Not Without Thorns

“Perhaps it would be as well to tell Frank I am here,” said Mr Thurston, after a moment’s silence. “I should just like to shake hands with him in here, and then, if you will excuse my clothes,” he glanced down at his grey tweed travelling-suit rather doubtfully – the contrast between it and Eugenia’s delicate white evening dress striking him disagreeably, “I might go into the drawing-room for a few minutes to see your father and Sydney. You have some friends with you, though, have you not?”

“Only two or three gentlemen; never mind your clothes,” said Eugenia, lightly; and then she went to send a message to Frank, still in the dining-room, deep in a discussion with her father and Mr Foulkes. It was rather unlucky, she said to herself again, as she walked slowly along the passage, this unexpected appearance of Gerald’s. Of course it didn’t really matter about his clothes, but he did look rather rough, and papa would be sure to introduce him to Captain Chancellor as one of their most intimate friends; indeed, any one might see he considered himself such from his addressing her by her Christian name. Eugenia did not feel quite sure that she liked it; three years made a difference in that sort of thing; still, it might seem unkind, and might vex the others, if she were to give him a hint by calling him “Mr Thurston.” With Sydney, of course, it was different – at this point in her meditations she ran against Sydney, just coming to inquire what had detained her so long; could she not find the song she wanted? Captain Chancellor had come in and Mr Payne, and Sydney didn’t like the task of entertaining two gentlemen all alone. Eugenia’s news threw her into a state of great excitement; she readily undertook the pleasant task of telling Frank, and Miss Laurence returned to the drawing-room.

Gerald was not left long alone. In two minutes he heard his brother’s voice, and felt Frank’s hand shaking his with boyish vehemence. Sydney was there too – Sydney, just what he had expected to find her, fair and calm and sweet, the same as a woman that she had been as a girl.

“Frank would make me come with him,” she said apologetically, as she shook hands; “dear Gerald, we are so pleased to have you back again.”

Mr Thurston stooped and kissed her, and Sydney accepted it quite simply as his brotherly right. There was no doubt about the cordiality of the welcome of these two young people, nor of that of Mr Laurence, who soon joined them, and Gerald’s spirits began to rise.

“Had we not better go back to the drawing-room?” said Sydney, when some minutes had been spent in the eager cross-questioning that always succeeds a long-looked-for arrival. “Eugenia is alone there with those three gentlemen, and she may not like it.”

It hardly appeared on entering the drawing-room that their absence had been regretted. Mr Foulkes and Mr Payne, two middle-aged men who rode the same hobbies with agreeably adverse opinions as to the direction and management thereof, were seated comfortably by the fire in animated conversation, but it was not on them that Mr Thurston’s eyes rested when they took in the little scene before him. At the other end of the room, before the piano, her fingers idly touching a note now and then, sat Eugenia. Leaning over her with an air of the most complete absorption, stood a gentleman whom Gerald had never seen before. Tall, or appearing so from his somewhat slight build, with clear regular features, fair hair and almond-shaped deep blue eyes, his possession of unusual good looks was undeniable at even the first glance, though what perhaps struck Mr Thurston more strongly, was the extreme, almost exaggerated, refinement of his whole bearing and appearance. Instinctively – so curiously even in moments of intense feeling do such trifles force themselves upon our attention – Gerald glanced down at his own somewhat travel-stained figure and rough attire. “Fop,” was the word that rose to his lips with a sudden boyish impulse of resentment, but when he looked again he felt he could not apply it. The refinement might be outward only, but it was genuine and unaffected. While he was still silently observing them, it happened that Eugenia looked up for an instant into her companion’s face. It was only a moment’s quick passing glance, but it was enough: it told him all. Gerald felt faint and giddy, strong man that he was, and instinctively seemed to clutch at something to steady himself by. It had all passed so quickly, only one person had had time to notice him. Mr Laurence had not entered the room with the others, and Frank had joined the gentlemen by the fire. But one pair of eyes had followed Gerald’s with anxious sympathy. Some one pulled his sleeve gently. It was Sydney.

“Will you come and sit down by me for a few minutes, Gerald,” she said. “I have such a lot of things to say to you.”

He followed her mechanically to the sofa she pointed out, but did not speak. When they were seated, she chattered away for a few minutes about various trifles, that did not call for a reply, till she thought he had recovered the first physical effects of the shock. Then she remained silent for a minute or two. Suddenly Gerald spoke. “Who is he, Sydney?” he asked, not seeming to care what Sydney might think.

She did not affect to misunderstand him.

“His name is Chancellor – Captain Chancellor. I think he is in the 203rd. He is stationed here just now. You know there is generally a company – isn’t it called so? I think he spoke of his company at dinner – a small detachment, any way, at Wareborough, belonging to the regiment at Bridgenorth,” she replied.

“I know,” said Gerald, and relapsed into silence. But he quickly roused up again.

“Chancellor,” he repeated – “Captain Chancellor. I have heard that name lately. I know something of him, Sydney, I am certain I do.” Sydney looked eager to hear. “What can it be? No, it is no use, I cannot remember. It may come into my head afterwards. Have you – has – has your sister seen much of him?”

“No, oh no. I never saw him till to-night, and Eugenia has only seen him once before; but – ” Sydney stopped.

“But that sort of thing isn’t always reckoned by many or few times, eh, Sydney?

“Whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?

“You think there’s something in that old saying, do you? I can’t say, I’m sure. My experience is limited in these matters,” said Gerald.

His tone was bitterly sarcastic, almost jeeringly so. It was so thoroughly unlike him that Sydney looked up in surprise and alarm. “Was this the Gerald she remembered so gentle, so delicate, so chivalrous? Ah, no. It must be as she feared. Poor Gerald!”

The distress in her face softened him – still more her words when she spoke again.

“I don’t know, Gerald. I can’t answer you. I only know that I am very anxious about her.”

“Don’t you like him, then? Do you know any ill of him?” inquired Mr Thurston, with a sort of fierce eagerness.

“Oh, no,” said Sydney, quickly. “Not that at all. I like him very well. Of course any one can see he is a gentleman and all that. And papa likes him. He has set himself to please papa, I can see already. It is just that we know so little of him, and Eugenia is so pretty, and so – I don’t know what to call it. You know how clever she is, Gerald, but even that makes me more anxious about her. She sees everything by her own ideas, as it were. And some day I feel as if she might be terribly, dreadfully disappointed. I believe it would kill her, Gerald,” in a lower voice.

“Ah,” he said, “I see. She would venture all.” His tone was perfectly gentle now. A great throb of manly pity seemed to drown for the moment his bitter, bitter disappointment. Only for the time, there was many a hard struggle before him yet, for this love of his had entwined itself round every fibre of his being, and now – sometimes it seemed to him that the beautiful thing he had so nursed and cherished had turned to a viper in his bosom; that its insidious breath would change to poison every spring of love, and trust, and hope in his whole nature.

No more was said for a few minutes. Then Sydney spoke – she had to call him twice by name before she caught his attention.

“Gerald,” she said, “I see papa speaking to Captain Chancellor. Now he is coming this way. I am sure he is going to introduce you and him to each other.”

“Very well,” replied Mr Thurston. “I have no objection.”

He rose as he spoke, and went forward a few steps to meet Mr Laurence, whose intention Sydney had guessed correctly. The two young men bowed and shook hands civilly enough. Then Captain Chancellor, who was always thoroughly equal to these little social occasions, said something pleasant in his soft, low voice, about the new arrival’s return home, as if he had known all about it, and had been anticipating Mr Thurston’s return with nearly as much eagerness as Frank himself. There was no denying it – there was a great charm about this man; even Gerald felt it as he replied to Beauchamp’s well-chosen words. And his face was far from a bad face, Mr Thurston was forced to admit, when he saw it more closely; the want in it he could not readily define.

Beauchamp, too, was making up his mind about this new-comer, and taking his measure in his own way, though from his manner no one would have suspected it. He hadn’t felt altogether easy about the absence of male cousin or old friend, in Miss Laurence’s case. Hitherto the only thing in the shape of a tame cat he had discovered about the establishment was most charmingly and felicitously engaged to the little sister. So far nothing could be better. But there might be other discoveries to make, and he didn’t want to get into anybody’s way, or cause any unpleasantness – he hated unpleasantnesses, and the only way out of unpleasantnesses of this kind, rivals, and all that, was sometimes a way in which Beauchamp’s training had by no means prepared him to go in a hurry – and he quite meant to be very careful, for Roma’s warning had impressed him a little after all. He only wanted to get over the next few weeks comfortably in this dreadful place, and had no objection to Roma’s hearing indirectly of the manner in which he was doing so. It would be too bad if this great hulking “cousin from India,” was going to come in the way of his harmless little amusement. And whether or not there was any fear of this, Captain Chancellor could not all at once make up his mind, though from Miss Laurence’s side, so far, it hardly looked like it.

When Gerald Thurston came to say good-night to Eugenia, she noticed that he called her “Miss Laurence.” Captain Chancellor was within hearing, and Eugenia felt pleased by Gerald’s tact and good taste, and her own good-night was on this account all the more cordial.

Beauchamp observed it all too, and drew his own conclusions.

Volume One – Chapter Seven.

Several People’s Feelings

Oh, for the ills half understood,
The dim, dead woe
Long ago.

    R. Browning.
The rain was over, the evening had turned out fine after all. Captain Chancellor drove away in his fly from Mr Laurence’s door, but the Thurston brothers decided to walk.

“I don’t spend much on flys and that sort of thing, Gerald,” said Frank, as he slipped his arm through his brother’s; “you used to be afraid I was inclined to be extravagant in little things, but I can tell you it only wants a hard winter in Wareborough to make a fellow ashamed of all that self-indulgence. Good heavens, Gerald! you don’t know, though you do know a good deal for a layman,” Gerald smiled to himself at this little bit of clerical bumptiousness, “about the poor, but you don’t know what there is here sometimes. I have half-a-dozen new schemes to consult you about. Mr Laurence has a clear head for organisation, but though so practical in his own department, he won’t come out of it. Education, education, is his cry from morning till night. I quite agree with it, but you can’t educate people or children till you’ve got them food to eat and clothes to wear. I know I don’t expect them to listen to my part of the teaching till I show them I want to make their poor bodies more comfortable if I can.”

“But Mr Laurence’s attention is not given to the very poor. It is more given to the class above them,” said Gerald.

“Only because he can’t get hold of any others. His theories embrace the whole human race,” replied Frank, laughing, “but he is wise enough to begin with those he can get hold of. It’s a pity he is not a very rich man. He would do an immense deal of good.”

“He never could be a rich man, it seems to me,” said Gerald. “He is quite wanting in the love of money for its own sake, and I am not sure that any man ever amasses a great fortune who hasn’t a spice of this enthusiasm of gold in him. What you will do with the gold when you have it, is a secondary consideration. I do believe there grows upon many men an actual love of the thing itself.”

“You’re not turning cynical, surely, Gerald?” said Frank, laughingly. “That would be a new rôle for you.” His ear had detected a slight bitterness, a dispiritedness in his brother’s tone, though Gerald had exerted himself to speak with interest on general subjects in order to conceal his real state of feeling.

Gerald laughed slightly. “I am afraid the more one sees of the world and of life the harder it is to keep altogether free of that sort of thing. But tell me about your own plans. What a sweet woman Sydney will be, Frank! I can hardly think of her as grown-up, you see. Have you and Mr Laurence touched upon business matters at all yet?”

“Oh dear, yes!” said Frank, importantly. “It’s all as satisfactory as can be. With what you tell me is my share of our belongings, and what Mr Laurence can give Sydney, and my curacy we shall do splendidly. But I strongly suspect, Gerald, that you are giving me more than I have any right to. I believe you have added your own money to mine – I do really. Of course I can’t tell, for we never went into these things much before you went abroad, but I’m certain my father didn’t leave twice what you have made over to me.”

“It’s all right, Frank; it is indeed,” said Gerald, earnestly. “I am doing very well now and am likely to do better. I shall go over my affairs with you some day soon to satisfy you. I could easily make your income larger, but perhaps it is as well for you to begin moderately. You’ll have to restrict your charities a little, you know, when you have a wife to think of.”

“Yes, I know that,” replied the curate; “but, Gerald, you should look to home too. You will be marrying yourself.”

“It is not likely,” said Mr Thurston. “I am thirty-one – seven years older than you, Frank; getting past the marrying age, you see.”

Frank wondered a little, but said nothing, and went on to talk of other things. Suddenly a casual mention of the Dalrymples struck Gerald with a flash of remembrance.

“Is not that Captain Chancellor we met to-night a friend of theirs?” he asked his brother.

“Yes; I believe Mr Laurence and Eugenia met him there, and I am not at all sure that it wouldn’t have been a great deal better if they had not done so,” replied the young clergyman, oracularly. “Eugenia isn’t a bad sort of girl; she is well-meaning, and not stupid, and certainly very pretty; but I must say she is very childish and silly. She is constantly in extremes, always running full tilt against something or other. For my part, I confess I can’t make her out. I am uncommonly glad Sydney is so completely unlike her. I didn’t at all admire the way she allowed herself to be monopolised by that Captain Chancellor to-night. If they had a mother it would be different, but Mr Laurence would never see anything of that kind if it was straight before his eyes.”

“You are rather unreasonable, I think, Frank,” said Gerald. “Such things will happen, you know. I suppose there have been occasions on which Sydney too has allowed herself to be monopolised. You would have thought it very hard if any one had objected.”