The same afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Harper and Miss Valery drove to Kingcombe, to see if in that quaint little town there was a house suitable for the young couple. They had not said a word to either of the Miss Harpers concerning this sudden arrangement, agreeing that the father of the household ought to be shown the respect of receiving the first information.
“And then,” said Nathanael, “I trust mainly to Anne Valery to overcome his scruples. Anne can do anything she likes with my father. Don't you remember,” he continued, leaning over to the front seat where the two ladies were, and looking quite cheerful, as though a great load had been taken off his mind—“don't you remember—I do, though I was such a little boy—how there was one day a grand family tumult because Frederick wanted his commission, and my father refused it—how you walked up and down the garden, first with one and then with the other, persuading everybody to be friends, while Uncle Brian and I”—
“There, that will do,” said Miss Valery. “Never mind old times, but let us look forward to the future. Here we are at Kingcombe. Agatha, how do you like the place?”
And Agatha, on this glowing autumn afternoon, eagerly examined her future home.
It was a rather noteworthy country town; small, clean, with an air of sober preservation, reminding one of a well-kept, dignified, healthy old age. It wore its antiquity with a sort of pride, as if its quaint streets, intersecting one another in cruciform shape, still kept the impress of mediaeval feet, baron's or priest's, in the days when Kingcombe had sixteen churches and a castle to boot—as if the Roman walls which enclosed it lay solemnly conscious that, at night, ghosts of old Latin warriors glided over the smooth turf of those great earthen mounds where the town's-children played. Even the very river, which came up to the town narrow and slow, with perhaps one sailing-barge on it visible far across the flat country, and looking like a boat taking an insane pedestrian excursion over the meadows—even the river seemed to run silently, as if remembering the time when it had floated up Danish ships with their fierce barbarian freight, and landed them just under that red sand-cliff, where the lazy cows now stood, and the innocent blackberry-bushes grew.
It was a curious place Kingcombe, or so Agatha thought.
“How strange it is,” Mr. Harper observed. “All these old spots seem to me like places beheld in a dream. Uncle Brian often used to talk about them. I think to this day he remembers everything and everybody about Kingcombe.”
“Does he?”
“And that some day or other he will come back again I do most firmly believe. Do not you, Anne?”
“Yes.” As she spoke, her hand involuntarily was pressed upon her side. Agatha wondered she responded so coldly and with so melancholy a look, to such a joyous prospect as Uncle Brian's return would surely be to all the family.
But here they were in Kingcombe streets—very quiet, sleepy streets, which seemed to have taken an undisturbed doze for a few centuries, to atone for the terrible excitements there created successively by Danish, Roman, Saxon, and baronial ruffians. The poor little town seemed determined to spend its old age in peace and solitude, for you might have planted a cannonade at the market-place, and swept down East Street, West Street, North Street, and South Street, without laying more than a dozen official murders on your soul. There was indeed great reason for Mrs. Harper's innocent inquiry—“Where are all the people gone to?”
“Except on market-days, we rarely see more street passengers than now in Kingcombe,” Aline Valery answered, smiling. “You will get accustomed to that and many other things when you are a country lady. Now, shall we drive to the Dugdales, or look first at the two houses I told you of?”
Mr. Harper preferred the latter course, under fear, his wife merrily declared, of being circumvented by Mrs. Dugdale. The brother and sister, she had already discovered, seemed on as pleasant terms as fire and water, since, as Harrie punningly averred, one invariably “put out” the other. They did not squabble—Nathanael Harper never squabbled—but they always met with a gentle hissing, like water sprinkled on coals. Agatha, who was quite new to these harmless fraternalities, always occurring in large families, was mightily amused thereat.
The first house the little party looked over was, as Emma Thornycroft would have phrased it, “a love of a place!” Dining-room, drawing-rooms, conservatory, gardens—quite a gentleman's mansion. Agatha set her heart upon it at once, and it blotted out even her lingering regret over the lost home in the Regent's Park. She ran over the rooms with the glee of a child, and only came back to her husband to urge him to take it, giving her this thing and that thing necessary to its beautification.
He patted her cheek with a pleased yet sad look.
“Dear, I will give you all I can; be quite sure of that. But”—
“Nay, no buts; I must have this house. Besides, Miss Valery says it is the only house to let in Kingcombe.”
“Except the one I showed you as we passed.”
“Oh, that mean little cottage—impossible. We could never think of living there.”
“Nevertheless, let us look at it. You know we are but just beginning the world, and 'small beginnings make great endings' as Uncle Brian would sagely observe. Come along, my little wife.”
She tried to slip from his hand and appeal to Miss Valery, but Anne had moved forward, and left them alone. There was no resource; and even while Agatha's spirit was rather restive under the coercion, she could not but acknowledge the pleasantness with which it was enforced.
“Well, I'll go with you, but I hereby declare rebellion. I will not have that miserable nutshell of a house,” said she, laughing.
Yet it was a pretty nutshell—quite after the “love in a cottage” fashion—though adorned and perfected by the late Mr. Wilson, an old bachelor.
“Did he die here?” asked Agatha.
“No; in Cornwall,” Anne answered. “He had gone over to look at some property I have lately bought there. The people on it, miners thrown out of work, gave him more anxiety than he could bear, for he was not strong. He said their misery broke his heart.”
Miss Valery spoke softly, but the words caught Nathanael's ear. He looked greatly shocked—and said, in a low tone, “Anne, don't talk of this. If I live, the wrong shall be atoned for.”
Agatha wondered for the moment what wrong there was which made her husband look so pained and humbled. But she forbore to ask questions, and again turned her attention to the house.
“It must have been a charming nest for an old bachelor, and I would have liked it very much myself had I been an old maid. But it would never do forus, you know.”
Nathanael smiled, so loth to contradict her, or thwart her pretty ways.
“Don't you see, Miss Valery;” Agatha continued, gathering apprehensions from his silence, smiling though it was—“Don't you see how different the cases are? This little house might do very well for Mr. Wilson, but then if my husband takes his place as your steward, it is only for amusement. We are rich people, you know.”
“My poor child!” began Anne Valery, looking regretfully, nay, reproachfully at Mr. Harper. But he whispered as he passed:
“Not yet, Anne—for my father's sake—the whole family's—nay, her own. Not just yet!”
Such was his earnestness, such his air of command, that, for the second time, Anne, looking in his face and reading the old likeness there—obeyed him.
Agatha, wondering, uncomfortable, recommenced what she jestingly called “her little rebellion.” “I see, Mr. Harper, your heart is inclining to this place, though why or wherefore I cannot tell. But do incline it back again! We must have the other house—that delicious Honeywood.”
“My dear little wife! Nobody could live at Honeywood under a thousand a year.”
“Well, and have we not that? I am sure I thought I had more money than ever I could do with. How much have I?”
He hesitated—she fancied it was at the thoughtless “I,” and generously changed the expression.
“How much havewe?”
“Enough—I will make it enough—to keep you from wanting anything, and give you all the luxuries to which you were born. But not enough to warrant us in living at Honeywood. I cannot do it—not even for your sake, Agatha.”
“I do not see the matter as you do.”
“You cannot, dear! I know that. But in this one thing—when, on various accounts, I can judge better than she can—will not my wife trust me?”
And Anne Valery's glance seemed to echo, “Trust him.”
Agatha, tried to the utmost of her small stock of patience, grew more bitter than she could have believed it possible to be with her husband and Anne Valery.
“You expect too much,” she said, sharply. “I cannot trust, even though I may be compelled to obey.”
Mr. Harper turned round anxiously. “Agatha, what must—what can I do? No,” he muttered to himself, “I can do nothing.” He walked to the window, and stood looking out mutely on the little garden—tiny, but so pretty, with its green verandah, its semicircle of arbutus trees serving as a frame to the hilly landscape beyond, its one wavy acacia, woodbine-clasped, at the foot of which a robin-redbreast was hopping and singing over the few fallen leaves.
While they all thus stood, there came a light foot and a flutter of draperies to the door.
“My patience! what are you all doing here? So, Agatha—Anne! How d'ye do, my worthy brother? Why didn't you all come to our house?”
“We were coming directly,” Agatha said. “But how did you find out we were at Kingcombe?”
“You little London-lady! As if anybody, especially the much-beloved Anne Valery (saving her presence) and the much-wondered-at Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper, could drive through Kingcombe without the fact being speedily circulated throughout the whole town? Why, my dear, if you must know, the grocer told Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid, and Mrs. Edwards' nursemaid told it to Mrs. Jones at the Library, and Mrs. Jones told Miss Trenchard, who was coming to call on me; so I asked Duke to give the children their dinner, and off I started, tracking you as cleverly as one of Nathanael's Red Indians. And here I am.”
She stopped, breathless, her flounces, veil, and shawl flying abroad in all directions. But she looked so hearty, natural, and good-humoured, that her entrance was quite a relief to Agatha—more especially as, for a great wonder, she asked no questions.
“So, I hear you have been showing Honeywood to Mrs. Harper. Pretty place, isn't it! A pity it's not on your property, Anne, or you would not let it go to ruin unlet. And here is poor Mr. Wilson's old house, with all the furniture just as it was. How melancholy!”
She said “How melancholy!” just in the tone that she would have said “How entertaining!” From circumstances, or from natural peculiarity—that light easy temper which dances like a feather over the troubled waters of life—she had evidently never learnt the meaning of the word sorrow.
“But now,” Harriet continued, “what I come for, is to carry you all off to lunch—the children's dinner. My dear, you must see my boys, your nephews.”
Agatha stood aghast at the idea of having nephews!
“And such boys!” Miss Valery added, interposing. “'The Missus' has good right to be proud of them. If there is one thing in which Harrie succeeds better than another, it is in the management of her children.”
“Bah! they manage themselves; I just leave them to nature,” cried Mrs. Dugdale; but her eye—the mother's eye—twinkled with pleasure all the time, which greatly improved its expression, Agatha thought. She walked off gaily with her sister-in-law, Nathanael following. Anne stayed behind, conversing with the old woman who showed the house. She and Mr. Harper had pointedly avoided any private speech with one another.
“I declare there is Duke!” cried Mrs. Dugdale suddenly. “Just look at him, meandering up and down the town.” (Agatha laughed at the word; “meandering” seemed so perfectly expressive of Duke Dugdale.) “But my husband always turns up everywhere, except where he's wanted. Does yours? I beg your pardon—since you are watching him as if you thought he were running away. Nonsense, Agatha—(I always call everybody by their Christian names)—Nonsense! He's only shaking hands with his brother-in-law, both looking as pleased as ever they can look.”
The next moment Harrie and Agatha came up with the two gentlemen at the door of Mr. Dugdale's house. They were talking politically and earnestly, as men will do—Nathanael having apparently forgotten the bitter cloud of a few minutes since, which yet lay heavy on his wife's heart. At least it seemed so, and his indifference made her angry.
Neither spoke to their wives—being busy laying their heads together over a newspaper—until Harrie very unceremoniously began to pull at her husband's coat, which he bore for a time in perfect obliviousness. At last he turned and patted her with his great hand, just as some sage, mild Newfoundland dog would coax into peace the attacks of a wild young kitten.
“Nay, now, Missus—don't'ee, love; I'm busy.—And you see, Nathanael, as your brother is sure not to canvass or try for the town, and as Mr. Trenchard is such a fine fellow, your father's friend too, don't you think we could coax him round? By conviction, of course: Trenchard wouldn't take any man's votes except upon conviction.”
“Wouldn't he?” said Nathanael, smiling at the simple-minded politician, who believed that everybody's politics were as honest as his own. At which unpropitious moment a number of half-drunken men, with “Vote for Trenchard!” stuck round their broken hats, came round the corner shouting:
“Hurrah for Free-trade! Duke Dugdale for ever! Bravo!—and give us a shilling! Amen!”
“You see now what comes of your politics,” cried his wife, trying to pull him into the hall. But the good man still stood, bareheaded, a perplexed expression troubling his face.
“It's very odd, now: I made Trenchard promise not to give them a penny for drink. Poor fellows! if they only knew better! But I'll tell'ee what it is, Nathanael,” and he used the slight Dorset accent, which always broadened when he was very earnest, “those lads drink because they are starving—drink drowns care. If they had Free-trade they wouldn't be starving: if they were not starving they wouldn't drink. Therefore, hurrah for Free-trade, and, my poor fellows, here's your shilling! Only don't'ee let it go for more drink'; and, hark'ee, remember it's no bribery money o' Mr. Trenchard's, itsmine.
“Thank'ee, zir, thank'ee; hurrah for Duke Dugdale and Free-trade!” shouted the men as they staggered off.
Mr. Dugdale stood looking after them with that mild benevolent smile which made his ugly face quite beautiful—at least Agatha thought so;—which was very generous in her, seeing he had not taken the least notice of her all this while; when he did, it was in the most passing way.
“Eh—what, Missus? did you say Mrs. Harper was here?” He shook hands with her, looking in another direction;—then again turned to Nathanael.
“Utterly useless!” cried Harrie, laughing. “He's more misty than usual to-day. Let us leave the men alone, stupid bears as they are! and come up-stairs to the children.”
All this time no one asked or looked for Miss Valery, who had lingered behind, bidding them go forward. It seemed the habit of the family that she should be left to go about in her own fashion, interfered with by nobody, and attended by nobody, save when she came among them to do them good. It was not wonderful; since, having passed that time of youth when a pleasant woman is everybody's petted darling, she had lived to feel herself alone in the world—wife, sister, and child to no one. It always takes a certain amount of moral courage to meet that destiny.
Aided by the beneficial influence of dinner, which in the Dugdales' house seemed to have the mysterious property of extending over an indefinite time, Agatha had succeeded in making friends with her “nephews” to say nothing of a lovely little niece, who would persist in putting chubby arms round “Pa's” neck, and dividing his attention sorely between Free-trade and rice-pudding. Mr. Harper had taken another child on his knee, and was cutting oranges and doing “Uncle Nathanael” to perfection. His wife stole beside him with affection. Why would he not be always as now? Why was he so good, so gentle to others, yet so hard to be understood by her? Was it her own fault? She almost believed so.
On this group, all happy, all united together by those lovely links in the chain of happiness—little children—Anne Valery entered. She passed round the table, having a word, or smile, or kiss for all. Then she went to an arm-chair, looking tired, though joining all the while in the conversation, particularly with Mr. Dugdale, who seemed to have a great regard for her.
“Ah, Miss Valery, I wish you were a man, and could vote for us!” said he, peering from underneath the baby-hands which made a pointed Norman arch over “Pa's” eyes. “You'd be sure to vote on the right side. Didn't we make a convert of you, Brian and I, years before people talked of Free-trade; long before he went out, and I got married to mamma there? Eh, Brian, my lad”—and he patted his youngest boy, throned on Mr. Harper's knee—“if you only grow up such a wise man as your grand-uncle!”
Agatha was amused to see how the idea and recollection of Uncle Brian had permeated through every branch of the Harper family. Almost every family has some such personage, mythical, sublime, exciting the wonder and hero-worship of all the young people. Little Brian opened wide his large grey eyes at the mention of his honoured namesake.
But while he gazed, his papa's pudding-laden spoon stopped half-way on its journey to the baby-mouth that was waiting for it—Duke Dugdale was in a reverie. He did not even hear the little clamourer on his knee.
“Really, now, that's very odd, very odd indeed.” And he felt anxiously in his pocket. “No, I had another coat on that day—mamma, where's my grey overcoat?”
“Duke—what on earth are you talking about? Now, Agatha, confess—isn't my husband the very vaguest, mistiest man you ever knew? Oh, you dear old visionary, what do you want with grey overcoats at dinner-time?”
He smiled patiently—perhaps he did not even hear—put down his little girl, and walked out of the room, his wife anxiously jumping up and following with some pathetic exclamation about “Duke's being so cross!” Which seemed to Agatha the most amusing exaggeration possible.
In a minute or two this most opposite couple—opposite, but fitting like a dovetailed joint—came in merrily together, Harrie holding a letter.
“Would you believe, he got it last week, has been carrying it about ever since, and never thought of it! There, Nathanael, it's yours! Devour it!”
“From Uncle Brian!” cried the young man. At which name there ran a great sensation throughout the family, in all but Miss Valery, who still kept her chair.
“News! news!” cried Harrie, Agatha and the boys gathering round. Mr. Dugdale walked up and down the room—his hands behind him—smiling in benevolent content at everybody and at nobody. Brian and his tiny sister consoled themselves for the little attention they got by slily climbing on the table and embedding their fingers in the rice-pudding.
Nathanael read the letter aloud, as seemed to be the family custom with Uncle Brian's correspondence.
“My dear Boy,” I find the Western solitudes are no nearer heaven than civilisation. My two red friends having escaped and got back, which they did on purpose to tomahawk me—I gave the tribe the slip, and am here in New York. There I accidentally received your letter.
“You are a foolish boy. When I was young, I think I would rather have died than have married a rich woman, even if she loved me, which no woman ever did. Nevertheless, I hope you will fare better than you deserve.
“Shall you ever come back to America? Not on my account, I pray, though I miss you, and am getting old and lonely. Perhaps it is as well that you left me, and have married and settled. That seems to me now the happier, worthier life for a man to lead. I should like to come and see you, if I could come not quite the beggar I am now. Therefore, I often think I shall go to California.”
There was a light movement among the listening group, as Miss Valery was found quietly to have joined them, and to be leaning over Nathanael's shoulder. He pointed his finger to the letter that she might read it with him. She moved her head in thanks, and he continued:
“If in this or any other form of the mad gold-fever I can heap up a little of that cursed—I mean blessed dust, you may possibly see me in England. Till then—or till death—which seems equally likely, I remain,
“Your affectionate Uncle,
“Brian Locke Harper.
“P.S.—I send this through Marmaduke Dugdale's late agent in New York. Tell my old friend Duke that I congratulate him on having given up merchandising, so that my brother at Kingcombe Holm can no longer reproach him with being the only one of the Harper connection whoearnsa livelihood.”
This letter, which was trying to read, being sharp and stinging on many points to more than one person present, Nathanael went steadily through, though several times his colour changed. No one made any comment except Agatha, who observed “that Uncle Brian must be rather bitter and sarcastic at heart.”
“No—not bitter,” Anne Valery said,—“only sorrowful. It is often so, when after a hard life men feel themselves growing old. What shall you do, Nathanael?”
“About what? His going to California? Nay, I cannot prevent that. What use in my writing when he gives me such lectures about my marriage?”
“He would not if he knew Agatha. Besides, in this doctrine he is a little wrong. It is of small moment on which side lies the wealth;—love makes all things even.”
Mr. Harper turned away with one of those uneasy looks which Agatha had already begun to notice and speculate over. She made up her mind that at the first possible opportunity she would muster up courage, and claim her right as a wife to know her husband's whole heart.
The epistle produced a considerable change on the family group. The boys were clamorous to know all about California, and whether Uncle Brian would not come home in a gold ship with silver sails; on which subject Nathanael was too full of his own thoughts to give much satisfactory information. Mr. Dugdale had walked out of the window into the garden behind, where Miss Valery followed him, and they two were seen strolling up and down in close conversation. As they passed the window, Agatha noticed that. Anne Valery's cheeks were slightly flushed, and that Mr. Dugdale's “mistiness” of manner had assumed an unusual clearness. He was shaking his companion warmly by the hand.
“Anne, what a wise woman you are! Such a plan would have been years in coming intomyhead. And it's just the very thing. It will give him occupation and independence without hurting his pride. Moreover”—and a sudden thought dilated his whole countenance with pleasure—“I shouldn't wonder if it brought him home.”
“Hush!”
“Oh yes, I'll remember, we must be very particular. By-the-by, Anne”—here a bright idea seemed to strike the worthy man—“what a help he would be to us against the Protectionists! Wouldn'thesee the blessing of Free-trade?”
Anne smiled, with her finger on her lip to stop the conversation; and they stepped in at the window;—Mrs. Harper taking care to glide away, lest they should suspect what she had so unintentionally heard. It was doubtless one of Miss Valery's numerous anonymous charities, which fell as abundant and unnoticed as rain.
“Now”—and Anne startled her godchild Brian by turning up his little rosy chin and kissing him—“now, who will come back with us to that grand family-dinner which the Squire has set his heart upon, and Aunt Mary is so busy-about to-day at Kingcombe Holm?”
All soon started; Agatha being kidnapped, not much against her will, by her gay sister-in-law, and driven across the moors at such a helter-skelter pace that Nathanael, who had insisted upon following them on horseback, received his wife at the door with an evident thanksgiving that she had reached home alive.
Miss Valery's little equipage came leisurely on behind. Nobody asked what she and Duke Dugdale had conversed about; but Harrie shrewdly suspected he had been talking poor dear Anne to death about the votes of her Kingcombe tenantry, and the probable chances of Mr. Trenchard and Free-trade.
To see the elder Mr. Harper sitting at the head of his own dinner-table was a real pleasure. He never looked so well at any other time. His grandiose air was then so mixed with genuine kindliness that it only enriched his courtesies, like the “body” in mellow old wine. He leaned graciously back in the arm-chair peculiarly his own, surveying the long table shone over by soft wax-lights, and circled by smiling faces, most of them women, as the old gentleman liked best. Even the plain Mary, taking the foot of the table, looked well and mistress-like in her black velvet dress: Eulalie and Mrs. Dugdale kept up the good appearance of the family; while Miss Valery and the young Mrs. Harper took either side of the host, and were duly honoured by him.
Agatha wore her wedding-dress, of white silk, rich and plain, She looked very pretty, her girlishabandonof manner softened by a certain wifely dignity, which grew upon her day by day. She filled her position well, though often with secret trembling, and shy glances over to her husband to see if he were satisfied with her—a fact which no one but herself could doubt.
“Now, my children,” said the Squire, when the servants had withdrawn, and dessert and wines foretold the chatty hour after dinner of which he was so fond—“now, my children—I may call you all so?” and he smiled at Anne Valery—“let me tell you how glad I am to see you, and especially the youngest of you”—here he softly patted Agatha's hand, on the table. “And since we always drink healths here—a good old fashion that I should be loth to renounce—let me give you the first toast—Mr. and Mrs. Nathanael Locke Harper!”
“Hear, hear!” said Mr. Dugdale vaguely from the bottom of the table, at which indecorum—probably occasioned by a county meeting that was running in his head—his father-in-law looked extremely severe. But the severity was soon drowned in the nods and smiles that circled round. After which Nathanael said briefly but with feeling:
“Father, my brother and sisters, and Anne—my wife and I thank you all”
“What do you think of this our old-fashioned custom?'” said the Squire, turning to his daughter-in-law. “A remnant of my young days, when every lady used to be called upon to give the health of a gentleman, and every gentleman of a lady. It was always so at your grandfather's table, Anne, where many a time when you were a baby in long-clothes I had the pleasure of giving yours.”
“Thank you,” said Anne, smiling. She was evidently a great favourite with the old gentleman.
“You should know, my dear daughter-in-law, that my acquaintance with this lady dates almost from her birth. And for nineteen years I held over her the right which I understand my eldest son”—he paused a moment—“which Major Harper had the honour to hold over you. Her grandfather left me his executor and sole guardian of his infant heiress. I was a young man then, but I tried to deserve his trust. Did I, Anne?”
Again she smiled—most affectionately.
“And I had the pleasure of seeing my ward at twenty-one the richest heiress and the truest gentlewoman in the west of England. She did me infinite credit, and I had fulfilled to my friend one of the most sacred trusts a man can receive. Your excellent grandfather Anne—let us drink his memory.”
Reverently and in silence the old Squire raised the glass to his lips—a glass filled with only water—he never took wine.
“You see, my dear young lady, how this old custom brings back all lost or absent friends. We never forget them, and like to talk of them and of old times. Thus, always at this hour, we gather round us innumerable pleasant recollections, and remember all who are dear to us or to our guests at Kingcombe Holm.—Now, Mrs. Harper, we wait your toast.”
Agatha coloured, felt nervous and ashamed, glanced at her husband, but met nothing except an encouraging smile. She thought—remembering her own few ties—that she would gratify Nathanael by naming some one nearest to him. So she looked up timidly, and gave “Uncle Brian.”
Every one applauded—the Squire graciously acknowledging the compliment to his brother.
“The youngest and only surviving brother of many, and as such, much regarded by me,” he explained to his daughter-in-law. “In spite of the great difference in our ages, and some trifling opposition in our characters, I cherish the highest esteem for my brother Brian.” And hereupon he asked for the letter received that day; which was duly read aloud by his son—saving the wise omission of the postscript.
“Go to California?” said old Mr. Harper, knitting his brows. “I do not like that—it is unbecoming a gentleman. Though he was wild and daring enough, Brian never yet forgot he was a gentleman. Was it not so, Anne?”
Anne assented.
“He was a fine generous fellow, too. Do you remember how a week before he left us so suddenly he rode fifty miles across the country to get some ice for you in your fever? You were very ill then, my poor girl.” It was touching to hear him call Miss Valery a “girl”—she whom the young Agatha regarded as quite an elderly woman.
“And though he did leave us so abruptly—wherefore, remains to this day a mystery, unless it was a young man's whim and love of change—still I have the greatest dependence on Brian Harper,” continued the Squire, who seemed as a parental right to monopolise all the talk at table.
“Brian Harper!” exclaimed Mr. Dugdale, waking from a trance. “Yes—Brian would surely be able to furnish those statistics on Canadian wheat. His judgment was always as sound as his politics.”
“What was your remark, Marmaduke” said the old Squire, testily.
“O, nothing—nothing, father!” Harrie quickly answered, with a half merry, half warning frown at her lord. Mr. Dugdale folded himself up again into silence, with the quiet consciousness of one who has a pearl in his keeping—the undoubted value of which there is no need either to put forward or to defend.
Miss Valery here came to the rescue, and turned the conversation into a merry channel Agatha was surprised to find what a wondrous power of unfeigned home-cheerfulness there was in this woman, who had lived to be called even by those that loved her, “an old maid.” And when at last the Squire gracefully allowed the departure of his women-kind, who floated away like a flock of released birds, they all clustered around Anne, as though she were in the constant habit of knowing everybody's business, and of thinking and judging for everybody.
Agatha sat a little way off, watching her, and wondering what could be the strange influence which always made her take delight in watching Anne Valery.
There is something very peculiar in this admiration which one woman occasionally conceives for another, generally much older than herself. It is not exactly friendship, but partakes more of the character of love—in its idealisation, its shyness, its enthusiastic reverence, its hopeless doubt of requital, and, above all, its jealousies. For this reason, it generally comes previous to, or for want of, the real love, the drawing of the feminine soul towards its masculine half, which makes—according to the Platonic doctrine—a perfect being. Of course, this theory would be almost universally considered “sentimentalism”—Agatha's little infatuation being included therein; but the frequency of such infatuations existing in the world around us argues some truth at their origin.
To the young girl—still so girlish, though she was married—there was an inexplicable attraction in all Anne Valery said or did. The very sweep of her dress across the floor—her slow soft motions, which might have been haughty when she was young, but now were only gracious and self-possessed; the way she had of folding her hands on one another, and looking straight forward with a kind observant smile, free alike from sentiment, crossness, or melancholy; her tone and manner, neither showy nor sharp; her habit of saying the wisest things in the most simple way, so that nobody recognised them as wisdom till afterwards—all filled Agatha with a sense of satisfied admiration. She wished either that she had been a man, to have adored and married Anne years ago—or that her own marriage had been delayed for a little, until she had grown wiser and more fit for life's destiny by learning from and loving such a woman as Miss Valery.
Moreover, with the dawning jealousy that all strong likings bring, she wished to appropriate her—and was quite annoyed that Anne sat so long discussing winter mantles with Eulalie and Mary, afterwards diverging to a Christmas clothing fund to be started at Kingcombe under Mrs. Dugdale's eye; finally listening to a whispered communication on the part of the Beauty—which had reference to a certain “Edward”—about whose position in the family there could be no mistake. At last, to Agatha's great satisfaction, Miss Valery rose, and proposed that they two—Mrs. Harper and herself—should go and visit Elizabeth.
Passing through the galleries, Anne seemed tired, and walked slowly, stopping one minute at a window to show her companion the moonlight over the hills.
“Is it not a beautiful world? If we could but look at it always as we do when we are young!” The half sigh, the momentary shadow sweeping over her quiet face like a cloud over the moon—surprised and touched Agatha.
“Do you know I have stood and looked out of this same window ever since I was the height of its first pane. No wonder I have a weakness for stopping here and looking out for a minute at my dear old moon. But let us pass on.”
She took up her candle again, and led Agatha by the hand, like a pet-child, to Elizabeth's door.
Miss Harper was lying as usual, but had a writing-case before her, and it was astonishing what neat caligraphy those weak childish-looking fingers could execute. It resembled the writer's own mind—clear, delicate, well-arranged, exact.
“We are not come to stay very long; but do we interrupt you, Elizabeth?”
“Never, Anne, dear! I was only writing to Frederick. He is gone abroad, you are aware?”
“Yes.”
“I want to know why he went? Has Nathanael told either of you?” said Elizabeth, fixing her quick eyes on both her visitors.
Both answered in the negative—Miss Valery saying, with attempted gaiety, “You know, one might as well question a stone wall as Nathanael. He can be both deaf and dumb.”
“Not to me. Everybody tells me everything, or I find it out. I found out that this little lady had a chance of being my sister-in-law before ever she herself was certain of the fact. Ah, Agatha, you should have seen Nathanael when he came down to us that week.”
“What did he do?” the young wife asked, not without some painful curiosity—for sometimes, in the moments when she could not “make out” her husband's rather peculiar character, a wicked demon had whispered that perhaps Mr. Harper had never truly loved her, or that his devotion was too sudden to be a lasting reality.
“What did he do?—Oh, nothing. He was very quiet, very self-possessed. You could hardly tell he was in love at all. Nobody ever guessed it but I—not even Anne. But in love or not, I saw that he was determined to have you; and when Nathanael determines on a thing—Oh, I knew you would be married to him! You could not help it!”
“Nor did she wish—nor need she,” said Anne, gently, as she saw Agatha's confusion. “But we shall soon cease teasing our young couple. I hear that at Christmas we shall have another marriage in the family. Edward Thorpe has got the living—the richest one.”
“So, of course, Eulalie will marry him.” The deduction reached Agatha as rather sarcastic, though perhaps more through the interpretation of her own feeling than that of the speaker. She asked, with one of her usual plain speeches:
“Does Eulalie love Mr. Thorpe very much?”
The remark was addressed to both; but after a pause Elizabeth said, “Answer that question, Anne.”
“What sort of an answer do you want, my dear?”
“One perfectly plain. I like simplicity. Is Eulalie much attached to the man she is to marry?”
“Women marry with many forms of love; Eulalie's will do exceedingly well for Mr. Thorpe. He is a very worthy young clergyman, who takes a wife as a matter of necessity. As for love—have you noticed, Agatha, how many women one sees, wives and mothers, who live creditably through a long life, and go down to their graves without ever having known the real meaning of the word?”
Anne was talking more than usual to-night, and Agatha liked to listen. The subject came home to her. “Will Eulalie be one of these?”
“I think so. She may make a very good, attentive wife, but she will never know what is real love.”
“Tell me, what is that sort of love—the right love—which one ought to bring to one's husband?”
Miss Valery looked surprised at the young girl's eager manner. “Are you seriously asking that question? and of me, who never had a husband?”
“Oh, one likes to hear various opinions. What do you call 'loving?'”
“Almost every human being loves in a different way.”
“Well, then, your way I mean.” But noticing the momentary reticence which Anne's manner showed, she added, “I mean the kind of love you have most sympathy with in other people.”
“I have sympathy in all. My neighbours will tell you hereabouts that Anne Valery is the universal confidante, and the greatest marriage-maker (not match-maker) in all Dorset. I don't repudiate the character. It is pleasant to see young people loving one another.”
“Still, you have not told me whatyoucall loving.”
“Do you really wish to hear?” said Anne, seriously. Then speaking in a low voice, she added: “I would have every woman marry, not merely liking a man well enough to accept him as a husband, but loving him so wholly, that, wedded or not, she feels she is at heart his wife and none other's, to the end of her life. So faithful, that she can see all his little faults (though she takes care no one else shall see them), yet would as soon think of loving him the less for these, as of ceasing to look up to heaven because there are a few clouds in the sky. So true, and so fond, that she needs neither to vex him with her constancy, nor burden him with her love, since both are self-existent, and entirely independent of anything he gives or takes away. Thus she will marry neither from liking, esteem, nor gratitude for his love, but from the fulness of her own. If they never marry, as sometimes happens”—and Anne's voice slightly faltered—“God will cause them to meet in the next existence. They cannot be parted—they belong to one another.”
All were silent—these three women—one to whom love must have been only a name; the other who spoke of it quietly, seriously, as we talk of things belonging to the world to come; and the third, who sat thoughtful, wondering, doubting, afraid to believe in a truth which brought with it her own condemnation.
“You talk, Miss Valery, as people do in books. Some would call it romance.”
“Would they? And do you?”
“Not quite. I used to think the same sometimes; but perfect love, like perfect beauty, is a thing one never meets with in real life.”
“Yet one does not the less believe in it, and desire to find approximations thereto. No, my child, I do not talk romance, I am too old for that, and have seen too much of the world. Nevertheless, despite all I have seen—the false, foolish, weak attachments—the unholy marriages—the after-life of marriage made unholier still by struggling against what was inevitable—still I believe in the one true love which binds a woman's heart faithfully to one man in this life and, God grant it! in the next. But you have no need to hear all this—little wife? You do not wish to be taught how to love Nathanael?”
Agatha tried to smile—to conceal the pain rising in her heart.
“Come then, I will teach you how to love him—in better words than mine, and from a woman who, though writing out of the deep truth of her poet-heart, would scorn to write mere 'romance.'”
“Any woman would,” answered Agatha, running her eyes over a book which Miss Valery had lifted from the silk coverlid, and which “poor Elizabeth” looked after fondly, as sick people do after the face of a friend.
“Listen, with your heart open. It is sure to find entrance there,” said Anne, merrily, until, turning over the pages, she grew serious. She was not quite too old to be insensible to the glamour of poetry. Her voice was hardly like itself—at least, not like what Agatha had ever heard it—when she began to read:
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth, and breadth, and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right: I love thee purely, as they turn from praise: I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith: I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints; I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”
There was a pause of full-hearted silence, and then Agatha heard a sigh behind her.
Her husband had come to the door, and, hearing reading, had stolen in, no one noticing him but his sister. Agatha saw nothing; her eyelids were closely, fiercely shut, over the tears that rose at this vision of a lost or impossible paradise.
“Agatha!” She looked up, and saw him stand, wearing his palest, coldest aspect—that which always seemed to freeze up every young feeling within her. The pang it gave found vent in but one expression—scarcely meant to pass her lips—and inaudible to all save him:
“Oh, why—why did I marry!”
The moment after, she felt how wrong it was, and would have atoned; but Mr. Harper had moved quickly from her side. Elizabeth called him; he seemed not to hear; Anne, closing her book, addressed him:
“Are you come to talk with us, or to fetch your wife away?”
“Neither,” he said, bitterly. But recovering himself—“Nay, Anne, I came for you. My father wishes to see you. He will hear nothing I can urge. You must come down and talk with him, or I do not know what will be done.”
Agatha had until now forgotten that her husband had intended after dinner to tell his father his plans concerning the stewardship. It had been apparently a harder task than he thought, to strive with the old Squire's prejudices. Seeing his extreme perturbation, Agatha repented herself deeply of any unkindness towards him.
She went to his side. “What is the matter? Tell me! Let me help you.”
“You!” he echoed; then added, with an accent studiously kind, “Thank you, Agatha. You are very good always.”
He let her take his arm and stand talking with himself and Miss Valery.
“I feared it would be so,” the latter said. “Your father has a strong will; still he can be persuaded. We must try.”
“But only persuasion—no reasons. Understand me, Anne—no reasons!”
Miss Valery looked at the young man very earnestly.
“Nathanael, if I did not know you well, and know too whose guidance formed your character, it would be hard to trust you.”
“Anne!” Again the peculiar manner which sometimes appeared in him, making him seem much older than his years, had its strange influence with Miss Valery, guiding her by an under-current deeper even than her judgment.
“Ay,” she said in a whisper, “I will trust you. Let us go down.” And she turned with him to say good-bye to Miss Harper.
The excitement of talking had been too much for “poor Elizabeth.” One of her “dark hours” was upon her. The eyes were closed, and the face sharpened under keen physical pain. Agatha could hardly bear to see her; but Nathanael bent over his sister with that soothing kindness which in a man is so beautiful.
“Shall we stay with you? at least, shall I?”
Elizabeth motioned a decided negative.
“I know,” Miss Valery said, apart, “she had rather be alone. No one can do her good, and it is too much for this child, who is not used to it as we are.”
Calling Elizabeth's maid from the inner room, Anne hurried Agatha away. She, clinging to her husband's arm, heard him say, half to himself:
“And yet we think life hard, and murmur at that we have, and grieve for that we have not! We are very wicked, all of us. Poor Elizabeth!”
The three went very silently down-stairs.
At the dining-room door Mrs. Harper let go her husband's arm.
“Why are you leaving me, Agatha?”
“Because I thought—I imagined, perhaps you wished”—
“I wish to have you with me always. Anne knows,” and he looked pointedly at Miss Valery, “that I shall never respond to, and most certainly never volunteer, any confidence to either her or my father that I do not share with my wife. She has the first claim, and what is not hers no other person shall obtain.”
Anne looked puzzled. At last she said, in an under tone, “I think I understand, and you are quite right. I shall remember.”
The old Squire was sitting in his arm-chair, the dessert and wine still before him. The cheerfulness of the dinner-circle over, he looked very aged now—aged and lonely too, being the only occupant of that large room. He raised his head when Miss Valery entered, but seemed annoyed at the entrance of his daughter-in-law.
“Mrs. Harper! I did not mean to encroach onyourleisure.”
“No, father; it was I who wished her to come. Forgive me, but I could not bring Miss Valery into our family councils and exclude my own wife. She is not a stranger now.”
Saying this, Nathanael placed Agatha in a chair and stood beside her, taking her cold hand, for with all her power she could not keep herself from trembling. She had never known anything of those formidable affairs which are called “family quarrels.”
“Now, father,” he continued in a straightforward but respectful manner, “Anne will answer any question to prove what I have already told you—that it is at my own request she takes me for her steward.”
“Her friend and adviser,” Anne interposed.
“I never doubted, Nathanael, that it was at your own request. Otherwise it were impossible that Miss Valery would so far have insulted my family.”
At these words Anne coloured, and moved a step or two with something of the pride of her young days. “I did not think, Mr. Harper, that it would have been either an insult to offer, or a disgrace to accept, the position which your son desires to hold. Far be it from me in any way to wrong any member of your family, especially the son whom your wife left in my arms—and Brian's—when she died.”
Agatha had never before heard Miss Valery say “Brian.” She was evidently speaking as people do when much moved, using a form of phrase and alluding to things not commonly referred to.
The old Squire sat silent a minute, and then stretched out his hand. “I know your goodness, Anne! But I cannot renounce all my rights. Even a younger son must not throw discredit on his family. Except in one brief instance, for centuries there has never been a Harper who worked for his living.”
“Then, father, let me be the first to commence that act of inconceivable boldness and energy,” said Nathanael, with a good-humoured persuasive smile. “Let me, being likewise a younger son, take a leaf out of Uncle Brian's book, and try to labour, as he once did, in my own county, with the honour of my own race about me.”
“And what did he effect? Was he not looked down upon, humiliated, cheated? I never ride past his old deserted clay-pits without being thankful that he went to Canada, rather than have disgraced us by what his folly must have come to at last. He would have lost the little he had—have been bankrupt, perhaps dishonoured.”
“Mr. Harper!”—Anne rose from her chair—“I think you speak rather hardly of your brother. It never could be said, or will be said, that Brian Harper wasdishonoured.”
At these words, spoken with unusual warmth, Nathanael gratefully clasped her hand. The Squire observed, with added dignity, that no one could be more sensible than himself of his brother's merit, and that he thanked Miss Valery for extending her kind interests to every branch of the Harper family.
“And now,” he continued, “we will cease this conversation. My son knows my sentiments, and will doubtless act upon them. I never maintain arguments with my children.” And the sentence implied that what “I never do,” was consequently a thing unnecessary and impossible to be done. The old gentleman leant on each arm of his chair, and feebly tried to rise.
“Father,” cried Nathanael, detaining him, “I would do much rather than try you thus; but it cannot be helped. I must work.”
“I do not see the necessity.”
“But if there be a necessity; if my own feelings, my conscience—other reasons, which here I cannot urge”—and involuntarily his eye glanced towards his wife.
An instinct of delicacy brightened the old man's perceptions. He bowed to Agatha. “We need not apologise for these discussions before a lady who has done my son the honour of uniting her fortune to his ancient family.” (And he evidently thought the honour bestowed was quite as much on the Harper side.) “She, I am sure, will agree with me that this proceeding is not necessary.”
Agatha hesitated. Much as she longed to do it, a sense of right prevented her from openly siding against her husband. She kept silence; Nathanael answered with the tone of one who sets a strong guard upon his lips, almost stronger than he can bear:
“I have already told my wife all the reasons I have just given you, that, since I am resolved to be independent, there is no way but this. I have been brought up abroad, and have learnt no profession; my health is not robust enough for a town life, or for hard study. Many, almost all the usual modes in which a man, born a gentleman, can earn his living are thus shut out from me. What Anne Valery offers me Icando, and should be content in doing. Father, do not stand in the way of my winning for myself a little comfort—a little peace.”
Through his entreaty, earnest and manly as it was, there ran a sort of melancholy which surprised and grieved Agatha. Could this be the lover on whom, in giving him herself, she believed she had bestowed entire felicity? Had he too, like herself, found a something wanting in marriage, a something to fill up which he must needs resort to an active career of worldly toil? Would she never be able to make either him or herself truly happy? and if so, what was the cause?
The Squire keenly regarded his son, who stood before him in an attitude so respectful yet so firm. Something seemed to strike him in the pale, delicate, womanish features; perhaps he saw therein the wife who had died when Nathanael was born, and whose death, people said, had chilled the father's heart strangely against the poor babe.
“My son,” he said, “you have been away from me nearly all your life—and where I have given little, I can require little. But I am an old man. Do not let me feel that you too are setting yourself against my grey hairs.”
“God knows, father, I would not for worlds! But what can I do? Anne, what can I do?”
Anne rose, and leant over Mr. Harper's chair, like a privileged eldest daughter who secretly strengthened with her judgment the wisdom that was growing feeble through old age; doing it reverently, as we all would wish our children to do when our own light grows dim. For, alas! the wisest and firmest of us may come one day to mutter in the ears of a younger generation the senile cry, “I am old and foolish—old and foolish.”
“Dear friend—if Nathanael follows out this plan, it will be for the comfort and not the disquiet of your grey hairs. Think how pleasant always to have a son at hand, and a young, pretty Mrs. Harper to brighten Kingcombe Holm.”
This was a wise thrust—the old gentleman looked in his daughter-in-law's fair face, and bowed complacently.
“Then, too, your son will live in the country, lead the life that he loves, and that you love—the very life which all these years you have been vainly planning for his brother.”
The Squire turned sharply round. “On that subject, if you please, we will be silent. Anne, Anne,” he added, “do you want again to turn my plans aside? Would you take from me my other son also?”
She drew back, much wounded.
“No, no, my dear, I did not mean that. It was not your fault—you two were not suited for each other. Nevertheless, in spite of your wilfulness, in nothing but the name did I lose a daughter. Forgive me, Anne!”
“My dear old friend,” she whispered, and stole her fingers into the withered palm of the Squire. He kissed them with the grace of an old courtier: the tenderness of a father. She, though moved at his kindness, betrayed no stronger emotion; and Agatha, who had watched intently this little episode, confirmatory of an old suspicion of her own, was considerably puzzled thereby. If Anne Valery's life contained any sad secret, it was evidently not this. She had not remained an old maid for love of Major Harper.
“Nathanael,” said the old man, returning with dignity to the former conversation, “I would not be harsh or unjust. There is but one way to reconcile our opposing wills, since you are determined on this scheme of independence. You have told me your plan—will you accept mine?”
“Let me hear it, father,” answered Nathanael respectfully.
“You have hitherto had nothing from me—your Uncle Brian insisted on that—nor will you ever have much; I must keep my property intact for the next heir of Kingcombe Holm. Nothing shall alienate the rights of my eldest son, with whom rests the honour of our family and name.”
Agatha noticing the determined pride with which her father-in-law said this, wondered that her husband listened with a lowered aspect and made no response. She thought it unbrotherly, unkind.
“But,” continued Mr. Harper, “though the chief of all I possess must remain secure for Frederick, I have a little besides, saved for my daughters' portions. If, with their consent, I lend you this, and you will embark in some profession”—
“No, father, no! I will never take one farthing from you or my sisters! I will not again be burdened with other people's property! Oh for the days when I earned my own solitary bread from hand to mouth, and was free and at rest!”
He spoke excitedly, and was only conscious of the extent of what he had said by feeling his wife's hand drop slowly from his own.
“Nay, Agatha, I did not mean”—and he tried to draw it back again. “Forgive me.”
“Perhaps we have both need to forgive one another.”
No one heard this mournful whisper between the young husband and wife; they stood as if it had not been uttered—for both their consciences felt duty to be a bond as strong as love.
And then, on the painful silence which sank over all four, smote ten heavy strokes of the hall-clock, warning the swift passage of time—too swift to be wasted in struggle, regret, and contention. Anne rose, her pale face seeming to have that very thought written thereon.
“My dear friends, listen to me a minute. Here is one who all this time has not spoken a word, and yet the question concerns her more than any of us. Let Agatha decide.”
The old man hesitated. Perhaps in his heart he was desirous of a compromise. Or else he judged from ordinary human nature, that the pride of the young wife would ally her on his side, and so win over a will which any father looking into Nathanael's face could see was not to be threatened into concession.
“Pas aux dames,” said Mr. Harper, with a pleasantly chivalric air. Then more seriously: “My daughter-in-law, choose. But remember that you stand between your husband and his father.”
Agatha, thrust into so new and important a position, felt a rush of temptations to follow her own impulse. She turned appealingly to Miss Valery, but Anne's eyes were fixed on the floor. She looked at her husband, and met a gaze of doubt, anxiety, mingled with a certain desperation.
“He knows my feeling about this matter; perhaps he thinks me a wilful child, ready to take advantage of the liberty given me. He is sure of what I shall say.”
And she had half a mind to say it, as a condemnation for his so unkindly judging her; but the girlish pettishness and recklessness went away, and a better spirit came. She sat, her right hand nervously pushing backward and forward the still unfamiliar wedding-ring, until in accidentally feeling the symbol, she suddenly remembered the reality.
“I am a wife,” she thought. “Underallcircumstances I will do a wife's duty.” And with that determination all the pleasant little follies and temptations buzzing round her heart flew away, and left her—as one always is, having resolved to consider the right and nothing else—resolute and at ease.
She said very simply—almost childishly—taking her father-in-law's hand the while, “If you please, and if you would not be angry, I would rather do exactly as my husband likes. He knows best.”
In these words she had exhausted all her boldness; and for a few minutes after had a very indistinct notion of everything, save that the Squire had walked off, not angrily, but in perfect silence, leaning on Miss Valery's arm, and that she was left in the dining-room alone with Nathanael.