Mrs Molesworth (continued 8)

And but for this, she thought she must have died.

Volume Three—Chapter Four.

“By the Spring.”

Life, that dares send A challenge to his end, And when it comes, say, “Welcome, friend.” Crashaw.

Tuesday the 22nd came, but Captain Chancellor set off on his visit to Marshlands alone. Eugenia was ill—too ill to leave her room, though better than she had been. The restrained suffering of the last few weeks, the unhealthily reserved and isolated life she had begun to live—she to whom sympathy was as the air she breathed—all had told upon her; and the excitement of the painful discussion with her husband the day of Lady Hereward’s unfortunate visit, had been the finishing stroke. After that she gave way altogether.

She was not sorry to be ill. On the whole, she felt it the best thing that could have happened to her. She was glad to be alone. She was very glad now that Sydney’s visit had been deferred. With all her haste and impulsiveness, there was in her a curious mixture of clear-headedness and reasoning power. She liked to understand things—to get to the bottom of them. Now that she had left off pretending to deceive herself with false representations—now that she had ceased to try to cheat herself into imagining she was happy—she found a strange, half-morbid satisfaction in dissecting and analysing the whole—her own character and her husband’s; the past lives of both, and the influences that had made them what they were; the special, definite causes of their discordancy.

“He is not—I see it plainly now,” she said to herself, with a curious, hopeless sort of calm, “he is not in the very least the man I imagined. That Beauchamp has never existed. Is it just, therefore, that I should blame the real one for not being what he never was?” Here she got a little puzzled, and tried to look at it from a fresh point of view. “And being what he is, and no more, why should I not make the best of it? It seems to me there is something repulsive and unworthy in the thought. I would almost rather go on being miserable. Yet I suppose many women have had to do it. I could fancy Sydney, for instance, doing it, and never letting any one suspect she had had it to do. In time, perhaps, I may find it easier, or grow callous.”

Then she would set to work to think out a new rôle for herself—that of an utterly lonely, impossibly self-reliant woman, living a life of self-abnegation, of lofty devotion to duty—unappreciated devotion, unsuspected abnegation—such as no woman has ever yet lived since women were. Seen through the softening medium of physical weakness, not amounting to actual suffering, this new way of looking at things came to have a certain attraction for her. The idea of total and lasting sacrifice of all hopes of personal happiness, all yearning for sympathy, was grand enough and impossible enough to recommend itself greatly to this ardent, extreme nature, to which anything was better than second bests, nothing so antagonistic as compromise in any form.

“I have staked my all and lost,” she said to herself with a sort of piteous grandiloquence; “there is nothing left me but duty and endurance; for though he did love me, I doubt if he does so now. I am not necessary to his happiness. He does not and cannot understand me.”

Only unfortunately there were two or three little difficulties in the way of settling down comfortably to this conclusion. In the first place, notwithstanding her love of theorising, and of idealising even the woes of her lot, Eugenia was essentially honest, and being so she could not allow to herself that her conduct had been blameless, especially in this last and most serious disagreement. She had said things which she knew would gall and irritate her husband. In the morbid excitement of the moment she owned to herself that she had even wished them to have this effect, that his behaviour might excuse the violence of her indignation. And her conduct in general—her conduct ever since their marriage—ever since, at least, the first few weeks of careless happiness—how did that now appear to her from her new point of view? She knew she had been gentle, and in a superficial sense unselfish; with but very rare exceptions she had entirely merged her own wishes in those of her husband, had opposed nothing that he had suggested. Such submission, such sinking of her own individuality, had been unnatural and forced, completely foreign to her character. And, what had been its motive? Not the highest—far from it. It had not been that she really believed that in so doing she was acting her wifely part to perfection; it had not been earnest endeavour after the best within her reach that had prompted her, but rather, a cowardly, a selfish determination to close her eyes to the facts of her life—a weak refusal to see anything she did not want to see—the old wilful cry, “All or nothing; give me all or I die”—the shrinking from owning, even to herself, the self-willed impetuosity with which she had acted—the terror of acknowledging that she had been deceived, or rather, had deceived herself.

“Yes,” she said, “I have been all wrong together. How selfish I have been too! Months ago how indignant I used to get with poor Sydney if she ever attempted, as she used to call it, to ‘clip my wings for me.’ How angry I was with papa when he suggested that we should defer our marriage till we knew a little more of each other! How selfish I was in Paris, too—selfish and unsympathising in Beauchamp’s change of fortune! Perhaps, after all, it is no more than I have deserved that he should feel as he does now.”

The reflection was a wholesome one, and its influence softening, and Beauchamp had been very kind since her illness. He might not understand her, but at times she felt it was certainly going too far to say that he no longer cared for her. He seemed to have already quite forgotten all about this last discussion, and in truth the impression it had made upon him had been by no means a deep one. “It was all a fit of temper of Eugenia’s,” he said to himself, and as one of his fixed ideas was that such a thing as a woman without a temper had never existed, he resigned himself to his fate, with the hope that his share of this unavoidable drawback to the charms of married life might be small.

Up to the last Captain Chancellor hoped that his wife would be able to accompany him to Marshlands. To do him justice, he was very reluctant to go without her.

“It is such a pity,” he said. “It would be just what I should like, for you to see a good deal of Lady Hereward. It isn’t every one that she takes to, I can tell you.”

“I like her in herself,” said Eugenia; “the only thing I dislike her for is that she is Lady Hereward. I got tired of her name before I had ever seen her.”

The moment she had said this she regretted it. Beauchamp’s brow clouded over.

“Of course,” he replied, coldly, “if you set yourself against her I can’t help it. Perhaps the best plan would be for me to write making an excuse for us both, and have done with the acquaintance. I am sick of discussions about everything I propose.”

It was hard upon her; it was so seldom, so very seldom she had opposed him in anything, or even expressed an opinion.

“I am very sorry I cannot go,” she said, “but your giving up going is not to be thought of. There is no reason for it. I am not seriously ill. There is nothing wrong with me but what a few days’ rest will set right.”

This was true. So Captain Chancellor set off for Marshlands alone, and Eugenia, solitary and suffering, spent in her own room the week she had so eagerly anticipated.

Time went on. November past, midwinter is soon at hand, and Christmas had come and gone before, contrary to the Chilworth doctor’s sanguine opinion, Mrs Chancellor was at all like herself again. It was a dreary winter to her. Had she been in good health, some reaction from the hopeless depression which had gradually taken hold of her would have been pretty sure to set in—a reaction, perhaps, of a sound and healthy nature; possibly, nevertheless, of the reverse. This, however, was not the case. At the beginning of her illness, things had looked more promising: her husband’s kindness had touched and softened her, her own reflections had pointed the right way. But as the days went on and Eugenia felt herself growing weaker instead of stronger, her clearer view of things clouded over again. It takes a great reserve of mutual trust and sympathy to stand the wearing effects of a trying though not acute illness. Beauchamp got tired of his wife’s never being well—so at least she fancied—tired of it, and then indifferent, or if not indifferent, accustomed to it. And whether this was really the case or not, there was some excuse for her believing it to be so, for the habitual small selfishness of his nature was thrown out in strong relief by circumstances undoubtedly trying.

“If people looked forward to realities, they would choose their husbands and wives differently. It is only about a year ago since I first met Beauchamp. Oh, how silly and ignorant I must have been! How perfect life—life with him—looked to me,” thought Eugenia, bitterly.

She was more than usually depressed that day. Captain Chancellor had left home to spend a week at Winsley, where a merry Christmas party was expected, and though Eugenia had no wish to accompany him, even had she been able to do so, though she had not put the slightest difficulty in the way of his going, yet his readiness to do so wounded and embittered her. For he had got into the habit of often leaving home now—never for very long at a time, certainly—never without making every arrangement for her comfort; but yet the fact of his liking to go, increased her unhappy state of mind. Everything seemed against her. During all these months she had never succeeded in seeing her own people. Another invitation had been sent to them and accepted. For Eugenia had had the unselfishness to place the deferring of their first visit in a natural and favourable light, making it appear to be quite as much her own doing as her husband’s, and a subject of great regret to both.

“Better that they should think I have grown cold and indifferent even,” she thought, “than that they should suspect the truth.” But no one except Frank had at this time thought anything of the kind.

“I won’t go, another time,” he growled. “I never heard anything so cool in my life. If it is Eugenia’s own doing, I don’t want to have anything more to say to her. If not, I pity her, but she chose her husband herself.”

And Sydney had some difficulty to smooth him down again, and to gain his consent to the acceptance of the second invitation when in course of time it made its appearance.

It was accepted, but the visit did not take place. Before the date fixed for it arrived, Mr Laurence had another attack of illness, from which he only recovered sufficiently to be moved to a milder place, where for a few weeks, Sydney, though at no small personal inconvenience, accompanied him. Something was said by her in one of her letters to Eugenia, suggestive of her joining them and taking her share in the nursing and cheering of their father; but the proposal met with no response. Loyal and true-hearted as she was, Sydney felt chilled and disappointed, and said no more. But all through the winter, in reality passed by Eugenia in loneliness, and suffering, and yearning for sympathy, which only a mistaken desire to spare her sister sorrow prevented her expressing—all these months Sydney pictured her as happy and prosperous, so free from cares herself as to be in danger of forgetting their existence in the lives of others. For the more steadily hopeless Eugenia grew, the more cheerfully she wrote. And forced cheerfulness often bears a strong resemblance to heartlessness.

“I am glad and thankful she is happy,” thought Sydney, “and she certainly must be so, for it is not in her to conceal it if she were not; but I did not think prosperity would have changed Eugenia.”

Nor would she, for any conceivable consideration, have owned to any one, least of all perhaps to her husband, that she did think so.

Mr Laurence had fortunately no misgivings on the subject of his elder daughter. She was happy, she wrote regularly and affectionately—she had twice fixed a time for him to visit her, but circumstances had come in the way. It was all quite right. He loved her as fondly as ever, with perhaps a shade more fondness than the child “who was ever with him,” whose new ties had in no wise been allowed to interfere with her daughterly devotion; it never occurred to him that Eugenia’s affection could be dimmed.

“I should like to see her,” he said sometimes—“I should like to see her very much—in her own home too. But by the spring we shall be able to arrange for it; by the spring, no doubt, I shall be more like myself again, and able to manage a little going about. We must go together, Sydney, my dear, as Eugenia wished.”

And Sydney said, “Yes, by the spring they must arrange it.” But a shadowy misgiving, that had visited her not unfrequently of late—a little, painful, choking feeling in her throat, a sudden moisture in her eyes, made themselves felt, when she looked at her father’s thin, worn face, and heard him talk about “the spring;” and she wondered, as so many loving watchers wonder, “if the doctors had told her the whole truth.”

There had always been a certain unworldliness about Mr Laurence—a gentle philosophy, an unexacting unselfishness, and of late all these had increased. Practical as he had proved himself in his far-seeing philanthropy, he was a man to whom it came naturally to live much in the unseen, to whom the thought that “to this life there is a to-morrow,” was full of encouragement and consolation—a to-morrow in more senses than the one of individual blessedness—a to-morrow when the work begun here, however poor and imperfect in itself, shall be carried on, purified, strengthened, rendered a thousand times more powerful for good—a to-morrow even for the races yet unborn in this world. All this he believed, and his life had shown that he did so. Yet many people shook their heads over his “want of religious principle,” his “dangerously lax notions,” and prophesied that no blessing could follow the labours of such a man. But such sayings little troubled Sydney’s father. He smiled with kindly tolerance, and thought to himself that some time or other such things would come to be viewed differently.

About the middle of February, Mr Laurence and his daughter returned home to Wareborough. On the last day of March, Sydney’s boy was born—a strong, handsome, satisfactory baby—with whom the young parents were greatly delighted. Sydney recovered her strength quickly, and before April was over, Mr Laurence, who had seemed much better of late, and who had taken wonderfully to his grandson, began to talk again of the often-deferred visit to Eugenia.

“It would be a nice little change for you, Sydney, and Eugenia would be so pleased to see her little nephew. Her letters are full of questions about him. I have a great, mind to write to her myself, and ask what time next month would be convenient for her to receive us. I think my doing so would please her. I should be sorry for her to think we had not taken the first opportunity of going to see her. They are sure to be at home next month?”

“Yes,” said Sydney, “I remember Eugenia’s saying in one of her letters, that they were not going to town this year. I don’t know why, for not long ago she said something about their probably buying a house in town. Well, father dear, baby and I—and Frank too, I dare say—will be ready whenever you arrange for it with Eugenia.”

But Mr Laurence never wrote. The very next day—it was early in May now—the Thurstons got a message, asking Sydney to go to see him as soon as she could. There was “nothing very much the matter,” said the note, which he had written himself—“a slight return of the old symptoms,” that was all; but it was enough to send his daughter to him without loss of time. Enough, too, to make the doctors look grave, and warn Mrs Thurston that there was every appearance of a long and trying illness before them, unless the next day or two brought a decidedly favourable change. No such change came. Divided between anxiety for her father and for her little infant, Sydney had almost more upon her hands than she could overtake. A few days after the commencement of Mr Laurence’s illness, the Thurston household took up its quarters temporarily in Sydney’s old home, that she might be the better able to give to her father the constant care and attention he required. At first he seemed to improve again, and Sydney was able to send a better report to Eugenia. But another week saw a change for the worse. Nothing very serious, said the doctors—nothing to cause immediate anxiety—but sufficiently discouraging, nevertheless. And then there came the usual injunction, “At all costs, the patient’s spirits were to be kept up, his every wish complied with.”

One morning Mr Laurence woke out of an uneasy sleep in a state of feverish agitation unusual to him.

“Sydney,” he said, excitedly, when his daughter entered the room, “I have had a painful dream about Eugenia. It seemed to me that she was unhappy. I must see her at once. If I were well I would go to her. As it is, you must send for her. Do you think she can come to-day? I cannot rest till I have seen her.”

Sydney was greatly startled, but she retained her presence of mind.

“I will see about it at once,” she replied, soothingly, “and no doubt she will come immediately. I wish I had thought of it before, dear father; but we fancied you would enjoy seeing her more when you were a little stronger.”

“Never mind,” he said: “it will be all right if you will send at once now.”

Two hours later Sydney came back to tell him it was done. A messenger had already started for Halswood. “I thought it better than telegraphing,” she said; “they are so far from the station;” but Mr Laurence did not seem to care to hear any details. He was quite satisfied with knowing that the thing was done, and before long he fell asleep again and slept calmly.

About three o’clock that afternoon a Chilworth fly drove up to the front entrance of Halswood; a gentleman alighted, rang the bell, and inquired if Captain Chancellor were at home. He was answered in the negative, the master of the house was out, would not be in till between four and five.

“Mrs Chancellor, then?”

Disappointment again. She was not well enough to see visitors. Could the gentleman send in his message?

The gentleman hesitated. The position was an awkward one. “Is there no one I can see? No friend, perhaps, staying in the house?” he inquired at last.

A gleam of light—the footman, murmuring an unintelligible name, turns appealingly to Mr Blinkhorn in the background, who comes forward.

“Miss Heyrecourt is staying here at present, sir—a relation of my master’s,” Mr Blinkhorn condescended to explain, going on to express his readiness to convey the stranger’s card to the young lady if he would favour him with the same.

A look of relief overspread the countenance of Gerald Thurston, for he it was who had undertaken to carry the sick man’s message to his daughter, Frank being hopelessly engaged in clerical duties.

“Miss Eyrecourt?” exclaimed Mr Thurston, hunting for a calling-card; “I am very glad to hear it. She will see me, I am sure.”

Mr Blinkhorn and his satellites thought this looked suspicious, and afterwards retailed the stranger’s delight at the mention of Miss Eyrecourt’s name for the benefit of the servant’s hall. In another minute Gerald was shaking hands with Roma, and explaining to her the reason of his sudden appearance. At first her expression was bright and cheerful; she was evidently pleased to see him again and interested in what he had to tell. But as he went on, her face grew grave—graver even than there seemed cause for.

“There is nothing immediate to be feared,” Gerald said, in conclusion; “Mr Laurence may linger for months as he is, or he may, it’s just possible, he may recover. I saw the doctor after I had seen Sydney this morning. I thought it would be more satisfactory for Eu— for Mrs Chancellor to hear I had done so.”

“Yes,” said Roma, “it was a good thought;” but she spoke a little absently, and still looked very grave. “I hope Eugenia will be able to go at once,” she went on. “She is not very strong, but I think she is quite well enough to go, and I am sure she will think so. Only you know,” with a smile, “she must consult her husband too, and I don’t know what he will say. You see, she has been more or less an invalid for so long.”

“I did not know it,” said Gerald, with concern and surprise. “Indeed, I don’t think Sydney does.”

“Does she not?” exclaimed Roma. “Eugenia must have concealed it then. A mistake, I think. Those things always lead to misapprehension. But she is really much better now. Shall I go and tell her? She had a headache to-day, that was why she didn’t want to see any one. There is not much time to spare. When did you say you must leave?”

“The best train leaves Chilworth at six; the next at 7:30,” he replied.

“Well, I must tell her at once, then,” said Roma. “I am leaving here myself at five. I have only been here two days, on my way, or rather out of my way, north. I spend to-night at Stebbing with some friends who happen to be going north too, to-morrow.”

“You should have come by Wareborough again,” suggested Gerald. “I am sure Mrs Dalrymple would have been delighted to see you.”

“Next time, perhaps,” answered Roma. Then she added, with a smile, “I am quite getting to like Wareborough—or, at least, some of the people in it—though I used to think it such a dreadful place.”

Suddenly something in her own words made her blush and feel ashamed of herself. “I must go to Eugenia,” she said, hastily, leaving the room rather abruptly as she spoke.

“I wonder what there is about that Mr Thurston that always makes me behave in his presence like an underbred schoolgirl?” she thought to herself, as she went upstairs.

Barely five minutes—certainly not ten—had passed when the door of the room where Gerald was waiting opened, and Eugenia herself appeared. He had turned, expecting to see Roma again; a slight constraint was immediately perceptible in his manner when he saw who the new-comer was. The last time he had seen her had been on her marriage day. At first sight he hardly thought her much altered. She did not look ill, for the excitement of Roma’s news, the eagerness to hear more, had brought a bright colour to her cheeks. When it faded again he saw how pale she really was.

“Oh, Gerald!” she exclaimed, with all her old winning impulsiveness, “how good of you to come! How very good of you t Of course I shall go back with you at once. And Roma tells me there is no actual cause for more anxiety? You are sure of that, are you not, Gerald?”

He repeated to her word for word what the doctor had said to him that morning. She felt he was speaking the truth, and seemed satisfied.

“I expect Beauchamp in directly,” she said, looking at her watch. “He will probably want to take me home himself, but I shall try to persuade him not. He is going out to dinner to-night. It will be quite unnecessary for him to come. I shall tell him he may come to fetch me if he likes.”

She spoke confidently, but with a certain nervous hurry of manner new to her, and that did not escape Gerald’s observation. Just then Roma joined them. A sudden thought struck Eugenia.

“You have had nothing to eat, Gerald,” she exclaimed. “Roma, dear, would you ring and order some luncheon in the dining-room? I think I must run upstairs again and hasten Rachel. She is not accustomed to sudden moves.”

Captain Chancellor came home from his ride about the time he was expected. He was a very punctual man. He came in at a side door, without ringing. The first sign of life that met him as he crossed the hall, was the sight, through the half-open dining-room door, of an entertainment of some kind going on within. An impromptu repast at which the only guest was a stranger, a man, that was all Beauchamp could see, for the unknown was sitting with his back to him, but as he looked, a still more astonishing sight met his eyes, Roma, no less a person than Roma, was keeping the stranger company!

Who on earth could it be? Beauchamp hated unexpected visitors, and irregular meals and “upsets” of every kind; above all he hated that anything should take place in his own house without his knowing all the ins and outs of it. Vaguely annoyed, he was turning to make inquiry, when an eager voice arrested him. It was the voice of Rachel, a very flushed and excited Rachel. Captain Chancellor objected to the lower orders displaying their feelings in his presence, and at the best of times there was a latent antagonism between Eugenia’s husband and her maid.

“Oh, sir,” exclaimed the agitated damsel. “Oh, sir, you have come in. I am so glad.” (“What business is it of yours?” thought her master.) “My mistress is so anxious to see you at once, sir, please.”

“What is the matter? Where is your mistress?” he asked impatiently.

“Upstairs, sir, in her own room, packing,” she replied, rashly.

“Packing? What in all the world do you mean? Packing, where to go to? Are you all going out of your senses?” he demanded, with increasing irritation.

But Rachel, seeing which way the wind blew, had prudently fled. There was nothing for it but to go up to Eugenia’s room, and find out for himself the reason of all this disturbance.

Ten minutes later, the bell of Mrs Chancellor’s dressing-room rang sharply, and a message came down to Miss Eyrecourt, requesting her to go upstairs at once.

When Roma entered the room, there stood the husband and wife, the former looking out of the window, tapping his boots impatiently with the riding whip still in his hand; the latter by the side of a half-filled trunk, her face white and miserable, but with a gleam in her eyes which Roma had never seen there before.

“Roma,” she cried, as Miss Eyrecourt came in, with a passionate, appealing despair in her voice, “Roma, he won’t let me go! And my father longing so for me. Roma, speak to him.”

“Roma knows better,” said Beauchamp, with a hard little laugh. “Let you go? I should think not. You must be completely insane to think of such a thing. You who have been making yourself out too much of an invalid to go anywhere—why, you refused Lady Vaughan for this very evening!—to think of setting off on a three or four hours’ journey with a perfect stranger—a stranger to me at least, whom your father sends off in this helter-skelter fashion to fetch you, because he is not very well and nervous and fanciful. I never heard such a thing in my life! I can’t understand your complete indifference to appearances in the first place.”

Eugenia said not a word. Roma, knowing of old the mood which Beauchamp was in, controlled her indignation, though it was not very easy to do so.

“Perhaps you will come downstairs, and hear the whole particulars from Mr Thurston himself,” she said to Captain Chancellor, coldly. He took the hint, and followed her out of the room. Outside, on the landing, she turned upon him. “Do not think I am going to interfere,” she said quickly. “I know it would be useless. I don’t take upon myself to say that she should go, that she is well enough—though, to my thinking, the distress and disappointment will be worse for her than the journey—but in the thing itself you may be right. But this I do say, that the way you have done it, your manner to her, is simply,” she hesitated a moment, “brutal,” she added, with contemptuous distinctness. “Bringing in the vulgar question of ‘appearances’ at such a time!”

This was her parting shot. She turned and left him, and Beauchamp, without having replied to her by word or glance, stalked away downstairs to Mr Thurston.

He was very civil to Gerald, so civil as to make the new-comer feel that he was looked upon as a total stranger; so full of acknowledgments of the great trouble Mr Thurston had given himself, as to suggest that the qualification “unnecessary” was in his thoughts all the time. But Gerald did not care enough for the man to be annoyed or in any way affected by his opinion; he only cared for the errand he had come upon, and his disappointment was great when he found it was to be a fruitless one. He did not attempt to hide it.

“I am exceedingly sorry that Mrs Chancellor cannot return with me,” he said; “it is very unfortunate.”

“But, from what you tell me, there is no cause for pressing anxiety,” said Captain Chancellor. “Mr Laurence is not in a critical state?”

“There is no immediate danger, so at least the doctor assured me,” Gerald admitted. “But my own opinion is less favourable. I do not like this sudden feverish eagerness to see his daughter: it is quite unlike Mr Laurence. I confess, it made me very uneasy, and I dread the effects of the disappointment.”

Beauchamp smiled. There was a slight superiority in his smile. At another time it might have irritated Gerald as it did Roma, who had re-entered the room.

“I can’t say that I see any grounds for uneasiness in what you mention,” Beauchamp said. “Every one knows how fanciful sick people are. And as for the disappointment, there need be none, I hope. I shall see my wife’s medical man to-morrow, and, if he approves, I shall bring her over to Wareborough myself in a few days. A very different thing from acting without his approval.”

And with this, Gerald had to be content. There was reason in what Captain Chancellor said, but his evident consciousness of being the only reasonable one of the party made it all the more irritating to have to abide by his decision.

“Mr Thurston,” said Roma, when, for a moment, they were alone, just as he was leaving, “Eugenia asked me to beg you to forgive her not coming down again, and she told me too, to thank you ‘very, very much.’ And will you add to your kindness by writing to her to-morrow, and saying exactly how Mr Laurence is, and how he bore the disappointment.”

“Certainly I will,” said Gerald. “I will write to-night, if the post is not gone. Our post is late.”

“And,” added Roma, hesitatingly, “you will prevent their thinking it her fault. I mean, you will prevent their thinking her indifferent or careless, without, of course, blaming any one else, if you can help it.” She grew a little confused. “It is not a case in which any one can interfere, but oh, I am so sorry for her!” she broke out.

Mr Thurston’s eyes looked the sympathy he felt, but he did not say much.

“I think you may trust me,” he said at last. “I will try to explain it as she—and you—would like. And after all,” he added, by way of consolation, as he shook hands, “perhaps we are rather fanciful and exaggerated. I could not help thinking so when Captain Chancellor was speaking.”

It was nearly time for Roma herself to go. She went up again to Eugenia. She found her standing by the window, which overlooked the drive, watching Gerald’s fly as it disappeared.

“Did he promise to write?” she asked as Roma came in.

“Yes, to-morrow, certainly—possibly to-night.”

“Did you say anything more to him, Roma? Did you ask him to tell them how I longed to go—how it was not my fault?”

“Yes—at least, I told him how earnestly you wished to go, but that it could not be helped. It would not have done to have let them think there had been any discussion about it, would it? And perhaps Beauchamp is wisest. I blame myself for having seemed to take your going for granted, at first.”

“You need not. You have been very good to me,” said Eugenia. And then the two kissed each other, a rare demonstration of affection for Roma.

She offered to defer her journey to Deepthorne, to stay at Halswood as long as Eugenia liked. Beauchamp’s wife thanked her, but said, “No, any ‘to-do’ would run the risk of annoying him,” and Roma, knowing this to be true, and not a little uncertain besides what place she at present held in the good graces of the master of the house, did not persist.

So she drove away to Stebbing, and Captain Chancellor in due time departed to his dinner-party at Sir Bernard Vaughan’s, and Eugenia was left alone.

Afterwards, Roma wished that she had stayed.

Volume Three—Chapter Five.

The Last Straw.

Oh Lord, what is thys worldys blysse, That changeth as the mone! My somer’s day in lusty May Is derked before the none. The Not-Browne Mayd.

There was no letter the next morning. “Gerald must have been too late,” thought Eugenia, trying to think she did not feel anxious. But the morning after that there was none either—none, at least, that she caught sight of at first. There was one with the Wareborough postmark, but it had a black seal and was addressed to her husband, and he prevented her seeing it till he knew its contents. Then he had to tell her. It was from Frank. Eugenia never knew or remembered distinctly anything more of that day, nor of several others that succeeded it. And Captain Chancellor never cared to repeat to any one the wild words of reproach which, in the first moment of agony, had escaped her. But, satisfied though he was that he had acted for the best, there were moments during those days when Beauchamp was thankful to recall the assurance which Sydney’s husband had had the generous thoughtfulness to give in this letter. “Even if Eugenia had returned with my brother it would have been too late;” an assurance which Eugenia’s stunned senses had failed to convey to her brain.

This was the history of that day at Wareborough—the day, that is to say, of Gerald’s unsuccessful errand.

As soon as he was satisfied that Eugenia had been sent for, Mr Laurence became calmer. He slept at intervals during the day, and when awake seemed so much better that Sydney almost regretted the precipitancy with which she had acted on what was, perhaps, after all, only an invalid’s passing fancy. But by evening she came to think differently. The nervous restlessness returned in an aggravated form. Every few minutes he asked her what o’clock it was, and she, understanding the real motive of the question, replied each time with a little addition of volunteered information.

“Seven o’clock, dear papa; they may be here by nine, you know;” or, “a quarter to eight; they will be about half-way if they started by the later train.”

Between eight and nine, to Sydney’s great relief, her father fell asleep again. She dared not leave him, but sat beside him, watching his restless slumber; wearied herself, she had all but fallen asleep; too, when she was startled by his suddenly addressing her.

“Sydney,” he said, “tell me—Eugenia?” His voice was clear, and stronger than it had been of late, yet he seemed to find difficulty in expressing himself. A strange fear seized Sydney.

“Not yet, dear father,” she said, consolingly. “She has not come yet. But very soon she must be here.”

He looked at her earnestly, as if striving to take in the sense of her words. “No,” he said, at last, “no, it will be too late.” Then a smile broke over his face. “Good-bye, dear Sydney, dear child. Tell Eugenia not to grieve. It is not for long.”

Sydney had seen death, but never a death-bed. Death, when all the life-like surroundings are removed, when the last tender offices have been performed, and the soulless form lies before us in solemn calm; in this guise death is easier to believe in—to realise. But dying, the actual embrace of the grim phantom—a phantom only, thank God—she had never seen, and it came upon her with an awful shock. For some minutes—how many she never knew—she stood there beside the bed, in agonised bewilderment, almost amounting to unconsciousness. The first thing that brought her to herself was the sound of wheels rapidly driving along the street, suddenly stopping at their door.

“Eugenia!” cried Sydney, “oh, poor Eugenia! She has come, and it is too late.” Then a mocking hope sprang up in her heart. “Perhaps he has only fainted,” it whispered. She knew it was not so, yet somehow the idea gave her momentary strength. She rang the bell violently. In another moment her husband and the servants were beside her. But in an instant they saw how it was—the good, kind father, the gentle-spirited scholar, the earnest philanthropist had passed through the awful doorway—had entered into “the better country.” And Eugenia had not come!

Sydney did not see her brother-in-law that night, but the next day he told her all—not quite all, but enough to prevent her blaming Eugenia—to fill her with unspeakable pity for her sister. To Frank, Gerald was somewhat less communicative.

“Fine lady airs and nonsense,” exclaimed the curate. “Not well enough, indeed! Think how Sydney has been travelling about with her father and wearing herself out, poor child. Still I am very sorry for Eugenia. It will be an awful blow to her.”

And the letter he wrote to Beauchamp, deputing him, as was natural, to “break the sad tidings” to his wife, was kind and considerate in the extreme.

Return of post brought no answer, considerably to their surprise, for Frank’s letter had contained particulars of the arrangements they proposed, among which Captain Chancellor’s presence at the funeral had of course been mentioned. Sydney felt anxious and uneasy; her husband tried to reassure her by reminding her that her nerves had been shaken, and she was inclined to be fanciful in consequence.

“It must be some accidental delay,” he said. “Letters seldom go wrong, but when they do, it is sure to happen awkwardly. Besides, I think it just possible Chancellor may be bringing Eugenia over. She will probably wish it.”

As he spoke there came a loud ringing at the bell. Sydney started. In the sad days of death’s actual presence in a house such sounds are rare. There were grounds for her apprehension. In another moment a telegram was in Frank’s hands.

“From Captain Chancellor to Rev. F. Thurston.

“Is it possible for Sydney to come at once? E— is very ill.”

The husband and wife looked at each other.

“My poor Sydney,” said Frank, “it is very hard upon you.”

Within an hour, Sydney was on her way to Halswood. It was a strange, melancholy journey. Arrived at Chilworth, she found the Halswood carriage in waiting, on the chance of her early arrival, and drove off at once. How pretty and fresh, how mockingly bright, the country looked, in its as yet unsullied spring dress! How beautiful the park was, when the carriage turned in at the lodge, and there stretched out before her view, on each side, the broad, undulating sweep of grassy land, fringed round with noble trees! Sydney was town-bred; she loved the country with the yearning, enthusiastic, half-reverent love of one who seldom breathes the fresh, pure air, to whom the country sights and sounds are fascinatingly unfamiliar. In a moment’s forgetfulness she glanced at the baby by her side, asleep in the nurse’s arms: “How fortunate Eugenia is,” she thought, “to have her home here—to be able to look forward to bringing up her children in this lovely place.” Then she remembered all, leant back in her seat, and was conscious of no other feeling save the gnawing anxiety that had accompanied her all the way.

When she reached the house, she learnt, somewhat to her surprise, that her brother-in-law was not in. He had only gone out for a stroll in the park, by the doctor’s advice, having been up for two nights and being much fatigued—of course, not thinking it would be possible for Mrs Thurston to arrive so early—was what Blinkhorn informed her, adding, in answer to her eager inquiry, as he condescendingly showed her into the morning-room, that his mistress was “Better—decidedly better. Good hopes were now entertained of her recovery.”

Then Sydney had an interview with Mrs Grier, in her element of lugubrious excitement. In somewhat less sanguine terms, she confirmed the favourable report. “But the baby,” she went on to say, “was in a very sad way, poor lamb!—only just alive, and no more.”

“The baby!” repeated Sydney, in amazement. “I had no idea—I had no thought of a baby for a long time to come.”

“I or any one else, ma’am. It is very hard upon it, poor innocent! to have been hurried into this sad world, this valley of tears, so long before it should have been. But it cannot live, ma’am—they say it is quite impossible; and I am sure there are many of us—myself for one—that will feel it is to be envied.”

“Has my sister seen it? A boy, is it?” asked Sydney.

“No, ma’am—a girl, fortunately,” replied Mrs Grier, with a curious mingling of conventional sentiment with her unworldly aspirations. “My mistress has seen it, for a moment,—this morning early, when for the first time she seemed quite conscious. It was then she asked for you, and my master sent at once. Poor dear lady! how pleased we were, to be sure.”

Real tears shone in the housekeeper’s eyes, and Sydney began to like her better.

“I wonder how soon I may see my sister?” she was just saying, when a step in the hall caught her ear. It was Beauchamp. The door opened and he came in—came in, looking well and fresh and handsome—offensively well, thought Sydney; heartlessly cool and comfortable.

“This is kind, truly kind,” he exclaimed, really meaning what he said, but unable to throw off the “amiable” manner and sweet tone habitual to him when addressing any woman, especially a young one. “I had no idea you could have come so quickly. You have heard, I hope, how much better Eugenia is. All will now, I trust, go on well. She must have had a narrow escape, though,” and his voice grew graver.

“Yes,” said Sydney; “I am inexpressibly thankful. But,” she added, “the poor little baby?”

“Ah, yes,” replied Beauchamp, indifferently, “poor little thing! It’s a good thing it’s a girl, is it not? You would like to see Eugenia soon, would you not? The doctor said there would be no objection; she wishes it so much. I can’t tell you,” he added, as he led the way upstairs, “I can’t tell you how thankful I have felt that I prevented her going to Wareborough that day. The shock of finding it too late on getting there would have been even worse, and after a fatiguing journey too. Yes, I am very thankful I put a stop to that.” Sydney said nothing. She did not wish to yield to prejudice or dislike, but half a dozen times in the course of this five minutes’ conversation, her brother-in-law had grated on her feelings. It was very inconsiderate of him to speak so of the journey to Wareborough, which he must know had been her dear dead father’s proposal. She almost wished Frank had not told him Eugenia would have been “too late.” She had expected to find Beauchamp full of sympathy, and possibly of self-reproach; here he was, on the contrary, priding himself on what he had done! At least he might have had the grace to refrain from any allusion to so painful a subject. But she said nothing. And soon, very soon, she forgot all about it for the time, in the sorrowful delight of seeing Eugenia again, of listening to her murmured words of intense, unaltered affection, of gratitude and piteous grief.

“It was not the shock that did me harm,” she whispered to Sydney, later in the day; “it was remorse. Oh, to think of what he must have thought of me! My kind, good father!”

Then Sydney, who had hitherto dreaded the subject, saw that the time had come for delivering her father’s message. She did so, word for word as it had been given to her.

“And so you see, dear Eugenia,” she added, in conclusion, “you need have no remorseful feeling. He never thought you indifferent; and had you come, it would have been too late. Frank said so in his letter.”

“Thank God!” whispered Eugenia; “and thank you, Sydney. I think now a faint remembrance recurs to me of Beauchamp saying my going would have been no use. But I took it as merely a vague consolation of his own. Had I understood it properly, I might have controlled myself better, and then perhaps I would not have been ill. I don’t mind for myself, but the little baby. Oh, Sydney, my poor little baby! They say she cannot live!”

She turned her great sorrowful eyes to her sister, as if praying for a more hopeful verdict; but Sydney dared not give it. She had seen the poor little piteous atom of humanity. The only wonder to her was that it lived at all.

“And it would have been such a pretty baby!” she murmured. Then another thought struck her. “Has it been baptised?” she asked.

“Not yet. We sent to the Rectory, but Mr Dawes is away from home. Then I sent to Stebbing, and Mr Mervyn is coming—he will soon be here. That reminds me— let it be called ‘Sydney’—my mother’s name and yours.”

“Will Captain Chancellor like it?” suggested Sydney, not without hesitation.

“He need not be asked,” answered Eugenia, quickly. “He cares nothing about it—it is not a boy!” with bitter emphasis. “No, it is all my own—living it is mine—dying, doubly mine. You will do as I ask, Sydney dear?” she added, the almost fierceness of her tone melting again into gentleness.

The little creature’s name never became a source of discussion. The feeble life flickered out that very night, leaving, short as had been its span, one sore, desolate heart behind it.

Yet, physically, Eugenia made satisfactory progress towards recovery. Sydney began to think of returning home, where her presence was much needed. She did not feel that after the first she was of much comfort to her sister; for as she grew stronger, a cloud of reserve seemed to envelope Eugenia—she to whom it used to be impossible to conceal the most passing fancy. To Sydney she was most loving and affectionate, never wearied of talking over old days, full of interest in the Thurstons’ home-life and prospects. But of her own life and feelings she said hardly a word. It might be right and wise to say nothing, where there was nothing satisfactory to say, thought Sydney; but all the same, it made her very unhappy. Knowing of old Eugenia’s inclination to extremes, she doubted if her grounds for disappointment and dissatisfaction were altogether real and unexaggerated. But she could not urge an unwilling confidence—especially on a subject of which she felt she knew too little to be a wise adviser. For her brother-in-law was almost a complete stranger to her. He was very civil and attentive to her the few times they saw each other during this week, and more than once repeated his thanks for her prompt, response to his summons; but when she said she must fix the day of her return home, he did not press her to stay.

“You must come again before long,” he said, “and by that time Eugenia will be all right again. I expect my sister here in a week or two, which will cheer us up a little. It will never do for Eugenia to yield to depression. The doctors assure me she will be all right if she will keep up her spirits, and Mrs Eyrecourt is just the person to discourage that sort of thing—low spirits and hypochondria.”

Sydney sighed. She knew very little of Mrs Eyrecourt, but she felt an instinctive doubt of her sister’s “grief being med’cinable” by such doctoring.

The day before she left, a little incident occurred which broke down temporarily one side of the barrier of reserve with which Eugenia had surrounded herself. Sydney was sitting by her sister’s bedside; the invalid lying so quietly, that the watcher thought she must be asleep. Suddenly an unexpected sound broke the stillness—an infant’s cry, once or twice repeated, then the sort of sobbing “refrain” with which a very sleepy little baby soothes itself to peace again.

Much annoyed, Sydney rose quickly but softly from her seat, and was hastening across the room, when Eugenia’s voice recalled her.

“What was that, Sydney?” she inquired. “I was not asleep.”

“I am so sorry, dear,” said Sydney, looking very guilty, the colour mounting to her forehead, “I am afraid it is my little boy. You know I was obliged to bring him; but I hoped this would not have happened. Mrs Grier gave us rooms at the other end of the house on purpose; but I suppose nurse, thinking him safely asleep, ventured along the passage.”

For a minute Eugenia did not speak. Then she said, gently, “Never mind, Sydney. Perhaps it is best. Kiss me, Sydney.” And when her sister’s face was closely pressed to her own, she whispered, “Even to you, dear, I can hardly tell how terrible is my feeling of loss—loss of what I never had, you might almost say. But oh, if you knew how I looked forward to what that little life would be to me! Sydney, if you are ever inclined to blame me, pity me too. I need it sorely.”

The sisters seemed almost to have changed places. Sydney could hardly answer for the tears that choked her. Eugenia was perfectly calm.

“Poor Eugenia, dear Eugenia!” said Sydney at last; “I do know a little at least of what you must be feeling. There have even been times in the last few days when I have not wanted to see my baby—when I have felt almost angry with him for looking so strong and healthy. Oh, poor Eugenia!” Eugenia drew her sister’s face down and kissed her again.

“Do you remember, Sydney,” she said, suddenly, “a day, long ago, when we were putting camelias in our hair? Mine fell off the stalk, and you said you would not wear yours either, because I had none.”

“Yes,” said Sydney, “I remember.” Then they were both silent.

“I should like to see your boy,” said Eugenia, in a little—“not to-day, perhaps, but before you go. Bring him to me the last thing, that I may kiss him.”

Sydney did so, “the last thing” before leaving the next morning. And thus the sisters parted again.

Three more weeks found Eugenia, comparatively speaking, almost well again, and beginning to resume her usual habits. It was the end of May by now; surely the loveliest season of the year, when the colours are brilliant yet tender with the dewy freshness wanting to them later in the year; when there is sunshine without glare, life in abundance with no attendant shadow of already encroaching decay. A season when happy people feel doubly so from nature’s apparent sympathy with their rejoicing, but a season of increased suffering to the sorrowful. Oh, but the sunshine can mock cruelly sometimes! And oh, the agony in the carols of the soulless little birds! And the flowers, even! How heartless the daffodils are, and the primroses, and worst of all, perhaps, the violets! How can you show your heads again, you terrible little blossoms, and in the self-same spots too, where last year my darling’s voice cried out in rapture that she had found you, hidden in the very lane where, day by day, in childish faith, she unweariedly sought you? Does she gather spring flowers now? Are there primroses and violets in the better land? There is “no need of the sun, neither of the moon” in that country, we are told; “there is no night there,” “neither death, nor sorrow, nor crying.” Should not this satisfy us? But it does not. We long, ah! how we long sometimes to know a little, however little more, to see if but for an instant the faces of the children playing in the golden street, by the banks of the crystal river.

Eugenia’s little baby’s death had been a bitter disappointment, but in its momentary life there had been no time for the gathering of hereafter bitter associations. Yet the bright spring days added to her sadness and exaggerated her tendency to dwell upon her losses. They had been many and severe, she said to herself: the father whose affection had been tried and true; the infant in whose existence she had bound up many hopes for the future—and besides these, what more had she not lost? “Trust, hope, heart, and energy,” she sadly answered.

One day, nearly a month after Sydney’s visit, Beauchamp told her with evident satisfaction, that he had heard from his sister; “she hopes to be here to-morrow,” he added.

“To-morrow,” repeated Eugenia, aghast. She had heard something of an impending visit from Mrs Eyrecourt, but she had heard it vaguely. Absorbed in her own thoughts, it had never occurred to her that it was likely to take place so soon, or that the actual date would be fixed without her being further consulted.

“Yes, certainly, to-morrow. Why not?” said Beauchamp, coolly. “And I am exceedingly glad she is coming. It is quite time you tried to rouse yourself a little, my dear Eugenia, and some fresh society will do you good.”

“Society, Beauchamp?” answered Eugenia, reproachfully, “You cannot expect me to go into society yet!”

“I wasn’t speaking of going out, or anything of that kind. I dare say you are hardly up to that; but Dr Benyon says you would be ever so much better if you had some variety. When Gertrude comes, I want to arrange for going away somewhere.”

“I did not mean with regard to my health,” said Eugenia. “I am well enough. I meant, considering other things; how recently—” she broke off, abruptly. “I would rather have been left alone a little longer; but, of course, a visit from your sister is different from any strangers coming.”

Captain Chancellor looked slightly uneasy; an intuitive feeling had warned Eugenia that something more was to come. “Gertrude is coming alone,” he said; “but she asks me if we can have the Chancellor girls here a fortnight hence. They are going to stay with her at Winsley, and she would like them to be here part of the time. And of course, there is no possible objection to it? They know we are not going out just now. One or two small dinner-parties and a little croquet, or that sort of thing, will be all they will expect.”

Eugenia made no reply. Beauchamp began to get vexed. “You surely are not going to make a new trouble out of such a simple thing as this?” he exclaimed.

“I don’t want to make any trouble,” she answered, drearily. “I must do what you tell me; but I do think it cruel of you to put this upon me. I don’t expect you to sympathise in my greatest loss, but I cannot understand your not caring about our poor little baby.”

Captain Chancellor gave vent to a muttered exclamation of impatience.

“You are infatuated, Eugenia!” he exclaimed. “Do you never look at home as the cause of half the things you complain of? It is not true that I did not care about the poor little thing. I cared as much as was natural considering the circumstances, and that it was not a boy. But I detest exaggerated sentiment. And really, you have no right to reproach me. You must know you have no one to thank for this particular trouble but yourself; your own want of self-control and wild behaviour because I had prevented your going off to Wareborough in that insane way, were the cause of it all. I did not intend ever to have alluded to it; but you provoke me, I do believe, intentionally. I cannot express the least wish of late but you set yourself against it. It never seems to occur to you that I have my share of disagreeables to put up with. Do you think the sort of life I have had the last few months was what I looked forward to, or that any man would envy me a wife everlastingly in low spirits like you?”

He left the room as he spoke, having, as usual, when he lost his temper, said more than he meant or really felt, regretting already that he had said so much, and at the same time mortified by the consciousness of his rudeness and unkindness. Eugenia remained where he had left her, some degrees more miserable than she had been before this conversation, though such painful scenes were not, unfortunately, so rare as to give any fresh direction to the current of her unhappiness. “Yes,” she thought to herself, “it is all true—it has been a wretched mistake for him too. It is all true, but ah! how terrible for him to be the one to say it.”

The next day brought Mrs Eyrecourt—Mrs Eyrecourt, in brilliant spirits and beautiful attire. For the correct number of months of mourning for her cousins having expired some time ago, she had deserted the trailing crape in which her sister-in-law had last seen her, for less lugubrious plumage. And on Eugenia’s present mood, unfortunately, the bright though well assorted colours struck as discordantly as last year’s sable on the feelings of the bride. But there was an unexpected pleasure in store for Beauchamp’s wife. Out of the fly containing the luggage and the maids a small figure appeared. It was Floss—Floss, smaller, queerer, greener-eyed, and more defiant than ever; but internally, nevertheless, in a state of intense excitement and delight at the thought of seeing Aunty ’Genia again, hearing more dolls’ stories, possibly—who could say?—seeing those venerable ladies themselves.

“Floss wouldn’t come in the carriage with her uncle and me,” said Gertrude, turning to Eugenia. “She is more of a little savage than ever, I fear.”

“Poor Floss!” thought her aunt, as she kissed her.

Gertrude was in a very amiable mood. She congratulated Eugenia on looking so well—“Ever so much better than she had expected to see her,” while wondering in her secret heart at the sad change in her sister-in-law’s looks. “It must be partly her clothes,” she decided, and marvelled more that her brother allowed her to wear such “atrociously made mourning.” She sighed as she reflected what a different wife she would have liked to see at the head of her brother’s table, and sighed again as she remembered her own short-sightedness in another direction. But her sighs were upstairs in her own room. Downstairs, she was amiability and liveliness itself. She talked, and laughed, and asked questions about the neighbours and neighbourhood, to which nearly all the answers came from Beauchamp—for in most instances Eugenia’s information was at fault, her interest palpably languid. Yet when Gertrude turned from her with a patronising “Oh, no, of course, you have not met them—it was when you were ill;” or “Ah, yes, I remember you were not there,” Eugenia felt unreasonably indignant. Altogether, this first evening left her with a mortifying sensation of being an outsider in her own home; she felt again the same sensation of loneliness and isolation, of being in no wise essential to her husband’s well-being, which had so depressed her the first evening at Winsley. And more bitterly than ever her thoughts went back over and over again to the irreparable past.

“Aunty,” inquired Floss, a day or two after this, when she was alone with Eugenia, “are you as pwetty as you used to be?”

The stare of the blue-green eyes was rather disconcerting.

“I don’t know, Moss,” said Eugenia. “I daresay not, but it doesn’t matter. What makes you ask?”

“What does ‘failed off’ mean?” continued Floss, pursuing her own train of thought.

“I won’t answer silly questions, Floss,” replied her aunt, her face flushing, nevertheless.

“’Tisn’t silly,” said Floss, indignantly. “Big people said it. Mamma said you had failed off tewibly, and Uncle Beachey looked cross and said it was your own fault. I don’t think Uncle Beachey is nice at all. He spoke so cwoss. I thought falling off meant tumbling and hurting yourself, but it doesn’t. It’s something about being pwetty and ugly. And mamma said she wished she hadn’t interfered once, and then somebody else who wouldn’t have failed off would have been here. Does it mean about widing? Everybody says Aunty Woma looks pwetty widing, and I know mamma meant her.”

So far, in a sort of stupor of bewildered amazement, Eugenia had listened in silence to the child’s curiously jumbled revelation. Suddenly she recollected herself.

“Floss,” she said, sternly, “you must not repeat what you were not meant to hear, and I will not listen to you.”

“It wasn’t not meant for me not to hear. I was just playing with my new doll. I never listened behind the curtains. I never did,” said Floss, “not since the day I cut the worm up, and Uncle Beachey scolded me. The day Aunty Woma said she’d go away, and Uncle Beachey was angwy. And I never told that mamma scolded Aunty Woma till she cwied. Aunty Woma didn’t go away, but Uncle Beachey did, and when he comed back he bwought you, Aunty ’Genia, and I wish you wouldn’t look so gwave. Please don’t be angwy with me.” There was an “et tu, Brute,” inflection in the child’s tone which, through all her tumultuous feelings, touched Eugenia. She stooped to kiss Floss, promising her not to be angry if she would never again talk about what she heard big people say. Then she sent her away to her dolls, and sat by herself trying to think over what she had heard, calmly; trying to persuade herself the inference to be drawn from Floss’s garbled communication was not what her first instinct had told her it was; trying to believe it could not be true that her husband had never really cared for her—that he had married her merely in a fit of mortified vanity, “out of pique.”

Beauchamp was away that day. He had left home on a two days’ visit in the neighbourhood, in which, greatly to her disgust, Mrs Eyrecourt had not been invited to accompany him. Had he been at home, doubtless Eugenia, in her first impetuous excitement, would have rushed to him for confirmation or refutation of what her morbid imagination had already worked up into a plausible history of deception and concealment on his part—of cruel advantage taken of her inexperience and confiding trust—an explanation, she told herself, of his having so quickly grown weary of her, to which it now seemed to her innumerable, little-considered trifles pointed as the true one.

“Not that I blame him for loving Roma,” she thought. “Oh no—not that. But he knew I was giving him my all, and he took it, sought it, knowing he had nothing to give me in return. Ah, it was cruel!”

She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples and burning eyes. It was too late in the day for any relief by tears; she felt as if she could never cry again. For a long time she sat there motionless. Then a sudden thought struck her. “I will hear the whole truth,” she said, with a sudden fierce determination. “I will make his sister tell it all. There is nothing dishonourable in forcing her to tell me what he has wilfully concealed, if, as the child says, they talk together of the past, and wish now—now that I am his wife, the mother of his child,” (this thought, alas! bringing no softening influence with it) “that it could be undone. Yes, I will make her tell it all, and she shall see what she has done—ruined two lives, if not three.”

But through her tremendous excitement she remembered one trifling consideration. She would not betray poor baby Floss. Mrs Eyrecourt should never know how she had learnt the truth.

Volume Three—Chapter Six.

Friends in Need.

Did I speak once angrily... ...You woman I loved so well, Who married the other? R. Browning.

The days were almost at their longest, but it was late enough to be nearly dark one evening, when a fly rattled along the street in Wareborough where the Thurstons lived, and drew up at the curate’s door. Frank was out: he had been sent for by a dying parishioner, and had warned his wife he might be detained till late—she had better not sit up for him. Sydney had just made up her mind to act upon this injunction, and was gathering her feminine odds-and-ends about her, previous to going to bed, when the unexpected sound of an arrival startled her in the midst of her housewifely “redding up.”

She was standing in the middle of her pretty little drawing-room, her work-basket in one hand, the book she had been reading in the other, the lamplight falling softly on her fair, quiet face and deep mourning dress—a peaceful, home-like picture, it seemed to the stranger, who suddenly came in upon the scene. A tall, black figure, with veiled face and shrouding drapery, stood in the doorway. Sydney was not hysterical, so she did not scream, but for a moment or two her heart beat fast, and her breathing seemed short and irregular. Who could it be?

“Sydney,” said the veiled woman, “don’t be startled, dear. It is only I.”

“Eugenia!” exclaimed the sister, scarcely less startled than before. “Can it be you, Eugenia? Oh, what is wrong? What is the matter?”

Before answering, the new-comer turned to the door, said a word to the servant waiting just outside—a word of directions as to paying the driver, for which purpose she handed her purse to Sydney’s mystified handmaiden—then, re-entering the room, she carefully closed the door.

“Can you take me in for a night, Sydney?” she asked. “You see, I have made sure of your doing so. I had nowhere else to go to.” She sat down, as she spoke, on the nearest chair: her attitude told of extreme dejection, her voice sounded faint and weary.

“Take you in, dearest? Of course we can, and with the greatest pleasure,” said Sydney, warmly. “Only—only—I fear—is there something wrong?”

“Yes,” replied Eugenia. “At least, I suppose you will call it something wrong. It is just that I have left him—left my husband—for ever.”

“Oh, Eugenia, oh, dearest sister, do not say so. It is too dreadful to be true. It cannot be so bad as that,” exclaimed Sydney, in horrified amazement. “Surely, dear, you don’t mean what you say—you cannot!”

“I do, though,” said Eugenia. “I left Halswood secretly this afternoon, and I never shall return there. It is done now; there is no turning back.”

“And why?” asked Sydney, striving to speak calmly, half inclined to think her sister’s brain was affected, yet, on the other hand, shrinking from the thought of what miserable story she might not be going to hear of terrible delinquency on Captain Chancellor’s part which had driven his outraged wife to this fatally decisive step. “I don’t like to ask you, Eugenia,” she went on, “but I suppose I must.”

“I will tell you all. I have been longing to do so,” returned Eugenia. “But, if you don’t mind, I should like to go upstairs and go to bed. I am so tired. Then I will tell you everything. May I have a cup of tea or a glass of wine? I have eaten nothing since the morning. I am so sorry to trouble you, dear,” as Sydney hastened away in search of the sorely-needed refreshment. “Frank is out, I suppose?”

Half an hour later, somewhat refreshed and revived by Sydney’s care, Eugenia told her story—told Sydney “all,” from the first faint misgiving as to the prospects of her married life—the first shadowy suspicion of her estimate of Beauchamp’s character having been a mistaken and illusory one; down through the long, painful struggle to blind herself to the truth, through the sad history of disunion and disagreement, of ever-increasing alienation, to the discovery of to-day—the discovery that, as she expressed it, “the one thing I clung to through all—the belief in his love for me, in his having loved me at least, was but a dream too—a part of the whole illusion—of the whole terrible mistake. For he never really cared for me, Sydney. When he left Wareborough that Christmas he had no thought of ever seeing me again; he had only been amusing himself. What happened at Nunswell was a mere chance—a mere impulse. He was in a mortified, wounded state from Roma’s rejection, and my evident devotion offered itself opportunely. I dare say he was sorry for me, too—pleasant to think of, is it not? I see it all as plainly as possible; the only thing that puzzles me now is, how I could ever have been so infatuated as to see it differently.”

“And did Mrs Eyrecourt really tell you all this?” inquired Sydney, for Eugenia had made no secret of the sources of her information. “When you taxed her, I mean, with the inferences to be drawn from the little girl’s chatter? I can hardly understand how your sister-in-law dared to say such things. Surely she might have tried to soften the facts!” She spoke indignantly, nevertheless she was conscious of a strong suspicion that her sister’s excited imagination had had to do with the filling in of some of the details which gave colour and consistency to the whole story.

“I made her tell me all,” answered Eugenia. “Not that she wanted to soften it, but at first she was a little frightened. Afterwards I do believe she enjoyed telling me, though all the while affecting to do it so reluctantly. She cannot understand where I learnt what I already knew, and she shall never know. Oh, Sydney, she said hateful things! When I asked her how she could have interfered between her brother and Roma, when I told her that by so doing she had ruined three lives, she said something about my romantic ideas, and hinted that if Beauchamp had known that he was to succeed his cousin, when he met me again at Nunswell, he would never have thrown himself away as he did. But I don’t think I minded that; it seemed too coarse to touch me. Then, at the end, she seemed to get frightened again, and tried to soothe me down. She reminded me that no wife should expect her husband’s full confidence as to the past, and she said that no girl could be so foolish as to imagine that a man like Beauchamp could have lived twenty-eight years in the world without love affairs of some kind. If it had not been Roma, it would have been some one else; I should think myself fortunate I had nothing worse to complain of. I dare say there is a sort of coarse truth in it—the world is a dreadful, miserable place; and, oh, Sydney, I wish I were dead!”

There was nothing for it but to soothe and caress her into temporary calm. She was too utterly worn out to be capable of being reasoned with; it would have been cruel to attempt it. Much as Sydney felt for her—intensely as she pitied her—she could not for a moment deceive herself into thinking that Eugenia had acted well or wisely. It had been a wild impulse that had urged her to this foolish, undignified step—so her best friends would say, and the world would say yet harsher things—yet, oh, poor Eugenia, how well Sydney understood the tumult of her feelings—the peculiar agony to her nature and disposition of the wounds she had received, the bitter anguish of the disappointments she had had to endure! It was with a very sore heart Sydney left her for the night; it was with no small uneasiness she reflected on what she had to tell her husband, and tried to imagine what course he would determine on pursuing. For in certain directions Frank could see but one road; rough and thorny though it might be, he sometimes showed but scant tenderness for those who, he decided, must walk therein. He was a good man—a good and true-hearted man, but of some kinds of trial and temptation he knew as little as his own baby son.

Sydney’s misgivings proved to be not unfounded. Eugenia slept till late the next morning, for the first part of the night sleep had deserted her altogether. It was so late when she woke that Frank had already left the house, Sydney told her.

“He has gone again to that sick man, and there is a meeting of some kind at one, so he will not be back till the afternoon; but he hopes to see you then,” she added.

“And was that the only message he left for me? Could you explain things to him at all—do you think he enters into my feelings?” asked Eugenia, anxiously.

“He was exceedingly surprised, and of course distressed,” answered Sydney, a little evasively. “We talked a great deal. Frank is very anxious about you, and very desirous of advising you for the best. Indeed he is, Eugenia; you must try to believe this, whether you agree with him or not.”

“That means, he blames me, and me alone, for my misery,” exclaimed Eugenia, impetuously. “You need not try to soften it to me, Sydney. Tell me all he said, plainly; though, truly, I think he might have had the manliness to say it to me himself, and not give you the pain of doing so.”

“You are mistaking him, indeed you are, dear Eugenia,” said Sydney, eagerly. “He is far, very far from blaming you only, and he is very sorry for you. All he says is, that this step that you have taken so impulsively is a sadly unwise one, and can do no good; and he says, your husband must be told where you are, immediately.”

“Has he gone, to tell him?” inquired Eugenia, bitterly. “He won’t find him at home. Beauchamp does not return till to-morrow.”

“Of course he has not gone. He would not do anything of the kind without telling you,” answered Sydney, with a little wifely indignation. “What Frank has made up his mind to is this—I was just going on to tell you,—either you or he, he says, must write to your husband to-night, telling him where you are, and asking him to come here to-morrow, or whenever he can, and then things must be talked over.”

“And I shall be taken home again—that is to say, if Beauchamp condescends to forgive me, like a naughty child?”

“Eugenia, don’t,” said Sydney, imploringly. “Frank will tell you what he thinks himself. He hopes indeed to show you that returning home is the only right course, but he does not think of you as you fancy. He is only so very anxious to show you what terrible harm may be done if this goes further, if—if it were to be talked about. For you know you have no real grounds of complaint.”

“I have not been beaten or starved, certainly,” said Eugenia. Then, with a sudden change of tone, “Sydney, I did not think you would have been persuaded to see things so. But suppose I refuse to be guided by Frank’s advice?”

“I won’t suppose it,” said Sydney; “Eugenia, you will think differently after a while. You don’t realise how terrible a thing you propose; you would be the last person to bear philosophically the sort of odium that always attaches itself to a woman in the position that yours would be. I do feel for you intensely; still I cannot but think there was exaggeration in this last trouble—I mean in what Mrs Eyrecourt told you. Things may yet be happier with you. But you must believe that both Frank and I are earnest in our anxiety about you. Of course Frank’s being a clergyman makes him express himself very decidedly, and he may seem hard to you. He has to be so very careful, too, to avoid the least appearance of—of anything that people could say ill-natured things about.” This last was an unfortunate admission. “I quite understand Frank’s feelings,” observed Eugenia. “I shall act with consideration for them.”

Her tone of voice was peculiar. Sydney could not understand it. “Then you will write?” she said, timidly, “or shall Frank?”

“He can do so if he likes,” answered Eugenia. “But there is no mystery about what I have done. I left a note for Beauchamp, and one for Mrs Eyrecourt. I made no attempt to conceal where I was going. I only came away quietly because I did not want any discussion. I should have brought Rachel with me, but she was here already. She came to Wareborough for a holiday last week. I must let her know I am here.”

It all sounded as if Eugenia meant to be reasonable, but Sydney felt far from satisfied. She thought it wiser, however, to say no more at present; not to irritate her sister by attempting to extort any promises. She was rewarded by Eugenia’s increased gentleness of manner. The rest of the morning passed peacefully; Eugenia seemed interested in seeing over Sydney’s house, and of her own accord proposed a visit to the nursery, where it went to her sister’s heart to see how she fondled and caressed her little nephew.

“And she used to hate babies so,” thought Sydney. “I wish Frank could see her now. Poor Eugenia!”

After luncheon Sydney was obliged to go out for an hour. She was distressed at having to leave her sister, but the engagement was one which could not be deferred, and Eugenia assured her she “did not mind being left alone.”

“I shall not be long,” said Sydney; “very likely I shall meet Frank, and we shall come back together.”

Eugenia kissed her as she was setting off, kissed her affectionately, and thanked her “for being so good to her.” So Sydney departed in much better spirits.

She did not meet Frank; her business detained her somewhat longer than she expected, an hour and a half had passed before she found herself at her own door again.

“Is Mrs Chancellor in the drawing-room?” she inquired of the servant, as she went in.

The girl’s wits were not of the brightest at any time. Now she looked confused and frightened. “I thought you knew, ma’am,” she exclaimed, “I fetched a fly immediately you had gone out, for the lady. She has gone.”

“Gone!” cried Sydney, in dismay, forgetful of everything except the shock of distress and disappointment.

“She left this note for you, ma’am,” added the servant.

“Perhaps she has gone home,” thought Sydney, with sudden hope. She tore open the envelope.

“Thank you, dearest Sydney,” said the note, “for your love and kindness. After what you have told me, however, of your husband’s feelings, I cannot stay longer with you. But do not be uneasy about me. I will write to you in a day or two. I cannot tell you where I am going, for I do not know myself. I am very miserable and very desolate; but I am not so selfish as to wish, to make you unhappy too. “Your affectionate Eugenia.”

“What else is she doing than making me miserable too?” thought Sydney. “Oh, Eugenia, this is very cruel of you.”

Frank came in almost immediately. He too was greatly distressed, and at first a little alarmed, and in consequence of these feelings, after the manner of men, he relieved himself by scolding his wife.

“You must have irritated her,” he exclaimed. “I really thought you were more judicious, Sydney. It would have been far better to have said nothing till I came in, and then I would have put the whole before her clearly, but not so as to hurt her.” Sydney took the undeserved blame meekly, nor did she remind her husband that, in saying what she had, she had acted by his express injunctions.

“I blame myself for leaving her,” she said, sadly.

Then they set to work to think what was best to do. Frank’s first impulse was to trace his sister-in-law at once. There would be little difficulty in finding her, he said. It would be easy to discover the driver of the fly, and learn from him to what station he had taken her—for Wareborough boasted no less than three—and, once certain of the railway by which she had travelled, the rest would be easy.

“For it is not,” he said, “as if she had any particular reason for mystery. She is sure in any case to write to us in a day or two.”

In this Sydney agreed, so after talking it over a little more, they decided it would be best to take no such steps as Frank had at first proposed.

“The publicity of making any inquiries about her,” he said, “is one of the things most to be avoided. Besides I hardly feel that I have a right to take any such steps. I will write to Chancellor at once; I shall write very carefully, you may be sure. But don’t be uneasy, Sydney. We shall hear from her in a day or two, you’ll see.” Sydney sighed. There was nothing for it but patience.

“I wish Gerald were at home,” she thought. But he was not, and the next day or two passed very anxiously with Eugenia’s sister.

The elder Mr Thurston was at this time away on a fishing expedition, having allowed himself the rare luxury of a fortnight’s holiday. He had been fishing up, or down, the stream from which Nunswell takes its name, and for the last few days had made this little watering-place his headquarters. It was a Friday when Eugenia left Wareborough, and late on the following day, Gerald, having returned to Nunswell, there to spend Sunday in decorous fashion, was strolling in the public gardens—the very gardens where he had sat and talked with Eugenia, some fifteen or sixteen months ago—the same gardens where, the very next day, “time and chance combining,” Beauchamp Chancellor and she had met again—when something familiar, something indefinably suggestive in the gait and bearing of a lady walking slowly a little way in front of him, caught Mr Thurston’s attention. He was thinking of Eugenia at the moment. The resemblance of the figure before him to the object of his thoughts struck him suddenly as the explanation of his vague sensation.

“If Eugenia were dead,” he said to himself, “I should shrink from dispelling the illusion, as no doubt many a ghost could be dispelled; but believing her to be alive and well, I think I should like to see the face of that tall, black-robed lady. Very likely she is old and ugly.” And half smiling at his own fancies, he quietly quickened his steps so as to overtake her. It was not difficult to do so. The part of the garden where the two were walking was retired and unfrequented. There was hardly another person within sight. As Gerald’s increased pace brought him quickly on a line with the solitary lady, the sounds of his footsteps caught her ear. Just as he passed her, she mechanically turned her face in his direction. Mr Thurston’s nerves were under good control, but the start of almost incredulous surprise at seeing his own wild fancy realised, betrayed him into a sudden exclamation.

“Eugenia!” he said, impetuously, “Eugenia, is it really you?” And even while he spoke, he looked at her again more closely, with a new fear of being the victim of some extraordinarily strong accidental resemblance. But it was not so. Eugenia’s surprise, though considerable, was less overpowering than Gerald’s, and she answered him composedly enough.

“Yes,” she said, with a little smile—a smile that somehow, however, failed to lighten up her face as of old—a poor, pitiful, unsatisfactory attempt at a smile only. “Yes, it is certainly I. Are you very much astonished to see me? Where have you sprung from?”

“I have been fishing down the Nun,” he replied. “Are you staying here? Is Captain Chancellor here?”

“Yes and no,” she answered, with a very forced attempt at playfulness. “I am staying here, but alone.”

“Alone!” he exclaimed in surprise.

“Yes, alone,” she repeated. “Why do you cross-question me so, Gerald? Why do you look at me so? I am not a baby. You are as bad as Frank. I wish I hadn’t met you. I didn’t want you to speak to me. I don’t want any one to speak to me. I have no friends, and I don’t want any.”

Then suddenly, to his utter amazement, she finished up this petulant, incoherent speech by bursting into tears. They were the first she had shed since she left Halswood; and once released from the unnatural restraint in which they had been pent up, they took revenge on it by the violence with which they poured forth. The position was by no means a pleasant one for Mr Thurston, though he did not share Captain Chancellor’s exaggerated horror of tears, or believe with him that they were invariably the precursors of hysterics. “Something must be wrong, very wrong, I fear,” he thought, and his unselfish anxiety and genuine pity for the suffering woman by his side quickened his instincts on her behalf. For a minute or two he walked on beside her in silence. Then, as they were approaching the more frequented part of the gardens, and her sobs gave no sign of subsiding, he spoke to her—quietly and kindly, but with a slight inference of authority in his tone, which, excited as she was, she instinctively obeyed.

“Suppose we turn and walk back again a little way,” he said. “You have over-tired yourself, I am afraid.”

She did not speak at once, but turned as he directed. He could see now that she was making strong efforts to control herself. When she thought that she could trust her voice, she spoke.

“I am ashamed of myself, Gerald, utterly ashamed of myself,” she said at last. “What must you think of me? I suppose I have over-tired myself. I have been walking about here nearly all day. I had nothing else to do.”

“And you are really alone here?” he inquired.

“Yes, except my maid, Rachel Brand; you remember her?—I am quite alone.”

“And how—how is it so?” he was going to ask, but stopped. “No,” he went on, “I will not presume on our old friendship to ask questions you may not care to answer; only tell me, Eugenia, can I be of any service to you?”

“None, thank you,” she answered sadly. “No one can help me. Even Sydney no longer feels with me—that is why I am here alone.”

“Your doubting Sydney makes me doubt if things are so bad as they seem to you,” he said, with a little smile.

“Don’t doubt it,” she said quickly. “They could not be worse, Gerald,” she added, after a little pause. “You have known a good deal about me—more perhaps almost than any one else. I will tell you the worst sting of my misery—I have come to know that my husband does not care for me—that he never has done so—that never a woman made a more fatal mistake than I when I married.”

Mr Thurston started violently; a sort of spasm of pain contracted his forehead—pain of the past, not of the present, so far as he himself was concerned.

“Eugenia,” he said, gravely, “from you, these are terrible words.”

“I know they are,” she said bitterly, “but I believe they are true. I married under a double delusion. But I believe I could have endured the one great disappointment of finding how I had overestimated my—my—never mind. I say, I think I could have learnt to bear my many disappointments, and make the best of my materials, had my other belief, my sheet anchor, not failed me as it has done. By the light of what I now know, I can see that for some time its hold has been growing feeble and uncertain on me, and in consequence my strength has decreased, my good resolutions have faded, till now I have nothing to hold to. I hardly care where I drift—what does it matter?”

“What does it matter?” broke out Gerald, indignantly. “Eugenia, do you know what you are saying? Oh, you foolish, presumptuous child! Does duty depend on inclination, do obligations cease to bind us when they become difficult or painful? Allowing that you have been deceived, allowing that you have found your life essentially other than you expected, does that set you free from responsibility? The world is bad enough already, but what it would be if we all regulated our conduct by your principles, I should shudder to think. And the cowardliness of it too! Eugenia, I thought you a woman incapable of thus deserting your post!”

The colour had mounted to Eugenia’s pale face, but the tears had ceased to flow. “You are very hard, Gerald,” she said at last. “You cannot possibly estimate my position correctly. I left my husband because I felt I should grow worse if I stayed, grow worse myself, and make him grow so too. For my belief in him once shattered, no link remained between us, no common ground on which we could meet. What could be the end of such a life?”

“What will be the end of the one you have chosen for yourself, and forced upon him?” asked Gerald. “Duties once discarded, we are not immediately allowed to console ourselves with others of our own choosing, as you will find to your cost. What are you intending to do—why did you come here?”

“I don’t know. It just came into my mind. I meant to wait here till something could be settled for the future. My husband is not the sort of man to force me to return: he is too proud. I don’t want any money from him. I have enough of my own. I suppose some sort of separation could be agreed upon. I have heard of such things.”

She spoke with a sort of dreary indifference.

“And, in the meantime, why come here alone? Why not go to Sydney.”

“I did,” she said. Then she went on to tell him why she had left his brother’s house. “Frank evidently disapproved of me altogether,” she remarked, “and even Sydney seemed to think I greatly exaggerated things.”

“As to that I can’t judge. I don’t wish to judge,” said Gerald, quickly. “Of course, I should suppose you have reason to trust implicitly the sources of the information on which you acted?” he looked at her keenly as he spoke. Eugenia slightly changed colour.

“My own instincts are not likely to deceive me,” she said, hotly. But her honesty pushed itself in, with some misgiving. “There is one person I should like to see—a person I trust thoroughly. Of course she can only confirm what I discovered, but still, strictly speaking, I suppose I should have her confirmation before I can say I am quite sure of what I acted upon.”

“Do you mean Miss Eyrecourt?” said Gerald.

“Yes,” answered Eugenia, looking up with some surprise at his correct guess.

“I am glad you trust her,” he said, briefly. They had turned again by now, and from time to time other strollers passed them, glancing at them in one or two cases, with the slight, indolent curiosity with which watering-place loungers inspect each other. Eugenia’s veil was drawn down, but her tall figure in its deep mourning garments could not but be somewhat conspicuous. Gerald chose the quietest paths, but still he grew uneasy. He did not like to leave his companion till he had seen her safely to her own door; his terror lest she should suspect him of suggesting the expediency of their separating, made it impossible for him to find any plausible excuse for saying good-bye: yet at every step he realised more painfully the awkwardness that might attend their recognition. “Ever so many Wareborough people come here,” he reflected, “and who knows but what by this time there is full hue and cry after the missing Mrs Chancellor. It is frightful to think what she is exposing herself to,” and, glancing at her as the thought crossed his mind, some irritation mingled with his pity. “She is too absorbed to understand it, but something must be done at once.”

“Does Sydney know where you are now?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, “not yet. But I am going to write to her to-night.”

When they had reached the house where she had taken rooms, Mr Thurston held out his hand in farewell.

“Won’t you come in, Gerald?” Eugenia asked.

“No, thank you. I have letters to write, and the post leaves early. You must take care your letter is in time.”