Agatha's Husband Part 50

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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.s, 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.