And if thy wife and thou agree
But ill, as like when short of victual.
T. Carlyle, _The Beetle_.
Il m'est impossible de ne point tous feliciter.
_Les Miserables_.
Captain Chancellor had been away more than a fortnight. During that
time Eugenia had received several short notes from him, most of which
contained pretty much the same information, that business matters at
Halswood had proved more complicated than he had expected, that there
was so much to arrange and settle he found it impossible to return to
Winsley as quickly as he had intended, but that he trusted Eugenia was
comfortable and happy with his sister; indeed he felt sure she would be
so, and so on. There was never any allusion to the little scene which
had occurred the morning he left, and from the tone of his letters it
was so evident to Eugenia that long before the remembrance of it had
ceased acutely to distress her, her husband had forgotten all about it,
that she on her side refrained from mentioning it.
"It will be best never to refer to it," she thought to herself. "Only
when Beauchamp returns I shall be doubly careful, so that he may see how
anxious I am to please him even in trifles."
More than once it had happened that the same post which brought Eugenia
a short note from her husband brought Mrs Eyrecourt a much lengthier
epistle from him. This was the case one morning about this time. It
was a dull, close day, and Eugenia, always sensitive to such influences,
had been hoping earnestly while dressing that her letters might bring
news of Beauchamp's speedy return. The disappointment was great when
she opened the thin letter addressed to her, dated this time from
Bridgenorth, and found that another fortnight must pass before he could
rejoin her.
"I came on here yesterday," he wrote, "having got through the most
pressing part of the business at Halswood, and hoping to get my leave,
which is up next week, extended at once, for my papers were sent in last
week. But I find as I am here I must stay till the middle of the month,
when I hope to get away for good."
"Another whole fortnight," sighed Eugenia. "Oh dear, how I do wish
Beauchamp had let me wait for him at home instead of here. It would
have been so different. I could have seen Sydney every day."
The tears rose unbidden to her eyes at the thought of the contrast
between such a state of things and her present position, but she checked
them back quickly, as looking up she saw that Gertrude was watching her.
She went on reading her letter, though she already knew its few words
by heart, holding it so as to prevent her sister-in-law seeing how short
it was.
"You have a letter from Beauchamp, I suppose," said Gertrude. "So have
I--a tremendous one, isn't it?" she fluttered half a dozen sheets
through her fingers for Eugenia's benefit. "I really can't read it all
till after breakfast. It is all about Halswood. I was anxious to know
how he finds everything, and so Beauchamp has sent me all the details--
the particulars of the whole, the rents of the great farms, how the
entailed _money_ property is invested, and I don't know all what, but
all so interesting to me of course, knowing it so well. It isn't
exactly _womens'_ business certainly, but then I have had a good deal of
business to look after in my time. The womenkind of men of property
should be able to help their husbands and sons, you know."
She went on speaking as if Eugenia were an ordinary uninterested
visitor, either really forgetting, or affecting to do so, that to the
woman before her of all women in the world Beauchamp Chancellor's
interests must be the closest and dearest. The blood seemed to boil in
the young wife's veins, but recent experience had not been lost upon
her, and her power of self-control had increased greatly in the last few
weeks.
So she answered, quietly, "Yes, they certainly should, and so should
other people's wives too. It is one of my father's hobbies that women
of all classes should be better educated, so that they may be better
able to help men, and sometimes to work alone even."
"Oh, I wasn't referring to that sort of thing. I hate all that talk
about women's rights, and so on: it is very bad taste," exclaimed
Gertrude, contemptuously. "I don't know, and don't want to know
anything about the women of any class but my own. But of course there
is nothing unfeminine in managing one's own business matters when one
understands how. I have almost been brought up to it, you see, always
having lived on our own land--and I certainly need all I know now, with
Quintin's long minority before me and Beauchamp at the head of the
Halswood affairs too. He is sure to be always consulting me. That
reminds me I must be quick, for I must answer his letter before
luncheon, and it will take me a good while."
She went on with her breakfast, but happening to move aside the large
envelope of her brother's letter, her eye fell on another, which, with a
little exclamation, "From Roma, I didn't expect to hear from her
to-day," she took up and read.
"Roma is coming home to-morrow," she announced to Eugenia, in a minute
or two. "A week sooner than she expected."
"Is she really? I am so glad!" exclaimed Eugenia, thankful for any
interruption to the present uncongenial tete-a-tete with her
sister-in-law, doubly thankful that it came in the shape of a person she
was already inclined to like.
"Why, have you ever seen her? Oh yes, to be sure, she stayed a night at
Wareborough and was at your marriage. I forgot you had seen her," said
Mrs Eyrecourt.
"I saw more of her last winter," said Eugenia, "at the time she stayed a
week or so with Mrs Dalrymple--just when Beauchamp first came to
Wareborough,"--"and I met him in the fog, and all the world was changed
to me," was the unspoken conclusion of her sentence.
"Oh yes; I think I remember something about it," said Gertrude,
indifferently. "Dear me, was that only last winter? What changes in so
short a time!"
She sighed softly. Somehow the sigh was irritating to Eugenia; her
instinct told her that the reflections accompanying it would not have
been gratifying to her to hear. But she little guessed what they
actually were. "If I had foreseen it all," thought Gertrude, "I
certainly would not have been so eager to prevent Beauchamp's marrying
Roma," (for that this would have come to pass had _she_ chosen to
encourage it, no power on earth, no protestations of the young lady
herself, however earnest, could ever make Mrs Eyrecourt cease to
believe): "it would have been far--oh, infinitely better than _this_!
Though of course even now nothing could have been so perfectly suitable
as Addie Chancellor," and then poor Gertrude sighed.
"I am very glad too Roma is coming," she said, amiably, becoming
conscious suddenly of the audibleness of her sigh, and feeling a little
shocked at herself. "By-the-bye, Eugenia, she sends her love to you and
hopes to find you still here."
"Thank you," replied Eugenia, rather coldly. But in her heart she did
feel very glad of the news. She hoped many things from Roma's advent.
Roma was kind and womanly and sensible. She had known Beauchamp all his
life, and must understand him thoroughly. _Her_ advice Eugenia would
not feel inclined to scorn. Roma could never be patronising; hers was
by many degrees too large a nature for anything so small. And though
clever mostly in a worldly sense perhaps--clever and satirical and
dreadfully _au fait_ of everything--Eugenia did not feel in the least
afraid of her. Though she had been everywhere and seen everything and
knew everybody; though her education had reached far, in directions
where Eugenia Laurence's had never even begun, yet she was not
conventional, not spoilt, not incapable of sympathy with the great human
universe outside her own immediate sphere. Such at least was Eugenia's
ideal Roma--Roma with the bright dark eyes, ready words, and kindly
smile.
And Mrs Eyrecourt was very glad too. Roma would help her, she hoped,
to entertain this pretty, uninteresting wife of Beauchamp's, whom she
found such heavy work; for Roma was great at this sort of task--she had
quite a knack of getting stupid people to talk, discordant ones to
agree, doing it too, with so much self-forgetfulness and tact, that the
credit of this comfortable state of things usually fell to Gertrude's
own share.
"Such a charming hostess! so unselfish and considerate for every one."
It was not much to be wondered at that so warm-hearted and unselfish a
creature had not found the charge of her husband's young sister a
burdensome one. And as, even in this crooked life, goodness sometimes
is recompensed, Gertrude Eyrecourt met with her reward.
Everybody--_her_ everybody--praised her for her sisterly behaviour to
homeless Roma; and Roma herself, whose capacity for gratitude was both
wide and deep, thanked her constantly, though tacitly, by doing
everything in her power to please her, resolutely refusing to see her
smallnesses and selfishnesses, admiring her and respecting her
judgment--and now and then too by determinedly disagreeing with her.
Both Mrs Eyrecourt and her guests found their hopes fulfilled. Roma's
return improved the state of things immensely. She came home in great
spirits, having enjoyed her visit far more than she had expected, yet
declaring, and with evident sincerity, somewhat to Eugenia's surprise,
that she felt delighted to be at home again.
"Who do you think was my travelling companion part of the way?" she
said, when the three ladies were sitting together the first morning
after her arrival. "He got in at Marley, and saw me into my train at
the junction--he was going on to town. Do guess who it was--he is a
friend of yours, Eugenia. Why, how stupid you both are! You are
generally so quick at guessing, Gertrude."
"I!" exclaimed Mrs Eyrecourt, looking up, as if aware for the first
time that Roma had been speaking to her. "I beg your pardon, I thought
you said the unknown was a friend of _Eugenia's_."
"Well, and if I did, is the world so big that by no conceivable chance
two people living at opposite ends of the country could happen to have
any mutual acquaintances?" said Roma. "To hear you speak, Gertrude, any
one would think you had never been five miles from home. Like a nun I
remember seeing when I was a child, in a convent in Switzerland, who
thought, but wasn't quite sure--the mere idea even of such an adventure
seemed to overawe her--that when she was quite a little girl she had
once been at Martigny, six miles from home. Why, Gertrude, I thought
you prided yourself on being something of a cosmopolitan. Were you
never at a place that long ago, when nobody but Miss Burney's heroines
ever went anywhere, used to be called Brighthelmstone, and did you never
dine with certain friends of yours there, who never get new dresses
unless they are guaranteed to be of the fashion of twenty years ago,
dear old souls?"
She spoke playfully, but there was a sharpness in her raillery which
Mrs Eyrecourt did not love. She could not endure being laughed at, and
she felt annoyed with Roma for making fun of any of _her_ friends, be
they never so funny, all of which Roma knew, and had dealt out her words
accordingly, for she had not been half an hour at home before she knew
exactly how the wind blew as regarded the young wife, and she was on the
alert to show Gertrude she need not look to her for sympathy in her
prejudice.
But to Eugenia it was actual pain to witness the annoyance or
discomfiture of another. A sort of instinct made her try to change the
conversation.
"Did you say that the Swiss nun had never in her life been anywhere?"
she asked Roma. "Why had she been always in a convent? I never knew
children could be sent to convents except as pupils."
"This girl was an orphan, and she had some money, and she had come to
look on the convent as her home," said Roma; "she wasn't quite a lady;
her father had been a rich farmer. I daresay she was happy enough, but
it made a great impression on me as a child. It seemed so dreadful to
be shut in between those four high walls when the world outside was so
beautiful. I shouldn't have pitied her half so much if the convent had
been in an ugly place."
"I don't know," said Eugenia, with a dreamy look in her eyes; "I think
it would be something to have the sky and mountains to look out at if
one were miserable."
The expression of her face struck Roma with a slight pain. It was not
thus she had looked on her wedding-day, even when blinded with the tears
of her farewell. Through those tears Roma had been able to pronounce
her "perfectly happy."
"Is it Gertrude's fault, I wonder," thought Roma, with quick
indignation, "or can she be stirring already in her slumber? And only
six weeks married."
But it was not Roma's way to dwell on unpleasant suggestions. The
meeting troubles half-way was an amusement which had never much
recommended itself to her. So she answered brightly--
"Miserable, why should we think about being miserable? But all this
time you are forgetting my travelling companion. As you won't guess who
he was, I suppose I must tell you. It was Mr Thurston, your
brother-in-law's brother, Eugenia. The stranger, the new arrival from
India, Gertrude, that we met at dinner at the Mountmorrises'."
"I was just thinking it must be he. He goes up and down that line so
much. Did not you like him very much, Miss Eyrecourt? I do
exceedingly. And he is so clever and thorough. The only thing not nice
about him is, he is a little--funny--I don't know what to call it."
"Funny? Do you mean humorous?" said Roma, looking at her with some
amusement. "It did not strike me particularly."
"Oh no," replied Eugenia. "I don't mean that at all. I mean he is a
little odd--uncertain. Sometimes he is so very much nicer than others.
He gets queer fits of stiffness and reserve all of a sudden, and then
one can make nothing of him. But oh," she exclaimed, checking herself
suddenly, "I shouldn't criticise him in this way, for he has been so
very good to me."
"I don't think you have said anything very treasonable," said Roma. "I
can understand what you mean. He is a sensitive man--almost too much
so. He looks as if he had had troubles too, though he is cheerful and
practical enough. There is something about him unlike most of the men
one meets--they are as a rule so very like each other, or else there is
something about me which draws out the same sort of remarks from nearly
every young man I meet."
"Really, Roma, I wish you would not talk such nonsense," said Gertrude,
rising as she spoke. "I do think you should be more careful in what you
say. You are getting into a way of thinking _you_ can do or say what
you like, which strikes me as the reverse of good taste. I confess I do
not like your travelling all the way from Marley with a person of whom
you know next to nothing. I hardly even remember meeting this Mr
Thurston at the Mountmorrises', and whether we did or not, that sort of
introduction entails no more."
"But you forget that I said he was a connexion of Eugenia's, Gertrude,"
said Roma, quietly but very distinctly.
Mrs Eyrecourt's tone softened.
"I did not notice what you said particularly," she replied, as she left
the room. "Of course Eugenia will know I did not intend to be so rude
as to speak disparagingly of any of her friends."
Roma smiled. "All the same, Gertrude, like many other people, _is_ rude
when she is cross," she remarked to Eugenia, for they were now by
themselves. "Eugenia," noticing the puzzled expression of her
companion's face, "why do you look so `funny?' Are you shocked at me?"
"No," said Eugenia, "but I am not sure that I quite understand you."
"I am not worth much study, I assure you," said Roma, contentedly. "You
will understand all there is to understand very soon. Suppose we go out
a little. By-the-bye, doesn't that child trouble you? I saw her out
there with you for such a time this morning."
"Floss," said Eugenia, "trouble me? Oh no. I like her. I should have
been very dull without her."
"So you have been dull? I was afraid of it. I saw the look on your
face when I said how glad I was to be back at Winsley again."
"Oh dear! I wish I could keep looks from my face," exclaimed Eugenia,
pathetically. "Please forget about it. I should be so sorry to look as
if I were not happy here. Beauchamp is so anxious that Mrs Eyrecourt
and I should get on well. He is very fond of his sister, unusually so,
isn't he?"
"So he should be," replied Roma. "He owes her so much: so do I. She
has been very good to us both."
"How?" asked Eugenia. "Of course I know she cares for Beauchamp, and--
and takes great interest in him and all that, but still I don't quite
know how you mean."
Roma looked surprised. "Has Beauchamp never told you how Gertrude has
all her life been almost like a mother to him?" she said. "And to me
too," she added. "I wonder he never told you."
"There has been so little time," said Eugenia, hesitatingly; "but I wish
you would tell me. I want to understand things better."
There were no secrets involved. Roma was ready enough to give
Beauchamp's wife a little sketch of the past. When it was finished
Eugenia sighed.
"Thank you," she said. "I am glad to know it; I wish I had known it
before. Perhaps it might have given me a different feeling to Mrs
Eyrecourt, and I might have managed to make her like me. As it is, I
fear she does not. Oh, Roma," she went on, for the first time
addressing Miss Eyrecourt by her Christian name--"oh, Roma, I wish I
understood better. I am afraid I am not fit for the life before me.
People seem to look at things so differently from what I fancied. I
don't always understand Beauchamp even. I vex him without in the least
meaning it. You know him so well, do you think you could help me at
all? I am so terribly, so miserably afraid of his coming to think he
has made a mistake."
The large brown eyes looked up beseechingly into Roma's; the piteous,
troubled expression went straight to Roma's heart.
"You poor child!" she exclaimed impulsively, but checking herself
quickly she went on in a different tone.
"You must not be afraid. Things always seem strange and alarming at
first. Try and take them more lightly and don't be too easily daunted.
I _do_ know Beauchamp well, and I can assure you that, like many men,
his bark is worse than his bite. You are more likely to annoy him by
trying too much than too little to please him. He likes things to go on
smoothly, and he can't understand exaggerated feeling of any kind. I
don't think he is difficult to please, but he has got a certain set of
ideas about women and wives--many men have, you know, but they modify in
time. Only I suppose it is necessary to some extent to _seem_ to agree
with one's husband whether one does thoroughly or not--just at first,
you know, before people have got to understand each other quite well."
"I am afraid that sort of thing would be very difficult to me," said
Eugenia, sadly. "You see, I have always been accustomed to saying all I
felt, to meeting sympathy wherever I wanted it. In some things I found
it in my father; in others in my sister."
"You have been exceptionally happy," said Roma.
"Yes," returned Eugenia, "I have indeed. We always see our happiness
most clearly when we look back. I fear I have been too tenderly cared
for. Perhaps," with a faint laugh, "perhaps I am a little spoilt."
Roma smiled, but did not answer immediately. They were walking slowly
up and down the terrace. Suddenly she turned to Eugenia with a
question.
"Do you dislike the idea of Halswood--of living there, I mean?"
"Yes," answered Eugenia, frankly, "I do _very_ much. I dislike the
whole of it--the being rich, and all that."
"Would you really rather Beauchamp had not succeeded to the property?"
asked Roma again, with a glimmer of amusement in her dark eyes.
"_Far_ rather," returned Eugenia, with much emphasis.
"You extraordinary girl!" exclaimed Roma, now laughing outright; "what
_would_ Gertrude think if she heard you?"
"Perhaps she wouldn't believe me," said Eugenia, sagely. "But it is
quite, quite true. Still I would not say so to her. I hardly think I
would say so to Beauchamp even. It is the sort of feeling that he could
hardly--that very few people could enter into."
"Very few indeed, I should say," replied Roma. "But, Eugenia, do you
know I think you must try to get over the feeling. Solemnly, I assure
you that I should have felt far more anxious about your future--yours
and Beauchamp's I mean--had he remained poor. You don't know what it
is. You don't know how very few people can resist the deterioration of
that struggling, pinching life."
"We should not have been so very badly off," said Eugenia, far from
convinced that she was mistaken.
"Yes, you would," persisted Roma; "for Beauchamp's tastes are all those
of a rich man. He is so fastidious, and as a bachelor he has been able
to indulge his fastidiousness to a great extent. Oh no, no, you are
quite mistaken, Eugenia! I assure you you should be very thankful you
are rich. It takes--a very different man to Beauchamp to make a good
_poor_ husband," she had it on her lips to utter, but stopped in time.
Eugenia did not notice the interruption. She seemed to be thinking
deeply.
"It seems to me so much more difficult than being poor," she said. "But
you must know some things much better than I. I will try to think it is
best."
"Yes, do, it will give you a much better start," said Roma, cheerfully.
"And remember my advice, to take things lightly and not to be too
sensitive. Not very lofty sentiments, are they? But there's some sense
in them. Everything seems to be compromise, after all. Nobody is quite
good or quite bad, and most people and most lives are made up of a great
many littles of both. That is the extent of the philosophy to which my
four-and-twenty years' experience has brought me?"
"It is very sad, _I_ think," said Eugenia.
"But it might be worse?" suggested Roma.
Then they both laughed, and whether or no Roma's philosophy much
commended itself to her, Eugenia certainly went about with a lighter
heart and brighter face than had been hers during the last few weeks.
And the latter part of Mrs Chancellor's visit to Winsley certainly
proved a notable exception to the old proverb that "three are no
company," for the three ladies were very much better company than the
two had been, and Eugenia no longer counted the days to her departure,
and openly expressed her hopes that when Beauchamp returned, he would
arrange to stay a little while: with his sister; which expression of
cordial feeling naturally gratified Mrs Eyrecourt, and disposed her to
regard her young sister-in-law in a more favourable light. Roma looked
on and smiled, and enjoyed the present comfortable state of things,
thinking to herself nevertheless that it was not on the whole to be
regretted that the two counties respectively containing Halswood Hall
and Winsley Grange were at a considerable distance from each other.
Captain Chancellor came back a fortnight after Roma's return, and a week
later he took his wife to her new home. They did not travel thither by
way of Wareborough, as Eugenia had hoped, but this disappointment she
made up her mind to bear with philosophy. And Beauchamp, who had acted
by his sister's advice in the matter, appreciated his wife's good
behaviour to the extent of promising that once they were settled at
Halswood, and had got the place into some sort of order, she should
invite her father and Sydney and Frank to come to visit her in her own
home. Eugenia mentioned this to Sydney in her next letter, but the
smile with which the curate's wife read the message was a rather sad
one.
"Dear Eugenia!" she said to himself; "I am afraid she is going to be far
away from us--farther than she or any of us thought. But I trust she
will not miss us."