Not Without Thorns

Captain Chancellor happened to be a little way behind them. Either Gerald imagined him out of ear-shot, or for the moment had forgotten him altogether.

“Yes,” said Eugenia; “that’s just it. It is the lifelessness of winter I dislike. And a bright still winter’s day has light without warmth – an idea that certainly is very ghastly to me. I like life, and movement, and warmth. Almost the loveliest summer sensation to me is that sort of soft, happy bustle that seems to go on among the birds and the flowers and the insects – all the dear creatures. Ah, how beautiful summer is!” She stopped for an instant; then, recurring to her former train of thought, she went on. “Doesn’t the idea of a ‘crystal sea’ seem rather repulsive to you, Gerald? I think it would be quite frightful. Fancy a motionless ocean!”

Beauchamp, and Frank, and the Dalrymple boys were close beside them now. Beauchamp had walked on faster since he saw Eugenia talking with apparent interest to the curate’s brother. Her last remark was overheard.

“It would be jolly nice to skate upon!” said Bob Dalrymple.

Eugenia broke into clear, merry laughter.

“I’m afraid you’ll not find any skates there, Bob,” she said to the boy; and then they both laughed again, as if she had said something immensely funny.

“It takes very little water to make a perfect pool for a tiny fish;” it takes very little wit to satisfy a child’s appreciative powers. Bob was only twelve, and Eugenia was apt to grow very like a child herself when in high spirits. Mr Thurston smiled at their merriment; and though Sydney, in Frank’s presence, always trembled a little when she saw Eugenia verging on one of the reckless moods, charming enough when “a great many people” were not there, in the present case she could not help smiling too. Only Captain Chancellor looked annoyed. There were certain things that greatly offended his taste. He could not endure to hear a woman discuss religion or politics, he could not endure to hear a woman say anything funny, and then laugh at it. And of all conceivable subjects to joke upon, he most objected to joking on “religious subjects;” he thought it “bad style.” As Frank had said, Captain Chancellor was, or at any rate considered himself, “a good churchman,” of the class to whom it is not given to discriminate between the spirit and the letter. He hated Dissenters and Radicals – so far, that is to say, as he considered such beings worthy of attention at all. He was not the sort of man to whom it occurred readily, that to the best of rules there may be exceptions. More than once Roma herself had fallen under the ban of his disapproval, both as regarded the subjects she chose for discussion, and her remarks thereupon. But then Roma was a very different person; besides which, in her own set, she had established a name for a certain amount of originality, and this made her to some extent a privileged person.

Mr Thurston, happening to glance in Captain Chancellor’s direction, saw, and rightly interpreted, the expression of his face. First, he felt amused, then a little indignant. What right had this man to approve or disapprove of whatever Eugenia chose to say or do? Lastly, an undefinable instinct urged him to turn the conversation, without appearing to do so, for happy Eugenia was walking on merrily, in unconsciousness of any cloud in her vicinity.

“I think, Miss Laurence,” said Gerald, “you have got a little confusion in your head between the ‘crystal sea’ of the Bible and Dante’s ‘sea of ice,’ haven’t you? One does get the queerest confused associations sometimes, especially of things one has first heard of in childhood, and I know your literary taste when you were a small person in pinafores was rather omnivorous, wasn’t it?”

Eugenia laughed and confessed it was true. Beauchamp did not seem edified by the conversation.

“Yes, Eugenia,” said Frank, “you have taken up a wrong idea altogether. The words ‘glass’ and ‘crystal’ are only used to give the idea of purity, not motionlessness or lifelessness. Why, don’t you remember the ‘water of life’ being described as ‘pure as crystal’ in another place? You shouldn’t begin criticising scriptural expressions unless you have studied the subject – no one should.”

His tone was slightly dictatorial and decidedly clerical. Eugenia’s face flushed; she looked up with a somewhat haughty answer on her lips, but to her amazement, and that of every one else, Captain Chancellor said, suddenly, addressing Frank, —

“I quite agree with you, Thurston.” Eugenia’s face changed from pink to crimson. Gerald, watching her anxiously, thought he had never seen the expression of any face change so quickly, but she walked on quietly without speaking. “If she would but see in time,” thought Gerald; “if she would but see in time! He worthy of her! he understand her! As well expect a blacksmith to make a watch, or – or – ” He could think of no comparison sufficiently forcible to suit his indignant frame of mind.

By this time they had emerged from the lane on to the high road. They were within a mile of their destination, and the skaters waxed impatient.

“We shall not have a long afternoon,” said the curate. “Suppose, Bob, you and Arthur and I push on? We shall walk a good deal quicker than the ladies. Will you and Chancellor follow at your leisure with Sydney and Eugenia, Gerald? I want the boys to have a good afternoon. You don’t mind, Sydney?”

So it was agreed. The four left behind naturally fell into pairs; Mr Thurston and Sydney in front, Eugenia and Captain Chancellor some little way in the rear.

Rather to Beauchamp’s surprise, for he fancied his uncalled-for remark – in reality greatly the result of the ill-tempered mood he had felt coming over him ever since he saw that the elder Thurston made one of the party – had offended her, Eugenia seemed by no means averse to this two-and-two arrangement. He felt uncomfortable and annoyed. It was the very first time he was conscious of having appeared to this girl in even ever so slightly unfavourable a light, and he felt anxious to destroy the unpleasant impression; he was not likely to see much more of her, and he hated any one to remember him with any disagreeable association. But how to begin the smoothing-over process he felt rather at a loss. To his surprise, Eugenia herself helped him.

“Captain Chancellor,” she said, suddenly, speaking faster than usual, as if to force back some hesitation, “I want to tell you I think Frank Thurston was right in what he said just now, and you were right to agree with him. I do speak at random, sometimes; and I shouldn’t have encouraged Bob to joke as I did. Of course, any one else could see there was no irreverence in my mind; but a child might not, and one can’t be too careful with children. I think I quite understand your disliking it, and I am so sorry.”

She looked up in his face with a deprecating humility, a sweet softness in her brown eyes that he had never seen in them before. Never had he thought her so charming. He did not attend to the exact meaning of her words, most certainly no anxiety as to the nature of the impressions left on the infant mind of Master Bob had troubled him; he was conscious only of an inference of apology in what she said, and of acknowledgment of his superior judgment that was very agreeable to him and very becoming to her. The “I am so sorry” at the end was quite delicious. “Dear little thing,” he said to himself, “it would not be difficult to mould her into one’s own pattern.” And aloud, he said, with the half deferential tenderness so curiously attractive to very young girls, —

“You are too good, Miss Laurence; a great deal too good. I have certainly rather strong feelings – prejudices, if you like – on some subjects, but I really feel it is more than good of you not to have resented my inexcusable expression of them.”

“Don’t say that,” she remonstrated, gently; “I do not feel it so at all. When any one finds fault with me, on the contrary, I feel that it must – that they must – ” she hesitated.

“That it must arise from no common interest in you?” he suggested. “And can you ever have doubted my feeling such, Miss Laurence? No one, I suppose, is quite perfection; but surely you must know that to me you appear so near it that a word or a tone which I should never notice in another woman, from you acquires importance.”

The words were dreadfully commonplace, but spoken in his peculiarly sweet, low voice, with his deep, expressive eyes looking unutterable things into hers, to Eugenia they sounded most “apt and gracious.” Nor was Beauchamp, for the time being, insincere. He really felt what he said. As he looked at this young creature, so sweet, so very pretty, so ready to believe in himself as the embodiment of every manly grace and excellence, a strange, altogether unprecedented rash, of feeling came over him. If he could but throw all to the winds – prospects and position and future and all – and clasp her in his arms and call her his darling, his “one woman in the world,” and carry her off there and then to some beautiful, impossible castle in the air, where there was no “society,” no growing old, no anybody or anything but each other!

It was but a moment’s passing, insane, altogether ridiculous dream, and Beauchamp soon recovered himself, and Eugenia little suspected the cause of his sudden silence, for she was in a sweet dream of her own, the same in which for many days now she had been living, and from which she would not be very easily roused. Each day, each hour, almost, it was gaining more hold upon her; every circumstance, every trifling incident, seemed to bring her more and more under its influence; no shadow of misgiving had as yet dimmed its beauty and glowing perfection.

Yet she was a girl to whom such a description of her enchantment as that suggested by the vulgar words “madly in love” was altogether and essentially inapplicable. We want a word surely to describe this higher, yet passionate love – the love of a pure, enthusiastic, undisciplined nature, dreaming that it has found its ideal, that the days of “gods and godlike men” are not yet over, to whom in such a belief all self-sacrifice, all self-surrender, would be possible, to whom the destruction of its ideal would risk the destruction of all faith beside.

They walked on in silence for a little; then, by a slight quickening of their pace, Beauchamp managed to overtake Mr Thurston and Sydney, who were only a few steps before them, and for the next half mile the four kept together. It was better so, Beauchamp said to himself, for he was beginning to feel a little less confident in his own ability to draw back in time; his recent sensations had startled him considerably, and Roma’s warning persisted in recurring most uncomfortably to his mind. Looking back over the wide range of his so-called “love affairs,” he could not hit upon any which on his side had threatened “to go so far.” Roma herself, with all her attractions, had never roused in him a similar storm. He was as determined as ever to win her in spite of all opposition, but he owned to himself that by the time he met her again at Winsley, he might safely boast that his allegiance had been more sharply tested than even she had had any idea of.

Some way further along the road they came to the sharp turn known as Ayclough Bend. Here, a lane to the right led up the hill to the farm, the high road to the left pursuing its course to twenty-miles-off Bridgenorth.

“This is our way,” said Mr Thurston, turning as he spoke in the direction of the lane, but both the girls had come to a stand beside a large stone lying at the side of the road.

“This is the Bride’s stone,” said Sydney, in an explanatory tone.

“Ah, yes, to be sure. Poor bride,” said Gerald, coming back again.

“Who is the bride? Why do you call this her stone?” inquired Captain Chancellor of Eugenia.

She gravely related the story. Even to this day it had a curious fascination for her. “It was on this stone he was thrown when the coach upset. And it is here, they say, she is still to be seen sometimes,” she said with a slight shudder. “Is it not a sad story?” she added, looking up with such pity in her eyes, that Beauchamp half fancied there were tears not far off. He didn’t feel inclined to laugh at her, he was in a rather unusual mood to-day. Still less, however, was he inclined that Gerald or Sydney should have the benefit of his rare fit of genuine sentimentality. So he answered carelessly —

“Very sad, if true, which I should feel inclined to doubt. I have heard the same story at other places. Besides, if it were true, pity would be wasted on the lady. No doubt she married again very speedily if she was so lovely and charming.”

Gerald hardly stayed to hear him finish the sentence. He walked on quickly, followed by Sydney, and both looked at each other as they heard Eugenia’s voice answering her companion brightly and happily as usual.

“She is bewitched,” said Gerald, abruptly, and Sydney by her silence seemed to agree with him. “Just the sort of thing that would have put her out for the day, if Frank had said it to tease her.”

They had not seen the expression in Beauchamp’s eyes which belied his careless words, giving her, even about this trifle, a feeling that his confidence, his deeper feelings, were reserved for her alone.

“Yes,” said Sydney, with a sigh. “But, Gerald, I have come to see that there is nothing to be done. I tried once or twice to speak to Eugenia, some time ago, but it was no use. It only risked my losing her confidence altogether. Besides, what could I say? I know nothing against Captain Chancellor. I cannot even say I suspect anything; and I by no means dislike him. As an ordinary acquaintance I should like him very much.”

“You disliked him at first,” objected Gerald.

“No, not exactly,” said Sydney, thoughtfully. “I was only rather afraid of liking him too readily. I doubted him before I ever saw him, from what Eugenia told me of him; I doubted, I mean to say, his being the sort of person I should have chosen for her. But that sounds very presumptuous. Sisters don’t marry to please each other.”

“No,” said Gerald, with a slight laugh. “In that case Frank’s chance might not have been so good.”

“But Eugenia respects Frank, though they are always sparring with each other. She trusts him too. Ah, there is just the difference,” exclaimed Sydney, eagerly. “I don’t feel as if I could trust Captain Chancellor with Eugenia. I don’t suppose he will beat her or ill-use her,” she went on smiling half sadly. “I think he is kind-hearted and easy tempered, and a good enough sort of a man in many ways. But he won’t understand her, and that sort of misery would be worse to her than any.”

“But it would have been a great chance if she had married any one thoroughly congenial and suitable. Very few people do,” said Gerald, thinking to himself if there might not in the future be disappointment in store even for the earnest, unselfish girl beside him, good sterling fellow though Frank was.

“I know that,” answered Sydney, and then for a minute or two she remained silent. “Perhaps, Gerald,” she went on, “to put it quite fairly, a good deal of our anxiety arises from Eugenia’s side. I mean it is her own character that makes me afraid. I don’t think I should have misgivings about any other girl’s happiness if I heard she was going to marry Captain Chancellor. I don’t know that I should have been afraid for myself even, (though it sounds an odd thing to say, and I certainly couldn’t fancy myself caring for him). You see, Gerald, I expect so much less. With Eugenia it is always all or nothing.”

“Yes, I understand,” answered Gerald. “It is a question if such a nature can escape intense suffering, though I had fancied – but it’s no use thinking of that. There are some kinds of suffering which, it seems to me, would be ruinous to Eugenia, which she could not pass through without leaving the best of herself in the furnace. That is my worst fear, Sydney. I have never attempted to put it in words before. I could not have done so to any one but yourself.”

“But we can’t tell, Gerald,” said Sydney, timidly. “We can’t tell how what seems the worst training may turn out the best. We can’t believe that in the end it will not all have been the best, even our own mistakes.”

“The end is a very long way off,” said Gerald, gloomily, “and it is sad work for lookers-on sometimes. Of course, I know what you mean, Sydney, and one must at bottom believe it; but still one constantly sees what look very like fatal mistakes, and it is very seldom given to us on this side of the gate to see that good came out of the bad after all.”

Sydney did not answer. After awhile Mr Thurston spoke again, this time with evident hesitation.

“I am afraid you may be angry with me for what I am going to say, Sydney,” he began, “but I think I should say it. All your fears seem to point one way. I mean to the unlikelihood of Captain Chancellor’s satisfying Eugenia – suiting her – but have you never doubted him in any other way?”

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Sydney in vague alarm.

“Can’t you understand? It’s a horrid thing to say,” said Gerald impatiently. “Are you quite sure he is in earnest? May he not be only what is called amusing himself – flirting, or trifling, or any of those detestable expressions?”