Not Without Thorns. Molesworth Mrs.
“he must be a man of a good deal of tact and foresight of a small kind.”
It was quite true. “Of a kind,” Captain Chancellor’s acuteness and perception were unrivalled. He knew exactly how far to go without risking “anything unpleasant.” In all his numerous flirtations he had come off unscathed; never had any papa, urged thereto by an over-anxious mamma, taken the terrible step of demanding “his intentions;” his fastidious taste would indeed have been attracted by no girl, however charming, behind whom loomed the shadow of so coarse and hideous a possibility. He made a rule of looking well about him, making himself acquainted with the country, before he indulged in one of his little amusements, and so far he had never found himself wrong. In the present case he had been unusually lucky; fortune literally seemed to play into his hands, or perhaps it had appeared so to him, because at first the difficulties had promised to be great, and he had prepared to meet them with more than ordinary caution and skill. Mr Laurence’s house was just the sort of house in which it was far from easy to obtain a friendly and familiar footing. The arrangements were ponderous and formal notwithstanding their simplicity and absence of ostentation; the hours were regular and visitors few. When Mr Laurence expected a friend or two to dine with him, he gave his daughters a few days’ notice, and they never pretended to “make no difference;” on the contrary, Sydney consulted the cookery-book, and exhorted the cook; Eugenia arranged the flowers and the dessert, and gave a finishing touch to the positions of the drawing-room chairs. A household of this kind was new to Captain Chancellor, and it took him some little time quite to understand it, and when he did so he hesitated. Was it worth the necessary amount of “chandelle?” in this case represented by great tact, quick seizing of opportunity, and considerable patience; for Mr Laurence’s dissertations were quite out of his line, his cook not a French one, his wines – well, hardly so bad as might have been expected. But after all, life in Wareborough would be really unendurable without some passe-temps of the kind. A happy thought struck him – two happy thoughts. Frank Thurston and Mrs Dalrymple, excellent, admirable creatures both, perfectly adapted for his purpose. So he spent a few days in sedulously cultivating the curate, whose good word was of course, under existing circumstances, an Open sesame to the Laurence household, and so well succeeded in his design, that gradually all the family got accustomed to his dropping in at odd times just like Frank himself. They got accustomed to it, but did they like it? To Mr Laurence it was neither particularly agreeable nor the reverse; he got into the way of thinking of the new-comer as “a friend of Frank’s,” a pleasant, rather intelligent young man, who had seen a good deal of the world, and yet was easily entertained. To Sydney, this growing familiarity was the source of much secret anxiety, which yet she saw it best to keep to herself; to Eugenia – ah, what words will tell what it had come to be to Eugenia! – like the flowers in spring, like the sunshine, like life itself.
Then Captain Chancellor called pretty frequently on his old friend Mrs Dalrymple, and made himself very agreeable to her. He told her he really did not know how he should have got through this winter but for her kindness and hospitality; it was no small boon to him to have one person in Wareborough he might venture to look upon as a friend, with whom he might talk over old days, etc, etc. And gradually he led the conversation round to the Laurences, said he was so much obliged to Mr Dalrymple for his introduction to Mr Laurence, really a remarkable man, a man whose acquaintance any one might be proud of; but had it not struck Mr Dalrymple that his daughters were rather to be pitied, not the younger one, of course she was very happy in her engagement to young Thurston, but the elder one, she had really a very dull life? He felt quite sorry for her sometimes, a little kindness was well bestowed on a girl like that, and she was so grateful to Mrs Dalrymple for what she had already shown her. Altogether, he drew so moving a picture of Eugenia’s monotonous existence that Mrs Dalrymple felt ready to ask her to take up her quarters permanently at Barnwood Terrace, and ended by setting off that very afternoon to invite Miss Laurence to spend a week with her, for it was just about Christmas time, her own young people were home from school, and there were plenty of other young people ready to join them in the merry-makings wherein Mrs Dalrymple’s heart delighted – Eugenia would be so useful with the Christmas tree and all the rest of it. And Eugenia was only too happy to come, and during the fortnight to which the visit extended there were not many days on which she and Captain Chancellor did not meet. It was all done so cleverly, she hardly realised that these constant meetings were not the result of a series of happy accidents, or at least, their being otherwise was never obtruded on her notice, for one of the girl’s great attractions in Beauchamp’s eyes was the shrinking refinement he, in a superficial way, was able to appreciate and was most careful never to offend. In many ways, however, she puzzled him, set at defiance his preconceived ideas. Sensitive and shy though she was, she showed to him sometimes a confiding frankness which he could not explain as the simplicity of an inferior or uncultivated nature; and it never occurred to him that in judging of Eugenia Laurence his ordinary measure was quite at fault; his boasted knowledge of the world and of women – clumsy impediments in the way of the work, that to understand her rightly he had greater need to unlearn than to learn. “She is certainly quite unlike any other girl I ever came across. She is not the least stupid, yet she could be very easily deceived. She has decided opinions of her own, and yet she is so yielding. In short – she is a charming collection of contradictions,” he said to himself. “Perhaps it’s just as well I am not likely to be here much longer.”
Once or twice during the time that Eugenia was her guest, Mrs Dalrymple got alarmed at the responsibility she was incurring in allowing these young people to see so much of each other. But they seemed so light-hearted and happy, her boys and girls were so fond of Miss Laurence, Captain Chancellor made himself so useful in escorting the merry party to the pantomime, taking the boys to the circus, helping to adorn the Christmas tree, and in half-a-dozen different ways, that Mrs Dalrymple had not the heart to interfere. Besides, what could she do? Eugenia was her invited guest, she could not send her home like a child in disgrace; Beauchamp Chancellor was the son of her oldest friends, she could not shut her doors on him because he was handsome and her young visitor was pretty. Things of this kind must just take their chance, she decided, and in the present case the good lady comforted herself by a peculiar form of argument. Either Beauchamp was engaged to Roma Eyrecourt or he wasn’t. If he was, no harm was done; in other words, he, an engaged man, would never think of making love to another girl; if he wasn’t, then why shouldn’t he marry Eugenia Laurence as well as any one else, if he and she thought they would be happy together? And when the fortnight was over, and Eugenia kissed her and thanked her, and said she had “never been so happy before, never in all her life,” Mrs Dalrymple confided to her Henry that if Beauchamp Chancellor didn’t fall in love with her she would think very poorly of his taste; and she got quite cross with Henry for looking grave, and warning her that no good ever came of match-making.
Eugenia spoke truly when she said she had never been so happy in her life, for at this time every day seemed to add fresh delight to her already overflowing cup. She had got beyond the stage of looking either to the past or future; she lived entirely in the beautiful present. The tiny shocks of uncongeniality, unresponsiveness – she had never given it a name – which in the earliest part of her acquaintance with Beauchamp Chancellor had occasionally made themselves felt, were seldom now experienced by her; and if they were, her determination to see no flaw in her idol was a special pleader always ready to start up in his defence. It was sure “to be her own fault” – she was “stupid,” or “matter-of-fact,” or “absurdly touchy and fanciful.” She was well under the spell. She never asked herself why she cared for him; she never thought, about his position, his prospects, his intentions; she did not trouble herself about whether he was rich or poor – whatever he was he was her perfection, her hero, her fairy prince, who had wakened her to life, whom she asked nothing better than to follow —
“O’er the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim;
Beyond the night, across the day,
Thro’ all the world…”
She was sinking her all in the venture.
Then there came the day of the expedition to Ayclough Pool.
Ugly as Wareborough was, both in itself and its situation, there were yet to be found, as there are in the neighbourhood