Chapter 9

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_ CHAPTER IX

It was a most unconscionably early hour on the wedding morning when Mrs. Thornycroft, who had insisted on mounting guard overnight in Bedford Square, to see that all things were made ready to go off "merry as a marriage bell," came into Agatha's room and roused the bride.

"I never knew such a thing in all my life! Well, he is the most extraordinary young man! What is to be done, my dear?"

"What--what?" said Agatha, waking, with a confused notion that something very dreadful had happened, or was going to happen. She recollected that this day on which she so early opened her eyes was some day of great solemnity. It seemed so like that of her father's funeral.

"Don't be frightened, love. Nothing has occurred; only there is Mr. Harper in the parlour below, wanting to speak with you. I never heard of such a request from a bridegroom. It is contrary to all rules of common sense and decorum."

"Hush!" said Agatha, trying to collect her thoughts. "Tell me exactly his message."

"That he wished to speak with you at once, before you dress for church; and will wait for you in the dining-room. What--you are not going to do as he desires?--I wouldn't! One should never _obey_ till after marriage."

Agatha made no answer, but composedly began to dress. In a few minutes she had once more put on the mourning, laid aside as she thought for ever the night before, and had gone down-stairs to her bridegroom.

He was standing in the only available corner of the room not occupied by a chaotic mass of hymeneal preparations, and gazing vacantly out into the square, where the trees cast the long shadows of early morning, while the merry little sparrows kept up a perpetual din.

As the door moved, Mr. Harper turned round. He had a sickly, worn look, as if he had scarcely slept all night, and in his manner was a strange mingling of trouble and of joy.

"Agatha--how kind! I ought to apologise," he began, taking both her hands. "But no! I cannot."

"Nothing is wrong? No misfortune happened?"

"Misfortune? God forbid! Surely I do not look as if it were a misfortune? I am only too glad--too happy. Whatever results from it, I am indeed happy!"

"Then so am I, whatsoever it may be," returned Agatha, softly. "Still, do tell me."

Her bridegroom, as he pressed her to his bosom, looked as if he had for the moment forgotten all about his tidings; but afterwards, when her second entreaty came, he took out a letter and bade her read, holding her fast the while with a light firm hand on her shoulder. He seemed almost to fear that at the news he brought she would glide out of his grasp like snow.

"It is an odd hand--strange to me," said Agatha. "Is it"--and a sudden thought struck her--"is it"----

"Yes--thank God."

"Oh, then, he is safe--I am so glad--so glad!" cried Agatha, in the true sympathy of her heart. But her very gladness appeared to affect contrariwise the troubled mood of her lover. His hand dropped imperceptibly from her shoulder--he sat down.

"Read the letter, which came late last night. I thought you would be pleased--that was why I thus disturbed you."

Agatha, who had not yet learned the joy or pain of reading momently the changes of a beloved face, immediately perused the letter. It was rather eccentric of its kind:

"Lodge of O-me-not-tua.

"My dear Boy,

"If ever you get into the hands of those red devils, be not alarmed: it isn't so bad as it seems. If you saw me now, in the big buffalo-cloak of a medicine man, after smoking dozens of pipes of peace with every one of the tribe, sitting at the door of my lodge, with miles of high prairie-grass rolling in waves towards the sunset, you would rather envy me than otherwise, and cry out, as I have often done, 'Away with civilisation!'

"I am not scalped--I thought I should not be; the tribe (it wastes valuable paper to write their long name, but you will have heard it) the tribe know me too well. I make a capital white medicine-man. I might have escaped any day, but, pshaw! honour!--So I choose to see a little of the great western forests, until I know how my two red friends have been treated on Lake Winnipeg shore. But in no case is any harm likely to come to me, except those chances of mortality which are common to all.

"You will receive this (which a worthy psalm-singing missionary conveys to New York) almost as soon as the news of our adventure reaches Europe. I send it to relieve you, dear nephew, and all friends, if I have any left, from further anxiety concerning me, and especially from useless search, as under no circumstances whatever shall I consent to return to Montreal until it seems to me good.

"Therefore, stay in Europe as long as, or longer than, you planned, and God prosper you, Nathanael, my good boy.

"Your affectionate uncle,

"Brian Locke Harper.

"I trust earnestly that this scrawl will reach Kingcombe Holm. Possibly, no more news of me may ever reach there.--Yet I fear not, for He who is everywhere is likewise in the wild western prairies; and life is not so sweet that I should dread its ending. Still, if it does end, remember me to my brother, my nieces, and all old friends, including Anne Valery. If living, I shall reappear sometime, somewhere. B. L. H."

"This is indeed happy news;--so far;" said Agatha, "though he seems in no cheerful mood."

"Melancholy was always his way at times."

"What a strange man he must be!" she continued, still thinking more of the letter than of anything else. "But"--and she turned to Nathanael--"your mind is now at rest? You will not need to go to America?"

"Not just yet."

She looked at him a moment in surprise, for there was something peculiar in his manner. She felt half angry with him for sitting so still, and speaking so briefly, while she herself was trembling with delight. "Have you told Miss Valery?" He shook his head. "Ah, then, go at once and tell her, so happy as she will be! Do go."

"Presently. Come and sit down here. I want to talk to you, Agatha."

She let him place her by his side. He took her hands, and regarded her earnestly.

"Do you remember what day this was to have been?"

"Was to have been?" she repeated, and instinctively guessed what he had doubtless come to say. Her heart began to beat violently, and her eyes dropped in confusion.

"I say '_was_,' because, if you desire it, it shall not be. I see the very idea is a relief to you. I saw it in your sudden joy."

Agatha was amazed--she had till this moment never thought of such a thing. Mr. Harper's whole manner of speech and proceeding was so very incomprehensible--like a lover's--that she told the entire truth in simply saying "that she did not understand him."

"Let me repeat it in plainer words." But the plainer words would not come; after one or two vain efforts, he sat with averted face, speechless. At last he said abruptly, "Agatha, do you wish to defer our marriage?"

As he spoke, his grasp of her hand was so fierce that it positively hurt her. "Oh, let me go--you are not kind," she cried, shrinking from the pain, which he did not even perceive he had inflicted--so strange a mood was upon him. He loosed her hand at once, and stood up before her, speaking vehemently.

"I meant to be kind--very kind--just in the way that I knew would most please you. I meant to tell you that I wish you to hold yourself quite free, both as to this day or any other days: that you have only to say the word, and--What a fool I am making of myself!"

Muttering the last words, he turned and walked quickly to the far end of the room, leaving Agatha to meditate. It was a new thing to see such passion in him; and while half frightened she was interested and touched. She would have been more so, but for a certain something in him which roused her pride, until she could not do as she had at first intended--follow him, and ask why he was angry. The humility of love was not yet hers.

So she sat without moving, her eyes fixed on her hand, where the red mark left by her lover's grasp was slowly disappearing; until a minute after, he approached.

"Was that the mark of my fingers on your wrist? Did I hurt you, my poor Agatha?"

"Yes, a little."

"Forgive me!" And sitting down beside her, he bent his lips to where his rude grasp had been, kissing the little wrist over and over again, though he did not speak.

His humility in this, the first ripple which had ever stirred their calmest of all calm courtships, moved Agatha even more than his sudden gust of passion. It is a curious fact, that some women--and they not of the weaker or more foolish kind--like very much to be ruled. A strong nature is instinctively attracted by one still stronger. Most certainly Agatha had never so distinctly felt the cords--not exactly of love, but of some influence akin thereto--which this young man had netted round her, as when he began to draw them with a tight, firm hand, less that of a submissive lover than of a dominant husband. She had never liked him half so well as when, taking her hand once more into his determined hold, he said--gently, indeed, but in a tone that would be answered--

"Now, tell me, what do you wish?"

"What do I wish?" echoed she, feeling as though some hard but firm support were about to relax from her, leaving her trembling and insecure to the world's open blasts. "I do not know--I cannot tell. Talk to me a little; that will help me to judge."

His eye brightened, though faintly. "I will speak, but you shall decide, for all lies in your own hands. I thought this right, and came here determined on telling you so."

"Well?" said Agatha, expectantly.

"You promised me this hand to-day, believing I was to leave England at once. My not leaving frees you from that promise--at least at present. If you would rather wait until you know me better, or love me better, then"--

"What then?"

"We will quite blot out this day--crush it--destroy it, no matter what it was to have been. We will enter upon to-morrow, not as wife and husband, but mere lovers--friends--acquaintances--anything you like. Nay--I am growing a fool again."

He put his hand to his forehead, sighed heavily, and then continued with less violence.

"If this is what you wish--as from your silence I conclude it is--be assured, Agatha, that I shall consent. I will take no wife against her will. The kisses of her lips would sting me, if there were no love in her heart."

Agatha was still silent.

"Well then, it must be so," said he, in slow, measured speech. "I must go away out of this house, for I am no bridegroom. You may tell the women to put away this white finery till it is wanted--which may be--never!"

She looked up questioningly.

"I repeat--_never_. The currents of life, so many and so fierce, may sweep us asunder at any moment. I may become mercenary, and choose a richer wife even than yourself; or you may turn from me to some one more pleasing, more winning--my brother, perhaps"--

Agatha recoiled, while the angry blood flashed from brow to throat. Her lover saw it, and for the moment a strange intentness was in his gaze. But immediately he smiled, as a man would at some horrible phantom of his own creating, and continued with a softened manner:

"Or, if our own wills hold secure, many things may happen, as Anne Valery forewarned us, to prevent our union. Even ere a month or two--for if you are ever mine it must be as soon as then--but even within that time one or other of us may have gone away where no loving, no regretting, can ever call us back any more."

Terrible was the imagined solitude of a world from which had passed the only being who cherished her--the only being whom she thoroughly honoured. Agatha drew closer to Nathanael.

"Still, for all that," continued he, striving to keep even in his mind the balance of honour and generous tenderness against the arguments of selfish passion, "if for any reason you wish to postpone this day for weeks, months, or years, I will take the chance. All shall be as you deem best for your own happiness. As for mine--I will try to be content."

He paused a little, but it was a pause which no woman could misunderstand. Then, turning back to her, he said in a low tone,

"When am I to go away, Agatha?"

Her brow dropped slowly against his arm, as, much agitated, yet not unhappy, she whispered the one word "_Never_."

For one moment Agatha felt against her own the loud convulsive throbs of the heart that loved her--an embrace which, in its fierce rapture, was like none that came before it, or after. When she learned to count and chronicle such tokens of love, as one begins to count each wave when the sand grows dry, this embrace remained to her as a truth, a reality, which no succeeding doubts could explain away or gainsay.

It lasted, as such moments can but last, a space too brief to be reckoned, dying out of its own intensity. Agatha slid from her lover's arms, and swiftly passing out at the door, met Emma coming in. The unlucky bridegroom was left to make his own explanation to Mrs. Thornycroft, and how he performed that feat remains a mystery to this day.

Solemnly, and much affected, the bride went up-stairs to put on her wedding-garments.

Anne Valery had just arrived. She sat alone in Miss Bowen's dressing-room, playing with the orange-wreath. Her face wore a thoughtful, sickly, sad look, but the moment she heard some one at the door this expression vanished.

"So, my dear, you have a rather unconscionable bridegroom, Mrs. Thornycroft tells me. He has been here already."

Suddenly all that had happened recurred to Agatha. She forgot her own agitation in the joy of being the first to bring good news.

"Ah, you little know why he came. Uncle Brian--there is a letter from Uncle Brian."

And in her warm-heartedness of delight she threw her arms round Miss Valery's neck. She was very much surprised that Anne did not speak a single word, and that the cheek against which her young glowing one was pressed felt as cold as marble.

"Are you not glad, Miss Valery?"

"Yes, very glad. Now will you go down-stairs and fetch me the letter?"

And, gently putting the young girl from her, Anne sat down! As Agatha left the room, she fancied she heard a faint sound--a sigh or gasp; but Miss Valery had not moved. She sat as at first--her hands clasped on her lap, the veil of her bonnet falling over her face. And coming back some minutes after, Agatha found her in precisely the same position.

"Thank you, dear." She held out her hand for the letter, and then retired with it to a far window. It took a good while to read. All the time that the young bride was being dressed by Emma and the maid, Miss Valery stood in that recess, her back turned towards them, apparently reading or pondering over that strange scrawl from the Far West.

At last Mrs. Thornycroft gently hinted that there was hardly time for her to return home and dress for the wedding.

"Dress for the wedding," repeated Anne, absently. "Oh, yes; I remember, it was to be early. No fear! I will be quite ready."

She crossed the room, walking slowly, but at the door turned to look at the bride, on whose head Emma was already placing the orange-blossoms.

"Doesn't she look pretty?" appealed the gratified matron-ministrant.

"Yes; very pretty.--God bless her!" said Miss Valery, and kissed her on the forehead. Agatha quite started--the lips were so cold.

"Well!" cried Emma Thornycroft, as the door closed, "I do wish, my dear, that little Missy had been grown up enough to be your bridesmaid instead of that very quiet ordinary-looking old maid. But, after all, the contrast will be the greater."

At nine o'clock the bride's half of the wedding-party were all safely assembled in Doctor Ianson's drawing-room, and everything promised to go off successfully--to which result Emma, now all in her glory, prided herself as having been the main contributor--and no doubt the kind, active, sensible little matron was right.--When, lo!--there came an unlucky _contretemps_.

Major Harper, who of course was to give away the bride, sent word that on account of sudden business he could not possibly be at the church before eleven. At that hour he promised faithfully to meet his brother there. The note which he sent over was a very hurried and disjointed scrawl. This was all that the vexed bridegroom knew of the matter.

So for two long hours Agatha sat in her wedding-dress, strangely quiet and silent--sometimes playing with the wreath of orange-blossoms which her lover had sent her, and which, being composed of natural flowers, according to a whim of Mr. Harper's, was already beginning to fade. Still she refused to put it aside, though the prudent Emma warned her it would be quite withered before she reached the church; "as was sure to be the case when people were so ridiculous as to wear real flowers."

The good soul went about, half scolding, half crying; hoping nothing might happen, or consoling herself with looking alternately at her pretty peach-coloured dress, and her "James," who walked about, indulging in gay reminiscences of his own wedding, and looking the most comfortable specimen imaginable of a worthy middle-aged "family man." Nevertheless, in spite of Mr. Thornycroft's efforts to cheer up the dreariness of the group, it was a great relief to everybody when, at the earliest reasonable time, the bride's small party started, and were at length assembled under the dark arches of Bloomsbury Church--darker than usual today, for the morning had gloomed over, and become close, hot, and thundery.

Punctually at eleven, but not a minute before, which--Emma whispered--was certainly not quite courteous in a bridegroom, Mr. Harper came in. There was no one with him.

"My brother not here?" he said in anxiety.

Some one hinted that Major Harper was never very punctual.

"He ought to be, this day at least," observed Mr. Thorny-croft. "And I am confident I saw him not half-an-hour ago walking homeward round the other side of Bedford Square. Do not be alarmed about him, pray." This last remark was addressed to Agatha, who, overpowered by the closeness of the day, and by these repeated disasters, had begun to turn pale.

Nathanael watched her with a keen anxiety, which only agitated her the more. Every one seemed uneasy and rather dull;--a circumstance not very remarkable, since, in spite of the popular delusion on that subject, very few ever really look happy at a wedding. It makes clearer to each one the silent ghost sitting in every human heart, which may take any form--bliss long desired, lost, or unfulfilled--or, in the fulfilling changed to pain--or, at best, looked back upon with a memory half-pensive if only because it is the past.

For forty interminable minutes did the little party wait in the dreary church aisles, until the clock, and likewise the beadle, warned them it was near the canonical hour.

"What are we to do?" whispered the bridegroom, looking towards Anne Valery. She took his hand, and drawing it towards Agatha's which hung on her arm, said earnestly:

"Wait no longer--life's changes will not wait Marry her _now_--nothing should come between lovers that love one another."

Anne's manner, so faltering, so different from her usual self, irresistibly impressed the hearers. Silently the little group moved to the altar; the clergyman, weary of delay, hurried the service, and in a few minutes the young creatures who eight weeks before had scarcely heard each other's names, were made "not two, but one flesh."

It was all like a dream to Agatha Bowen; she never believed in its reality until, signing that name, "Agatha Bowen," in the register-book, she remembered she was so signing it for the last time. A moment after, Emma's husband, who had assumed the office of father to the bride, cordially shaking her hand, wished all happiness to _Mrs. Harper_.

Agatha started, shivered, and burst into tears. It was a natural thing, after so many hours of overstrained excitement; nor were her tears those of unhappiness, yet they seemed, every drop, to burn on her bridegroom's heart. To crown all, while these unlucky tears were still falling, some one at the vestry door cried out, "There's Major Harper."

It was indeed himself. He entered the church hurriedly--very pale--with beads of dew standing on his brow.

"Are they married? Am I too late--are they married?" cried he.

Some uncontrollable feeling made Nathanael move to his wife's side, and snatch her hand.

"Yes," said he, meeting his brother's eye, "we are married."

Major Harper sank into one of the vestry-chairs, muttering something, inaudible to all ears save those which seemed fatally gifted with preternatural acuteness--the young bridegroom's. Nathanael fancied--nay, was certain--that he heard his brother say, "_Oh, my poor Agatha._" He looked suddenly at his bride, whose weeping had changed into silent but violent trembling. He dropped her hand, then with a determined air again took possession of it, saying sharply to his brother:

"What is the reason of all this? Is anything amiss?"

"No, nothing--have I said anything?"

"Then why startle us thus? It is not right, Frederick."

"Hush--perhaps he is ill," whispered Anne Valery.

Major Harper looked up, and among the many inquiring eyes, met hers. It seemed to fix him, sting him, rouse him to self-command.

"I am quite well," he cried, with a hoarse attempt at laughter. "A gay bachelor always feels doubly cheery at a wedding. So it is all over, Nathanael? I beg your pardon for being too late; but I have been running about town on important business, till I am half-dead. Still, let me offer my congratulations to the bride."

He came forward jauntily, seized Agatha's hand and was about to kiss it, but for a slight shrinking on her part. The colour rushed to her face--his darkened with an expression of uncontrollable pain. At least so it appeared to one who never for a moment relaxed his watch--the younger brother.

"Really," said Mr. Thornycroft, who, during the few minutes thus occupied, had bustled in and out of the vestry--"really, are we never intending to come home? Somebody must make a diversion here. Major Harper, will you take my wife? Miss Valery, allow me."

This fortunate interference effected a change. All moved away a little from the bridegroom, who was still standing by his wife's chair.

"Agatha--will you come?"

She mechanically rose; Mr. Harper drew her arm in his, and led her down the aisle. There were a few stray lookers-on at the church-door, who peered at them curiously. An inexplicable shadow hung over them. Never were a newly-married couple more silent or more grave.

Only, as they stood on the entrance-steps that were wet with a past shower of thunder-rain, and Agatha in her thin white shoes was walking right on, her husband drew her back.

"It will not hurt me. Do let me go," she said.

"No, you must not; you are mine now," was the answer, with a look that would have made the tone of control sound in any loving bride's ear the sweetest ever heard.

He left Agatha in the church, and hurried a little in advance. His brother and Mrs. Thomycroft were standing at the porch outside, Emma laughing and whispering. And while waiting for the carriage, it so chanced that Nathanael caught what they were saying.

"Why, Major Harper, you look as dull as if you had been in love with Agatha yourself! And after what you confessed to me, I did positively believe she was in love with you."

"Agatha in love with me! really you flatter me," said Major Harper, looking down and tapping his boot, with his own self-complacent, regretful smile.

"I did indeed think it, from her agitation when I hinted at such a thing. And I never was more amazed in my life than when she told me she was going to marry your brother. I do hope, poor dear Agatha"--

"Don't speak of her," cried Major Harper, in a burst of real emotion. "And she liked me so well, poor child! Oh, I wish to Heaven I had married her, and saved her from"--

Here a voice was heard calling "Mr. Harper--Mr. Harper," but the bridegroom was nowhere to be seen. Some one--not her husband--put Agatha into the carriage. Several minutes after, Nathanael appeared.

"Where have you been? Your wife is waiting."

"My wife?" He looked round bewildered, as if the words struck him with the awful irrevocable sense of what was done. Hurriedly he ran down the steps, sprang into the carriage beside Agatha, and they drove away.

Through many streets and squares they passed, for the breakfast was to be at Emma's house. Agatha sat for the first time alone with her husband. The sun just coming out threw a soft crimson light through the closed carriage blinds; the very air felt warm and sweet, like love. Agatha's heart was stirred with a new tenderness towards him into whose keeping she had just given her whole life.

For a little while she sat, her eyes cast down, wondering what he would say or do, whether he would take her hand, or draw her softly to his breast and let her cry her heart out there, as she almost longed to do--poor fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sisterless girl, who in her husband alone must concentrate every earthly tie.

But he never spoke--never moved. He leaned back in the carriage as pale as death, his lips rigidly shut together, his eyes shut too, except that now and then they opened and closed again, to show that he was not in a state of total unconsciousness. But towards his young wife no look ever once wandered.

At length he started as from a trance and saw her sitting there, very quiet, for the pride of her nature was beginning to rise at this strange treatment from him to whom she had just given herself--her all. She was nervously moving the fingers of her left hand, where the newly placed ring felt heavy and strange.

Nathanael snatched the hand with violence.

"Agatha,--are you not my Agatha? Tell me the truth--the whole truth. I will have it from you!"

"Mr. Harper!" she exclaimed, half frightened, half angry.

His long, searching gaze tried to read her every feature--her pale cheeks--her lips proud, nay, almost sullen--her eyes, from which the softness so lately visible had changed into inquietude and trouble. There was in her all maidenly innocence--no one could doubt that; but nothing could be more unlike the shy tenderness of a bride, loving, and married for love.

Slowly, slowly, the young bridegroom's gaze fell from her, and his thoughts settled into dull conviction. All his violence ceased, leaving an icy composure, which in itself bore the omen of its lasting stay.

"Forgive me," he said, in a kind but cold voice, while his vehement grasp relaxed into a loose hold. "You are my dear wife now, and I will try to be a good husband to you, Agatha."

Stooping forward, his lips just touched her cheek--which shrank from him, Agatha scarcely knew why.

"I see!" he muttered to himself "Well, be it so! and God help us both!"

The carriage stopped. Honest Mr. James Thomycroft was at the door, bidding a gay and full-hearted welcome to the bridegroom and bride.

What a marriage-day! _

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