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Agatha's Husband: A Novel, a novel by Dinah M. Mulock Craik |
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Chapter 13 |
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_ CHAPTER XIII On the morning--her first morning at Kingcombe Holm--Mrs. Harper woke refreshed to a bright day. All the terraced outline of the hills was pencilled distinctly against the bluest of blue skies, which hung like a tent over the shut-up valley. She stood at the window looking at it, while Mary Harper made the breakfast and Eulalie curiously examined Agatha's dress, supposed to be the latest bridal fashion from London. Nathanael sat writing letters until breakfast was ready, and then took his father's place at the foot of the table. "Elizabeth bade me ask you," said Mary, addressing him, "if you had any letters this morning from Frederick? You know she likes to look at all family letters--they amuse her. Shall I take this one?" Nathanael put his hand upon a heap, among which was plainly distinguishable Major Harper's writing. "No, Mary--not now. If necessary, I will read part of it to Elizabeth myself." Agatha, who had before vainly asked the same question, was annoyed by her husband's reserve. His silence in all his affairs, especially those relating to his brother, was impenetrable. But this was rousing in her, day by day, a strong spirit of opposition. Had not the presence of his sisters restrained her, for her external wifely pride grew as much as her inward antagonism--she would have again boldly put forward her claim to read the letter. As it was, she had self-control enough to sit silent, but her mouth assumed that peculiar expression which at times revealed a few little mysteries of her nature--showing that beneath the quietude and simplicity of the girl lay the strong, desperate will of a resolute woman. After breakfast, when Mr. Harper, with some slight apology, had gone to his letters again, she rose, intending to stroll about and explore the lawn. She had never been used to ask any one's permission for her out-goings and in-comings, so was departing quite naturally, when Mary stopped her. "I hope you will not mind it, but we always stay in the house until my father comes down-stairs. He likes to see us before he begins the day." Agatha submitted--with a good grace, of course; though she thought the rule absolute was painfully prevalent in the Harper family. But as half-an-hour went by, and the morning air, so fresh and cool, tempted her sorely, she tried to set aside this formal domestic regulation. Mary looked quite frightened at her overt rebellion.--"My dear Mrs. Harper--indeed we never do it. Do we, Nathanael?" said she, appealingly. He listened to the discussion a moment.--"My dear wife, since my father would not like it, you will not go, I know." The tone was gentle, but Agatha would as soon have thought of overleaping a stone wall as of opposing a desire thus expressed. She sat quietly down again--or would have done so, but that she saw Eulalie smile meaningly at her sister. Intercepting the young wife, the smile changed into affected condolence. "Nathanael will have his way, you see. If you only knew what he was as a little boy," and the Beauty shrugged her shoulders pathetically. "Really, as Harrie says, most men would never get wives at all, did their lady loves know them only half as well as their sisters do." "Nay," said the good-natured Mary, "but Harrie also says that men, like wine, improve with age, especially if they are kept cool and not too much shaken up. She has no doubt that even her Duke was a very disagreeable boy. So, Mrs. Harper, let me assure you"------ "There is no need; I am quite satisfied," said Mrs. Harper, with no small dignity; and at this momentous crisis her father-in-law entered the room. He entered dressed for riding--looking somewhat younger than the night before, more cheerful and pleasant too, but not a whit less stately. He saluted Agatha first, and then his daughters, with a gracious solemnity, patting their cheeks all round, something after the fashion of a good-humoured Eastern bashaw. The old gentleman evidently took a secret pride in his womenkind. Then he shook hands with "my son Nathanael," and threw abroad generally a few ordinary remarks, to which his two daughters listened with great reverence. But in all he did or said was the same benignant hauteur; he seemed frozen up within a conglomerate of reserve and formal courtesy; he walked, talked, looked perpetually as Nathanael Harper, Esquire, of Kingcombe Holm, who never allowed either his mind or his body to appear _en deshabille_. Agatha wondered how he could ever have been a baby squalling, a boy playing, or a young man wooing; nay, more (the thought irresistibly presented itself as she noticed the extreme feebleness which his dignity but half disguised), how he would ever stoop to the last levelling of all humanity--the grave-clothes and the tomb. "Any letters, my dear children? Any news to tell me before I ride to Kingcombe?" said he, looking round the circle with a patronising interest, which Agatha would scarcely have believed real, but for the kindly expression of the old man's eye. "There were plenty of letters for Elizabeth, as usual; one for Eulalie "--here Eulalie looked affectedly conscious--"no others, I think." "Except one to Nathanael from Frederick," observed the Beauty. At the name of his eldest son the Squire's mien became a little graver--a little statelier. He said coldly, "Nathanael, I hope you have pleasant news from your brother. Where is he now?" "In the British Channel, on his way to the Continent." "My son going abroad, and I never heard of it! Some mistake, surely. He is not really gone?" "Yes, father, for a year, or perhaps more--but certainly a year." The old gentleman's fingers nervously clutched the handle of his riding-whip. "If so, Frederick would certainly have shown his father the respect of informing _him_ first. Excuse me if I doubt whether my son's plans are quite decided." "They are indeed, sir," said Nathanael gently. "And I was aware of, indeed advised, this journey. He bids me explain to you that when this letter arrives he will be already gone." The father started--and broke the whip he was playing with. He stood a minute, the dull red mounting to his temples and lying there like a cloud. Then he took the fragments of the riding-whip from his son's ready hand--thanked him--bade good morning to the womenkind all round, and left them. "Shall I ride with you, father?" said Nathanael, following him to the hall-door, with a concerned air. "Not to-day--I thank you! Not to-day." Mary and Eulalie looked at one another. "This will be a sad blow to papa," said the former. "Frederick was always a great anxiety to him." Agatha inquired wherefore. "Because papa abhors a gay 'vagabondising' life, and always wished his eldest son to settle down in the county. I know--though he says nothing--that this has been a sore point between them for nearly twenty years." "And I know," added Eulalie, mysteriously, "that papa was going to make a last effort, and have Frederick proposed as member for Kingcombe. A pretty fight there would have been--papa and Frederick against Marmaduke and his pet candidate!" "'Tis well that is prevented! Everything happens for the best," said Mary, sagely. "But here comes Nathanael. Don't tell him, Mrs. Harper, or he would say we had been gossiping." Mrs. Harper was standing moralising on the ins and outs of family life, from which her own experience had hitherto been so free. Her eyes were wandering up the road, where her father-in-law had just disappeared, riding slowly, but erect as a young man. While she looked, there came up one of those delicious little country pony-carriages, which a lady can drive, and make herself independent of everybody. "It is Anne Valery!" was the general cry, as all ran to meet her at the door--Agatha being the first. "My dear--my dear!" murmured Anne Valery, leaning out of her little carriage to pat the brown curls. "Are you quite well?--quite happy? And your husband?" She glanced from one to the other, with a keen inquiry. "Is all well, Nathanael?" Nathanael, smiling at his wife, whose look of entire pleasure brought, as usual, the reflection of the same to him also, answered, warmly, "Yes, Anne, all is well!" She seemed satisfied, and took his hand to dismount from her carriage. Agatha noticed that she walked more feebly, in spite of the bright colour which the wind had brought to her cheeks; and that soon after she came into the house this tint gradually faded, leaving her scarcely even so healthy-looking as she had appeared a month ago--the last time they had seen her. But her talk was full of cheerfulness. "I am come to stay the whole day with you, by your father's desire--and my own. May I, Mary?" "Oh, yes! We shall be so glad, especially Elizabeth, who was wondering and longing after you." "I have not been well. London never suits me," said Anne carelessly. "But come, now I am about again, let me see what is to be done to-day. In the first place, I must have a long talk with Elizabeth. Is she risen yet, Eulalie?" Eulalie did not know; but Mary added, that she feared this was one of Elizabeth's "hard days," when she could not talk much to any one till evening. Anne continued, after a pause--"I want to drive over to Kingcombe about some business. I have had so much on my hands since poor Mr. Wilson's death." "Anne's steward," whispered the Beauty importantly to her sister-in-law. "You know that half Kingcombe belongs to Anne Valery?" And Agatha noticed, with some amusement, what an extreme deference was infused into the usually nonchalant, contemptuous manner of the youngest Miss Harper. "So poor Wilson is dead! And who have you to manage all your property?" asked Mr. Harper suddenly. "No one at present I am very particular in my choice. As I am only a woman, my steward has necessarily considerable influence. I would wish him always to be what Mr. Wilson was: if possible a friend, but undoubtedly a gentleman." As Miss Valery spoke, Nathanael listened in deep thought; then, meeting her eyes, he coloured slightly, but quickly recovering himself, said, in a low tone, "Some time to-day, Anne, I would like to have a little talk with you." She assented with an inquiring look. But she seemed to understand Nathanael well enough to content herself with that look, asking no further questions. "And, for the third important business which should be done to-day, and perhaps the sooner the better, I must certainly take Agatha up Holm Hill, and show her the view of the Channel." Agatha drew back from the window. "Ah, not the sea!--I cannot bear the sea." Anne Valery watched her with peculiar earnestness. "Were you ever on the sea, my dear?" "Once, long ago." "Nay, I must teach you to admire our magnificent coast. On with your bonnet, and come along that great hill-terrace--do you see it?--with Nathanael and me." "But you will be tired," Mrs. Harper said, reluctant still, yet loth to resist Anne Valery. "Tired? no! The salt breeze gives me strength--health. I hardly live when I am not in sight of the Channel. Make haste, and let us go, Agatha." She seemed so eager, that no further objection was possible. So they soon started--they three only, for Mary had occupation in the house, and the Beauty was mightily averse to exercise and sea-air. They climbed the steep road, overhung with trees, at whose roots grew clusters of large primrose leaves, showing what a lovely walk it must be in spring; then higher, till all this vegetation ceased, leaving only the short grass cropped by the sheep, the purple thistles, and the furze-bushes, yellow and cheerful all the year round. They then drove along a high ridge for a mile or two, till they got quite out of sight of Kingcombe Holm. Miss Valery talked gaily the whole way; and, as though the sea-breeze truly gave her life, was the very first to propose leaving the carriage and walking on, so as to catch the earliest glimpse of the Channel. "There!" she said, breathlessly, and quitting Mr. Harper's arm, crossed over to his wife. "There, Agatha!" It was such a view as in her life the young girl had never beheld. They stood on a high ridge, on one side of which lay a wide champaign of moorland, on the other a valley, bounded by a second ridge, and between the two sloping greenly down, till it terminated in a little bay. Parallel to the valley ran this grand hill-terrace--until it likewise reached the coast, ending abruptly in precipitous gigantic cliffs, against which the tides of centuries might have beat themselves in vain. Beyond all, motionless in the noonday dazzle, and curving itself away in a mist of brightness where the eye failed, was the great, wide, immeasurable sea. The three stood gazing, but no one spoke. Agatha trembled, less with her former fear than with that awestruck sense of the infinite which is always given by the sight of the ocean--that ocean which One "holdeth in the hollow of his hand." Gradually this awe grew fainter, and she was able to look round her, and count the white dots scattered here and there on the dazzling sheet of waves. "There go the ships," said Nathanael. "See what numbers of them--numbers, yet how few they seem!--are moving up and down on this highway of all nations. Look, Agatha, at that one, a mere speck, dipping in the horizon. "Do you remember Tennyson's lines?--they reached Uncle Brian and me even in the wild forests of America:
The sight was so startling, so moving--especially in a woman of Miss Valery's mature age and composed demeanour--that Nathanael's wife instinctively turned her eyes away and kept silence. In a minute or two Anne had returned to Mr. Harper's arm, and the three were walking on as before; until, ere long, they nestled themselves in a sheltered nook, where the sea-wind could not reach them, and the sun came in, warm as summer. Nathanael began to show his wife the different points of scenery--especially the rocky island of Portland, beyond which the line of coast sweeps on ruggedly westward to the Land's End. "But I believe," he said, "that there is nowhere a grander coast than we have here--not even in Cornwall." "Speaking of Cornwall," Miss Valery said, closely observing Nathanael, "I lately heard a sad story about some mines there." Mr. Harper seemed restless. "The speculation had failed, having been ill-managed, or, as I greatly fear, a cheat from the beginning. As I had property near in the county--what, did you not know that, Nathanael--I was asked to do something for the poor starving miners of Wheal Caroline. Have you heard the name, Agatha?" "No," said Agatha, innocently, not paying much attention, except to the lovely view. "Not heard? That is strange. But you, Nathanael"-- "I know all," he said hastily. "It is a sad history--too sad to be talked of here. Another time"-- His eye met hers--and both turned upon Agatha, who sat a little apart, enjoying the novel scene, and rejoicing above all that the sea--vague object of nameless terror--could ever appear so beautiful. "Poor child!" murmured Miss Valery. "Hush, Anne!" Nathanael whispered, so imploringly--nay, commandingly, that Anne was startled. "How like you are to"-- "What were you saying?" asked Agatha, turning at last. "I was saying," Miss Valery replied hastily--"I was saying how like Nathanael looked just then to his Uncle Brian." "Did he indeed? Was that all you were speaking of?" "Not quite all; but I find your husband knows the story; he will tell you, _as he ought_," added Anne pointedly. "Surely I will, one day," said Nathanael. "But in this case, as in many others, where there has been misfortune or wrong, I consider the best, wisest, most charitable course is not to spread it abroad until the wrong has had a chance of being remedied. Do you not think so, Anne?" "Yes," she answered, her eyes fixed upon the resolute young face that seemed compelling her to silence almost against her will. It was marvellous to see the influence Nathanael had, even over Anne Valery. "And now," continued Mr. Harper, "while I am alone with you and my wife"--here he drew Agatha within the circle of talk, and made her lean against his knee, his arm shielding her from the wind--"I wanted to talk with you, Anne, about some plans I have." "Say on." "I have given up--as Agatha wrote you word--all idea of our settling at Montreal. It is necessary that I should at once find some employment in England." "Not yet--not just yet," said his wife. "I must, dear. It is right--it is necessary. Anne herself would say so." Miss Valery assented, much to Agatha's surprise. "The only question then is--what can I do? Nothing in the professions--for I have acquired none; nothing in literature--for I am not a genius; but anything in the clear, straightforward, man-of-business line--Uncle Brian used to accuse me of being so very practical.--Anne," he added, smiling, "I wish, instead of having to puff off myself thus, Uncle Brian were here to advertise my qualifications." "Qualifications for what?" inquired Agatha, Miss Valery being silent "For obtaining from my friend here what I would at once have applied for to any stranger; poor Wilson's vacant post as her overseer, land-agent, steward, or whatever the name may be." "Steward!" cried Mrs. Harper. "Surely you would never dream of being a steward?" "Why not? Because I am unworthy of the situation, or--as I fear my proud little wife thinks--because the situation is not worthy of me? Nay, a man never loses honour by earning his bread in honourable fashion; and Miss Valery herself said that for this office she required both a gentleman and a friend. Will she accept me?" And he extended, proudly as his father might--yet with a frank independence nobler than the pride of all the Harpers--his honest right hand. Anne Valery took it, the tears rising in her eyes. "I could never have offered you this, Nathanael; but since you are so steadfast, so wise----Yes! it is indeed, considering all things, the wisest course you can pursue. Only, I will agree to nothing unless your wife consents." "I will not consent," said Agatha, determinedly. There was an uncomfortable pause. "I see in your plan no reason--no right," continued she, forgetting in her annoyance even the outward deference with which her sense of conjugal dignity led her invariably to treat her husband. "Why was I never told this before?" "Because I never thought of it myself until this morning." The exceeding gentleness of his tone surprised her, and restrained many more words, not over-sweet, which were issuing from her angry lips. "The fact is, Agatha--I may speak before Anne Valery whom we both love"-- "And who loves you both as if you had been her own kindred." These words, so tremulously said, swept away a little bitterness that was rising up in Agatha's heart against Miss Valery. "It is necessary," Mr. Harper went on--"imperatively so, for my comfort--that I should at once do something. And in choosing one's work, it always seemed to me there was great wisdom in the rule--'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.' Many things I could not do; this I can, well and faithfully, as Anne will find. Nor need I feel ashamed of being steward to Miss Valery." Agatha felt her spirit of opposition quaking on its throne. "But your father--your sisters. What will they all say at Kingcombe Holm?" "Nothing that I cannot combat. My father will be glad of our settling near him in Dorsetshire." "In Dorsetshire!" echoed Mrs. Harper dolefully; and thereupon fled her last visions of a gay London home. Yet she already liked her husband's county and people well enough to bear the sacrifice with tolerable equanimity. "And whatever he says, whatever any one else says, I have no fear, if my wife will only stand by me, and trust that I do everything for the best." His wife listened, not without agitation, for she remembered their first dispute, only a few days ago. Here was rising another storm. Yet either she felt weaker to contend, or something in Nathanael's manner lured her to believe him in the right. She listened--only half-convinced, yet still she listened. Anne Valery did the same, though she took no part in the argument Only continually her eyes wandered to Nathanael, less with smiling heart-warm affection than with the pensive tenderness with which one watches a dead likeness revived in a living face. At last, when he had expressed all he could--everything except entreaty or complaint--Mr. Harper paused. "Now, Agatha, speak." She felt that she must yield, yet tried to struggle a little longer. She had been so unused to control. "You should have consulted with me--have explained more of your reasons, which as yet I do not comprehend. Why should you be so wondrously anxious to begin work? It is unreasonable, unkind." "Am I unkind to you, my poor Agatha?" His accent was that of unutterable pain. "No! no! that you never are! Only--I suppose because I am young and lately married--I do not half understand you. What must I do, Miss Valery?" Anne looked from one to the other--Nathanael, who, as was his habit in all moments of great trial, assumed an aspect unnaturally hard--and Agatha whose young fierce spirit was just bursting out, wrathful, yet half repentant all the while. "What must you do? You must try to learn the lesson that every woman has to learn from and for the man she loves--to have faith in him." "We women," she continued softly, "the very best and wisest of us, cannot enter thoroughly into the nature of the man we love. We can only love him. That is, when we once believe him worthy of affection. Firmly knowing that, we must bear with all the rest; and where we do not quite understand, we must, as I said, _have faith in him_. I have heard of some women whose faith has lasted all their life." Anne's serious smile, and the beautiful steadfastness of her eyes, which vaguely turned seaward--though apparently looking at nothing--made a deep impression on the young wife. She answered, thoughtfully, "I believe in my husband too, otherwise I would not have married him. Therefore, since our two wills seem to clash, and he is the older and the wiser--let him decide as he thinks best--I will try to 'have faith in him.'" Nathanael grasped her hand, but did not speak--it seemed impossible to him. Soon after, they all rose and turned homeward, leaving the breezy terrace and the bright sunshiny sea. None turned to look back at either, excepting only--for one lingering, parting glance--Anne Valery. _ |
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