“No, ma’am—a girl, fortunately,” replied Mrs Grier, with a curious mingling of conventional sentiment with her unworldly aspirations. “My mistress has seen it, for a moment,—this morning early, when for the first time she seemed quite conscious. It was then she asked for you, and my master sent at once. Poor dear lady! how pleased we were, to be sure.”
Real tears shone in the housekeeper’s eyes, and Sydney began to like her better.
“I wonder how soon I may see my sister?” she was just saying, when a step in the hall caught her ear. It was Beauchamp. The door opened and he came in—came in, looking well and fresh and handsome—offensively well, thought Sydney; heartlessly cool and comfortable.
“This is kind, truly kind,” he exclaimed, really meaning what he said, but unable to throw off the “amiable” manner and sweet tone habitual to him when addressing any woman, especially a young one. “I had no idea you could have come so quickly. You have heard, I hope, how much better Eugenia is. All will now, I trust, go on well. She must have had a narrow escape, though,” and his voice grew graver.
“Yes,” said Sydney; “I am inexpressibly thankful. But,” she added, “the poor little baby?”
“Ah, yes,” replied Beauchamp, indifferently, “poor little thing! It’s a good thing it’s a girl, is it not? You would like to see Eugenia soon, would you not? The doctor said there would be no objection; she wishes it so much. I can’t tell you,” he added, as he led the way upstairs, “I can’t tell you how thankful I have felt that I prevented her going to Wareborough that day. The shock of finding it too late on getting there would have been even worse, and after a fatiguing journey too. Yes, I am very thankful I put a stop to that.” Sydney said nothing. She did not wish to yield to prejudice or dislike, but half a dozen times in the course of this five minutes’ conversation, her brother-in-law had grated on her feelings. It was very inconsiderate of him to speak so of the journey to Wareborough, which he must know had been her dear dead father’s proposal. She almost wished Frank had not told him Eugenia would have been “too late.” She had expected to find Beauchamp full of sympathy, and possibly of self-reproach; here he was, on the contrary, priding himself on what he had done! At least he might have had the grace to refrain from any allusion to so painful a subject. But she said nothing. And soon, very soon, she forgot all about it for the time, in the sorrowful delight of seeing Eugenia again, of listening to her murmured words of intense, unaltered affection, of gratitude and piteous grief.
“It was not the shock that did me harm,” she whispered to Sydney, later in the day; “it was remorse. Oh, to think of what he must have thought of me! My kind, good father!”
Then Sydney, who had hitherto dreaded the subject, saw that the time had come for delivering her father’s message. She did so, word for word as it had been given to her.
“And so you see, dear Eugenia,” she added, in conclusion, “you need have no remorseful feeling. He never thought you indifferent; and had you come, it would have been too late. Frank said so in his letter.”
“Thank God!” whispered Eugenia; “and thank you, Sydney. I think now a faint remembrance recurs to me of Beauchamp saying my going would have been no use. But I took it as merely a vague consolation of his own. Had I understood it properly, I might have controlled myself better, and then perhaps I would not have been ill. I don’t mind for myself, but the little baby. Oh, Sydney, my poor little baby! They say she cannot live!”