"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 role 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.