Kitabı oku: «Not Without Thorns», sayfa 23
Volume Three – Chapter Three.
Visitors, Expected and Unexpected
Eins ist was besänftigt; die Liebe. – Börne.
Yes, things certainly looked brighter next morning, but the brightness was somewhat fitful and tremulous. Encouraged by it, nevertheless, Eugenia made many new resolutions – too many perhaps – and cherished again new hopes. She set herself with palpitating earnestness to please her husband, and repeated to herself, whenever she had reason to think she had done so, that her former failures had been entirely attributable to her own bad management, want of tact, or exaggerated sensitiveness. Her desire to bring herself, and not Captain Chancellor, in guilty; her determination to see him, and everything about him, by the light of her former hopes and beliefs would have been piteous to any one well acquainted with both characters. She was fighting, not merely for happiness, but for faith – her terror, fast maturing, though as yet resolutely ignored, was not so much that her married life should prove a disappointment as that she should be forced into acknowledging the unworthiness of her idol – that the day should come when, in unutterable bitterness of spirit, she should be driven to confess, “behold it was a dream;” when, the glamour gone for ever, the prize she had won should be seen by her for but “a poor thing” after all. For should that day ever come, Eugenia, little as she knew herself, yet felt instinctively it would go sorely with her – ever prone to extremes, her judgment would then be warped by disappointment, as formerly by unreasonable expectation.
“If I ever come to believe Beauchamp selfish, small-minded, or in any sense less noble than my ideal husband,” she had once said to herself, “I cannot imagine that I could endure to remain with him – I cannot imagine that I could live. Only,” she added, and this reflection many a time stood her in good stead, giving her a sense of security – of firm ground in one direction, “there is one thing I can never be disappointed in – the certainty of his love. Even should it die out altogether – should he live to regret his marriage, and think it a mistake, I shall know that it was mine – that to win me he threw every other consideration aside.”
But just at this time – their first coming to Halswood – Mrs Chancellor instinctively shunned meditation, and for a while the plan seemed to answer. There was a good deal to do – a good many arrangements to make as to which it was almost a matter of necessity that her husband should consult her. There was all the new furniture to select, the choice of rooms to make, and into these interests Eugenia threw herself with a good deal of her old energy, tempered however by her determination in all things great and small to submit to Beauchamp’s wishes – to accept his opinion as incontestably best. And up to a certain point this plan succeeded, and, difficult as it was for Eugenia to live in a state of semi-suppression, of incessant watchfulness over each word, and tone, and even look for fear that in any way she should offend, yet she fancied she believed she was doing no more than her wifely duty – that she was happy in acting thus, and that by-and-by, “when we get to understand each other,” life would be all she had dreamed of.
But to an essentially honest nature this self-delusion could not be kept up for ever. Nor, notwithstanding all the goodwill in the world, was it possible for Eugenia – impulsive, vehement, yearning for sympathy, and eager to confide to the friend nearest to her every thought, doubt, hope which sprang to life in her busy brain – for long to adhere to the rule of conduct she had laid down for herself. Her very conscientiousness, her very humility ranged themselves against her; how could she judge or interpret the conduct or opinions of the man she would have gladly died rather than lose her lofty faith in, by a standard lower than that by which she tested herself? She never yet had allowed to herself the existence of the creeping, encroaching, serpent-like fear she dared not face; but, nevertheless, it was making its way to the very centre of her fortress. Day by day she propped up its tottering foundations with some feeble, inefficient attempt at a bulwark – some plausible excuse or suggestion of misapprehension or undeserved self-blame – refusing to see how the whole once beautiful fabric was doomed, how the best remaining chance for her was bravely to make an end of it, to set to work again with the materials yet left to her to uprear a less imposing but more firmly-built tower of defence, better fitted than her fairy palace to stand, not only the great storms, but the smaller trials – the daily damps, and mists, and chills of life.
But this, Eugenia would not do. She clung with desperate infatuation to her dream, and in her heart of hearts she said —
“If it is to end in ruin, let it be so, and great will be the fall thereof. But I will not hasten my own misery by thinking about it beforehand.”
They had been now between two and three months at Halswood; the weeks had at the very first passed quickly enough, for Eugenia had succeeded in filling them with a succession of petty interests. Captain Chancellor was very well pleased with her, on the whole. She had proved more submissive than he had anticipated, though a great part of the credit of this satisfactory state of things was doubtless due to his own judicious management. He had always had his own theories as to the proper way of controlling and training the opposite sex, and had often been contemptuous on the subject of unhappy marriages.
“Unhappy fiddlesticks,” he would declare, “it’s all his own fault. He should have given her to understand once for all at the start who was to be master, and he would have had no more trouble.”
The trouble that had fallen to his own share he owned to himself had certainly not been great, and the proof of the pudding being generally allowed to be in the eating, he felt pleasantly conscious of his own success. There was only one thing about his wife that ever seriously annoyed him – her spirits were not of late what they had been; certainly, some amount of repose and reserve of manner had been wanting in her at first, and he was pleased to see how quickly she had, at a hint or two from him, set herself to acquire it; but then, again, there had been a great charm in her girlish gaiety and graceful merriment.
“I never heard any woman laugh better than Eugenia,” he thought. “Most women laugh so atrociously, that I wish it was made penal, but she laughs charmingly.”
Then he wondered why of late he had so seldom heard that sweet, soft, bright sound. “She can’t be dull,” he said to himself, “we have had a fair amount of variety since we came here. Besides, catch a woman being dull and not complaining of it! And if there is anything she wants, she would have been sure to ask for it.”
He firmly believed himself the most indulgent of husbands, and so, in a certain practical sense, perhaps he was. He “grudged her nothing,” though, indeed, her tastes continued so simple, that her own allowance from her father promised more than to cover her whole personal expenses; he never went away from home without bringing her some costly present when he came back – the first time, it had been a bracelet of great value. Eugenia had thanked him for it warmly, but then, eyeing it with some misgiving, had said something about its being too good for her.
“I don’t feel as if I liked wearing such splendid things, Beauchamp,” had been her words. “It hardly seems consistent with – ”
“With what?” he had asked, irritated already.
“With my former quiet life, with present things, even, my sister being the wife of a poor curate, for one thing. But oh, don’t be vexed, Beauchamp, I am very silly, I know. Forgive me. For the thought of me, the wish to please me, I cannot thank you enough. That would have delighted me had the bracelet been the plainest in the world.”
Upon which, Beauchamp had turned from her angrily, with some muttered words about “sentimental nonsense and affectation,” and Eugenia had had a sore fit of penitence for the inexcusable ingratitude which had thus wounded his sensitive spirit. And, after all, she did deserve some blame for unnecessarily irritating him in this instance.
And thus, whether really the case or not, it always seemed to him in any of the discussions or disagreements which still, notwithstanding Eugenia’s scrupulous care, occasionally arose between them. And no wonder that he thought so. It was always the same story. Eugenia annoyed him, probably in some very trivial matter, as to which, nevertheless, he felt bound to act up to his principle of “keeping a tight hand on her, letting her feel the reins.”
And invariably it ended in her taking all the blame on herself, exerting all her powers of logic (or sophistry) to convince herself that the fault lay with her alone. It was but rarely, very, very rarely, that she allowed her strong true sense of justice, of self-respect and womanly right, to break out from the restraint in which she had condemned it to dwell. And on such occasions, according to the invariable law of reaction, the unnatural repression avenged itself, and as had been the case in the carriage the night they came to Halswood, Eugenia’s bitterness of indignation and fiery temper horrified herself, and did her infinite injustice with her husband. It was a bad state of things altogether – bad for Eugenia, worse, perhaps, for her husband, fostering his selfishness, increasing his narrow-minded self-opinionativeness.
The day after the one on which it had occurred to Beauchamp that Eugenia’s spirits were not what they had been, it happened that she got a letter from Sydney. It came in the morning, and as Captain Chancellor handed it to her, a joyful exclamation escaped her.
“From Sydney! Oh, I am so glad! I have not heard from her for such a time.”
“What do you call ‘such a time,’ I wonder?” said Captain Chancellor, good-humouredly. “A week, I suppose?”
“No, longer than that,” replied Eugenia. And then, encouraged by his tone, she added, “You know Sydney and I had hardly ever been separated before, and lately I have been particularly anxious to hear from home – from Wareborough – on account of my father not having been well.”
“Your father ill! I never heard of it. I wonder you did not tell me,” said her husband.
“It was when you were away – the week before last – I heard it. I think I mentioned it when I wrote,” said Eugenia, timidly, reluctant to own to herself that Beauchamp could so soon have forgotten a matter of such interest to her.
“Ah, well, perhaps you did. It is nothing serious, I suppose?” And without waiting for an answer, Captain Chancellor proceeded to read his own letters.
One among them was from an old brother officer, a friend of several years’ standing, recently returned from abroad, whom he had invited to come down for a few days’ shooting, intending to arrange a suitable party to meet him.
“Eugenia,” he said, looking up quickly, after reading this letter, “Colonel Masterton cannot come till the 29th. That leaves us all the week after next free. Of course I shall not ask the others till he comes. How would you like to have your people for a few days then – the Thurstons and your father. The change might do him good, and you seem dying to see your sister.”
Eugenia’s face glowed all over with delight. The old bright look came into her eyes, the old eager ring thrilled again through her voice.
“Oh, Beauchamp, thank you, thank you so much for thinking of it. It would be delightful. I cannot tell you how I should enjoy it.”
“Why have you never spoken of it before if you wish it so much?” asked Beauchamp, not unkindly, but with the slight irritation of incipient self-reproach. “I can’t guess your wishes always, you know.”
“I did mention it once,” she said, timidly again. “Don’t you remember, the first time you had to go away I asked if Sydney might come to me.”
“But that was an absurd proposal. It would have looked so ridiculous to bring Mrs Thurston all the way here because I was to be away, and naturally when your friends do come I should wish to be at home to receive them; so you had better write about their coming, to-day.”
He rose as he spoke, and gathering his letters and newspapers together, left the room, feeling very well pleased with himself, and not sorry to see the bright flush of happiness his proposal had brought to his wife’s pale cheeks.
She was indeed feeling very happy. Never since her marriage, since at least the first few days of unalloyed enjoyment in Paris – had she felt so eagerly delighted about anything. And the bright gleam had not come before it was wanted. Notwithstanding Beauchamp’s comfortable belief that they had had a fair amount of variety since coming to Halswood, Eugenia’s life had latterly been very dull. The most pleasurable part of the variety had fallen to his own share – two or three “runs up to town” to see about the new furniture, or new carriages, or something of the kind; one or two short visits to bachelor shooting-boxes, to which ladies were not invited; plenty of the exhilarating out-door life, which he thoroughly enjoyed, to which as yet Eugenia, not over strong, and completely unaccustomed to horses, was not sufficiently acclimatised to find it enjoyable. No wonder Captain Chancellor considered that the last three months had been far from dull. They would not have seemed so to Eugenia, had her inner life been a more natural and healthy one; but as it was, the outside distractions that had come in her way had been few and by no means powerful.
Most of the “families of position” in the neighbourhood had called on them, but the very biggest people of all – a family residing at a considerable distance from Halswood – had not yet done so; and Beauchamp’s evident anxiety on this point had not been unobserved by Eugenia, though resolutely put aside by her as one of the things into which she would not look. Some of their neighbours had already invited them to dinner, and they had gone; but Eugenia had not enjoyed the experience, and felt little wish to renew it. “Long ago,” as now in her own mind she had learnt to call her girlhood, even the dullest of dinner-parties would have furnished her quick observation, her lively imagination, her fresh, eager nature with material for interest and entertainment. But now-a-days it was different. She was self-conscious and self-absorbed, and, as a matter of course, less attractive in herself, less ready to find others so. Her one engrossing sensation in company was anxiety to please, or at least to avoid displeasing her husband, which left her none of the leisure of mind or self-forgetfulness essential to her enjoyment of the people or scenes about her. And these had not been sufficiently striking or interesting to force her out of herself. There were not many young people in the neighbourhood; those of her own sex nearest in age to Eugenia happening at this time to be either young girls not yet out of the schoolroom, or youthful matrons, with whom Mrs Chancellor could not feel that she had much in common. They all seemed happy and busy, perfectly at ease, satisfied with their lives and themselves. “Or else,” thought Eugenia, “they are more clever at hiding their anxieties and disappointments than I am.” In many cases doubtless true. She had not yet learnt, as most women of deep feeling sooner or later must learn, to smile when the heart feels all but breaking, to force interest in the trivialities around one, when one’s own life, or what may be dearer than life, seems hanging in the balance. At this stage of her history, such seeming she would probably have stigmatised as mere hypocrisy, not taking into account that unselfishness and worthy self-respect, as often as pride, furnish the motive for the wearing of that most tragic “des masques tragiques – celui qui avait un sourire.”
So, though her beauty and gentleness prepossessed many in her favour – many even of those whose prejudices as well as curiosity had been aroused by the fact that the wife of the new master of Halswood was not exactly of their world, belonging, indeed, to one of “those dreadful manufacturing places, where the sun never shines for the smoke, and all the people drop their h’s, you know” – Eugenia Chancellor did not make much way among her new acquaintances. The women allowed she was “pretty” and unassuming, but stupid or shy, they were not sure which. The men hooted at “pretty” – “lovely” or “beautiful” was nearer the mark – and hesitated about the “shy or stupid” suggestion, coming, however, in almost every case to allow that she was difficult to get on with – either “Chancellor bullied her at home,” or she had married him without caring for him; that she was not happy was evident. At which proof of masculine discrimination, the wives and mothers held up their hands in scornful incredulity. It was “just like Fred, or Arthur, or ‘your papa,’ to make a romantic mystery about her, because she is pretty. There is nothing plainer to see than that she is silent and stiff because she feels rather out of her element as yet. It is all strange to her, of course, having been brought up as she has been, and really she is to be felt for.”
But the “feeling for her,” giving itself vent in one or two instances in the direction of a disposition to patronise, was not responded to; and after a while the temporary sensation on the subject of Mrs Chancellor died away, especially when it oozed out that Lady Hereward had not yet called at Halswood.
Little cared Eugenia, as she ran upstairs to consult her lugubrious friend Mrs Grier on the subject of the prettiest and pleasantest rooms to be forthwith – fifteen days beforehand – prepared for her expected guests.
“My sister, Mrs Thurston, and my father, are coming the week after next,” she announced to the housekeeper, ignoring the possibility of the yet un-posted letter of invitation receiving any but a favourable reply. “You must let me know if you think of anything wanting for these rooms.” And the bright expectation in the young face touched even Mrs Grier’s unready sympathy in joy. She forgave Eugenia’s presumptuous rejection of the gloomy chambers, long since deserted in favour of more cheerful quarters, by the master and mistress of the house, where the funereal four-posters still reigned, and was inspired to suggest ever so many tiny wants and improvements which sent her young mistress off to Chilworth in the brougham, in a pleasant excitement of novel housewifely importance. It was but seldom that interests of the kind offered themselves to Eugenia – another of the unfortunate blanks in her new life – for Mrs Grier, notwithstanding her dreams and visions, was, practically, an excellent head of affairs. Everything about the house was always in perfect order. If the under-servants proved inefficient or otherwise undesirable they were sent away, and Mrs Grier or Blinkhorn procured others; if the dinner was not thoroughly to Captain Chancellor’s liking, one or other of this responsible pair was informed of the fact, and desired to see it remedied, or, in a case of unusual gravity, the “chef” himself would be summoned to receive personal instruction from his master, who considered himself, and very probably justly, no mean authority on gastronomical problems.
“There is really very little for me to do,” wrote Eugenia once to her sister. “Beauchamp does not care for me to meddle in the housekeeping, and I can see it is far better done than it would be by me. All the new furniture has come, and of course it is beautiful. I took a good deal of interest in choosing it, but it isn’t half such fun as when one has to think how one can make one’s money get all one wants. And I think the rooms are too big to enjoy the prettiness of the things. Do you remember the choosing of your drawing-room carpet? I am afraid, Sydney dear, I am quite out of my element as a fine lady. There are no poor people, even, that I can hear of. They all seem dreadfully well off, and well looked after by the clergyman and the agent and their wives. I wish I could study more, but I think I have got lazy, or else it is the difference of having to do everything alone. There are lots of books in the library – many whose names even I never heard. I wish I had papa’s direction! We get all our new books from town once a month, but they very seldom send the ones I want, and when they do I want you to talk them over with.”
Sydney sighed as she read this letter. It was not often Eugenia wrote so despondently, but Sydney’s perceptions were acute.
“Poor Eugenia,” she thought. “It isn’t only these outside things which are wrong, I fear. If other things had equalled her hopes, these would have been all right. The want lies deeper, I fear – the blank is one hard to fill. How I wish I could see her!”
The next week brought Eugenia’s invitation. It would have been difficult to decline it. “You must come,” she wrote. “I am living in the thoughts of it, Sydney; it will be absolute cruelty to refuse. I cannot tell you how I long to see you all again.”
So, though leaving home even for a few days, was now no small effort to Mr Laurence, and though Frank Thurston groaned a good deal in anticipation, he “hated fine houses and grand people,” and all his people, the East-enders of Wareborough, would go to the bad in double-quick time if he let them out of his sight for the best part of a week; who would take the night schools? who would see to the confirmation classes? etc, etc, etc – it ended, as Sydney had quietly determined it should, in a letter of acceptance being sent to Halswood by return of post. And Mrs Thurston took the opportunity of chaffing her husband a little on what she termed his growing self-conceit.
”‘Un bon prêtre,’” she said, ”‘c’est bien bon.’ I quite agree with Jean Valjean. But still, Frank, of the very best of things it is possible to have too much.”
Whereupon Frank told her she was very impertinent. There was little fear of these two misunderstanding each other.
There is a mischievous French proverb which tells us that “le malheur n’est jamais si près de nous qu’alors que tout nous sourit.” Things were certainly more smiling than usual with Eugenia Chancellor the morning that she received Sydney’s cheerful acceptance of the invitation to Halswood, and was graciously told by Beauchamp in answer to her announcement of the news “that he was glad they were coming, and he hoped the weather would be fine.” But misfortune – disappointment, at least, was near at hand; misfortune in the shape of a plain-looking little old lady in a shabby pony carriage, who about an hour after luncheon this same day made her appearance under the ugly portico, and learning that Mrs Chancellor was at home, alighted, and was shown into the morning-room, giving a name for announcement to the footman newly imported from town, which, taken in conjunction with her unimposing appearance, somewhat excited that gentleman’s surprise.
She had not driven in by the grand entrance, but by the second best lodge, that on the road leading to the village of Stebbing-le-Bray. Captain Chancellor, setting off on a long ride, passed the old lady in the funny little carriage, and, wondering who she could be, asked for information on the subject from the man at the lodge, a venerable person thoroughly up in local celebrities. The answer he received caused him to open his handsome blue eyes, and to change his programme for the afternoon. He rode out at the Stebbing lodge, made a cut across the country which brought him on to the Chilworth Road, and re-entering his own domain, dismounted at home twenty minutes after he had set off, to find his wife and the little old lady in evidently friendly converse in the morning-room.
Somewhat startled by her husband’s unlooked-for reappearance, uncertain if he and her visitor were already acquainted, Eugenia hesitated a moment in introducing her companions. But the stranger was quite equal to the occasion.
“How do you do, Captain Chancellor?” she said, cordially. “I am so pleased to meet you at last. By hearsay, do you know, you are already an old friend of mine?”
Beauchamp bowed with a slight air of inquiry.
“A nephew of mine, or, to be exact, which they say women never are, a grand-nephew of my husband’s, has so often spoken of you to me. You will remember him – George Vandeleur; he was in your regiment in the Crimea, though you have seldom met each other since?”
Captain Chancellor’s face lightened up, and what Eugenia called his nicest look came over it. He had been very kind to young Vandeleur, at the time little more than a boy, and it was pleasant to find himself remembered.
Lady Hereward had the happiest knack of saying agreeable things, of pleasing when she wished to please. Those who liked her liked her thoroughly, and trusted her implicitly; but, on the other hand, those who disliked her were quite as much in earnest about it. And both parties, I suspect, coalesced in being more or less afraid of her, for, insignificant as she appeared, she could hit hard in certain directions, though her heart was true, her sympathies wide. Coming, perhaps, within Roma Eyrecourt’s category of “those to whom it was easy to be good,” there had certainly been nothing in the circumstances of her life to develop meanness in any form, and on this, in whatever guise she came across it – humbug, petty ambition, class prejudice – she was therefore, as is the tendency of poor humanity towards the foibles oneself “is not inclined to,” apt to be rather too hard. Since birth she had been placed in a perfectly assured and universally recognised position. She had had nothing to be ambitious about; even her want of beauty had not amounted to a trial, for her powers of fascination, as is sometimes the case with plain women, had been more than compensatingly great; and before she was twenty she had had every unexceptionable parti of the day at her feet. How it came to pass she was not “spoilt” those who knew her best often marvelled, but even they did not know all about her. For she had had her sorrows, had passed through a fiery furnace – how it all happened matters little, the love-story of a plain-looking old woman of sixty would hardly be interesting begun at the wrong end – and the gold of her nature had emerged, therefrom, unwasted and pure. In the end she had married, at twenty-two, Lord Hereward, a peer of great wealth and position, a man whom she liked and respected, and with whom she had bravely made the best of her life. Trouble was not over for her yet, however. She had two children, a son who grew up satisfactorily to man’s estate, behaving himself creditably at school, and college, and everywhere, who in time married, as was to be expected, and became the centre of another family; and a daughter, who was as the apple of her mother’s eye, whom she loved as strong natures only can love. And one day – one awful day – the little daughter died suddenly and painfully, and Margaret Hereward’s heart broke.
And all the outside world said: “How sad for the poor Herewards; but what a blessing it was not the boy,” and then forgot all about it, for the chief sufferer never reminded any one of her woe.
It was forty years ago now, and few remembered that a little Lady Alice Godwin had ever existed. In time, of course, her mother came to learn that even with a broken heart one can go on living, and her healthy nature reasserted itself in an increased power of sympathy – an active energy in lightening or, at least, sharing other women’s sorrows. But still, as she grew older, she hardened in her special dislikes, her pet intolerances.
She went on talking about her nephew for a while, explaining, by the way, how it was she had come to make her first call at Halswood in so informal a fashion.
“I am staying at Stebbing Rectory for a day or two,” she said. “A young cousin of mine is the wife of Mr Mervyn, the clergyman there. She has just got her first baby – a little girl;” she paused for an instant; “such a nice baby, and I came over to look after her a little. She has no mother. Hearing how very near I was to you, I thought I would not miss the opportunity of seeing you so easily. It is a long drive from Marshlands here. When you come to see me it must not be only for a call.”
She did not tell that the calling on the new Mrs Chancellor, which had been a vague and indefinite intention in her mind before coming to Stebbing, had taken active form, from hearing from her cousin some of the local gossip about the stranger – that she was pretty, but so stiff and reserved that no one could get on with her; that some people called her awkward and underbred, others suspected that she was not happy (Mrs Mervyn’s own opinion), but that from one cause or another her life bid fair to become a lonely and isolated one. And the sight of Eugenia’s face rewarded the old lady for the kindly effort she had made. It was not so much her beauty, though Lady Hereward loved to see a pretty face; it was her sweet, bright, yet wistful expression, that straightway touched the maternal chord in her visitor’s heart. Possibly, too, contradiction had something to do with the interest Eugenia at once awakened.
“Underbred, indeed!” she said to herself, contemptuously. “I wish I could teach some people I know, what good breeding really is. As to her being unhappy, I can’t say. I must see more of her.”
She acted at once on this determination, for, before she left, she invited her new young friends to spend three days of the next week but one at Marshlands. There was a particular reason for fixing this time; “George” was coming, and would be delighted to meet Captain Chancellor again.
“I would give you a choice if I could,” she went on, fancying that she perceived a slight hesitation in Mrs Chancellor’s manner, “for I really do want you to come. But I fear I cannot. We are going away the end of the same week to Hereward, for some time. We old people need a breath of sea air now and then.”
