Mrs. Molesworth - Not Without Thorns

“It is not likely,” said Mr Thurston. “I am thirty-one – seven years older than you, Frank; getting past the marrying age , you see.”

Frank wondered a little, but said nothing, and went on to talk of other things. Suddenly a casual mention of the Dalrymples struck Gerald with a flash of remembrance.

“Is not that Captain Chancellor we met to-night a friend of theirs?” he asked his brother.

“Yes; I believe Mr Laurence and Eugenia met him there, and I am not at all sure that it wouldn’t have been a great deal better if they had not done so,” replied the young clergyman, oracularly. “Eugenia isn’t a bad sort of girl; she is well-meaning, and not stupid, and certainly very pretty; but I must say she is very childish and silly. She is constantly in extremes, always running full tilt against something or other. For my part, I confess I can’t make her out. I am uncommonly glad Sydney is so completely unlike her. I didn’t at all admire the way she allowed herself to be monopolised by that Captain Chancellor to-night. If they had a mother it would be different, but Mr Laurence would never see anything of that kind if it was straight before his eyes.”

“You are rather unreasonable, I think, Frank,” said Gerald. “Such things will happen, you know. I suppose there have been occasions on which Sydney too has allowed herself to be monopolised. You would have thought it very hard if any one had objected.”

“The cases are thoroughly different,” replied the younger Thurston. “I should very much doubt this man’s being in earnest.”

This was a new view of the subject. Frank said no more, and Gerald did not encourage further remarks concerning Eugenia. He tried to recall all that had passed between himself and Miss Eyrecourt; but the more he thought it over, the more puzzled he became. Her evident self-consciousness when Captain Chancellor’s name was mentioned had impressed him with a conviction he had not stopped to analyse, that her relations with the gentleman in question were more than ordinarily friendly ones; and yet again her manner of alluding to Eugenia was perfectly explained by the supposition that the incipient flirtation – how Gerald hated the word! – had come very plainly under her observation when at Wareborough, yet without arousing any personal feeling of indignation or annoyance. She knew this Captain Chancellor well. Could it be that he was only amusing himself, and that, therefore, from his side, the matter seemed to her of little consequence? Gerald ground his teeth at the thought. Sydney’s inexperience of such things had limited her anxiety to the question of Captain Chancellor’s worthiness and suitability. Frank’s practical, matter-of-fact observation had suggested an even more painful misgiving to his brother, for Eugenia was not the sort of girl to whom a mere “flirtation” was possible. With her it would be all or nothing, and the damage to her whole nature of finding herself deceived could be little short of fatal. The fine metal would be sorely tested in so fiery a furnace. Were not the chances few that any of it would be left, save perhaps bent and distorted beyond recognition?

And this was the end of Gerald Thurston’s long-anticipated return home – this was how he awoke from his dreams.

For the next few weeks Gerald had very little leisure. A great accumulation of business matters dependent upon his presence in Wareborough forced themselves on his attention. Had things been as he had hoped to find them, he would have chafed greatly at this; as they were, however, selfishly speaking, he felt glad of hard work, which there was no escaping. He saw very little of the Laurences – he saw little even of his brother. Now and then he asked himself if he had possibly been over hasty and premature, and for a day or two this misgiving tantalised him afresh. It might be as well, he thought, to seek an opportunity of judging for himself, and however things were, it was time to accustom himself to perfect self-command in Eugenia’s presence. He had never seen Sydney alone since that first evening. On the one or two occasions he had been in Mr Laurence’s house since then, it seemed to him the young fiancée had avoided him purposely. “No doubt, poor little soul, she thinks it would pain me to revert to that evening,” he thought to himself; “and she doesn’t want to tell me that what she suspected then is becoming more and more confirmed, though I can see by her manner it is so.” Once Gerald purposely led to the mention of Captain Chancellor’s name in talking with his brother. To his surprise, he found that Frank’s slight prejudice and dislike had completely disappeared.

“He is a very good fellow of his class,” said the clergyman. “Not very much in him, perhaps, but he seems to me honourable and straightforward, and thoroughly gentlemanly. He’s a good Churchman too, I’m glad to find. I like him very much – better than I expected. Eugenia might do worse. But, after all, if nothing comes of it, I can’t see that he will be in the least to blame. I don’t see that he pays her any more attention than he does to Sydney; but then certainly she is a very different person from Sydney,” added Frank, with considerable self-congratulation in the last few words. “I am sorry you don’t see more of Captain Chancellor, Gerald,” he continued. “You have been so busy lately, and he has never happened to be there the one or two times you have dropped in lately.”

“No,” replied Mr Thurston; “Eugenia was not at home either, the last time. She has been staying somewhere, has she not?”

“At the Dalrymples’. She is there a great deal. But never mind about her,” said Frank, rather cavalierly. “Give yourself a holiday now and then, Gerald. Even I find I must sometimes, and my work is not nearly so monotonous as yours. We are going to skate on Ayclough Pool to-morrow. I have promised to take the Dalrymple boys, whose holidays have begun.”

“It’s rather a long way,” said Gerald, doubtfully.

“Only four miles, and the weather is delightful for walking. We don’t start till one, so you’ll have all the morning. Sydney and Eugenia are coming to watch us. Do come; it will do you ever so much good. You have been dreadfully shut up since you came home,” persuaded Frank.

“Very well,” said Gerald at last. This might be the opportunity he had been looking for. Frank’s opinion of Captain Chancellor had not reassured him, for the young clergyman was in many ways very inexperienced, incapable of understanding Eugenia, and constitutionally predisposed to judge of everything and everybody from his own straightforward point of view.

“Whatever Captain Chancellor’s intentions are,” reflected Gerald, “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.