Not Without Thorns

Beauchamp’s brow slightly clouded over – a remembrance of his little lectures in Paris crossed his mind uncomfortably. He had never been able to persuade himself that Eugenia had thoroughly entered into the spirit of his advice.

“She is certainly clever naturally,” he replied, evasively, “and I suppose she is what is called well-educated. Her father is a very talented man, in an odd, eccentric way, and education is his hobby. He has taught his daughters all sorts of things – almost as if they were boys.”

“Ah, indeed,” said Mrs Eyrecourt, regretfully. “I am sorry to hear that. One must certainly be somebody for oddity to pass muster. However, at your wife’s age present influence is everything. I remember you said she had very few relations, and those she has she need not see much of. On the whole I confess, Beauchamp, you might have done worse if you were determined to do a thing of the kind.”

She smiled as she spoke, and though for a minute Captain Chancellor was half-inclined to tell her that her criticism of his wife was impertinent and uncalled for, he thought better of it, partly moved thereto by hearing the rustle of Eugenia’s approaching dress; so he too smiled, and murmured some words expressive of gratification at his sister’s favourable opinion.

Just then Eugenia entered the room. She had taken off her travelling dress, and looked fair and sweet and graceful in the white muslin that had replaced it; and the half shy, half deprecating air which hung about her on this her first introduction to her husband’s relations seemed to add to her great beauty. Both brother and sister turned towards her as she came in.

“Gertrude must see how lovely she is,” thought Beauchamp. “I wish she could see Eugenia and Addie Chancellor side by side.”

And “What a pity she has not a little more presence and ‘style!’” thought Mrs Eyrecourt, who could think vulgar words though incapable of uttering them.

But as neither expressed their thoughts aloud, unbroken peace and harmony were the order of the evening.

Volume Two – Chapter Ten.

Only Floss!

Minds that have nothing to confer
Find little to perceive.

    Wordsworth.
As Eugenia came downstairs the next morning, she met a small person toiling upward, one foot at a time. Eugenia loved children. She stopped at once and knelt down beside the little creature, the better to get sight of the face half hidden by the tangles of wavy hair.

“And who are you, dear?” she said, kindly. “One of my little nieces, I suppose.” She knew that Mrs Eyrecourt had children, but was ignorant how many or of what ages.

“I don’t know,” said the little girl, rather surlily. “I’m only Floss;” and she seemed eager to set off again on her journey upstairs.

“Floss? What a nice funny little name!” said her new aunt-in-law, detaining her gently. “Is it because you have got such pretty flossy hair that they call you so?”

“I don’t know,” said Floss again, but more amiably than before. “I didn’t know my hair was pwetty. Yours is,” touching Eugenia’s bright brown tresses as she spoke. “It shines so nice in the sun;” for it was a brilliant summer morning, and some sunbeams had found their way through the quaint pointed windows, lighting up the oak-panelled hall and wide, shallow-stepped staircase where the two were standing. “I like your hair,” pursued Floss, waxing confidential. “I don’t like light hair, nor I don’t like black.”

“Don’t you, dear? Why not?” asked Eugenia, amused at the oddity of the child.

“Don’t tell,” said the little girl, cautiously. “I don’t like light because mamma’s is light, and that other fat girl’s; and I don’t like black because Aunty Woma’s is black, and nurse’s.”

Eugenia was a little taken aback. Could the child be “quite right,” she wondered.

“Let me see your face, little Floss,” she said, pushing back the fair hair from the broad white forehead and raising the child’s head a little towards her. “Right!” – of course she was right. There was no want of intellect, or humour either, in the well-shaped little features and green-grey, twinkling eyes.

“You have got a nice face, Floss. Will you give me a kiss?” asked Eugenia. “But, do you know, when I was a little girl I didn’t say I didn’t like anybody.”

“I didn’t say that,” returned Floss. “I was only speaking of people’s hairs. I like you. You’re not fat, like that girl! Are you my new aunt? Nurse said my new aunt was coming. Sometimes I like nurse; but, do you know, she does pull my hair so when it is vewy tuggy! Will you tell me about when you was a little girl?”

“Yes, dear,” said Eugenia. “You shall come to my room, or perhaps you and I will go out into the garden together. Now I must run down quick to breakfast.”

She left the child with a kiss, but when she got to the dining-room door, happening to glance back again, there was the shaggy head pressed against the bannisters, the funny eyes peering down after her.

“What a queer little girl!” thought Eugenia. “I wonder if her mother was like her at her age? How odd it sounds to hear a child talking about not liking her nearest friends. I wonder if Mrs Eyrecourt and Roma dislike children?”

On the whole Eugenia had felt agreeably disappointed in her sister-in-law. Gertrude looked so young and pretty compared to what she had expected; there was nothing formidable about her.

“I dare say we shall get on very well,” thought the bride, quite satisfied with this reasonable anticipation. With all her impulsiveness she had never been given to sudden or vehement friendships, Sydney had been to her all that she wished for in this direction; but she was sincerely anxious to please her husband by responding cordially to whatever friendly overtures this sister of his, of whom he evidently thought so highly, might seem disposed to make. So far only one thing had repelled Eugenia; Mrs Eyrecourt had seemed almost to forget the night before what a complete stranger Beauchamp’s wife still was to all their family interests and connections.

“Or perhaps,” thought Eugenia, with a little pang, “she takes it for granted that I know more, that he has told me more than is the case. She may not know,” she added to herself, as if to suggest a ground of consolation, “how little opportunity there was for anything of the kind before we were married. And, after all, it was natural they should have a good deal to talk about, only seeing each other for one night and so much having happened since they met, and three are always an awkward party.”

Still no doubt she had felt a little lonely; and, inexperienced as she was, she had missed vaguely what she hardly knew she had expected – the being “made-of,” perhaps, as he would have been at home had Beauchamp taken her there for her first bridal visit instead of to Winsley – the sort of pleasant little temporary prestige that seems to come naturally to every young wife in the first blush of her new life. None of this had met her at Winsley. Tired as she was, she had dug deep down into one of her trunks to find the pretty simple bride-like dress which Sydney had begged her to keep fresh for the momentous occasion of “being introduced to Captain Chancellor’s friends;” but, so far as her two companions were concerned, it had seemed to Eugenia she might as well have kept on her travelling dress – better perhaps, for it was dark grey and would have seemed more in accordance with Mrs Eyrecourt’s deep mourning attire, which, it did strike her sister-in-law, she might for the first evening of their arrival have laid aside.

And all through dinner and through the evening that succeeded it, the conversation had not been about things in which the young wife could have easily taken part; about their travels, what they had seen etc, nor even about their future in a sense allowing her to make inquiries or remarks. It had been all about Halswood and the Chancellors and other people more or less concerned in the late changes in the family, but of whom Eugenia had never heard. And she had gone to bed at last tired and depressed, with a vague sort of feeling that she was a stranger and outsider, and a foolish, childish, vehement revolt against the life before her.

“I hate the very name of Halswood!” she said to herself, as she sadly unfastened the dress she had put on with some amount of pleasurable anticipation; “I have a conviction I shall not be happy there. I wish with all my heart that poor boy were alive again and that nothing of all this had come to Beauchamp.”

Her good sense, however, and previous experience prevented her expressing any of this to her husband; and her heart smote her a little when he kissed her as fondly as ever the next morning, and told her she had looked very pretty the night before, “he liked that dress.” Only he spoilt it a little by going on to remind her that she must see about mourning at once. Gertrude would advise her what to get and where to order it.

“Indeed she was a little surprised you had not thought of it in Paris. You could easily have left your orders and been fitted,” he said; “but, of course, as Gertrude remembered, you would not have known what dressmaker to go to, so perhaps it is as well as it is.”

Eugenia resisted the inclination to tell him that she felt quite equal to the management of her clothes without Mrs Eyrecourt’s assistance, and the momentary irritation passed away and she laughed at herself for having felt it. It was a bright morning, the view from her window was lovely, she had slept well, and she was only nineteen! It came naturally to her to take a more hopeful view of things than the night before, to make excuses for what had then appeared to her very wounding neglect, to think it after all possible that life might not be without its roses even at Halswood! Almost immediately after breakfast Captain Chancellor had to leave.

“It is such a lovely day, Beauchamp,” said Mrs Eyrecourt, “don’t you think it would be nice to drive to the station in the pony-carriage? I dare say you would like to drive him there, would you not?” she continued, turning to Eugenia. “My ponies are very good.”

“Thank you,” answered Mrs Chancellor, “I should like it very much, but I cannot drive.” She coloured a little, not so much from annoyance at having to confess her deficiencies, as from the consciousness of her sister-in-law’s eyes being fixed upon her in a sort of smiling, good-natured criticism. “I don’t know anything about horses,” she went on, in her nervousness falling into the unnecessary candour against which her husband had warned her. “I have never ridden or driven in my life. My father has no horses. We have never been accustomed to anything of the kind at Wareborough.”

“Oh indeed,” said Mrs Eyrecourt, urbanely.

But Captain Chancellor got up from his seat with a quick movement, which his wife had already learnt to interpret only too truly. This time, however, she fancied her eyes must have deceived her, for when he spoke his voice sounded as calm and softly modulated as usual.

“Yes,” he said, cheerfully, “that’s one of the accomplishments you must take up, Eugenia. You must give her some lessons, Gertrude. I don’t think you will find her a bad pupil; she has plenty of nerve, and that’s the great thing.”

Gertrude looked a little surprised, almost, Eugenia fancied, a very little disappointed, at her brother’s pleasant tone. But she recovered herself instantly.

“I shall be very glad indeed to teach Eugenia anything I know,” she said, amiably. “Not that I am half as good a whip as Roma.”

Eugenia hardly heard what she said, for the quick thrill of pleasure and gratitude that had shot through her on hearing her husband’s words had completely changed the current of her thoughts.

“How good and kind of Beauchamp to speak so of me,” she said to herself. “I wish I could remember not to show myself to disadvantage in that stupid way. I wish I were more dignified and reserved.”

She only saw him alone for an instant before he left. They were standing in the hall waiting for Mrs Eyrecourt, who was going to drive her ponies herself, as, probably, she had in her heart intended to do from the first.

“Beauchamp,” began Eugenia, eagerly, but in a low voice, looking round to see that no servant was within earshot, “Beauchamp, I did think it so kind of you to speak that way about my learning to drive. I was so afraid what I said might have annoyed you, like that day at the Luxembourg, for you see I haven’t got accustomed to not being over-communicative, but I really will – ”

“Don’t speak of it,” he interrupted, angrily, turning from her abruptly. “I expect next to hear you say you never saw silver forks and spoons before. How you can be so unutterably childish and silly, and so regardless of my feelings, Eugenia, passes my comprehension. Ah, Gertrude,” with a sudden, but complete, change of tone, as Mrs Eyrecourt appeared on the staircase, “there you are! I was just thinking of hurrying you; we have no time to spare,” and he hastened forward to hand his sister into the carriage.

Too startled at first to be fully conscious how deeply she was wounded, Eugenia mechanically followed them to the porch, stood there till they had driven off, smiling and nodding farewell.

And this was her first parting from her husband!

When the pony-carriage was out of sight Eugenia went up to her own room, and, locking the door against all possibility of intrusion, wept the bitter tears of youth when it first experiences what it is to be repulsed and scorned by the one it had deemed all sympathy and devotion, when the first terrible suspicion creeps in that it has been deceived in its idol. For none of the small jars in Paris had ended like this; she had felt them acutely at the time, but they had invariably been smoothed over again. But that Beauchamp should have spoken so harshly, so woundingly, just as he was leaving her, when there could be no opportunity of removing the sting his words had left – it was too cruel, and Eugenia’s tears flowed afresh.