Agatha's Husband Part 21

"Nothing! Only wait I will try to cure myself without paining you. But, for the sake of our whole life's happiness, henceforward always be open with me, Agatha! Don't hide from me anything! Set your frank goodness against my wicked suspiciousness, and make me ashamed of myself, as now."

He had not spoken so freely or with so much emotion since they were married; and his wife was deeply touched. She made no answer, but half raising herself, crept to his arms, almost as if she loved him. So she truly did, in a measure, though not with the spontaneous, self-existent love, which, once lit in a woman's breast, is like the central fire hidden in the earth's bosom, enduring through all surface variations--through summer and winter, earthquakes, floods, and storms--utterly unchangeable and indestructible. And, however wildly extravagant this simile may sound--however rare the fact it ill.u.s.trates, nevertheless such Love is a great truth, possible and probable, which has existed and may exist--thank G.o.d for it!--to prove that He did not found the poetry of all humanity upon a beautiful deceit.

Something of this mystery was beginning to stir in the wife's heart; the girl-wife, married before her character was half formed--before the perfecting of real love, which, taking, as all feelings must, the impress of individual nature, was in her of slow development.

As Agatha lay, her head hidden on her husband's shoulder, guessing out of her own heart something of what was pa.s.sing in his, there came to her the first longing after that oneness of spirit, without which marriage is but a false or base union, legal and sanctified before men, but, oh!

how unholy in the sight of G.o.d!

The young wife felt as if now, and not until now, she could unfold to her husband all the secrets of her heart, all its foolishness, ignorance, and fears.

"If you will listen to me, and not despise me very much, I will tell you something that I have never told to any one until now."

She could not imagine why, but at this soft whisper he trembled; however, he bade her go on.

"You wonder why it is I am so terrified at leaving England? It is not for any of the reasons you said, but for one so foolish that I am half ashamed to confess it. I dare not cross the sea."

"Is that all?" Mr. Harper cried, and the unutterable dread which had actually blanched his cheek disappeared instantaneously. He felt himself another man.

"Wait, and I'll tell you why this is," continued Agatha. "When I was a little child, somewhere about four years old, I was at some seaport town--I don't know where nor ever did, for there was no one with me but my nurse, and she died soon after. One day, I remember being in a little boat going to see a large s.h.i.+p. There were other people with us, especially one lady. Somehow, playing with her, I fell overboard." Here Agatha shuddered involuntarily. "It may be very ridiculous, but even now, when I am ill or restless in mind, I constantly dream over again that horrible drowning."

Her husband drew her closer to him, murmuring, "Poor child!"

"Ah, I was indeed a poor child! When, after being brought to life again--for I fancy I must have been nearly dead--my nurse forbade me ever to speak of what had happened, no one can tell into what a terror it grew. I never shall overcome it, never! The very sight of the sea is more than I can bear. To cross it---to be on it"--

"Hush, dear, quiet yourself," said her husband, soothingly. "Now, tell me all you can remember about this."

"Scarcely anything more, except that when I came to myself I was lying on the beach, with the stranger lady by me."

"Who was she?"

"I have not the slightest idea. Being so young, I recollect little about her--in fact, only one thing: that just as she was leaving me to go on in the little boat, my nurse called out, 'The s.h.i.+p is gone!' and the lady fell flat down--dead, as I thought then. They carried me away, and I never saw or heard of her again."

"How strange!"

"But," continued Agatha, gathering courage as she found her husband did not smile at this story, and beginning to speak with him more freely than she had ever done with any person in her life, "but you have no idea what a vivid impression the circ.u.mstance left on my mind. For years I made of this lady--to whom I feel sure I owed in some way or other the saving of my life--a sort of guardian angel I believe I even prayed to her--such a queer, foolish child I was--oh, so foolis.h.!.+"

"Very likely, dear; we all are," said Mr. Harper, gaily. "And you are quite sure you never saw your angel?"

"No, nor any one like her. The person most like, and yet very unlike, too, in some things, was--don't laugh, please--was Miss Valery. That, I fancy, was the reason why I liked her so from the first, and was ready to do anything she bade me."

"Then when you consented to be married it was not for love of me but of Anne Valery?" And beneath Nathanael's smile lingered a little sad earnest.

His wife did not answer--even yet she was too shy to say the words, "I love you." But she took his hand, and reverently kissed it, whispering,

"I am quite content. I would not have things otherwise than they are.

And all I mean by telling such a long foolish story is this--teach me how to conquer myself and my fears, and I will go with you anywhere--even across the sea."

"My own dear wife!" His voice was quite broken; so sudden, so unexpected was this declaration from her, and by the tremblings which shook her all the while he saw how great her struggle had been.

For many minutes, holding her little head on his arm, the young husband sat silent, buried in deep thought; Agatha never saw the changes, bitter, fierce, sorrowful, that by turns swept over the face under which her own lay so calmly, with sweet shut eyes. Strange difference between the woman and the man!

"Agatha," he said at last, "I have quite decided."

"Decided what?"

"That I will give up my office at Montreal, and we will live in England."

She was so astonished that at first she could not speak; then she burst into joyful tears, and hung about him, murmuring unutterable thanks. For the moment he felt as if this reward made his sacrifice nothing, and yet it had cost him almost everything that his manly pride held dear.

"Then you will not go? You will never cross the terrible Atlantic again?"

"I do not promise that: for I must go, soon or late, if only to persuade Uncle Brian to return with me to England.--Uncle Brian! what will he say when he learns that I have given up my independence, and am living pensioner on a rich wife?"

Agatha looked surprised.

"But," continued he, trying to make a jest of the matter, "though I do renounce my income in the New World, I am not going to live an idler on your little ladys.h.i.+p's bounty. I intend to work hard at anything that I can find to do. And it will be strange if, in this wide, busy England, I cannot turn to some honourable profession. If not, I'd rather go into the fields and chop wood with this right hand"--

And suddenly das.h.i.+ng it down on the table, he startled Agatha very much; so much that she again clung to him, and innocently begged him not to be angry with her.

Then, once more, Nathanael took his wife in his arms, and became calm in calming her. Thus they sat, until the silence grew heavenly between the two, and it seemed as if, in this new confidence, and in the joy of mutual self-renunciation, were beginning that true marriage, which makes of husband and wife not only "one flesh," but one soul.

CHAPTER XI.

It had been arranged with Emma Th.o.r.n.ycroft that Mrs. Harper should take the benefit of that lady's superior domestic and worldly experience--for Agatha herself was a perfect child in such matters--and that they two should go over the intended house together. Accordingly, in the course of the following day Mrs. Th.o.r.n.ycroft appeared to carry away the young wife, and give her the first lesson in household responsibilities.

From this important business, Mr. Harper was laughingly excluded, as being only a "gentleman," and required merely to p.r.o.nounce a final decision upon the niceties of feminine choice.

"In fact," said Emma, gaily a.s.suming the autocracy of her s.e.x, "husbands ought to have nothing at all to do with house-choosing or house-keeping, except to pay the rent and the bills."

Agatha could not help laughing at this, until she saw that Mr. Harper was silent.

A few minutes before they started he took his wife aside, and showed her a letter. It was the formal renunciation of the appointment he held at Montreal.

"How kind!" she cried in unfeigned delight. "And how quickly you have fulfilled your promise!"

"When I have once decided I always like to do the thing immediately.

This letter shall go to-day."

"Ah!--let me post it," whispered Agatha, taking a wilful, childish pleasure in thus demolis.h.i.+ng every chance of the future she had so dreaded.

"What! cannot you yet trust me?" returned her husband. "Nay, there is no fear. What is done is done. But you shall have your way."

And walking with them a little distance, he suffered Agatha with her own hands to post the decisive letter.

After he left them, she told Mrs. Th.o.r.n.ycroft the welcome news, enlarging upon Mr. Harper's goodness in resigning so much for her sake.