Mrs. Molesworth - Not Without Thorns

“Not half so funny as your being here, it strikes me,” replied the gentleman. “Very lucky for me that it is so of course, but what you can find to amuse you here I cannot imagine.” Their hostess had by this time turned away.

“She – Mrs Dalrymple – is my cousin, you know,” said Miss Eyrecourt, in a lower tone, with a very slight inclination of her head in the direction of the lady referred to.

“I know that; but people are not obliged to visit their cousins if they bury themselves in such places. I daresay you are wondering at my not seeming more surprised to see you, are you not? The truth is, Gertrude mentioned it in a letter I got this morning, but what the reason was of your coming here she didn’t say.”

The announcement of dinner prevented the young lady replying. It fell to Captain Chancellor’s lot to escort his hostess to the dining-room, but, thanks to her good offices, Miss Eyrecourt was placed at his right hand.

“You were asking the reason of my coming to Wareborough, were you not, Beauchamp?” she began, after calmly snubbing the first feeble effort of her legitimate companion of the dinner table – a Wareborough young gentleman – to enter into conversation. “I don’t see why you should think it so extraordinary. I have been at my godmother’s – up in the Arctic regions somewhere – in Cumberland, you know – for three weeks. Now I am on my way to Brighton for a fortnight. Gertrude is already there, you know, with the children, and we shall all go home together for Christmas. I don’t suppose you ever learnt geography; but if you had, you would know that Wareborough is somewhere between the two points I name, which was lucky for me. Pearson objects to long journeys without a break.”

Captain Chancellor smiled. “Then why drag her up to Cumberland in the middle of winter? I can’t imagine any motive strong enough to make you risk her displeasure.”

“Can’t you?” said Roma, languidly, leaning back in her chair. “Not even god-daughterly devotion? Seriously, Beauchamp, you know Lady Dervock has ever so many thousand pounds to leave to somebody, and I don’t see why I should not be that happy person. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to get some money – a good comfortable sum of course.”

A slightly cynical expression came over Captain Chancellor’s face, and there was a suspicion of a sneer in his voice as he replied —

“Really? I didn’t know your views had progressed so far. Perhaps this is the real secret of your visit to Wareborough: it is said to be a first-rate neighbourhood for picking up millionaires in.”

“Thank you for the suggestion,” answered Miss Eyrecourt, calmly; “but I have no intention of the kind. I have no idea of selling myself. When I do get my money I should prefer it without appendages. I shall not try for a Wareborough millionaire at present; certainly not – as long as there is a chance of godmamma Dervock awakening to a proper sense of her duty.”

Captain Chancellor’s brow cleared a little. Just then Mrs Dalrymple, whose attention had been caught by a stray word or two of their low-toned conversation, interrupted it by an inquiry as to what he thought of Wareborough. He laughed a little as he answered her, that so far he could hardly venture to have any thoughts on the subject.

“I only crossed over from Ireland yesterday,” he said. “It was eleven o’clock last night when I reached Wareborough, and the whole of to-day I have been conscious but of one sensation.”

“Fog?” inquired Roma.

“Yes, fog,” he replied. “And, by-the-bye, that reminds me I had such a funny little adventure when I came here to-night,” he stopped abruptly and looked searchingly round the table.

“What is the matter? Whom are you looking for?” asked both his neighbours at once.

“No, she is certainly not here,” he replied inconsequently. “Even if my impression of her features is mistaken, there is no girl here dressed as she was. She had a scarlet band round her hair and something silver at one side. What can have become of her?”

“Beauchamp, are you going out of your mind? What are you talking about?” exclaimed Miss Eyrecourt. “Mary,” to Mrs Dalrymple, “I am sure his senses are going – a mysterious ‘she’ with scarlet and silver in her hair?”

“I think I understand,” said Mrs Dalrymple, looking amused. “Captain Chancellor must have met my little friend Eugenia Laurence as he came in. I remember hearing the bell ring just before you rang,” she continued, turning to the young man – “the first was a very feeble attempt.”

“But she is not little, she is very tall, whoever she is,” objected Beauchamp.

“Rather, not very. Certainly she is not taller than Roma, but then she is so very thin.”

“Thank you, that means I am very fat,” observed Miss Eyrecourt.

“Nonsense, you are just right. Eugenia is a mere child. So you made acquaintance with her outside in the fog, did you, Captain Chancellor? How very funny! I wonder she didn’t run away in a fright, poor child. I should like to know if you think she promises to be pretty. Roma thinks so, don’t you, dear? But you are very hard to please I hear, Captain Chancellor. I must introduce you to Eugenia after dinner. She is a great pet of mine.”

This was all the information Mrs Dalrymple vouchsafed on the subject of the mysterious young lady, for before Captain Chancellor had time to make any further inquiry the usual smiling signal was exchanged, and the ladies retired with much stateliness and rustle to the drawing-room.

Mrs Dalrymple, the most good-natured of her sex, was never so happy as when she saw “young people,” as she expressed it, “enjoying themselves,” and her ideas on this subject, as on most others, being practical in the extreme, a somewhat unexpected sight met the eyes of Captain Chancellor on his re-entering the drawing-room in company with the other gentlemen.

“Dancing,” he exclaimed, slightly raising his eyebrows, when he had made his way across the room to Miss Eyrecourt, “and on this heavy carpet. Won’t it be rather hard work?”

“Very, I should say,” replied Roma, indifferently. “I certainly don’t mean to try it.”

“Not with me?” said he in a low voice, looking down on her where she sat, with the deep blue eyes he so well knew how to make the most of.

“No, not with you,” she answered, coolly. “Carpet dances are not at all in my way, as you might know.”

Captain Chancellor looked considerably piqued.

“I don’t understand you, Roma,” he exclaimed. “If the floor were red hot I should enjoy dancing on it if it were with you.”

Miss Eyrecourt laughed softly.

“You would dance vigorously enough in that case, I have no doubt,” she replied; “but as for enjoying it, that’s quite another affair. Seriously, Beauchamp, I am going away to-morrow, and I don’t want to knock myself up before the journey. Besides, what is the use of dancing with me here? Wait for the hunt ball at Winsley, when you come home on leave. You had better make friends with some of these Wareborough people, as you are sure to be here for some time to come. There are at least six or eight passable-looking girls in the room, and Mary Dalrymple is dying to show off her new lion. They want to hear you roar a little; you don’t half appreciate the position.”

“Who are all these people? Where have they sprung from?” asked Captain Chancellor, ignoring her last remarks. “I counted how many there were at dinner – sixteen I think – but there are several more in the room now.”

“Yes; those were mostly papas and mammas. The young ladies come after dinner, and some of the young gentlemen. We have had one or two little entertainments of the kind in the week I have been here. I found them very fatiguing; but then I have no interest in the place or the people. I am not going to be here for months like you.”