Not Without Thorns

Eugenia herself was a little surprised. The truth was she had never before, since his return from India, seen Gerald to advantage: in her presence hitherto he had been always self-conscious and constrained, stern and moody, if not morose. Now it was different. A feeling of extreme pity, of almost brotherly anxiety for her happiness, had replaced the intenser feelings with which he had regarded her; he had nor longer any fears for himself or his own self-control in her presence – that was all over, past for ever like a dream in the night; he could venture now to be at ease, could devote himself unselfishly to cheer and interest her in any way that came into his power. And under this genial influence the bruised petals of the flower, not crushed so utterly as had seemed at first, began to revive and expand again, to feel conscious of the bright sunshine and gentle breezes still around it, though for a time all light and life had seemed to it to have deserted its world.

“I had no idea Gerald was so wonderfully understanding and sympathising,” thought Eugenia. “If I have a feeling or a question it is difficult to put in words, he seems to know what I mean by instinct;” and encouraged by this discovery, she allowed herself to talk to him, once or twice when they were alone together, of several things which had lately been floating in her mind.

Trouble and disappointment were doing their work with her; she was beginning to look for a meaning in many things that hitherto she had disregarded or accepted with youthful carelessness as matters-of-course with which she had no call to meddle. But now it was different: she had eaten of the fruit of the tree; she had ventured her all in a frail bark, and it had foundered; it had come home to her that life and love are often sad, and sometimes terrible facts, and her heart was beginning to swell with a great pity for her suffering-kind. It was all vague and misty to her as yet; it might result in nothing, as is too often the end of such crises in a growing character, but still the germ was there.

“Gerald,” she said to Mr Thurston, suddenly, after she had been sitting silent for some minutes. (They were in the gardens of the hotel at the time. It was Sunday afternoon and a mild April day; Mr and Mrs Dalrymple had gone to church again, but Eugenia and Mr Thurston had been tempted by the pleasant weather to play truant.) “Gerald,” said Eugenia, “I wish there was something that women could do.”

Mr Thurston turned towards her. She now looking straight before her with a puzzled yet earnest expression on her face.

“Something that women can do?” he repeated, not quite sure of her drift. “I thought there were lots of things. Most women complain of want of time.”

“So do I sometimes. I am never at a loss for occupation – that’s not what I mean,” she replied. “What I mean is, I wish there were bigger things – more useful things for women to do.”

“You have not been infected with the Women’s Rights mania, surely?” inquired Gerald, rather unresponsively.

“Of course not. Don’t laugh at me, Gerald. You can understand me – if you choose. I should like to feel I was of some use to somebody, and lately I have felt as if no one in the world would be the least bit the worse if I were out of it.” Here she blushed a little. “Now don’t you see if I were a man I could set to work hard at something – something that would be of use in some way. Put it to yourself, Gerald; suppose – suppose you had given up thoughts of – of being very happy yourself,” (here the blush deepened to hot crimson), “wouldn’t you naturally – after a while, you know – wouldn’t you set to work harder than ever at whatever you felt was your own special business – the thing you felt you were most likely to be of use in? Now a woman has no such field open to her.”

Internally Gerald had winced a little, two or three times, while Eugenia was speaking. Externally, he sat there looking colder and more impassive than usual. He had loved this girl, had set her up on the pedestal of ideal womanhood that somewhere or other exists in the imagination of every man not wholly faithless or depraved; she had fallen, it is true, in a sense, from this height, she had proved herself in his judgment to be but as the rest of her sex – childishly credulous, ready to mistake the glitter for the gold, honeyed words for heart devotion – yet still he cared for her, was tenderly anxious for her welfare. But of all things Gerald hated sentimentalism!

“There are plenty of Protestant sisterhoods,” he said, drily. “How would one of those suit you?”

Eugenia made no reply. After waiting a moment or two, Mr Thurston turned towards her again. To his surprise he saw that her eyes were full of tears.

“Eugenia,” he exclaimed, softened at once, “have I hurt you? I did not intend it. I assure you I did not, in the least.”

“No, I know you didn’t,” she said, struggling to smile and to speak cheerfully. “I am very silly. I can’t help it. I have got so silly and touchy lately, the least thing seems to vex me. But you did hurt me a little, Gerald. I was in earnest in what I said, though you thought it missyish and contemptible. I have been trying to see how I could grow better and less selfish, and you don’t know how hard it is, for no one seems to understand. And, oh you don’t know, you who are so strong and wise, you don’t know how hard it is to be good when one is very unhappy.”

“Don’t I?” muttered he, but she did not catch the words.

“If I could be of use,” she went on again, after a little pause. “And why can’t I be? There must be plenty of misery in the world. Why can’t I make some of it a little less?”

“You can,” he answered, gently. “I don’t think I quite understood you. I thought you were envying men’s work and despising your own sphere – a very common and often excusable mistake. I see now there was a more unselfish spirit in what you meant.”

“I don’t know that,” she answered, doubtfully, but brightening up nevertheless. “I do think I should like to make some people happier, or a little less unhappy, and in some ways perhaps better too. For surely very often being happier would make people better, would it not? But I am selfish too – I want to get something to take me out of myself – something that I can get interested in by feeling it is of use.”

“Don’t you help your father sometimes?” inquired Gerald. “Haven’t you a good deal to do in looking after things at home?”

“No – very little indeed. The house has got into a jog-trot way of going on, and papa won’t have changes. What little there has been to do hitherto, I am afraid Sydney has done,” said Eugenia, blushing a little. “Of course I don’t intend to neglect that sort of thing, but there is very little to do. I do help my father whenever he will let me, by copying out things and hunting up references and quotations. But it isn’t often he wants help.”

“And would he not let you help him more if you asked him?”

“He might, but it would only be to please me,” replied Eugenia, despondingly. “No, I am afraid it is true – I am no use to anybody. Once, I remember, ever, ever so long ago,” she went on, as if ten or twenty years at least were within easy grasp of her memory, “I had visions of becoming frightfully learned, of studying all my life long, and getting to the bottom of everything. What a little goose I was! Just because I had learnt Latin and German and a few other things more thoroughly than most girls! I wonder sometimes if, after all, all the trouble papa took with us has been much good to us. Look at Sydney; what will be the use of it to her, marrying at eighteen? And as for me, if I were really clever I suppose I should go on working away, absorbed in the work without thinking of any result. But I can’t, Gerald. It doesn’t satisfy me. I want to see and feel a result.”

She looked up in his face, her bright, earnest eyes full of inquiry. “Can’t you help me?” they seemed to say.

Could he? A tantalising vision rose before him of how at one time he had looked forward to doing so – how well he understood her, and the special phase through which she was passing! Was it too late? Was there yet a chance that by much patience and by slow degrees he might win to himself this girl whom no one understood as he understood her, whose very faults and imperfections were dear to him? The thought seemed to dazzle and bewilder him, but a glance at Eugenia made him dismiss it. She sat there beside him, in such utter unconsciousness, such sisterly reliance on his friendship, that he felt it would be cruel to her and in every sense worse than useless to disturb the existing state of things. The far off, dimly possible future must take care of itself; and after all – she could never be quite the same Eugenia to him again.

So he answered her very quietly and soberly, as she expected.

“You cannot judge of things quite justly at present, I think,” he said, after a little pause. “I have had the same sort of feelings myself sometimes, though, of course, my life has been too busy to tempt me to yield to them much. But they will pass away again, you will find. You will come to feel that nothing well done is ever useless. And, in the meantime, there is no fear but what things will turn up for you to do. I could put you in the way of some,” he continued, with a smile, “though I don’t know if they would be quite to your taste. Frank sometimes takes me to task a little for some of my ideas, so we should have to be careful.”

“I am quite sure I should agree with you,” said Eugenia, eagerly. “I know you do an immense deal of good, Gerald. Papa says so, and I have often wanted to ask you about it, but I didn’t like.”

“There is exceedingly little to tell,” he replied, simply. “I am no theorist, and I limit my attempts to what I think I see a chance of doing.”

Then, perceiving that her interest was really aroused, he told her something of what he was trying to do, and promised some time or other to tell her more.

Eugenia felt happier than she had done for long, that evening. Her respect for Gerald Thurston was rapidly increasing.

“I have never before done him justice,” she said to herself; “I am most fortunate to have him for a friend.”

Gerald, on his way back to Wareborough, felt very glad that he had seen her again.

“It was the best thing to do to get over the uncomfortable feeling,” thought he. “She trusts me now thoroughly, and I may be of use to her.”

And Sydney, who had been a little puzzled by Gerald’s visit to Nunswell, was greatly delighted by his cheerful looks and satisfactory report of her sister.

“After all,” she thought, hopefully, “it may all come right in the end. Who knows?”

Volume Two – Chapter Five.

As Fate would have it

La femme qui ne cesse pas d’aimer celui qui l’a fut souffrir, parvient à l’aimer encore davantage.

Let time and chance combine, combine.

T. Carlyle’s Adieu.

Who knows, indeed! Gerald left Nunswell on Monday morning, and for the rest of that day Eugenia’s thoughts were principally occupied in reflecting over all he had said, and wishing he had stayed longer and said more. She got up on Tuesday morning in the same spirit, and resolving to strike before the iron of her new determination to struggle against despondency and depression had had time to cool, she went out into the gardens armed with one of the few books she had brought with her, Schlegel’s “Philosophie der Sprache,” which she had been studying under her father’s direction just before her illness.

“I will force myself to read a certain quantity every day,” she decided, as she ensconced herself on the same garden seat on which she and Gerald had sat on Sunday afternoon. All around her reminded her of their conversation, of his few words of encouragement and advice.

“Trying must always be some good, whether one sees it or not, I suppose,” thought Eugenia, and with this somewhat vague but certainly innocuous piece of philosophy she set to work at her self-appointed task.

She found it harder than she had anticipated; considerably more so than it used to be; she did not make allowance for the effects of her illness, and entirely attributed the difficulty she met with to “stupidity” and “forgetfulness,” and thereupon ensued a fit of self-disgust.

“I to think myself clever, indeed!” she thought, “or able to be ever of use to any one. The first thing I have to do, it seems to me, is to get rid of my self-conceit. Why, I have forgotten more German in a month than I learnt in five years.”

She was not, however, to be easily baffled. She read and re-read each intricate sentence till its meaning became clear; till, too, her head ached and her eyes grew weary, and she was at last obliged to stop and rest before she had got half through the allotted portion. Her retreat was in a retired part of the gardens; hitherto she had been undisturbed by passers-by; suddenly, as she sat leaning back, her eyes closed, her whole appearance that of extreme weariness and languor, two gentlemen passed within a few yards of her. They were not speaking as they approached, but she heard their footsteps and opened her eyes for a moment, to close them again quickly when she saw that the two figures were disappearing in another direction.

“What an exquisitely pretty girl,” observed one of the two when they were out of earshot, “but how fearfully delicate she looks. I don’t think I ever saw such a transparent complexion. Did you notice her? She seemed to be asleep, and yet she looks as if she were some way gone in a decline. How extraordinary of her friends to let her fall asleep in the open air in April. How frightfully imprudent.”

“I didn’t notice her,” replied his companion, carelessly. “It’s not likely she is in a consumption, however. Consumptive people don’t come to Nunswell; it’s too cold. But if your feelings are interested, Thanet, I am quite willing to wait while you turn back and waken her. And you had better give her a little lecture on the subject of her imprudence at the same time, hadn’t you?”

“Nonsense, Chancellor,” replied Major Thanet, rather irritably. “If you had been on your back for three months, and suffering as I have been, you would understand what it is to have some feeling for your fellow-creatures. A year ago I should have laughed at such notions as you do now, I daresay,” he continued, more amiably, “but don’t make fun of me till you have had a touch of rheumatic fever yourself,” “I have no wish to try it, thank you,” said Captain Chancellor, lightly. “I am quite willing to take your word for it that, it is the reverse of agreeable. But a minute ago you would have it the young person must be half way gone in a decline, and now you say she’s in for rheumatic fever. We had better have a look at her, really: you said she was awfully pretty, didn’t you?” Major Thanet grunted a but half mollified assent. He was still too lame to walk without the help of his friend’s arm, so when Captain Chancellor turned to retrace their steps, he made no objection, though feeling still annoyed by what he considered his companion’s ill-timed “chaff.”

The girl was not asleep this time. She was reading, and did not look up till they had passed. Her attitude was still the same; she was half sitting, half lying on the bench, her head resting wearily on one hand, while the other held her book. Major Thanet looked at her, as they walked slowly past, with considerable interest.

“She is a lovely creature, whoever she is,” he remarked to his companion when they had walked on a little further. “Don’t you think so? She looks delicate, but hardly so much so as I fancied at first. It must have been the effect of her closed eyes.”

Captain Chancellor did not answer. Major Thanet was a much shorter man than his friend, and he stooped slightly in consequence of his illness. So he had not seen his companion’s face since they had passed the invalid girl. Now, however, he looked up, surprised at his silence, and a little irritated by his remark eliciting no reply.

“What are you thinking of, Chancellor?” he exclaimed. “Didn’t you see the girl? Don’t you?”

But his sentence was never completed, so much was he startled by what he saw in his friend’s face.

Captain Chancellor was deadly pale, paler by far than the girl whose pallor had attracted Major Thanet’s attention. An expression of extreme disquiet had replaced his ordinary air of comfortable well-bred nonchalance, and his voice sounded hoarse and abrupt when at last he spoke.

“There is a sheltered seat on there, I see, Thanet,” he said, pointing to a sort of arbour a little in front. “Do you mind my leaving you for a few minutes? I shall not be long, but – but – I must run back for a moment.”

“Certainly, certainly, by all means,” replied Major Thanet, good-naturedly, though feeling not a little curious. “One of the irresistible Beauchamp’s little ‘affaires,’ cropping up rather inconveniently, I fear, if what they say of his engagement to that very dark-eyed Miss Eyrecourt be true,” he said to himself; adding aloud, when Captain Chancellor had taken him at his word, and deposited him in the summerhouse, “Don’t hurry, my dear fellow, on my account. If the worst comes to the worst, I expect I can toddle back to the hotel with my stick.”

“Thank you. I shall not be long,” repeated Beauchamp, hardly knowing what Major Thanet had said, and setting off, as he spoke, at a rapid pace, in the direction of Eugenia’s seat.

But as he drew nearer to her, his steps slackened. After all, what had he to say to her? Was it not even possible he had been mistaken in her identity? And supposing it were she – that this fragile shadow were the blooming girl he had left, not without some misgiving and regret, only a few weeks ago – why should he suppose he was to blame for the change? She had never looked very strong; she might have had any ordinary illness, that had nothing to say to him or her possible feelings towards him. Girls, now-a-days, didn’t die of broken hearts; that sort of thing was all very well in novels and ballads, but was seldom come across in real life, and more than half-inclined to turn back again to his friend with some excuse for his eccentric behaviour, Captain Chancellor stopped short. But before he had time to decide what he should do, a faint, low cry, that seemed somehow to shape itself into the sound of his own name, arrested him. He was nearer the garden bench than he had imagined: in his hurry and confusion he had approached it by another path; a step or two in advance and Eugenia stood before him. She had recognised him after he had passed with Major Thanet the second time, had sat there in an indescribable conflict of emotions – of fear and self-distrust; of vague, unreasonable anticipation; of foolish, irrepressible delight in the knowledge of his near presence; of bitter, humiliating consciousness that such feelings were no longer lawful – that he was now the betrothed, possibly even the husband, of another woman.

“Why did I see him? What unhappy fate has brought him here – to revive it all – to begin again all my struggles – just when I was growing a little happier and more at peace?” she had been crying in her heart. And then her ears had caught the quickly – approaching footsteps – the firm, sharp tread which she told herself she could have known among a thousand, and she forgot everything; forgot all about Roma Eyrecourt and his sudden departure, her own misery, his apparent indifference; remembered only that at last – at last – she saw him again, stood within a few feet of the man she had been doing her utmost to banish for ever from her heart and thoughts. One glance, all the labour was in vain – all the painful task to begin over again at the very beginning!

He was the first to break silence. It would have been a farce to have done so with any ordinary conventional form of greeting; her agitation, as she stood there, pale as death, trembling from head to foot, grasping convulsively at the rough woodwork of the bench for support – her poor “Philosophie” lying on the ground at her feet – was too palpable to be ignored; to have attempted to do so would have been to insult her. And Beauchamp Chancellor was not the man to stab deliberately and in cold blood, however indifferent he might be to suffering which fell not within his sight. And just now, in full view of Eugenia’s altered features and pitiful agitation, all the latent manliness of his nature was aroused; for the time he almost forgot himself in the sudden rush of tenderness for the girl who, he could no longer doubt, had suffered sorely for his sake; whose guileless devotion contrasted not unpleasantly with the still fresh remembrance of Roma Eyrecourt’s scornful indifference. So it was in a tone of extreme and unconcealed anxiety that he spoke.

“You have been ill, Miss Laurence,” he exclaimed; “I can see that you have been dreadfully ill. Good heavens, and I not to know it! And I have startled you by coming upon you so unexpectedly. What can I do or say to make you forgive me.”

Eugenia was recovering herself a little by now; some consciousness of what was due to her own self-respect was returning to her; she made a hard fight to regain her self-possession.

“There is nothing to forgive,” she answered, trying to smile, though her quivering lips and tremulous voice were by no means under her control. “I have been ill, but not ‘dreadfully.’ When one is usually strong, I suppose even a slight illness shakes one’s nerves. I am still absurdly easily startled.”

The last few words came very faintly. The same bewildering sensation of giddiness that she had felt once before in her life came over Eugenia; a horror seized her that in another moment she would again lose consciousness altogether – what might she not say, how might she not betray herself in such a case, to him – to this man who belonged to Roma Eyrecourt, not to her? She was standing by the end of the bench; she turned, and tried to reach the seat, but she could not see clearly, every object seemed to dance before her eyes, she would have fallen had not Beauchamp darted forward, caught her in his arms, and almost lifted her on to the bench. His touch seemed to inspire her with curious strength, the giddiness passed away; she sat up, and shrinking back from his supporting arm with an unmistakable air of repugnance, whispered – for she had not yet voice to speak – “Thank you, but please go away, Captain Chancellor. I am quite well again now.” Considerably mortified, Beauchamp sprang back. He was at all times easily nettled and prone to take offence, and in the present case the unexpectedness of the repulse made it additionally hurting. He stood still for a minute or two, watching Eugenia, as she sat in evident discomfort and constraint under his scrutiny. Then he spoke again – “I would have left you at once, Miss Laurence,” he said, stiffly, “if you were fit to be left, but you really are not. If you will tell me, however, where I can find your friends I will go in search of them, and not trouble you any more with my unwelcome presence.”

She looked up wistfully into his face.

“I have offended you,” she said. “Oh, what shall I do? I don’t know what to do. Oh, why did you come here? You make it so difficult – so dreadfully difficult. I don’t blame you – I know you could not help it: but I have been trying so hard to forget you, and you won’t let me. You have no right to put yourself in my way; it is cruel and unmanly of you,” she went on, with a quick fierceness in her tone; “you know how weak and ignorant I am. Why can’t you leave me? But, oh, what have I been saying?” And with a sudden awakening to the inference of her words, an overwhelming rush of shame, bewilderment, and misery, she hid her face in her hands, and burst into tears.

This was altogether too much for Captain Chancellor. He flung himself on the seat beside her, clasped her in his arms, lavishing upon her every term of lover-like endearment.

“Eugenia, my dearest, my own darling!” he exclaimed, “I cannot bear to see you so. Why should I keep away from you? Fate is too strong for prudence. We cannot be separated, you see. I will break every tie, I will crush every obstacle that can come between us. Look up, my dearest, and tell me you will be happy, and will trust yourself to me.”

She did not repulse him now; she was too exhausted and worn out to struggle. She hardly realised the meaning of his words, but for this short minute she allowed herself to rest in his arms, with a vague feeling that it was only for this once – he must go away, he must marry Roma; it must be, he could not break his word; and she, Eugenia, would never see him again; she would not live long now, she had no strength to struggle back to common life again, as she had nearly succeeded in doing; it would be better for her to die quietly, and then it would not surely matter to any one that she had for this once smothered her maidenly dignify, had allowed the promised husband of another to hold her in his arms, to call her his dearest, to kiss her pale cheeks, and swear he would never give her up.