The Widow Barnaby Volume Iii Part 20

"Well!... and you cannot help admiring yourself, it is impossible....

But, sister Agnes, what a blessing it was that you did not happen to fall in love with Frederick! What would have become of me if you had?...

for do you know, I loved almost as soon as I saw him. It was all so odd!

It was at the Italian opera that we first met; and I could not help observing, that the handsomest man I had ever seen was looking at me almost incessantly. Papa never saw a bit about it, for when he is listening to music he never cares for anything. However, I do a.s.sure you, I tried to behave properly, though, if I had done quite the contrary, papa would never have found it out. I never looked at him at all above three or four times, and that was accidentally from happening to turn round my head. But whether I thought about it or not, there were his beautiful large eyes always sure to be fixed upon me; and when the opera was over, he must have run out of his box the moment we left ours, for I saw him as we got into the fiacre, standing close beside it. Well, I hardly know how it happened, but from that time I never stirred out without meeting him; he never spoke of course, but that did not prevent our knowing one another just as well as if we had been the oldest acquaintance. At last, however, he managed very cleverly to find out that papa was acquainted with M. Dupont, who gives such beautiful concerts, and receives all the English so hospitably, and he asked as a great favour to be invited to meet us; and so he was, and then we were introduced, and then everything went on beautifully, for he knew you, and the name of Willoughby, and the likeness, and all that, convinced him that we must be the same family; so he and papa very soon made it all out, and then he came to call upon us every day; and very, very, very soon afterwards I was engaged to be his wife as soon as possible, after we all got back to England."

"Thank you, dearest Nora!" replied Agnes, who, notwithstanding all her pre-occupation, had found no difficulty in listening very attentively to this narrative; "I cannot tell you all the pleasure your little history has given me.... There is n.o.body in the world I should like so well for a brother as Frederick Stephenson, and there is n.o.body in the world I should like so well for a sister as Frederick Stephenson's wife."

"That is delightful!" cried Nora, joyfully, "and we certainly are two of the luckiest girls in the world to have everything just as we would wish.... But, Agnes, there is one thing I shall never understand.... How could you help falling in love with Frederick when he fell in love with you?"

"Because I happened just then," replied Agnes, laughing, "to be falling in love with some one else."

"Well! certainly that was the most fortunate thing in the world ... and Frederick himself thinks so now. He told me that he had a great mind to shoot himself when you refused him, but that the very first moment he saw me, he felt certain that I should suit him a great deal better than you would have done."

"That I am sure is quite true, Nora," replied Agnes, very earnestly, "for I too feel certain that I never could have suited anybody but Colonel Hubert.... And now, my sweet sister, let us go to sleep, or we shall hardly be up early enough to meet the friends who, I think, will be wishing to see us again.... Good night, dearest!"

"Good night, darling Agnes!... Is not it pleasant to have a sister, Agnes?... It is so nice to be able to tell you everything.... I am sure I could never be able to do it to anybody else. Goodnight!"

"Bless you, sweet Nora!" replied Agnes; and then, each nestling upon her pillow, and giving some few happy dreamy thoughts to the object they loved best, they closed their fair young eyes, and slept till morning.

The waking was to both of them, perhaps, somewhat like the continuance of a dream; but Peggy came and threw the light of day upon them, while each fair girl seemed to look at her own picture as she contemplated her pretty bedfellow, and appeared to be exceedingly well pleased by the survey.

It was already late, and Agnes, rapidly as she was learning to love her companion, did not linger at her toilet, but leaving Nora, with a hasty kiss, to the care of Peggy, she hastened to the breakfast-table, and made aunt Betsy's heart glad, by telling her at last, that she expected Colonel Hubert would call about eleven o'clock, and that if she did not think it wrong, she should like to speak to him for a few minutes alone.

"Wrong, my child!" exclaimed Miss Compton; "why, I never in my life read a work painting the manners of the age, in which I did not find interviews, sometimes occurring three or four times in a day, entirely _tete-a-tete_, between the parties."

"Then I may go into the back drawing-room presently ... may I, aunt Betsy?... And perhaps you would tell William...."

"Yes, yes, my dear, I'll tell him everything.... But eat some breakfast, Agnes, or I am sure you will not be able to talk.... I suppose it is about your new sister, and your father, and all that, that you want to speak to him."

"There are many things, aunt Betsy.... But, good heavens! there is a knock.... Will it not look very odd for you to send him in to me?"

Without waiting to give an answer, the agile old lady intercepted William's approach to the door in time to give the order she wished; and in two minutes more Colonel Hubert was ushered into a room where the happy but blushing Agnes was alone.

His first few steps towards her were made at the pace at which drawing-room floors are usually traversed, but the last part of the distance was cleared by a movement considerably more rapid, for she had risen in nervous agitation as he approached, and for the first time that he had ever ventured a caress, he threw his arms around her, and pressed her to his heart. Agnes struggled not to disengage herself, but wept without restraint upon his bosom.

"You do then love me, Agnes?... At last, at last our hearts have met, and never can be severed more! But still you must tell me very often that you have forgiven me, dearest, for is it not difficult to believe?

And does it not require frequent vouching?"

"What is it, Montague, that you would have forgiven?" said Agnes, looking up at him, and smiling through her tears.

This was the first time that her lips had p.r.o.nounced his christian name to any ears but her own, and she blushed as she uttered it.

"Agnes! my own Agnes!" he exclaimed, "you have forgiven me, or you would not call me Montague!... How is it possible," he continued, looking fondly at her, "that a word so hackneyed and familiar from infancy as our own name can be made to thrill through the whole frame like a touch of electricity?"

He drew her to the sofa from which she had risen, and placing himself by her, said, "Now, then, Agnes, let us sit down soberly together, and take an unvarnished retrospect of all that has pa.s.sed since we first met.... Yet why should I ask for this?... I hate to think of it ... for it is a fact, Agnes, which his subsequent attachment to your sister must not make you doubt, Frederick and his seven thousand a year would have been at your disposal, had not my dissuasions prevented it.... And had this been so, who knows...."

A shade of melancholy seemed once again settling on the n.o.ble countenance of Colonel Hubert; Agnes could not bear it, and looking earnestly at him, she said,

"Montague! answer me sincerely this one question, which is the strongest feeling in your mind at this moment--the pleasure derived from believing that your influence on Frederick was so great, or the pain of doubting how the offer you speak of would have been received?"

"I have no pleasure in believing I have influence on any one, save yourself," he answered gravely.

"I am glad of that, Montague," she said, "because you somewhat overrated your influence with my brother elect. Save for your foolish doubts, infidel!... you never should have known it, but ... Frederick Stephenson did propose to me, Hubert, before he went abroad."

"And you refused him, Agnes!"

"And I refused him, Hubert."

"Oh! had I known this earlier, what misery should I have been spared!"

cried Colonel Hubert. "You know not, you could not know all I have suffered, Agnes ... yet surely, dearest! when last we spoke together, it was but yesterday, in this very room, you must then have guessed the cause of the dreadful restraint that kept us asunder."

"There was no need of guessing then," replied Agnes, smiling, "for you told me so distinctly."

"Then why not on the instant remove the load from my heart?... were you quite incapable of feeling how galling it must have been to me?"

"I'll tell you how that came to pa.s.s," said Agnes, rising.... "Do you sit still there, as I did yesterday, and say, 'Let me then confess to you, Colonel Hubert,' ... and then I will answer thus," ... and raising her hand, as if to stop his speech, she added, mimicking his impatient tone,

"'Confess nothing, Miss Willoughby, to me!'... And then you told me you had written to him, and when I exclaimed, with some degree of dismay at the idea of your having written to recall him, you again interrupted me by saying that you would do it again ... and then my aunt came, and so we parted.... Then whose fault was it that I did not tell you?"

"My own, Agnes, it was my own; and alas!... I did not suffer for it alone.... How wretched you must have been made by my vehemence!... But you have forgiven me, and all this must be forgotten for ever.... There is, however, one subject on which I would willingly ask a few more questions--these, I hope, you will answer, Agnes?"

"Yes!" she replied, gaily, "you may hope for an answer to all your questions ... provided, that just when I am about to speak, you do not raise your arm _thus_, in order to prevent me."

"I will do my utmost to avoid it," he replied, "and for the greater security will place the offending arm _thus_," ... throwing it round her; "and now tell me, Agnes, why it was that you would not accept Frederick Stephenson?"

"And will you be pleased to tell me, Colonel Hubert, why it was that you did not propose to ... to anybody else, but me?"

"Because I loved you, and you only."

"Because I loved you, and you only," repeated Agnes.

"Is that an echo?" said Colonel Hubert.

"No!" replied Agnes ... "it is only the answer to your question."

"Then, exactly when I was occupied in finding reasons incontrovertible why the niece of Mrs. Barnaby should never be loved by mortal man, the young, the lovely Agnes Willoughby was loving me?"

"Even so," said Agnes, somewhat mournfully; "false impressions have worked us so much woe, that it would not be wise to let a little feminine punctilio prevent you seeing things as they are.... Yet it is hardly fair, Hubert, to make me tell you this...."

"Oh, say not so!" he replied; "mistake not the source of this questioning, for, Agnes, be secure

'That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world, Would not offend thee!'

But can you wonder that, after all I have suffered, my heart and soul thirsts for an a.s.surance of your love? What might well suffice another, Agnes, ought not to suffice me.... I am so much older...."

"I cannot help it, Montague ... nor could I help it when you took me out of the clutches of Major Allen, upon the Windmill-hill, nor when you were pleased to be so gracious as to approve my singing ... nor upon a great many other occasions, when it would have been wise for me to remember it, perhaps. But if I love you, and you love me, I cannot see how your age or mine either need interfere to prevent it."