A TERRIBLE EVENT.
For Agnes, we are grieved to confess, had fallen into all the sudden
fervour of a most warm and enthusiastic girlish friendship. She forgot
to watch over her sister, though Mrs Atheling’s letters did not fail to
remind her of her duty; she forgot to ward off the constant regards of
Sir Langham. She began to be perfectly indifferent and careless of the
superb sentinel who mounted guard upon Marian every night. For the time,
Agnes was entirely occupied with Rachel, and with the new world so full
of a charmed unknown life, which seemed to open upon them all in this
Old Wood Lodge; she spent hours dreaming of some discovery which might
change the position of the unfortunate brother and sister; she took up
with warmth and earnestness their dislike to Lord Winterbourne. If it
sometimes occurred to her what a frightful sentiment this was on the
part of children to their father, she corrected herself suddenly, and
declared in her own mind, with heart and energy, that he could not be
their father--that there was no resemblance between them. But this, it
must be confessed, was a puzzling subject, and offered continual ground
for speculation; for princes and princesses, stolen away in their
childhood, were extremely fictitious personages, even to an imagination
which had written a novel; and Agnes could not help a thrill of
apprehension when she thought of Louis and Marian, of the little romance
which Rachel had made up between them, and how her own honourable father
and mother would look upon this unhappy scion of a noble house--this
poor boy who had no name.
This future, so full of strange and exciting possibilities, attracted
with an irresistible power the imaginative mind of Agnes. She went
through it chapter by chapter--through earnest dialogues, overpowering
emotions, many a varying and exciting scene. The Old Wood Lodge, the Old
Wood House, the Hall, the Rector, the old Miss Rivers, the unknown hero,
Louis--these made a little private world of persons and places to the
vivid imagination of the young dreamer. They floated down even upon Mrs
Edgerley’s drawing-room, extinguishing its gay lights, its pretty faces,
and its hum of conversation; but with still more effect filled all her
mind and meditations, as she rested, half reclining, upon the pretty
chintz sofa in the pretty dressing-room, in the sweet summer noon with
which this sweet repose was so harmonious and suitable. The window was
open, and the soft wind blowing in fluttered all the leaves of that book
upon the little table, which the sunshine, entering too, brightened into
a dazzling whiteness with all its rims and threads of gold. A fragrant
breath came up from the garden, a hum of soft sound from all the drowsy
world out of doors. Agnes, in the corner of the sofa, laying back her
head among its pretty cushions, with the smile of fancy on her lips, and
the meditative inward light shining in her eyes, playing her foot idly
on the carpet, playing her fingers idly among a little knot of flowers
which lay at her side, and which, in this sweet indolence, she had not
yet taken the trouble to arrange in the little vase--was as complete a
picture of maiden meditation--of those charmed fancies, sweet and
fearless, which belong to her age and kind, as painter or poet could
desire to see.
When Marian suddenly broke in upon the retirement of her sister,
disturbed, fluttered, a little afraid, but with no appearance of
painfulness, though there was a certain distress in her excitement.
Marian’s eyes were downcast, abashed, and dewy, her colour unusually
bright, her lips apart, her heart beating high. She came into the
little quiet room with a sudden burst, as if she had fled from some one;
but when she came within the door, paused as suddenly, put up her hands
to her face, blushed an overpowering blush, and dropped at once with the
shyest, prettiest movement in the world, into a low chair which stood
behind the door. Agnes, waking slowly out of her own bright mist of
fancy, saw all this with a faint wonder--noticing scarcely anything more
than that Marian surely grew prettier every day, and indeed had never
looked so beautiful all her life.
“May! you look quite----” lovely, Agnes was about to say; but she paused
in consideration of her sister’s feelings, and said “frightened”
instead.
“Oh, no wonder! Agnes, something has happened,” said Marian. She began
to look even more frightened as she spoke; yet the pretty saucy lip
moved a little into something that resembled suppressed and silent
laughter. In spite, however, of this one evidence of a secret mixture of
amusement, Marian was extremely grave and visibly afraid.
“What has happened? Is it about Rachel?” asked Agnes, instantly
referring Marian’s agitation to the subject of her own thoughts.
“About Rachel! you are always thinking about Rachel,” said Marian, with
a momentary sparkle of indignation. “It is something a great deal more
important; it is--oh, Agnes! Sir Langham has been speaking to me----”
Agnes raised herself immediately with a start of eagerness and surprise,
accusing herself. She had forgotten all about this close and pressing
danger--she had neglected her guardianship--she looked with an appalled
and pitying look upon her beautiful sister. In Agnes’s eyes, it was
perfectly visible already that here was an end of Marian’s
happiness--that she had bestowed her heart upon Sir Langham, and that
accordingly this heart had nothing to do but to break.
“What did he say?” asked Agnes solemnly.
“He said---- oh, I am sure you know very well what he was sure to say,”
cried Marian, holding down her head, and tying knots in her little
handkerchief; “he said--he liked me--and wanted to know if I would
consent. But it does not matter what he said,” said Marian, sinking her
voice very low, and redoubling the knots upon the cambric; “it is not my
fault, indeed, Agnes. I did not think he would have done it; I thought
it was all like Harry Oswald; and you never said a word. What was I to
do?”
“What did _you_ say?” asked Agnes again, with breathless anxiety,
feeling the reproach, but making no answer to it.
“I said nothing: it was in Mrs Edgerley’s morning-room, and she came in
almost before he was done speaking; and I was so very glad, and ran
away. What could I do?” said again the beautiful culprit, becoming a
little more at her ease; but during all this time she never lifted her
eyes to her sister’s face.
“What _will_ you say, then? Marian, you make me very anxious; do not
trifle with me,” said Agnes.
“It is you who are trifling,” retorted the young offender; “for you know
if you had told the people at once, as you said you would--but I don’t
mean to be foolish either,” said Marian, rising suddenly, and throwing
herself half into her sister’s arms; “and now, Agnes, you must go and
tell him--indeed you must--and say that we never intended to deceive
anybody, and meant no harm.”
“_I_ must tell him!” said Agnes, with momentary dismay; and then the
elder sister put her arm round the beautiful head which leaned on her
shoulder, in a caressing and sympathetic tenderness. “Yes, May,” said
Agnes sadly, “I will do anything you wish--I will say whatever you wish.
We ought not to have come here, where you were sure to meet with all
these perils. Marian! for my mother’s sake you must try to keep up your
heart when we get home.”
The answer Marian made to this solemn appeal was to raise her eyes, full
of wondering and mischievous brightness, and to draw herself immediately
from Agnes’s embrace with a low laugh of excitement. “Keep up my heart!
What do you mean?” said Marian; but she immediately hastened to her own
particular sleeping-room, and, lost within its mazy muslin curtains,
waited for no explanation. Agnes, disturbed and grave, and much
overpowered by her own responsibility, did not know what to think.
Present appearances were not much in favour of the breaking of Marian’s
heart.