Chapter 30

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_ CHAPTER XXX

It was Christmas morning. All the good people of Kingcombe were going to church. One only household did not go to church--there was hardly need, when all their life henceforward would be one long grateful psalm.

Agatha came down much as she had done on her first Sunday morning in the same house, and made breakfast in the little parlour. There was a strange hush about her--a joy too solemn for outward expression. When she had finished all her preparations, she stood by the window, looking on the sunny little garden, and listening to the Christ-mas-bells. The tears sprang faster--faster--her lips moved. What she was uttering no ear heard--save One. Whatever the good Kingcombe people thought, He to whom the whole earth is a temple, and all time a long Sabbath of praise--would forgive her that she did not go to church that day.

She heard a foot on the stairs, and ran thither like lightning.

Nathanael appeared. He was extremely feeble--every motion seemed to give him pain;--and his whole appearance was that of one rescued from the very jaws of the grave. But he looked so happy--so infinitely happy!

Agatha half-scolded him. "Why did you not call me? Why not let me help you to walk? I can do it, I know." And creeping under his arm, she tried to convert her little self into a marvellously strong support.

Her husband only smiled, allowing himself to be led to the sofa, laid down, and made comfortable with countless pillows. Then she stood and looked at him.

"Are you content?"

"Quite content," he murmured. "So content, that I want nothing in this wide world."

And by his look his wife knew that this was true.

"Agatha, darling, you have been crying? Come and sit here."

She came--making a minute's pretence of smiles, and then fell on his neck, weeping,

"Oh! I don't deserve to be so happy--so very happy!"

"Child," he answered, with a grave tenderness, "if we went by desert, who among us would deserve anything? Should I, who was so hard and cold towards my poor little wife, when, if I had said one word out of my real heart, and not kept it down so proudly--Ah! I was very wicked. I, too, did not deserve that God should save me from death, and bring me home to my dear wife's love. Darling! don't let us talk of deservings; only let us try to be good, and always, always love one another."

Oh, the heavenly silence of that embrace, the life of life, that was in it! Now for the first time the bond of full and perfect love was drawn round the husband and wife, sacredly shutting them in from the world without, which could never more come between them, or intermeddle with their sorrows or their joys.

At length Agatha freed herself gently from his clasp, saying, after her old habit of hiding emotion under a jest, something about the impossibility that the mistress of a household could idle away her time in this way. She made her husband's breakfast, and insisted on watching him finish it.

Drinking, he said with a shudder, "Oh, Agatha, you don't know what it is to be thirsty! The hunger was nothing to it."

"Don't talk of that, don't," murmured she, turning pale.

"I will not, dear. But was it not strange that we should have drifted ashore at Weymouth?"

"Very strange."

"Have you sent over the way this morning, to see after Uncle Brian?"

"Not yet; but Harrie will take care of him. He is not near so much hurt as you, and I must look after my own husband first." And once again wistfully gazing at him, she threw her arms round his neck, murmuring, "My own--my own!"

The church-bells ceased, the breakfast was removed, and the husband and wife sat together.

"Somebody," said Nathanael, suddenly--"somebody ought to go and see Anne Valery this Christmas-day.

"Does she know?"

"She knew last night. Marmaduke said he should ride over and tell her."

"What news for her to hear--dear, dear Anne!"

And they fell into a silence.

Agatha said at last, "When am I to see Uncle Brian?"

"Very soon, dear. Yet--stay--is not that some one at the door?"

It certainly was. People walked into one another's houses so very unceremoniously at Kingcombe. This visitor, however, paused in the hall, and then opened the parlour-door.

He was a remarkably tall man, with grey hair, and features not unlike Nathanael's, being regular and delicate. But their expression was much harsher, and indicative of a strong will and a settled bitterness, which only passed over when he smiled. This smile was very beautiful, and seemed to steal from his worn and hard-lined aspect at least ten years. Agatha knew who he was immediately.

"Uncle Brian!" Nathanael sprang up, despite his weakness, and they grasped one another's hands as heartily as if they had not met for years.

"Is this your wife?"

"It is indeed; my own dear wife."

"God bless her." Mr. Locke Harper took Agatha by the hand, and looked at her keenly. The peculiar expression either of bitterness or melancholy came over his face, but as he watched her it gradually faded off. There seemed an enchantment in the young wife's sweet looks.

"You two are very happy?"

They exchanged a glance, which needed no words of confirmation; but Agatha said, with a shy blush, and a womanly grace that made her sweeter-looking than ever.

"We are all the happier now Uncle Brian has come home."

"Thank you, my dear. Thank your husband too, for me. I would have been lying 'full fathom five' in the Channel now, if it were not for that boy."

"That boy" sounded oddly enough, save for the world of tenderness in the phrase, and the look which accompanied it. Any one could see at once the strong attachment subsisting between the uncle and nephew. No more was betrayed, however, and they soon began a conversation as natural and unconcerned as if they had gone through no peril, and suffered no emotion. Certainly, however strong their feelings, the Harpers were not a "sentimental" family.

Agatha thought, as like a dutiful wife she sat still and listened, that she had never seen any man--saving her husband of course--whose mien was so simple, yet so truly noble, as Brian Locke Harper's. She watched him with a pathetic curiosity, thinking what he must have been as a young man, with many other thoughts besides, which came from the very depths of her woman's heart.

Uncle Brian talked, though in a rather fragmentary and brief fashion, of Kingcombe and of the changes he found. He never by any chance mentioned any other place than Kingcombe, until Nathanael happened to ask him where Duke was this morning?

"He has ridden out."

"But I wanted to see him, and thank him for being so kind to my poor little wife. Where has he gone?"

"To Thornhurst." The word came out sharp, low, yet with a certain tone that made it unlike other words. After saying it, Uncle Brian sat moodily looking at the fire from under his eyebrows, until Agatha, with womanly wisdom, broke the silence, by speaking to her husband.

"I think some time this afternoon I ought to go and see Anne Valery."

"You shall go, dear."

Uncle Brian observed, never moving his eyes from the fire, "Harriet said that she--Miss Valery--was not quite strong this winter. Was that true?"

Agatha answered, "That it was only too true."

Something in her manner seemed to startle Mr. Locke Harper; he threw towards her one of his flashing, penetrating looks.

"We have indeed been very anxious about poor Anne," she answered. "But winter is a trying season, and we hope, in the spring"--

"Yes, in the spring," repeated Uncle Brian, hastily. "What a gay garden you have for Christmas." He opened the glass door, and immediately went out. They saw him walking about, backwards and forwards, among chrysanthemum beds and arbutus-trees, passing hurriedly, and with a bent-down, abstracted gaze, which beheld nothing.

"Does he know about her?" said Agatha to her husband. "You said you would tell him."

"I could not, his mood was too bitter. And there are some things in which not even I dare break upon the reserve of Uncle Brian. He is as secret and as proud--as I am."

"Ah, but"--

"I understand that 'but' my child. I know how much both he and I have often erred."

His wife pressed his hand fondly, to indicate how love had sealed its kiss of forgiveness upon all things. Nathanael smiled, and continued:

"I found Uncle Brian in such a strange mood at Havre. I dared not speak of anything just then, but thought the fit time would be when we came near the Dorset coast, and his heart was softened at the sight of home. I was walking on deck, pondering how to tell him, when the fire began."

"Ah, don't." And Agatha forgot everything--it was natural she should--in rejoicing once more over the beloved saved. Suddenly, there was heard a fluttering, and a chattering with Dorcas in the hall, marking an unmistakable approach--Mrs. Dugdale with her young flock.

Harrie was in the best of spirits and heartiest of moods, though that may be an unnecessary superlative regarding a lady who had never been seen either moody or out of spirits since her cradle. She embraced Agatha warmly, and even went through the same ceremony with her brother Nathanael, which he bore with exemplary fortitude, but shook his hair after it, like a boy who has been petted against his will. However, he kissed his little nephews good-humouredly, let Brian sit astride on his sofa-pillows, benignly assured Fred's inquiring mind that Uncle Nathanael had not been to the bottom of the sea and up again--and answered Gus with a more serious voice, that it was not exactly "funny" to be drowned.

"Funny? No, indeed," exclaimed the mother. "I am sure the shock was dreadful to us all. I don't know when _I_ shall get over it And that reminds me that Duke thinks it had been too much for poor Anne. She is worse,--keeping her bed. I don't understand sick people much, but if Agatha could go--Oh, there you are, Uncle Brian! Duke sent a message to you. He says, he is afraid it will be some days before you can see your old friend Anne: she is very ill indeed."

Brian stood silent, resting his hand on the glass-door. The colourless face, void of any expression, excepting the eyes, and they--never, while she lived, did Agatha forget the look of those eyes! She whispered, passing him by,

"I am going to her now--I shall send word soon;" and left the room.

There was a slight difficulty about her being driven to Thornhurst, as she insisted on her husband's keeping quiet at home. Harrie made a dozen plans and counter-plans, until they were all frustrated by Brian Harper's rising from the corner, where he had sat motionless.

"If you will allow me, I will drive you there."

"Thank you." There was no more said about it; they started.

Mr. Locke Harper scarcely spoke to his niece all the way, until just as they were passing the gate where, on that awful walk, Agatha had startled Mrs. Dugdale.

"I hear you came all these miles on foot, in the middle of the night. It was a very brave thing for a woman to do. I did not think any woman could have love enough in her to do it."

"I know several who would do much more."

"Who are they?"

"Harrie Dugdale, probably; and for certain, Anne Valery."

Brian said no more until they reached the gates of Thornhurst. There he helped her to descend, reins in hand, and waited. Just as Agatha was going he touched her arm:

"Ask how she is, will you?"

Agatha sent the message up-stairs, and remained with him for a minute or two. He stood motionless by the horse, his hat pulled down over his brows--nothing visible but the sharp profile of his mouth. Old Andrews called him "that gentleman"--eyed him with some curiosity, then bowed, and wished him a "merry Christmas, sir," country fashion.

The answer about the mistress of Thornhurst was brief; she was "much the same;" the servants did not seem to apprehend any danger.

Brian shook his niece's hand. "I shall go back across the moors to Kingcombe. Tell her, if, at any time, she would like to see an old friend"--

He stopped, threw down Dunce's reins, and started off towards the high ground, striding over heather and furze, with his free backwoodsman's step.

Andrews looked after him. "If that be any man alive it be Mr. Locke Harper! O Lord! and I didn't know 'un--my dear old master! Mr. Harper! Sir! Mr. Locke Harper." He ran a little way in vain pursuit of the retreating figure; then Agatha saw him sit down on a stone, hide his face in his shaking old hands, and cry for joy.

While, far over the hill-side, in very sight of the closed blinds of Anne's room, the returned wanderer strode away, and disappeared.

It was some time before Agatha could summon courage to walk up-stairs. All things seemed so strange. She could hardly realise the fact that she had been driven from Kingcombe by Uncle Brian's own self, and that she was now going to tell Anne Valery that he was here.

At last, calmed by faith in heaven, and in that next holiest faith, love, she opened the door of Anne's bedroom.

It was silent, solemn, and peaceful. There was a prayer-book by the bedside, open at one of the Christmas-day psalms. No one lingered in the room, or about the couch, with sisterly or friendly care; all was serene but lonely, as Anne's whole life had been. At the opening of the door, a faint voice asked, "Who is there?"

"Only I! Oh, Anne, dearest Anne!"

There was a pause of weeping silence, though one only wept. Miss Valery soothed the girl in all sorts of tender ways.

"You have suffered much, my poor child, but it is over now. Forget it. You will be very happy now."

"And you too--you too, Anne! But why do you lie here so drearily, with no one near you?"

"I like it."

"But you will rise soon? You must get well now they are come home. You little think how anxious all are about you."

"That is kind. Everybody was always very kind to me."

After a few moments, during which Anne lay with her eyes shut, and Agatha watched, with an unaccountable dread, the wonderful, spiritual calm of her features, she suddenly said:

"You have seen him, have you not?"

"Uncle Brian? Yes."

"How does he look? Was he harmed by that--that awful three days at sea?

"No; he seems quite well. He drove me to Thornhurst."

"Then he is here?" And there came a slight trembling over the placid face.

"He had to go back to Kingcombe, I believe," said Agatha, hesitating. "But he told me to say, if you liked to see an old friend--He does not know how ill you have been," she added, with irrepressible vexation, "or else I should have felt very, very angry, even with Uncle Brian."

"Hush! You do not understand him yet," said Anne, gently, as she once more closed her eyes. Many thoughts seemed to sweep over her, but none left a trace of bitterness behind. She was past all restlessness or suffering now.

"How are you all going to keep Christmas, Agatha? You ought to be very happy. After such a week as this has been, everything seems happiness now."

"Not everything--when you are not with us, Anne--I mean, not with us to-day."

"But I shall be with you, to-day and every day. I believe I shall never be far away from Thornhurst and Kingcombe, and Kingcombe Holm."

She said this more to herself than to Agatha, who listened, her throat choking; then answered abruptly, "You are talking too much--you must be quiet."

Anne smiled--one of her old smiles, so full of cheerfulness. "I think I am quiet enough already, but I will obey."

She turned her face to the pillow, and lay for a long time without moving. At length she said:

"Agatha, I want you to do something for me."

"What is it?"

"I would like to see your husband, and my old friend, Mr. Brian Harper. Will you go and fetch them?"

"I will to-morrow, but"--

"No--dear, not to-morrow; I must see them to-day--this very Christmas-day. Go--you will not be away long. And we will send the carriage, so that the journey can do Nathanael no harm."

"You are always thinking of every one," said Agatha, as she turned to obey. She felt it was a solemn mission. All her bright plans about Thornhurst grew dim; she could not look forward. Yet, warm in the strength of youth and love, she cherished a faint hope still.

When she reached Kingcombe, Brian had not come home. They sent messengers for him in all directions, but in vain. At last they were forced to drive back without him--hopelessly peering through the dusk to see if they could discern his tall figure across the moors. When they were dashing at full speed through Thornhurst-gate, some one rose up from the hedge beside it, and stopped the horses.

"Is anything the matter at the house? Speak, can't you, fellow?"

The voice hoarse and commanding--the tall, spare figure, the grey hair--it could be none other than Brian Harper.

Nathanael called to him. "Uncle Brian, we have been looking for you everywhere. Anne wants to see you. Come."

"I will." He walked away and was lost in the furze-bushes; but when the carriage drove up to the door they found him already standing there. They all entered the house together.

Anne's maid met them with a delighted countenance. Her mistress was so well--thank God! She was up, and sitting in the drawing-room!

There in truth she was, in her usual seat, wearing her ordinary dress. She had taken off the invalid-cap, and her soft hair was arranged as carefully as if no white lines marred its brownness. She looked less old than usual--nay, almost beautiful--so exquisitely peaceful was the expression of her countenance.

Nathanael and his wife hung back, letting Mr. Harper meet her first.

She rose and held out both hands to him. "Welcome home again--welcome home!"

He said nothing, but grasped the hands, and retained them fast. There was a long, long look, eye to eye, face to face,--a look, in which were gathered and summed up all the years since they were young, together,--and then the two old friends sat down side by side. Agatha thought it strange that they should meet in such a calm, commonplace way--but then she was young. She did not know how quietly flows the outward surface of a tide that has flowed on, deep, solemn, and changeless, for five-and-twenty years.

In a little while they were all sitting round the fire--the merry Christmas fire with its blazing pine-log--talking just as naturally and familiarly as though no emotion had stirred them. Anne Valery, resting in her arm-chair, looked on and smiled. She talked little, but listened to the rest, and by an inexplicable sweet calmness, made them all so much at ease, that it seemed to Agatha as if they four had known one another for a whole lifetime, and been always as happy as now.

As the evening advanced, the Christmas dinner was announced.

"I am sorry I cannot sit at the head of my own table to-day, but"--and Miss Valery gently laid her hand on Brian's arm--"you will take my place, old friend?"

He made some unintelligible answer, and they all left the drawing-room. It was a rather silent dinner; yet, somehow, no one looked sad. No one could, with Anne's cheerful influence pervading the whole house.

Agatha soon rose and rejoined her. She was sitting just as they had left her--but whether it was through the light being dimmer, or through a certain thoughtfulness in her face, Agatha thought she did not look quite the same.

"Are you well?" Are you sure you are not tired? And"--here Agatha ventured to wrap her arms round her and gaze up in her eyes with a fulness of meaning--are you happy?"

"Ay, happy! perfectly happy!" The look and tone were such as Agatha never forgot. They expressed a bliss that of its intensity could not necessarily endure for more than the briefest time in this changing world. It belonged to the world everlasting.

"Will you go back, dear, and ask Brian to come to me? I would like to talk a little, alone, with my old friend."

Agatha obeyed. When she had delivered her message, Mr. Locke Harper rose without speaking. She saw him go into the drawing-room and close the door; then she came back to her husband.

For more than two hours Agatha and Nathanael sat, not liking to go in without being summoned. At last they ventured to pass the door. The silence within was so death-like that it half frightened them.

"I wish she would call," Agatha whispered. "She looked so strangely white when she spoke to me. Hush! is not that some one stirring? I must knock."

She did so, but there was no answer. At last, trembling all over, she caught hold of her husband's hand and made him enter.

The room was quite still--dimly-lighted--for the fire had been suffered to burn itself almost out. Anne sat in her arm-chair, with Brian kneeling beside her, his arms clasping her waist, and hers linked behind his neck. Neither moved, or seemed to notice anything; and the two young people, greatly moved by the scene, were gliding away, when a last glimmer of the fire showed them Anne Valery's face. They saw it--grasped one another's hands with an awe-struck meaning--and stayed.

In a minute or two Anne faintly spoke.

"I think there is some one near? Is it Agatha?"

The young girl flung herself on Anne's hand.--"It is I--and my husband. May we stay? We, too, loved you, dear, dear Anne?"

"I know that! One minute, just one minute, Brian."

She loosed her clasp of him a little; the other two came near, she kissed them both, and bade "God bless them." Then raising herself up and speaking with all her strength, she said,

"You will bear witness, and say to them all, that if I had married, none but Brian Locke Harper would ever have been my husband: and therefore I have left to him Thornhurst, and all I have in the world, in token of my love and reverence--just as if--I had been--his wife."

With the last words, uttered very feebly, Anne sank back into her old attitude. She lay there many minutes, her face beautiful in its perfect rest. The other face--his face--was altogether hidden. But they saw that, as his arms grasped her round, every muscle was quivering. The convulsion grew so strong that even Anne felt it. She opened her eyes, and tried to speak again.

"Brian, poor Brian? Be content! it is not for long--not for very long."

Her fingers began to flutter feebly on his neck. She fringed the grey locks round them in a childish, absent way, muttering to herself.

"How very soft it feels still! He used to have such beautiful hair!"

Then, as if she felt her mind wandering, and strove to recall it, that to the very last moment it might rest on him, she again forcibly opened her eyes and fixed them on Brian's face. They never left it afterwards. The whole world seemed to have faded from her except that face. For a minute or two longer she lay looking at him, her countenance all radiant, until, gradually and softly, her eyes closed.

"Hush!" whispered Nathanael, as he drew his weeping wife closer to his bosom, and pointed out the beatitude of that dying smile. "Hush--she is quite happy. She has gone home!"

[THE END]
Dinah M. Mulock Craik's Book: Agatha's Husband: A Novel

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