The tomb had scarcely closed over Captain Rothesay, when it was
discovered that his affairs were in a state of irretrievable confusion.
For months he must have lived with ruin staring him in the face.
His sudden death was then no mystery. The newspaper had startled him
with tidings--partly false, as afterwards appeared--of a heavy disaster
by sea, and the failure of his latest speculation at home. There seemed
lifted against him at once the hand of Heaven and of man. His proud
nature could not withstand the shock; shame smote him, and he died.
“Tell me only one thing!” cried Olive to Mr..Wyld, with whom, after
the funeral, she was holding conference--she only--for her mother was
incapable of acting, and this girl of sixteen was the sole ruler of
the household now. “Tell me only that my father died unblemished in
honour--that there are none to share misfortune with us, and to curse
the memory of the ruined merchant.”
“I know of none,” answered Mr. Wyld. “True, there are still remaining
many private debts, but they may be easily paid.” And he cast a meaning
glance round the luxuriously furnished room.
“I understand. It shall be done,” said Olive. Misery had made her very
wise--very quick to comprehend. Without shrinking she talked over every
matter connected with that saddest thing--a deceased bankrupt's sale.
The lawyer was a hard man, and Olive's prejudice against him was not
unfounded. Still the most stony heart has often a little softness buried
deep at its core. Mr. Wyld looked with curiosity, even with kindness, on
the young creature who sat opposite to him, in the dim lamp-light of the
silent room, once Captain Rothesay's study. Her cheek, ever delicate,
was now of a dull white; her pale gold hair fell neglected over her
black dress; her hand supported her care-marked brow, as she pored over
dusty papers, pausing at times to speak, in a quiet, sensible, subdued
manner, of things fit only for old heads and worn hearts. Mr. Wyld
thought of his own merry daughters, whom he had left at home, and felt a
vague thankfulness that they were not as Olive Rothesay. Tenderness was
not in his nature; but in all his intercourse with her, he could not
help treating with a sort of reverence the dead merchant's forlorn
child.
When they had finished their conversation, he said, “There is one
matter--painful, too--upon which I ought to speak to you. I should have
done so before, but I did not know it myself until yesterday.”
“Know what? Is there more trouble coming?” answered Olive, sighing
bitterly. “But tell me all.”
“_All_, is very little. You know, my dear Miss Rothesay, that your
father was speechless from the moment of his seizure. But my wife, who
never quitted him--ah! I assure you she was a devoted nurse to him, was
Mrs. Wyld.”
“I thank her deeply, as she knows.”
“My wife has just told me, that a few minutes before his death your poor
father's consciousness returned; that he seemed struggling in vain to
speak; at last she placed a pencil in his hand, and he wrote--one word
only, in the act of writing which he died. Forgive me, my dear young
lady for thus agitating you, but”----
“The paper--give me the paper!”
Mr. Wyld pulled out his pocket-book, and produced a torn and blotted
scrap, whereon was written, in characters scarcely legible, the name
“Harold.”
“Do you know any one who bears that name, Miss Rothesay?”
“No. Yes--one,” added she, suddenly remembering that the name of Sara's
husband was Harold Gwynne. But between him and her father she knew of no
single tie. It must be a mere chance coincidence.
“What is to be done?” cried Olive. “Shall I tell my mother?”
“If I might advise, I would say decisively, No! Better leave the matter
in my hands. Harold!--'tis a boy's name,” he added, meditatively. “If it
were a girl's now--I executed a little commission for Captain Rothesay
once.”
“What did you say?” asked Olive, looking up at him with her innocent
eyes. He could not meet them; his own fell confused.
“What did I say, Miss Rothesay? Oh, nothing--nothing at all; only that
if I had a commission--to--to hunt out this secret.”
“I thank you, Mr. Wyld; but a daughter would not willingly employ
any third person to 'hunt out' her father's secret. His papers will
doubtless inform me of everything; therefore we will speak no more on
this subject.”
“As you will” He gathered up his blue bag and its voluminous contents,
and made his adieux.
But Olive had scarcely sat down again, and with her head leaning on her
father's desk, had given vent to a sigh of relief, in that she was freed
from Mr. Wyld's presence, when the old lawyer again appeared.
“Miss Rothesay, I merely wished to say, if ever you find out--any
secret--or need any advice about that paper, or anything else, I'm the
man to give it, and with pleasure in this case. Good evening!”
Olive thanked him coldly, somewhat proudly, for what she thought a piece
of unnecessary impertinence. However, it quickly passed from her gentle
mind; and then, as the best way to soothe all her troubles, she quitted
the study, and sought her mother.
Of Mrs. Rothesay's affliction we have as yet said little. Many and
various are earth's griefs; but there must be an awful individuality
in the stroke which severs the closest human tie, that between two whom
marriage had made “one flesh.” And though in this case coldness had
loosened the sacred tie, still no power could utterly divide it, while
life endured. Angus Rothesay's widow remembered that she had once been
the loved and loving bride of his youth. As such, she mourned him; nor
was her grief without that keenest sting, the memory of unatoned wrong.
From the dim shores of the past, arose ghosts that nothing could ever
lay, because death's river ran eternally between.
Sybilla Rothesay was one of those women whom no force of circumstances
can ever teach self-dependence or command. She had looked entirely to
her husband for guidance and control, and now for both she looked to her
child. From the moment of Captain Rothesay's death, Olive seemed to rule
in his stead--or rather, the parent and child seemed to change
places. Olive watched, guided, and guarded the passive, yielding,
sorrow-stricken woman, as with a mother's care; while Mrs. Rothesay
trusted implicitly in all things to her daughter's stronger mind, and
was never troubled by thinking or acting for herself in any one thing.
This may seem a new picture of the maternal and filial bond, but it
is frequently true. If we look around on those daughters who have best
fulfilled the holy duty, without which no life is or can be blest, are
they not women firm, steadfast--able to will and to act? Could not many
of them say, “I am a mother unto my mother. I, the strongest now, take
her in her feeble age, like a child, to my bosom--shield her, cherish
her, and am to her all in all.”
And so, in heart, resolved Olive Rothesay. She had made that vow when
her mother lay insensible in her arms; she kept it faithfully; until
eternity, closing between them, sealed it with that best of earth's
blessings--the blessing that falls on a duteous daughter, whose mother
is with God.
When Captain Rothesay's affairs were settled, the sole wreck of his
wealth that remained to his widow and child was the small settlement
from Mrs. Rothesay's fortune, on which she had lived at Stirling. So
they were not left in actual poverty.
Still, Olive and her mother were poor--poor enough to make them desire
to leave prying, gossiping Oldchurch, and settle in the solitude of some
great town. “There,” Olive said to herself, “I shall surely find
means to work for her--that she may have not merely necessaries, but
comforts.”
And many a night--during the few weeks that elapsed before their home
was broken up--she lay awake by her sleeping mother's side, planning all
sorts of schemes; arranging everything, so that Mrs. Rothesay might not
be annoyed with arguings or consultations. When all was matured, she
had only to say, “Dearest mother, should we not be very happy living
together in London?” And scarcely had Mrs. Rothesay assented, than she
found everything arranged itself, as under an invisible fairy hand--so
that she had but to ask, “My child, when shall we go?”
The time of departure at last arrived. It was the night but one before
the sale. Olive persuaded her mother to go to rest early; for she
herself had a trying duty to perform--the examining of her father's
private papers. As she sat in his study--in solitude and gloom--the
young girl might have been forgiven many a pang of grief, even a shudder
of superstitious fear. But Heaven had given her a hero-soul, not the
less heroic because it was a woman's.
Her father's business-papers she had already examined; these were only
his private memoranda. But they were few,--Captain Rothesay's thoughts
never found vent in words; there were no data of any kind to mark the
history of a life, which was almost as unknown to his wife and daughter
as to any stranger. Of letters, she found very few; he was not a man who
loved correspondence. Only among these few she was touched deeply to
see some, dated years back, at Stirling. Olive opened one of them. The
delicate hand was that of her mother when she was young. Olive only
glanced at the top of the page, where still smiled, from the worn,
yellow paper, the words, “My dearest, dearest Angus;” and then, too
right-minded to penetrate further, folded it up again. Yet, she felt
glad; she thought it would comfort her mother to know how carefully he
had kept these letters. Soon after she found a memento of herself--a
little curl, wrapped in silver-paper, and marked with his own hand,
“Olive's hair.” Her father had loved her then--ay, and more deeply than
she knew.
The chief thing which troubled Olive was the sight of the paper on which
her father's dying hand had scrawled “Harold.” No date of any kind had
been found to explain the mystery. She determined to think of the matter
no more, but to put the paper by in a secret drawer.
In doing so, she found a small packet, carefully tied and sealed. She
was about to open it, when the superscription caught her eyes. Thereon
she read her father's written desire that it should after his death be
burnt unopened.
His faithful daughter, without pausing to think, threw the packet on
the fire; even turning aside, lest the flames, while destroying, should
reveal anything of the secret. Only once, forgetting herself, the
crackling fire made her start and turn, and she caught a momentary
glimpse of some curious foreign ornament; while near it, twisted in the
flame into almost life-like motion, was what seemed a long lock of black
hair. But she could be certain of nothing; she hated herself for even
that involuntary glance. It seemed an insult to the dead.
Still more did these remorseful feelings awake, when, her task being
almost done, she found one letter addressed thus:
“For my daughter, Olive. Not to be opened till her mother is dead, and
she is alone in the world.”
Alone in the world! His fatherly tenderness had looked forward, then,
even to that bitter time--far off, she prayed God!--when she would be
alone--a woman no longer young, without parents, husband, or child, or
smiling home. She doubted not that her father had written this letter to
counsel and comfort her at such a season of desolation, years after he
was in the dust.
His daughter blessed him for it; and her tender tears fell upon words
which he had written, as she saw by the date outside, on that
night--the last he ever spent at home. She never thought of breaking
his injunction, or of opening the letter before the time; and after
considering deeply, she decided that it was too sacred even for the ear
of her mother, to whom it would only give pain. Therefore she placed it
in the private drawer of her father's desk--now her own--to wait until
time should bring about the revealing of this solemn secret between her
and the dead.
Then she went to bed, wearied and worn; and creeping close to her
slumbering mother, thanked God that there was one warm living bosom to
which she could cling, and which would never cast her out.
O mother! O daughter! who, when time has blended into an almost sisterly
bond the difference of years, grow together, united, as it were, in one
heart and one soul by that perfect love which is beyond even “honour”
and “obedience,” because including both--how happy are ye! How blessed
she, who, looking on her daughter--woman grown--can say, “Child, thou
art bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, as when I brought thee into
the world!” And thrice blessed is she who can answer, “Mother, I am all
thine own--I desire no love but thine--I bring to thee my every joy; and
my every grief finds rest on thy bosom.”
Let those who have this happiness rejoice! Let those who only have
its memory pray always that God would make that memory live until the
eternal meeting, at the resurrection of the just!