OLIVE'S WORK
'Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
'Who through long days of labour
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
'Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.'--Longfellow.
'Aunt Milly, the book has come!'
Chriss's impetuous young voice roused Mildred from her reverie. Chriss's
eager footsteps, her shrill tone, broke in upon the stillness, driving
the gossamer threads of fancy hither and thither by the very impetus of
youthful noise and movement. Mildred's folded hands dropped apart--she
turned soft bewildered looks on the girl.
'What has come? I do not understand you,' she said, with a little laugh
at her own bewilderment.
'Aunt Milly, what are you thinking about? are you asleep or dreaming?'
demanded Chriss, indignantly; 'why the book--Olive's book, to be sure.'
'Has it come? My dear Chriss, how you startled me; if you had knocked,
it would have been different, but bursting in upon me like that.'
'One can't knock for ever,' grumbled Chriss, in an aggrieved voice. 'Of
course I thought you were asleep this hot afternoon; but to see you
sitting smiling to yourself, Aunt Milly, in that aggravating way and not
understanding when one speaks.'
'Hush! I understand you now,' returned Mildred, colouring; 'one gets
thinking sometimes, and----'
'Your thoughts must have been miles off, then,' retorted Chriss, with an
inquisitive glance that seemed to embarrass Mildred, 'if it took you all
that time to travel to the surface. Polly told me to fetch you, because
tea is ready, and then the books came--such a big parcel!--and Olive's
hand shook so that she could not undo the knots, and so she cut the
string, and Cardie scolded her.'
'It was not much of a scolding, I expect.'
'Quite enough to bring Mr. Marsden to the rescue. "How can you presume
to reprimand a poetess," he said, quite seriously; you should have heard
Dr. John laugh. Look here, he has sent you these roses, Aunt Milly,'
drawing from under her little silk apron a delicious bouquet of roses
and maidenhair fern.
A pretty pink colour came into Mildred's cheeks.
'What beautiful roses! He must have remembered it was my birthday; how
kind of him, Chriss. I must come down and thank him.'
'You must wear some in honour of the occasion--do, Aunt Milly; this deep
crimson one will look so pretty on your gray silk dress; and you must
put on the silver locket, with the blue velvet, that we all gave you.'
'Nonsense,' returned Mildred, blushing; but Chriss was inexorable.
Dr. Heriot looked up for the minute fairly startled when Mildred came in
with her pink cheeks and her roses. Chriss's artful fingers, bent on
mischief, had introduced a bud among the thick braids; the pretty brown
hair looked unusually soft and glossy; the rarely seen dimple was in
full play.
'You have done honour to my roses, I see,' he said, as Mildred thanked
him, somewhat shyly, and joined the group round Olive.
The drawing-room table was heaped over with the new-smelling, little
green volumes. As Mildred approached, Olive held out one limp soft copy
with a hand that shook perceptibly.
'It has come at last, and on your birthday too; I am so glad,' she
whispered as Mildred kissed her.
A soft light was in the girl's eyes, two spots of colour burnt in her
usually pale cheeks, her hand closed and unclosed nervously on the arm
of her chair.
'There, even Marsden says they are beautiful, and he does not care much
for poetry,' broke in Richard, triumphantly. 'Livy, it has come to this,
that I am proud of my sister.'
'Hush, please don't talk so, Cardie,' remonstrated Olive with a look of
distress.
The spots of colour were almost hectic now, the smooth forehead furrowed
with anxiety; she looked ready to cry. This hour was full of sweet
torment to her. She shrank from this home criticism, so precious yet so
perilous: for the first time she felt afraid of the utterance of her own
written voice: if she only could leave them all and make her escape. She
looked up almost pleadingly at Hugh Marsden, whose broad shoulders were
blocking up the window, but he misunderstood her.
'Yes, I think them beautiful; but your brother is right, and I am no
judge of poetry: metrical thoughts always appear so strange, so puzzling
to me--it seems to me like a prisoned bird, beating itself against the
bars of measurement and metres, as though it tried to be free.'
'Why, you are talking poetry yourself,' returned Richard; 'that speech
was worthy of Livy herself.'
Hugh burst into one of his great laughs; in her present mood it jarred
on Olive. Aunt Milly had left her, and was talking to her father. Dr.
John was at the other end of the room, busy over his copy. Why would
they talk about her so? it was cruel of Cardie, knowing her as he did.
She made a little gesture, almost of supplication, looking up into the
curate's broad, radiant face, but the young man again misunderstood her.
'You must forgive me, I am sadly prosaic,' he returned, speaking now in
a lower key; 'these things are beyond me. I do not pretend to understand
them. That people should take the trouble to measure out their words and
thoughts--so many feet, so many lines, a missed adjective, or a halting
rhyme--it is that that puzzles me.'
'Fie, man, what heresy; I am ashamed of you!' broke in Richard,
good-humouredly; 'you have forfeited Livy's good opinion for ever.'
'I should be sorry to do that,' returned Hugh, seriously, 'but I cannot
help it if I am different from other people. When I was at college I
used to take my sisters to the opera, poor Caroline especially was fond
of it: do you know it gave me the oddest feeling. There was something
almost ludicrous to me in hearing the heroine of the piece trilling out
her woes with endless roulades; in real life people don't sing on their
deathbeds.'
'Listen to him,' returned Richard, taking him by the shoulders; 'what is
one to do with such a literal, matter-of-fact fellow? You ought to talk
to him, Livy, and bring him to a better frame of mind.'
But Hugh was not to be silenced; he stood up manfully, with his great
square shoulders blocking up the light, beaming down on Olive's
shrinking gravity like a gentle-hearted giant; he was one to make
himself heard, this big, clumsy young man. In spite of his boyish face
and loud voice, people were beginning to speak well of Hugh Marsden; his
youthful vigour and energy were waking up northern lethargy and fighting
northern prejudice. Was not the surpliced choir owing mainly to his
persevering efforts? and were not the ranks of the Dissenters already
thinned by that loud-voiced but persuasive eloquence of his?
Olive absolutely cowered under it to-night. Hugh had no idea how his
noisy vehemence was jarring on that desire for quiet, and a nice talk
with Aunt Mildred, for which she was secretly longing; and yet she and
Hugh were good friends.
'One can't help one's nature,' persisted Hugh, fumbling over the pages
of one of the little green books with his big hands as he spoke. 'In the
days of the primitive Church they had the gift of unknown tongues. I am
sure much of our modern poetry needs interpretation.'
'Worse and worse. He will vote your "Songs of the Hearth" a mass of
unintelligible rubbish directly.'
'You are too bad,' returned the young man with an honest blush; 'you
will incense your sister against me. What I really mean is,' sitting
down beside Olive and speaking so that Richard should not hear him,
'that poetry always seems to me more ornament than use. You cannot
really have felt and experienced all you have described in that
poem--"Coming Back," for example.'
'Hush, don't show it me,' returned Olive, hurriedly. 'I don't mind your
saying this, but you do not know--the feeling comes, and then the words;
these are thoughts too grand and deep for common forms of expression;
they seem to flow of themselves into the measure you criticise. Oh! you
do not understand----'
'No, but you can teach me to do so,' returned Hugh, quite gravely. He
had laid aside his vehemence at the first sound of Olive's quiet voice;
he had never lost his first impression of her,--he still regarded her
with a sort of puzzled wonder and reverence. A poetess was not much in
his line he told himself,--the only poetry he cared for was the Psalms,
and perhaps Homer and Shakespeare. Yes, they were grand fellows, he
thought; they could never see their like again. True, the 'Voices of the
Hearth' were very beautiful, if he could only understand them.
'One cannot teach these things,' replied Olive, with her soft, serious
smile.
As she answered Hugh she felt almost sorry for him, that this beautiful
gift had come to her, and that he could not understand--that he who
revelled in the good things of this life should miss one of its sweetest
comforts.
She wondered vaguely over the young clergyman's denseness all the
evening. Hugh had a stronger developed passion for music, and was
further endowed with a deep rich baritone voice. As Olive heard him
joining in the family glees, or beating time to Polly's nicely-executed
pieces, she marvelled all the more over this omitted harmony in his
nature. She had at last made her escape from the crowded,
brilliantly-lighted room, and was pacing the dark terrace, pondering
over it still when Mildred found her.
'Are you tired of us, Olive?'
'Not tired of you, Aunt Milly. I have scarcely spoken to you to-day, and
it is your birthday, too,' putting her arm affectionately round Mildred,
and half leaning against her. In her white dress Olive looked taller
than ever. Richard was right when he said Livy would make a fine woman;
she looked large and massive beside Mildred's slight figure. 'Dear Aunt
Milly, I have so wanted to talk to you all the evening, but they would
not let me.'
Mildred smiled fondly at her girl; during the last three years, ever
since her illness, she had looked on Olive as a sacred and special
charge, and as care begets tenderness as surely as love does love, so
had Olive's ailing but noble nature gained a larger share of Mildred's
warm affections than even Polly's brightness or Chriss's saucy piquancy
could win.
'Have you been very happy to-night, dear?' she asked, softly. 'Have you
been satisfied with Olive's ovation?'
'Oh, Aunt Milly! it has made me too glad; did you hear what Cardie said?
it made me feel so proud and so ashamed. Do you know there were actually
tears in papa's eyes when he kissed me.'
'We are all so proud of our girl, you see.'
'They almost make me cry between them. I wanted to get away and hide
myself, only Mr. Marsden would go on talking to me.'
'Yes, I heard him; he was very amusing; he is full of queer hobbies.'
'I cannot help being sorry for him, he must lose so much, you know;
poetry is a sort of sixth sense to me.'
'Darling, you must use your sweet gift well.'
'That is what I have been thinking,' laying her burning face against her
aunt's shoulders, as they both stood looking down at a glimmer of
shining water below them. 'Aunt Milly, do you remember what you said to
comfort me when I was so wickedly lamenting that I had not died?'
Mildred shook her head.
'I only know I lectured you soundly.'
'Oh! Aunt Milly, and they were such dear, wise words that you spoke,
too; you told me that perhaps God had some beautiful work for me to do
that my death would leave unfinished. Do you think' (speaking softly and
slowly) 'that I have found my work?'
'Dear, I cannot doubt it; no one who reads those lovely verses of yours
can dispute the reality of your gift. You have genius, Olive; why should
I seek to hide it?'
'Thank you, Aunt Milly. Your telling me will not make me proud; you need
not be afraid of that, dear. I am only so very, very grateful that I
have found my voice.'
'Your voice, Olive!'
'Ah, I have made you smile; but can you fancy what a dumb person would
feel if his tongue were suddenly loosed from its paralysis of silence,
what a flow and a torrent of words there would be?'
'Yes, the thought has often struck me when I have read the Gospels.'
'Aunt Milly, I think I have something of the same feeling. I have always
wanted to find expression for my thoughts--an outlet for them; it is a
new tongue, but not an unknown one, as Mr. Marsden half hinted.'
'Three years ago this same Olive who talks so sweetly to-night was full
of trouble at the thought of a new lease of life.'
'It was all my want of faith; it was weak, cowardly. I know it well
after all,' in a low voice; 'to-night was worth living for. I am not
sorry now, Aunt Milly.'
'What are you two talking about? I am come to pay my tribute to the
heroines of the night, and find them star-gazing,' broke in a familiar
voice.
A tall figure in shining raiment bore down upon them--a confused vision
of soft white draperies and gleaming jewels under a cashmere cloak.
'Ethel, is it you?' exclaimed Mildred, in an astonished voice.
'Yes, it is I, dear Mildred,' replied the crisp tones, while two soft
arms came out from the cloak and enveloped her. 'I suppose I ought to be
on the road to Appleby Castle, but I determined to snatch half an hour
to myself first, to offer my congratulations to you and this dear girl'
(kissing Olive). 'You are only a secondary light to-night, Mildred.'
'What! have you seen it?'
'Yes; my copy came last night. I sat up half the night reading it. You
have achieved a success, Olive, that no one else has; you have
absolutely drawn tears from my eyes.'
'I thought you never cried over books, Ethel,' in a mischievous tone
from Mildred.
'I am usually most strong-hearted, but the "Voices of the Hearth" would
have melted a flint. Olive, I never thought it would come to this, that
I should be driven to confess that I envied you.'
'Oh no, Ethel, not that, surely!'
'Ah, but I do! that this magnificent power should be given you to wield
over all our hearts, that you should sing to us so sweetly, that we
should be constrained to listen, that this girlish head should speak to
us so wisely and so well,' touching Olive's thick coils with fingers
that glittered in the moonlight.
'You must not praise her, or she will make her escape,' laughed Mildred,
with a glance at Olive's averted face; 'we have overwhelmed her already
with the bitter-sweet of home criticism, and by and by she will have to
run the gauntlet of severer, and it may be adverse, reviews.'
'Then she will learn to prize our appreciation. Olive, I am humiliated
when I think how utterly I have misunderstood you.'
'Why?' asked Olive, shyly, raising those fathomless dark eyes of hers to
Ethel's agitated face.
'I have always looked upon you as a gloomy visionary who held impossible
standards of right and wrong, and who vexed herself and others by
troublesome scruples; but I see now that Mildred was right.'
'Aunt Mildred always believes the best of every one,' interrupted Olive,
softly.
She was flattered and yet pleased by Ethel's evident agitation--why
would they all think so much of her? What had she done? The feelings had
always been there--the great aching of unexpressed thoughts; and now a
voice had been given her with which to speak them. It was all so simple
to Olive, so sacred, so beautiful. Why would they spoil it with all this
talk?
'Well, perhaps I had better not finish my sentence,' went on Ethel, with
a sigh; after all, it was a pity to mar that unconscious
simplicity--Olive would never see herself as others saw her; no fatal
egotism wrapped her round. She turned to Mildred with a little movement
of fondness as she dropped Olive's hand, and they all turned back into
the house.
'If I have nothing else, I have you,' she whispered, with a thrill of
mingled envy and grief that went to Mildred's heart.
The music and the conversation stopped as the door opened on the
dazzling apparition in the full light. Ethel looked pale, and there was
a heavy look round her eyes as though of unshed tears; her manner, too,
was subdued.
People said that Ethel Trelawny had changed greatly during the last few
years; the old extravagance and daring that had won such adverse
criticism had wholly gone. Ethel no longer scandalised and repelled
people; her vivacity was tempered with reserve now. A heavy cloud of
oppression, almost of melancholy, had quenched the dreamy egotism that
had led her to a one-sided view of things; still quaint and original,
she was beginning to learn the elastic measurement of a charity that
should embrace a fairer proportion of her fellow-creatures.
But the lesson was a hard one to her fastidiousness. It could not be
said even now that Ethel Trelawny had found her work in life, but
notwithstanding she worked hard. Under Mildred's loving tuition she no
longer looked upon her poorer neighbours with aversion or disgust, but
set herself in many ways to aid them and ameliorate their condition.
True the task was uncongenial and the labour hard, and the reward by no
means adequate, but at least she need no longer brand her self with
being a dreamer of dreams, or sigh that no human being had reason to
bless her existence.
A great yearning took possession of her as she stood in her gleaming
silks, looking round that happy domestic circle. Mr. Lambert had not as
yet stolen back to his beloved study, but sat in the bay-window,
discussing parish affairs with Dr. Heriot. Richard had challenged the
curate to a game of chess, and Chriss had perched herself on the arm of
her brother's chair, and was watching the game. Polly, in her white
dress, was striking plaintive chords with one hand and humming to
herself in a sweet, girlish voice.
'Check-mate; you played that last move carelessly, Marsden. Your knight
turned traitor!' cried Richard. His handsome profile cut sharply against
the lamplight, he looked cool, on the alert, while Hugh's broad face was
puckered and wrinkled with anxiety.
'Please do not let me interrupt you!' exclaimed Ethel, hurriedly, 'you
look all so comfortable. I only want to say good-night, every one,' with
a wave of her slim hand as she spoke.
Richard gave a start, and rose to his feet, as he regarded the queenly
young creature with her pale cheeks and radiant dress. A sort of perfumy
fragrance seemed to pervade him as she brushed lightly past him;
something subtle seemed to steal away his faculties. Had he ever seen
her look so beautiful?
Ethel stopped and gave him one of her sad, kind smiles.
'You do not often come to see us now, Richard. I think my father misses
you,' was all she said.
'I will come--yes--I will come to-morrow,' he stammered. 'I did not
think--you would miss me,' he almost added, but he remembered himself in
time.
His face grew stern and set as he watched her in the lamplight, gliding
from one to another with a soft word or two. Why was it her appearance
oppressed him to-night? he thought. He had often seen her dressed so
before, and had gloried in her loveliness; to-night it seemed
incongruous, it chilled him--this glittering apparition in the midst of
the family circle.
She looked more like the probable bride of Sir Robert Ferrers than the
wife of a poor curate, he told himself bitterly, as he watched her slow
lissom movements, the wavy undulating grace that was Ethel's chief
charm, and yet as he thought it he knew he wronged her. For the man she
could love, Ethel would pull off all her glistening gewgaws, put away
from her all the accessories that wealth could give her. Delighting in
luxury, revelling in it, it was in her to renounce it all without a
sigh.
Richard knew this, and paid her nobleness its just tribute even while he
chafed in his own moodiness. She would do all this, and more than this,
for the man she loved; but could she, would she, ever be brought to do
it for him?
When alone again with Mildred, Ethel threw her arms round her friend.
'Oh, Mildred! it seems worse than ever.'
'My poor dear.'
'Night after night he sits opposite to me, and we do not speak, except
to exchange commonplaces, and then he carps at every deviation of
opinion.'
'I know how dreadful it must be.'
'And then to be brought into the midst of a scene like that,' pointing
to the door they had just closed; 'to see those happy faces and to hear
all that innocent mirth,' as at that moment Polly's girlish laughter was
distinctly audible, with Hugh's pealing 'Ha, ha' following it; 'and then
to remember the room I have just left.'
'Hush, try to forget it, or the Sigourneys will wonder at your pale
face.'
'These evenings haunt me,' returned Ethel, with a sort of shudder. 'I
think I am losing my nerve, Mildred; but I feel positively as though I
cannot bear many more of them--the great dimly-lighted room; you know my
weakness for light; but he says it makes his head bad, and those lamps
with the great shades are all he will have; the interminable dinner
which Duncan always seems to prolong, the difficulty of finding a
subject on which we shall not disagree, and the dread of falling into
one of those dreadful pauses which nothing seems to break. Oh, Mildred,
may you never experience it.'
'Poor Ethel, I can understand it all so well.'
Ethel dried her eyes.
'It seems wrong to complain of one's father, but I have not deserved
this loss of confidence; he is trying my dutifulness too much.'
'It will not fail you. "Let patience have her perfect work," Ethel.'
'No, you must only comfort me to-night; I am beyond even your wise
maxims, Mildred. I wish I had not come, it makes me feel so sore, and
yet I could not resist the longing to see you on your birthday. See, I
have brought you a gift,' showing her a beautifully-chased cross in her
hand.
'Dear Ethel, how wrong; I have asked you so often not to overwhelm me
with your presents.'
'How selfish to deny me my one pleasure. I have thought about this all
day. We have had visitors, a whole bevy from Carlisle, and I could not
get away; and now I must go to that odious party at the Castle.'
'You must indeed not wait any longer, your friends will be wondering,'
remonstrated Mildred.
'Oh no, Mrs. Sigourney is always late. You are very unsociable to-night,
Mildred, just when I require so much.'
'I only wish I knew how to comfort you.'
'It comforts me to look into your face and hold your hand. Listen,
Mildred--to-night I was so hungry and desolate for want of a kind word
or look, that I grew desperate; it was foolish of me, but I could have
begged for it as a hungry dog will beg for a crumb.'
'What did you say?' asked Mildred, breathlessly.
'I went and stood by his chair when I ought to have left the room; that
was a mistake, was it not?' with a low, bitter laugh. 'I think I touched
his sleeve, for he drew it away with a look of surprise. "Papa," I said;
"I cannot bear this any longer. I do not feel as though I were your
child when you never look at me voluntarily."'
'And what was his answer?'
'"Ethel, you know I hate scenes, they simply disgust me."'
'Only that!'
'No. I was turning away when he called me back in his sternest manner.'
'"Your reproach is unseemly under the circumstances, but it shall be
answered," he said, and his voice was so hard and cold. "It is my
misfortune that you are my child, for you have never done anything but
disappoint me. Now, do not interrupt me," as I made some faint
exclamation. "I have not withheld my confidence; you know my ambition,
and also that I have lately sustained some very heavy losses; in default
of a son I have looked to you to retrieve our fortunes, but"--in such a
voice of withering scorn--"I have looked in vain."'
'Bitter words, my poor Ethel; my heart aches for you. What could such a
speech mean? Can it be true that he is really embarrassed?'
'Only temporarily; you know he dabbles in speculations, and he lost a
good deal by those mining shares last year; that was the reason why we
missed our usual London season. No, it is not that. You see he has never
relinquished the secret ambition of a seat in Parliament. I know him so
well; nothing can turn him from anything on which he has set his heart,
and either of those men would have helped him to compass his end.'
'He has no right to sacrifice you to his ambition.'
'You need not fear, I am no Iphigenia. I could not marry Sir Robert, and
I would not marry Mr. Cathcart. Thank Heaven, I have self-respect enough
to guard me from such humiliation. The worst is,' she hesitated, 'papa
is so quick that he found out how his intellect fascinated me; it was
the mere fascination of the moment, and died a natural death; but he
will have it I was not indifferent to him, and it is this that makes him
so mad. He says it is obstinacy, and nothing else.'
'Mr. Cathcart has not renewed his offer? forgive me,' as Ethel drew
herself up, and looked somewhat offended. 'You know I dread that man--so
sceptical--full of sophistry. Oh, my dear! I cannot help fearing him.'
'You need not,' with a sad smile; 'my heart is still in my own keeping.
No,' as Mildred's glance questioned her archly, 'I have been guilty of
nothing but a little hero-worship, but nevertheless,' she averred,
'intellect and goodness must go hand-in-hand before I can call any man
my master.'
'I shall not despair of you finding them together; but come, I will not
let you stay any longer, or your pale cheeks will excite comment. Let me
wrap this cloak round you--come.'
But Ethel still lingered.
'Don't let Richard know all this; he takes my unhappiness too much to
heart already; only ask him to come sometimes and break the monotony.'
'He will come.'
'Things always seem better when he is with us; he makes papa talk, and
much of the restraint seems removed. Well, good-night; this is sad
birthday-talk, but I could not keep the pain in.'
As Mildred softly closed the door she saw Richard beside her.
'What have you been talking about all this time?' he asked, anxiously.
'Only on the old sore subject. She is very unhappy, Richard; she wants
you to go oftener. You do her father good.'
'But she looked pale to-night. She is not in fresh trouble, is she, Aunt
Milly?'
'No, only the misunderstanding gets more every day; we must all do what
we can to lighten her load.'
Richard made no answer, he seemed thinking deeply; even after Mildred
left him he remained in the same place.
'One of these days she must know it, and why not now?' he said to
himself, and there was a strange concentrated light in his eyes as he
said it.