Heriot's Choice Part 29

'My poor child, what is this?'

'Oh, Aunt Milly,' with a sort of gasp, 'I thought you would never come.'

'Never mind; I am here now. Wait a moment till I strike a light,'

commenced Mildred, cheerfully; but Olive interrupted her with unusual fretfulness.

'Please don't; I can talk so much better in the dark. I came in here because Chrissy was awake, and I could not bear her talk.'

'Very well, my dear, it shall be as you wish,' returned Mildred, gently; and the soft warm hands closed over the girl's chill, nervous fingers with comforting pressure. A strong restful nature like Mildred's was the natural refuge of a timid despondent one such as Olive's. The poor girl felt a sensation something like comfort as she groped her way a little nearer to her aunt, and felt the kind arm drawing her closer.

'Now tell me all about it, my dear.'

Olive began, but it was difficult for Mildred to follow the long rambling confession; with all her love for truth, Olive's morbid sensitiveness tinged most things with exaggeration. Mildred hardly knew if her timidity and incoherence were not jumbling facts and suppositions together with a great deal of intuitive wisdom and perception. There was a sad amount of guess-work and unreality, but after a few leading questions, and by dint of allowing Olive to tell her story in her own way, she contrived to get tolerably near the true state of the case.

It appeared that Olive had for a long time been seriously unhappy about her brothers. Truthful and uncompromising herself, there had seemed to her a want of integrity and a blamable lack of openness in their dealings with their father. With the best intentions, they were absolutely deceiving him by leaving him in such complete, ignorance of their wishes and intentions. Royal especially was making shipwreck of his father's hopes concerning him, devoting most of his time and energies to a secret pursuit; while his careless preparation for his tutor was practical, if not actual, dishonesty.

'At least Cardie works hard enough,' interrupted Mildred at this point.

'Yes, because it will serve either purpose; but, Aunt Milly, he ought to tell papa how he dreads the idea of being ordained; it is not right; he is unfit for it; it is worse than wrong--absolute sacrilege;' and Olive poured out tremblingly into her aunt's shocked ear that she knew Cardie had doubts, that he was unhappy about himself. No--no one had told her, but she knew it; she had watched him, and heard him talk, and she burst into tears as she told Mildred that once he absolutely sneered at something in his father's sermon which he declared obsolete, and not a matter of faith at all.

'But, my dear,' interrupted the elder woman, anxiously, 'my brother ought to know. I--some one--must speak to Richard.'

'Oh, Aunt Milly, you will hear--it is I--who have done the mischief; but you told me there were no such things as conflicting duties; and what is the use of a conscience if it be not to guide and make us do unpleasant things?'

'You mean you spoke to Richard?'

'I have often tried to speak to him, but he was always angry, and muttered something about my interference; he could not bear me to read him so truly. I know it was all Mr. Macdonald. Papa had him to stay here for a month, and he did Cardie so much harm.'

'Who is he--I never heard of him?' And Olive explained, in her rambling way, that he was an old college friend of her father's and a very clever barrister, and he had come to them to recruit after a long illness.

According to her accounts, his was just the sort of character to attract a nature like Richard's. His brilliant and subtle reasoning, his long and interesting disquisitions on all manner of subjects, his sceptical hints, conveying the notion of danger, and yet never exactly touching on forbidden ground, though they involved a perilous breadth of views, all made him a very unsafe companion for Richard's clever, inquisitive mind.

Olive guessed, rather than knew, that things were freely canva.s.sed in those long country walks that would have shocked her father; though, to his credit be it said, Henry Macdonald had no idea of the mischievous seed he had scattered in the ardent soil of a young and undeveloped nature.

Mildred was very greatly dismayed too when she heard that Richard had read books against which he had been warned, and which must have further unsettled his views. 'I think mamma guessed he had something on his mind, for she was always trying to make him talk to papa, and telling him papa could help him; but I heard him say to her once that he could not bear to disappoint him so, that he must have time, and battle through it alone. I know mamma could not endure Mr. Macdonald; and when papa wanted to have him again, she said, once quite decidedly, "No, she did not like him, and he was not good for Richard." I noticed papa seemed quite surprised and taken aback.'

'Well, go on, my dear;' for Olive sighed afresh at this point, as though it were difficult to proceed.

'Of course you will think me wrong, Aunt Milly. I do myself now; but if you knew how I thought about it, till my head ached and I was half stupid!--but I worked myself up to believe that I ought to speak to papa.'

'Ah!' Mildred checked the exclamation that rose to her lips, fearing lest a weary argument should break the thread of Olive's narrative, which now showed signs of flowing smoothly.

'I half made up my mind to ask your advice, Aunt Milly, on the rush-bearing day, but you were tired, and Polly was with you, and----'

'Have I ever been too tired to help you, Olive?' asked Mildred, reproachfully; all the more that an uncomfortable sensation crossed her at the remembrance that she had noticed a wistful anxiety in Olive's eyes the previous night, but had nevertheless dismissed her on the plea of weariness, feeling herself unequal to one of the girl's endless discussions. 'I am sorry--nay, heartily grieved--if I have ever repelled your confidence.'

'Please don't talk so, Aunt Milly; of course it was my fault, but'

(timidly) 'I am afraid sometimes I shall tire even you;' and Mildred's pangs of conscience were so intense that she dared not answer; she knew too well that Olive had of late tired her, though she had no idea the girl's sensitiveness had been wounded. A kind of impatience seized her as Olive talked on; she felt the sort of revolt and want of realization that borders the pity of one in perfect health walking for the first time through the wards of a hospital, and met on all sides by the spectacle of mutilated and suffering humanity.

'How shall I ever deal with all these moods of mind?' she thought hopelessly, as she composed herself to listen.

'So you spoke to your father, Olive? Go on; I will tell you afterwards what I think.'

There was a little sternness in the low tones, from which the girl shrank. Of course Aunt Milly thought her wrong and interfering. Well, she had been wrong, and she went on still more humbly:

'I thought it was my duty; it made me miserable to do it, because I knew Cardie would be angry, though I never knew how angry; but I got it into my head that I ought to help him, in spite of himself, and because Rex was so weak. You have no idea how weak and vacillating Rex is when it comes to disappointing people, Aunt Milly.'

'Yes, I know; go on,' was all the answer Mildred vouchsafed to this.

'I brooded over it all St. Peter's day, and at night I could not sleep.

I thought of that verse about cutting off the right hand and plucking out the right eye; it seemed to me it lay between Cardie and speaking the truth, and that no pain ought to hinder me; and I determined to speak to papa the first opportunity; and it came to-day. Cardie and Rex were both out, and papa asked me to walk with him to Winton, and then he got tired, and we sat down half-way on a fallen tree, and then I told him.'

'About Richard's views?'

'About everything. I began with Rex; I told papa how his very sweetness and amiability made him weak in things; he so hated disappointing people, that he could not bring himself to say what he wished; and just now, after his illness and trouble, it seemed doubly hard to do it.'

'And what did he say to that?'

'He looked grieved; yes, I am sure he was grieved. He does not believe that Roy knows his own mind, or will ever do much good as an artist; but all he said was, "I understand--my own boy--afraid of disappointing his father. Well, well, the lad knows best what will make him happy."'

'And then you told him about Richard?'

'Yes,' catching her breath as though with a painful thought; 'when I got to Cardie, somehow the words seemed to come of themselves, and it was such a relief telling papa all I thought. It has been such a burden all this time, for I am sure no one but mamma ever guessed how unhappy Cardie really was.'

'You, who know him so well, could inflict this mortification on him--no, I did not mean to say that, you have suffered enough, my child; but did it not occur to you that you were betraying a sacred confidence?'

'Confidence, Aunt Milly!'

'Yes, Olive; your deep insight into your brother's character, and your very real affection for him, ought to have guarded you from this mistake. If you had read him so truly as to discover all this for yourself, you should not have imparted this knowledge without warning, knowing how much it would wound his jealous reticence. If you had waited, doubtless Richard's good sense would have induced him at last to confide in his father.'

'Not until it was too late--until he had worn himself out. He gets more jaded and weary every day, Aunt Milly.'

Mildred shook her head.

'The golden rule holds good even here, "To do unto others as we would they should do unto us." How would you like Richard to retail your opinions and feelings, under the impression he owed you a duty?'

'Aunt Milly, indeed I thought I was acting for the best.'

'I do not doubt it, my child; the love that guided you was clearer than the wisdom; but what did Arnold--what did your father say?'

'Oh, Aunt Milly, he looked almost heart-broken; he covered his face with his hands, and I think he was praying; and yet he seemed almost as though he were talking to mamma. I am sure he had forgotten I was there.

I heard him say something about having been selfish in his great grief; that he must have neglected his boy, or been hard and cruel to him, or he would never have so repelled his confidence. "Betha's boy, her darling," he kept saying to himself; "my poor Cardie, my poor lad," over and over again, till I spoke to him to rouse him; and then he said,'--here Olive faltered,--'"that I had been a good girl--a faithful little sister,--and that I must try and take her place, and remind them how good and loving she was." And then he broke down. Oh, Aunt Milly, it was so dreadful; and then I made him come back.'

'My poor brother! I knew he would take it to heart.'

'He said it was like a stab to him, for he had always been so proud of Cardie; and it was his special wish to devote his first-born to the service of the Church; and when I asked if he wished it now, he said, vehemently, "A half-hearted service, reluctantly made--G.o.d forbid a son of mine should do such wrong!" and then he was silent for a long time; and just at the beginning of the town we met Rex, and papa whispered to me to leave them together.'

'My poor Olive, I can guess what a hard day you have had,' said Mildred, caressingly, as the girl paused in her recital.

'The hardest part was to come;' and Olive shivered, as though suddenly chilled. 'I was not prepared for Rex being so angry; he is so seldom cross, but he said harder things to me than he has said in his life.'