Major Harper, now recovering something of his old elasticity of manner, took the place at the foot of the breakfast-table, whence Mary, presiding as usual, cast over to him glances sometimes of pride, sometimes of doubtful curiosity, as if speculating on what sort of a ruler the future head of the house would be.
A very courteous and graceful one, most surely!—to judge by the way in which he was doing the agreeable to his sister-in-law. Quite harmlessly, only it seemed as necessary for Major Harper to warm himself in the fair looks of some woman or other, as for a drenched butterfly to dry its wings in the sunshine. He was indeed a poor helpless human butterfly, not made for cloudy weather, storm, or night!
But he fluttered in vain; Agatha took no notice of him whatsoever. Her whole nature had deepened down to other things—things far beneath the shallow ken of Major Harper.
During this week, when the numerous duties of the brothers of the family left its womenkind nearly alone, shut up in the house of mourning, with nothing outwardly to do or to think of beyond the fold of crape or a gown, or the make of a bonnet—Agatha had learnt strange secrets. They were not of Death, but of Love.
She had seen very little of her husband. Either by necessity or design, he had been almost constantly away; at Thornhurst, arranging business for Miss Valery, who had gone home; sometimes at Kingcombe, in his own house—his lonely house; and for two days and nights, to the astonishment and slight scandal of his sisters, he had been absent in Cornwall. But wherever he was, or whatever he had to do, he either saw or wrote to his wife every day; kind, grave words, or kinder letters; brother-like in their wisdom and tenderness—just the sort of tenderness that he seemed to believe she would wish for from him.
Agatha accepted all—these brief meetings—these constant letters; saw the wounding curiosity of his sisters relax, and even Harriet Dugdale acknowledged how mistaken had been her former notions, and on what excellent terms her brother and his wife now evidently were; she really never thought Nathanael would have made such an attentive, affectionate husband! And Agatha smiled outwardly a proud satisfied smile; while inwardly—-oh, what a crushed, remorseful, passionate heart was there!
A heart which now began to know itself—at once its fulness and its cravings. A heart thirsting for that love, wanting which, marriage is but a dead corrupting body without the soul—love, the true life-union, consisting of oneness of spirit, sympathy, thought, and will—love which would have been the same had they lived twenty thousand miles apart, ay, had they never married at all, but waited until eternity united those whom no earthly destinies could altogether put asunder. Now out of her own soul she learnt—what not one human being in a million learns, and yet the truth remains the same—the unity, the immortality, the divineness of Love, to which the One Immortal and Divine gave His own name.
She sat in her usual quiet mood, she did everything in such a quiet, self-contained fashion now—sat, idly talked to by Major Harper, whom she did not hear at all. She only heard, at the further end of the table, Nathanael talking to Mary. Sometimes she stole a glance, and thought how cordial his manner to his sister was, and how tender his eyes could look at times. And she sighed. At her sigh, her husband would turn, see her listening to Frederick with that absent downcast look—and become silent.
Not an angry jealous silence now—his whole manner showed how much he honoured and trusted his wife—but the hush of a deep, abiding pain, a sense of loss which nothing could ever reveal or remove.
But men must keep up worldly duties; it is only women, and not all of these, who can afford the luxury of a broken heart. Mr. Harper rose, nerved for the day's task—a painful one, as all the family knew. The elder brother had shrunk from it, and it had been left to Nathanael, who in all things was now the thinker and the doer. The impression of this had fixed itself outwardly, effacing the last remnant of his boyish looks. As he stood leaning over Mary, Agatha thought he had already the aspect of middle age.