Agatha's Husband Part 19

Wanting this--yet scarcely conscious of her need--the young wife sat, in her secret soul all shivering and a-cold. At last, wearied with the long grey sweep of undulating sea, she closed the window.

"I thought the breeze would be too keen for you," said Mr. Harper, whom her lightest movement always seemed to attract.

"Oh no; but I am tired of watching the waves. How melancholy it must be to live here. I have a perfect terror of the sea."

"Had I known that, I would not have proposed our coming to-day from Leamington to Brighton. But we can leave to-morrow."

"I did not mean that," she answered quickly, dreading lest her husband might have thought her speech ungracious or unkind. "We need not go--unless you wish it."

The bridegroom made no immediate reply: but there was a melancholy tenderness in his eyes, as, without her knowing it, he sat watching his young wife. At length he rose, and putting her arm in his, stood a long time with her at the window.

"I think, dear Agatha, that you are right. The sea is always sad. How dreary it looks now--like a wide-stretched monotonous life whose ending we see not, yet it must be crossed. How shall we cross it?"

Agatha looked inquiringly.

"The sea I mean," he continued, with a sudden change of tone. "Shall we go over to France for a week or two?"

"Oh no"--and she shuddered. "It would kill me to cross the water."

He looked surprised at her unaccountable repugnance, which she had scarcely expressed than she seemed overpowered by confusion. Her husband forbore to question her further; but the next day told her that he had arranged for their quitting Brighton and making a tour through the west of England, proceeding from thence to London.

"Where--as my brother, or rather my brother's solicitor, writes me word--some business about your fortune will require our return in another fortnight. Are you willing, Agatha?"

"Oh yes--quite willing," she cried; for now that her changed life was floating her far away from her old ties, she began to have a yearning for them all.

So the honeymoon dwindled to three weeks, at the close of which Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper were again in London.

It seemed very strange to Agatha to come back to the known places, and roll over the old familiar London stones, and see all things going on as usual; while in herself had come so wide a gap of existence, as if those one-and-twenty days of absence had been one-and-twenty years.

She had become a little more happy lately; a little more used to her new life. And day by day something undefinable began to draw her towards her husband. It was in fact the dawning spirit of love, which should and might have come before marriage, instead of being, as now, an after-growth. Beneath its influence Nathanael's very likeness altered; his face grew more beautiful, his voice softer. Looking at him now, as he sat by her side, Mr. Harper hardly appeared to her the same man who, returning from the church as her bridegroom, had impressed her with such shrinking awe.

He too was more cheerful. All the long railway journey he had tried to amuse her; the humorous half of his disposition--for Nathanael had, like most good men, a spice of humour about him--coming out as it had never done before. However, as they neared London, he as well as his wife had become rather grave. But when, abruptly turning round, he perceived her earnestly, even tenderly regarding him (at which Agatha was foolish enough to blush, as if it were a crime to be looking admiringly at one's husband), he melted into a smile.

"Here we are in the old quarters, Agatha. The question is, Where shall we go to, since we have no lodgings taken?"

"You should have let me write to Emma, as I wished."

"No," he said, shortly; "it was a pity to trouble her."

"She would not have thought it so, poor dear Emma."

"Were you very intimate with Mrs. Th.o.r.n.ycroft? Did you tell her everything in your heart, as women do?"

Agatha was amused by the jealous searching tone and look, so replied carelessly: "Oh yes, all I had to tell, which was not much. I don't deal in mysteries, nor like them. But the chief mystery now seems to be, where are we to go? If Emma may not be troubled, surely Mrs. Ianson, or your brother"--

"My brother is out of town."

"Indeed!" And Agatha looked as she felt, neither glad nor sorry, but purely indifferent. Her husband, observing it, became more cheerful.

"Nay, my dear Agatha, you shall not be inconvenienced. We will go first to some quiet lodgings I know of, where Anne Valery always stays when she is in London--though she has returned home now, I think. And afterwards, if you find the evening very dull"--

"Ah!" exclaimed the young wife, smiling a beautiful negative.

"We will go and take a sentimental walk through those very squares we strolled through that night--do you remember?"

"Yes!"

How strange seemed that recollection!--how little she had then thought she was walking with her future husband!

Yet, when a few hours after she trod the well-known streets, with her wifely feelings, sweet and grave, and thought that the arm on which she now leaned was her own through life, Agatha Harper was not unhappy, nor would she for one moment have wished to be again Agatha Bowen.

The next day, by the husband's express desire--the declaring of which was a great act of self-denial on his part--word was sent to the Th.o.r.n.ycrofts of the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper.

Very trembling, shy, and bewitching the bride sat, waiting for the meeting; and when Emma did really come, very tragico-comic, half pleasure, half tears, was the hearty embrace between the two women. Mr.

Harper stood and looked on--he played the young husband as composedly as he had done the lover and the bridegroom, except for a slight jealous movement as he saw the clinging, the kisses, the tears, which, with the warmth of a heart thrilled by new emotions and budding out into all manner of new tendernesses, Agatha lavished on her friend.

Yet, whatever he felt, no one could observe but that Nathanael was extremely polite and kind to Mrs. Th.o.r.n.y-croft. She on her part admired him extremely--in whispers.

"How well he looks! Really quite changed! No one would ever think of calling him a 'boy' now. You must be quite proud of your husband, my dear."

Agatha smiled, and a light thrill at her heart betrayed its answer.

Very soon she ceased to be shy and shame-faced, and sat talking quite at ease, as if she had been Mrs. Locke Harper for at least a year.

Emma Th.o.r.n.ycroft was a person not likely to waste much time on the sentimentalities of such a meeting; she soon dashed into the common-sense question of what were their plans in London? and when they would come and dine with herself and "James" "Quite friendly. We will ask no one, except of course Major Harper."

"He is out of town," said Nathanael.

"What a pity--Yet, no wonder; London is so terribly hot now. Is he quite well?"

"I believe so," Agatha answered for her husband, who had moved off.

"Because James has met him frequently of late, rushing about the City as pale as a ghost, and looking so miserable. We were afraid something was wrong with him."

"Oh, I hope not," exclaimed Agatha, eagerly.

"My brother is quite well," Mr. Harper again observed, from his outpost by the window; and something in his tone unconsciously checked and changed the conversation.

Whether by Agatha's real inclination, or by some unnoticed influence of Nathanael's, who, gentle as his manners were, through a score of other opposing wills seemed always silently to attain his own, Mrs.

Th.o.r.n.ycroft's hospitable schemes were overruled. At least, the _venue_ was changed from Regent's Park to the Harpers' own temporary home--where, as if by magic, a mult.i.tude of small luxuries had already gathered round the young wife. She took all quite naturally, never pausing to think how they came.

It was with a trepidation which had yet its pleasure, that she arrayed herself for this, the first time of her taking her place at the head of her husband's table. She put on a high white gown, which Mr. Harper had once said he liked--she was beginning to be anxious over her dress and appearance now. Glancing into the mirror, there recurred to her mind a speech she had once heard from some foolish matron--"Oh, it does not signify what I wear, or how I look--I'm married!" Agatha thought what a very wrong doctrine that was! and laughed at herself for never having much cared to seem pleasing until she had some one to please. Nay, now for the first time she grumbled at the p.a.w.nee-face, wishing it had been fairer!

But fair or not, when it came timidly and shone over Nathanael's shoulder, he sitting leaning thoughtfully on his hand, the result was such as materially to relieve any womanly doubts about her personal appearance. He kissed her in unwonted smiling tenderness.

"I like that dress; and your curls--softly touching them--your curls fall so prettily. How well you look, Agatha! Happy, too! Is it really so? Are you getting more used to me and my faults, dear?" There was something inexpressibly tender in the way he said "Dear," the only caressing word he ever used.

"Your faults?" re-echoed she in a merry incredulous tone. But before she could say more, the guests most inopportunely arrived. And Agatha, very naturally, darted from her husband to the other side of the room like a flash of lightning.