Agatha's Husband Part 58

"Miss Harper," her maid said, "had gone quietly to rest, and was then fast sleeping."

Poor Elizabeth! this seemed the hardest point of all.

"When did she see her father?"

"This morning. The master always comes up every morning after breakfast to see Miss Harper."

And they would never see one another again, this helpless father and daughter--never, till they met bodiless, in the next world!

For the moment Agatha felt her courage fail She glided quickly from the door, but came back again. Elizabeth had waked, and called her.

"What is the matter? I know something is the matter."

"Do tell her," whispered the maid, "She'll find it out anyhow--she finds out everything. And she has been so ill all day."

Agatha entered. There was no deceiving those eyes.

"Elizabeth, dear Elizabeth--your father--it is very hard, but--your father"--She hesitated; it was so difficult to convey, even in gentlest words, the cruel truth. Miss Harper regarded her keenly. The bearer of ill-tidings is always soon betrayed, and Agatha's was not a face to disguise anything. Elizabeth's head dropped back on the pillow.

"I perceive. He is an old man. He has gone home before me. My dear father!"

The perfect composure with which she said this astonished Agatha. She did not understand how near Elizabeth always lived to the unknown world, and how welcome and beautiful it was in her familiar sight.

"No; he is alive still. But, if he should not come in to see you to-morrow-morning"--

"I shall go unto him; he shall not return unto me," murmured Elizabeth, as her eyelids fell, and a few tears dropped through the lashes. "Tell me the rest, will you?"

"He has been seized with paralysis, I think; he cannot speak or move, but seems still conscious. I do not know how it will end."

"One way--only one way; I feared this long. My grandfather died so.

Agatha"--calling after her, for she was stealing away, she could not bear it--"Agatha, you will take care of him?"

"I will as his own daughter."

"And, if possible"--here Elizabeth's voice faltered a little--"give my love to my dear father."

Agatha fled away. She hid herself in the recess close by "Anne's window," as it was called, and for a minute or two cried violently.

It did her good. With those tears all the selfishness, anger, and pain flowed out of her heart, leaving it purer and more peaceful than it had been for a long time. It was not a foolish, miserable girl, but a brave, tenderhearted, sensible woman, who entered the door of the sick-chamber where the poor old man lay.

No one was there but the coachman who had carried his master up-stairs.

Many servants hovered about the door, but none dared enter. Either they were afraid of the Squire--afraid even now, or else the motionless figure that lay within the bed-curtains was too like death. Old John sat beside it, with tears running down his cheeks.

"Oh, Mrs. Harper, look at th' Master. He be all alive in's mind. He do want bad to speak to we. Look at 'un, Missus!"

"Give me your place, John. I will try to understand him. Father!"--She faltered a little over the word, but felt it was the right word, now. The old man moved his head towards her with a feeble smile. The expression of his face was clearer and more natural, only for that terribly painful inarticulate murmur, which no one could comprehend.

"I have done all I could think of," Agatha continued, speaking softly and cheerfully. "The doctor will be here soon; Mary and Eulalie are down-stairs. I have myself told Elizabeth that you are ill;--she is composed, and sends her love to her dear father. Was all this right?"

Mr. Harper appeared to a.s.sent.

"I will sit beside you till the doctor comes, and then I will write to my husband. You would like him to come home?"

He seemed slow of comprehension, troubled, or excited. Agatha vainly tried to a.n.a.lyse the dumb expression of the features. With all her quickness she could not make out what he wanted. At last, a thought struck her. His eldest son, his favourite--

"Would you like me to send for Major Harper?"

No words could tell the change which convulsed the old man.

Abhorrence--anger--fear--all were written in his countenance. He rolled his head on the pillow, he struggled to gasp out something--what, his daughter-in-law could not guess. She was inexpressibly shocked. One thing only seemed clear, that for some cause or other the mere mention of Frederick's name worked up the father into frenzy.

"Hush! do not try to speak. I will send for no one but Nathanael. Will that content you?"

He made a motion of satisfaction, and became quiet. His features gradually composed themselves, and, he sank into torpor.

Agatha still sat by the bed, holding his wrist, for she knew not moment by moment how soon the pulse might stop. The old man's own daughters were too terrified to approach him. They came on tiptoe to the door, looked in, shuddered, and went back. No one stayed in the room but the old coachman, who had been Mr. Harper's servant since they were both boys; and he sat in a corner crying like a child, though silently.

Agatha might as well have sat there quite alone, the atmosphere around her was so still and solemn.

She had never before been in her father-in-law's room---the state bedroom, in which for centuries the Harper family had been born and died. The great mahogany bed itself was almost like a bier, with its dark velvet hangings, and dusty plumes. Everything around was dusty, gloomy, and worn out; the Squire would have nothing changed from the time when the last Mrs. Harper died there. In a little curtained alcove the lace hung yellow and dusty over her toilet-table, just as she had left it when she laid herself down to the pains of motherhood and death. Her portraits--one girlish, another matronly, but still merry and fair--hung opposite the bed. Between them was a longitudinal family-group, in the very lowest style of art--a string of children, from the big boy to the tottering baby, in all varieties of impossible att.i.tudes. Their names were written under (not unnecessarily)--Frederick, Emily, Harriet, Mary, Eulalie. The only names missed were Nathanael and "poor Elizabeth."

Mechanically Agatha observed all these things during the first half-hour of her vigil; involuntarily her mind floated away to musings concerning them, until she forcibly impelled it back to consider the present. It was in vain. Innumerable conjectures flitted through her brain, but not one which she could catch hold of as a truth. Of one thing only she felt sure, that something very serious must have happened--some great mental shock, too powerful for the Squire's feeble old age. And this shock was certainly in some way or other connected with Major Harper.

An hour later, when she was beginning to count every beat of the old man's pulse, and look forward with dread to a midnight vigil beside that breathing corpse, the doctor came.

Agatha waited for his dictum--it needed very little skill to decide that. A few questions--a shake of the head--a solemn condolatory sigh; and all knew that the old Squire's days were numbered.

"How long?" whispered Mrs. Harper, half closing the door as they came out.

"I cannot say. Some hours--days--possibly a week. We never know in these cases. But, I fear, certainly within a week."

_What_ would be "within a week?" Why is it that every one dreads to say the simple word "_die_?"

Agatha paused. She had never yet stood face to face in a house with death. The sensation was very awful. She glanced within at the heavy-curtained bed, and then at the fair, girlish portrait which peered through the folds at its foot--the painted eyes, eternally young, seeming to keep watch smilingly. The old man and his long-parted wife, to be together again--"within a week." It was strange--strange.

"His sons should be sent for," hinted the doctor. "Mr. Locke Harper is in Cornwall, I believe; but the other--Major Harper"----

"Frederick--Yes, we must send for Frederick," sobbed Mary. "My father cares more for him than for any of us. Oh, poor Frederick!"

"But," Eulalie said--they were all whispering together at the door--"I don't think any one of us, not even Elizabeth, knows Frederick's address just now. A week ago he was pa.s.sing through London, but he does make such a mystery of his comings and goings. Oh, if he were only here!"

"Ask my father," cried Mary--"ask him if he would like to see Frederick."

As she said this rather too loudly, there was a strange smothered sound from the bed. Agatha ran. The old Squire was gasping, choking, with the frightful effort to speak. His face was purple--his eyes wild--yet the poor bound tongue refused to obey his will.

"Hush! be composed," said his daughter-in-law, soothingly. "You shall see no one. No one shall be sent for. Will that do?"

He grew calmer, but restless still.

"Shall my husband come? He will do you good--he does everybody good.

Would you like to see Nathanael?"