Olive Part 56

Bind him round with cords of love--fast--fast. Oh, that my wife had had strength so to encircle me!

"But she had not; and so the end came! Olive, you are not my _only_ child.

"I have no desire to palliate my sin. Sin, I know it was, heavy and deadly; against G.o.d's law, against my trusting wife, and against that hapless creature on whom I brought a whole lifetime of misery. Ay, not on her alone, but on that innocent being who has received from me nothing but the heritage of shame, and to whom in this world I can never make atonement. No man can! I felt this when she was born. It was a girl, too--a helpless girl. I looked on the little face, sleeping so purely, and remembered that on her brow would rest through life a perpetual stain; and that I, her father, had fixed it there. Then there awoke in me a remorse which can never die. For, alas, Olive, I have more to unfold! My remorse, like my crimes, was selfish at the root, and I wreaked it on her, who, if guilty, was less guilty than I.

"One day I came to her, restless and angry, unable to hide the worm that was continually gnawing at my heart. She saw it there, and her proud spirit rose; she poured on me a torrent of reproachful words. I answered them as one who had erred like me was sure to answer. Poor wretch! I reviled her as having been the cause of my misery. When I saw her in her fury, I contrasted her image with that of the pale, patient, trusting creature I had left that morning--my wife, my poor Sybilla--until, hating myself, I absolutely loathed _her_--the enchantress who had been my undoing. With her shrill voice yet pursuing me, I precipitately left the house. Next day mother and child had disappeared! Whither, I knew not; and I never have known, though I left no effort untried to solve a mystery which made me feel like a _murderer_.

"Nevertheless, I believe that they are still alive--these wretched two.

If I did not, I should almost go mad at times.

"Olive, have pity on your father, and hearken to what I implore. Whilst I live, I shall continue this search--but I may die without having had the chance of making atonement. In that case I entreat of my daughter Olive to stand between her father and his sin. If you have no other ties--if you never marry, but live alone in the world--seek out and protect that child! Remember, she is of your own blood--_she_, at least, never wronged you. In showing mercy to her, you do so to me, your father; who, when you read this, will have been for years among the dead, though the evil that he caused may still remain unexpiated. Oh!

think that this is his voice crying out from the dust, beseeching you to absolve his memory. Save me from the horrible thought, now haunting me evermore, that the being who owes me life may one day heap curses on her father's name!

"Herewith enclosed you will find instructions respecting an annuity I wish paid to--to the woman. It was placed in----'s bank by Mr. Wyld, whom, however, I deceived concerning it--I am now old enough in the school of hypocrisy. Hitherto the amount has never been claimed.

"Olive, my daughter, forgive me! Judge me not harshly. I never would have asked this of you while your mother lived--your mother, whom _I loved_, though I wronged her so grievously. In some things, perhaps, she erred towards me; but I ought to have shown her more sympathy, and have dealt gently with her tender nature, so unlike my own. May G.o.d forgive us both!--G.o.d, in whose presence we shall both be, when you, our daughter, read this record. And may He bless you evermore, prays your loving father,

"Angus Rothesay.

"Celia Manners was her name. Her child she called _Christal_."

It ceased--this voice from the ten years' silent grave of Angus Rothesay. His daughter sat motionless, her fixed eyes blindly out-gazing, her whole frame cold and rigid, frozen into a statue of stone.

CHAPTER XLII.

Rivetted by an inexplicable influence, Olive had read the letter through, without once pausing or blenching;--read it as though it had been some strange romance of misery, not relating to herself at all.

She felt unable to comprehend or realise it, until she came to the name--"Christal." Then the whole truth burst upon her, wrapping her round with a cold horror, and, for the time, paralysing all her faculties. When she awoke, the letter was still in her hand, and from it still there stood out clear the name, which had long been a familiar word. Therefore, all this while, destiny had been leading her to work out her father's desire. The girl who had dwelt in her household for months, whom she had tried to love, and generously sought to guide, was--_her sister_.

But what a chaos of horror was revealed by this discovery! Olive's first thought was of her mother, who had showered kindness on this child of shame; who, dying, had unconsciously charged her to "take care of Christal."

With a natural revulsion of feeling, Olive thrust the letter from her.

Its touch seemed to pollute her fingers.

"Oh, my mother--my poor, wronged mother!--well for you that you never lived to see this day. You--so good, so loving, so faithfully remembering him even to the last. But I--I have lived to shrink with abhorrence from the memory of my own father."

Suddenly she stopped, aghast at thinking that she was thus speaking of the dead--the dead from whom her own life had sprung.

"I am bewildered," she murmured. "Heaven help me! I know not what I say or do." And Olive fell on her knees.

She had no words to pray with; but, in such time of agony, all her thoughts were prayers. After a while these calmed her, and made her strong to endure one more trial--different from, perhaps even more awful than, all the rest.

Much sorrow had been her life's portion; but never until this hour had Olive Rothesay stood face to face with crime. She had now to learn the crowning lesson of virtue--how to deal with vice. Not by turning away in saintly pride, but by boldly confronting it, with an eye stern in purity, yet melting in compa.s.sion; remembering ever--

How all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He who might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy.

Angus Rothesay's daughter read over once more the record of his sin. In so doing, she was struck with the depth of that remorse which, to secure a future expiation, threw aside pride, reserve, and shame. How awful must have been the repentance which had impelled such a confession, and driven a father to humble himself in the dust before his own child!

She seemed to hear, rising from the long-closed grave, that mournful, beseeching cry, "Atone my sin!" It silenced even the voice of her mother's wrongs.

This duty then remained, to fulfil which--as it would appear--Olive had been left alone on earth. The call seemed like that of fate; nay, she half-shuddered to think of the almost supernatural chance, which had arranged everything before her, and made her course so plain. But it had often happened so. Her life appeared as some lives do, all woven about with mysteries; threads of guidance, first unseen, and then distinctly traced, forcing on the mind that sweet sense of invisible ministry which soothes all suffering, and causes a childlike rest on the Omnipotence which out of all evil continually evolves good.

With this thought there dawned upon Olive a solemn sense of calm. To lay down this world's crown of joys, and to take up its cross--no longer to be ministered unto, but to minister,--this was to be her portion henceforth, and with this holy work was her lonely life to be filled.

"I will do it," she cried. "O my poor father, may G.o.d have forgiven you, as my mother would, and as I now do! It is not mine to judge your sin; enough for me is the duty to atone it. How can this be best fulfilled?"

She sat long in silence, mournfully pondering. She tried to collect every scattered link of memory respecting what she had heard of Christal's mother. For such, she now knew, was the woman who, for the time, had once strongly excited her girlish imagination. That visit and its incidents now came vividly back upon her memory. Much there was which made her naturally revolt from the thought of this unhappy creature. How could it be otherwise with her mother's child? Still, amidst all, she was touched by the love of this other most wretched mother, who--living and dying--had renounced her maternal claim; and impressed upon her daughter's mind a feigned story, rather than let the brand of illegitimate birth rest upon the poor innocent.

Suddenly she heard from the next room Christal's happy, unconscious voice, singing merrily.

"My sister!" Olive gasped. "She is my sister--my father's child."

And there came upon her, in a flood of mingled compa.s.sion and fear, all that Christal would feel when she came to know the truth! Christal--so proud of her birth--her position--whose haughty nature, inherited from both father and mother, had once struggled wrathfully against Olive's mild control. Such a blow as this would either crush her to the earth, or, rousing up the demon in her, drive her to desperation. Thinking thus, Olive forgot everything in pity for the hapless girl;--everything, save an awe-struck sense of the crime, which, as its necessary consequence, entailed such misery from generation to generation.

It seemed most strange that Christal had lived for so many years, cheris.h.i.+ng her blind belief, nay, not even seeking to investigate it when it lay in her power. For since the day she returned from France, she had never questioned Miss Vanbrugh, nor alluded to the subject of her parentage. Such indifference seemed incredible, and could only be accounted for by Christal's light, careless nature, her haughtiness, or her utter ignorance of the world.

What was Olive to do? Was she to reveal the truth, and thus blast for ever this dawning life, so full of hope? Was her hand to place the stigma of shame on the brow of this young creature?--a girl too! There might come a time when some proud, honourable man, however loving, would scruple to take to his bosom as a wife, one--whose mother had never owned that name. But then--was Olive to fix on herself the perpetual burden of this secret--the continual dread of its betrayal--the doubt, lest one day, chance might bring it to Christal's knowledge, perhaps when the girl would no longer be s.h.i.+elded by a sister's protection, or comforted by a sister's love?

While she struggled in this conflict, she heard a voice at the door.

"Olive--Olive!"--the tone was more affectionate than usual. "Are you never coming? I am quite tired of being alone. Do let me into the studio!"

Olive sprang to her desk and hid the letter therein. Then, without speaking--she had no power to speak--she mechanically unlocked the door.

"Well, I am glad to get at you at last," cried Christal, merrily. "I thought you were going to spend the night here. But what is the matter?

You are as white as a ghost. You can't look me in the face. Why, one would almost imagine you had been planning a murder, and I was the 'innocent, unconscious victim,' as the novels have it."

"You--a victim!" cried Olive, in great agitation. But by an almost superhuman effort she repressed it, and added, quietly, "Christal, my dear, don't mind me. It is nothing--only I feel ill--excited."

"Why, what have you been doing?"

Olive instinctively answered the truth. "I have been sitting here alone--thinking of old times--reading old letters."

"Whose? nay, but I will know," answered Christal, half playfully, half in earnest, as though there was some distrust in her mind.

"It was my father's--my poor father's."

"Is that all? Oh, then don't vex yourself about any old father dead and gone. I wouldn't! Though, to be sure, I never had the chance. Little I ever knew or cared about mine."

Olive turned away, and was silent; but Christal, who seemed, for some reason best known to herself, to be in a particularly unreserved and benignant humour, said kindly, "You poor little trembling thing, how ill you have made yourself! You can scarcely stand alone; give me your hand, and I'll help you to the sofa."

But Olive shrank as if there had been a sting in the slender fingers which lay on her arm. She looked at them, and a slight circ.u.mstance, long forgotten, rushed back upon her memory,--something she had noticed to her mother the first night that the girl came home. Tracing the beautiful hereditary mould of the Rothesay line, she now knew why Christal's hand was like her own father's.

A s.h.i.+ver of instinctive repugnance came over her, and then the mysterious voice of kindred blood awoke in her heart. She took and pa.s.sionately clasped that hand--the hand of _her sister_.

"O Christal! let us love one another--we two, who have no other tie left to us on earth."