Agatha's Husband Part 65

She rested on him, and was quieted.

"I think we had better call them all in now."

"Shall I fetch them?" said his wife, and went out, flitting once more through the still, ghostly house. But she thought of her husband, of his last word and look, and had no fear.

They came in, all that were now living of the old man's children--save one--the poor Elizabeth. They stood round the bed, a full circle, his two sons, his three daughters, his son-in-law and daughter-in-law, and lastly Anne Valery. She was the palest and most serene of all.

Thus for an hour or more they waited--so slow was the last closing of the long-drawn-out life. There was no pain or struggle; merely the ebbing away of breath. The palsied hands, white and beautiful to the last, lay smooth on the counterpane; and when occasionally one or other of his daughters knelt down and kissed him, the old man feebly smiled.

But whenever he opened his eyes, they travelled no farther than to the face of his eldest son--rested there, brightened and closed.

And thus, lying quietly in the midst of his children, at daybreak the old Squire died.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The old man was gathered to his fathers.

It was the day after that on which he had been borne to the place appointed for all living. A new coffin rested beside that of Catherine Harper in the family vault; the portrait still smiled, but on an empty bed. There was no separation now.

At Kingcombe Holm the house had awakened from its sleep of mourning; the shutters were opened, and the sunshine came in familiarly on the familiar rooms--where was missed the presence of him who had abided there for threescore years and ten. But what were they? Counted only as "labour and sorrow"--they had all pa.s.sed away, and he was gone.

The family met--a large table circle. They looked melancholy, all in their weeds, but otherwise were as usual. A certain gravity and under-tone in speaking alone remained. Mary had again begun to busy herself over her housekeeping; and Eulalie, looking prettier than ever in her black dress, was listening with satisfaction to the Reverend Mr. Thorpe, a worthy, simple young man, who had come at once to pay the family of his affianced the respect of attending the funeral, and to plan another ceremony, when the decent term of mourning should be expired.

Major Harper, now recovering something of his old elasticity of manner, took the place at the foot of the breakfast-table, whence Mary, presiding as usual, cast over to him glances sometimes of pride, sometimes of doubtful curiosity, as if speculating on what sort of a ruler the future head of the house would be.

A very courteous and graceful one, most surely!--to judge by the way in which he was doing the agreeable to his sister-in-law. Quite harmlessly, only it seemed as necessary for Major Harper to warm himself in the fair looks of some woman or other, as for a drenched b.u.t.terfly to dry its wings in the sunshine. He was indeed a poor helpless human b.u.t.terfly, not made for cloudy weather, storm, or night!

But he fluttered in vain; Agatha took no notice of him whatsoever. Her whole nature had deepened down to other things--things far beneath the shallow ken of Major Harper.

During this week, when the numerous duties of the brothers of the family left its womenkind nearly alone, shut up in the house of mourning, with nothing outwardly to do or to think of beyond the fold of c.r.a.pe or a gown, or the make of a bonnet--Agatha had learnt strange secrets. They were not of Death, but of Love.

She had seen very little of her husband. Either by necessity or design, he had been almost constantly away; at Thornhurst, arranging business for Miss Valery, who had gone home; sometimes at Kingcombe, in his own house--his lonely house; and for two days and nights, to the astonishment and slight scandal of his sisters, he had been absent in Cornwall. But wherever he was, or whatever he had to do, he either saw or wrote to his wife every day; kind, grave words, or kinder letters; brother-like in their wisdom and tenderness--just the sort of tenderness that he seemed to believe she would wish for from him.

Agatha accepted all--these brief meetings--these constant letters; saw the wounding curiosity of his sisters relax, and even Harriet Dugdale acknowledged how mistaken had been her former notions, and on what excellent terms her brother and his wife now evidently were; she really never thought Nathanael would have made such an attentive, affectionate husband! And Agatha smiled outwardly a proud satisfied smile; while inwardly---oh, what a crushed, remorseful, pa.s.sionate heart was there!

A heart which now began to know itself--at once its fulness and its cravings. A heart thirsting for that love, wanting which, marriage is but a dead corrupting body without the soul--love, the true life-union, consisting of oneness of spirit, sympathy, thought, and will--love which would have been the same had they lived twenty thousand miles apart, ay, had they never married at all, but waited until eternity united those whom no earthly destinies could altogether put asunder. Now out of her own soul she learnt--what not one human being in a million learns, and yet the truth remains the same--the unity, the immortality, the divineness of Love, to which the One Immortal and Divine gave His own name.

She sat in her usual quiet mood, she did everything in such a quiet, self-contained fashion now--sat, idly talked to by Major Harper, whom she did not hear at all. She only heard, at the further end of the table, Nathanael talking to Mary. Sometimes she stole a glance, and thought how cordial his manner to his sister was, and how tender his eyes could look at times. And she sighed. At her sigh, her husband would turn, see her listening to Frederick with that absent downcast look--and become silent.

Not an angry jealous silence now--his whole manner showed how much he honoured and trusted his wife--but the hush of a deep, abiding pain, a sense of loss which nothing could ever reveal or remove.

But men must keep up worldly duties; it is only women, and not all of these, who can afford the luxury of a broken heart. Mr. Harper rose, nerved for the day's task--a painful one, as all the family knew. The elder brother had shrunk from it, and it had been left to Nathanael, who in all things was now the thinker and the doer. The impression of this had fixed itself outwardly, effacing the last remnant of his boyish looks. As he stood leaning over Mary, Agatha thought he had already the aspect of middle age.

"It will not take me long, Mary, since you say my father kept his papers in such order. Probably I shall have done by the time the Dugdales come.

You are quite sure there was a will?"

"Quite sure; you will probably find it in the cabinet. I saw him looking there the very afternoon of the day he died. I was calling him to dinner, but his back was turned, and I could not make him understand--poor father!"

Mary's eyes filled, but the younger brother said a few kind words, and her grief ceased The rest were silent and serious, until Nathanael, going away, addressed Frederick rather formally. All speech between them, though smooth, was invariably formal and rare.

"You are satisfied to leave this duty in my hands?--you do not wish to share it?"

"Oh, no, no!" hurriedly answered the other, walking away in the sunny window-seat, and breathing its freshness eagerly, as if to drive away the bare thought of death and the grave.

Nathanael went out--but ere he had closed the door a little hand touched him.

"What do you want, Agatha?"

"I should like to go with you, if you would allow--that is, if you would not forbid me."

"Forbid you? Nay! But"--

"I want--not to interrupt you, or share any family secrets--but just to sit near you in the room. This is such a strange, dreary house now!" And she shivered.

Her husband sighed. "Poor child--such a child to be in the midst of us and our trouble! Come with me if you will." And he took her into the study.

No one had been there since the father died; directly afterwards some careful hand had locked the door, and brought the key to Nathanael; and it was the only room in the house whose window, undarkened, had met during all that week the eye of day. It felt close with sunshine and want of air. Mr. Harper opened the cas.e.m.e.nt, and placed an arm-chair beside it, where Agatha might look out on the chrysanthemum bed, and the tall evergreen, where a robin sat singing. He pointed out both to her, as if wishing to fortify her with a sense of life and cheerfulness, and then sat down to the gloomy task of looking over his father's papers.

They were very few--at least those left open in the desk; merely accounts of the estate, kept with brevity and with much apparent labour; sixty years ago literature, nay, education, were at a low ebb among English country gentlemen. But all the papers were so carefully arranged, that Nathanael had nothing to do but to glance over them and tie them up--simple yearly records of the just life and honest dealings of a good man, who transferred unenc.u.mbered to his children the trust left by his ancestors.

"I think," said Nathanael--breaking the dreary silence--"I think there never was one of the Harper line who lived a long life so stainlessly, so honourably, as my father."

And somehow, as he tied up the packets, his finger slightly trembled.

Agatha came and stood by him.

"Let me help you; I have ready hands."

"But why should I make use of them?"

"Have you not a right?" she said, smiling.

"Nay, I never claim as a right anything which is not freely given."

"But I give it. It pleases me to help you," said Agatha, in a low tone, afraid of her own voice. She took the papers from him, and tried to make herself busy, in her innocent way. It cheered her.

Nathanael watched her for a minute. "You are very neat-handed, Agatha, and it is kind of you to help me."

"Oh, I would help any one." Foolish, thoughtless words! He said no more, but went and looked over the cabinet.

This was a sadder duty. There were letters extending over more than a half century. The Squire received so few that he seemed never to have burnt one. The oldest--fifty years old--were love-letters, of the time when people wrote love-letters beginning "Honoured Miss," and "Dear and respected Sir," overlaying the plain heart-truth with no sentimentalisms of the pen. The signatures, "Catherine Grey," and "Nathanael Harper," in round, formal, girl and boy hand, told how young they were when this correspondence began;--young still, when its sudden ceasing showed that courtship had become marriage. From that time, for nearly twenty years, there was scarcely a letter signed Catharine Harper.

"This looks," said Agatha, who unconsciously to both had come to stand by her husband and share in his task--"this looks as if they were so rarely parted that they had no need for letter-writing."

"It was so: I believe my father and mother lived very happily together."

"I should like to read these letters all through, if I might? They are the only love-letters I ever saw."