Of all the misfortunes incidental to youth (falling in love included),
there are few greater than that of having nothing to do. From this
trial, Agatha Bowen, being unhappily a young lady of independent
property, suffered martyrdom every day. She had no natural ties, duties,
or interests, and was not sufficiently selfish to create the like in and
about her own personality. She did not think herself handsome enough to
be vain, so had not that sweet refuge of feminine idleness--dress. Nor,
it must be dolefully confessed, was she of so loving a nature as to love
anybody or everybody, as some women can.
Kind to all, and liking many, she was apparently one of those characters
who only really _love_ two or three people in the whole course of their
existence. To such, life is a serious, perilous, and often terrible
journey.
“Well, Tittens, I don't know, really, what we are to do with ourselves
this morning,” said Agatha, talking aloud to her Familiar, the black
kitten, who shared the solitude of her little drawing-room. “You'd like
to go and play downstairs, I dare say? It's all very nice for you to be
running after Mrs. Ianson's wools, but I can't see anything amusing in
fancy-work. And as for dawdling round this square and Russell Square
with Jane Ianson and Fido--pah! I'd quite as soon be changed into a
lapdog, and led along by a string. How stupid London is! Oh, Tittens,
to think that you and I have never lived in the country since we were
born. Wouldn't you like to go? Only, then we should never see
anybody----”
The foolish girl paused, and laughed, as if she did not like to
soliloquise too confidentially, even to a kitten.
“Which of them did you like the best last night, Tittens? One was not
over civil to you; but Nathanael--yes, certainly you and that juvenile
are great friends, considering you have met but four evenings. All in
one week, too. Our house is getting quite gay, Miss Tittens; only it is
so much the duller in the mornings. Heigho!
“Life's a weary, weary, weary,
Life's a weary coble o' care.”
“What's the other verse? And she began humming:
“Man's a steerer, steerer, steerer,
Man's a steerer--life is a pool.”
“I wonder, Tittens, how you and I shall steer through it? and whether
the pool will be muddy or clear?”
Twisting her fingers in and about her pet's jetty fur, Agatha sat
silent, until slowly there grew a thoughtful shadow in her eyes, a
forewarning of the gradual passing away of that childishness, which in
her, from accidental circumstances, had lasted strangely long.
“Come, we won't be foolish, Tittens,” cried she, suddenly starting up.
“We'll put on our bonnets, and go out--that is, one of us will, and the
other may take to Berlin wool and Mrs. Ianson.”
The bonnet was popped on quickly and independently--Miss Bowen scorned
to indulge in the convenience or annoyance of a lady's-maid. Crossing
the hall, the customary question, “Whether she would be home to dinner?”
stopped her.
“I don't know--I am not quite sure. Tell Mrs. Ianson not to wait for
me.”
And she passed out, feeling keener than usual the consciousness that
nobody would wait for her, or look for her, or miss her; that her
comings in and goings out were perfectly indifferent to every human
being in the house, called by courtesy her “home.” Perhaps this was her
own fault, but she could not help it. It was out of her nature to get up
an interest among ordinary people, where interests there were none.
Little more had she in the house whither she was going to pay one of her
extempore visits; but then there was the habit of old affection, begun
before characters develop themselves into the infinite variety from
which mental sympathy is evolved. She could not help liking Emma
Thornycroft, her sole childish acquaintance, whose elder sister had been
Agatha's daily governess, until she died.
“I know Emma will be glad to see me, which is something; and if she does
tire me with talk about the babies, why, children are better than Berlin
wool. And there is always the piano. Besides, I must walk out, or I
shall rust to death in this horrible Bedford Square.”
She walked on, rather in a misanthropic mood, a circumstance to her not
rare. But she had never known mother, sister, or brother; and the
name of father was to her little more than an empty sound. It had
occasionally come mistily over the Indian Ocean, in the shape of formal
letters--the only letters that ever visited the dull London house where
she spent her shut-up childhood, and acquired the accomplishments of her
teens. Mr. Bowen died on the high seas: and when his daughter met the
ship at Southampton, a closed black coffin was all that remained to her
of the name of father. That bond, like all others, was destined to be to
her a mere shadow. Poor Agatha!
Quick exercise always brings cheerfulness when one is young, strong,
and free from any real cares; Agatha's imaginary ones, together with the
vague sentimentalisms into which she was on the verge of falling, yet
had not fallen, vanished under the influence of a cheerful walk on a
sunny summer's day. She arrived at Mrs. Thornycroft's time enough to
find that admirable young matron busied in teaching to her eldest boy
the grand mystery of dining; that is, dining like a Christian, seated
at a real table with a real silver knife and fork. These latter Master
James evidently preferred poking into his eyes and nose, rather than his
mouth, and evinced far greater anxiety to sit on the table than on the
chair.
“Agatha, dear--so glad to see you!” and Emma's look convinced even
Agatha that this was true. “You will stay, of course! Just in time to
see James eat his first dinner, like a man! Now Jemmie, wipe his pretty
mouth, and then give Auntie Agatha a sweet kiss.”
Agatha submitted to the kiss, though she did not quite believe in the
adjective; and felt a certain satisfaction in knowing that the title of
“Auntie” was a mere compliment. She did not positively dislike children,
else she would have been only half a woman, or a woman so detestable as
to be an anomaly in creation; but her philoprogenitiveness was, to say
the least, dormant at present; and her sense of infantile beauty being
founded on Sir Joshua's and Murillo's cherubs, she had no great fancy
for the ugly little James.
She laid aside her bonnet, and smoothing her curls in the nursery
mirror, looked for one minute at her Pawnee-Indian face, the sight of
which now often made her smile. Then she sat down to lunch with Emma and
the children; being allowed, as a great favour, to be placed next Master
James, and drink with him out of his silver mug. Miss Bowen accepted the
offered honour calmly, made no remark, but--went thirsty.
For an hour or two she sat patiently listening to what had gone on in
the house since she was there---how baby had cut two more teeth, and
James had had a new braided frock--(which was sent for that she might
look at it)--how Missy had been to her first children's party, and was
to learn dancing at Midsummer, if papa could be coaxed to agree.
“How is Mr. Thornycroft?” asked Agatha.
“Oh, very well--papa is always well. I only wish the little ones took
after him in that respect.”
Agatha, who was old enough to remember Emma engaged, and Emma newly
married, smiled to think how entirely the lover beloved and the
all-important young husband had dwindled into a mere “Papa;” liked and
obeyed in a certain fashion, for Emma was a good wife, but evidently
made a very secondary consideration to “the children.”
The young girl--as yet neither married, nor in love--wondered if this
were always so. She often had such wonderings and speculation when she
came to Emma's house.
She was growing rather tired of so much domestic information, and had
secretly taken out her watch to see how many hours it would be to dinner
and to Mr. Thornycroft, a sensible, intelligent man, who from love to
his wife had been always very kind to his wife's friends--when there
came the not unwelcome sound of a knock at the hall-door.
“Bless me; that is surely the Harpers. I had quite forgotten Major
Harper and the bears.”
“An odd conjunction,” observed Agatha, smiling.
“Major Harper, who yesterday, for the fifth time, promised to take Missy
to the Zoological Gardens to see the bears. He has remembered it at
last.”
No, he had not remembered it; it would have been a very remarkable
circumstance if he had; being a person so constantly full of
engagements, for himself and others. The visitor was only his younger
brother, who had often daundered in at Mrs. Thornycroft's house,
possibly from a liking to Emma's friendly manner, or because, cast
astray for a fortnight on the wide desert of London, he had, like
Agatha, “nothing to do.”
If Nathanael had other reasons, they, of course, never came near the
surface, but lay buried under the silent waters of his quiet mind.
Agatha was half pleased, half disappointed at seeing him. Mrs.
Thornycroft, good soul, was always charmed to have a visitor, for
her society did not attract many. Only betraying, as usual, what was
uppermost in her simple thoughts, she could not long conceal her regret
concerning little Missy and the bears.
To Agatha's great surprise, Mr. Harper, who she thought, in his
dignified gravity, would never have condescended to such a thing,
volunteered to assume his brother's duty.
“For,” said he, with a slight smile, “I have had too many perilous
encounters with wild bears in America, not to feel some curiosity in
seeing a few captured ones in England.”
“That will be charming,” cried Mrs. Thornycroft, looking at him with a
mixture of respect and maternal benignity. “Then you can tell Missy all
those wonderful stories, only don't frighten her.”
“Perhaps I might She seems rather shy of me.” And the adventurous young
gentleman eyed askance a small be-ribboned child, who was creeping about
the room and staring at him. “Would it not be better if----”
“If mamma went?”
“There, Missy, don't cry; mamma will go, and Agatha, too, if she would
like it?”
“Certainly,” Miss Bowen answered, with a mischievous glance at
Nathanael. “I ought to investigate bears, if only to prove myself
descended from a Pawnee Indian.”
So, once more, the heavy nut-brown curls were netted up into the crown
of her black bonnet, and her shawl pinned on carelessly--rather too
carelessly for a young woman; since that gracious adornment, neatness,
rarely increases with years. Agatha was quickly ready. In the ten
minutes she had to wait for Mrs. Thornycroft, she felt, more than once,
how much merrier they would have been with the elder than the younger
brother. Also--for Agatha was a conscientious girl--she thought,
seriously, what a pity it was that so pleasant and kind a man as Major
Harper had such an unfortunate habit of forgetting his promises.
Yet she regretted him--regretted his flow of witty sayings that
attracted the humorous half of her temperament, and his touches of
seriousness or sentiment which hovered like pleasant music
round the yet-closed portals of her girlish heart. Until
suddenly--conscientiousness again!--she began to be aware she was
thinking a deal too much of Major Harper; so, with a strong effort,
turned her attention to his brother and the bears.
She had leant on Mr. Harper's offered arm all the way to the Regent's
Park, yet he had scarcely spoken to her. No wonder, therefore, that
she had had time for meditation, or that her comparison between the two
brothers should be rather to Nathanael's disadvantage. The balance of
favour, however, began to right itself a little when she saw how kind
he was to Emma Thornycroft, who alternately screamed at the beasts, and
made foolish remarks concerning them; also, how carefully he watched
over little Missy and James, the latter of whom, with infantile
pertinacity, would poke his small self into every possible danger.
At the sunken den, where the big brown bear performs gymnastic exercises
on a centre tree, Master Jemmie was quite in his glory. He emulated
Bruin by climbing from his feet into nurse's arms--thence into mamma's,
and lastly, much to her discomfiture, into Miss Bowen's. The attraction
being that she happened to stand close to the railing and next to Mr.
Harper, who, with a bun stuck on the end of his long stick, had coaxed
Bruin up to the very top of the tree.
There the creature swayed awkwardly, his four unwieldy paws planted
together, and his great mouth silently snapping at the cakes. Agatha
could hardly help laughing; she, as well as the children, was so much
amused at the monster.
“Mr. Harper, give Missy your cane. Missy would like to feed bear,” cried
the mamma, now very bold, going with her eldest pet to the other side of
the den, and attracting the animal thither.
At which little James, who could not yet speak, setting up a scream of
vexation, tried to stretch after the creature; and whether from his
own impetuosity or her careless hold, sprang--oh, horror!--right out
of Agatha's arms. A moment the little muslin frock caught on the
railing--caught--ripped; then the sash, with its long knotted ends,
which some one snatched at--nothing but the sash held up the shrieking
child, who hung suspended half way over the pit, in reach of the beast's
very jaws.
The bear did not at once see it, till startled by the mother's frightful
cries. Then he opened his teeth--it looked almost like a grin--and began
slowly to descend his tree, while, as slowly, the poor child's sash was
unloosing with its weight.
A murmur of horror ran through the people near; but not a man among them
offered help. They all slid back, except Nathanael Harper.
Agatha felt his sudden gripe. “Hold my hand firm. Keep me in my
balance,” he whispered, and throwing himself over to the whole extent
of his body, and long right arm, managed to catch hold of James, who
struggled violently.
“Hold me tight--tighter still, or we are lost,” said he, trying to
writhe back again; his hand--such a little delicate hand it seemed for a
man--quivering with the weight of the child.
She grasped him frantically--his wrist--his shoulder--nay,--stretching
over, linked her arms round his neck. Something in her touch seemed to
impart strength to him. He whispered, half gasping,--
“Hold me firm, and I'll do it yet, Agatha.” She did not then notice, or
recollect till long afterwards, how he had called her by her Christian
name, nor the tone in which he had said it.
The moment afterwards, he had lifted the child out of the den, and poor
Jemmie was screaming out his now harmless terror safe in the maternal
arms.
Then, and not till then, Agatha burst into tears. Tears which no
one saw, for the mother, hugging her baby, was the very centre of a
sympathising crowd. Mr. Harper, paler than ordinary, leaned against the
stone-work of the den.
“Oh, from what have you saved me?” cried Agatha, as after her
thankfulness for the rescued life, came another thought, personal yet
excusable. “Had Emma lost the child, I should have felt like a murderess
to the day of my death.”
Nathanael shook his head, trying to smile; but seemed unable to speak.
“You have not hurt yourself?”
“Oh no. Very little. Only a strain,” said he as he removed his hand from
his side. “Go to your friend: I will come presently.”
He did come--though not for a good while; and Miss Bowen fancied from
his looks that he had been more injured than he acknowledged; but she
did not like to inquire. Nevertheless he rose greatly in her estimation,
less for his courage than for the presence of mind and common sense
which made it Valuable, and for the self-restraint and indifference
which caused him afterwards to treat the whole adventure as such a
trifling thing.
It was, after all, nothing very romantic or extraordinary, and happened
in such a brief space of time, that probably the circumstance is not
noted in the traditionary chronicles of the Zoological Gardens, which
contain the frightful legend carefully related that day by several
keepers to Mrs. Thornycroft--how a bear had actually eaten up a child,
falling in the same manner into the same den.
But the adventure, slight as it may appear, made a very great and sudden
difference in the slender tie of acquaintanceship, hitherto subsisting
between Agatha and Major Harper's brother. She began to treat Nathanael
more like a friend, and ceased to think of him exactly as a “boy.”
Master James's mamma, when she at last turned her attention from his
beloved small self, was full of thanks to his preserver. Mr. Harper
assured her that his feat was merely a little exertion of muscular
strength, and at last grew evidently uncomfortable at being made so much
of. Returning home with them, he would fain have crept away from the
scene of his honours; but the good-natured, motherly-hearted Emma
implored him to stay.
“We will nurse you if you are hurt, which I am afraid you must be--it
was such a dreadful strain! Oh, Jemmie, Jemmie!” and the poor mother
shuddered.
“Indeed you must come in,” added Miss Bowen kindly, seeing that Emma's
thoughts were floating away, as appeared this time natural enough, to
her own concerns. “You shall rest all the evening, and we will talk to
you, and be very, very agreeable. Pray yield!”
Nathanael argued no more, but went in “quite lamb-like,” as Mrs.
Thornycroft afterwards declared.
This acquiescence in him was little rewarded, Agatha thought--for the
evening happened to be duller even than evenings usually passed at the
Thornycrofts'. The head of the household, being detained in the
City, did not appear; and Mrs. Thornycroft's tongue, unchecked by her
husband's presence, and excited by the event of the afternoon, galloped
on at a fearful rapidity. She poured out upon the luckless young man all
the baby biography of her family, from Missy's christening down to the
infant Selina's cutting of her first tooth. To all of which he listened
with a praiseworthy attention, giving at least silence, which was
doubtless all the answer Emma required.
But Agatha, whose sympathy in these things was, as before said, at
present small, grew half ashamed, half vexed, and finally rather
angry--especially when she saw the pale weariness that gradually
overspread Mr. Harper's face. More than once she hinted that he should
have the armchair, or lie down, or rest in some way; but he took not the
least notice; sitting immovably in his place, which happened to be next
herself, and vaguely looking across the table towards Mrs. Thornycroft.
At nine o'clock, becoming paler than ever, he bestirred himself, and
talked of leaving.
“I ought to be going too. It is not far, and as our roads agree, I will
walk with you,” said Agatha, simply.
He seemed surprised--so much so, that she almost blushed, and would
have retracted, save for the consciousness of her own frank and kindly
purpose. She had watched him closely, and felt convinced that he had
been more injured than he confessed; so in her generous straightforward
fashion, she wanted to “take care of him,” until he was safe at his
brother's door, which she could see from her own. And her solitary
education had been conducted on such unworldly principles, that she
never thought there was anything remarkable or improper in her proposing
to walk home with a young man, whom she knew she could trust in every
way, and who was besides Major Harper's brother.
Nor did even the matronly Mrs. Thornycroft object to the plan--save that
it took her visitors away so early. “Surely,” she added, “you can't be
tired out already.”
Agatha had an ironical answer on the very tip of her tongue: but
something in the clear, “good” eye of Nathanael repressed her little
wickedness. So she only whispered to Emma that for various reasons she
had wished to return early.
“Very well, dear, since you must go, I am sure Mr. Harper will be most
happy to escort you.”
“If not, I hope he will just say so,” added Agatha, very plainly.
He smiled; and his full, soft grey eye, fixed on hers, had an
earnestness which haunted her for many a day. She began heartily to
like Major Harper's brother, though only as his brother, with a sort
of reflected regard, springing from that she felt for her guardian and
friend.
This consciousness made her manner perfectly easy, cheerful, and kind,
even though they were in the perilously sentimental position of two
young people strolling home together in the soft twilight of a Midsummer
evening: likewise occasionally stopping to look westward at a new moon,
which peered at them round street-corners and through the open spaces of
darkening squares. But nothing could make these two at all romantic
or interesting; their talk on the road was on the most ordinary
topics--chiefly bears.
“You seem quite familiar with wild beast life,” Agatha observed. “Were
you a very great hunter?”
“Not exactly, for I never could muster up the courage, or the cowardice,
wantonly to take away life. I don't remember ever shooting anything,
except in self-defence, which was occasionally necessary during the
journeys that I used to make from Montreal to the Indian settlements
with Uncle Brian.”
“Uncle Brian,” repeated Agatha, wondering whether Major Harper had ever
mentioned such a personage, during the two years of their acquaintance.
She thought not, since her memory had always kept tenacious record of
what he said about his relatives--which was at best but little. It
was one of the few things in him which jarred upon Agatha's
feelings--Agatha, to whose isolation the idea of a family and a home was
so pathetically sweet--his seeming so totally indifferent to his own.
All she knew of Major Harper's kith and kin was, that he was the eldest
brother of a large family, settled somewhere down in Dorsetshire.
These thoughts swept through her mind, as Agatha, repeated
interrogatively “Uncle Brian?”
“The same who fifteen years since took me out with him to America; my
father's youngest brother. Has Frederick never told you of him? They two
were great companions once.”
“Oh, indeed!” And Agatha, seeing that Nathanael at least showed no
dislike, but rather pleasure, in speaking of his family, thought she
might harmlessly indulge her curiosity about the Harpers of Dorsetshire.
“And you went away with Mr. Brian Harper, at ten years old. How could
your mother part with you?”
“She was dead--she died when I was born. But I ought to apologise for
thus talking of family matters, which cannot interest you.”
“On the contrary, they do--very much!” cried Agatha; and then blushed
at her own earnestness, at which Nathanael brightened up into positive
warmth.
“How kind you are! how I wish you knew my sisters! It is so pleasant to
me to know them at last, after writing to them and thinking about them
for these many years. How you would like our home--I call it home,
forgetting that I have been only a visitor, and in a short time must go
back to my real home, Montreal.”
“Must you indeed!” And Agatha felt sorry. She had been at once surprised
and gratified by the confidential way in which this usually reserved
young man talked to her, and her alone. “Why do you live in America? I
hate Americans.”
“Do you?” said he, smiling, as if he read her thoughts. “But I have
neither Yankee blood nor education. I was English born; brought up in
British Canada, and by Uncle Brian.”
He spoke the latter words with a certain proud affection, as if his
uncle's mere name were sufficient guarantee for himself. Agatha secretly
wondered what could possibly be the reason that Major Harper had never
even mentioned this personage, whom Nathanael seemed to hold in such
honour.
“Of course,” he continued, “though I dearly like England, though”--and
he sunk his voice a little--“though now it will be doubly hard to go
away, I could never think of leaving Uncle Brian to spend his old age
alone in the country of his adoption.”
“No, no,” returned Agatha, absently, her thoughts still running on this
new Mr. Harper. “What profession is he?”
“Nothing now. He has led an unsettled life--always poor. But he took
care to settle me in a situation under the Canadian Government. We both
think ourselves well to do now.”
Agatha's sense of womanly decorum could hardly keep her from pressing
her companion's arm, in instinctive acknowledgment of his goodness. She
thought his face looked absolutely beautiful.
However, restraining her quick impulses within the bounds of propriety,
she walked on. “And so you will again cross that fearful Atlantic
Ocean?” she said at length, with a slight shudder. The young man saw
her gesture, and looked surprised--nay, gladdened. But nevertheless he
remained silent.
Agatha did the same, for the mention of the sea brought back to her
the one only noteworthy incident of her life, which had given her this
strange antipathy to the sea and to the thought of traversing it. But
this subject--the horrible bugbear of her childhood--she rarely liked
to recur to, even now; so it did not mingle in her conversation with Mr.
Harper.
At last Nathanael said: “I would it were possible--indeed I have often
vainly tried--to persuade Uncle Brian to come back to England. But since
he will not, it is clearly right for me to return to Canada. Anne Valery
says so.”
“Anne Valery!” again repeated Agatha, catching at this second strange
name with which she was supposed to be familiar.
“What, did you never hear of her--my father's ward, my sister's chief
friend--quite one of the family? Is it possible that my brother never
spoke to you of Anne Valery?”
No, certainly not. Agatha was quite sure of that. The circumstance
of Major Harper's having a friend who bore the very suspicious and
romantically-interesting name of Anne Valery could never have slipped
Miss Bowen's memory. She answered Nathanael's question in an abrupt
negative; but all the way through Russell Square she silently pondered
as to who, or what like, Anne Valery could be? finally sketching a
fancy portrait of a bewitching young creature, with blue eyes and golden
hair--the style of beauty which Agatha most envied, because it was most
unlike herself.
Ere reaching Dr. Ianson's door, her attention was called to Mr. Harper,
whose feet dragged so wearily along, that Agatha was convinced that, in
spite of his efforts to conceal it, he was seriously ill. Her womanly
sympathy rose--she earnestly pressed him to come in and consult Dr.
Ianson.
“No--no. Uncle Brian and I always cure ourselves. As he often says, 'A
man after forty is either a doctor or a fool.'”
“But you are only twenty-five.”
“Ay, but I have seen enough to make me often feel like a man of forty,”
said he, smiling. “Do not mind me. That strain was rather too much; but
I shall be all right in a day or two.”
“I hope so,” cried Agatha, anxiously; “since, did you suffer, I should
feel as if it were all of my causing, and for me.
“Do you think I should regret that?” said the young man, in a tone so
low, that its meaning scarcely reached her. Then, as if alarmed at his
own words, he shook hands with her hastily, and walked down the square.
Agatha thought how different was the abrupt, singular manner of
Nathanael from Major Harper's tender, lingering, courteous adieu.
Nevertheless, she fulfilled her kind purpose towards the young man; and
running to her own window, watched his retreating figure, till her mind
was relieved by seeing him safely enter his brother's door.