Olive Part 26

Sleep had again overpowered the sick woman, who appeared to be slowly dying of that anomalous disease called decline, in which the mind is the chief agent of the body's decay. Meanwhile, Miss Vanbrugh talked in an undertone to little Christal, who, her hunger satisfied, stood, finger in mouth, watching the two ladies with her fierce black eyes--the very image of a half-tamed gipsy. Indeed, Miss Meliora seemed rather uneasy, and desirous to learn more of her companions, for she questioned the child closely.

"And is the person you call _ma mie_ any relation to you?"

"The neighbours say she is my aunt, from the likeness. I don't know."

"And her name is Mrs. Manners--a widow, no doubt; for I remember she was in very respectable mourning when she first came to Woodford Cottage."

"Poor young creature!" she continued, sitting down beside the object of her compa.s.sion, who was, or seemed, asleep. "How hard to loose her husband so soon! and I dare say she has gone through great poverty--sold one thing after another to keep her alive. Why, I declare," added the simple and unworldly Meliora, who could make a story to fit anything, "poor soul! she has even been forced to part with her wedding-ring."

"I never had one--I scorned it!" cried the woman, leaping up with a violence that quite confounded the painter's sister. "Do you come to insult me, you smooth-tongued English lady? Ah, you shrink away. What do you know about me?"

"I don't know anything about you, indeed," said Meliora, creeping to the door; while Olive, who could not understand the cause of half she witnessed, stood simply looking on in wonder--almost in admiration,--for there was a strange beauty, like that of a Pythoness, in the woman's att.i.tude and mien.

"You know nothing of me? Then you shall know. I come from a country where are thousands of young girls, whose mixed blood is too pure for slavery, too tainted for freedom. Lovely, accomplished, brought up delicately, they yet have no higher future than to be the white man's pa.s.sing toy--cherished, wearied of, and spurned."

She paused, and Miss Vanbrugh, astonished at this sudden outburst, in language so vehement, and so above her apparent rank, had not a word to say. The woman continued:

"I but fulfilled my destiny. How could such as I hope to bear an honest man's honest name? So, when my fate came upon me, I cast all shame to the winds, and lived out my life. I followed my lover across the seas; I clung to him, faithful in my degradation; and when his child slept on my bosom, I looked at it, and was almost happy. Now what think you of me, virtuous English ladies?" cried the outcast, as she tossed back her cloud of dark crisped hair, and fixed her eyes sternly, yet mockingly, upon her visitors.

Poor Miss Vanbrugh was conscious of but one thing, that this scene was most unfit for a young girl; and that if she once could get Olive away, all future visits to the miserable woman should be paid by herself alone.

"I will see you another day, Mrs. Manners, but we cannot really stay now. Come, my dear Miss Rothesay."

And she and her|charge quitted the room. Apparently, their precipitate departure still further irritated the poor creature they had come to succour; for as they descended the stairs, they heard her repeatedly shriek out Olive's surname, in tones so wild, that whether it was meant for rage or entreaty they could not tell.

Olive wanted to return.

"No, my dear, she would only insult you. Besides, I will _go_ myself to-morrow. Poor wretch! she is plainly near her end. We must be merciful to the dying."

Olive walked home thoughtfully, not speaking much. When they pa.s.sed out of the squalid, noisy streets, into the quiet lane that led to Woodford Cottage, she had never felt so keenly the blessing of a pure and peaceful home. She mounted to the pretty bedchamber which she and her mother occupied, and stood at the open window, drinking in the fresh odour of the bursting leaves. Scarcely a breath stirred the soft spring evening--the sky was like one calm blue lake, and therein floated, close to the western verge, "the new moon's silver boat."

She remembered how it had been one of her childish superst.i.tions always "to wish at the new moon." How often, her desire seeming perversely to lift itself towards things unattainable, had she framed one sole wish that she might be beautiful and beloved!

Beautiful and beloved! She thought of the poor creature whose fierce words yet rang in her ear. Beautiful and beloved! _She_ had been both, and what was she now?

And Olive rejoiced that her own childish longings had pa.s.sed into the better wisdom of subdued and patient womanhood. Had she now a wish, it was for that pure heart and lowly mind which are more precious than beauty; for that serene peace of virtue, which is more to be desired than love.

Now her fate seemed plain before her--within her home she saw the vista of a life of filial devotion blest in

"A constant stream of love that knew no fall."

As she looked forth into the world without, there rose the hope of her Art, under shadow of which the lonely woman might go down to the grave not unhonoured in her day. Remembering all this, Olive murmured no longer at her destiny. She thanked G.o.d, for she felt that she was not unhappy.

CHAPTER XXII.

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 pa.s.sion, 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 un.o.btrusive 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 n.o.ble gentleman and grand lady," and had both been drowned at sea. The circ.u.mstance 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 _protegee_ 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 pa.s.sed. 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. Pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed, 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 _levee_ of artists, patrons, and connoisseurs. Miss Rothesay was needed everywhere; first in the painting-room, to a.s.sist in arranging its various treasures, her taste and tact a.s.sisting 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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.s 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!"