Perhaps, ere following Olive's fortunes, it may be as well to set the
reader's mind at rest concerning the incident narrated in the preceding
chapter. It turned out the olden tale of passion, misery, and death. No
more could be made of it, even by the imaginative Miss Meliora.
A few words will comprise all that she discovered. Returning faithfully
next day, the kind little woman found that the object of her charity
needed it no more. In the night, suddenly, it was thought, the spirit
had departed. There was no friend to arrange anything; so Miss Vanbrugh
undertook it all. Her own unobtrusive benevolence prevented a pauper
funeral. But in examining the few relics of the deceased, she was
surprised to find papers which clearly explained the fact, that some
years before there had been placed in a London bank, to the credit of
Celia Manners, a sum sufficient to produce a moderate annuity. The woman
had rejected it, and starved.
But she had not died without leaving a written injunction, that it
should be claimed by the child Christal, since it was “her right.” This
was accomplished, to the great satisfaction of Miss Vanbrugh and of
the honest banker, who knew that the man--what sort of man he had quite
forgotten--who deposited the money, had enjoined that it should be paid
whenever claimed by Celia or by Christal Manners.
Christal Manners was then the child's name. Miss Vanbrugh might have
thought that this discovery implied the heritage of shame, but for the
little girl's obstinate persistence in the tale respecting her unknown
father and mother, who were “a noble gentleman and grand lady,” and had
both been drowned at sea. The circumstance was by no means improbable,
and it had evidently been strongly impressed on Christal by the woman
she called _ma mie_. Whatever relationship there was between them, it
could not be the maternal one. Miss Vanbrugh could not believe in the
possibility of a mother thus voluntarily renouncing her own child.
Miss Meliora put Christal to board with an old servant of hers for a
few weeks. But there came such reports of the child's daring and unruly
temper, that, quaking under her responsibility, she decided to send
her _protégée_ away to school The only place she could think of was an
old-fashioned _pension_ in Paris, where, during her brother's studies
there, her own slender education had been acquired. Thither the little
stranger was despatched, by means of a succession of contrivances which
almost drove the simple Meliora crazy. For--lest her little adventure of
benevolence should come to Michael's ears--she dared to take no one into
her confidence, not even the Rothesays. Madame Blandin, the mistress
of the _pension_, was furnished with no explanations; indeed there
were none to give. The orphan appeared there under the character she so
steadily sustained, as Miss Christal Manners, the child of illustrious
parents lost at sea; and so she vanished altogether from the atmosphere
of Woodford Cottage.
Olive Rothesay was now straining every nerve towards the completion of
her first exhibited picture--a momentous crisis in every young artist's
life. It was March: always a pleasant month in this mild, sheltered,
neighbourhood, where she had made her home. There, of all the regions
about London, the leaves come earliest, the larks soonest begin to sing,
and the first soft spring breezes blow. But nothing could allure Olive
from that corner of their large drawing-room which she had made her
studio, and where she sat painting from early morning until daylight was
spent. The artist herself formed no unpleasing picture--at least so her
fond mother often thought--as Olive stood before her easel, the light
from the half-closed-up window slanting downwards on her long curls, of
that rare pale gold, the delight of the ancient painters, and now the
especial admiration of Michael Vanbrugh To please her master, Olive,
though now a woman grown, wore her hair still in childish fashion,
falling in most artistic confusion over her neck and shoulders. It
seemed that nature had bestowed on her this great beauty, in order to
veil that defect which, though made far less apparent by her maturer
growth, and a certain art in dress, could never be removed. Still there
was an inexpressible charm in her purely-outlined features to which the
complexion always accompanying pale-gold hair imparted such a delicate,
spiritual colouring. Oftentimes her mother sat and looked at her,
thinking she beheld the very likeness of the angel in her dream.
March was nearly passed. Olive's anxiety that the picture should be
finished, and worthily finished, amounted almost to torture. At last,
when there was but one week left--a week whose every hour of daylight
must be spent in work, the hope and fear were at once terminated by
her mother's sudden illness. Passing it was, and not dangerous; but to
Olive's picture it brought a fatal interruption.
The tender mother more than once begged her to neglect everything but
the picture. But Olive refused. Yet it cost her somewhat--ay, more than
Mrs. Rothesay could understand, to give up a year's hopes. She felt this
the more when came the Monday and Tuesday for sending in pictures to the
Academy.
Heavily these days passed, for there was not now the attendance on the
invalid to occupy Olive's mind. She was called hither and thither all
over the house; since on these two days, for the only time in the
year, there was at Woodford Cottage a _levée_ of artists, patrons,
and connoisseurs. Miss Rothesay was needed everywhere; first in the
painting-room, to assist in arranging its various treasures, her taste
and tact assisting Mr. Vanbrugh's artistic skill. For the thousandth
time she helped to move the easel that sustained the small purchaseable
picture with which Michael this year condescended to favour the
Academy; and admired, to the painter's heart's content, the beloved and
long-to-be-unsold “Alcestis,” which extended in solitary grandeur over
one whole side of the studio. Then she flitted to Miss Vanbrugh's room,
to help her to dress for this important occasion. Never was there such
a proud, happy little woman as Meliora Vanbrugh on the first Monday and
Tuesday in April, when at least a dozen carriages usually rolled
down the muddy lane, and the great surly dog, kennelled under the
mulberry-tree, was never silent “from morn till dewy eve.” All, thought
the delighted Meliora, was an ovation to her brother. Each year she
fully expected that these visiting patrons would buy up every work
of Art in the studio, to say nothing of those adorning the hall--the
cartoons and frescoes of Michael's long-past youth. And each year,
when the carriages rolled away, and the visitants admiration remained
nothing _but_ admiration, she consoled herself with the thought that
Michael Vanbrugh was “a man before his age,” but that his time for
appreciation would surely come. So she hoped on till the next April.
Happy Meliora!
“Yes, you do seem happy, Miss Vanbrugh,” said Olive, when she had
coaxed the stiff grizzled hair under a neat cap of her own skilful
manufacturing; and the painter's little sister was about to mount guard
in the bay-window of the parlour, from whence she could see the guests
walk down the garden, and be also ready to mark the expression of their
faces as they came out of the studio.
“Happy! to be sure I am! Everybody must confess that this last is
the best picture Michael ever painted”--(his sister had made the same
observation every April for twenty years). “But, my dear Miss Rothesay,
how wrong I am to talk so cheerfully to you, when _your_ picture is not
finished. Never mind, love. You have been a good, attentive daughter,
and it will end all for the best.”
Olive smiled faintly, and said she knew it would.
“Perhaps,” continued Meliora, as a new and consolatory idea struck
her, “perhaps even if you had sent in the picture, it might have been
returned, or put in the octagon room, or among the miniatures, where
nobody could see it; and that would have been much worse, would it not?”
“I suppose so; and, indeed, I will be quite patient and content.”
Patient she was, but not content. It was scarcely possible. Nevertheless
she quitted Miss Vanbrugh with smiles; and when she again sought her
mother's chamber, it was with smiles too--or, at least, with that
soft sweetness which was in Olive like a smile. When she had left Mrs.
Rothesay to take her afternoon's sleep, she thought what she was to do
to pass away the hours that, in spite of herself, dragged very wearily.
This day was so different to what she had hoped. No eager delighted
“last touches” to her beloved picture; no exhibiting it in its best
light, in all the glory of the frame. It lay neglected below--she could
not bear to look at it. The day was clear and bright--just the sort of
day for painting; but Olive felt that the very sight of the poor picture
would be more than she could bear. She did not go near it, but put on
her bonnet and walked out.
“Courage! hope!” sang the larks to her, high up above the green lanes;
but her heart was too sad to hear them. A year, a whole year, lost!--a
whole year to wait for the next hope! And a year seems so long when one
has scarcely counted twenty. Afterwards, how fast it flies!
“Perhaps,” she said, her thoughts taking their colour from the general
weariness of her spirits, “perhaps Miss Vanbrugh was right, and I might
have had the picture returned. It cannot be very good, or it would
not have taken such long and constant labour. Genius, they say, never
toils--all comes by inspiration. It may be that I have no genius; well,
then, where is the use of my labouring to excel!--indeed, where is the
use of my living at all?”
“Alas! how little is known of the struggles of young, half-formed
genius! struggles not only with the world, but with itself; a hopeless,
miserable bearing-down; a sense of utter unworthiness and self-contempt.
At times, when the inner life, the soul's lamp, burns dimly, there rises
the piteous moan, 'Fool, fool! why strivest thou in vain? Thou hast
deceived thyself: thou art no better than any brainless ass that plods
through life.' And then the world grows so dull, and one's life seems so
worthless, that one would fain blot it out at once.”
Olive walked beneath this bitter cloud. She said to herself that if her
picture had been a work of genius, it would have been finished long ere
the time; and that if she were destined to be an artist, there would
not have come this cross. No! all fates were against her. She must be
patient and submit, but she felt as if she should never have courage to
paint again. And now, when her work had become the chief aim and joy of
her life, how hard this seemed!
She came home, drearily enough; for the sunny day had changed to rain,
and she was thoroughly wet. But even this was, as Meliora would have
expressed it, “for the best,” since it made her feel the sweetness of
having a tender mother to take off her dripping garments, and smooth her
hair, and make her sit down before the bright fire. And then Olive laid
her head in her mother's lap, and thought how wrong--nay, wicked--she
had been. She was thinking thus, even with a few quiet tears, when Miss
Meliora burst, like a stream of sunshine, into the room.
“Good news--good news!”
“What? Mr. Vanbrugh has sold his picture, as you hoped to Mr.----.”
“No, not yet!” and the least possible shadow troubled the sister's face:
“but perhaps he will. And, meanwhile, what think you? Something has
happened quite as good; at least for somebody else. Guess!”
“Indeed, I cannot!”
“He has sold _yours!_”
Olive's face flushed, grew white, and then she welcomed this first
success, as many another young aspirant to fame has done, by bursting
into tears. So did the easily-touched Mrs. Rothesay, and so did the kind
Miss Meliora, from pure sympathy. Never was good fortune hailed in a
more lachrymose fashion.
But soon Miss Vanbrugh, resuming her smiles, explained how she had
placed Olive's nearly-finished picture in her brother's studio, where
all the visitors had admired it; and one, a good friend to Art, and to
young, struggling artists, had bought it.
“My brother managed all, even to the payment. The full price you will
have when you have completed the picture. And, meanwhile, look here!”
She had filled one hand with golden guineas, and now poured a
Danäe-stream into Olive's lap. Then, laughing and skipping about like
a child, she vanished--the beneficent little fairy!--as swiftly as
Cinderella's godmother.
Olive sat mute, her eyes fixed on the “bits of shining gold,” which
seemed to look different to all other pieces of gold that she had ever
seen. She touched them, as if half-fearing they would melt away, or,
like elfin money, change into withered leaves. Then, brightly smiling,
she took them up, one by one and told them into her mother's lap.
“Take them, darling--my first earnings; and kiss me: kiss your happy
little girl!”
How sweet was that moment--worth whole years of after-fame! Olive
Rothesay might live to bathe in the sunshine of renown, to hear behind
her the murmur of a world's praise, but she never could know again the
bliss of laying at her mother's feet the first-fruits of her genius,
and winning, as its first and best reward, her mother's proud and happy
kiss.
“You will be quite rich now, my child.”
“_We_ will be,” said Olive, softly.
“And to think that such a great connoisseur as Mr.------ should choose
my Olive's picture. Ah! she will be a celebrated woman some time: I
always thought she would.”
“_I will!_” said the firm voice in Olive's heart, as, roused to
enthusiasm by this sweet first success, she felt stirring within her the
spirit whose pulses she could not mistake--woman, nay, girl as she was.
Thinking on her future, the future that, with Heaven's blessing, she
would nobly work out, her eye dilated and her breast heaved. And then
on that wildly-heaving bosom strayed a soft, warm hand: a tender voice
whispered, “My child!”
And Olive, flinging her arms round her mother's neck, hid her face
there, and was a simple, trembling child once more.
It was a very happy evening for them both, almost the happiest in their
lives. The mother formed a score of plans of expending this newly-won
wealth, always to the winner's benefit solely; but Olive began to look
grave, and at last said, timidly:
“Mamma, indeed I want for nothing; and for this money, let us spend it
in a way that will make us both most content. O mother! I can know no
rest until we have paid Mr. Gwynne.”
The mother sighed.
“Well, love, as you will. It is yours, you know; only, a little it pains
me that my child's precious earnings should go to pay that cruel debt.”
“But not that they should go to redeem my father's honour?” said Olive,
still gently. She had her will.
When her picture was finished, and its price received, Olive, with a
joyful heart, enclosed the sum to their long-silent creditor.
“His name does not look quite so fearful now,” she said, smiling,
when she was addressing the letter. “I can positively write it without
trembling, and perhaps I may not have to write it many times. If I grow
very rich, mamma, we shall soon pay off this debt, and then we shall
never hear any more of Harold Gwynne. Oh! how happy that would be!”
The letter went, and an answer arrived in due form, not to Mrs., but to
Miss Rothesay:
“Madam,--I thank you for your letter, and have pleasure in
cancelling a portion of my claim. I would fain cancel the
whole of it, but I must not sacrifice my own household to
that of strangers.
“Allow me to express my deep respect for a child so
honourably jealous over a father's memory, and to subscribe
myself,
“Your very obedient,
“Harold Gwynne.”
“He is not so stony-hearted after all, mamma,” said Olive, smiling.
“Shall I put this letter with the other; we had better keep them both?”
“Certainly, my dear.”
“Look, the envelope is edged and sealed with black.”
“Is it? Oh, perhaps he has lost his mother. I think I once heard your
poor papa say he knew her once. She must be now an old woman; still her
loss has probably been a grief to her son.”
“Most likely,” said Olive, hastily. She never could bear to hear of any
one's mother dying; it made her feel compassionately even towards Mr.
Gwynne; and then she quickly changed the subject.
The two letters were put by in her desk; and thus, for a season at
least, the Harbury correspondence closed.