Miss Valery's little equipage came leisurely on behind. n.o.body asked what she and Duke Dugdale had conversed about; but Harrie shrewdly suspected he had been talking poor dear Anne to death about the votes of her Kingcombe tenantry, and the probable chances of Mr. Trenchard and Free-trade.

CHAPTER XV.

To see the elder Mr. Harper sitting at the head of his own dinner-table was a real pleasure. He never looked so well at any other time. His grandiose air was then so mixed with genuine kindliness that it only enriched his courtesies, like the "body" in mellow old wine. He leaned graciously back in the arm-chair peculiarly his own, surveying the long table shone over by soft wax-lights, and circled by smiling faces, most of them women, as the old gentleman liked best. Even the plain Mary, taking the foot of the table, looked well and mistress-like in her black velvet dress: Eulalie and Mrs. Dugdale kept up the good appearance of the family; while Miss Valery and the young Mrs. Harper took either side of the host, and were duly honoured by him.

Agatha wore her wedding-dress, of white silk, rich and plain, She looked very pretty, her girlish _abandon_ of manner softened by a certain wifely dignity, which grew upon her day by day. She filled her position well, though often with secret trembling, and shy glances over to her husband to see if he were satisfied with her--a fact which no one but herself could doubt.

"Now, my children," said the Squire, when the servants had withdrawn, and dessert and wines foretold the chatty hour after dinner of which he was so fond--"now, my children--I may call you all so?" and he smiled at Anne Valery--"let me tell you how glad I am to see you, and especially the youngest of you"--here he softly patted Agatha's hand, on the table.

"And since we always drink healths here--a good old fashion that I should be loth to renounce--let me give you the first toast--Mr. and Mrs. Nathanael Locke Harper!"

"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Dugdale vaguely from the bottom of the table, at which indecorum--probably occasioned by a county meeting that was running in his head--his father-in-law looked extremely severe. But the severity was soon drowned in the nods and smiles that circled round.

After which Nathanael said briefly but with feeling:

"Father, my brother and sisters, and Anne--my wife and I thank you all"

"What do you think of this our old-fashioned custom?'" said the Squire, turning to his daughter-in-law. "A remnant of my young days, when every lady used to be called upon to give the health of a gentleman, and every gentleman of a lady. It was always so at your grandfather's table, Anne, where many a time when you were a baby in long-clothes I had the pleasure of giving yours."

"Thank you," said Anne, smiling. She was evidently a great favourite with the old gentleman.

"You should know, my dear daughter-in-law, that my acquaintance with this lady dates almost from her birth. And for nineteen years I held over her the right which I understand my eldest son"--he paused a moment--"which Major Harper had the honour to hold over you. Her grandfather left me his executor and sole guardian of his infant heiress. I was a young man then, but I tried to deserve his trust. Did I, Anne?"

Again she smiled--most affectionately.

"And I had the pleasure of seeing my ward at twenty-one the richest heiress and the truest gentlewoman in the west of England. She did me infinite credit, and I had fulfilled to my friend one of the most sacred trusts a man can receive. Your excellent grandfather Anne--let us drink his memory."

Reverently and in silence the old Squire raised the gla.s.s to his lips--a gla.s.s filled with only water--he never took wine.

"You see, my dear young lady, how this old custom brings back all lost or absent friends. We never forget them, and like to talk of them and of old times. Thus, always at this hour, we gather round us innumerable pleasant recollections, and remember all who are dear to us or to our guests at Kingcombe Holm.--Now, Mrs. Harper, we wait your toast."

Agatha coloured, felt nervous and ashamed, glanced at her husband, but met nothing except an encouraging smile. She thought--remembering her own few ties--that she would gratify Nathanael by naming some one nearest to him. So she looked up timidly, and gave "Uncle Brian."

Every one applauded--the Squire graciously acknowledging the compliment to his brother.

"The youngest and only surviving brother of many, and as such, much regarded by me," he explained to his daughter-in-law. "In spite of the great difference in our ages, and some trifling opposition in our characters, I cherish the highest esteem for my brother Brian." And hereupon he asked for the letter received that day; which was duly read aloud by his son--saving the wise omission of the postscript.

"Go to California?" said old Mr. Harper, knitting his brows. "I do not like that--it is unbecoming a gentleman. Though he was wild and daring enough, Brian never yet forgot he was a gentleman. Was it not so, Anne?"

Anne a.s.sented.

"He was a fine generous fellow, too. Do you remember how a week before he left us so suddenly he rode fifty miles across the country to get some ice for you in your fever? You were very ill then, my poor girl."

It was touching to hear him call Miss Valery a "girl"--she whom the young Agatha regarded as quite an elderly woman.

"And though he did leave us so abruptly--wherefore, remains to this day a mystery, unless it was a young man's whim and love of change--still I have the greatest dependence on Brian Harper," continued the Squire, who seemed as a parental right to monopolise all the talk at table.

"Brian Harper!" exclaimed Mr. Dugdale, waking from a trance. "Yes--Brian would surely be able to furnish those statistics on Canadian wheat. His judgment was always as sound as his politics."

"What was your remark, Marmaduke" said the old Squire, testily.

"O, nothing--nothing, father!" Harrie quickly answered, with a half merry, half warning frown at her lord. Mr. Dugdale folded himself up again into silence, with the quiet consciousness of one who has a pearl in his keeping--the undoubted value of which there is no need either to put forward or to defend.

Miss Valery here came to the rescue, and turned the conversation into a merry channel Agatha was surprised to find what a wondrous power of unfeigned home-cheerfulness there was in this woman, who had lived to be called even by those that loved her, "an old maid." And when at last the Squire gracefully allowed the departure of his women-kind, who floated away like a flock of released birds, they all cl.u.s.tered around Anne, as though she were in the constant habit of knowing everybody's business, and of thinking and judging for everybody.

Agatha sat a little way off, watching her, and wondering what could be the strange influence which always made her take delight in watching Anne Valery.

There is something very peculiar in this admiration which one woman occasionally conceives for another, generally much older than herself.

It is not exactly friendship, but partakes more of the character of love--in its idealisation, its shyness, its enthusiastic reverence, its hopeless doubt of requital, and, above all, its jealousies. For this reason, it generally comes previous to, or for want of, the real love, the drawing of the feminine soul towards its masculine half, which makes--according to the Platonic doctrine--a perfect being. Of course, this theory would be almost universally considered "sentimentalism"--Agatha's little infatuation being included therein; but the frequency of such infatuations existing in the world around us argues some truth at their origin.

To the young girl--still so girlish, though she was married--there was an inexplicable attraction in all Anne Valery said or did. The very sweep of her dress across the floor--her slow soft motions, which might have been haughty when she was young, but now were only gracious and self-possessed; the way she had of folding her hands on one another, and looking straight forward with a kind observant smile, free alike from sentiment, crossness, or melancholy; her tone and manner, neither showy nor sharp; her habit of saying the wisest things in the most simple way, so that n.o.body recognised them as wisdom till afterwards--all filled Agatha with a sense of satisfied admiration. She wished either that she had been a man, to have adored and married Anne years ago--or that her own marriage had been delayed for a little, until she had grown wiser and more fit for life's destiny by learning from and loving such a woman as Miss Valery.

Moreover, with the dawning jealousy that all strong likings bring, she wished to appropriate her--and was quite annoyed that Anne sat so long discussing winter mantles with Eulalie and Mary, afterwards diverging to a Christmas clothing fund to be started at Kingcombe under Mrs.

Dugdale's eye; finally listening to a whispered communication on the part of the Beauty--which had reference to a certain "Edward"--about whose position in the family there could be no mistake. At last, to Agatha's great satisfaction, Miss Valery rose, and proposed that they two--Mrs. Harper and herself--should go and visit Elizabeth.

Pa.s.sing through the galleries, Anne seemed tired, and walked slowly, stopping one minute at a window to show her companion the moonlight over the hills.

"Is it not a beautiful world? If we could but look at it always as we do when we are young!" The half sigh, the momentary shadow sweeping over her quiet face like a cloud over the moon--surprised and touched Agatha.

"Do you know I have stood and looked out of this same window ever since I was the height of its first pane. No wonder I have a weakness for stopping here and looking out for a minute at my dear old moon. But let us pa.s.s on."

She took up her candle again, and led Agatha by the hand, like a pet-child, to Elizabeth's door.

Miss Harper was lying as usual, but had a writing-case before her, and it was astonishing what neat caligraphy those weak childish-looking fingers could execute. It resembled the writer's own mind--clear, delicate, well-arranged, exact.

"We are not come to stay very long; but do we interrupt you, Elizabeth?"

"Never, Anne, dear! I was only writing to Frederick. He is gone abroad, you are aware?"

"Yes."

"I want to know why he went? Has Nathanael told either of you?" said Elizabeth, fixing her quick eyes on both her visitors.

Both answered in the negative--Miss Valery saying, with attempted gaiety, "You know, one might as well question a stone wall as Nathanael.

He can be both deaf and dumb."

"Not to me. Everybody tells me everything, or I find it out. I found out that this little lady had a chance of being my sister-in-law before ever she herself was certain of the fact. Ah, Agatha, you should have seen Nathanael when he came down to us that week."

"What did he do?" the young wife asked, not without some painful curiosity--for sometimes, in the moments when she could not "make out"

her husband's rather peculiar character, a wicked demon had whispered that perhaps Mr. Harper had never truly loved her, or that his devotion was too sudden to be a lasting reality.

"What did he do?--Oh, nothing. He was very quiet, very self-possessed.

You could hardly tell he was in love at all. n.o.body ever guessed it but I--not even Anne. But in love or not, I saw that he was determined to have you; and when Nathanael determines on a thing--Oh, I knew you would be married to him! You could not help it!"

"Nor did she wish--nor need she," said Anne, gently, as she saw Agatha's confusion. "But we shall soon cease teasing our young couple. I hear that at Christmas we shall have another marriage in the family. Edward Thorpe has got the living--the richest one."

"So, of course, Eulalie will marry him." The deduction reached Agatha as rather sarcastic, though perhaps more through the interpretation of her own feeling than that of the speaker. She asked, with one of her usual plain speeches: