“Sydney,” he said, “tell me – Eugenia?” His voice was clear, and stronger than it had been of late, yet he seemed to find difficulty in expressing himself. A strange fear seized Sydney.
“Not yet, dear father,” she said, consolingly. “She has not come yet. But very soon she must be here.”
He looked at her earnestly, as if striving to take in the sense of her words. “No,” he said, at last, “no, it will be too late.” Then a smile broke over his face. “Good-bye, dear Sydney, dear child. Tell Eugenia not to grieve. It is not for long.”
Sydney had seen death, but never a death-bed. Death, when all the life-like surroundings are removed, when the last tender offices have been performed, and the soulless form lies before us in solemn calm; in this guise death is easier to believe in – to realise. But dying, the actual embrace of the grim phantom – a phantom only, thank God – she had never seen, and it came upon her with an awful shock. For some minutes – how many she never knew – she stood there beside the bed, in agonised bewilderment, almost amounting to unconsciousness. The first thing that brought her to herself was the sound of wheels rapidly driving along the street, suddenly stopping at their door.
“Eugenia!” cried Sydney, “oh, poor Eugenia! She has come, and it is too late.” Then a mocking hope sprang up in her heart. “Perhaps he has only fainted,” it whispered. She knew it was not so, yet somehow the idea gave her momentary strength. She rang the bell violently. In another moment her husband and the servants were beside her. But in an instant they saw how it was – the good, kind father, the gentle-spirited scholar, the earnest philanthropist had passed through the awful doorway – had entered into “the better country.” And Eugenia had not come!
Sydney did not see her brother-in-law that night, but the next day he told her all – not quite all, but enough to prevent her blaming Eugenia – to fill her with unspeakable pity for her sister. To Frank, Gerald was somewhat less communicative.
“Fine lady airs and nonsense,” exclaimed the curate. “Not well enough, indeed! Think how Sydney has been travelling about with her father and wearing herself out, poor child. Still I am very sorry for Eugenia. It will be an awful blow to her.”
And the letter he wrote to Beauchamp, deputing him, as was natural, to “break the sad tidings” to his wife, was kind and considerate in the extreme.
Return of post brought no answer, considerably to their surprise, for Frank’s letter had contained particulars of the arrangements they proposed, among which Captain Chancellor’s presence at the funeral had of course been mentioned. Sydney felt anxious and uneasy; her husband tried to reassure her by reminding her that her nerves had been shaken, and she was inclined to be fanciful in consequence.
“It must be some accidental delay,” he said. “Letters seldom go wrong, but when they do, it is sure to happen awkwardly. Besides, I think it just possible Chancellor may be bringing Eugenia over. She will probably wish it.”
As he spoke there came a loud ringing at the bell. Sydney started. In the sad days of death’s actual presence in a house such sounds are rare. There were grounds for her apprehension. In another moment a telegram was in Frank’s hands.
“From Captain Chancellor to Rev. F. Thurston.
“Is it possible for Sydney to come at once? E – is very ill.”
The husband and wife looked at each other.
“My poor Sydney,” said Frank, “it is very hard upon you.”
Within an hour, Sydney was on her way to Halswood. It was a strange, melancholy journey. Arrived at Chilworth, she found the Halswood carriage in waiting, on the chance of her early arrival, and drove off at once. How pretty and fresh, how mockingly bright, the country looked, in its as yet unsullied spring dress! How beautiful the park was, when the carriage turned in at the lodge, and there stretched out before her view, on each side, the broad, undulating sweep of grassy land, fringed round with noble trees! Sydney was town-bred; she loved the country with the yearning, enthusiastic, half-reverent love of one who seldom breathes the fresh, pure air, to whom the country sights and sounds are fascinatingly unfamiliar. In a moment’s forgetfulness she glanced at the baby by her side, asleep in the nurse’s arms: “How fortunate Eugenia is,” she thought, “to have her home here – to be able to look forward to bringing up her children in this lovely place.” Then she remembered all, leant back in her seat, and was conscious of no other feeling save the gnawing anxiety that had accompanied her all the way.
When she reached the house, she learnt, somewhat to her surprise, that her brother-in-law was not in. He had only gone out for a stroll in the park, by the doctor’s advice, having been up for two nights and being much fatigued – of course, not thinking it would be possible for Mrs Thurston to arrive so early – was what Blinkhorn informed her, adding, in answer to her eager inquiry, as he condescendingly showed her into the morning-room, that his mistress was “Better – decidedly better. Good hopes were now entertained of her recovery.”
Then Sydney had an interview with Mrs Grier, in her element of lugubrious excitement. In somewhat less sanguine terms, she confirmed the favourable report. “But the baby,” she went on to say, “was in a very sad way, poor lamb! – only just alive, and no more.”
“The baby!” repeated Sydney, in amazement. “I had no idea – I had no thought of a baby for a long time to come.”
“I or any one else, ma’am. It is very hard upon it, poor innocent! to have been hurried into this sad world, this valley of tears, so long before it should have been. But it cannot live, ma’am – they say it is quite impossible; and I am sure there are many of us – myself for one – that will feel it is to be envied.”
“Has my sister seen it? A boy, is it?” asked Sydney.
“No, ma’am – a girl, fortunately,” replied Mrs Grier, with a curious mingling of conventional sentiment with her unworldly aspirations. “My mistress has seen it, for a moment, – this morning early, when for the first time she seemed quite conscious. It was then she asked for you, and my master sent at once. Poor dear lady! how pleased we were, to be sure.”
Real tears shone in the housekeeper’s eyes, and Sydney began to like her better.
“I wonder how soon I may see my sister?” she was just saying, when a step in the hall caught her ear. It was Beauchamp. The door opened and he came in – came in, looking well and fresh and handsome – offensively well, thought Sydney; heartlessly cool and comfortable.
“This is kind, truly kind,” he exclaimed, really meaning what he said, but unable to throw off the “amiable” manner and sweet tone habitual to him when addressing any woman, especially a young one. “I had no idea you could have come so quickly. You have heard, I hope, how much better Eugenia is. All will now, I trust, go on well. She must have had a narrow escape, though,” and his voice grew graver.
“Yes,” said Sydney; “I am inexpressibly thankful. But,” she added, “the poor little baby?”
“Ah, yes,” replied Beauchamp, indifferently, “poor little thing! It’s a good thing it’s a girl, is it not? You would like to see Eugenia soon, would you not? The doctor said there would be no objection; she wishes it so much. I can’t tell you,” he added, as he led the way upstairs, “I can’t tell you how thankful I have felt that I prevented her going to Wareborough that day. The shock of finding it too late on getting there would have been even worse, and after a fatiguing journey too. Yes, I am very thankful I put a stop to that.” Sydney said nothing. She did not wish to yield to prejudice or dislike, but half a dozen times in the course of this five minutes’ conversation, her brother-in-law had grated on her feelings. It was very inconsiderate of him to speak so of the journey to Wareborough, which he must know had been her dear dead father’s proposal. She almost wished Frank had not told him Eugenia would have been “too late.” She had expected to find Beauchamp full of sympathy, and possibly of self-reproach; here he was, on the contrary, priding himself on what he had done! At least he might have had the grace to refrain from any allusion to so painful a subject. But she said nothing. And soon, very soon, she forgot all about it for the time, in the sorrowful delight of seeing Eugenia again, of listening to her murmured words of intense, unaltered affection, of gratitude and piteous grief.
“It was not the shock that did me harm,” she whispered to Sydney, later in the day; “it was remorse. Oh, to think of what he must have thought of me! My kind, good father!”
Then Sydney, who had hitherto dreaded the subject, saw that the time had come for delivering her father’s message. She did so, word for word as it had been given to her.
“And so you see, dear Eugenia,” she added, in conclusion, “you need have no remorseful feeling. He never thought you indifferent; and had you come, it would have been too late. Frank said so in his letter.”
“Thank God!” whispered Eugenia; “and thank you, Sydney. I think now a faint remembrance recurs to me of Beauchamp saying my going would have been no use. But I took it as merely a vague consolation of his own. Had I understood it properly, I might have controlled myself better, and then perhaps I would not have been ill. I don’t mind for myself, but the little baby. Oh, Sydney, my poor little baby! They say she cannot live!”
She turned her great sorrowful eyes to her sister, as if praying for a more hopeful verdict; but Sydney dared not give it. She had seen the poor little piteous atom of humanity. The only wonder to her was that it lived at all.
“And it would have been such a pretty baby!” she murmured. Then another thought struck her. “Has it been baptised?” she asked.
“Not yet. We sent to the Rectory, but Mr Dawes is away from home. Then I sent to Stebbing, and Mr Mervyn is coming – he will soon be here. That reminds me – let it be called ‘Sydney’ – my mother’s name and yours.”
“Will Captain Chancellor like it?” suggested Sydney, not without hesitation.
“He need not be asked,” answered Eugenia, quickly. “He cares nothing about it – it is not a boy!” with bitter emphasis. “No, it is all my own – living it is mine – dying, doubly mine. You will do as I ask, Sydney dear?” she added, the almost fierceness of her tone melting again into gentleness.
The little creature’s name never became a source of discussion. The feeble life flickered out that very night, leaving, short as had been its span, one sore, desolate heart behind it.
Yet, physically, Eugenia made satisfactory progress towards recovery. Sydney began to think of returning home, where her presence was much needed. She did not feel that after the first she was of much comfort to her sister; for as she grew stronger, a cloud of reserve seemed to envelope Eugenia – she to whom it used to be impossible to conceal the most passing fancy. To Sydney she was most loving and affectionate, never wearied of talking over old days, full of interest in the Thurstons’ home-life and prospects. But of her own life and feelings she said hardly a word. It might be right and wise to say nothing, where there was nothing satisfactory to say, thought Sydney; but all the same, it made her very unhappy. Knowing of old Eugenia’s inclination to extremes, she doubted if her grounds for disappointment and dissatisfaction were altogether real and unexaggerated. But she could not urge an unwilling confidence – especially on a subject of which she felt she knew too little to be a wise adviser. For her brother-in-law was almost a complete stranger to her. He was very civil and attentive to her the few times they saw each other during this week, and more than once repeated his thanks for her prompt, response to his summons; but when she said she must fix the day of her return home, he did not press her to stay.
“You must come again before long,” he said, “and by that time Eugenia will be all right again. I expect my sister here in a week or two, which will cheer us up a little. It will never do for Eugenia to yield to depression. The doctors assure me she will be all right if she will keep up her spirits, and Mrs Eyrecourt is just the person to discourage that sort of thing – low spirits and hypochondria.”
Sydney sighed. She knew very little of Mrs Eyrecourt, but she felt an instinctive doubt of her sister’s “grief being med’cinable” by such doctoring.
The day before she left, a little incident occurred which broke down temporarily one side of the barrier of reserve with which Eugenia had surrounded herself. Sydney was sitting by her sister’s bedside; the invalid lying so quietly, that the watcher thought she must be asleep. Suddenly an unexpected sound broke the stillness – an infant’s cry, once or twice repeated, then the sort of sobbing “refrain” with which a very sleepy little baby soothes itself to peace again.
Much annoyed, Sydney rose quickly but softly from her seat, and was hastening across the room, when Eugenia’s voice recalled her.
“What was that, Sydney?” she inquired. “I was not asleep.”
“I am so sorry, dear,” said Sydney, looking very guilty, the colour mounting to her forehead, “I am afraid it is my little boy. You know I was obliged to bring him; but I hoped this would not have happened. Mrs Grier gave us rooms at the other end of the house on purpose; but I suppose nurse, thinking him safely asleep, ventured along the passage.”
For a minute Eugenia did not speak. Then she said, gently, “Never mind, Sydney. Perhaps it is best. Kiss me, Sydney.” And when her sister’s face was closely pressed to her own, she whispered, “Even to you, dear, I can hardly tell how terrible is my feeling of loss – loss of what I never had, you might almost say. But oh, if you knew how I looked forward to what that little life would be to me! Sydney, if you are ever inclined to blame me, pity me too. I need it sorely.”
The sisters seemed almost to have changed places. Sydney could hardly answer for the tears that choked her. Eugenia was perfectly calm.
“Poor Eugenia, dear Eugenia!” said Sydney at last; “I do know a little at least of what you must be feeling. There have even been times in the last few days when I have not wanted to see my baby – when I have felt almost angry with him for looking so strong and healthy. Oh, poor Eugenia!” Eugenia drew her sister’s face down and kissed her again.
“Do you remember, Sydney,” she said, suddenly, “a day, long ago, when we were putting camelias in our hair? Mine fell off the stalk, and you said you would not wear yours either, because I had none.”
“Yes,” said Sydney, “I remember.” Then they were both silent.
“I should like to see your boy,” said Eugenia, in a little – “not to-day, perhaps, but before you go. Bring him to me the last thing, that I may kiss him.”
Sydney did so, “the last thing” before leaving the next morning. And thus the sisters parted again.
Three more weeks found Eugenia, comparatively speaking, almost well again, and beginning to resume her usual habits. It was the end of May by now; surely the loveliest season of the year, when the colours are brilliant yet tender with the dewy freshness wanting to them later in the year; when there is sunshine without glare, life in abundance with no attendant shadow of already encroaching decay. A season when happy people feel doubly so from nature’s apparent sympathy with their rejoicing, but a season of increased suffering to the sorrowful. Oh, but the sunshine can mock cruelly sometimes! And oh, the agony in the carols of the soulless little birds! And the flowers, even! How heartless the daffodils are, and the primroses, and worst of all, perhaps, the violets! How can you show your heads again, you terrible little blossoms, and in the self-same spots too, where last year my darling’s voice cried out in rapture that she had found you, hidden in the very lane where, day by day, in childish faith, she unweariedly sought you? Does she gather spring flowers now? Are there primroses and violets in the better land? There is “no need of the sun, neither of the moon” in that country, we are told; “there is no night there,” “neither death, nor sorrow, nor crying.” Should not this satisfy us? But it does not. We long, ah! how we long sometimes to know a little, however little more, to see if but for an instant the faces of the children playing in the golden street, by the banks of the crystal river.
Eugenia’s little baby’s death had been a bitter disappointment, but in its momentary life there had been no time for the gathering of hereafter bitter associations. Yet the bright spring days added to her sadness and exaggerated her tendency to dwell upon her losses. They had been many and severe, she said to herself: the father whose affection had been tried and true; the infant in whose existence she had bound up many hopes for the future – and besides these, what more had she not lost? “Trust, hope, heart, and energy,” she sadly answered.
One day, nearly a month after Sydney’s visit, Beauchamp told her with evident satisfaction, that he had heard from his sister; “she hopes to be here to-morrow,” he added.
“To-morrow,” repeated Eugenia, aghast. She had heard something of an impending visit from Mrs Eyrecourt, but she had heard it vaguely. Absorbed in her own thoughts, it had never occurred to her that it was likely to take place so soon, or that the actual date would be fixed without her being further consulted.
“Yes, certainly, to-morrow. Why not?” said Beauchamp, coolly. “And I am exceedingly glad she is coming. It is quite time you tried to rouse yourself a little, my dear Eugenia, and some fresh society will do you good.”
“Society, Beauchamp?” answered Eugenia, reproachfully, “You cannot expect me to go into society yet!”
“I wasn’t speaking of going out, or anything of that kind. I dare say you are hardly up to that; but Dr Benyon says you would be ever so much better if you had some variety. When Gertrude comes, I want to arrange for going away somewhere.”
“I did not mean with regard to my health,” said Eugenia. “I am well enough. I meant, considering other things; how recently – ” she broke off, abruptly. “I would rather have been left alone a little longer; but, of course, a visit from your sister is different from any strangers coming.”
Captain Chancellor looked slightly uneasy; an intuitive feeling had warned Eugenia that something more was to come. “Gertrude is coming alone,” he said; “but she asks me if we can have the Chancellor girls here a fortnight hence. They are going to stay with her at Winsley, and she would like them to be here part of the time. And of course, there is no possible objection to it? They know we are not going out just now. One or two small dinner-parties and a little croquet, or that sort of thing, will be all they will expect.”
Eugenia made no reply. Beauchamp began to get vexed. “You surely are not going to make a new trouble out of such a simple thing as this?” he exclaimed.
“I don’t want to make any trouble,” she answered, drearily. “I must do what you tell me; but I do think it cruel of you to put this upon me. I don’t expect you to sympathise in my greatest loss, but I cannot understand your not caring about our poor little baby.”
Captain Chancellor gave vent to a muttered exclamation of impatience.
“You are infatuated, Eugenia!” he exclaimed. “Do you never look at home as the cause of half the things you complain of? It is not true that I did not care about the poor little thing. I cared as much as was natural considering the circumstances, and that it was not a boy. But I detest exaggerated sentiment. And really, you have no right to reproach me. You must know you have no one to thank for this particular trouble but yourself; your own want of self-control and wild behaviour because I had prevented your going off to Wareborough in that insane way, were the cause of it all. I did not intend ever to have alluded to it; but you provoke me, I do believe, intentionally. I cannot express the least wish of late but you set yourself against it. It never seems to occur to you that I have my share of disagreeables to put up with. Do you think the sort of life I have had the last few months was what I looked forward to, or that any man would envy me a wife everlastingly in low spirits like you?”
He left the room as he spoke, having, as usual, when he lost his temper, said more than he meant or really felt, regretting already that he had said so much, and at the same time mortified by the consciousness of his rudeness and unkindness. Eugenia remained where he had left her, some degrees more miserable than she had been before this conversation, though such painful scenes were not, unfortunately, so rare as to give any fresh direction to the current of her unhappiness. “Yes,” she thought to herself, “it is all true – it has been a wretched mistake for him too. It is all true, but ah! how terrible for him to be the one to say it.”
The next day brought Mrs Eyrecourt – Mrs Eyrecourt, in brilliant spirits and beautiful attire. For the correct number of months of mourning for her cousins having expired some time ago, she had deserted the trailing crape in which her sister-in-law had last seen her, for less lugubrious plumage. And on Eugenia’s present mood, unfortunately, the bright though well assorted colours struck as discordantly as last year’s sable on the feelings of the bride. But there was an unexpected pleasure in store for Beauchamp’s wife. Out of the fly containing the luggage and the maids a small figure appeared. It was Floss – Floss, smaller, queerer, greener-eyed, and more defiant than ever; but internally, nevertheless, in a state of intense excitement and delight at the thought of seeing Aunty ’Genia again, hearing more dolls’ stories, possibly – who could say? – seeing those venerable ladies themselves.
“Floss wouldn’t come in the carriage with her uncle and me,” said Gertrude, turning to Eugenia. “She is more of a little savage than ever, I fear.”
“Poor Floss!” thought her aunt, as she kissed her.
Gertrude was in a very amiable mood. She congratulated Eugenia on looking so well – “Ever so much better than she had expected to see her,” while wondering in her secret heart at the sad change in her sister-in-law’s looks. “It must be partly her clothes,” she decided, and marvelled more that her brother allowed her to wear such “atrociously made mourning.” She sighed as she reflected what a different wife she would have liked to see at the head of her brother’s table, and sighed again as she remembered her own short-sightedness in another direction. But her sighs were upstairs in her own room. Downstairs, she was amiability and liveliness itself. She talked, and laughed, and asked questions about the neighbours and neighbourhood, to which nearly all the answers came from Beauchamp – for in most instances Eugenia’s information was at fault, her interest palpably languid. Yet when Gertrude turned from her with a patronising “Oh, no, of course, you have not met them – it was when you were ill;” or “Ah, yes, I remember you were not there,” Eugenia felt unreasonably indignant. Altogether, this first evening left her with a mortifying sensation of being an outsider in her own home; she felt again the same sensation of loneliness and isolation, of being in no wise essential to her husband’s well-being, which had so depressed her the first evening at Winsley. And more bitterly than ever her thoughts went back over and over again to the irreparable past.
“Aunty,” inquired Floss, a day or two after this, when she was alone with Eugenia, “are you as pwetty as you used to be?”
The stare of the blue-green eyes was rather disconcerting.
“I don’t know, Moss,” said Eugenia. “I daresay not, but it doesn’t matter. What makes you ask?”
“What does ‘failed off’ mean?” continued Floss, pursuing her own train of thought.
“I won’t answer silly questions, Floss,” replied her aunt, her face flushing, nevertheless.
“’Tisn’t silly,” said Floss, indignantly. “Big people said it. Mamma said you had failed off tewibly, and Uncle Beachey looked cross and said it was your own fault. I don’t think Uncle Beachey is nice at all. He spoke so cwoss. I thought falling off meant tumbling and hurting yourself, but it doesn’t. It’s something about being pwetty and ugly. And mamma said she wished she hadn’t interfered once, and then somebody else who wouldn’t have failed off would have been here. Does it mean about widing? Everybody says Aunty Woma looks pwetty widing, and I know mamma meant her.”
