Agnes

Front matter

AGNES. VOL. II, AGNES. BY MRS. OLIPHANT, AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF EDWARD IRVING," etc. etc. IN THKEE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBUEN, 13, GREAT MAELBOEOUGH STEEET. 1866. The right of Translation is reserved. LONDON: SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PBINTEES, CHANDOS STEEET, COVENT GAEDEN. CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. CHAP. PAGE I. LADY CHAELTON'S VISIT 1 II. JACK CHAELTON 17 III. LADY BETTY 33 IV. THE FIRST QUARREL 46 V. AFTER 57 vi. Roger's letters 76 VII. LIVING ON NOTHING 92 VIII. WHAT THEY THOUGHT IN ENGLAND . .104 IX. DISENCHANTMENT 120 X. THE DOCTOR'S COUNSEL 134 XL ONCE MORE IN ENGLAND 153 XII. THE HOUSE ON THE GREEN 168 XIII. A BEGINNING Contents. VI CHAP. TAG- XIV. THE MIDDLE AGE 208 XV. BROTHER AND SISTER 225 XVI. A GLOOMY PROSPECT 233 XVII. miss trevelyan's visit 252 XVIII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 273 XIX. THE END 287 XX. PUBLIC OPINION

Chapter I

Lady Charlton' s Visit, TREVELYAN showed a J__l B^r-X^S. anxiety next morning about H_3 _JP_\ 1$. n*s toilette — not that he said '?-_____**»' much to herself on the subject, but that Agnes, whose faculties of observation were a little excited, divined that he had intimated to .Mademoiselle Louise that her mistress's dress re quded special care, Avhich, on the whole, was not a mode of action agreeable to Agnes. Her relief was great, however, when she found herself permitted to put on the dress which she herself suggested, and Avhich was the most simple she possessed. It was, besides, one in which Agnes felt happier than usual, seeing that it was made as nearly on the model of her old grey Windholm dress as an elegant Parisian confection permitted. It was a refined version of the blacksmith's daughter which appeared in this second grey gOAvn, and Agnes was vaguely conscious of the VOL. IT.

B Agnes. difference ; but stid, notwithstanding the difference, it was the same ; and then Louise took the opportunity of applauding the good taste of madame. This was a compliment extremely grateful to her feelings at the moment. Had it really been good taste, and not a stupid girlish fancy7, that made her like her gown of grey ? And was that why Roger had ordered for her another dress so nearly the same, though so much more dainty ? This latter idea, however, spoded her pleasure a little, for she had accepted the grey dress not as a proof of her own good taste approied by her husband, but as one of those delicate flatteries of loAe Avhich are all the more exquisite when they have nothing to do Avith taste. If it was not that the dress in which he had first seen her was beautdul to Roger, apart altogether from its intrinsic qualities, his gdt of a second like it became an ordinary gift, about which there was no need for any particular senti ment ; and, in fact, this consideration restored the composure of the young wife as she completed her simple toilette.

And as the morning passed, Agnes could not help smding a little at her husband's anxiety. He Avent round the room, pulling the things about, with a vain attempt after that elegant disorder which can only be made by a woman. Roger's efforts resulted Lady Charlton' s Visit. 3 simply in a general aspect of untidiness, which offended the eye of Agnes ; but, unfortunately, her ideas were still in a rudimentary state on this point. She put the disordered articles " straight " again, Avith a rectangular correctness wrhich was more like the blacksmith's parlour than Mrs. Trevelyan's drawing-room, and Roger paused with dismay to perceive that in this particular Agnes had not seen her deficiencies. The only thing he could do, was to toss some books on the table after his own fashion, and retire to the windo av in a little fume of impatience.

" Lottie Charlton has not half the head, nor the heart — nor anything," the vexed husband said to himself; "she is no more to be compared to Agnes than — than Louise is; but how different her room would have looked !" — and the young man glanced with vexation round the tidy apartment. As for Agnes, the only thing she could see to find fault with was the "litter" on the table, and when Roger dragged her shawl and hat into the room and threw them down on the sofa, she thought he was mad. Before Lady Charlton made her appearance, Mrs. Trevelyan took away the hat, and put back some of the chairs into " their proper places ;" and this aspect of affairs produced, as might have been expected, its na tural effect upon the visitors, whose eyes were b Agnes. very widely awake to signs of this description.

Roger, who had been absent for a moment, and Avho entered with them, had to rush about, be wildered, and seek chairs for his amused visitors from the prim roAV which stood against the wall. " I believe you don't know our county, Mrs. Trevelyan," said Lady Charlton. " I assure you it is one of the best counties in England for society, as well as other things. You ivdl find us a little odd-fashioned, I daresay, if you have been used to going a great deal into the world." " Oh no — not at all," said Agnes, Avith a sud den blush covering her face. " No ? — to be sure, you are very young," said the visitor. " I do not, for my part, appro\e of bringing girls out too young. My Lottie was only seventeen Avhen she burst into society — and of course people will say she is fifty7 in a year or two — but an only daughter is alway7s wilful.

I cannot think how7 my friend Roger managed matters so slyly. I actually never heard a word of his marriage till I had the pleasure of seeing you." " A noisy Avedding is always a horrible bore," said Roger, coming to the rescue. " I suppose ladies like it, but it's something too serious to the chief sufferer." " That is because nobody takes any notice of Lady Charlton's Visit. 5 the unhappy bridegroom," said Miss Charlton. " He is a kind of necessary evd ; the best thing Avould be to keep him in a box untd the moment Avhen it is necessary for some one to take the bride away. The wretch always looks like an ogre, ready7 to eat the poor girl up and pick her bones. Now, didn't he, Mrs. Trevelyan — I appeal to you?" "Don't talk such nonsense, Lottie, I beg," said her mother. " I feel sure Mrs. TreAelyan thought nothing of the kind.

It will be so nice for Roger to show you our fine scenery for the first time. Which is your OAvn county ? It depends so much on Avhat kind of landscape one has been used to, whether one appreciates it or not." " Oh, I have always lived — not very far from London," said Agnes, reading a warning, Avhich only confused her, in Roger's eye. " Not very far from London," said Lady Charlton—" but in AA7hich direction ? London is such a large word. If it was in Surrey7, I am sure you must know the Umfravilles. She is such an old friend of mine." " But it was — in — Middlesex,'" said poor Agnes, more perplexed than ever. " Oh," said Lady Charlton, " then we know quantities of people there. Why, we spent last Christmas at Wentmore, and I think every soul Agnes, in the county came to dinner while aao were there.

We must have met you, or some of your family. What an odd coincidence, Lottie ! Mrs. St. Maur is charming, is she not ?" " I am afraid you must not expect my wife to know many people," said Roger, Avho was a little flushed, Avhile Agnes, driven to her wit's end, had lost her usual grace and sat bolt upright in her chair, in a state of mind indescribable, feeling herself an impostor and pretender who w7as about to be found out. " She has always been a little recluse. I don't think a French girl brought up in a convent could have seen less of the world." " Oh, a consent ! — Avere you brought up in a convent?" said Miss Lottie, who began to enter into the spirit of the sport. " Then you are sure to have a beautiful accent, and I must have you to talk Prench with me. J'ai I'accent le plus detestable, moi.

It is ad along of not being properly brought up. Mamma ought to have had us taught before we could speak — but I assure you it is quite odious to hear us, both Jack and me." " I do wish you Avould not talk such nonsense, Lottie," said her mother, unconsciously defeating this new line of attack. " If you do not speak French well, it is entirely your own fault. But as for knoAving people, I am sure, when Mrs. Lady Charlton' s Visit. 7 Trevelyan and I come to talk it 0A7er, we shad find that we have several mutual friends. I assure you it is quite extraordinary to find hoAv people are linked together. I always say everybody is connected with everybody else, and I don't think I ever talked to anyone for half an hour, without finding out that some one else was the dearest friend of both. But in the meantime, you have not given us any of your neAvs.

How is Beatrice ? Is not she charming, Mrs. Trevelyan ? — such a good manner, and still so handsome. I remember when she was one of the prettiest girls in Cornwad. But that passes, you know; and that great friend of hers, Mrs. Cadogan. Poor thing, what a sad, sad story that was !" " What was ?" asked Roger, eagerly. " We have been away all summer, and neither Agnes nor I are up in the news." " Ah, honeymooning," said Lady Charlton, with a smde ; but she gave her daughter an ex pressive glance. And all this time Agnes sat upright in her chair, with words fluttering upon her lips, which Roger's look preAented her from uttering, and with a miserable sense of gudt, as though she was there in disguise and might be found out at any moment. Why might she not say that she did not know Beatrice, and was innocent of any news about anybody7 ?

After Agnes all, it Avas not a crime to be ignorant of people who had never come in her Avay. EAen Mrs. Rogers, the baker, who was considered very par ticular in Windholm, woidd never have dreamt of demanding that a new-comer shoidd know7 all the bakers of her district. But this suggestion came much later, when Agnes had time to think, and began to see faintly a dim gleam of absur dity in the situation, which lightened its ivcight. In the meantime, the honor and pain were unmitigated, and the poor j7oung wife sat silent, not only like a culprit, but like a fool, without a Avord to say7. And then a narrative ensued, to which she listened abstractedly, with wretched attempts to appear interested. But it Avas full of names Avhich she heard for the first time, and personal allusions of which she could not possibly under stand the meaning.

NotAvithstanding Roger's anxiety, he greAV interested after a Avhile, and he and Lady Charlton and Lottie maintained the conversation briskly, leaving poor Agnes so soli tary, so ignorant, so foreign to the society which they all knew, that, if she had relaxed her self control for a moment, she might have burst into tears or fainted — tAvo things equally horrible to think of. Agnes, however, though feeling all the pain of her position vividly, had fortunately a Lady Charlton's Visit. 9 poAver of self-control hitherto unknown to her self. She Avas like a young soldier avIio finds himself armed Avithout knowing it Avith the wea pons most essential to his safety, which he uses only by instinct, Avithout any training. Agnes had come into the world Avith ad that armoury for which, in her peaceful life, she had found no use ; and there was something piteous in the sensation with which she became aAvare of the shield and buckler which nature had provided her with, but which, up to that moment, she had never wanted before.

She smiled over this unsuspected corselet at her enemies when they made a feint of appealing to her. It was eri dent to Agnes that Lady7 Charlton and Miss Lottie were as conscious of her ignorance as she hersed wras, and she held her shield all the more firmly in consequence of these attempts to make her failure apparent. " Now we must really go," said Lady Charlton ; " I am afraid you must think me a sad gossip, but it is so pleasant to have so much to tell ! You must have made your husband quite careless of eAerything but yourself, which is Aery naughty of you ; though, to be sure, there is nothing else to be expected in a honeymoon ! Good morning, Mrs. Trevelyan. Roger is an old friend of ours, and Ave must see a great deal of you," said my Agnes. 10 lady, graciously. She looked at Roger as she spoke, but still it was Agnes Avhom she addressed.

" Good-bye," said Miss Charlton ; " mamma will never let you rest tdl she has found out that you know some people we know. It is her passion," said the younger assailant with a smile, not knowing in the least that the young creature she was speaking to — younger than herself by seAeral years — had in her desperation clutched at her natural Aveapons, and Avas no longer a de fenceless creature, unable to protect herself. " Good-bye," said Agnes. " But I should like Lady Charlton to knoAv that what Mr. Trevelyan said was quite true, and that I don't know anybody ; — except some poor people, whom I am sure you did not meet in Middlesex," she added, drawing her breath a little quick, and smiling in her turn, Avith eyes which saAV the sport as dis tinctly as Lottie did. The two ladies AAent out of the room quickly after this, with a sense of discomfiture which the simple words of Agnes seemed totally inadequate to produce.

" Goodness, what an impertinent girl ! What does she mean by her poor people?" Lady Charlton said, Avith a flushed and uncomfortable countenance; and even Miss Lottie withdreAv doAvnstairs Avith a consciousness of defeat. Naturally, the moment after their exit Avas an Lady Charlton' s Visit. 11 anxious one to the husband and wife, both of Avhom preserved a kind of breathless silence, ex pecting the other to speak. Roger, for his part, expected Agnes to burst into tears and make her complaint over her A-isitors' rudeness ; and Agnes, who felt herself Avounded, expected, perhaps, an apology from her husband, perhaps some tender consolatory speeches, perhaps a little admonition, and entreaty that she would try to talk to his friends. But as each Avaited for the other to begin, there ensued an uncomfortable expectant silence, which Avas exciting, and felt to each like a defiance.

It might haAre been better for both if they had spoken ; but neither did speak, and the uncomfortable pause settled down between them as if it had been something actual and tangible. When the opportunity was lost, both concluded that it was not for her or him to begin complain ing; and so a sense of mingled disappointment and relief, and tantalizing fadure, took the place of thed usual sympathy. The honeymoon was over for ever and ever. After a feAV minutes, Agnes dreAV her chair to the fire with a nervous shivering to which she was subject when she had been anyhow excited, and Roger took up his hat. "This day is lost for any sight-seeing," he said ; " that's always the way with morning visitors ; they waste one's time dreadfully. I'll Agnes, go and have a chat Avith Jack Charlton before dinner, and perhaps bring him up to see you.

I think you'd like him." " Wdl he ask me how many people I know ?" said Agnes, not without a gleam of humour ; but Roger made belieAe that he had not heard the question, and hurried off downstairs, very well inclined for a quarrel with somebody. As for Agnes, she did not feel very gay when she was left alone. Her Table Round had melted into thin air before her eyes. Roger's friends were not the sweet and thoughtful creatures of her imagination — the women of books and poems. Barring that they were better dressed and had a more refined mode of speaking, they were wonder fully like the baker's wife at Windholm, who gave tea-parties sometimes, and was an authority7. Agnes felt that they had come not on a mission of kindness, but to find her out and confuse her, and make her commit hersed, if possible.

And not only they, but Beatrice, her husband's sister, to Avhom the heart of the young wife yearned, but who had not so much as told her friends that her brother was married ! Her cheeks flushed with a painful heat and colour. They had done their best to humiliate her, and that in the eyes of her husband. Agnes did not cry over it, as she would have done had she been the defenceless Lady Charlton' s Visit. 13 creature they thought her. She did not cry, because she had found weapons thrust into her hands quite suddenly, without knoAving how, as if it had been by some unseen second, and had made sudden use of them also Avithout knowing how ; but all the more for that she felt the das tardly7 character of the attack, and resented it in her heart. That, however, was only one part of the business.

The assailants Avere full of unkind in tentions, but in themselves they were nothing to Agnes; the w7orst of all was, that she had been left to bear their assault alone. Perhaps Roger had done it in kindness, thinking it best so to divert their attention; but, in reality, he had gone over to their side, and interested himself in their talk, and left his helpless wife alone in her ignorance. In this mild Avay, one of the hardest of a woman's trials, the pain of seeing her husband comport him self unworthily7, came suddenly upon the young wife. She thought it was not any7 wounded feeling on her owm part that moAed her ; the pain was be cause he had not done what he ought to have done. He ought to haAe come to her side openly and frankly ; he ought to have said, " My wife knoAVS no one whom you know, Lady Charlton ; she has to make acquaintance yet with the wrorld.

We two have our life before us, and we mean Agnes to make our friends together." But that was not in the least what Roger had done ; he had made faint apologies for her, and silenced her with his eye, and gone over to the enemy's side. This was the idea that Agnes contended with, slow7ly and painfully, as she sat over the fire. It was not a sudden awakening out of the love blindness into an enlightenment which is fatal to love ; for true Ioao, even in the heart of a young woman of twenty, is a healthy plant, and can bear a great many shocks. It was only a dim sort of consciousness, struggling into light against her wish, that Roger, who was so fond of her, had not stood by her at the first critical moment. He loved her, but his courage had failed him, and for the moment he had left her to her fate.

It was an unpleasant sort of spectre to come face to face with in these early days, and the sight of it chilled her so much that she felt cold, and shivered, and dreAv stdl closer to the fire ; and then naturally softer thoughts intervened, and she began to excuse Roger. Very likely it was to divert the attention of these keen-sighted women from her ignorance and awkwardness; but then it was of itself a pang to believe that Roger had begun to be conscious of her awkwardness. Any thing in the world that she might have chosen to do in the Windholm parlour would have become Lady Charlton's Visit. 15 fud of grace to the chief spectator from the mere fact that she did it. And Agnes, like most other young wives, found it a little hard, a little strange, to w7ake up in the new world, where she had expected to be better loved, and to find that she had now to be judged by reasonable rules, and that those prepossessed eyes AA'hich saw7 nothing but good in her had lost their heaAenly glamour.

And yet Roger was entirelyto be excused when she came to put herself in his position, and to look at matters from the other side. It was hard upon him to have a wife aa'Iio kneAV nobody ; who sat with her mouth shut in stupid silence, or could open it only to commit herself and show to everybody what a mesalliance he had made. And then Agnes asked herself why she could not have taken it more lightly; why she coidd not haAe laughed without effort, and said naturally as she would haAe said to any woman in Wind holm, " I don't know anybody ; but I am very fond of stories, and I should like to know ad about the people whom Roger knows." That would have been, if only she had been equal to the situation, the thing to do. But instead of this she had looked nervous, and frightened, and hesitating ; had grown pale and grown red, and smded a wretched forced smile, and felt herself abandoned and desolate, which it was very foolish Agnes, to do.

The only excuse she could find for herself was, that she had not in the least expected to meet with this mode of attack. She had taken it for granted that it Avas quite natural she should know nobody. Vague terrors had indeed crossed the mind of Agnes, of conversations in AA'hich she would not be clever enough nor educated enough to take part ; but then she had ahvays consoled herself with "thinking that brilliant talkers stood in need of listeners, and that in that graceful capacity she might distinguish herself. And then she tried to believe that she would behave herself better next time, and would not let hersed be so utterly discouraged by the terrible discovery that she had never dined at Wentmore, nor known anybody that it Avas right to know in Middlesex. Notwithstanding, Mrs. Trevelyan's thoughts were not of an agreeable description as she sat and shiAered over the fire.

Chapter II

Jack Charlton .ffl/fjSj IS||PHE worst of this unlucky com &0k H^k menccmcnt was> that Roger and f*fM) Ijfcvjsr Agnes had no conversation about it^ nor ever opened their hearts to each other on the subject. If he had unbent so far as to say that Lady Charlton was rather im pertinent, but then that she was a very old friend ; or if she had unbent so far as to say, that she had been very stupid, but meant to do better next time — which two speeches were on the very lips of both all the long day — the little crisis would have been over in a moment ; but neither of them took this simple step. They went on as if nothing had occurred — and, to tell the truth, forgot, after awhde, that anything had occurred, as was natural; but neither of them lost a certain impression, fixed upon them like the impression of a seal upon wax — on Roger, that his wife, though he loved her better than any- VOL. II.

J 1 C Agnes 18 body in the world, was, after ad, only a blacksmith's daughter, entirely at a loss in good society, requiring to be apologised for, and to have her antecedents carefully concealed; and on Agnes, that her husband had faded her in her first grand moment of necessity, and could not be depended upon should other moments of necessity arise. But for this mutual conscious ness, which lay deep down at the bottom of thed hearts, nobody could have known — nor, indeed, did they themselves know, any difference. And Lady Charlton was rather kind, on the Avhole, and other people called; and, after aw7hile, Mrs. Trevelyan found hersed a member of the English society at Florence, which was more lawless and amusing, in some particulars, than the same kind of coterie would have been at home. There were, indeed, various people admitted into this circle whose antecedents Avould not bear too close an inquiry; but then, to be sure, Agnes knew nothing in the world about that.

As for Roger, he found hosts of friends coming and going; and the leisurely examina tion of the picture-galleries, and the French conversation, and all the virtuous intentions Avith which the young couple had settled them selves in Florence, naturally fell a little into abeyance ; but this did not in the least interfere with what is called their happiness. Agnes, though a thousand times more visionary in her ideas of society than her contemporaries of higher rank, was twenty times less exacting in her oAvn person than most of the young wives who knew no reason why their husbands should withdraw from their perpetual society. Not withstanding the faint preliminary light which Lady Charlton's first visit had shed on Roger's character, it was not the less true that his presence was the chief joy to Agnes, and that without him the new world in Avhich she found herself was a very blank and disappointing world.

But then she had been brought up to recognise the daily necessity which made man " work and labour till the evening," and it had never entered into her ideal of lde to hope that her husband could remain always by her side. Accordingly, it did not occur to her to grumble when he went out with Jack Charlton, or when he became a member of the English Club, and Avas sometimes beguiled there even in the evening. Agnes, in her innocence, treated this much as she would have treated her father's occasional absence in the eAening, when some work of more than ordinary importance had to be finished. She was sorry for Roger, wdio was " obliged" to leave her, and a little sorry for c Agnes. herself, thus left alone to the company of the fire and a novel. But then it was part of her creed that men were " obliged" to do many things in the way of their natural occupation which Avere far from agreeable ; and she accepted the club as a kind of forge of a different order, at which Roger, like Stanfield, was now and then compelled to work overtime.

And, in the meantime, she too returned the calls that were made on her, and Avas sometimes taken to the opera, and drove to the Cascine ; and when she had nothing else to do, contented herself in her own rooms, or, as she caded it, at home. It is not to be supposed that she got on quite well in society7, or made any sensation there, or even felt comfortable or at ease after the first shock ; for, indeed, Agnes had it impressed on her mind continually that she was in a foreign country, and was driAen to silence over and over again, while the people round her discussed those other people wdiom everybody ought to know. Perhaps, had the conversation been about ideas or about books, the result would have been a similar one ; but then Agnes had no experience, and was not aware that literary talk and scientific talk are in general highly unsatisfactory, and, on the whole, inferior to that talk about people, which, if she only had knowrn the people, might have been amusing enough.

What the ignorant young woman wanted, without knowing it, was that talk about everything which is only to be had among people of the highest class — not, perhaps, of rank, but of intelligence ; that running commentary upon things, and persons, and books, and ideas, and everything that comes and goes in the universal mind, which is the only talk worthy7 of being called conversation, but which is not an article to be met with in morning calls, or evenings at the opera, or at an occasional dinner-party. When she heard Lady Charlton and her " set" discussing thed friends, and the news, and the fashions, and making up parties, and recounting experiences, Agnes, Avho stood in the position of a foreign spectator, decided within herself, with some amusement, that the talk at Mrs. Rogers' tea-parties was precisely of the same kind; though the rides, and drives, and dances, and dinners were not practicable on the lower level.

As she became convinced of this, her timidity naturally relaxed a little; and there were a few people who began to observe that young Trevelyan's wife, when you really could get a chance of talking to her, was not by any means such a simpleton as Lottie Charlton reported her to be ; and then it began to dawn upon Agnes, several intelligences that Agnes was pretty — very pretty. Her eyes had a kind of eloquence which was irresistible in its way; and then, Avhen you fairly got possession of her ear, she was a graceful listener, and said " yes" and " no" in the right places, and looked as if she heard what you were saying. One of the chief proofs of this latter fact was manifest in the person of an old lady Aved known in Floren tine society who took a great fancy to Agnes. " She is a very nice young woman," this personage was known to say.