Nathanael said, with a visible effort, “To-day I learnt from my brother several rather painful circumstances—some which I was ignorant of—one”—his voice grew cold and hard—“one which I already knew, and knew to be irremediable.”
His wife looked much alarmed; seeing it, he forced a smile.
“But what is irremediable can and must be borne. I can bear things better, perhaps, than most people. The other cares may be removed by time and—silence. To that end I have promised Frederick to keep his confidence secret from every one, even from my own wife, for a year to come. A sacrifice harder than you think; but it must be made, and I have made it.”
Agatha turned away, saying bitterly; “Your wife ought to thank you! She was not aware until now how wondrously well you loved your brother.”
There was a heavy silence, and then Mr. Harper said, in a hoarse voice, “Did you ever hear the story of a man who plunged into a river to save the life of an enemy, and when asked why he did it, answered, 'It was because hewasan enemy?”
“I do not understand you,” cried Agatha.
“No”—her husband returned, hastily—“better not. A foolish, meaningless story. What were we talking about?”
He—when her heart was bursting with vexation and wounded feeling—he pretended to treat all so lightly that he did not even remember what they were saying! It was more than Agatha could endure.
Had he been irritated like herself—had he shown annoyance, pain—had they even come to a positive quarrel—for love will sometimes quarrel, and take comfort therein—it would have been less trying to a girl of her temperament. But that grave superior calm of unvarying kindness—her poor angry spirit beat against it like waves against a shining rock.
“We were talking of what, had I considered the matter a month ago, I might possibly have saved myself the necessity of discussing or practising—a wife's blind obedience to her husband.”
“Agatha!”
“When I married,” she recklessly pursued, “I did not think what I was doing. It is hard enough blindly to obey even those whom one has known long—trusted long—loved long—but you”—
“I understand. Hush! there needs not another word.”
Agatha began to hesitate. She had only wished to make him feel—to shake him from that rigid quietude which to her was so trying. She had not intended to wound him so.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked at length.
“No, not angry. No reproaches of yours can be more bitter than my own.”
She was just about to ask him what he meant—nay, she even considered whether her woman's pride might not stoop to draw aside the tight-pressed hands, entreating him to look up and forgive her and love her, when in burst Mrs. Thornycroft.
“Oh—so glad to catch you—have not a minute to spare, for James is waiting. Where is your husband?”
Mr. Harper had risen, and stood in the shadow, where his face was not easily visible. Agatha wondered to see him so erect and calm, while her own cheeks were burning, and every word she tried to utter she had to gulp down a burst of tears.
“Mr. Harper, it was you I wanted—to ask your decision about the house. A mere formality. But I thought I would just call as we went to grandmamma's, and then I can settle everything for you to-morrow morning.”
“You are very kind, but”—
“Oh, perhaps you would rather see the house yourself! Quite right. Of course you will take it!”
“I fear not.”
Agatha, as well as Mrs. Thornycroft, was so utterly astonished, that neither of them could make any observation. To give up the house, and all her dear home-visions! She was aghast at the idea.
“Bless me, what does your husband mean? Mr. Harper, what possible objection?——”—
“None, except we have changed our plans. It is quite uncertain how long we may stay at Kingcombe Holm, or where we may go from thence.”
“Not to America, surely? You would not break your word to poor dear Agatha?”
“I never break my word.”
“Well, Mr. Harper, I declare I can't understand you,” cried Emma, sharply. “I only hope that Agatha does. Is all this with your knowledge and consent, my poor child?”
She said this, eyeing the husband with doubt and the wife with curiosity, as if disposed to put herself in the breach between the two, if breach there were.
Agatha heard Nathanael's quick breathing—caught her friend's look of patronising compassion. Something of the dignity of marriage, the shame lest any third party should share or even witness aught that passes between those two who have now become one—awoke in the young girl's spirit. The feeling was partly pride, yet mingled with something far holier.
She put Emma gently aside.
“Whatever my husband's decision may be, I am quite satisfied therewith.”
Mrs. Thornycroft was mute with amazement However, she was too good-natured to be really angry. “Certainly, you are the most extraordinary, incomprehensible young couple! But I can't stay to discuss the matter. Agatha, I shall see you to-morrow?”
“Yes; I will bring her to you to-morrow,” said Mr. Harper, cheerfully, as their visitor departed.
The husband and wife regarded one another in silence. At last he said, taking her hand:
“I owe you thanks, Agatha, for”—
“For doing my duty. I hope I shall never forget that.”
At the word “duty,” so coldly uttered, Mr. Harper had let her hand fall He stood motionless, leaning against the marble chimney-piece, his face as white as the marble itself, and, in Agatha's fancy, as hard.
“Have you, then, quite decided against our taking the house?” she asked at length.
“I find it will be impossible.”
“Why so? But I forget; it is useless to askyouquestions.”
He made no reply.
“Pardon my inquiry, but do you still keep to your plan of leaving next week for Dorsetshire?”
“If you are willing.”
“I willing?” And she thought how, two hours before, she had rejoiced in the prospect of seeing her husband's ancestral home—her father-in-law—her new sisters. Her heart failed her—the poor girlish heart that as yet knew not either the world or itself. She burst into tears.
Instantly Mr. Harper caught her in his arms.
“Oh, Agatha, forgive me!—Have patience with me, and we may still be happy; at least, you may. Only trust your husband, and love him a little—a very little—as much as you can.”
“How can I trust you, whom I do not thoroughly understand? how can I—love”—
Her hesitation—her pride warring with the expression of that feeling which her very anger taught her was there—seemed to pierce her husband to the soul.
“I see,” he said, mournfully. “We are both punished, Agatha; I for the selfishness of my love towards you, and you—Alas! how can I make you happier, poor child?” Her tears fell still, but less with anger than emotion. “I know now, we ought never to have been married. Yet, since we are married”—
“Ay, since we are married, let us try to be good to one another, and bear with one another. I will!”
She kissed his hand, which held up her drooping head, and Nathanael pressed his lips on her forehead. So outward peace was made between them; but in sadness and in fear, like a compact sealed tremblingly over a newly-closed grave.
“And this is Dorsetshire! What a sharp bleak wind!” said Agatha, shivering.
Her husband, who was driving her in a phaeton which had met them at the railway station, turned to wrap a cloak round her.
“Except in the height of summer it is always cold across these moors. But we shall soon be safe at Kingcombe Holm. Are you very tired?”
She answered “No,” which was hardly the truth. Yet her heart was more weary than her limbs.
During the few days that elapsed between Major Harper's visit and their quitting London, she had scarcely seen her husband. He had been out continually, coming home to dinner tired and exhausted, though afterwards he always tried to talk and be cheerful. To her surprise, Major Harper never again called, nor, except in the brief answer to her question, “that Frederick was gone from home,” did Nathanael ever mention his brother's name.
“This is Kingcombe,” said Mr. Harper, as they drove through a little town, which Agatha, half blinded by the wind, scarcely opened her eyes to look at. “My sister, Mrs. Dugdale, lives here. I thought they might have met us at the station; but the Dugdales are always late. Ah, there he is!”
“Who?”
“My brother-in-law, Marmaduke Dugdale—or 'Duke Dugdale,' as everybody about here calls him. Holloa, Duke!”
And Agatha, through her blue veil, “was ware,” as old chronicles say, of a country-looking gentleman coming down the street in a mild, lazy, dreamy fashion, his hat pushed up at a considerable elevation from his forehead, leaving a mass of light hair straggling out at the back, his eyes bent thoughtfully on the pavement, and his hands crossed behind him.
“Holloa, Duke!” cried Nathanael, for the second time, before he caught the attention of this very abstracted personage.
“Eh—is it you? You don't say so! E—h!”
Agatha was amused by the long, sweet-sounding drawl of the last monosyllable, which seemed formed out of all the five vowels rolled into one. It was said in such a pleasant voice, with such a simple, child-like air of delighted astonishment, that Agatha, conquering her shyness at this first meeting with one of her husband's family, peeped behind Nathanael's shoulder at Mr. Dugdale.
She saw—what to her keen sense of beauty was a considerable shock—the very plainest man she thought she had ever beheld!
“Mr. Dugdale—my wife.”
“Indeed! Very glad to see her.” And Agatha who was intending merely to bow, felt her hand buried in another thrice its size, which gave it a shy, gentle, but thoroughly cordial shake. “And really, now I think of it, I was coming to meet you. The Missus told me to do it.”
“How is 'the Missus?'” asked Mr. Harper.
“Quite well—they're all waiting for you. So make haste—the Squire is very particular as to time, you know!”
Nodding to them both with a smile which diffused such an extraordinary light over the uncomely face that Agatha was quite startled and began to reconsider her first impression regarding it,—“Duke” Dugdale turned to walk on; but just as the horse was starting, came back again.
“Nathanael, you are here just in time—general election coming. You're a Free-trader of course?”
“Why, I never thought much about the matter.”
“Eh!—What a pity! But we'll convert you, and you shall convert your father. Ah, yes—I think we'll get the Squire on our side at last Good-bye.”
“Who is 'the Missus' and who is 'the Squire'” asked Agatha, as they drove off.
“'The Missus' is his wife—my sister Harriet, and 'the Squire' is my father,” said Nathanael, smiling. His face had worn a pleasant look ever since he caught sight of Duke Dugdale's. “When I first came home I was as much amused as yourself at these queer Dorsetshire phrases, but I like them now; they are so simple and patriarchal.”
Agatha agreed; yet she could hardly help laughing. But though this brother-in-law of Mr. Harper's—and she suddenly remembered that he was her own brother-in-law too—used provincial words, and spoke with a slight accent, which she concluded was “Dorset,”—though his dress and appearance had an anti-Stultzified, innocent, country look, still there was something about Marmaduke Dugdale which bespoke him unmistakably the gentleman.
“I am glad we met him,” said Mr. Harper, looking back down the street. “There he is, talking to a knot of people at the market-hall—farmers, no doubt, whom he will try to make Free-traders of, and who would listen to him affectionately, even if he tried to make them Mahometans. The good soul! There isn't a better man in all Dorsetshire.”
It was evident that Nathanael greatly liked “Duke Dugdale.”
Agatha would have asked a score of questions; about his age, which defied all guessing, and might have been anything from thirty to fifty-five—also about his “Missus,” for he looked like a man who never could have made love, or thought of such a thing, in all his life. But her curiosity was restrained, partly by that of the old servant behind, who kept up a close though reverential observance of all the sayings and doings of “Ma-a-ester” Nathanael's wife. She did not like even accidentally to betray how very little of Kingcombe her reserved husband had told her, and how she knew scarcely more of his family than their names.
Having parted from his brother-in-law, and gradually lost the benign influence which Duke Dugdale seemed to impart, Mr. Harper's face re-assumed that gravity, almost sadness, which, except when talking with herself, his wife now continually saw it wear.
They drove on, pushing against a fierce wind, that appeared like an invisible iron barrier to intercept their way. Every now and then, Agatha could not help shivering and creeping closer to her husband; whenever she did so, he always turned round and wrapped her up with most sedulous care.
“It is a dreary day for you to see our county for the first time, Agatha. If the sun were shining, these wide bleak sweeps of country would look all purple with heather, and that dun-coloured, gloomy range of hills;—we must call them hills out of compliment, though they are so small—would stand out in a clear line against the sky. Beyond them lies the British Channel, with its grand sea-coast.”
“The sea—ah! always the sea.”
“Nay, dear, don't be afraid, how don't'ee—as we Dorset people would say. Kingcombe Holm lies in a valley. You would never know you were so near the ocean. It is the same at Anne Valery's house.”
“Where is that!” said Agatha, brightening up at the mention of the name.
“Why, this animal seems inclined to show me—even if I did not know it of long habit,” answered Mr. Harper, bestowing a little less of his attention on his wife, and more on the obstreporous pony, who, in regard to a certain turn of the road, had grown peculiarly wrong-headed.
“Don't'ee give in, sir! T'Squire bought he o' Miss Valery, and she do gi' un their own way, terrible bad,” hinted the groom.
“Unfortunately, his own way happens to be a wrong one,” said Nathannael, quietly, as he drew the reins tighter, and set himself to do that which it takes a very firm man to do to conquer an obstinate and unruly horse. Agatha remembered what she had heard or read somewhere about such a case being no bad criterion of a man's character, “lose your temper, and you'll lose your beast,” ay, and perhaps your own life into the bargain. She was considerably frightened, but she sat quite still, looking from the struggling animal to her husband, in whose fair face the colour had risen, while the boyish lips were set together with a will, fierce, rigid, and man-like. She could hardly take her eyes from him.
“Agatha, are you afraid? Will you descend?” asked he, suddenly.
“No—I will stay with you.”
The struggle between man and brute lasted a minute or two longer, at the end of which, all danger being over, they were speeding on rapidly to Kingcombe Holm. Agatha sat very thoughtful.
“I fear,” she said—when he tried to draw her out of her contemplative mood, showing her the wild furzy slopes and the fir-trees, almost the only trees that grow in this region—standing in black clumps on the hill-tops, like sentinel-ghosts of the old Romans, who used to encamp there—“I fear you have mademeas much in awe of you as you have the pony.”
He smiled, and was quoting something about “love casting out fear,” when he suddenly corrected himself, and grew silent. In that silence they swept on to the gates of Kingcombe Holm.
It was a place—more like an ancient manorial farm than a gentleman's residence—nestled snugly in one of those fairy valleys which are found here and there among the bleak wastes of Dorsetshire coast scenery—the richer for the barrenness of all around. Before and behind the house rose sudden acclivities, thick with autumn-tinted trees. On another side was a smooth, curving, wavy hill, bare in outline, with white dots of grazing sheep floating about upon its green. The Holm, with its garden and park, lay on a narrow plain of verdurous beauty, at the bottom of the valley. Nothing was visible beyond it, save a long, bare, terraced range of hill, and the sky above all. There was no other habitation in sight, except a tiny church, planted on one acclivity, and two or three labourers' cottages, in the doors of which a few rolypoly, open-eyed children stood, poking their fingers in their mouths, and staring intensely at Agatha.
“Oh, what a delicious nest,” she cried—overcome with excitement at her first view of Kingcombe Holm, where, however, there was not a creature visible but the great dog, that barked a furious welcome from the courtyard, and the peacock, that strutted to and fro before the blank windows, sweeping his draggled tail. “Are they at home, I wonder? Will they all be waiting for us?”
“In the drawing-room, most likely. It is my father's way. He receives there all strangers—new-comers, I mean. We shall see nobody till then.”
“Don't be too sure of that, brother Nathanael,” said a quick, lively voice. “So, ho! Dunce, hold still, do'ee! You used to be as precise as the Squire himself, bless his heart! Now then, N. L. Jump down!”
The speaker of all this had come flying out of the hall-door—a vision of flounces, gaiety, and heartiness, had given the pony a few pats, or rather slaps,en passant, and now stood balancing herself on one of the spokes of the wheel, and leaning over into the carriage.
Arrival at Kingcombe Holm P148
“Is that you, Harrie? Agatha, this is my sister Mrs. Dugdale.”
And Agatha found herself face to face (literally speaking, too, for “Harrie” kissed her) with a merry-looking, pretty woman, of a style a little tooprononcéeperhaps, for her features were on a similar mould to Major Harper's. Still, there could be no doubt as to the prettiness, and the airy, youthful aspect—younger, perhaps, than her years. Agatha was perfectly astounded to find in this gay “Harrie” the wife of the grave and middle-aged Duke Dugdale!
“You see, my dear—ahem! what shall I call you?—that I can't be formal and polite, and it's no use trying. So I just left my father sitting stately in the drawing-room with Mary on one side, as mistress of the household; Eulalie on the other, looking as bewitching and effective as she can, and both dying with curiosity to run out and see you. But I'm not a Miss Harper now; so, while they longed to do it, I—did it. Here I am! Welcome home, Mrs. Locke Harper!”
“Thank you,” stammered the young bride, hardly knowing whether to laugh or to cry. Her husband was scarcely less agitated than herself, but showed it only in the nervous trembling of his upper lip, and in the extreme brevity of his words. He lifted his wife down from the carriage, and Mrs. Dugdale, throwing back the blue veil, peered curiously into the face of her new sister.
“E—h!” she said, in that long musical ejaculation just like her husband—the only thing in which she was like him. Never was a pair who so fully exemplified the theory of matrimonial opposites. “E—h, Nathanael!” And her quick glance at her brother indicated undisguised admiration of “the Pawnee-face.”
He himself looked restless, uncomfortable, as if his sister slightly fidgeted him; she had indeed, with all her heartiness, a certain quicksilverishness of manner, jumping here, there, and everywhere like mercury on a plate, in a fashion that was very perplexing at first to quiet people.
“Come along, my dear,” continued Harrie, tucking the young wife under her arm—“come and beautify a little—the Squire likes it. And run away to your father, N. L., my boy!” added she to her younger brother—younger—as a closer inspection of her fresh country face showed—possibly by some five or six years.
Mr. Harper assented with as good a grace as he could, and resigned his wife to his sister.
For the next ten minutes Agatha had a confused notion of being taken through many rooms and passages, hovered about by Mrs. Dugdale, her flounces, and her lively talk—of trying to answer a dozen questions per minute, and being so bewildered, that she succeeded in answering none, save that she had met Mr. Dugdale—that she didnotthink him “a beauty,” and (she hastily and in terror added this fact) that there was not the least necessity for his being so.
“Not the least, my dear. I always thought the same! You'll love him heartily in a week—I did! Bless him for a dear, good, ugly, beautiful old soul!”
Here Agatha, who stood listening, and nervously arranging the long curls thatwouldfall uncurled and untidy, felt a renewal of her old girlish enthusiasm for all true things; her eyes brightened, and her heart warmed towards “Harrie.” She would have liked to stay talking longer, but for a vision of Mr. Harper waiting uncomfortably down-stairs.
“So you have finished adorning, and want to go! You can't bear to be ten minutes away from your husband, that's clear! Well, my dear, you'll get wiser when you have been married as long as I have. But I don't know,” added Mrs. Dugdale laughing; “I'm always glad enough to get rid of Duke for an hour or two; yet somehow, when he is away, I'm always wanting him. By-the-by, did he happen to say what time he was coming over here—only to see you, you know? He has quite enough of 'the Missus.'”
Agatha laughingly asked how long “the Missus” had borne that title.
“Couldn't possibly count! Look at Gus and Fred in jacket and trousers, and little Brian learning to ride. Frightful antiquity! And yet when I married I was a girl like you; only ten times wilder—the greatest harum-scarum in the county! I often wonder poor Duke was not afraid to marry me! Heigho! Well, here we are down-stairs, and here—take your wife, most solemn brother Nathanael! If you were but a little more like Frederick! By the way, have you seen Fred lately?”
“He has left town,” said Mr. Harper, shortly, as he drew his young wife's arm through his own, and led her to his father's presence.
Agatha was conscious of a tall, thin, white-haired gentleman—not unlike Major Harper frozen into stately age—who rose and came to meet her.
“I am most happy to welcome my son's wife to Kingcombe Holm.”
Agatha felt the withered fingers touching her own—the kiss of welcome formally sealed on her forehead. She trembled exceedingly for a moment, but recovered herself, and met old Mr. Harper's keen observant gaze with one as clear and as composed as his own. One glance told her that he was not the sort of man into whose fatherly arms she could throw herself, and indulge the emotion brimming over in her heart. But his examination of her was evidently favourable.
“You are most welcome, believe me. And my daughters”—here he turned to two ladies, of whom Agatha at first distinguished nothing, save that one was very pretty, the other much older, and plain—“my daughters, receive your new sister.” Here the ladies aforesaid approached and shook hands, the plain one very warmly.—“You also can tell her how truly glad we are to receive—Mrs. Harper.”
He hesitated a little before the latter word, and pronounced it with some tremulousness, as though the old man were thinking how many years had passed since the name “Mrs. Harper” had been unspoken at Kingcombe Holm.
His daughters looked at one another—even Harriet observing a grave respect No one spoke, or took outward notice of the circumstance; but from that time the subject of much secret conjecture was set at rest, and Agatha was called by every one “Mrs. Harper.”
During the somewhat awkward quarter of an hour that followed, in which the chief conversation was sustained by “the Squire,” and occasionally by Nathanael—Mrs. Dugdale having vanished—the young girl observed her two sisters-in-law. Neither struck her fancy particularly, perhaps because there was nothing particular to strike it. The Misses Harper were, like most female branches of “county families,” vegetating on their estates from generation to generation in uninterrupted gentility and uniformity. Of the two, Agatha liked Mary best; for there was great goodnature shining through her fearless plainness—a sort of placid acknowledgment of the fact that she was born for usefulness, not ornament. Eulalie, on the contrary, carried in her every gesture a disagreeable self-consciousness, which testified to her long assumption of one character—the beauty of the family. Despite Agatha's admiration of handsome women in general, she and the youngest Miss Harper eyed one another uncomfortably, as if sure from the first that they shall never like one another.
All this while Nathanael spoke but little to his wife, apparently leaving her to nestle down at her own will among his family. But he kept continually near her, within reach of a word or glance, had she given him either; and she more than once felt his look of grave tenderness reading her very soul. She could not think why, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, he should be continually so serious, while she was quite ready to be happy and at ease.
There was one thing, however, which gave her keen satisfaction—the great honour in which her husband was evidently held by his family.
Very soon a heterogeneous post-prandial repast was announced for the benefit of the travellers; to which Mr. Harper graciously bade them retire—even leading his daughter-in-law to the dining-room door.
“He'll not come further in,” whispered Mrs. Dugdale, who made herself most active about Agatha. “You arrived at seven, and my father would as soon think of changing his six o'clock dinner hour as he would of changing his politics; for all Duke says to the contrary.”
Agatha was not sorry, since the idea of dining under the elaborate kindness and dignified courtliness of old Mr. Harper was rather alarming. Besides, she was so hungry!
The moment her father-in-law had closed the door, the sisters came gathering like bees round herself and her husband, Mary busy over every possible physical want, Harrie, sitting at, or rather, on the table. She had a wild and not ungraceful way of throwing herself about—rattling on like a very Major Harper in petticoats, and flinging awaybon motsand witty sayings enough to make the fortune of many a “wonderfully clever woman,”—the very last character which this light-spirited country-lady would probably have imagined her own. For Eulalie, she had relaxed into a few words, and fewer smiles, the quality of neither being of sufficient value to make one regret the quantity. Nobody minded her much but Mary, who was motherly, kind, and reverential always to the inane beauty.
Such were Agatha's first impressions of her new sisters. With a shyness not unnatural she had taken little notice of her husband. He had chatted among his sisters, with whom he seemed very popular: but always in the intervals of talk the pale, grave, tired look came over him.
In quitting the dining-room—where Agatha, irresistibly led on by Mrs. Dugdale's pleasantness, had begun to feel quite at home, and had laughed till she was fairly tired out—he said, in a half whisper:
“Now, dear, I think we ought to go and see Elizabeth.”
In the confusion of her arrival, Agatha had forgotten that there was another sister—in truth, the Miss Harper of the family—Mary, its head and housekeeper, being properly only “Miss Mary.” She noticed that as Nathanael spoke, the other three looked at him and herself doubtfully, as if to inquire how much she knew—and anxiously, as though there were something painful and uncomfortable in a stranger's first seeing Elizabeth.
Mrs. Harper felt her cheeks tingle nervously, but still she put her arm in her husband's, and said, “I should much like to go.”
Mary sent for lights, and prepared to accompany them herself, the other two moving away into the drawing-room.
Through the same sort of old-fashioned passages, but, as it seemed, to quite a different part of the house, Agatha went with her husband and his sister. The strangeness and gloom of the place, the doubt as to what sort of person she was going to see—for all she had heard was that from some great physical suffering Elizabeth never quitted her room—made the young girl feel timid, even afraid. Her hand trembled so that her husband perceived it.
“Nay, you need not mind,” he whispered. “You will see nothing to pain you. We all dearly love her, and I do believe she is very happy—poor Elizabeth!”
As he spoke Mary opened a door, and they passed from the dark staircase into a large, well-lighted, pleasant room—made scrupulously pleasant, Agatha thought. It was filled with all sorts of pretty things, engravings, statuettes, vases, flowers, books, a piano; even the paper on the walls and the hangings at the window were of most delicate and careful choice. No rich drawing-room could show more taste in its arrangements, or have a more soothing effect on a mind to which the sense of æsthetic fitness is its native element.
At first, Agatha thought the room was empty, until, lying on a sofa—though so muffled in draperies as nearly to disguise all form—she saw what seemed at first the figure of a child. But coming nearer, the face was no child's face. It was that of a woman, already arrived at middle age. Many wrinkles seamed it; and the hair surrounding it in soft, close bands, was quite grey. The only thing notable about the countenance was a remarkable serenity, which in youth might have conveyed that painful impression of premature age often seen in similar cases, but which now in age made it look young. It was as if time and worldly sorrow had alike forgotten this sad victim of Nature's unkindness—had passed by and left her to keep something of the child's paradise about her still.
This face, and the small, thin, infantile-looking hands, crossed on the silk coverlet, were all that was visible. Agatha wondered she had so shrunk from the simple mystery now revealed.
Nathanael led her to the sofa, and placed her where Elizabeth could see her easily without turning round.
“Here is my wife! Is she like what you expected, sister?”
The head was raised, but with difficulty; and Agatha met the cheerful, smiling, loving eyes of her whom people called “poor Elizabeth.” Such thorough content, such admiring pleasure, as that look testified! It took away all the painful constraint which most people experience on first coming into the presence of those whom Heaven has afflicted thus; and made Agatha feel that in putting such an angelic spirit into that poor distorted body, Heaven had not dealt hardly even with Elizabeth Harper.
“She is just what I thought,” said a voice, thin, but not unmusical. “You described her well. Come here and kiss me, my dear new sister.”
Agatha knelt down and obeyed, with her whole heart in the embrace. Of all greetings in the family, none had been like this. And not the least of its sweetness was that her husband seemed so pleased therewith, looking more like himself than he had done since they entered his father's doors.
They all sat down and talked for a long time, Elizabeth more cheerfully than any. She appeared completely versed in the affairs of the whole family, as though her mind were a hidden gallery in which were clearly daguerreotyped, and faithfully retained, all impressions of the external world. She seemed to know everybody and everybody's circumstances—to have ranged them and theirs distinctly and in order, in the wide, empty halls of her memory, which could be filled in no other way. For, as Agatha gradually learned, this spinal disease, withering up the form from infancy, had been accompanied with such long intervals of acute physical pain as to prevent all study beyond the commonest acquirements of her sex. It was not with her, as with some, that the intellect alone had proved sufficient to make out of a helpless body a noble and complete human existence; Elizabeth's mind was scarcely above the average order, or if it had been, suffering had stifled its powers. Her only possession was the loving heart.
She asked an infinitude of questions, her bright quick eyes seeming to extort and gain more than the mere verbal answers. She talked a good deal, throwing more light than Agatha had ever before received on the manners, characters, and history of the Harper family, the Dugdales, and Anne Valery. But there was in her speech a certain reticence, as though all the common gossip of life was in her clear spirit received, sifted, purified, and then distributed abroad in chosen portions as goodly and pleasant food. She seemed to receive the secrets of every one's life and to betray none.
Agatha now learnt why there had been such a mystery of regret, reverence, and love hanging over the very mention of the eldest Miss Harper.
When the tumult of this strange day had resolved itself into silence, Agatha, believing her husband fast asleep, lay pondering over it, wondering why he had not asked her what she thought of his family—wondering, above all, what was the strange weight upon him which he tried so hard to conceal, and to appear just the same to every one, especially to her. Her coming life rose up like a great maze, about which all the characters now apparently mingled therein wandered mistily in and out. Among them, those which had gained most vivid individuality in a fancy not prone to catch quick interests, affecting her alternately with a sense of pensive ideal calm, and cheerful healthy human liking, were Elizabeth Harper, the “Missus,” and Duke Dugdale.
Likewise, as an especial pleasure, she had discovered the one to whom she clung as to a well-known friend among all these strangers, lived within eight miles of Kingcombe Holm.
“And”—she kept recurring to a fact spread abroad in the house just before bed-time, and apparently diffusing universal satisfaction—“and Anne Valery is sure to be here to-morrow.”
On the morning—her first morning at Kingcombe Holm—Mrs. Harper woke refreshed to a bright day. All the terraced outline of the hills was pencilled distinctly against the bluest of blue skies, which hung like a tent over the shut-up valley. She stood at the window looking at it, while Mary Harper made the breakfast and Eulalie curiously examined Agatha's dress, supposed to be the latest bridal fashion from London. Nathanael sat writing letters until breakfast was ready, and then took his father's place at the foot of the table.
“Elizabeth bade me ask you,” said Mary, addressing him, “if you had any letters this morning from Frederick? You know she likes to look at all family letters—they amuse her. Shall I take this one?”
Nathanael put his hand upon a heap, among which was plainly distinguishable Major Harper's writing. “No, Mary—not now. If necessary, I will read part of it to Elizabeth myself.”
Agatha, who had before vainly asked the same question, was annoyed by her husband's reserve. His silence in all his affairs, especially those relating to his brother, was impenetrable.
But this was rousing in her, day by day, a strong spirit of opposition. Had not the presence of his sisters restrained her, for her external wifely pride grew as much as her inward antagonism—she would have again boldly put forward her claim to read the letter. As it was, she had self-control enough to sit silent, but her mouth assumed that peculiar expression which at times revealed a few little mysteries of her nature—showing that beneath the quietude and simplicity of the girl lay the strong, desperate will of a resolute woman.
After breakfast, when Mr. Harper, with some slight apology, had gone to his letters again, she rose, intending to stroll about and explore the lawn. She had never been used to ask any one's permission for her out-goings and in-comings, so was departing quite naturally, when Mary stopped her.
“I hope you will not mind it, but we always stay in the house until my father comes down-stairs. He likes to see us before he begins the day.”
Agatha submitted—with a good grace, of course; though she thought the rule absolute was painfully prevalent in the Harper family. But as half-an-hour went by, and the morning air, so fresh and cool, tempted her sorely, she tried to set aside this formal domestic regulation.
Mary looked quite frightened at her overt rebellion.—“My dear Mrs. Harper—indeed we never do it. Do we, Nathanael?” said she, appealingly.
He listened to the discussion a moment.—“My dear wife, since my father would not like it, you will not go, I know.”
The tone was gentle, but Agatha would as soon have thought of overleaping a stone wall as of opposing a desire thus expressed. She sat quietly down again—or would have done so, but that she saw Eulalie smile meaningly at her sister. Intercepting the young wife, the smile changed into affected condolence.
“Nathanael will have his way, you see. If you only knew what he was as a little boy,” and the Beauty shrugged her shoulders pathetically. “Really, as Harrie says, most men would never get wives at all, did their lady loves know them only half as well as their sisters do.”
“Nay,” said the good-natured Mary, “but Harrie also says that men, like wine, improve with age, especially if they are kept cool and not too much shaken up. She has no doubt that even her Duke was a very disagreeable boy. So, Mrs. Harper, let me assure you——”—
“There is no need; I am quite satisfied,” said Mrs. Harper, with no small dignity; and at this momentous crisis her father-in-law entered the room.
He entered dressed for riding—looking somewhat younger than the night before, more cheerful and pleasant too, but not a whit less stately. He saluted Agatha first, and then his daughters, with a gracious solemnity, patting their cheeks all round, something after the fashion of a good-humoured Eastern bashaw. The old gentleman evidently took a secret pride in his womenkind. Then he shook hands with “my son Nathanael,” and threw abroad generally a few ordinary remarks, to which his two daughters listened with great reverence. But in all he did or said was the same benignant hauteur; he seemed frozen up within a conglomerate of reserve and formal courtesy; he walked, talked, looked perpetually as Nathanael Harper, Esquire, of Kingcombe Holm, who never allowed either his mind or his body to appearen déshabille. Agatha wondered how he could ever have been a baby squalling, a boy playing, or a young man wooing; nay, more (the thought irresistibly presented itself as she noticed the extreme feebleness which his dignity but half disguised), how he would ever stoop to the last levelling of all humanity—the grave-clothes and the tomb.
“Any letters, my dear children? Any news to tell me before I ride to Kingcombe?” said he, looking round the circle with a patronising interest, which Agatha would scarcely have believed real, but for the kindly expression of the old man's eye.
“There were plenty of letters for Elizabeth, as usual; one for Eulalie “—here Eulalie looked affectedly conscious—“no others, I think.”
“Except one to Nathanael from Frederick,” observed the Beauty.
At the name of his eldest son the Squire's mien became a little graver—a little statelier. He said coldly, “Nathanael, I hope you have pleasant news from your brother. Where is he now?”
“In the British Channel, on his way to the Continent.”
“My son going abroad, and I never heard of it! Some mistake, surely. He is not really gone?”
“Yes, father, for a year, or perhaps more—but certainly a year.”
The old gentleman's fingers nervously clutched the handle of his riding-whip. “If so, Frederick would certainly have shown his father the respect of informinghimfirst. Excuse me if I doubt whether my son's plans are quite decided.”
“They are indeed, sir,” said Nathanael gently. “And I was aware of, indeed advised, this journey. He bids me explain to you that when this letter arrives he will be already gone.”
The father started—and broke the whip he was playing with. He stood a minute, the dull red mounting to his temples and lying there like a cloud. Then he took the fragments of the riding-whip from his son's ready hand—thanked him—bade good morning to the womenkind all round, and left them.
“Shall I ride with you, father?” said Nathanael, following him to the hall-door, with a concerned air.
“Not to-day—I thank you! Not to-day.”
Mary and Eulalie looked at one another. “This will be a sad blow to papa,” said the former. “Frederick was always a great anxiety to him.”
Agatha inquired wherefore.
“Because papa abhors a gay 'vagabondising' life, and always wished his eldest son to settle down in the county. I know—though he says nothing—that this has been a sore point between them for nearly twenty years.”
“And I know,” added Eulalie, mysteriously, “that papa was going to make a last effort, and have Frederick proposed as member for Kingcombe. A pretty fight there would have been—papa and Frederick against Marmaduke and his pet candidate!”
“'Tis well that is prevented! Everything happens for the best,” said Mary, sagely. “But here comes Nathanael. Don't tell him, Mrs. Harper, or he would say we had been gossiping.”
Mrs. Harper was standing moralising on the ins and outs of family life, from which her own experience had hitherto been so free. Her eyes were wandering up the road, where her father-in-law had just disappeared, riding slowly, but erect as a young man. While she looked, there came up one of those delicious little country pony-carriages, which a lady can drive, and make herself independent of everybody.
“It is Anne Valery!” was the general cry, as all ran to meet her at the door—Agatha being the first.
“My dear—my dear!” murmured Anne Valery, leaning out of her little carriage to pat the brown curls. “Are you quite well?—quite happy? And your husband?” She glanced from one to the other, with a keen inquiry. “Is all well, Nathanael?”
Nathanael, smiling at his wife, whose look of entire pleasure brought, as usual, the reflection of the same to him also, answered, warmly, “Yes, Anne, all is well!”
She seemed satisfied, and took his hand to dismount from her carriage. Agatha noticed that she walked more feebly, in spite of the bright colour which the wind had brought to her cheeks; and that soon after she came into the house this tint gradually faded, leaving her scarcely even so healthy-looking as she had appeared a month ago—the last time they had seen her. But her talk was full of cheerfulness.
“I am come to stay the whole day with you, by your father's desire—and my own. May I, Mary?”
“Oh, yes! We shall be so glad, especially Elizabeth, who was wondering and longing after you.”
“I have not been well. London never suits me,” said Anne carelessly. “But come, now I am about again, let me see what is to be done to-day. In the first place, I must have a long talk with Elizabeth. Is she risen yet, Eulalie?”
Eulalie did not know; but Mary added, that she feared this was one of Elizabeth's “hard days,” when she could not talk much to any one till evening.
Anne continued, after a pause—“I want to drive over to Kingcombe about some business. I have had so much on my hands since poor Mr. Wilson's death.”
“Anne's steward,” whispered the Beauty importantly to her sister-in-law. “You know that half Kingcombe belongs to Anne Valery?” And Agatha noticed, with some amusement, what an extreme deference was infused into the usually nonchalant, contemptuous manner of the youngest Miss Harper.
“So poor Wilson is dead! And who have you to manage all your property?” asked Mr. Harper suddenly.
“No one at present I am very particular in my choice. As I am only a woman, my steward has necessarily considerable influence. I would wish him always to be what Mr. Wilson was: if possible a friend, but undoubtedly a gentleman.”
As Miss Valery spoke, Nathanael listened in deep thought; then, meeting her eyes, he coloured slightly, but quickly recovering himself, said, in a low tone, “Some time to-day, Anne, I would like to have a little talk with you.”
She assented with an inquiring look. But she seemed to understand Nathanael well enough to content herself with that look, asking no further questions.
“And, for the third important business which should be done to-day, and perhaps the sooner the better, I must certainly take Agatha up Holm Hill, and show her the view of the Channel.”
Agatha drew back from the window. “Ah, not the sea!—I cannot bear the sea.” Anne Valery watched her with peculiar earnestness.
“Were you ever on the sea, my dear?”
“Once, long ago.”
“Nay, I must teach you to admire our magnificent coast. On with your bonnet, and come along that great hill-terrace—do you see it?—with Nathanael and me.”
“But you will be tired,” Mrs. Harper said, reluctant still, yet loth to resist Anne Valery.
“Tired? no! The salt breeze gives me strength—health. I hardly live when I am not in sight of the Channel. Make haste, and let us go, Agatha.”
She seemed so eager, that no further objection was possible. So they soon started—they three only, for Mary had occupation in the house, and the Beauty was mightily averse to exercise and sea-air.
They climbed the steep road, overhung with trees, at whose roots grew clusters of large primrose leaves, showing what a lovely walk it must be in spring; then higher, till all this vegetation ceased, leaving only the short grass cropped by the sheep, the purple thistles, and the furze-bushes, yellow and cheerful all the year round. They then drove along a high ridge for a mile or two, till they got quite out of sight of Kingcombe Holm. Miss Valery talked gaily the whole way; and, as though the sea-breeze truly gave her life, was the very first to propose leaving the carriage and walking on, so as to catch the earliest glimpse of the Channel.
“There!” she said, breathlessly, and quitting Mr. Harper's arm, crossed over to his wife. “There, Agatha!”
It was such a view as in her life the young girl had never beheld. They stood on a high ridge, on one side of which lay a wide champaign of moorland, on the other a valley, bounded by a second ridge, and between the two sloping greenly down, till it terminated in a little bay. Parallel to the valley ran this grand hill-terrace—until it likewise reached the coast, ending abruptly in precipitous gigantic cliffs, against which the tides of centuries might have beat themselves in vain. Beyond all, motionless in the noonday dazzle, and curving itself away in a mist of brightness where the eye failed, was the great, wide, immeasurable sea.
The three stood gazing, but no one spoke. Agatha trembled, less with her former fear than with that awestruck sense of the infinite which is always given by the sight of the ocean—that ocean which One “holdeth in the hollow of his hand.” Gradually this awe grew fainter, and she was able to look round her, and count the white dots scattered here and there on the dazzling sheet of waves.
“There go the ships,” said Nathanael. “See what numbers of them—numbers, yet how few they seem!—are moving up and down on this highway of all nations. Look, Agatha, at that one, a mere speck, dipping in the horizon.
“Do you remember Tennyson's lines?—they reached Uncle Brian and me even in the wild forests of America:
“'Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail Which brings our friends up from the under world; Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks, with all we love, below the verge.'”
“'Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail Which brings our friends up from the under world; Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks, with all we love, below the verge.'”
“There! it is gone now,” cried Agatha, almost with a sense of loss. She felt Anne Valery's fingers tighten convulsively over her arm, and saw her with straining eyes and quivering lips watching the vanishing—nay, vanished—ship, as if all her soul were flying with it to the “under world.”
The sight was so startling, so moving—especially in a woman of Miss Valery's mature age and composed demeanour—that Nathanael's wife instinctively turned her eyes away and kept silence. In a minute or two Anne had returned to Mr. Harper's arm, and the three were walking on as before; until, ere long, they nestled themselves in a sheltered nook, where the sea-wind could not reach them, and the sun came in, warm as summer.
Nathanael began to show his wife the different points of scenery—especially the rocky island of Portland, beyond which the line of coast sweeps on ruggedly westward to the Land's End.
“But I believe,” he said, “that there is nowhere a grander coast than we have here—not even in Cornwall.”
“Speaking of Cornwall,” Miss Valery said, closely observing Nathanael, “I lately heard a sad story about some mines there.”
Mr. Harper seemed restless. “The speculation had failed, having been ill-managed, or, as I greatly fear, a cheat from the beginning. As I had property near in the county—what, did you not know that, Nathanael—I was asked to do something for the poor starving miners of Wheal Caroline. Have you heard the name, Agatha?”
“No,” said Agatha, innocently, not paying much attention, except to the lovely view.
“Not heard? That is strange. But you, Nathanael”—
“I know all,” he said hastily. “It is a sad history—too sad to be talked of here. Another time”—
His eye met hers—and both turned upon Agatha, who sat a little apart, enjoying the novel scene, and rejoicing above all that the sea—vague object of nameless terror—could ever appear so beautiful.
“Poor child!” murmured Miss Valery.
“Hush, Anne!” Nathanael whispered, so imploringly—nay, commandingly, that Anne was startled.
“How like you are to”—
“What were you saying?” asked Agatha, turning at last.
“I was saying,” Miss Valery replied hastily—“I was saying how like Nathanael looked just then to his Uncle Brian.”
“Did he indeed? Was that all you were speaking of?”
“Not quite all; but I find your husband knows the story; he will tell you,as he ought,” added Anne pointedly.
“Surely I will, one day,” said Nathanael. “But in this case, as in many others, where there has been misfortune or wrong, I consider the best, wisest, most charitable course is not to spread it abroad until the wrong has had a chance of being remedied. Do you not think so, Anne?”
“Yes,” she answered, her eyes fixed upon the resolute young face that seemed compelling her to silence almost against her will. It was marvellous to see the influence Nathanael had, even over Anne Valery.
“And now,” continued Mr. Harper, “while I am alone with you and my wife”—here he drew Agatha within the circle of talk, and made her lean against his knee, his arm shielding her from the wind—“I wanted to talk with you, Anne, about some plans I have.”
“Say on.”
“I have given up—as Agatha wrote you word—all idea of our settling at Montreal. It is necessary that I should at once find some employment in England.”
“Not yet—not just yet,” said his wife.
“I must, dear. It is right—it is necessary. Anne herself would say so.”
Miss Valery assented, much to Agatha's surprise.
“The only question then is—what can I do? Nothing in the professions—for I have acquired none; nothing in literature—for I am not a genius; but anything in the clear, straightforward, man-of-business line—Uncle Brian used to accuse me of being so very practical.—Anne,” he added, smiling, “I wish, instead of having to puff off myself thus, Uncle Brian were here to advertise my qualifications.”
“Qualifications for what?” inquired Agatha, Miss Valery being silent
“For obtaining from my friend here what I would at once have applied for to any stranger; poor Wilson's vacant post as her overseer, land-agent, steward, or whatever the name may be.”
“Steward!” cried Mrs. Harper. “Surely you would never dream of being a steward?”
“Why not? Because I am unworthy of the situation, or—as I fear my proud little wife thinks—because the situation is not worthy of me? Nay, a man never loses honour by earning his bread in honourable fashion; and Miss Valery herself said that for this office she required both a gentleman and a friend. Will she accept me?”
And he extended, proudly as his father might—yet with a frank independence nobler than the pride of all the Harpers—his honest right hand. Anne Valery took it, the tears rising in her eyes.
“I could never have offered you this, Nathanael; but since you are so steadfast, so wise——Yes! it is indeed, considering all things, the wisest course you can pursue. Only, I will agree to nothing unless your wife consents.”
“I will not consent,” said Agatha, determinedly.
There was an uncomfortable pause.
“I see in your plan no reason—no right,” continued she, forgetting in her annoyance even the outward deference with which her sense of conjugal dignity led her invariably to treat her husband. “Why was I never told this before?”
“Because I never thought of it myself until this morning.”
The exceeding gentleness of his tone surprised her, and restrained many more words, not over-sweet, which were issuing from her angry lips.
“The fact is, Agatha—I may speak before Anne Valery whom we both love”—
“And who loves you both as if you had been her own kindred.”
These words, so tremulously said, swept away a little bitterness that was rising up in Agatha's heart against Miss Valery.
“It is necessary,” Mr. Harper went on—“imperatively so, for my comfort—that I should at once do something. And in choosing one's work, it always seemed to me there was great wisdom in the rule—'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Many things I could not do; this I can, well and faithfully, as Anne will find. Nor need I feel ashamed of being steward to Miss Valery.”
Agatha felt her spirit of opposition quaking on its throne. “But your father—your sisters. What will they all say at Kingcombe Holm?”
“Nothing that I cannot combat. My father will be glad of our settling near him in Dorsetshire.”
“In Dorsetshire!” echoed Mrs. Harper dolefully; and thereupon fled her last visions of a gay London home. Yet she already liked her husband's county and people well enough to bear the sacrifice with tolerable equanimity.
“And whatever he says, whatever any one else says, I have no fear, if my wife will only stand by me, and trust that I do everything for the best.”
His wife listened, not without agitation, for she remembered their first dispute, only a few days ago. Here was rising another storm. Yet either she felt weaker to contend, or something in Nathanael's manner lured her to believe him in the right. She listened—only half-convinced, yet still she listened.
Anne Valery did the same, though she took no part in the argument Only continually her eyes wandered to Nathanael, less with smiling heart-warm affection than with the pensive tenderness with which one watches a dead likeness revived in a living face.
At last, when he had expressed all he could—everything except entreaty or complaint—Mr. Harper paused. “Now, Agatha, speak.”
She felt that she must yield, yet tried to struggle a little longer. She had been so unused to control.
“You should have consulted with me—have explained more of your reasons, which as yet I do not comprehend. Why should you be so wondrously anxious to begin work? It is unreasonable, unkind.”
“Am I unkind to you, my poor Agatha?” His accent was that of unutterable pain.
“No! no! that you never are! Only—I suppose because I am young and lately married—I do not half understand you. What must I do, Miss Valery?”
Anne looked from one to the other—Nathanael, who, as was his habit in all moments of great trial, assumed an aspect unnaturally hard—and Agatha whose young fierce spirit was just bursting out, wrathful, yet half repentant all the while. “What must you do? You must try to learn the lesson that every woman has to learn from and for the man she loves—to have faith in him.”
“We women,” she continued softly, “the very best and wisest of us, cannot enter thoroughly into the nature of the man we love. We can only love him. That is, when we once believe him worthy of affection. Firmly knowing that, we must bear with all the rest; and where we do not quite understand, we must, as I said,have faith in him. I have heard of some women whose faith has lasted all their life.”
Anne's serious smile, and the beautiful steadfastness of her eyes, which vaguely turned seaward—though apparently looking at nothing—made a deep impression on the young wife.
She answered, thoughtfully, “I believe in my husband too, otherwise I would not have married him. Therefore, since our two wills seem to clash, and he is the older and the wiser—let him decide as he thinks best—I will try to 'have faith in him.'”
Nathanael grasped her hand, but did not speak—it seemed impossible to him. Soon after, they all rose and turned homeward, leaving the breezy terrace and the bright sunshiny sea. None turned to look back at either, excepting only—for one lingering, parting glance—Anne Valery.