Never since her birth had Olive felt such a bewildering weight of pain,
as when she awoke to the full sense of that terrible secret which she
had learned from Harold Gwynne. This pain lasted, and would last, not
alone for an hour or a day, but perpetually. It gathered round her like
a mist. She seemed to walk blindfold, she knew not whither. Never to
her, whose spiritual sense was ever so clear and strong, had come the
possibility of such a mind as Harold's, a mind whose very eagerness for
truth had led it into scepticism. His doubts must be wrestled with,
not with the religion of precedent--not even with the religion of
feeling--but by means of that clear demonstration of reason which forces
conviction.
In the dead of night, when all was still--when the frosty moon cast an
unearthly light over her chamber, Olive lay and thought of these things.
Ever and anon she heard the striking of the clock, and remembered
with horror that it heralded the Sabbath morning, when she must go to
Har-bury Church--and hear, oh, with what feelings! the service read by
one who did not believe a single word he uttered. Not until now had she
so thoroughly realised the horrible sacrilege of Harold's daily life.
For a minute she felt as though to keep his secret were associating
herself with his sin.
But calmer thoughts enabled her to judge him more mercifully. She tried
to view his case not as with her own eyes, but as it must appear to him.
To one who disbelieved the Christian faith, the repetitions of its forms
could seem but a mere idle mummery. He suffered, not for having
outraged Heaven, but for having outraged his own conscience an agony of
self-humiliation which must be to him a living death. Then again there
awoke in Olive's heart a divine pity; and once more she dared to pray
that this soul, in which was so much that was true and earnest, might
not be cast out, but guided into the right way.
Yet, who should do it? He was, as he had said, drowning in a black abyss
of despair, and there was no human hand to save him--none, save that
feeble one of hers!
Feeble--but there was One who could make it strong. Suddenly she felt in
her that consciousness which the weakest have at times felt, and
which, however the rationalist may scoff, the Christian dare not
disbelieve--that sense of not working, but being worked upon--by which
truths come into one's heart, and words into one's mouth, involuntarily,
as if some spirit, not our own, were at work within us. Such had been
oftentimes the case with her; but never so strong as now. A voice seemed
breathed into her soul--“Be not afraid.”
She arose--her determination taken. “No,” she thought, as standing at
the window she watched the sun rise gloriously--“No, Lord! _my_ Lord and
_my_ God!--I am not afraid.”
Nevertheless, she suffered exceedingly. To bear the burden of this heavy
secret; to keep it from her mother; to disguise it before Mrs. Gwynne;
above all, to go to church, and have the ministry of such an one as
Harold between her and heaven--this last was the most awful point of
all; but she could not escape it without betraying him. And it seemed to
her that the sin--if sin it were--would be forgiven; nay, her voluntary
presence might even strike his conscience.
It was so. When Harold beheld her, his cheeks grew ashen pale. All
through the service his reading at times faltered and his eyes were
lowered. Once, too, during the epistle for the day, which chanced to be
the sixth Sunday after Epiphany, the plain words of St. John seemed to
attract his notice, and his voice took an accent of keen sorrow.
Yet, when Olive passed out of the church, she felt as though she had
spent there years of torture--such torture as no earthly power should
make her endure again. And it so chanced that she was not called upon to
do so.
Within a week from that time Mrs. Rothesay sank into a state of
great feebleness, not indicating positive danger, but still so nearly
resembling illness that Olive could not quit her, even for an hour. This
painful interest, engrossing all her thoughts, shut out from them even
Harold Gwynne. She saw little of him, though she heard that he came
almost daily to inquire at the door. But for a long time he rarely
crossed the threshold.
“Harold is like all men--he does not understand sickness,” said that
most kind and constant friend, Mrs. Gwynne. “You must forgive him, both
of you. I tell him often it would be an example for him, or for any
clergyman in England, to see Olive here--the best and most pious
daughter that ever lived. He thinks so too; for once, when I hoped
that his own daughter might be like her, you should have heard the
earnestness of his 'Amen!'”
This circumstance touched Olive deeply, and strengthened her the more
in that work to which she had determined to devote herself. And a secret
hope told her that erring souls are oftentimes reclaimed less by a
Christian's preaching than by a Christian's life.
And so, though they did not meet again alone, and no words on the one
awful subject passed between them, Harold began to come often to the
Dell. Mrs. Rothesay's lamp of life was paling so gradually, that not
even her child knew how soon it would cease to shine among those to whom
its every ray was so precious and so beautiful--more beautiful as it
drew nearer its close.
Yet there was no sorrow at the Dell, but great peace--a peace so holy
that it seemed to rest upon all who entered there. These were not a few;
never was there any one who gained so many kindly attentions as Mrs.
Rothesay. Even the wild young Fludyers inquired after her every day.
Christal, who was almost domiciled at the Hall, and seemed by some
invisible attraction most disinclined to leave it, was yet a daily
visitor--her high spirit softened to gentleness whenever she came near
the invalid.
As to Lyle Derwent, he positively haunted them. His affectations dropped
off, he ceased his sentimentalities, and never quoted a single line of
poetry. To Olive he appeared in a more pleasing light, and she treated
him with her old regard; as for him, he adored the very ground she trod
upon. A ministering angel could not have been more hallowed in his eyes.
He often made Mrs. Rothesay and Olive smile with his raptures; and the
latter said sometimes that he was certainly the same enthusiastic
little boy who had been her knight in the garden by the river. She never
thought of him otherwise; and though he often tried, in half-jesting
indignation, to assure her that he was quite a man now, he seemed still
a lad to her. There was the difference of a lifetime between his
juvenile romance and her calm reality of six-and-twenty years.
She did not always feel so old though. When kneeling by her mother's
side, amusing her, Olive still felt a very child; and there were times
when near Harold Gwynne she grew once more a feeble, timid girl. But
now that the secret bond between them was held in abeyance, their
intercourse sank within its former boundary. Even his influence could
not compete with that affection which had been the day-star of Olive's
life. No other human tie could come between her and her mother.
Beautiful it was to see them, clinging together so closely that none
of those who loved both had the courage to tell them how soon they must
part. Sometimes Mrs. Gwynne would watch Olive with a look that seemed
to ask, “Child, have you strength to bear?” But she herself had not the
strength to tell her. Besides, it seemed as though these close cords of
love were knitted so tightly around the mother, and every breath of her
fading life so fondly cherished, that she could not perforce depart.
Months might pass ere that frail tabernacle was quite dissolved.
As the winter glided away, Mrs. Rothesay seemed much better. One evening
in March, when Harold Gwynne came laden with a whole basket of violets,
he said--and truly--that she was looking as blooming as the spring
itself. Olive coincided in this opinion--nay, declared, smiling, that
any one would fancy her mother was only making pretence of illness, to
win more kindness and consideration.
“As if you had not enough of that from every one, mamma! I never knew
such a spoilt darling in all my life; and yet see, Mr. Gwynne, how
meekly she bears it, and how beautiful and content she looks!”
It was true. Let us draw the picture which lived in Olive's memory
evermore.
Mrs. Rothesay sat in a little low chair--her own chair, which no one
else ever claimed. She did not wear an invalid's shawl, but a graceful
wrapping-gown of pale colours--such as she had always loved, and which
suited well her delicate, fragile beauty. Closely tied over her silvery
hair--the only sign of age--was a little cap, whose soft pink gauze lay
against her cheek--that cheek which even now was all unwrinkled, and
tinted with a lovely faint rose colour, like a young girl's. Her eyes
were cast down; she had a habit of doing this lest others might see
there the painful expression of blindness; but her mouth smiled a
serene, cheerful, holy smile, such as is rarely seen on human face, save
when earth's dearest happiness is beginning to melt away, dimmed in the
coming brightness of heaven. Her little thin hands lay crossed on her
knee, one finger playing as she often did, with her wedding-ring, now
worn to a mere thread of gold.
Her daughter looked at her with eyes of passionate yearning that threw
into one minute's gaze the love of a whole lifetime. Harold Gwynne
looked at her too, and then at Olive. He thought, “Can she, if she knows
what I know--can she be resigned--nay, happy! Then, what a sublime
faith hers must be!”
Olive seemed not to see him, but only her mother. She gazed and gazed,
then she came and knelt before Mrs. Rothesay, and wound her arms round
her.
“Darling, kiss me! or I shall fear you are growing quite an angel--an
angel with wings.”
There lurked a troubled tone beneath the playfulness; she rose up
quickly, and began to talk to Mr. Gwynne.
They had a pleasant evening, all three together; for Mrs. Rothesay,
knowing that Harold was lonely--since his mother and Ailie had gone away
on a week's visit--prevailed upon him to stay. He read to them--Mrs.
Rothesay was fond of hearing him read; and to Olive the world's richest
music was in his deep, pathetic voice, more especially when reading, as
he did now, with great earnestness and emotion. The poem was not one of
his own choosing, but of Mrs. Rothesay's. She listened eagerly while he
read from Tennyson's “May Queen.”
Upon the chancel casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early, early morning the summer sun will shine.
I shall not forget you, mother; I shall hear you when you pass,
With your feet above my head on the long and pleasant grass.
Good night, good night! When I have said, good night for evermore,
And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door,
Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave is growing green:
She'll be a better child to you than I have ever been.
Here Harold paused; for, looking at Olive, he saw her tears falling
fast; but Mrs. Rothesay, generally so easily touched, was now quite
unmoved. On her face was a soft calm. She said to herself, musingly,
“How terrible for one's child to die first. But I shall never know that
pang. Go on, Mr. Gwynne.”
He read--what words for him to read!--the concluding stanzas; and as he
did so, the movement of Mrs. Rothesay's lips seemed silently to follow
them.
O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done,
The voice which now is speaking may be beyond the sun,
For ever and for ever with those just souls and true,
And what is life that we should moan? Why make we such ado?
For ever and for ever all in a blessed home,
And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come;
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast,
Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.
After he concluded, they were all three very silent. What thoughts were
in each heart? Then Mrs. Rothesay said,
“Now, my child, it is growing late. Read to us yourself, out of the
best Book of all.” And when Olive was gone to fetch it, she added, “Mr.
Gwynne will pardon my not asking him to read the Bible, but a child's
voice sounds so sweet in a mother's ears, especially when”---- She
stopped, for Olive just then entered.
“Where shall I read, mamma?”
“Where I think we have come to--reading every night as we do--the last
few chapters of the Revelations.”
Olive read them--the blessed words, the delight of her
childhood--telling of the heavenly kingdom, and the afterlife of the
just. And _he_ heard them: he who believed in neither. He sat in the
shadow, covering his face with his hands, or lifting it at times with
a blind, despairing look, like that of one who, staggering in darkness,
sees afar a faint light, and yet cannot, dare not, believe in its
reality.
When he bade Mrs. Rothesay good night, she held his hand, and said, “God
bless you!” with more than her usual kindness. He drew back, as if the
words stung him. Then he wrung Olive's hand, looked at her a moment, as
if to say something, but said it not, and quitted the house.
The mother and daughter were alone. They clasped their arms round each
other, and sat a little while listening to the wild March wind.
“It is just such a night as that on which we came to Farnwood, is it
not, darling?”
“Yes, my child! And we have been very happy here; happier, I think, than
I have ever been in my life. Remember that, love, always!”
She said these words with a beautiful, life-beaming smile. Then, leaning
on Olive's shoulder, she lifted herself rather feebly, from her little
chair, and prepared to walk upstairs.
“Tired, are you? I wish I could carry you, darling: I almost think I
could.”
“You carry me in your heart, evermore, Olive! You bear all my
feebleness, troubles, and pain. God ever bless you, my daughter!”
When Olive came down once more to the little parlour, she thought it
looked rather lonely. However, she stayed a minute or two, put her
mother's little chair in the corner, and her mother's knitting basket
beside it.
“It will be ready for her when she comes down again.” Then she went
upstairs to bed; and mother and daughter fell asleep, as ever, closely
clasped in each other's arms.