AGNES GROWS MISERABLE.--AN EXPLANATORY CONVERSATION WITH COLONEL HUBERT
LEAVES HER MORE IN THE DARK THAN EVER.--A LETTER ARRIVES FROM FREDERIC
STEPHENSON.
At this period of their history the star of Agnes appeared much less
propitious than that of her aunt Barnaby. Not all her inclination to
construe every look and word of Colonel Hubert into something wiser and
better, more noble and more kind than the looks and words of any other
mortal man, could long prevent her from feeling that he was profoundly
unhappy, and that, despite some occasional flashes of an emotion which
her own heart taught her to know proceeded from love, he evidently
avoided being with her, as much as it was possible for him to do
without attracting the attention of others.
Her aunt and his aunt went steadily on arranging between themselves a
variety of preliminaries to the happy union they contemplated, while no
hint that such an union was possible ever passed the lips of the
intended bridegroom during any moment that circumstances placed him near
his promised bride. More than once she saw him change colour when he
approached her; and sometimes, but not often, she had caught his
melancholy eyes fixed earnestly upon her, and it was at such moments
that she felt persuaded he still loved her ... but wherefore he, who had
boldly wooed her when so many things conspired to make his doing it
objectionable, should seem to shun her now that everything was made so
smooth and easy for him, she vainly laboured to understand.
"For time nor place," she exclaimed with something like bitterness, "did
then adhere, and yet he would make both....
'They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Doth unmake him!'"
By melancholy degrees everything that had most contributed to her
happiness, became her torment. The conversation of Miss Peters was
inexpressibly irksome to her, particularly when they found themselves in
confidential _tete-a-tete_, for then she could not help suspecting that
her friend was longing to ask her some questions respecting the
singularity of her lover's manner ... the flattering notice of the
well-pleased Lady Elizabeth, the sisterly affection manifested by the
amiable Lady Stephenson, and, more than all the rest, the happy,
bustling, business-like manner of her aunt Compton, who never for a
moment seemed to forget that they were all preparing for a wedding.
So complete was this pre-occupation, that it was many days before the
old lady perceived that her Agnes, in the midst of all this joyful
preparation, looked neither well nor happy; nay, even when at last the
sad eye and pale cheek of her darling attracted her attention, she
persuaded herself for many days more that love-making was too
sentimental a process to permit those engaged in it to be gay. She knew
that the sighing of lovers was proverbial, and though she did not
remember to have read any thing upon the subject exactly resembling
what she remarked in Agnes, and, to say truth, in Colonel Hubert also,
she did not, for she could not, doubt that everything was going on just
as it should do, though her own want of practical experience rendered
her incapable of fully understanding it.
But if Agnes was wretched, Colonel Hubert was infinitely more so; for
all the misery that she darkly feared, without knowing either its nature
or for how long it was likely to continue, came to him with the
tremendous certainty of a misfortune that had already fallen upon him,
and from which escape seemed less possible from day to day. She knew not
what to think of him, and great, no doubt, was the unhappiness produced
by such uncertainty, but greater still was the suffering produced by
looking in her innocent face, and knowing, as well as Colonel Hubert
did, why it grew daily paler. Not seldom, indeed, was he tortured by the
apprehension that the line of conduct he had pursued in recalling
Frederick Stephenson, was by no means so unquestionably right in its
self-sacrificing severity as he had intended it should be. Had he not
endangered the tranquillity of Agnes, while guarding with jealous care
his own proud sense of honour? If an unhappy concurrence of
circumstances had involved him in difficulties that rendered his conduct
liable to suspicion, ought he not to have endured the worst degree of
contempt that this could bring upon him, rather than have suffered her
peace to be the sacrifice?
Night and day these doubts tormented him. For hours he wandered through
the roads on the opposite side of the river, where, comparatively
speaking, he was sure no Clifton idlers could encounter him, and
reviewing his own conduct in a thousand ways, found none that would make
him satisfied with himself. At length, in the mere restlessness of
misery, he determined to tell Agnes all.
"She shall know his love--his generous uncalculating love, while I stood
by, and reasoned on the inconvenience her aunt Barnaby's vulgarity might
bring. She shall know all ... though it will make her hate me!"
Such was the resolution with which he crossed the ferry after wandering
a whole morning in Leigh Wood; and climbing the step-path too rapidly
to give himself leisure to meditate temperately on the measure he had
determined to pursue, he hurried forward to the dwelling of Miss
Compton, and was already in her drawing-room before he had at all
decided in what manner he should contrive to get Agnes alone.
In this, however, fortune favoured him; for Miss Compton having some
point on which she desired to communicate with Lady Elizabeth, had
ordered the carriage, and invited Agnes to pay a visit to Lady
Stephenson; but the poor girl had no heart to sustain a conversation
with a friend from whom she most earnestly desired to conceal all her
thoughts--so she declined the invitation, alleging her wish to write a
letter to Empton.
As much alone, and, if possible, more melancholy still, than when, a few
short weeks before, he made his memorable visit in Half Moon Street,
Colonel Hubert found Agnes listlessly lying upon a sofa, her eyes
closed, but their lashes too recently wetted by tears to make him fancy
her asleep. She was in an inner room, to which he entered through the
open door that led from the larger drawing-room, and he was close
beside her before she was aware of his approach.
It was with a dreadful pang that he contemplated the change anxiety had
wrought on her delicate features since the evening she first appeared to
him in all the bright light-hearted joy of her new happiness under the
protection of her aunt. Love, honour, gratitude, tenderness, and
remorse, all rushed to his bosom, and so completely overpowered the
philosophy by which he had hitherto restrained his feelings, that he
dropped on his knees beside her, and seizing the hand that languidly
hung by her side, covered it with passionate kisses.
An iron chain is not a stronger restraint than timid delicacy to such a
nature as that of Agnes, and therefore she did NOT throw herself on the
bosom of Colonel Hubert, and thus obliterate by one moment of
unrestrained feeling all the doubts and fears that had so long tormented
them both ... she only opened her beautiful eyes upon him, which seemed
to say, "Is then the dark cloud passed that has divided us?... Hubert,
may I be happy again?"
The unhappy Hubert, however, dared not answer this appeal, though he
read it, and felt it at the very bottom of his heart; and what under
happier circumstances would have tempted him to kneel beside her for
ever, now made him spring to his feet as if terrified at the danger that
he ran.
"Agnes!" he said, "you must no longer be left ignorant of my misery ...
you may, you must have seen something of it, but not all ... you have
not seen, you have not guessed what, the struggle has been between a
passion as fervent as ever warmed the heart of man and a sense of
honour ... too late awakened perhaps ... which has made it a duty to
suspend all pleadings for an avowed return till ... till...."
"Till!..." repeated Agnes, agitated but full of hope, that the moment
was indeed come when the dark and mysterious cloud which had dimmed all
her prospects should be dispelled.
"Hear my confession, Agnes, and pity me at least, if you find it
impossible to excuse me.... Do you remember the first time that I ever
saw you?... It was at a shop at Clifton."
Agnes bowed.
"Do you remember the friend who was with me?"
Agnes bowed again, and this time she coloured too. Colonel Hubert sighed
profoundly, but presently went on with the confession he had braced his
nerves to make.
"That friend, Agnes, the generous, noble-hearted Frederick Stephenson,
saw, even in that brief interview, the beauty, the grace, the delicacy
which it took me days to develop ... in short, he loved you, Agnes,
before, almost before I had ever looked at you.... I was his dearest
friend. He hid no thought from me, and with all the frankness of his
delightful character he confessed his honourable attachment.... And how
was it, think you, that I answered him?"
Agnes raised her eyes to his face with a very anxious look, but spoke
not a word, and Colonel Hubert, with a heightened colour that mounted to
his temples, went on.
"I told him, Miss Willoughby, that a young lady chaperoned by a person
with the manners and appearance of your aunt Barnaby was not a fitting
wife for him...."
The eyes of Agnes fell, and her cheeks too were now dyed with crimson.
Colonel Hubert saw it and felt it all, but he went on.
"The subject was repeatedly revived between us, and as his attachment
increased, so did also my opposition to it. I placed before him, in the
strongest manner I was capable of doing, all the objections to the
connexion as they then appeared to me, and I did it, as I thought,
purely from a sense of duty to himself and his family, which had
recently become so closely connected with my own. But alas! Agnes ... my
peace has been and is destroyed by the dreadful doubt whether some
selfish feelings, unknown to myself, might not at length have mingled
with these strong remonstrances. Knowing as I do the character of Sir
Edward and his two sisters, no remorse was awakened in my mind so long
as you remained with Mrs. Barnaby ... and the last time I conversed with
my poor friend, I used language so strong upon the subject, that he left
me in great anger. But it appears that, notwithstanding his just
resentment, these remonstrances had weight, for he immediately left the
kingdom, and has, I believe, remained in Paris ever since. Think then,
Miss Willoughby ... judge for me if you can, with what feelings I
contemplate the unlooked-for change in your position.... Oh! Agnes ...
would that your excellent Miss Compton had preserved her coldness to you
till you had been my wife.... Even then, I might have felt a pang for
Stephenson--but the knowledge that his friends would not, like mine,
have forgotten Mrs. Barnaby in their admiration for her niece, would
have furnished a justification of the events which followed his
departure, too reasonable to be set aside. But what must I feel now when
I think of the banished Frederick?... Banished by me, that I might take
his place."
* * * * *
Excepting to Mary Peters, who had been aware of the attachment of
Frederick Stephenson long before herself, Agnes had never breathed a
hint to any human being of the proposal she had received from him, and
it had not most assuredly been her intention ever to have named it to
Colonel Hubert. She had, indeed, but rarely remembered it herself, and
hoped and believed that, before they met again, the gay young man would
quite have forgotten it; but now she could preserve his secret no
longer, and, eager to speak what she thought would entirely relieve his
self-reproaches to hear, she said, with glowing cheeks and an averted
eye,
"Let me, then, confess to you, Colonel Hubert...."
These unlucky words, however, intended as a preface to the only
intelligence that could effectively have soothed his agitation,
unfortunately increased it tenfold, and raising his hand to arrest what
she was about to say, he replied with an impetuosity with which she
could not at that moment contend--"Confess nothing, Miss Willoughby, to
me.... I see that I have awakened feelings which I ought to have
foreseen would inevitably be called into existence by such a
disclosure.... Suffer me to say a few words more, and I have done.... A
week ago, I did what I ought to have done, as soon as your present
position was known to me.... I wrote to Mr. Stephenson, and told him
that every obstacle was removed ... and that"...
"You wrote to him, Colonel Hubert!" exclaimed Agnes, greatly
disturbed.... "Oh! why did you not tell me all this before?"
"It is not yet too late, Miss Willoughby," he replied, bitterly;
"another letter shall follow my first ... more explicit, more strongly
urging his return."
"But you will not hear me, Colonel Hubert," said Agnes, bursting into
tears. "Have patience for a moment, and you will understand it all."
At this moment a carriage stopped at the door, and the knocker and the
bell together gave notice of Miss Compton's return.
"It is my aunt!" cried Agnes. "Indeed she must not see me thus, for how
could I explain to her what must appear so strange as her finding me in
tears, and you beside me. Let me see you again, Colonel Hubert--I pray
you to let me see you again, when I may be able to speak to you ... but
now I must go;" and so saying, she escaped from the room just in time to
avoid meeting Miss Compton at the door.
From a very early period of their short acquaintance, Miss Compton had
made up her mind to consider Colonel Hubert as a very superior
personage, but of a remarkably grave and silent character; so much so,
indeed, that while she admired and approved her Agnes the more for
loving and being loved by so dignified an individual, she could not help
wondering a little, occasionally, that so it should be. But this feeling
she carefully concealed, and made it a point, whenever a shade of
gravity more profound than usual was perceptible on his features, (a
circumstance not unfrequent,) to avoid interfering with his reserve by
any loquacious civility. This line of conduct had often been a great
relief to him, but never more so than on the present occasion, when, if
any lengthened greetings had occurred to stop his retreat, it would have
been impossible for him to have preserved the outward semblance of cold
composure in which he had hitherto found shelter from observation.
"You are going, Colonel Hubert?" she said. "Well, I will not detain you,
for I am going to be busy myself--good morning." And so he escaped.
On reaching home, he found a letter waiting for him, which by no means
tended to calm his spirits. It was from Frederick Stephenson, and ran
thus:--
"MY DEAR HUBERT,
"Your letter puzzles me; but not many hours after this reaches
you, I hope we shall mutually understand each other better than
we do at present. I am on my road to England, and as all
explanation must be impossible till we meet, I will only add,
that I am yours ever,
"FREDERICK STEPHENSON."
* * * * *
A few hours, then, and all doubt, all uncertainty, would be over! A full
explanation must take place; and rather than endure a continuance of
what he had lately suffered, Colonel Hubert felt inclined to welcome the
result, be it what it might.