Neither of them knew how long they sat there, while Agnes on her throne listened—trembling, blushing, weeping, hiding soft gleams of sympathetic looks, keeping back kindred confessions that stole to her own lips. She heard the story of Oswald’s love. It did not lose in the telling, and yet it was true. Though his poetry was not of a very elevated kind, as the reader knows, it gave him a command of words, it gave him skill enough to know how that story should be told. He paused for no instant reply, but went through the record from beginning to end. Never had the girl heard such a tale. Romance, even in books, was little known to her; she had been brought up upon matters of fact; and lo, here was a romance of her own, poetry living and breathing, stealing the very heart out of Agnes’s bosom. She resisted as long as she could, hiding her tears, hiding the quivering of her mouth, keeping her eyes down that no chance look might betray her, marshalling all her forces to do battle against this subtle influence. After all, those forces were not great; devotion to her work—but, alas, for weeks past the insidious foe had been undermining her walls, whispering of other duties more natural, more gracious, pointing out all the defects in that work to eyes which could not refuse to see them: regard for the prejudices of conventional life, the want of proper introduction, &c., a formidable horror to the girl’s inexperienced mind, and yet with no real force in it, for had not she, too, broken the bonds of society? Eventually the strength ebbed away from her as she listened. Last of all her routed forces took refuge in the last yet frailest citadel of all—her dress. It was that, too, that Oswald had thought of. In the absence of all real objections to this mutual understanding, this little barrier of chiffons erected itself. How could she in that garb of self-sacrifice choose personal happiness, her own way, and all the brightnesses instead of all the sadnesses of existence? This thought gave her a little temporary strength.
‘Agnes,’ he said, with agitation, ‘those wretched children are coming back again. I must go away unless you will acknowledge and receive me. Agnes! think; can all this go for nothing, all this chapter in our lives? Can it end and be as if it had not been! Oh, look at me! Speak to me! Don’t say no with your voice. I will not believe it. Let me see your face——’
She turned to him slowly, her mouth quivering, flashes of flying colour going and coming, her eyelids—which she could not lift—heavy with tears, every line in her face moving and eloquent with feeling. ‘What can I say?’—her voice was so low and hurried that he had to bend forward to hear her—‘in this place, in this dress. Is it right? Oh, why should you ask me? What can I say——?’
‘Look at me, Agnes!’
With an effort, as if she could not help it, she slowly lifted her eyes. There were two great tears in them, oceans of unspeakable meaning, veiling yet magnifying the truth below. One moment and then she covered her face with her hands. There was no more to say.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE HAND OF FATE.
The afternoon was still, softer, brighter, warmer than the morning; the wind went down, and turned into the softest puff of a caressing breeze; the white caps of the waves melted away into a delicious ripple which crisped without agitating the broad blue sunny surface of the water. Overhead a few flitting specks of white cloud sailed softly by like motes upon the unfathomable blue in which one lost one’s self when one looked up. What a day it was! and what a strange dream of happiness to be floating there, between one blue and the other, suspended in that liquid world of air between the two, with soft blessedness of motion, and delicious tinkle of sound, and caressing of the air and of the sun! It was not too warm nor too bright, nor too anything, for the two who were afloat upon that summer sea. Their boat glided along as it pleased, with a little white sail to catch the little air that was blowing; and kind fortune watched over the voyage to see that no harm came—kind fortune, or some of the younger angels who watch over true lovers—for the captain of the little craft gave but small attention to the helm. Fortunately, the sea was broad, and they were out of the way of the many vessels issuing from the Thames, the sight of which as they floated downward, with white sails wooing the breeze, or even with fussy paddlewheels or creaking screw which defied it, added, as far as sight could add, a certain additional charm to the blessedness of these two. They were like emblemes of the race afloat upon that soft brightness at the edge of ocean, tempting the wind should it rise, tempting the waves should any storm-caprice seize them to toss the unwary dreamers into peril—but heeding nothing, taking the sweet calm and the delight of peaceful nature for granted, and making everything subsidiary to their happiness. Never had the young man known such a soft climax of happiness; never had the young girl received out of the stepdame hands of Life, so bare and spare to her hitherto, anything at all resembling this hour. It was the first taste of the elixir and cordial which makes the fainting live, and transforms all heaven and earth to the young. Happiness! we can all live without it, and most of us manage to do so very fairly; but when it comes, what a change it makes! Agnes had never known that penetrating, exquisite touch from heaven, which transcends all vulgar things. Since she had been a child, happy without knowing why, the conditions of life had not been sweet to her—flat and dreary and dull, and without fellowship, had been most of those youthful days which are so much longer than days ever are afterwards. But now! the flat preface had surely been designed by heaven on purpose to throw up into fuller loveliness this day of days. Had anyone ever been so happy before? with the sun and the sea, and the soft air, and nature, tender mother, all smiling, caressing, helping, as if there was any need to help! as if the chief fact of all was not enough to make the dullest skies and greyest space resplendent. Agnes felt herself the spoiled child of heaven. She looked up into the wonderful blue above, tears coming to her eyes and thanks into her heart. Was it not the hand of God that had turned all her life into joy and brightness—what else? when she had not been serving Him as she ought. But that was heaven’s celestial way; and oh with what fervour of grateful love, with what devotion and tender zeal of thanksgiving would not she serve Him now! ‘Yes!’ she said, when Oswald displayed before her his pictures of happiness, and told where he would take her, how they should live, with what beautiful surroundings, amid what pleasures and sweetness and delight. ‘Yes!’ It was all a dream of impossible blessedness sure to come true; ‘but we must still think of the poor,’ she said, looking at him with those sweetest tears in her eyes. He called her all kinds of heavenly names in the admiration of his young love—‘Angel,’ as all lovers call all beloveds; and both of them felt a touch of tender goodness in them in addition to every other blessedness. Yes! they would think of the poor; they would help all who wanted help; they would be tender, very tender, of the unhappy. Were there, indeed, still unhappy people in the world? with what awe of reverent pity these two thought of them, would have succoured them, served them on their knees! This thought served to give a kind of consecration to their own height of visionary joy.
And yet there was one little thing that disturbed them both, which was no less and no more than the cap and poke bonnet which Agnes wore. She took them off as they floated along, and threw a white handkerchief over her head, which made her look more like a Perugino than ever; and then Oswald produced out of his pocket a letter-case which he was in the habit of carrying about with him, full of verses and scraps of composition, and read to her the lines which he had gone over so often:
From old Pietro’s canvas freshly sprung
Fair face!