Nunswell was beautifully situated, and rich in “natural objects of attraction.” Eugenia had travelled so little that even the scenery of her own country was known to her only by description; it was now for the first time in her life that she woke up to a consciousness of her power of appreciation of natural beauty. Yet the waking was a sad one; her very first real perceptions of the beauty she had hitherto but dimly imagined came to her tinged with the sense of discordance between the outer and the inner world, of mistake and failure, which takes the brilliance out of the sunshine, the sweetness out of the birds’ songs.
“None of it is real,” thought Eugenia. “It is only where there is no soul—no heart, that there is happiness,” for being still weakened in mind and body by her recent illness, having nothing to do but to rest and amuse herself, and no one to talk to, she was inclined to be rather plaintive and desponding, and to imagine the path she was treading to be one of altogether unprecedented experiences.
Still, there was no question but what her spirits were better, her general appearance far more satisfactory than when she left home, and Mrs Dalrymple’s bulletins to Sydney became cheering in the extreme.
They had been a fortnight at Nunswell, when one morning at breakfast Mr Dalrymple made an unexpected announcement. He had been reading his letters—business ones for the most part, forwarded from his office at Wareborough—over some of them he had frowned, others he had thrown aside after a hasty glance, one or two had brought a satisfied expression to his face. Mrs Dalrymple and Eugenia had no letters this morning, but in deference to Mr Dalrymple’s occupation, they had been sitting in silence for some time, excepting a few whispered remarks as to the quality of the coffee or the prospects of the weather. Eugenia was some way into a brown study when she was recalled by her host’s suddenly addressing her.
“Here’s some news for you, Miss Laurence,” he exclaimed, looking up with a smile from the perusal of his last letter. “We are to have a visitor this afternoon—a great friend of yours. Quite time, too, that you should have a little variety—you must be getting tired of two old fogies like my wife and me.”
Eugenia had started when he first began to speak—it did not take much to startle her just now—then as he went on, her colour changed, first to crimson, which fading as quickly as it had come, left her even paler than usual. Mrs Dalrymple darted a reproachful look across the table at her husband, and began to speak hastily, in terror of what he might not be going to say next.
“Why can’t you say at once who it is, Henry?” she exclaimed with very unusual irritation. “It is quite startling and uncomfortable to be told all of a sudden ‘somebody’ is coming in that sort of way. I am sure I don’t want to see any one, and I don’t think Eugenia does either. We have been very snug together, and Eugenia is not strong enough yet to care for strangers. Really, Henry, you are very thoughtless.”
The last few words should have been an aside, but Mrs Dalrymple’s vexation at the sight of the pallid hue still overspreading the girl’s face, overmastered her prudence.
“It didn’t startle me, dear Mrs Dalrymple—really it didn’t,” interposed Eugenia, hastily. “That is to say, I was only startled for an instant, and it was not Mr Dalrymple’s fault. Anything does it—even the door opening—since I was ill, but I am beginning to get over it. But you are quite right in thinking I don’t want any one else—I have been quite happy with you and Mr Dalrymple.”
“But you have misunderstood me, Mary,” said Mr Dalrymple, looking rather contrite. “I never spoke of strangers. I said particularly it was a friend of Miss Laurence’s I was expecting. It is Gerald Thurston. I have a note from him proposing to see me here this afternoon, and if we are not engaged, he speaks of staying at Nunswell till Monday. He is on his way home from Bristol, where he has been on business, and he wishes to see me, and I want to see him. I am sure you can have no objection to his joining us for two days, either of you?” he ended by inquiring of his two companions.