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 tetes-a-tetes. 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 _fiance_, 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."