Not Without Thorns

“Good news!” he repeated; “I should rather think it was good news. I have just heard from Gerald, Eugenia. He is home again – all but home again, at least. His letter was posted at Southampton by himself. He may be here any time now – sure to be in a few days.”

“Gerald back again!” exclaimed Eugenia, with considerable surprise. “I had no idea there was any chance of his coming so soon. How delighted you will be to see him again, Frank.”

She wished to be cordial, but her tone sounded slightly forced, and evidently did not satisfy the young clergyman. There seemed a little inquiry in his voice and manner as he replied —

“Of course I shall be. But not only I: I am sure your father, for one, will be glad to hear it. Gerald is one of the few men I know who is thoroughly liked and respected ‘in his own country.’ I am sure he will be heartily welcomed home again to Wareborough. You two used to be very fond of him in the old days. He didn’t tease you as much as I did. Dear old fellow!”

“He was very good to Sydney and me – always. We shall all be delighted to see him again,” said Eugenia, rousing herself to speak as heartily as she saw was expected of her. “Dear me,” she went on, thoughtfully, “it is three years since he went away!”

“He will hardly know us again,” said Sydney. “I was scarcely fifteen then.”

“Yet you are less altered than Eugenia,” observed Mr Thurston.

It was true. The younger girl, though not quite as tall as her sister, might easily have been taken for the elder. She had reached her full height at an earlier age than Eugenia, her figure was rounder, her expression of face less changeful.

“Suppose we change characters – Sydney passing for me and I for her – when Gerald first sees us?” suggested Miss Laurence.

She spoke idly; she was not prepared for Frank’s hasty reply.

“No, indeed. I should not like it at all,” he exclaimed abruptly. Eugenia raised her head and looked at him; her eyes opened to their widest. He coloured a little. “I mean to say,” he went on, hurriedly and rather incoherently, “I mean – it would be nonsense. He could not mistake you, and I don’t like practical jokes – I thoroughly disapprove of them,” he had quite recovered himself by now. “They are objectionable in every way; they offend against both good feeling and good taste.”

Miss Laurence made no reply. She felt no spirit to-day to argue with Frank, dictatorial though he was, and she did not want to vex Sydney again. She only thought the curate a great bore, and wished he would go. Her silence proved her best ally, for, as no one appeared inclined to dispute his last dictum, Mr Thurston’s attention returned to other matters.

“I must go,” he said, drawing out a shabby silver watch – he was always intending to treat himself to a better one, but there was a good deal of distress in Wareborough this winter – “I have a confirmation class at half-past six, and three sick people to see before that. Oh, by-the-bye, Eugenia, how did your party go off last night?”

“I never know what people mean by things ‘going off,’” said Eugenia, rather superciliously. “If you mean to ask me if I enjoyed myself, that is quite another thing.”

Frank Thurston laughed. He always felt pleasantly good-humoured and “superior” when Miss Laurence’s feathers showed signs of becoming ruffled.

“I suppose I may infer from that that you did enjoy yourself,” he replied, amiably. “But I mustn’t stay to hear your adventures, even if they were in my line, which they are not likely to be. You must be anxious to narrate them to Sydney, however, so I must be off.”

He shook hands with both sisters quickly, and left them; but, somehow, Eugenia no longer felt eager to “talk it all over” with Sydney. As the door closed on their visitor, she strolled to the window and stood there without speaking for some minutes, looking out at the garden. Sydney, contrary to her usual habit, had seated herself – out-door wraps, muddy boots, and all – near the fire, and her sister’s silence surprised her.

“Did you not enjoy yourself last night, Eugenia?” she said at length, with some hesitation.

“I don’t know,” was the reply. The words were ungracious, but the tone wearied and dispirited.

“Is anything the matter?” asked Sydney again, after waiting to see if Eugenia had nothing more to say.

“Oh no – nothing. I am only cross. Don’t mind me, Sydney. I’ll tell you all there is to tell when I’m in a better humour. Oh, Sydney!” she broke off, abruptly, “how dreadfully ugly this garden is!” She was still staring out of the window. “I do hate this sort of half-town half-country garden. I wish you hated things too, sometimes, Sydney – it would be a comfort to me.”

“Would it?” said the younger girl, quietly. “I am not so sure of that.” But she got up from her seat as she spoke, and, crossing the room to her sister, stood beside her at the window. There seemed something soothing in her near presence. Eugenia’s face cleared a little.

Certainly the prospect was not an attractive one. A suburban garden is seldom satisfactory, and this one was no exception to the rule. There was about it none of that strange, touching charm of contrast, of unexpected restfulness, which affects one so curiously in some town gardens. It was too far out of the town for that, and even had it not been so, Wareborough, grim yet not venerable, was not the sort of place in which such an oasis could exist. Wareborough dirt was neither mould nor decay, but unavoidable nineteenth-century dirt, fresh from the factories and the tall chimneys. Wareborough noise was the noise, obtrusive and unmistakeable, of the workshop and the steam-engine – no muffled, mysterious roar: at no hour of day or night could Wareborough, distinct from its human element, inspire any but the most practical and prosaic sentiments; and Eugenia Laurence was of the nature and at the age to chafe and fret greatly at such surroundings. For she had not hitherto penetrated much below the surface of things: indignant as she would have been at the accusation, poetry and beauty were as yet known to her but in very conventional clothing. She had not yet learned to feel the beat of the universal “mighty heart,” nor been moved to tears by “the still, sad music of humanity.” And in such a mood as to-day’s, this unlovely garden caused her actual pain. Yet there was something to be said for the poor garden after all. It was praiseworthy even while almost provoking to see how very hard the stunted shrubs struggled for existence; a pitiful sort of consciousness seemed to pervade the whole of having known better days, of having in past years been pretty and flourishing, though now slowly but surely succumbing to the adverse influences of the ever-increasing building in the vicinity – the vast army of smuts, the year by year more heavily laden air.

“I wish,” said Eugenia, at length, “I wish we either lived quite in the middle of a great town – I shouldn’t mind if it were in the heart of the city even, in London, I mean – or quite, quite in the country. Up on the top of a hill or down in the depths of a valley, I don’t care which, provided it was out of sight and hearing of railways and omnibuses, and smoke and factories, and – and – ”

“And shops?” suggested Sydney. “Shops and perhaps churches?”

“No, I like shops. At least, I like buying nice things. You know I do, Sydney – you are laughing at me,” reproachfully. “It isn’t nice of you when I am speaking seriously and want you to be sympathising. As for churches,” she went on, languidly, “I am not sure if I would rather be without them or not. It is one of the points I have not quite made up my mind upon yet. Don’t look so shocked child, I only said churches – I didn’t say clergymen; and of course, even up on the top of my hill there would be sure to be a church, with no music, and sermons an hour long.”

“Eugenia, what nonsense you do talk sometimes!” exclaimed Sydney, when her sister at last stopped to take breath. “I cannot understand how you, who are really so clever, can go on so. It doesn’t matter with me, of course, but a great many people wouldn’t like it at all – wouldn’t understand that you were in fun.”

”‘A great many people’ left the room ten minutes ago, my dear Sydney,” replied Eugenia, coolly. “Don’t distress yourself about me. We have each our special talents, you know; perhaps mine is talking nonsense. It is a great gift, but of course, like all great gifts, it requires cultivation.”

Sydney did not reply; she turned away, and moved slowly towards the door.

“I must go and take my things off,” she said, quietly.

“No, you mustn’t; at least, not till I let you,” exclaimed Eugenia. “Now, Sydney, don’t be tiresome. You are not to get cross; I’ve been quite cross enough for both. You should be glad to see I’ve talked myself into a good humour again. Come here, you crabbed little thing!” she pulled Sydney with her down into her old place in front of the fire; “and if you will be good and nice, I’ll tell you about last night. Oh, Sydney it was – I can’t tell you what it was – it was so delightful. I never thought anything in the world could be half so nice.”

She had flung herself down on the rug by her sister, and as she spoke she raised herself on her elbows, her head a little thrown back in her excitement, her bright, expressive eyes looking up eagerly into Sydney’s face. Sydney looked full of interest and inquiry; over her face, fair and soft and girlish as it was, there crept an expression of almost maternal anxiety.

“I am glad you enjoyed it so much,” she said, sympathisingly. “Mrs Dalrymple was very kind, I suppose. Did you see that nice-looking Miss Eyrecourt again? Is she still there?”

“She was, but I think she was to leave to-day,” said Eugenia. Then after a little pause she went on again – “Yes, she is handsome, certainly; but, Sydney, I don’t think I like her. But never mind about her. Oh, Sydney, I did so enjoy it all.”

“I am very glad,” said the younger sister again; “but tell me, Eugenia, why did you enjoy it so much?”

It was very strange – now that she had Sydney all to herself comfortably – Sydney, as eager to hear, as ready to be sympathising as the most exacting narrator could demand, it seemed to Eugenia she had nothing to tell. At first the younger sister felt rather puzzled, but before long the mystery was explained – an accidental allusion to the hero of the evening by name, and Sydney understood the whole; understood it, young as she was, far better than Eugenia herself. The discovery by no means diminished her anxiety, the cause for which she, perhaps, a little exaggerated. She knew her sister’s fitfulness and impressionability; she suspected, though but dimly, the unsounded depths beneath. Yet she made an almost unavoidable mistake in judging this vivid, complex, immature nature too much by her own. How could a girl of seventeen, wise though she might be for her years, have done otherwise?

She kept her suspicions to herself, her misgivings also at first, but she did not altogether succeed in concealing her gravity.

“What are you looking so gloomy about, Sydney?” said Eugenia.

“I don’t quite know. I can’t exactly say why I feel so – not gloomy, Eugenia, but anxious,” she replied. “I am not sure that I like that Captain Chancellor, however handsome and charming he is. I don’t think it was quite nice of him picking you out in that conspicuous way. It must have made people notice you.”

“That would never trouble me,” said Eugenia, loftily; but still the half-expressed doubt in her sister’s words seemed to echo some hitherto unacknowledged instinct in herself. Sydney went on speaking —

“I have often felt a sort of vague dread of finding ourselves really grown-up, Eugenia. Papa can’t enter into things as a mother could, though he is so kind and gentle. We seem to be thrown so on our own resources. I don’t, of course, mean so much with regard to myself;” here a faint tinge of pink crept over her face; “I am wonderfully, unusually fortunate; but that does not make my anxiety for your happiness the less; I wish we had a mother, Eugenia.”

“So do I,” said the elder girl, wistfully. “Even if she had lived a few years with us it would have been different. But not even to be able to remember her! We can’t expect papa to see that we are too much thrown upon ourselves, for he has never seen it otherwise. And, of course, Aunt Susan is less than no good. However, Sydney,” she went on, in a different tone, “as far as regards this Captain Chancellor, whom, for some reason – I don’t know what, I don’t think you quite do yourself – you are so afraid of, you may set your mind at rest. I have been thinking very seriously to myself to-day. I thoroughly understand myself and the whole position of things, and I am very well able to take care of myself. I am not going to have my head turned so easily.”

Sydney smiled, and shook her head.

“I hope not,” she said. Eugenia grew more earnest.

“Don’t look so unconvinced,” she remonstrated. “Even supposing I were so contemptibly silly, do you think I couldn’t stop in time – do you think I would let any one – even you – find it out? But, after all, what is more to the purpose, and will satisfy you better than all my assurances, the chances are very small that I shall ever meet this dangerous person again. So forget all about him, Sydney, and I shall too. By-the-bye, how strange it will seem to have Gerald Thurston here again. I am glad for papa’s sake.”

“And for our own sakes too,” said Sydney, with some indignation. “I think you are strangely ungrateful, Eugenia. Have you forgotten how very, very kind he was to us – to you especially? I know you cried bitterly when he went away.”

“Did I? I was a child,” said Eugenia, indifferently. But immediately her mood changed. “No, Sydney,” she exclaimed, “it is ungrateful of me to speak like that; I do remember and I shall always like Gerald. But Frank provokes me into seeming uninterested by the fuss he makes about Gerald, as if such a piece of perfection never existed before. And you’re nearly as bad yourself. Now, don’t look dignified. I cannot help being contradictory sometimes. Kiss me, Sydney;” for by this time Sydney had risen and was really leaving the room, but stopped to kiss her sister as she was told. “That’s a good child, and thank you for your advice, or warning, whichever it was, though I really don’t need it as much as you think. I promise to forget all about Captain Chancellor as fast as I can. There now, won’t that please you?”

The “forgetting all about him” was not to be done in a minute, she found, though she set to work at it vehemently enough; for the leaving anything alone, allowing a possible evil to die a natural death, as is not unfrequently the wisest policy, was a negative course quite opposed to Miss Laurence’s principles. Constantly during the next few days she found herself speculating on the possibility of her meeting Captain Chancellor again, recalling his words, and looks, and tones; but these “follies” she did her best to discourage. Never had she been more active or energetic in her home duties, never more resolutely cheerful. Sydney watched her, wondered, and admired, but still could not feel quite as easy in her mind as before the talk in the old school-room. Eugenia, on the contrary, was eminently pleased with herself, and had thoroughly recovered her own respect. The task set before her she imagined to be all but achieved – the goal of perfect mastery of the impression she now believed to have been a very fleeting one, all but won.

One day at dinner, within a week of the foggy evening, her father turned towards her with a startling announcement.

“Oh, by-the-bye, Eugenia, I was forgetting to tell you. I expect two or three gentlemen to dine here the day after to-morrow. Mr Foulkes, the school-inspector, you know, Mr Payne, and Frank Thurston – there is just a chance of Gerald, but Frank hardly expects him so soon, he has been detained in town by business – and I asked Captain Chancellor, the Dalrymples’ friend. He called on me yesterday at my office to get a little local information he required, and I was much pleased with him. He seems very intelligent, and superior to most young men of his standing. It must be dull for him here – very different from a place where there is a large garrison – but he says he likes it better.”