Not Without Thorns

“But we shall be at Halswood then, mamma,” said Adelaide.

“Oh, nonsense, my dear. We shall certainly not be there before Christmas; at least, I devoutly hope not. Halswood is all very well in its way, but at present it is really uninhabitable. You never saw anything so frightful as the state of the house, my dear Gertrude. It wants refurnishing from top to bottom. I should like you to see Wylingham.”

Depreciation of Halswood rather jarred on Mrs Eyrecourt’s Chancellor loyalty. But there was no time for her guest to observe any hesitation in her reply, for just then a loud squeal from the other end of the room made all the ladies jump, and effectually distracted Mrs Chancellor’s attention.

“Floss, you naughty child, what are you screaming in that dreadful way for? Why are you not in bed? I told you to run upstairs as soon as we came out of the dining-room? What is the matter?” exclaimed Gertrude, at no loss to pitch upon the invisible offender.

There was no answer for a minute. Then, a ball consisting of white muslin, blue ribbons, shaggy hair and bare legs, seemed to roll out from under a sofa into the middles of the room, when it shook itself into form, and stood erect, red-faced and defiant.

“Quin pulled my hair,” was all the explanation it vouchsafed.

Quintin came forward from behind the curtains to answer for himself.

“Well, and if I did, I’d like to know who bit and scratched and kicked?” he exclaimed, wrathfully.

“’Cos you said you’d tell I was hiding in the curtains; tell-tale boy,” returned Floss, with supreme contempt.

“And why were you hiding in the curtains? Why didn’t you go up to bed when I sent you?” demanded her mother.

“Quin said there was a bear behind the glass door in the hall, and I was fwightened it would eat me,” replied Floss, her defiance subsiding.

“I only said bears eat naughty children. It says so in the Bible,” said Quin, virtuously.

Adelaide began to laugh.

“How silly you are!” thought Roma, regretfully. “I fear Beauchamp will soon be bored by you.” But she liked the girl better when she rose from her seat, and asked Gertrude if she might not convoy poor Floss across the dreaded hall. It was more than Roma would have troubled herself to do: she looked upon all children as necessary evils, and considered her niece a peculiarly aggravated form of the infliction.

Gertrude was profuse in her thanks, but Floss hung back.

“I don’t like you,” she said calmly, looking up into Miss Chancellor’s face. “You’re too fat, and you’ve got stawey eyes.”

Adelaide laughed again, but this time more faintly. An ominous frown darkened Mrs Eyrecourt’s face.

“You naughty, naughty, rude child,” she began, sternly. Quintin’s better feelings were aroused.

“I’ll take her upstairs, mamma. Come, Floss,” and, already frightened at her own audacity, the cross-grained little mortal clutched at her brother’s hand, and the two left the room together. Upstairs Quin read Floss a lecture on the enormity of her offence. Overcome by his goodness in escorting her to the nursery, she hugged him vehemently – getting into fresh disgrace for crushing his collar; but maintained stoutly that “the new young lady wasn’t nice or pretty at all, not the least tiny bit.”

“What a nice boy Quintin is, and so handsome,” began Miss Chancellor, gushingly.

“Yes,” said Roma, to whom the remark was addressed; “he’s not a bad child, as children go. I detest children.”

Adelaide looked shocked.

“Do you?” she exclaimed. “Well, of course,” she went on, as if desirous of modifying her evident disapproval, “I daresay it makes a difference when one has not had younger brothers and sisters.”

“Do you love yours so much?” inquired Roma. She felt a lazy pleasure in drawing out this model young lady a little.

“Of course,” replied Miss Chancellor; “Victoria is much younger than I, you know, but we are great friends. I don’t think there is anything she looks forward to as much as to being my bridesmaid. She is rather dark, so I have promised her she shall wear rose colour, or pink, if it is in summer.”

Roma looked astonished. “I didn’t know,” she began, “I had not heard of anything being fixed about your marriage.”

Adelaide burst out laughing. “Fixed,” she repeated, “of course, not. But I am sure to be married some time or other. Don’t you think it is great fun to think about what you will choose for yourself and your bridesmaids to wear? I have decided half-a-dozen times at least.”

Roma confessed that the subject was one that had not hitherto much occupied her thoughts.

“You have a brother too, have you not?” she inquired, by way of making conversation.

“Oh, yes, Roger,” replied Adelaide. “He comes next to me. He is sixteen, but, poor boy, he is so dreadfully delicate. When he was a little child they never thought he could live, and even now we often think he won’t grow up. It is very unfortunate, isn’t it, when one thinks of Wylingham and all mamma’s property, though of course it would come to me – the money I mean. Wylingham would go to a distant cousin; so stupid of my grandfather to leave it so, wasn’t it?”

Her remarks were made with the utmost naïveté, in perfect unconsciousness apparently that they could sound heartless.

“And Halswood?” said Roma, repressing the disagreeable sensation left by the girl’s words.

“Oh, Halswood doesn’t seem to matter so much,” she replied. “Papa will have it all his life any way, and there are Chancellors after him. Your – what is he to you? – your cousin? – Captain Chancellor I mean, comes next after Roger.”

“Does he?” exclaimed Roma in astonishment. Then she grew very silent; for a few minutes she did not distinguish the sense of Adelaide’s prattle, her mind was busy with other matters. For one thing, the Chancellors’ policy was now plain to her. Would they succeed? To herself personally she felt that Beauchamp’s possible heirship could never make any difference; rich or poor, he could never be more to her than he was. But as for Gertrude – yes, her views would probably undergo a complete change were such a state of things to come to pass.

“She would like me, I daresay, as well or better than any one else for his wife if he were rich, or certain to be so,” thought Roma. “But, after all, I strongly suspect the chances are that Beauchamp will marry to please himself and no one else, and perhaps find in the end that he has not even done that.”

Volume One – Chapter Ten.

“That Stupid Song.”

Amid the golden gifts which heaven
Has left like portions of its light on earth,
None hath such influence as music hath.

I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

    Merchant of Venice.
When the gentlemen came into the drawing-room, music was proposed.

“Come, Addie, my dear, let me see you at the piano,” said her father, laying his hand caressingly on the girl’s fair head. “Not that it is quite my place to propose it, by-the-bye; but you see, my dear Mrs Eyrecourt, how thoroughly at home you have already made us all feel ourselves. I want you to hear Addie play.”

“Don’t you sing?” inquired Gertrude, as Miss Chancellor rose, in accordance with her father’s request.

“No, she doesn’t sing,” said Mrs Chancellor, answering for her – “at least, very little. But she plays!”

“If she does play,” thought Roma, “it will double her chances with Beauchamp.” Then there came a little pause of rather solemn expectation.

Captain Chancellor, as in duty bound, conducted Mademoiselle to the piano, gravely taking up his place behind her, near enough to perform the task of turning over the leaves, for Adelaide was one of those young ladies who are nowhere without their “notes.” Roma, watching the pair closely, thoroughly took in the position. There was no fluster about Adelaide. She drew off her gloves quietly, and selected her piece of music with perfect composure, well satisfied evidently with the impression she was about to make on her audience, Captain Chancellor standing with ceremonious deference, stiff and silent, in his place.

“They don’t know him,” thought Roma again. “Fortunately for their satisfaction in their little arrangement, they don’t know how Beauchamp can look sometimes in such a position. Oh, you most foolish, contrariest of men!”

But even Roma hardly knew how Beauchamp could look at such times. She had never seen him standing beside Eugenia, bending low his handsome head, to catch each varying expression of the beautiful face, each sweet, bright glance of the lovely, speaking eyes, as the pretty fingers softly played the music he loved best, or rested now and then idly on the keys. She was no great performer, but her perception and appreciation were delicate and vivid enough to satisfy even fastidious Beauchamp – fastidious on this point without affectation, for the man’s love for music was deep and genuine. At no time was he so near to forgetting himself, so close to the consciousness of the higher and better things little dreamt of in the philosophy of his ordinary life, as when under its influence. How far Roma’s singing had had to do with his imagining himself in love with her, it might be difficult to say.

So there was reason for Gertrude’s feeling anxious, and Roma curious, as to the sort of “playing” of which Miss Chancellor was capable. She began at last – not noisily, she was too well taught for that; but nevertheless she had not got through half-a-dozen bars, before Roma knew that the less she and the piano had to do with each other in Beauchamp’s presence, the better for Gertrude’s plans.

“If it should ever come to pass that he marries her, he will make her promise to leave music alone,” said Miss Eyrecourt to herself.