Not Without Thorns

“Very well, if my father, too, wishes me to go, I will,” but the pleasure which Sydney was about to express was destroyed by Eugenia’s next speech. “It is as I thought. I am no use to any one. My own life is over, and I am not wanted to help in any one else’s.”

This was the first allusion she had made in all these weeks to the bitter sorrow she had passed through. Sydney was touched and distressed.

“You must not speak so, Eugenia,” she said. “We all want you. We want you to be your own bright self again. Don’t think me unfeeling for thinking it possible you may be bright again. I know I have no right to speak, for I have been exceptionally free from trial, but you have been so brave and good lately, Eugenia. I cannot bear to see you so desponding. I am sure it will do you good to go away. It will make me feel so much happier about you.”

“Very well, then, to please you, I will,” said Eugenia, more vigorously, and as Mr Laurence was only too thankful to give his consent to the proposal, Mrs Dalrymple triumphantly carried the day.

Ever so many places had been thought of as likely to be pleasant at this season, and one after the other rejected as undesirable. One was too far away, another too crowded by invalids, a third disagreeably exposed to east wind. Their time was too short for them to entertain the idea of any of the usual wintering places across the Channel, and Mrs Dalrymple objected to the south of England as too distant also. So in the end they pitched upon a pretty little watering place, not more than a three hours’ journey from Wareborough, where there was a good choice of walks and drives for Mr Dalrymple, and a certainty of comfortable quarters at the best hotel.

Their destination was a matter of perfect indifference to Eugenia, whose only interest in the journey was the feeling that she was pleasing her friends, and whose only strong wish was to get it over, and find herself at home again, free to yield to the lassitude and depression against which it became daily more difficult to struggle.

“If they would but leave me alone,” she constantly repeated inwardly; and though she hated herself for the feeling, there were times at which she realised that even Sydney’s absence would be in some ways a relief. The constant and but thinly veiled anxiety in her sister’s eyes, the incessant endeavour on her own part to lessen it by appearing as bright and energetic as of old, were at times almost more than the girl could endure or sustain; and when she found herself at last fairly started on her little journey with the Dalrymples, she became conscious that she had done wisely to consent to accompany them. Mrs Dalrymple’s kindly fussiness was infinitely less trying than Sydney’s wistful tenderness; it was far easier to keep up a cheerful, commonplace conversation with her friend’s husband than to sit through dinner at home with the feeling that her father and sister were stealthily watching to see if she ate more to-day than yesterday, or if she entered with greater vigour into the passing remarks. With her present companions she felt perfectly at ease; had she had any idea of what an accurate acquaintance with the actual state of things had been arrived at by the worthy couple, her comfortable freedom from self-consciousness would have speedily deserted her.

Nunswell quickly got the credit of her improved looks.

“I really think she is growing more like herself already,” said Mrs Dalrymple, with great satisfaction, to her husband. “We could not have chosen a better place for her; it is so bright and lively here, and the bracing air is so reviving.” Very probably the bracing air really had something to do with it! Eugenia was only nineteen, and this had been her first trouble. Her life hitherto had been exceptionally monotonous and uneventful; a few months ago the prospect of a visit to Nunswell would have been to her far more exciting and delightful than to most girls of her age and education would be that of a winter in Rome, or a summer in Switzerland: even now therefore, notwithstanding the blight which had fallen over her youthful capacity for enjoyment, she was not insensible to the pleasant change in her outward life from the dull routine of Wareborough; the little amusements and varieties almost daily arranged for her by her hosts; the general holiday feeling. She had not yet got the length of owning to herself that she did, or ever again could, enjoy in her old way, but the reflection which now often passed through her mind, “how happy this would have made me a year ago,” showed that she was on the high road to recovery.

Nunswell was beautifully situated, and rich in “natural objects of attraction.” Eugenia had travelled so little that even the scenery of her own country was known to her only by description; it was now for the first time in her life that she woke up to a consciousness of her power of appreciation of natural beauty. Yet the waking was a sad one; her very first real perceptions of the beauty she had hitherto but dimly imagined came to her tinged with the sense of discordance between the outer and the inner world, of mistake and failure, which takes the brilliance out of the sunshine, the sweetness out of the birds’ songs.

“None of it is real,” thought Eugenia. “It is only where there is no soul – no heart, that there is happiness,” for being still weakened in mind and body by her recent illness, having nothing to do but to rest and amuse herself, and no one to talk to, she was inclined to be rather plaintive and desponding, and to imagine the path she was treading to be one of altogether unprecedented experiences.

Still, there was no question but what her spirits were better, her general appearance far more satisfactory than when she left home, and Mrs Dalrymple’s bulletins to Sydney became cheering in the extreme.

They had been a fortnight at Nunswell, when one morning at breakfast Mr Dalrymple made an unexpected announcement. He had been reading his letters – business ones for the most part, forwarded from his office at Wareborough – over some of them he had frowned, others he had thrown aside after a hasty glance, one or two had brought a satisfied expression to his face. Mrs Dalrymple and Eugenia had no letters this morning, but in deference to Mr Dalrymple’s occupation, they had been sitting in silence for some time, excepting a few whispered remarks as to the quality of the coffee or the prospects of the weather. Eugenia was some way into a brown study when she was recalled by her host’s suddenly addressing her.

“Here’s some news for you, Miss Laurence,” he exclaimed, looking up with a smile from the perusal of his last letter. “We are to have a visitor this afternoon – a great friend of yours. Quite time, too, that you should have a little variety – you must be getting tired of two old fogies like my wife and me.”

Eugenia had started when he first began to speak – it did not take much to startle her just now – then as he went on, her colour changed, first to crimson, which fading as quickly as it had come, left her even paler than usual. Mrs Dalrymple darted a reproachful look across the table at her husband, and began to speak hastily, in terror of what he might not be going to say next.

“Why can’t you say at once who it is, Henry?” she exclaimed with very unusual irritation. “It is quite startling and uncomfortable to be told all of a sudden ‘somebody’ is coming in that sort of way. I am sure I don’t want to see any one, and I don’t think Eugenia does either. We have been very snug together, and Eugenia is not strong enough yet to care for strangers. Really, Henry, you are very thoughtless.”

The last few words should have been an aside, but Mrs Dalrymple’s vexation at the sight of the pallid hue still overspreading the girl’s face, overmastered her prudence.

“It didn’t startle me, dear Mrs Dalrymple – really it didn’t,” interposed Eugenia, hastily. “That is to say, I was only startled for an instant, and it was not Mr Dalrymple’s fault. Anything does it – even the door opening – since I was ill, but I am beginning to get over it. But you are quite right in thinking I don’t want any one else – I have been quite happy with you and Mr Dalrymple.”

“But you have misunderstood me, Mary,” said Mr Dalrymple, looking rather contrite. “I never spoke of strangers. I said particularly it was a friend of Miss Laurence’s I was expecting. It is Gerald Thurston. I have a note from him proposing to see me here this afternoon, and if we are not engaged, he speaks of staying at Nunswell till Monday. He is on his way home from Bristol, where he has been on business, and he wishes to see me, and I want to see him. I am sure you can have no objection to his joining us for two days, either of you?” he ended by inquiring of his two companions.

“Objection to Gerald Thurston!” repeated Mrs Dalrymple. “Of course not. I shall be very glad to see him. I only wish you had said at first whom you meant. You don’t mind, Eugenia?”

“I?” said Eugenia, looking up quickly. “Oh, dear no – I am very glad. I like Gerald Thurston very much. He is very kind and good.”

“And exceedingly clever, and uncommonly good-looking,” added Mr Dalrymple, warmly. “Take him for all in all, I don’t know where there is a finer fellow than Thurston.”

“So my father says,” agreed Eugenia. “Indeed I think every one that knows him thinks highly of him.”

She was anxious to be cordial, and really felt so towards Gerald. Of late she had come to like him much more than formerly, and the extreme consideration and delicacy which he had shown the evening her illness began, had increased this liking by a feeling of gratitude. Nevertheless there had grown up unconsciously in her a somewhat painful association with Gerald since that evening, and she had not seen enough of him to remove it. “He knows,” she said to herself, and she shrank from meeting him again.

But it was much pleasanter and easier than she had expected. Gerald, intensely alive to all she was feeling, behaved perfectly, and spared her in a thousand ways without appearing, even to her, to do so at all. The two days proved the pleasantest they had passed at Nunswell: Mr Thurston knew the neighbourhood well, and drove them to some charming nooks and points of view, somewhat out of the beaten guide-book track, which they had not hitherto discovered. Mrs Dalrymple openly expressed her gratification and surprise.

“I always knew Gerald Thurston was very clever and superior and all that sort of thing, you know,” she said to Eugenia, “but I had no idea he could make himself so agreeable.”

Eugenia herself was a little surprised. The truth was she had never before, since his return from India, seen Gerald to advantage: in her presence hitherto he had been always self-conscious and constrained, stern and moody, if not morose. Now it was different. A feeling of extreme pity, of almost brotherly anxiety for her happiness, had replaced the intenser feelings with which he had regarded her; he had nor longer any fears for himself or his own self-control in her presence – that was all over, past for ever like a dream in the night; he could venture now to be at ease, could devote himself unselfishly to cheer and interest her in any way that came into his power. And under this genial influence the bruised petals of the flower, not crushed so utterly as had seemed at first, began to revive and expand again, to feel conscious of the bright sunshine and gentle breezes still around it, though for a time all light and life had seemed to it to have deserted its world.

“I had no idea Gerald was so wonderfully understanding and sympathising,” thought Eugenia. “If I have a feeling or a question it is difficult to put in words, he seems to know what I mean by instinct;” and encouraged by this discovery, she allowed herself to talk to him, once or twice when they were alone together, of several things which had lately been floating in her mind.

Trouble and disappointment were doing their work with her; she was beginning to look for a meaning in many things that hitherto she had disregarded or accepted with youthful carelessness as matters-of-course with which she had no call to meddle. But now it was different: she had eaten of the fruit of the tree; she had ventured her all in a frail bark, and it had foundered; it had come home to her that life and love are often sad, and sometimes terrible facts, and her heart was beginning to swell with a great pity for her suffering-kind. It was all vague and misty to her as yet; it might result in nothing, as is too often the end of such crises in a growing character, but still the germ was there.

“Gerald,” she said to Mr Thurston, suddenly, after she had been sitting silent for some minutes. (They were in the gardens of the hotel at the time. It was Sunday afternoon and a mild April day; Mr and Mrs Dalrymple had gone to church again, but Eugenia and Mr Thurston had been tempted by the pleasant weather to play truant.) “Gerald,” said Eugenia, “I wish there was something that women could do.”

Mr Thurston turned towards her. She now looking straight before her with a puzzled yet earnest expression on her face.

“Something that women can do?” he repeated, not quite sure of her drift. “I thought there were lots of things. Most women complain of want of time.”

“So do I sometimes. I am never at a loss for occupation – that’s not what I mean,” she replied. “What I mean is, I wish there were bigger things – more useful things for women to do.”

“You have not been infected with the Women’s Rights mania, surely?” inquired Gerald, rather unresponsively.

“Of course not. Don’t laugh at me, Gerald. You can understand me – if you choose. I should like to feel I was of some use to somebody, and lately I have felt as if no one in the world would be the least bit the worse if I were out of it.” Here she blushed a little. “Now don’t you see if I were a man I could set to work hard at something – something that would be of use in some way. Put it to yourself, Gerald; suppose – suppose you had given up thoughts of – of being very happy yourself,” (here the blush deepened to hot crimson), “wouldn’t you naturally – after a while, you know – wouldn’t you set to work harder than ever at whatever you felt was your own special business – the thing you felt you were most likely to be of use in? Now a woman has no such field open to her.”

Internally Gerald had winced a little, two or three times, while Eugenia was speaking. Externally, he sat there looking colder and more impassive than usual. He had loved this girl, had set her up on the pedestal of ideal womanhood that somewhere or other exists in the imagination of every man not wholly faithless or depraved; she had fallen, it is true, in a sense, from this height, she had proved herself in his judgment to be but as the rest of her sex – childishly credulous, ready to mistake the glitter for the gold, honeyed words for heart devotion – yet still he cared for her, was tenderly anxious for her welfare. But of all things Gerald hated sentimentalism!

“There are plenty of Protestant sisterhoods,” he said, drily. “How would one of those suit you?”

Eugenia made no reply. After waiting a moment or two, Mr Thurston turned towards her again. To his surprise he saw that her eyes were full of tears.

“Eugenia,” he exclaimed, softened at once, “have I hurt you? I did not intend it. I assure you I did not, in the least.”

“No, I know you didn’t,” she said, struggling to smile and to speak cheerfully. “I am very silly. I can’t help it. I have got so silly and touchy lately, the least thing seems to vex me. But you did hurt me a little, Gerald. I was in earnest in what I said, though you thought it missyish and contemptible. I have been trying to see how I could grow better and less selfish, and you don’t know how hard it is, for no one seems to understand. And, oh you don’t know, you who are so strong and wise, you don’t know how hard it is to be good when one is very unhappy.”

“Don’t I?” muttered he, but she did not catch the words.

“If I could be of use,” she went on again, after a little pause. “And why can’t I be? There must be plenty of misery in the world. Why can’t I make some of it a little less?”

“You can,” he answered, gently. “I don’t think I quite understood you. I thought you were envying men’s work and despising your own sphere – a very common and often excusable mistake. I see now there was a more unselfish spirit in what you meant.”

“I don’t know that,” she answered, doubtfully, but brightening up nevertheless. “I do think I should like to make some people happier, or a little less unhappy, and in some ways perhaps better too. For surely very often being happier would make people better, would it not? But I am selfish too – I want to get something to take me out of myself – something that I can get interested in by feeling it is of use.”

“Don’t you help your father sometimes?” inquired Gerald. “Haven’t you a good deal to do in looking after things at home?”

“No – very little indeed. The house has got into a jog-trot way of going on, and papa won’t have changes. What little there has been to do hitherto, I am afraid Sydney has done,” said Eugenia, blushing a little. “Of course I don’t intend to neglect that sort of thing, but there is very little to do. I do help my father whenever he will let me, by copying out things and hunting up references and quotations. But it isn’t often he wants help.”

“And would he not let you help him more if you asked him?”

“He might, but it would only be to please me,” replied Eugenia, despondingly. “No, I am afraid it is true – I am no use to anybody. Once, I remember, ever, ever so long ago,” she went on, as if ten or twenty years at least were within easy grasp of her memory, “I had visions of becoming frightfully learned, of studying all my life long, and getting to the bottom of everything. What a little goose I was! Just because I had learnt Latin and German and a few other things more thoroughly than most girls! I wonder sometimes if, after all, all the trouble papa took with us has been much good to us. Look at Sydney; what will be the use of it to her, marrying at eighteen? And as for me, if I were really clever I suppose I should go on working away, absorbed in the work without thinking of any result. But I can’t, Gerald. It doesn’t satisfy me. I want to see and feel a result.”

She looked up in his face, her bright, earnest eyes full of inquiry. “Can’t you help me?” they seemed to say.

Could he? A tantalising vision rose before him of how at one time he had looked forward to doing so – how well he understood her, and the special phase through which she was passing! Was it too late? Was there yet a chance that by much patience and by slow degrees he might win to himself this girl whom no one understood as he understood her, whose very faults and imperfections were dear to him? The thought seemed to dazzle and bewilder him, but a glance at Eugenia made him dismiss it. She sat there beside him, in such utter unconsciousness, such sisterly reliance on his friendship, that he felt it would be cruel to her and in every sense worse than useless to disturb the existing state of things. The far off, dimly possible future must take care of itself; and after all – she could never be quite the same Eugenia to him again.