HOME.

And sometimes I am hopeful as the spring,

And up my fluttering heart is borne aloft,

As high and gladsome as the lark at sunrise;

And then, as though the fowler's shaft had pierced it,

It comes plumb down, with such a dead, dead fall.

_Philip Van Artevelde_.

It was late in the evening of an August day when Captain Chancellor and

his wife reached Halswood. Beauchamp had been anxious to complete the

journey at once without any halts by the way, but to do this it had been

necessary to leave Winsley very early in the morning, in consequence of

which Eugenia was very tired. A certain excitement had kept her up

during the first part of the journey, an excitement arising from mingled

causes, but of which the anticipation of the glories of Halswood about

to be revealed to her was a much less considerable one than would have

been generally credited. Till they had passed Marley Junction, the ugly

familiar station where everybody coming south from or going north to

Wareborough and Bridgenorth always changed carriages, Eugenia had not

been without a childish hope that she might catch sight of some home

face; Frank perhaps, or more probably his brother, or not impossibly her

father even. A sort of warm thrill of pleasure passed through her at

the thought; it was more than two months since she had seen arty one of

the friends among whom her nineteen years of girlhood had been passed,

and before her marriage she had never been away from her father's house

for more than a fortnight--some amount of home-sickness was surely to be

excused. All the way to Marley she felt as if she were going home in

reality; the sight of a tall chimney, the dirty smoke-begrimed red of

the streets of brick houses of the first little manufacturing town

through which they passed made the tears come into her eyes. Her

husband noticed their dewy appearance and remonstrated with her on the

folly of sitting close beside the window, "with that abominable smoke

and filthy smuts flying in." He got up and shut the window, remarking

as he did so that railway lines to civilised places should really not be

cut through these atrocious manufacturing districts; he trusted nothing

would ever necessitate his entering Wareborough or Bridgenorth or any of

these Wareshire towns again.

Eugenia said nothing, and changed her seat to the opposite side of the

carriage as she was bidden. She had felt no temptation to confide to

her husband the real cause of the emotion he had not even imagined to be

such, but her eyes did not immediately recover themselves, and Marley

once left behind, her spirits fell. Every mile of the unfamiliar

country through which their journey now lay seemed to increase her

painful sense of loneliness and strangeness.

"Oh," thought she, as they at last reached Chilworth, the nearest point

to Halswood. "Oh, if only this were Bridgenorth, and we were going to

the little house, or even to the lodgings we used to talk of living in

there, and Sydney perhaps waiting to welcome us."

The tears got the length of dropping this time. She made no effort to

conceal them, for by now it was too dark for her husband to see her

face.

No sensation of any kind was perceptible at the little station on their

arrival. Under the circumstances, of course any demonstration of

rejoicing at the home-coming of the new lord of the greater part of the

adjacent soil would have been the extreme of bad taste, and there was

nothing by which a stranger could have guessed that the lady and

gentleman who got out of the train and quietly passed through the

station-gate to the carriage waiting outside were persons of more than

ordinary local importance, save perhaps a certain extra obsequiousness

on the part of the very unofficial-looking station-master, and a

somewhat greater than usual readiness to bestir himself on the part of

the solitary porter. Mrs Chancellor, however, was far too

self-absorbed to notice anything of the kind; it had never occurred to

her to think of herself and her husband as objects of interest or

curiosity to the outside world, and had the joy bells been ringing and

bonfires blazing she would probably have turned to her companion with an

inquiry as to the cause.

There was a momentary delay as she was getting into the carriage--

Captain Chancellor turned back to give some additional instruction

respecting the luggage. Eugenia standing waiting could not fail to

notice that the brougham was a new one, and that everything about it,

including the deep mourning livery of the men-servants, was perfectly

well-appointed.

"What a nice carriage this is, Beauchamp," she said, when the door was

shut, and they were rolling smoothly and swiftly away.

"Yes," he replied, not ill-pleased by her admiration; "I wrote for it

when I first came down here. There was nothing fit for use. Herbert

Chancellor never brought any carriages down here--not of course that

they would have been mine if he had. Yes, it is a first-rate little

brougham. Did you notice the horses? Oh no, by-the-bye it was too

dark."

"I did not notice them. The lamps lighted up the carriage, and drew my

attention to it. The horses were more in the shade. Not that I should

venture to give an opinion on them. You know how dreadfully ignorant I

am of such things."

"You will soon pick up quite as much knowledge of the kind as you need.

I loathe and detest `horsy' women. Roma even, if she were any one but

herself, I should say had a shade too much of that sort of thing. But

on the other hand, of course, it doesn't do to be in a state of utter

ignorance about such matters."

"No, oh no," said Eugenia. "I quite know how you mean. I want to

understand a little more about a good many things that I have not come

in the way of hitherto."

Beauchamp's tone had been pleasant and encouraging. Eugenia's

impressionable spirits began to rise. If she could but be sure of

always pleasing her husband! If she could but feel that in all

difficulties, great and small, she might appeal to him, certain of

sympathy, certain of encouragement! It might come to be so--married

life she had often heard, was not to be tested by the outset.

Circumstances so far had certainly been somewhat against her. It might

be that this coming to Halswood, so dreaded by her, was to be the

beginning of the life of perfect union, of complete mutual comprehension

which she had dreamt of.

A glow of new hopefulness seemed to creep through her at the thought--

from very intensity of feeling she remained silent, wishing that she

could find words in which to express to her husband a tithe of the

yearning devotion, the ardent resolutions ready at his slightest bidding

to spring into life. In a minute or two he spoke again.

"Are you tired, Eugenia?" he said. "What makes you so silent?"

There was a slight impatience in his tone. He wanted her to be bright

and eager, and delighted with everything. He had by now almost got over

his fear of "undue or underbred elation" at her good fortune, on his

wife's part, and when alone with him some amount of demonstrative

appreciation of what through him had fallen to her share, would not have

been objectionable. But, as was usual with her, when carried away by

strong feeling of her own, Eugenia perceived nothing of the restrained

irritation in Beauchamp's voice.

"Tired," she said, with a little start, "oh, no; at least I may be a

little tired, but it isn't that that made me silent. I was only

thinking."

Her voice quivered a little. A sudden fear of hysterics came over

Captain Chancellor. Some women always got hysterics when they were

tired, and Eugenia was so absurdly excitable. A word or a look at any

moment would make her cry.

"Thinking," he said, half rallyingly, half impatiently; "what about?

Nothing unpleasant, I hope? though there certainly is no counting on

women's caprices."

"I can't possibly tell you _all_ I was thinking," she began, still

speaking tremulously. "I was thinking how I do hope we shall be happy

together in this new life, how I trust you will be pleased with me

always, how I hope you will let me come to you with my little

difficulties and anxieties, and--and that we may be at one always in

everything, and not grow apart from each other. Oh, I can't half say

what I feel. I think--I think, I sympathise a little with the wife in

the `Lord of Burleigh,' I feel frightened and ignorant, and a little

lonely. But oh, Beauchamp, if you will help me--don't you remember that

beautiful line--

"And he cheered her soul with love.

"If we always keep close together, I shall not regret anything."

By this time she was in tears. Beauchamp was no great reader of poetry.

He "got up" what was wanted for drawing-room small talk, and that was

about all. But, as it happened, he knew the poem--the story of it, at

least, to which she alluded, and had more than once made great fun of

it.

"Catch any woman of the lower classes being such a fool. Founded on

fact, not a bit of it. She died of consumption, you may be sure," was

the opinion he had expressed.

So, being a little "put out" to begin with, and by no means in the

humour for a sentimental scene--tears, and all the rest of it--Eugenia's

somewhat incoherent speech, the allusion at the end of it especially,

met with by no means a tender or sympathising reception.

"Really, Eugenia," he began, and at the sound of the two words all the

new hopefulness, the revived tenderness, the warmth died in the girlish

wife's heart--a cold, dull ache of disappointment, relieved but by the

more acute stings of mortification and wounded feeling, setting in, the

same instant, in their stead. "Really, Eugenia, you choose very odd

times for your fits of--I really don't know what to call it--exaggerated

sentiment, as you object to `gushingness.' We haven't been quarrelling

that I know of, and I have no intention of doing so. What you mean by

talking of `not regretting' anything, I don't know in the least. I hate

maudlin sentiment, and that poetry you are so fond of stuffs your head

with it. For goodness' sake, try to be comfortable, and let me be so.

No one expects impossibilities of you--you talk as if I were an

unreasonable tyrant. If anything could `drive us apart,' as you call

it, it would be this sort of nonsense, and these everlasting tears."

He had paused once or twice in this speech, but Eugenia remained

perfectly silent, and this irritated him into saying more than he

intended, more than he actually felt, and the consciousness of the

harshness of his own words irritated him still further. Still Eugenia

did not speak. He let down the carriage window on his side impatiently,

thrust his head out into the darkness, then drew it in, and jerked up

the glass again. Eugenia did not move--he glanced at her. The tears he

had complained of had disappeared as if by magic; her face, in the

uncertain light of the carriage lamps, looked unnaturally white and set,

the mouth compressed, the eyes gazing straight before them. It was

really too bad of her to behave so absurdly, thought Beauchamp, feeling

himself not a little aggrieved. Still, he wished he had not spoken

quite so strongly.

"Eugenia," he began again, "do try to be reasonable. You take up

everything so exaggeratedly. You know perfectly well I have no wish to

hurt you. But really it is not easy to avoid doing so. Living with you

is like treading on egg-shells."

Then she turned towards him with a look in her eyes which he had never

seen in them before--a look which the sweet wistful eyes of Eugenia

Laurence had never known, a look which should have made her husband

consider what he was doing, what he had done.

"It is a terrible pity you did not find out my real character before,"

she said, "before it was too late. As it is too late, however, no doubt

the best thing you can do is to tell me plainly how I can make myself

the least disagreeable to you. You shall be troubled by no more

`maudlin sentiment,' or tears. So much I can promise you." Then she

became perfectly silent again. Captain Chancellor gave a little laugh.

"I am glad to hear it," he said, with a slight sneer. "And, by Jove!

what a temper she has after all," he thought to himself. "They are all

alike, I suppose, all the world over. They all want a tight hand. But

I flatter myself I know how to break them in." Then he hummed a tune,

drew out his watch and looked what o'clock it was, fidgeted with the

window again, all with an air of perfect indifference, which he imagined

to be his actual state of mind. But far down in his heart there was a

little ache of self-reproach and uneasiness. Had Eugenia turned to him

now with tearful eyes and broken words, little as he might have

understood her feelings, he would certainly not have repulsed her.

Just at this moment the carriage turned in at the Halswood lodge. There

was an instant's stoppage, while the heavy iron gates were opened, then

they went on again, even more swiftly and smoothly than before.

"We are only a quarter of a mile from the house now," said Captain

Chancellor. "You should see the lights from your side."

"Oh, indeed," said Eugenia, indifferently, turning her eyes listlessly

in the direction in which he pointed, thinking that she would not care

if an earthquake were suddenly to swallow up Halswood and everything

connected with it, herself included; yet determined to hide all

feeling--to appear as unconcerned as Beauchamp himself. "Ah, yes, I see

them over there. I hope they will have fires," with a little shiver.

"Fires?" repeated Beauchamp. "After such a hot day. Why, it is

oppressive still. You can't be cold, surely?"

"Yes, I am," she said, "very;" and as she spoke, the carriage drew up

under the pillared portico, which Captain Chancellor had pronounced so

desperately ugly the first time he came to Halswood, and in another

moment Eugenia's feet had crossed the threshold of what was now her

home.

Three or four servants were waiting in the hall. At first sight Mrs

Chancellor imagined them to be all strangers to her, but in another

moment, to her delight, she recognised in the face of a young girl

standing modestly somewhat in the rear of the others, the familiar

features of Barbara's niece. Mrs Eyrecourt had not succeeded in her

design of substituting a more experienced lady's maid in the place of

Eugenia's protegee. Something had been said about it, but in the

pressure of more important arrangements Captain Chancellor had allowed

the matter to stand over for the present, and it had been arranged that

Rachel should be sent to Halswood the day before her mistress's arrival,

but in the absorption of her own thoughts Eugenia had for the time

forgotten this, and the pleasure of the surprise was great.

"Oh, Rachel!" she exclaimed with effusion, darting forward and shaking

hands eagerly with the young girl--"I am so pleased to see you. Did you

come yesterday, and how did you leave them all? How is papa? And Miss

Sydney--Mrs Thurston, I mean?"

"They are both very well, indeed, ma'am," said the girl, flushing with

pleasure at the friendly greeting--her spirits had been somewhat

depressed since her arrival; the great, empty house, the few servants,

all middle-aged or old, had seemed strange and cold to Barbara's niece;

"I went to see Mrs Thurston the last thing the night before I left--

there is a letter waiting for you from her upstairs that she told me to

put in your room--and Mr Laurence, ma'am, he wished me to--"

"Eugenia," said Captain Chancellor's voice from behind his wife,

"Eugenia, if you are not _very_ particularly occupied, will you spare me

a moment?"

She had vexed him again, but in the softening influence of the home

news, the sound of the dear home names, Eugenia's better self was again

uppermost. There was no resentment or haughtiness in her tone or manner

as she turned quickly towards her husband.

"Oh, I am so sorry," she exclaimed; "I was so pleased to see Rachel and

hear about them all at home, that!" But she said no more, for glancing

at Beauchamp, she saw that her words had deepened rather than lightened

the look of annoyance on his face.

"Mrs Grier," he said, addressing an elderly person in black silk, tall,

thin, stiff, and yet depressed-looking, who came forward as she heard

her name. "Eugenia, this is Mrs Grier. Mrs Grier has been at

Halswood for I don't know how many years. How many is it?" turning to

the housekeeper with the pleasant smile that so lighted up his somewhat

impassive face.

"Thirty-three, sir," replied Mrs Grier, thawing a little, "and more

changes in the three than in all the thirty."

"Yes, indeed," said Eugenia, kindly, shaking hands with the melancholy

housekeeper. "You must have had a great deal to go through lately."

"I have, indeed, ma'am. Three funerals in a year, and all three the

masters of the house," answered Mrs Grier, shaking her head solemnly.

"It isn't often things happen so in a family. But all the same, ma'am,

I wish you joy, you and my master, ma'am."

"Thank you," said the two thus cheerfully addressed.

Eugenia felt almost inclined to laugh; but Captain Chancellor hardly

relished the peculiar style of Mrs Grier's congratulation.

"It's time the luck should turn again now," he said lightly. "Three is

the correct number for that sort of thing, isn't it?" Mrs Grier seemed

struck by the remark.

"There may be something in that, sir," she allowed.

Then one or two others of the head servants, who, having endured the

twenty-five years of semi-starvation of the old Squire's rule, had come

to be looked upon as fixtures in the place, were in turn introduced by

name to Mrs Chancellor.

"Some of the new servants are to be here to-morrow," said Mrs Grier, to

Captain Chancellor. "I hope you will find everything comfortable in the

meantime, sir."

Dinner--or, more properly speaking, supper--was prepared for the

travellers in the dining-room--a huge, dark cavern of a room it looked

to Eugenia, who shivered as the fireless grate met her view. She was

too tired to eat; but, afraid of annoying her husband, she made a

pretence of doing so, feeling eager for Sydney's letter, and a chat with

Rachel about "home," in her own room.

These pleasures were deferred for a little by the appearance of Mrs

Grier to do the honour of showing her lady her rooms. The housekeeper

had rather taken a fancy to Mrs Chancellor. Eugenia's allusion to what

she "must have had to go through," had been a most lucky one, for Mrs

Grier was one of those curiously constituted beings to whom condolence

never comes amiss. The most delicate flattery was less acceptable to

her than a sympathising remark that she was "looking far from well," and

no one could pay her a higher compliment than by telling her she bore

traces of having known a great deal of trouble. She was not, for her

class, an uneducated person; but she was constitutionally superstitious.

Omens, dreams, deathbeds, funerals, all things ghastly and ghostly,

were dear to her soul; and her thirty-three years' life in a gloomy,

half-deserted house, such as Halswood had been under the old _regime_,

had not conduced to a healthier tone of mind.

"Along this way, if you please, ma'am," she said to Eugenia, pointing to

the long corridor which ran to the right of the great staircase they had

come up by. "The rooms to the left have not been occupied for many

years. We thought--that is, Mr Blinkhorn and I--that you would prefer

to use the rooms which have been the best family-rooms for some

generations. It would feel less strange-like--more at home, if I may

say so. Here, ma'am," opening the first door she came to, "is what was

the late Mrs Chancellor's boudoir. It is eight-and-twenty years next

month since she was taken ill suddenly, sitting over there by the window

in that very chair. It was heart-disease, I believe. She had had a

good deal of trouble in her time, poor lady, for the old Squire was

always peculiar. They carried her--_we_ did (I was her maid then)--into

her bedroom--the next room, ma'am--this," again opening a door, with an

air of peculiar gratification in what she was going to say, "and she

died the same night in the bed you see, standing as it does now."

The present Mrs Chancellor gave a little shiver.

"The next room again, ma'am," proceeded Mrs Grier, "is quite as

pleasant a one as this, and about the same size. It is the room in

which old Mr Chancellor breathed his last, last December. He was

eighty-nine, ma'am; but he died very hard, for all that. We prepared

both these rooms that you might take your choice."

"Thank you," replied Eugenia. "I certainly do not feel as if I

preferred either. What rooms did the last Mr and Mrs Chancellor use

when they were here?" she went on to ask, in a desperate hope that she

might light upon some more inviting habitation than these great, dark,

musty apartments, with their funereal four-post bedsteads and gloomy

associations.

"They had rooms on the other side of the passage," said Mrs Grier.

"Mrs Chancellor had a prejudice against those _beautiful_ mahogany

bedsteads," with indignant emphasis. Evidently Herbert Chancellor's

wife had found small favour in the eyes of Mrs Grier. "But Mr

Chancellor _died_," with satisfaction, "in his grandfather's room--the

next door, as I told you, ma'am, to this."

"I don't wonder at it," thought Eugenia to herself. She wished she

could find courage to ask if it would not be possible for her at once to

take up her quarters in one of the rooms in which, so far at least, no

Chancellor had lain in state, and was just meditating a request to be

shown the one in which Herbert had _not_ died, when Mrs Grier nipped

her hopes in the bud.

"To-morrow, of course, any room can be prepared that you like, ma'am,"

said the housekeeper; "but for to-night, these two beds are the only

ones with sheets on."

There was a slightly aggrieved tone in her voice. Eugenia instantly

took alarm that she might have hurt the old lady's feelings.

"Oh, thank you, Mrs Grier!" she exclaimed. "I am quite satisfied with

this room, and I am sure it will be very comfortable. To-morrow I

should like you to show me all over the house. Of course I don't yet

know how we shall settle about any of the rooms permanently. It depends

on Captain Chancellor. He intends to refurnish several. But now I

think I will go to bed, if you will send Rachel. I am so tired!"

"You _do_ look tired, ma'am. It quite gave me a turn to see you so

white when you came first, ma'am," said Mrs Grier, more cheerfully than

she had yet spoken.

And at supper in her own room, when she went downstairs, she confided to

Mr Blinkhorn certain agreeable presentiments with regard to their new

mistress.

"A nice-spoken young lady. None of your dressed-up fine ladies like the

last Mrs Chancellor and her daughter, who must have French beds to

sleep in, and could never so much as remember one's name. Oh, no,

_this_ Mrs Chancellor is a different kind altogether. But, mark my

words, Mr Blinkhorn, she isn't long for this world. The Captain may

talk of luck turning--ah, indeed!--was it for nothing I dreamt I saw our

new lady with black hair instead of brown? Was it for nothing the

looking-glass dipped out of my hands when I was dusting her room again

this afternoon?"

"But it didn't break," objected Mr Blinkhorn.

"Break, what has that to do with it?" exclaimed Mrs Grier, indignantly.

"But I know of old it's no use wasting words on some subjects on you,

Mr Blinkhorn. Those that won't see won't see, but some day you may

remember my words."

But, notwithstanding Mrs Grier's forebodings, notwithstanding her own

wounded and troubled spirit, Eugenia Chancellor soon fell asleep, and

slept soundly. She fell asleep with Sydney's letter under her pillow,

and its loving words in her heart; and the next morning, when the sun

shone again, and her husband spoke kindly and seemed to have forgotten

yesterday's cloud, she began again to think that after all life might be

bright for her, and their home a happy one.

"Comme on pense a vingt ans."