Mrs Molesworth (continued 3)

She was sinking her all in the venture.

Then there came the day of the expedition to Ayclough Pool.

Ugly as Wareborough was, both in itself and its situation, there were yet to be found, as there are in the neighbourhood of most small towns, some fairly pretty walks a mile or two beyond its suburbs. The Woldshire side was the most attractive, for on this side one got out of the dead level so depressing to pedestrians in search of “a view,” and the undulating ground encouraged one to hope that in time, provided, of course, one walked far enough, one might come to something in the shape of a hill. Nor were such hopes deceptive. There really was a hill, or a very respectable attempt at one, which went by the name of Ayclough Brow, and half-way up which, one came upon the tiny little lake known as Ayclough Pool. There was rather a nice old farmhouse, perched up there too, not far from the Pool, and a chatty old farmer’s wife who was fond of entertaining visitors with her reminiscences of “the old days,” days when sheep could browse on the Brow without getting to look like animated soot-bags; when it was possible to gather a posy without smearing one’s hands with the smuts on the leaves; when Wareborough was a little market town, where the mail-coach to London from Bridgenorth used to stop twice a week, and rattle out again in grand style, horn and all, along the Ayclough Road. Many an accident to this same Royal Mail could the old body tell of, for her husband’s forbears had lived on the same ground for generations, and the smashes of various kinds that had taken place at a sharp bend of the road just below the Brow had been the great excitement in the lives of the dwellers in the lonely farmhouse, and the records thereof had been handed down religiously from father to son. More than one unfortunate traveller had been carried up to the farm, as the nearest dwelling-house, there to remain till the fractured limb was sound again, or till the bruised body and shaken nerves had recovered their equilibrium, or, in one or two yet sadder cases, under the roof-tree of the old house, far from home and friends, to end indeed the journey.

There was one story which Eugenia since childhood had listened to with intense sympathy—a really tragic story—notwithstanding the exaggerated ghastliness of detail with which, like all local legends of the kind, in process of time it had become embellished. It was that of a bride and bridegroom, married “the self-same morn,” who had been among the victims of one of those terrible overturns. The bride had escaped unhurt, the husband was killed on the spot. They had carried him up to the farm, and then, for the day or two that elapsed before her friends could be communicated with, the poor girl had knelt in frantic agony beside the body, refusing to be comforted, at times wildly persisting he was not, could not be dead. By the next morning, the old farmer’s wife used to add in a solemnly impressive tone, “she had heard tell, th’ young leddy’s hair were that grey she moight ’a been sixty.” She had been taken away at last a raging lunatic, said the legend (probably in violent and very excusable hysterics), and of course never recovered her reason. There was no record of her name, the accident had occurred more than a hundred years ago, yet the story still clung to Ayclough Farm, and some people were not over and above fond of passing the bend in the road of a dark night. “’Twas lonesome, that bit of the way, very,” said the old woman, and the wind among the trees—there was a good deal of wind up Ayclough way sometimes—made queer sounds like a coach galloping furiously in the distance, and there were people that said still queerer sights were to be seen now and again on the fatal spot.

Altogether there was a good deal of fascination about Ayclough, fascination felt all the more strongly by the Laurence girls, on account of the unusual dearth of the picturesque or of any material food for romance in their dull Wareborough home. A walk to the old farm had always been one of their recognised childish “treats,” though Eugenia used to get dreadfully frightened, and hide herself well under the bedclothes when they were left alone by their nurse at night, after one of these expeditions. Sydney used to feel her way across the room in the dark, and climb into Eugenia’s cot, and try to reason her into calmness.

“How could the ghost of the young lady be so silly as to come back to the place where her husband had been killed, when it was more than a hundred years ago, and they must be both happy in heaven now, like the lovers on the willow pattern plates.”

“They were turned into birds,” Eugenia would remonstrate, but Sydney could not see that that signified; “they were happy any way, and people in heaven must be even happier than birds. She couldn’t think what they should ever want to come back for, or suppose they did, why any one should be afraid of them.”

Then Eugenia would shift her ground, and defend her terrors by a new argument.

“Suppose ghosts weren’t really people’s souls, but evil spirits who looked like them? She had read something so horrible like that in one of papa’s books the other day. It was a poem—she couldn’t remember the name—but it was ‘from the German.’ If it was only light, she would tell it to Sydney.”

But Sydney was not at all sure that she wanted to hear it, and she thought papa would be angry if he knew that Eugenia read books he left about, whereupon Eugenia would promise to do so no more, and in the diversion of her thoughts thus happily brought about, Sydney, finding the outside of her sister’s bed less warm and comfortable than the inside of her own, would seize the opportunity of returning to her little cot, and in two minutes would be fast asleep, rousing for a moment again to agree sleepily to the entreaty that came across the room in Eugenia’s irritatingly wideawake voice, “that she wouldn’t tell nurse she had been frightened, or they would never be allowed to go to Ayclough any more.”

Volume One—Chapter Eight.

On the Brink.

I love snow, and all the forms Of the radiant frost; I love waves and winds and storms, Everything almost Which is nature’s, and may be Untainted by man’s misery. Shelley.

Of the many times the sisters had walked to Ayclough they had never had a lovelier day for their ramble than the one on which they set off with Frank Thurston and the young Dalrymples, to skate on the Pool. It was February, early February, and the Frost spirit, who had been late of coming this year, seemed inclined to make up for the delay by paying a pretty long visit now he had really got as far down south from his own home as Wareshire. He had greatly disappointed his special friends, the school-boys of the community, by not spending Christmas with them, as in the good old days, we are told, was his invariable custom, and the last two Saturdays Arthur and Bob Dalrymple had hardly consented to eat any dinner, so eager were they to make the most of their friend’s company on these precious holiday afternoons.

“We expect Captain Chancellor to come with us, Frank,” said Sydney, as the little party were setting off from Mr Laurence’s door. “He said he would join us at the Brook Bridge at half-past one. He passes that way coming to our house, you know. He dined with us last night, and when he heard where we were going to-day, he said he would like to come too.”

“All right,” said Frank. “I expect some one too. I persuaded Gerald to promise to come. He never gives himself any play now at all. Ever since he came back from India he has been working far too hard. I don’t think he is looking well either. He’s not half the man he was before he went to India. Ah, there he comes! You girls must make a great deal of him to-day, for I want to coax him to give himself more relaxation.”

Eugenia and Sydney were very ready to do as Frank wished, and when Gerald came up to them he was most graciously received. It was quite true that he was not looking well. Eugenia noticed it very distinctly; he was looking much less well even than on his first return, and her heart smote her for the scanty thought she had of late bestowed on her old friend.

“I am so very glad you can come with us to-day, Gerald,” she said. “It is like old times, isn’t it?”

“Like, but very different,” he thought to himself, but aloud he answered cheerfully, and in spite of himself his spirits began to rise. It was like old times to have Eugenia walking beside him, her sweet bright face looking up in his, no one to dispute his claim upon her for the time. But his visions were soon dispelled. A new expression stole into her eyes, a soft flush crept over her face even while he watched it, and following the direction of her gaze to discover the cause of the change, Mr Thurston saw—Captain Chancellor coming forward quickly in their direction.

The two men had never met since the evening of Gerald’s return. They had eyed each other with covert suspicion then; they eyed each other with a scarcely more cordial feeling now. A slight, an almost imperceptibly slight, shade, it seemed to Gerald, came over Captain Chancellor’s handsome face when he recognised Eugenia’s companion. And he was not mistaken.

“What can that fellow be turning up again for?” Beauchamp was saying to himself. “I thought he was comfortably over head and ears in business. I don’t fancy him somehow. I wish to goodness he were back in India!”

But notwithstanding this unexpressed hostility, outwardly, as was his habit, Captain Chancellor made himself very agreeable. He seemed to take special pains to be civil and cordial in his manner to Mr Thurston, and Frank felt a little annoyed at Gerald’s somewhat ungracious reception of his friendly overtures.

“What a pleasant fellow Chancellor is, really,” observed Frank to Sydney. “Poor old Gerald hasn’t improved in his manners with being in India, I’m afraid. I don’t think he can be well. He is so surly and stiff sometimes now, and he never used to be.”

“Poor old Gerald” was only human after all. He was feeling very cross and bitter just now. His one ewe-lamb of a happy afternoon had been stolen from him. He could not all at once respond with careless cordiality to David’s civil speeches, but walked on beside Eugenia in grave and moody silence.

Eugenia could not make him out. How could he—how could any one—feel cross or sad on such an exquisite day? She herself was so happy. Everything was so beautiful, she could hardly help singing and dancing as she went along. They were out of Wareborough and its suburbs by now. The feeling, to dwellers in towns so ever-fresh and exhilarating, of “being in the country” was beginning to come over them. The lane along which they were walking was pleasant even at this season—pleasanter, in a sense, than in spring or summer; for though some hardy primroses, some few dog-roses and honeysuckles, were brave enough still, year after year, to show their welcome faces along the banks, it seemed to cost them an effort. They hardly looked at home beside the dingy hedges and smoke-dulled grass. But to-day the fields wore their “silver thatch;” “icy feathers fledged” the hedges; there was no fault to be found with either, in this bright winter clothing. The lane was hardly distinguishable from a real country lane.

“How beautiful it is! Did you ever see a more exquisite day?” exclaimed Eugenia, looking up to the clear green-blue sky through the delicate tracery of the bare branches of the trees. “One could imagine oneself miles and miles away from any town.”

She had been walking a few steps in front of the others. As she spoke, she stopped for a moment, and turned round facing them. How pretty she looked! To Gerald it seemed she had never looked lovelier than standing there, in her thick dark-grey cloth dress, with her favourite bit of bright colour—a scarlet knot at her throat this time—reflecting its warmth and brilliance in her eager, upturned face.

“It is a lovely day!” said Sydney; “but, Eugenia, you used to dislike winter so—even bright frosty days you used to say were ghastly and mocking, and all sorts of disagreeable things.”

“I don’t like winter at all,” answered Eugenia, falling back into her place, and walking on beside the others. “But to-day is hardly like winter. There is a living feeling in the air, cold though it is—a sort of slight stir and rustle even among the bare boughs.”

”‘The spring comes slowly up the way,’” said Gerald. “It’s very slowly, though. Of course we are only at the beginning of February; still, I know the feeling you mean, Eugenia. I have often fancied I could distinguish a sort of soft expectancy about this time of year.”

Captain Chancellor happened to be a little way behind them. Either Gerald imagined him out of ear-shot, or for the moment had forgotten him altogether.

“Yes,” said Eugenia; “that’s just it. It is the lifelessness of winter I dislike. And a bright still winter’s day has light without warmth—an idea that certainly is very ghastly to me. I like life, and movement, and warmth. Almost the loveliest summer sensation to me is that sort of soft, happy bustle that seems to go on among the birds and the flowers and the insects—all the dear creatures. Ah, how beautiful summer is!” She stopped for an instant; then, recurring to her former train of thought, she went on. “Doesn’t the idea of a ‘crystal sea’ seem rather repulsive to you, Gerald? I think it would be quite frightful. Fancy a motionless ocean!”

Beauchamp, and Frank, and the Dalrymple boys were close beside them now. Beauchamp had walked on faster since he saw Eugenia talking with apparent interest to the curate’s brother. Her last remark was overheard.

“It would be jolly nice to skate upon!” said Bob Dalrymple.

Eugenia broke into clear, merry laughter.

“I’m afraid you’ll not find any skates there, Bob,” she said to the boy; and then they both laughed again, as if she had said something immensely funny.

“It takes very little water to make a perfect pool for a tiny fish;” it takes very little wit to satisfy a child’s appreciative powers. Bob was only twelve, and Eugenia was apt to grow very like a child herself when in high spirits. Mr Thurston smiled at their merriment; and though Sydney, in Frank’s presence, always trembled a little when she saw Eugenia verging on one of the reckless moods, charming enough when “a great many people” were not there, in the present case she could not help smiling too. Only Captain Chancellor looked annoyed. There were certain things that greatly offended his taste. He could not endure to hear a woman discuss religion or politics, he could not endure to hear a woman say anything funny, and then laugh at it. And of all conceivable subjects to joke upon, he most objected to joking on “religious subjects;” he thought it “bad style.” As Frank had said, Captain Chancellor was, or at any rate considered himself, “a good churchman,” of the class to whom it is not given to discriminate between the spirit and the letter. He hated Dissenters and Radicals—so far, that is to say, as he considered such beings worthy of attention at all. He was not the sort of man to whom it occurred readily, that to the best of rules there may be exceptions. More than once Roma herself had fallen under the ban of his disapproval, both as regarded the subjects she chose for discussion, and her remarks thereupon. But then Roma was a very different person; besides which, in her own set, she had established a name for a certain amount of originality, and this made her to some extent a privileged person.

Mr Thurston, happening to glance in Captain Chancellor’s direction, saw, and rightly interpreted, the expression of his face. First, he felt amused, then a little indignant. What right had this man to approve or disapprove of whatever Eugenia chose to say or do? Lastly, an undefinable instinct urged him to turn the conversation, without appearing to do so, for happy Eugenia was walking on merrily, in unconsciousness of any cloud in her vicinity.

“I think, Miss Laurence,” said Gerald, “you have got a little confusion in your head between the ‘crystal sea’ of the Bible and Dante’s ‘sea of ice,’ haven’t you? One does get the queerest confused associations sometimes, especially of things one has first heard of in childhood, and I know your literary taste when you were a small person in pinafores was rather omnivorous, wasn’t it?”

Eugenia laughed and confessed it was true. Beauchamp did not seem edified by the conversation.

“Yes, Eugenia,” said Frank, “you have taken up a wrong idea altogether. The words ‘glass’ and ‘crystal’ are only used to give the idea of purity, not motionlessness or lifelessness. Why, don’t you remember the ‘water of life’ being described as ‘pure as crystal’ in another place? You shouldn’t begin criticising scriptural expressions unless you have studied the subject—no one should.”

His tone was slightly dictatorial and decidedly clerical. Eugenia’s face flushed; she looked up with a somewhat haughty answer on her lips, but to her amazement, and that of every one else, Captain Chancellor said, suddenly, addressing Frank,—

“I quite agree with you, Thurston.” Eugenia’s face changed from pink to crimson. Gerald, watching her anxiously, thought he had never seen the expression of any face change so quickly, but she walked on quietly without speaking. “If she would but see in time,” thought Gerald; “if she would but see in time! He worthy of her! he understand her! As well expect a blacksmith to make a watch, or—or—” He could think of no comparison sufficiently forcible to suit his indignant frame of mind.

By this time they had emerged from the lane on to the high road. They were within a mile of their destination, and the skaters waxed impatient.

“We shall not have a long afternoon,” said the curate. “Suppose, Bob, you and Arthur and I push on? We shall walk a good deal quicker than the ladies. Will you and Chancellor follow at your leisure with Sydney and Eugenia, Gerald? I want the boys to have a good afternoon. You don’t mind, Sydney?”

So it was agreed. The four left behind naturally fell into pairs; Mr Thurston and Sydney in front, Eugenia and Captain Chancellor some little way in the rear.

Rather to Beauchamp’s surprise, for he fancied his uncalled-for remark—in reality greatly the result of the ill-tempered mood he had felt coming over him ever since he saw that the elder Thurston made one of the party—had offended her, Eugenia seemed by no means averse to this two-and-two arrangement. He felt uncomfortable and annoyed. It was the very first time he was conscious of having appeared to this girl in even ever so slightly unfavourable a light, and he felt anxious to destroy the unpleasant impression; he was not likely to see much more of her, and he hated any one to remember him with any disagreeable association. But how to begin the smoothing-over process he felt rather at a loss. To his surprise, Eugenia herself helped him.

“Captain Chancellor,” she said, suddenly, speaking faster than usual, as if to force back some hesitation, “I want to tell you I think Frank Thurston was right in what he said just now, and you were right to agree with him. I do speak at random, sometimes; and I shouldn’t have encouraged Bob to joke as I did. Of course, any one else could see there was no irreverence in my mind; but a child might not, and one can’t be too careful with children. I think I quite understand your disliking it, and I am so sorry.”

She looked up in his face with a deprecating humility, a sweet softness in her brown eyes that he had never seen in them before. Never had he thought her so charming. He did not attend to the exact meaning of her words, most certainly no anxiety as to the nature of the impressions left on the infant mind of Master Bob had troubled him; he was conscious only of an inference of apology in what she said, and of acknowledgment of his superior judgment that was very agreeable to him and very becoming to her. The “I am so sorry” at the end was quite delicious. “Dear little thing,” he said to himself, “it would not be difficult to mould her into one’s own pattern.” And aloud, he said, with the half deferential tenderness so curiously attractive to very young girls,—

“You are too good, Miss Laurence; a great deal too good. I have certainly rather strong feelings—prejudices, if you like—on some subjects, but I really feel it is more than good of you not to have resented my inexcusable expression of them.”

“Don’t say that,” she remonstrated, gently; “I do not feel it so at all. When any one finds fault with me, on the contrary, I feel that it must—that they must—” she hesitated.

“That it must arise from no common interest in you?” he suggested. “And can you ever have doubted my feeling such, Miss Laurence? No one, I suppose, is quite perfection; but surely you must know that to me you appear so near it that a word or a tone which I should never notice in another woman, from you acquires importance.”

The words were dreadfully commonplace, but spoken in his peculiarly sweet, low voice, with his deep, expressive eyes looking unutterable things into hers, to Eugenia they sounded most “apt and gracious.” Nor was Beauchamp, for the time being, insincere. He really felt what he said. As he looked at this young creature, so sweet, so very pretty, so ready to believe in himself as the embodiment of every manly grace and excellence, a strange, altogether unprecedented rash, of feeling came over him. If he could but throw all to the winds—prospects and position and future and all—and clasp her in his arms and call her his darling, his “one woman in the world,” and carry her off there and then to some beautiful, impossible castle in the air, where there was no “society,” no growing old, no anybody or anything but each other!

It was but a moment’s passing, insane, altogether ridiculous dream, and Beauchamp soon recovered himself, and Eugenia little suspected the cause of his sudden silence, for she was in a sweet dream of her own, the same in which for many days now she had been living, and from which she would not be very easily roused. Each day, each hour, almost, it was gaining more hold upon her; every circumstance, every trifling incident, seemed to bring her more and more under its influence; no shadow of misgiving had as yet dimmed its beauty and glowing perfection.

Yet she was a girl to whom such a description of her enchantment as that suggested by the vulgar words “madly in love” was altogether and essentially inapplicable. We want a word surely to describe this higher, yet passionate love—the love of a pure, enthusiastic, undisciplined nature, dreaming that it has found its ideal, that the days of “gods and godlike men” are not yet over, to whom in such a belief all self-sacrifice, all self-surrender, would be possible, to whom the destruction of its ideal would risk the destruction of all faith beside.

They walked on in silence for a little; then, by a slight quickening of their pace, Beauchamp managed to overtake Mr Thurston and Sydney, who were only a few steps before them, and for the next half mile the four kept together. It was better so, Beauchamp said to himself, for he was beginning to feel a little less confident in his own ability to draw back in time; his recent sensations had startled him considerably, and Roma’s warning persisted in recurring most uncomfortably to his mind. Looking back over the wide range of his so-called “love affairs,” he could not hit upon any which on his side had threatened “to go so far.” Roma herself, with all her attractions, had never roused in him a similar storm. He was as determined as ever to win her in spite of all opposition, but he owned to himself that by the time he met her again at Winsley, he might safely boast that his allegiance had been more sharply tested than even she had had any idea of.

Some way further along the road they came to the sharp turn known as Ayclough Bend. Here, a lane to the right led up the hill to the farm, the high road to the left pursuing its course to twenty-miles-off Bridgenorth.

“This is our way,” said Mr Thurston, turning as he spoke in the direction of the lane, but both the girls had come to a stand beside a large stone lying at the side of the road.

“This is the Bride’s stone,” said Sydney, in an explanatory tone.

“Ah, yes, to be sure. Poor bride,” said Gerald, coming back again.

“Who is the bride? Why do you call this her stone?” inquired Captain Chancellor of Eugenia.

She gravely related the story. Even to this day it had a curious fascination for her. “It was on this stone he was thrown when the coach upset. And it is here, they say, she is still to be seen sometimes,” she said with a slight shudder. “Is it not a sad story?” she added, looking up with such pity in her eyes, that Beauchamp half fancied there were tears not far off. He didn’t feel inclined to laugh at her, he was in a rather unusual mood to-day. Still less, however, was he inclined that Gerald or Sydney should have the benefit of his rare fit of genuine sentimentality. So he answered carelessly—

“Very sad, if true, which I should feel inclined to doubt. I have heard the same story at other places. Besides, if it were true, pity would be wasted on the lady. No doubt she married again very speedily if she was so lovely and charming.”

Gerald hardly stayed to hear him finish the sentence. He walked on quickly, followed by Sydney, and both looked at each other as they heard Eugenia’s voice answering her companion brightly and happily as usual.

“She is bewitched,” said Gerald, abruptly, and Sydney by her silence seemed to agree with him. “Just the sort of thing that would have put her out for the day, if Frank had said it to tease her.”

They had not seen the expression in Beauchamp’s eyes which belied his careless words, giving her, even about this trifle, a feeling that his confidence, his deeper feelings, were reserved for her alone.

“Yes,” said Sydney, with a sigh. “But, Gerald, I have come to see that there is nothing to be done. I tried once or twice to speak to Eugenia, some time ago, but it was no use. It only risked my losing her confidence altogether. Besides, what could I say? I know nothing against Captain Chancellor. I cannot even say I suspect anything; and I by no means dislike him. As an ordinary acquaintance I should like him very much.”

“You disliked him at first,” objected Gerald.

“No, not exactly,” said Sydney, thoughtfully. “I was only rather afraid of liking him too readily. I doubted him before I ever saw him, from what Eugenia told me of him; I doubted, I mean to say, his being the sort of person I should have chosen for her. But that sounds very presumptuous. Sisters don’t marry to please each other.”

“No,” said Gerald, with a slight laugh. “In that case Frank’s chance might not have been so good.”

“But Eugenia respects Frank, though they are always sparring with each other. She trusts him too. Ah, there is just the difference,” exclaimed Sydney, eagerly. “I don’t feel as if I could trust Captain Chancellor with Eugenia. I don’t suppose he will beat her or ill-use her,” she went on smiling half sadly. “I think he is kind-hearted and easy tempered, and a good enough sort of a man in many ways. But he won’t understand her, and that sort of misery would be worse to her than any.”

“But it would have been a great chance if she had married any one thoroughly congenial and suitable. Very few people do,” said Gerald, thinking to himself if there might not in the future be disappointment in store even for the earnest, unselfish girl beside him, good sterling fellow though Frank was.

“I know that,” answered Sydney, and then for a minute or two she remained silent. “Perhaps, Gerald,” she went on, “to put it quite fairly, a good deal of our anxiety arises from Eugenia’s side. I mean it is her own character that makes me afraid. I don’t think I should have misgivings about any other girl’s happiness if I heard she was going to marry Captain Chancellor. I don’t know that I should have been afraid for myself even, (though it sounds an odd thing to say, and I certainly couldn’t fancy myself caring for him). You see, Gerald, I expect so much less. With Eugenia it is always all or nothing.”

“Yes, I understand,” answered Gerald. “It is a question if such a nature can escape intense suffering, though I had fancied—but it’s no use thinking of that. There are some kinds of suffering which, it seems to me, would be ruinous to Eugenia, which she could not pass through without leaving the best of herself in the furnace. That is my worst fear, Sydney. I have never attempted to put it in words before. I could not have done so to any one but yourself.”

“But we can’t tell, Gerald,” said Sydney, timidly. “We can’t tell how what seems the worst training may turn out the best. We can’t believe that in the end it will not all have been the best, even our own mistakes.”

“The end is a very long way off,” said Gerald, gloomily, “and it is sad work for lookers-on sometimes. Of course, I know what you mean, Sydney, and one must at bottom believe it; but still one constantly sees what look very like fatal mistakes, and it is very seldom given to us on this side of the gate to see that good came out of the bad after all.”

Sydney did not answer. After awhile Mr Thurston spoke again, this time with evident hesitation.

“I am afraid you may be angry with me for what I am going to say, Sydney,” he began, “but I think I should say it. All your fears seem to point one way. I mean to the unlikelihood of Captain Chancellor’s satisfying Eugenia—suiting her—but have you never doubted him in any other way?”

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Sydney in vague alarm.

“Can’t you understand? It’s a horrid thing to say,” said Gerald impatiently. “Are you quite sure he is in earnest? May he not be only what is called amusing himself—flirting, or trifling, or any of those detestable expressions?”

Sydney grew crimson.

“No, Gerald,” she said, with immense indignation in her voice. “I certainly never for an instant supposed him capable of such baseness. I am surprised at you, Gerald. It is well you never hinted at anything of this kind before—or perhaps it is a pity you did not. I am exceedingly sorry I ever discussed the matter with you at all.”

“You are unjust and unreasonable, Sydney, and unkind too,” exclaimed Gerald, with a good deal of wounded feeling. “Don’t you see how painful it is to me to suggest such a thing to you, who know what you do about me? But I am in earnest, Sydney. It is well you, at least, should be prepared for such a possibility. You cannot suppose that I have any selfish motive in suggesting it. You don’t think that, selfishly speaking, I should wish it to turn out so? If Captain Chancellor disappeared to-day, and was never heard of again, that would do me no good. How could it?”

“I didn’t think you had any selfish motive,” answered Sydney, gently. “I only thought that—that—naturally perhaps you saw him worse than he is.”

“Frank has said the same,” replied Mr Thurston, in a but half mollified tone.

“Frank!” repeated Sydney, “Frank! Oh, no, Gerald! He likes Captain Chancellor; he thinks well of him.”

“Well, I didn’t say he disliked him. He, only looking at the thing in a careless, superficial, way, does not seem to think any blame could be attached to this man if—oh, how I hate these vulgar expressions!—if he simply does go away without, as it is called, ‘coming to the point’ at all. Frank cannot see that he pays Eugenia any particular attentions. He only thinks her very likely to deceive herself in this sort of thing.” Sydney looked dreadfully startled. If Frank thought so, must there not be some ground for this new anxiety? But if so, how despicably false Captain Chancellor must be! How false and how hatefully worldly-wise to have thus, as it were, screened himself beforehand by securing Frank’s favourable opinion! For that he had not deliberately set himself to gain Eugenia’s affections from the first, Sydney could not for an instant allow. What on Eugenia would be the effect of the discovery of such treachery, poor Sydney dared not allow herself to imagine. But no, it could not be. After all, no man could be so coldblooded, so selfish, so wicked, as to crush the happiness out of a fair young life for the sake of a few weeks’ amusement. Sydney had read of such things, but was loth to believe in them. Gerald’s troubles had made him morbidly suspicious. Frank had spoken hastily, and, after all, Frank was far from being in a position to judge. So she endeavoured to reassure herself, and fancied she had done so.

She was unusually quiet, however, for the rest of the afternoon. The others—Frank and the boys, Eugenia and Captain Chancellor, that is to say—were in the highest spirits. Only Sydney and Mr Thurston seemed uninfluenced by the fresh keen air, the exhilarating amusement.

“I thought your sister could skate too—at least, that she was learning, like you,” said Beauchamp to Eugenia, who was just beginning to feel a little at home on the ice. “Doesn’t she like it?”

“She skates better than I, a good deal,” replied the girl. “I don’t know what has come over her this afternoon. She looks so tired and out of spirits!” And as she spoke, she looked anxiously in Sydney’s direction.

Captain Chancellor noticed the quick change of expression that came over her face. Five minutes before, he had thought nothing could be lovelier than Eugenia, laughing and merry; now it seemed to him this tenderly anxious expression showed the sweetness of her eyes to greater advantage. What a fascinating face the child had!—never two minutes the same, and each change bringing out some new beauty. He stood watching her, till he almost forgot where he was. She turned suddenly, and caught his gaze; blushed a little, and looked away again. Something in his face puzzled her—a perplexed, uneasy look, that she had never seen there before. Suddenly Bob Dalrymple wheeled up to where they were standing, and came to a halt.

“What a brilliant colour that ribbon of yours is, Miss Laurence!” said Captain Chancellor, abruptly. “Is scarlet your favourite colour? You generally have some of it about you.”

“Only in winter,” answered Eugenia, lightly. “In summer I can’t bear it. My tastes change altogether with the seasons.”

“So if you come back next summer, you’d better look out,” said Bob, addressing Captain Chancellor, and grinning maliciously. “She won’t like you then. It’s a good thing you’re going before the weather changes.” And so saying, he skimmed off again.

“What does he mean?” exclaimed Eugenia, not disguising the shock the boy’s words had given her. “You are not going away, Captain Chancellor?”

There was an unconscious entreaty in her voice, that gave Beauchamp a sudden thrill of pain and self-reproach.

“Not just yet, I hope. But my plans are a little—are not quite decided at present,” he answered, confusedly. Then, notwithstanding his resolutions, the look in Eugenia’s face tempted him to say more.

“You must know, Miss Laurence, how painful, how unendurable it will be to me to leave Wareborough,” he said, in a low, hurried voice.

“Will you not come back again?” she asked, very quietly, striving hard to force back the intense eagerness with which she awaited his reply.

“I hope so. I earnestly hope I may be able to do so,” he answered; and for the time the hope was sincere. “But I am not my own master. I can’t explain all I mean. I am hampered in every direction. But some day, perhaps— No, it is no use—”

He stopped.

Eugenia stood beside him without speaking. He glanced half timidly at her face. Its expression puzzled him. It was getting late now; the rest of the party had taken off their skates, and were coming towards them across the pond, prepared evidently for the walk home. Beauchamp felt desperate. He might not have another opportunity of saying what he now felt he must say.

“Miss Laurence—Eugenia,” he exclaimed. She started a little. “I must ask you one thing: Will you think as well as you can of me, even if others may blame me? Will you not judge me by appearances more than you can help? My position is full of difficulty. As I said just now, I am not in any sense my own master; but—if I may hope for nothing else—I would at least like to think you would judge me leniently, even if I hardly seem to deserve it.”

He was quite in earnest now. He had never spoken so to any woman before. When he had left home this afternoon, he had not the slightest idea he should speak so to this woman to-day. He got his answer.

“You need not ask me to judge you leniently. I do not think it would be possible for me ever to judge you at all. Nothing—no one but yourself could ever make me think ill of you.”

She looked up at him with a light in her beautiful eyes as she said these words, that made Beauchamp Chancellor feel strangely unlike his usual equable, comfortable self. Why did she trust him so? Why did she take things so deeply, so in earnest? Why was she not like the ninety-and-nine other girls he had flirted with, and thought pretty, and talked nonsense to, and left none the worse? He felt half provoked with her for being so different, yet a vague instinct whispered to him, that in this very difference lay her peculiar charm.

There were no more têtes-à-têtes. It was getting dusk as they walked home, and they all kept together, and the conversation was general. Sydney wondered a little why Eugenia was so quiet, but supposed she must be suffering from some amount of reaction from her high spirits earlier in the day.

Captain Chancellor bade them good-night at their own door. Sydney fancied his manner a little odd—more abrupt, less self-possessed than usual, when he shook hands with her. He did not call the next day, as she somehow half expected, nor the day after, and Eugenia did not seem surprised. She did not look well, Sydney fancied; and when urged by her sister to tell what was wrong, she confessed, to having felt over fatigued since Saturday’s long walk.

“She has many and many a time walked to Ayclough and back without being tired,” thought Sydney. “There must be something wrong. Can they have quarrelled?”

Possessed with this idea, she watched eagerly for Captain Chancellor’s next appearance, and thought it doubly unlucky that Frank’s absence from home for a day or two should have happened at this crisis, when through him she might have learnt something of what was the matter, and if anything lay within her power to do for her sister. To a superficial observer, poor Sydney, during these few days, would have looked the more anxious and unhappy of the two. It was as sad as strange to her to believe Eugenia in suffering, and to be in ignorance of the cause.

On Thursday evening the sisters were sitting by themselves in the drawing-room, their father busy writing in his own little room, when there came a ring at the front door bell. Up jumped Sydney, her heart beating considerably faster than its wont, her face full of eagerness.

“That must be Frank,” observed Eugenia, quietly.

For the time being, the sisters seemed to have changed characters.

“Frank!” exclaimed Sydney; and though it was five days since she had seen her fiancé, at the supposition, her face fell. “Oh, no, it can’t be Frank! He was not to return till Friday—that’s to-morrow.”

But Frank it was. No trace of disappointment was legible in Eugenia’s countenance as she welcomed him rather more cordially than usual, whereas Sydney’s manner was preoccupied and almost cold. Frank was tired, however, and very glad to be home again; and not being gifted with the quickest perception in the world, discovered nothing amiss. Eugenia rang for tea for him, and he drew in his chair near the fire, and sat there drinking it in comfortable content, telling them all about his journey and adventures, and what a charming little country parsonage he had been staying at—“The very place for you and me, Sydney, when we get old, and past hard work.” And Sydney smiled, without seeming to hear what he was saying. Then a new thought struck Frank.

“Oh, by-the-bye,” he exclaimed, “did you see Chancellor before he left? He went off quite in a hurry at the end. He told me on Saturday evening he was expecting to go soon, but he thought he would be here through this week. And this evening I got a letter from him from some place or other—Wins— something—his home, I suppose—saying how sorry he was not to have seen me, to say good-bye—some family arrangements, he said, had called him off in a hurry at the last.”

“I saw a note in his handwriting addressed to papa on the hall-table. It came by this evening’s post. No doubt, it was saying the same thing,” said Eugenia.

She almost overdid it; even Frank looked up, struck by the strange unfamiliar monotone in which she spoke.

“But he is coming back again. He is certain to come back again, Frank? Tell me, isn’t he quite certain to come back again?” asked Sydney, with a quick, painful eagerness in her voice, as if entreating Frank not to answer no.

He stared at her for a moment, he did not understand her. Had he done so, he might have softened the bluntness of his reply, for he was far from callous or hardhearted to suffering in any shape.

“How interested you seem in his movements, Sydney. I have always thought you didn’t particularly like him. You’ve changed your opinion rather suddenly, surely? Come back again? No, it is very unlikely indeed that he will ever come back again. The 203rd is sure to leave Bridgenorth before Captain Chancellor’s leave is over, and, of course, the Wareborough detachment will go too. The regiment has been quite its time here. Chancellor was aide-de-camp to his cousin, General Conyers, somewhere in Ireland, till he came here—that’s how he happened to be so short a time here.”

“And where will the regiment go to?” inquired Sydney. The words seemed to form themselves mechanically on her lips; a strange feeling came over her that it was really Eugenia, not herself, who was speaking.

“Goodness knows,” answered Frank. “Oh, yes, by-the-bye, I remember Chancellor saying they were next on the roster for foreign service. He said, a few months would see him in India, unless he sold out. I shouldn’t much wonder if he did. I shouldn’t much wonder if—” he hesitated. For the first time a slight misgiving seemed to come over him; he looked up in some little embarrassment. Eugenia was sitting perfectly still, looking just as usual. He felt reassured.

“If what?” asked Sydney, again with the same feeling of being forced by the intensity of her sister’s anxiety to continue putting these questions against her own will.

“Oh, nothing,” said Frank. “That is to say, it is only a fancy of mine that there may be something between Chancellor and that handsome Miss Eyrecourt. His cousin, isn’t she? I never saw her, but he had rather a constrained way of alluding to her, I noticed, and he had half-a-dozen photographs of her in different attitudes and dresses.”

“I should think it very likely,” said somebody—for the moment Sydney actually did not recognise the voice as her sister’s. “I wonder if papa wants any tea, Sydney. I think I’ll go and see.”

She rose from her seat almost as she spoke, walked quietly to the door, and left the room.

Five minutes later, on some pretext, Sydney followed her—not to Mr Laurence’s study, up to Eugenia’s own room. It was quite dark. Sydney had to feel her way across the floor.

“Eugenia,” she said, softly.

No one answered. She groped her way to the bed. Down at one end a figure was kneeling or crouching, she could not tell which. She felt it was her sister. Round the poor child’s quivering frame stole two clinging, clasping arms; all over her eyes and cheeks and mouth fell tears and kisses.

“Don’t push me away, don’t, Eugenia,” entreated Sydney.

There was a moment’s hesitation—a struggle between pride and old habit of love and confidence for the victory. But pride had had more than its share of work lately; it gave in.

“Oh, Sydney,” came at last, with a convulsive grasp of her sister. “Oh, Sydney, how shall I bear it? I don’t blame him. He couldn’t help it, but I do think my heart is broken.”

Volume One—Chapter Nine.

At Winsley.

Breathe no love to me, I will give none of mine.

It was late in the evening of the Tuesday succeeding the skating expedition to Ayclough when Captain Chancellor reached Winsley Grange, so late that the only person awake to receive him was a sleepy footman charged with his mistress’s apologies for not having sat up to welcome her brother in person. Beauchamp received the apologies with philosophy, for he was not sorry to defer seeing Mrs Eyrecourt till the next day; he was tired and not quite as comfortable and complacent as usual, and Gertrude’s eyes were dreadfully keen. Then there was Roma too. He had been preparing himself to meet them both, but it was a relief to find he should have a few hours to himself first; he wanted to think things over a little, quietly; he wanted quite thoroughly to satisfy himself of the truth of what he had many times already repeated to himself—that he had certainly acted for the best.

Yes, there could be no doubt that he had done so, he decided, as he sat with his pipe by the fire, after declining the sleepy footman’s offers of “getting him anything”—he had dined in town on his way—he was very well out of it; it wasn’t every man that would have had the strength of mind to cut it short decisively just as a crisis was approaching, for, no doubt, he confessed to himself he had been hit, just the least in the world. She, too, would very soon be all right again, poor little soul; and by some curious code of morality of his own, the reflection that the tools with which he had been playing had scratched him, though it might be but slightly, greatly lessened the discomfort of the half-acknowledged suspicion that they had cut her deeply.

Late as it was, however, he felt he should sleep better if he first wrote a few civil words to her father and to Frank Thurston of apology for, or rather explanation of, his abrupt departure. It must have looked odd, he feared, but he could easily make it all right. Besides, he had told Thurston he should be leaving soon; “family arrangements” had only hastened his movements by a few days; anything was better than the risk of a formal leave-taking, and Gertrude’s letter had just come in the nick of time. So he wrote his notes, and calmly turned the last page of this short chapter in his history, and went to bed believing or imagining that he believed that the little “affaire” was well over, and no one the worse, no results left, as Roma had indirectly prophesied, that would in the least interfere with his old dream of winning her—no results, at least, that she need ever discover, or that would be lasting. He would be quite himself again in a day or two; to-night he felt a little out of sorts, and somehow the old dream was hardly as attractive as usual. No wonder, he had not seen Roma for a good while, and she had bothered him a little the last time they met, and he hated being bothered; besides, is it not human nature to have temporary misgivings as to the excellence of the trellised grapes when the sweetest of strawberries within one’s easy grasp have been a familiar sight?

When Beauchamp woke in the morning he felt already a different man. His spirits had recovered themselves amazingly. It was a bright day for one thing, and it was pleasant to glance lazily round the comfortable, familiar room, and feel he was at home again; to catch sight out of the window of the clear blue sky and the beautiful Winsley trees—beautiful even in winter—instead of leaden Wareborough clouds and grim Wareborough roofs. He was really attached to Winsley, and had reason for being so, for to him and his sister, if not the Grange itself, at least its immediate neighbourhood had always seemed home.

The root of the Chancellor family was to be found in quite another part of the country, but the personal associations of Beauchamp and Mrs Eyrecourt were all connected with Winsley. When they were little children their father had succeeded to the adjoining tiny little property of Winsedge, and there they had lived till, shortly before his death, Winsedge was sold to Mr Eyrecourt of the Grange. And before the young Chancellors had had time to realise that their connection with the neighbourhood was at an end, Gertrude’s marriage to their former lord of the manor riveted it again more strongly than before, for the premature death of their mother, whose life had been a slow martyrdom of vain devotion to a selfish and extravagant husband, soon left Beauchamp, still a boy, with no near friend but his elder sister—no home but hers. And Mrs Eyrecourt had been very kind to her brother, and, while he lived, had influenced her husband to be the same, winning his goodwill towards Beauchamp in part, perhaps, by that which she herself showed to his step-sister, Roma, when she in turn came to be left motherless and homeless.

Winsley Grange was a thoroughly and really “desirable residence.” A long, low, thick-walled, deep-windowed house of no particular architecture, sufficiently picturesque, with its gable ends and lattices, not to disappoint the expectations suggested by its name; old enough for respectability, but not for inconvenience; not too large for the size of the property, nor too grand to be comfortable. To these advantages it united that of a charming situation in the prettiest part of a pretty county, where the society, though undeniably “good,” was—thanks probably to the comparatively near neighbourhood of the capital—but very slightly tainted by that spirit of stupid and indiscriminating exclusiveness so liable to flourish among the lords of the soil in more remote and isolated districts.

So it was—considering all things—only natural that Captain Chancellor should like his sister and his sister’s house, and be always glad to return to them after absence.

“What a bore these people are coming to-day,” he thought to himself, as he went downstairs. “We might have had a comfortable little time to ourselves; that is to say, if I find both Gertrude and Roma in a good humour.”

They were both in very good humour, as he discovered almost immediately he entered the breakfast-room. Mrs Eyrecourt received him with even more than her usual cordiality; so warmly, indeed, as to give rise to a slight suspicion in his mind of there being “something in the wind.” Roma’s manner was cheerful and hearty—so free, apparently, from the slightest tinge of constraint or self-consciousness, that Beauchamp felt puzzled and not altogether pleased, but he took good care to conceal his incipient annoyance, and comported himself as faultlessly and serenely as ever.

“It was very good of you, Beauchamp, to come off so quickly,” said his sister. “I hardly expected you would be able to manage it. How did you do about your leave?”

“Oh, quite easily,” he replied. “I might have had it, you know, since the New-year if I had liked.” Here he surprised a look of curiosity on Roma’s part—a look of “I thought as much,” too, it seemed to him. It hardly suited him now for her to suspect any rival attraction at Wareborough. Lightly as he treated the remembrance of Eugenia, the idea of making use of her as he had once intended had somehow grown distasteful to him, so he went on quietly with his answer to his sister: “I have been so long away from the regiment, I wanted to be as good-natured as I could, and my only taking half my leave was a convenience to one or two of them. I meant, any way, to have come here next week, but it suited me quite as well to come sooner. I got your letter on Saturday evening, and this is only Wednesday. I did not lose much time, did I?”

“No, indeed,” responded Mrs Eyrecourt, very graciously. “I can’t tell you how glad I was to find you were coming. It is so very much nicer to have you here when the Chancellors come, particularly as they are our own relations, you know, and they would have been away by next week.”

“I can’t make out what brings them here, or where you came across them. You condescended to no explanations in your letter—you only said the Halswood Chancellors were coming. I had to think for some time before I could remember anything about them. I had almost forgotten that there was such a place as Halswood,” said Beauchamp.

“I had no idea myself of their coming, till the day I wrote to you,” replied Gertrude. “You see I wrote to Herbert Chancellor when I saw the announcement of the grandfather’s death, to con—”

“Gratulate him,” suggested Roma, for her sister-in-law had hesitated a little over her condolences.

“I wrote to him,” continued Mrs Eyrecourt, without condescending to notice the interruption, “and of course I said if ever they were in our neighbourhood I should be very much pleased to see them here. Mr Chancellor answered very civilly, and the other day I accidentally heard they were staying at Ferrivale, not twenty miles from here, so I wrote again, making my general invitation a special one, and they accepted it at once. That’s the whole story. You will see them for yourself this afternoon.”

“But who are ‘they’?” cross-questioned her brother. “Mr Chancellor and his wife and all the little Chancellors?”

“There are no little Chancellors. That is to say, only one girl of fourteen or so, besides the eldest daughter, who is out, and the son—there is only one, I thought there were two—who is at Eton,” replied Mrs Eyrecourt.

“Oh, indeed; so it is only Herbert and his wife who are coming,” said Beauchamp, as if he now knew all about it, for he had got scent at last, and wished to provoke his sister into letting him see all that was in her mind.

“Of course not, Beauchamp; how stupid you are!” exclaimed Gertrude. “Why should Herbert and his wife go about the country paying visits, and leave their grown-up daughter at home? She is past eighteen, and out, I told you. And very pretty,” she added, injudiciously.

“Oh, indeed, I understand now,” answered Beauchamp, meekly, and looking across the table, the expression in Roma’s eyes told him that she knew he now did understand.

“Poor dear Gertrude! So that is why I was sent for in such a hurry,” he observed, when, breakfast being over, Roma and he were left by themselves for a short time. “Couldn’t you make her comprehend, Roma, that she might save herself the trouble?”

Miss Eyrecourt was standing by the window, looking over her letters. She seemed perfectly cool and comfortable, in no way embarrassed by finding herself, for the first time for some months, alone with her would-be lover. She looked up at him when he spoke to her, and answered quietly and deliberately—

“No, Beauchamp, I certainly could not do anything of the kind. If you have anything to say to Gertrude, you must say it yourself. I am not going to come between you two in any way. I don’t want to meddle in your affairs at all; no advice of mine is likely to do good. Now, Beauchamp,” she went on, in a different tone, half remonstrating, half coaxing, “do let us be nice and comfortable together. And do try not to vex Gertrude, that’s a good boy. If her plans don’t please you, there is time enough to say so, and you need not vex her by seeming determined to thwart her beforehand. Those sorts of schemes generally right themselves—very likely Addie Chancellor is already out of your reach—she it pretty, I have seen her. There, now, after all, I have begun advising and warning you, and I vowed I would never do so again.”

She looked very handsome this morning. She was, as usual, beautifully dressed, and it was some time since Beauchamp had been in the company of a perfectly attired, perfectly well-bred, self-possessed woman of Roma’s order. Beside her, Eugenia Laurence, lovely as she was, rose to his mind’s eye as an unformed child. He was in a mood to be very sensitive to Miss Eyrecourt’s particular attractions, and something in her manner impressed him pleasantly. She seemed softer and less satirical than her wont. There was a half playfulness, a coaxingness in her way of speaking to him which, in his opinion, became her marvellously.

“And why shouldn’t you advise and warn me, Roma?” he asked, softly, going a little nearer her. “You know very well there is no, one in the world I should take advice from half so willingly. Why will you always misunderstand me?”

His tone was growing dangerously tender.

“Oh, silly Beauchamp!” said Roma to herself. Then looking up, “I am glad to hear it,” she observed, rather coldly. “Your have thoroughly acted up to the last piece of advice I gave you, have you not? You remember what it was—that night at the Dalrymples?”

As she spoke, Beauchamp, though looking down, felt conscious that her keen dark eyes were regarding him searchingly. He could not pretend not to understand her, little as he had been prepared for this embarrassing cross-examination, and to his intense annoyance he felt himself slightly change colour. It was very slightly, so slightly that no other eyes would have perceived it, but looking up again boldly to brave out this home-thrust, the ready words died on his lips; he saw that Roma was watching him with an expression not very unlike contempt.

“That Mrs Dalrymple has been writing to her, and she wants to show me she won’t stand it,” thought Beauchamp. He was quite mistaken. Roma knew very little of his life at Wareborough, and, selfishly speaking, cared very little with whom, or to what extent, he chose to flirt. But she did care about the possibly serious results to himself, his sister, and, even indirectly, to herself, of his folly. And she had never been able to forget the bright, sweet face of Eugenia Laurence. She had, however, promised Gertrude to be most discreet in her conduct to Beauchamp. She had no wish to quarrel with him. She was resolved cautiously to steer clear of any sort of “scene.” There was no saying in what contradictory way an explanation with her might affect him, and her great desire was that, without any such crisis, he should gradually arrive at a tacit understanding of her complete indifference.

“Not that I ever have believed, or ever shall believe, he really cares about me,” she had said to her sister-in-law. “It is half of it contradiction, and the other half the accident of our having been so often thrown together when he had no better occupation. Beauchamp would not be Beauchamp if he had not some little affair on hand, and I daresay I am the only woman who has never in the least appreciated his attentions.”

She agreed with Mrs Eyrecourt, that if he would but have the sense to take a fancy to Adelaide Chancellor, it would be the best thing he could do; and she felt not a little provoked with Gertrude for showing her cards so plainly. It could not be helped, however, and now she felt conscious that she too had been foolish in approaching the subject of Eugenia.

“Whatever he has been doing, I cannot make it any better,” she thought, “and I may make it worse.”

So, though she was certain that he perfectly understood to what she referred, she expressed no incredulity when he calmly assured her he did not know to what special piece of advice she was alluding.

“Very well. If you have forgotten it so quickly, we will hope that in this case the cap didn’t fit,” she said, lightly.

And then she went on talking about other things with so evident a determination to avoid all subjects of close personal interest, that Beauchamp could not but follow her lead. And she made herself so pleasant that there was no excuse for his growing sulky. He said to himself she was perverse and tiresome—very few fellows would put up with it as he did, and so on; but in his inmost heart he was not sorry that just at present no love-making seemed to be expected of him; for, after all, he did not feel quite as much inclined for it as usual. More than once during the day his spirits seemed suddenly to desert him. He would find his thoughts straying to the dull house in the outskirts of Wareborough, where, ignore it as he would, he knew full well a girlish heart was growing heavy at his unwonted absence.

“Her father will get my note to-morrow,” he reflected; “and then she won’t expect me any more, and she will soon be all right. Besides, I prepared her for it on Saturday, and she did not seem much surprised. There is nothing to bother about. I have acted for the best, only she is such a queer sort of girl—takes things to heart so. And Roma has evidently not forgotten about her.”

Very evidently Roma had not forgotten about her. Two or three times in the course of the day, she surprised Beauchamp in an absent fit, and disgusted him greatly by inquiring what he was thinking about, what was the matter, what had become of his good spirits, etc, etc, so that by the afternoon, Captain Chancellor had come to feel almost glad that their family party was to be augmented by the expected guests.

As the hour drew near at which the Chancellors were to arrive, Mrs Eyrecourt got quite into a flutter of excitement. Such a state of things was very unusual with her, well accustomed as she was to society and its usages. Beauchamp felt amused. “It is all on my account, I fear, that poor Gertrude is in such a fuss. She is only laying up disappointment for herself. I do wish she would leave me to manage my own affairs,” he thought to himself, though to please her he hung about the house idle all the afternoon, in case of the Halswood party possibly appearing before their time. Gertrude’s excitement was not only on his account, keenly anxious though she was that he and Adelaide Chancellor should impress each other agreeably; there was to Mrs Eyrecourt a peculiar and not unnatural feeling of gratification in receiving as her guests for the first time the head of the family—Mr Chancellor of Halswood himself—and his belongings. For, undoubted as was the position of the Winsley Eyrecourts in their own county and among their own set, that of the owner of Halswood was several pegs higher in the social scale, and Herbert Chancellor had more reason than many people for thinking himself rather a big man. But this second cause of his sister’s “fuss,” Beauchamp’s less excitable, more individually selfish nature neither suspected nor would have sympathised with. It was all very well to “call cousins” with the Halswood people; but Gertrude sometimes bothered herself unnecessarily. In her place, Beauchamp said to himself, he certainly would not have gone out of his way to invite these strangers to take up their abode with them for a whole week. He felt bored even in anticipation. He hoped certainly Roma’s attention would be distracted from teasing him with those silly questions of hers, but he more than half wished he was back at Wareborough.

Things improved, however, to some extent, when the visitors arrived. Mr Chancellor proved to be a pleasant looking, pleasant feeling man, a little too palpably prosperous perhaps, but with sufficient tact and refinement to steer clear of being offensively so; Mrs Chancellor—a still handsome woman, large and fair and languid, was several degrees more a fine lady, than her husband was a fine gentleman, but for this there was the excuse of her having been an heiress, and possessed of a property which she thought far more of than of twenty Halswoods, in days when Herbert had been landless and, comparatively speaking, penniless. And Adelaide, the daughter of this fortunate pair, amiable, pretty, commonplace and silly, was, on the whole, however, rather better than might have been expected. All three were evidently prepared to be pleased, and were graciousness itself to their cousins, and quite sufficiently civil to Miss Eyrecourt, who smiled to herself at the thought of Beauchamp’s desperate position, should it actually prove the case that Gertrude’s scheme was tacitly approved of by the authorities on the other side also.

“It almost looks like it,” she thought, “yet why the Chancellors should wish it, I hardly understand.”

She was not long left in the dark. The party at dinner this first day consisted only of themselves and the three visitors. Captain Chancellor, who had so far shown plainly enough to his sister and Roma, a determination to bestow none of his attentions on Adelaide, talked principally to her mother, and with such good effect that when the ladies retired to the drawing-room, the great lady quite forgot her languor in enthusiastic praise of Beauchamp’s charms.

“It is so odd we have never met before,” she remarked, “for Beauchamp—I must call you both by your Christian names, my dear Gertrude—Beauchamp tells me he has often been staying within a few miles of Wylingham. He knows the Prudhoe-Bettertons, of Prudhoe Castle, I find; charming people. He must not treat us so shabbily when he is next in our neighbourhood. By September, at latest, we shall be settled at home again, and I shall count upon your coming to us—I shall, positively. Beauchamp says he has half promised the Bettertons a few days about then.”

“But we shall be at Halswood then, mamma,” said Adelaide.

“Oh, nonsense, my dear. We shall certainly not be there before Christmas; at least, I devoutly hope not. Halswood is all very well in its way, but at present it is really uninhabitable. You never saw anything so frightful as the state of the house, my dear Gertrude. It wants refurnishing from top to bottom. I should like you to see Wylingham.”

Depreciation of Halswood rather jarred on Mrs Eyrecourt’s Chancellor loyalty. But there was no time for her guest to observe any hesitation in her reply, for just then a loud squeal from the other end of the room made all the ladies jump, and effectually distracted Mrs Chancellor’s attention.

“Floss, you naughty child, what are you screaming in that dreadful way for? Why are you not in bed? I told you to run upstairs as soon as we came out of the dining-room? What is the matter?” exclaimed Gertrude, at no loss to pitch upon the invisible offender.

There was no answer for a minute. Then, a ball consisting of white muslin, blue ribbons, shaggy hair and bare legs, seemed to roll out from under a sofa into the middles of the room, when it shook itself into form, and stood erect, red-faced and defiant.

“Quin pulled my hair,” was all the explanation it vouchsafed.

Quintin came forward from behind the curtains to answer for himself.

“Well, and if I did, I’d like to know who bit and scratched and kicked?” he exclaimed, wrathfully.

“’Cos you said you’d tell I was hiding in the curtains; tell-tale boy,” returned Floss, with supreme contempt.

“And why were you hiding in the curtains? Why didn’t you go up to bed when I sent you?” demanded her mother.

“Quin said there was a bear behind the glass door in the hall, and I was fwightened it would eat me,” replied Floss, her defiance subsiding.

“I only said bears eat naughty children. It says so in the Bible,” said Quin, virtuously.

Adelaide began to laugh.

“How silly you are!” thought Roma, regretfully. “I fear Beauchamp will soon be bored by you.” But she liked the girl better when she rose from her seat, and asked Gertrude if she might not convoy poor Floss across the dreaded hall. It was more than Roma would have troubled herself to do: she looked upon all children as necessary evils, and considered her niece a peculiarly aggravated form of the infliction.

Gertrude was profuse in her thanks, but Floss hung back.

“I don’t like you,” she said calmly, looking up into Miss Chancellor’s face. “You’re too fat, and you’ve got stawey eyes.”

Adelaide laughed again, but this time more faintly. An ominous frown darkened Mrs Eyrecourt’s face.

“You naughty, naughty, rude child,” she began, sternly. Quintin’s better feelings were aroused.

“I’ll take her upstairs, mamma. Come, Floss,” and, already frightened at her own audacity, the cross-grained little mortal clutched at her brother’s hand, and the two left the room together. Upstairs Quin read Floss a lecture on the enormity of her offence. Overcome by his goodness in escorting her to the nursery, she hugged him vehemently—getting into fresh disgrace for crushing his collar; but maintained stoutly that “the new young lady wasn’t nice or pretty at all, not the least tiny bit.”

“What a nice boy Quintin is, and so handsome,” began Miss Chancellor, gushingly.

“Yes,” said Roma, to whom the remark was addressed; “he’s not a bad child, as children go. I detest children.”

Adelaide looked shocked.

“Do you?” she exclaimed. “Well, of course,” she went on, as if desirous of modifying her evident disapproval, “I daresay it makes a difference when one has not had younger brothers and sisters.”

“Do you love yours so much?” inquired Roma. She felt a lazy pleasure in drawing out this model young lady a little.

“Of course,” replied Miss Chancellor; “Victoria is much younger than I, you know, but we are great friends. I don’t think there is anything she looks forward to as much as to being my bridesmaid. She is rather dark, so I have promised her she shall wear rose colour, or pink, if it is in summer.”

Roma looked astonished. “I didn’t know,” she began, “I had not heard of anything being fixed about your marriage.”

Adelaide burst out laughing. “Fixed,” she repeated, “of course, not. But I am sure to be married some time or other. Don’t you think it is great fun to think about what you will choose for yourself and your bridesmaids to wear? I have decided half-a-dozen times at least.”

Roma confessed that the subject was one that had not hitherto much occupied her thoughts.

“You have a brother too, have you not?” she inquired, by way of making conversation.

“Oh, yes, Roger,” replied Adelaide. “He comes next to me. He is sixteen, but, poor boy, he is so dreadfully delicate. When he was a little child they never thought he could live, and even now we often think he won’t grow up. It is very unfortunate, isn’t it, when one thinks of Wylingham and all mamma’s property, though of course it would come to me—the money I mean. Wylingham would go to a distant cousin; so stupid of my grandfather to leave it so, wasn’t it?”

Her remarks were made with the utmost naïveté, in perfect unconsciousness apparently that they could sound heartless.

“And Halswood?” said Roma, repressing the disagreeable sensation left by the girl’s words.

“Oh, Halswood doesn’t seem to matter so much,” she replied. “Papa will have it all his life any way, and there are Chancellors after him. Your—what is he to you?—your cousin?—Captain Chancellor I mean, comes next after Roger.”

“Does he?” exclaimed Roma in astonishment. Then she grew very silent; for a few minutes she did not distinguish the sense of Adelaide’s prattle, her mind was busy with other matters. For one thing, the Chancellors’ policy was now plain to her. Would they succeed? To herself personally she felt that Beauchamp’s possible heirship could never make any difference; rich or poor, he could never be more to her than he was. But as for Gertrude—yes, her views would probably undergo a complete change were such a state of things to come to pass.

“She would like me, I daresay, as well or better than any one else for his wife if he were rich, or certain to be so,” thought Roma. “But, after all, I strongly suspect the chances are that Beauchamp will marry to please himself and no one else, and perhaps find in the end that he has not even done that.”

Volume One—Chapter Ten.

“That Stupid Song.”

Amid the golden gifts which heaven Has left like portions of its light on earth, None hath such influence as music hath. I am never merry when I hear sweet music. Merchant of Venice.

When the gentlemen came into the drawing-room, music was proposed.

“Come, Addie, my dear, let me see you at the piano,” said her father, laying his hand caressingly on the girl’s fair head. “Not that it is quite my place to propose it, by-the-bye; but you see, my dear Mrs Eyrecourt, how thoroughly at home you have already made us all feel ourselves. I want you to hear Addie play.”

“Don’t you sing?” inquired Gertrude, as Miss Chancellor rose, in accordance with her father’s request.

“No, she doesn’t sing,” said Mrs Chancellor, answering for her—“at least, very little. But she plays!”

“If she does play,” thought Roma, “it will double her chances with Beauchamp.” Then there came a little pause of rather solemn expectation.

Captain Chancellor, as in duty bound, conducted Mademoiselle to the piano, gravely taking up his place behind her, near enough to perform the task of turning over the leaves, for Adelaide was one of those young ladies who are nowhere without their “notes.” Roma, watching the pair closely, thoroughly took in the position. There was no fluster about Adelaide. She drew off her gloves quietly, and selected her piece of music with perfect composure, well satisfied evidently with the impression she was about to make on her audience, Captain Chancellor standing with ceremonious deference, stiff and silent, in his place.

“They don’t know him,” thought Roma again. “Fortunately for their satisfaction in their little arrangement, they don’t know how Beauchamp can look sometimes in such a position. Oh, you most foolish, contrariest of men!”

But even Roma hardly knew how Beauchamp could look at such times. She had never seen him standing beside Eugenia, bending low his handsome head, to catch each varying expression of the beautiful face, each sweet, bright glance of the lovely, speaking eyes, as the pretty fingers softly played the music he loved best, or rested now and then idly on the keys. She was no great performer, but her perception and appreciation were delicate and vivid enough to satisfy even fastidious Beauchamp—fastidious on this point without affectation, for the man’s love for music was deep and genuine. At no time was he so near to forgetting himself, so close to the consciousness of the higher and better things little dreamt of in the philosophy of his ordinary life, as when under its influence. How far Roma’s singing had had to do with his imagining himself in love with her, it might be difficult to say.

So there was reason for Gertrude’s feeling anxious, and Roma curious, as to the sort of “playing” of which Miss Chancellor was capable. She began at last—not noisily, she was too well taught for that; but nevertheless she had not got through half-a-dozen bars, before Roma knew that the less she and the piano had to do with each other in Beauchamp’s presence, the better for Gertrude’s plans.

“If it should ever come to pass that he marries her, he will make her promise to leave music alone,” said Miss Eyrecourt to herself.

And she almost felt sorry for Addie, working away so conscientiously and serenely, slurring no “tiresome bits,” doing her “expressions”—allegretto, rallentando, and all the rest of them—so precisely according to the letter of the instructions of her “finishing master,” Herr Spindler. She had really laboured hard, poor girl, to attain to her present undeniably great manual dexterity, and there had been difficulties in her way which had called for considerable patience and perseverance. For her hands—plump and short-fingered, though very nice little hands of their kind, and with a fair amount of muscle inside the white cushions—were not the sort of hands to which such wonderful agility as they were now displaying comes all at once or without a good deal of tutoring. It was really very funny to see the two little things scudding up and down after each other as hard as they could go, “exactly like two fat white mice,” thought Beauchamp to himself; and the conceit, for which (not being addicted to the reading of more poetry than that of the day likely to be discussed at dinner-parties) he was not indebted to any one but himself, so tickled his fancy that it enabled him to endure with patience the penance to which he was; subjected, and to thank Adelaide at the close of her performance with becoming graciousness for the pleasure she had afforded them all.

“You must have practised a great deal,” he observed to her.

“Oh, yes; two hours every day till I came out, and an hour every morning even now,” she replied.

“Dear me, I really admire your energy,” he said, quietly, slightly raising his eyebrows, and inwardly trusting he might have timely warning of the special hour at which this praiseworthy young person’s manual gymnastics were to be performed during her stay at Winsley. But Addie perceived no shadow of sarcasm in his softly uttered commendation, and took herself and her ample draperies across the room again to her mother’s side in the happiest possible frame of mind. These two or three words were all that passed between Captain Chancellor and herself of direct conversation during the evening; yet, before she fell asleep, Addie confessed to herself that her cousin Beauchamp was by far the most charming man she had ever met, “more charming and decidedly handsomer than even Sir Arthur Boscawen or Colonel Townshendly, of the Blues.”

Adelaide safely disposed of, Beauchamp felt that he deserved a reward.

“Come, Roma,” said he, in a low voice, skilfully making room for himself behind the sofa on which Miss Eyrecourt was sitting alone, “do come and sing. You must have seen I have been very good.”

Roma hesitated. She did not feel sure of what Gertrude wished her to do. Just then Mrs Eyrecourt glanced in her direction, and seemed by instinct to understand her perplexity. Beauchamp was beginning to look cross.

“Will you sing, Roma, dear?” said Gertrude, sweetly.

Roma rose at once. “Of course,” muttered Captain Chancellor, loud enough for her to hear, “for any one but me.”

Poor Roma—her position was not a very comfortable one at present. She knew as well as possible what was passing in Gertrude’s mind. Mrs Eyrecourt was proud of her sister-in-law’s singing, and she was pleased to have something so excellent of its kind wherewith to astonish her guests; but she would be very far from pleased, Roma felt certain, should Beauchamp be so ill-judged as to show any marked difference in his manner of comporting himself towards the two fair performers. She resolved on taking the bull by the horns.

“Beauchamp,” she said, coldly, when she was standing by the piano, looking over her songs, “you will oblige me by not standing beside me while I am singing. It fidgets me more than I can tell you.”

Without a word, Beauchamp stalked off. He was deeply offended.

“I have overshot the mark, now, I expect,” thought Roma. “The next thing will be, his forcing me to tell him what made me so cross. And I do dread any approach to an explanation with him. I am very unlucky; but what could I do?”

She felt thoroughly uncomfortable, and somehow—from this cause, probably—she certainly did not sing as well as usual. Every now and then, through the sound of the piano and of her own voice, she overheard Beauchamp’s remarks to Mrs Chancellor, beside whom he had ensconced himself, and that lady’s languid, affected tones in reply. Roma felt a little depressed: it went greatly against the grain with her to say or do anything to chill or alienate Beauchamp, for the old easy brother-and-sister state of things between them had never seemed so attractive to her as now that it was at an end.

“If only he had really been my brother,” she said to herself, with a little sigh, and replied so absently and at random to Mr Chancellor’s civil little speech of thanks for her song, that he did not feel encouraged to remain at his post by her side.

She felt half inclined to betake herself quietly to her own room for the rest of the evening—no one seemed to want her. For almost the first time in her life she felt a stranger in her father’s house; realised, or began to fancy she did, that the tie which bound her to Gertrude was not one of blood. Mrs Eyrecourt seemed already marvellously at home with these hitherto unknown cousins of hers, and as for Beauchamp, whether or not he disliked the daughter, he certainly seemed to find the mother very entertaining!

“I wish I might go to bed,” thought Roma again; “but Gertrude would be vexed, and it would look as if something were the matter.”

So, more out of listlessness than anything else, she, without being asked to do so, began to sing again. The song she chose this time was the same ballad she had sung that evening at Brighton at the Montmorris’s, the evening on which she had met Mr Thurston. The words brought him to her mind. How had he found things at Wareborough? Was it as she had suspected between Beauchamp and Eugenia? Roma felt that she would give a good deal to know. That there was a change in Beauchamp, she was convinced, but of what nature, arising from what circumstances, she could not so easily decide, and she knew well he would do his best to keep her in the dark. Hardly taking in the sense of the words, she sang on half through the ballad. Her voice was more like itself by this time, and the music of the song was lovely: it was impossible for her not to sing it well. Gradually the murmur of the voices in the room grew fainter, then stopped altogether. As usual, when Roma exerted herself, all present succumbed to the charm.

“She sings beautifully—I do not know that I have ever heard, an amateur to equal her,” exclaimed Mrs Chancellor with the truthfulness of astonishment, turning round to Beauchamp when Miss Eyrecourt’s round and soft, yet clear, thrilling notes died away into silence. But no Beauchamp was there! Even Mrs Chancellor’s attractions had failed to keep him from his accustomed place.

Looking up, at the end of her song, to her surprise, Roma saw him standing beside her. But there was an expression on his face which startled her. He looked grave and troubled, Roma could almost have fancied he had grown paler than usual. Something very strangely out of the common must have occurred to disturb his serenity so visibly; what could it be?

“Roma,” he said, suddenly, but as if he had completely forgotten the offence she had given him, “I wish you would oblige me by never singing that song. I cannot bear it.”

“Cannot bear it? Beauchamp! Your favourite song—the song you yourself got for me? What do you mean?” exclaimed Roma, in extreme astonishment. “Do I not sing it well?”

“Far too well,” he replied, gloomily. Then, as he turned away, he repeated his request more strongly. “I really cannot tell you how much you will oblige me by never singing it.”

“Very well, then, I will not,” answered Roma, quietly. But in her heart she felt not a little puzzled by his unaccountable behaviour.

No wonder—he, himself, was not a little puzzled; more than puzzled, he was extremely out of patience with himself. He had, he felt assured, acted with consideration and foresight towards Eugenia Laurence; with half-a-dozen girls he could name he had carried his flirtations much further, and come out of them comfortably when he saw it was time to do so. What was there about this girl that now even, when he had for ever separated himself from her, impressed him so strangely? Why could he not forget her save as a pleasant passing fancy? Why should he be for ever imagining he saw her face, wistful and reproachful, as it had looked that last afternoon when he had hinted to her the probability of his soon leaving Wareborough? It was together too bad that the remembrance of her should thus annoy him; he felt disgusted with himself for losing his self-control this evening, when, as ill luck would have it, Roma picked out that stupid song, the last he had heard Eugenia sing. And how sweetly she had sung it—he had given it to her, and he had given her, too, his ideas as to how it should be sung, and she had proved an apt pupil. She made no pretensions to singing well; her voice was, of course, not to be compared with Roma’s in power and compass, but it was clear and sweet and bright, like her face and everything about her, and he had found it very charming. He fell into a reverie again when he recalled its tones, then he shook himself awake with some irritation.

“What a fool I am,” he reflected. He was alone again with his cigar by the fire—Herbert Chancellor was no smoker, which was unfortunate for Beauchamp, little inclined as he was at present for solitary meditation—“What a fool I am to bother myself like this. I hope I am not going to be ill. I have not felt so out of sorts for years. It is all Roma’s fault—I shall tell her so some day; she has a great deal to answer for. No doubt, it will all come right in the end with her; I have never really feared but what it would. It would be all right any day if either of us had a fortune; but she is so desperately afraid of vexing Gertrude, and Gertrude’s head, I can see, is now full of that stupid Adelaide, and Roma’s shilly-shallying will have made it far more difficult to bring Gertrude round. I have more than half a mind to leave Roma to herself for a while, and let her fancy I have given up thoughts of it: it would not do her any harm. How very handsome she is looking just now, and how exquisitely she sang that last song! It is too bad—”

Then he fell to thinking what he could do in the direction of distracting his thoughts from his undeserved troubles, seeing that, for the present at least, there was no satisfaction to be got out of Roma. A flirtation with Addie Chancellor was not attractive, and might involve him seriously, watched and guarded as she was. He wished he had not promised Gertrude to stay so long at Winsley; he did not feel at all sure that he would not do more wisely to spend part of his leave elsewhere; he would see about it, very likely something or other would turn up. And, besides, any day might bring things to a crisis with Roma. If not, he could afford to wait a little longer; the best woman in the world was not worth bothering oneself about; and, determined to act upon this comforting doctrine, Captain Chancellor lit another cigar, and having smoked it went calmly to bed. But his sleep was broken, and his dreams uneasy—they were haunted by Eugenia, pale-faced and sad-eyed as he had seen her last. Once it was even worse—he dreamt, he saw her lying dead, and in some unexplained, mysterious way the impression grew strong upon him that he had killed her. He awoke with a start of horror and was thankful to find it a dream—to see, by the faint morning light just beginning to break, the familiar objects in his room, and remember where he was.

“But if this sort of thing goes on,” he said to himself, “I can’t stay here. I must go away—to town even, or to Paris, or somewhere for a change, whether Gertrude likes it or not.”

The next day or two, however, brought something in the way of distraction. Several other guests arrived, of whom two or three of the gentlemen were old and friendly acquaintances of Beauchamp’s, glad to see him again at Winsley—for, unlike many men of his class, he was a favourite with his own sex wherever he choose to be so—and among the accompanying wives and daughters there were some sufficiently attractive for him to find no difficulty in amusing himself in his usual way; on the whole, not to Mrs Eyrecourt’s dissatisfaction. She knew her brother pretty thoroughly. Though her hopes with regard to Adelaide Chancellor had never been alluded to, she felt that Beauchamp was perfectly aware of their existence, and in every smallest detail of his unexceptionably civil behaviour to the girl, she read a tacit defiance of her wishes, a determined opposition to them. Yet she did not despair. She blamed herself for having been injudicious and premature; she owned that Addie, pretty and amiable as she was, was hardly equal to taking her irresistible cousin’s experienced heart by storm. Nevertheless, a little time might do wonders; and in the meanwhile the more general he was in his flirtations the better, and she congratulated herself on her wise selection of guests. She had long ago forgotten her fright about the Wareborough young lady, whose name she had never even heard; all her fears were concentrated in Roma.

Roma was far from happy at this juncture. A painful consciousness was beginning to grow upon her that her relations with Gertrude were not what they had been; for the first time in the several years they had lived together she felt that she was not altogether in her sister-in-law’s confidence; worse than this, that she was no longer thoroughly trusted. And she was at no loss to whose influence to attribute this mortifying change. Scrupulously careful as she was in the regulation of her manner to Beauchamp, that it should not be by a shade more or less familiar than was natural to their acknowledged position of brotherly and sisterly intimacy—indifferent, distant even, as it was now apparently Captain Chancellor’s rôle to appear to her—Roma yet saw clearly that Adelaide’s mother, with her sharp worldly eyes, her conventional suspicion of every unmarried woman not fortunate enough to be an heiress, was on the scent of something below the surface between herself and the man Mrs Chancellor had picked out for her future son-in-law.

“It is all Beauchamp’s fault. It is very cruel of him to place me in such a position. I believe he wants these people to think that he dislikes me, and that I—oh, no, he could not be so horribly coarse,” thought Roma, though she grew furious at the idea. “Why won’t he believe simply that I only care for him as a brother, and let us be comfortable as we used to be? And why is Gertrude so weak as to be turned against me when I have told her so plainly how it is?”

And there were times at which she almost wished that things would come to a crisis, and that she might have the opportunity she had hitherto on every account so carefully avoided of telling Captain Chancellor the plain truth; that to one woman in the world his fascinations were less than nothing. But at present things showed no signs of coming to any such crisis. Beauchamp comported himself to her with exaggerated and obtrusive indifference, and amused himself very comfortably with a handsome Miss Fretville, whose fiancé was safe in India, and (rather more discreetly) with pretty Lady Exyton, whose husband was sixty, and, so long as his dinner was to his taste, calmly tolerant of her ladyship’s harmless little flirtations.

Had the change been less sudden and obtrusive, Roma would have been only too glad to believe it genuine. As it was, she rightly attributed it to pique—a powerful motive in some natures, for wounded vanity has many of the symptoms and sensations of the genuine malady, often enough deceiving even the patient’s self.