Not Without Thorns

Volume One – Chapter Two.
Mistakes

 
“This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.”
 

Romeo and Juliet.

There was not much conversation between Captain Chancellor and his partner during the quadrille, for Miss Laurence seemed a little afraid of her own voice in so public a position, and bestowed her attention principally on the rest of the performers. Immediately after the square dance, however, there came another waltz, for which Captain Chancellor, waxing bolder as his practised eye followed the girl’s graceful and well-balanced, though somewhat timid movements, took care to secure her. His hopes were not disappointed. She danced beautifully; and then, too, how pretty it was to see how she enjoyed it! He forgot all about Miss Eyrecourt and her unamiability.

“How well you dance! I can hardly believe you have not had much practice. With one or two very trifling alterations, your waltzing would be perfection,” he exclaimed.

“Do you really think so? I am so glad!” she replied, looking up with a sweet flushed face from the sofa, where he had found a charming corner for two. “I was so afraid you would think me very heavy and awkward. I have hardly ever danced except at home with Sydney. Certainly, I have had plenty of that kind of practice.”

“With Sydney?” he repeated, interrogatively, just as one cross-questions a child. “Your brother, I suppose?”

“Oh no; I have no brothers,” she answered; and as she said the words, across her hearer’s mind there flashed the thought, “A cousin, I’ll bet anything. These sweet simple little girls are always spoilt by some odious cousin, or male friend ‘I have known all my life,’ in the background.” But “Oh no,” she went on; “Sydney is my sister.” Captain Chancellor breathed more freely. “She should have been here to-night; but Aunt Penton was not well, and Sydney thought she should not be left alone; and she would make me come. She is so unselfish!” with a tender look in her bright eyes, and a little sigh, as if the remembrance of Sydney’s self-sacrifice somewhat marred her own enjoyment.

“Your elder sister, is she not?”

“Oh no; she is a good deal younger – nearly two years younger.”

Captain Chancellor’s eyebrows went up a little. His companion read his thoughts, though he said nothing.

“I think you fancy I am younger than I am,” she explained, with a little blush. “I am nearly nineteen. I suppose I seem younger from having been so little in society. This is the very first time I have ever been anywhere without Sydney, and I disliked it so much, I asked Mrs Dalrymple if I might come early with my father, as he was passing here, and stay with her little girls in the school-room till after dinner, so that I might be in the drawing-room when every one came in.”

Captain Chancellor smiled at her confession; but its frankness made it the more difficult to realise that she was not the mere child he had guessed her. “And that was how you came to be standing out there in the fog, ‘all forlorn,’ then?” he returned. “Do you know you really frightened me? I don’t know what I didn’t take you for. A Wareshire witch at the least, though I don’t know that I was far wrong.” (A quick upward glance, and a slightly puzzled expression on the girlish face, here warned him that he was venturing on untried ground.) “But I forgot,” he went on hastily, “you don’t belong to Wareborough, I think you said.”

“Oh, yes I do. You misunderstood me a little. I only said I did not know many people here, that is to say personally – I know nearly every one by sight. I have lived here all my life, but my father does not allow us to visit much.”

“I have no doubt he is wise. In a place like this, the society must be very mixed, to say the least.”

Miss Laurence looked slightly embarrassed. “It isn’t exactly on that account. My father never speaks of Wareborough in that way. I don’t like living here much, but,” she hesitated.

“But though one may abuse one’s home oneself, one can’t stand any other person’s doing so – above all a perfect stranger, isn’t that it?” said Captain Chancellor, good-humouredly.

“Not quite. A perfect stranger’s opinion can’t matter much, for it can only be founded on hearsay,” replied the young lady, with a smile.

Her powers of repartee promised to be greater than he had expected, and Beauchamp Chancellor was not fond of repartee when exerted at his own expense. But he covered his slight annoyance by an increasingly paternal tone to his young companion. “Believe nothing you hear, and only half you see. You are rather too young to have adopted that motto yet, Miss Laurence; are you not? But after all, I don’t feel myself very guilty, for you own to not liking Wareborough yourself. You don’t really belong to it, do you? I can’t get it into my head that you do.”

The delicately implied flattery had the intended effect. The very slight disturbance of the young girl’s equanimity disappeared, and with an almost imperceptible elevation of the well-shaped little head, not lost on her companion, she replied:

“I don’t quite know what you mean by belonging to Wareborough? Of course, in one sense, we do not; that is to say, our grandfathers and great-grandfathers didn’t live here, but we, Sydney and I, were born here, and it has always been our home.”

“And yet you don’t like it? I suppose you have been a good deal away from home – abroad perhaps?” questioned Captain Chancellor.

“No, I have very seldom been away, and we have never been abroad,” said the girl, somewhat bluntly, but blushing a good deal as she spoke. “It is not from personal experience I can compare Wareborough with other places,” she went on; “it is from what I have read principally.”

“Ah, then, you indulge pretty freely in novels, like most young ladies,” observed Captain Chancellor.

Something in the tone or words jarred slightly on his hearer, but she had no time to define the sensation, for just then Mrs Dalrymple approached them.

“Well, Eugenia, my dear, you are enjoying yourself, I hope? And you, too, Captain Chancellor? I have been admiring your dancing. Henry introduced you, I suppose? Quite right. This dance is just about over. I want to introduce you to the Miss Harveys – charming girls. You must engage one of them for the next dance.”

“A little later in the evening, I shall be delighted to be introduced to any friend of yours, my dear Mrs Dalrymple,” replied Captain Chancellor. “For the next dance, you must excuse me. I am already engaged.”

“Ah, well, never mind. Come to me when it is over,” said the good-natured hostess. “You are not going to dance with Roma, I suppose? What has come over her to-night – can you tell me?”

“Not I. I have long ago left off trying to comprehend women in general, and Roma in particular,” said Captain Chancellor, lightly; but still with a certain constraint in his voice. Then as Mrs Dalrymple left them, he turned quickly to Miss Laurence: “There are refreshments in another room, I believe,” he said. “Won’t you let me get you an ice, or some lemonade, or whatever there is? Or suppose we both go and see?”

“Yes,” said Eugenia, rising as she spoke. “I should like to go into the other room; it is getting a little too hot here.”

She did not care for lemonade, or ices, or anything so material and commonplace. The novelty and excitement of the evening seemed to raise her above all such vulgar considerations as eating and drinking. She was not in the least tired, nor had she discovered that the room was too hot, till she heard Captain Chancellor’s announcement of being engaged for the next dance. Then everything changed to her: she felt like Cinderella at the stroke of twelve.

“I am not going to sit all alone in a corner again with nobody noticing me, and watch him dancing with some one else,” she said to herself. “I believe he is only making an excuse to get rid of me, and very likely he wants to go and talk to Miss Eyrecourt. He told me he knew no one here.” So she gladly accepted the offer of his escort to the next room, quite unaware how visibly the brightness had faded out of her tell-tale face.

It was not all at once that her companion perceived the change; his thoughts seemed otherwise engaged. But when he had found her a deliciously draughty seat, had fetched her an ice, and was about to establish himself beside her, something in her manner caught his attention.

“You are not vexed with me for my little fib, I hope?” he said gently. Just then the music began again. She looked up, grave but puzzled.

“I don’t quite understand what you mean,” she replied. “But never mind about that. The next dance has begun, and you said you were engaged for it.”

His face lighted up with amusement and something else. “But I am not engaged for it. That was the story I told to good Mrs Dalrymple. It is a galop – horrid dance – I was sure you would not care about it, and we can sit here so comfortably. I told you I knew no one here, and I am too shy to dance with any of the Miss Harveys.”

“But Miss Eyrecourt, you know her?” persisted Eugenia, though the gravity was fast clearing off her face.

“Of course I do. She is a sort of a sister of mine. I fancied you knew, for she is Mrs Dalrymple’s cousin, and she has been staying here for some little time. You know Mrs Dalrymple very well, don’t you?”

“Yes. She is always very kind to us,” replied the girl. “I knew Miss Eyrecourt was her cousin, but I didn’t know she was any relation of yours, though I have heard Mrs Dalrymple talk of you. Is Miss Eyrecourt your step-sister? How proud you must be of her! She is so handsome.”

“Handsome, yes, I suppose she is,” he answered, rather absently. “But she is not exactly my step-sister,” he went on, rousing himself. “She is – let me see – she is, or was rather, for my brother-in-law is dead, my sister’s husband’s step-sister. A terrible relationship, isn’t it? Nearly as bad as ‘Dick’s father and John’s son,’ which I have never been able to master. But Roma and I have never troubled ourselves much to define our precise connection. It seemed quite unnecessary. We have always been a great deal together, and took it for granted we were some sort of cousins, I suppose.”

To which Eugenia replied, “Oh, indeed,” without repeating her admiration of the young lady under discussion.

“What a pretty name Roma is,” she said, suddenly, after a minute or two’s silence.

“It is uncommon enough, any way,” replied Captain Chancellor. “But in Miss Eyrecourt’s case there was a reason for it. She was born there – at Rome I mean.”

“Then is she partly Italian?” asked Eugenia. “I could quite fancy she was.”

“Because she is so dark? Oh, no; she is not Italian, though, as far as looks go, her name suits her. But in everything else she is the very reverse. I always tell her she should have had fair hair and light grey eyes,” said Captain Chancellor, with some bitterness.

“Why?” said Miss Laurence, inconsiderately, regretting the question as soon as it was uttered. “Evidently he dislikes her,” she said to herself. “How silly of me to urge him to talk about her.”

“I don’t think I could possibly make you understand why. A cold, calculating nature would always be an enigma to you,” he replied, and the vivid colour which his words called forth on Eugenia’s cheeks seemed to confirm his assertion. But he was a little mistaken. Like most essentially transparent characters, Miss Laurence could not endure to be considered easy of comprehension. And to some extent her self-judgment was correct, for without the keynote to her undisciplined, half-developed nature, it was not easy to reconcile its inconsistencies – a careless or ignorant touch would too surely make terrible discord of its possible harmonies.

“I do not think you know enough of me to pronounce upon me so positively,” she said, a little coldly; but the words and the coldness were so very girlish that they only amused her hearer. He thought it better, however, not to reply to them, though he could not help smiling a little as he hastened to change the subject. He tried for a congenial one.

“Wareborough can’t be a very disagreeable place if we judge by Mrs Dalrymple,” he began. “She seems to have taken kindly to it, though her unmarried life was spent in a very different part of the country. How hearty and happy she seems!”

Eugenia was fond of Mrs Dalrymple, and liked to hear her praised. “Yes,” she answered eagerly; “she is one of the sunniest people I know. But she carries it about with, her. Wherever she was, in Wareborough or anywhere, she would be cheerful and happy.”

“Ah, indeed. Yes, I should say she takes things pretty easily,” observed Captain Chancellor.

He spoke carelessly – his attention being in reality occupied with observing the pretty way in which Miss Laurence’s face and eyes brightened up when she was interested – and again something in his words or tone seemed to jar slightly on the girl’s sensitive perceptions, though almost before she realised the sensation, the charm of his manner or handsome face, or both together, had completely obliterated it.

And the evening passed very quickly to Eugenia, for the two or three dances in which Captain Chancellor was not her partner, yet seemed in some indescribable way pervaded by his presence. She watched him dancing with Miss Florence Harvey without a twinge of envy or misgiving, though it was evident that the young lady’s fascinations were all being played off for his edification; she did not even feel deserted when he spent at least a quarter of an hour in close conversation with Miss Eyrecourt, for his manner when he returned to her, or an instant’s glance when he caught her eye from another part of the room, satisfied her she was not forgotten, – seemed, indeed, intended tacitly to assure her that of his own free will he would not have spent any part of the evening away from her. She could hardly believe it; this strange new homage was bewildering even while delightful; she shrank from recognising it as a fact even to herself, and took herself to task for being “dreadfully conceited.” To her extreme inexperience and ignorance of the extent of her attractiveness, it seemed incredible that this “preux chevalier,” this nineteenth-century hero, as he appeared to her, should thus distinguish her, should seem so desirous of wearing her colours. And all sorts of pretty hazy dreams began to float across her imagination of enchanted ladies who, barely past the threshold of their windowless tower, had found the fairy prince already in waiting – sweet, silly old stories of “love at first sight” and such like, which, though charming enough in romance, she had hitherto been the first to make fun of as possible in real life.

Poor little girl, she was practically most ignorant; she knew less than nothing of the world and its ways; she had no idea of the danger there might be to her in what, to a thorough-going man of the world like Beauchamp Chancellor, was but an hour’s pleasant and allowable pastime. There was one sharp pair of eyes in the room, however, quite as sharp and probably less spiteful than if they had been light grey. What would have become of Eugenia’s vaguely beautiful visions had she overheard some part of a little conversation between her hero and Miss Eyrecourt towards the close of the evening! They were sitting near each other, and there was no one close enough to overhear the remarks that passed between them, which, however, were not many, for Beauchamp’s sulkiness had returned when he found himself beside Roma again, and she, though as imperturbably good-tempered as ever, was irritatingly impenitent.

Suddenly Miss Eyrecourt’s tone changed. “Beauchamp,” she said, and her voice told him he was intended to give his attention to what she had to say.

“Well, Miss Eyrecourt, I am waiting for your remarks,” he said, snappishly.

“Don’t be cross. It is so silly,” she began.

“Is that all you have to say to me, Roma?”

“No, it isn’t. This is what I want to say – you have danced several times with that little Miss Laurence, Beauchamp.” Captain Chancellor’s manner changed instantly. He became quite brisk and amiable. “She is extremely pretty.”

“And dances charmingly,” added the gentleman.

“I daresay she does,” said Roma, with perfect composure, “but it isn’t only her dancing. You have sat out some dances with her too.”

“She is exceedingly nice to talk to,” observed he.

“I daresay she is,” said Roma again; “but for all that, Beauchamp – you may trust me, I don’t speak without reason, and you mustn’t mind my saying it. I do hope you are not going to be silly?”

Beauchamp smiled – a smile that said several things, all of which, however, were perfectly intelligible to his companion.

“Ah yes,” she said philosophically – “ah, yes, sir, you may smile and look contemptuous. I understand you. I understand why you looked so delighted just now when I began to speak about the girl – really, I did not think you could be so silly as that, and certainly you have one defence at your command! It is not the first, nor, I dare say, the twentieth little amusement of the kind you have indulged in. You are perfectly aware of the rules of the game, and in a general way, uncommonly well able to take care of yourself. But allow me to warn you that some day you may burn your own fingers. You think they are fire-proof? They are no such thing. You are just in the humour and at the stage to do something silly.”

“You think so?” he said. “Very well. Wait till you see me again, and then you shall see if you were right.”

“Very well. I shall see, and I only hope I shall be wrong. Seriously, Beauchamp, it would be in every way the silliest things of the kind you could do. Neither you nor I can afford to make any mistake of that sort, and you much less than I, for you would be the last, man to make the best of such a mistake once committed. I know all about Miss Laurence. I like her, and she interests me, and it is not only on practical grounds I warn you, though you know I value those sufficiently.”

“You certainly do,” he remarked, satirically.

“Well? I am not ashamed of doing so,” she answered calmly. “But suppose you are ‘proof,’ as you think, Beauchamp, that doesn’t say that child is, does it? And I am getting to feel differently about that sort of thing. I suppose it is a sign of advancing years.”

“It certainly is a sign of something very extraordinary,” he replied, “to find you, of all people, pitying the weakness of your sex. Something must be going to happen to you, I am afraid.”

Through the light bantering tone in which he spoke, Roma detected a certain ill-concealed triumph and satisfaction; the very things she least wished to see. “I have made a mistake,” she said to herself, “and done more harm than good.” But aloud, she only remarked quietly – “You are determined to misunderstand me, Beauchamp, but I can’t help it.”

She rose, as if to end the conversation, but before she had time to move away, Mrs Dalrymple and Eugenia, followed by an elderly gentleman, came up to where she was standing. Eugenia was the first to speak. “I am going, Miss Eyrecourt,” she said simply. “Papa,” with a pretty, affectionate glance at the tall, thin, grey-haired man beside her, “papa has come for me. I wanted to say good-night to you, because I fear I shall not see you again.”

The words were addressed to Roma, but the “papa” and the glance which seemed to say, “my father is not a person to be ashamed of, you see,” were evidently intended for the benefit of some one else – some one else, who came forward with marked, rather over-done empressment, hardly waiting for Roma’s cordial “yes, I am sorry to say it must be good-bye as well as good-night,” to be spoken, before he exclaimed regretfully, “Going so early, Miss Laurence? I was quite counting on another dance.”

“It will have to be another evening, I am afraid,” said Mrs Dalrymple; “all our friends seem to be bent on deserting us early to-night. But I must not scold you, Mr Laurence; it is very good of you to have come for Eugenia yourself. You must be so tired. I can’t thank you enough for letting Eugenia join us, and the next time it must be little Sydney too. Oh, by-the-bye, I must introduce you gentlemen – Captain Chancellor, Mr Laurence, let me introduce you to each other.”

Then there was a little bustle of bowing and hand-shaking, and in another minute, of leave-taking all round, and Roma Eyrecourt had reason to congratulate herself on the successful result of her sisterly warning when she saw Eugenia, bright with smiles and girlish gratification, disappear from the scene on her father’s arm, closely attended on the other side by Captain Chancellor, looking as if the world contained for him no other human being than this white-robed maiden with the scarlet ribbon in her pretty brown hair.

“Poor child,” thought Roma. Then her reflections took a different turn. “Silly Beauchamp,” she murmured to herself, and for a minute or two she remained silent. Then, with a slight shrug of her white shoulders, she restored herself to her ordinary state of comfortable equanimity.

Some little time elapsed before Captain Chancellor re-entered the drawing-room. When he did so, it was in company with his host, who had been doing duty outside, seeing the last of his departing guests. Mrs Dalrymple and Roma were alone.

“A terrible night,” said Mr Dalrymple, cheerily, rubbing his hands as he briskly approached the fire. “Mary, my dear, I am trying to persuade our friend Chancellor to stay where he is for the night, for upon my word I don’t see how he is to find his way home. The fog is as thick as pea-soup.”

“But how will every one else get home, then? Captain Chancellor is not less likely to find his way than other people, is he?” said Roma.

The remark sounded a little ungracious.

“Other people came mostly in their own carriages, and brought one or two extra men with them,” replied Mr Dalrymple, who was matter-of-fact in the extreme. “Besides, no other of our friends came from such a distance; the barracks must be nearly three miles from here.”

“Do stay, Captain Chancellor. It would be far more comfortable, and you can see Roma off for Brighton at twelve o’clock. If you write a note now we can send it to your servant the very first thing to-morrow morning for whatever you want. Do stay,” said Mrs Dalrymple, cordially.

Captain Chancellor demurred a little; Roma said nothing. A servant was despatched on another fruitless search for the fly, which had not yet been heard of, and, after receiving his report, the guest at last gave in, and resigned himself, with suitable expressions of gratitude to his hosts, to passing the night at Barnwood Terrace. This point settled, the little party drew round the fire more closely, in the sociable, familiar way people do for the last few minutes before bed-time, when the house feels snug and self-contained, all outside communication being at an end for the night. Miss Eyrecourt was, perhaps, a trifle graver than usual, but roused up on her cousin’s inquiring if she were tired.

“Oh dear no,” she replied; “I have done nothing to tire myself.” Then, as if anxious to avoid the subject of not dancing, she hurried on to another. “By-the-bye, Mary, I wanted to ask you who that fair-haired girl in blue was. I was so much amused by a flirtation between her and that young – what is his name? – he sat opposite me at dinner.”

“Oh, young Hilton and Fanny Mayne? Yes, they certainly do flirt, and it can never come to anything more. They have neither of them a penny, and he is not shaping particularly well in business, didn’t you say, Henry? Too fond of amusing himself. We knew his parents – such nice people!” etc, etc.

Some little local gossip followed, not particularly interesting to the two strangers, till some remark of Mrs Dalrymple’s brought the Laurences’ name into the conversation. Then both Roma and Captain Chancellor pricked up their ears.

“How tired Mr Laurence looked to-night! I am sure he is doing too much,” said Mrs Dalrymple, compassionately.

“What does he do?” asked Captain Chancellor. “He is not a clergyman; but Miss Laurence said something about his giving a lecture to-night, unless I misunderstood her.”

“Oh no, you are quite right,” answered Mrs Dalrymple. “He was lecturing on somebody – Milton or Shakespeare, or some one of that kind – at the Wareborough-Brook Mechanics’ Institution to-night. It is really very good of him. We went to hear him once. It was most interesting, though perhaps a little too long, and I should have said, rather above his hearers’ comprehension.”

“I don’t know that, my dear – I don’t know that,” put in Mr Dalrymple. “Laurence knows what he is about. At one time perhaps I might have agreed with you – we were inclined to think him high-flown and unpractical, he and those young Thurstons – but we’ve come to change our opinion. Laurence’s lectures have been most successful, and he certainly makes good use of his talents.”

“Are they always on literary subjects?” inquired Roma, languidly.

“No; he varies them,” was the reply. “He gave a set on heat – or light, was it? He is really a wonderful man – seems at home on every subject. How he finds time to get together all his knowledge is what puzzles me!”

“Then, has he any regular occupation or profession?” asked Captain Chancellor.

“Oh dear, yes,” answered his hostess. “He is in business – just like Henry and every one else here. He is an unusually talented man. Every one says he should have been in one of the learned professions, but he doesn’t seem to think so. Whatever he had been, he could not have worked harder. Eugenia tells me he very often sits up till daylight, reading and writing. He makes the girls work too. They copy out his lectures, and look up references and all sorts of things. He has educated them almost like boys. It’s a wonder it hasn’t spoilt them. Yet they are simple, unaffected, nice girls. It is only a pity he shuts them up so.”

“They will soon make up for lost time in that direction. Miss Eugenia, at least, seems to take very kindly to a little amusement when she gets a chance. Quite right too – don’t you think so, Chancellor? She is very pretty, isn’t she?” said good Mr Dalrymple.

Beauchamp felt uncertain if his host had any covert meaning in these questions. He felt a little annoyed, and inclined to ignore them; but a very slight smile, which crept over Roma’s face, changed his intention.

“Pretty?” he repeated. “Yes, indeed she is; and her dancing is perfection.”

The Dalrymples looked pleased; and when Roma soon after got up, saying she felt sleepy, and it must be getting late, Captain Chancellor hoped his last observation had to do with her sudden discovery of fatigue.

He saw her off next morning, as Mrs Dalrymple had proposed. They parted very amicably, for Miss Eyrecourt did not recur to the subject of her warning. The fog had cleared away, and Captain Chancellor felt in very good spirits. Ugly as Wareborough was, he began to think he could manage to exist there pretty comfortably for a few months.

“I must get Dalrymple to introduce me more definitely to the Laurences,” he said to himself. “Mr Laurence’s philanthropical tastes are not much in my way, certainly; but I like a well-educated man. And his daughter isn’t the sort of girl one comes across every day – I saw that in an instant. Ah, yes, my dear Roma; I shall do very well, though your anxiety is most gratifying. Nor will it do you any harm to expend a little more of it upon me. I wonder if Mrs Dalrymple writes gossiping letters about what doesn’t concern her, like most women? As things look now, I rather hope she does.”