CHAPTER V.
But hark you, Kate,
Whither I go, thither shall you go too;
To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you.
HENRY IV.
“What could you do in Allenders? one never knows how to deal with you capricious women. Stay at home, Agnes, and manage your own department—it is impossible you could assist me, and you would only be a hindrance to work. Stay at home, I say, till the place is ready for you.”
Agnes laid down the child softly upon the sofa where she was sitting, and answered nothing; but her face wore a look of resignation which Harry thought ostentatious, and which irritated him greatly, as indeed his little wife partly knew.
He started hastily from his seat with a contracted brow, and began to walk about the room, muttering something to himself about the impossibility of pleasing everybody. Poor little Agnes was desperately exerting herself to swallow a sob; she did feel a little fretful and peevish, it was very true, but at the same time she honestly struggled to keep it down.
“Martha, say something,” whispered Rose. “Harry is angry—speak to him, Martha.”
But Martha sat still and said nothing—for Harry’s magnificent intentions troubled his sister with an uneasy sense of dependence. It is oftentimes a greater exercise of generosity to receive than to bestow. Labouring for Harry would have seemed to Martha a thing so natural as never to disturb her every-day life for a moment; to be supported by Harry, called for a stronger exertion. But Harry’s sister was of a stouter spirit than Harry’s wife. She preferred, even at a risk of great pain, to make trial quietly of this new life, rather than to say how irksome to her was the prospect of burdening her brother, and to undergo a scene of indignation, and grief, and reconcilement. Nevertheless, Martha felt her influence abridged, and was silent—for this fortune did not change her own position or that of her sisters. Harry and his wife alone were rightful sharers of this unexpected elevation, and Martha stepped down from the elder sister’s place, not without a struggle, and endeavoured to turn her eyes, which had so long expressed the distinct decisions of a separate will, towards the young irresolute pair beside her as to the heads of the house.
“Why don’t you speak, Martha?” exclaimed Harry at last, noticing her silence with a renewed burst of impatience. “Why don’t you say what you think at once, instead of sitting glooming at us all?”
“I do not speak because I begin now to be your dependant, Harry,” said Martha, with harsh emphasis; “and especially in a matter where I and these bairns may restrict and hinder you, must now choose to listen to your decision, and not try to influence it. That is why I do not speak. But what I think is, that Agnes, since she wishes it, should go with you, and that we can remain to do all that is necessary here. Or I can take them home to Ayr—anywhere—and Agnes will like to be with you in your plannings and alterations, Harry. Why should she not go?”
“A dependant!” Harry looked very indignant and injured.
“Stay,” said Martha. “Nothing more of this. A woman needs to be so. I am willing; but I prefer that nothing should be said of it, Harry, especially now, when I am scarcely accustomed to the change.”
A long silence followed, and each individual heart there was busy with its own proper thoughts. Martha, ever proud and harsh, repeated to herself the many necessities which compelled her to remain an inmate of Harry’s house, and to relinquish the work by which she had hitherto supported herself—she, who, small as her opportunities were, had always conferred, but never received, the benefits of ordinary life; and there came vividly upon her memory those old dreams of youth, in which she had imagined herself the support, the guardian, the protector of the orphan children who were her charge in the world. Now she was Harry’s dependant sister, curbing and burdening his hands, and restraining the harmless indulgences he longed for. Martha was not content, not willing, not ready, like a gentler woman, to take upon herself this gracious yoke of love, and receive with sweet and becoming humility the gifts which she could not refuse; but she bent her stubborn neck to them, and reminded herself of her new position, with a strong resolve to do all its duties—chiefest of all to cover over in her own heart, so that no one could discern it, the bitterness she felt.
Harry, pleased to find himself not only the most important person in the household, but the maintainer and the acknowledged head of all, and only half angry that Martha should speak of herself as his dependant: Agnes, thinking solely that now she had gained her point, and should go with him to Allenders; Rose, full of new fears and new hopes, unwilling to realize all that was in her mind; and little Lettie, last of all, chivalrously determined to win, by some unknown means, a fortune and fame for her sisters, far better than Harry’s, surrounded this centre figure of the family group. In all minds there was a vague dissatisfaction. This great inheritance, after all, like everything else which deeply disturbs a life, brought new troubles, no less than new pleasures, in its train.
But Harry made no further resistance to Agnes’s desire. An involuntary consciousness that it would be ungracious and unkind to decide contrary to Martha’s opinion, after she had acknowledged his authority, had greater effect upon his impulsive mind than the reasonable wish of his wife; for Harry came to do much of what was really right in his conduct by side motives and impulses, and oftener made a start in his direct course by an impetus from some diverging way, than kept steadily on, because he knew that his path was the straight one. But Agnes did not pause to consider the motive. It was enough to her that her point was gained.