Not Without Thorns

“There are some library books and new magazines over there on that side-table,” replied Eugenia, moving her head in the direction she meant. “But you are not in my way,” she went on indifferently. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

She shivered perceptibly as she spoke. Then she stooped to reach the poker, and began nervously stirring the fire.

Mr Thurston stopped on his way to the side-table. He came back to the fire-place and took the poker out of Eugenia’s hands. Even in the instant’s contact he felt their icy coldness.

“Let me do that for you,” he said gently. In her nervousness Eugenia had already done the very thing she would have wished not to do. She had stirred the glowing red into a vivid blaze, which fell full on her face. Something in it must have looked different from usual, for before she could turn away, Gerald spoke.

“Eugenia, what is the matter?” he exclaimed impulsively. “You are as cold as ice – you must be ill.”

She felt his eyes fixed upon her: extreme annoyance gave her momentary strength.

“Don’t, Gerald, please, don’t,” she said, half beseechingly, half petulantly. “There is nothing the matter. I may have got a chill, that is all. But please don’t look at me. I do so dislike it.”

She rose, resolved to put an end to his scrutiny. “I will get across the room,” she thought. She made two or three steps feebly but determinedly, wondering vaguely what had come to her feet, they felt so powerless and heavy; then, it seemed to her, she stepped suddenly down, down into unfathomable depths, into darkness compared to which midnight was as noon-day. “I am dying,” she thought to herself before her senses quite deserted her. “What will he think, how will he feel when he hears it?” And it seemed to her she called aloud with her last breath. “Beauchamp! oh, Beauchamp!”

In reality the words were a barely audible whisper, which would certainly have been unintelligible to ears less jealously sharp than those of her one hearer.

“My darling,” muttered Gerald, “so it is his doing, is it?”

The first two words made their way to Eugenia’s not yet quite unconscious brain. Afterwards she thought she must have dreamt that Beauchamp had answered her cry.

She had never fainted before. She could not at all understand the painful coming back to life; to finding herself after all – instead of awaking in the mysterious country across the river of which we know so little, so terribly little – in the old way again, lying on the drawing-room sofa, with a keen cold current of air blowing in her face.

“Where am I?” she said, as people always do say in such circumstances, glancing round her, apprehensively. But before Gerald had time to reply, her wits had sufficiently recovered themselves to take in the position.

It had not been much of a faint after all; her young life had not required much doctoring to regain its balance for the time. Mr Thurston had merely carried her to the window, and opened it to allow the fresh air to try what it could do. Then, laying her on the sofa, he was glad to see she was coming round again without his requiring to summon the assistance which he felt certain she would shrink from.

The room was bright with fire-light, and the cold air still blew in freshly. Eugenia lay still for a minute or two, gazing before her. Then she tried to rouse herself, and after a moment’s hesitation, seeing she could hardly manage it, Gerald put his arm round her, and helped her to sit up. He need not have been afraid of annoying her. She took his help with the most perfect simplicity, as if he had been her brother.

“Thank you, Gerald,” she said, softly, “you are so kind. You have always been kind to me, ever since I was quite little,” and half unconsciously she allowed her still throbbing head to lean for a moment on his shoulder. It was rather hard upon him – the perfect sisterliness of the little action made it all the more so. A sudden fear came over him that she would feel how fast his heart was beating, and would be startled into consciousness. So, very gently, under pretence of arranging the sofa cushion, he removed the arm that was round her. She did not seem to observe it.

“Are you better now, Eugenia?” he said, kindly. “I don’t know if I did right in opening the window, for I believe it must have been a chill that made you faint. But I am no doctor, and a good blow of fresh air was the only thing that occurred to me.”

“I am sure it was the best thing to do,” she answered; “I am not cold now. I don’t think it was real cold. It must have been the feeling of fainting coming on. I never fainted before, and I have always thought it so silly,” she added with a little smile. “I am all right now, I shall go upstairs in a minute, Gerald.” Appealingly, “You won’t tell anybody?”

“Not if you promise me to tell Sydney, and see the doctor if you have any return of it, or don’t feel quite well in any way.”

“Very well, I will promise that,” she replied, meekly enough. “It was very good of you not to call any one and make a fuss.” Then, after a moment’s hesitation, the hot colour rushing over her pale face, she added in a lower voice, “Gerald, didn’t I say something?”

There was no use parrying her inquiry. Sorely against his will, Gerald found himself obliged to accept the position of her confidant.

“Yes,” he said, simply; Eugenia did not perceive that it was sternly as well.

“Ah, I thought so,” she murmured. “I know I can trust you, though sometimes one prefers to trust no one. Don’t misunderstand me,” she added quickly, becoming alive to the grave expression of his face; “in one sense, I should not care if everybody knew what you suspect. No one need be ashamed of I can’t explain. I mean, I don’t want pity. I am not to be pitied, and no one is to be blamed. Only, people who only know half cannot understand, so I feel that my strength just now lies in silence.”

Mr Thurston looked at her very anxiously, the hard look melting out of his face.

“Take care you do not overrate your strength,” he said gently.

Eugenia smiled, but said nothing. Then she stood up, and was about to try if she could walk, when Gerald stopped her.

“Wait one instant,” he exclaimed, and before she had the least idea what he meant, he was back again with a glass of wine.

“Drink that, or at least half of it,” he said. “I found it on the sideboard. It must be getting near dinner-time.”

Eugenia did as he told her, and then he let her go.

“Good night; I don’t think I shall come down to dinner, and thank you again very, very much, and – and please remember,” were her last words.

Ten minutes later Sydney appeared, dressed for dinner, with a rather troubled face. She was anxious about Eugenia, she told Gerald; it looked as if she had caught a chill somehow – she had persuaded her not to come down again, but to go straight to bed.

“But talking of chills,” she went on, hastily, “this room is enough to freeze one. What can it be? Why, actually, the window is open. My dear Gerald, what can you be made of to have sat here without finding it out?”

Mr Dalrymple was dining with a bachelor friend that evening. It was pretty late when he got home to his wife, but he found her wide awake, and evidently in better spirits than she had been for the last day or two.

“Well, my dear Henry,” she began, “I am happy to tell you that for once your fears have been exaggerated. The Laurence girls were here to-day, and I told them – quite naturally, just in the course of conversation, you know – the piece of news I had heard. And I assure you, Eugenia took it beautifully; was not the least surprised or upset; begged me to send her congratulations, and so on. She cannot have been impressed by Beauchamp Chancellor as you thought, for she is a girl that shows all her feelings. It is quite a relief to me. I feel quite happy about her now.”

“Do you?” said Henry, with cruel satire. “I’m glad to hear it. Only I suspect your feelings are not at this moment shared by her family. Mr Le Neve was dining at Hill’s to-night, and a couple of hours ago he was sent for in a hurry to the Laurences. He said he would look in again, and so he did, and told us the patient was Miss Laurence – Eugenia, I mean. And I can tell you he is far from easy about her. My own idea is she’s in for brain fever. Be sure you send round first thing in the morning to inquire.”

Poor Mrs Dalrymple was crushed at once.

“Don’t you think Mr Le Neve is rather an alarmist?” she ventured, timidly.

But Henry was very unfeeling. “I can’t say I do,” he replied, leaving his wife to her own reflections, which considerably interfered with her night’s rest.

Volume Two – Chapter Four.

Reaction

… The sorrows of all humanityThrough my heart make a thoroughfare.G. Macdonald.

Things, however, did not turn out quite so badly as several people anticipated. Eugenia’s illness did not result in brain fever, though for a week or two it was serious enough to affect considerably the spirits of her little circle of friends, and to justify Mr Le Neve in looking rather grave.

“Not that there is anything to be surprised at in it,” he assured her father and Sydney; “there are a great many cases of the kind about just now,” and he went on to murmur something about “the season,” “the changeable weather,” and other scapegoats of the kind always ready at hand to bear the blame of any illness not altogether to be accounted for or easily defined.

But greatly to the relief of every one concerned, before long Eugenia began to mend, and it was then decided that what she had been suffering from had been nothing worse than “a feverish cold,” and the less observant of her friends made themselves quite happy about her again. Their rejoicing, however, proved somewhat premature. When the girl came downstairs and began to go about again as usual, it became very evident, that though she had escaped an acute illness, she was far from having regained her ordinary strength. Sydney watched her anxiously, trusting at first that a few days would bring improvement, but on the contrary, at the end of a week, Eugenia seemed paler and more feeble than when she first got up. She would not own to being ill; she was only tired, she said – tired of the long winter, for spring was slow in coming that year; she would be all right when the summer came again, and Sydney must not trouble about her.

“Besides, dear,” she said plaintively, “though I don’t want to be selfish, you know the idea of losing you so soon is rather overwhelming to me,” and the tears which seemed now-a-days nearer at hand than formerly, rushed to her eyes.

“If you are not looking better by the end of April than you do now, I shall put off my marriage,” returned Sydney.

“And what would Frank say? Think how he would hate me! As it is, I believe he thinks my being ill at all is a piece of my usual perversity,” said Eugenia, half playfully, half sadly. “I daresay it is true. I have always given you a great deal of trouble, Sydney, and by rights it should have been the other way. I should have looked after you.”

“So you have. Neither of us could have got on without the other, and Frank knows that,” replied Sydney, consolingly. “But, Eugenia, I mean what I say; so you had better be quick and get well.”

She was willing enough to do so – at least to become sufficiently like herself to escape observation and be left alone. She did her very utmost to seem well, fought valiantly to keep up a satisfactory show of good spirits, in which endeavour the unselfish fear of damping Sydney’s happiness by obtruding her own sorrows materially assisted her. She was docile and submissive to all, perfectly ready to take the tonics which Mr Le Neve prescribed for her, to try Frank Thurston’s masculine panacea, “more exercise and fresh air,” or her father’s old-fashioned remedy of “bark and port wine.” Her gentleness was almost too much for Gerald’s self-control; he left off coming to see them so often, on the pretext of extra business, but found he did not gain much by so doing, for at home his brother nearly drove him wild by his calm speculations as to the possibility of Eugenia’s going into a decline; “their mother was very delicate, you know, and Eugenia is more like her than Sydney,” and even more irritating remarks on how much she was improved, “so much better-tempered and equable than she used to be.”

One day when Sydney had been out by herself, paying the usual bi-weekly visit to their father’s old maiden aunt, their only relation in the neighbourhood, she was told, by Eugenia on her return that Mrs Dalrymple had been to see her. This was certainly no very unusual occurrence, for during the last three weeks their friend’s visits had been by no means of the proverbially angelic character; but to-day, by Eugenia’s account, she had come on a special errand.

“They are going away from home somewhere – they haven’t quite decided where – next week,” said Eugenia, “and they want, me to go with them. But I told Mrs Dalrymple that I did not think it was possible, though of course it is exceedingly kind of them. Oh, Sydney, dear,” she continued, interrupting the remonstrance which she saw in her sister’s face, “I don’t want, to go. Our last three weeks together, for they wouldn’t be back till a few days before the 29th! And how could you get all finished by yourself without me?”

“There is very little more to do,” said Sydney, sitting down beside Eugenia and looking at her anxiously, “almost nothing in fact, except the last preparations of all, which cannot be begun till a few days beforehand, and you would be back by then. It isn’t as if it was going to be a grand marriage. And to speak plainly, Eugenia – you mustn’t be offended – even if there were a great deal to do, you couldn’t, as you are just now, help me. Indeed you would be rather in my way. I cannot bear to see you doing anything when you look as if the least breath of air would knock you over.” Eugenia did not at once answer. She turned away her head. Then she said resignedly —

“Very well, if my father, too, wishes me to go, I will,” but the pleasure which Sydney was about to express was destroyed by Eugenia’s next speech. “It is as I thought. I am no use to any one. My own life is over, and I am not wanted to help in any one else’s.”

This was the first allusion she had made in all these weeks to the bitter sorrow she had passed through. Sydney was touched and distressed.

“You must not speak so, Eugenia,” she said. “We all want you. We want you to be your own bright self again. Don’t think me unfeeling for thinking it possible you may be bright again. I know I have no right to speak, for I have been exceptionally free from trial, but you have been so brave and good lately, Eugenia. I cannot bear to see you so desponding. I am sure it will do you good to go away. It will make me feel so much happier about you.”

“Very well, then, to please you, I will,” said Eugenia, more vigorously, and as Mr Laurence was only too thankful to give his consent to the proposal, Mrs Dalrymple triumphantly carried the day.

Ever so many places had been thought of as likely to be pleasant at this season, and one after the other rejected as undesirable. One was too far away, another too crowded by invalids, a third disagreeably exposed to east wind. Their time was too short for them to entertain the idea of any of the usual wintering places across the Channel, and Mrs Dalrymple objected to the south of England as too distant also. So in the end they pitched upon a pretty little watering place, not more than a three hours’ journey from Wareborough, where there was a good choice of walks and drives for Mr Dalrymple, and a certainty of comfortable quarters at the best hotel.

Their destination was a matter of perfect indifference to Eugenia, whose only interest in the journey was the feeling that she was pleasing her friends, and whose only strong wish was to get it over, and find herself at home again, free to yield to the lassitude and depression against which it became daily more difficult to struggle.

“If they would but leave me alone,” she constantly repeated inwardly; and though she hated herself for the feeling, there were times at which she realised that even Sydney’s absence would be in some ways a relief. The constant and but thinly veiled anxiety in her sister’s eyes, the incessant endeavour on her own part to lessen it by appearing as bright and energetic as of old, were at times almost more than the girl could endure or sustain; and when she found herself at last fairly started on her little journey with the Dalrymples, she became conscious that she had done wisely to consent to accompany them. Mrs Dalrymple’s kindly fussiness was infinitely less trying than Sydney’s wistful tenderness; it was far easier to keep up a cheerful, commonplace conversation with her friend’s husband than to sit through dinner at home with the feeling that her father and sister were stealthily watching to see if she ate more to-day than yesterday, or if she entered with greater vigour into the passing remarks. With her present companions she felt perfectly at ease; had she had any idea of what an accurate acquaintance with the actual state of things had been arrived at by the worthy couple, her comfortable freedom from self-consciousness would have speedily deserted her.

Nunswell quickly got the credit of her improved looks.

“I really think she is growing more like herself already,” said Mrs Dalrymple, with great satisfaction, to her husband. “We could not have chosen a better place for her; it is so bright and lively here, and the bracing air is so reviving.” Very probably the bracing air really had something to do with it! Eugenia was only nineteen, and this had been her first trouble. Her life hitherto had been exceptionally monotonous and uneventful; a few months ago the prospect of a visit to Nunswell would have been to her far more exciting and delightful than to most girls of her age and education would be that of a winter in Rome, or a summer in Switzerland: even now therefore, notwithstanding the blight which had fallen over her youthful capacity for enjoyment, she was not insensible to the pleasant change in her outward life from the dull routine of Wareborough; the little amusements and varieties almost daily arranged for her by her hosts; the general holiday feeling. She had not yet got the length of owning to herself that she did, or ever again could, enjoy in her old way, but the reflection which now often passed through her mind, “how happy this would have made me a year ago,” showed that she was on the high road to recovery.

Nunswell was beautifully situated, and rich in “natural objects of attraction.” Eugenia had travelled so little that even the scenery of her own country was known to her only by description; it was now for the first time in her life that she woke up to a consciousness of her power of appreciation of natural beauty. Yet the waking was a sad one; her very first real perceptions of the beauty she had hitherto but dimly imagined came to her tinged with the sense of discordance between the outer and the inner world, of mistake and failure, which takes the brilliance out of the sunshine, the sweetness out of the birds’ songs.

“None of it is real,” thought Eugenia. “It is only where there is no soul – no heart, that there is happiness,” for being still weakened in mind and body by her recent illness, having nothing to do but to rest and amuse herself, and no one to talk to, she was inclined to be rather plaintive and desponding, and to imagine the path she was treading to be one of altogether unprecedented experiences.

Still, there was no question but what her spirits were better, her general appearance far more satisfactory than when she left home, and Mrs Dalrymple’s bulletins to Sydney became cheering in the extreme.

They had been a fortnight at Nunswell, when one morning at breakfast Mr Dalrymple made an unexpected announcement. He had been reading his letters – business ones for the most part, forwarded from his office at Wareborough – over some of them he had frowned, others he had thrown aside after a hasty glance, one or two had brought a satisfied expression to his face. Mrs Dalrymple and Eugenia had no letters this morning, but in deference to Mr Dalrymple’s occupation, they had been sitting in silence for some time, excepting a few whispered remarks as to the quality of the coffee or the prospects of the weather. Eugenia was some way into a brown study when she was recalled by her host’s suddenly addressing her.

“Here’s some news for you, Miss Laurence,” he exclaimed, looking up with a smile from the perusal of his last letter. “We are to have a visitor this afternoon – a great friend of yours. Quite time, too, that you should have a little variety – you must be getting tired of two old fogies like my wife and me.”

Eugenia had started when he first began to speak – it did not take much to startle her just now – then as he went on, her colour changed, first to crimson, which fading as quickly as it had come, left her even paler than usual. Mrs Dalrymple darted a reproachful look across the table at her husband, and began to speak hastily, in terror of what he might not be going to say next.

“Why can’t you say at once who it is, Henry?” she exclaimed with very unusual irritation. “It is quite startling and uncomfortable to be told all of a sudden ‘somebody’ is coming in that sort of way. I am sure I don’t want to see any one, and I don’t think Eugenia does either. We have been very snug together, and Eugenia is not strong enough yet to care for strangers. Really, Henry, you are very thoughtless.”

The last few words should have been an aside, but Mrs Dalrymple’s vexation at the sight of the pallid hue still overspreading the girl’s face, overmastered her prudence.

“It didn’t startle me, dear Mrs Dalrymple – really it didn’t,” interposed Eugenia, hastily. “That is to say, I was only startled for an instant, and it was not Mr Dalrymple’s fault. Anything does it – even the door opening – since I was ill, but I am beginning to get over it. But you are quite right in thinking I don’t want any one else – I have been quite happy with you and Mr Dalrymple.”

“But you have misunderstood me, Mary,” said Mr Dalrymple, looking rather contrite. “I never spoke of strangers. I said particularly it was a friend of Miss Laurence’s I was expecting. It is Gerald Thurston. I have a note from him proposing to see me here this afternoon, and if we are not engaged, he speaks of staying at Nunswell till Monday. He is on his way home from Bristol, where he has been on business, and he wishes to see me, and I want to see him. I am sure you can have no objection to his joining us for two days, either of you?” he ended by inquiring of his two companions.

“Objection to Gerald Thurston!” repeated Mrs Dalrymple. “Of course not. I shall be very glad to see him. I only wish you had said at first whom you meant. You don’t mind, Eugenia?”

“I?” said Eugenia, looking up quickly. “Oh, dear no – I am very glad. I like Gerald Thurston very much. He is very kind and good.”

“And exceedingly clever, and uncommonly good-looking,” added Mr Dalrymple, warmly. “Take him for all in all, I don’t know where there is a finer fellow than Thurston.”

“So my father says,” agreed Eugenia. “Indeed I think every one that knows him thinks highly of him.”

She was anxious to be cordial, and really felt so towards Gerald. Of late she had come to like him much more than formerly, and the extreme consideration and delicacy which he had shown the evening her illness began, had increased this liking by a feeling of gratitude. Nevertheless there had grown up unconsciously in her a somewhat painful association with Gerald since that evening, and she had not seen enough of him to remove it. “He knows,” she said to herself, and she shrank from meeting him again.

But it was much pleasanter and easier than she had expected. Gerald, intensely alive to all she was feeling, behaved perfectly, and spared her in a thousand ways without appearing, even to her, to do so at all. The two days proved the pleasantest they had passed at Nunswell: Mr Thurston knew the neighbourhood well, and drove them to some charming nooks and points of view, somewhat out of the beaten guide-book track, which they had not hitherto discovered. Mrs Dalrymple openly expressed her gratification and surprise.

“I always knew Gerald Thurston was very clever and superior and all that sort of thing, you know,” she said to Eugenia, “but I had no idea he could make himself so agreeable.”