Olive Part 28

What a comical idea of Art this country squire must have!"

"My dear, every one is not so clever as you," said the mother. "I like Mrs. Fludyer very much, because, whenever she came to Woodford Cottage about the picture, she used to talk to me so kindly."

"And she has asked after you in all her letters since she went home. So she must be a good creature: and I, too, will like her very much indeed, because she likes my sweet mamma."

The determination was soon called into exercise; for the next half-hour, to the surprise of all parties, Mrs. Fludyer appeared.

She a.s.signed no reason for her visit, except that being again in town, she had chosen to drive down to Woodford Cottage. She talked for half-an-hour in her mild, limpid way; and then, when the arrival of one of Olive's models broke the quiet leisure of the painting-room, she rose.

"Nay, Miss Rothesay, do not quit your easel; Miss Van-brugh will accompany me through the garden, and besides, I wish to speak to her about her clematis. We cannot make them grow in S--shire; the Hall is perhaps too cold and bleak."

"Ah, how I love a clear bracing air!" said Mrs. Rothesay, with the restlessness peculiar to all invalids--and she had been a greater invalid than usual this summer.

"Then you must come down, as I said--you and Miss Rothesay--to S--shire; our part of the country is very beautiful. I should be most happy to see you at Farnwood."

She urged the invitation with an easy grace, even cordiality, which charmed Mrs. Rothesay, to whom it brought back the faint reflex of her olden life--the life at Merivale Hall.

"I should like to go, Olive," she said, appealingly. "I feel dull, and want a change."

"You shall have a change, darling," was the soothing but evasive answer.

For Olive had a tincture of the old Rothesay pride, and had formed a somewhat disagreeable idea of the position the struggling artist and her blind mother would fill as charity-guests at Farnwood Hall. So, after a little conversation with Mrs. Fludyer, she contrived that the first plan should melt into one more feasible. There was a pretty cottage, the squire's lady said, on the Farnwood estate; Miss Fludyer's daily governess had lived there; it was all fitted up. What if Miss Rothesay would bring her mother there for the summer months? It would be pleasant for all parties.

And so, very quickly, the thing was decided--decided as suddenly and unexpectedly as things are, when it seems as though not human will, but destiny held the balance.

Mrs. Fludyer seemed really pleased and interested; she talked to Miss Meliora less about her clematis than about her two inmates--a subject equally grateful to the painter's sister.

"There is something quite charming about Miss Rothesay--the air and manner of one who has always moved in good society. Do you know who she was? I should apologise for the question, but that a friend of mine, looking at her picture, was struck by the name, and desired me to inquire."

Meliora explained that she believed Olive's family was Scottish, and that her father was a Captain Angus Rothesay.

"Captain Angus Rothesay! I think that was the name mentioned by my friend."

"Shall I call Olive? Perhaps she knows your friend," observed Meliora.

"Oh no! Mrs.--that is, the lady I allude to, said they were entire strangers, and it was needless to mention her name. Do not trouble Miss Rothesay with my idle inquiry. Many thanks for the clematis; and good morning, my dear Miss Vanbrugh."

She ascended her carriage with the easy, smiling grace of one born to fortune, marrying fortune, and dwelling hand-in-hand with fortune all her life. Miss Meliora gazed in intense admiration after her departing wheels, and forthwith retired to plan out of the few words she had let fall a glorious future for her dear Miss Rothesay. There was certainly some unknown wealthy relative who would probably appear next week, and carry off Olive and her mother to affluence--in a carriage as grand as Mrs. Fludyer's.

She would have rushed at once to communicate the news to her friends, had it not been that she was stopped in the garden-walk by the apparition of her brother escorting two gentlemen from his studio--a rare courtesy with him. Meliora accounted for it when, from behind a sheltering espalier, she heard him address one of them as "my lord."

But when she told this to Olive, the young paintress was of a different opinion. She had heard the name of Lord Arundale, and recognised it as that of a n.o.bleman on whom his love of Art and science shed more honour than his t.i.tle. That was why Mr. Vanbrugh showed him respect, she knew.

"Certainly, certainly!" said Meliora, a little ashamed. "But to think that such a clever man, and a n.o.bleman, should be so ordinary in appearance. Why, he was not half so remarkable-looking as the gentleman who accompanied him."

"What was _he_ like?" said Olive smiling.

"You would have admired him greatly. His was just the sort of head you painted for your 'Aristides the Just'--your favourite style of beauty--dark, cold, proud, with such piercing, eagle eyes; they went right through me!"

Olive laughed merrily.

"Do you hear, mamma, how she runs on? What a bewitching young hero!"

"A hero, perhaps, but not exactly young; and as for bewitching, that he certainly might be, but it was in the fashion of a wizard or a magician.

I never felt so nervous at the sight of any one in the whole course of my life." Here there was a knock at the drawing-room door.

"Come in," said Olive; and Mr. Vanbrugh entered.

For a moment he stood on the threshold without speaking; but there was a radiance in his face, a triumphant dignity in his whole carriage, which struck Olive and his sister with surprise.

"Brother--dear Michael, you are pleased with something; you have had good news."

He pa.s.sed Meliora by, and walked up to Miss Rothesay.

"My pupil, rejoice with me; I have found at length appreciation, my life's aim has won success--I have sold my 'Alcestis.'"

Miss Vanbrugh rushed towards her brother. Olive Rothesay, full of delight, would have clasped her master's hand, but there was something in his look that repelled them both. His was the triumph of a man who exulted only in and for his Art, neither asking nor heeding any human sympathies. Such a look might have been on the face of the great Florentine, when he beheld the mult.i.tude gaze half in rapture, half in awe, on his work in the Sistine Chapel; then, folding his coa.r.s.e garments round him, walked through the streets of Rome to his hermit dwelling, and sat himself down under the shadow of his desolate renown.

Michael Vanbrugh continued,

"Yes, I have sold my grand picture; the dream--the joy of a lifetime.

Sold it, too, to a man who is worthy to possess it. I shall see it in Lord Arundale's n.o.ble gallery; I shall know that it, at least, will remain where, after my death, it will keep from oblivion the name of Michael Vanbrugh. Glorious indeed is this my triumph--yet less mine, than the triumph of high Art. Do you not rejoice, my pupil!"

"I do, indeed, my dear and n.o.ble master."

"And, brother, brother--you will be very rich. The price you asked for the 'Alcestis' was a thousand pounds," said Meliora.

He smiled bitterly.

"You women always think of money."

"But for your sake only, dear Michael," cried his sister; and her tearful eyes spoke the truth. Poor little soul! she could but go as far as her gifts went, and they extended no farther than to the thought of what comforts would this sum procure for Michael--a richer velvet gown and cap, like one of the old Italian painters--perhaps a journey to refresh his wearied eyes among lovely scenes of nature. She explained this, looking, not angry but just a little hurt.

"A journey! yes, I will take a journey--one which I have longed for these thirty years--I will go to Rome! Once again I will lie on the floor of the Sistine, and look up worshipingly to Michael the angel."

(He always called him so.)

"And how long shall you stay, brother?"

"Stay?--Until my heart grows pulseless, and my brain dull. Why should I ever come back to this cold England?

"No: let me grow old, die, and be buried under the shadow of the eternal City."

"He will never come back again--never," said Miss Vanbrugh, looking at Olive with a vague bewilderment. "He will leave this pretty cottage, and me, and everything."

There was a dead silence, during which poor 'Meliora sat plaiting her white ap.r.o.n in fold after fold, as was her habit when in deep and perplexed thought. Then she went up to her brother.

"Michael, if you will take me, I should like to go too."

"What!" cried Mrs. Rothesay, "you, my dear Miss Vanbrugh, who are so thoroughly English--who always said you hated moving from place to place, and would live and die at Woodford Cottage!