Olive Part 67

Gradually she led him to consent to her entreaty that they should both work together for their dearest ones; and that in the home which she with her slender means could win, there should ever be a resting-place for Mrs. Gwynne and for little Ailie.

Then they put aside all anxious talk, and sat in the twilight, with clasped hands, speaking softly and brokenly; or else never speaking at all; only feeling that they were together--they two, who were all in all to each other, while the whole world of life went whirling outside, never touching that sweet centre of complete repose. At last, Olive's full heart ran over.

"Oh, Harold!" she cried, "this happiness is almost more than I can bear.

To think that you should love me thus--me poor little Olive! Sometimes I feel--as I once bitterly felt--how unworthy I am of you."

"Darling! why?"

"Because I have no beauty; and, besides--I cannot speak it, but you know--you know!"

She hid her face burning with blushes. The words and act revealed how deeply in her heart lay the sting which had at times tortured her her whole life through--shame for that personal imperfection with which Nature had marked her from her birth, and which, forgotten in an hour by those who learned to love her, still seemed to herself a perpetual humiliation. The pang came, but only for the last time, ere it quitted her heart for ever.

For, dispelling all doubts, healing all wounds, fell the words of her betrothed husband--tender, though grave: "Olive, if you love me, and believe that I love you, never grieve me by such thoughts again. To me you are all beautiful--in heart and mind, in form and soul."

Then, as if silently to count up her beauties, he kissed her little hands, her soft smiling mouth, her long gold curls. And Olive hid her face in his breast, murmuring,

"I am content, since I am fair in your sight, my Harold--my only love!"

CHAPTER XLIX.

Late autumn, that season so beautiful in Scotland, was shining into the house at Morningside. She, its mistress, who had there lived from middle life to far-extended years, and then pa.s.sed from the weakness of age to the renewed youth of immortality, was seen no more within its walls. But her spirit seemed to abide there still; in the flowers which at early spring she had planted, for other hands to gather; in the fountain she had placed, which sang its song of murmuring freshness to soothe many an ear and heart, when _she_, walking by the streams of living waters, needed those of earth no more.

Mrs. Flora Rothesay was dead; but she had lived one of those holy lives whose influence remains for generations. So, though now her name had gradually ceased from familiar lips, and from her house and garden walks, her image faded slowly in the thoughts of those who best loved her; still she lived, even on earth, in the good deeds she had left behind--in the happiness she had created wherever her own sore-wounded footsteps trod.

In the dwelling from which she had departed there seemed little change.

Everything looked as it had done more than a year before, when Olive had come thither, and found rest and peace. There were fewer flowers in the autumnal garden, and the Hermitage woods beyond were all brown and gold; but there was the same clear line of the Braid Hills, their purple slopes lying in the early morning sun. No one looked at them, though, for the breakfast-room was empty. But very soon there stole into it, with the soft footstep of old, with the same quiet smile,--Olive Rothesay.

No, reader! Neither you nor any one else will ever see Olive _Rothesay_ more. She wears on her finger a golden ring, she bears a new name--the well-beloved name.--She is Harold Gwynne's wife now.

To their fortunes Heaven allowed, as Heaven sometimes does, the sweetness of a brave resolve, the joy of finding that it is not needed.

Scarcely had Olive and her betrothed prepared to meet their future and go on, faithfully loving, though perhaps unwedded for years, when a change came. They learned that Mrs. Flora Rothesay, by a will made a little before her death, had devised her whole fortune to Harold, on condition that he should take the name of his ancestors on the mother's side, and be henceforth Harold Gordon Gwynne. She made no reservations, save that she wished her house and personal property at Morningside to go to her grand-niece Olive, adding in the will the following sentence:

"I leave her this and _no more_, that she may understand how deeply I reverenced her true woman's nature, and how dearly I loved herself."

And Olive did understand all; but she hid the knowledge in her rejoicing heart, both then and always. It was the only secret she ever kept from her husband.

She had been married some weeks only; yet she felt as if the old life had been years gone by, so faint and dreamlike did it seem. Hers was a very quiet marriage--a quiet honeymoon; fit crowning of a love which had been so solemn, almost sad, from its beginning to its end. Its _end_?--say, rather, its new dawn;--its fulfilment in a deeper, holier bond than is ever dreamed of by girlish sentiment or boyish pa.s.sion--the still, sacred love of marriage. And, however your modern infidels may doubt, and your free-thinking heart-desecrators scoff, _that_ is the true love--the tie which G.o.d created from the beginning, making man and woman to be one flesh, and p.r.o.nouncing it "good."

It is good! None can question it who sees the look of peace and full contentment--a look whose like one never beholds in the wide world save then, as it sits smiling on the face of a bride who has married for true love. Very rare it is, indeed--rare as such marriages ever are; but one sees it sometimes;--we saw it, reader, a while since, on a young wife's face, and it made us think of little Olive in her happy home at Morningside.

She stood by the window for a minute or two, her artist-soul drinking in all that was beautiful in the scene; then she went about her little household duties, already grown so sweet. She took care that Mrs.

Gwynne's easy-chair was placed in its proper angle by the fire, and that Harold had beside his plate the great ugly scientific book which he always liked to read at breakfast. Indeed, it was a saying of Marion M'Gillivray's--from whose bonnie face the cloud had altogether pa.s.sed, leaving only a thoughtful gravity meet for a girl who would shortly leave her maiden home for one far dearer--Marion often said that Mr.

Gwynne was trying to make his wife as learned as himself, and that his influence was robbing their Scottish Academy of no one knew how many grand pictures. Perhaps it might be--it was a natural and a womanly thing that in her husband's fame Olive should almost forget her own.

When she had seen all things ready, Olive went away upstairs, and stood by a child's bed--little Ailie's. Not the least sweet of all her new ties was it, that Harold's daughter was now her own. And tender, like a mother's, was the kiss with which she wakened the child. There was in her hand a book--a birthday gift; for Ailie was nine years old that day.

"Oh, how good you are to me, my sweet, dear, new mamma!" cried the happy little one, clinging round Olive's neck. "What a pretty, pretty book!

And you have written in it my name--'Ailie.' But," she added, after a shy pause, "I wish, if you do not mind, that you would put there my whole long name, which I am just learning to write."

"That I will, my pet. Come, tell me what shall I say--word for word, 'Alison'"------

"Yes, that is it--my beautiful long name--which I like so much, though no one ever calls me by it--_Alison Sara Gwynne._"

"Sara! did they call you Sara?" said Olive, letting her pen fall. She took the little girl in her arms, and looked long and wistfully into the large oriental eyes--so like those which death had long sealed. And her tears rose, remembering the days of her youth. How strange--how very strange, had been her whole life's current, even until now! She thought of her who was no more--whose place she filled, whose slighted happiness was to herself the summit of all joy. But Heaven had so willed it, and to that end had made all things tend. It was best for all. One moment her heart melted, thinking of the garden at Oldchurch, the thorn-tree at the river-side, and afterwards of the long-closed grave at Harbury, over which the gra.s.s waved in forgotten silence. Then, pressing Ailie to her bosom, she resolved that while her own life lasted she would be a faithful and most loving mother unto poor Sara's child.

A _Mother!_--The word brought back--as it often did when Harold's daughter called her by that name--another memory, never forgotten, though sealed among the holy records of the past. Even on her marriage-day the thought had come--"O thou, to whom in life I gave all love, all duty,--now needed by thee no more, both pa.s.s unto _him_. If souls can behold and rejoice in the happiness of those beloved on earth, mother, look down from heaven and bless my husband!"

Nor did it wrong the dead, if this marriage-bond involved another, which awakened in Olive feelings that seemed almost a renewal of the love once buried in Mrs. Rothesay's grave. And Harold's wife inly vowed, that while she lived, his mother should never want the devotion and affection of a daughter.

In the past fading memories of Olive's former life was one more, which now grew into a duty, over whose fulfilment, even amidst her bridal happiness, she pondered continually; and talked thereof to her husband, to whom it was scarcely less absorbing.

Since they came home to Morningside, they had constantly sought at St.

Margaret's for news of Christal Manners.

Many times Olive had written to her, but no answer came. The silence of the convent walls seemed to fold itself over all revelations of the tortured spirit which had found refuge there. However, Christal had taken no vows. Mrs. Flora and Harold had both been rigid on that point, and the good nuns reverenced their order too much to admit any one who might have sought it from the impulse of despair, rather than from any pious "vocation."

Olive's heart yearned over her sister. On this day she resolved to make one more effort to break the silence between them. So, in the afternoon, she went to the convent quite alone, walking through the pleasant lanes where she had formerly walked with Marion M'Gillivray. Strange contrast between the present and the past! When she stood in the little convent parlour, and remembered how she had stood there with a bursting heart, that longed for any rest--any oblivion, to deaden its cruel pain,--Olive trembled with her happiness now. And she felt how solemn is the portion of those whose cup G.o.d has thus crowned, in order that they may pour it out before Him continually, in offerings of thanksgiving and of fruitful deeds.

Sister Ignatia entered--the same bright-eyed, benevolent, simple soul.

"Ah, you are come again this week, too, my dear Mrs. Harold Gwynne--(I can hardly remember your new name even yet)--but I fear your coming is vain; though, day after day, I beseech your sister to see you."

"She will not, then?" said Olive, sighing.

"No. Yet she says she has no bitterness against you. How could she?

However, I ask no questions, for the past is all forgotten here. And I love the poor young creature. Oh, if you knew her fasts, her vigils, and her prayers! G.o.d and the Holy Mother pity her, poor broken-hearted thing!" said the compa.s.sionate nun.

"Speak to her once more. Do not tell her I am here: only speak of me to her," said Olive. And she waited anxiously until Sister Ignatia came back.

"She says she is glad you are happy, and married to that good friend of hers, to whom she owes so much; but that she is dead to the world, and wishes to hear of no one any more. Still, when I told her you lived at Morningside, she began to tremble. I think--I hope, if she were to see you suddenly, before she had time to reflect--only not now--you look so agitated yourself."

"No, no; I can always be calm at will--I have long learned that. Your plan is kind: let it be to-day. It may end in good, please G.o.d. Where is my dear sister?"

"She is sitting in the dormitory of the convent-school. She stays a great deal with our little girls, and takes much care of them, especially of some orphans that we have."

Olive sighed. Well she read unhappy Christal's reason. But it showed some softening of the stony heart. Almost hopeful she followed Sister Ignatia to the dormitory.

It was a long, narrow room, lined with tiny white beds. Over its pure neatness good fairies might have continually presided. Through it swept the fresh air coming from the open window which overlooked the garden.

And there, darkening it with her tall black shadow, stood the only present occupant of the room, Christal Manners.

She wore a garb half-secular, half-religious. Her black serge dress betrayed no attention to fashion, scarcely even to neatness; her beautiful hair was all put back under a white linen veil, and her whole appearance showed that last bitter change in a woman's nature, when she ceases to have a woman's instinctive personal pride. Olive saw not her face, except the cheek's outline, worn to the straightness of age. Nor did Christal observe Olive until she had approached quite close.

Then she gave a wild start, the old angry flush mounted to her temples, and sank.

"Why did you come here?" she said hoa.r.s.ely; "I sent you word I wished to see no one--that I was utterly dead to the world."