Not Without Thorns

“Yes,” said Eugenia, “I —we– can never thank her enough for what she has done.”

“She says,” pursued Beauchamp, with unwonted humility, “I should have told you all about that old affair with her. I was very nearly doing so once, I remember, but – I don’t know how it was – I was bothered at that time, and I liked to keep you distinct from it all. I was bitter about Roma for a good while, and I disliked the subject. But, Eugenia, no suffering I have ever had to bear in my life has equalled that of the last few days.”

They were silent for a minute or two. “I must say,” Captain Chancellor went on, speaking more in his usual tone, “the Thurstons behaved very sensibly in not making any fuss. Nothing would have been so odious as any absurd story getting about.” But, happening to observe the pained expression of Eugenia’s face, he changed the subject, and went on to talk of some plans he had in his head of going abroad for a time, taking Eugenia to visit many places so far known to her but by name. “It would be the best way of making you strong again,” he said. “We might even spend next winter out of England, if we liked.” And, notwithstanding the unexpected encouragement she had met with in her new resolutions, it was a relief to Eugenia to be freed from the anticipation of an immediate recommencement of the life at Halswood, hitherto so lonely and uncongenial. She was touched, too, by the evident consideration for her happiness which prompted this new scheme, and Beauchamp, on his side, felt rewarded by her gratification for the amount of self-denial which the proposed plan entailed on him.

So when Roma rejoined them she quickly saw that her hopes had not been groundless; already the expression of Eugenia’s face had grown brighter and less despondent than she had seen it for long.

“Was I not a true prophet?” she said, to Eugenia, when they were by themselves again. “Are not things more hopeful than you expected?”

“Yes,” said Eugenia, thoughtfully, “they are; and it is you I have to thank for their being so, Roma.”

“No, don’t say that,” interrupted Roma, quickly. “I don’t like you to say so, because I want you to do Beauchamp justice. There is more to work upon in him than you were inclined to think, and you, as I told you before, have more power over him to draw out his best than any one else ever had or could have.”

“But still it is your doing,” persisted Eugenia, affectionately; “for who else but you could ever have opened my eyes to see this, or at least to look for it?”

A new feeling had wakened in her heart to her husband. From the ashes of the old unreasoning, wilfully blind, headstrong devotion had arisen a calmer, more tempered, more enduring sentiment. As yet she was hardly conscious of its existence; its component parts she could certainly not have defined. She only said to herself, “I don’t know how it is, but, somehow, what has passed to-day has made me feel sorry for Beauchamp. I don’t think hitherto any one has taken much pains to draw out what Roma calls ‘his best.’ And I am so weak and foolish and full of faults, how can I hope to do it? Yet, somehow, I think I do hope it.”

They all left Nunswell the next day, Roma travelling with them as far as Wareborough only, where she had promised a short visit to her cousins, the Dalrymples; Beauchamp and his wife returning to Halswood, there at once to commence preparations for their visit to foreign parts.

Eugenia trembled a little as they drew near the spot which, but so few days before, she had quitted with something very like despair in her heart. There was a mingling of almost superstitious apprehensiveness in her shrinking from “beginning again” – with new motives, new hopes, new patience – in the very place which had witnessed the woeful failure of her first essays, the cloudy ending to the too brilliant promise of the dawn of her married life. But these half-morbid feelings she was wise enough to keep to herself.

“I only hope,” she thought, “that Mrs Grier will not think herself bound to receive me in state after so short an absence. If she does I shall take it as a bad omen. She is a very good creature, but I shall never forget her first reception.”

So it was with some little apprehension that Mrs Chancellor looked out of the carriage as the front of the house came in sight. She knew Mrs Eyrecourt had gone; it had never occurred to her that poor little Floss had been temporarily left behind. Her surprise was great, her relief and pleasure extreme, when, almost before the carriage had stopped, she heard her own name shouted in the little girl’s peculiar pronunciation: “Aunty ’Genia, Aunty ’Genia, you have comed back! Kiss me quick! You never said good-bye when you wented away, and I cwied so! Please don’t never go away any more!”

The tears were not very far away from Eugenia’s own eyes, as she lifted the excited little mortal in her arms, and kissed the eager, flushed face.

“Dear little Floss,” she said, “I am so glad to come back to you;” and even Beauchamp was struck by the little scene.

“What an eccentric little creature it is,” he said to his wife, when, Floss’s rhapsodies having subsided, she said good-night and went off to bed “as good as gold.”

“Who would have thought that Gertrude’s child could have hugged away as vehemently at anyone as Floss did just now.”

And the child’s demonstrative affection put it into his head to make an unexpected proposal to Eugenia. “How would you like to take Floss with us?” he said. “I have no doubt Gertrude would be enchanted to let her come, and the child’s maid is French, which would be an advantage. You see we shall not be moving about at any uncomfortable speed; you are not strong enough for it, and that sort of thing is not my idea of travelling for pleasure. When there is no need for hurry, much better take it leisurely.”

Eugenia was delighted; she knew, though she never told it to anyone, the indirect influence for good which Floss’s innocent championship had had upon her life, and the idea of the child’s happiness was pleasant to her. Mrs Eyrecourt was delighted; so delighted that she wrote back accepting her brother’s offer, as if no shadow of anything disagreeable had ever disturbed the harmony of their intercourse. It suited her particularly well, to have Floss disposed of for the present, as she was anticipating a round of visits in which a child would have been rather an encumbrance, while yet, for the sake of appearances, she could not make up her mind to leave the little girl alone at Winsley for many weeks at a time. It looked well, too, to be able to tell her friends that her brother and his wife, “having no children of their own,” had taken such a fancy to her little daughter that they had begged leave to take her abroad with them for the winter; for Gertrude had sense enough to know that “family jars” are, of all things, the most undignified and “vulgar,” and she had endured some perturbation of spirit of late as to the probable nature of her future terms with her Halswood relatives.

“I am so glad you are going abroad,” she wrote; “it will be the very thing to set up Eugenia’s health and spirits. By-the-bye, I must not forget to send all sorts of kind messages from Addie and Victoria and their mother. The girls were sorry not to see you at Halswood as was arranged, but of course they quite understand my explanation about Eugenia’s not being well enough to receive them, and they hope to pay their visit some other time” etc, etc.

Some people – for of course in the neighbourhood of Halswood as elsewhere there were to be found human beings with superfluous energy to spare from the management of their own concerns, which they apparently conceived it to be their duty to bestow on those of others – some people thought it very odd and absurd of Captain and Mrs Chancellor to burden themselves with a child on their foreign tour. It was so odd as only to be explicable by the comprehensive assertion of Mrs Chancellor’s being, to say the least, “very odd altogether.” For notwithstanding all the care that had been taken to guard against outside remark, some amount of gossip had oozed out concerning Eugenia’s hasty flight from Halswood. Servants, the very best of them perhaps, will but be servants. It was not in Mrs Grier’s nature to refrain from lugubrious head-shakings and mysterious allusions when she found that her young mistress had actually left home without any explanation to herself, the vice-gerent of the establishment, of the reasons for this sudden step; it was not in the unexceptionable Blinkhorn’s nature to refrain, at the first table at least, from comment upon his master’s state of anxiety and dejection during the days of uncertainty and foreboding which succeeded his return home. And the natures of the various inferior functionaries in the Halswood household, being neither better nor worse than are ordinarily met with in their respective capacities, the rolling stone of gossip, contrary to the adage, grew and gathered as it went, till but few of the great houses in the neighbourhood, none certainly of the tea-tables in the little town of Chilworth or of the less pretentious Sunday afternoon entertainments in the farm houses on the estate, but had their own pet version of the Halswood scandal.

Of this, however, the principals in the little drama were, as is not unfrequently the case, in happy ignorance. As to the Chilworth edition of the story, as to the village chatter, they were of little consequence. They lived their appointed nine days, then died a natural death. But as to the more discreetly veiled, but nevertheless the far more insidious, whisper that went the round of “the county,” there is little saying where it would have stopped, how deep might not have been the social injury it would have caused to impulsive, reckless, innocent Eugenia, had it not suddenly received its death-blow from an unexpected but irresistible hand. It came to Lady Hereward’s ears, how or whence matters little, that the wife of the master of Halswood, “the girl with the beautiful face” which somehow had recalled the memory of the long years ago dead and buried little Alice, the young mother whose little baby had died, had somehow or other done something which threatened to get her “talked about.” And the good old woman rose to the occasion. “I think you are not aware, my dear Lady Vaughan,” she said, the first time the subject was publicly alluded to before her, “in fact, I am quite sure you cannot be aware that the young lady of whom you are speaking is a valued friend of mine, for I am certain you would not intentionally hurt my feelings or those of any one. Mrs Chancellor has passed through much sorrow, and she has my deepest sympathy. The report to which you allude is an exaggerated version of the simple fact that she was called away rather suddenly in her husband’s absence to some of her own friends. When she comes home again strong and well, as I hope she will, it will give me great pleasure to introduce her and any of my friends who have not yet met, to each other, for I hope she will be often at Marshlands.” Then she changed the subject; but this was the last that was heard, publicly at least, of “Mrs Chancellor’s elopement,” for Lady Hereward had queened it to some purpose during her forty years reign in the county.

It was in the latter part of July that Beauchamp and his wife left home. They stayed a little time in town, then proceeded by easy stages to Switzerland, intending there to spend the remainder of the summer and the early autumn, and when the colder weather drew near, to turn their steps to some one of the winter nests in the south of France. Their programme was carried out even more fully than they had intended. Winter came and went, though they learnt it only by the shortening and then lengthening again of the soft, sunny days; spring and summer, chasing travellers and swallows away once more to less sultry regions, followed; autumn returned, and Christmas, in the unfamiliar garb he wears by the shores of the blue Mediterranean, had passed by yet again, with his all-the-world-over greeting of “glad tidings and great joy,” before there was any talk of Halswood being again inhabited by its owners. Before that time came, Floss had learnt to chatter French like a magpie, Eugenia had come to doubt if she after all sufficiently appreciated the inestimable privilege of being “English bred and born,” and Beauchamp, on his part, was beginning to wonder if he would be equal to keeping his seat across country next season, after his long sojourning in the tents of Kedar, otherwise regions where “le sport” was alluded to with the uncomprehending bewilderment with which we used to discuss the fascination of the feast of Juggernaut – where a day with the Pau foxhounds furnished the only procurable pretence of a run.

At last the time for their return home was fixed. It had been in July they left England; it was not till the April “next but one” that they found themselves again within her shores, their party augmented by the presence of a French bonne, with a flapping white cap and a very satisfactory “worldly-looking” baby, a great boy of four months old, a most respectable son and heir to the hitherto ill-fated Chancellor estates. At first Eugenia’s disappointment that the little creature was not a daughter was great; but this feeling she expressed to no one, well aware that sympathy therein was hardly to be expected. She had learnt a good deal, she was learning every day more and more of the wisdom, the necessity of making the best of the materials with which she had to work; slowly, painfully was coming home to her the interpretation of the dream, the lesson of the great “life’s trial” in which so rashly, so ignorantly she had engaged. “Love” for her had not been “clear gain,” viewed by the light of the dim knowledge of to-day; but in the wiser afterwards “the sun will pierce;” the follies, the failures, the mistakes, the delusions will be lost in the beautiful whole, may indeed prove to have been essential to its perfection.

Not that Beauchamp Chancellor’s wife said or thought all this to herself; she speculated and theorised and philosophised much less than of old; she lived more in the present, taking life, as we all must take it sooner or later, if it is to be endurable at all, in a day-by-day fashion, leaving the “huge mounds of years,” the bewildering mazes of whys and wherefores, past and future, to be considered “by-and-by” – by-and-by, when surely we shall see things somewhat more clearly, more justly, more divinely, but a by-and-by which will never come to us if, dissatisfied with the fair promise of its far-off beauty, we seek to grasp its shadowy substance before the time.

So, in a sense – must it not always be but in a sense? – Eugenia was happy. Happier perhaps possibly, because she thought less about being happy than in the old days. She had seen before her in imagination a dreary road; to her surprise, ever and again as she walked along, fresh flowers began to spring by the wayside – little unobtrusive blossoms, hardly distinguishable till her foot had all but crushed out their tender life; tiny buds of brightness and sweetness, bringing many an unexpected spot of colour or breath of fragrance into her daily life.

She grew to be very thankful that her child was a boy; she learnt to be grateful for every link of sympathy between her husband and herself, she tried her utmost to strengthen and rivet each one of these; and though, apparently, at least, her efforts often failed, sometimes, on the other hand, she was rewarded by success surpassing her most sanguine hopes.

“He is not a grand character,” Roma had said, justly, “but, all the same, there is a great deal of good in him; and of all people, you, Eugenia, have most power to draw out and strengthen this.” And these simple words Beauchamp’s wife henceforth never allowed herself to forget.

They reached Halswood safe and well on a lovely spring evening. There stood Mrs Grier, her black silk dress relieved for once by some cheerful pink ribbons, tears of joy in her eyes at the non-fulfilment of her many gloomy prophecies. It was indeed, as she took care to inform her mistress, “a day she had little expected ever to see.” But Eugenia could smile at her now, as she assured her that “the luck had certainly turned” with the arrival of the great crowing baby who was to bring life and brightness to the old house.

And before long Halswood looked more cheerful than it had done for many a day. Mrs Eyrecourt’s anxiety to resume the guardianship of her little daughter was not so overwhelming as to be allowed to interfere with her plans for the season. She had just taken a house in town for her usual three months, so she contented herself with “a mere glimpse” of the travellers as they passed through, expressed herself delighted with the improvement in the child’s manners and appearance, and yielded without much pressing to the proposal that Floss should accompany her friends home and remain with them till the summer. “The country is much better for children certainly,” said Mrs Eyrecourt. “I shall feel happier for Floss not to be so long in town. I only wish I could go down to Halswood with you myself, but it is impossible. I must be in town as much as I can now, so that dear Quin can spend his Saturdays and Sundays with me.”

But though Gertrude could not spare time to welcome the absentees back to Halswood, Roma could. She joined them there within a week of their arrival, and for a few pleasant days Sydney and her belongings joined them too. Poor Sydney’s holidays were not many, but her busy life seemed to suit her; her fair face was as calm, her voice as sweet and even, as in her girlish days; and when she and Frank went away, back again to smoky Wareborough, they were cheered by the thought that their intercourse with Eugenia promised to be frequent and cordial. Not much private talk had passed between the sisters; Eugenia was charier of confidences, than had once been natural to her, but Sydney was satisfied.

“She is much happier than I ever hoped to see her,” said the younger sister to her husband. “It is not exactly the sort of happiness I should long ago have imagined would have contented Eugenia; somehow, even though I feel so thankful and relieved about her, I could hardly prevent the tears coming to my eyes when I looked at her. She must have suffered so much, Frank (though outwardly things have been so prosperous with her) to be so changed.”

“She has had to learn her lessons like other people,” said Frank, oracularly.

“But isn’t it wonderful how she adapts herself to her husband?” said Sydney. “He is improved, I must allow; but there cannot be much sympathy between them, and Eugenia must know it.”

“No doubt she does, but better women than Eugenia,” replied Frank, with a spice of his old antagonism, “have had to get on with less. And Chancellor’s by no means a bad fellow after all; many a man would have had less patience with Eugenia’s freaks and fancies than he. I always told you they’d shake into their places some day. By-the-bye, you must remind me to give that invitation to Gerald. I hope he will go, for more reasons than one.”

Sydney smiled. “I hope so too,” she said.

Volume Three – Chapter Nine.

Insuperable Obstacles

But, Edith dead!

Too Late.

Gerald Thurston did go to Halswood. Whether he did so knowing that there he would again meet Roma Eyrecourt is a secret that has never been divulged; whether in suggesting to her husband that he should invite Sydney’s brother-in-law Eugenia was influenced by malice prepense has never transpired. Be these possibilities as they may the event they would have foreshadowed came to pass; and in this fashion.

Once, during the absence of the Chancellors on the Continent, Mr Thurston and Miss Eyrecourt had met again. It was during one of Roma’s flying visits to the Dalrymples. They had seen each other several times, had talked a good deal on a subject interesting to them both – Eugenia – and from that on one or two occasions had drifted into other talk, had found out insensibly a good deal about each other’s thoughts and tastes and opinions, had discovered various remarkable points of coincidence in these directions, various no less impressive points of disagreement which both felt conscious it would have been pleasant and satisfactory to discuss further. All this talking no doubt might even then have led to a definite result, but for the prepossession with which each mind was guarded. Roma, unbeliever though she professed herself in the constancy of any man’s devotion, yet made one exception to her rule. She believed, or told herself, with perhaps suspicious frequency and decision, that she believed in the unalterable nature of Gerald’s feelings towards Eugenia.

“It is the only case, out of a book that is to say,” she would repeat to herself, “I have ever even heard of, where a man kept faithful to his first ideal. Not that she even turned out to be his ideal, from what he has told me; but she was and still is herself. I believe he would be content to serve her unthanked all his life, and she will never have the faintest notion of it! Ah, yes, things are queerly arranged. But I am very thankful I was born matter-of-fact and easy-going, not likely to break my heart for even the best of men.”

Gerald’s prepossession was of quite another nature. He did not think it impossible that, had he dared to show his growing regard for this heartless young lady, he might not have succeeded in winning that which she was so fond of declaring she was not possessed of. But his head was perfectly full of the notion that, though personally she might in time have learnt to care for him, his position would prove an insuperable objection. “As if she would ever consent to live at Wareborough,” he said to himself. “Ah, no, it is utterly out of the question.” And so, with the burnt child’s dread of the fire, he refrained from indulging in tantalising speculations on the possibility of overcoming these taken-for-granted prejudices on Miss Eyrecourt’s part, and from time, to time congratulated himself on the skill with which he had preserved intact his peace of mind and on the strength of self-control which permitted him to enjoy a good and beautiful woman’s friendship where a nearer and dearer tie was impossible.

But there came a day when his self-satisfaction received its death-blow, when he was fain to confess that after all he was neither wiser nor stronger than his fellows. He had been more than a week at Halswood. He had come there little intending or expecting to remain so long, but the days had passed very pleasantly; his hosts were so cordial, Miss Eyrecourt so friendly and companionable, that, having no pressing business on hand, he had been persuaded to linger on from day to day. It was not very often that he found himself alone with Roma, but one afternoon, some other visitors having left, it happened that they two were thrown on each other for entertainment.

“Shall you mind, Roma, if we leave you and Mr Thurston alone to-day?” Eugenia had asked her friend after luncheon. “Beauchamp is so anxious to drive me out with the new ponies – he has driven them several times, and says they go so beautifully! And the pony carriage only holds two and little Tim, the groom, behind, and I think perhaps Beauchamp would be disappointed if I did not go.”

“Of course you must go,” said Roma, brightly. “I don’t mind in the least. I will take Mr Thurston a tremendously long walk, and see if he isn’t much more tired than I when we come home. Men are so conceited about that sort of thing.”

Eugenia laughed. She was leaving the room, but a sudden impulse seemed to come over her. She turned back to the table where Roma was sitting writing, and kissed her gently.

“What is that for?” asked Roma. “Am I particularly good to-day?”

“No, yes. I mean you are always good,” answered Eugenia. “I am very happy to-day, and I always feel as if I should thank you when I feel so.” Roma looked up with a grateful look in her dark eyes. (“It is nice of you to say so, but I don’t deserve it,” she interrupted. “Yes you do,” said Eugenia, and then went on with what she had been speaking about.) “It was something Beauchamp said this morning that made me happy. I needn’t tell you it all, but just a little. He asked me, Roma, if I didn’t think we were getting to be very happy together, and he said, ‘At least, Eugenia, you make me very happy, and I think I am getting to understand you and your ways of thinking about things better. I am learning to see how selfish I was – a while ago, you know. But I trust all that is over.’ Then he said something else, I don’t know what put it into his head – something about baby and how we should bring him up, and the future. Roma,” she broke off, suddenly, “if Beauchamp were to die now I should miss him terribly. I am so glad to feel so, for there was a time when I couldn’t, when my life stretched before me like a long slavery. Don’t think me wicked to speak so – you understand me?”