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The feeble call startled Olive out of a dream, wherein she was walking through one of those lovely visionary landscapes—more glorious than any ever seen by day—with her mother and with Harold Gwynne.
"Yes, darling," she answered, in a sleepy, happy voice, thinking it a continuation of the dream.
"Olive, I feel ill—very ill! I have a dull pain here, near my heart. I cannot breathe. It is so strange—so strange!"
Quickly the daughter rose, and groped through the faint dawn for a light: she was long accustomed to all offices of tender care by night and by day. This sudden illness gave her little alarm; her mother had so many slight ailments. But, nevertheless, she roused the household, and applied all the simple remedies which she so well knew how to use.
But there must come a time when all physicians' arts fail: it was coming now. Mrs. Rothesay's illness increased, and the daylight broke upon a chamber where more than one anxious face bent over the poor blind sufferer who suffered so meekly. She did not speak much: she only held closely to Olive's dress, sorrowfully murmuring now and then, "My child—my child!" Once or twice she eagerly besought those around her to try all means for her restoration, and seemed anxiously to expect the coming of the physician. "For Olive's sake—for Olive's sake!" was all the reason she gave.
And suddenly it entered into Olive's mind that her mother felt herself about to die.
Her mother about to die! She paused a moment, and then flung the horror from her as a thing utterly impossible. So many illnesses as Mrs. Rothesay had passed through—-so many times as her daughter had clasped her close, and dared Death to come nigh one who was shielded by so much love! It could not be—there was no cause for dread. Yet Olive waited restlessly during the morning, which seemed of frightful length. She busied herself about the room, talking constantly to her mother; and by degrees, when the physician still delayed, her voice took a quick, sharp, anxious tone.
"Hush, love, hush!" was the soft reproof. "Be content, Olive; he will come in time. I shall recover, if it so please God."
"Of course—of course you will. Don't talk in that way, mamma!"—she dared not trust herself to say darling . She spoke even less caressingly than usual, lest her mother might think there was any dread upon her mind. But gradually, when she heard the strange patience of Mrs. Rothesay's voice, and saw the changes in the beloved face, she began to tremble. Once her wild glance darted upward in almost threatening despair. "God! Thou wilt not—Thou canst not—do this!" And when, at last, she heard the ringing of hoofs, and saw the physician's horse at the gate, she could not stay to speak with him, but fled out of the room.
She composed herself in time to meet him when he came downstairs. She was glad that he was a stranger, so that she had to be restrained, and to ask him in a calm, everyday voice, "What he thought of her mother?"
"You are Miss Rothesay, I believe," he answered, indirectly.
"I am."
"Is there no one to help you in nursing your mother—are you here quite alone?"
"Quite alone."
Dr. Witherington took her hand—kindly, too. "My dear Miss Rothesay, I would not deceive; I never do. If your mother has any relatives to send for, any business to arrange"——
"Ah—I see, I know! Do not say any more!" She closed her eyes faintly, and leaned against the wall. Had she loved her mother with a love less intense, less self-devoted, less utterly absorbing in its passion, at that moment she would have gone mad, or died.
There was one little low sigh; and then upon her great height of woe she rose—rose to a superhuman calm.
"You would tell me, then, that there is no hope?"
He looked on the ground, and said nothing.
"And how long—how long?"
"It may be six hours—it may be twelve; I fear it cannot be more than twelve." And then he began to give consolation in the only way that lay in his poor power, explaining that in a frame so shattered the spirit could not have lingered long, and might have lingered in much suffering. "It was best as it was," he said.
And Olive, knowing all, bowed her head, and answered, "Yes." She thought not of herself—she thought only of the enfeebled body about to be released from earthly pain, of the soul before whom heaven was even now opened.
"Does she know? Did you tell her?"
"I did. She asked me, and I thought it right."
Thus, both knew, mother and child, that a few brief hours were all that lay between their love and eternity. And knowing this, they again met.
With a step so soft that it could have reached no ear but that of a dying woman, Olive re-entered the room.
"Is that my child!"
"My mother—my own mother!" Close, and wild, and strong—wild as love and strong as death—was the clasp that followed. No words passed between them, not one, until Mrs. Rothesay said, faintly,
"My child, are you content—quite content?"
Olive answered, "I am content!" And in her uplifted eyes was a silent voice that seemed to say, "Take, O God, this treasure, which I give out of my arms unto Thine! Take and keep it for me, safe until the eternal meeting!"
Slowly the day sank, and the night came down. Very still and solemn was that chamber; but there was no sorrow there—no weeping, no struggle of life with death. After a few hours all suffering ceased, and Mrs. Rothesay lay quiet; sometimes in her daughter's arms, sometimes with Olive sitting by her side. Now and then they talked together, holding peaceful communion, like friends about to part for a long journey, in which neither wished to leave unsaid any words of love or counsel; but all was spoken calmly, hopefully, and without grief or fear.
As midnight approached, Olive's eyes grew heavy, and a strange drowsiness oppressed her. Many a watcher has doubtless felt this—the dull stupor which comes over heart and brain, sometimes even compelling sleep, though some beloved one lies dying. Hannah, who sat up with Olive, tried to persuade her to go down and take some coffee which she had prepared. Mrs. Rothesay, overhearing, entreated the same. "It will do you good. You must keep strong, my child."
"Yes, darling."
Olive went down in the little parlour, and forced herself to take food and drink. As she sat there by herself, in the still night, with the wind howling round the cottage, she tried to realise the truth that her mother was then dying—that ere another day, in this world she would be alone, quite alone, for evermore. Yet there she sat, wrapped in that awful calm.
When Olive came back, Mrs. Rothesay roused herself and asked for some wine. Her daughter gave it.
"It is very good—all things are very good—very sweet to me from Olive's hand. My only daughter—my life's comfort—I bless God for thee!"
After a while she said—passing her hand over her daughter's cheek—"Olive, little Olive, I wish I could see your face—just once, once more. It feels almost as small and soft as when you were a little babe at Stirling."
And saying this, there came a cloud over Mrs. Rothesay's face; but soon it went away, as she continued, "Child! listen to something I never told you—never could have told you, until now. Just after you were born, I dreamt a strange dream—that I lost you, and there came to me in your stead an angel, who comforted me and guided me through a long weary way, until, in parting, I knew that it was indeed my Olive. All this has come true, save that I did not lose you: I wickedly cast you from me. Ay, God forgive me! there was a time when I, a mother, had no love for the child I bore."
She wept a little, and held Olive with a closer strain as she proceeded. "I was punished, for in forsaking my child I lost my husband's love—at least not all, but for a time. But God pardoned me, and sent my child back to me as I saw her in my dream—an angel—to guard me through many troubled ways; to lead me safe to the eternal shore. And now, when I am going away, I say with my whole soul, God bless my Olive! the most loving and duteous daughter that ever mother had; and God will bless her evermore!"
One moment, with a passionate burst of anguish, Olive cried, "O mother, mother, stay! Do not go and leave me in this bitter world alone." It was the only moan she made. When she saw the anguish it caused to her so peacefully dying, she stilled it at once. And then God's comfort came down upon her; and that night of death was full of a peace so deep that it was most like happiness. In after years Olive thought of it as if it had been spent at the doors of heaven.
Toward morning Mrs. Rothesay said, "My child, you are tired. Lie down here beside me."
And so, with her head on the same pillow, and her arm thrown round her mother's neck, Olive lay as she had lain every night for so many years. Once or twice Mrs. Rothesay spoke again, as passing thoughts seemed to arise; but her mind was perfectly composed and clear. She mentioned several that she regarded—among the rest, Mrs. Gwynne, to whom she left "her love."
"And to Christal too, Olive. She has many faults; but, remember, she was good to me, and I was fond of her. Always take care of Christal."
"I will. And is there no one else to whom I shall give your love, mamma?"
She thought a minute, and answered, "Yes—to Mr. Gwynne." And, as if in that dying hour there came to the mother's heart both clear-sightedness and prophecy, she said, earnestly, "I am very glad I have known Harold Gwynne. I wish he had been here now, that I might have blessed him, and begged him all his life long to show kindness and tenderness to my child."
After this she spoke of earthly things no more, but her thoughts went, like heralds, far into the eternal land. Thither her daughter's followed likewise, until, like the martyr Stephen, Olive almost seemed to see the heavens opened, and the angels of God standing around the throne. Her heart was filled, not with anguish, but with an awful joy, which passed not even, when lifting her head from the pillow, she saw that over her mother's face was coming a change—the change that comes but once.
"My child, are you still there?".
"Yes, darling."
"That is well. All is well now. Little Olive, kiss me."
Olive bent down and kissed her. With that last kiss she received her mother's soul.
Then she suffered the old servant to lead her from the room. She never wept; it would have appeared sacrilege to weep. She went to the open door, and stood, looking to the east, where the sun was rising. Through the golden clouds she almost seemed to behold, ascending, the freed spirit upon whom had just dawned the everlasting morning.
An hour after, when she was all alone in the little parlour, lying on the sofa with her eyes closed, she heard entering a well-known step. It was Harold Gwynne's. He looked much agitated; at first he drew back, as though fearing to approach; then he came up, and took her hand very tenderly.
"Alas, Miss Rothesay, what can I say to you?"
She shed a few tears, less for her own sorrow than because she was touched by his kindness.
"I would have been here yesterday," continued he, "but I was away from Harbury. Yet, what help, what comfort, could you have received from me?"
Olive turned to him her face, in whose pale serenity yet lingered the light which had guided her through the valley of the shadow of death.
"God," she whispered, "has helped me. He has taken from me the desire of my eyes, and yet I have peace—perfect peace!"
Harold looked at her with astonishment.
"Tell me," he muttered, involuntarily, "whence comes this peace!"
"From God, as I feel him in my soul—as I read of Him in the revelation of his Word."
Harold was silent. His aspect of hopeless misery went to Olive's heart.
"Oh that I could give to you this peace—this faith!"
"Alas! if I knew what reason you have for yours."
Olive paused. An awful thing it was, with the dead lying in the chamber above, to wrestle with the unbelief of the living. But it seemed as if the spirit of her mother had passed into her spirit, giving her strength to speak with words not her own. What if, in the inscrutable purposes of Heaven, this hour of death was to be to him an hour of new birth?
So, repressing all grief and weakness, Olive said, "Let us talk a little of the things which in times like this come home to us as the only realities."
"To you, not to me! You forget the gulf between us!"
"Nay," Olive said, earnestly; "you believe, as I do, in one God—the Creator and Ruler of this world?"
Harold made solemn assent.
"Of this world," she continued, "wherein is so much of beauty, happiness, and love. And can that exist in the created which is not in the Creator! Must not, therefore, the great Spirit of the Universe be a Spirit of Love?"
"Your argument contradicts itself," was the desponding answer. "Can you speak thus—you, whose heart yet bleeds with recent suffering?"
"Suffering which my faith has changed into joy. Never until this hour did I look so clearly from this world into the world of souls—never did I so strongly feel within me the presence of God's spirit, a pledge for the immortality of mine."
"Immortality! Alas, that dream! And yet," he added, looking at her reverently, even with tenderness, "I could half believe that a life like yours—so full of purity and goodness—can never be destined to perish."
"And can you believe in human goodness, yet doubt Him who alone can be its origin? Can you think that He would give the yearning for the hereafter, and yet deny its fulfilment? That he would implant in us love, when there was nothing to love; and faith, when there was nothing to believe?"
Harold seemed struck. "You speak plain, reasonable words—not like the vain babblers of contradictory creeds. Yet you do profess a creed—you join in the Church's service?"
"Because, though differing from many of its doctrines, I think its forms of worship are pure—perhaps the purest extant. But I do not set up the Church between myself and God. I follow no ritual, and trust no creed, except so far as it is conformable to the instinct of faith—the inward revelation of Himself which he has implanted in my soul—and to that outward revelation, the nearest and clearest that He has ever given of Himself to men, the Divine revelation of love which I find here, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, my Lord."
As she spoke, her hand rested on the Bible out of which she had last read to her mother. It opened at the very place, and from it there dropped the little book-marker which Mrs. Rothesay always used, one worked by Olive in her childish days. The sight drew her down to the helplessness of human woe.
"Oh, my mother!—my mother!" She bowed her head upon her knees, and for some minutes wept bitterly. Then she rose somewhat calmer.
"I am going upstairs"—— Her voice failed.
"I know—I know," said Harold.
"She spoke of you: they were almost her last words. You will come with me, friend?"
Harold was a man who never wept—never could weep—but his face grew pale, and there came over him a great awe. His step faltered, even more than her own, as he followed Olive up-stairs.
Her hand trembled a moment on the latch of the door. "No," she said, as if to herself,—"no, it is not my mother; my mother is not here!"
Then she went in composedly, and uncovered the face of the dead; Harold standing beside her.
Olive was the first to speak. "See," she whispered, "how very placid and beautiful it looks!—like her and yet unlike. I never for a moment feel that it is my mother ."
Harold regarded with amazement the daughter newly orphaned, who stood serenely beholding her dead. He took Olive's hand, softly and with reverence, as if there were something sacred in her touch. His she scarcely seemed to feel, but continued, speaking in the same tranquil voice:
"Two hours ago we were so happy, she and I, talking together of holy things, and of the love we had borne each other. And can such love end with death? Can I believe that one moment—the fleeting of a breath—has left of my mother only this?"
She turned from the bed, and met Harold's eye—intense, athirst—as if his soul's life were in her words.
"You are calm—very calm," he murmured. "You stand here, and have no fear of death."
"No; for I have seen my mother die. Her last breath was on my mouth. I felt her spirit pass, and I knew that it was passing unto God."
"And you can rejoice?"
"Yes; since for all I lose on earth, heaven—the place of souls, which we call heaven, whatever or wherever that may be—grows nearer to me. It will seem the more my home, now I have a mother there."
Harold Gwynne fell on his knees at the bedside, crying out:
"Oh, God! that I could believe!"