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!

With what a glow of happy yet subdued brightness the fair face was illuminated as he read! Agnes, who never had written a line, had a far more poetical mind than he had, who span them by the mile. Some mysterious tide seemed to rise in her veins as the words fell on her ears. It was all poetry--the situation, the scene, the voice, the wonderful incredible joy that had come to her beyond all expectation. She sat as in a dream, but it was a dream that was true; and the sunshiny sea stretched round them, and the soft air caressed them, and the soft ripples of water tinkled against the boat with silvery delicious sound, and the sky, unfathomable, awful, yet lovely, stretched over them. They were alone, absolutely free from all interruption, and the charmed hours flew. Oswald had provisioned the boat as he could, while she went to say good-by to her little charge, and to announce her intention of returning early to town. Agnes had eluded the kind Sisters, making a guilty pretence of having no time to see them. It was wrong, and a sense of guilt was in her heart; but the temptation was so great. He was her betrothed; there was no real _wrong_ in these few sweet hours together; and he had pleaded so anxiously, and would have been so unhappy, so much disappointed had she refused him. So nature won the day, as nature does so often, and this was the result. They ate a celestial meal together, biscuits and a little wine, which even in the happiness of the moment Oswald recognised as bad. They had floated out to the horn of the bay, and there lay moving softly with the gentle lapping of the water, wishing for no more--too happy in the moment to desire any change.

At last, however, the sunset became too apparent, attracting their notice with its low lines of gold that came into their very eyes, low as they were upon the surface of the sea. Agnes had no watch, and Oswald would not look at his. ‘There is plenty of time,’ he said; ‘we shall get our train, too soon; let us have as much of this as we can;’ and Agnes assented timidly. ‘So long as we make sure of our train.’ ‘Perhaps there may never be such a day again,’ she added softly, under her breath.

‘Better days,’ darling--hundreds of them,’ he said, and then looking at her, began to repeat softly poetry which was very different from his own:--

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,
The holy time is quiet as a nun,
Breathless with adoration: the bright sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity:
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the sea.

The words hushed them, their pulses being toned to all manner of fantasies. The poetry was more real than the evening, and the evening more real than anything in earth besides. And thus time glided, and the water rippled, and the sun went down, and the evening melted away.

‘I am afraid we must get in now,’ he said, with a start, waking up. The long summer evening had just begun to wane, the first shadow coming into it from the east. Still all was bright, a high festival of colour where the sunset had been, over the glowing sea towards the west; but from the land the first chill of grey was already afloat, that told the approach of night. There was very little wind, but that was dead against their return, and so when Oswald took to the oars was the tide, which swept him round the horn of the bay with a special force of suction which he was not acquainted with. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘don’t look frightened; we’ll let ourselves drift past with the tide, and then run into the next little place. It is always a stopping train, and don’t you remember we passed all those villages coming down?’

‘But we did not stop,’ cried Agnes, dismayed.

‘The last train stops everywhere,’ said the young man; ‘you are not cold? Put your cloak round you; and ah, yes, the bonnet must go on again. I shall always love the bonnet. Yes, you shall keep one in your wardrobe, always; there is nothing like it. “The holy time is quiet as a nun----”’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘please do not think of anything but to get back; if we should miss our train----’

‘Is not this worth even missing a train?’ he said, still looking at her. He was rowing indeed, and at last the boat was making way; but what did he care? He was too happy to think about a train. But then, heaven help her, what was to become of _her_ if this train was missed? Her face grew pale, then crimson, with the terrible thought.

‘Oh, please, please! do not delay; yes, it has been delightful; but my train! What should I do? What would they say? Oh, for heaven’s sake--for pity’s sake!’

‘If you said for love’s sake--for your sake, Agnes----’

‘Ah, I do!’ she said, clasping her hands; and he looked at her smiling, with eyes she could scarcely meet. He rowed, it is true--yes, rowed at last with a little energy; but still smiled and talked, and would not see the anxiety that began to devour her. What was it to him? But to _her_! She looked at him with beseeching eyes.

‘Yes, darling,’ he said, ‘yes, sweet; yes, my own!’ and laughed and looked, and made her face glow with his tender eyes. It was like throwing sugar-plums at someone who was drowning. But Agnes was too much in love herself to be able to realise that this was not the best way of loving. It was very sweet, though it was almost cruel. How quickly the dusk seemed to steal on! The colour faded away bit by bit from the sky, the blue went out of the water, the wind grew a little chill--or was it only anxiety and terror that made her chill? She began to forget everything: what had happened, and even _him_, in her anxiety to get to the shore. Her brain began to swim. What would become of her? what would they say? Oswald was half affronted at last by her anxiety and silence, and swept along with long vigorous strokes that vindicated his character as an oarsman. Agnes sprang from the boat, almost neglecting his offered hand, when at last it grated upon the beach.

‘I will run to the station,’ she cried, stumbling over the shingle, her heart beating, and dread in her soul. The train! the train! that was all she thought of; and oh, what would be thought of her? what had she been doing? She rushed along through the darkness, scarcely seeing where she went. Oswald had to stay behind, fuming, to settle about the boat, and engage someone to take it back. He overtook her only as she got to the station. A train was there just ready to start, about which he received rather unsatisfactory information: but she had seated herself in the dark corner of a second-class carriage before he got up to her. After a moment’s pause he seated himself by her side. It was better, perhaps, at least, to get as far on as they could--to get out of the village, which was quite near enough to the Convalescent Home to permit of gossip reaching that place; and by this time Oswald was as self-reproachful as could be desired. He went and sat down beside her, penitent. It was no trouble to him to take the blame on himself at any time, and Oswald, who had been subject to much mild blame all his life, though he had never done anything very wicked, knew that to take it upon yourself was to disarm your adversaries. He adopted this facile and touching method of self-defence.

‘What a brute I am!’ he said; ‘can you ever forgive me? to have risked your comfort, my darling, for pleasure to myself!’

‘Oh no,’ she said, putting her hand timidly into his, which was held out for it. It seemed clear at once to Agnes that it was her fault.

‘But yes,’ he said. ‘I ought to have been more thoughtful. Ah, forgive me, dearest! think what the temptation was. I have never had you to myself before. The day was too sweet to end; I was too happy; but I should have thought of you.’

There was in this a subtle suggestion that she on her side had not been so happy--the delicatest shade of reproach--which Agnes could not bear.

‘Oh, do not say so,’ she said, ‘as if I had not been--happy too.’ And then they were both silent, clasping each other’s hands. ‘And we have not missed it after all,’ she added a moment after, with a quaver in her voice.

Oswald kept silence with a horrible misgiving. He knew, though she did not, that this was not the train she thought, and for once he was sincerely shocked and alarmed by the position he found himself in. All the way along, as the carriage rolled through the darkening twilight at a pace which seemed slow and tedious to travellers accustomed to express speed, he was trying to turn over in his mind the best thing to do, looking at her returning confidence and ease with a sense of guilt and horrible anticipations. What was to be done? There was a hope that a train which must pass the junction might be stopped by signal if this lumbering little branch would only push on its feeble engine fast enough. But if not---- The perspiration came to his forehead in great drops. He had never before in his life been so confronted by the results of his own foolishness. He ought to have attended to all the symptoms of the waning afternoon; he ought to have listened to her appeal; he ought to have thought of something else than the pleasure of the moment, and a little lengthening out of the delightful day. Heretofore some happy chapter of accidents had always delivered Oswald from the penalty of his misdoings, or at the worst it had only been himself whom he had injured. But now the creature dearest to him in the world--the one whom he had chosen out of the world--was she to suffer for his foolishness? All that was manly in him was roused by the emergency. It may be supposed he was not a very entertaining companion during the long three-quarters of an hour which it took them to reach the junction. It was almost dark, the soft dark of a summer night, when they were landed upon the desolate little platform, the sole travellers. One or two languid porters about were evidently waiting with impatience till this last disturber of their repose was cleared away. The day, which had been so deliciously fresh and sweet on the water, had been very hot inland, and the world in general was languid and anxious to be quite still and at rest.

‘Wait here till I go and inquire,’ he said, depositing Agnes upon a seat. To be so far on her journey quieted her. She ceased to be anxious, supposing that the arrival of the other train was a simple matter of a few minutes’ delay, and her mind floated back to the wonderful day just over, and to all the changes it would make in her life. She must tell Sister Mary Jane at once, who might shake her head perhaps, but who would be pleased, Agnes thought, having long since assured her that she had no ‘vocation.’ And she must go home to the Rectory, and make all known there, where, Agnes felt, there would be no great objection to parting with her, though her heart recoiled a little before all the questions, of what she thought a ‘worldly’ description, that would be asked. She thought, as girls of a romantic turn often do, that all the fuss of marriage would be odious, and wished she could steal away quietly, and see nobody till all was over. How sweet that would be, she thought! without any ‘fuss,’ without the congratulations, the visits, the curiosity, the discussions about dress--all the vulgarities of the time. She sat in the corner where Oswald had placed her, running over all this prospect in her mind, at ease, though her heart was beating still with all that had just been, and all that must so soon be--for she must tell the Sisters to-night, and to-morrow probably she would have to go home. Thus Agnes mused, not sorry to rest, but wondering a little why Oswald was so long away, and why there were no preparations for the train.

He came up to her in another minute so pale that even through the dark and dimness the girl was startled. ‘Is there an accident?’ she cried. He seized her hand, and drawing it through his arm, led her away hastily beyond the gaze of the porters. ‘Oh, my darling!’ he cried, ‘oh, Agnes, what will you say to me? It is my fault, and what can I do to mend it? The train has gone.’

She gave a frightened cry, and drew her arm from his: then looked wildly up and down the lines of iron way, clasping her hands with a look first of disbelief, then of despair, that went to his heart. ‘Is it true? It cannot be true. Oh, what shall I do--what shall I do?’ she cried.

And then, indeed, the whole horror of the position burst upon Oswald. A young woman--a young lady--in her peculiar dress remarked by everybody--left alone with him at a railway junction, night falling, no one to help them within reach, and no possibility, till the morning, of going either one way or the other, back to the Sisters at Limpet Bay, or to the House in London, or to her own home where explanations could be made. It was nothing for him--that and a hundred escapades much worse than that would be forgiven to Oswald. But for her, what calamity worse than death, what horror of evil-speaking, was involved! He was more to be pitied than she was at the moment, for he saw all that was to be feared with a clearer vision than hers, and felt that it was all his doing. His Perugino, his angel, his bride, his (all, in one word) Agnes--to be thus exposed to the world’s jeers by him! The moment was bad enough for her, realising as she did the painful interview at the House, and more still, the scolding and suspicions of her mother, to whom all must be told in her turn; and not knowing what she could do for the moment, save sit there all through the night until the first morning train should come. But it was harder upon him, who was more acquainted with the ignoble part of the world than Agnes, and knew what people might say. She went away from him, trembling and crying, and sitting down once more on the rude bench, covered her face with her hands. What was she to do? As for Oswald, though it was (as he had just said a hundred times over) the happiest day of his life, this was perhaps the most terrible moment; for the question, what he was to do, was almost more difficult than for Agnes, since all the guilt was his.

At last he went to her and stood by her, grown timid, touching her shoulder softly with his hand. ‘Let me speak to you,’ he said. ‘Agnes--see, we are both in the same trouble, and I worse than you, for it is my fault. Darling, look here, you are going to marry me, anyhow, sooner or later. Why should not it be sooner, Agnes? Let me take you down to the inn and settle you comfortably--well, as comfortably as can be in this terrible scrape we have got into,’ he went on, his heart lightening a little as he saw that she listened to him, and encouraged even by the shake of her head at his suggestion, which she was too bewildered to understand at first. ‘Hush, dearest; hear me out. Then I will go up to town, and--get a licence.’

‘No, no, no,’ she said once more, covering her face with her hands.

‘Think a moment, darling. That is how it would end, anyhow. Well, it might be banns,’ said Oswald, gradually coming to the surface again, feeling his heart rise and a furtive smile come to his lips. ‘Think, only. In a week or two, in a month or two, this is what would happen, with nothing but fuss, and bother, and separation, and ceremony between. Agnes! oh, I know you are not just a girl like so many, that care for these foolish things, that like a fine wedding and all the folly of it. I will take you to the woman of the inn, and put you in her care--and I will bring my mother if you please----’

‘No, no,’ she cried. ‘Your mother! Oh, she must not hear, must not see me like this.’

‘But it is all my fault. Agnes, the licence is far the shortest way. We will go quietly up to town and be married, and then what can anyone say to us? They may say we have been silly. For my part, I think it is the wisest, by far the most sensible thing that anyone could do,’ said Oswald, getting up and up to his natural level of lightheartedness. Agnes seemed to feel her own heart sinking lower and lower as he spoke; but what was she to do?

‘There’s an inn in the village, sir, that is clean and respectable,’ said the station master, coming up. ‘And I’m sorry to disturb you, and sorry for what’s happened, but you can’t keep the lady sitting out here; and the night’s getting a bit chilly, for the dew is heavy after such a day. And we’re going to shut up,’ the man added, becoming imperative, as it were, in this postscript. Oswald asked when the first train stopped in the morning, while Agnes rose and stood by, her whole frame throbbing and thrilling. She whose life had been so calm and still, with never a shock or startling incident in it, no emergencies to call out her judgment, how was she to know now how to act in this terrible crisis which had come unexpected, without a moment’s preparation, into her life?