There is not a more hackneyed subject for poetic enthusiasm than
that sight--perhaps the loveliest in nature--a young mother with her
first-born child. And perhaps because it is so lovely, and is ever
renewed in its beauty, the world never tires of dwelling thereupon.
Any poet, painter, or sculptor, would certainly have raved about Mrs.
Rothesay, had he seen her in the days of convalescence, sitting at the
window with her baby on her knee. She furnished that rare sight--and
one that is becoming rarer as the world grows older--an exquisitely
beautiful woman. Would there were more of such!--that the idea of
physical beauty might pass into the heart through the eyes, and bring
with it the ideal of the soul's perfection, which our senses can
only thus receive. So great is this influence--so unconsciously do we
associate the type of spiritual with material beauty, that perhaps the
world might have been purer and better if its onward progress in what
it calls civilisation had not so nearly destroyed the fair mould of
symmetry and loveliness which tradition celebrates.
It would have done any one's heart good only to look at Sybilla
Rothesay. She was a creature to watch from a distance, and then to go
away and dream of, wondering whether she were a woman or a spirit. As
for describing her, it is almost impossible--but let us try.
She was very small in stature and proportions--quite a little fairy. Her
cheek had the soft peachy hue of girlhood; nay, of very childhood. You
would never have thought her a mother. She lay back, half-buried in the
great armchair; and then, suddenly springing up from amidst the cloud of
white muslins and laces that enveloped her, she showed her young, blithe
face.
“I will not have that cap, Elspie; I am not an invalid now, and I don't
choose to be an old matron yet,” she said, in a pretty, wilful way,
as she threw off the ugly ponderous production of her nurse's active
fingers, and exhibited her beautiful head.
It was, indeed, a beautiful head! exquisite in shape, with masses
of light-brown hair folded round it. The little rosy ear peeped out,
forming the commencement of that rare and dainty curve of chin and
throat, so pleasant to an artist's eye. A beauty to be lingered over
among all other beauties. Then the delicately outlined mouth, the lips
folded over in a lovely gravity, that seemed ready each moment to melt
away into smiles. Her nose--but who would destroy the romance of a
beautiful woman by such an allusion? Of course, Mrs. Rothesay had a
nose; but it was so entirely in harmony with the rest of her face,
that you never thought whether it were Roman, Grecian, or aquiline. Her
eyes--
“She has two eyes, so soft and brown--
She gives a side-glance and looks down.”
But was there a soul in this exquisite form? You never asked--you hardly
cared! You took the thing for granted; and whether it were so or not,
you felt that the world, and yourself especially, ought to be thankful
for having looked at so lovely an image, if only to prove that earth
still possessed such a thing as ideal beauty; and you forgave all the
men, in every age, that have run mad for the same. Sometimes, perchance,
you would pause a moment, to ask if this magic were real, and remember
the calm holy airs that breathed from the presence of some woman,
beautiful only in her soul. But then you never would have looked upon
Sybilla Rothesay as a woman at all--only a flesh-and-blood fairy--a
Venus de Medici transmuted from the stone.
Perhaps this was the way in which Captain Angus Rothesay contrived to
fall in love with Sybilla Hyde; until he woke from the dream to find his
seraph of beauty--a baby-bride, pouting like a vexed child, because,
in their sudden elopement, she had neither wedding-bonnet nor Brussels
veil!
And now she was a baby-mother; playing with her infant as, not so very
long since, she had played with her doll; twisting its tiny fingers, and
making them close tightly round her own, which were quite as elfin-like,
comparatively. For Mrs. Rothesay's surpassing beauty included beautiful
hands and feet; a blessing which Nature--often niggardly in her
gifts--does not always extend to pretty women, but bestows it on those
who have infinitely more reason to be thankful for the boon.
“See, nurse Elspie,” said Mrs. Rothesay, laughing in her childish way;
“see how fast the little creature holds my finger! Really, I think a
baby is a very pretty thing; and it will be so nice to play with until
Angus comes home.”
Elspie turned round from the corner where she sat sewing, and looked
with a half-suppressed sigh at her master's wife, whose delicate English
beauty, and quick, ringing English voice, formed such a strong contrast
to herself, and were so opposed to her own peculiar prejudices. But
she had learned to love the young creature, nevertheless; and for the
thousandth time she smothered the half-unconscious thought that Captain
Angus might have chosen better.
“Children are a blessing frae the Lord, as maybe ye'll see, ane o'
these days, Mrs. Rothesay,” said Elspie, gravely; “ye maun tak' them as
they're sent, and mak' the best o' them.”
Mrs. Rothesay laughed merrily. “Thank you, Elspie, for giving me such a
solemn speech, just like one of my husband's. To put me in mind of him,
I suppose. As if there were any need for that! Dear Angus! I wonder
what he will say to his little daughter when he sees her; the new Miss
Rothesay, who has come in opposition to the old Miss Rothesay,--ha! ha!”
“The auld Miss Rothesay! She's your husband's aunt,” observed Elspie,
feeling it necessary to stand up for the honour of the family. “Miss
Flora was a comely leddy ance, as a' the Rothesays were.”
“And this Miss Rothesay will be too, I hope, though she is such a
little brown thing now. But people say that the brownest babies grow the
fairest in time, eh, nurse?”
“They do say that,” replied Elspie, with another and a heavier sigh; as
she bent closer over her work.
Mrs. Rothesay went on in her blithe chatter. “I half wished for a boy,
as Captain Rothesay thought it would please his uncle; but that's of
no consequence. He will be quite satisfied with a girl, and so am I.
Of course she will be a beauty, my dear little baby!” And with a deeper
mother-love piercing through her childish pleasure, she bent over the
infant; then took it up, awkwardly and comically enough, as though it
were a toy she was afraid of breaking, and rocked it to and fro on her
breast.
Elspie started up. “Tak' tent, tak' tent! ye'll hurt it, maybe, the puir
wee----Oh, what was I gaun to say!”
“Don't trouble yourself,” said the young mother, with a charming
assumption of matronly dignity; “I shall hold the baby safe. I know all
about it.”
And she really did succeed in lulling the child to sleep; which was no
sooner accomplished than she recommenced her pleasant musical chatter,
partly addressed to her nurse, but chiefly the unconscious overflow of a
simple nature, which could not conceal a single thought.
“I wonder what I shall call her--the darling! We must not wait until her
papa comes home. She can't be 'baby' for three years. I shall have to
decide on her name myself. Oh, what a pity! I, who never could
decide anything. Poor dear Angus! he does all--he had even to fix
the wedding-day!” And her musical laugh--another rare charm that she
possessed--caused Elspie to look round with mingled pity and affection.
“Come, nurse, you can help me, I know. I am puzzling my poor head for
a name to give this young lady here. It must be a very pretty one. I
wonder what Angus would like? A family name, perhaps, after one of those
old Rothesays that you and he make so much of.”
“Oh, Mrs. Rothesay! And are ye no proud o' your husband's family?”
“Yes, very proud; especially as I have none of my own. He took me--an
orphan, without a single tie in the wide world--he took me into his warm
loving arms”--here herm voice faltered, and a sweet womanly tenderness
softened her eyes. “God bless my noble husband! I _am_ proud of him, and
of his people, and of all his race. So come,” she added, her childish
manner reviving, “tell me of the remarkable women in the Rothesay family
for the last five hundred years--you know all about them, Elspie. Surely
we'll find one to be a namesake for my baby.”
Elspie--pleased and important--began eagerly to relate long traditions
about the Lady Christina Rothesay, who was a witch, and a great friend
of “Maister Michael Scott,” and how, with spells, she caused her seven
step-sons to pine away and die; also the lady Isobel, who let her lover
down from her bower-window with the long strings of her golden hair, and
how her brother found and slew him;--whence she laid a curse on all the
line who had golden hair, and such never prospered, but died unmarried
and young.
“I hope the curse has passed away now,” gaily said the young mother,
“and that the latest scion will not be a golden-tressed damsel. Yet look
here”--and she touched the soft down beneath her infant's cap, which
might, by a considerable exercise of imagination, be called hair--“it is
yellow, you see, Elspie! But I'll not believe your tradition. My child
shall be both beautiful and beloved.”
Smitten with a sudden pang, poor Elspie cried, “Oh, my leddy, dinna
think o' the future. Dinna!”---- and she stopped, confused.
“Really, how strange you are. But go on. We'll have no more Christinas
nor Isobels.”
Hurriedly, Elspie continued to relate the histories: of noble Jean
Rothesay, who died by an arrow aimed at her husband's heart; and Alison,
her sister, the beauty of James the Fifth's reckless court, who was “no
gude;” and Mistress Katharine Rothesay, who hid two of the “Prince's”
soldiers after Culloden, and stood with a pair of pistols before their
bolted door.
“Nay, I'll have none of these--they frighten me,” said Sybilla, “I
wonder I ever had courage to marry the descendant of such awful women.
No! my sweet innocent! you shall not be christened after them,” she
continued, stroking the baby cheek with her soft finger. “You shall
not be like them at all, except in their beauty. And they were all
handsome--were they, Elspie?”
“Ne'er a ane o' the Rothesay line, man or woman, that wasna fair to
see.”
“Then so will my baby be!--like her father, I hope--or just a little
like her mother, who is not so very ugly, either; at least, Angus says
not.” And Mrs. Rothesay drew up her tiny figure, patted one dainty
hand--the wedded one--with its fairy fellow; then--touched perhaps with
a passing melancholy that he who most prized her beauty, and for whose
sake she most prized it herself, was far away--she leaned back and
sighed.
However, in a few minutes, she cried out, her words showing how light
and wandering was the reverie, “Elspie, I have a thought! The baby shall
be christened Olive!”
“It's a strange, heathen name, Mrs. Rothesay.”
“Not at all. Listen how I chanced to think of it. This very morning,
just before you came to waken me, I had such a queer, delicious dream.”
“Dream! Are ye sure it was i' the morning-tide?” cried Elspie, aroused
into interest.
“Yes; and so it certainly means something, you will say, Elspie? Well,
it was about my baby. She was then lying fast asleep in my bosom,
and her warm, soft breathing soon sent me to sleep too. I dreamt that
somehow I had gradually let her go from me, so that I felt her in my
arms no more, and I was very sad, and cried out how cruel it was for any
one to steal my child, until I found I had let her go of my own accord.
Then I looked up, after awhile, and saw standing at the foot of the bed
a little angel--a child-angel--with a green olive-branch in its hand.
It told me to follow; so I rose up, and followed it over a wide desert
country, and across rivers and among wild beasts; but at every peril
the child held out the olive-branch, and we passed on safely. And when I
felt weary, and my feet were bleeding with the rough journey, the little
angel touched them with the olive, and I was strong again. At last we
reached a beautiful valley, and the child, said, 'You are quite safe
now.' I answered, 'And who is my beautiful comforting angel?' Then the
white wings fell off, and I only saw a sweet child's face, which bore
something of Angus's likeness and something of my own, and the little
one stretched out her hands and said, 'Mother!'”
While Mrs. Rothesay spoke, her thoughtless manner had once more softened
into deep feeling. Elspie watched her with wondering eagerness.
“It was nae dream; it was a vision. God send it true!” said the old
woman, solemnly.
“I know not. Angus always laughed at my dreams, but I have a strange
feeling whenever I think of this. Oh, Elspie, you can't tell how sweet
it was! And so I should like to call my baby Olive, for the sake of
the beautiful angel. It may be foolish--but 'tis a fancy of mine. Olive
Rothesay! It sounds well, and Olive Rothesay she shall be.”
“Amen; and may she be an angel to ye a' her days. And ye'll mind o' the
blessed dream, and love her evermair. Oh, my sweet leddy, promise me
that ye will!” cried the nurse, approaching her mistress's chair, while
two great tears stole down her hard cheeks.
“Of course I shall love her dearly! What made you doubt it? Because I am
so young? Nay, I have a mother's heart, though I am only eighteen. Come,
Elspie, do let us be merry; send these drops away;” and she patted the
old withered face with her little hand. “Was it not you who told me the
saying, 'It's ill greeting ower a new-born wean'? There! don't I succeed
charmingly in your northern tongue?”
What a winning little creature she was, this young wife of Angus
Rothesay! A pity he had not seen her--the old Highland uncle, Miss
Flora's brother, who had disinherited his nephew and promised heir for
bringing him a _Sassenach_ niece.
“A charming scene of maternal felicity! I am quite sorry to intrude upon
it,” said a bland voice at the door, as Dr. Johnson put in his shining
bald head.
Mrs. Rothesay welcomed him in her graceful, cordial way. She was so
ready to cling to every one who showed her kindness--and he had
been very kind; so kind that, with her usual quick impulses, she had
determined to stay and live at Stirling until her husband's return from
Jamaica. She told Dr. Johnson so now; and, moreover, as an earnest of
the friendship which she, accustomed to be loved by every one, expected
from him, she requested him to stand godfather to her little babe.
“She shall be christened after our English fashion, doctor, and her name
shall be Olive. What do you think of her now? Is she growing prettier?”
The doctor bowed a smiling assent, and walked to the window. Thither
Elspie followed him.
“Ye maun tell her the truth--I daurna. Ye will!” and she clutched his
arm with eager anxiety. “An' oh! for Gudesake, say it safyly, kindly.”
He shook her off with an uneasy look. He had never felt in a more
disagreeable position.
Mrs. Rothesay called him back again. “I think, doctor, her features are
improving. She will certainly be a beauty. I should break my heart if
she were not. And what would Angus say? Come--what are you and Elspie
talking about so mysteriously?”
“My dear madam--hem!” began Dr. Johnson. “I do hope--indeed, I am
sure--your child will be a good child, and a great comfort to both her
parents;”----
“Certainly--but how grave you are about it.”
“I have a painful duty--a very painful duty,” he replied. But Elspie
pushed him aside.
“Ye're just a fule, man!--ye'll kill her. Say your say at ance!”
The young mother turned deadly pale. “Say _what_ Elspie? What is he
going to tell me? Angus”----
“No, no, my darlin' leddy! your husband's safe;” and Elspie flung
herself on her knees beside the chair. “But, the lassie--(dinna fear,
for it's the will o' God, and a' for gude, nae doubt)--your sweet wee
dochter is”----
“Is, I grieve to say it, deformed,” added Dr. Johnson.
The poor mother gazed incredulously on him, on the nurse, and lastly on
the sleeping child. Then, without a word, she fell back, and fainted in
Espie's arms.