Beautiful it was to see them, clinging together so closely that none of those who loved both had the courage to tell them how soon they must part. Sometimes Mrs. Gwynne would watch Olive with a look that seemed to ask, “Child, have you strength to bear?” But she herself had not the strength to tell her. Besides, it seemed as though these close cords of love were knitted so tightly around the mother, and every breath of her fading life so fondly cherished, that she could not perforce depart. Months might pass ere that frail tabernacle was quite dissolved.
As the winter glided away, Mrs. Rothesay seemed much better. One evening in March, when Harold Gwynne came laden with a whole basket of violets, he said—and truly—that she was looking as blooming as the spring itself. Olive coincided in this opinion—nay, declared, smiling, that any one would fancy her mother was only making pretence of illness, to win more kindness and consideration.
“As if you had not enough of that from every one, mamma! I never knew such a spoilt darling in all my life; and yet see, Mr. Gwynne, how meekly she bears it, and how beautiful and content she looks!”
It was true. Let us draw the picture which lived in Olive's memory evermore.
Mrs. Rothesay sat in a little low chair—her own chair, which no one else ever claimed. She did not wear an invalid's shawl, but a graceful wrapping-gown of pale colours—such as she had always loved, and which suited well her delicate, fragile beauty. Closely tied over her silvery hair—the only sign of age—was a little cap, whose soft pink gauze lay against her cheek—that cheek which even now was all unwrinkled, and tinted with a lovely faint rose colour, like a young girl's. Her eyes were cast down; she had a habit of doing this lest others might see there the painful expression of blindness; but her mouth smiled a serene, cheerful, holy smile, such as is rarely seen on human face, save when earth's dearest happiness is beginning to melt away, dimmed in the coming brightness of heaven. Her little thin hands lay crossed on her knee, one finger playing as she often did, with her wedding-ring, now worn to a mere thread of gold.
Her daughter looked at her with eyes of passionate yearning that threw into one minute's gaze the love of a whole lifetime. Harold Gwynne looked at her too, and then at Olive. He thought, “Can she, if she knows what I know—can she be resigned—nay, happy! Then, what a sublime faith hers must be!”
Olive seemed not to see him, but only her mother. She gazed and gazed, then she came and knelt before Mrs. Rothesay, and wound her arms round her.
“Darling, kiss me! or I shall fear you are growing quite an angel—an angel with wings.”
There lurked a troubled tone beneath the playfulness; she rose up quickly, and began to talk to Mr. Gwynne.
They had a pleasant evening, all three together; for Mrs. Rothesay, knowing that Harold was lonely—since his mother and Ailie had gone away on a week's visit—prevailed upon him to stay. He read to them—Mrs. Rothesay was fond of hearing him read; and to Olive the world's richest music was in his deep, pathetic voice, more especially when reading, as he did now, with great earnestness and emotion. The poem was not one of his own choosing, but of Mrs. Rothesay's. She listened eagerly while he read from Tennyson's “May Queen.”