Olive Part 44

Olive's inmost heart echoed the blessing, and in the same words. For of late--perhaps with more frequently hearing him called by the familiar home appellation, she had thought of him less as _Mr. Gwynne_ than as _Harold_.

"I wonder what makes your blithe Christal so late," observed Mrs.

Gwynne, abruptly, as if disliking to betray further emotion. "Lyle Derwent promised to bring her himself--much against his will, though,"

she added, smiling. "He seems quite afraid of Miss Manners; he says she teases him so!"

"But she suffers no one else to do it. If I say a word against Lyle's little peculiarities, she is quite indignant. I rather think she likes him--that is, as much as she likes any of her friends."

"There is little depth of affection in Christal's nature. She is too proud. She feels no need of love, and therefore cares not to win it.

Do you know, Olive," continued Mrs. Gwynne, "if I must expose all my weaknesses, there was a time when I watched Miss Manners more closely than any one guesses. It was from a mother's jealousy over her son's happiness, for I often heard her name coupled with Harold's."

"So have I, more than once," said Olive. "But I thought at the time how idle was the rumour."

"It was idle, my dear; but I did not quite think so then."

"Indeed!" There was a little quick gesture of surprise; and Olive, ceasing her work, looked inquiringly at Mrs. Gwynne.

"Men cannot do without love, and having once been married, Harold's necessity for a good wife's sympathy and affection is the greater. I always expected that my son would marry again, and therefore I have eagerly watched every young woman whom he might meet in society, and be disposed to choose. All men, especially clergymen, are better married--at least in my opinion. Even you, yourself, as Harold's friend, his most valued friend, must acknowledge that he would be much happier with a second wife."

What was there in this frank speech that smote Olive with a secret pain?

Was it the unconscious distinction drawn between her and all other women on whom Harold might look with admiring eyes, so that his mother, while calling her his _friend_, never dreamed of her being anything more?

Olive knew not whence came the pain, yet still she felt it was there.

"Certainly he would," she answered, speaking in a slow, quiet tone.

"Nevertheless, I should scarcely think Christal a girl whom Mr. Gwynne would be likely to select."

"Nor I. At first, deeming her something like the first Mrs. Harold, I had my doubts; but they quickly vanished. My son will never marry Christal Manners."

Olive, sitting at the window, looked up. It seemed to her as if over the room had come a lightness like the pa.s.sing away of a cloud.

"Nor, at present," pursued Mrs. Gwynne, "does it appear to me likely that he will marry at all. I fear that domestic love--the strong, yet quiet tenderness of a husband to a wife, is not in his nature. Pa.s.sion is, or was, in his youth; but he is not young now. In his first hasty marriage I knew that the fire would soon burn itself out--it has left nothing but ashes. Once he deceived himself, and sorely he has reaped the fruits of his folly. The result is, that he will live to old age without ever having known the blessing of true love."

"Is that so mournful, then?" said Olive, more as if thinking aloud than speaking.

Mrs. Gwynne did not hear the words, for she had started up at the sound of a horse's hoofs at the gate. "If that should be Harold! He said he would be at home this week or next. It is--it is he! How glad I am--that is, I am glad that he should be in time to see the Fludyers and Miss Manners before their journey to-morrow."

Thus, from long habit, trying to make excuses for her overflowing tenderness, she hurried out. Olive heard Mr. Gwynne's voice in the Hall, his anxious tender inquiry for his mother; even the quick, flying step of little Ailie bounding to meet "papa."

She paused: her work fell, and a mist came over her eyes. She felt then, as she had sometimes done before, though never so strongly, that it was hard to be in the world alone.

This thought haunted her awhile; until at last it was banished by the influence of one of those pleasant social evenings, such as were often spent at the Parsonage. The whole party, including Christal and Lyle, were a.s.sembled in the twilight, the two latter keeping up a sort of Bened.i.c.k and Beatrice warfare. Harold and his mother seemed both very quiet--they sat close together, her hand sometimes resting caressingly on his shoulder or his knee. It was a new thing, this outward show of affection; but of late since his health had declined (and, in truth, he had often looked and been very ill), there had come a touching softness between the mother and son.

Olive Rothesay sat a little apart, a single lamp lighting her at her work; for she was not idle. Following her old master's example, she was continually making studies from life for the picture on which she was engaged. She took a pleasure in filling it with idealised heads, of which the originals had place in her own warm affections. Christal was there, with her gracefully-turned throat, and the singular charm of her black eyes and fair hair. Lyle, too, with his delicate, womanish, but yet handsome face. Nor was Mrs. Gwynne forgotten--Olive made great use of her well-outlined form, and her majestic sweep of drapery. There was one only of the group who had not been limned by Miss Rothesay.

"If I were my brother-in-law I should take it quite as an ill compliment that you had never asked him to sit," observed Lyle. "But," he added in a whisper, "I don't suppose any artist would care to paint such a hard, rugged-looking fellow as Gwynne."

Olive looked on the pretty red and white of the boyish dabbler in Art--for Lyle had lately taken a fancy that way too--and then at the countenance he maligned. She did not say a word; but Lyle hovering round, found his interference somewhat sharply put aside during the whole evening.

When a.s.sembled round the supper-table they talked of Christal's journey.

It was undertaken by invitation of Mrs. Fludyer, to whom the young damsel had made herself quite indispensable. Her liveliness charmed away the idle lady's ennui, while her pride and love of aristocratic exclusiveness equally gratified the same feelings for her patroness.

And from the mist that enwrapped her origin, the ingenious and perhaps self-deceived young creature had contrived to evolve such a grand fable of "ancient descent" and "n.o.ble but reduced family," that everybody regarded her in the same light as she regarded herself. And surely, as the quick-sighted Mrs. Gwynne often said, no daughter of a long ill.u.s.trious line was ever prouder than Christal Manners.

She indulged the party with a brilliant account of Mrs. Fludyer's antic.i.p.ations of pleasure at Brighton, whither the whole family at the Hall were bound.

"Really, we shall be quite desolate without a single soul left at Farnwood, shall we not, Olive?" observed Mrs. Gwynne.

Olive answered, "Yes,--very," without much considering of the matter.

Her thoughts were with Harold, who was leaning back in his chair, absorbed in one of those fits of musing, which with him were not unfrequent, and which no one ever regarded, save herself. How deeply solemn it was to her at such times to feel that she alone held the key of his soul--that it lay open, with all its secrets, to her, and to her alone. What marvel was it if this knowledge sometimes moved her with strange sensations; most of all, while, beholding the reserved exterior which he bore in society, she remembered the times when she had seen him goaded into terrible emotion, or softened to the weakness of a child.

At Olive's mechanical affirmative, Lyle Derwent brightened up amazingly.

"Miss Rothesay, I--I don't intend going away, believe me!"

Christal turned quickly round. "What are you saying, Mr. Derwent?"

He hung his head and looked foolish. "I mean that Brighton is too gay, and thoughtless, and noisy a place for me--I would rather stay at Harbury."

"You fickle, changeable, sentimental creature! I wouldn't be a man like you for the world!" And reckless Christal burst into a fit of laughter much louder than seemed warranted by the occasion. Lyle seemed much annoyed; whereupon his friend Miss Rothesay considerately interposed, and pa.s.sed to some other subject which lasted until the hour of departure.. The three walked to the Dell together, Christal jesting incessantly, either with or at Lyle Derwent. Olive walked beside them rather silent than otherwise. She had been so used to walk home with Harold Gwynne, that any other companionship along the old familiar road seemed unnatural. As she pa.s.sed along, from every bush, every tree, every winding of the lane, seemed to start some ghostlike memory; until there came over her a feeling almost of fear, to find how full her thoughts were of this one friend, how to pa.s.s from his presence was like pa.s.sing into gloom, and the sense of his absence seemed a heavy void.

"It was not so while my mother lived," Olive murmured sorrowfully. "I never needed any friend but her. What am I doing! What is coming over me?"

She trembled, and dared not answer the question.

At the Dell they parted from Lyle. "I shall see you once again before you leave, I hope," he said to Christal.

"Oh, yes; you will not get rid of your tormentor so easily."

"Get rid of you, fair Cruelty! Would a man wish to put out the sun because it scorches him sometimes?" cried Lyle, lifted to the seventh heaven of poetic fervour by the influence of a balmy night and a glorious harvest moon. Which said luminary, shining on Christal's face, saw there,--she only, pale Lady Moon,--an expression fine and rare; quivering lips, eyes not merely bright, but flaming, as such dark eyes only can.

As Olive was entering the hall door, Miss Manners, a little in the rear, fell, crying out as with pain. She was quickly a.s.sisted into the house, where, recovering, she complained of having sprained her ankle. Olive, full of compa.s.sion, laid her on the sofa, and hurried away for some simple medicaments, leaving Christal alone.

That young lady, as soon as she heard Miss Rothesay's steps overhead, bounded to the half-open window, moving quite as easily on the injured foot as on the other. Eagerly she listened; and soon was rewarded by hearing Lyle's voice carolling pathetically down the road, the ditty,

"Io ti voglio ben a.s.sai, Ma tu non pensi a me!"

"Tis my song, mine! I taught him!" said Christal, laughing to herself.

"He thought to stay behind and escape me and my cruelty.' But we shall see--we shall see!"

Though in her air was a triumphant, girlish coquetry, yet something there was of a woman's pa.s.sion, too. But she heard a descending step, and had only just, time to regain her invalid att.i.tude and her doleful countenance, when Olive entered.

"This accident is most unfortunate," said Miss Rothesay, "How will you manage your journey to-morrow?"

"I shall not be able to go," said Christal in a piteous voice, though over her averted face broke a comical smile.

"Are you really so much hurt, my dear?"

"Do you doubt it?" was the sharp reply. "I am sorry to trouble you; but I really am unable to leave the Dell."

Very often did she try Olive's patience thus; but the faithful daughter always remembered those last words, "Take care of Christal."

So, excusing all, she tended the young sufferer carefully until midnight, and then went down-stairs secretly to perform a little act of self-denial, by giving up an engagement she had made for the morrow.