Not Without Thorns

In one respect she did him injustice. Before she was out of his sight her husband had repented of his harshness; the white, wounded look that had come over her sweet eager face followed him all the day, and had he not been afraid of Gertrude’s making fun of him he would have turned back at the lodge and begged Eugenia to forgive him before he left her. Still, at the same time, he remained fully satisfied that he had had cause for annoyance, and he quite believed that in the end Eugenia, like the rest of her sex, would be none the worse for a few sharp words.

By-and-by it occurred to Eugenia that her sister-in-law’s criticism of her red eyes was by no means to be desired. She set to work to bathe them, therefore, and then, the more effectually to remove their traces, she put on her hat and went out for a stroll. How pretty it was out of doors! The house, quaint and irregular, with its gables and latticed windows, was thoroughly to Eugenia’s liking; the grounds well kept, but not too modern in appearance to suit the ivy-grown Grange; the beauty of the midsummer sky, the fragrance of the sweet fresh summer-morning air, every object which caught her eye, every breath which wafted across her face seemed fall of harmony and content.

“How I wish I could feel happy too!” thought Eugenia.

And, after all, what a very small thing had caused her unhappiness, what a mere trifle had roused Beauchamp’s displeasure! That was the worst of it, she thought; if so very little made him angry, how could she hope to avoid incessantly irritating him? Yet he was not an ill-tempered man exactly – not so much ill-tempered as exacting and prejudiced.

“We have lived in such different worlds,” said Eugenia to herself, “that I suppose it is no wonder we do not at once understand each other’s feelings on all subjects. Perhaps in a little while I shall manage better, and, of course, before his sister little things may annoy him that would not otherwise do so, and it is nice of him to wish her to see everything about me in the best light. If only he had not gone away angry with me!”

Thus she tried to soften and excuse what had so pained her. She would not, even to herself, allow that she felt more than a passing disappointment; that Beauchamp himself was beginning to reveal a character less admirable, less lofty than her ideal, she was as yet far from owning. The triviality, and vulgarity even, of some of the prejudices and apprehensions he had avowed, she instinctively refrained from dwelling upon. She could not have understood them had she done so, for the excuses for her husband’s smallnesses – the struggling, anomalous circumstances in which the childhood and youth of the brother and sister had been spent, the triumph of Gertrude’s successful marriage and her determination that Beauchamp’s career should be a brilliant one – all these were unknown to Eugenia. She saw that he was considerably under his sister’s influence, much more so, indeed, than she had expected; but she attributed it to habit and association, knowing little of the greatness of the obligations which he owed to Mrs Eyrecourt.

And even had the whole history been related to her, all the details explained, it would have been of little service. Eugenia was far from the stage of being able to pity or judge leniently where she could not sympathise; and, indeed, any suggestion that there were deficiencies in her husband’s nature for which she must learn to “make allowance” she would still, at this time, have repelled with indignation; the hard lesson before her could be learnt by herself alone, and the hardest part would be that of recognising the good yet remaining in her lot, though the manner and form of it should be utterly different from the imagined bliss of her girlish dreams.

She was walking slowly up and down the terrace on the south side of the house – the same terrace which had been the scene of Roma’s unintentional eavesdropping – when a voice from behind startled her, a small, eager, childish voice.

“Aunty ’Genia,” it said, “Aunty ’Genia, I’ve wunned away from nurse and I want the stowy about when you was a little girl,” and from round the corner, running at full speed, appeared Floss, breathless and shaggier even than her wont.

“You’ve runned away from nurse, Floss?” said Eugenia, seating herself as she spoke on a garden bench beside her, and lifting the child on to her knee. “I don’t know that you should have done that. We had better find nurse first, or she won’t know where you are.”

“I don’t want her to know,” replied Floss, opening her eyes and establishing herself more securely in her present quarters; “that’s why I wunned away.”

She evidently was prepared to resist all recognition of established authority by her new friend; but nurse, less easily deluded than the tiny rebel had imagined, at this juncture fortunately made her appearance, proving by no means loth to accept a half-hour’s holiday.

“I will bring Miss Floss in myself,” said Eugenia. “You can show me the way to the nursery, can’t you, Floss?”

And nurse retreated, murmuring hopes that Mrs Chancellor would not find her charge too troublesome, and inwardly not a little astonished at the whimsical infant’s unwonted sociability.

Floss’s next proceeding was to peer up deliberately into her aunt’s eyes, pushing Eugenia’s hat back a little off her face, the better to pursue her investigations.

“What are you looking at, Floss?” asked her aunt. “I don’t like my hat at the back of my head; the sun makes my eyes ache.”

“Your eyes is wed,” observed Floss with satisfaction, quite ignoring Eugenia’s mild remonstrance. “You’ve been cwying. Why do you cwy? Aunt Woma never does.”

“Doesn’t she?” said Eugenia. “Perhaps she does, only you don’t see. Most people cry sometimes, when they are sorry.”

“And are you sowwy? I am sowwy if you are,” said the child, with a change to tenderness in her tone which Eugenia had not expected. “Have you been naughty and has somebody scolded you? I am vewy often scolded,” and she shook her head with a curious mixture of resignation and indifference.

“But you are a little girl, poor little Floss, and I am big,” said Eugenia, feeling the tears not very far off, however, notwithstanding her self-assertion; “big people aren’t scolded like children. Big people are sorry about other things.”

“Then I don’t want to be big,” said Floss, decidedly. “Now tell me about when you was little. How many dolls had you, and was your cat white or speckly like mine?”

“I had a great many dolls,” replied Eugenia, “but they weren’t all mine; they were between with my sister. But we had no cat.”

“What a pity!” said Floss, sympathisingly. “Wouldn’t your mamma let you?”

“I had no mamma,” said Eugenia; “only a papa and a sister.”

“A papa,” said Floss, consideringly. “I don’t know if papas is nice. Mammas isn’t, not always. How big was your sister – as big as Quin?”

“How big is Quin?”

“Vewy big,” said Floss, importantly. “He’s past nine. He’s away at school now.”

“And don’t you love him very much?”

“Yes, he’s a nice boy, only nurse says it’s a chance if school doesn’t spoil him. How could school spoil him? Mamma spoils him, nurse says.”

“I think nurse shouldn’t say so many things,” observed Eugenia, sagely. “But never mind about spoiling. Well, my little sister was very fond of me and I was very fond of her, and we learned our lessons together and had lots of dolls.”

“What was their names?” said Floss, nestling up closer on her aunt’s knee, in evident anticipation of something very delightful.

“Their names?” said Eugenia. “Why, let me see. There was Lady Evelina, she had blue eyes and light hair, and Lady Francesca, her sister, who had black eyes and hair; and then there were Flora and Lucy and Annette, all smaller dolls. And there was one doll we were very proud of, which a lady brought us from Paris, and we never called her anything but Poupée. And we had one dear old-fashioned wooden doll, with a merry face and red cheeks. We called her Mary Ann Jolly, and I almost think we loved her the best of all. Dear me,” she broke off abruptly, almost forgetting the presence of the child on her knee, “how strange it is to remember all these things! How silly and happy we were! So long ago!”

For “long ago” seem at nineteen the few short years dividing us from what we then call our childhood; though, further on our course, we look back and see that the childishness, the ignorance, the unreal estimates of ourselves and others were still clogging our steps, hindering our true progress – as, indeed, to a greater or less extent is the case to the very end of the toilsome journey. Happy those who keep beside them to that end some others of the companions who started with them at the first, the truthfulness and trust, the earnestness in the present, the yet not inconsistent faith in a far-off better future – a future when much of what perplexes us now shall be made plainer, when we shall be stronger to work, more unselfish to love.

For a moment Eugenia sat silent. But “Tell me more, aunty, please!” begged Floss, tugging at her dress. And Eugenia set to work and delighted the little creature with a minute biography of each individual doll, ending up with a promise that when Floss came to pay her a visit, “some day,” such of the venerable ladies as were yet in existence should be unearthed from the box in the garret of the Wareborough house, (where not so very long ago Eugenia had one day caught sight of their once familiar faces), and produced for the little girl’s inspection.

By the end of the half-hour agreed upon with nurse there were few traces of tears on Eugenia’s face, and Floss’s kiss and hug of ecstatic gratitude left a brightness behind them which somewhat surprised Mrs Eyrecourt, returning home with slightly contemptuous anticipation of the task before her of “looking after Beauchamp’s wife; a girl who has seen and knows nothing, and is certain to be crying her eyes out because he has had to leave her.”

Eugenia was on the lawn at the front of the house when Gertrude drove up.

“Such a delightful drive we have had,” exclaimed Mrs Eyrecourt, throwing the reins to the groom and joining her sister-in-law. “I am so glad I went. It was quite a comfort to see Beauchamp start in good spirits. He has a painful task before him.”

“Yes,” said Eugenia, not indeed knowing what else to say. She was almost entirely in ignorance of the family connections, was unacquainted even with the names of the dead boy’s sisters, and not perfectly sure if his mother was alive or not. But she would not let Gertrude see how little she knew. “I have been amusing myself with your little girl, Mrs Eyrecourt,” she went on, changing the subject; “we got on so well together. I have just taken her back to nurse.”

“You are very kind,” said Gertrude, “but really you must not trouble yourself so. Floss is a most peculiar child. I think she is happier with her nurse than with anyone else, and I find that being taken notice of spoils her temper, so I do not have her much downstairs. I am so sorry I cannot stay out longer just now to show you the gardens and what there is to see, but I have several letters to write. And oh, by-the-by, that reminds me, Beauchamp wished me not to let you forget to order your mourning. Under the circumstances, you see, of Beauchamp’s being poor Roger’s heir, your mourning will have to be deeper than would be ordinarily worn for a second cousin.”

“Yes,” said Eugenia again. “I was thinking of writing about it to-day.”

“Indeed,” said Gertrude, a little surprised, “where were you thinking of ordering it? I was going to say I would write to my dressmaker (I think her the very best) and ask her to send down a list of what you should have. Your commoner dresses I suppose you leave to your maid!”

“I have no maid at present,” said Eugenia. “The one who was partly maid to Syd – to my sister and me – is remaining with my father as his housekeeper. I am going to have a niece of hers for my maid – a very nice girl, whom I have known all my life. She is at Wareborough now, learning a little from her aunt, and she will be ready for me when we go there on our way to – ”

“Bridgenorth,” she was going to have said, forgetting the complete reversal of all their plans, but remembering it in time to stop short.

“To Halswood?” suggested Gertrude. “Wareborough can hardly be called on the road to Halswood. Halswood, you know, is near Chilworth, quite three hours from Marly Junction. But as to your maid – I hardly think you will find an inexperienced girl sufficient now. It is quite different from if you had been going to live quietly at Bridgenorth. Beauchamp will of course send in his papers at once, and he is pretty sure to get leave till he is gazetted out. I daresay I can help you to find a good maid without much difficulty.”

“You are very kind,” said Eugenia, in her turn, “but I should not like to give up Barbara’s niece without a trial. As for my mourning dresses I think it will be best to write to the dressmaker at home who has always worked for me. I can at least get from her what I want at first.”

“A Wareborough dressmaker!” exclaimed Gertrude, lifting her eyebrows. “My dear Eugenia, you must excuse me, but I don’t think that sort of thing will please Beauchamp. He is so very particular.”

“I know he is,” replied Eugenia, quietly, “and therefore I always study to please him. He likes all the dresses I have, and no one can be more particular than I am about their fitting well. The person I speak of made this one,” touching the pretty lavender dress she was wearing, “and the one I had on last night. Don’t you think they fit well?”

“I really have not particularly observed,” said Gertrude, less cordially. “I dare say they do, but fitting is not everything.”

“Certainly not,” said Eugenia, “and of course I know a Wareborough dressmaker cannot make things as fashionably as a London one. But Sydney and I have taken pains to get this person to make our things in the way we like, and I do not care about being too fashionable. I don’t think it is good taste.”

Mrs Eyrecourt smiled, but her smile was not a very pleasant one, and she did not repeat her offer. She was far from thinking it worth her while to enter into any discussion with this very daring young person on even so trifling a subject as dress; but in her own mind she resolved to give her brother a hint as to the expediency of at once and for ever separating his wife from the influences of her former home.