“Gertrude has told me the news about you. I am surprised, and yet I am not. Miss Laurence is beautiful and clever and good. What more can I say in the way of congratulation? Perhaps even this much is more than you will care to receive from me, but we are very old friends, Beauchamp, and I am completely in earnest in saying I hope you will both be very happy. If Miss Laurence remembers me, or if you care to tell her who I am, will you tell her, too, that I shall look forward to knowing her, and to really ‘making friends,’ if she will let me?—Believe me,—
“Yours affectionately,—
“Roma Alice Eyrecourt.”
It was a pleasant little letter to receive, pleasant in a special sense to Beauchamp, for it was evident to him that Roma had exerted herself—her tact and discrimination—to render it so, and the reflection soothed his still sore feeling towards her. He felt, too, that she really meant what she said and expressed, and he was right in thinking so. Roma was very sincere in her good wishes.
“So this is the end of it,” she had said to herself, after doing her best to pour oil on the waters of Mrs Eyrecourt’s extreme disgust and unreasonable indignation. “Well, certainly, though I think it one of the most foolish marriages I ever heard of, which is saying a good deal; though I think them in every particular, except good looks, utterly unsuited to each other—and the chances are it will not take them long to find that out for themselves—yet I must say I never liked Beauchamp as much, or thought as well of him, as just now that he has done this most, foolish thing. And, though I am perfectly certain there is not the ghost of a chance that it will be so, I really do earnestly hope they may be happy.”
Then another remembrance occurred to her—“That infatuatedly faithful Mr Thurston, how will he take this, poor man, I wonder?” she thought, smiling slightly as she recalled him, for it is a curious fact that women can never pity Corydon’s woes—“He would love, and she would not,” without laughing at him a little too, even though he be, apart from Phillida, by no means a ludicrous or contemptible personage.
Beauchamp smiled as he read Roma’s sisterly little letter. Then, not without reluctance, he put it aside and took up Mrs Eyrecourt’s. The first part was pretty much what he had expected, or at least feared. She began by saying that the news of his engagement had so completely taken her by surprise that she really did not know what to say—perhaps, as he had so entirely avoided consulting her in this most important step, the less she said the better—after which preamble, as might have been expected, she went on to say a great deal. She did not write unkindly or coldly, she was most careful in the few allusions she could not avoid making to his fiancée, to say nothing exaggerated or in bad taste—nothing which could arouse his masculine spirit of contradiction or defiance. Such as it was, and judged “according to the lights” of the woman who had written it and the man to whom it was written, it was by no means a bad letter, hardly even a selfish or one-sided or “wholly worldly” production. The first vehemence of Gertrude’s wrath had been expended on poor Roma, a convenient safety-valve, and, thanks to her sympathy and patience, had considerably subsided before Mrs Eyrecourt had arrived at pen and paper. So her brother was fain to confess “there was a good deal of truth in what Gertrude said,” and he sighed quite pathetically as he came to this conclusion. Only, and he brightened up again at this, she had not yet seen Eugenia; no doubt once she did so it would be all right. Miss Laurence had but to show herself, and the victory would be achieved; she would find no resistance—it would be a case of simply “walking over the ground” of Mrs Eyrecourt’s prejudices. For Gertrude was not a small woman in the sense of any petty jealousy of another’s attractions. She was nearly as sensitive as Beauchamp himself to beauty, and upon this he determined to trade.
“I shall not attempt defending myself or the wisdom of what I have done,” he reflected. “I shall say nothing at all but that she must wait till she sees Eugenia. Then if she takes a fancy to her she will make a pet of her, enjoy taking her out and all that sort of thing, and it will all be as smooth sailing as possible. Of course Eugenia will throw herself completely into my side of the house, and not bother about Wareborough. That is the beauty of marrying a girl who has seen nothing and is better than her surroundings.”
So, sanguinely mused Captain Chancellor, and all the while there was news at the end of his sister’s letter which had escaped his observation, news which was to alter the whole colour of his future, which, so far as regarded Mrs Eyrecourt’s friendly feelings to Eugenia, could not possibly have come at a worse time. He thought he had read it all, but, taking it up again, he saw that there was a lengthy postscript, written hurriedly, and here and there almost illegibly.
“I was just closing this for the bag,” ran the postscript, “when the afternoon letters came. I am so thankful I did not go out; I was very nearly doing so, and then I should have missed the post. There is most distressing news from Halswood. You will hardly believe it, Beauchamp, it seems so frightfully sudden, but it is really true—Herbert Chancellor is dead. My letter is from Addie, poor darling! They are in a terrible state of course. It was some sort of fit or stroke, and he such a young man! But you remember how stout he was growing when they were here. They had only gone to Halswood for a few days to see about re-furnishing it, and poor Addie says her mother will never be able to endure the place again. They want you to go there at once, to help them in all sorts of ways. They have no one to look to but that poor sickly boy, Roger, and of course you are the natural person. I must say I feel gratified at their remembering this. They would have written or telegraphed to you direct, but did not know your address, and Addie said she tried to telegraph to me but could not explain. The funeral is to be on Friday, so you have no time to lose. I am going, too, to poor dear Mrs Chancellor as soon as I can, so we shall meet at Halswood to-morrow or the day after.”