“But it might be worse?” suggested Roma.
Then they both laughed, and whether or no Roma’s philosophy much commended itself to her, Eugenia certainly went about with a lighter heart and brighter face than had been hers during the last few weeks.
And the latter part of Mrs Chancellor’s visit to Winsley certainly proved a notable exception to the old proverb that “three are no company,” for the three ladies were very much better company than the two had been, and Eugenia no longer counted the days to her departure, and openly expressed her hopes that when Beauchamp returned, he would arrange to stay a little while: with his sister; which expression of cordial feeling naturally gratified Mrs Eyrecourt, and disposed her to regard her young sister-in-law in a more favourable light. Roma looked on and smiled, and enjoyed the present comfortable state of things, thinking to herself nevertheless that it was not on the whole to be regretted that the two counties respectively containing Halswood Hall and Winsley Grange were at a considerable distance from each other.
Captain Chancellor came back a fortnight after Roma’s return, and a week later he took his wife to her new home. They did not travel thither by way of Wareborough, as Eugenia had hoped, but this disappointment she made up her mind to bear with philosophy. And Beauchamp, who had acted by his sister’s advice in the matter, appreciated his wife’s good behaviour to the extent of promising that once they were settled at Halswood, and had got the place into some sort of order, she should invite her father and Sydney and Frank to come to visit her in her own home. Eugenia mentioned this to Sydney in her next letter, but the smile with which the curate’s wife read the message was a rather sad one.
“Dear Eugenia!” she said to himself; “I am afraid she is going to be far away from us—farther than she or any of us thought. But I trust she will not miss us.”
Volume Three—Chapter Two.
Home.
And sometimes I am hopeful as the spring,
And up my fluttering heart is borne aloft,
As high and gladsome as the lark at sunrise;
And then, as though the fowler’s shaft had pierced it,
It comes plumb down, with such a dead, dead fall.
Philip Van Artevelde.