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Olive: A Novel, a novel by Dinah M. Mulock Craik |
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Chapter 37 |
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_ CHAPTER XXXVII There is not in the world a more exquisite sight than a beautiful old age. It is almost better than a beautiful youth. Early loveliness passes away with its generation, and becomes at best only a melancholy tradition recounted by younger lips with a half-incredulous smile. But if one must live to be the last relic of a past race, one would desire in departing to leave behind the memory of a graceful old age. And since there is only one kind of beauty which so endures, it ought to be a consolation to those whom fate has denied the personal loveliness which charms at eighteen, to know that we all have it in our power to be beautiful at eighty. Miss, or rather Mrs. Flora Rothesay--for so she was always called--appeared to Olive the most beautiful old lady she had ever beheld. It was a little after dusk on a dull wet day, when she reached her journey's end. Entering, she saw around her the dazzle of a rich warm fire-light, her cloak was removed by light hands, and she felt on both cheeks the kiss of peace and salutation. "Is that Olive Rothesay, Angus Rothesay's only child? Welcome to Scotland--welcome, my dear lassie!" The voice lost none of its sweetness for bearing, strongly and unmistakably, the ".accents of the mountain tongue." Though more in tone than phrase, for Mrs. Flora Rothesay spoke with all the purity of a Highland woman. Surely the breezes that rocked Olive's cradle had sung in her memory for twenty years, for she felt like coming home the moment she set foot in her native land. She expressed this to Mrs. Flora, and then, quite overpowered, she knelt and hid her face in the old lady's lap, and her excitement melted away in a soft dew--too sweet to seem like tears. "The poor lassie! she's just wearied out!" said Mrs. Flora, laying her hands on Olive's hair. "Jean, get her some tea. Now, my bairn, lift up your face. Ay, there it is--a Rothesay's, every line! and with the golden hair too. Ye have heard tell of the weird saying, about the Rothesays with yellow hair? No? We will not talk of it now." And the old lady suddenly looked thoughtful--even somewhat grave. When Olive rose up, she made her bring a seat opposite to her own arm-chair, and there watched her very intently. Olive herself noticed her aunt with curious eyes. Mrs. Flora's attire was quite a picture, with the ruffled elbow-sleeves and the long, square boddice, over which a close white kerchief hid the once lovely neck and throat of her whom old Elspie had chronicled--and truly--as "the Flower of Perth." The face, Olive thought, was as she could have imagined Mary Queen of Scots grown old. But age could never obliterate the charm of the soft languishing eyes, the almost infantile sweetness of the mouth. Therein sat a spirit, ever lovely, because ever loving; smiling away all natural wrinkles--softening down all harsh lines. You regarded them no more than the faint shadows in a twilight landscape, over which the soul of peace is everywhere diffused. There was peace, too, in the very attitude--leaning back, the head a little raised, the hands crossed, each folded round the other's wrist. Olive particularly noticed these hands. On the right was a marriage-ring which had outlasted two lives, mother and daughter; on the left, at the wedding-finger, was another, a hoop of gold with a single diamond. Both seemed less ornaments than tokens--gazed on, perhaps, as the faint landmarks of a long past journey, which now, with its joys and pains alike, was all fading into shadow before the dawn of another world. "So they called you 'Olive,' my dear," said Mrs. Flora. "A strange name! the like of it is not in our family." "My mother gave it me from a dream she had." Olive. "Now, my bairn, lift up your face." "Ay, I mind it; Harold Gwynne told me, saying that Mrs. Rothesay had told _him_. Was she, then, so sweet and dainty a creature--your mother? Once Angus spoke to me of her--little Sybilla Hyde. She was his wife then, though we did not know it. Poor Angus, we loved him very much--better than he thought. Tears again, my dearie!" "They do not harm me, Aunt Flora." "And so you know my dear Alison Balfour? She was younger than I, and yet you see we have both grown auld wives together. Little Olive, ye have come to me in a birthday gift, my dear. I am eighty years old to-day--just eighty years, thank the Lord!" The old lady reverently raised her blue eyes--true Scottish eyes--limpid and clear as the dew on Scottish heather. Cheerful they were withal, for they soon began to flit hither and thither, following the motions of Jean's "eident hand" with most housewifely care. And Jean herself, a handmaid prim and ancient, but youthful compared to her mistress, seemed to watch the latter's faintest gesture with most affectionate observance. Of all the light traits which reveal character, none is more suggestive than the sight of a mistress whom her servants love. After tea Mrs. Mora insisted on Olive's retiring for the night. "Your room has a grand view over the Braid Hills. They call them hills here; but oh! if ye had seen the blue mountains sweeping in waves from the old house at home. Night and day I was wearying for them, for years after I came to live at Morningside. But one must e'en dree one's weird!" She always spoke in this rambling way, wandering from the subject, after the fashion of old age. Olive could have listened long to the pleasant stream of talk, which seemed murmuring round her, wrapping her in a soft dream of peace. She laid down her tired head on the pillow, with an unwonted feeling of calmness and rest. Even the one weary pain that ever pursued her sank into momentary repose. Her last waking thought was still of Harold; but it was more like the yearning of a spirit from beyond the grave. Just between waking and sleeping Olive was roused by music. Her door had been left ajar, and the sound she heard was the voices of the household, engaged in their evening devotion. The tune was that sweetest of all Presbyterian psalmody, "plaintive Martyrs." Olive caught some words of the hymn--it was one with which she had often, often been lulled to sleep in poor old Elspie's arms. Distinct and clear its quaint rhymes came back upon her memory now: Yea, though I walk in death's dark vale,
She awoke in the morning, as if waking in another world. The clear cold air, thrilled with sunshine, filled her room. It was the "best room," furnished with a curious mingling of the ancient and the modern. The pretty chintz couch laughed at the oaken, high-backed chair, stiff with a century of worm-eaten state. On either side the fireplace hung two ancient engravings, of Mary Stuart and "bonnie Prince Charlie," both garnished with verses, at once remarkable for devoted loyalty and eccentric rhythm. Between the two was Sir William Ross's sweet, maidenly portrait of our own Victoria. Opposite, on a shadowed wall, with one sunbeam kissing the face, was a large well-painted likeness, which Olive at once recognised. It was Mrs. Flora Rothesay, at eighteen. No wonder, Olive thought, that she was called "the Flower of Perth." But strange it was, that the fair flower had been planted in no good man's bosom; that this lovely and winning creature had lived, bloomed, withered--"an old maid." Olive, looking into the sweet eyes that followed her everywhere--as those of some portraits do--tried to read therein the foreshadowing of a life-history of eighty years. It made her dreamy and sad, so she arose and looked out upon the sunny slopes of the Braid Hills until her cheerfulness returned. Then she descended to the breakfast-table. It was too early for the old lady to appear, but there were waiting three or four young damsels--invited, they said, to welcome Miss Rothesay, and show her the beauties of Edinburgh. They talked continually of "dear Auntie Mora," and were most anxious to "call cousins" with Olive herself, who, though she could not at all make out the relationship, was quite ready to take it upon faith. She tried very hard properly to distinguish between the three Miss M'Gillivrays, daughters of Sir Andrew Rothesay's half-sister's son, and Miss Flora Anstruther, the old lady's third cousin and name-child, and especially little twelve-years-old Maggie Oliphant, whose grandfather was Mrs. Flora's nephew on the mother's side, and first cousin ta Alison Balfour. All these conflicting relationships wrapped Olive in an inexplicable net; but it was woven of such friendly arms that she had no wish to get free. Her heart opened to the loving welcome; and when she took her first walk on Scottish ground, it was with a sensation more akin to happiness than she had felt for many a long month. "And so you have never before seen your aunt," said one of the M'Gillivrays;--for her life, Olive could not tell whether it was Miss Jane, Miss Janet, or Miss Marion, though she had tried for half-an-hour to learn the difference. "You like her of course--our dear old Auntie Flora?" "Aunt to which of you?" said Olive, smiling. "Oh, she is everybody's Auntie Flora; no one ever calls her anything else," observed little Maggie Oliphant, who, during all their walk clung tenaciously to Miss Rothesay's hand, as most children were prone to do. "I think," said the quiet Miss Anstruther, lifting up her brown eyes, "that in all _our_ lives put together, we will never do half the good that Aunt Flora has done in hers. Papa says, every one of her friends ought to be thankful that she has lived an old maid!" "Yes, indeed, for who else would have had patience with her cross old brother Sir Andrew, until he died?" said Janet M'Gillivray. "And who," added her sister, "would have come and been a mother to us when we lost our own, living with us, and taking care of us for seven long years?" "I am sure," cried blithe Maggie, "my brothers and I used often to say, that if Auntie Flora had been young, and any disagreeable husband had come to steal her from us, we would have hooted him away down the street, and pelted him with stones." Olive laughed; and afterwards said, thoughtfully, "She has then lived a happy life--has this good Aunt Flora!" "Not always happy," answered the eldest and gravest of the M'Gillivrays. "My mother once heard that she had some great trouble in her youth. But she has outlived it, and conquered it in time. People say such things are possible: I cannot tell," added the girl, with a faint sigh. There was no more said of Mrs. Flora, but oftentimes during the day, when some passing memory stung poor Olive, causing her to turn wearily from the mirth of her young companions, there came before her in gentle reproof the likeness of the aged woman who had lived down her one great woe--lived, not only to feel but to impart cheerfulness. A few hours after, Olive saw her aunt sitting smiling amidst a little party which she had gathered together, playing with the children, sympathising with those of elder growth, and looked up to by old and young with an affection passing that of mere kindred. And then there came a balm of hope to the wounded spirit that had felt life's burden too heavy to be borne. "How happy you are, and how much everyone loves you!" said Olive, when Mrs. Flora and herself were left alone, and their hearts inclined each to each with a vague sympathy. "Yours must have been a noble woman's life." "I have tried to make it so, as far as I could, my dear bairn; and the little good I have done has come back upon me fourfold. It is always so." "And you have been content--nay happy!" "Ay, I have! God quenched the fire on my own hearth, that I might learn to make that of others bright My dear, one's life never need be empty of love, even though, after seeing all near kindred drop away, one lingers to be an old maid of eighty years." _ |
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