Olive Part 32

Olive went up to him.

"I must go now. You will bid me good-bye--will you not, gently, kindly?

You will not think the worse of me for what has pa.s.sed this night?" And she knelt down beside him, pressing her lips to his hand.

He stooped and kissed her forehead. It was the first and last kiss that, since boyhood, Michael Vanbrugh ever gave to woman.

Then he stood up--the great artist only. In his eye was no softness, but the pride of genius--genius, the mighty, the daring, the eternally alone.

"Go, my pupil! and remember my parting words. Fame is sweeter than all pleasure, stronger than all pain. We give unto Art our life, and she gives us immortality."

As Olive went out, she saw him still standing, stern, motionless, with folded arms and majestic eyes; like a solitary rock whereon no flowers grow, but on whose summit heaven's light continually shines.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"Well, darling, how do you feel in our new home?" said Olive to her mother, when, after a long and weary journey, the night came down upon them at Farnwood, the dark, gusty, autumn night, made wildly musical by the neighbourhood of dense woods.

"I feel quite content, my child: I am always content everywhere with you. And I like the wind; it helps me to imagine the sort of country we are in."

"A forest country, hilly and bleak. We drove through miles of forest-land, over roads carpeted with fallen leaves. The woods will look glorious this autumn time."

"That will be very pleasant, my child," said Mrs. Rothesay, who was so accustomed to see with Olive's eyes, and to delight in the vivid pictures painted by Olive's eloquent tongue, that she never spoke like a person who is blind. Even the outward world was to her no blank of desolation. Wherever they went, every beautiful place, or thing, or person, that Olive saw, she treasured in memory. "I must tell mamma of this," or "I must bring mamma here, and paint the view for her." And so she did, in words so rich and clear, that the blind mother often said she enjoyed such scenes infinitely more than when the whole wide earth lay open to her unregardful eyes.

"I wonder," said Olive, "what part of S----shire we are in. We really might have been fairy-guided hither; we seem only aware that our journey began in London and ended at Farnwood. I don't know anything about the neighbourhood."

"Never mind the neighbourhood, dear, since we are settled, you say, in such a pretty house. Tell me, is it like Woodford Cottage?"

"Not at all! It is quite modern and comfortable. And they have made it all ready for us, just as if we were come to a friend's house on a visit. How kind of Mrs. Fludyer!"

"Nay! I'm sure Mrs. Fludyer never knew how to arrange a house in her life. She had no hand in the matter, trust me!" observed the sharply-observant Christal.

"Well, then, it is certainly the same guiding-fairy who has done this for us, too. And I am very thankful to have such a quiet, pleasant coming-home."

"I, too, feel it like coming home," said Mrs. Rothesay, in a soft weary voice. "Olive, love, I am glad the journey is over; it has been almost too much for me. We will not go back to London yet awhile; we will stay here a long time."

"As long as ever you like, darling. And now shall I show you the house?"

"Showing" the house implied a long description of it, in Olive's blithest language, as they pa.s.sed from room to room. It was a pretty, commodious dwelling, perhaps the prettiest portion of which was the chamber which Miss Rothesay appropriated as her mother's and her own.

"It is a charming sleeping-room, with its white draperies, and its old oak furniture; and the quaint pier-gla.s.s, stuck round with peac.o.c.ks'

feathers, country fashion. And there, mamma, are some prints, a 'Raising of Lazarus,' though not quite so grand as my beloved 'Sebastian del Piombo.' And here are views from my own beautiful Scotland--a 'Highland Loch,' and 'Edinburgh Castle;' and, oh, mamma! there is grand old 'Stirling,' the place where I was born! Our good fairy might have known the important fact; for, lo! she has adorned the mantelpiece with two great bunches of heather, in honour of me, I suppose. How pleasant!"

"Yes. But I am weary, love. I wish I were in bed, and at rest."

This was soon accomplished; and Olive sat down by her mother's side, as she often did, waiting until Mrs. Rothesay fell asleep.

She sat, looking about her mechanically, as one does when taking possession of a strange room. Curiously her eye marked every quaint angle in the furniture, which would in time become so familiar. Then she thought, as one of dreamy mood is apt to do under such circ.u.mstances, of how many times she should lay her head down on the pillow in this same room, and when, and how would be the _last time_. For to all things on earth must come a last time.

But, waking herself out of such pondering, she turned to look at her mother. The delicate placid face lay in the stillness of deep sleep--a stillness that sometimes startles one, from its resemblance to another and more solemn repose. While she looked, a pain entered the daughter's heart. To chase it thence, she stooped and softly kissed the face which to her was, and ever had been, the most beautiful in the world; and then, following the train of her former musings, came the thought that one day--it might be far distant, but still, in all human probability, it must come--she would kiss her mother's brow for the _last time_.

A moment's shiver, a faint prayer, and the thought pa.s.sed. But long afterwards she remembered it, and marvelled that it should have first come to her then and there.

The morning that rose at Farnwood Dell--so the little house was called--was one of the brightest that ever shone from September skies.

Olive felt cheerful as the day; and as for Christal, she was perpetually running in and out, making the wonderful discoveries of a young damsel who had never in all her life seen the real country. She longed for a ramble, and would not let Olive rest until the exploit was determined on. It was to be a long walk, the appointed goal being a beacon that could be seen for miles, a church on the top of a hill.

Olive quite longed to go thither, because it had been the first sight at Farnwood on which her eyes had rested. Looking out from her chamber-window, at the early morning, she had seen it gleaming goldenly in the sunrise. All was so new, so lovely! It had made her feel quite happy, just as though with that first sunrise at Farnwood had dawned a new era in her life. Many times during the day she looked at the hill church; she would have asked about it had there been any one to ask, so she determined that her first walk should be thither.

The graceful spire rose before them, guiding them all the way, which did not seem long to Olive, who revelled in the beauties unfolded along their lonely walk--a winding road, bounding the forest, on whose verge the hill stood. But Christal's Parisian feet soon grew wearied, and when they came to the ascent of the hill, she fairly sat down by the roadside.

"I will go into this cottage, and rest until you come back, Miss Rothesay; and you need not hurry, for I shall not be able to walk home for an hour," said the wilful young lady, as she quickly vanished, and left her companion to proceed to the church alone.

Slowly Olive wound up the hill, and through a green lane that led to the churchyard. There seemed a pretty little village close by, but she was too tired to proceed further. She entered the churchyard, intending to sit down and rest on one of the gravestones; but at the wicket-gate she paused to look around at the wide expanse of country that lay beneath the afternoon sunshine--a peaceful earth, smiling back the smile of heaven. The old grey church, with its circle of gigantic trees, shut out all signs of human habitation; and there was no sound, not even the singing of birds, to break the perfect quiet that brooded around.

Olive had scarcely ever seen so sweet a spot. Its sweetness pa.s.sed into her soul, moving her even to tears. From the hill-top she looked on the wide verdant plain, then up into the sky, and wished for doves' wings to sail out into the blue. Never had she so deeply felt how beautiful was earth, and how happy it might be made. And was Olive not happy? She thought of all those whose forms had moved through her life's picture; very beautiful to her heart they were: beautiful and dearly loved: but now it seemed as though there was one great want, one glorious image that should have arisen above them all, melting them into a grand harmonious whole.

Half conscious of this want, Olive thought, "I wonder how it would have been with me had I ever penetrated that great mystery which crowns all life: had I ever known love!"

The thought brought back many of her conversations with Michael,--and his belief that the life of the heart and that of the brain--one so warm and rich--the other so solitary and cold--can rarely exist together.

Towards the latter her whole destiny seemed now turning.

"It may be true; perchance all is well Let me think so. If on earth I must ever feel this void, may it be filled at last in the after-life with G.o.d!"

She pondered thus, but the meditations oppressed her. She was rather glad to have them broken by the appearance of a little girl, who entered from a wicket-gate at the other end of the churchyard, and walked, very slowly and quietly, to a grave-stone near where Miss Rothesay stood.

Olive approached, but the child, a thoughtful-looking little creature of about eight years old, did not see her until she came quite close.

"Do not let me disturb you, my dear," said she gently, as the little girl seemed shy and frightened, and about to run away. But Miss Rothesay, who loved all children, began to talk to her, and very soon succeeded in conquering the timidity of the pretty little maiden. For she was a pretty creature. Olive especially admired her eyes, which were large and dark, the sort of eyes she had always loved for the sake of Sara Derwent. Looking into them now, she seemed carried back once more to the days of her early youth, and of that long-vanished dream.

"Are you fond of coming here, my child?"

"Yes; whenever I can steal quietly away, out of sight of papa and grandmamma. They do not forbid me; else, you know, I ought not to do it; but they say it is not good for me to stay thinking here, and send me to go and play."

"And why had you rather come and sit here than play?"

"Because there is a secret, and I want to try and find it out. I dare not tell you, for you might tell papa and grandmamma, and they would be angry."

"But your mamma--you could surely tell mamma; I always tell everything to mine."

"Do you? and have you got a mamma? Then, perhaps you could help me in finding out all about mine. You must know," added the child, lifting up her eager face with an air of mystery, "when I was very little, I lived away from here--I never saw my mamma, and my nurse always told me that she had 'gone away.' A little while since, when I came home--my home is there," and she pointed to what seemed the vicarage-house, glimmering whitely through the trees--"they told me mamma was here, under this stone, but they would tell me nothing more. Now, what does it all mean?"

Olive perceived by these words, that the child was playing upon her mother's grave. Only it seemed strange that she should have been left so entirely ignorant with regard to the great mysteries of death and immortality. Miss Rothesay was puzzled what to answer.

"My child, if your mamma be here, it is her body only." And Olive paused, startled at the difficulty she found in explaining in the simplest terms the doctrine of the soul's immortality. At last she continued, "When you go to sleep do you not often dream of walking in beautiful places and seeing beautiful things, and the dreams are so happy that you would not mind whether you slept on your soft bed or on the hard ground? Well, so it is with your mamma; her body has been laid down to sleep, but her mind--her spirit, is flying far away in beautiful dreams. She never feels at all that she is lying in her grave under the ground."

"But how long will her body lie there? and will it ever wake?"

"Yes, it will surely wake, though how soon we know not, and be taken up to heaven and to G.o.d."