Chapter 5

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_ CHAPTER V

Next morning Miss Bowen astonished every one, and excited once more Mrs. Ianson's incredulous smile, by openly desiring the servant who waited to take a message for her to Major Harper's. It was to the effect that she wished immediately to see that gentleman, could he make it convenient to visit her.

The message was given by her very distinctly, and with most creditable calmness, considering that the destinies of her whole life hung on the sentence.

Major Harper appeared, and was shown into Miss Bowen's drawing-room. She was not there, and the Major waited rather uneasily for several minutes, unaware that half of that time she had been standing without, her hand on the lock of the door. But her tremulousness was that of natural emotion, not of fluctuating purpose. No physiognomist studying Agatha's mouth and chin would doubt the fact, that though rather slow to will--when she had once willed, scarcely anything had power to shake her resolution.

She went in at last, and bade Major Harper good morning. "I have sent for you," she said, "to talk over a little business."

"Business!"--And the hesitation and discomfort which seemed to arise in him at the mere mention of the word again were visible in Major Harper.

"Not trust business--something quite different," said Agatha, scarcely able to help smiling at the alarm of her guardian.

"Then anything you like, my dear Miss Bowen! I have nothing in the world to do to-day. That stupid brother of mine is worse company than none at all. He said he had letters to write to Kingcombe, and vanished up-stairs! The rude fellow! But he is an excellent fellow too."

"So you have always said. He appears to love his home, and be much beloved there. Is it so?"

"Most certainly. Already they know him better than they do me, and care for him more; though he has been away for fifteen years. But then he has kept up a constant correspondence with them; while I, tossing about in the world--ah! I have had a hard life, Miss Bowen!"

He looked so sad, that Agatha felt sorry for him. But his melancholy moods had less power to touch her than of old. His gaiety so quickly and invariably returned, that her belief in the reality of his grief was somewhat shaken.

She paused a little, and then recurred again, indifferently as it were, to Nathanael--the one person in his family of whom Major Harper always spoke gladly and warmly.

"You seem to have a great love for your younger brother. Is he then so noble a character?"

"What do you call a noble character, my dear young lady?"

The half-jesting, half-patronising manner irritated Agatha; but she answered boldly:

"A man honest in his principles, faithful to his word; just, generous, and honourable."

"What a category of qualities! How interested young ladies are in a pale, thin boy! Well then"--seeing that Agatha looked serious--"well then, I declare to Heaven that, even according to your high-flown definitions, he is as noble a lad as ever breathed. I can find no fault in him, except that, as I said, he is such a mere boy. Are you satisfied? Did you want to try if I were indeed a heartless, unbrotherly, good-for-nothing fellow, as you appear to think me sometimes?"

"No," said Agatha briefly, noticing with something like scorn the Major's instinctive assumption that her questions must have some near or remote reference to himself, while he never once guessed their real motive. That answered, she changed the conversation.

After half-an-hour's chat, Major Harper delicately alluded to the supposed business on which she had wished to see him, though in a tone that showed him to be rather doubtful whether it existed at all.

Agatha coloured, and her heart quailed a little, as any girl's would, in having to speak so openly of things which usually reach young maidens softly murmured amidst the confessions of first love, or revealed by tender parents with blessings and tears. Life's earliest and best romance came to her with all its bloom worn away--all its sacredness and mystery set aside. For a moment she felt this hard.

"I wished to inform you of something nearly concerning me, which, as the guardian appointed by my father, it is right you should know. I have had"--here she tried to make her lips say the words without faltering--"I have had an offer of marriage."

"God bless my soul!" stammered out Major Harper, completely thrown off his guard by surprise. A very awkward pause ensued, until, his natural good feeling conquering any other, he said, not without emotion, "The fact of your consulting me shows that this offer is--is not without interest to you. May I ask--is it likely--that I shall have to congratulate you?"

"Yes."

He rose up slowly, and walked to the window. Whether his sensations were merely those of wounded vanity, or whether he had liked her better than he himself acknowledged, certain it was that Major Frederick Harper was a good deal moved--so much so, that he succeeded in concealing it. He came back, very kind, subdued, and tender, sat down by her side and took her hand.

"You will not wonder that I am somewhat surprised--nay, affected--by these sudden tidings, viewing you as I have always done in the light of a--younger sister--or--or a daughter. Your happiness must naturally be very dear to me."

"Thank you," murmured Agatha; and the tears came into her eyes. She felt that she had been somewhat harsh to him; but she felt, too, with great thankfulness, that, despite this softening compunction, her heart was free and firm. She had great liking, but not a particle of love, for Major Harper.

"I trust the--the gentleman you allude to is of a character likely to make you happy?"

"Yes," returned Agatha, for she could only speak in monosyllables.

"Is he--as your friend and guardian I may ask that question--is he of good standing in the world, and in a position to maintain you comfortably?"

"I do not know--I have never thought about that," she cried, restlessly. "All I know is that he--loves me--that I honour him--that he would take me"--"out of this misery," she was about to say, but stopped, feeling that both the thought and the expression were unworthy Nathanael's future wife, and unfit to be heard by Nathanael's brother.

"That he would take me," repeated she firmly, "into a contented and happy home, where I should be made a better woman than I am, and live a life more worthy of myself and of him."

"You must then esteem him very highly?"

"I do--more than any man I ever knew."

The Major winced slightly, but quickly recovered himself. "That is, I believe, the feeling with which every woman ought to marry. He who wins and deserves such an attachment is"--and he sighed--"is a happy man!--Happier, perhaps, than those who have remained single."

Again there ensued a pause, until Major Harper broke it by saying:

"There is one more question--the last of all--which, after the confidence you have shown me, I may venture to ask: do I know this gentleman?"

Agatha replied by putting into his hands his brother's letter.

The moment she had done so she felt remorse for having betrayed her lover's confidence by letting any eyes save her own rest on his tender words. Had she loved him as he loved her, she could not possibly have done so; and even now a painful sensation smote her. She would have snatched the letter back, but it was too late.

Major Harper's eyes had merely skimmed down the page to the signature, when he threw it from him, crying out vehemently:

"Impossible! Agatha marry Nathanael--Nathanael marry Agatha!--He is a boy, a very child! What can he be thinking of? Send his letter back--tell him it is utter nonsense! Upon my soul it is!"

Major Harper was very shortsighted and inconsiderate when he gave way to this burst of vexation before any woman--still more before such a woman as Agatha.

She let him go on without interruption, but she lifted the letter from the floor, refolded it, and held it tenderly--more tenderly than she had ever until now felt towards it or its writer. Something of the grave sweetness belonging to the tie of an affianced wife began to cast its shadow over her heart.

"Major Harper, when you have quite done speaking, perhaps you will sit down and hear what I have to say."

Struck by her manner, he obeyed, entreating her pardon likewise, for he was a gentleman, and felt that he had acted very wrongly.

"Yet surely," he began--until, looking at her, something convinced him that his arguments were useless. He stretched out his hand again for the letter, but with a slight gesture which expressed much, Agatha withheld it. After a pause, he said, meekly enough, as if thoroughly overcome by circumstances,--"So, it is quite true? You really love my brother?"

"I honour him, as I said, more than I do any man."

"And love him--are you sure you love him?"

"No one," she answered, deeply blushing--"No one but himself has a right to receive the answer to that question."

"True, true. Pardon me once more. But I am so startled, absolutely amazed. My brother Nathanael--he that was a baby when I was a grown man--he to marry--marrying you too--and I----Well; I suppose I am really growing into a miserable, useless old bachelor. I have thrown away my life: I shall be the last apple left on the tree--and a tolerably withered one too. But no matter. The world shall see the sunny half of me to the last."

He laughed rather tunelessly at his own bitter jest, and after a brief silence, recovered his accustomed manner.

"So so; such things must be, and I, though a bachelor myself, have no right to forbid marriages. Allow me to congratulate you. Of course you have answered this letter? My brother knows his happiness?"

"He knows nothing; but I wished that he should do so to-day, after I had spoken to you. It was a respect I felt to be your due, to form no engagement of this kind without your knowledge."

"Thank you," he said in a low voice.

"You have been good and kind to me," continued Agatha, a little touched, "and I wished to have your approval in all things--chiefly in this. Is it so?"

He offered his hand, saying, "God bless you!" with a quivering lip. He even muttered "child;" as though he felt how old he was growing, and how he had let all life's happiness slip by, until it was just that he should no longer claim it, but be content to see young people rejoicing in their youth. After a pause, he added, "Now, shall I go and fetch my brother?"

"No," replied Agatha, "send for him, and do you stay here."

"As you please," said Major Harper, a good deal surprised at this very original way of conducting a love affair. After courteously offering to withdraw himself to the dining-room, which Agatha declined, he sat and waited with her during the few minutes that elapsed before his brother appeared.

Nathanael looked much agitated; his boyish face seemed to have grown years older since the preceding night. He paused at the door, and glanced with suspicion on his brother and Miss Bowen.

"You sent for me, Frederick?"

"It was I who sent for you," said Agatha. And then steadfastly regarding him whom she had tacitly accepted as her husband, the guide and ruler of her whole life--her self-possession failed. A great timidity, almost amounting to terror, came over her. Vaguely she felt the want of something unknown--something which in the whirl of her destiny she could grasp and hold by, sure that she held fast to the right. It was the one emotion, neither regard, liking, honour, or esteem, yet including and surpassing all--the _love_, strong, pure love, without which it is so dangerous, often so fatal, for a woman to marry.

Agatha, never having known this feeling, could scarcely be said to have sacrificed it; at least not consciously. But even while she believed she was doing right in accepting the man who loved her, and whom she could make so happy, she trembled.

Major Harper sat looking out of the window in an uncomfortable silence, which he evidently knew not how to break. It was a very awkward and somewhat ridiculous position for all three.

Nathanael was the first to rise out of it. Slowly his features settled into composure, and his strong, earnest purpose gave him both dignity and calmness, even though all hope had evidently died. He looked steadily at his brother, avoiding Agatha.

"Frederick, I think I understand now. She has been telling you all."

"It was right she should. Her father left her in my care. She wishes you to learn her decision in my presence," said Major Harper, unwittingly taking a new and even respectful tone to the younger brother, whom he was wont to call "that boy."

Nathanael grasped with his slight, long fingers, the chair by which he stood. "As she pleases. I am quite ready. Still--if--yesterday--without telling you or any one--she had said to me--But I am quite ready to hear what she decides."

Despite his firmness, the words were uttered slowly and with a great struggle.

"Tell him everything, Miss Bowen; it will come better from yourself," said Frederick Harper, rising.

Agatha rose likewise, walked across the room, and laid her hand in that of him who loved her. The only words she said were so low that he alone could hear them:

"I have been very desolate--be kind to me!"

Nathanael made no answer; indeed for the moment his look was that of a man bewildered--but he never forgot those words.

Agatha felt her hand clasped--softly--but with a firm grasp that seemed to bind it to his for ever. This was the only sign of betrothal that passed between them. In another minute or two, unable to bear the scene longer, she crept out of the room and walked up-stairs, feeling with a dizzy sense, half of comfort, half of fear--yet, on the whole, the comfort stronger than the fear--that the struggle was all over, and her fate sealed for life.

When she descended, an hour after, the Harpers had gone; but she found a little note awaiting her, just one line:

"If not forbidden, I may come this evening."

Agatha knew she had no right to forbid, even had she wished it, now. So she waited quietly through the long, dim, misty day--which seemed the strangest day she had ever known; until, in the evening, her lover's knock came to the door.

She was sitting with Jane Ianson, near whom, partly in shy fear, partly from a vague desire for womanly sympathy, she had closely kept for the last hour. As yet, the Iansons knew nothing. She wondered whether from his manner or hers they would be likely to guess what had passed that morning between herself and Mr. Harper.

It was an infinite relief to her when following, nay preceding, Nathanael, there appeared his elder brother, with the old pleasant smile and bow.

But amidst all his assumed manner, Major Harper took occasion to whisper kindly to Agatha; "My brother made me come--I shall do admirably to talk nonsense to the Iansons."

And so he did, carrying off the restraint of the evening so ingeniously that no one would have suspected any deeper elements of joy or pain beneath the smooth surface of their cheerful group.

Nathanael sat almost as silent as ever; but even his very silence was a beautiful, joyful repose. In his aspect a new soul seemed to have dawned--the new soul, noble and strong, which comes into a man when he feels that his life has another life added to it, to guard, cherish, and keep as his own until death. And though Mr. Harper gave little outward sign of what was in him, it was touching to see how his eyes followed his betrothed everywhere, whether she were moving about the room, or working, or trying to sing. Continually Agatha felt the shining of these quiet, tender eyes, and she began to experience the consciousness--perhaps the sweetest in the world--of being able to make another human being entirely happy.

Only sometimes, when she looked at her future husband--hardly able to believe he was really such--and thought how strangely things had happened; how here she was, no longer a girl, but a woman engaged to be married, sitting calmly by her lover's side, without any of the tremblingly delicious emotions which she had once believed would constitute the great mystery, Love--a strange pensiveness overtook her. She felt all the solemnity of her position, and, as yet, little of its sweetness. Perhaps that would come in time. She resolved to do her duty towards him whom she so tenderly honoured, and who so deeply loved herself; and all the evening the entire gentleness of her behaviour was enough to charm the very soul of any one who held towards her the relation now borne by Nathanael Harper.

At length even the good-natured elder brother's flow of conversation seemed to fail, and he gave hints about leaving, to which the younger tacitly consented. Agatha bade them both good-night in public, and crept away, as she thought, unobserved, to her own sitting-room.

There she stood before the hearth, which looked cheerful enough this wet July night,--the fire-light shining on her hands, as they hung down listlessly folded together. She was thinking how strange everything seemed about her, and what a change had come in a few days, nay, hours.

Suddenly a light touch was laid on her hand. It startled her, but she did not attempt to shake it off. She knew quite well whose hand it was, and that it had a right to be there.

"Agatha!"

She half turned, and said once more "Good-night."

"Good-night, _my_ Agatha."

And for a minute he stood, holding her hand by the fire-light, until some one below called out loudly for "Mr. Harper." Then a kiss, soft and timid as a woman's, trembled over Agatha's mouth, and he was gone.

This was the first time she had ever been kissed by any man. The feeling it left was very new, tremulous, and strange. _

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