Not Without Thorns. Molesworth Mrs.
instant into her companion’s face. It was only a moment’s quick passing glance, but it was enough: it told him all. Gerald felt faint and giddy, strong man that he was, and instinctively seemed to clutch at something to steady himself by. It had all passed so quickly, only one person had had time to notice him. Mr Laurence had not entered the room with the others, and Frank had joined the gentlemen by the fire. But one pair of eyes had followed Gerald’s with anxious sympathy. Some one pulled his sleeve gently. It was Sydney.
“Will you come and sit down by me for a few minutes, Gerald,” she said. “I have such a lot of things to say to you.”
He followed her mechanically to the sofa she pointed out, but did not speak. When they were seated, she chattered away for a few minutes about various trifles, that did not call for a reply, till she thought he had recovered the first physical effects of the shock. Then she remained silent for a minute or two. Suddenly Gerald spoke. “Who is he, Sydney?” he asked, not seeming to care what Sydney might think.
She did not affect to misunderstand him.
“His name is Chancellor – Captain Chancellor. I think he is in the 203rd. He is stationed here just now. You know there is generally a company – isn’t it called so? I think he spoke of his company at dinner – a small detachment, any way, at Wareborough, belonging to the regiment at Bridgenorth,” she replied.
“I know,” said Gerald, and relapsed into silence. But he quickly roused up again.
“Chancellor,” he repeated – “Captain Chancellor. I have heard that name lately. I know something of him, Sydney, I am certain I do.” Sydney looked eager to hear. “What can it be? No, it is no use, I cannot remember. It may come into my head afterwards. Have you – has – has your sister seen much of him?”
“No, oh no. I never saw him till to-night, and Eugenia has only seen him once before; but – ” Sydney stopped.
“But that sort of thing isn’t always reckoned by many or few times, eh, Sydney?
“Whoever loved, that loved not at first sight?
“You think there’s something in that old saying, do you? I can’t say, I’m sure. My experience is limited in these matters,” said Gerald.
His tone was bitterly sarcastic, almost jeeringly so. It was so thoroughly unlike him that Sydney looked up in surprise and alarm. “Was this the Gerald she remembered so gentle, so delicate, so chivalrous? Ah, no. It must be as she feared. Poor Gerald!”
The distress in her face softened him – still more her words when she spoke again.
“I don’t know, Gerald. I can’t answer you. I only know that I am very anxious about her.”
“Don’t you like him, then? Do you know any ill of him?” inquired Mr Thurston, with a sort of fierce eagerness.
“Oh, no,” said Sydney, quickly. “Not that at all. I like him very well. Of course any one can see he is a gentleman and all that. And papa likes him. He has set himself to please papa, I can see already. It is just that we know so little of him, and Eugenia is so pretty, and so – I don’t know what to call it. You know how clever she is, Gerald, but even that makes me more anxious about her. She sees everything by her own ideas, as it were. And some day I feel as if she might be terribly, dreadfully disappointed. I believe it would kill her, Gerald,” in a lower voice.
“Ah,” he said, “I see. She would venture all.” His tone was perfectly gentle now. A great throb of manly pity seemed to drown for the moment his bitter, bitter disappointment. Only for the time, there was many a hard struggle before him yet, for this love of his had entwined itself round every fibre of his being, and now – sometimes it seemed to him that the beautiful thing he had so nursed and cherished had turned to a viper in his bosom; that its insidious breath would change to poison every spring of love, and trust, and hope in his whole nature.
No more was said for a few minutes. Then Sydney spoke – she had to call him twice by name before she caught his attention.
“Gerald,” she said, “I see papa speaking to Captain Chancellor. Now he is coming this way. I am sure he is going to introduce you and him to each other.”
“Very well,” replied Mr Thurston. “I have no objection.”
He rose as he spoke, and went forward a few steps to meet Mr Laurence, whose intention Sydney had guessed correctly. The two young men bowed and shook hands civilly enough. Then Captain Chancellor, who was always thoroughly equal to these little social occasions, said something pleasant in his soft, low voice, about the new arrival’s return home, as if he had known all about it, and had been anticipating Mr Thurston’s return with nearly as much eagerness as Frank himself. There was no denying it – there was a great charm about this man; even Gerald felt it as he replied to Beauchamp’s well-chosen words. And his face was far from a bad face, Mr Thurston was forced to admit, when he saw it more closely; the want in it he could not readily define.
Beauchamp, too, was making up his mind about this new-comer, and taking his measure in his own way, though from his manner no one would have suspected it. He hadn’t felt altogether easy about the absence of male cousin or old friend, in Miss Laurence’s case. Hitherto the only thing in the shape of a tame cat he had discovered about the establishment was most charmingly and felicitously engaged to the little sister. So far nothing could be better. But there might be other discoveries to make, and he didn’t want to get into anybody’s way, or cause any unpleasantness – he hated unpleasantnesses, and the only way out of unpleasantnesses of this kind, rivals, and all that, was sometimes a way in which Beauchamp’s training had by no means prepared him to go in a hurry – and he quite meant to be very careful, for Roma’s warning had impressed him a little after all. He only wanted to get over the next few weeks comfortably in this dreadful place, and had no objection to Roma’s hearing indirectly of the manner in which he was doing so. It would be too bad if this great hulking “cousin from India,” was going to come in the way of his harmless little amusement. And whether or not there was any fear of this, Captain Chancellor could not all at once make up his mind, though from Miss Laurence’s side, so far, it hardly looked like it.
When Gerald Thurston came to say good-night to Eugenia, she noticed that he called her “Miss Laurence.” Captain Chancellor was within hearing, and Eugenia felt pleased by Gerald’s tact and good taste, and her own good-night was on this account all the more cordial.
Beauchamp observed it all too, and drew his own conclusions.
Volume One – Chapter Seven.
Several People’s Feelings
Oh, for the ills half understood,
The dim, dead woe
Long ago.
The rain was over, the evening had turned out fine after all. Captain Chancellor drove away in his fly from Mr Laurence’s door, but the Thurston brothers decided to walk.
“I don’t spend much on flys and that sort of thing, Gerald,” said Frank, as he slipped his arm through his brother’s; “you used to be afraid I was inclined to be extravagant in little things, but I can tell you it only wants a hard winter in Wareborough to make a fellow ashamed of all that self-indulgence. Good heavens, Gerald! you don’t know, though you do know a good deal for a layman,” Gerald smiled to himself at this little bit of clerical bumptiousness, “about the poor, but you don’t know what there is here sometimes. I have half-a-dozen new schemes to consult you about. Mr Laurence has a clear head for organisation, but though so practical in his own department, he won’t come out of it. Education, education, is his cry from morning till night. I quite agree with it, but you can’t educate people or children till you’ve got them food to eat and clothes to wear. I know I don’t expect them to listen to my part of the teaching till I show them I want to make their poor bodies more comfortable if I can.”
“But Mr Laurence’s attention is not given to the very poor. It is more given to the class above them,” said Gerald.
“Only because he can’t get hold of any