Heriot's Choice Part 44

'You are too bad,' returned the young man with an honest blush; 'you will incense your sister against me. What I really mean is,' sitting down beside Olive and speaking so that Richard should not hear him, 'that poetry always seems to me more ornament than use. You cannot really have felt and experienced all you have described in that poem--"Coming Back," for example.'

'Hush, don't show it me,' returned Olive, hurriedly. 'I don't mind your saying this, but you do not know--the feeling comes, and then the words; these are thoughts too grand and deep for common forms of expression; they seem to flow of themselves into the measure you criticise. Oh! you do not understand----'

'No, but you can teach me to do so,' returned Hugh, quite gravely. He had laid aside his vehemence at the first sound of Olive's quiet voice; he had never lost his first impression of her,--he still regarded her with a sort of puzzled wonder and reverence. A poetess was not much in his line he told himself,--the only poetry he cared for was the Psalms, and perhaps Homer and Shakespeare. Yes, they were grand fellows, he thought; they could never see their like again. True, the 'Voices of the Hearth' were very beautiful, if he could only understand them.

'One cannot teach these things,' replied Olive, with her soft, serious smile.

As she answered Hugh she felt almost sorry for him, that this beautiful gift had come to her, and that he could not understand--that he who revelled in the good things of this life should miss one of its sweetest comforts.

She wondered vaguely over the young clergyman's denseness all the evening. Hugh had a stronger developed pa.s.sion for music, and was further endowed with a deep rich baritone voice. As Olive heard him joining in the family glees, or beating time to Polly's nicely-executed pieces, she marvelled all the more over this omitted harmony in his nature. She had at last made her escape from the crowded, brilliantly-lighted room, and was pacing the dark terrace, pondering over it still when Mildred found her.

'Are you tired of us, Olive?'

'Not tired of you, Aunt Milly. I have scarcely spoken to you to-day, and it is your birthday, too,' putting her arm affectionately round Mildred, and half leaning against her. In her white dress Olive looked taller than ever. Richard was right when he said Livy would make a fine woman; she looked large and ma.s.sive beside Mildred's slight figure. 'Dear Aunt Milly, I have so wanted to talk to you all the evening, but they would not let me.'

Mildred smiled fondly at her girl; during the last three years, ever since her illness, she had looked on Olive as a sacred and special charge, and as care begets tenderness as surely as love does love, so had Olive's ailing but n.o.ble nature gained a larger share of Mildred's warm affections than even Polly's brightness or Chriss's saucy piquancy could win.

'Have you been very happy to-night, dear?' she asked, softly. 'Have you been satisfied with Olive's ovation?'

'Oh, Aunt Milly! it has made me too glad; did you hear what Cardie said?

it made me feel so proud and so ashamed. Do you know there were actually tears in papa's eyes when he kissed me.'

'We are all so proud of our girl, you see.'

'They almost make me cry between them. I wanted to get away and hide myself, only Mr. Marsden would go on talking to me.'

'Yes, I heard him; he was very amusing; he is full of queer hobbies.'

'I cannot help being sorry for him, he must lose so much, you know; poetry is a sort of sixth sense to me.'

'Darling, you must use your sweet gift well.'

'That is what I have been thinking,' laying her burning face against her aunt's shoulders, as they both stood looking down at a glimmer of s.h.i.+ning water below them. 'Aunt Milly, do you remember what you said to comfort me when I was so wickedly lamenting that I had not died?'

Mildred shook her head.

'I only know I lectured you soundly.'

'Oh! Aunt Milly, and they were such dear, wise words that you spoke, too; you told me that perhaps G.o.d had some beautiful work for me to do that my death would leave unfinished. Do you think' (speaking softly and slowly) 'that I have found my work?'

'Dear, I cannot doubt it; no one who reads those lovely verses of yours can dispute the reality of your gift. You have genius, Olive; why should I seek to hide it?'

'Thank you, Aunt Milly. Your telling me will not make me proud; you need not be afraid of that, dear. I am only so very, very grateful that I have found my voice.'

'Your voice, Olive!'

'Ah, I have made you smile; but can you fancy what a dumb person would feel if his tongue were suddenly loosed from its paralysis of silence, what a flow and a torrent of words there would be?'

'Yes, the thought has often struck me when I have read the Gospels.'

'Aunt Milly, I think I have something of the same feeling. I have always wanted to find expression for my thoughts--an outlet for them; it is a new tongue, but not an unknown one, as Mr. Marsden half hinted.'

'Three years ago this same Olive who talks so sweetly to-night was full of trouble at the thought of a new lease of life.'

'It was all my want of faith; it was weak, cowardly. I know it well after all,' in a low voice; 'to-night was worth living for. I am not sorry now, Aunt Milly.'

'What are you two talking about? I am come to pay my tribute to the heroines of the night, and find them star-gazing,' broke in a familiar voice.

A tall figure in s.h.i.+ning raiment bore down upon them--a confused vision of soft white draperies and gleaming jewels under a cashmere cloak.

'Ethel, is it you?' exclaimed Mildred, in an astonished voice.

'Yes, it is I, dear Mildred,' replied the crisp tones, while two soft arms came out from the cloak and enveloped her. 'I suppose I ought to be on the road to Appleby Castle, but I determined to s.n.a.t.c.h half an hour to myself first, to offer my congratulations to you and this dear girl'

(kissing Olive). 'You are only a secondary light to-night, Mildred.'

'What! have you seen it?'

'Yes; my copy came last night. I sat up half the night reading it. You have achieved a success, Olive, that no one else has; you have absolutely drawn tears from my eyes.'

'I thought you never cried over books, Ethel,' in a mischievous tone from Mildred.

'I am usually most strong-hearted, but the "Voices of the Hearth" would have melted a flint. Olive, I never thought it would come to this, that I should be driven to confess that I envied you.'

'Oh no, Ethel, not that, surely!'

'Ah, but I do! that this magnificent power should be given you to wield over all our hearts, that you should sing to us so sweetly, that we should be constrained to listen, that this girlish head should speak to us so wisely and so well,' touching Olive's thick coils with fingers that glittered in the moonlight.

'You must not praise her, or she will make her escape,' laughed Mildred, with a glance at Olive's averted face; 'we have overwhelmed her already with the bitter-sweet of home criticism, and by and by she will have to run the gauntlet of severer, and it may be adverse, reviews.'

'Then she will learn to prize our appreciation. Olive, I am humiliated when I think how utterly I have misunderstood you.'

'Why?' asked Olive, shyly, raising those fathomless dark eyes of hers to Ethel's agitated face.

'I have always looked upon you as a gloomy visionary who held impossible standards of right and wrong, and who vexed herself and others by troublesome scruples; but I see now that Mildred was right.'

'Aunt Mildred always believes the best of every one,' interrupted Olive, softly.

She was flattered and yet pleased by Ethel's evident agitation--why would they all think so much of her? What had she done? The feelings had always been there--the great aching of unexpressed thoughts; and now a voice had been given her with which to speak them. It was all so simple to Olive, so sacred, so beautiful. Why would they spoil it with all this talk?

'Well, perhaps I had better not finish my sentence,' went on Ethel, with a sigh; after all, it was a pity to mar that unconscious simplicity--Olive would never see herself as others saw her; no fatal egotism wrapped her round. She turned to Mildred with a little movement of fondness as she dropped Olive's hand, and they all turned back into the house.

'If I have nothing else, I have you,' she whispered, with a thrill of mingled envy and grief that went to Mildred's heart.

The music and the conversation stopped as the door opened on the dazzling apparition in the full light. Ethel looked pale, and there was a heavy look round her eyes as though of unshed tears; her manner, too, was subdued.

People said that Ethel Trelawny had changed greatly during the last few years; the old extravagance and daring that had won such adverse criticism had wholly gone. Ethel no longer scandalised and repelled people; her vivacity was tempered with reserve now. A heavy cloud of oppression, almost of melancholy, had quenched the dreamy egotism that had led her to a one-sided view of things; still quaint and original, she was beginning to learn the elastic measurement of a charity that should embrace a fairer proportion of her fellow-creatures.

But the lesson was a hard one to her fastidiousness. It could not be said even now that Ethel Trelawny had found her work in life, but notwithstanding she worked hard. Under Mildred's loving tuition she no longer looked upon her poorer neighbours with aversion or disgust, but set herself in many ways to aid them and ameliorate their condition.

True the task was uncongenial and the labour hard, and the reward by no means adequate, but at least she need no longer brand her self with being a dreamer of dreams, or sigh that no human being had reason to bless her existence.