“They are sure to be home to-morrow; nothing can prevent their being
home to-morrow,” said Agatha, as she read over neither for the first
time, nor the second, nor the third, her husband's letter, received from
Havre.
It was night now, and they were sitting by the fire in Miss Valery's
dressing-room. It had been one of Anne's best days; a wonderfully good
day; she had walked about the house, and given several orders to her
delighted servants, who, old as they were, would have obeyed the most
onerous commands for the pleasure of seeing their mistress strong enough
to give them. Some, however, wondered why she should be so particular
about the order of a house that never was in disorder, and especially
why various furniture arrangements which had gradually in the course of
time been altered, should be pertinaciously restored, so that all things
might look just as they did years and years ago. Also, though it was
a few days in advance of the orthodox day, she would have the house
adorned with “Christmas,” until it looked a perfect bower.
“It do seem, Mrs. Harper,” said the old housekeeper, confidentially--“it
do seem just as on the last merry Christmas, afore the family was broke
up, and Mr. Frederick turned soldier, and Mr. Locke Harper--that's his
uncle--went away with little Master Nathanael, Mr. Locke Harper as is
now.”
And Agatha had laughed very heartily at the idea of her husband being
“little Master Nathanael;” but she had not told this conversation to
Anne Valery.
All afternoon the house had been oppressively lively, thanks to a visit
from the Dugdale children; which little elves were sent out of the way
while their mother performed the not unnecessary duty of putting her
establishment in order. For Harrie was determined that her house,
and none other, should have the honour of receiving Uncle Brian. As
Nathanael had taken for granted the same thing, and as Mary Harper had
likewise communicated her opinion, that it was against all etiquette for
her poor father's only brother to be welcomed anywhere but at Kingcombe
Holm, there seemed likely to be a tolerable family fight over the
possession of the said Uncle Brian.
The little Dugdales had talked of him incessantly all day, communicating
their expectations concerning him in such a funny fashion that Agatha
was ready to die with laughing, and even Anne, who had insisted on
having the children about her, was heard to laugh sometimes. She let
little Brian climb about her sofa, and answered all sorts of eccentric
questions from the others, never seeming weary. At last, when the sound
of merry, young voices had died out of the house, and its large, lofty
rooms grew solemn with the wailing of the wind, Anne had retreated to
her dressing-room, where she sat watching the fire-light, or answering
in fragments to Agatha's conversation.
This conversation was wandering enough; catching up various topics, and
then letting them drop like broken threads, but all winding themselves
into one and the same subject “They will be home to-morrow.”
“I hope, nay, I am sure of it, God willing!” said Anne, softly. “He
often puts hindrances in our way, but in the end He always works things
round, and we see them clearly afterwards. Still we ought hardly to
say even of the strongest love or dearest wish we have, 'It _must_
be!' without also saying 'God willing.'”
Agatha replied not. This was a new doctrine for her. How rarely in her
young, passionless, sorrowless life, she had thought of the few words,
oft used in cant, and Agatha hated all cant--“the will of God.” She
pondered over them much.
“What sort of a night is it” said Anne, at length.
“Very dreary and rainy, and the wind is high.”
“No matter, it will not reach them. The _Ardente_ will be safe in
Southampton-water by this time.”
Agatha recurred to the perpetual letter; “Yes, so my husband tells me
here.”
“And therefore,” Miss Valery continued, laying her hand over the paper,
“his good little wife shall fold up this, and not weary herself any more
with anxiety about him. Those who love ought above all others to trust
in the love of God.”
After this they sat patient and content--nay, oftentimes quite merry,
for Agatha strove hard to amuse her companion. And the wind sang its
song without--not threateningly, but rather in mirth; and the fire
burnt brightly, within. And no one thought of them but as friends and
servants--the terrible Wind, the devouring Fire.
It was growing late, and Agatha began to use the petty tyranny with
which Miss Valery had invested her, insisting on her friend's going to
bed.
“I will presently; only give me time--a little time. I am not so young
as you, my child, and have not so many hours to waste in sleeping. There
now, I'll be good. Wait--you see I am already pulling down my hair.”
She did so, rather feebly. It fell on her shoulders longer and thicker
than any one would have believed--it was really beautiful, except for
those broad white streaks.
“What soft fine hair,” cried Agatha, admiringly. “Ah, you shall go
without caps in the spring--I declare you shall.”
“Not at my age.”
“That cannot be so very ancient. I shouldn't mind asking you the direct
question, for I am sure you are not one of those foolish women who are
ashamed to tell their age, as if any number of years matters while we
keep a young warm heart.”
“I am thirty-nine or forty, I forget which,” said Anne, as she drew
her fingers through the long locks, gazing down on them with some
pensiveness. “I myself never liked hair of this colour, neither brown
nor black; but mine was always soft and smooth, and some people used to
think it _pretty_ once.”
“It is pretty now. You will always be beautiful, dear, dear Anne! I
will call you Anne, for you are scarcely older than I, except in a few
contemptible years not worth mentioning,” continued the girl, sturdily.
“And I will have you as happy, too, as I.”
Anne sat silent a minute or two, the hair dropping over her face. Then
she raised it and looked into the fire with a calm sweet look that
Agatha thought perfectly divine.
“I have been happy,” she said. “That is I have not been unhappy--God
knows I have not. I have had a great deal to do always, and in all my
labour was there profit. It comforted me, and helped to comfort others;
it made me feel that my life was not wholly thrown away, as many an
unmarried woman's is, but as no one's ever need be.”
“But some are. Think of Jane Ianson, of whom Emma wrote me word
yesterday. If ever any woman spent a mournful, useless life, and died of
a broken heart, it was poor Jane Ianson.”
“Her story was pitiful, but she somewhat erred,” Anne answered,
thoughtfully. “No human being _ought_ to die of a 'broken heart' (as the
phrase is) while God is in His heaven, and has work to be done upon His
earth. There are but two things that can really throw a lasting shadow
over woman's existence--an unworthy love, and a lost love. The first
ought to be rooted out at all risks; for the other--let it stay! There
are more things in life than mere marrying and being happy. And for
love--a high, pure, holy love, held ever faithful to one object,”--and
as she spoke, Anne's whole face lightened and grew young--“no fortune or
misfortune--no time or distance--no power either in earth or heaven can
alter _that_.”
There was a pause, during which the two women sat silent and grave. And
the wind howled round the house, and the fire crackled harmlessly in the
chimney, but they noticed neither--the fierce Wind--the awful Fire.
“It is a wild night,” said Agatha at last. “But they are landed at
Southampton long ago. Last night was lovely--such a moon! and they were
sure to sail, because the _Ardente_ only plies once a week, and there
is no other boat this winter-time. Oh, yes! they are quite safe in
Southampton. I shouldn't wonder if they were both here to breakfast
to-morrow.”
And Agatha, with her little heart beating quick, merrily, and fast,
never thought to look at her companion. Anne's eyes were dilated, her
lips quivering--all her serenity was gone.
“To-morrow--to-morrow,” she murmured, and as with a sudden pain, put
her hand to her chest, breathing hard and rapidly. “Agatha, hold me
fast--don't let me go--just for a little while.--I _cannot_ go!”
She clung to the young girl with a pallid, frightened aspect, like one
who looks down into a place of darkness, and shudders on its verge.
Never before had that expression been seen in Anne Valery. Slowly it
passed away, leaving the calmness that was habitual to her. Agatha hung
round her neck, and kissed her into smiles.
“Now,” she said, rising, “let us both go to bed. You look tired, my
child, and we must have your very best looks when you make breakfast for
_them_ in the morning. That is, if they both come here.”
“They will come--my husband says so. He knows, and is determined that
Uncle Brian shall know--everything.”
Anne sat still--so still, that her young companion was afraid she had
vexed her.
“No, dear--not vexed. But no human being can know everything! It lies
between him and me--and God.”
So saying, she rose, fastened up the long hair in which the last
lingering beauty of her youth lay--put on her little close cap, and was
again the composed gentle lady of middle age.
She rung for the housekeeper, and gave various orders for the morning,
desiring a few trivial additions to the breakfast, which would have made
Agatha smile, but that she noted a slight hesitation in the voice that
ordered them.
“Is there anything your husband would like especially? I don't quite
understand his ways.”
Agatha blushed as she answered--“Nor I.”
“You will not answer so in a few months hence,” said Anne, when they
were alone. “It is a very unromantic doctrine, but few young wives know
how much the happiness of a home depends on little things--that is, if
anything can be little which is done for _his_ comfort, and is pleasant
to _him_. There's a lecture for you, Mistress Agatha. Now go to bed, and
rise in the morning to begin a new era, as the happiest and best wife in
all England.”
“I will,” cried Agatha, laughing, though with a tear or two in her eyes.
To think how much Anne had guessed of the wretched past, yet, with true
delicacy, how entirely she had concealed that knowledge!
They embraced silently, and then Miss Valery went into her own room,
where, year after year, when all the duties and cheerfulness of the day
were done, the solitary woman had shut herself in--alone with her own
heart and with God. The young wife stood and looked with thoughtful
reverence at the closed door of that room.
It was eleven o'clock, yet somehow Mrs. Harper did not feel inclined to
go to bed. She had too many things to think of, too many plans to make
and resolutions to form. Her life must settle itself calmly now. Its
trouble, tumult, and uncertainty were over. She felt quite sure of her
husband's goodness--of his deep and tender love for herself--nay, also
of her own for him--only that was a different sort of feeling. She
thought less on this than on the other side of the subject--how sweet it
was to be so dear to him. She would try and deserve him more--be to him
a faithful wife and a good house-wife, and make herself happy in his
devotion.
She smiled as she passed through the hall where he had stood and said,
“Do you love me?” She wished she had frankly answered “Yes,” as was
indeed the truth; only his strong love had lately made her own seem so
poor and weak.
Lingering on the spot which his feet had last pressed, she tried to
fancy him beside her, and acted the scene over again, “making believe,”
childish fashion, that she stood on tiptoe attempting to reach up to
his mouth--a very long way!--and there breathing out the “Yes” in a
perfectly justifiable and unquestionable fashion. And then she laughed
at her own conceit--the foolish little wife!--and tripped off into the
drawing-room, lest the old butler, who always went round the house at
midnight to see that all was safe, might catch her at her antics.
Still, were they not quite natural? Was she not a very happy and
fondly-worshipped wife? and was not her husband coming home the next
morning?
Entering the drawing-room, her high spirits were somewhat sobered
down; its atmosphere felt so gloomy and cold. The fire had nearly died
out--the ill-natured fire, that did not know there was a cheerful little
woman coming to sit beside it and dream of all sorts of pleasant things.
“I wish fires would never go out,” said Agatha, rather crossly; and
she stirred it, and blew it, and cherished it, as if it were the only
pleasant companion in this dreary room.
“How I do love fire,” she said at last, as she sat down on the
hearth-rug and warmed her little feet and hands by the blaze, and would
not look in the dark corners of the room, but kept her face turned from
them, as during her life she had kept it turned away from all gloomy
subjects. Passionate anguish of her own making, she had known; but that
stern, irremediable sorrow which comes direct from the unseen Mover of
all things and lays its heavy hand on the sufferer's head, saying, “Be
still, and know that I am God”--this teaching, which must come to every
human soul that is worth its destiny, had never yet come to Agatha
Harper.
Was it this unknown something even now tracking her, that made her long
for the familiar daylight, and feel afraid of night, with its silence,
its solitude, and its dark?
“I will go to bed and try to sleep,” she said. “It is but a few hours.
My husband is certain to be here in the morning.”
She rose, laughed at herself for starting on some slight noise in the
quiet house--old Andrews locking up the front door, probably--snuffed
her candle to make it as bright as possible, and prepared to go
up-stairs.
A light knock at the door.
“Come in, Andrews. The fire is all safe, and I shall vanish now.”
She said this without looking round. When she did look she was somewhat
surprised to see, not the butler, but Marmaduke Dugdale. It was odd,
certainly, but then Duke had such very odd ways, and was always turning
up at impossible hours and in eccentric fashion. He looked eccentric
enough now, being thoroughly drenched with rain, with a queer, scared
expression on his face.
Agatha was amused by it. “Why, what a late visitor! The children are
gone home hours ago, though they waited ever so long for 'Pa.' Have you
been all this while at Mr. Trenchard's?”
“I haven't been there at all.”
Agatha smiled.
“Don't'ee laugh--now don't'ee, Mrs. Harper.” And Duke sat down, pushing
the dripping hair from his forehead, pulling his face into all sorts of
contortions, until at last it sunk between his hands, and those clear,
honest, always beautiful eyes, alone confronted her. There was that in
their expression which startled Agatha.
“What did you come for so late, Mr. Dugdale?”
“What did I come for?” he vaguely repeated. “Now don't'ee tremble so. We
must hope for the best, my child.”
Agatha felt a sudden stoppage at the heart which took away her.
breath. “Tell me--quick; I shall not be frightened;--he is coming home
to-morrow.”
“My dear child!” muttered Duke again, as he held out his hands to her,
and she saw that tears were dropping over his cheeks.
Agatha clutched at the hands threateningly--she felt herself going wild.
“Tell me, I say. If you don't--I'll----”--
“Hush--I'll tell you--only hush!--think of poor Anne! And there's hope
yet. Only they have not come into Southampton-roads--and last night
there was a fire seen far out at sea--and it might have been a ship, you
know.”
Thus disconnectedly Marmaduke broke his terrible news. Agatha received
them with a wild stare.
“It's impossible--totally impossible,” she cried, uttering sounds
that were half shrieking, half laughter. “Absolutely, ridiculously
impossible. I'll not believe it--not a word. It's impossible--
_impossible!_”
And gasping out that one word, over and over again, fiercely and fast,
she walked up and down the room like one distraught. She was indeed
quite mad. She had not any sense of anything. She never once thought
of weeping, or fainting, or doing anything but shriek out to earth
and Heaven that one denunciation--that such a thing was and must
be--“_impossible!_”
Marmaduke caught her--she flung him aside.
“Don't touch me--don't speak to me! I say it's _impossible!_”
“Child!” And his look became more grave and commanding than any one
would have believed of the Dugdale. “Dare not to say impossible! It is
sinning against God.”
Agatha stopped in her frenzied walk. Of a sudden came the horrible
thought that _it might be_--that the hand might have been lifted--have
fallen, striking the whole world from her at one blow.
“Oh God!--oh merciful God!”
In that cry, scarcely louder than a moan, yet strong and wild enough to
pierce the heavens, Agatha knew how she loved her husband. Not calmly,
not meekly, but with that terrible love which is to the heart as life
itself.
Of the next few minutes that passed over her no one could write--no one
would dare. It was utter insanity, yet with a perfect knowledge of
its state. Madness, stone-blind, stone-deaf--that uttered no cry, and
poured out no tears. She walked swiftly up and down the room, her hands
clenched, her features rigid as iron. Mr. Dugdale and old Andrews could
only watch pitifully, saying at times--which may all good Christians say
likewise!--“God have mercy upon her.”
No one else came near--the servants were all asleep, and Miss Valery's
room was in another part of the house. Possibly she slept too--poor
Anne!
“Now,” said Agatha, in a cold, hard voice, clutching Marmaduke's arm,
“I want to know all about it. I don't believe it, mind you!--not one
word--but I would like to hear. Just tell me. How did you get the news?”
“From Southampton, to-night. It happened last night A steamer saw the
burning ship, and went, but the fire had already reached to the water's
edge. There was not a soul in or near the wreck when it went down.”
Agatha shuddered, and then said, in the same hard voice: “It was some
other ship--not the _Ardente_.”
Marmaduke shook his head, drearily. “They found a spar with 'Ardente'
upon it. But they saw no boats, and some people think, as there were but
few passengers, they all got safe off, and may reach the shore.”
“Of course they will!--I was sure of that;” returned Agatha, in the same
wild, determined tone. “Let me see! it was a quiet night. I stood a long
time looking at the moon--Ah!”
The ghastly thought of her standing there looking up at the moon, and
the pitiless moon looking down on the sea and on him! Agatha's senses
reeled--she burst into the most awful laughter.
Marmaduke held her fast--the whimsical absent Marmaduke--now roused into
his true character, kind, as any woman, and wiser than most men.
“Agatha, you must be quiet. It is wicked ever to despair. There is a
chance--more than a chance, that your husband has been saved. He has
infinite presence of mind, and he is a young, strong, likely lad. But
Brian--poor Brian! my dear old friend!”
Duke Dugdale's bravery gave way--he was of such a gentle, tender heart.
The sight of his emotion stilled Agatha's frenzy, and made it more like
a natural grief, though it was hard yet--hard as stone.
“Come,” she said, taking his hand, and smiling piteously--“come--don't
cry. I can't!--not for the world. Let us talk. What are you going to
do?”
“I am going right off to Southampton--whence they have sent steamers out
in all directions to pick up the boats, if they are drifting anywhere
about the Channel. Fancy--to be out in the open sea, this winter-time,
with possibly no clothes or food!”
“Hush!”--shuddered Agatha's low voice--“hush! or I shall go quite mad,
and I would rather not just yet--_afterwards_, I shall not mind.”
“Poor child!”
“Don't now,” and she shrank from him. “Never think of me--_that_ does
not signify. Only something must be done. No weeping--no talking--_do_
something!”
“I told you I should. I am going”--
“Go then!” Her quick speech--the wild stamp of her foot--poor child, how
mad she was still!
Mr. Dugdale took no notice except by a compassionate look--perhaps
he, too, felt there was no time to lose. He went towards the door--she
following.
“I am off now--I shall catch the train in two hours,” said he,
springing on his horse in the dark wet night. “Harrie will be with you
directly--only she thought I had better come first. Go in--go in--my
poor child.”
Agatha obeyed mechanically, for the moment She walked about the house,
in at one room and out at another, meeting no person--for Andrews had
gone to call up some of the servants. The heavy quiet around stifled
her. Faster and faster she walked--clutching her hands on her throat for
breath--sometimes uttering, with a sort of laughing shriek, the one word
in which seemed her only salvation--“Impossible!--utterly and entirely
impossible!”
She sat down for a moment, trying to think over more clearly the chances
of the case--but to keep still was beyond her power. She resumed that
rapid walk as if she were flying through an atmosphere of invisible
fiends. It felt like it.
Once, by a superhuman effort, she drove her mind to contemplate the
_possible_--the winds, the flames, the waves, and him struggling among
them. She saw the face which she had last seen so life-like--as a _dead
face_, with its pale, pure features and fair hair. And even that face
never to be again seen by her through any possible chance! For him to
be blotted out altogether from the world, and she left therein! “Oh,
God--oh, God!” The despairing, accusing shriek that she sent up to His
mercy!--May His mercy have received and forgiven it!
She began to count up the hours that must pass before she could receive
any tidings, good or ill. To stay quietly in the house and wait for
them!--you might as well have told a poor wretch to sit still and wait
for the bursting of a mine. No rest--no rest. The very walls of the
house seemed to press upon her and hem her in. She saw a bonnet and
shawl hanging up in the hall, caught both, and ran out at the front
door.
Out--out under the stars. She walked with her face lifted right up to
them, her eyes flashing out an insane defiance to their merciless calm.
The rain fell down thick, and it was very cold, but she never thought
of putting on the bonnet or the shawl; or, if she thought at all, it was
with a sort of longing that the rain might come and cool her through and
through, or the sharp wind pierce to her breast and kill her. Once she
had a thought of running a mile or two across the hills, and leaping
from some cliffs into the sea; so that, whichever way this suspense
ended, she might be safely dead beforehand--dead, too, in the same
ocean, washed by the same wave. All the foolish Romeo-and-Juliet-like
traditions of people killing themselves on some beloved's tomb, seemed
to her now perfectly real, possible, and natural. Nothing was unnatural
or impossible--save living.
How to live, even for a day, an hour, in this horrible, deathly
stagnation, she did not know. At last, walking on blindly through the
night, she came to the termination of the Thornhurst estate. Was she to
go back and lull herself into the stupor of patience?--to be kissed
and wept over, and preached resignation to?--left to sit mutely in
that quiet house, while he was dashed about, fighting with the sea for
life?--or watching the clock's travelling round hour after hour, not
knowing but that every peaceful minute might be the terrible one in
which he died?
“No,” she said to herself, while the awful but delirious joy which has
struck many in a similar position, struck her suddenly, “he is not dead.
If he had died, he would have told me--me whom he so loved He could
not die anywhere, or at any time, but in some way or other I should
certainly have known it.”
And as she stood in the dark road--quite alone with the hills and stars,
calmed down into a supernatural awe, Agatha almost expected to see her
husband stand before her in the old familiar likeness. She would not
have been afraid.
But no apparition came. All nature, visible and invisible, was silent
to her misery. If she went back to the house, all there would be silent
too.
She took her resolution--though it could hardly be called a resolution,
being merely the blind impulse of despair. She climbed over the
gate--she had not wit enough to unfasten it--and ran, swift and silent
as some wild animal, along the road to Kingcombe.
The rain ceased, and her dripping clothes dried of themselves, so as not
to encumber her movements. By some happy chance her feet were well shod,
and now, gathering her wits as she went, she put on the shawl--not the
bonnet, her head burned so, and felt so wild Just then, far into the
darkness, she heard wheels rolling and rolling. It was Mrs. Dugdale
driving along rapidly towards Thornhurst--but without one slash of the
whip or one word of conversation with Dunce. When she stopped to open a
gate the glare of the chaise-lamps showed the little black figure by the
roadside. Harrie screamed--she thought it was a ghost.
“Any news? any news?”
“Gracious! is it you, child? No news--none! Get up, quick, and come
home.”
But Agatha fled on and on, noticing nothing, except once, when with a
start she saw the great black outline of Corfe Castle looming against
the night-sky.
[Illustration: Along the road page 394]
When she reached Kingcombe, it was still dark. She could not even have
found her way, save for the faint sky brightness lent by the overcast
moon; and the distance she had traversed was all but miraculous.
It seemed as if she had not walked by natural feet, but some unseen
influence had drawn and lifted her the whole way. When she stood in
Kingcombe streets she hardly believed her senses--save that nothing
was hard of belief just then, except the one horror--incredible,
unutterable.
Mr. Dugdale was walking up and down Kingcombe railway station, waiting
for the early train. One or two sleepy porters were eyeing him with
a sort of pitying curiosity, for ill news spreads fast in a country
neighbourhood. There was no one else about. Nobody perceived a little
figure creeping up the road and coming on the platform. Even Marmaduke
did not lift his eyes or relax his melancholy walk until something
touched him on the arm. He stood astonished.
“It is I, you see. You are not gone yet.”
“How did you come--you poor child?”
“From Thornhurst--I walked. But how soon shall you start?”
“Walked from Thornhurst!--at this time of night!” said one of the
railway-men, who knew the family--as indeed did every one in the
neighbourhood. “Lord help us--it's that poor Mrs. Harper!”
Mr. Dugdale tried to remove Agatha from the platform, but she resisted.
“I am come to go with you to Southampton.”
“What need of that? Go back to my house, poor child. If anything is to
be done I can do it. If nothing--why”--
“I _will_ go.”
The determination was so calm, the grasp of the little hand so strong,
that her brother-in-law urged no more. He went in his quiet way to take
her ticket, the railway folk moving respectfully aside, and whispering
among themselves something about “poor Mrs. Harper, that was going to
Southampton to see after her husband.”
Coming back, Duke attempted not to talk to her, but stood by her
side--she would stand--sometimes feeling at her damp shawl, or wrapping
her up in the tender careful fashion that he used to his own little
ones. At last the great fiery eye, accompanied by the iron beast's
snorting gasps, appeared far in the dark. Agatha drew a long breath,
like a sob.
Mr. Dugdale lifted her in the carriage, almost without a word. One of
the railway-men brought from somewhere--nobody ever learned where--a rug
for her feet, and a pillow for her head to lean on. A minute more, and
they were whirled away.