why, to tell the truth, I believe he originated the plan. He saw you wanted change—he has such a regard for you, Olive.”
Thenhehad done it all! He could let her part from him, easily, as friend from friend. Yet, what marvel! they were nothing more. She answered, quietly, “I will go.”
She told him so when he came in. He seemed much pleased; and said, with more than his usual frankness,
“I should like you to know aunt Flora. You see, I call hermyaunt Flora, too, for she is of some distant kin, and I have dearly loved her ever since I was a boy.”
It was something to be going to one whom Harold “dearly loved.” Olive felt a little comfort in her proposed journey.
“Besides, she knows you quite well already, my dear,” observed Mrs. Gwynne. “She tells me Harold used often to talk about you during his visit with her this summer.”
“I had a reason,” said Harold, his dark cheek changing a little. “I wished her to know and love her niece, and I was sure her niece would soon learn to loveher.”
“Why, that is kind, and like yourself, my son. How thoughtfully you have been planning everything for Olive.”
“Olive will not be angry with me for that?” he said, and stopped. It was the first time she had ever heard him utter her Christian name. At the sound her heart leaped wildly, but only for an instant. The next, Harold had corrected himself, and said, “Miss Rothesay” in a distinct, cold, and formal tone. Very soon afterwards he went away.
Mrs. Gwynne persuaded Olive to spend the day at the Parsonage. They two were alone together, for Harold did not return. But in the afternoon their quietness was broken by the sudden appearance of Lyle Derwent.
“So soon back from Brighton! Who would have thought it!” said Mrs. Gwynne, smiling.
Lyle put on his favourite sentimental air, and muttered something about “not liking gaiety, and never being happy away from Farnwood.”
“Miss Rothesay is scarcely of your opinion; at all events, she is going to try the experiment by leaving us for a while.”
“Miss Rothesay leaving us!”
“It is indeed true, Lyle. You see I have not been well of late, and my kind friends here are over-anxious for me; and I want to see my aunt in Scotland.”
“It is to Scotland you are going?—all that long dreary way? You may stay there weeks, months! and that while what will become of me—I mean of us all at Farnwood?”
His evident regret touched Olive deeply. It was something to be missed, even by this boy: he always seemed a boy to her, partly because of olden times, partly because he was so boy-like and unsophisticated in mind and manner.
“My dear Lyle, how good of you to think of me in this manner! But indeed I will not forget you when I am away.”
“You promise that?” cried Lyle, eagerly.
Olive promised; with a sorrowful thought that none asked this pledge—none needed it—save the affectionate Lyle!
He was still inconsolable, poor youth! He looked so drearily pathetic, and quoted such doleful poetry, that Mrs. Gwynne, who, in her matter-of-fact plainness, had no patience with any of Lyle's “romantic vagaries,” as she called them, began to exert the dormant humour by which she always quenched his little ebullitions. Olive at last considerately came to the rescue, and proposed an evening stroll about the garden, to which Lyle gladly assented.
There he still talked of her departure, but his affectations were now broken by real feeling.
“I shall miss you bitterly,” he said, in a low tone; “but if your health needs change, and this journey is for your good, of course I would not think of myself at all.”
—The very expressions she had herself used to Harold! This coincidence touched her, and she half reproached herself for feeling so coldly to all her kind friends, and chiefly to Lyle Derwent, who evidently regarded her with much affection. But all other affections grew pale before the one great love. Every lesser tie that would fain come in the place of that which was unattainable, smote her with only a keener pain.
Still, half remorsefully, she looked on her old favourite, and wished that she could care for him more. So thinking, her manner became gentler than usual, while that of Lyle grew more earnest and less dreamy.
“I wish you would write to me while you are away, Miss Rothesay; or, at all events, let me write to you.”
“That you may; and I shall be so glad to hear all about Harbury and Farnwood.” Here she paused, half-shaming to confess to herself that for this reason chiefly would she welcome the letters of poor Lyle.
“Is that all? Will you not care to hear aboutme? Oh, Miss Rothesay,” cried Lyle, “I often wish I was again a little boy in the dear old garden at Oldchurch.”
“Why so?”
“Because—because”—and the quick blood rose in his cheek. “No, no, I cannot tell you now; but perhaps I may, some time.”
“Just as you like,” answered Olive, absently. Her thoughts, wakened by the long-silent name, were travelling over many years; back to her old home, her happy girlhood. She almost wished she had died then, while she was young. But her mother!
“No, I am glad I lived to comforther.” she mused. “Perhaps it may be true that none ever leave earth until they are no longer needed there. So I will even patiently live on.”
Unable to talk more with Lyle, Olive re-entered the Parsonage. Harold sat reading.
“Have you long come in?” she asked in a somewhat trembling voice.
He answered, “About an hour.”
“I did not see you enter.”
“It was not likely; you were engaged with my brother-in-law. Therefore I would not disturb you, but took my book.”
He spoke in the abrupt, cold manner he sometimes used. Olive thought something had happened to annoy him. She sat down and talked with him until the cloud passed away.
Many times during the evening Lyle renewed his lamentations over Miss Rothesay's journey; but Harold never uttered one word of regret. When Olive departed, however, he offered to accompany her home.
“Nay—it is such a rainy night—perhaps”——
“Very well, since you choose it so,” and he sat down again. But Olive saw she had wounded his pride,onlyhis pride; she said this to her heart, to keep down its unconscious thrill. She replied, hesitatingly:
“Still, as we shall not have many more walks together, if”——
“I will come,” he said, smiling.
And he came. Moreover, he contrived to keep her beside him. Lyle, poor fellow, went whistling in solitude down the other side of the road, until at the Dell he said goodnight, and vanished.
Harold had talked all the way on indifferent subjects, never once alluding to Olive's departure. He did so now, however, but carelessly, as if with an accidental thought.
“I wonder whether you will return before I leave Har-bury—that is, if I should really go. I should like to see you once again. Well, chance must decide.”
Chance! when she would have controlled all accidents, provided against all hindrances, woven together all purposes, to be with him for one single day!
At once the thought broke through the happy spell which, for the time, his kindness had laid upon her. She felt that it wasonlykindness; and as such he meant it, no more! In his feelings was not the faintest echo of her own. A sense of womanly pride arose, and with it a cruel pang of womanly shame. These lasted while she bade him good-night, somewhat coldly; then both sank at once, and there remained to her nothing but helpless sorrow.
She listened for the last sound of his footsteps down the road. But she heard them not; and thought, half-sighing, how quickly he must have walked away!
A very few days intervened between Miss Rothesay's final decision and her departure. During this time, she only once saw Harold Gwynne. She thought he might have met her a little oftener, seeing they were so soon to part. But he did not; and the pain it gave warned her that all was happening for the best. Her health failing, her cheerful spirit broken, even her temper growing embittered with this mournful struggle, she saw that in some way or other it must be ended. She was thankful that all things had arranged themselves so plainly before her.
There was planned no farewell meeting at the Parsonage; but Mrs. Gwynne spent at the Dell the evening before Olive's departure. Harold would have come, his mother said, but he had some important matters to arrange; he would, however, appear some time that evening. However, it grew late, and still his welcome knock was not heard. At last one came; it was only Lyle, who called to bid Miss Rothesay good-bye. He did so dolorously enough, but Olive scarcely felt any pain.
“It is of no use waiting,” said Mrs. Gwynne. “I think I will go home with Lyle—that is, if he will take my son's place for the occasion. It is not quite right of Harold; he does not usually forget his mother.”
Olive instinctively hinted some excuse. She was ever prone to do so, when any shadow of blame fell on Harold.
“You are always good, my dear. But still he might have come, even for the sake of proper courtesy to you.”
Courtesy!
Mrs. Gwynne entreated Olive to call at the Parsonage on her journey next morning. It would not hinder her a minute. Little Ailie was longing for one good-bye, and perhaps she might likewise see Harold. Miss Rothesay assented. It would have been hard to go away without one more look at him—one more clasp of his hand.
Yet both seemed denied her. When Olive reached the Parsonage, he was not there. He had gone out riding, little Ailie thought; no one else knew anything about him.
“It was very wrong and unkind,” said Mrs. Gwynne in real annoyance.
“Oh, no, not at all,” was all that Olive murmured. She took Ailie on her knee, and hid her face upon the child's curls.
“Ah, dear Miss Rothesay, you must come back soon,” whispered the little girl. “We can't do without you. We have all been much happier since you came to Harbury; papa said so, last night.”
“Did he?”
“Yes; when I was crying at the thought of your going away, and he came to my little bed, and comforted me, and kissed me. Oh, you don't know how sweet papa's kisses are! Now, I get so many of them. Before he rode out this morning he gave me half-a-dozen here, upon my eyes, and said I must learn all you taught me, and grow up a good woman, just like you. What! are you crying? Then I will cry too.”
Olive laid her thin cheek to the rosy one of Harold's daughter; she wept, but could not speak.
“What kisses you are giving me, dear Miss Rothesay, and just where papa gives me them, too. How kind! Ah, I love you—I love you dearly.”
“God bless and take care of you, my dear child—almost as dear as though you had been born my own,” was Mrs. Gwynne's farewell, as she bestowed on Olive one of her rare embraces. And then the parting was over.
Closing her eyes—her heart;—striving to make her thoughts a blank, and to shut out everything save the welcome sense of blind exhaustion that was creeping over her, Olive lay back in the carriage, and was whirled from Harbury.
She had a long way to go across the forest-country until she reached the nearest railway-station. When she arrived, it was already late, and she had barely time to take her seat ere the carriages started. That moment her quick ear caught the ringing of a horse's hoofs, and as the rider leaped on the platform she saw it was Harold Gwynne. He looked round eagerly—more eagerly than she had ever seen him look before. The train was already moving, but they momently recognised each other, and Harold smiled—his own frank affectionate smile. It fell like a sunburst upon Olive Rothesay.
Her last sight of him was as he stood with folded arms, intently watching the winding northward line. Then, feeling that this had taken away half her pain, she was borne upon her solitary journey.