The old man was gathered to his fathers.
It was the day after that on which he had been borne to the place
appointed for all living. A new coffin rested beside that of Catherine
Harper in the family vault; the portrait still smiled, but on an empty
bed. There was no separation now.
At Kingcombe Holm the house had awakened from its sleep of mourning;
the shutters were opened, and the sunshine came in familiarly on the
familiar rooms--where was missed the presence of him who had abided
there for threescore years and ten. But what were they? Counted only as
“labour and sorrow”--they had all passed away, and he was gone.
The family met--a large table circle. They looked melancholy, all
in their weeds, but otherwise were as usual. A certain gravity and
under-tone in speaking alone remained. Mary had again begun to busy
herself over her housekeeping; and Eulalie, looking prettier than ever
in her black dress, was listening with satisfaction to the Reverend
Mr. Thorpe, a worthy, simple young man, who had come at once to pay the
family of his affianced the respect of attending the funeral, and
to plan another ceremony, when the decent term of mourning should be
expired.
Major Harper, now recovering something of his old elasticity of
manner, took the place at the foot of the breakfast-table, whence
Mary, presiding as usual, cast over to him glances sometimes of pride,
sometimes of doubtful curiosity, as if speculating on what sort of a
ruler the future head of the house would be.
A very courteous and graceful one, most surely!--to judge by the way in
which he was doing the agreeable to his sister-in-law. Quite harmlessly,
only it seemed as necessary for Major Harper to warm himself in the fair
looks of some woman or other, as for a drenched butterfly to dry its
wings in the sunshine. He was indeed a poor helpless human butterfly,
not made for cloudy weather, storm, or night!
But he fluttered in vain; Agatha took no notice of him whatsoever. Her
whole nature had deepened down to other things--things far beneath the
shallow ken of Major Harper.
During this week, when the numerous duties of the brothers of the family
left its womenkind nearly alone, shut up in the house of mourning, with
nothing outwardly to do or to think of beyond the fold of crape or a
gown, or the make of a bonnet--Agatha had learnt strange secrets. They
were not of Death, but of Love.
She had seen very little of her husband. Either by necessity or design,
he had been almost constantly away; at Thornhurst, arranging business
for Miss Valery, who had gone home; sometimes at Kingcombe, in his
own house--his lonely house; and for two days and nights, to the
astonishment and slight scandal of his sisters, he had been absent in
Cornwall. But wherever he was, or whatever he had to do, he either saw
or wrote to his wife every day; kind, grave words, or kinder letters;
brother-like in their wisdom and tenderness--just the sort of tenderness
that he seemed to believe she would wish for from him.
Agatha accepted all--these brief meetings--these constant letters; saw
the wounding curiosity of his sisters relax, and even Harriet Dugdale
acknowledged how mistaken had been her former notions, and on what
excellent terms her brother and his wife now evidently were; she really
never thought Nathanael would have made such an attentive, affectionate
husband! And Agatha smiled outwardly a proud satisfied smile; while
inwardly---oh, what a crushed, remorseful, passionate heart was there!
A heart which now began to know itself--at once its fulness and its
cravings. A heart thirsting for that love, wanting which, marriage is
but a dead corrupting body without the soul--love, the true life-union,
consisting of oneness of spirit, sympathy, thought, and will--love which
would have been the same had they lived twenty thousand miles apart, ay,
had they never married at all, but waited until eternity united those
whom no earthly destinies could altogether put asunder. Now out of her
own soul she learnt--what not one human being in a million learns,
and yet the truth remains the same--the unity, the immortality, the
divineness of Love, to which the One Immortal and Divine gave His own
name.
She sat in her usual quiet mood, she did everything in such a quiet,
self-contained fashion now--sat, idly talked to by Major Harper, whom
she did not hear at all. She only heard, at the further end of the
table, Nathanael talking to Mary. Sometimes she stole a glance, and
thought how cordial his manner to his sister was, and how tender his
eyes could look at times. And she sighed. At her sigh, her husband would
turn, see her listening to Frederick with that absent downcast look--and
become silent.
Not an angry jealous silence now--his whole manner showed how much he
honoured and trusted his wife--but the hush of a deep, abiding pain, a
sense of loss which nothing could ever reveal or remove.
But men must keep up worldly duties; it is only women, and not all of
these, who can afford the luxury of a broken heart. Mr. Harper rose,
nerved for the day's task--a painful one, as all the family knew. The
elder brother had shrunk from it, and it had been left to Nathanael, who
in all things was now the thinker and the doer. The impression of this
had fixed itself outwardly, effacing the last remnant of his boyish
looks. As he stood leaning over Mary, Agatha thought he had already the
aspect of middle age.
“It will not take me long, Mary, since you say my father kept his papers
in such order. Probably I shall have done by the time the Dugdales come.
You are quite sure there was a will?”
“Quite sure; you will probably find it in the cabinet. I saw him looking
there the very afternoon of the day he died. I was calling him
to dinner, but his back was turned, and I could not make him
understand--poor father!”
Mary's eyes filled, but the younger brother said a few kind words, and
her grief ceased The rest were silent and serious, until Nathanael,
going away, addressed Frederick rather formally. All speech between
them, though smooth, was invariably formal and rare.
“You are satisfied to leave this duty in my hands?--you do not wish to
share it?”
“Oh, no, no!” hurriedly answered the other, walking away in the sunny
window-seat, and breathing its freshness eagerly, as if to drive away
the bare thought of death and the grave.
Nathanael went out--but ere he had closed the door a little hand touched
him.
“What do you want, Agatha?”
“I should like to go with you, if you would allow--that is, if you would
not forbid me.”
“Forbid you? Nay! But”--
“I want--not to interrupt you, or share any family secrets--but just to
sit near you in the room. This is such a strange, dreary house now!” And
she shivered.
Her husband sighed. “Poor child--such a child to be in the midst of us
and our trouble! Come with me if you will.” And he took her into the
study.
No one had been there since the father died; directly afterwards some
careful hand had locked the door, and brought the key to Nathanael;
and it was the only room in the house whose window, undarkened, had met
during all that week the eye of day. It felt close with sunshine and
want of air. Mr. Harper opened the casement, and placed an arm-chair
beside it, where Agatha might look out on the chrysanthemum bed, and the
tall evergreen, where a robin sat singing. He pointed out both to her,
as if wishing to fortify her with a sense of life and cheerfulness, and
then sat down to the gloomy task of looking over his father's papers.
They were very few--at least those left open in the desk; merely
accounts of the estate, kept with brevity and with much apparent labour;
sixty years ago literature, nay, education, were at a low ebb among
English country gentlemen. But all the papers were so carefully
arranged, that Nathanael had nothing to do but to glance over them and
tie them up--simple yearly records of the just life and honest dealings
of a good man, who transferred unencumbered to his children the trust
left by his ancestors.
“I think,” said Nathanael--breaking the dreary silence--“I think there
never was one of the Harper line who lived a long life so stainlessly,
so honourably, as my father.”
And somehow, as he tied up the packets, his finger slightly trembled.
Agatha came and stood by him.
“Let me help you; I have ready hands.”
“But why should I make use of them?”
“Have you not a right?” she said, smiling.
“Nay, I never claim as a right anything which is not freely given.”
“But I give it. It pleases me to help you,” said Agatha, in a low tone,
afraid of her own voice. She took the papers from him, and tried to make
herself busy, in her innocent way. It cheered her.
Nathanael watched her for a minute. “You are very neat-handed, Agatha,
and it is kind of you to help me.”
“Oh, I would help any one.” Foolish, thoughtless words! He said no more,
but went and looked over the cabinet.
This was a sadder duty. There were letters extending over more than a
half century. The Squire received so few that he seemed never to have
burnt one. The oldest--fifty years old--were love-letters, of the time
when people wrote love-letters beginning “Honoured Miss,” and “Dear
and respected Sir,” overlaying the plain heart-truth with no
sentimentalisms of the pen. The signatures, “Catherine Grey,” and
“Nathanael Harper,” in round, formal, girl and boy hand, told how young
they were when this correspondence began;--young still, when its sudden
ceasing showed that courtship had become marriage. From that time,
for nearly twenty years, there was scarcely a letter signed Catharine
Harper.
“This looks,” said Agatha, who unconsciously to both had come to stand
by her husband and share in his task--“this looks as if they were so
rarely parted that they had no need for letter-writing.”
“It was so: I believe my father and mother lived very happily together.”
“I should like to read these letters all through, if I might? They are
the only love-letters I ever saw.”
“Are they, indeed?”
The sharp questioning look startled Agatha. She remembered that first
letter of Nathanael's--perhaps he was vexed that she had apparently
forgotten it--the letter which had been such a solemn epoch in her young
life. She coloured vividly and painfully.
“I mean--that is”--
Her husband looked another way. “You shall have these letters if you so
much desire it.”
“Thank you. I would like to keep something of your mother's. And she was
indeed so happy in her marriage?”
“Very happy, Anne Valery says. My father's was not a perfect temper,
but she understood him thoroughly, and he trusted her. He had need; he
knew--what is a rare thing in marriage now-a-days--that he had been his
wife's first love.”
Agatha made no reply, and the conversation dropped.
Next to Mrs. Harper's letters, and preserved with almost equal care, was
another packet. It began with a child's scrawl--double-lined, upright
and stiff:
“My dear Father,
“Uncle Brian has ruled me this paper, and ruled Anne another. We are
all very merry at Weymouth. We don't want to come home, except to
see”--(here a word, apparently “_ponies_” had been carefully altered, by
a more delicate hand, into something like “_Papa_”)--“Anne's love, and
everybody's, from your dutiful son,
“Frederick.”
“'_Frederick?_'--I thought the letter was yours.”
“No, if he had kept any it was sure to be my brothers. Frederick must
have them back.”
“Let me tie them up,” said Agatha stretching out her hand.
“No--no--are they so very precious? Why do you want to touch them?” said
he, sharply, drawing them out of her reach.
“Only that I might help you.”
Mr. Harper regarded her a moment, and then put back the letters into
her lap. “Forgive me, I did not mean to be cross with you. But this task
confuses me.”
He leaned his elbow on the cabinet, covering his eyes, and stood
thus for two or three minutes. Agatha remained silent--who could have
intruded on the emotion of a son at such a time? None but a wife who
could have stolen into his heart with a closer, dearer claim, and she,
alas! _she_ dared not. Weeks ago--when she believed herself wronged--it
would have been far easier. The higher he rose, the lower she sank,
weighed down by the bitter humility that always comes with fervent love.
She watched him--her heart throbbing, bursting, yearning to cast itself
at his feet--yet she dared not.
“Now let us look over some other letters. I wonder whether Mary was
right, and it is here we shall find the will!”
He, then, was only thinking of letters and wills! Agatha turned away,
and went to sit by the window and watch the chrysanthemums.
At last she was attracted back by her husband's voice.
“This is the will, I see, by the endorsement. Take it, Agatha; we will
not touch it till the Dugdales come. And here are more letters to my
father. Do you think I ought to burn them or look them over first?”
The confidential tone in which he spoke soothed Agatha. It was a sort of
tacit acknowledgment of her wifely rights to his trust.
“I think, suppose you look them over”--
“I cannot,” said he, wearily. “Will you?” And he gave her a handful in
her lap. Agatha felt pleased; she thanked him, and turned them over one
by one.
“Here is a hand which looks like Miss Valery's.”
“It is hers. Set them by.”
She opened another, in a careless and very illegible hand, which she
could not recognise at all:
“My dear Brother,
“The approaching marriage in your family, of which you inform me,
unfortunately cannot alter my plans. I must recover my lost fortunes
abroad.
“Frederick told me yesterday his certainty of being accepted by Miss
Valery. He might have told me sooner, but perhaps thought me too much of
a crusty old bachelor to sympathise with his felicity. Possibly I am.
“You ask if Anne has communicated to me the coming change in her life?
No.
“Farewell, brother, and God bless you and yours.
“B. L. H.”
“Why, this is Uncle Brian!” cried Agatha, giving the letter to her
husband. He read it, laid it aside without comment, and sat thinking.
She did the same. Turning, their eyes met; and they understood each
other's thoughts, but apparently neither liked to speak. At last
Nathanael said:
“It must have been so, though I never guessed it before.”
“But I did, though she never openly told me.”
“Well, it is a strange world!” mused the young man. “Poor Uncle Brian!”
“When do you expect him home?”
“Any day, every day. Thank God!”
“Did you not think she seemed a little better yesterday,” said Agatha
hesitatingly. “Just a very little, you know.”
“A little better; is she ill? What, very ill?”--Agatha's mute answer was
enough. “Oh, poor, poor Anne! And he is coming home!”
“Perhaps,” said Agatha, shocked to see her husband's emotion--“perhaps
if we take great care, and she is very happy,--people must live when
they are happy”--
“Few would live at all then,” was the answer, unwontedly bitter. “Better
not--better not; poor Anne! It is a hard, cruel, miserable world.”
“Why do you say that, Nathanael?”
He started, and Agatha too, for opening the door, with a bright, clear
look, was she of whom they were just talking--Anne Valery.
“I knew I might come in. I heard what you were doing here,” and a slight
sadness crossed her face. “Is it all done, now?”
“Nearly,” and Mrs. Harper hurriedly folded the letter, which lay still
on her lap. Miss Valery's eye caught the writing; Nathanael gave it to
her.
Anne read it; at first with a natural womanly feeling--nay, even
agitation. Soon this ceased, absorbed in the infinite peace and content
of her whole mien. “I knew all this long ago,” she said calmly. “It was
a--a _mistake_ of Frederick's.”--Then, still calmly; “What do you think
I have just heard from Marmaduke!--He”--there could be but one she
meant--“he has safely landed at Havre.”
“Uncle Brian!” the young people both cried, and then instinctively
repressed the joy. It seemed too sacred to be expressed in ordinary
fashion. And passing naturally from one thought to another, Nathanael
glanced round the room; the unused desk, the scattered papers left to be
examined by the unfamiliar hands of a younger generation. Had the
absent one come but a little sooner! “Alas!” he said, “it seems as if the
world's universal sorrow lay in those words, '_Too late.'_”
Miss Valery sank on a chair, her temporary strength departing. Her hands
dropped into that fold that was peculiar and habitual to them--a simple
attitude, not unlike Chantrey's “Resignation.”
“You speak truly, Nathanael. But 'our times are in _His_ hand.'”
She said no more, and shortly Mr. Harper, taking with him the sealed
packet that was endorsed “_My Will_” led the way to where the family
were assembled. In doing so there grew over him the hard silence always
visible when he was much affected. But Agatha was not surprised or hurt:
she began to understand him better now.
In the dining-room were only the immediate family. Every one knew the
probable purport of the will, and how simple a document it was likely to
be; for the patriarchal old Squire hated the very mention of law, and
it had been his pride that, though not entailed, the inheritance of
Kingcombe Holm had descended for centuries unbroken by a single legal
squabble. Therefore they all waited indifferently, merely to go through
a necessary form; Harriet Dugdale and her husband, Eulalie and her
_fiancé_, and the solitary Mary. Major Harper alone was rather restless,
especially when the three others came in from the study. It was
noticeable that, with all his smooth manner, Frederick never seemed
quite at ease in the presence of Miss Valery. Nevertheless he tried, and
successfully, to assume his position as elder brother and present head
of the family. He gave Anne a gracious welcome.
“I scarcely expected you would have honoured us so far. This is entirely
a family meeting.”
“Shall I leave?”
“Oh, no,” cried everybody at once, “Anne is so thoroughly one of the
family.”
“Certainly,” responded Major Harper, bowing though his brows were knit.
He waited till Anne took her seat, and then sat down, silent. Many
changes, vivid, and various, passed over his flexible mouth. At last,
leaning forward, he hid it with his hand. There was a brief hush in
the men, of solemnity--in the women, of mourning. More than one tear
splashed on the black dress of the tender-hearted Mary.
Nathanael stood--the will in his hand--hesitating.
“It seems to me, that as this is a family meeting, we might--not
necessarily, but still out of kindness and respect--postpone it for a
few days, that the only remaining member of the family may be present.”
“Who is that?” said the elder brother.
“Uncle Brian.”
One or two voices, especially the Dugdales, seconded this, and eagerly
proposed to wait for Uncle Brian.
“Impossible!” Major Harper said, hastily. “I have engagements. I cannot
wait for any one.”
“But”--
“Nathanael--don't argue. Remember, I am the elder brother. Give me my
father's will.” Nathanael paused a moment, and gave it. “The seal has
been broken and re-fastened,” Frederick added, breaking it with rather
nervous hands. He tried to glance over it, but his eyes wandered
unsteadily. “There, take it and read. I hate business.”
And he threw himself back in his seat, which happened to be the old
Squire's especial chair. Agatha thought it was thoughtless of him to use
it.
Nathanael read the will aloud. It was dated ten years back, and was in
the Squire's own hand, drawn up simply, but with perfect clearness. The
division of fortune was as they all expected: a moderate funded sum to
each of the daughters and to Nathanael; the estate, with all real and
personal property, to go to the eldest son. There were a few small
bequests to servants, and one gift of the late Mrs. Harper's jewels.
“I meant them,” the old man wrote, “for my eldest son's wife.
Disappointed in this, I leave them to Anne Valery.”
Major Harper moved restlessly in his chair. Anne sat quiet. The young
Agatha looked at them, and wondered if people grew callous as they grew
old.
“Is it all read?” said Frederick.
“Yes. Stay, here are a few lines; a codicil, I fancy, affixed with seals
to the body of the will I can hardly make it out.”
And as Mr. Harper perused it, his wife observed his countenance change.
He let the paper drop, and sat silent.
“What is it? Read,”, cried Harrie Dugdale.
“I cannot--Anne, will you? God knows, brothers and sisters”--and he
looked all round the circle with an eagerly appealing gaze--“God knows
I never knew or dreamed of this. Anne, read.”
“Shall I read, Major Harper?”
He was gazing out of the window with an absent air. At the sound of her
voice he started, and gave some mechanical assent.
Anne read the date--of only twelve days back.
“That was the very day that he was taken ill, you know,” whispered Mary.
The codicil began:
“I, Nathanael Harper, being in sound mind and body, do hereby make
my last will and testament, utterly revoking all others, in so far
as relates to my two sons. I leave to my younger son, Nathanael Locke
Harper, all my landed, real, and personal estate, praying that he may
long live and maintain our name in honour at Kingcombe Holm. To my
eldest son--having no desire to expose to ruin the family estate, or
link the family name with more dishonour than it already bears--to my
eldest son, Frederick Harper, I leave the sum of One Shilling.”
Anne's reading ceased. Dead silence, utter, frightened silence,
followed. Then arose a chorus of women's voices--“Oh, Frederick!--oh,
Frederick!”
Frederick rose, feebly smiling. “It is a mistake--all a mistake. My
father was not in his right mind.”
The sisterly tide turned. “Oh, hush, Frederick! How wicked of you to say
so!”
“Well read it over again,” said Marmaduke Dugdale, waking up into the
interests of the world around him. Anne gave him the paper, and he read
it with his ponderous, manly voice, rounding out every bitter word which
Anne had softened down. All was undoubtedly legal, signed in his own
hand, and witnessed by two of his servants. There could be no doubt it
was done immediately before the paralytic attack, when he was perfectly
in his senses; indeed, he could not be said ever to have lost them.
The family sat, awed by their father's deed; to question which never
struck them for a moment--legal chicanery was not rife at Kingcombe
Holm. They looked at the disinherited brother with a sort of shrinking
wonder, as if he had done some great unknown wickedness. He might have
sat there ever so long, conscience-stricken and stupified, but this
family gaze stung him into violence.
“I say it is a cheat--how or by whom contrived I know not--but it is a
cheat. My father loved me--the only one of you who ever did. If there
was a coolness between us, he forgave me when he died. You all saw
that.”
There was no denying it. Every one remembered how the father's last
dying look of love had been on his eldest son. Again the tide of family
feeling changed. They threw doubtful glances towards Nathanael, except
his wife. But she drew closer to him, and trembled and doubted no more.
He stood, meeting the eyes of all his family. In his aspect was great
distress, but entire composure--not a shadow of hesitation or confusion.
Nor, on the other hand, was there any triumph. When he spoke--they
seemed expecting him to speak--his voice was low and steady:
“You know, brother, and all the rest of you know, that I have had no
hand in this matter.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” cried Frederick. “I only know that I have
been defrauded--disgraced.--Not by any act of my father's, or he would
not lie quiet in his grave. My father always loved me.” And the quick
feeling natural to Major Harper made him hesitate--unable to proceed.
But soon he continued, vehemently:
“I will find out this. Evil speakers, malicious, underhand hypocrites,
have turned my father against me. I declare to Heaven that I never
wronged any”--
Frederick stopped--interrupted not by words, for there was perfect
silence--but by a certain quiet look of Anne Valery's, which fastened on
his face. He turned crimson--he had so much of the woman in him, though
of womanhood in its weakest form. He glanced from Miss Valery to Agatha,
and then back again.
“Anne--Anne Valery, tell me do you know anything?”
“Everything.”
“You--even you!” For the moment, he cowered in such emotion as was
pitiful to see; but it passed and he grew desperate.
“I say, I will contest this will. It shall be proved invalid. My lawyer
Grimes”--
“Mr. Grimes has been here, and is now gone to America,” Anne whispered.
“I urged and assisted him to go, that he should not throw disgrace on
the family.”
Again Frederick cowered down, then rose, goaded to the last degree.
“Nevertheless, this will shall not stand. I will throw it into Chancery.
I will leave for London this very day.”
“Stay,” said Nathanael, starting from deep thought, and intercepting him
as he was quitting the room. “One word, Frederick.”
“Not one! You are all against me, but I will brave you all. I will have
my rights--ay, even if I plead my father's insanity.”
“Oh, horrible!” cried his sisters.
“Frederick, you know that to be impossible,” said Nathanael, sternly.
“Then I will plead what may prove a deeper disgrace to the family
than madness, or even--what I am supposed to have done,” catching his
brother's arm, and hissing out the words in his face--“I will plead
that the will is _a forgery_.”
Nathanael wrenched away his hold, thereby throwing Frederick back almost
to the floor. The two stood for a moment glaring at one another, in that
deadly animosity, most deadly when it arises between brothers,--and then
the younger recovered himself. It might be because, instantaneously as
the struggle had begun and ended, he had heard a woman's cry of terror,
and the name uttered was not “Frederick,” but “Nathanael.” Also, as he
stood, he felt two little hands steal from behind and tighten over his
own. He grew very calm then.
“Frederick, you must unsay that word. There are some things which a man
cannot bear even from his brother. No doubt can exist that this is my
father's own writing, and no forgery. You know that as well as I do.”
“As well as you do! Exactly what I meant to observe,” said Major Harper,
with his keenest and politest sneer.
Nathanael moved back. A man's roused passions are always terrible;
but there is something ten times more awful in fury that is altogether
calm--molten down as it were to a white heat. Never but once--that
uneffaceable _once_--had Agatha seen her husband look as he looked now.
“Pause one minute, Frederick. If you had waited and heard me speak----”
“I dare you to speak!”
“It would be better not to dare me. I am at my last ebb of patience.
I have kept faithfully my promise to you. None of our family know--not
even my own wife--all that is known by you and me, and our father whom
we buried yesterday. I would have saved him from the knowledge if I
could, but it was not to be. Now, take care. If you drive me to it”--
He hesitated. Agatha felt his hand--the thin boyish hand--grow cold as
ice and rigid as iron. She uttered a faint cry.
“Agatha, my wife,” with the old sweetness in the whisper, “go and sit
down. Leave me to reason with my brother.”
“No, let _me_ do that,” said one coming between. It was Anne Valery.
She had risen from the chair where, during almost all this time, she
had sat like a statue, only none watched her, not even Agatha. When she
rose, it was with a motion so slow and gliding, her soft black dress
scarcely rustling as she moved, that Frederick Harper might well start,
thinking a supernatural touch was on his arm.
“Anne, is it you? I had forgotten you. No”--he muttered, half to
himself, turning from the contest with his brother to gaze on her--“no,
I never did--never do forget you.”
“I believe that. Come and speak to me here.”
Unresisted, she put her arm in his, and led him away to the deep
bay-window, circled with a low-cushioned sill, such as delights
children. Anne sat down.
“Are you determined on this cruel course?”
“I must recover my rights,” was the sullen answer. “Any man would.”
“And when you have done this--supposing it practicable--what further do
you purpose?”
“What further?” He looked puzzled, but at last perceived her meaning.
With an impulse eagerly caught, as Major Harper caught all impulses,
good and ill, he cried--“Yes, I understand you. My first act, on coming
to my property shall be to right poor Agatha.”
“I thought so,” said Anne, kindly. “But you will not be able. There
are others whose claims will be upon you the instant you have money
to satisfy them--the shareholders. They know nothing of Agatha Bowen.
Remember you expended her fortune as you worked the mine--_in your own
name._”
Major Harper looked confounded with shame. “And you knew all this,
Anne--you! For how long?”
“For some months--ever since I bought Wheal Caroline.”
“And you never betrayed me!”
“We were playfellows, Frederick.” She spoke softly, and turned her face
to the other side of the bay-window.
He forgot she was old now--he remembered only the familiar voice and
attitude, the same as when in her girlish days she used to sit on the
cushioned window-sill and talk with him for hours.
“Playfellows! Was that all, Anne? Only playfellows?”
“Only playfellows,” she repeated firmly. “Never anything more. You
knew that always.” And, perhaps unconsciously, Anne looked down on a
ring--plain, not unlike a childish keepsake--which she always wore on
the wedding-finger of her left hand.
Major Harper sighed, not one of his sentimental sighs, but one from the
deeps of his heart. A smile, hollow and sad, followed it. “I suppose it
is idle talking now, but--but--you were my first-love, Anne! If things
had gone differently, I might have been a different man.”
“Not so. God ordained your fate, not I. No man need be ruined for life
because a woman cannot love him. Human beings hang not on one another
in that blind way. We have each an individual soul; on another soul
may rest all its hopes and joys, but on God only rests its worth,
its duties, and its nobility. We may live to do His work, and rejoice
therein, long after we have forgotten the very sound of that idle
word--happiness.”
She paused.
“Go on; you talk as you always used to do.”
“Not quite,” said Anne, with a faint smile; “I am hardly strong enough.
Frederick,” and her eyes had their former lovely, earnest look--earnest
almost to tears, save that girl-tears had from them long been
dried,--“Frederick, for the sake of our olden days--of your mother whom
we both loved--of your father who has gone to her--listen to me for a
little. Trust to your brother--he will not act unjustly. Do not create
dissensions in your family; do not let people say that the moment Mr.
Harper's head was laid in the grave his children quarrelled over his
property.”
“I do not quarrel--I but take my right,” cried Major Harper, becoming
again the “man of the world,” as he saw, the curious glances that from
time to time reached the bay-window. “Thank you for this good advice;
for which my brother owes you even more than I. But I am not a child
now, nor a boy in love, to be talked over by a woman.”
Miss Valery rose, rather proudly. “Nor am I that woman, Major Harper.
But I have been so long united in affection with your family; I could
not bear to think it would be brought to dishonour. Surely--surely _you_
will not be the one to do it.”
Again as he turned to go, she drew him back by those earnest eyes.
“Frederick, it would grieve me so, ay, break my heart, to see them
brought into open shame, the old familiar home, and the name--the dear,
dear name.”
Major Harper's bitter tongue burst its control and stung. “I now see
your motive. Everybody knows how very dearly Anne Valery has all her
life loved the Harper name.”
Anne rose to her full height, and a blush, vivid as a girl's, dyed her
cheek. “I have,” she said--“I have loved it, and I am not ashamed.”
The blush paled--she sank back on the window-sill. Major Harper was
alarmed.
“Anne--how ill you look! What have I done to you?”
“Nothing,” she answered; and, catching his arm, drew herself upright
once more.
“Frederick, we were children together, and you loved me; some day you
will remember that. Afterwards we grew up young people, and, still
thinking you loved me--but it was only vanity then--you did me a great
wrong; I will not say how, or when, or why, and no one knows the fact
save me--but you did it. You did the same wrong to another lately.”
“How--how?”
“You said to Mrs. Thornycroft--you see I have learnt all, for I wrote
and asked her--you said that you 'feared' poor little Agatha loved you,
and”--
“I know--I know.”
“You know, too, that vanity misled you; that it was not true. But it was
a wicked thing to say; trifling with a woman's honour--torturing those
who loved her--bringing on her worlds of suffering. Still, she is young,
and her suffering may end in joy;--mine”--
Anne paused; the human nature struggled hard within her breast--she was
not quite old yet. At length it calmed down--that last anguished cry of
the soul against its appointed destiny.
She took her old playmate by the hand, saying gently,
“I am going away soon--going _home_. Before I go, I would like to say,
as I used to do when you were unkind to me as a child, 'Good-night, and
I forgive Fred everything.'”
“Oh, Anne--Anne.” He kissed her hand in strong emotion.
“Hush! I cannot talk more,” she went on quickly. “You will do as I ask?
You will wait until--until”--
She stopped speaking, and put her handkerchief to her lips. Slowly,
slowly, red drops shone through its folds. Major Harper called wildly
for his sisters.
“I knew how it would be,” cried Mary Harper. “It has happened twice
before, and Doctor Mason said if it happened again”--
“Oh, God forgive me!” groaned Frederick, as his brother carried Anne
Valery away. “She will die--and I shall have killed her!”