The return of the husband and father produced a considerable change in
the little family at Stirling. A household, long composed entirely of
women, always feels to its very foundations the incursion of one of the
“nobler sex.” From the first morning when there resounded the multiplied
ringing of bells, and the creaking of boots on the staircase, the glory
of the feminine dynasty was departed. Its easy _laisser-aller_, its
lax rule, and its indifference to regular forms were at an end. Mrs.
Rothesay could no longer indulge her laziness--no breakfasting in
bed, and coming down in curl-papers. The long gossiping visits of her
thousand-and-one acquaintances subsided into frigid morning calls,
at which the grim phantom of the husband frowned from a corner and
suppressed all idle chatter. Sybilla's favourite system of killing time
by half-hours in various idle ways, at home and abroad, was terminated
at once. She had now to learn how to be a duteous wife, always ready
at the beck and call of her husband, and attentive to his innumerable
wants.
She was quite horrified by these at first. The captain actually
expected to dine well and punctually, every day, without being troubled
beforehand with “What he would like for dinner?” He listened once
or twice, patiently too, to her histories of various small domestic
grievances, and then requested politely that she would confine such
details to the kitchen in future; at which poor Mrs. Rothesay retired
in tears. He liked her to stay at home in the evening, make his tea,
and then read to him, or listen while he read to her. This was the more
arduous task of the two, for dearly as she loved to hear the sound of
his voice.
Sybilla never could feel interested in the prosy books he read, and
often fell half asleep; then he always stopped suddenly, sometimes
looked cross, sometimes sad; and in a few minutes he invariably lighted
her candle, with the gentle hint that it was time to retire. But often
she woke, hours after, and heard him still walking up and down below, or
stirring the fire perpetually, as a man does who is obliged to make the
fire his sole companion.
And then Sybilla's foolish, but yet loving heart, would feel itself
growing sad and heavy; her husband's image, once painted there in such
glittering colours, began to fade. The real Angus was not the Angus of
her fancy. Joyful as was his coming home, it had not been quite what she
expected. Else, why was it that at times, amidst all her gladness, she
thought of their olden past with regret, and of their future with doubt,
almost fear.
But it was something new for Sybilla to think at all. It did her good in
spite of herself.
While these restless elements of future pain were smouldering in the
parents, the little neglected, unsightly blossom, which had sprung up
at their feet, lived the same unregarded, monotonous life as heretofore.
Olive Rothesay had attained to five years, growing much like a primrose
in the field, how, none knew or cared, save Heaven. And that Heaven
did both know and care, was evident from the daily sweetness that was
stealing into this poor wayside flower, so that it would surely one day
be discovered through the invisible perfume which it shed.
Captain Rothesay kept to his firm resolve of seeing his little daughter
in her nursery, once a day at least. After a while, the visit of a few
minutes lengthened to an hour. He listened with interest to Elspie's
delighted eulogiums on her beloved charge, which sometimes went so far
as to point out the beauty of the child's wan face, with the assurance
that Olive, in features at least, was a true Rothesay. But the father
always stopped her with a dignified, cold look.
“We will quit that subject, if you please.”
Nevertheless, guided by his rigid sense of a parent's duty, he showed
all kindness to the child, and his omnipotent way over his wife exacted
the same consideration from the hitherto indifferent Sybilla. It might
be, also, that in her wayward nature, the chill which had unconsciously
fallen on the heart of the wife, caused the mother's heart to awaken And
then the mother would be almost startled to see the response which this
new, though scarcely defined tenderness, created in her child.
For some months after Captain Rothesay's return, the little family lived
in the retired old-fashioned dwelling on the hill of Stirling. Their
quiet round of uniformity was only broken by the occasional brief
absence of the head of the household, as he said, “on business.”
_Business_ was a word conveying such distaste, if not horror, to
Sybilla's ears, that she asked no questions, and her husband volunteered
no information. In fact, he rarely was in the habit of doing so--whether
interrogated or not.
At last, one day when he was sitting after dinner with his wife and
child--he always punctiliously commanded that “Miss Rothesay” might be
brought in with the dessert--Angus made the startling remark:
“My dear Sybilla, I wish to consult with you on a subject of some
importance.”
She looked up with a pretty, childish surprise.
“Consult with me! O Angus! pray don't tease me with any of your hard
business matters; I never could understand them.”
“And I never for a moment imagined you could. In fact, you told me so,
and therefore I have never troubled you with them, my dear,” was the
reply, with just the slightest shade of satire. But its bitterness
passed away the moment Sybilla jumped up and came to sit down on the
hearth at his feet, in an attitude of comical attention. Thereupon he
patted her on the head, gently and smilingly, for he was a fond husband
still, and she was such a sweet plaything for an idle hour.
A plaything! Would that all women considered the full meaning of the
term--a thing sighed for, snatched, caressed, wearied of, neglected,
scorned! And would also, that every wife knew that her fate depends less
on what her husband makes of her, than what she makes herself to him!
“Now, Angus, begin--I am all attention.”
He looked one moment doubtfully at Olive, who sat in her little chair at
the farther end of the room, quiet, silent, and demure. She had beside
her some purple plums, which she did not attempt to eat, but was playing
with them, arranging them with green leaves in a thousand graceful ways,
and smiling to herself when the afternoon sunlight, creeping through the
dim window, rested upon them and made their rich colour richer still.
“Shall we send Olive away?” said the mother.
“No, let her stay--she is of no importance.”
The parents both looked at the child's pale, spiritual face, felt the
reproach it gave, and sighed. Perhaps both father and mother would
have loved her, but for a sense of shame in the latter, and the painful
memory of deceit in the former.
“Sybilla,” suddenly resumed Captain Rothesay, “what I have to say is
merely, how soon you can arrange to leave Stirling?”
“Leave Stirling?”
“Yes; I have taken a house.”
“Indeed! and you never told me anything about it,” said Sybilla, with a
vexed look.
“Now, my little wife, do not be foolish; you never wish to hear about
business, and I have taken you at your word; you cannot object to that?”
But she could, and she had a thousand half-pouting, half-jesting
complaints to urge. She put them forth rather incoherently; in fact,
she talked for five minutes without giving her husband opportunity for a
single word. Yet she loved him dearly, and had in her heart no objection
to being saved the trouble of thinking beforehand; only she thought it
right to stand up a little for her conjugal prerogative.
He listened in perfect silence. When she had done, he merely said, “Very
well, Sybilla; and we will leave Stirling this day month. I have decided
to live in England. Oldchurch is a very convenient town, and I have no
doubt you will find Merivale Hall an agreeable residence.”
“Merivale Hall. Are we really going to live in a Hall?” cried Sybilla,
clapping her hands with childish glee. But immediately her face changed.
“You must be jesting with me, Angus. I don't know much about money, but
I know we are not rich enough to keep up a Hall.”
“We _were_ not, but we are now, I am happy to say,” answered Captain
Rothesay, with some triumph.
“Rich! very rich! and you never told me?” Sybilla's hands fell on
her knee, and it was doubtful which expression was dominant in her
countenance--womanly pain, or womanly indignation.
Angus looked annoyed. “My dear Sybilla, listen to me quietly--yes,
quietly,” he added, seeing how her colour came and went, and her lips
seemed ready to burst out into petulant reproach. “When I left England,
I was taunted with having run away with an heiress. That I did not do,
since you were far poorer than the world thought--and I loved little
Sybilla Hyde for herself and not for her fortune. But the taunt stung
me, and, when I left you, I resolved never to return until I could
return a rich man on my own account. I am such now. Are you not glad,
Sybilla?”
“Glad--glad to have been kept in the dark like a baby--a fool! It was
not proper treatment towards your wife, Angus,” was the petulant answer,
as Sybilla drew herself from his arm, which came as a mute peacemaker to
encircle her waist.
“Now you are a child indeed. I did it from love--believe me or not, it
was so--that you might not be pained with the knowledge of my struggles,
toils, and cares. And was not the reward, the wealth, all for you?”
“No; it wasn't.”
“Pray, hear reason, Sybilla!” her husband continued, in those quiet,
unconcerned tones, which, to a woman of quick feelings and equally quick
resentments, were sure to add fuel to fire.
“I will not hear reason. When you have these four years been rolling in
wealth, and your wife and child were--O Angus!” and she began to weep.
Captain Rothesay tried at first, by explanations and by soothings, to
stop the small torrent of fretful tears and half-broken accusations. All
his words were misconstrued or misapplied. Sybilla would not believe but
that he had slighted, ill-used, _deceived_ her.
At the term the husband rose up sternly.
“Mrs. Rothesay, who was it that deceived me?”
He pointed to the child, and the glance of both rested on little Olive.
She sat, her graceful playthings fallen from her hands, her large soft
eyes dilated with such a terrified wonder, that both father and mother
shrank before them. That fixed gaze of the unconscious child seemed like
the reproachful look of some angel of innocence sent from a purer world.
There was a dead silence. In the midst of it the little one crept from
her corner, and stood between her parents, her little hands stretched
out, and her eyes full of tears.
“Olive has done nothing wrong? Papa and mamma, you are not angry with
poor little Olive?”
For the first time, as she looked into the poor child's face, there
flashed across the mother's memory the likeness of the angel in her
dream. She pressed the thought back, almost angrily, but it came again.
Then Sybilla stooped down, and, for the only time since her babyhood,
Olive found herself lifted to her mother's embrace.
“The child had better go away to bed,” said Captain Rothesay.
Olive was carried out nestling closely in her mother's arms.
When Sybilla came back the angry pout had passed away, though a grave
troubled shadow still remained. She made tea for her husband, tried to
talk on common topics once or twice, but he gave little encouragement.
Before retiring to rest, she said to him, timidly,
“There is no quarrel between us, Angus?”
“Not in the least, my dear,” he answered, with that composed deprecation
of any offence, given or received, which is the most painful check to
an impulsive nature; “only, we will not discuss matters of business
together again. Women never can talk things over quietly. Good-night,
Sybilla.”
He lifted his head a little, a very little, for her accustomed kiss. She
gave it, but with it there came a sigh. He scarcely noticed either one
or the other, being apparently deep in a large folio “Commentary on the
Proverbs,” for it was Sunday evening. He lingered for a whole hour over
the last chapter, and chiefly the passages,--
“Who can find a virtuous woman;
for her price is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her:
so that he shall have no need of spoil....
She openeth her mouth with wisdom:
and in her tongue is the law of kindness.”
At this, Captain Rothesay closed the book, laid his arms upon it; and
sighed--O how heavily! He did not go to bed that night until his young
wife had lain awake for hours, regretting and resolving; nor until,
after many determinations of future penitence and love, she had at last
wept herself to sleep for very sorrow.