Agatha's Husband Part 53

"But before then, when you were a very little girl?"

"I do not know. Don't let us talk about that."

"Not if you do not wish it." Anne's eyes, which had watched her closely, turned away, and after a few minutes were riveted on a line of blue sea sweeping round a distant headland, and curving off to the horizon. As she looked she became very pale, and s.h.i.+vered. Agatha hardly noticed her, being so busy examining the new regions into which they now entered--the ordinary High Street of an ordinary country town. The sea view had vanished.

Suddenly the carriage turned a corner, and they burst upon the sh.o.r.e of Weymouth Bay. A great, blue, glittering bay, with two white headlands shutting it in; the tide running high, the waves das.h.i.+ng themselves furiously against the sea-wall of the esplanade, breaking into showers of spray, and curling back into the foaming whirl below.

Agatha started, and put her hands before her eyes. "I know that sight--I remember that sound. Oh! where is this place? why did you bring me here?"

At this cry Miss Valery, roused from her momentary fit of abstraction, took hold of Agatha's hand. The girl was trembling violently.

"My dear, I did not expect this, or you should not have come here. This is Weymouth. Now do you remember?"

"How should I? Was I ever here before?" She peered from under her hand at the sparkling sea. "No, it is not like that sea; it is too bright. Yet I hear the same roll against the same wall. It is very foolish, but I wish we could get away."

"Presently," said Anne's soothing voice. "We must drive along this sh.o.r.e, and then we will get out at an inn I know, and rest."

Her manner, her expression, as she fixed her eyes full upon her, struck Agatha with an indescribable feeling. She looked eagerly at Miss Valery, trying to read in that worn face some likeness to the one which had impressed her childish memory with almost angelic beauty.

"Tell me--you say you have been often here--did you ever one stormy day follow a s.h.i.+p that was outward bound? You were in a little boat, and the s.h.i.+p was standing out to sea, round that point--and"--

She stopped, for Anne's face was livid to the very lips. Agatha forgot her own question and its purport.

"Stop the carriage. Let me hold you. Dear--dear Miss Valery, you are worn out--you are fainting."

"No--I never faint--I am only tired. Don't speak to me for a minute or two, and I shall be well."

With a long sigh she forcibly brought life back to her cheeks--a feeble life at best. Agatha, watching her, was smitten by a dread which now entered her mind for the first time, driving thence all personal feelings, and making her gaze with sorrowful anxiety on the friend beside her who had been all day so cheerful and kind. And she thought with a remorse amounting to positive horror, that she herself during that day had more than once spoken sharply even to Anne Valery.

A great awe came upon her, reflecting how often we unconsciously walk hand-in-hand, and talk of our own petty earthly trials, with those whose souls' wings are already growing, already stirring with the air that comes to bear them to the unseen land.

It was a relief indescribable, when leisurely strolling along the pavement, she saw among many strange faces one that seemed familiar. The hands knotted loosely at his back, the light hair straggling out from under the hat, that was pushed far up from the forehead--no, she could not be mistaken. She uttered a cry of pleasure.

"Look, look! there he is; I am certain it is he."

Anne started violently.

"Mr. Dugdale, Mr. Dugdale!" Agatha called out.

He came up to the carriage with the most lengthened "E--h!" that she had ever heard him utter. "What brought you two here? This bleak day too.

Very wrong of Anne!"

"But she would come. She said she wanted a breath of sea-air, and I think, besides, she has business."

"No," interrupted Anne, "no business, except bringing Agatha to see Weymouth. Now shall we rest, and have some tea at the inn. You'll come with us, Mr. Dugdale?"

"Yes, I want to speak to you, Anne. I've got news about--that little affair you know of. That was why I came to Weymouth to-day. Eh, now--just look there!"

With a countenance brimful of pleasure he came to Miss Valery's side, and pointed to a steamer that lay in the offing.

"It's the _Anna Mary_. She made the pa.s.sage from New York in no time.

I've been aboard her already. I fancied I might find him there. Now, what do you think, Anne?"

"Is he come?" said Anne, in a steady voice. She had quite recovered herself now.

"No--not this time. But he will sail, for certain, by the next New York packet to Havre."

"Thank G.o.d!" It was a very low answer--just a sigh, and nothing more.

"And we have satisfactorily ended all that business which you first put into my head," continued Duke, rubbing his hands with great glee. "It was a risk certainly, but then it was for him. My children will never be a bit the poorer."

"No," murmured Anne Valery to herself.

"And think what an election we shall have! With him to make speeches for Trenchard, and argue in this wonderful way about Free-trade, and tell the farmers all about Canadian wheat! Glorious!"

"What are you both talking about?" cried Agatha, who had been considerably puzzled. "Do let me hear, if it is not a secret."

"No secret," said Anne, turning round, speaking clearly and composedly, and not at all like a sick person. "Mr. Brian Harper is coming home."

Agatha clapped her hands for joy.

When they dismounted from the carriage, and had ordered tea at the inn, Anne still seemed quite strong. She said it was the sea-breeze that brought life to her, and stood at the open window gazing over the bay.

Agatha thought she had never seen Miss Valery's face so near looking beautiful as now; it was the faint reflex of girlhood's brightness, like the zodiacal light which the sun casts on the sky long after he has gone down.

After tea,--at which meal Mr. Dugdale did not appear, a fact that n.o.body wondered at, since he was left to wander about Weymouth at his own sweet will, without Harrie to catch him and remind him that there was such a thing as time, likewise such sublunary necessities as eating and drinking--after tea Miss Valery and Mrs. Harper sat at the window together.

It was only an inn-window, the panes scribbled over with many names, and it lighted an ordinary inn-parlour, looking on the esplanade. Yet it was a pleasant seat; quiet, too, for the town was almost deserted as winter-time came on. The bay, smoothed by the ebbing tide, lay like crystal under a sky where sunset and moonlight mixed. Agatha ventured to look at the sea now. She beheld with a curious interest a sight till now so unfamiliar, taking a childish pleasure in watching the great white arm of moon-rays stretch further and further across the water, changing the ripples into molten silver, and making ethereal and ghostlike every little boat that glided through them.

By-and-by came a group of wandering musicians, playing very respectably, as German street-musicians always do. They converted the dark esplanade and the shabby inn-parlour into a fairy picture of visible and audible romance.

"It is quite like a scene in a play," said Agatha, laughing and trying to make Miss Valery laugh. She could not see her clearly in the moonlight, but she did not like her sitting so quiet and silent.

"Yes, very like a play, with '_Herz, mein Herz,_' for a serenade. What a sweet old tune it is!"

"I used to sing it once." And Agatha began following the instruments with her voice. "No, I can't sing. I could sooner cry."

"Why? Are you sorrowful?"

"No--happy. Yet all feels strange, very strange." She crept to Miss Valery, wrapped her arms round her waist, and laid her head timidly on her shoulder. Anne drew her nearer, with a more caressing manner than she ever used to any one. Agatha Harper seemed that night of all nights to lie very near her heart.

"_Herz, mein Herz,_" died faintly away down the esplanade; there was nothing but the glitter of the bay, and the moon climbing higher and higher above the Isle of Portland.

Anne spoke at last, amidst the half-playful, half-tender caresses that were so dear to Agatha, who had never known what it was to be calmly and safely in a mother's arms. Lying thus seemed most like it.

"Do you think I care for you, Agatha, my child?"

"I cannot tell. Perhaps not, for I am not good enough to deserve it."

"Do you know what first made me care for you?"