Olive Part 4

The father and mother were left alone--to meet that crisis most fatal to wedded happiness, the discovery of the first deceit Captain Rothesay sat silent, with averted face; Sybilla was weeping--not that repentant shower which rains softness into a man's heart, but those fretful tears which chafe him beyond endurance.

"Sybilla, come to me!" The words were a fond husband's words: the tone was that of a master who took on himself his prerogative. Never had Angus spoken so before, and the wilful spirit of his wife rebelled.

"I cannot come. I dare not even look at you. You are so angry."

His only answer was the reiterated command, "Sybilla, come!" She crept from the far end of the room, where she was sobbing in a fear-stricken, childish way, and stood before him. For the first time she recognised her husband, whom she must "obey." Now, with all the power of his roused nature, he was teaching her the meaning of the word. "Sybilla," he said, looking sternly in her face, "tell me why, all these years, you have put upon me this cheat--this lie!"

"Cheat!--lie! Oh, Angus! What cruel, wicked words!"

"I am sorry I used them, then. I will choose a lighter term--deceit. Why did you so _deceive_ your husband?"

"I did not mean it," sobbed the young wife. "And this is very unkind of you, Angus! As if Heaven had not punished me enough in giving me that miserable child!"

"Silence! I am not speaking of the child, but of you; my wife, in whom I trusted; who for five long years has wilfully deceived me. Why did you so?"

"Because I was afraid--ashamed. But those feelings are past now," said Sybilla, resolutely. "If Heaven made me mother, it made you father to this unhappy child. You have no right to reproach me."

"G.o.d forbid! No, it is not the misfortune--it is the falsehood which stings me."

And his grave, mournful tone, rose into one of bitter anger. He paced the room, tossed by a pa.s.sion such as his wife had never before seen.

"Sybilla!" he suddenly cried, pausing before her; "you do not know what you have done. You little think what my love has been, nor against how much it has struggled these five years. I have been true to you--ay, to the depth of my heart And you to me have been--not wholly true."

Here he was answered by a burst of violent hysterical weeping. He longed to call for feminine a.s.sistance to this truly feminine ebullition, which he did not understand. But his pride forbade. So he tried to soothe his wife a little with softer words, though even these seemed somewhat foreign to his lips, after so many long-parted years.

"I did not mean to pain you thus deeply, Sybilla. I do not say that you have ceased to love me!"

Would that Sybilla had done as her first impulse taught her; have clung about him, crying "Never! never!" murmuring penitent words, as a tender wife may well do, and in such humility be the more exalted! But she had still the wayward spirit of a petted child. Fancying she saw her husband once more at her feet, she determined to keep him there. She wept on, refusing to be pacified.

At last Angus rose from her side, dignified and cold, his new, not his old self; the lover no more, but the quiet, half-indifferent husband.

"I see we had better not talk of these things until you are more composed--perhaps, indeed, not at all. What is past--is past, and cannot be recalled."

"Angus!" She looked up, frightened at his manner. She determined to conciliate him a little. "What do you want me to do? To say I am sorry?

That I will--but," with an air of coquettish command, "you must say so too."

The jest was ill-timed; he was in too bitter a mood. "Excuse me--you exact too much, Mrs. Rothesay."

"_Mrs. Rothesay!_ Oh, call me Sybilla, or my heart will break!" cried the young creature, throwing herself into his arms. He did not repulse her; he even looked down upon her with a melting, half-reproachful tendernes.

"How happy we might have been! How different had been this coming home if you had only trusted me, and told me all from the beginning."

"Have you told _me_? Is there nothing you have kept back from me these five years?"

He started a little, and then said resolutely, "Nothing, Sybilla! I declare to Heaven--nothing! save, perhaps, some trifles that I would at any time tell you; now, if you will."

"Oh no! some other time, I am too much exhausted now," murmured Sybilla, with an air of languor, half real, half feigned, lest perchance she should lose what she had gained. In the sweetness of this reconciled "lovers' quarrel," she had almost forgotten its hapless cause. But Angus, after a pause of deep and evidently conflicting thoughts, referred to the child.

"She is ours still. I must not forget that. Shall I send for her again?"

he said, as if he wished to soothe the mother's wounded feelings.

Alas! in Sybilla's breast the fountain of mother's feeling was as yet all sealed. "Send for Olive!" she said, "oh no! Do not, I implore you.

The very sight of her is a pain to me. Let us two be happy together, and let the child be left to Elspie."

Thus she said, thinking not only to save herself, but him, from what must be a constant pang. Little she knew him, or guessed the after-effect of her words.

Angus Rothesay looked at his wife, first with amazement, then with cold displeasure. "My dear, you scarcely speak like a mother. You forget likewise that you are speaking to a father. A father who, whatever affection may be wanting, will never forsake his duty. Come, let us go and see our child."

"I cannot--I cannot!" and Sybilla hung back, weeping anew.

Angus Rothesay looked at his wife--the pretty wayward idol of his bridegroom-memory--looked at her with the eyes of a world-tried, world-hardened man. She regarded him too, and noted the change which years had brought in her boyish lover of yore. His eye wore a fretful reproach--his brow, a proud sorrow.

He walked up to her and clasped her hand. "Sybilla, take care! All these years I have been dreaming of the wife and mother I should find here at home; let not the dream prove sweeter than the reality."

Sybilla was annoyed--she, the spoilt darling of every one, who knew not the meaning of a harsh word. She answered, "Don't let us talk so foolishly."

"You think it foolish? Well, then! we will not speak in this confidential way any more. I promise, and you know I always keep my promises."

"I am glad of it," answered Sybilla. But she lived to rue the day when her husband made this one promise.

At present, she only felt that the bitter secret was disclosed, and Angus' anger overpast. She gladly let him quit the room, only pausing to ask him to kiss her, in token that all was right between them. He did so, kindly, though with a certain pride and gravity--and departed. She dared not ask him whether it was to see again their hapless child.

What pa.s.sed between the father and mother whilst they remained shut up together there, Elspie thought not-cared not. She spent the time in pa.s.sionate caresses of her darling, in half-muttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, some of pity some of wrath. All she desired was to obliterate the impression which she saw had gone deeply to the child's heart. Olive wept not--she rarely did; it seemed as though in her little spirit was a pensive repose, above either infant sorrow or infant fear. She sat on her nurse's knee, scarcely speaking, but continually falling into those reveries which we see in quiet children even at that early age, and never without a mysterious wonder, approaching to awe. Of what can these infant musings be?

"Nurse," said the child, suddenly fixing on Elspie's face her large eyes, "was that my papa I saw?"

"It was just himsel, my sweet wee pet," cried Elspie, trying to stop her with kisses; but Olive went on.

"He is not like mamma--he is great and tall, like you. But he did not take up and kiss me, as you said he would."

Elspie had no answer for these words--spoken in a tone of quiet pain--so unlike a child. It is only after many years that we learn to suffer and be silent.

Was it that nature, ever merciful, had implanted in this poor girl, as an instinct, that meek endurance which usually comes as the painful experience of after-life?

A similar thought pa.s.sed through Elspie's mind, while she sat with little Olive at the window, where, a few years ago, she had stood rocking the new-born babe in her arms, and pondering drearily on its future. That future seemed still as dark in all outward circ.u.mstances--but there was one ray of hope, which centred in the little one herself. There was something in Olive which pa.s.sed Elspie's comprehension. At times she looked almost with an uneasy awe on the gentle, silent child who rarely played, who wanted no amusing, but would sit for hours watching the sky from the window, or the gra.s.s and waving trees in the fields; who never was heard to laugh, but now and then smiled in her own peculiar way--a smile almost "uncanny," as Elspie expressed it. At times the old Scotswoman--who, coming from the debateable ground between Highlands and Lowlands, had united to the rigid piety of the latter much wild Gaelic superst.i.tion--was half inclined to believe that the little girl was possessed by some spirit.

But she was certain it was a good spirit; such a darling as Olive was--so patient, and gentle, and good--more like an angel than a child.

If her misguided parents did but know this! Yet Elspie, in her secret heart, was almost glad they did not. Her pa.s.sionate and selfish love could not have borne that any tie on earth, not even that of father or mother, should stand between her and the child of her adoption.

While she pondered, there came a light knock to the door, and Captain Rothesay's voice was heard without--his own voice, soothed down to its soft, gentleman-like tone; it was a rare emotion, indeed, could deprive it of that peculiarity.

"Nurse, I wish to see Miss Olive Rothesay."

It was the first time that formal appellation had ever been given to the little girl. Still it was a recognition. Elspie heard it with joy. She answered the summons, and Captain Rothesay walked in.

We have never described Olivet father--there could not be a better opportunity than now. His tall, active form--now subsiding into the muscular fulness of middle age--was that of a Hercules of the mountains.

The face combined Scottish beauties and Scottish defects, which, perhaps, cease to be defects when they become national peculiarities.

There was the eagle-eye: the large, but well-chiselled features-- especially the mouth; and also there was the high cheek-bone, the rugged squareness of the chin, which, while taking away beauty, gave character.

When he came nearer, one could easily see that the features of the father were strangely reflected in those of the child. Altered the likeness was--from strength into feebleness--from manly beauty into almost puny delicacy; but it did exist, and, faint as it was, Elspie perceived it.