Olive Part 35

Mrs. Rothesay was sitting out of doors, in her garden chair. A beautiful picture she made, leaning back with-a mild sweetness, scarce a smile hovering on her lips. Her pale little hands were folded on her black dress; her soft braids of hair, already silver-grey, and her complexion, lovely as that of a young girl, showing delicately in contrast with her crimson garden-hood, the triumph of her daughter's skilful fingers.

Olive crossed the gra.s.s with a quick and noiseless step,--Harold following. "Mamma, darling!"

A light, bright as a sunburst, shone over Mrs. Rothesay's face--"My child! how long you have been away. Did Mrs. Gwynne"--

"Hush, darling!"--in a whisper--"I have been at the Parsonage, and Mr.

Gwynne has kindly brought me home. He is here now."

Harold stood at a distance and bowed.

Olive came to him, saying, in a low tone, "Take her hand, she cannot see you, she is blind."

He started with surprise. "I did not know--my mother told me nothing."--And then, advancing to Mrs. Rothesay, he pressed her hand in both his, with such an air of reverent tenderness and gentle compa.s.sion, that it made his face grow softened--beautiful, divine!

Olive Rothesay, turning, beheld that look. It never afterwards faded from her memory.

Mrs. Rothesay arose, and said in her own sweet manner, "I am happy to meet Mr. Gwynne, and to thank him for taking care of my child." They talked for a few minutes, and then Olive persuaded her mother to return to the house.

"You will come, Mr. Gwynne?" said Mrs. Rothesay. He answered, hesitating, that the afternoon would close soon, and he must go on to Farnwood Hall. Mrs. Rothesay rose from her chair with the touching, helpless movement of one who is blind.

"Permit me," said Harold Gwynne, as, stepping quickly forward, he drew her arm through his, arranging her shawl with a care like a woman's. And so he led her into the house, with a tenderness beautiful to see.

Olive, as she followed silently after, felt her whole heart melted towards him. She never forgot Harold's first meeting with, and his kindness to, her mother.

He went away, promising to pay another visit soon.

"I am quite charmed with Mr. Gwynne," said Mrs. Rothesay. "Tell me, Olive, what he is like."

Olive described him, though not enthusiastically at all. Nevertheless, her mother answered, smiling, "He must, indeed, be a remarkable person. He is such a perfect gentleman, and his voice is so kind and pleasant;--like his mother, too, he has a little of the sweet Scottish tongue. Truly, I did not think there had been in the world such a man as Harold Gwynne."

"Nor I," answered Olive, in a soft, quiet, happy voice. She hung over her mother with a deeper tenderness--she looked out into the lovely autumn sunset with a keener sense of beauty and of joy. The sun was setting, the year was waning; but on Olive Rothesay's life had risen a new season and a new day.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"Well, I never in my life knew such a change as Farnwood has made in Miss Manners," observed old Hannah, the Woodford Cottage maid; who, though carefully kept in ignorance of any facts that could betray the secret of Christal's history, yet seemed at times to bear a secret grudge against her, as an interloper. "There she comes, riding across the country like some wild thing--she who used to be so prim and precise!"

"Poor young creature, she is like a bird just let out of a cage," said Mrs. Rothesay, kindly. "It is often so with girls brought up as she has been. Olive, I am glad you never went to school."

Olive's answer was stopped by the appearance of Christal, followed by one of the young Fludyer boys, with whom she had become a first-rate favourite. Her fearless frankness, her exuberant spirits, tempered only by her anxiety to appear always "the grand lady," made her a welcome guest at Farnwood Hall. Indeed, she was rarely at home, save when appearing, as now, on a hasty visit, which quite disturbed Mrs.

Rothesay's placidity, and almost drove old Hannah crazy.

"He is not come yet, you see," Christal said, with a mysterious nod to Charley Fludyer. "I thought we should outride him--a parson never can manage a pony. But he will surely be here soon?"

"_Who_ will be here soon?" asked Olive, considerably surprised. "Are you speaking of Mr. Gwynne?"

"Mr. Gwynne, no! Far better fun than that, isn't it, Charley? Shall we tell the secret or not? Or else shall we tell half of it, and let her puzzle it out till he comes?" The boy nodded a.s.sent "Well, then, there is coming to see you to-day a friend of Charley's, who only arrived at Farnwood last night, and since then has been talking of nothing else but his old idol, Miss Olive Rothesay. So I told him to meet me here, and, lo! he comes."

There was a hurried knock at the door, and immediately the little parlour was graced by the presence of an individual,--whom Olive did not recognise in the least. He seemed about twenty, slight and tall, of a complexion red and white; his features pretty, though rather girlish.

Olive bowed to him in undisguised surprise; but the moment he saw her his face became "celestial rosy red," apparently from a habit he had, in common with other bashful youths, of blus.h.i.+ng on all occasions.

"I see you do not remember me, Miss Rothesay. Of course I could not expect it. But I have not forgotten you."

Olive, though still doubtful, instinctively offered him her hand. The tall youth took it eagerly, and as he looked down upon her, something in his expression reminded her of a face she had herself once looked down upon--her little knight of the garden at Oldchurch. In the impulse of the moment she called him again by his old name--"Lyle! Lyle Derwent!"

"Yes, it is indeed I!" cried the young man. "Oh, Miss Rothesay, you can't tell how glad I am to meet you again."

"I am glad, too." And Olive regarded him with that half-mournful curiosity with which we trace the lineaments of some long-forgotten face, belonging to that olden time, between which and now a whole lifetime seems to have intervened.

"Is that little Lyle Derwent?" cried Mrs. Rothesay, catching the name.

"How very strange! Come hither, my dear boy! Alas, I cannot see you. Let me put my hand on your head."

But she could not reach it, he was grown so tall. She seemed startled to think how time had flown.

"He is quite a man now, mamma," said Olive; "you know we have not seen him for many years"----

Lyle added, blus.h.i.+ng deeper than before--"The last time--I remember it well--was in the garden, one Sunday in spring--nine years ago."

"Nine years ago! Is it then nine years since my Angus died?" murmured the widow; and a grave silence spread itself over them all. In the midst of it Christal and Charley, seeing this meeting was not likely to produce the "fun" they expected, took the opportunity of escaping.

Then came the questions, which after so long a period one shrinks from asking, afraid of answer. Olive learnt that old Mr. Derwent had ceased to scold, and poor Bob played his mischievous pranks no more. Both lay quiet in Oldchurch churchyard. Worldly losses, too, had chanced, until the sole survivor of the family found himself very poor.

"I should not even have gone to college," said Lyle, "but for the kindness of my brother-in-law, Harold Gwynne."

Olive started. "Oh, true--I forgot all about that. Then he has been a good brother to you?" added she, with a feeling of pleasure and interest.

"He has indeed. When my father died, I had not a relative in the world, save a rich old uncle who wanted to put me in his counting-house; but Harold stood between us, and saved me from a calling I hated. And when my uncle turned me off, he took me home. Yes! I am not ashamed to say that I owe everything in the world to my brother Harold. I feel this the more, because he was not quite happy in his marriage. She did not suit him--my sister Sara."

"Indeed?" said Olive, and changed the conversation. After tea, Lyle, who appeared rather a sentimental young gentleman, proposed a moonlight walk in the garden. Miss Christal, after eyeing Olive and her cavalier with a mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt and vexation, as if she did not like to miss so excellent a chance of fun and flirtation, consoled herself with ball-playing and Charley Fludyer.

As their conversation grew more familiar, Olive was rather disappointed in Lyle. In his boyhood, she had thought him quite a little genius; but the bud had given more promise than the flower was ever likely to fulfil. Now she saw in him one of those not uncommon characters, who with sensitive feeling, and some graceful talent, yet never rise to the standard of genius. Strength, daring, and, above all, originality were wanting in his mind. With all his dreamy sentiment--his lip-library of perpetually quoted poets--and his own numberless scribblings (of which he took care to inform Miss Rothesay)--Lyle Der-went would probably remain to his life's end a mere "poetical gentleman."

Olive soon divined all this, and she began to weary a little of her companion and his vague sentimentalities, "in linked sweetness long drawn out." Besides, thoughts much deeper had haunted her at times, during the evening--thoughts of the marriage which had been "not quite happy." This fact scarcely surprised her. The more she began to know of Mr. Gwynne--and she had seen a great deal of him, considering the few weeks of their acquaintance--the more she marvelled that he had ever chosen Sara Derwent for his wife. Their union must have been like that of night and day, fierce fire and unstable water. Olive longed to fathom the mystery, and could not resist saying.

"You were talking of your sister a-while ago. I stopped you, for I saw it pained mamma. But now I should so like to hear something about my poor Sara."

"I can tell you little, for I was a boy when she died. But things I then little noticed, I put together afterwards. It must have been quite a romance, I think. You know my sister had a former lover--Charles Geddes.

Do you remember him?"

"I do--well!" and Olive sighed--perhaps over the remembrance of the dream born in that fairy time--her first girlish dream of ideal love.

"He was at sea when Sara married. On his return the news almost drove him wild. I remember his coming in the garden--our old garden, you know--where he and Sara used to walk. He seemed half mad, and I went to him, and comforted him as well as I could, though little I understood his grief. Perhaps I should now!" said Lyle, lifting his eyes with rather a doleful, sentimental air; which, alas! was all lost upon his companion.

"Poor Charles!" she murmured. "But tell me more."

"He persuaded me to take back all her letters, together with one from himself, and give them to my sister the next time I went to Harbury. I did so. Well I remember that night! Harold came in, and found his wife crying over the letters. In a fit of jealousy he took them and read them all through--together with that of Charles. He did not see me, or know the part I had in the matter, but I shall never forget _him_."