Eustace

“ Three days later, Eustace, writing alone in the library at night, saw it sitting on an open book at the other end of the room. The fingers crept over the page, feeling the print as if it were reading; but before he had time to get up from his seat, it had taken the alarm and was pulling itself up the curtains. Eustace watched it grimly as it hung on to the cornice with three fingers, flicking thumb and forefinger at him in an expression of scornful derision.
"I know what I'll do," he said. "If I only get it into the open I'll set the dogs on to it." ”

“ Rose's experience comforted us a little about Eustace. But a feeling of terrible foreboding was on us all, as we painfully climbed the chestnut-covered slopes and neared the little clearing. When we reached it our tongues broke loose. There, at the further side, were the remains of our lunch, and close to them, lying motionless on his back, was Eustace.
With some presence of mind I at once cried out: "Hey, you young monkey! jump up!" But he made no reply, nor did he answer when his poor aunts spoke to him. ”

“ When Eustace had heard this, then he beheld her and recognised her by her beauty, and for great bliss wept and kissed her, and thanked God Who comforteth all those that trust in Him, and delivereth from all anguish. Then said she to him, ' Lord, where are the sons of us two?' He answered, ' Wild beasts caught them.' And then he related to her how they were taken. ”

“ With him it had been a case of love almost at first sight. Eustace was one of those men who are always striving to attain and obtain the best and highest good which the world has to offer, not as a matter of preference only, but as a matter of principle. Hitherto he had never seen a woman who stirred his heart, for he had never seen one who in any way corresponded to the lofty ideals of womanhood which he had kept pure within him from boyhood. ”

“ I mean that Eustace has a strain of quaint fun in him—a sort of passion for the burlesque of life. You do not often find this in boys. It is new to my experience. He sees the peculiar side of everything with a curious acuteness. Life presents itself to him in caricature. ”

“ Sir Eustace, the last who arrived that night, came in, and the baron, to the great relief of the cooks, descended to the hall.
Still he was far too proud and jealous of his dignity to show his anxiety in voice or mien. He descended calmly to the banquet, the chaplain blessed the food, and the tired and hungry nobles fell to at the high table, while their retainers feasted below. ”

“ Bride looked up with a sweet smile.
“Ah! that is just what I feel about it, Eustace; let us do all that is right for them, but teach them to strive after contentment and love of God themselves. That is the only thing that will really raise them or make them truly happy.” ”

“ Bride’s mind was hard at work; her feelings were keenly stirred within her. The burden of the song which kept ringing in her ears [166] was, “This is Eustace’s doing, this is Eustace’s work. Oh, how can we let another die, and die perhaps unfit and impenitent through his act, through his teaching? It must not be. Oh, it shall not be! Saul must not die through Eustace’s fault!”
Bride had come to think of Eustace in a way she scarcely understood herself. ”

“ My mother fretted over this friendship far more, as Annora used to declare, than if he had been intimate with the wildest of the roistering cavaliers, or the most dissipated of the petits maitres of Paris. But Eustace was a man now, made older than his twenty-five years by what he had undergone, and though always most respectful to my mother, he could not but follow his own judgment and form his own friendships. ”

“ His aunts showered kisses on him, which he did not reciprocate, and then there was an awkward pause, Eustace seemed so natural and undisturbed, yet, if he had not had astonishing experiences himself, he ought to have been all the more astonished at our extraordinary behaviour. ”

“ I mean that poor old Eustace is so far below you, darling, that, with the most charitable intentions, one can only look on his asking you to marry him in the light of a record exhibition of pure nerve. A dear, good fellow, of course, but hopeless where the sterner realities of life are concerned. ”

“ Sir Eustace looked at his brother doubtfully through his eyeglass. "You are modest," he said; "that does not do. You must have a better opinion of yourself if you want to get on in the world."
"I don't want to get on. I am quite content to earn a living, and I am modest because I have seen so many better men fare worse." ”

“ She seemed all at once to understand the meaning of her troubled dream, and the cry which had awakened her. Eustace was truly in some deadly peril, and her name had been upon his lips, as it was in his heart, at the supreme moment when he believed himself passing from life to death. Bride had too full a belief in the independent life of the spirit to feel any great surprise at such a thing as this. The power and the deep mystery of love were a part of her creed. She held that a true and God-given love was as immortal as the soul—was the very essence of the soul ”

“ I love you! Surely you will not tell me in return that you hate me, and would spurn me from your presence. O Bride, my life, my love! do not say that you have no love to give me in return.”
There was something so appealing in his voice that her heart was touched with compassion, though with no answering response. She let him possess himself of her hand, but it lay cool and passive in his hot clasp.
“I do not hate you, Eustace—why should I? I do not hate any living thing. I do not spurn you. I do not spurn your love.” ”

“ I think you must feel glad. There is so little to do at Penarvon—for one like you.”
“I fear your father thinks I have done too much, as it is,” answered Eustace hastily. “Bride, have I made him hate me? Has he spoken with disapproval of me to you?”
“Oh, no!” answered Bride. “My father seldom speaks disparagingly of any one who is not there to defend himself. ”

“ ELL, children," inquired Eustace, who was very fond of eliciting a definite opinion from his auditors, "did you ever, in all your lives, listen to a better story than this of 'The Golden Touch'?"
"Why, as to the story of King Midas," said saucy Primrose, "it was a famous one thousands of years before Mr. Eustace Bright came into the world, and will continue to be so long after he quits it. But some people have what we may call 'The Leaden Touch,' and make everything dull and heavy that they lay their fingers upon." ”

“ Her eyes sought his with one of those glances he had learned to look for and treasure; and when she came to his side she bent and kissed him, which hitherto she had not made a habit of doing.
“Bride,” he said softly, getting possession of her hand, “is this true?”
“Yes, Eustace,” she answered softly; “I do not think we can love each other more than we do; but we can belong to each other more when we have been joined together by God. That is what I want, to be one with you in His sight, so that nothing can part us more.” ”

“ What fervent gratitude—what deep, strong affection did every tear she shed, every sigh she breathed in his cause, fan into life, water into vigour in that young pupil's breast! How was she adored, revered, upheld supreme at least in the heart of one being in the world.
Eustace Trevor, as those of generous and superior natures generally are found to be, was a child of naturally impetuous disposition and independent spirit. Though full of genius, and promise of bright things to come, it could not be but that he sometimes grieved his gentle teacher, and gave her patient spirit pain. ”

“ But so it was, and so it oft-times is; and there is little need to tell again how Eustace Trevor, his last reed broken, his last ray of light extinguished, turned away to seek his sad and silent home—
"The shadow of a starless night,"
thrown upon that world, in which henceforth he must move so desolate and alone. ”

“ But if beauty and affluence have proved irresistible, let me remember that my fortunes seemed desperate, allow the force of the temptation, and forgive him."
"There spoke my own magnanimous sister," exclaimed Eustace, folding her to his heart. "Thou worthy choice of my best and dearest friend! a wretched father is the stronger claim which detains him from thee. He is gone to carry comfort to the most pitiable object in the world, an alarmed, deserted sinner."
"I never will forgive you, Eustace, for thus torturing me," said Isabel, and while she spoke, encircled his neck with her arms. ”

“ How many faces one sees which, in ordinary circumstances, are comfortable, self-asserting, sufficient, and even bold; the lines of which, under difficulties, collapse and become mean, spiritless, and insignificant. There are faces which, in their usual form, seem to bluster with prosperity, but which the loss of a dozen points at whist will reduce to that currish aspect which reminds one of a dog-whip. Mr. Camperdown's countenance, when Lord Fawn and Mr. Eustace left him, had fallen away into this meanness of appearance. ”

“ Tell him that we will stay happily together here, and have only one home, here at Penarvon. I know you do not want to lose me, yet I know (for you have told me) that you would like to see me Eustace’s wife. Well, it is all so easy. Do you not see it so yourself? Dearest father, I love him, and he loves me. What can anything else matter? Does not his weakness and his helplessness make me love him all the more? I want to have the right to be with him always, to lighten the load which will weigh on him, however brave and patient he is, heavily sometimes. I shall never love anybody else ”

“ He whom Eustace thus severely addressed, retained a moment's moody defiant silence.
"Your intention then, is to remain in England," he said at length, with an assumption of haughty unconcern, though there might be perceived a quivering of the eyelids, and an expression of anxious perturbation in his downcast glance. "The old man," with trembling irony in his tone, "will doubtless receive you gladly, and there will be nothing to retard the nuptials of Mary and myself." ”

“ She advised him to go and try the world, to look upon its pride, its ambition, and its pleasure. He went. Courted, flattered, and admired, all these allurements beckoned him away. The world smiled upon the eldest son, and not only the world; he in whose heart of hearts hatred and envy were darkly smouldering against one whom fortune had at once so unexpectedly favoured, and raised above himself—he also in that smiling world spoke him fair, and walked with him as friend—and this was his brother.
How was it then that Eustace Trevor finally returned to his original intention? ”

“ And then her innate respect for another's individuality, her shrinking from what might prove to be the tyranny of a dying wish interposed, and she checked herself. 'No, don't promise; I have no right—no one has any right. I can only tell you my feeling—my deep sense that there is hope—that there is nothing against you. Men—good men—are so often over-timid when courage would be best. Be bold, Eustace; respect your own love; do not be too proud to show it—to offer it!' Her voice died away into silence, only Eustace still felt the caressing touch of the thin fingers clasped round his. ”

“ I could be sorry for Eustace, but never could I like him, and supposing that some of his least admirable characteristics manifested themselves now and then in his offspring, might I not become actively antipathetic? Human nature can be so unreasonable, so unjust, and I pretended to no immunity from illogical aversions.
Nor was I in any need of a constant companion. Since Rose’s marriage I had tended more and more to eremitical consolations—to my prints and gardening—whenever my patients permitted me. ”

“ Eustace grew up a handsome youth, of a high spirit but an urbane and generous nature, which endeared him to all the dependants of Hawksglen. Lady Elliot, seeing in him more and more the likely cause of future trouble and danger, never ceased plying her insidious arts against him. ”

“ I was just trying to get the courage to propose when I caught the mumps, and that seemed to me to finish it. No girl could love a man with three times the proper amount of face.”
“As if that could make any difference! What does your outside matter? I have seen your inside!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean....”
Eustace fondled her back hair.
“Jane! Queen of my soul! Do you really love me?”
“I’ve loved you ever since we met on the Subway.” She raised a tear-stained face. “If only I could be sure that you really loved me!”
“I can prove it!” said Eustace proudly. ”

“ Following the curve of the thicket a little way, behind a thick group of trees Eustace came to a sudden standstill with a cry of dismay; for there, standing almost upright in the thickest of the scrub, was the figure of a man, his bare head bowed down upon his breast so that his face was invisible, his arms hanging down at his sides. ”

“ When the polling day really came, and her father settled to drive in in the coach, taking Eustace with him—Sir Roland had his rooms at the hotel in Pentreath, and had ceased to make headquarters at the castle—Bride suddenly asked to accompany the party, a request so foreign to her ordinary habits that both the men looked at her in surprise.
“It will be very noisy and rowdy in the town,” said Eustace, “and we may get into some street-fights, and have a warm reception ourselves. Would you not be better and safer at home?” ”

“ At length Eustace's circulation was declared restored and the three set about harnessing themselves for the war, encasing their legs in sand-bags, winding endless mufflers round their heads and donning innumerable odd overcoats, so that their final appearance was more that of apple-women than scouts. ”