Heriot's Choice Part 39

One evening Ethel was admitted. She had pleaded so hard that Richard had at last overcome Olive's shrinking reluctance to face any one outside the family circle; but even Olive's timidity was not proof against Ethel's endearing ways; and as Miss Trelawny, shocked and distressed at her changed appearance, folded the girl silently in her arms, the tears gathered to her eyes, and for a moment she seemed unable to speak.

'You must not be so sorry,' whispered Olive, gratefully; 'Aunt Milly will soon nurse me quite well.'

'But I was not prepared for such a change,' stammered Ethel. 'Dear Olive, to think how you must have suffered! I should hardly have known you; and yet,' she continued, impulsively, 'I never liked the look of you so well.'

'We tell her she has grown,' observed Richard, cheerfully; 'she has only to get fat to make a fine woman. Aunt Milly has contrived such a bewitching head-dress that we do not regret the loss of all that beautiful hair.'

'Oh, Cardie, as though that mattered;' but Olive blushed under her brother's affectionate scrutiny. Ethel Trelawny was right when she owned Olive's appearance had never pleased her more, emaciated and changed as she was. The sad gentleness of the dark, unsmiling eyes was infinitely attractive. The heavy sallowness was gone; the thin white face looked fair and transparent; little rings of dark hair peeped under the lace cap; but what struck Ethel most was the rapt and elevated expression of the girl's face--a little dreamy, perhaps, but suggestive of another and n.o.bler Olive.

'Oh, Olive, how strange it seems, to think you have come back to us again, when Mildred thought you had gone!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ethel, in a tone almost of awe.

'Yes,' returned Olive, simply; 'I know what death means now. When I come to die, I shall feel I know it all before.'

'But you did not die, dear Olive!' exclaimed Ethel, in a startled voice.

'No one can know but Lazarus and the widow's son; and they have told us nothing.'

'Aunt Milly says they were not allowed to tell; she thinks there is something awful in their silence; but all the same I shall always feel that I know what dying means.'

Ethel looked at her with a new reverence in her eyes. Was this the stammering, awkward Olive?

'Tell me what you mean,' she whispered gently; 'I cannot understand. One must die before one can solve the mystery.'

'And was I not dying?' returned Olive, in the same dreamy tone. 'When I close my eyes I can bring it all back; the faintness, the dizziness, the great circles of light, the deadly, shuddering cold creeping over my limbs, every one weeping round me, and yet beyond a great silence and darkness; we begin to understand what silence means then.'

'A great writer once spoke of "voices at the other end of silence,"'

returned Ethel, in a stifled tone. This strange talk attracted and yet oppressed her.

'But silence itself--what is silence?--one sometimes stops to think about it, and then its grandeur seems to crush one. What if silence be the voice of G.o.d!'

'Dear Livy, you must not excite yourself,' interrupted Richard; but his tone was awestruck too.

'Great thoughts do not excite,' she returned, calmly. She had forgotten Ethel--all of them. From the couch where she lay she could see the dark violet fells, the soft restful billows of green, silver splashes of light through the trees. How peaceful and quiet it all looked. Ah! if it had only been given her to walk in those green pastures and 'beside the still waters of the Paradise of G.o.d;' if that day which shall be known to the Lord 'had come to her when "at eventide it shall be light;"'--eventide!--alas! for her there still must remain the burden and heat of the day--sultry youth, weariness of premature age, 'light that shall neither be clear nor dark,' before that blessed eventide should come, 'and she should pa.s.s through the silence into the rest beyond.'

'Aunt Milly, if you or Cardie would read me something,' she said at last, with a wonderful sadness in her voice; and as they hastened to comply with her wish, the brief agitation vanished from her face. What if it were not His will! what if some n.o.ble work stood ready to her faltering hand, "content to fill a little s.p.a.ce, if Thou be glorified!"

'Oh, I must learn to say that,' she whispered.

'Are you tired, Livy?' asked Richard at last, as he paused a moment in his reading; but there was no answer. Olive's eyes were closed. One thin hand lay under her cheek, a tear hung on the eyelashes; but on the sleeping face there lay an expression of quiet peace that was almost childlike.

It was noticed that Olive mended more rapidly from that evening. Dr.

Heriot had recommended change of air; and as Olive was too weak to bear a long journey, Mildred took her to Redcar for a few weeks. Richard accompanied them, but did not remain long, as his father seemed unwilling to lose him during his last few months at home.

During their absence two important events took place at the vicarage.

Dad Fabian paid his promised visit, and the new curate arrived. Polly's and Chriss's letter brimmed over with news. 'Every one was delighted with her dear old Dad,' Polly wrote; 'Richard was gracious, Mr. Lambert friendly, and Roy enthusiastically admiring.'

Dad had actually bought a new coat and had cut his hair, which Polly owned was a grief to her; 'and his beard looked like everybody else's beard,' wrote the girl with a groan. If it had not been for his snuff-box she would hardly have known him. Some dealer had bought his _Cain_, and the old man's empty pockets were replenished.

It was a real joy to Olive's affectionate heart to know that Roy's juvenile efforts were appreciated by so great a man.

Mildred, who was almost as simple in worldly matters as her niece, was also a devout believer in Dad Fabian's capabilities. The dark-lined picture of Cain fleeing from his avenging conscience, with his weeping guardian angel by his side, had made a great impression on her.

Olive and she had long talks over Polly's rapid scrawls. Roy had genius, and was to be an artist after all. He was to enter a London studio after Christmas. Dad Fabian knew the widow of an artist living near Hampstead who would board and lodge him, and look after him as though he were a son of her own; and Dad Fabian himself was to act as his sponsor, art-guide, and chaperon.

'My guardian thinks very highly of Dad,' wrote Polly, in her pretty, childish handwriting. 'He calls him an unappreciated genius, and says Roy will be quite safe under his care. Dad is a little disappointed Roy's forte is landscape painting; he wanted him to go in for high art; but Roy paints clouds better than faces.'

'Dear Roy, how we shall miss him!' sighed Olive, as she laid the letter down.

'Polly more than any one,' observed Mildred, thinking how strange it would be to see one bright face without the other close to it.

The new curate was rather a tame affair after this.

'His name is Hugh Marsden, and he is to live at Miss Farrer's, the milliner,' announced Olive one day, when she had received a letter from Richard. 'Miss Farrer has two very nice rooms looking over the market-place. Her last lodger was a young engineer, and it made a great difference to her income when he left her. Richard says he is a "Queen's man, and a very nice fellow;" he is only in deacon's orders.'

'Let us see what Chriss has to say about him in her letter,' returned Mildred; but she contemplated a little ruefully the crabbed, irregular writing, every word looking like a miniature edition of Contradiction Chriss herself.

'Mr. Marsden has arrived,' scrawled Chriss, 'and has just had tea here.

I don't think we shall like him at all. Roy says he is a jolly fellow, and is fond of cricket and fis.h.i.+ng, and those sort of things, but he looks too much like a big boy for my taste; I don't like such large young men; and he has big hands and feet and a great voice, and his laugh is as big as the rest of him. I think him dreadfully ugly, but Polly says "No, he has nice honest eyes."

'He tried to talk to Polly and me; only wasn't it rude, Aunt Milly? He called me my dear, and asked me if I liked dolls. I felt I could have withered him on the spot, only he was so stupid and obtuse that he took no notice, and went on about his little sister Sophy, who had twelve dolls, whom she dressed to represent the twelve months in the year, and how she nearly broke her heart when he sat down on them by accident and smashed July.'

Roy gave a comical description of the whole thing and Chriss's wrathful discomfiture.

'We have just had great fun,' he wrote; 'the Rev. Hugh has just been here to tea; he is a capital fellow--up to larks, and with plenty of go in him, and with a fine deep voice for intoning; he is wild about training the choir already. He talked a great deal about his mother and sisters; he is an only son. I bet you anything, you women will be bored to death with Dora, Florence, and Sophy. If they are like him they are not handsome. One thing I must tell you, he riled Contradiction awfully by asking her if she liked dolls; she was Pugilist Pug then and no mistake. You should have seen the air with which she drew herself up. "I suppose you take me for a little girl," quoth she. Marsden's face was a study. "I am afraid you will take her for a spoilt one," says Dad, patting her shoulder, which only made matters worse. "I think your sister must be very silly with her twelve seasons," bursts out Chriss.

"I would sooner do algebra than play with dolls; but if you will excuse me, I have my Caesar to construe;" and she walked out of the room with her chin in the air, and every curl on her head bristling with wrath.

Marsden sat open-mouthed with astonishment, and Dad was forced to apologise; and there was Polly all the time "behaving like a little lady."'

'As though Polly could do wrong,' observed Mildred with a smile, as she finished Roy's ridiculous effusion.

It was the beginning of October when they returned home. Olive had by this time recovered her strength, and was able to enjoy her rambles on the sand; and though Mr. Lambert found fault with the thin cheeks and lack of robustness, his anxiety was set at rest by Mildred, who declared Olive had done credit to her nursing, and a little want of flesh was all the fault that could be found with her charge.

The welcome home was sweet to the restored invalid. Richard's kiss was scarcely less fond than her father's. Roy pinched her cheek to be sure that this was a real, and not a make-believe, Olive; while Polly followed her to her room to a.s.sure herself that her hair had really grown half an inch, as Aunt Milly declared it had.

Nor was Mildred's welcome less hearty.

'How good it is to see you in your old place, Aunt Milly,' said Richard, with an affectionate glance, as he placed himself beside her at the tea-table.

'We have missed you, Milly!' exclaimed her brother a moment afterwards.

'Heriot was saying only last night that the vicarage did not seem itself without you.'

'Nothing is right without Aunt Milly!' cried Polly, with a squeeze; and Roy chimed in, indignantly, 'Of course not; as though we could do without Aunt Milly!'

The new curate was discussed the first evening. Mr. Lambert and Richard were loud in their praises; and though Chriss muttered to herself in a surly undertone, n.o.body minded her.

His introduction to Olive happened after a somewhat amusing fas.h.i.+on.

He was crossing the hall the next day, on his way to the vicar's study, when Roy bade him go into the drawing-room and make acquaintance with Aunt Milly.

It happened that Mildred had just left the room, and Olive was sitting alone, working.