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Agatha's Husband: A Novel, a novel by Dinah M. Mulock Craik |
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Chapter 6 |
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_ CHAPTER VI The next morning was Sunday. Under one of the dark arches in Bloomsbury Church--with Mrs. Ianson's large feathers tossing on one side, and Jane's sickly unhappy face at the other--Agatha said her prayers in due sabbatical form. "Said her prayers" is the right phrase, for trouble had not yet opened her young heart to pray. Yet she was a good girl, not wilfully undevout; and if during the long missionary-sermon she secretly got her prayer-book and read--what was the most likely portion to attract her--the marriage service, it was with feelings solemnised and not unsacred. Some portions of it made her very thoughtful, so thoughtful that when suddenly startled by the conclusion of the sermon, she prayed--not with the clergyman, for "Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics"--but for two young creatures, herself and another, who perhaps needed Heaven's merciful blessings quite as much. When she rose up it was with moist eyelashes; and then she perceived what until this minute she had not seen,--that close behind her, sitting where he had probably sat all church-time, was Nathanael Harper. If anything can touch the heart of a generous woman, when it is still a free heart, it is that quiet, unobtrusive, proudly-silent love which, giving all, exacts nothing. Agatha's smile had in it something even of shy tenderness when at the church-door she was met by Mr. Harper. And when, after speaking courteously to the Iansons, he came, quite naturally as it were, to her side, and drew her arm in his, she felt a strange sense of calm and rest in knowing that it was her betrothed husband upon whom she leant. At the door he seemed wishful enough to enter; but Mrs. Ianson invariably looked very coldly upon Sunday visitors. And something questioning and questionable in the glances of both that lady and her daughter was very painful to Miss Bowen. "Not to-day," she whispered, as her lover detained her hand. "To-morrow I shall have made all clear to the Iansons." "As you will! Nothing shall trouble you," said he, with a gentle acquiescence, the value of which, alas! she did not half appreciate. "Only, remember, I have so few to-morrows." This speech troubled Agatha for many minutes, bringing various thoughts concerning the dim future which as yet she had scarcely contemplated. It is wonderful how little an unsophisticated girl's mind rests on the common-sense and commonplace of marriage,--household prospects, income, long or short engagements, and the like. When in the course of that drowsy, dark Sunday afternoon, with the rain-drops dripping heavily on the balcony, she took opportunity formally to communicate her secret to the astonished Mrs. Ianson, Agatha was perfectly confounded by the two simple questions: "When are you to be married? And where are you going to live?" "And oh! my dear," cried the doctor's wife, roused into positive sympathy by a confidence which always touches the softest chord in every woman's heart--"oh, my dear, I hope it will not be a long engagement. People change so--at least men do. You don't know what misery comes out of long engagements!" And, lowering her voice, she turned her dull grey eyes, swimming with motherly tears, towards the corner sofa where the pale, fretful, old-maidish Jane lay sleeping. Agatha understood a little, and guessed more. After that day, however ill-tempered and disagreeable the invalid might be, she was always very patient and kind towards Jane Ianson. After tea, when her daughter was gone to bed, Mrs. Ianson unfolded all to the Doctor, who nearly broke Miss Bowen's fingers with his congratulatory shake; John the footman, catching fragments of talk, probably put the whole story together for the amusement of the lower regions; and when Agatha retired to rest she was quite sure that the whole house, down to the little maid who waited on herself, was fully aware of the important fact that Miss Bowen was going to be married to Mr. Locke Harper. This annoyed her--she had not expected it. But she bore it stoically as a necessary evil. Only sometimes she thought how different all things were, seen afar and near; and faintly sighed for that long ago lost picture of wakening fancy--the Arcadian, impossible love-dream. She sat up till after midnight, writing to Emma Thorny-croft, the only near friend to whom she had to write, the news of her engagement--information that for many reasons she preferred giving by pen, not words. Finishing, she put her blind aside to have one freshening look at the trees in the square. It was quite cloudless now, the moon being just rising--the same moon that Agatha had seen, as a bright slender line appearing at street corners, on the Midsummer night when she and Nathariael Harper walked home together. She felt a deep interest in that especial moon, which seemed between its dawning and waning to have comprised the whole fate of her life. Quietly opening the window, she leant out gazing at the moonlight, as foolish girls will--yet who does not remember, half pathetically, those dear old follies! "Heigho! I wonder what will be the end of it all!" said Agatha Bowen; without specifying what the pronoun "it" alluded to. But she stopped, hearing a footstep rather policeman-like passing up and down the railing under the trees. And as after a while he crossed the street--she saw that the "policeman" had the very unprofessional appearance of a cloak and long fair hair:--Agatha's cheek burned; she shut down the window and blind, and relighted the candle. But her heart beat fast--it was so strange, so new, to be the object of such love. "However, I suppose I shall get used to it--besides--oh, how good he is!" And the genuine reverence of her heart conquered its touch of feminine vanity; which, perhaps, had he known. Nathanael would have done wiser in going to bed like a Christian, than in wandering like a heathen idolater round his beloved's shrine. But, however her pride may have been flattered, it is certain that Agatha went to sleep with tears, innocent and tender enough to serve as mirrors for watching night-angels, lying on her cheek. The next morning she waited at home, and for the first time received her betrothed openly as such. She was sitting alone in her little drawing-room engaged at her work; but put it down when Mr. Harper entered, and held out her hand kindly, though with a slight restraint and confusion. Both were needless: he only touched this lately-won hand with his soft boyish lips--like a _preux chevalier_ of the olden time--and sat down by her side. However deep his love might be, its reserve was unquestionable. After a while he began to talk to her--timidly yet tenderly, as friend with friend--watching her fingers while they moved, until at length the girl grew calmed by the calmness of her young lover. So much so, that she even forgot he was a young man and her lover, and found herself often steadfastly looking up into his face, which was gradually melting into a known likeness, as many faces do when we grow familiar with them. Agatha puzzled herself much as to who it could be that Mr. Harper was like--though she found no nearer resemblance than a head she had once seen of the angel Gabriel. She told him this--quite innocently, and then, recollecting herself, coloured deeply. But Nathanael looked perfectly happy. "The likeness is very flattering," said he, smiling. "Yet I would only wish to be--what you called me once, the first evening I saw you. Do you remember?" "No." "Ah--well--it was not probable you should," he answered, as if patiently taking upon himself the knowledge which only a strong love can bear--that it is _alone_ in its strength. "It was merely when they were talking of my name, and you said I looked like a Nathanael. Now, do you remember?" "Yes, and I think so still," she replied, without any false shame. "I never look at you, but I feel there is 'no guile' in you, Mr. Harper." "Thanks," he said, with much feeling. "Thanks--except for the last word. How soon will you try to say 'Nathanael?'" A fit of wilfulness or shyness was upon Agatha. She drew away her hand which he had taken. "How soon? Nay, I cannot tell. It is a long name, old-fashioned, and rather ugly." He made no answer--scarcely even showed that he was hurt; but he never again asked her to call him "Nathanael." She went on with her work, and he sat quietly looking at her for some little time more. Any Asmodeus peering at them through the roof would have vowed these were the oddest pair of lovers ever seen. At last, rousing himself, Mr. Harper said: "It is time, Agatha"--he paused, and added--"dear Agatha--quite time that we should talk a little about what concerns our happiness--at least mine." She looked at him--saw how earnest he was, and put down her work. The softness of her manner soothed him. "I know, dear Agatha, that it is very wrong in me; but sometimes I can hardly believe this is all true, and that you really promised--what I heard from your own lips two days ago. Will you--out of that good heart of yours--say it again?" "What must I say?" "That you love--no, I don't mean that--but that you care for me a little--enough to trust me with your happiness? Do you?" For all reply, Agatha held out the hand she had drawn back. Her lover kept it tight in that peculiar grasp of his--very soft and still, but firm as adamant. "Thank you. You shall never regret your trust. My brother told me all you said to him on Saturday morning. I know you do not quite love me yet." Agatha started, it was so true. "Still, as you have loved no one else--you are sure of that?" She thought a minute, then lifted her candid eyes, and answered: "Yes, quite sure!" He, watching her closely, betrayed himself so far as to give an inward thankful sigh. "Then, Agatha, since I love you, I am not afraid." "Nor I," she answered, and a tear fell, for she was greatly moved. Her betrothed put his arm round her, softly and timidly, as if unfamiliar with actions of tenderness; but she trembled so much that, still softly, he let her go, only keeping firm hold of her hand, apparently to show that no power on earth, gentle or strong, should wrest that from him. A few minutes after, he began speaking of his affairs, of which Agatha was in a state of entire ignorance. She said, jestingly--for they had fallen into quite familiar jesting now, and were laughing together like a couple of children--that she had not the least idea whether she were about to marry a prince or a beggar. "No," answered her lover, smiling at her unworldliness, and thereby betraying that, innocent as he looked, his was not the innocence of ignorance. "No; but I am not exactly a prince, and as a beggar I should certainly be too proud to marry _you_." "Indeed! Why?" "Because I understand you are a very rich young lady (I don't know how rich, for I never thought of the subject or inquired about it till to-day), while I am only able to earn my income year by year. Yet it is a good income, and, I earnestly hope, fully equal to yours." "I don't know what mine is. But why are you so punctilious?" "Uncle Brian, impressed upon me, from my boyhood, that one of the greatest horrors of life must be the taunt of having married an heiress for her money." "Has he ever married?" "No." "And is he a very old man?" Miss Bowen asked, less interested in money matters than in this Uncle Brian, whose name so constantly floated across his nephew's conversation. "Fifteen years in the colonies makes a man old before his time. And he was not very young, probably full thirty, when he went out But I could go on talking of Uncle Brian for ever; you must stop me, Agatha." "Not I--I like to hear," she answered, beginning to feel how sweet it was to sit talking thus confidentially, and know herself and her words esteemed fair and pleasant in the eyes of one who loved her. But as she looked up and smiled, that same witching smile put an effectual stop to the chronicle of Brian Harper. "And I have to go back to Canada so soon!" whispered Nathanael to himself, as his gaze, far less calm than heretofore, fell down like a warm sunshine over his betrothed, "The time of my stay here will soon be over, and what then--Agatha?" She did not wholly comprehend the question, and so let it pass. She was quite content to keep him talking about things and people in whom her interest was naturally growing; of Kingcombe Holm, the old house on the Dorset coast, where the Harpers had dwelt for centuries; of its present owner, Nathanael Harper, Esquire, of that venerable name so renowned in Dorsetshire pedigrees, that one Harper had refused to merge it even in the blaze of a peerage. Of the five Miss Harpers, of whom one was dead, and another, the all-important "married sister," Mrs. Dugdale, lived in a town close by. Of Eulalie, the pretty _cadette_ who was at some future time going to disappear behind the shadows of matrimony; of busy, housekeeping Mary, whom nobody could possibly do without, and who couldn't be suffered to marry on any account whatever. Last of all, was the eye, ear, and heart of the house, kept tenderly in its inmost nook, from which for twenty years she had never moved, and never would move until softly carried to the house appointed for all living--Elizabeth, the eldest--of whom Nathanael's soft voice grew softer as he spoke. His betrothed hesitated to ask many questions about Elizabeth. The one of whom she had it in her mind always to inquire, and whose name somehow always slipped past, was Miss Anne Valery. All this conversation--wherein the young lover bore himself much more bravely than in regular "love-making"--a manufacture at which he was not _au fait_ at all, caused the morning to pass swiftly by. Agatha thought if all her life were to move so smoothly and pleasantly, she need never repent trusting its current to the guidance of Nathanael Harper. And when, soon after he departed, Emma Thorny-croft came in, all smiles, wonderings, and congratulations, Miss Bowen was in a mood cheerful enough to look the happy _fiancee_ to the life; besides womanly and tender enough to hang round her friend's neck, testifying her old regard--until Master James testified his also, and likewise his general sympathy in the scene, by flying at them both with bread-and-buttery fingers. "Ah, Agatha, there is nothing like being a wife and mother! you see what happiness lies before you," cried the affectionate soul, hugging her unruly son and heir. Miss Bowen slightly shuddered; being of a rather different opinion; which, however, she had the good taste to keep to herself, since occasionally a slight misgiving arose that either she was unreasonably harsh, or that the true type of infantile loveableness did not exist in the young Thornycrofts. As a private penance for possible injustice, and also out of the general sunniness of her contented heart, she was particularly kind to Master James that day, and moreover promised to spend the next at the Botanic Gardens--not the terrific Zoological!--with Emma and the babies. "And," added the young matron, with a gracious satisfaction, "you understand, my dear, we shall--now and always--be most happy to see Mr. Harper in the evening." _ |
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