Olive Part 45

While writing to renounce it, she felt, with a renewed sense of vague apprehension, how keen a pleasure it was she thus resigned--a whole long day in the forest with her pet Ailie, Ailie's grandmamma, and--Harold Gwynne.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

Midnight was long past, and yet Olive sat at her desk; she had finished her note to Mrs. Gwynne, and was poring over a small packet of letters carefully separated from the remainder of her correspondence. If she had been asked the reason of this, perhaps she would have made answer that they were unlike the rest--solemn in character, and secret withal. She never looked at them but her expression changed; when she touched them she did it softly and tremulously, as one would touch a living sacred thing.

They were letters which at intervals during his various absences she had received from Harold Gwynne.

Often had she read them over--so often, that, many a time waking in the night, whole sentences came distinctly on her memory, vivid almost as a spoken voice. And yet scarcely a day pa.s.sed that she did not read them over again. Perhaps this was from their tenor, for they were letters such as a man rarely writes to a woman, or even a friend to a friend.

Let us judge, extracting portions from them at will.

The first, dated months back, began thus: "You will perhaps marvel, my dear Miss Rothesay, that I should write to you, when for some time we have met so rarely, and then apparently like ordinary acquaintance. Yet, who should have a better right than we to call each other _friends_? And like a friend you acted, when you consented that there should be between us for a time this total silence on the subject which first bound us together by a tie which we can neither of us break if we would. Alas!

sometimes I could almost curse the weakness which had given you--a woman--to hold my secret in your hands. And yet so gently, so n.o.bly have you held it, that I could kneel and bless you. You see I can write earnestly, though I speak so coldly."

"I told you, after that day when we two were alone with death (the words are harsh, I know, but I have no smooth tongue), I told you that I desired entire silence for weeks, perhaps months. I must 'commune with my own heart and be still.' I must wrestle with this darkness alone. You a.s.sented; you forced on me no long argumentative homilies--you preached to me solely with your life, the pure beautiful life of a Christian woman. Sometimes I tried to read carefully the morality of Jesus, which I, and sceptics worse than I, must allow to be perfect of its kind, and it struck me how nearly you approached to that divine life which I had thought impossible to be realised."

"I have advanced thus far into my solemn seeking. I have learned to see the revelation--imputedly divine--clear and distinct from the ma.s.s of modern creeds with which it has been overladen. I have begun to read the book on which--as you truly say--every form of religion is founded.

I try to read with my own eyes, putting aside all received interpretations, earnestly desiring to cast from my soul all long-gathered prejudices, and to bring it, naked and clear, to meet the souls of those who are said to have written by divine inspiration."

"The book is a marvellous book. The history of all ages can scarcely show its parallel. What diversity, yet what unity! The stream seems to flow through all ages, catching the lights and shadows of different periods, and of various human minds. Yet it is one and the same stream---pure and shining as truth. Is it truth?--is it divine?"

"I will confess, candidly, that if the scheme of a worlds history with reference to its Creator, as set forth in the Bible, were true, it would be a scheme in many things worthy of a divine benevolence: such as that in which you believe. But can I imagine Infinity setting itself to work out such trivialities? What is even a world? A mere grain of dust in endless s.p.a.ce! It cannot be. A G.o.d who could take interest in man, in such an atom as I, would be no G.o.d at all. What avails me to have risen unto more knowledge, more clearness in the sense of the divine, if it is to plunge me into such an abyss as this? Would I had never been awakened from my sleep--the dull stupor of materialism into which I was fast sinking. Then I might, in the end, have conquered even the last fear, that of 'something after death,' and have perished like a soulless clod, satisfied that there was no hereafter. Now, if there should be? I whirl and whirl; I can find no rest. I would I knew for certain that I was mad. But it is not so."

"You answer, my kind friend, like a woman--like the sort of woman I believed in in my boyhood--when I longed for a sister, such a sister as you. It is very strange, even to myself, that I should write to any one as freely as I do to you. I know that I could never speak thus.

Therefore, when I return home, you must not marvel to find me just the same reserved being as ever--less to you, perhaps, than to most people, but still reserved. Yet, never believe but that I thank you for all your goodness most deeply."

"You say that, like most women, you have little power of keen philosophical argument. Perhaps not; but there is in you a spiritual sense that may even transcend knowledge. I once heard--was it not you who said so?--that the poet who 'reads G.o.d's secrets in the stars' soars nearer Him than the astronomer who calculates by figures and by line.

As, even in the material universe, there are planets and systems which mock all human ken; so in the immaterial world there must be a boundary where all human reasoning fails, and we can trust to nothing but that inward inexplicable sense which we call faith. This seems to me the great argument which inclines us to receive that supernatural manifestation of the all-pervading Spirit which is termed 'revelation.'

And there we go back again to the relation between the finite--humanity, and the infinite--Deity.'"

"One of my speculations you answer by an allegory--Does not the sun make instinct with life not only man, but the meanest insect, the lowest form of vegetable existence? He shines. His light at once revivifies a blade of gra.s.s and illumines a world. If thus it is with the created, may not it be also with the Creator? There is something within me that answers to this reasoning.

"If I have power to conceive the existence of G.o.d, to look up from my nothingness unto His great height, to desire nearer insight into His being, there must be in my soul something not unworthy of Him--something that, partaking His divinity, instinctively turns to the source whence it was derived. Shall I, suffering myself to be guided by this power, seek less to doubt than to believe?

"I remember my first mathematical tutor once said to me, 'If you would know anything, begin by doubting everything.' I did begin, but I have never yet found an end."

"I will take your advice, my dear friend; advice given so humbly, so womanly. Yet I think you deal with me wisely. I am a man who never could be preached or argued into belief. I must find out the truth for myself.

And so, according to your counsel, I will again carefully study the Bible, and especially the life of Jesus of Nazareth, which you believe the clearest revelation which G.o.d has allowed of Himself to earth.

Finding any contradictions or obscurities, I will remember, as you say, that Scripture was not, and does not pretend to be, written visibly and actually by the finger of G.o.d, but by His inspiration conveyed through many human minds, and of course always bearing to a certain extent the impress of the mind through which it pa.s.ses. Therefore, while the letter is sometimes apparently contradictory, the spirit is invariably one and the same. I am to look to _that_, first? Above all, I am to look to the only earthly manifestation of Divine perfection--Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all men? _I will_.

"You see how my mind echoes your words, my friend! I am becoming, I think, more like you. All human affections are growing closer and dearer unto me. I can look at my good and pious mother without feeling, as I did at times, that she is either a self-deceiver or deceived. I do not now shrink from my little daughter, nor think with horror that she owes to me that being which may lead her one day to 'curse G.o.d and die.'

Still I cannot rest at Harbury. All things there torture me. As for resuming my duties as a minister, that seems all but impossible. What an accursed hypocrite I have been! If this search after truth should end in a belief anything like that of the Church of England, I shall marvel that Heaven's lightning has not struck me dead."

... "You speak hopefully of the time when we shall hold one faith, and both give thanks unto the merciful G.o.d who has lightened my darkness.

I cannot say this _yet _; but the time may come. And if it does, what shall I owe to you, who, by your outward life, first revived my faith in humanity--by your inward life, my faith in G.o.d? You have solved to me many of those enigmas of Providence which, in my blindness, I thought impugned eternal justice. Now I see that love--human and divine--is sufficient to itself, and that he who loves G.o.d is one with G.o.d. There may be a hundred varying forms of doctrine, but this one truth is above all and the root of all.--I hold to it, and I believe it will save my soul. If ever I lift up a prayer worthy to reach the ear of G.o.d, it is that He may bless you, my friend, and comforter."

And here, reader, for a moment, we pause. Following whither our object led, we have gone far beyond the bounds usually prescribed to a book like this; After perusing the present chapter, you may turn to the t.i.tle-page, and reading thereon, "Olive, a _Novel_" may exclaim, "Most incongruous--most strange!" Nay, some may even accuse us of irreverence in thus bringing into a fict.i.tious story those subjects which are acknowledged as most vital to every human soul, but yet which most people are content, save at set times and places, tacitly to ignore.

There are those who sincerely believe that in such works as this it is profanity even to name the Holy Name. Yet what is a novel, or, rather, what is it that a novel ought to be? The attempt of one earnest mind to show unto many what humanity is--ay, and more, what humanity might become; to depict what is true in essence through imaginary forms; to teach, counsel, and warn, by means of the silent transcript of human life. Human life without G.o.d! Who will dare to tell us we should paint _that_?

Authors, who feel the solemnity of their calling, cannot suppress the truth that is within them. Having put their hands to the plough, they may not turn aside, nor look either to the right or the left. They must go straight on, as the inward voice impels; and He who seeth their hearts will guide them aright.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

Some days pa.s.sed in quiet uniformity, broken only by the visits of good-natured Lyle, who came, as he said, to amuse the invalid. Whether that were the truth or no, he was a frequent and always welcome guest at the Dell. Only he made the proviso, that in all amus.e.m.e.nts which he and Christal shared, Miss Rothesay should be in some way united. So, morning after morning, the sofa whereupon the invalid gracefully reclined was brought into the painting-room, and there, while Olive worked, she listened, sometimes almost in envy, to the gay young voices that mingled in song, or contended in the light battle of wits. How much older, graver, and sadder, she seemed than they!

Harold Gwynne did not come. This circ.u.mstance troubled Olive. Not that he was in the habit of paying long morning visits, like young Derwent; but still when he was at Harbury, it usually chanced that every few days they met somewhere. So habitual had this intercourse become, that a week's complete cessation of it seemed a positive pain.

Ever, when Olive rose in the morning, the sun-gilded spire of Harbury Church brought the thought, "I wonder will he come to-day!" And at night, when he did not come, she could not conceal from herself, that looking back on the past day, over all its duties and pleasures, there rose a pale mist. She seemed to have only half lived. Alas, alas!

Olive knew, though she hardly would acknowledge it to herself, that for many months this interest in Harold Gwynne had been the one great interest of her existence. At first it came in the form of a duty, and as such she had entered upon it. She was one of those women who seem born ever to devote themselves to some one. When her mother died, it had comforted Olive to think there was still a human being who stretched out to her entreating hands, saying, "I need thee! I need thee!" Nay, it even seemed as if the voice of the saint departed called upon her to perform this sacred task. Thereto tended her thoughts and prayers.

And thus there came upon her the fate which has come upon many another woman,--while thus devoting herself she learned to love. But so gradual had been the change that she knew it not.

"Why am I restless?" she thought. "One is too exacting in friendship; one should give all and ask nothing back. Still, it is not quite kind of him to stay away thus. But a man is not like a woman. He must have so many conflicting and engrossing interests, whilst I"---- Here her thought broke and dissolved like a rock-riven wave. She dared not yet confess that she had no interest in the world save what was linked with him.

"If he comes not so often," she re-commenced her musings, "even then I ought to be quite content. I know he respects and esteems me; nay, that he has for me a warm regard. I have done him good, too; he tells me so.

How fervently ought I to thank G.o.d if any feeble words of mine may so influence him, as in time to lead him from error to truth. My friend, my dear friend! I could not die, knowing or fearing that the abyss of eternity would lie between my spirit and his. Now, whatever may part us during life"----

Here again she paused, overcome with the consciousness of great pain.

If there was gloom in the silence of a week, what would a whole life's silence be? Something whispered that even in this world it would be very bitter to part with Harold Gwynne.

"You are not painting, Miss Rothesay; you are thinking," suddenly cried Lyle Derwent.

Olive started almost with a sense of shame. "Has not an artist a right to dream a little?" she said. Yet she blushed deeply. Were her thoughts wrong, that they needed to be thus glossed over? Was there stealing into her heart a secret that taught her to feign?

"What! are you, always the idlest of the idle, reproving Miss Rothesay for being idle too?" said Christal, somewhat sharply. "No wonder she is dull, and I likewise. You are getting as solemn as Mr. Gwynne himself. I almost wish he would come in your place."

"Do you? Then 'reap the misery of a granted prayer' for there is a knock It may be my worthy brother-in-law himself."

"If so, for charity's sake, give me your arm and help me into the next room. I cannot abide his gloomy face."

"O woman!--changeful--fickle--vain!" laughed the young man, as he performed the duty of supporting the not very fragile form of the fair Christal.

Olive was left alone. Why did she tremble? Why did her pulse sink, slower and slower? She asked herself this question, even in self-disdain. But there was no answer.

Harold entered.

"I am come with a message from my mother," said he; but added anxiously, "How is this, Miss Rothesay? You look as if you had been ill?"

"Oh, no! only weary with a long morning's work. But will you sit!"

He received, as usual, the quiet smile--the greeting gentle and friendly. He was deceived by them as heretofore.

"Are you better than when last I was at the Parsonage? I have seen nothing of you for a week, you know."