Chapter 20

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XX

When, late at night, the party reached Kingcombe, it was resolved that the Harpers should remain there until morning. Agatha, worn out with bodily fatigue and the great tension of her mind during so many hours, laid her head down on her pillow, closed her aching eyes, and never opened them till near upon broad noon. Then she found breakfast was long over in the early house of the Dugdales, and that Nathanael had left her and gone out some hours before.

"He would not let me come and wake you--he said you slept so heavily and looked so tired. Certainly, he is the very kindest husband! Who ever would have believed that stiff, cold disagreeable Nathanael, who came home from America some months ago, puzzling us all, would have turned out so well. It is your ladyship's doing, I suppose."

So ran on Mrs. Dugdale, nor noticed how beneath her words her sister-in-law writhed, as though they had been sharp swords. Harrie was not a penetrating woman; Agatha had already discerned that, and thought, with a bitter smile, that it was well they were coming to live at Kingcombe, and that Mrs. Dugdale would be a very safe and amusing companion.

"Now, what is to be done to-day?" said she, as she ate the breakfast which Harrie brought her, and looked round the strange bed-room, which made her feel more bewildered than ever. So many phases, so many lives did she seem to have passed through since she was married.

"The first thing to be done, my dear, is to take you back to Kingcombe Holm, to do respectful to your papa-in-law. Very punctilious is the Squire. If Nathanael had not ridden over there at some unearthly hour this morning, he never would have forgiven your not returning at night--the last night too, for I see your husband is determined to be settled at the cottage this evening."

"Ah, that is well." Agatha breathed more freely. She was so glad to hide herself under any roof that was her own. And perhaps a vague thought crept up, that some time--not for days yet, but when she could bend her pride to soften him--when they were living quite alone together--all might be gradually explained, nay, healed, between her and her husband. She was on the whole not sorry to go "home."

"I see you two are quite agreed," laughed Harrie. "Marvellous union, Mrs. Locke Harper. You'll be really a pattern couple soon, and throw Duke and me cruelly in the shade. Now, dress like lightning, and I'll drive you and the children over to grandpapa's. Most likely well meet Pa and Nathanael somewhere about the town."

But, with the general vagueness of the Dugdale habits, that meeting did not arrive, nor was Mr. Harper anywhere to be seen.

"I dare say he is at the cottage, where I was bid not to take you upon any account. Charming little mysteries, I suppose, attendant on bringing home the bride. Very nice. Heigh-ho! I remember how happy I was when my poor dear Duke brought me home for the first time!"

"Where was that?" They were dashing over the moors, Agatha sitting rather silent, and Harrie's tongue galloping as fast as Dunce, her steed. Little Brian was perched on his mother's knee, holding the reins--a baby Phaeton, though with small danger of setting the world on fire--at least just yet.

"Where was it, my dear? Why, to the same old house we live in, empty and gloomy then, though it's full enough now. And I had been married--(hold your tongues, Fred and Gus! you can't have the whip, simpletons!)--married only three weeks, and it was queer coming back to my native place; and my father was rather cross that I had married Duke at all, and--I was foolish enough to cry."

Here Harrie laughed, and gave Dunce a lash that quite discomposed his pony faculties, and made Brian scream with delight.

"And what did your husband say?"

"Say? Nothing. He never speaks when he's vexed or hurt; only, a little while afterwards he came beside me, and said something about my being such a young girl, so gay-hearted and pretty--(bah!--though I was pretty then)--too young, he said, to marry such an elderly man, etc. etc. etc."

"And what did _you_ say?"

"Likewise nothing. I just jumped on his knee, and took him round the neck, and--But that isn't of the slightest consequence to anybody. Tuts! On with you, Dunce!" And Harrie leaned forward, her eyelashes glittering wet in spite of her fun.

"I know I don't deserve him," she continued. "I never did. Nobody could. There are a lot of bad men in the world, but when a man is really good, there's hardly a woman alive that is good enough for him. And I'm not half good enough for Duke--but--I love him! That's all. Bless thee, Brian! thee is Pa's own boy all over!"

And Harrie kissed the little fellow passionately, with something more even than a mother's love.--Agatha could have lifted up her arms and shrieked with misery.

It was a strange long day at Kingcombe Holm; many things to be arranged, many questions to be parried, many prying eyes to be avoided. But the general conclusion seemed to be, that this sudden movement was a mysterious whim of Nathanael--and Nathanael was supposed by one-half of his family to be mightily prone to mysteries and whims.

At length, when the day was nigh spent, and Agatha had dressed for the last of those formal dinners to which she had never been able quite to reconcile herself, she took refuge in Elizabeth's room. Thither she had of late absented herself; there was something so formidable in the keenness of Elizabeth's silent eyes. Hesitating before the door, she remembered when she had last quitted it. It required all her bravery to cross the threshold once more.

"Come in. I hear your foot, Agatha." There was no stepping back now.

The same atmosphere of peace and sanctity pervading the pretty room; the same lights dancing through the painted window on the silk coverlet; the same face, which had all the colourless reality of death, without any of its ghastliness--a smiling repose, such as is seen only at the beginning and end of life's tumult--in the cradle and in the coffin. Its effect upon Agatha was instantaneous. Her trembling ceased; she stepped lightly, as one does in entering a holy place.

"Elizabeth!" It seemed a beautiful name, a saint's name, and as such came quite naturally, though she had rarely before been so familiar with any one of her new sisters. She kneeled down and kissed Elizabeth.

"That is right. You are good to come. And where have you been, my little sister?--I have not seen you for three days."

"Is it so long?"

"Yes--though it may seem longer to me here. You remember you came and told me a long story about a Cornish miner. How did the tale end? What, no answer?"

None. She tried to hide herself--crush herself into the very floor where she sat, out of reach of Elizabeth's eyes.

"Ah, well, dear! I shall not ask."

"Perhaps my husband will tell you some day. Talk to me of something else, Elizabeth. And oh! however I may look and speak, don't notice me. Let me feel that I need not make pretences with you."

"You need not. Nothing that happens here goes beyond these four walls. Everybody tells me everything."

Elizabeth might well say this. There was that about her which made people fearless and free in their confidence; it did not seem like talking to a mortal woman, mixed up continually in the affairs of life, but to one removed to a different sphere, where there was no chance of betrayal.

Her room was a safe confessional, and she was a sort of general conscience in the house.

"Everybody tells you everything," repeated Agatha. "Does my husband?"

"Not yet; at least not in words."

"Then I will not. Only let me come here, and"--

She covered her face, and for a few moments wept fully and freely, as one weep's before one's own heart and before God. Then she dried her eyes, and the storm was over.

Elizabeth only said, "Poor child--poor child. Wait!" But the one word struck like a sun-ray through darkness. No one ever "waited" but had some hopeful ending to wait for.

"Now," said Agatha, overcoming her weakness--"now let us talk. What have you been doing all day?"

"Little else than read this, and think over it. You know Frederick's hand, I see? He does not usually write such long letters, even to me. All is not right with him, I fear."

"Indeed!"--and Agatha met unsuspiciously the keen look of Elizabeth. "Yet he is well and in the midst of gaieties; Mr. Trenchard said so yesterday. They met in Paris."

"Did they?" Elizabeth lay musing for a good while; then suddenly said, observing her young sister, "Agatha, you are listening? There's some one at the door?"

It was Nathanael. Any one might have known that by the quick flush that swept over his wife's features. But when this passed she was again composed--not at all like the young creature who had wept by Elizabeth's couch. She merely acknowledged her husband's presence, and leaving her place vacant for him, took up a book.

He said, "I did not know my wife was here. Were you and she talking? Shall I leave you?"

Elizabeth smiled. "Then you must take your wife also, for I will not be the sundering of married people. But nonsense! Sit down both of you. We were speaking about Frederick. Has he written to you?"

"No."

"In this letter"--Nathanael's eyes fell on it and froze there--"he gives me no address. Agatha says he is living in Paris. Do you remember where?"

"I do not.",

"Perhaps your wife does."

Agatha had a useful memory for such things. She repeated the address given by Mr. Trenchard, exactly.

"Good child! When I write I shall tell Frederick how you remembered him. But he has been equally mindful of you. He asks many questions, and seems very anxious about you."

"Does he? He is very kind," said Agatha, somewhat moved. She felt all kindness deeply now.

"He is kind," Miss Harper continued, thoughtfully. "When he was a boy, there never was a softer heart. Poor Frederick!" And the name was uttered with a fondness that Agatha had never noticed in any other of Major Harper's family towards him. It led her to look sympathisingly towards Elizabeth.

"Are you uneasy about him? Oh! I do hope nothing is wrong with poor Major Harper." And she almost forgot her own feelings in thinking how unbrotherly it was of Nathanael to sit there like a stone, saying nothing. Elizabeth also seemed hurt; the elder brother was clearly her favourite--clung to as sisters cling, through good report and evil. She looked gratefully at Agatha.

"Thank you. You are a warm-hearted girl. But you ought to keep a warm heart for Frederick. You do not know how tenderly he always speaks of you."

Agatha coloured, she hardly knew why, except because she saw her husband start and look at her--one of those keen, quick looks that only last a moment. Under it she blushed still deeper--to very scarlet.

Mr. Harper stood up. "I think, Elizabeth, we must go now. Agatha shall come to you again in a day or two--and you and she can then talk over both your sisterly loves for Frederick."

He spoke lightly, but Agatha heard a jarring tone--she was growing so familiar with his every tone now. Why did he thus speak, thus look, whenever she uttered or listened to his brother's name? Could it be possible that Emma had told him--No, she threw that thought from her in scorn--the scorn with which she had once met the insinuation that she had been "in love" with Major Harper. Emma could not have been so foolish, so wicked, or, if she had, any manly honour, any honest pride, would have made Nathanael speak of it before their marriage. Since, she felt certain that Mr. Harper had not interchanged a single word alone with Mrs. Thornycroft.

In disgust and shame that her vanity--oh! not vanity, but a feeling that, holy as it was, her proud heart still denied--had led her to form the suspicion, Agatha cast it from her. She who had no secrets, no jealousies, felt it to be impossible that Nathanael should bury within his breast that foul thing--a secret jealousy of his brother.

Especially now, when it seemed as if his love itself were dying or dead--when on quitting Elizabeth's room, he walked with her, silent, or making smooth brief speeches, as he would to any other lady--any lady he had met for the first time, and was handing courteously down to dinner. Her heart boiled within her! Was she to pour it out before him in complaint--repentance? Was she to accuse him of jealousy, and be met with a calm contemptuous smile?--to betray the growing passion of her heart, in order to light up the few stray embers that might yet be lingering feebly in his? Never! She walked on haughtily, carelessly, dumb.

The evening slid on, hardly noticed by her. Night came; when, after many ceremonious family adieux, which she responded to without ever hearing--after one frantic rush along the dim passages to Elizabeth's door, where she drew back and left the tearful good-bye unspoken, for _he_ was standing there--after all this the Squire put her into the family coach, with Mrs. Dugdale at her side and Nathanael opposite. Bidding her farewell, the old man gave, with less stateliness than tenderness, his fatherly blessing upon her and her new home. They reached it. Again she laid her head upon a strange pillow in a strange room, and slept, as she always did when very wretched, the heavy, stupifying sleep which lasts from night till morning--deadening all care, but making the waking like that of one waking in a tomb.

Agatha woke with the sunshine full in her eyes, and the early church-bells ringing.

"Oh, where am I? What day is this? Where is my husband?"

The new maid, Nathanael's foster-sister, was standing by, smiling all respectful civilities, informing her in broad Dorset that it was Sunday, time for "missus" to get up, and that "master" was walking in the garden.

They "mistress" and "master," head and guide of their own household!--they, two young creatures, who so little time ago had been a youth and a girl, each floating adrift on life, without duties or ties. It had seemed very strange, very solemn, under any circumstances, but now--

"God help me, poor helpless child that I am! Oh, what shall I do?"

Such was the inward sob of Agatha's heart. She almost wished that she could have turned her face again on the pillow, and slept there safely for eternity.

But the matin church-bells ceased--it was nine o'clock. She must rise, and appear below for the first time as mistress in her own house. Also, she remembered faintly something which Mrs. Dugdale had said about the custom at Kingcombe--an irrefragable law of country etiquette---of a bride's going to church for the first time, ceremoniously, in bridal dress. And no sooner had she descended--wrapped in the first morning-frock she could lay her hands upon, than Harrie entered.

"So--I am your first visitor you see. Many welcomes to your new home! And may it prove as happy, as merry--and some day, as full--as ours. Bless you, my dear little sister!"

She pressed Agatha in her arms with more feeling than Harrie usually showed. But, for Agatha's salvation, or she would have burst into sobs, it was only momentary.

"Come, no sentiment! Call in Nathanael, and eat your breakfast quickly, you atrociously lazy folks! Don't you know you have only half-an-hour and you must go to church, or all Kingcombe would be talking."

"I meant to go--I shall be ready in two minutes."

"My patience! ready--in such a gown! Come here Nathanael. Are you aware it's indispensable for your wife to appear at church in wedding costume, just as she did on that blissful day, when"--

"Hush! I'll do anything you like, only hush!" whispered Agatha. Harrie laughed, and said something about "sparing her blushes." There were none to spare--she was as pale as death. What, appear before her husband, dressed as on the morning when if not altogether a happy bride, she at least had the hope of making her bridegroom happy, and the comfort of believing that he loved her and would love her always! The mere thought of this sent a coldness through all her frame.

Nathanael said, "You told me this before, Harriet. It is an idle custom; but neither my wife nor myself would wish to go against the world, or the ways of our own people. Arrange it, as Agatha says, according as you like."

He had then heard her whisper--he had seen her paleness. How had he interpreted both?

The church-bells began to ring again, and Harrie prepared to vanish, though not until she had dressed Agatha, scanned her from top to toe, vowed the bonnet did not become her a bit, and that she looked as white as if she were again about to go through the formidable marriage-service.

"A sad pity!--because to-day you'll be looked at a great deal more than the clergyman. We are a terribly inquisitive town; and weddings are scarce at Kingcombe.--Take your wife, Nathanael. There you go--a very handsome, interesting young couple. Nay, don't cheat the townsfolk by taking the garden way."

"Do, pray?" entreated Agatha of her husband. "Don't let the people see us."

"You foolish child!" cried Harrie, as she made herself invisible through the front-door, throwing back her last words as an unconscious parting sting. "Folks will think you are ashamed of your husband."

Agatha took no notice, nor did Nathanael. Silently they walked to church, the garden way, which led them out opposite the eastern door. Entering with his wife on his arm, his bare head erect, though the eyes were lowered, his whole face still and steadfast, but looking much older since his marriage.--Mr. Harper was a man of whom no one need be ashamed. His wife glanced at him, and, in spite of all her sorrow, walked proudly up the aisle--prouder far than on her wedding-day. She never thought of herself or of the people looking at her. And--Heaven forgive her, poor child!--for the moment she never thought of Whose temple she was entering, until the clergyman's serious voice arose, proclaiming those "sacrifices" which are "a broken spirit." Then her spirit sank down broken within her, and under her thick white veil, and upon her white velvet bridal Prayer-book, fell tears, many and bitter. The poorest charity-girl that stared at her from the gallery would not that day have envied the bride.

Service over, out of the church they went as they had come, arm-in-arm; the congregation holding back; all watching, but from some mysterious etiquette which must be left to the Kingcombeites to elucidate, no one venturing to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper. The Squire's household did not attend this church, nor the Dugdales either; so that the young people walked home without speaking to a soul, and scarcely to each other. They were both very grave. A word, perhaps, from either would have unlocked a heart flood; but the word was not spoken. They met at the gate of the cottage Mrs. Dugdale and her boys. Soon all the solemn influences of the temple passed away. They were in the world once more--the hard, bitter, erring world.

"We are come in to see Auntie Agatha and Uncle Nathanael," said Harrie, as the children stood rather awe-struck by Mrs. Harper's dazzling appearance. "And we are going to take both back with us for dinner, as you promised. Early country dinner, my dear, which can't by any means be eaten in those fine clothes."

"I will take them off." And her foot was on the stairs.

"Stay; don't you see your husband looking at you. Let me look too--we are never likely to see you dressed as a bride again."

Agatha paused, but Mr. Harper had already turned away. His gaze--would she had seen it! but she did not--was ended.

She ran up-stairs, she looked in the glass once more at the vision which, from the age of childhood, almost every girl beholds herself in fancy--the dazzling white silk, orange-flowers, and lace, trappings of a day, never to be again worn. Then she tore them off, wildly--desperately; wishing one minute that she could bury them in the earth out of her sight, and again wrapping them up tenderly, as we wrap up clothes that are now nothing but empty garments, from which the form that-filled them has vanished evermore.

Afterwards she dressed herself in ordinary matronly garb, and came down with matronly aspect to Harry and the little boys.

A mid-day country dinner, eaten in peace and quietness, where people keep Sunday in Christian fashion--at least externally--where no visitors come in, and no gay evening reunions put an unholy close to the holy day; when the father of the family gathers his children round him in the long, sleepy afternoons, or takes a walk with them in the summer-twilight while all the neighbours are safe in church; after which, as a great treat, the elder ones sit up to supper, and the little ones are put to bed by mamma's own hands; then pleasant weariness, perhaps some brief evening prayer, sincere without cant--the household separates--the house darkens--and the day of rest ends.

This was the way they kept Sunday at the Dugdales'. It was something new to Agatha, and she liked it much. She threw herself into the domestic ways as if she had been used to them all her life, and specially made herself popular with the father and the little ones. Marmaduke looked benevolently upon his sister-in-law, seemed quite to forget she was "a young lady," and even was heard to call her "my child" four times,--at which she was very pleased and proud. Over and over again, with youth's wild thirst to be happy, she tried to forget the weight on her life, and plunge into a temporary gaiety. Sometimes she even caught herself laughing outright, as she played with the children; for no one can be miserable always, especially at nineteen. But whenever she looked up, or was silent, or paused to think, the image of her husband came like a cloud between her and her mirth. No--she never could be really happy.

Nathanael was all day very quiet and abstracted. He did not romp with his little nephews, and only smiled when Harrie teased him for this unusual omission of avuncular privilege. Once, Agatha saw him sitting with the youngest little girl fast asleep against his shoulder, he looking over her baby-curls with a pensive, troubled eye, an eye which seemed gazing into the future to find there--nothing! A strange thrill quivered through Agatha's heart to see him so sitting with that child.

After tea Mrs. Dugdale proposed turning out of doors all the masculine half of the family, except the infant Brian, before whom loomed the terrific prospect of bed. So off they started. Gus being seen to snatch frantically at Pa's hand, and Fred, sublime in his first jacket, walking alongside with an air and grace worthy of the uncle whose name he bore.

"There they go," cried Mrs. Dugdale, looking fondly after them. "Not bad-looking lads either, considering that Pa isn't exactly a beauty. But pshaw! what does that signify? I think my Duke's the very nicest face I know. Don't you, Agatha?"

Agatha warmly acquiesced. She had entirely got over the first impression of Duke's plainness. And moreover she was learning day by day that mysterious secret which individualises one face out of all the world, and makes its very deficiencies more lovely than any other features' charm. She could fully sympathise with Harrie's harmless weakness, and agreed--looking at Brian, who in fact strongly resembled his father, angelicised into childhood, keeping the same beautiful expression, which needed no change--that if Mr. Dugdale's sons grew up like him in all points, the world would be none the worse, but a great deal the better.

Thus talking--which little Brian seemed actually to understand, for he stood at her knee gazing up with miraculously merry eyes--Agatha watched her sister-in-law's Sunday duty, religiously performed, of putting the younger two to bed, while the nurses went to church, or took walks with their sweethearts. For, as Harrie sagely observed, "'the maidens' as we call them in Dorsetshire, 'the maidens' will fall in love as well as we."

So chattering merrily--while she dashed water over Miss Baby's white, round limbs, and let Brian caper wildly about the nursery, clad in all sorts of half-costumes, or no costume at all--Mrs. Dugdale initiated Agatha into various arcana belonging to motherhood and mistress-of-a-family-hood. The other listened eagerly, so eagerly that she could have laughed at herself, remembering what she was six months before. To think that to-morrow she must begin her house-keeping--she, who knew no more of such things than a child! She snatched at all sorts of knowledge, talked over butchers, and bakers, and house expenses, and Kingcombe ways of marketing, taking an interest in the most commonplace things. For pervading everything was the consciousness, "It is _his_ home I have to make comfortable." That thought sanctified and beautified all.

"You are quite right, my dear," said Harrie, pausing in her walk up and down, patting and singing to Baby, who stared with open eyes over her shoulder, and obstinately declined going to sleep. "You will turn out a notable woman, I see. It's a curious and melancholy fact, which we don't ever learn till we are married, that all the love in the world is thrown away upon a man unless you make him comfortable at home. A neat house and a creditable dinner every day go more to his heart than all the sentimental devotion you can give. It's all very well for a man in love to live upon roses and posies, and kisses and blisses, but after he is married he dearly likes to be comfortable."

Agatha was silent for a moment, hardly venturing to believe, and yet afraid she must. "I heard Miss Valery once say that no man's love after marriage is exactly as it was before it; that the thing attained soon loses its preciousness, and that the wife has to assume a new character, and win another kind of love. I wonder if this is true. I wonder"--and suddenly she changed her seriousness for the tone of raillery she always used with Harrie Dugdaie--"I wonder whether our husbands adore us first, and afterwards expect us to adore them."

"So they do; I assure you they do! And a pretty amount of adoring and waiting upon your husband will require. I wouldn't for the whole universe have my Duke such an awfully exacting, particular, provoking, disagreeably good, or inexplicably naughty animal as my brother Nathanael."

"Mrs. Dugdaie!" Agatha hardly knew whether to laugh or to be indignant. She only knew that she felt ready to spring up like a chained tigress when anybody said a word against Mr. Harper.

"There now, don't waken the baby. Keep yourself quiet, do. See, there's its husband coming down the street to comfort it. He is looking up here, too. Run down, do'ee now; and if she'll be a good girl she shall have the neatest household and the best husband in Kingcombe--always excepting mine."

Agatha did not run down; but she leant over the landing, and heard the footsteps and voices in the hall--steps and voices which always seem to put new life into a house where its ruler is dear to the hearts of wife and children. Troubled as she was--laden with even a new weight since the talk with Mrs. Dugdale--Agatha listened, and felt that in spite of all, the house seemed brighter for the entrance of _her_ husband. She tried to catch what he was saying, but only heard the voice of Mr. Dugdaie.

"Of course, as you say, it's necessary. But really tomorrow--so soon--and for such a long time too! Couldn't both go together?"

Nathanael made some inaudible reply.

"To be sure, you know best. But--poor young thing!--I wonder what my Harrie would have said to me. Poor, pretty little thing!"

The words, the manner, startled Agatha; She could not make them out. She descended, looking alarmed, uneasy--a look which did not wear off all the rest of the evening.

In leaving she wondered why Mr. Dugdale woke from his dreaminess to bid her good-night with a fatherly air, addressing her more than once by his superlative of kindness, "My child." When she took her husband's arm to go out of the lighted hall-into the night, Agatha trembled, as if something were going to happen--she knew not what.

The street was very dark, for Kingcombe people were economisers in gas; and besides kept such primitive hours, that at ten o'clock you might walk from one end of the town to the other and not see a light in any house. There was not a soul abroad except these two, and their feet echoed loudly along the pavement. At first Agatha, blinded by coming out of light into darkness, saw nothing, but stumbled on, clinging tightly to her husband. At length she perceived whereabouts they were--the black, quaintly-gabled houses, the market-cross, and, far above the sleepy town and its deserted streets, the bright wonderfully bright stars.

Agatha took comfort when she saw the stars.

"Have we far to go? I am rather tired," she said to her husband, chiefly for the sake of saying something.

"Tired, are you? Then you must have a quiet day tomorrow. It will be very quiet, I doubt not;" and he sighed.

"Why so? What is to be done to-morrow? Shall you have to ride over to Thornhurst?"

"No; I saw Anne Valery yesterday. I shall not see her again for a good while."

"Indeed!"

"There is business requiring me in Cornwall. To-morrow I am going away."

"Going away!" The words were little more than a sigh. She felt all cold and numb for the moment. Then a sudden flood of the old impetuous pride came over her. Going away! Leaving his young wife! Leaving her alone in her new home--alone the second day, to be wondered at, and pointed at, and pitied! Perhaps he did it to humble and punish her. It was cruel--cruel! And again the demon or angel--which took such various forms that she hardly knew the true one--rose up rampant within her.

"Mr. Harper, this is sudden--will look strange. You ought to have told me before."

"I did not know it myself until last night. That my going to Cornwall is necessary, on business grounds, I have already made clear to Marmaduke. He will tell his wife, and Harriet will tell all the world. I have so arranged that you will have no difficulty of any kind. This house will go on as usual, or you can visit at Thornhurst and at my father's. There will be no loss to you of anything or anybody--except one, whose absence must be welcome." "Welcome!" she repeated in an accent of bitter scorn.

"You said so yourself. Hush! do not say it again. When we part, let it be in peace!"

He spoke in a smothered, exhausted voice, and holding the gate open for her to pass, leaned upon it as if he could hardly stand. But Agatha perceived nothing--she was dizzy and blind.

"Peace?" she repeated, driven mad by the mockery of the word. She saw the door half-open, the warm light glimmering within the hall--so soft--so home-like. The torture was too strong--her senses began to give way.

Without knowing what she did, without any settled purpose except to escape from the misery of that sight, Agatha pushed her husband from her, turned and fled--fled anywhere, no matter where, so that it was into night and darkness, away from her home and from him.

She did not know the way; she only knew that she ran up one street and down another like the wind. Her state of mind was bordering on insanity. At length she paused from sheer exhaustion, and leaned against a doorway--like any poor outraged homeless wretch.

The good man of the house came softly out to look up into the quiet night before he bolted his door. He stood musing, contemplating the stars. It was a minute or more before he noticed the bowed human form beside him. When he did, there was no mistaking the compassionate voice.

"Eh, poor soul! What's wrong wi'ee?"

Agatha sprang up with a cry. There were two standing by her, from whose presence she would gladly have run to the world's end--Mr. Dugdale and her husband. The one remained petrified with astonishment--the other said but three words, in a dull mechanical voice, as if every feeling had been struck out of the man by some thunderbolt of doom.

"Agatha, come home."

Again she tried to burst from him and fly, but her arm was caught, and Marmaduke Dugdale's grave look--the look he fixed upon his own children when they erred, constraining them always into repentance and goodness--was reading her inmost soul.

"Go home, poor child! I'll not tell of you or him. Go home with your husband."

She felt her hand laid, or grasped--she knew not which--in that of Nathanael; who held it with invincible firmness. There was no resisting that clasp. She rose up and followed him, as if led by an invisible chain. Her madness had passed, and left only a dull indifference to everything. The die was cast; she had laid open the miseries of their home, had disgraced him and herself before the world. It signified little where she went or what she did; they were utterly separated now.

Without again speaking, or taking notice of Mr. Dugdale, she suffered Nathanael to lead her away, passing swiftly down the silent streets. Neither husband nor wife uttered a single word.

The moment she entered the house she walked up-stairs, slowly, that he might not see her tottering; went into her own room, and locked her door with a loud, fierce turning of the key, that seemed to shriek as it turned.

There, for almost an hour, she sat motionless. The maid, half asleep, came to the door with a light, but Agatha bade her set it down, and sat in the dark. Dark--altogether dark, within and without; with no hope or repentance, or even the heroism of suffering; wrathful, sullen, miserable; wronged--yet conscious that she had sinned as much as she was sinned against; seeing her husband and herself stand as it were on either edge of a black gulf, hourly widening, yet neither having strength to plunge it to the other's side.

Here she sat, upright and still, body and soul wrapped in a leaden, shroud-like darkness, until gradually a stupor possessed her brain.

"I am so tired," she murmured, "I must go to sleep. He will not leave till to-morrow. But it does not signify. Nothing signifies. I must go to sleep."

She unlocked the door and drew in the candle, flaring in its socket. She had to press her fingers on her eyeballs before they could bear the light, all was so very dark. She Sotted her hair up anyhow, took off her clothes, and crept to bed, almost as if she were creeping to her tomb. The fragment of candle went out, sinking instantaneously, like a soul quenched out of existence, and all was total darkness. In that darkness a heavy hand seemed to lay itself on Agatha's brain, and press down her eyelids. Scarcely two minutes after, she was asleep.

Hour after hour of the night went by, and there was not a sound, not a breath in the room. The late moon rose, and gave a little glimmer of light through the curtains. Now and then there was a faint noise of some one moving in the house, but Agatha never stirred. She slept heavily as some people invariably sleep under the pressure of great pain.

Towards morning, when moonlight and dawn were melted together, and the room was growing light enough to discern faces, there was a step at the door, and a ray flashing through the opening, for Agatha had left it ajar.

Nathanael set down the candle outside and came in softly. He was dressed for a journey--evidently just ready to start. He looked very ill, sleepless, and worn.

Standing a minute at the door, he listened to his wife's breathing, low and regular as that of a child. Nature and repose had soothed her; she slept now as quietly and healthfully as if she had never known trouble. Her husband crept across the room very carefully, and remained watching her. Oh! the contrast between the one who _watched_ and the one who slept!

At first he stood perfectly upright, rigid, and motionless.

Then his hands twisted themselves together, and his eyes grew hot, bursting. His lips moved as in speaking, though with never a sound. It was the dumbness--the choking dumbness of that emotion which made it so terrible. Such silence could not last--he seemed to feel it could not--and so moved backward out of hearing. There he stood for a little while, leaning against the wall, his hand bound tightly over his forehead, and sighing, so bitterly sighing!--that gasp which bursts from men who have no tears.

At length he became calmer, but still stood without the door. He even moved the candle further off, as though afraid its glare, might disturb the sleeper--forgetful that the room was now growing all bright with daybreak. At this moment the clock striking in the hall below made him start.

Hastily he took out a paper that he had hid somewhere about him. It was in his own handwriting, all sealed and endorsed. "Not to be opened except in case of my death." Nevertheless he tore it open--tore likewise an under-cover addressed to his wife, and began to read:

"I know you never loved me. From something I overheard on our marriage-day--from other words afterwards let fall in anger by my brother, I also know that you loved"--

He crushed the paper, his eyes seeming literally to flame. Then all the fury died out of them, and left nothing but tenderness. He listened for the soft breathing within--soft and pure.

"No!" he murmured. "I will not leave her honour to the chance of written words. No other human being must ever know what I knew. If I live, it is not worse than it was before; and should any harm come to me, let her think I died in ignorance. Better so."

He tore the paper into small strips, and deliberately burnt them one by one in the candle, making a little pile of the ashes, but afterwards scattering them about the fireplace. Then putting out the light--for the house was now filled with the soft grey dawn--Nathanael stepped once more into his wife's room.

And still she was sleeping--sleeping at the very crisis of her fate. Her face was composed and sweet, though her hands were still clenched, and one of them almost buried in her loose hair.

Her husband stood and looked at her, trying long to keep himself firm and self-restrained, as though she were aware of his presence. But at last the holy helplessness of sleep subdued him. From standing upright he sank gradually down--down--till he was crouching on his knees. Shudder over shudder came over him--sigh after sigh rose up, and was smothered again in his breast. At last even the strong man's strength gave way, and there fell a heavy, silent, burning rain.

And all the while the wife slept, and never knew how he loved her!

After a while this ceased. Nathanael opened his eyes and tried to look once more calmly on his wife. She stirred a little in sleep, and began to smile--a very soft, meek, innocent smile, that softened her lips into infantine sweetness. She was again Agatha, the merry Agatha, as she had been when he first saw her, before he wooed her, and shook her roughly from her girlish calm into all the struggles of life. He could have cursed himself--and yet--yet he loved her!

Kneeling, he put his arm softly over her. Another moment and he would have yielded to the frantic impulse, and snatched her to his heart for one--just one embrace--heedless of her waking. But how would she wake? only to hate and reproach him. He had better leave her thus, and carry away in his remembrance that picture of peace, which blotted out all her bitter words, all her cruel want of love--made him forget everything except that she had been the wife of his bosom and his first love.

He drew back his arm, gradually and noiselessly. He did not attempt to kiss her, not even her hand, lest he should disturb her; but kneeling, laid his hand on the pillow by hers, and pressed his lips to her hair.

"I am glad she sleeps--yes, very glad! She is quite content now, she will be quite happy when I am gone, God love thee and take care of thee--my darling--my Agatha."

Kissing her hair once again, he rose up and went away.

As he departed, the first sunbeam came in and danced upon the bed, showing Agatha fast asleep, sleeping still. She never woke until it had been broad day for a long time, and the sun creeping over her pillow struck her eyes.

Then she started up with a loud cry--she had been dreaming. Tears were wet upon her cheek. She called wildly for her husband. It was too late.

He had been gone at least three hours. _

Read next: Chapter 21

Read previous: Chapter 19

Table of content of Agatha's Husband: A Novel


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book