Olive: A Novel

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Mrs. Gwynne sat an hour or two, and then rose to return to the Parsonage. “We must be home before it is dark, little Ailie and I. We have no one to take care of us now.”

Some pain was visible as she said this. When she took her grandchild by the hand, and walked down the garden, it seemed to Olive that the old lady's step was less firm than usual. Her heart sprang to Harold's mother.

“Let me walk with you a little way, Mrs. Gwynne. I am thoroughly rested now; and as for coming back alone, I shall not mind it.”

“What a little trembling arm it is for me to lean on!” said Mrs. Gwynne, smiling, when, after some faint resistance, she had taken Olive for a companion. “'Tis nothing like my Harold's, and yet I am glad to have it. I am afraid I shall often have to look to it now Harold is away. Are you willing, Olive?”

“Quite, quite willing;—nay, very glad!”

Olive went nearly all the way to Harbury. She was almost happy, walking between Harold's mother and Harold's child. But when she parted from them she felt alone, bitterly alone. Then first she began to realise the truth, that the dream of so many months was now altogether ended! It had been something, even after her sorrow began, to feel that Harold was near! that, although days might pass without her seeing him, still he was there—within a few miles. Any time, sitting wearily in her painting room, she might hear his knock at the door; or in any walk, however lonely and sad, there was at least the possibility of his crossing her path, and, despite her will, causing her heart to bound with joy. Now, all these things could not be again. She went homeward along the dear old Harbury road, knowing that no possible chance could make his image appear to brighten its loneliness; that where they had so often walked, taking sweet counsel together as familiar friends, she must learn to walk alone. Perhaps, neither there nor elsewhere, would she ever walk with Harold more.

In her first suffering, in her brave resolve to quit Harbury, she had not thought how she should feel when all was indeed over. She had not pictured the utter blankness of a world wherein Harold was not. The snare broken and her soul escaped, she knew not how it would beat its broken wings in the dun air, meeting nothing but the black, silent waste, ready once more to flutter helplessly down into the alluring death.

Olive walked along with feet heavy and slow. In her eyes were no tears—she had wept them all away long since. She did not look up much; but still she saw, as one sees in a dream, all that was around her—the white, glittering grass, the spectral hedges, the trees laden with a light snow, silent, motionless, stretching their bare arms up to the dull sky. No, not the sky, that seemed far, far off; between it and earth interposed a mist, so thick and cold that it blinded sight and stifled breath. She could not look up at God's dear heaven—she almost felt that through the gloom the pitying Heaven could not look at her. But after a while the mist changed a little, and then Olive drew her breath, and her thoughts began to form themselves as she went along.

“I am now alone, quite alone. I must shut my life up in myself—look to no one's help, yearn for no one's love. What I receive I will take thankfully; but I have no claim upon any one in this wide world. Many pleasant friendships I have, many tender ties, but none close enough to fill the void in my heart—none to love as I could love—as I did love for many years. Oh, mother, why did you go away? Why did I love again—lose again? Always loving only to lose.”

Many times she said to herself, “I am alone—quite alone in the world;” and at last the words seemed to strike the echo of some old remembrance. But it was one so very dim, that for a long time Olive could not give it any distinct form. At last she recollected the letter which, ten years ago, she had put away in a secret drawer of her father's desk. Strange to say, she had never thought of it since. Perhaps this was because, at the time, she had instinctively shuddered at the suggestions it gave, and so determined to banish them. And then the quick, changing scenes of life had prevented her ever recurring to the subject Now, when all had come true, when on that desert land which, still distant, had seemed so fearful to the girl's eyes, the woman's feet already stood, she turned with an eager desire to the words which her father had written—“To his daughter Olive when she was quite alone in the world.”