CHAPTER IV
On the day of the marriage Agnes Lockwood sat alone in the littledrawing-room of her London lodgings, burning the letters which had beenwritten to her by Montbarry in the bygone time.
The Countess's maliciously smart description of her, addressed toDoctor Wybrow, had not even hinted at the charm that most distinguishedAgnes--the artless expression of goodness and purity which instantlyattracted everyone who approached her. She looked by many yearsyounger than she really was. With her fair complexion and her shymanner, it seemed only natural to speak of her as 'a girl,' althoughshe was now really advancing towards thirty years of age. She livedalone with an old nurse devoted to her, on a modest little income whichwas just enough to support the two. There were none of the ordinarysigns of grief in her face, as she slowly tore the letters of her falselover in two, and threw the pieces into the small fire which had beenlit to consume them. Unhappily for herself, she was one of those womenwho feel too deeply to find relief in tears. Pale and quiet, with coldtrembling fingers, she destroyed the letters one by one without daringto read them again. She had torn the last of the series, and was stillshrinking from throwing it after the rest into the swiftly destroyingflame, when the old nurse came in, and asked if she would see 'MasterHenry,'--meaning that youngest member of the Westwick family, who hadpublicly declared his contempt for his brother in the smoking-room ofthe club.
Agnes hesitated. A faint tinge of colour stole over her face.
There had been a long past time when Henry Westwick had owned that heloved her. She had made her confession to him, acknowledging that herheart was given to his eldest brother. He had submitted to hisdisappointment; and they had met thenceforth as cousins and friends.Never before had she associated the idea of him with embarrassingrecollections. But now, on the very day when his brother's marriage toanother woman had consummated his brother's treason towards her, therewas something vaguely repellent in the prospect of seeing him. The oldnurse (who remembered them both in their cradles) observed herhesitation; and sympathising of course with the man, put in a timelyword for Henry. 'He says, he's going away, my dear; and he only wantsto shake hands, and say good-bye.' This plain statement of the case hadits effect. Agnes decided on receiving her cousin.
He entered the room so rapidly that he surprised her in the act ofthrowing the fragments of Montbarry's last letter into the fire. Shehurriedly spoke first.
'You are leaving London very suddenly, Henry. Is it business? orpleasure?'
Instead of answering her, he pointed to the flaming letter, and to someblack ashes of burnt paper lying lightly in the lower part of thefireplace.
'Are you burning letters?'
'Yes.'
'His letters?'
'Yes.'
He took her hand gently. 'I had no idea I was intruding on you, at atime when you must wish to be alone. Forgive me, Agnes--I shall seeyou when I return.'
She signed to him, with a faint smile, to take a chair.
'We have known one another since we were children,' she said. 'Whyshould I feel a foolish pride about myself in your presence? why shouldI have any secrets from you? I sent back all your brother's gifts tome some time ago. I have been advised to do more, to keep nothing thatcan remind me of him--in short, to burn his letters. I have taken theadvice; but I own I shrank a little from destroying the last of theletters. No--not because it was the last, but because it had this init.' She opened her hand, and showed him a lock of Montbarry's hair,tied with a morsel of golden cord. 'Well! well! let it go with therest.'
She dropped it into the flame. For a while, she stood with her back toHenry, leaning on the mantel-piece, and looking into the fire. He tookthe chair to which she had pointed, with a strange contradiction ofexpression in his face: the tears were in his eyes, while the browsabove were knit close in an angry frown. He muttered to himself, 'Damnhim!'
She rallied her courage, and looked at him again when she spoke.'Well, Henry, and why are you going away?'
'I am out of spirits, Agnes, and I want a change.'
She paused before she spoke again. His face told her plainly that hewas thinking of her when he made that reply. She was grateful to him,but her mind was not with him: her mind was still with the man who haddeserted her. She turned round again to the fire.
'Is it true,' she asked, after a long silence, 'that they have beenmarried to-day?'
He answered ungraciously in the one necessary word:--'Yes.'
'Did you go to the church?'
He resented the question with an expression of indignant surprise. 'Goto the church?' he repeated. 'I would as soon go to--' He checkedhimself there. 'How can you ask?' he added in lower tones. 'I havenever spoken to Montbarry, I have not even seen him, since he treatedyou like the scoundrel and the fool that he is.'
She looked at him suddenly, without saying a word. He understood her,and begged her pardon. But he was still angry. 'The reckoning comesto some men,' he said, 'even in this world. He will live to rue theday when he married that woman!'
Agnes took a chair by his side, and looked at him with a gentlesurprise.
'Is it quite reasonable to be so angry with her, because your brotherpreferred her to me?' she asked.
Henry turned on her sharply. 'Do you defend the Countess, of all thepeople in the world?'
'Why not?' Agnes answered. 'I know nothing against her. On the onlyoccasion when we met, she appeared to be a singularly timid, nervousperson, looking dreadfully ill; and being indeed so ill that shefainted under the heat of my room. Why should we not do her justice?We know that she was innocent of any intention to wrong me; we knowthat she was not aware of my engagement--'
Henry lifted his hand impatiently, and stopped her. 'There is such athing as being too just and too forgiving!' he interposed. 'I can'tbear to hear you talk in that patient way, after the scandalously cruelmanner in which you have been treated. Try to forget them both, Agnes.I wish to God I could help you to do it!'
Agnes laid her hand on his arm. 'You are very good to me, Henry; butyou don't quite understand me. I was thinking of myself and my troublein quite a different way, when you came in. I was wondering whetheranything which has so entirely filled my heart, and so absorbed allthat is best and truest in me, as my feeling for your brother, canreally pass away as if it had never existed. I have destroyed the lastvisible things that remind me of him. In this world I shall see him nomore. But is the tie that once bound us, completely broken? Am I asentirely parted from the good and evil fortune of his life as if we hadnever met and never loved? What do you think, Henry? I can hardlybelieve it.'
'If you could bring the retribution on him that he has deserved,' HenryWestwick answered sternly, 'I might be inclined to agree with you.'
As that reply passed his lips, the old nurse appeared again at thedoor, announcing another visitor.
'I'm sorry to disturb you, my dear. But here is little Mrs. Ferrariwanting to know when she may say a few words to you.'
Agnes turned to Henry, before she replied. 'You remember EmilyBidwell, my favourite pupil years ago at the village school, andafterwards my maid? She left me, to marry an Italian courier, namedFerrari--and I am afraid it has not turned out very well. Do you mindmy having her in here for a minute or two?'
Henry rose to take his leave. 'I should be glad to see Emily again atany other time,' he said. 'But it is best that I should go now. Mymind is disturbed, Agnes; I might say things to you, if I stayed hereany longer, which--which are better not said now. I shall cross theChannel by the mail to-night, and see how a few weeks' change will helpme.' He took her hand. 'Is there anything in the world that I can dofor you?' he asked very earnestly. She thanked him, and tried torelease her hand. He held it with a tremulous lingering grasp. 'Godbless you, Agnes!' he said in faltering tones, with his eyes on theground. Her face flushed again, and the next instant turned paler thanever; she knew his heart as well as he knew it himself--she was toodistressed to speak. He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed itfervently, and, w
ithout looking at her again, left the room. The nursehobbled after him to the head of the stairs: she had not forgotten thetime when the younger brother had been the unsuccessful rival of theelder for the hand of Agnes. 'Don't be down-hearted, Master Henry,'whispered the old woman, with the unscrupulous common sense of personsin the lower rank of life. 'Try her again, when you come back!'
Left alone for a few moments, Agnes took a turn in the room, trying tocompose herself. She paused before a little water-colour drawing onthe wall, which had belonged to her mother: it was her own portraitwhen she was a child. 'How much happier we should be,' she thought toherself sadly, 'if we never grew up!'
The courier's wife was shown in--a little meek melancholy woman, withwhite eyelashes, and watery eyes, who curtseyed deferentially and wastroubled with a small chronic cough. Agnes shook hands with herkindly. 'Well, Emily, what can I do for you?'
The courier's wife made rather a strange answer: 'I'm afraid to tellyou, Miss.'
'Is it such a very difficult favour to grant? Sit down, and let mehear how you are going on. Perhaps the petition will slip out while weare talking. How does your husband behave to you?'
Emily's light grey eyes looked more watery than ever. She shook herhead and sighed resignedly. 'I have no positive complaint to makeagainst him, Miss. But I'm afraid he doesn't care about me; and heseems to take no interest in his home--I may almost say he's tired ofhis home. It might be better for both of us, Miss, if he wenttravelling for a while--not to mention the money, which is beginning tobe wanted sadly.' She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and sighedagain more resignedly than ever.
'I don't quite understand,' said Agnes. 'I thought your husband had anengagement to take some ladies to Switzerland and Italy?'
'That was his ill-luck, Miss. One of the ladies fell ill--and theothers wouldn't go without her. They paid him a month's salary ascompensation. But they had engaged him for the autumn and winter--andthe loss is serious.'
'I am sorry to hear it, Emily. Let us hope he will soon have anotherchance.'
'It's not his turn, Miss, to be recommended when the next applicationscome to the couriers' office. You see, there are so many of them outof employment just now. If he could be privately recommended--' Shestopped, and left the unfinished sentence to speak for itself.
Agnes understood her directly. 'You want my recommendation,' sherejoined. 'Why couldn't you say so at once?'
Emily blushed. 'It would be such a chance for my husband,' sheanswered confusedly. 'A letter, inquiring for a good courier (a sixmonths' engagement, Miss!) came to the office this morning. It'sanother man's turn to be chosen--and the secretary will recommend him.If my husband could only send his testimonials by the same post--withjust a word in your name, Miss--it might turn the scale, as they say.A private recommendation between gentlefolks goes so far.' She stoppedagain, and sighed again, and looked down at the carpet, as if she hadsome private reason for feeling a little ashamed of herself.
Agnes began to be rather weary of the persistent tone of mystery inwhich her visitor spoke. 'If you want my interest with any friend ofmine,' she said, 'why can't you tell me the name?'
The courier's wife began to cry. 'I'm ashamed to tell you, Miss.'
For the first time, Agnes spoke sharply. 'Nonsense, Emily! Tell methe name directly--or drop the subject--whichever you like best.'
Emily made a last desperate effort. She wrung her handkerchief hard inher lap, and let off the name as if she had been letting off a loadedgun:--'Lord Montbarry!'
Agnes rose and looked at her.
'You have disappointed me,' she said very quietly, but with a lookwhich the courier's wife had never seen in her face before. 'Knowingwhat you know, you ought to be aware that it is impossible for me tocommunicate with Lord Montbarry. I always supposed you had somedelicacy of feeling. I am sorry to find that I have been mistaken.'
Weak as she was, Emily had spirit enough to feel the reproof. Shewalked in her meek noiseless way to the door. 'I beg your pardon,Miss. I am not quite so bad as you think me. But I beg your pardon,all the same.'
She opened the door. Agnes called her back. There was something inthe woman's apology that appealed irresistibly to her just and generousnature. 'Come,' she said; 'we must not part in this way. Let me notmisunderstand you. What is it that you expected me to do?'
Emily was wise enough to answer this time without any reserve. 'Myhusband will send his testimonials, Miss, to Lord Montbarry inScotland. I only wanted you to let him say in his letter that his wifehas been known to you since she was a child, and that you feel somelittle interest in his welfare on that account. I don't ask it now,Miss. You have made me understand that I was wrong.'
Had she really been wrong? Past remembrances, as well as presenttroubles, pleaded powerfully with Agnes for the courier's wife. 'Itseems only a small favour to ask,' she said, speaking under the impulseof kindness which was the strongest impulse in her nature. 'But I amnot sure that I ought to allow my name to be mentioned in yourhusband's letter. Let me hear again exactly what he wishes to say.'Emily repeated the words--and then offered one of those suggestions,which have a special value of their own to persons unaccustomed to theuse of their pens. 'Suppose you try, Miss, how it looks in writing?'Childish as the idea was, Agnes tried the experiment. 'If I let youmention me,' she said, 'we must at least decide what you are to say.'She wrote the words in the briefest and plainest form:--'I venture tostate that my wife has been known from her childhood to Miss AgnesLockwood, who feels some little interest in my welfare on thataccount.' Reduced to this one sentence, there was surely nothing in thereference to her name which implied that Agnes had permitted it, orthat she was even aware of it. After a last struggle with herself, shehanded the written paper to Emily. 'Your husband must copy it exactly,without altering anything,' she stipulated. 'On that condition, Igrant your request.' Emily was not only thankful--she was reallytouched. Agnes hurried the little woman out of the room. 'Don't giveme time to repent and take it back again,' she said. Emily vanished.
'Is the tie that once bound us completely broken? Am I as entirelyparted from the good and evil fortune of his life as if we had nevermet and never loved?' Agnes looked at the clock on the mantel-piece.Not ten minutes since, those serious questions had been on her lips.It almost shocked her to think of the common-place manner in which theyhad already met with their reply. The mail of that night would appealonce more to Montbarry's remembrance of her--in the choice of a servant.
Two days later, the post brought a few grateful lines from Emily. Herhusband had got the place. Ferrari was engaged, for six monthscertain, as Lord Montbarry's courier.
THE SECOND PART