To see the elder Mr. Harper sitting at the head of his own dinner-table
was a real pleasure. He never looked so well at any other time. His
grandiose air was then so mixed with genuine kindliness that it only
enriched his courtesies, like the “body” in mellow old wine. He leaned
graciously back in the arm-chair peculiarly his own, surveying the long
table shone over by soft wax-lights, and circled by smiling faces, most
of them women, as the old gentleman liked best. Even the plain Mary,
taking the foot of the table, looked well and mistress-like in her black
velvet dress: Eulalie and Mrs. Dugdale kept up the good appearance of
the family; while Miss Valery and the young Mrs. Harper took either side
of the host, and were duly honoured by him.
Agatha wore her wedding-dress, of white silk, rich and plain, She looked
very pretty, her girlish _abandon_ of manner softened by a certain
wifely dignity, which grew upon her day by day. She filled her position
well, though often with secret trembling, and shy glances over to her
husband to see if he were satisfied with her--a fact which no one but
herself could doubt.
“Now, my children,” said the Squire, when the servants had withdrawn,
and dessert and wines foretold the chatty hour after dinner of which he
was so fond--“now, my children--I may call you all so?” and he smiled at
Anne Valery--“let me tell you how glad I am to see you, and especially
the youngest of you”--here he softly patted Agatha's hand, on the table.
“And since we always drink healths here--a good old fashion that I
should be loth to renounce--let me give you the first toast--Mr. and
Mrs. Nathanael Locke Harper!”
“Hear, hear!” said Mr. Dugdale vaguely from the bottom of the table,
at which indecorum--probably occasioned by a county meeting that was
running in his head--his father-in-law looked extremely severe. But the
severity was soon drowned in the nods and smiles that circled round.
After which Nathanael said briefly but with feeling:
“Father, my brother and sisters, and Anne--my wife and I thank you all”
“What do you think of this our old-fashioned custom?'” said the Squire,
turning to his daughter-in-law. “A remnant of my young days, when every
lady used to be called upon to give the health of a gentleman, and every
gentleman of a lady. It was always so at your grandfather's table,
Anne, where many a time when you were a baby in long-clothes I had the
pleasure of giving yours.”
“Thank you,” said Anne, smiling. She was evidently a great favourite
with the old gentleman.
“You should know, my dear daughter-in-law, that my acquaintance with
this lady dates almost from her birth. And for nineteen years I held
over her the right which I understand my eldest son”--he paused a
moment--“which Major Harper had the honour to hold over you. Her
grandfather left me his executor and sole guardian of his infant
heiress. I was a young man then, but I tried to deserve his trust. Did
I, Anne?”
Again she smiled--most affectionately.
“And I had the pleasure of seeing my ward at twenty-one the richest
heiress and the truest gentlewoman in the west of England. She did me
infinite credit, and I had fulfilled to my friend one of the most sacred
trusts a man can receive. Your excellent grandfather Anne--let us drink
his memory.”
Reverently and in silence the old Squire raised the glass to his lips--a
glass filled with only water--he never took wine.
“You see, my dear young lady, how this old custom brings back all lost
or absent friends. We never forget them, and like to talk of them and
of old times. Thus, always at this hour, we gather round us innumerable
pleasant recollections, and remember all who are dear to us or to our
guests at Kingcombe Holm.--Now, Mrs. Harper, we wait your toast.”
Agatha coloured, felt nervous and ashamed, glanced at her husband, but
met nothing except an encouraging smile. She thought--remembering
her own few ties--that she would gratify Nathanael by naming some one
nearest to him. So she looked up timidly, and gave “Uncle Brian.”
Every one applauded--the Squire graciously acknowledging the compliment
to his brother.
“The youngest and only surviving brother of many, and as such, much
regarded by me,” he explained to his daughter-in-law. “In spite of
the great difference in our ages, and some trifling opposition in our
characters, I cherish the highest esteem for my brother Brian.” And
hereupon he asked for the letter received that day; which was duly read
aloud by his son--saving the wise omission of the postscript.
“Go to California?” said old Mr. Harper, knitting his brows. “I do not
like that--it is unbecoming a gentleman. Though he was wild and daring
enough, Brian never yet forgot he was a gentleman. Was it not so, Anne?”
Anne assented.
“He was a fine generous fellow, too. Do you remember how a week before
he left us so suddenly he rode fifty miles across the country to get
some ice for you in your fever? You were very ill then, my poor girl.”
It was touching to hear him call Miss Valery a “girl”--she whom the
young Agatha regarded as quite an elderly woman.
“And though he did leave us so abruptly--wherefore, remains to this day
a mystery, unless it was a young man's whim and love of change--still I
have the greatest dependence on Brian Harper,” continued the Squire, who
seemed as a parental right to monopolise all the talk at table.
“Brian Harper!” exclaimed Mr. Dugdale, waking from a trance. “Yes--Brian
would surely be able to furnish those statistics on Canadian wheat. His
judgment was always as sound as his politics.”
“What was your remark, Marmaduke” said the old Squire, testily.
“O, nothing--nothing, father!” Harrie quickly answered, with a half
merry, half warning frown at her lord. Mr. Dugdale folded himself up
again into silence, with the quiet consciousness of one who has a pearl
in his keeping--the undoubted value of which there is no need either to
put forward or to defend.
Miss Valery here came to the rescue, and turned the conversation into
a merry channel Agatha was surprised to find what a wondrous power of
unfeigned home-cheerfulness there was in this woman, who had lived to be
called even by those that loved her, “an old maid.” And when at last the
Squire gracefully allowed the departure of his women-kind, who floated
away like a flock of released birds, they all clustered around Anne, as
though she were in the constant habit of knowing everybody's business,
and of thinking and judging for everybody.
Agatha sat a little way off, watching her, and wondering what could be
the strange influence which always made her take delight in watching
Anne Valery.
There is something very peculiar in this admiration which one woman
occasionally conceives for another, generally much older than herself.
It is not exactly friendship, but partakes more of the character of
love--in its idealisation, its shyness, its enthusiastic reverence, its
hopeless doubt of requital, and, above all, its jealousies. For this
reason, it generally comes previous to, or for want of, the real love,
the drawing of the feminine soul towards its masculine half, which
makes--according to the Platonic doctrine--a perfect being. Of
course, this theory would be almost universally considered
“sentimentalism”--Agatha's little infatuation being included therein;
but the frequency of such infatuations existing in the world around us
argues some truth at their origin.
To the young girl--still so girlish, though she was married--there was
an inexplicable attraction in all Anne Valery said or did. The very
sweep of her dress across the floor--her slow soft motions, which might
have been haughty when she was young, but now were only gracious and
self-possessed; the way she had of folding her hands on one another, and
looking straight forward with a kind observant smile, free alike from
sentiment, crossness, or melancholy; her tone and manner, neither showy
nor sharp; her habit of saying the wisest things in the most simple way,
so that nobody recognised them as wisdom till afterwards--all filled
Agatha with a sense of satisfied admiration. She wished either that she
had been a man, to have adored and married Anne years ago--or that her
own marriage had been delayed for a little, until she had grown wiser
and more fit for life's destiny by learning from and loving such a woman
as Miss Valery.
Moreover, with the dawning jealousy that all strong likings bring, she
wished to appropriate her--and was quite annoyed that Anne sat so long
discussing winter mantles with Eulalie and Mary, afterwards diverging
to a Christmas clothing fund to be started at Kingcombe under Mrs.
Dugdale's eye; finally listening to a whispered communication on the
part of the Beauty--which had reference to a certain “Edward”--about
whose position in the family there could be no mistake. At last, to
Agatha's great satisfaction, Miss Valery rose, and proposed that they
two--Mrs. Harper and herself--should go and visit Elizabeth.
Passing through the galleries, Anne seemed tired, and walked slowly,
stopping one minute at a window to show her companion the moonlight over
the hills.
“Is it not a beautiful world? If we could but look at it always as we
do when we are young!” The half sigh, the momentary shadow sweeping over
her quiet face like a cloud over the moon--surprised and touched Agatha.
“Do you know I have stood and looked out of this same window ever since
I was the height of its first pane. No wonder I have a weakness for
stopping here and looking out for a minute at my dear old moon. But let
us pass on.”
She took up her candle again, and led Agatha by the hand, like a
pet-child, to Elizabeth's door.
Miss Harper was lying as usual, but had a writing-case before her, and
it was astonishing what neat caligraphy those weak childish-looking
fingers could execute. It resembled the writer's own mind--clear,
delicate, well-arranged, exact.
“We are not come to stay very long; but do we interrupt you, Elizabeth?”
“Never, Anne, dear! I was only writing to Frederick. He is gone abroad,
you are aware?”
“Yes.”
“I want to know why he went? Has Nathanael told either of you?” said
Elizabeth, fixing her quick eyes on both her visitors.
Both answered in the negative--Miss Valery saying, with attempted
gaiety, “You know, one might as well question a stone wall as Nathanael.
He can be both deaf and dumb.”
“Not to me. Everybody tells me everything, or I find it out. I found out
that this little lady had a chance of being my sister-in-law before ever
she herself was certain of the fact. Ah, Agatha, you should have seen
Nathanael when he came down to us that week.”
“What did he do?” the young wife asked, not without some painful
curiosity--for sometimes, in the moments when she could not “make out”
her husband's rather peculiar character, a wicked demon had whispered
that perhaps Mr. Harper had never truly loved her, or that his devotion
was too sudden to be a lasting reality.
“What did he do?--Oh, nothing. He was very quiet, very self-possessed.
You could hardly tell he was in love at all. Nobody ever guessed it but
I--not even Anne. But in love or not, I saw that he was determined to
have you; and when Nathanael determines on a thing--Oh, I knew you would
be married to him! You could not help it!”
“Nor did she wish--nor need she,” said Anne, gently, as she saw Agatha's
confusion. “But we shall soon cease teasing our young couple. I hear
that at Christmas we shall have another marriage in the family. Edward
Thorpe has got the living--the richest one.”
“So, of course, Eulalie will marry him.” The deduction reached Agatha as
rather sarcastic, though perhaps more through the interpretation of her
own feeling than that of the speaker. She asked, with one of her usual
plain speeches:
“Does Eulalie love Mr. Thorpe very much?”
The remark was addressed to both; but after a pause Elizabeth said,
“Answer that question, Anne.”
“What sort of an answer do you want, my dear?”
“One perfectly plain. I like simplicity. Is Eulalie much attached to the
man she is to marry?”
“Women marry with many forms of love; Eulalie's will do exceedingly well
for Mr. Thorpe. He is a very worthy young clergyman, who takes a wife as
a matter of necessity. As for love--have you noticed, Agatha, how many
women one sees, wives and mothers, who live creditably through a long
life, and go down to their graves without ever having known the real
meaning of the word?”
Anne was talking more than usual to-night, and Agatha liked to listen.
The subject came home to her. “Will Eulalie be one of these?”
“I think so. She may make a very good, attentive wife, but she will
never know what is real love.”
“Tell me, what is that sort of love--the right love--which one ought to
bring to one's husband?”
Miss Valery looked surprised at the young girl's eager manner. “Are you
seriously asking that question? and of me, who never had a husband?”
“Oh, one likes to hear various opinions. What do you call 'loving?'”
“Almost every human being loves in a different way.”
“Well, then, your way I mean.” But noticing the momentary reticence
which Anne's manner showed, she added, “I mean the kind of love you have
most sympathy with in other people.”
“I have sympathy in all. My neighbours will tell you hereabouts that
Anne Valery is the universal confidante, and the greatest marriage-maker
(not match-maker) in all Dorset. I don't repudiate the character. It is
pleasant to see young people loving one another.”
“Still, you have not told me what _you_ call loving.”
“Do you really wish to hear?” said Anne, seriously. Then speaking in a
low voice, she added: “I would have every woman marry, not merely liking
a man well enough to accept him as a husband, but loving him so wholly,
that, wedded or not, she feels she is at heart his wife and none
other's, to the end of her life. So faithful, that she can see all his
little faults (though she takes care no one else shall see them), yet
would as soon think of loving him the less for these, as of ceasing to
look up to heaven because there are a few clouds in the sky. So true,
and so fond, that she needs neither to vex him with her constancy, nor
burden him with her love, since both are self-existent, and entirely
independent of anything he gives or takes away. Thus she will marry
neither from liking, esteem, nor gratitude for his love, but from the
fulness of her own. If they never marry, as sometimes happens”--and
Anne's voice slightly faltered--“God will cause them to meet in the next
existence. They cannot be parted--they belong to one another.”
All were silent--these three women--one to whom love must have been
only a name; the other who spoke of it quietly, seriously, as we talk
of things belonging to the world to come; and the third, who sat
thoughtful, wondering, doubting, afraid to believe in a truth which
brought with it her own condemnation.
“You talk, Miss Valery, as people do in books. Some would call it
romance.”
“Would they? And do you?”
“Not quite. I used to think the same sometimes; but perfect love, like
perfect beauty, is a thing one never meets with in real life.”
“Yet one does not the less believe in it, and desire to find
approximations thereto. No, my child, I do not talk romance, I am too
old for that, and have seen too much of the world. Nevertheless, despite
all I have seen--the false, foolish, weak attachments--the unholy
marriages--the after-life of marriage made unholier still by struggling
against what was inevitable--still I believe in the one true love which
binds a woman's heart faithfully to one man in this life and, God grant
it! in the next. But you have no need to hear all this--little wife? You
do not wish to be taught how to love Nathanael?”
Agatha tried to smile--to conceal the pain rising in her heart.
“Come then, I will teach you how to love him--in better words than
mine, and from a woman who, though writing out of the deep truth of her
poet-heart, would scorn to write mere 'romance.'”
“Any woman would,” answered Agatha, running her eyes over a book
which Miss Valery had lifted from the silk coverlid, and which “poor
Elizabeth” looked after fondly, as sick people do after the face of a
friend.
“Listen, with your heart open. It is sure to find entrance there,” said
Anne, merrily, until, turning over the pages, she grew serious. She was
not quite too old to be insensible to the glamour of poetry. Her voice
was hardly like itself--at least, not like what Agatha had ever heard
it--when she began to read:
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth,
and breadth, and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every
day's Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as
men strive for right: I love thee purely, as they turn from praise:
I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my
childhood's faith: I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost
saints; I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! and,
if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”
There was a pause of full-hearted silence, and then Agatha heard a sigh
behind her.
Her husband had come to the door, and, hearing reading, had stolen in,
no one noticing him but his sister. Agatha saw nothing; her eyelids were
closely, fiercely shut, over the tears that rose at this vision of a
lost or impossible paradise.
“Agatha!” She looked up, and saw him stand, wearing his palest, coldest
aspect--that which always seemed to freeze up every young feeling within
her. The pang it gave found vent in but one expression--scarcely meant
to pass her lips--and inaudible to all save him:
“Oh, why--why did I marry!”
The moment after, she felt how wrong it was, and would have atoned; but
Mr. Harper had moved quickly from her side. Elizabeth called him; he
seemed not to hear; Anne, closing her book, addressed him:
“Are you come to talk with us, or to fetch your wife away?”
“Neither,” he said, bitterly. But recovering himself--“Nay, Anne, I came
for you. My father wishes to see you. He will hear nothing I can urge.
You must come down and talk with him, or I do not know what will be
done.”
Agatha had until now forgotten that her husband had intended after
dinner to tell his father his plans concerning the stewardship. It had
been apparently a harder task than he thought, to strive with the old
Squire's prejudices. Seeing his extreme perturbation, Agatha repented
herself deeply of any unkindness towards him.
She went to his side. “What is the matter? Tell me! Let me help you.”
“You!” he echoed; then added, with an accent studiously kind, “Thank
you, Agatha. You are very good always.”
He let her take his arm and stand talking with himself and Miss Valery.
“I feared it would be so,” the latter said. “Your father has a strong
will; still he can be persuaded. We must try.”
“But only persuasion--no reasons. Understand me, Anne--no reasons!”
Miss Valery looked at the young man very earnestly.
“Nathanael, if I did not know you well, and know too whose guidance
formed your character, it would be hard to trust you.”
“Anne!” Again the peculiar manner which sometimes appeared in him,
making him seem much older than his years, had its strange influence
with Miss Valery, guiding her by an under-current deeper even than her
judgment.
“Ay,” she said in a whisper, “I will trust you. Let us go down.” And she
turned with him to say good-bye to Miss Harper.
The excitement of talking had been too much for “poor Elizabeth.” One
of her “dark hours” was upon her. The eyes were closed, and the face
sharpened under keen physical pain. Agatha could hardly bear to see her;
but Nathanael bent over his sister with that soothing kindness which in
a man is so beautiful.
“Shall we stay with you? at least, shall I?”
Elizabeth motioned a decided negative.
“I know,” Miss Valery said, apart, “she had rather be alone. No one can
do her good, and it is too much for this child, who is not used to it as
we are.”
Calling Elizabeth's maid from the inner room, Anne hurried Agatha away.
She, clinging to her husband's arm, heard him say, half to himself:
“And yet we think life hard, and murmur at that we have, and grieve for
that we have not! We are very wicked, all of us. Poor Elizabeth!”
The three went very silently down-stairs.
At the dining-room door Mrs. Harper let go her husband's arm.
“Why are you leaving me, Agatha?”
“Because I thought--I imagined, perhaps you wished”--
“I wish to have you with me always. Anne knows,” and he looked pointedly
at Miss Valery, “that I shall never respond to, and most certainly never
volunteer, any confidence to either her or my father that I do not share
with my wife. She has the first claim, and what is not hers no other
person shall obtain.”
Anne looked puzzled. At last she said, in an under tone, “I think I
understand, and you are quite right. I shall remember.”
The old Squire was sitting in his arm-chair, the dessert and wine still
before him. The cheerfulness of the dinner-circle over, he looked very
aged now--aged and lonely too, being the only occupant of that large
room. He raised his head when Miss Valery entered, but seemed annoyed at
the entrance of his daughter-in-law.
“Mrs. Harper! I did not mean to encroach on _your_ leisure.”
“No, father; it was I who wished her to come. Forgive me, but I could
not bring Miss Valery into our family councils and exclude my own wife.
She is not a stranger now.”
Saying this, Nathanael placed Agatha in a chair and stood beside her,
taking her cold hand, for with all her power she could not keep herself
from trembling. She had never known anything of those formidable affairs
which are called “family quarrels.”
“Now, father,” he continued in a straightforward but respectful manner,
“Anne will answer any question to prove what I have already told
you--that it is at my own request she takes me for her steward.”
“Her friend and adviser,” Anne interposed.
“I never doubted, Nathanael, that it was at your own request. Otherwise
it were impossible that Miss Valery would so far have insulted my
family.”
At these words Anne coloured, and moved a step or two with something of
the pride of her young days. “I did not think, Mr. Harper, that it
would have been either an insult to offer, or a disgrace to accept, the
position which your son desires to hold. Far be it from me in any way to
wrong any member of your family, especially the son whom your wife left
in my arms--and Brian's--when she died.”
Agatha had never before heard Miss Valery say “Brian.” She was evidently
speaking as people do when much moved, using a form of phrase and
alluding to things not commonly referred to.
The old Squire sat silent a minute, and then stretched out his hand. “I
know your goodness, Anne! But I cannot renounce all my rights. Even a
younger son must not throw discredit on his family. Except in one brief
instance, for centuries there has never been a Harper who worked for his
living.”
“Then, father, let me be the first to commence that act of inconceivable
boldness and energy,” said Nathanael, with a good-humoured persuasive
smile. “Let me, being likewise a younger son, take a leaf out of Uncle
Brian's book, and try to labour, as he once did, in my own county, with
the honour of my own race about me.”
“And what did he effect? Was he not looked down upon, humiliated,
cheated? I never ride past his old deserted clay-pits without being
thankful that he went to Canada, rather than have disgraced us by what
his folly must have come to at last. He would have lost the little he
had--have been bankrupt, perhaps dishonoured.”
“Mr. Harper!”--Anne rose from her chair--“I think you speak rather
hardly of your brother. It never could be said, or will be said, that
Brian Harper was _dishonoured._”
At these words, spoken with unusual warmth, Nathanael gratefully clasped
her hand. The Squire observed, with added dignity, that no one could be
more sensible than himself of his brother's merit, and that he thanked
Miss Valery for extending her kind interests to every branch of the
Harper family.
“And now,” he continued, “we will cease this conversation. My son
knows my sentiments, and will doubtless act upon them. I never maintain
arguments with my children.” And the sentence implied that what “I never
do,” was consequently a thing unnecessary and impossible to be done. The
old gentleman leant on each arm of his chair, and feebly tried to rise.
“Father,” cried Nathanael, detaining him, “I would do much rather than
try you thus; but it cannot be helped. I must work.”
“I do not see the necessity.”
“But if there be a necessity; if my own feelings, my conscience--other
reasons, which here I cannot urge”--and involuntarily his eye glanced
towards his wife.
An instinct of delicacy brightened the old man's perceptions. He bowed
to Agatha. “We need not apologise for these discussions before a lady
who has done my son the honour of uniting her fortune to his ancient
family.” (And he evidently thought the honour bestowed was quite as
much on the Harper side.) “She, I am sure, will agree with me that this
proceeding is not necessary.”
Agatha hesitated. Much as she longed to do it, a sense of right
prevented her from openly siding against her husband. She kept silence;
Nathanael answered with the tone of one who sets a strong guard upon his
lips, almost stronger than he can bear:
“I have already told my wife all the reasons I have just given you,
that, since I am resolved to be independent, there is no way but this. I
have been brought up abroad, and have learnt no profession; my health is
not robust enough for a town life, or for hard study. Many, almost all
the usual modes in which a man, born a gentleman, can earn his living
are thus shut out from me. What Anne Valery offers me I _can_ do,
and should be content in doing. Father, do not stand in the way of my
winning for myself a little comfort--a little peace.”
Through his entreaty, earnest and manly as it was, there ran a sort of
melancholy which surprised and grieved Agatha. Could this be the lover
on whom, in giving him herself, she believed she had bestowed entire
felicity? Had he too, like herself, found a something wanting in
marriage, a something to fill up which he must needs resort to an active
career of worldly toil? Would she never be able to make either him or
herself truly happy? and if so, what was the cause?
The Squire keenly regarded his son, who stood before him in an attitude
so respectful yet so firm. Something seemed to strike him in the pale,
delicate, womanish features; perhaps he saw therein the wife who had
died when Nathanael was born, and whose death, people said, had chilled
the father's heart strangely against the poor babe.
“My son,” he said, “you have been away from me nearly all your life--and
where I have given little, I can require little. But I am an old man.
Do not let me feel that you too are setting yourself against my grey
hairs.”
“God knows, father, I would not for worlds! But what can I do? Anne,
what can I do?”
Anne rose, and leant over Mr. Harper's chair, like a privileged eldest
daughter who secretly strengthened with her judgment the wisdom that
was growing feeble through old age; doing it reverently, as we all would
wish our children to do when our own light grows dim. For, alas! the
wisest and firmest of us may come one day to mutter in the ears of
a younger generation the senile cry, “I am old and foolish--old and
foolish.”
“Dear friend--if Nathanael follows out this plan, it will be for the
comfort and not the disquiet of your grey hairs. Think how pleasant
always to have a son at hand, and a young, pretty Mrs. Harper to
brighten Kingcombe Holm.”
This was a wise thrust--the old gentleman looked in his
daughter-in-law's fair face, and bowed complacently.
“Then, too, your son will live in the country, lead the life that he
loves, and that you love--the very life which all these years you have
been vainly planning for his brother.”
The Squire turned sharply round. “On that subject, if you please, we
will be silent. Anne, Anne,” he added, “do you want again to turn my
plans aside? Would you take from me my other son also?”
She drew back, much wounded.
“No, no, my dear, I did not mean that. It was not your fault--you
two were not suited for each other. Nevertheless, in spite of your
wilfulness, in nothing but the name did I lose a daughter. Forgive me,
Anne!”
“My dear old friend,” she whispered, and stole her fingers into the
withered palm of the Squire. He kissed them with the grace of an old
courtier: the tenderness of a father. She, though moved at his kindness,
betrayed no stronger emotion; and Agatha, who had watched intently
this little episode, confirmatory of an old suspicion of her own, was
considerably puzzled thereby. If Anne Valery's life contained any sad
secret, it was evidently not this. She had not remained an old maid for
love of Major Harper.
“Nathanael,” said the old man, returning with dignity to the former
conversation, “I would not be harsh or unjust. There is but one way to
reconcile our opposing wills, since you are determined on this scheme of
independence. You have told me your plan--will you accept mine?”
“Let me hear it, father,” answered Nathanael respectfully.
“You have hitherto had nothing from me--your Uncle Brian insisted on
that--nor will you ever have much; I must keep my property intact for
the next heir of Kingcombe Holm. Nothing shall alienate the rights of
my eldest son, with whom rests the honour of our family and name.”
Agatha noticing the determined pride with which her father-in-law said
this, wondered that her husband listened with a lowered aspect and made
no response. She thought it unbrotherly, unkind.
“But,” continued Mr. Harper, “though the chief of all I possess must
remain secure for Frederick, I have a little besides, saved for my
daughters' portions. If, with their consent, I lend you this, and you
will embark in some profession”--
“No, father, no! I will never take one farthing from you or my sisters!
I will not again be burdened with other people's property! Oh for the
days when I earned my own solitary bread from hand to mouth, and was
free and at rest!”
He spoke excitedly, and was only conscious of the extent of what he had
said by feeling his wife's hand drop slowly from his own.
“Nay, Agatha, I did not mean”--and he tried to draw it back again.
“Forgive me.”
“Perhaps we have both need to forgive one another.”
No one heard this mournful whisper between the young husband and wife;
they stood as if it had not been uttered--for both their consciences
felt duty to be a bond as strong as love.
And then, on the painful silence which sank over all four, smote ten
heavy strokes of the hall-clock, warning the swift passage of time--too
swift to be wasted in struggle, regret, and contention. Anne rose, her
pale face seeming to have that very thought written thereon.
“My dear friends, listen to me a minute. Here is one who all this time
has not spoken a word, and yet the question concerns her more than any
of us. Let Agatha decide.”
The old man hesitated. Perhaps in his heart he was desirous of a
compromise. Or else he judged from ordinary human nature, that the pride
of the young wife would ally her on his side, and so win over a will
which any father looking into Nathanael's face could see was not to be
threatened into concession.
“_Pas aux dames,_” said Mr. Harper, with a pleasantly chivalric air.
Then more seriously: “My daughter-in-law, choose. But remember that you
stand between your husband and his father.”
Agatha, thrust into so new and important a position, felt a rush of
temptations to follow her own impulse. She turned appealingly to Miss
Valery, but Anne's eyes were fixed on the floor. She looked at her
husband, and met a gaze of doubt, anxiety, mingled with a certain
desperation.
“He knows my feeling about this matter; perhaps he thinks me a wilful
child, ready to take advantage of the liberty given me. He is sure of
what I shall say.”
And she had half a mind to say it, as a condemnation for his so unkindly
judging her; but the girlish pettishness and recklessness went away, and
a better spirit came. She sat, her right hand nervously pushing backward
and forward the still unfamiliar wedding-ring, until in accidentally
feeling the symbol, she suddenly remembered the reality.
“I am a wife,” she thought. “Under _all_ circumstances I will do a
wife's duty.” And with that determination all the pleasant little
follies and temptations buzzing round her heart flew away, and left
her--as one always is, having resolved to consider the right and nothing
else--resolute and at ease.
She said very simply--almost childishly--taking her father-in-law's hand
the while, “If you please, and if you would not be angry, I would rather
do exactly as my husband likes. He knows best.”
In these words she had exhausted all her boldness; and for a few minutes
after had a very indistinct notion of everything, save that the Squire
had walked off, not angrily, but in perfect silence, leaning on Miss
Valery's arm, and that she was left in the dining-room alone with
Nathanael.