It had been arranged with Emma Thornycroft that Mrs. Harper should take
the benefit of that lady's superior domestic and worldly experience--for
Agatha herself was a perfect child in such matters--and that they two
should go over the intended house together. Accordingly, in the course
of the following day Mrs. Thornycroft appeared to carry away the young
wife, and give her the first lesson in household responsibilities.
From this important business, Mr. Harper was laughingly excluded, as
being only a “gentleman,” and required merely to pronounce a final
decision upon the niceties of feminine choice.
“In fact,” said Emma, gaily assuming the autocracy of her sex, “husbands
ought to have nothing at all to do with house-choosing or house-keeping,
except to pay the rent and the bills.”
Agatha could not help laughing at this, until she saw that Mr. Harper
was silent.
A few minutes before they started he took his wife aside, and showed her
a letter. It was the formal renunciation of the appointment he held at
Montreal.
“How kind!” she cried in unfeigned delight. “And how quickly you have
fulfilled your promise!”
“When I have once decided I always like to do the thing immediately.
This letter shall go to-day.”
“Ah!--let me post it,” whispered Agatha, taking a wilful, childish
pleasure in thus demolishing every chance of the future she had so
dreaded.
“What! cannot you yet trust me?” returned her husband. “Nay, there is no
fear. What is done is done. But you shall have your way.”
And walking with them a little distance, he suffered Agatha with her own
hands to post the decisive letter.
After he left them, she told Mrs. Thornycroft the welcome news,
enlarging upon Mr. Harper's goodness in resigning so much for her sake.
“Resigning?” said Emma, laughing. “Well, I don't see much noble
resignation in a young man's giving up a hardworking situation in the
colonies to live at ease on his wife's property in England. My dear,
husbands always like to make the most of their little sacrifices. You
mustn't believe half they say.”
“My husband never said one word of his,” cried Agatha, rather
indignantly, and repented herself of her frankness to one whose
ideas now more than ever jarred with her own. Three weeks' constant
association with a man like Nathanael had lifted her mind above the
ordinary standard of womanhood to which Emma belonged. She began to half
believe the truth of what she had once with great astonishment heard
Anne Valery declare--ay, even Anne Valery--that if the noblest moral
type of man and of woman were each placed side by side, the man would be
the greater of the two.
But this thought she kept fondly to herself, and suffered Emma to talk
on without much attending to her conversation. It was chiefly about
some City business with which “her James” had been greatly annoyed of
late--having to act for a friend who had been ruined by taking shares
in a bubble company formed to work a Cornish mine. Agatha had often
been doomed to listen to such historiettes. Mrs. Thornycroft had a
great fancy for putting her harmless fingers into her husband's business
matters, for which the chief apology in her friend's eyes was the good
little wife's great interest in all that concerned “my James.” So Agatha
had got into a habit of listening with one ear, saying, “Yes,” “No,” and
“Certainly;” while she thought of other things the while. This habit she
to-day revived, and, pondered vaguely over many pleasant fancies
while hearing mistily of certain atrocities perpetrated by “City
scoundrels”--Emma was always warm in her epithets.
“The 'Company,' my dear, is a complete take-in--all sham names,
secretaries, treasurers, and even directors. The whole affair was got
up among two or three people in a lawyer's office; and who do you think
that lawyer is, Agatha?”
“I don't know,” said Mrs. Harper, feeling as perfectly indifferent as if
he were the man in the moon.
“I am not sure that I ought to tell you, for James only found it out, or
rather guessed it, this morning at breakfast-time. And if the thing can
only be proved, it will go very suspiciously against the people who
have been mixed up in the affair, and especially against this Mr.
Grimes.--There, I declare I've let the cat out of the bag at last, for
all James cautioned me not!”
“Well, be content,” said Agatha, awaking from a reverie as to how many
days her husband intended to stay at Kingcombe Holm, whither they were
this week going on a formal invitation, and whether the new house would
be quite ready on their return--“Be content, Emma; I really did not
catch the name.”
“I'm glad of it,” said the gossiping little woman--though she looked
extremely sorry. “Of course, if Major Harper had known--why, you would
have heard.”
“Heard what” asked Agatha, her curiosity at last attracted by
her brother-in-law's name. But now Emma seemed wilfully bent upon
maintaining a mysterious silence.
“That's exactly what I can't tell you, my dear, except thus much--that
my husband is afraid Major Harper has been losing a good deal of money,
since more than two-thirds of the shares in Wheal Caroline were in his
name, and now the vein has failed--that is, if ever there was a vein or
a mine at all--and the other shareholders declare there has been a great
deal of cheating somewhere--and--you understand.”
Agatha did not understand one jot. All she drew from this confused
volubility was the fact that Major Harper had somehow lost money, for
which she was very sorry. But to her utter ignorance of financial or
business matters the term “losing money” bore very little meaning.
However, she recurred with satisfaction to her own reputed wealth, and
thought if Major Harper were in any need he would of course tell his
brother, and she and Nathanael could at once supply what he wanted.
She determined to speak to her husband the first opportunity, and so
dismissed the subject, as being not half so interesting as that of “the
new house.”
At the gate of this the two ladies now stood, and Emma, with a matronly
importance, introduced the gratified young wife to all its perfections.
If there be one instinct that lurks in a woman's breast, ready to
spring up when touched, and bloom into all sorts of beautiful and
happy feelings, it is the sense of home--of pleasant domestic sway and
domestic comfort--the looking forward to “a house of one's own.” Many
ordinary girls marry for nothing but this; and in the nobler half
of their sex even amidst the strongest and most romantic personal
attachment there is a something--a vague, dear hope, that, flying beyond
the lover and the bridegroom, nestles itself in the husband and the
future home.--The home as well as the husband, since it is given by him,
is loved for his sake, and made beautiful for his comfort, while he is
the ruler, the guide, and the centre of all.
Mrs. Harper, as she went through the rooms of this, the first house
she had ever looked on with an eye of interest, admiring some things,
objecting to others, and beginning to arrange and decide in her own
mind,--felt the awakening of that feeling which philosophers call “the
domestic instinct”--the instinct which makes of women good wives, fond
mothers, and wise mistresses of pleasant households. She wondered that,
as Agatha Bowen, she had thought so little of these things.
“Yes,” said she, brightening up as she listened to Emma's long-winded
discourse upon furniture and arrangements, and learning for the first
time to appreciate the capital good sense of that admirable domestic
oracle and young housekeeper's guide--“Yes, I think this will just do.
And, as you say, we easily manage to buy it, furniture and all, so as to
make what improvements we choose. Oh, how delicious it will be to have a
house of one's own!”
And the tears almost came into her eyes at thought of that long vista of
future joy--the years which might pass in this same dwelling.
“My husband,” she said to the person who showed them over the place--and
her cheeks glowed, and her heart dilated with a tender pride as she used
the word--“my husband will come to-morrow and make his decision. I think
there is very little doubt but that we shall take the house.”
So anxious was she to conclude the matter and let Mr. Harper share in
all her pleasant feelings, that she excused herself from staying at
Emma's until he came to fetch her, and determined to walk back to meet
him.
“What, with nobody to take care of you?” said Emma.
“The idea of anybody's taking care of me! We never thought of such a
thing three months ago. I used to come and go everywhere at my own sweet
will, you know.” Nevertheless, it was a sweet thought that there _was_
somebody to take care of her. Her high spirit was beginning to learn
that there are dearer pleasures in life than even the pleasure of
independence.
Pondering on these things--and also on the visit to Kingcombe Holm which
her husband had that morning decided--she walked through the well-known
squares, her eyes and her veil lowered, her light springy step
restrained into matronly dignity. Agatha had a wondrous amount of
dignity for such a little woman. Her gait, too, had in it something very
peculiar--a mixture of elasticity, decision, and pride. Her small figure
seemed to rise up airily between each footpress, as if unaccustomed to
creep. There was a trace of wildness in her motions; hers was anything
but a dainty tread or a lazy drawing-room glide; it was a bold, free,
Indian-like walk--a footstep of the wilderness.
No one who had once known her could ever mistake Agatha, be she seen
ever so far off; and as she went on her way, a gentleman, crossing
hastily from the opposite side of the square, saw her, started, and
seemed inclined to shrink from recognition. But she, attracted by his
manner, lifted up her eyes, and soon put an end to his uncertainty.
Though a good deal surprised by the suddenness of the _rencontre_, there
was no reason on earth why Mrs. Harper should not immediately go up and
speak to her husband's brother.
She did so, holding out her hand frankly.
Major Harper's response was hesitating to a painful degree. He looked,
in the common but expressive phrase, “as if he had seen a ghost.”
“Who would have thought of meeting you here, Miss Bowen--Mrs. Harper I
mean?” he added, seeing her smile at the already strange sound of her
maiden name. What could have possessed Major Harper to be guilty of such
uncourteous forgetfulness?
“You evidently did not think I was my real self, or you would not have
been going to pass me by; I--that is, _we_”---at the word Nathanael's
wife cast off her shyness, and grew bravely dignified--“we came back to
London two days ago.”
“Indeed!”
“Your brother,” she had not yet quite the courage to say “my husband,”
when speaking of him, especially to Frederick Harper--“your brother
thought you were out of town.”
“I?--yes--no. No, it was a mistake. But are you not going in? Good
morning!”
In his confusion of mind he was handing her up the steps of Dr.
Ianson's door, which they were just passing. Agatha drew back; at first
surprised, then alarmed. His strange manner, his face, not merely
pale but ghastly, the suppressed agitation of his whole aspect, seemed
forewarnings of some ill. It was her first consciousness that she was
no longer alone, in herself including alike all her pleasure and all her
pain.
“Oh, tell me,” she cried, catching his arm, “is there anything the
matter? Where is my husband?”
The quick fear, darting arrow-like to her heart, betrayed whose image
lay there nearest and dearest now. Major Harper looked at her, looked
and--sighed!
“Don't be afraid,” he said kindly; “all is well with your husband, for
aught I know. He is a happy fellow in having some one in the world to be
alarmed on his account.”
Agatha blushed deeply, but made no reply. She took her brother-in-law's
offered arm, offered with a mechanical courtesy that survived the great
discomposure of mind under which he evidently laboured, and turned with
him towards home. She was at once puzzled and grieved to see the state
he was in, which, deny it and disguise it as he would--and he tried
hard to do so--was quite clear to her womanly perception. His laugh was
hollow, his step hurried, his eyes wandering from side to side as if he
were afraid of being seen. How different from his old cheerful lounge,
full of a good-natured conceit, apparently content with himself, and
willing that the whole street should gaze their fill at Major Frederick
Harper.
So old he looked, too; as if the moment his merry mask of smiles was
thrown off, the cruel lurking wrinkles appeared. Agatha pitied him, and
felt a return of the old liking, warm and kind, such as it was before
the innuendoes of foolish friends had first lured her to distrust the
nature of her own innocent feelings, and then changed them into positive
contempt and aversion.
She said, with an air of gentle matronly freedom, half sisterly, too,
and wholly different from the shy manner of Agatha Bowen to Major
Harper:
“You must come home with me. I fear you are ill, or in anxiety. Why did
you not tell your brother?” And suddenly she thought of Emma's statement
of the morning. But Agatha, in her unworldliness, never supposed such a
trivial loss as that of money could make any man so miserable as Major
Harper seemed.
“I ill? I anxious? I tell my brother?” he repeated, sharply.
“Nay, as you will. Only do come to us. He will be so glad to see you.”
“Glad to see me?” He again repeated her words, as though he had none
of his own, or were too bewildered to use them. Nevertheless, through
a certain playful influence which Agatha could exert when she liked,
making almost everybody yield to her, Major Harper suffered himself to
be led along; his companion talking pleasantly to him the while, lest he
might think she noticed his discomposure.
Arrived at home, they found that Nathanael had walked to the Regent's
Park to fetch his wife, according to agreement.
Mrs. Harper looked sorry. She had already learned one little secret of
her husband's character--his dislike to any unpunctuality, any altered
plans or broken promises. “Still, you must come in and wait for him.”
“Wait for whom?” said Major Harper, absently.
“Your brother.”
“My brother!--I, wait to see my brother! Impossible--I--I'll write. Good
morning--good morning.”
He was leaving the hall--more hurried and agitated than ever--when Mrs.
Harper, now really concerned, laid her hand upon his arm.
“I will not let you go. Come in, and tell me what ails you.”
The soft whisper, the eyes of genuine compassion--womanly compassion
only, without any love--were more than Major Harper could resist.
“I will go,” he muttered. “Better tell it to you than to my brother.”
And he followed her up-stairs.
The cool shadow of the room seemed to quiet his excitement; he drank a
glass of water that stood by, and became more like himself.
“Well, my dear young lady,” he said, with some return of the paternal
manner of old times, “when did you come back to London?”
“Two days since, as I told you. And, as you will soon hear, your
brother's plans are all changed--we are going to live in London.”
“To live in London?”
“He has given up his appointment at Montreal. We have taken a house, or
shall take it to-day, and settle here. He intends entering at the bar,
or something of the sort; but you must persuade him not. What is the use
of his toiling, when I--that is we--are so rich?”
While Agatha thus talked, chiefly to amuse her brother-in-law and make
him feel that she was really his sister, one and the same in family
interests--while she talked, she was astonished to see Major Harper's
face overspread with blank dismay.
“And--Nathanael has really given up his appointment?”
“He has, and for my sake. Was it not good of him?”
“It was madness! Nay--it is I that have been the madman--it is I that
have done it all Agatha, forgive me! But no--you never can!”
As they stood together by the fireplace he snatched her hand, gazing
down upon her with unutterable remorse.
“Poor Bowen's daughter that he trusted to me! Such a mere child too! Oh,
forgive me, Agatha!”
She thought some extraordinary delusion had come upon him--perhaps the
forerunner of some dreadful illness. She tried to take her hand away,
though kindly, for she firmly believed him to be delirious. Nothing
could really have happened to herself that Mr. Harper did not know. With
him to take care of her, she was quite safe. And in that moment--for all
passed in a moment--Nathanael's wife first felt how implicitly she was
beginning to put her trust in him.
While she remained thus--her hand still closed tightly in her
brother-in-law's grasp, half terrified, yet trying not to show her
terror--the door opened, and her husband entered.
At first Mr. Harper seemed petrified with amazement; then he turned
deadly white. Crossing the room, he laid a heavy hand on his brother's
shoulder:
“Frederick, you forget yourself; this is my wife,--Agatha!”
The searching agony of that one word, as he turned and looked her full
in the face, was unutterable. She scarcely perceived it.
“Oh, I am so glad you are come,” was all she said. He drew her to his
side--indeed, she had sprung there of her own accord--and wrapped his
arms tightly round her, as if to show that she was his possession, his
own property.
“Now, brother, whatever you wished to say to my wife, say it to us
both.”
Major Harper could not speak.
“He was waiting to see you; he is ill--very ill, I think,” whispered
Agatha to her husband. “Shall I leave you together?”
“Yes,” he answered, releasing her, but only to draw her back again,
with the same wildly questioning look, the meaning of which was to her
innocence quite inexplicable.--“My wife?”
“My dear husband!”
At that whisper, which burst from her full heart in the comfort of
seeing him and of knowing that he would take on himself the burden of
all her anxiety, Nathanael let her go. She crept away, most thankful to
get out of the room, and leave Major Harper safe in his brother's hands.
But when a quarter of an hour--half-an-hour--passed by, and still the
two gentlemen remained shut up together, without sending for her to join
their conference, or, as she truly expected, to tell her that poor Major
Harper must be taken home in the delirium of brain fever--Agatha began
rather to wonder at the circumstance.
She apprehended no evil, for her even course of existence had never been
crossed by those sudden tragedies, the impression of which no one ever
entirely overcomes, which teach us to walk trembling along the ways of
life, lest each moment a gulf should open at our feet. Agatha had read
of such misfortunes, but believed them only in books; to her the real
world, and her own fate therein, appeared the most monotonous thing
imaginable. It never entered her mind to create an adventure or a
mystery.
She waited another fifteen minutes--until the clock struck five, and the
servant came up to her to announce dinner, and to know whether the same
information should be conveyed to the gentlemen in the drawing-room.
Servants seem instinctively to guess when there is something
extraordinary going on in a house, and the maid--as she found her
mistress sitting in her bed-chamber, alone and thoughtful--wore a look
of curiosity which made Mrs. Harper colour.
“Go down and tell your master--no, stay, I will go myself.”
She waited until the maid had disappeared, and then went down-stairs,
but stopped at the drawing-room door, on hearing within loud voices,
at least one voice--Major Harper's. He seemed pleading or protesting
vehemently: Agatha might almost have distinguished the words, but--and
the fact is much to her credit, since her brother-in-law's apparently
sane tones having suppressed her fears, she was now smitten with very
natural curiosity--but she stopped her ears, and ran up-stairs again.
There she remained, waiting for a lull in the dispute--in which,
however, she never caught one tone of Nathanael's.
At last, feeling rather humiliated at being thus obliged to flutter up
and down the stairs of her own abode, and crave admittance into her own
drawing-room, Mrs. Harper ventured to knock softly, and enter.
Frederick Harper was sitting on the sofa, his head crushed down upon
his hands. Nathanael stood at a little distance, by the fireplace. The
attitude of the elder brother indicated deep humiliation, that of the
younger was freezing in its sternness. Agatha had never seen such an
expression on Nathanael face before.
“What did you want?” he said abruptly, thinking it was the servant who
entered.
She could not imagine what made him start so, nor what made the two
brothers look at her so guiltily. The fact left a very uncomfortable
impression on her mind.
“I only came”--she began.
“No matter, dear.” Her husband walked up to her, speaking in a low
voice, studiously made kind, she thought “Go away now--we are engaged,
you see.”
“But dinner,” she added. “Will not your brother stay and dine with us?”
Major Harper turned with an imploring look to his brother's wife.
“No,” said Mr. Harper emphatically; held the door open for Agatha to
retire, and closed it after her. Never in all her life had she been
treated so unceremoniously.
The newly-married wife returned to her room, her cheeks burning with no
trifling displeasure. She began to feel the tightening pressure of that
chain with which her life was now eternally bound.
But, after five minutes of silent reflection, she was too sensible to
nourish serious indignation at being sent out of the room like a mere
child. There must have been some good reason, which Mr. Harper would
surely explain when his brother left. The whole conversation was
probably some personal affair of the Major's, with which she had nothing
to do. Yet why did her brother-in-law regard her so imploringly? It was,
after all, rather extraordinary. So, genuine female curiosity getting
the better of her, never did Blue Beard's Fatima watch with greater
anxiety for “anybody coming” than did Agatha Harper watch at her window
for somebody going--viz., Major Harper. She was too proud to listen,
or to keep any other watch, and sat with her chamber-door resolutely
closed.
At length her vigil came to an end. She saw her late guardian passing
down the street--not hastily or in humiliation, but with his usual
measured step and satisfied air. Nay, he even crossed over the way to
speak to an acquaintance, and stood smiling, talking, and swinging his
cane. There could not be anything very wrong, then.
Agatha thought, having been once sent out of the room, she would not
re-enter it until her husband fetched her--a harmless ebullition of
annoyance. So she stood idly before the mirror, ostensibly arranging her
curls, though in reality seeing nothing, but listening with all her
ears for the one footstep--which did not come. Not, alas! for many, many
minutes.
She was still standing motionless, though her brows were knitted in deep
thought, and her mouth had assumed the rather cross expression which
such rich, rare lips always can, and which only makes their smiling the
more lovely--when she saw in the mirror another reflection beside her
own.
Her husband had come softly behind her, and put his arms round her
waist.
“Did you think I was a long time away from you? I could not help it,
dear. Let us go down-stairs now.”
Agatha was surprised that, in spite of all the tenderness of his manner,
he did not attempt the slightest explanation. And still more surprised
was she to find her own questions, wonderings, reproaches, dying
away unuttered in the atmosphere of silentness which always seemed to
surround Nathanael Harper. This silentness had from the very beginning
of their acquaintance induced in her that faint awe, which is the most
ominous yet most delicious feeling that a woman can have towards a
man. It seems an instinctive acknowledgment of the much-condemned,
much-perverted, yet divine and unalterable law given with the first
human marriage--“_He shall rule over thee_.”
After all that Agatha had intended to say, she said--nothing. She only
turned her face to her husband, and received his kiss. Very soft it
was--even cold--as though he dared not trust himself to the least
expression of feeling. He merely whispered, “Now, come down with me;”
and she went.
But on the staircase she could not forbear saying, “I thought you two
would never have done talking. Is it anything very serious? I trust not,
since your brother walked down the street so cheerfully.”
“Did he?--and--were you watching him?”
“Yes, indeed,” returned Agatha, for she had no notion of doing anything
that she would be afterwards ashamed to confess. “But what put him into
such a state of mind, and made him behave to me so strangely?”
“How dared he behave?” asked the husband, with quickness, then stopped.
“Forgive me. You know, I have never inquired--I never shall inquire
about anything.”--Again he paused, seeing how his mood alarmed her. “Do
not be afraid of me! Poor child--poor little Agatha!”
Waiting for no reply, he led her in to dinner.
While the servants waited, Mr. Harper scarcely spoke, except when
necessary. Only in his lightest word addressed to Agatha was a certain
tremulousness--in his most careless look a constant tender observance,
which soothed her mind, and quite removed from thence the impression
of his hasty and incomprehensible words. She laid all to the charge of
Major Harper and his unpleasant business.
At dessert, Nathanael sat varying his long silences with a few
commonplace remarks which showed how oblivious he was of all around
him, and how sedulously he tried to disguise the fact, and rise to the
surface of conversation. Agatha's curiosity returned, not unmingled with
a feeling tenderer, more woman-like, more wife-like, which showed itself
in stray peeps at him from under the lashes of net brown eyes. At length
she took courage to say:
“Now--since we seem to have nothing better to talk about, will you tell
me what you and your brother were plotting together, that you kept poor
little me out of the room so long?”
“Plotting together? Surely, Agatha, you did not mean to use that word?”
She had used it according to a habit she had of putting a jesting form
of phrase upon matters where she was most in earnest. She was amazed to
see her husband take it so seriously.
“Well, blot out the offending word, and put in any other you choose;
only tell me.”
“Why do you wish to know, little Curiosity?” said he, recovering
himself, and eagerly catching the tone his wife had adopted.
“Why? Because I am a little Curiosity, and like to know everything.”
“That is both presumptuous and impossible, your ladyship! If one-half
the world were always bent on knowing all the secrets of the other half,
what a very uncomfortable world it would be!”
“I do not see that, even if the first half included the wives, and the
second the husbands; which is apparently what you mean to imply.”
“I shall not plead guilty to anything by implication.”
They went on a few moments longer in this skirmish of assumed gaiety,
when Agatha, pausing, leant her elbows on the table, and looked
seriously at her husband,
“Do you know we are two very foolish people?”
“Wherefore?”
“We are pretending to make idle jests, when all the time we are both of
us very much in earnest.”
“That is true!” And he sighed, though within himself, as though he did
not wish her to hear it. “Agatha, come over to me.” He held out both his
hands; she came, and placed herself beside him, all her jesting subdued.
She even trembled, at the expectation of something painful or sorrowful
to be told. But her husband said nothing--except to ask if she would
like to go anywhere this evening.
Agatha felt annoyed. “Why do you put me off in this manner, when I know
you have something on your mind?”
“Have I?” he said, half mournfully.
“Then tell it to me.”
“Nay. I always thought it was wisest, kindest, for a man to bear the
burden of his own cares.”
Nathanael had spoken in his most gentle tone, and slowly, as if impelled
to what he said by hard necessity. He was not prepared to see the sudden
childish burst of astonishment, anger, and resistance.
“From this, I understand, what you might as well have said plainly, that
I am not to inquire what passed between you and your brother?”
He moved his head in assent, and then sunk it on his left hand, holding
out the other to his wife, as though talking were impossible to him, and
all he wished were silence and peace. Agatha was too angry for either.
“But if I do not choose at nineteen to be treated like a mere child--if
I ask, nay, _insist_”--She hesitated, lest the last word might have
irritated him too far. Vague fears concerning the full meaning of the
word “obey” in the marriage service rushed into her mind.
Nathanael sat motionless, his fingers pressed upon his eyelids. This
silence was worse than any words.
“Mr. Harper!”
“I hear.” And the grave, sad eyes--and without any displeasure--were
turned upon her. Agatha felt a sting of conscience.
“I did not mean to speak rudely to my husband; but I had my own reasons
for inquiring about Major Harper, from something Emma said to-day.”
“What was that?”
“How eager you look! Nay, I can keep a secret too. But no, I will not.”
And the generous impulse burst out, even accompanied by a few childish
tears and childish blushes. “She told me he had probably lost money. I
wished to say that if such a trifle made him unhappy he might take as
much as he liked of mine. That was all!”
Her husband regarded her with mingled emotions, which at last all melted
into one--deep tenderness. “And you would do this, even for him? Thank
God! I never doubted your goodness, Agatha. And I _trusted_ you always.”
Wondering, yet half-pleased, to see him so moved, Agatha received his
offered hand. “Then all is settled. Now tell me everything that passed
between you.”
“I cannot.”
Gentle as the tone was, there was something in it which implied that
to strive with Nathanael would be like beating against a marble wall.
A great terror came over Agatha--she, who had lived like a wild bird,
knowing no stronger will than her own. Then all the combativeness of her
nature, hitherto dormant because she had known none worthy to contend
against, awoke up, and tempted her to struggle fiercely with her chain.
She unloosed her hands and sprang from him. “Mr. Harper, you are
teaching me early how men rule their wives.”
“I only ask my wife to trust me. She would, if she knew how great was
the sacrifice.”
“What sacrifice? How many more mysteries am I to be led through
blindfold?”
And her crimson cheek, her quick wild step across the room, showed a new
picture to the husband's eyes--a picture that all young wives should be
slow to let any man see, for it is often a fatal vision.
Nathanael closed his eyes--was it to shut it out?--then spoke, steadily,
sorrowfully:
“We have scarcely been married a month. Are we beginning to be angry
with one another already?”
She made him no answer.
“Will you listen to me--if for only two minutes?”
She felt his step approaching, his hand fastening on hers, and replacing
her in her chair. Resistance was impossible.
“Agatha, had I trusted you less than I do, I might easily have put off
your questions, or told you what was false. I shall do neither. I shall
tell you truth.”
“That is all I wish.”
Nathanael said, with a visible effort, “To-day I learnt from my
brother several rather painful circumstances--some which I was ignorant
of--one”--his voice grew cold and hard--“one which I already knew, and
knew to be irremediable.”
His wife looked much alarmed; seeing it, he forced a smile.
“But what is irremediable can and must be borne. I can bear things
better, perhaps, than most people. The other cares may be removed by
time and--silence. To that end I have promised Frederick to keep his
confidence secret from every one, even from my own wife, for a year to
come. A sacrifice harder than you think; but it must be made, and I have
made it.”
Agatha turned away, saying bitterly; “Your wife ought to thank you! She
was not aware until now how wondrously well you loved your brother.”
There was a heavy silence, and then Mr. Harper said, in a hoarse voice,
“Did you ever hear the story of a man who plunged into a river to save
the life of an enemy, and when asked why he did it, answered, 'It was
because he _was_ an enemy?”
“I do not understand you,” cried Agatha.
“No”--her husband returned, hastily--“better not. A foolish, meaningless
story. What were we talking about?”
He--when her heart was bursting with vexation and wounded feeling--he
pretended to treat all so lightly that he did not even remember what
they were saying! It was more than Agatha could endure.
Had he been irritated like herself--had he shown annoyance, pain--had
they even come to a positive quarrel--for love will sometimes quarrel,
and take comfort therein--it would have been less trying to a girl of
her temperament. But that grave superior calm of unvarying kindness--her
poor angry spirit beat against it like waves against a shining rock.
“We were talking of what, had I considered the matter a month ago,
I might possibly have saved myself the necessity of discussing or
practising--a wife's blind obedience to her husband.”
“Agatha!”
“When I married,” she recklessly pursued, “I did not think what I was
doing. It is hard enough blindly to obey even those whom one has known
long--trusted long--loved long--but you”--
“I understand. Hush! there needs not another word.”
Agatha began to hesitate. She had only wished to make him feel--to shake
him from that rigid quietude which to her was so trying. She had not
intended to wound him so.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked at length.
“No, not angry. No reproaches of yours can be more bitter than my own.”
She was just about to ask him what he meant--nay, she even considered
whether her woman's pride might not stoop to draw aside the
tight-pressed hands, entreating him to look up and forgive her and love
her, when in burst Mrs. Thornycroft.
“Oh--so glad to catch you--have not a minute to spare, for James is
waiting. Where is your husband?”
Mr. Harper had risen, and stood in the shadow, where his face was not
easily visible. Agatha wondered to see him so erect and calm, while her
own cheeks were burning, and every word she tried to utter she had to
gulp down a burst of tears.
“Mr. Harper, it was you I wanted--to ask your decision about the
house. A mere formality. But I thought I would just call as we went
to grandmamma's, and then I can settle everything for you to-morrow
morning.”
“You are very kind, but”--
“Oh, perhaps you would rather see the house yourself! Quite right. Of
course you will take it!”
“I fear not.”
Agatha, as well as Mrs. Thornycroft, was so utterly astonished, that
neither of them could make any observation. To give up the house, and
all her dear home-visions! She was aghast at the idea.
“Bless me, what does your husband mean? Mr. Harper, what possible
objection?----”--
“None, except we have changed our plans. It is quite uncertain how long
we may stay at Kingcombe Holm, or where we may go from thence.”
“Not to America, surely? You would not break your word to poor dear
Agatha?”
“I never break my word.”
“Well, Mr. Harper, I declare I can't understand you,” cried Emma,
sharply. “I only hope that Agatha does. Is all this with your knowledge
and consent, my poor child?”
She said this, eyeing the husband with doubt and the wife with
curiosity, as if disposed to put herself in the breach between the two,
if breach there were.
Agatha heard Nathanael's quick breathing--caught her friend's look of
patronising compassion. Something of the dignity of marriage, the shame
lest any third party should share or even witness aught that passes
between those two who have now become one--awoke in the young girl's
spirit. The feeling was partly pride, yet mingled with something far
holier.
She put Emma gently aside.
“Whatever my husband's decision may be, I am quite satisfied therewith.”
Mrs. Thornycroft was mute with amazement However, she was too
good-natured to be really angry. “Certainly, you are the most
extraordinary, incomprehensible young couple! But I can't stay to
discuss the matter. Agatha, I shall see you to-morrow?”
“Yes; I will bring her to you to-morrow,” said Mr. Harper, cheerfully,
as their visitor departed.
The husband and wife regarded one another in silence. At last he said,
taking her hand:
“I owe you thanks, Agatha, for”--
“For doing my duty. I hope I shall never forget that.”
At the word “duty,” so coldly uttered, Mr. Harper had let her hand fall
He stood motionless, leaning against the marble chimney-piece, his face
as white as the marble itself, and, in Agatha's fancy, as hard.
“Have you, then, quite decided against our taking the house?” she asked
at length.
“I find it will be impossible.”
“Why so? But I forget; it is useless to ask _you_ questions.”
He made no reply.
“Pardon my inquiry, but do you still keep to your plan of leaving next
week for Dorsetshire?”
“If you are willing.”
“I willing?” And she thought how, two hours before, she had rejoiced
in the prospect of seeing her husband's ancestral home--her
father-in-law--her new sisters. Her heart failed her--the poor girlish
heart that as yet knew not either the world or itself. She burst into
tears.
Instantly Mr. Harper caught her in his arms.
“Oh, Agatha, forgive me!--Have patience with me, and we may still
be happy; at least, you may. Only trust your husband, and love him a
little--a very little--as much as you can.”
“How can I trust you, whom I do not thoroughly understand? how can
I--love”--
Her hesitation--her pride warring with the expression of that feeling
which her very anger taught her was there--seemed to pierce her husband
to the soul.
“I see,” he said, mournfully. “We are both punished, Agatha; I for the
selfishness of my love towards you, and you--Alas! how can I make you
happier, poor child?” Her tears fell still, but less with anger than
emotion. “I know now, we ought never to have been married. Yet, since we
are married”--
“Ay, since we are married, let us try to be good to one another, and
bear with one another. I will!”
She kissed his hand, which held up her drooping head, and Nathanael
pressed his lips on her forehead. So outward peace was made between
them; but in sadness and in fear, like a compact sealed tremblingly over
a newly-closed grave.