Eugenia had it on her lips to give her husband some of her father’s opinions on the vexed question he had referred to, but on second thoughts refrained. Beauchamp would be certain to disagree with her, might, not improbably, ridicule her notions as high-flown and exaggerated, would-be “strong-minded” and altogether absurd, and such ridicule she had not yet learnt to bear with equanimity. So she said no more, and during the remainder of their stay in Paris she conducted herself on all occasions of sightseeing with the nearest approach to amiable impassiveness to which she could attain.
A sudden end came to the honeymoon. One morning there came to Beauchamp a letter in his sister’s handwriting. He opened it, glanced at its contents, then, happening to look up and seeing that Eugenia was looking at him with some anxiety—for a certain eagerness in his manner had roused in her a suspicion that the letter was of unusual interest—he said something indistinct about returning immediately and hurriedly left the room. Eugenia felt a little startled, a little curious, and a very little hurt that her husband’s first impulse when anything of more than ordinary interest occurred to him should be to shun rather than seek her sympathy. It never entered her mind to guess the nature of the news contained in Mrs Eyrecourt’s letter. Once or twice when they first left home she had asked Beauchamp if he had heard how “that poor boy his cousin” was, but Captain Chancellor had seemed to shrink from the subject; and out of regard to this feeling of his, she, influenced also by a suspicion that but for her he would have been beside the invalid, had refrained from further allusion to it, and in the excitement of the last few weeks she had almost forgotten ever having heard of Roger at all. So she finished her breakfast without any serious misgiving, enjoying, with a zest so keen as to be a little surprising to herself, a letter from Sydney full of home news, news of their daily doings and commonplace life, the life which but a few months before, Eugenia Laurence had despised as dull and dreary beyond endurance!
Then she sat down to answer Sydney’s letter at once, feeling as if she could do so more cheerfully and satisfactorily while the home feeling was fresh upon her. For sometimes lately—quite lately—it had cost her a little effort to write to Sydney; why, she had never tried to define.
She had only written half a page when Beauchamp rejoined her. She looked up quickly, then went on with her letter, afraid of appearing to force his confidence. But even the glance, momentary as it had been, had shown her a new expression in her husband’s face, a look of repressed excitement such as she had never seen there before. Her instinct had been right; something had happened. At all times acutely sensitive to any fluctuation in the human atmosphere surrounding her, a sort of thrill now seemed to vibrate through every nerve. Spite of herself the hand shook that held the pen, and a large blot fell on the paper before her. A little exclamation escaped her; she glanced up quickly and found that Captain Chancellor was looking at her fixedly; looking at her, but with an absent, preoccupied expression, as if hardly seeing what was before him. A feeling of increased apprehension came over her; it was a relief when at last he spoke.
“Eugenia,” he said, solemnly, all unconscious of her state of nervous expectancy, and with something in his tone as if he were preparing to suit himself to the comprehension of a child—an almost imperceptible increase of importance and condescension which puzzled and slightly jarred her—“Eugenia, I want to speak to you, and I must have your full attention. Oblige me by putting away your writing.”
She obeyed him silently. Then, with her beautiful eyes looking up in his face half-timidly—for her expectation was mingled with vague apprehension that in some way or other she might again have unknowingly vexed him—she waited to hear what he had to say.
There was a good deal to explain. She knew so little of his family affairs, was so utterly unprepared for what she had to hear, that once or twice when he first began to speak she interrupted him with some necessary question, obliging him to go over the ground again more intelligibly. He chafed a little at this, though doing his best to restrain his impatience; so Eugenia, after a minute or two, listened in silence, listened without a movement or an exclamation, or even a glance of surprise or interest, to all he told her of his family’s position and possessions, of the former remoteness of his own chance of succession, of the premature death of Herbert Chancellor and now of that of his sickly son, of the consequent complete change in his own circumstances and the different life that now lay before them both. There was a mixture of feelings in Beauchamp as he spoke. He in a sense enjoyed the telling it. He dwelt with a certain gusto upon some of the details, he was conscious of a pleasure, a sort of lordly gratification, in spreading out before the dazzled vision of this innocent little wife of his, the wealth, the position, the many “good things” which were now to be his, and through him hers. He really loved her; he was glad to have so much to bestow, and the thought of her gratitude for his future indulgence, her appreciation of his past disinterestedness (for “I knew how it would all be some little time ago,” he said, “but I judged it better to keep silence for the time”) was very sweet to him. But with these not unamiable, if not very lofty, feelings, there mingled others less harmless. Mrs Eyrecourt’s letter had not been without some covert stings, some half-expressed allusions to “what might have been” and what was, and these, though Beauchamp would have repelled them with indignation to her face, were, as usual, not without their uncomfortable effect upon him. And he, to do him justice, was conscious of the unworthiness of harbouring even the shadow of regret for what he had done. He wanted to get rid of it; he had come to Eugenia eager to sun himself in her innocent delight; to realise that, look where he would, he could not have found a sweeter wife, or one so certain to appreciate himself and all he had done and meant to do.
“Only,” he had said to himself, “I must make her understand that it would be frightfully bad taste to seem elated. She herself is so refined I can make her feel this with the merest hint, but those people of hers! There must be no writing off to them about it—I must have no drawing any closer these objectionable Wareborough ties.”
When he had finished all he had to say he waited for a minute, expecting Eugenia to speak. To his surprise she remained perfectly silent. He could not see her face; she had turned it away from him as he was speaking.
“Eugenia,” he said, with some impatience, “what is the matter with you? Have you not understood what I have been telling you?” and as he spoke he laid his hand on her shoulder and made her turn so as to face him. The mystery was explained—Eugenia was in tears.