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 pa.s.sed 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 ap.r.o.n 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 coa.r.s.e 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 n.o.body 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 att.i.tude of a "Ca.s.sandra 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 pa.s.sion 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 coa.r.s.e, 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 subst.i.tute 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 a.s.sistance 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 a.s.sociation connected with the name of Harold Gwynne.
"Well, dear, the letter!" said Mrs. Rothesay, as they pa.s.sed 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.