Agatha's Husband Part 29

She seemed satisfied, and took his hand to dismount from her carriage.

Agatha noticed that she walked more feebly, in spite of the bright colour which the wind had brought to her cheeks; and that soon after she came into the house this tint gradually faded, leaving her scarcely even so healthy-looking as she had appeared a month ago--the last time they had seen her. But her talk was full of cheerfulness.

"I am come to stay the whole day with you, by your father's desire--and my own. May I, Mary?"

"Oh, yes! We shall be so glad, especially Elizabeth, who was wondering and longing after you."

"I have not been well. London never suits me," said Anne carelessly.

"But come, now I am about again, let me see what is to be done to-day.

In the first place, I must have a long talk with Elizabeth. Is she risen yet, Eulalie?"

Eulalie did not know; but Mary added, that she feared this was one of Elizabeth's "hard days," when she could not talk much to any one till evening.

Anne continued, after a pause--"I want to drive over to Kingcombe about some business. I have had so much on my hands since poor Mr. Wilson's death."

"Anne's steward," whispered the Beauty importantly to her sister-in-law.

"You know that half Kingcombe belongs to Anne Valery?" And Agatha noticed, with some amus.e.m.e.nt, what an extreme deference was infused into the usually nonchalant, contemptuous manner of the youngest Miss Harper.

"So poor Wilson is dead! And who have you to manage all your property?"

asked Mr. Harper suddenly.

"No one at present I am very particular in my choice. As I am only a woman, my steward has necessarily considerable influence. I would wish him always to be what Mr. Wilson was: if possible a friend, but undoubtedly a gentleman."

As Miss Valery spoke, Nathanael listened in deep thought; then, meeting her eyes, he coloured slightly, but quickly recovering himself, said, in a low tone, "Some time to-day, Anne, I would like to have a little talk with you."

She a.s.sented with an inquiring look. But she seemed to understand Nathanael well enough to content herself with that look, asking no further questions.

"And, for the third important business which should be done to-day, and perhaps the sooner the better, I must certainly take Agatha up Holm Hill, and show her the view of the Channel."

Agatha drew back from the window. "Ah, not the sea!--I cannot bear the sea." Anne Valery watched her with peculiar earnestness.

"Were you ever on the sea, my dear?"

"Once, long ago."

"Nay, I must teach you to admire our magnificent coast. On with your bonnet, and come along that great hill-terrace--do you see it?--with Nathanael and me."

"But you will be tired," Mrs. Harper said, reluctant still, yet loth to resist Anne Valery.

"Tired? no! The salt breeze gives me strength--health. I hardly live when I am not in sight of the Channel. Make haste, and let us go, Agatha."

She seemed so eager, that no further objection was possible. So they soon started--they three only, for Mary had occupation in the house, and the Beauty was mightily averse to exercise and sea-air.

They climbed the steep road, overhung with trees, at whose roots grew cl.u.s.ters of large primrose leaves, showing what a lovely walk it must be in spring; then higher, till all this vegetation ceased, leaving only the short gra.s.s cropped by the sheep, the purple thistles, and the furze-bushes, yellow and cheerful all the year round. They then drove along a high ridge for a mile or two, till they got quite out of sight of Kingcombe Holm. Miss Valery talked gaily the whole way; and, as though the sea-breeze truly gave her life, was the very first to propose leaving the carriage and walking on, so as to catch the earliest glimpse of the Channel.

"There!" she said, breathlessly, and quitting Mr. Harper's arm, crossed over to his wife. "There, Agatha!"

It was such a view as in her life the young girl had never beheld. They stood on a high ridge, on one side of which lay a wide champaign of moorland, on the other a valley, bounded by a second ridge, and between the two sloping greenly down, till it terminated in a little bay.

Parallel to the valley ran this grand hill-terrace--until it likewise reached the coast, ending abruptly in precipitous gigantic cliffs, against which the tides of centuries might have beat themselves in vain.

Beyond all, motionless in the noonday dazzle, and curving itself away in a mist of brightness where the eye failed, was the great, wide, immeasurable sea.

The three stood gazing, but no one spoke. Agatha trembled, less with her former fear than with that awestruck sense of the infinite which is always given by the sight of the ocean--that ocean which One "holdeth in the hollow of his hand." Gradually this awe grew fainter, and she was able to look round her, and count the white dots scattered here and there on the dazzling sheet of waves.

"There go the ships," said Nathanael. "See what numbers of them--numbers, yet how few they seem!--are moving up and down on this highway of all nations. Look, Agatha, at that one, a mere speck, dipping in the horizon.

"Do you remember Tennyson's lines?--they reached Uncle Brian and me even in the wild forests of America:

"'Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail Which brings our friends up from the under world; Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks, with all we love, below the verge.'"

"There! it is gone now," cried Agatha, almost with a sense of loss. She felt Anne Valery's fingers tighten convulsively over her arm, and saw her with straining eyes and quivering lips watching the vanishing--nay, vanished--ship, as if all her soul were flying with it to the "under world."

The sight was so startling, so moving--especially in a woman of Miss Valery's mature age and composed demeanour--that Nathanael's wife instinctively turned her eyes away and kept silence. In a minute or two Anne had returned to Mr. Harper's arm, and the three were walking on as before; until, ere long, they nestled themselves in a sheltered nook, where the sea-wind could not reach them, and the sun came in, warm as summer.

Nathanael began to show his wife the different points of scenery--especially the rocky island of Portland, beyond which the line of coast sweeps on ruggedly westward to the Land's End.

"But I believe," he said, "that there is nowhere a grander coast than we have here--not even in Cornwall."

"Speaking of Cornwall," Miss Valery said, closely observing Nathanael, "I lately heard a sad story about some mines there."

Mr. Harper seemed restless. "The speculation had failed, having been ill-managed, or, as I greatly fear, a cheat from the beginning. As I had property near in the county--what, did you not know that, Nathanael--I was asked to do something for the poor starving miners of Wheal Caroline. Have you heard the name, Agatha?"

"No," said Agatha, innocently, not paying much attention, except to the lovely view.

"Not heard? That is strange. But you, Nathanael"--

"I know all," he said hastily. "It is a sad history--too sad to be talked of here. Another time"--

His eye met hers--and both turned upon Agatha, who sat a little apart, enjoying the novel scene, and rejoicing above all that the sea--vague object of nameless terror--could ever appear so beautiful.

"Poor child!" murmured Miss Valery.

"Hush, Anne!" Nathanael whispered, so imploringly--nay, commandingly, that Anne was startled.

"How like you are to"--

"What were you saying?" asked Agatha, turning at last.

"I was saying," Miss Valery replied hastily--"I was saying how like Nathanael looked just then to his Uncle Brian."

"Did he indeed? Was that all you were speaking of?"

"Not quite all; but I find your husband knows the story; he will tell you, _as he ought_," added Anne pointedly.

"Surely I will, one day," said Nathanael. "But in this case, as in many others, where there has been misfortune or wrong, I consider the best, wisest, most charitable course is not to spread it abroad until the wrong has had a chance of being remedied. Do you not think so, Anne?"

"Yes," she answered, her eyes fixed upon the resolute young face that seemed compelling her to silence almost against her will. It was marvellous to see the influence Nathanael had, even over Anne Valery.

"And now," continued Mr. Harper, "while I am alone with you and my wife"--here he drew Agatha within the circle of talk, and made her lean against his knee, his arm shielding her from the wind--"I wanted to talk with you, Anne, about some plans I have."