Olive Part 57

But Christal was rarely in a pathetic mood. She only shrugged her shoulders, and then stroked Olive's arm with a patronising air. "Come, your journey has been too much for you, and you had no business to wander off that way with Mrs. Gwynne; you shall lie down and rest a little and then go to bed."

But Olive was afraid of night and its solitude. She knew there was no slumber for her. When she was a little recovered, feeling unable to talk, she asked Christal to read aloud.

The other looked annoyed. "Pleasant! to be a mere lady's companion and reader! Miss Rothesay forgets who I am, I think," muttered she, though apparently not meaning Olive to hear her.

But Olive did hear, and shuddered at the hearing.

Miss Manners carelessly took up the newspaper, and read the first paragraph which caught her eye. It was one of those mournful episodes which are sometimes revealed at the London police-courts. A young girl--a lady swindler--had been brought up for trial there. In her defence came out the story of a life, cradled in shame, nurtured in vice, and only working out its helpless destiny--that of a rich man's deserted illegitimate child. The report added, that "The convict was led from the dock in a state of violent excitement, calling down curses on her parents, but especially on her father, who, she said, had cruelly forsaken her mother. She ended by exclaiming that it was to him she herself owed all her life of misery, and that her blood was upon his head."

"It _was_ upon his head," burst forth Christal, whose sympathies, as by some fatal instinct, seemed attracted by a case like this. "If I had been that girl, I would have hunted my vile father through the world.

While he lived, I would have heaped my miseries in his path, that everywhere they might torture and shame him. When he died, I would have trampled on his grave and cursed him!"

She stood up, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng, her hands clenched in one of those paroxysms which to her came so rarely, but, when roused, were terrible to witness. Her mother's soul was in the girl. Olive saw it, and from that hour knew that, whatever it cost her, the secret of Christal's birth must be buried in her own breast for evermore.

Most faithfully Miss Rothesay kept her vow. But it entailed upon her the necessity of changing her whole plans for the future. For some inexplicable reason, Christal refused to go and live with her in Edinburgh, or, in fact, to leave Farnwood at all. Therefore Olive's despairing wish to escape from Harbury, and all its bitter a.s.sociations, was entirely frustrated. It would be hard to say whether she lamented or rejoiced at this. The brave resolve had cost her much, yet she scarcely regretted that it would not be fulfilled. There was a secret sweetness in living near Harbury--in stealing, as it were, into a daughter's place beside the mother of him she still so fervently loved. But, thinking of him, she did not suffer now. For all great trials there is an unseen compensation; and this last shock, with the change it had wrought, made her past sorrows grow dim. Life became sweeter to her, for it was filled with a new and holy interest. It could be so filled, she found, even when love had come and vanished, and only duty remained.

She turned from all repining thoughts, and tried to make for herself a peaceful nest in her little home. And thither, above all, she desired to allure and to keep, with all gentle wiles of love, her sister.

_Her sister_! Often, yearning for kindred ties, she longed to fall on Christal's neck, and call her by that tender name! But she knew it could never be, and her heart had been too long schooled into patience, to murmur because in every human tie this seemed to be perpetually her doom--that--save one who was gone--none upon earth had ever loved her as much as she loved them.

Harold Gwynne wrote frequently from Rome, but only to his mother.

However, he always mentioned Miss Rothesay, and kindly. Once, when Mrs.

Gwynne was unable to write herself, she asked Olive to take her place, and indulge Harold with a letter.

"He will be so glad, you know. I think of all his friends there is none whom my son regards more warmly than you," said the mother. And Olive could not refuse. Why, indeed, should she feel reluctance? He had never been her lover; she had no right to feel wounded, or angry at his silence. Certainly, she would write.

She did so. It was a quiet, friendly letter, making no reference to the past--expressing no regret, no pain. It was scarcely like the earnest letters which she had once written to him--that time was past. She tried to make it an epistle as from any ordinary acquaintance--easy and pleasant, full of everything likely to amuse him. She knew he would never dream how it was written--with a cold, trembling hand and throbbing heart, its smooth sentences broken by pauses of burning blinding tears.

She said little about herself or her own affairs, save to ask that, being in Rome, he would contrive to find out the Vanbrughs, of whom she had heard nothing for a long time. Writing, she paused a moment to think whether she should not apologise for giving him this trouble. But then she remembered his words--almost the last she had heard him utter--that she must always consider him "as a friend and brother."

"I will do so," she murmured. "I will not doubt him, or his true regard for me. It is all he can give; and while he gives me that, I shall endure life contentedly, even unto the end."

CHAPTER XLIII

It was mid-winter before the inhabitants of the Dell were visited by their friend, Lyle Derwent, now grown a rich and important personage.

Olive rather regretted his apparent neglect, for it grieved her to suspect a change in any one whom she regarded. Christal only mocked the while, at least in outside show. Miss Rothesay did not see with what eagerness the girl listened to every sound, nor how every morning, fair and foul, she would restlessly start to walk up the Harbury road and meet the daily post.

It was during one of these absences of hers that Lyle made his appearance. Olive was sitting in her painting-room, arranging the contents of her desk. She was just musing, for the hundredth time, over her father's letter, considering whether or not she should destroy it, lest any unforeseen chance--her own death, for instance--might bring the awful secret to Christars knowledge. Lyle's entrance startled her, and she hastily thrust the letter within the desk. Consequently her manner was rather fluttered, and her greeting scarcely so cordial as she would have wished it to be. The infection apparently communicated itself to her visitor, for he sat down, looking agitated and uncomfortable.

"You are not angry with me for staying so long away, are you, Miss Rothesay?" said Lyle, when he had received her congratulations on his recent acquisitions. "You don't think this change in fortune will make any change in my heart towards you?"

Olive half smiled at his sentimental way of putting the matter, but it was the young man's peculiarity. So she frankly a.s.sured him that she had never doubted his regard towards her. At which poor Lyle fell into ecstasies of delight.

They had a long talk together about his prospects, in all of which Olive took a warm and lively interest. He told her of his new house and grounds; of his plan of life, which seemed very Arcadian and poetical indeed. But he was a simple-minded, warm-hearted youth, and Miss Rothesay listened with pleasure to all he said. It did her good to see that there was a little happiness to be found in the world.

"You have drawn the sweetest possible picture of rural felicity," she said, smiling; "I earnestly hope you may realise it, my dear Lyle--But I suppose one must not call you so any more, since you are now Mr.

Derwent, of Hollywood."

"Oh, no; call me Lyle, nothing but Lyle. It sounds so sweet from your lips--it always did, even when I was a little boy."

"I am afraid I have treated you quite like a boy until now. But you must not mind it, for the sake of old times."

"Do you remember them still?" asked Lyle, a tone of deeper earnestness stealing through his affectations of sentiment. "Do you remember how I was your little knight, and used to say I loved you better than all the world?"

"I do indeed. It was an amusing rehearsal of what you will begin to enact in reality some of these days. You will make a most poetical lover."

"Do you think so? O Miss Rothesay, do you really think so?" And then his eagerness subsided into vivid blushes, which really caused Olive pain.

She began to fear that, unwittingly, she had been playing on some tender string, and that there was more earnest feeling in Lyle than she had ever dreamed of. She would not for the world have jested thus, had she thought there was any real attachment in the case. So, a good deal touched and interested, she began to talk to him in her own quiet, affectionate way.

"You must not mistake me, Lyle; you must not think I am laughing at you.

But I did not know that you had ever considered these things. Though there is plenty of time--as you are only just twenty-one. Tell me candidly--you know you may--do you think you were ever seriously in love?"

"It is very strange for you to ask me these questions."

"Then do not answer them. Forgive me, I only spoke from the desire I have to see you happy: you, who are so mingled with many recollections; you, poor Sara's brother, and my own little favourite in olden time."

And speaking in a subdued and tender voice, Olive held out her hand to Lyle.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed it eagerly. "How I love to hear you speak thus! Oh, if I could but tell you all."

"You may, indeed," said Olive, gently. "I am sure, my dear Lyle, you can trust me. Tell me the whole story."

--"The story of a dream I had, all my boyhood through, of a beautiful, n.o.ble creature, whom I reverenced, admired, and at last have dared to love," Lyle answered, in much agitation.

Olive felt quite sorry for him. "I did not expect this," she said. "You poetic dreamers have so many light fancies. My poor Lyle, is it indeed so? You, whom I should have thought would choose a new idol every month, have you all this while been seriously and heartily in love, and with one girl only? Are you quite sure it was but one?" And she half smiled.

He seemed now more confused than ever. "One cannot but speak truth to you," he murmured. "You make me tell you everything, whether I will or no. And if I did not, you might hear it from some one else, and that would make me very miserable."

"Well, what was it?"

"That though I never loved but this my beautiful lady, once,--only once, for a very little while, I a.s.sure you,--I was half disposed to like some one else whom you know."

Olive thought a minute, and then said, very seriously, "Was it Christal Manners?"

"It was. She led me into it, and then she teased me out of it. But indeed it was not love--only a mere pa.s.sing fancy."

"Did you tell her of your feelings?"

"Only in some foolish verses, which she laughed at."

"You should not have done that. It is very wicked to make any pretence about love."

"O! dearest Miss Rothesay, you are not angry with me? Whatever my folly, you must know well that there is but one woman in the world whom I ever truly loved--whom I do love, most pa.s.sionately! It is _yourself_."

Olive looked up in blank astonishment. She almost thought that sentiment had driven him crazy. But he went on with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, though it was mingled with some extravagance.

"All the good that is in me I learned from you when I was a little boy.

I thought you an angel even then, and used to dream about you for hours.