Chapter 19

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_ CHAPTER XIX

In one of the western environs of London is a region which, lying between two great omnibus outlets, is yet as retired and old-fashioned as though it had been miles and miles distant from the metropolis. Fields there are few or none, certainly; but there are quiet, green lanes (where in springtime you may pluck many a fragrant hawthorn branch), and market-gardens, and grand old trees; while on summer mornings you may continually hear a loud chorus of birds--especially larks--though these latter "blithe spirits" seem to live perpetually in the air, and one marvels how they ever contrive to make their nests in the potato-grounds below. Perhaps they do so in emulation of their human neighbours--authors, actors, artists, who in this place "most do congregate," many of them, poor souls! singing their daily songs of life out in the world, as the larks in the air; none knowing what a mean, lowly, sometimes even desolate home, is the nest whence such music springs.

Well, in this region, there is a lane * (a crooked, unpaved, winding, quaint, dear old lane!); and in that lane there is a house; and in that house there are two especially odd rooms, where dwelt Olive Rothesay and her mother.

* _Was_. It is no more, now.

Chance had led them hither; but they both--Olive especially--thanked chance, every day of their lives, for having brought them to such a delicious old place. It was the queerest of all queer abodes, was Woodford Cottage. The entrance-door and the stable-door stood side by side; and the cellar-staircase led out of the drawing-room. The direct way from the kitchen to the dining-room was through a suite of sleeping apartments; and the staircase, apparently cut out of the wall, had a beautiful little break-neck corner, which seemed made to prevent any one who once ascended from ever descending alive. Certainly the contriver of Woodford Cottage must have had some slight twist of the brain, which caused the building to partake of the same pleasant convolution.

Yet, save this slight peculiarity, it was a charming house to live in. It stood in a garden, whose high walls shut out all view, save of the trees belonging to an old dilapidated, uninhabited lodge, where an illustrious statesman had once dwelt, and which was now creeping to decay and oblivion, like the great man's own memory. The trees waved, and the birds sang therein for the especial benefit of Woodford Cottage and of Olive Rothesay. She, who so dearly loved a garden, perfectly exulted in this. Most delightful was its desolate untrimmed luxuriance--where the peaches grew almost wild upon the wall, and one gigantic mulberry-tree looked beautiful all the year through. Moreover, climbing over the picturesque, bay-windowed house, was such a clematis! Its blossoms glistened like a snow-shower throughout the day; and, in the night-time, its perfume was a very breath of Eden. Altogether the house was a grand old house--just suited for a dreamer, a poet, or an artist. An artist did really inhabit it, which had been no small attraction to draw Olive thither. But of him more anon.

At present let us look at the mother and daughter, as they sit in the one parlour to which all the glories of Meri-vale Hall and Oldchurch had dwindled. But they did not murmur at that, for they were together; and now that the first bitterness of their loss had passed away, they began to feel cheerful--even happy.

Olive was flitting in and out of the window which opened into the garden, and bringing thence her apron full of flowers to dispose about the large, somewhat gloomy, and scantily-furnished room. Mrs. Rothesay was sitting in the sunshine, engaged in some delicate needlework. In the midst of it she stopped, and her hands fell with a heavy sigh.

"It is of no use, Olive."

"What is of no use, mamma?"

"I cannot see to thread my needle. I really must be growing old."

"Nonsense, darling."--Olive often said "darling" quite in a protecting way--"Why, you are not forty yet. Don't talk about growing old, my own beautiful mamma--for you are beautiful; I heard Mr. Vanbrugh saying so to his sister the other day; and of course he, an artist, must know," added Olive, with a sweet flattery, as she took her mother's hands, and looked at her with admiration.

And truly it was not uncalled for. Over the delicate beauty of Sybilla Rothesay had crept a spiritual charm, that increased with life's decline--for her life _was_ declining--even so soon. Not that her health was broken, or that she looked withered and aged; but still there was a gradual change, as of the tree which from its richest green melts into hues that, though still lovely, indicate the time, distant but certain, of autumn days, and of leaves softly falling earthwards. So, doubtless, her life's leaf would fall.

Mrs. Rothesay smiled; sweeter than any of the flatteries of her youth, now fell her daughter's tender praise. "You are a silly little girl; but never mind! Only I wish my eyes did not trouble me so much. Olive, suppose I should come to be a blind old woman, for you to take care of?"

Olive snatched away the work, and closed the strained aching eyes with two sweet kisses. It was a subject she could not bear to talk upon; perhaps because it rested often on Mrs. Rothesay's mind: and she herself had an instinctive apprehension that there was, after all, some truth in these fears concerning her mother's sight. She began quickly to talk of other matters.

"Hark, mamma, there is Mr. Vanbrugh walking in his painting-room overhead. He always does so when he is dissatisfied about his picture; and I am sure he need not be, for oh! how beautiful it is! Miss Meliora took me in yesterday to see it, when he was out."

"She seems to make quite a pet of you, my child."

"Her kitten ran away last week, which accounts for it, mamma. But indeed I ought not to laugh at her, for one must have something to love, and she has nothing but her dumb pets."

"And her brother."

"Oh, yes. I wonder if anybody else ever loved him, or if he ever loved anybody," said Olive, musingly. "But, mamma, if he is not handsome himself he admires beauty in others. What do you think?--he is longing to paint _somebody's_ face, and put it in this picture; and I promised to ask. Oh, darling, do sit to him! It would not be much trouble, and I should be so proud to see my beautiful mamma in the Academy-exhibition next year."

Mrs. Rothesay shook her head.

"Nay--here he comes to ask you himself," cried Olive, as a tall, a very tall shadow darkened the window, and its corporeality entered the room.

He was a most extraordinary-looking man,--Mr. Van-brugh. Olive had, indeed, reason to call him "not handsome," for you probably would not see an uglier man twice in a lifetime. Gigantic and ungainly in height, and coarse in feature, he certainly was the very antipodes of his own exquisite creations. And for that reason he created them. In his troubled youth, tortured with the sense of that blessing which was denied him, he had said, "Providence has created me hideous: I will outdo Providence; I with my hand will continually create beauty." And so he did--ay, and where he created, he loved. He took his art for his mistress, and, like the Rhodian sculptor, he clasped it to his soul night and day, until it grew warm and life-like, and became to him in the stead of every human tie. Thus Michael Vanbrugh had lived, for fifty years, a life solitary even to moroseness; emulating the great Florentine master, whose Christian name it was his glory to bear. He painted grand pictures, which nobody bought, but which he and his faithful little sister Meliora thought the greater for that. The world did not understand him, nor did he understand the world; so he shut himself out from it altogether, until his small and rapidly-decreasing income caused him to admit into his house as lodgers the widow and daughter.

He might not have done so, had not Miss Meliora hinted how lovely the former was, and how useful she might be as a model when they grew sociable together.

He came to make his request now, and he made it with the greatest unconcern. In his opinion everything in life tended toward one great end--Art He looked on all beauty as only made to be painted. Accordingly, he stepped up to his inmate, with the following succinct address:

"Madam, I want a Grecian head. Yours just suits me; will you oblige me by sitting?" And then adding, as a soothing and flattering encouragement: "It is for my great work--my 'Alcestis!'--one of a series of six pictures, which I hope to finish one day."

He tossed back his long iron-grey hair, and scanned intently the gentle-looking lady whom he had hitherto noticed only with the usual civilities of an acquaintanceship consequent on some months' residence in the same house.

"Excellent! madam. Your features are the very thing--they are perfect."

"Really, Mr. Vanbrugh, you are very flattering," began the widow, faintly colouring, and appealing to Olive, who looked delighted; for she regarded the old artist with as much reverence as if he had been Michael Angelo himself.

He interrupted them both. "Ay, that will just do;" and he drew in the air some magic lines over Mrs. Rothesay's head. "Good brow--Greek mouth, If, madam, you would favour me with taking off your cap. Thank you, Miss Olive. _You_ understand me, I see. That will do--the white drapery over the hair--ah, divine! My 'Alcestis' to the life! Madam--Mrs. Rothesay, your head is glorious; it shall go down to posterity in my picture."

And he walked up and down the room, rubbing his hands with a delighted pride, which, in its perfect simplicity, could never be confounded with paltry vanity or self-esteem. "_My_ work, _my_ picture," in which he so gloried, was utterly different from, "I, the man who executed it" He worshipped--not himself at all; and scarcely so much his real painted work, as the ideal which ever flitted before him, and which it was the one great misery of his life never to have sufficiently attained.

"When shall I sit?" timidly inquired Mrs. Rothesay, still too much of a woman not to be pleased by a painter's praise.

"At once, madam, at once, while the mood is on me. Miss Rothesay, you will lead the way; you are not unacquainted with the arcana of my studio." As, indeed, she was not, having before stood some three hours in the painful attitude of a "Cassandra raving," while he painted from her outstretched and very beautiful hands.

Happy she was the very moment her foot crossed the threshold of a painter's studio, for Olive's love of Art had grown with her growth, and strengthened with her strength. Moreover, the artistic atmosphere in which she now lived had increased this passion tenfold.

"Truly, Miss Rothesay, you seem to know all about it," said Michael Vanbrugh, when, in great pride and delight, she was helping him to arrange her mother's pose, and at last became herself absorbed in admiration of "Alcestis." "You might have been an artist's daughter or sister."

"I wish I had been."

"My daughter is somewhat of an artist herself, Mr. Vanbrugh," observed Mrs. Rothesay, with maternal pride; which Olive, deeply blushing, soon quelled by an entreating motion of silence.

But the painter went on painting; he saw nothing, thought of nothing, save his "Alcestis." He was indeed an enthusiast. Olive watched how, beneath the coarse, ill-formed hand, grew images of perfect beauty; how, within the body, almost repulsive in its ugliness, dwelt a brain which could produce the grandest ideal loveliness; and there dawned in the girl's spirit a stronger conviction than ever of the majesty of the human soul.

It was a comforting thought to one like her, who, as she deemed, had been deprived of so many of life's outward sweetnesses. Between herself and Michael Vanbrugh there was a curious sympathy. To both Nature seemed to have said, "Renounce the body, in exchange for the soul."

The sitting had lasted some hours, during which it took all poor Mrs. Rothesay's gentle patience to humour Olive's enthusiasm, by maintaining the very arduous position of an artist's model. "Alcestis" was getting thoroughly weary of her duties, when they were interrupted by an advent rather rare at Woodford Cottage, that of the daily post Vanbrugh grumblingly betook himself to the substitute of a lay figure and drapery, while Mrs. Rothesay read her letter, or rather looked at it, and gave it to Olive to read: glad, as usual, to escape from the trouble of correspondence.

Olive examined the superscription, as one sometimes does, uselessly enough, when breaking the seal would explain everything. It was a singularly bold, upright hand, distinct as print, free from all caligraphic flourishes, indicating, as most writing does indicate in some degree, the character of the writer. Slightly eccentric it might be, quick, restless, in its turned-up Gs and Ys, but still it was a good hand, an honest hand. Olive thought so, and liked it. Wondering who the writer could be, she opened it, and read thus:

"Madam--From respect to your recent affliction I have kept silence for some months--a silence which, you will allow, was more than could have been expected from me. Perhaps I should not break it now, save for the claim of a wife and mother, who are suffering, and must suffer, from the results of an act which sprung from my own folly and another's cruel---- But no; I will not apply harsh words towards one who is now no more.

"Are you aware, madam, that your late husband, not two days before his death, when in all human probability he must have known himself to be a ruined man, accepted from me assistance in a matter of business, which the enclosed correspondence between my solicitor and yours will explain? This act of mine, done for the sake of an ancient friendship subsisting between my mother and Captain Rothesay, has rendered me liable for a debt so heavy, that in paying it my income is impoverished, and must continue to be so for years.

"Your husband gave me no security: I desired none. Therefore I have no legal claim for requital for this great and bitter sacrifice, which makes me daily curse my own folly in having trusted living man. But I ask of you, madam, who, secured from the effects of Captain Rothesay's insolvency, have, I understand, been left in comfort, if not affluence--I ask, is it right, in honour and in honesty, that I, a clergyman with a small stipend, should suffer the penalty of a deed wherein, with all charity to the dead, I cannot but think I was grievously injured?

"Awaiting your answer, I remain, madam, your very obedient,

"Harold Gwynne."

"Harold Gwynne!" Olive, repeating the name to herself, let the letter fall on the ground. Well was it that she stood hidden from sight by the "great picture," so that her mother could not know the pang which came over her.

The mystery, then, was solved. Now she knew why in his last agony her dying father had written the name of "Harold"--her poor father, who was here accused, by implication at least, of a wilful act of dishonesty! She regarded the letter with a sense of abhorrence--so coldly cruel it seemed to her, whose tenderness for a father's memory naturally a little belied her judgment. And the heartless charge was brought by the husband of Sara Derwent! There was bitterness in every association connected with the name of Harold Gwynne.

"Well, dear, the letter!" said Mrs. Rothesay, as they passed from the studio to their own apartment.

"It brings news that will grieve you. But never mind, mamma, darling: we will bear all our troubles together." And as briefly and as tenderly as she could she explained the letter--together with the fact hitherto unknown to Mrs. Rothesay, that her husband in his last moments had evidently wished to acknowledge the debt.

Well Olive knew the effect this would produce on her mother's mind. Tears, angry exclamations, and bitter repinings; but the daughter soothed them all.

"Now, dear mamma," she whispered, when Mrs. Rothesay was a little composed, "we must answer the letter at once. What shall we say!"

"Nothing! That cruel man deserves no reply at all."

"Mamma!" cried Olive, somewhat reproachfully. "Whatever he may be, we are evidently his debtors. Even Mr. Wyld admits this, you see. We must not forget justice and honour--my poor fathers honour."

"No--no! You are right, my child. Let us do anything, if it is for the sake of his dear memory," sobbed the widow, whose love death had sanctified, and endowed with an added tenderness. "But, Olive, you must write--I cannot!"

Olive assented. She had long taken upon herself all similar duties. At once she sat down to pen this formidable letter. It took her some time; for there was a constant struggle between the necessary formality of a business letter, and the impulse of wounded feeling, natural to her dead father's child. The finished epistle was a curious mingling of both.

"Shall I read it aloud, mamma? and then the subject will be taken from your mind," said Olive, as she came and stood by her mother's chair.

Mrs. Rothesay assented.

"Well, then, here it begins--'Reverend Sir' (I ought to address him thus, you know, because he is a clergyman, though he does seem so harsh, and so unlike what a Christian pastor ought to be)."

"He does, indeed, my child--but, go on." And Olive read:

"'Reverend Sir--I address you by my mother's desire, to say that she was quite unaware of your claim upon my late dear father. She can only reply to it, by requesting your patience for a little time, until she is able to liquidate the debt--not out of the wealth you attribute to her, but out of her present restricted means. And I, my father's only child, wishing to preserve his memory from the imputations you have cast upon it, must tell you, that his last moments were spent in endeavouring to write your name. We never understood why, until now. Oh, sir! was it right or kind of you so harshly to judge the dead? My father _intended_ to pay you. If you have suffered, it was through his misfortune--not his crime. Have a little patience with us, and your claim shall be wholly discharged.

"'Olive Rothesay.'"

"You have said nothing of Sara. I wonder if she knows this!" said the mother, as Olive folded up her letter.

"Hush, mamma! Let me forget everything that was once. Perhaps, too, she is not to blame. I knew Charles Geddes; Sara might not like to speak of me to her husband?"

Yet, with a look of bitter pain, Olive wrote the address of her letter--"Harbury Parsonage"--Sara's home! She lingered, too, over the name of Sara's husband.

"_Harold Gwynne!_ Oh, mamma! how different names look! I cannot bear the sight of this! I hate it."

Years after, Olive remembered these words. _

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