“Certainly not,” said Eugenia, “and of course I know a Wareborough dressmaker cannot make things as fashionably as a London one. But Sydney and I have taken pains to get this person to make our things in the way we like, and I do not care about being too fashionable. I don’t think it is good taste.”
Mrs Eyrecourt smiled, but her smile was not a very pleasant one, and she did not repeat her offer. She was far from thinking it worth her while to enter into any discussion with this very daring young person on even so trifling a subject as dress; but in her own mind she resolved to give her brother a hint as to the expediency of at once and for ever separating his wife from the influences of her former home.
“She is pretty enough to do very well if she had more manner and experience,” Mrs Eyrecourt allowed, with the impartiality on which she prided herself. “But she is really incredibly ignorant, and less docile than I expected. Ah, Beauchamp, you have made a sad mistake!”
The half-hour with Floss in the morning proved to have been the pleasantest part of Eugenia’s first day at Winsley. Mrs Eyrecourt was, of course, civil and attentive, but though, had she met her in other circumstances, Eugenia might have bestowed upon her a fair share of liking, it seemed impossible to Beauchamp’s wife to feel perfectly at ease with her; she felt herself, as it were, constantly on the defensive, and felt, too, that Gertrude was as constantly occupied in taking her measure, criticising what she considered her deficiencies, and noting her observations and opinions. It was far from comfortable. Never before, perhaps, in all her life had Eugenia been so painfully self-conscious, never before had her latent antagonism been so fully aroused; and what was, perhaps, in great measure the cause of both, never before had she known the meaning of—“ennui.” This sort of life, the being treated with the formality due to a visitor, unsoftened by intimacy or association, was to her intolerably dull. She tried to read, but her attention seemed beyond her control, and there was no one at hand to compare notes with, even if she did succeed in becoming interested; for though Gertrude rather affected literary tastes, and talked a good deal of the advantage and desirability of “keeping up with the books of the day,” her ideas of the hooks of the day hardly coincided with Eugenia’s, and to the girl’s inexperience her sister-in-law’s narrow-mindedness on many points seemed unparalleled. On some subjects Gertrude could talk with intelligence and even originality, but on few of these subjects was Eugenia much at home. She had never been inside a London theatre, the best singers of the day she knew but by name, she had never seen the Academy! Gossip or even mild scandal was utterly lost upon her, for she was a complete stranger to the section of the fashionable world in which Mrs Eyrecourt lived and moved and had her being, in which it was her fondest ambition to shine. Gertrude was not much given to exerting herself for the entertainment of her own sex at the best of times, but with respect to her sister-in-law she had really intended to do her utmost, and finding that she did not succeed did not add to her amiability. There would have been some amount of pleasurable excitement in taking Eugenia by the hand in the sense of patronising her, and it had been in this direction that Captain Chancellor had reckoned sanguinely on his sister’s goodwill, not taking into account the one obstacle to this comfortable arrangement—Eugenia’s decided objection to anything of the kind, which from the first Mrs Eyrecourt was quick to perceive and indirectly to resent. In this particular, as in many others, Beauchamp had read his wife’s character wrong, had been unable to estimate the past influences of her life. He had mistaken docility for weakness; the humility and self-distrust engendered by her great love and faith had seemed to him mere consciousness of ignorance and inexperience—a state of mind, to his thinking, eminently becoming in the untrained girl he had honoured by selecting as his wife.
It happened, unfortunately, too, that just at this time there was considerably less than usual “going on” in the Winsley neighbourhood. Of the adjacent families whom Gertrude thought fit to visit some were still in town, some had illness among them—nearly all, from one reason or another, were hors de combat with respect of dinner-parties, picnics, croquet, and the like. And in a general way the neighbourhood was remarkably sociable and friendly, and would have been very ready to make a nine days’ pet of the pretty bride, provided Mrs Eyrecourt had given it to be understood that such attention to her sister-in-law would be agreeable to herself, for Gertrude managed to “queen it” to a considerable extent over society in her part of the county.
“You will have rather an unfavourable idea of Winsley in one respect, I fear, Eugenia,” said Mrs Eyrecourt, one day. “I mean you must think it very dull. But nearly all our neighbours are still away. A month or two hence it will be quite different.”
“I don’t care about gaiety much, thank you,” replied Eugenia. “I have never been accustomed to it, and I can feel quite as happy without it.”
“You are very philosophical,” said Gertrude. “But I am surprised to hear you say you have not been accustomed to that sort of thing. I always understood that up among the Cottonocracy there were all sorts of grand doings; overwhelmingly magnificent dinner-parties and balls, and so on.”
“I dare say there are,” replied Eugenia, “but we never went to them. My father very seldom let us go anywhere, except to intimate friends like Mrs Dalrymple.”
“Oh indeed!” said Gertrude, and in her own mind she thought, “These Laurences considered themselves too good for Wareborough society, it appears. How absurd people are!”