CHAPTER XIII.

"Well, my love, was the ball as pleasant as you expected?" said Mrs. Rothesay, when Olive drew the curtains, and roused her invalid mother to the usual early breakfast, received from no hands but hers.

Olive answered quietly, "Every one said it was pleasant."

"But you," returned the mother, with an anxiety she could scarce disguise—"who talked to you?—who danced with you?"

"No one, except Sara."

"Poor child!" was the half involuntary sigh; and Mrs. Rothesay drew her daughter to her with deep tenderness.

It was a strange fate, that made the once slighted child almost the only thing in the world to which Sybilla Rothesay now clung. And yet, so rich, so full had grown the springs of maternal love, long hidden in her nature, that she would not have exchanged their sweetness to be again the petted, wilful, beautiful darling of society, as she was at Stirling. The neglected wife—the often-ailing mother—dependent on her daughter's tenderness, was happier and nearer to heaven than she had ever been in her life.

Mrs. Rothesay regarded Olive earnestly. "You look as ill as if you had been up all night; and yet you came to bed tolerably early, and I thought you slept, you lay so quiet. Was it so, darling?"

"Not quite; I was thinking," said Olive, truthfully, though her face flushed, for she would fain have kept her bitter thoughts from her mother. Just then, Mrs. Rothesay started at the sound of the hall-bell.

"Is that your father come home? He said he might, today or to-morrow."

Olive went down-stairs. It was only a letter, to say Captain Rothesay would return that day, and would bring—most rare circumstance!—some guests to visit them. Olive seemed to shrink painfully at this news.

"What, my child, are you not pleased?—It will make the house less dull for you."

"No, no—I do not wish; oh, mamma! if I could only shut myself up, and never see any one but you"—— And Olive turned very pale. At last, resolutely trying to speak without any show of trouble, she continued—"I have found out something that I never knew—at least, never thought of before—that I am different from other girls. Oh, mother! am I really deformed?"

She spoke with much agitation. Mrs. Rothesay burst into tears.

"Oh, Olive! how wretched you make me, to talk thus. Unhappy mother that I am! Why should Heaven have punished me thus?"

"Punished you, mother?"

"Nay, my child—my poor, innocent child! I did not mean that," cried Mrs. Rothesay, embracing her with a passionate revulsion of feeling.

But the word was said,—to linger for ever after on Olive's mind. It brought back the look once written on her childish memory—grown faint, but never quite erased—her father's first look. She understood it now.

Mrs. Rothesay continued weeping, and Olive had to cast aside all other feelings in the care of soothing her mother. She succeeded at last; but she learnt at the same time that on this one subject there must be silence between them for ever. It seemed, also, to her sensitive nature, as if every tear and every complaining word were a reproach to the mother that bore her. Henceforth her bitter thoughts must be wrestled with alone.

She did so wrestle with them. She walked out into her favourite meadow—now lying in the silent, frost-bound mistiness of a January day. It was where she had often been in summer with Sara, and Charles Geddes, and the little boys. Now everything seemed so wintry and lonely. What if her own future life were so—one long winter-day, wherein was neither beauty, gladness, nor love?

"I am 'deformed.' That was Sara's own word," murmured Olive to herself. "If this is felt by one who loves me, what must I appear to the world? Will not all shrink from me—and even those who pity, turn away in pain. As for loving me"——

Thinking thus, Olive's fancy began to count, almost in despair, all those whose affection she had ever known. There was Elspie, there were her parents. Yet, the love of both father and mother—how sweet soever now—had not blessed her always. She remembered the time when it was not there.

"Alas! that I should have been, even to them, a burden—a punishment!" cried the girl, in the first outburst of suffering, which became ten times keener, because concealed. Her vivid fancy even exaggerated the truth. She saw in herself a poor deformed being, shut out from all natural ties—a woman, to whom friendship would be given but in kindly pity; to whom love—that blissful dream in which she had of late indulged—would be denied for evermore. How hard seemed her doom! If it were for months only, or even years; but, to bear for a whole life this withering ban—never to be freed from it, except through death! And her lips unconsciously repeated the bitter murmur, "O God! why hast thou made me thus?"

It was scarcely uttered before her heart trembled at its impiety. And then the current of her thoughts changed. Those mysterious yearnings which had haunted her throughout childhood, until they had grown fainter under the influence of earthly ties and pleasures, returned to her now. God's immeasurable Infinite rose before her in glorious serenity. What was one brief lifetime to the ages of eternity? She felt it: she, in her weakness—her untaught childhood—her helplessness—felt that her poor deformed body enshrined a living soul. A soul that could look on Heaven, and on whom Heaven also looked—not like man, with scorn or loathing, but with a Divine tenderness that had power to lift the mortal into communion with the immortal.

Olive Rothesay seemed to have grown years older in that hour of solitary musing. She walked homewards through the silent fields, over which the early night was falling—night coming, as it were, in the midst of day, where the only light was given by the white, cold snow. To Olive this was a symbol, too—a token that the freezing sorrow which had fallen on her path might palely light her on her earthly way. Strange things for a young girl to dream of! But they whom Heaven teaches are sometimes called—Samuel-like—while to them still pertains the childish ephod and the temple-porch.

Passing on, with footsteps silent and solemn as her own heart, Olive came to the street, on the verge of the town, where was her own dwelling and Sara's. From habit she looked in at the Derwents' house. It had all the cheerful brightness given by a blazing fire, glimmering through windows not yet closed. Olive could plainly distinguish the light shining on the crimson wall; even the merry faces of the circle round the hearth. And, as if to chant the chorus of so sweet a scene, there broke out on the clear frosty air the distant carillon of Oldchurch bells—marriage-bells too—signifying that not far off was dawning another scene of love and hope; that, somewhere in the parish, was celebrated the "coming home" of a bride.

The young creature, born with a woman's longings—longings neither unholy nor impure, after the love which is the religion of a woman's heart—the sweetness of home, which is the heaven of a woman's life—felt that from both she was shut out for ever.

"Not for me—alas! not for me," she murmured; and her head drooped, and it seemed as though a cold hand were laid on her breast, saying, "Grow still, and throb no more!"

Then, lifting her eyes, she saw shining far up in the sky, beyond the mist and the frost and the gloom, one little star—the only one. With a long sigh, her soul seemed to pass upward in prayer.

"Oh, God! since Thou hast willed it so—if in this world I must walk alone, do Thou walk with me! If I must know no human love, fill my soul with Thine! If earthly joy be far from me, give me that peace of Heaven which passeth all understanding!"

And so—mournful, yet serene—Olive Rothesay reached her home.

She found her friend there. Sara looked confused at seeing her, and appeared to try, with the unwonted warmth of her greeting, to efface from Olive's mind the remembrance of what had happened the previous evening. But Olive, for the first time, shrank from these tokens of affection.

"Even Sara's love may be only compassion," she bitterly thought; but her father's nature was in the girl—his self-command—his proud reserve. Sara Derwent only thought her rather silent and cold.

There was a constraint on both—so much so that Olive heard, without testifying much pain, news which a few days before would have grieved her to the heart. This visit was a good-bye. Sara had been suddenly sent for by her grandfather, who lived in a distant county; and the summons entailed a parting of some weeks—perhaps longer.

"But I shall not forget you, Olive. I shall write to you constantly. It will be my sole amusement in the dull place I am going to. Why, nobody ever used to enter my grandfather's house except the parson, who lived some few miles off. Poor old soul! I used to set fire to his wig, and hide his spectacles. But he is dead now, I hear, and there has come in his place a young clergyman. Shall I strike up a little flirtation with him , eh, Olive?"

But Olive was in no jesting mood. She only shook her head.

Mrs. Rothesay looked with admiration on Sara. "What a blithe young creature you are, my dear. You win everybody's liking. I wish Olive were only half as merry as you."

Another arrow in poor Olive's heart!

"Well, we must try to make her so when I come back," said Sara, affectionately. "I shall have tales enough to tell, perhaps about that young curate. Nay, don't frown, Olive. My cousin says he is a Scotsman born, and you like Scotland. Only his father was Welsh, and he has a horrid Welsh name: Gwyrdyr, or Gwynne, or something like it. But I'll give you all information."

And then she rose—still laughing—to bid adieu; which seemed so long a farewell, when the friends had never yet been parted but for one brief day. In saying it, Olive felt how dear to her had been this girl—this first idol of her warm heart. And then there came a thought almost like terror. Though fated to live unloved, she could not keep herself from loving. And if so, how would she bear the perpetual void—the yearning, never to be fulfilled?

She fell on Sara's neck and wept. "You do care for me a little—only a little."

"A great deal—as much as ever I can, seeing I have so many people to care for," answered Sara, trying to laugh away the tears that—from sympathy, perhaps—sprang to her eyes.

"Ah, true! And everybody cares for you. No wonder," answered Olive.

"Now, little Olive, why do you put on that grave face? Are you going to lecture me about not flirting with that stupid curate, and always remembering Charles. Oh! no fear of that."

"I hope not," said Olive, quietly. She could talk no more, and they bade each other good-bye; perhaps not quite so enthusiastically as they might have done a week ago, but still with much affection. Sara had reached the door, when with a sudden impulse she came back again.

"Olive, I am a foolish, thoughtless girl; but if ever I pained you in any way, don't think of it again. Kiss me—will you—once more?"

Olive did so, clinging to her passionately. When Sara went away, she felt as though the first flower had perished in her garden—the first star had melted from her sky.

Sara gone, she went back to her old dreamy life. The romance of first friendship seemed to have been swept away like a morning cloud. From Sara there came no letters.

Olive wrote once or twice, even thrice. But a sense of wounded feeling prevented her writing again. Robert and Lyle told her their sister was quite well, and very merry. Then, over all the dream of sweet affection fell a cold silence.

In Olive's own home were arising many cares. A great change came over her father. His economical habits became those of the wildest extravagance—extravagance in which his wife and daughter were not likely to share. Little they saw of it either, save during his rare visits to his home. Then he either spent his evenings out, or else dining, smoking, drinking, disturbed the quiet house at Oldchurch.

Many a time, till long after midnight, the mother and child sat listening to the gay tumult of voices below; clinging to each other, pale and sad. Not that Captain Rothesay was unkind, or that either had any fear for him, for he had always been a strict and temperate man. But it pained them to think that any society seemed sweeter to him than that of his wife and daughter—that any place was become dearer to him than his home.

One night, when Mrs. Rothesay appeared exhausted, either with weariness or sorrow of heart, Olive persuaded her mother to go to rest, while she herself sat up for her father.

"Nay, let some of the servants do that, not you, my child."

But Olive, innocent as she was, had accidentally seen the footman smile rudely when he spoke of "master coming home last night;" and a vague thought struck her, that such late hours were discreditable in the head of a family. Her father should not be despised in his servant's eyes.

She dismissed the household, and waited up for him alone. Twelve—one—two. The hours went by like long years. Heavily at first drooped her poor drowsy eyes, and then all weariness was dispelled by a feeling of loneliness—an impression of coming sorrow. At last, when this was gradually merging into fear, she heard the sound of the swinging gate, and her father's knock at the door—A loud, unsteady, angry knock.

"Why do you stay up for me? I don't want anybody to sit up," grumbled Captain Rothesay, without looking at her.

"But I liked to wait for you, papa."

"What, is that you, Olive?" and he stepped in with a lounging, heavy gait.

"Did you not see me before? It was I who opened the door."

"Oh, yes—but—I was thinking of something else," he said, throwing himself into the study-chair, and trying with an effort to seem just as usual. "You are—a very good girl—I'm much obliged to you. The pleasure is—I may truly say on both sides." And he energetically struck the table with his hand.

Olive thought this an odd form of speech; but her father's manner was grown so changed of late—sometimes he seemed quite in high spirits, even jocose—as he did now.

"I am glad to see you are not much tired, papa. I thought you were—you walked so wearily when you first came in."

"I tired? Nonsense, child! I have had the merriest evening in the world. I'll have another to-morrow, for I've asked them all to dine here. We'll give dinner parties to all the county."

"Papa," said Olive, timidly, "will that be quite right, after what you told me of our being now so much poorer than we were?"

"Did I? Pshaw! I don't remember. However, I am a rich man now; richer than I have ever been."

"I am so glad; because then, dear papa, you know you need not be so much away from home, or weary yourself with the speculations you told me of; but come and live quietly with us."

Her father laughed loudly. "Foolish little girl! your notion of quietness would not suit a man like me. Take my word for it, Olive, home serves as a fantastic dream till five-and-twenty, and then means nothing at all. A man's home is the world."

"Is it?"

"Ay, as I intend to show to you. By-the-by, I shall give up this stupid place, and enter into society. Your mother will like it, of course; and you, as my only child—eh, what did I say?" here he stopped hastily with a blank, frightened look—then repeated, "Yes, you, my only child, will be properly introduced to the world. Why, you will be quite an heiress, my girl," continued he, with an excited jocularity that frightened Olive. "And the world always courts such; who knows but that you may marry in spite of"——

"Oh, no—never!" interrupted Olive, turning away with bitter pain.

"Come, don't mind it," continued her father, with a reckless indifference to her feelings, quite unusual to him. "Why—my little sensible girl—you are better than any beauty in England; beauties are all fools, or worse."

And he laughed so loud, so long, that Olive was seized with a great horror, that absorbed even her own individual suffering. Was her father mad? Alas! there is a madness worse than disease, a voluntary madness, by which a man—longing at any price for excitement, or oblivion—"puts an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains." This was the foe—the stealthy-footed demon, that had at last come to overmaster the brave and noble Angus Rothesay. As yet it ruled him not—he was no sot; but his daughter saw enough to know that the fiend was nigh upon him—that this night he was even in its grasp.

It is only the noblest kind of affection that can separate the sinner from the sin, and even while condemning, pity. Fallen as he was, Olive Rothesay looked on her father mournfully—intreatingly. She could not speak.

He seemed annoyed, and slightly confounded. "Come, simpleton, why do you stare at me?—there is nothing the matter. Go away to bed."

Olive did not move.

"Make haste—what are you waiting for? Nay, stay; 'tis a cold night—just leave out the keys of the sideboard, will you, there's a good little housekeeper," he said, coaxingly.

Olive turned away in disgust, but only for a moment. "In case you should want anything, let me stay a little longer, papa; I am not tired, and I have some work to do—suppose I go and fetch it."

She went into the inner room, slowly, quietly; and when safe out of sight, burst into tears of such shame and terror as she had never before known. Then she sat down to think. Her father thus; her mother feeble in mind or body; no one in the wide world to trust to but herself; no one to go to for comfort and counsel—none, save Heaven! She sank on her knees and prayed. As she rose, the angel in the daughter's soul was stronger than the demon in her father's.

Olive waited a little, and then walked softly into the other room. Some brandy, left on the sideboard, had attracted Captain Rothesay's sight. He had reached it stealthily, as if the act still conveyed to his dulled brain a consciousness of degradation. Once he looked round suspiciously; alas, the father dreaded his daughter's eye! Then stealthily standing with his face to the fire, he began to drink the tempting poison.

It was taken out of his hand! So noiseless was Olive's step, so gentle her movement, that he stood dumb, astonished, as though in the presence of some apparition. And, in truth, the girl looked like a spirit; for her face was very white, and her parted lips seemed as though they never had uttered, and never could utter, one living sound.

Father and daughter stood for some moments thus gazing at each other; and then Captain Rothesay threw himself into his chair, with a forced laugh.

"What's the matter, little fool? Cannot your father take care of himself? Give me the brandy again."

But she held it fast, and made no answer.

"Olive, I say—do you insult me thus?" and his voice rose in anger. "Go to bed, I command you! Will you not?"

"No!" The refusal was spoken softly—very softly—but it expressed indomitable firmness; and there was something in the girl's resolute spirit, before which that of the man quailed. With a sudden transition, which showed that the drink had already somewhat overpowered his brain, he melted into complaints.

"You are very rude to your poor father; you—almost the only comfort he has left!"

This touch even of maudlin sentiment went direct to Olive's heart. She clung to him, kissed him, begged his forgiveness, nay, even wept over him. He ceased to rage, and sat in a sullen silence for many minutes. Meanwhile Olive took away every temptation from his sight. Then she roused him gently.

"Now, papa, it is time to go to bed. Pray, come upstairs."

He—the calm, gentlemanlike, Captain Rothesay—burst into a storm of passion that would have disgraced a boor. "How dare you order me about in this manner! Cannot I do as I like, without being controlled by you—a mere chit of a girl—a very child?"

"I know I am only a child," answered Olive, meekly. "Do not be angry with me, papa; do not speak unkindly to your poor little daughter."

"My daughter! how dare you call yourself so, you white-faced, mean-looking hunchback!"——

At the word, Olive recoiled—a strong shudder ran through her frame; one long, sobbing sigh, and no more.

Her father, shocked, and a little sobered, paused in his cruel speech. For minutes they remained—he leaning back with a stupefied air—she standing before him; her face drooped, and covered with her hands.

"Olive!" he muttered, in a repentant, humbled tone.

"Yes, papa."

"I am quite ready. If you like, I'll go to bed now."

Without speaking, she lighted him up-stairs—nay, led him, for, to his bitter shame, the guidance was not un-needed. When she left him, he had the grace to whisper—

"Child, you are not vexed about anything I said?"

She looked sorrowfully into his hot fevered face, and stroked his arm. "No—no—not vexed at all! You could not help it, poor father!"

She heard her mother's feeble voice speaking to him as he entered, and saw his door close. Long she watched there, until beneath it she perceived not one glimmer of light. Then she crept away, only murmuring to herself—

"O God! teach me to endure!"

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