Chapter X: Cousin Agneta's Love Story

WE sat down to dinner rather earlier than usual that evening because father had to catch a train which left Chelmsford a little before nine. Mr. Faulkner's place at the table was vacant. I kept expecting that he would drop in, but he did not appear. It vexed me that father should go away without having another word with him, for although we were comparatively near London, I knew it might be a very long time ere father came again. He was a busy man and rarely gave himself a holiday.

I got ready to drive with father to the station, and no one offered to accompany us. Miss Cottrell was not visible when he took his departure. It struck me that she must have slipped away to avoid saying good-bye to him, fearing that he might address her as Miss Smith in the hearing of the others.

"It's a pretty place," said father, looking back at "Gay Bowers," as we drove away in the fair, sweet dusk of the evening, "and I am glad that your aunt can stay there, if she is happy at least. How does it answer, Nan? Do the 'paying guests' bother her much?"

"I think not, father," I answered. "Miss Cottrell was rather a worry; but we are beginning not to mind her peculiarities."

Father laughed.

"Poor thing!" he said. "What a pity she should try to pass herself off as other than she is! It is an attempt fore-doomed to failure. Do you know Emerson's words? 'Don't say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.' She does herself an injury, for she is really an excellent woman in many respects."

"Aunt says she is a capital nurse," I replied. "She was very helpful when Mr. Dicks was ill."

"What a man he is!" said father; "but a genuine one, I think. I wish I could have had a longer talk with Professor Faulkner. He is a fine man. Do you read much now, Nan?"

"You forget that books are forbidden me," I said, "though I must confess I do not pay much heed to Dr. Algar's prohibition when something good comes in my way. The difficulty is to get time for reading."

"If Dr. Algar could see you, I don't think he would be afraid of your reading," said my father. "Do you get any headaches now?"

"I have almost forgotten what a headache is like," I replied joyfully. "Even after I had worked out a mathematical problem which Jack Upsher could not master, my head did not ache."

"What, you presumed to beat Jack?" said father, smiling. "How did he stand that assumption of feminine superiority?"

"He was very grateful to me for helping him," I said. "Jack is not in the least ashamed of his feeble scholarship."

"Do you think he will get through his exam?" he asked.

"I hope so," I said. "He is working harder than he has ever worked before."

"I wish he might," said father. "I should like to see him in the Artillery, for I believe there is in him the making of a good soldier."

"He is tempted to spend too much of his time at 'Gay Bowers,'" I said laughingly; "but aunt is very severe with him. He flirts with Paulina, or rather, I believe, it would be more correct to say that she flirts with him."

Father laughed.

"That is harmless enough," he said, "since she must be several years older than he. Well, Nan, I am glad the experiment has answered so well as far as you are concerned. Your mother will be delighted to hear how much better you are. You must run up to town and see us all one of these days. You deserve a little change, for your aunt says you are the greatest comfort to her, and she does not know what she would do without you."

"Oh, father!" I exclaimed. "Why, I do nothing!"

Yet I knew that the nothings I did—cycling into Chelmsford to give orders, answering letters, seeing to the entertainment of the guests, and the like—filled up my days and were not exactly what I should have chosen to do had I been free to choose.

I saw father off in the train and started homeward, sitting alone in the wagonette. We were getting clear of the houses when John suddenly pulled up, and I saw Mr. Faulkner standing on the path.

"Will you take me home with you, please?" he asked smilingly.

"Why, of course," I said. "But what have you done with your bicycle?"

"It has come to grief," he said. "I had a spill—oh, don't be alarmed, it was nothing serious! I was coming down a hill near Maldon; there was a sharp bend, and rounding it incautiously, I came into collision with a wagon which was right across the road."

"Oh, how dangerous!" I exclaimed. "Are you sure you were not hurt?"

"Oh, I wrenched my shoulder a bit and got a few bruises," he said; "but I jumped off, you see, and the machine got the brunt of it. Of course, I could not ride it afterwards, so I had to get back to Chelmsford in a roundabout way by rail, and I have now left my machine to be repaired."

"How fortunate that I can give you a lift!" I said. "I have just been seeing father off."

"I am sorry Mr. Darracott has gone," he said. "I like your father, Miss Nan."

"And he likes you," was on the tip of my tongue, but I did not say it. His remark, however, so set me at ease that I began to talk to him about my home and my people as I had never done before.

"Oh, you can't think," I said with a sudden burst of confidence, "how I long to see them all again. Father says I must go up one day soon."

"I wonder you have not been before," said Alan Faulkner; "it is so easy to run up to town from here. And your sisters—why do they not come and spend the day sometimes?"

"It is because we are all so busy," was my reply, "and moreover have little superfluous cash. We can afford neither the time nor the money for such pleasant little trips."

Then I felt the blood mount to my forehead, and was thankful that in the twilight, he could not see how I blushed for my outspokenness. Why do people find it harder to avow poverty than to confess to grave faults? Few, except those who are really comfortably off, can talk with ease of being poor. I was not to blame, nor were they, that my parents' income was so limited, yet I felt ashamed of the fact that the small sum required for the railway fare to and from London was of importance to us.

"I understand," said Alan Faulkner quietly. "Indeed, I have had to practise that kind of self-denial a good deal myself, and know well how irksome is the effort to keep one's expenditure within narrow limits, yet it is good for one to learn how easily one may do without many of the things that seem desirable."

With that he began to tell me about his early life. His father had died when he was a little boy. When he was twelve years old, his mother married again. Up to that time they had been everything to each other, and he could by no means welcome this change in their life. But his stepfather was good to him, and he became very fond of the little sisters who were born later. Before they were grown-up, their father died, and Alan found himself the sole guardian of his mother and his sisters. Very simply, he told the story, saying little of the part he had played. Not till long afterwards did I know that the self-denial of which he had spoken had been voluntarily practised in order that he might secure for his sisters a first-class education.

"So," I said, "the sister who has lately left school and gone to Paris to perfect her French is your half-sister merely."

"But a very real and dear sister all the same," he said.

"And your other sister, where is she?"

"She is a governess in a school in Yorkshire," he replied. "I hope that you and my sisters may know each other some day, Miss Nan."

"Oh, I should like so much to know them!" I said earnestly, while I wondered how it could come about. There was another thing I wanted to know, but I did not like to question him. Perhaps he divined my thoughts, for after a few moments' silence he said in a low tone:

"There are only the three of us now. The saddest thing about my return to England was that there was no mother to welcome me."

"Oh, I am very sorry!" was all I could find to say.

The words came from my very heart, for I did not need to be told all that this meant for him.

Hardly another word passed between us then, for we had reached the gate of "Gay Bowers." I ran into the house, feeling that the past day had been a golden one for me. Each hour had been full of quiet pleasure, and not least should I prize the memory of the confidential talk with Alan Faulkner, which seemed to have made us true friends.

Aunt told me that Agneta had complained of being tired, and had gone to bed. I soon followed her example, though I was far from feeling sleepy.

When I entered our room, Agneta was already in bed. She lay with her head almost hidden by the bed-clothes, and when I wished her "Good-night," she responded in a muffled tone. She did not raise her face for me to kiss, and I could divine the reason. Her face was wet with tears.

I felt very sorry for my cousin as I lay down and gave myself up, not to sleep, but to the delight of recalling every word that had passed between me and Alan Faulkner. I thought I knew how full of pain her heart was, and I longed to assure her of my sympathy, but did not like to open the subject.

On the following Wednesday some friends of the Colonel's, who were staying at Chelmsford, were expected to dine with us, so I arrayed myself in my new evening frock. I saw Agneta looking at me as I put it on, and when the last hook was fastened, she said admiringly:

"What a sweet frock, Nan!"

"I am glad you like it," I said as I turned slowly round before the mirror. "It is Olive's contrivance. Don't you think she is very clever?"

"Indeed I do. She has quite a genius for dressmaking. The girls showed me some of her masterpieces when I was at your home."

"And do you mean to say that you do not recognise this gown?" I asked.

"No, how should I?" She came nearer, and looked closely at it. Then her face changed. "Why, it is—never! Yes, it is my pink ball-dress! Oh, Nan, I wish you had not told me! Why did you remind me of that night?"

She threw up her hands with a tragic, despairful gesture, and I saw she was struggling with strong emotion.

"Oh, Agneta, what about it? What is it that makes you so unhappy? Tell me about that night."

"Indeed, I am unhappy—never anything but unhappy now," said Agneta with tears, and the whole story came out.

It seemed that she had last worn this frock at a ball, where she met Ralph Marshman, and said farewell to him. He was a junior clerk in a bank, and Mr. Redmayne had been indignant at his presumption in thinking to wed his daughter. He had forbidden him to address Agneta again, and, in order to make obedience easy, had used his influence to get the young man removed from the Manchester bank to a branch bank at Newcastle.

In spite of every precaution, however, the two had managed to secure a few minutes' quiet talk at this ball on the night prior to Marshman's departure for Newcastle. They had vowed to be faithful to one another, and to meet, in spite of Mr. Redmayne's prohibition, whenever opportunity offered. They had even arranged to carry on a secret correspondence; but, through the treachery, as Agneta described it, of a servant whom she had bribed to secrete her letters, one of them had fallen into her mother's hands. A painful scene ensued, and her mother, after extorting from her a promise that she would not write to Marshman again, had finally arranged to send her to "Gay Bowers." And now, at a distance from her lover, and fearful, in spite of her protestations that she would never give him up, lest her parents should succeed in finally separating her from him, Agneta was in a miserable frame of mind.

I pitied her greatly as she opened her heart to me, and yet I listened with a sense of revulsion. There seemed to me something ignoble and degrading in the way this courtship had been conducted. It hurt me to think that my cousin could stoop to practise such dissimulation, and I found it hard to believe that the man could be worthy of a woman's love who wooed her in this clandestine fashion. The beautiful crown of love was tarnished and defiled by being thus dragged in the dust.

I was shocked, too, by the way Agneta spoke of her parents. She seemed to regard them as her natural enemies. It was clear to me that the atmosphere of her home must be very different from that of ours. We girls had no secrets from our mother. Our parents were not afraid to trust us, nor we to trust them.

"Mother cares for nothing but money," Agneta said, and I was afraid there might be some truth in this statement. "Because Ralph is poor, she cannot say a good word for him. If he were rich, she would not mind what his past had been."

"His past!" I said. "What about that?"

"Oh, nothing," she returned; "only mother listens to gossip. He is so clever, Nan; he has written a play! Of course, his salary at the bank is small; we should be poor, but I should not mind poverty with the man I loved."

I was silent, reflecting that Agneta's ideas of poverty were probably very vague.

"I mean to marry him, whatever mother may say," Agneta said presently. "I shall soon be of age, and then I will do as I like. She shall not spoil my life."

"Oh, Agneta, don't talk like that! It frightens me," I said. "You might spoil your life just by taking your own way."

"What do you mean, Nan?" she asked.

"Only that we are so blind and ignorant that we cannot know what is good for us unless we are sure that God is guiding our steps," I said timidly. "I did not at all like having to give up my studies and come down here; but it was God's will for me, and I know now that it is for my good. If only you would be patient, Agneta, and leave your life in God's hands, He would bring it about in His own good time if—"

Here my cousin, who had turned upon me an astonished and impatient glance, rudely exclaimed:

"Oh, don't preach to me, Nan, if you please. I cannot stand that. I see I have shocked you, but I cannot help it. You won't say anything to your aunt, will you?"

"Of course I shall not repeat what you have told me in confidence," was my hasty reply.

But I was very uncomfortable as I pondered what Agneta had told me. And in spite of all she said in praise of the man who had fascinated her, I could not feel that he was worthy of her love. I felt more uneasy as the days went on, for Agneta was constantly receiving letters which she slipped quickly out of sight, and I knew that she wrote letters which she was careful to post herself. Then something occurred which for a while drove from my mind all thought of my cousin Agneta and her doubtful proceedings.