Agatha's Husband Part 22

"Resigning?" said Emma, laughing. "Well, I don't see much n.o.ble resignation in a young man's giving up a hardworking situation in the colonies to live at ease on his wife's property in England. My dear, husbands always like to make the most of their little sacrifices. You mustn't believe half they say."

"My husband never said one word of his," cried Agatha, rather indignantly, and repented herself of her frankness to one whose ideas now more than ever jarred with her own. Three weeks' constant a.s.sociation with a man like Nathanael had lifted her mind above the ordinary standard of womanhood to which Emma belonged. She began to half believe the truth of what she had once with great astonishment heard Anne Valery declare--ay, even Anne Valery--that if the n.o.blest moral type of man and of woman were each placed side by side, the man would be the greater of the two.

But this thought she kept fondly to herself, and suffered Emma to talk on without much attending to her conversation. It was chiefly about some City business with which "her James" had been greatly annoyed of late--having to act for a friend who had been ruined by taking shares in a bubble company formed to work a Cornish mine. Agatha had often been doomed to listen to such historiettes. Mrs. Th.o.r.n.ycroft had a great fancy for putting her harmless fingers into her husband's business matters, for which the chief apology in her friend's eyes was the good little wife's great interest in all that concerned "my James." So Agatha had got into a habit of listening with one ear, saying, "Yes," "No," and "Certainly;" while she thought of other things the while. This habit she to-day revived, and, pondered vaguely over many pleasant fancies while hearing mistily of certain atrocities perpetrated by "City scoundrels"--Emma was always warm in her epithets.

"The 'Company,' my dear, is a complete take-in--all sham names, secretaries, treasurers, and even directors. The whole affair was got up among two or three people in a lawyer's office; and who do you think that lawyer is, Agatha?"

"I don't know," said Mrs. Harper, feeling as perfectly indifferent as if he were the man in the moon.

"I am not sure that I ought to tell you, for James only found it out, or rather guessed it, this morning at breakfast-time. And if the thing can only be proved, it will go very suspiciously against the people who have been mixed up in the affair, and especially against this Mr.

Grimes.--There, I declare I've let the cat out of the bag at last, for all James cautioned me not!"

"Well, be content," said Agatha, awaking from a reverie as to how many days her husband intended to stay at Kingcombe Holm, whither they were this week going on a formal invitation, and whether the new house would be quite ready on their return--"Be content, Emma; I really did not catch the name."

"I'm glad of it," said the gossiping little woman--though she looked extremely sorry. "Of course, if Major Harper had known--why, you would have heard."

"Heard what" asked Agatha, her curiosity at last attracted by her brother-in-law's name. But now Emma seemed wilfully bent upon maintaining a mysterious silence.

"That's exactly what I can't tell you, my dear, except thus much--that my husband is afraid Major Harper has been losing a good deal of money, since more than two-thirds of the shares in Wheal Caroline were in his name, and now the vein has failed--that is, if ever there was a vein or a mine at all--and the other shareholders declare there has been a great deal of cheating somewhere--and--you understand."

Agatha did not understand one jot. All she drew from this confused volubility was the fact that Major Harper had somehow lost money, for which she was very sorry. But to her utter ignorance of financial or business matters the term "losing money" bore very little meaning.

However, she recurred with satisfaction to her own reputed wealth, and thought if Major Harper were in any need he would of course tell his brother, and she and Nathanael could at once supply what he wanted.

She determined to speak to her husband the first opportunity, and so dismissed the subject, as being not half so interesting as that of "the new house."

At the gate of this the two ladies now stood, and Emma, with a matronly importance, introduced the gratified young wife to all its perfections.

If there be one instinct that lurks in a woman's breast, ready to spring up when touched, and bloom into all sorts of beautiful and happy feelings, it is the sense of home--of pleasant domestic sway and domestic comfort--the looking forward to "a house of one's own." Many ordinary girls marry for nothing but this; and in the n.o.bler half of their s.e.x even amidst the strongest and most romantic personal attachment there is a something--a vague, dear hope, that, flying beyond the lover and the bridegroom, nestles itself in the husband and the future home.--The home as well as the husband, since it is given by him, is loved for his sake, and made beautiful for his comfort, while he is the ruler, the guide, and the centre of all.

Mrs. Harper, as she went through the rooms of this, the first house she had ever looked on with an eye of interest, admiring some things, objecting to others, and beginning to arrange and decide in her own mind,--felt the awakening of that feeling which philosophers call "the domestic instinct"--the instinct which makes of women good wives, fond mothers, and wise mistresses of pleasant households. She wondered that, as Agatha Bowen, she had thought so little of these things.

"Yes," said she, brightening up as she listened to Emma's long-winded discourse upon furniture and arrangements, and learning for the first time to appreciate the capital good sense of that admirable domestic oracle and young housekeeper's guide--"Yes, I think this will just do.

And, as you say, we easily manage to buy it, furniture and all, so as to make what improvements we choose. Oh, how delicious it will be to have a house of one's own!"

And the tears almost came into her eyes at thought of that long vista of future joy--the years which might pa.s.s in this same dwelling.

"My husband," she said to the person who showed them over the place--and her cheeks glowed, and her heart dilated with a tender pride as she used the word--"my husband will come to-morrow and make his decision. I think there is very little doubt but that we shall take the house."

So anxious was she to conclude the matter and let Mr. Harper share in all her pleasant feelings, that she excused herself from staying at Emma's until he came to fetch her, and determined to walk back to meet him.

"What, with n.o.body to take care of you?" said Emma.

"The idea of anybody's taking care of me! We never thought of such a thing three months ago. I used to come and go everywhere at my own sweet will, you know." Nevertheless, it was a sweet thought that there _was_ somebody to take care of her. Her high spirit was beginning to learn that there are dearer pleasures in life than even the pleasure of independence.

Pondering on these things--and also on the visit to Kingcombe Holm which her husband had that morning decided--she walked through the well-known squares, her eyes and her veil lowered, her light springy step restrained into matronly dignity. Agatha had a wondrous amount of dignity for such a little woman. Her gait, too, had in it something very peculiar--a mixture of elasticity, decision, and pride. Her small figure seemed to rise up airily between each footpress, as if unaccustomed to creep. There was a trace of wildness in her motions; hers was anything but a dainty tread or a lazy drawing-room glide; it was a bold, free, Indian-like walk--a footstep of the wilderness.

No one who had once known her could ever mistake Agatha, be she seen ever so far off; and as she went on her way, a gentleman, crossing hastily from the opposite side of the square, saw her, started, and seemed inclined to shrink from recognition. But she, attracted by his manner, lifted up her eyes, and soon put an end to his uncertainty.

Though a good deal surprised by the suddenness of the _rencontre_, there was no reason on earth why Mrs. Harper should not immediately go up and speak to her husband's brother.

She did so, holding out her hand frankly.

Major Harper's response was hesitating to a painful degree. He looked, in the common but expressive phrase, "as if he had seen a ghost."

"Who would have thought of meeting you here, Miss Bowen--Mrs. Harper I mean?" he added, seeing her smile at the already strange sound of her maiden name. What could have possessed Major Harper to be guilty of such uncourteous forgetfulness?

"You evidently did not think I was my real self, or you would not have been going to pa.s.s me by; I--that is, _we_"---at the word Nathanael's wife cast off her shyness, and grew bravely dignified--"we came back to London two days ago."

"Indeed!"

"Your brother," she had not yet quite the courage to say "my husband,"

when speaking of him, especially to Frederick Harper--"your brother thought you were out of town."

"I?--yes--no. No, it was a mistake. But are you not going in? Good morning!"

In his confusion of mind he was handing her up the steps of Dr.

Ianson's door, which they were just pa.s.sing. Agatha drew back; at first surprised, then alarmed. His strange manner, his face, not merely pale but ghastly, the suppressed agitation of his whole aspect, seemed forewarnings of some ill. It was her first consciousness that she was no longer alone, in herself including alike all her pleasure and all her pain.

"Oh, tell me," she cried, catching his arm, "is there anything the matter? Where is my husband?"

The quick fear, darting arrow-like to her heart, betrayed whose image lay there nearest and dearest now. Major Harper looked at her, looked and--sighed!

"Don't be afraid," he said kindly; "all is well with your husband, for aught I know. He is a happy fellow in having some one in the world to be alarmed on his account."

Agatha blushed deeply, but made no reply. She took her brother-in-law's offered arm, offered with a mechanical courtesy that survived the great discomposure of mind under which he evidently laboured, and turned with him towards home. She was at once puzzled and grieved to see the state he was in, which, deny it and disguise it as he would--and he tried hard to do so--was quite clear to her womanly perception. His laugh was hollow, his step hurried, his eyes wandering from side to side as if he were afraid of being seen. How different from his old cheerful lounge, full of a good-natured conceit, apparently content with himself, and willing that the whole street should gaze their fill at Major Frederick Harper.

So old he looked, too; as if the moment his merry mask of smiles was thrown off, the cruel lurking wrinkles appeared. Agatha pitied him, and felt a return of the old liking, warm and kind, such as it was before the innuendoes of foolish friends had first lured her to distrust the nature of her own innocent feelings, and then changed them into positive contempt and aversion.

She said, with an air of gentle matronly freedom, half sisterly, too, and wholly different from the shy manner of Agatha Bowen to Major Harper:

"You must come home with me. I fear you are ill, or in anxiety. Why did you not tell your brother?" And suddenly she thought of Emma's statement of the morning. But Agatha, in her unworldliness, never supposed such a trivial loss as that of money could make any man so miserable as Major Harper seemed.

"I ill? I anxious? I tell my brother?" he repeated, sharply.

"Nay, as you will. Only do come to us. He will be so glad to see you."

"Glad to see me?" He again repeated her words, as though he had none of his own, or were too bewildered to use them. Nevertheless, through a certain playful influence which Agatha could exert when she liked, making almost everybody yield to her, Major Harper suffered himself to be led along; his companion talking pleasantly to him the while, lest he might think she noticed his discomposure.

Arrived at home, they found that Nathanael had walked to the Regent's Park to fetch his wife, according to agreement.

Mrs. Harper looked sorry. She had already learned one little secret of her husband's character--his dislike to any unpunctuality, any altered plans or broken promises. "Still, you must come in and wait for him."

"Wait for whom?" said Major Harper, absently.

"Your brother."

"My brother!--I, wait to see my brother! Impossible--I--I'll write. Good morning--good morning."

He was leaving the hall--more hurried and agitated than ever--when Mrs.

Harper, now really concerned, laid her hand upon his arm.