Chapter 23

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_ CHAPTER XXIII

The whole household was in terror and disorder. Eulalie had rushed screaming from the room--Mary went about, trembling like a leaf, trying to get restoratives--Agatha knelt on the floor, supporting the old man's head in her lap, speaking to him sometimes, as by the motion and apparent intelligence of his eyes she fancied he might possibly understand her.

"Oh, he is dead, he is dead!" cried Mary, as she took up the senseless hand, and let it fall again with a burst of tears.

"No, he is not dead--he hears you;--take care," said Agatha, putting the frightened daughter aside with a firmness which rose in her, as in similar characters it does rise, equal to the necessity. She looked on the trembling Mary--on the servants gathering round with silent horror, and saw there were none who, so to speak, "had their wits about them," except herself. Scarcely knowing how she did it, she instinctively assumed the rule. She, the young girl of nineteen, who had never till then been placed in any position of trial.

"Send all these people away. Quick Mary! Bring some one who can carry him to his room. And--stay, Eulalie, sit down there and be quiet. Don't let any one go and alarm Elizabeth."

She gave these orders and everybody listened and obeyed; people are so ready to obey any guiding spirit at such a crisis. Then she bent down again over the poor corpselike figure that rested against her knee, kissed the old man's forehead, and tried to comfort him. She had heard of cases, when though deprived of speech and motion, the sufferer was still conscious of all passing around him. Therefore she wished as soon as possible to remove her father-in-law out of the way of the terrified household.

He was carried to his room through the hall where he had lately trod so stately,--the poor old man now helpless as the dead. Leaving the dining-room, Agatha thought she saw his eyes turn back, as if he knew that he was crossing the doorway he would never cross more, and wanted to take a last look at the familiar things. Otherwise he seemed continually watching herself. She walked beside him till he was laid upon his bed, and then tried again to speak to him. She did it caressingly, as though the old dying man had been a sick child.

"Be content, now--quite content. I will take care of you, and see that all is done right. I shall, not be away two minutes; I am only going to send for help--your own doctor from Kingcombe. We must try to get you well. Lie here quiet."

Quiet! It was like enjoining stillness to a corpse! Agatha shuddered when she had used the word. For a moment the dread of her position rose upon her. In that lonely house, at night too, with no help nearer than Kingcombe: and even then no husband, no friend--for she dared not send to poor, sick Anne Valery! And she so young, so inexperienced.--But no matter! She would try to meet everything--do everything. She felt already calm and brave.

The first thing necessary was to send for medical aid. This she did; having the forethought to write a few clear lines, lest the messenger should fail. She despatched word likewise to the Dugdales. She felt quite composed; everything right to be remembered came clearly into her head. It was the grand touch-stone of her character; the crisis of danger which shows whether a woman has that presence of mind which exalts her into a domestic heroine, an angel of comfort; or the weakness which sinks her into a helpless selfish fool.

The latter was hardly likely to become a true picture of Agatha Harper.

She went about with Mary, giving some orders to the servants, for sickness always comes startingly upon an unprepared and unaccustomed house; and tried to find a few soothing words for the terrified Eulalie, who clung crying about them both, forgetting all her affectations. If the Beauty had any love left in her, it was for her father. Lastly, Agatha took a light, and went swiftly along the passages to the distant wing of the house which Elizabeth occupied.

"Miss Harper," her maid said, "had gone quietly to rest, and was then fast sleeping."

Poor Elizabeth! this seemed the hardest point of all.

"When did she see her father?"

"This morning. The master always comes up every morning after breakfast to see Miss Harper."

And they would never see one another again, this helpless father and daughter--never, till they met bodiless, in the next world!

For the moment Agatha felt her courage fail She glided quickly from the door, but came back again. Elizabeth had waked, and called her.

"What is the matter? I know something is the matter."

"Do tell her," whispered the maid, "She'll find it out anyhow--she finds out everything. And she has been so ill all day."

Agatha entered. There was no deceiving those eyes.

"Elizabeth, dear Elizabeth--your father--it is very hard, but--your father"--She hesitated; it was so difficult to convey, even in gentlest words, the cruel truth. Miss Harper regarded her keenly. The bearer of ill-tidings is always soon betrayed, and Agatha's was not a face to disguise anything. Elizabeth's head dropped back on the pillow.

"I perceive. He is an old man. He has gone home before me. My dear father!"

The perfect composure with which she said this astonished Agatha. She did not understand how near Elizabeth always lived to the unknown world, and how welcome and beautiful it was in her familiar sight.

"No; he is alive still. But, if he should not come in to see you to-morrow-morning"--

"I shall go unto him; he shall not return unto me," murmured Elizabeth, as her eyelids fell, and a few tears dropped through the lashes. "Tell me the rest, will you?"

"He has been seized with paralysis, I think; he cannot speak or move, but seems still conscious. I do not know how it will end."

"One way--only one way; I feared this long. My grandfather died so. Agatha"--calling after her, for she was stealing away, she could not bear it--"Agatha, you will take care of him?"

"I will as his own daughter."

"And, if possible"--here Elizabeth's voice faltered a little--"give my love to my dear father."

Agatha fled away. She hid herself in the recess close by "Anne's window," as it was called, and for a minute or two cried violently. It did her good. With those tears all the selfishness, anger, and pain flowed out of her heart, leaving it purer and more peaceful than it had been for a long time. It was not a foolish, miserable girl, but a brave, tenderhearted, sensible woman, who entered the door of the sick-chamber where the poor old man lay.

No one was there but the coachman who had carried his master up-stairs. Many servants hovered about the door, but none dared enter. Either they were afraid of the Squire--afraid even now, or else the motionless figure that lay within the bed-curtains was too like death. Old John sat beside it, with tears running down his cheeks.

"Oh, Mrs. Harper, look at th' Master. He be all alive in's mind. He do want bad to speak to we. Look at 'un, Missus!"

"Give me your place, John. I will try to understand him. Father!"--She faltered a little over the word, but felt it was the right word, now. The old man moved his head towards her with a feeble smile. The expression of his face was clearer and more natural, only for that terribly painful inarticulate murmur, which no one could comprehend.

"I have done all I could think of," Agatha continued, speaking softly and cheerfully. "The doctor will be here soon; Mary and Eulalie are down-stairs. I have myself told Elizabeth that you are ill;--she is composed, and sends her love to her dear father. Was all this right?"

Mr. Harper appeared to assent.

"I will sit beside you till the doctor comes, and then I will write to my husband. You would like him to come home?"

He seemed slow of comprehension, troubled, or excited. Agatha vainly tried to analyse the dumb expression of the features. With all her quickness she could not make out what he wanted. At last, a thought struck her. His eldest son, his favourite--

"Would you like me to send for Major Harper?"

No words could tell the change which convulsed the old man. Abhorrence--anger--fear--all were written in his countenance. He rolled his head on the pillow, he struggled to gasp out something--what, his daughter-in-law could not guess. She was inexpressibly shocked. One thing only seemed clear, that for some cause or other the mere mention of Frederick's name worked up the father into frenzy.

"Hush! do not try to speak. I will send for no one but Nathanael. Will that content you?"

He made a motion of satisfaction, and became quiet. His features gradually composed themselves, and, he sank into torpor.

Agatha still sat by the bed, holding his wrist, for she knew not moment by moment how soon the pulse might stop. The old man's own daughters were too terrified to approach him. They came on tiptoe to the door, looked in, shuddered, and went back. No one stayed in the room but the old coachman, who had been Mr. Harper's servant since they were both boys; and he sat in a corner crying like a child, though silently. Agatha might as well have sat there quite alone, the atmosphere around her was so still and solemn.

She had never before been in her father-in-law's room---the state bedroom, in which for centuries the Harper family had been born and died. The great mahogany bed itself was almost like a bier, with its dark velvet hangings, and dusty plumes. Everything around was dusty, gloomy, and worn out; the Squire would have nothing changed from the time when the last Mrs. Harper died there. In a little curtained alcove the lace hung yellow and dusty over her toilet-table, just as she had left it when she laid herself down to the pains of motherhood and death. Her portraits--one girlish, another matronly, but still merry and fair--hung opposite the bed. Between them was a longitudinal family-group, in the very lowest style of art--a string of children, from the big boy to the tottering baby, in all varieties of impossible attitudes. Their names were written under (not unnecessarily)--Frederick, Emily, Harriet, Mary, Eulalie. The only names missed were Nathanael and "poor Elizabeth."

Mechanically Agatha observed all these things during the first half-hour of her vigil; involuntarily her mind floated away to musings concerning them, until she forcibly impelled it back to consider the present. It was in vain. Innumerable conjectures flitted through her brain, but not one which she could catch hold of as a truth. Of one thing only she felt sure, that something very serious must have happened--some great mental shock, too powerful for the Squire's feeble old age. And this shock was certainly in some way or other connected with Major Harper.

An hour later, when she was beginning to count every beat of the old man's pulse, and look forward with dread to a midnight vigil beside that breathing corpse, the doctor came.

Agatha waited for his dictum--it needed very little skill to decide that. A few questions--a shake of the head--a solemn condolatory sigh; and all knew that the old Squire's days were numbered.

"How long?" whispered Mrs. Harper, half closing the door as they came out.

"I cannot say. Some hours--days--possibly a week. We never know in these cases. But, I fear, certainly within a week."

_What_ would be "within a week?" Why is it that every one dreads to say the simple word "_die_?"

Agatha paused. She had never yet stood face to face in a house with death. The sensation was very awful. She glanced within at the heavy-curtained bed, and then at the fair, girlish portrait which peered through the folds at its foot--the painted eyes, eternally young, seeming to keep watch smilingly. The old man and his long-parted wife, to be together again--"within a week." It was strange--strange.

"His sons should be sent for," hinted the doctor. "Mr. Locke Harper is in Cornwall, I believe; but the other--Major Harper"----

"Frederick--Yes, we must send for Frederick," sobbed Mary. "My father cares more for him than for any of us. Oh, poor Frederick!"

"But," Eulalie said--they were all whispering together at the door--"I don't think any one of us, not even Elizabeth, knows Frederick's address just now. A week ago he was passing through London, but he does make such a mystery of his comings and goings. Oh, if he were only here!"

"Ask my father," cried Mary--"ask him if he would like to see Frederick."

As she said this rather too loudly, there was a strange smothered sound from the bed. Agatha ran. The old Squire was gasping, choking, with the frightful effort to speak. His face was purple--his eyes wild--yet the poor bound tongue refused to obey his will.

"Hush! be composed," said his daughter-in-law, soothingly. "You shall see no one. No one shall be sent for. Will that do?"

He grew calmer, but restless still.

"Shall my husband come? He will do you good--he does everybody good. Would you like to see Nathanael?"

A faint assent--scarcely intelligible--and then the Squire dropped off again into sleep. Agatha left him and went to his daughters, who lingered outside.

"I think Major Harper has somehow vexed him. He will only see my husband. A messenger must be sent to Cornwall. Who will write?"

"Who but yourself," said Eulalie, hardly able even then to repress a look, beneath which Agatha's cheek glowed fiery red; "who so fit as yourself to tell this to your husband?"

"You are right;" and she smothered down her swelling heart into a grave dignity. "Get the messenger ready--I will write here--in this room."

She turned-within--closed the door--looked once more at the old man, trying by that mournful sight to still the earthly anger that was again rising in her heart,--and sat down to write.

It was a hard task. She scribbled the date, and paused. This, strangely enough, was the first letter she had ever written to him. She did not know how to begin it. Her heart beat--her fingers trembled. To tell such news to the dearest friend and husband that ever woman had, would be a difficult and painful thing, and for her to tell it to him, as they were now! For the first letter he ever had from her to be this! And how could she write it?--she who till to-day would almost have cut off her right hand rather than have humbled herself to write to him at all. Yet now all the wrath was melting out of her, and tenderness swelling up afresh. We always feel so tender over those that are in trouble.

"Yes, I will do it," muttered Agatha. And she wrote firmly the words--"_My dear husband_" They seemed at the same time to imprint themselves on her heart as a truth--invisible sometimes, yet when brought near to the fire of strong emotion or suffering, found ineffaceably written there.

The letter was a mere brief explanation and summons; but it bore the words, duty-words certainly--yet which no duty would have forced Agatha to write had they been untrue--"_My dear husband_"--"_Your affectionate wife._"

She despatched it, and re-entered the sick-room. All was quiet there--the very hopelessness of the case produced quiet. There was nothing to be done, watched, or waited for. Doctor Mason sat by his patient, as he had declared his intention of doing through the night. He sat mournfully, for he was a kind, good man--the family doctor for thirty years.

"Let all go to bed," he said to Agatha, seeming to understand at once that she was the moving spirit in the family. "Make the house perfectly quiet, and then"--

"I will come and sit up with you."

Doctor Mason looked compassionately at the slight girlish figure, and the face already wan with the re-action after excitement. "My dear Mrs. Harper, would not a servant do as well?"

"No, I am his son's wife. What should I say to my husband if--if anything happened, and he not there, nor I?"

"Good. Then stay," said the doctor, kindly grasping her hand. He was a man of few words.

It took some time and patience to quiet the house, and persuade Mary and Eulalie to retire. When all was done, and Agatha passed swiftly, lamp in hand, through the dark, solitary rooms, she felt frightened. The house seemed so silent--already so full of death.

There was one thing more to be done--to write a line ready for Anne Valery's waking, otherwise she would expect her home, as she had promised, in the early morning. How would she tell all these horrors, even in the gentlest way, to the feeble Anne, for whom, however unknown to others, and disguised by the invalid herself, Agatha felt an ever-present dread that she in vain tried to believe was only born of strong attachment. We never deeply love anything for which we do not likewise continually fear. Agatha almost recoiled from the idea of mentioning danger or death to Anne Valery.

She went into the dining-room to write. Everything there appeared just as when this great shock struck the household into confusion; the dessert was not removed--the wine in which he had drunk Nathanael's health, remained yet in Mr. Harper's glass. Agatha shrank back. She half expected to see some shadowy form--not himself but Death, rise and sit in the arm-chair whence the old man had fallen.

Brave she was, but she was still a girl, and a girl of strong imagination. Her heart beat audibly; she put the lamp down in the middle of the room, where it might cast more light, and render less ghastly the last flicker of one wax-candle, the fellows of which had been left to burn out in their sockets. Then she sat down, covered her eyes, and tried to think connectedly of all that had happened this night.

Something touched her. She leaped up--would have screamed, but that she remembered the room overhead--the room. She crouched down--again covering her eyes.

Another touch, and a stirring in the window-curtain near which she sat. There was something--every one knows that horrible sensation--_something_ else in the room besides herself.

"Who is it?" she said, still not looking up, frightened at her own voice.

"It's me, ma'am--only me."

Everybody in the house had forgotten Mr. Grimes.

Half-intoxicated at the time of Mr. Harper's seizure, he had stayed behind in the dining-room, drunk himself stupid, and slept himself sober--or partly so. They say drink is a great unfolder of truth; if so, the old lawyer's sharp face betrayed that, in spite of all his past civility, he had not the kindest feeling in the world towards the Harper family.

"So, young lady, I frightened you? You did not expect to find me here."

"I did not, indeed; I had quite forgotten your very existence," said Mrs. Harper, point-blank. She had conceived a great dislike to Mr. Grimes, and Agatha was a girl who never took much trouble to disguise her aversions.

"Thank you, ma'am. You are polite, like the rest of the Harpers. But words, fair or foul, won't pay anything. Where's the Squire? He and I have not yet settled the little business I came about."

"Mr. Grimes, perhaps you are not aware that my father-in-law is dangerously ill--can enter upon no business, and see no person."

"In-deed?" His thorough insolence of manner brought Agatha's dignity back. She remembered that she was a lady belonging to the house, and that this fellow, whose behaviour made his grey hairs so little worthy of respect, was her father-in-law's invited guest.

"Sir," she said, drawing up her little figure, and trying to look as much Mrs. Locke Harper as possible, "you must be aware that in the present state of the house a stranger's presence is undesirable. It is not too late to order the carriage. Will you favour me by going to sleep at Kingcombe?"

Mr. Grimes looked disposed to object; but she had her hand on the bell, and her manner, though perfectly civil, was resolute--so resolute, that he became humble.

"Well, Mrs. Harper, I'm willing to oblige a former client, but I should like to put to you a few questions before leaving."

"Put them."

"First--what's wrong with the old gentleman?"

"He has had a paralytic stroke--probably caused, the doctor says, by some great shock, which was too much for him, being an old man."

The other old man looked uneasy, as though some touch of nature smote him for the moment.

"You don't think"--here he crept backward, shambling and cowardly--"you don't think I had any hand in causing this--this very melancholy occurrence."

"You?" There was undisguised scorn in Agatha's lip. As if any Mr. Grimes could do harm to a Harper! "Nothing of the kind--pray do not disquiet your conscience unnecessarily."

"But I did bring him unpleasant news, for which I'm rather sorry now. I had much better have told his son. When shall I be likely to see my friend Nathanael?"

His friend Nathanael! Agatha could have crushed him and stamped upon him, had he been worth it.

"Mr. Locke Harper," she said, trying hard to keep her temper--"Mr. Locke Harper will be at home to-morrow night. You can then make to him any communications you please. At the present, the greatest benefit you can confer on this sad house is to absent yourself from it."

"'Pon my life, Mrs. Harper, you might waste a little more breath on me, lest I might think it worth while to spend a little too much breath on you and yours. Do you know what claim I have upon your family?"

"That of being Major Harper's lawyer, I believe, and possibly mine before my marriage. It is not likely that my husband has continued to use your services afterwards."

Agatha said this sharply, for she was annoyed to feel herself in such total darkness regarding her husband's affairs. For a moment she felt half alarmed at the expression, "My friend Nathanael." Could they be allied, he and this disagreeable man? Could Grimes have acquired any power over him, that he was smiling in such a sinister, mysterious way?

"My services? Really, Mrs. Harper, this is very amusing. You surely must be aware that your husband has not the slightest occasion for anybody's services in the management of his affairs. One can't make something out of nothing, and when there is not a halfpenny left"--

"Explain yourself."

"My dear young lady, is it possible you don't know the unfortunate circumstance, at least one of the unfortunate circumstances which brought me here? Why, Mr. Locke Harper knew it months ago. He and I had several conferences together on the subject. But we husbands are obliged to be uncommunicative, as my wife would tell you, if you had the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Grimes"--

"Will you keep to the point, sir?" said Agatha, sternly. She felt very stern--very bitter. The old wound was reopening sorer than ever. Nathanael had "held conferences" with this fellow--confided to him secrets which he had not told to her--his own wife! Here was a new pang--a new indignity. In its sharpness she forgot everything else; even the silent room overhead. She had just self-possession and pride enough not to question; she would have been more than human had she not paused to hear.

"Well, Mr. Grimes!" she said, confronting him, her hand still on the door, where she had placed it as a mute signal which he refused to understand.

"I own, Mrs. Harper, it is a hard case. At the time I really felt as sorry for you as if you had been my own daughter. All to happen so soon after your marriage, too! Some persons might blame me for consenting to keep back the facts, but I assure you Major Harper compelled me to draw up the settlement exactly according to his orders."

"Sir--will you hasten--my time is occupied."

"So is mine, madam; fully occupied. I shall waste no more of it in giving advice to young women who are as proud as peacocks, and as poor as church-mice. If it wasn't for that highly respectable young man, your husband, I should say it served you right."

"What?" said Agatha, beneath her breath.

"Mr. Locke Harper found out, a month after his marriage, that somebody had made ducks and drakes of all his wife's property. So, as I hear, the poor young man has had to turn land-steward just to keep his kitchen fire burning. That's all. Very odd you don't know it."

"I do now."

"Well, you take it quietly enough. You seem quite satisfied."

"I am so."

Mr. Grimes regarded her in perfect bewilderment. She showed no token of dismay or grief, but stood calmly by the open door.

"I'm not satisfied though," cried he, at last growing heated--"I'm not going to have shareholders coming down upon me, and be hunted from London and from my profession, just because Major Harper"--

"I would rather not hear of Major Harper, or any one else, to-night. Once more--will you oblige me by leaving?"

Her thorough self-possession, her air of command--controlled the man in spite of himself. He moved away, bidding her a civil good-night.

"Good-night, Mr. Grimes; I will light you to the door."

"Ugh!" He gave a grunt--seemed inclined to hesitate--looked up at Mrs. Harper, and--obeyed.

Agatha came slowly back through the hall, feeling all stunned and stupified. She sat down, smoothed her hair back with her hands, heaved one or two weary sighs, and tried to think what had happened to her.

"So, I am no heiress. I have lost all my money, and am quite poor. He knows it--knew it a long time ago, and did not tell me. Why did he not tell me, I wonder?"

Here was a pause. For a moment she felt inclined to doubt the fact itself; truthful people have little suspicion of chicanery or falsehood, and when she came to think, innumerable circumstances confirmed Grime's statement. Yes, it must be true. This, then, was Nathanael's secret. Why had he kept it from her.

"As if he thought I cared for money! As if"--and a choking filled her throat--"as if I would have minded being ever so poor did he only love me!"

The thought burst out naturally, like water forcing its way through muddy reeds--showing how, deep down, there lay the living spring.

"Now, let me consider. He must have had some strong reason for keeping this secret. It cost him much; he said so. But I never heeded that. How I wearied him about not taking the house; how angry I was at his acceptance of the stewardship. And it was for me he wished to toil--for me, and for our daily bread! Yet he would not tell me. And all the while he must have had numberless cares and anxieties without, and his own wife blindly tormenting him at home. Last of all I called him _mercenary_. And what did he answer? Nothing! Not one reproach--not one word of anger. Yet still--he kept his secret Why?"

Here she paused again. All was mystery.

"It might have been through tenderness--to save me pain. Yet no--for he could not but see how his silence stung me. Then since he kept not this secret for love of me--and I am hardly worth such loving--it must have been from some motive, perhaps higher than love--some bond of honour which he could not break. Did he not say something to that effect once? Let me think."

Again she sat down, and so far as her excited feelings would allow, tried to recall the story of their acquaintance, courtship, marriage--a six-month's tale--how brief, yet how full. Amidst its confusion, amidst all the variations of her own feelings, stood out one steadfast image--her husband.

His character was peculiar--very peculiar. Its strength, reticence, power of silentness and self-control were beyond her comprehension; but its uprightness, truth, and rigid immaculate honour--she could understand those. It must have been his sense of honour and moral right that in some way impelled this concealment, even at the hazard of wounding the wife he loved--if he ever had loved her.

For a minute or so Agatha's mind almost lost its balance, rocking on this one point of torture--then it settled. "_God knows I did love you, Agatha_." He had said so--he who never uttered a falsehood. It was enough.

"Yet he '_did_' love me; that means he does not now. I have wearied him out with my folly, my coldness, and at length with that one last insulting wrong. I--to tell him he 'married me for my money'--when all the while I was a beggar on his hands! Yet he never betrayed a word. Oh, no wonder he despises me. No wonder he has ceased loving me. He never can love me any more."

She burst into a passion of tears, and so remained for long. At last a sudden thought seemed to dart through her sorrow. She leaped upright, clasping her hands above her head in the rapturous attitude of a child.

"There is a better thing than love--goodness. And whether he loves me or not, he is all good in himself. I know that now. It is I only that have been wicked, and have lost him. No matter. Anne was right. My noble husband! I would not give my faith in him even for his love for me!"

She said this in a delirium of joy--a woman's pure joy, when she can set aside the selfish craving for love, and live only in the worthiness of the object beloved. It was beautiful to see Agatha as she stood, her features and form all radiant. One person, creeping in, did see her.

Old John the coachman, stood in the doorway with his mournful face.

Agatha awoke to realities. Death all but present in the house--misfortune following--and she had given way to that burst of joy!

She drew her hand across her forehead--sat down at the table--wrote the three lines she had intended to Anne Valery, and then went her way, to watch all night long beside her husband's father. _

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