Agatha's Husband Part 40

He wrapped Mary's crimson garden-shawl over her head--clumsily enough, for Mr. Harper was not a "ladies' man;" his whole character and habits of life being in curious opposition to the extreme delicacy which Nature had externally stamped upon his appearance. Pausing, he held his wife at arm's length, gazing at her admiringly.

"Will that do? What a gipsy you look, with your red shawl and brown face!"

"p.a.w.nee-face, you know! Do you remember how you once called me so, and how your brother"--

"Come, let us go," he said abruptly, and hurried her through the drawing-rooms. Agatha was rather hurt that his aspect should change so cloudily, and that he should thus quench her little reminiscences of courtship-days, so dear to every happy wife, and gradually becoming dearer even to herself. As they entered the conservatory, she shivered with an uncomfortable sense of gloom.

"What a large, bare place! Even the vines look cheerless--and where have they put all the flowers? What a shame to send them away, and turn it into a billiard-room."

"It was done years ago, to please--my brother"--(Agatha was amazed at the hard tone of that tender fraternal word--so can the sense of words alter in the saying)--"and my father will not have it removed."

"He must have been very fond of your brother," said Agatha, as, with a woman's natural leaning to the injured side, she thought of Major Harper--his gaiety and his good-nature. She wondered why Nathanael was so rigid and cold in his forced and rare mentioning of his brother's name. As she pondered, her eyes took a serious shadow in their depths.

"What are you thinking about, Agatha?"

The suddenness of the question--the consciousness that she might vex Nathanael did she answer it--made her hesitate, blushing vividly--nay, painfully.

"No, don't tell me. I want to hear nothing, nothing, Agatha. I have before told you so. Do not be afraid."

"How strange you are! What should I be afraid of?"

"Nothing. Forget I said anything. You are my wife now--mine--mine!" and for a moment he pressed her hand tightly. "In time"--he relinquished his hold with a sad smile--"in time, Agatha, I hope we shall become used to one another; perhaps even grow into a contented, sedate married couple."

"Do you think so?" Alas! far more than this had been her thought--the thought which had dawned when she paused, shuddering over the tale of King Edward the Martyr and the woman that loved him--the dim hope, daily rising, of an Eden not altogether lost, even though she had married so rashly and blindly--a hope that this might have been only the burying of her foolish girlish dream of love, which must needs die in order to be raised up again in a different form and in a new existence.

Somewhat heavy-hearted, Agatha sat down on a raised bench that looked down on the battered and decaying billiard-table, listening to the rain that pattered on the gla.s.s roof above the vine-leaves--wondering how old were the ragged-looking, flowerless, fruitless orange-trees that were ranged on either side, the only other specimens of vegetation left.

Evidently n.o.body at Kingcombe Holm cared much for flowers.

"I think we will quit this dull place. You do not seem to like it, Agatha?"

"Oh, yes, I like it well enough. I like the rain falling, falling, and the vine-branches crushing themselves against the panes. They'll never ripen, never--poor things! They are dying for sun, and it will not--will not shine!"

"Agatha, what do you mean?"

"I don't clearly know what I mean. Never mind. Talk to me about--whatever it was that you brought me to unfold. Be quick--I have not a large stock of patience, you know of old."

"Do not laugh, for I am serious. I wanted to talk to you about our new house."

"Our new house! Where and what like is it to be, I wonder!"

"Do you not recollect?"

"No; the two we looked at would not do," said Agatha, determinedly. She guessed what was coming--that the discussion about Wilson's cottage, which Nathanael seemed so to have set his heart upon, was about to be renewed. But she would never consent to that--never! "The house I liked you did not approve of," she continued, observing her husband's silence.

"The other I could not think of for a moment."

"But supposing there was no alternative, since we must settle at once?"

"This is the first time you have condescended to inform me of that necessity."

"If," he went on, taking no notice of her sharp speech, but speaking with the extreme gentleness of one who himself feels tenfold the pain he is compelled to inflict--"if, as I told you yesterday, we ought to form our plans immediately; and since, Kingcombe being such a small place, there is at present no choice left us but those two houses"--

"Build one! We are rich enough."

"Not quite." His eyes dropped, almost like those of guilt. After a pause, he cried out violently:

"Agatha, a secret at one's heart is ten times worse to the keeper of it than it can be to any one else. Have pity for me, have patience with me, just for a little while."

"What are you talking about? What have you done?"

"Nothing," said he. "Nothing to harm your peace, my little wife. Believe me, I have committed no greater crime, than"--

"Well!"

"Than having taken Wilson's cottage."

He tried by smiling to teach her to make light of it--perhaps because it was a thing so light to him. But Agatha was enraged beyond endurance.

"You have absolutely taken it--that mean, wretched hovel that I told you I hated;--taken it secretly, without my knowledge or consent!"

"You mistake there. I told you we were obliged to decide yesterday; you were unwilling to consult with me, and at last--do you remember? you left the decision in my hands. I merely believed your own words, and knowing the necessity of acting upon them, did so. I cannot think I was wrong."

"Oh, no! Not at all!" cried Agatha, laughing wildly. "It was only like you--under-handed in stealing my few pleasures--very frank and open when you can rule. Never honest or candid with me, except to my punishment. A kind, generous husband, truly!"

These and a torrent more of bitter words she poured out. She never knew till now the pa.s.sion, the galling sarcasm, there was in her nature. She felt a longing to hate--a wish to wound. Every time she looked at her husband, there seemed a demon rising up within her--that demon which lurks strangely enough in the heart's closest and tenderest depths.

"Cannot you speak!" she cried, going up to him. "Anything is better than that wicked silence. Speak!"

"Agatha!"

"No--I'll not hear you. See what you have done--how you have made me disgrace myself" and she almost sobbed.--"Never in my life was I in a pa.s.sion before."

"Is it my fault then?" said he, mournfully.

"Yes, yours. It is you who stir up all these bad feelings in me.. I was a good girl, a happy girl, before you married me."

"Was it so? Then you shall be held blameless. Poor child--poor child!"

His unutterable regret, his entire prostration, stung her to the heart, and silenced her for the moment; but speedily she burst out again:

"You call me a child--so perhaps I am, in years; but you should have thought of that before. You married me, and made me a woman. You took away my gay childish heart, and yet in all humiliating things you still treat me like a child."

"Do I?" He answered mechanically, out of thoughts that lay deep down, far below the surface of his wife's bitter words. These last awoke in him not one ray of anger--not even when at last, in a fit of uncontrollable petulance, she tore his hand from before his eyes, bidding him look at her--if he dared.

"Yes, I dare." And the look she courted, arose steady, sorrowful, like that of a man who turns his eyes upward, hopeless yet faithful, out of a wrecked ship. "Whatever has been, or may come, G.o.d knows that, from the first, I did love you, Agatha."

Wherefore had he used the word "did!" Why could she not smother down the unwonted pang, the new craving? Or rather, why could she not throw herself in his arms and cry out, "Do you love me--do you love me now?"

Pride--pride only--the restless wild nature upon which his reserve fell like water upon fire, without the blending spirit of conscious love which often makes two opposite temperaments result in closest union.