Not Without Thorns

“Understand you, dear Eugenia? Yes, thoroughly,” said Roma. “And years and years hence I trust and believe you will feel as you say you do now, yet more strongly. I don’t think the sort of happiness you feel is likely to fade or lessen,” she sighed, half unconsciously as she spoke.

Eugenia looked at her affectionately. She seemed on the point of saying something more, but changed her mind and, kissing Roma again, left the room.

How it came about they could neither of them in all probability have exactly related. They went the long walk Miss Eyrecourt had determined upon; they talked of every general subject under the skies, avoiding at first, as if by tacit mutual consent, any of closer personal interest. But after a while, somehow, Mr Thurston came to talking of himself, of his life, his hopes, his disappointments and failures. He was not by any means an egotistical man. Roma could not but feel flattered, by his confidence; she listened with undisguised interest. Suddenly, to her surprise, he alluded to the first time they had met.

“It is curious to look back now to that evening, is it not?” he said. “You were the first lady I had spoken to for, I may say, years. Out there I was completely cut off from any intercourse of the kind. And what a fool (I beg your pardon, Miss Eyrecourt) you must have thought me! Do you remember how I bored you with my confidences? I assure you I never remember our conversation without feeling inclined to blush, only you were so very kind —that part of it,” he added, in a somewhat lower tone, “I don’t want to forget.”

“You need not want to forget any of it,” said Roma, blushing, however, herself as she spoke; “I certainly did not think of you as you imagine. It has always been very pleasant to me to think that – that you thought me, even at first sight, trustworthy – fit to talk to as you did. The only unpleasing part of the remembrance to me is the thought of how it all ended for you, how terribly quickly your dreams faded. Forgive me,” she went on, hastily, “I am afraid I have said too much. I have never alluded to it before.”

“I like your alluding to it,” said Gerald. “I like the feeling that you understand it all. It doesn’t hurt me in the least now. It is wonderful how one grows out of things, isn’t it? – at least, hardly that; how things grow into one till one is no longer conscious of their existence.

“I am a part of all that I have met.

“You remember? Of course Eugenia had a great influence upon me. But for her I should probably have been quite a different sort of man. But still I can see the good it did me now without any bitterness. I am inexpressibly thankful that she is so much happier, that she seems to be growing into —her life, as it were. When she was unhappy I must confess I was bitter – bitter to think I had no right to interfere. But that has all past by. I am rather lonely, that is about all I have any right to complain of. If she had not married it might have been different – there is a sort of doggedness about me – I believe I should have gone on hoping against hope. But as it is, I feel it rather hard sometimes.”

“What?” asked Roma, in some bewilderment.

“Why, that I should be doomed to stay outside always, as it were. You don’t suppose I have any dislike to the idea of being happy like other people? You don’t suppose it is from choice I remain homeless and lonely, do you, Miss Eyrecourt?”

He looked at her half laughingly, yet earnestly too.

Roma’s face fell. Then after all, she thought, her one hero was no hero; already his love for Eugenia was replaced by some other apparently equally hopeless attachment. It was disappointing.

“Why do you look so grave?” he inquired. “Have I offended you?”

“Offended me! What have I to do with it?” she replied. “Of course not. To tell you the truth I felt just a little disappointed – a nice confession for an unromantic person to make – that – that you had ‘got over it,’ as it is called, so completely. You were my model of constancy. I shall think life more prosaic than ever now. And, to turn to prose, what a pity you a second time made an unlucky venture! Could you not have been more prudent? That is to say, if the obstacles whose existence you infer are insuperable. As to that, of course I can’t judge.”

She quickened her steps a little as she spoke. It seemed to Gerald she was eager to make an end of the conversation. Amused, yet much annoyed at her misapprehension, his wish to right himself in her eyes drove him further than he had intended.

“Miss Eyrecourt,” he began, not without a slight irritation in his tone, “I wish you would do me justice. Is it possible you don’t understand me? Do not you see that one of the things which most attracted me, which drew forth my admiration and gratitude, arose from the very strength of my care for Eugenia? It was that which first drew us together – your goodness to her, I mean – it was that which showed me how generous and noble you are. And yet, unfortunately, your knowledge of my feelings to her is one of the very things that make me hopeless, even if there were no insuperable practical objections. Not that I would have concealed the old state of things from you in any case had you not happened to know them, if I had ventured to try my chance with you. But they were forced upon you so unfortunately. It would be impossible for you ever to think of me in a different light. How could I ever convince you that the heart I offered was worth having? It must seem to you a poor wretched battered-about thing – not that, of course, it was ever worth your having.”

Roma stopped short. Hitherto she had kept up her rapid pace. She stopped short and turned round so as to face Mr Thurston. He saw that she was very pale.

“Are you in earnest?” she said, very gravely. “Do you mean what you are saying? I do not altogether understand you to-day, Mr Thurston. It would have been more in accordance with my notion of you if, allowing that you are in earnest, you had simply and manfully put the question to the test, instead of first imagining ‘insuperable obstacles’ and then putting them into my mouth. You place me very awkwardly. At this moment I solemnly assure you I do not know if you would like me to say, ‘Mr Thurston, I will marry you if you will ask me,’ or not.”

Notwithstanding her seriousness, with the few last words she had difficulty in repressing a laugh. Gerald’s face flushed deeply, angrily almost, as she spoke, and a quick light came into his eyes – a light, however, not altogether of indignation.

“I would have asked you months, years ago,” he said, “had I not believed that my doing so would have been looked upon as presumption – would have put an end to the friendship I have learnt to value more than anything in my life, and which I could ill afford to lose. So hopeless, till this instant, have I been of ever obtaining more.”

“Why?” asked Roma.

“Why?” he repeated. “For the reason I have already told you, and for another. Think of my position! A struggling engineer – an artisan, some of your people would call me, I daresay; for I am not yet at the top of my tree by any means, nor likely to be so for many a long day to come. The only home I can offer my wife is an unattractive one enough – you know what sort of a place Wareborough is – is that the home you are suited to? You, beautiful, courted, admired; spoilt by every sort of rule you should be, but I don’t think you are. I am not exactly poor, certainly, but I am not rich, and there is hard work before me for years to come. There now, Miss Eyrecourt, you know the whole. I have great reason to be sanguine of success, have I not?”

“And this is all?” she said. “You have told me every one of the ‘insuperable obstacles?’”

“Every one,” he replied. “Don’t torture me, Roma.”

She held out both her hands; she lifted up her beautiful face and looked at him with tears in her large soft dark eyes. “Oh, Gerald,” she said at last, when the two hands were pressed closely in his, when she felt his gaze of almost incredulous joy fixed upon her with eager questioning; “Oh, Gerald, how could you mistake me so? ‘Spoilt,’ am I? Ah no, or if so, not by the excess of love that has been lavished on me. I have been very lonely; it is years and years since I have known what it was to have a home – a real home. Even had I not loved you, I confess to you the temptation of your love, your strength and protection, would have been great to me. You don’t know what to me would have been the mere thought of having some one I could perfectly trust. But as it is, I needn’t think of temptation. I love you, Gerald. I would rather have your ‘poor battered old heart’ than anything in the universe. And if this makes amends for the dilapidated state of yours, I can assure you that mine, such as it is, is quite whole. I give it to you entirely, without the slightest little chip or crack.”

She had begun to speak with the tears in her eyes; as she went on, notwithstanding her half-joking tone, they dropped – one, two, three big tears. She pulled away one hand to dash them aside, but Gerald caught it, kissed it tenderly and gratefully, and held it fast again.

“Roma,” he said, “you and your heart are far too good for me. My darling, how shall I ever repay the sacrifices you will make for me? Are you sure, quite sure, you will never repent it? Have you considered it all? Think of having to live at Wareborough.”

“Gerald, you are too bad! Do you know you have all but driven me into proposing to you? I shall think you repent your bargain if you say much more. Living at Wareborough! Nonsense. I should be quite pleased and content to live in a coal mine with you. There now, I am not going to spoil you by any more pretty speeches, which, by rights, sir, please to remember, should come from the other side.”

With such encouragement, Mr Thurston, considering it was the first time he had actually tried his hand at anything of the kind, acquitted himself very fairly, and the remaining two miles of their walk seemed to them but a small fraction of the real distance. They had time, however, to discuss a good many aspects of their plans. “What would Frank and Sydney think? how astonished they would be!”

“How pleased Eugenia would feel!” etc, etc, before they re-entered the park and came within sight of the house.

They approached it from one side, intending, however, to enter by the front door. What was it, as they drew near, that gave Roma an indescribable feeling that something had happened since they went out? She could not have told. The hall door was half-open for one thing, but it was not that. It was a so-called “instinct” – one of those subtile revelations which science has not yet learnt to define or explain by any thoroughly apprehended law.

There was hardly time for even the realisation of a fear. The wave of vague apprehension had hardly ruffled the girl’s happy spirit when it was confirmed. The hall door opened a little wider, a little figure, evidently on the watch, rushed out.

“Aunty Woma,” cried Floss, flinging herself into Miss Eyrecourt’s arms, forgetful of the certain amount of awe with which Roma still inspired her, regardless of the awful presence of Mr Thurston; “Aunty Woma, something dweadful has happened. The ponies has wunned away, and little Tim has wunned home to tell. Uncle Beachey is killed quite dead on the dot, Tim says, and I don’t know where Aunty ’Genia is.”

“What does she say?” asked Gerald, hoarsely.

“Tell him; say it again, Floss,” said Roma, forcing her pale lips to move; and as well as she could, for her sobs, the child repeated her ghastly tale.

Without another word, Mr Thurston rushed off, and in an instant was lost to Roma’s sight among the thick growing shrubs that lay in the direction of the stables. What became of Floss her aunt never knew; probably in her intense anxiety to know more, the child followed the person whom she imagined most likely to obtain further information. However that may have been, Roma found herself alone – alone with this strange dreamlike feeling of horror and grief for Beauchamp’s untimely fate, which it never occurred to her to doubt – alone with a yet more terrible companion. What was the meaning of this sudden misery which overwhelmed her? Whence had come this poisonous suggestion which, so marvellously speedy is the growth of thought, had, even while the child was speaking, sprung to life in her brain? Beauchamp dead, Eugenia free, and the words which her newly made lover had spoken not an hour before ringing in her ears:

“If she had not married it would have been different. I believe I should have gone on hoping – ”

How would it be now? What should she do? Oh, if only she had not encouraged him to say more, for without encouragement, now whispered the serpent in her heart, he would certainly not have said so much.

“Good God,” thought poor Roma, in her anguish and self-horror, “what a selfish wretch I am! What shall I do? How shall I bear it?”

The words uttered aloud recalled her somewhat to herself. She was hastening to the house, intent on burying self at least for the present – on seeing in what way she could be of use to others, when Mr Thurston suddenly re-appeared. He came out by the hall door, hastened up to her quickly but without speaking. He was deadly pale, and when close beside her he seemed to move his lips once or twice before any sound was audible. Then at last he spoke.

“Roma,” he said, “wait a moment. There is no hurry. Everything has been done. They have sent for doctors and all. It,” he stopped, and seemed to gasp for breath, “it happened near the Chilworth lodge. I am just going there. I only came out to tell you. Floss’s version was not quite correct. Roma,” he stopped again, “it is even worse – forgive me, I cannot help saying so – it is not Beauchamp. It – it is Eugenia?”

The last words were hardly audible, they came with a sort of a sob. For once in his life Gerald was utterly unmanned. But Roma heard them only too plainly.

“Eugenia!” she cried, her voice rising almost into a scream; “oh no, Mr Thurston, not Eugenia. You do not mean she is dead? Say, oh, do say it is a mistake,” she clasped her hands together in wild entreaty; “you must say it is a mistake.”

He looked at her with unutterable pity, but shook his head.

“I cannot say so,” he replied; “from what I was told it seems only too certain. But I am going there at once. Will you come? no, perhaps you had better not. I will let you know immediately what I find. It may not be so bad. Roma, dearest Roma, do not lose heart so.”

He would have put his arm round her, but she eluded his grasp.

“Don’t touch me,” she said, wildly, “you don’t know how wicked I am. It is true – I feel it is true. Oh, Eugenia! God forgive me. I think my punishment is greater than I can bear,” and before her lover could stop her she had rushed into the house.

For a moment Gerald gazed after her in distress and bewilderment, half doubting if he had heard aright.

“She does not know what she is saying,” he decided. “My poor Roma, the shock has been too much for her; but I cannot stay,” and at a rapid pace he set off across the park in the direction of the scene of the frightful disaster.

Upstairs, meanwhile, Roma, locked into her own room, “matter-of-fact, easy-going” Roma – Roma, “into whose composition entered no tragic elements,” Gerald Thurston’s light-hearted betrothed of one short hour ago, was passing through an agony of remorse, a very fiery furnace of misery, such as falls to the lot of few women of her healthy, happy nature.