Next morning Captain Rothesay and his wife sat together by the fireside,
where she had so often sat alone. Sybilla seemed in high spirits--her
love was ever exuberant in expression--and the moment her husband seemed
serious she sprang on his knee and looked playfully in his face.
“Just as much a child as ever, I see,” said Angus Rothesay, with a
rather wintry smile.
And then, looking in his face by daylight, Sybilla had opportunity to
see how changed he was. He had become a grave, middle-aged man. She
could not understand it. He had never told her of any cares, and he was
little more than thirty. She felt almost vexed at him for growing so
old; nay, she even said so, and began to pull out a few grey hairs that
defaced the beauty of his black curls.
“You shall lecture me presently, my dear,” said Captain Rothesay. “You
forget that I had two welcomes to receive, and that I have not yet seen
my little girl.”
He had not indeed. His eager inquiries after Olive overnight had been
answered by a pretty pout, and several trembling, anxious speeches about
“a wife being dearer than a child.” “Baby was asleep, and it was so
very late--he might, surely, wait till morning.” To which, though rather
surprised, he assented. A few more caresses, a few more excuses, had
still further delayed the terrible moment; until at last the father's
impatience would no longer be restrained.
“Come, Sybilla, let us go and see our little Olive.”
“O Angus!” and the mother turned deadly white.
Captain Rothesay seemed alarmed. “Don't trifle with me, Sybilla--there
is nothing the matter? The child is not ill?”
“No; quite well.”
“Then, why cannot Elspie bring her?” and he pulled the bell violently.
The nurse appeared. “My good Elspie, you have kept me waiting quite long
enough; do let me see my little girl.”
Elspie gave one glance at the mother, who stood mute and motionless,
clinging to the chair for support. In that glance was less compassion
than a sort of triumphant exultation. When she quitted the room Sybilla
flung herself at her husband's feet. “Angus, Angus, only say you forgive
me before”----
The door opened and Elspie led in a little girl. By her stature she
might have been two years old, but her face was like that of a child of
ten or twelve--so thoughtful, so grave. Her limbs were small and wasted,
but exquisitely delicate. The same might be said of her features; which,
though thin, and wearing a look of premature age, together with that
quiet, earnest, melancholy cast peculiar to deformity, were yet regular,
almost pretty. Her head was well-shaped, and from it fell a quantity
of amber-coloured hair--pale “lint-white locks,” which, with the almost
colourless transparency of her complexion, gave a spectral air to her
whole appearance. She looked less like a child than a woman dwarfed into
childhood; the sort of being renowned in elfin legends, as springing
up on a lonely moor, or appearing by a cradle-side; supernatural, yet
fraught with a nameless beauty. She was dressed with the utmost care,
in white, with blue ribands; and her lovely hair was arranged so as to
hide, as much as possible, the defect, which, alas! was even then only
too perceptible. It was not a hump-back, nor yet a twisted spine; it
was an elevation of the shoulders, shortening the neck, and giving the
appearance of a perpetual stoop. There was nothing disgusting or
painful in it, but still it was an imperfection, causing an instinctive
compassion--an involuntary “Poor little creature, what a pity!”
Such was the child--the last daughter of the ever-beautiful Rothesay
line--which Elspie led to claim the paternal embrace. Olive looked up
at her father with her wistful, pensive eyes, in which was no childish
shyness--only wonder. He met them with a gaze of frenzied unbelief. Then
his fingers clutched his wife's arm with the grasp of an iron vice.
“Tell me! Is that--that miserable creature--our daughter, Olive
Rothesay?”
She answered, “Yes.” He shook her off angrily, looked once more at the
child, and then turned away, putting his hand before his eyes, as if to
shut out the sight.
Olive saw the gesture. Young as she was, it went deep to her child's
soul. Elspie saw it too, and without bestowing a second glance on her
master or his wife, she snatched up the child and hurried from the room.
The father and mother were left alone--to meet that crisis most fatal to
wedded happiness, the discovery of the first deceit Captain Rothesay
sat silent, with averted face; Sybilla was weeping--not that repentant
shower which rains softness into a man's heart, but those fretful tears
which chafe him beyond endurance.
“Sybilla, come to me!” The words were a fond husband's words: the tone
was that of a master who took on himself his prerogative. Never had
Angus spoken so before, and the wilful spirit of his wife rebelled.
“I cannot come. I dare not even look at you. You are so angry.”
His only answer was the reiterated command, “Sybilla, come!” She crept
from the far end of the room, where she was sobbing in a fear-stricken,
childish way, and stood before him. For the first time she recognised
her husband, whom she must “obey.” Now, with all the power of his roused
nature, he was teaching her the meaning of the word. “Sybilla,” he said,
looking sternly in her face, “tell me why, all these years, you have put
upon me this cheat--this lie!”
“Cheat!--lie! Oh, Angus! What cruel, wicked words!”
“I am sorry I used them, then. I will choose a lighter term--deceit. Why
did you so _deceive_ your husband?”
“I did not mean it,” sobbed the young wife. “And this is very unkind of
you, Angus! As if Heaven had not punished me enough in giving me that
miserable child!”
“Silence! I am not speaking of the child, but of you; my wife, in whom
I trusted; who for five long years has wilfully deceived me. Why did you
so?”
“Because I was afraid--ashamed. But those feelings are past now,” said
Sybilla, resolutely. “If Heaven made me mother, it made you father to
this unhappy child. You have no right to reproach me.”
“God forbid! No, it is not the misfortune--it is the falsehood which
stings me.”
And his grave, mournful tone, rose into one of bitter anger. He paced
the room, tossed by a passion such as his wife had never before seen.
“Sybilla!” he suddenly cried, pausing before her; “you do not know what
you have done. You little think what my love has been, nor against how
much it has struggled these five years. I have been true to you--ay, to
the depth of my heart And you to me have been--not wholly true.”
Here he was answered by a burst of violent hysterical weeping. He longed
to call for feminine assistance to this truly feminine ebullition, which
he did not understand. But his pride forbade. So he tried to soothe
his wife a little with softer words, though even these seemed somewhat
foreign to his lips, after so many long-parted years.
“I did not mean to pain you thus deeply, Sybilla. I do not say that you
have ceased to love me!”
Would that Sybilla had done as her first impulse taught her; have clung
about him, crying “Never! never!” murmuring penitent words, as a tender
wife may well do, and in such humility be the more exalted! But she had
still the wayward spirit of a petted child. Fancying she saw her husband
once more at her feet, she determined to keep him there. She wept on,
refusing to be pacified.
At last Angus rose from her side, dignified and cold, his new, not his
old self; the lover no more, but the quiet, half-indifferent husband.
“I see we had better not talk of these things until you are more
composed--perhaps, indeed, not at all. What is past--is past, and cannot
be recalled.”
“Angus!” She looked up, frightened at his manner. She determined to
conciliate him a little. “What do you want me to do? To say I am sorry?
That I will--but,” with an air of coquettish command, “you must say so
too.”
The jest was ill-timed; he was in too bitter a mood. “Excuse me--you
exact too much, Mrs. Rothesay.”
“_Mrs. Rothesay!_ Oh, call me Sybilla, or my heart will break!” cried
the young creature, throwing herself into his arms. He did not repulse
her; he even looked down upon her with a melting, half-reproachful
tendernes.
“How happy we might have been! How different had been this coming home
if you had only trusted me, and told me all from the beginning.”
“Have you told _me_? Is there nothing you have kept back from me these
five years?”
He started a little, and then said resolutely, “Nothing, Sybilla! I
declare to Heaven--nothing! save, perhaps, some trifles that I would at
any time tell you; now, if you will.”
“Oh no! some other time, I am too much exhausted now,” murmured Sybilla,
with an air of languor, half real, half feigned, lest perchance she
should lose what she had gained. In the sweetness of this reconciled
“lovers' quarrel,” she had almost forgotten its hapless cause. But
Angus, after a pause of deep and evidently conflicting thoughts,
referred to the child.
“She is ours still. I must not forget that. Shall I send for her again?”
he said, as if he wished to soothe the mother's wounded feelings.
Alas! in Sybilla's breast the fountain of mother's feeling was as yet
all sealed. “Send for Olive!” she said, “oh no! Do not, I implore you.
The very sight of her is a pain to me. Let us two be happy together, and
let the child be left to Elspie.”
Thus she said, thinking not only to save herself, but him, from
what must be a constant pang. Little she knew him, or guessed the
after-effect of her words.
Angus Rothesay looked at his wife, first with amazement, then with cold
displeasure. “My dear, you scarcely speak like a mother. You forget
likewise that you are speaking to a father. A father who, whatever
affection may be wanting, will never forsake his duty. Come, let us go
and see our child.”
“I cannot--I cannot!” and Sybilla hung back, weeping anew.
Angus Rothesay looked at his wife--the pretty wayward idol of his
bridegroom-memory--looked at her with the eyes of a world-tried,
world-hardened man. She regarded him too, and noted the change which
years had brought in her boyish lover of yore. His eye wore a fretful
reproach--his brow, a proud sorrow.
He walked up to her and clasped her hand. “Sybilla, take care! All these
years I have been dreaming of the wife and mother I should find here at
home; let not the dream prove sweeter than the reality.”
Sybilla was annoyed--she, the spoilt darling of every one, who knew
not the meaning of a harsh word. She answered, “Don't let us talk so
foolishly.”
“You think it foolish? Well, then! we will not speak in this
confidential way any more. I promise, and you know I always keep my
promises.”
“I am glad of it,” answered Sybilla. But she lived to rue the day when
her husband made this one promise.
At present, she only felt that the bitter secret was disclosed, and
Angus' anger overpast. She gladly let him quit the room, only pausing
to ask him to kiss her, in token that all was right between them. He did
so, kindly, though with a certain pride and gravity--and departed. She
dared not ask him whether it was to see again their hapless child.
What passed between the father and mother whilst they remained shut
up together there, Elspie thought not-cared not. She spent the time in
passionate caresses of her darling, in half-muttered ejaculations, some
of pity some of wrath. All she desired was to obliterate the impression
which she saw had gone deeply to the child's heart. Olive wept not--she
rarely did; it seemed as though in her little spirit was a pensive
repose, above either infant sorrow or infant fear. She sat on her
nurse's knee, scarcely speaking, but continually falling into those
reveries which we see in quiet children even at that early age, and
never without a mysterious wonder, approaching to awe. Of what can these
infant musings be?
“Nurse,” said the child, suddenly fixing on Elspie's face her large
eyes, “was that my papa I saw?”
“It was just himsel, my sweet wee pet,” cried Elspie, trying to stop her
with kisses; but Olive went on.
“He is not like mamma--he is great and tall, like you. But he did not
take up and kiss me, as you said he would.”
Elspie had no answer for these words--spoken in a tone of quiet pain--so
unlike a child. It is only after many years that we learn to suffer and
be silent.
Was it that nature, ever merciful, had implanted in this poor girl,
as an instinct, that meek endurance which usually comes as the painful
experience of after-life?
A similar thought passed through Elspie's mind, while she sat with
little Olive at the window, where, a few years ago, she had stood
rocking the new-born babe in her arms, and pondering drearily on
its future. That future seemed still as dark in all outward
circumstances--but there was one ray of hope, which centred in the
little one herself. There was something in Olive which passed Elspie's
comprehension. At times she looked almost with an uneasy awe on the
gentle, silent child who rarely played, who wanted no amusing, but would
sit for hours watching the sky from the window, or the grass and waving
trees in the fields; who never was heard to laugh, but now and then
smiled in her own peculiar way--a smile almost “uncanny,” as Elspie
expressed it. At times the old Scotswoman--who, coming from the
debateable ground between Highlands and Lowlands, had united to the
rigid piety of the latter much wild Gaelic superstition--was half
inclined to believe that the little girl was possessed by some spirit.
But she was certain it was a good spirit; such a darling as Olive
was--so patient, and gentle, and good--more like an angel than a child.
If her misguided parents did but know this! Yet Elspie, in her secret
heart, was almost glad they did not. Her passionate and selfish love
could not have borne that any tie on earth, not even that of father or
mother, should stand between her and the child of her adoption.
While she pondered, there came a light knock to the door, and Captain
Rothesay's voice was heard without--his own voice, soothed down to its
soft, gentleman-like tone; it was a rare emotion, indeed, could deprive
it of that peculiarity.
“Nurse, I wish to see Miss Olive Rothesay.”
It was the first time that formal appellation had ever been given to the
little girl. Still it was a recognition. Elspie heard it with joy. She
answered the summons, and Captain Rothesay walked in.
We have never described Olivet father--there could not be a better
opportunity than now. His tall, active form--now subsiding into the
muscular fulness of middle age--was that of a Hercules of the mountains.
The face combined Scottish beauties and Scottish defects, which,
perhaps, cease to be defects when they become national peculiarities.
There was the eagle-eye: the large, but well-chiselled features--
especially the mouth; and also there was the high cheek-bone, the rugged
squareness of the chin, which, while taking away beauty, gave character.
When he came nearer, one could easily see that the features of the
father were strangely reflected in those of the child. Altered the
likeness was--from strength into feebleness--from manly beauty into
almost puny delicacy; but it did exist, and, faint as it was, Elspie
perceived it.
Olive was looking up at the clouds, her thin cheek resting against the
embrasure of the window, gazing so intently that she never seemed to
hear her father's voice or step. Elspie motioned him to walk softly, and
they came behind the child.
“Do ye no see, Captain Angus,” she whispered, “'tis your ain bonnie
face--ay, and your Mither's. Ye mind her yet?”
Captain Rothesay did not answer, but looked earnestly at his little
daughter. She, turning round, met his eyes. There was something in their
expression which touched her, for a rosy colour suffused her face; she
smiled, stretched out her little hands, and said “Papa!”
How Elspie then prided herself for the continual tutoring which had made
the image of the absent father an image of love!
Captain Rothesay started from his reverie at the sound of the child's
voice. The tone, and especially the word, broke the spell. He felt once
more that he was the father, not of the blooming little angel that he
had pictured, but of this poor deformed girl. However, he was a man in
whom a stern sense of right stood in the place of many softer virtues.
He had resolved on his duty--he had come to fulfil it--and fulfil it he
would. So he took the two little cold hands, and said--
“Papa is glad to see you, my dear.”
There was a silence, during which Elspie placed a chair for Captain
Rothesay, and Olive, sliding quietly down from hers, came and stood
beside him. He did not offer to take the two baby-hands again, but did
not repulse them, when the little girl laid them on his knee, looking
inquiringly, first at him, and then at Elspie.
“What does she mean?” said Captain Rothesay.
“Puir bairn! I tauld her, when her father was come hame, he wad tak' her
in his arms and kiss her.”
Rothesay looked angrily round, but recollected himself. “Your nurse was
right, my dear.” Then pausing for a moment, as though arming himself for
a duty--repugnant, indeed, but necessary--he took his daughter on his
knee, and kissed her cheek--once, and no more. But she, remembering
Elspie's instructions, and prompted by her loving nature, clung about
him, and requited the kiss with many another. They melted him visibly.
There is nothing sweeter in this world than a child's unasked voluntary
kiss!
He began to talk to her--uneasily and awkwardly--but still he did it.
“There, that will do, little one! What is your name, my dear?” he said
absently.
She answered, “Olive Rothesay.” “Ay--I had forgotten! The name at least,
she told me true.” The next moment, he set down the child--softly but as
though it were a relief.
“Is papa going?” said Olive, with a troubled look.
“Yes; but he will come back to-morrow. Once a day will do,” he added
to himself. Yet, when his little daughter lifted her mouth for another
kiss, he could not help giving it.
“Be a good child, my dear, and say your prayers every night, and love
nurse Elspie.”
“And papa too, may I?”
He seemed to struggle violently against some inward feeling, and then
answered with a strong effort, “Yes.”
The door closed after him abruptly. Very soon Elspie saw him walking
with hasty strides along the beautiful walk that winds round the foot of
the castle rock. The nurse sat still for a long time thinking, and then
ended her ponderings with her favourite phrase,
“God guide us! it's a' come richt at last.”
Poor, honest, humble soul!