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diff --git a/4460-0.txt b/4460-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bef83bf --- /dev/null +++ b/4460-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22414 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Beauchamp's Career, Complete, by George Meredith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Beauchamp's Career, Complete + +Author: George Meredith + +Release Date: February 6, 2002 [eBook #4460] +[Most recently updated: January 6, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Widger + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEAUCHAMP'S CAREER, COMPLETE *** + + + + +Beauchamp’s Career + +by George Meredith + + +Contents + + CHAPTER I. THE CHAMPION OF HIS COUNTRY + CHAPTER II. UNCLE, NEPHEW, AND ANOTHER + CHAPTER III. CONTAINS BARONIAL VIEWS OF THE PRESENT TIME + CHAPTER IV. A GLIMPSE OF NEVIL IN ACTION + CHAPTER V. RENÉE + CHAPTER VI. LOVE IN VENICE + CHAPTER VII. AN AWAKENING FOR BOTH + CHAPTER VIII. A NIGHT ON THE ADRIATIC + CHAPTER IX. MORNING AT SEA UNDER THE ALPS + CHAPTER X. A SINGULAR COUNCIL + CHAPTER XI. CAPTAIN BASKELETT + CHAPTER XII. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE INFAMOUS DR. SHRAPNEL + CHAPTER XIII. A SUPERFINE CONSCIENCE + CHAPTER XIV. THE LEADING ARTICLE AND MR. TIMOTHY TURBOT + CHAPTER XV. CECILIA HALKETT + CHAPTER XVI. A PARTIAL DISPLAY OF BEAUCHAMP IN HIS COLOURS + CHAPTER XVII. HIS FRIEND AND FOE + CHAPTER XVIII. CONCERNING THE ACT OF CANVASSING + CHAPTER XIX. LORD PALMET, AND CERTAIN ELECTORS OF BEVISHAM + CHAPTER XX. A DAY AT ITCHINCOPE + CHAPTER XXI. THE QUESTION AS TO THE EXAMINATION OF THE WHIGS, AND THE + FINE BLOW STRUCK BY MR. EVERARD ROMFREY + CHAPTER XXII. THE DRIVE INTO BEVISHAM + CHAPTER XXIII. TOURDESTELLE + CHAPTER XXIV. HIS HOLIDAY + CHAPTER XXV. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BOAT + CHAPTER XXVI. MR. BLACKBURN TUCKHAM + CHAPTER XXVII. A SHORT SIDELOOK AT THE ELECTION + CHAPTER XXVIII. TOUCHING A YOUNG LADY’S HEART AND HER INTELLECT + CHAPTER XXIX. THE EPISTLE OF DR. SHRAPNEL TO COMMANDER BEAUCHAMP + CHAPTER XXX. THE BAITING OF DR. SHRAPNEL + CHAPTER XXXI. SHOWING A CHIVALROUS GENTLEMAN SET IN MOTION + CHAPTER XXXII. AN EFFORT TO CONQUER CECILIA IN BEAUCHAMP’S FASHION + CHAPTER XXXIII. THE FIRST ENCOUNTER AT STEYNHAM + CHAPTER XXXIV. THE FACE OF RENÉE + CHAPTER XXXV. THE RIDE IN THE WRONG DIRECTION + CHAPTER XXXVI. PURSUIT OF THE APOLOGY OF MR. ROMFREY TO DR. SHRAPNEL + CHAPTER XXXVII. CECILIA CONQUERED + CHAPTER XXXVIII. LORD AVONLEY + CHAPTER XXXIX. BETWEEN BEAUCHAMP AND CECILIA + CHAPTER XL. A TRIAL OF HIM + CHAPTER XLI. A LAME VICTORY + CHAPTER XLII. THE TWO PASSIONS + CHAPTER XLIII. THE EARL OF ROMFREY AND THE COUNTESS + CHAPTER XLIV. THE NEPHEWS OF THE EARL, AND ANOTHER EXHIBITION OF THE + TWO PASSIONS IN BEAUCHAMP + CHAPTER XLV. A LITTLE PLOT AGAINST CECILIA + CHAPTER XLVI. AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN FORESEEN + CHAPTER XLVII. THE REFUSAL OF HIM + CHAPTER XLVIII. OF THE TRIAL AWAITING THE EARL OF ROMFREY + CHAPTER XLIX. A FABRIC OF BARONIAL DESPOTISM CRUMBLES + CHAPTER L. AT THE COTTAGE ON THE COMMON + CHAPTER LI. IN THE NIGHT + CHAPTER LII. QUESTION OF A PILGRIMAGE AND AN ACT OF PENANCE + CHAPTER LIII. THE APOLOGY TO DR. SHRAPNEL + CHAPTER LIV. THE FRUITS OF THE APOLOGY + CHAPTER LV. WITHOUT LOVE + CHAPTER LVI. THE LAST OF NEVIL BEAUCHAMP + + + + +CHAPTER I. +THE CHAMPION OF HIS COUNTRY + + +When young Nevil Beauchamp was throwing off his midshipman’s jacket for +a holiday in the garb of peace, we had across Channel a host of +dreadful military officers flashing swords at us for some critical +observations of ours upon their sovereign, threatening Afric’s fires +and savagery. The case occurred in old days now and again, sometimes, +upon imagined provocation, more furiously than at others. We were +unarmed, and the spectacle was distressing. We had done nothing except +to speak our minds according to the habit of the free, and such an +explosion appeared as irrational and excessive as that of a +powder-magazine in reply to nothing more than the light of a spark. It +was known that a valorous General of the Algerian wars proposed to make +a clean march to the capital of the British Empire at the head of ten +thousand men; which seems a small quantity to think much about, but +they wore wide red breeches blown out by Fame, big as her cheeks, and a +ten thousand of that sort would never think of retreating. Their +spectral advance on quaking London through Kentish hopgardens, Sussex +corn-fields, or by the pleasant hills of Surrey, after a gymnastic leap +over the riband of salt water, haunted many pillows. And now those +horrid shouts of the legions of Caesar, crying to the inheritor of an +invading name to lead them against us, as the origin of his title had +led the army of Gaul of old gloriously, scared sweet sleep. We saw them +in imagination lining the opposite shore; eagle and standard-bearers, +and _gallifers_, brandishing their fowls and their banners in a manner +to frighten the decorum of the universe. Where were our men? + +The returns of the census of our population were oppressively +satisfactory, and so was the condition of our youth. We could row and +ride and fish and shoot, and breed largely: we were athletes with a +fine history and a full purse: we had first-rate sporting guns, +unrivalled park-hacks and hunters, promising babies to carry on the +renown of England to the next generation, and a wonderful Press, and a +Constitution the highest reach of practical human sagacity. But where +were our armed men? where our great artillery? where our proved +captains, to resist a sudden sharp trial of the national mettle? Where +was the first line of England’s defence, her navy? These were +questions, and Ministers were called upon to answer them. The Press +answered them boldly, with the appalling statement that we had no navy +and no army. At the most we could muster a few old ships, a couple of +experimental vessels of war, and twenty-five thousand soldiers +indifferently weaponed. + +We were in fact as naked to the Imperial foe as the merely painted +Britons. + +This being apprehended, by the aid of our own shortness of figures and +the agitated images of the red-breeched only waiting the signal to jump +and be at us, there ensued a curious exhibition that would be termed, +in simple language, writing to the newspapers, for it took the outward +form of letters: in reality, it was the deliberate saddling of our +ancient nightmare of Invasion, putting the postillion on her, and +trotting her along the high-road with a winding horn to rouse old +Panic. Panic we will, for the sake of convenience, assume to be of the +feminine gender, and a spinster, though properly she should be classed +with the large mixed race of mental and moral neuters which are the +bulk of comfortable nations. She turned in her bed at first like the +sluggard of the venerable hymnist: but once fairly awakened, she +directed a stare toward the terrific foreign contortionists, and became +in an instant all stormy nightcap and fingers starving for the +bell-rope. Forthwith she burst into a series of shrieks, howls, and +high piercing notes that caused even the parliamentary Opposition, in +the heat of an assault on a parsimonious Government, to abandon its +temporary advantage and be still awhile. Yet she likewise performed her +part with a certain deliberation and method, as if aware that it was a +part she had to play in the composition of a singular people. She did a +little mischief by dropping on the stock-markets; in other respects she +was harmless, and, inasmuch as she established a subject for +conversation, useful. + +Then, lest she should have been taken too seriously, the Press, which +had kindled, proceeded to extinguish her with the formidable engines +called leading articles, which fling fire or water, as the occasion may +require. It turned out that we had ships ready for launching, and +certain regiments coming home from India; hedges we had, and a spirited +body of yeomanry; and we had pluck and patriotism, the father and +mother of volunteers innumerable. Things were not so bad. + +Panic, however, sent up a plaintive whine. What country had anything +like our treasures to defend? countless riches, beautiful women, an +inviolate soil! True, and it must be done. Ministers were +authoritatively summoned to set to work immediately. They replied that +they had been at work all the time, and were at work now. They could +assure the country, that though they flourished no trumpets, they +positively guaranteed the safety of our virgins and coffers. + +Then the people, rather ashamed, abused the Press for unreasonably +disturbing them. The Press attacked old Panic and stripped her naked. +Panic, with a desolate scream, arraigned the parliamentary Opposition +for having inflated her to serve base party purposes. The Opposition +challenged the allegations of Government, pointed to the trimness of +army and navy during its term of office, and proclaimed itself +watch-dog of the country, which is at all events an office of a kind. +Hereupon the ambassador of yonder ireful soldiery let fall a word, +saying, by the faith of his Master, there was no necessity for +watch-dogs to bark; an ardent and a reverent army had but fancied its +beloved chosen Chief insulted; the Chief and chosen held them in; he, +despite obloquy, discerned our merits and esteemed us. + +So, then, Panic, or what remained of her, was put to bed again. The +Opposition retired into its kennel growling. The People coughed like a +man of two minds, doubting whether he has been divinely inspired or has +cut a ridiculous figure. The Press interpreted the cough as a warning +to Government; and Government launched a big ship with hurrahs, and +ordered the recruiting-sergeant to be seen conspicuously. + +And thus we obtained a moderate reinforcement of our arms. + +It was not arrived at by connivance all round, though there was a look +of it. Certainly it did not come of accident, though there was a look +of that as well. Nor do we explain much of the secret by attributing it +to the working of a complex machinery. The housewife’s remedy of a good +shaking for the invalid who will not arise and dance away his gout, +partly illustrates the action of the Press upon the country: and +perhaps the country shaken may suffer a comparison with the family +chariot of the last century, built in a previous one, commodious, +furnished agreeably, being all that the inside occupants could require +of a conveyance, until the report of horsemen crossing the heath at a +gallop sets it dishonourably creaking and complaining in rapid motion, +and the squire curses his miserly purse that would not hire a guard, +and his dame says, I told you so!—Foolhardy man, to suppose, because we +have constables in the streets of big cities, we have dismissed the +highwayman to limbo. And here he is, and he will cost you fifty times +the sum you would have laid out to keep him at a mile’s respectful +distance! But see, the wretch is bowing: he smiles at our carriage, and +tells the coachman that he remembers he has been our guest, and really +thinks we need not go so fast. He leaves word for you, sir, on your +peril to denounce him on another occasion from the magisterial Bench, +for that albeit he is a gentleman of the road, he has a mission to +right society, and succeeds legitimately to that bold Good Robin Hood +who fed the poor.—Fresh from this polite encounter, the squire vows +money for his personal protection: and he determines to speak his +opinion of Sherwood’s latest captain as loudly as ever. That he will, I +do not say. It might involve a large sum per annum. + +Similes are very well in their way. None can be sufficient in this case +without levelling a finger at the taxpayer—nay, directly mentioning +him. He is the key of our ingenuity. He pays his dues; he will not pay +the additional penny or two wanted of him, that we may be a step or two +ahead of the day we live in, unless he is frightened. But scarcely +anything less than the wild alarum of a tocsin will frighten him. +Consequently the tocsin has to be sounded; and the effect is woeful +past measure: his hugging of his army, his kneeling on the shore to his +navy, his implorations of his yeomanry and his hedges, are sad to note. +His bursts of pot-valiancy (the male side of the maiden Panic within +his bosom) are awful to his friends. Particular care must be taken +after he has begun to cool and calculate his chances of security, that +he do not gather to him a curtain of volunteers and go to sleep again +behind them; for they cost little in proportion to the much they +pretend to be to him. Patriotic taxpayers doubtless exist: prophetic +ones, provident ones, do not. At least we show that we are wanting in +them. The taxpayer of a free land taxes himself, and his disinclination +for the bitter task, save under circumstances of screaming urgency—as +when the night-gear and bed-linen of old convulsed Panic are like the +churned Channel sea in the track of two hundred hostile steamboats, let +me say—is of the kind the gentle schoolboy feels when death or an +expedition has relieved him of his tyrant, and he is entreated +notwithstanding to go to his books. + +Will you not own that the working of the system for scaring him and +bleeding is very ingenious? But whether the ingenuity comes of native +sagacity, as it is averred by some, or whether it shows an instinct +labouring to supply the deficiencies of stupidity, according to others, +I cannot express an opinion. I give you the position of the country +undisturbed by any moralizings of mine. The youth I introduce to you +will rarely let us escape from it; for the reason that he was born with +so extreme and passionate a love for his country, that he thought all +things else of mean importance in comparison: and our union is one in +which, following the counsel of a sage and seer, I must try to paint +for you what is, not that which I imagine. This day, this hour, this +life, and even politics, the centre and throbbing heart of it (enough, +when unburlesqued, to blow the down off the gossamer-stump of fiction +at a single breath, I have heard tell), must be treated of men, and the +ideas of men, which are—it is policy to be emphatic upon truisms—are +actually the motives of men in a greater degree than their appetites: +these are my theme; and may it be my fortune to keep them at bloodheat, +and myself calm as a statue of Memnon in prostrate Egypt! He sits there +waiting for the sunlight; I here, and readier to be musical than you +think. I can at any rate be impartial; and do but fix your eyes on the +sunlight striking him and swallowing the day in rounding him, and you +have an image of the passive receptivity of shine and shade I hold it +good to aim at, if at the same time I may keep my characters at +blood-heat. I shoot my arrows at a mark that is pretty certain to +return them to me. And as to perfect success, I should be like the +panic-stricken shopkeepers in my alarm at it; for I should believe that +genii of the air fly above our tree-tops between us and the +incognizable spheres, catching those ambitious shafts they deem it a +promise of fun to play pranks with. + +Young Mr. Beauchamp at that period of the panic had not the slightest +feeling for the taxpayer. He was therefore unable to penetrate the +mystery of our roundabout way of enlivening him. He pored over the +journals in perplexity, and talked of his indignation nightly to his +pretty partners at balls, who knew not they were lesser Andromedas of +his dear Andromeda country, but danced and chatted and were gay, and +said they were sure he would defend them. The men he addressed were +civil. They listened to him, sometimes with smiles and sometimes with +laughter, but approvingly, liking the lad’s quick spirit. They were +accustomed to the machinery employed to give our land a shudder and to +soothe it, and generally remarked that it meant nothing. His uncle +Everard, and his uncle’s friend Stukely Culbrett, expounded the nature +of Frenchmen to him, saying that they were uneasy when not periodically +thrashed; it would be cruel to deny them their crow beforehand; and so +the pair of gentlemen pooh-poohed the affair; agreeing with him, +however, that we had no great reason to be proud of our appearance, and +the grounds they assigned for this were the activity and the prevalence +of the ignoble doctrines of Manchester—a power whose very existence was +unknown to Mr. Beauchamp. He would by no means allow the burden of our +national disgrace to be cast on one part of the nation. We were +insulted, and all in a poultry-flutter, yet no one seemed to feel it +but himself! Outside the Press and Parliament, which must necessarily +be the face we show to the foreigner, absolute indifference reigned. +Navy men and red-coats were willing to join him or anybody in sneers at +a clipping and paring miserly Government, but they were insensible to +the insult, the panic, the startled-poultry show, the shame of our +exhibition of ourselves in Europe. It looked as if the blustering +French Guard were to have it all their own way. And what would they, +what could they but, think of us! He sat down to write them a +challenge. + +He is not the only Englishman who has been impelled by a youthful +chivalry to do that. He is perhaps the youngest who ever did it, and +consequently there were various difficulties to be overcome. As regards +his qualifications for addressing Frenchmen, a year of his +prae-neptunal time had been spent in their capital city for the purpose +of acquiring French of Paris, its latest refinements of pronunciation +and polish, and the art of conversing. He had read the French tragic +poets and Molière; he could even relish the Gallic-classic—“Qu’il +mourut!” and he spoke French passably, being quite beyond the Bullish +treatment of the tongue. Writing a letter in French was a different +undertaking. The one he projected bore no resemblance to an ordinary +letter. The briefer the better, of course; but a tone of dignity was +imperative, and the tone must be individual, distinctive, Nevil +Beauchamp’s, though not in his native language. First he tried his +letter in French, and lost sight of himself completely. “Messieurs de +la Garde Française,” was a good beginning; the remainder gave him a +false air of a masquerader, most uncomfortable to see; it was Nevil +Beauchamp in moustache and imperial, and bagbreeches badly fitting. He +tried English, which was really himself, and all that heart could +desire, supposing he addressed a body of midshipmen just a little +loftily. But the English, when translated, was bald and blunt to the +verge of offensiveness. + +“GENTLEMEN OF THE FRENCH GUARD, + “I take up the glove you have tossed us. I am an Englishman. That + will do for a reason.” + +This might possibly pass with the gentlemen of the English Guard. But +read: + +“MESSIEURS DE LA GARDE FRANÇAISE, + “J’accepte votre gant. Je suis Anglais. La raison est suffisante.” + +And imagine French Guardsmen reading it! + +Mr. Beauchamp knew the virtue of punctiliousness in epithets and +phrases of courtesy toward a formal people, and as the officers of the +French Guard were gentlemen of birth, he would have them to perceive in +him their equal at a glance. On the other hand, a bare excess of +phrasing distorted him to a likeness of Mascarille playing Marquis. How +to be English and think French! The business was as laborious as if he +had started on the rough sea of the Channel to get at them in an open +boat. + +The lady governing his uncle Everard’s house, Mrs. Rosamund Culling, +entered his room and found him writing with knitted brows. She was +young, that is, she was not in her middleage; and they were the dearest +of friends; each had given the other proof of it. Nevil looked up and +beheld her lifted finger. + +“You are composing a love-letter, Nevil!” The accusation sounded like +irony. + +“No,” said he, puffing; “I wish I were.” + +“What can it be, then?” + +He thrust pen and paper a hand’s length on the table, and gazed at her. + +“My dear Nevil, is it really anything serious?” said she. + +“I am writing French, ma’am.” + +“Then I may help you. It must be very absorbing, for you did not hear +my knock at your door.” + +Now, could he trust her? The widow of a British officer killed nobly +fighting for his country in India, was a person to be relied on for +active and burning sympathy in a matter that touched the country’s +honour. She was a woman, and a woman of spirit. Men had not pleased him +of late. Something might be hoped from a woman. + +He stated his occupation, saying that if she would assist him in his +French she would oblige him; the letter must be written and must go. +This was uttered so positively that she bowed her head, amused by the +funny semi-tone of defiance to the person to whom he confided the +secret. She had humour, and was ravished by his English boyishness, +with the novel blush of the heroical-nonsensical in it. + +Mrs. Culling promised him demurely that she would listen, objecting +nothing to his plan, only to his French. + +“Messieurs de la Garde Française!” he commenced. + +Her criticism followed swiftly. + +“I think you are writing to the Garde Impériale.” + +He admitted his error, and thanked her warmly. + +“Messieurs de la Garde Impériale!” + +“Does not that,” she said, “include the non-commissioned officers, the +privates, and the cooks, of all the regiments?” + +He could scarcely think that, but thought it provoking the French had +no distinctive working title corresponding to gentlemen, and suggested +“Messieurs les Officiers”: which might, Mrs. Culling assured him, +comprise the barbers. He frowned, and she prescribed his writing, +“Messieurs les Colonels de la Garde Impériale.” This he set down. The +point was that a stand must be made against the flood of sarcasms and +bullyings to which the country was exposed in increasing degrees, under +a belief that we would fight neither in the mass nor individually. +Possibly, if it became known that the colonels refused to meet a +midshipman, the gentlemen of our Household troops would advance a step. + +Mrs. Culling’s adroit efforts to weary him out of his project were +unsuccessful. He was too much on fire to know the taste of absurdity. + +Nevil repeated what he had written in French, and next the English of +what he intended to say. + +The lady conscientiously did her utmost to reconcile the two languages. +She softened his downrightness, passed with approval his compliments to +France and the ancient high reputation of her army, and, seeing that a +loophole was left for them to apologize, asked how many French colonels +he wanted to fight. + +“I do not _want_, ma’am,” said Nevil. + +He had simply taken up the glove they had again flung at our feet: and +he had done it to stop the incessant revilings, little short of +positive contempt, which we in our indolence exposed ourselves to from +the foreigner, particularly from Frenchmen, whom he liked; and +precisely because he liked them he insisted on forcing them to respect +us. Let his challenge be accepted, and he would find backers. He knew +the stuff of Englishmen: they only required an example. + +“French officers are skilful swordsmen,” said Mrs. Culling. “My husband +has told me they will spend hours of the day thrusting and parrying. +They are used to duelling.” + +“We,” Nevil answered, “don’t get apprenticed to the shambles to learn +our duty on the field. Duelling is, I know, sickening folly. We go too +far in pretending to despise every insult pitched at us. A man may do +for his country what he wouldn’t do for himself.” + +Mrs. Culling gravely said she hoped that bloodshed would be avoided, +and Mr. Beauchamp nodded. + +She left him hard at work. + +He was a popular boy, a favourite of women, and therefore full of +engagements to Balls and dinners. And he was a modest boy, though his +uncle encouraged him to deliver his opinions freely and argue with men. +The little drummer attached to wheeling columns thinks not more of +himself because his short legs perform the same strides as the +grenadiers’; he is happy to be able to keep the step; and so was Nevil; +and if ever he contradicted a senior, it was in the interests of the +country. Veneration of heroes, living and dead, kept down his conceit. +He worshipped devotedly. From an early age he exacted of his flattering +ladies that they must love his hero. Not to love his hero was to be +strangely in error, to be in need of conversion, and he proselytized +with the ardour of the Moslem. His uncle Everard was proud of his good +looks, fire, and nonsense, during the boy’s extreme youth. He traced +him by cousinships back to the great Earl Beauchamp of Froissart, and +would have it so; and he would have spoilt him had not the young +fellow’s mind been possessed by his reverence for men of deeds. How +could he think of himself, who had done nothing, accomplished nothing, +so long as he brooded on the images of signal Englishmen whose names +were historic for daring, and the strong arm, and artfulness, all given +to the service of the country?—men of a magnanimity overcast with +simplicity, which Nevil held to be pure insular English; our type of +splendid manhood, not discoverable elsewhere. A method of enraging him +was to distinguish one or other of them as Irish, Scottish, or +Cambrian. He considered it a dismemberment of the country. And +notwithstanding the pleasure he had in uniting in his person the strong +red blood of the chivalrous Lord Beauchamp with the hard and tenacious +Romfrey blood, he hated the title of Norman. We are English—British, he +said. A family resting its pride on mere ancestry provoked his +contempt, if it did not show him one of his men. He had also a +disposition to esteem lightly the family which, having produced a man, +settled down after that effort for generations to enjoy the country’s +pay. Boys are unjust; but Nevil thought of the country mainly, arguing +that we should not accept the country’s money for what we do not +ourselves perform. These traits of his were regarded as characteristics +hopeful rather than the reverse; none of his friends and relatives +foresaw danger in them. He was a capital boy for his elders to trot out +and banter. + +Mrs. Rosamund Culling usually went to his room to see him and doat on +him before he started on his rounds of an evening. She suspected that +his necessary attention to his toilet would barely have allowed him +time to finish his copy of the letter. Certain phrases had bothered +him. The thrice recurrence of “ma patrie” jarred on his ear. +“Sentiments” afflicted his acute sense of the declamatory twice. “C’est +avec les sentiments du plus profond regret” : and again, “Je suis bien +sûr que vous comprendrez mes sentiments, et m’accorderez l’honneur que +je réclame au nom de ma patrie outragée.” The word “patrie” was +broadcast over the letter, and “honneur” appeared four times, and a +more delicate word to harp on than the others! + +“Not to Frenchmen,” said his friend Rosamund. “I would put ‘Je suis +convaincu’: it is not so familiar.” + +“But I have written out the fair copy, ma’am, and that alteration seems +a trifle.” + +“I would copy it again and again, Nevil, to get it right.” + +“No: I’d rather see it off than have it right,” said Nevil, and he +folded the letter. + +How the deuce to address it, and what direction to write on it, were +further difficulties. He had half a mind to remain at home to conquer +them by excogitation. + +Rosamund urged him not to break his engagement to dine at the +Halketts’, where perhaps from his friend Colonel Halkett, who would +never imagine the reason for the inquiry, he might learn how a letter +to a crack French regiment should be addressed and directed. + +This proved persuasive, and as the hour was late Nevil had to act on +her advice in a hurry. + +His uncle Everard enjoyed a perusal of the manuscript in his absence. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +UNCLE, NEPHEW, AND ANOTHER + + +The Honourable Everard Romfrey came of a race of fighting earls, +toughest of men, whose high, stout, Western castle had weathered our +cyclone periods of history without changeing hands more than once, and +then but for a short year or two, as if to teach the original +possessors the wisdom of inclining to the stronger side. They had a +queen’s chamber in it, and a king’s; and they stood well up against the +charge of having dealt darkly with the king. He died among them—how has +not been told. We will not discuss the conjectures here. A savour of +North Sea foam and ballad pirates hangs about the early chronicles of +the family. Indications of an ancestry that had lived between the wave +and the cloud were discernible in their notions of right and wrong. But +a settlement on solid earth has its influences. They were chivalrous +knights bannerets, and leaders in the tented field, paying and taking +fair ransom for captures; and they were good landlords, good masters +blithely followed to the wars. Sing an old battle of Normandy, Picardy, +Gascony, and you celebrate deeds of theirs. At home they were vexatious +neighbours to a town of burghers claiming privileges: nor was it +unreasonable that the Earl should flout the pretensions of the town to +read things for themselves, documents, titleships, rights, and the +rest. As well might the flat plain boast of seeing as far as the +pillar. Earl and town fought the fight of Barons and Commons in +epitome. The Earl gave way; the Barons gave way. Mighty men may thrash +numbers for a time; in the end the numbers will be thrashed into the +art of beating their teachers. It is bad policy to fight the odds inch +by inch. Those primitive school masters of the million liked it, and +took their pleasure in that way. The Romfreys did not breed warriors +for a parade at Court; wars, though frequent, were not constant, and +they wanted occupation: they may even have felt that they were bound in +no common degree to the pursuit of an answer to what may be called the +parent question of humanity: Am I thy master, or thou mine? They put it +to lords of other castles, to town corporations, and sometimes brother +to brother: and notwithstanding that the answer often unseated and once +discastled them, they swam back to their places, as born warriors, +urged by a passion for land, are almost sure to do; are indeed quite +sure, so long as they multiply sturdily, and will never take no from +Fortune. A family passion for land, that survives a generation, is as +effective as genius in producing the object it conceives; and through +marriages and conflicts, the seizure of lands, and brides bearing land, +these sharp-feeding eagle-eyed earls of Romfrey spied few spots within +their top tower’s wide circle of the heavens not their own. + +It is therefore manifest that they had the root qualities, the prime +active elements, of men in perfection, and notably that appetite to +flourish at the cost of the weaker, which is the blessed +exemplification of strength, and has been man’s cheerfulest +encouragement to fight on since his comparative subjugation (on the +whole, it seems complete) of the animal world. By-and-by the struggle +is transferred to higher ground, and we begin to perceive how much we +are indebted to the fighting spirit. Strength is the brute form of +truth. No conspicuously great man was born of the Romfreys, who were +better served by a succession of able sons. They sent undistinguished +able men to army and navy—lieutenants given to be critics of their +captains, but trustworthy for their work. In the later life of the +family, they preferred the provincial state of splendid squires to +Court and political honours. They were renowned shots, long-limbed +stalking sportsmen in field and bower, fast friends, intemperate +enemies, handsome to feminine eyes, resembling one another in build, +and mostly of the Northern colour, or betwixt the tints, with an +hereditary nose and mouth that cried Romfrey from faces thrice diluted +in cousinships. + +The Hon. Everard (Stephen Denely Craven Romfrey), third son of the late +Earl, had some hopes of the title, and was in person a noticeable +gentleman, in mind a mediaeval baron, in politics a crotchety +unintelligible Whig. He inherited the estate of Holdesbury, on the +borders of Hampshire and Wilts, and espoused that of Steynham in +Sussex, where he generally resided. His favourite in the family had +been the Lady Emily, his eldest sister, who, contrary to the advice of +her other brothers and sisters, had yielded her hand to his not wealthy +friend, Colonel Richard Beauchamp. After the death of Nevil’s parents, +he adopted the boy, being himself childless, and a widower. +Childlessness was the affliction of the family. Everard, having no son, +could hardly hope that his brother the Earl, and Craven, Lord Avonley, +would have one, for he loved the prospect of the title. Yet, as there +were no cousins of the male branch extant, the lack of an heir was a +serious omission, and to become the Earl of Romfrey, and be the last +Earl of Romfrey, was a melancholy thought, however brilliant. So sinks +the sun: but he could not desire the end of a great day. At one time he +was a hot Parliamentarian, calling himself a Whig, called by the Whigs +a Radical, called by the Radicals a Tory, and very happy in fighting +them all round. This was during the decay of his party, before the +Liberals were defined. A Liberal deprived him of the seat he had held +for fifteen years, and the clearness of his understanding was obscured +by that black vision of popular ingratitude which afflicts the free +fighting man yet more than the malleable public servant. The latter has +a clerkly humility attached to him like a second nature, from his habit +of doing as others bid him: the former smacks a voluntarily sweating +forehead and throbbing wounds for witness of his claim upon your +palpable thankfulness. It is an insult to tell him that he fought for +his own satisfaction. Mr. Romfrey still called himself a Whig, though +it was Whig mean vengeance on account of his erratic vote and voice on +two or three occasions that denied him a peerage and a seat in haven. +Thither let your good sheep go, your echoes, your wag-tail dogs, your +wealthy pursy manufacturers! He decried the attractions of the sublimer +House, and laughed at the transparent Whiggery of his party in +replenishing it from the upper shoots of the commonalty: “Dragging it +down to prop it up! swamping it to keep it swimming!” he said. + +He was nevertheless a vehement supporter of that House. He stood for +King, Lords, and Commons, in spite of his personal grievances, harping +the triad as vigorously as bard of old Britain. Commons he added out of +courtesy, or from usage or policy, or for emphasis, or for the sake of +the Constitutional number of the Estates of the realm, or it was +because he had an intuition of the folly of omitting them; the same, to +some extent, that builders have regarding bricks when they plan a +fabric. Thus, although King and Lords prove the existence of Commons in +days of the political deluge almost syllogistically, the example of not +including one of the Estates might be imitated, and Commons and King do +not necessitate the conception of an intermediate third, while Lords +and Commons suggest the decapitation of the leading figure. The united +three, however, no longer cast reflections on one another, and were an +assurance to this acute politician that his birds were safe. He +preserved game rigorously, and the deduction was the work of instinct +with him. To his mind the game-laws were the corner-stone of Law, and +of a man’s right to hold his own; and so delicately did he think the +country poised, that an attack on them threatened the structure of +justice. The three conjoined Estates were therefore his head +gamekeepers; their duty was to back him against the poacher, if they +would not see the country tumble. As to his under-gamekeepers, he was +their intimate and their friend, saying, with none of the misanthropy +which proclaims the virtues of the faithful dog to the confusion of +humankind, he liked their company better than that of his equals, and +learnt more from them. They also listened deferentially to their +instructor. + +The conversation he delighted in most might have been going on in any +century since the Conquest. Grant him his not unreasonable argument +upon his property in game, he was a liberal landlord. No tenants were +forced to take his farms. He dragged none by the collar. He gave them +liberty to go to Australia, Canada, the Americas, if they liked. He +asked in return to have the liberty to shoot on his own grounds, and +rear the marks for his shot, treating the question of indemnification +as a gentleman should. Still there were grumbling tenants. He swarmed +with game, and, though he was liberal, his hares and his birds were +immensely destructive: computation could not fix the damage done by +them. Probably the farmers expected them not to eat. “There are two +parties to a bargain,” said Everard, “and one gets the worst of it. But +if he was never obliged to make it, where’s his right to complain?” Men +of sense rarely obtain satisfactory answers: they are provoked to +despise their kind. But the poacher was another kind of vermin than the +stupid tenant. Everard did him the honour to hate him, and twice in a +fray had he collared his ruffian, and subsequently sat in condemnation +of the wretch: for he who can attest a villany is best qualified to +punish it. Gangs from the metropolis found him too determined and alert +for their sport. It was the factiousness of here and there an unbroken +young scoundrelly colt poacher of the neighbourhood, a born thief, a +fellow damned in an inveterate taste for game, which gave him +annoyance. One night he took Master Nevil out with him, and they hunted +down a couple of sinners that showed fight against odds. Nevil +attempted to beg them off because of their boldness. “I don’t set my +traps for nothing,” said his uncle, silencing him. But the boy +reflected that his uncle was perpetually lamenting the cowed spirit of +the common English-formerly such fresh and merry men! He touched +Rosamund Culling’s heart with his description of their attitudes when +they stood resisting and bawling to the keepers, “Come on we’ll die for +it.” They did not die. Everard explained to the boy that he could have +killed them, and was contented to have sent them to gaol for a few +weeks. Nevil gaped at the empty magnanimity which his uncle presented +to him as a remarkably big morsel. At the age of fourteen he was +despatched to sea. + +He went unwillingly; not so much from an objection to a naval life as +from a wish, incomprehensible to grown men and boys, and especially to +his cousin, Cecil Baskelett, that he might remain at school and learn. +“The fellow would like to be a parson!” Everard said in disgust. No +parson had ever been known of in the Romfrey family, or in the +Beauchamp. A legend of a parson that had been a tutor in one of the +Romfrey houses, and had talked and sung blandly to a damsel of the +blood—degenerate maid—to receive a handsome trouncing for his pains, +instead of the holy marriage-tie he aimed at, was the only connection +of the Romfreys with the parsonry, as Everard called them. He +attributed the boy’s feeling to the influence of his great-aunt +Beauchamp, who would, he said, infallibly have made a parson of him. +“I’d rather enlist for a soldier,” Nevil said, and he ceased to dream +of rebellion, and of his little property of a few thousand pounds in +the funds to aid him in it. He confessed to his dear friend Rosamund +Culling that he thought the parsons happy in having time to read +history. And oh, to feel for certain _which_ side was the wrong side in +our Civil War, so that one should not hesitate in choosing! Such +puzzles are never, he seemed to be aware, solved in a midshipman’s +mess. He hated bloodshed, and was guilty of the “cotton-spinners’ +babble,” abhorred of Everard, in alluding to it. Rosamund liked him for +his humanity; but she, too, feared he was a slack Romfrey when she +heard him speak in precocious contempt of glory. Somewhere, somehow, he +had got hold of Manchester sarcasms concerning glory: a weedy word of +the newspapers had been sown in his bosom perhaps. He said: “I don’t +care to win glory; I know all about that; I’ve seen an old hat in the +Louvre.” And he would have had her to suppose that he had looked on the +campaigning head-cover of Napoleon simply as a shocking bad, bald, +brown-rubbed old _tricorne_ rather than as the nod of extinction to +thousands, the great orb of darkness, the still-trembling gloomy +quiver—the brain of the lightnings of battles. + +Now this boy nursed no secret presumptuous belief that he was fitted +for the walks of the higher intellect; he was not having his impudent +boy’s fling at superiority over the superior, as here and there a +subtle-minded vain juvenile will; nor was he a parrot repeating a line +from some Lancastrian pamphlet. He really disliked war and the sword; +and scorning the prospect of an idle life, confessing that his +abilities barely adapted him for a sailor’s, he was opposed to the +career opened to him almost to the extreme of shrinking and terror. Or +that was the impression conveyed to a not unsympathetic hearer by his +forlorn efforts to make himself understood, which were like the +tappings of the stick of a blind man mystified by his sense of touch at +wrong corners. His bewilderment and speechlessness were a comic +display, tragic to him. + +Just as his uncle Everard predicted, he came home from his first voyage +a pleasant sailor lad. His features, more than handsome to a woman, so +mobile they were, shone of sea and spirit, the chance lights of the +sea, and the spirit breathing out of it. As to war and bloodshed, a +man’s first thought must be his country, young Jacket remarked, and +_Ich dien_ was the best motto afloat. Rosamund noticed the peculiarity +of the books he selected for his private reading. They were not boys’ +books, books of adventure and the like. His favourite author was one +writing of Heroes, in (so she esteemed it) a style resembling either +early architecture or utter dilapidation, so loose and rough it seemed; +a wind-in-the-orchard style, that tumbled down here and there an +appreciable fruit with uncouth bluster; sentences without commencements +running to abrupt endings and smoke, like waves against a sea-wall, +learned dictionary words giving a hand to street-slang, and accents +falling on them haphazard, like slant rays from driving clouds; all the +pages in a breeze, the whole book producing a kind of electrical +agitation in the mind and the joints. This was its effect on the lady. +To her the incomprehensible was the abominable, for she had our +country’s high critical feeling; but he, while admitting that he could +not quite master it, liked it. He had dug the book out of a +bookseller’s shop in Malta, captivated by its title, and had, since the +day of his purchase, gone at it again and again, getting nibbles of +golden meaning by instalments, as with a solitary pick in a very dark +mine, until the illumination of an idea struck him that there was a +great deal more in the book than there was in himself. This was +sufficient to secure the devoted attachment of young Mr. Beauchamp. +Rosamund sighed with apprehension to think of his unlikeness to boys +and men among his countrymen in some things. Why should he hug a book +he owned he could not quite comprehend? He said he liked a bone in his +mouth; and it was natural wisdom, though unappreciated by women. A bone +in a boy’s mind for him to gnaw and worry, corrects the vagrancies and +promotes the healthy activities, whether there be marrow in it or not. +Supposing it furnishes only dramatic entertainment in that usually +vacant tenement, or powder-shell, it will be of service. + +Nevil proposed to her that her next present should be the entire list +of his beloved Incomprehensible’s published works, and she promised, +and was not sorry to keep her promise dangling at the skirts of memory, +to drop away in time. For that fire-and-smoke writer dedicated volumes +to the praise of a regicide. Nice reading for her dear boy! Some weeks +after Nevil was off again, she abused herself for her half-hearted love +of him, and would have given him anything—the last word in favour of +the Country versus the royal Martyr, for example, had he insisted on +it. She gathered, bit by bit, that he had dashed at his big blustering +cousin Cecil to vindicate her good name. The direful youths fought in +the Steynham stables, overheard by the grooms. Everard received a fine +account of the tussle from these latter, and Rosamund, knowing him to +be of the order of gentlemen who, whatsoever their sins, will at all +costs protect a woman’s delicacy, and a dependant’s, man or woman, did +not fear to have her ears shocked in probing him on the subject. + +Everard was led to say that Nevil’s cousins were bedevilled with +womanfolk. + +From which Rosamund perceived that women had been at work; and if so, +it was upon the business of the scandal-monger; and if so, Nevil fought +his cousin to protect her good name from a babbler of the family +gossip. + +She spoke to Stukely Culbrett, her dead husband’s friend, to whose +recommendation she was indebted for her place in Everard Romfrey’s +household. + +“Nevil behaved like a knight, I hear.” + +“Your beauty was disputed,” said he, “and Nevil knocked the blind man +down for not being able to see.” + +She thought, “Not my beauty! Nevil struck his cousin on behalf of the +only fair thing I have left to me!” + +This was a moment with her when many sensations rush together and form +a knot in sensitive natures. She had been very good-looking. She was +good-looking still, but she remembered the bloom of her looks in her +husband’s days (the tragedy of the mirror is one for a woman to write: +I am ashamed to find myself smiling while the poor lady weeps), she +remembered his praises, her pride; his death in battle, her anguish: +then, on her strange entry to this house, her bitter wish to be older; +and then, the oppressive calm of her recognition of her wish’s +fulfilment, the heavy drop to dead earth, when she could say, or +pretend to think she could say—I look old enough: will they tattle of +me now? Nevil’s championship of her good name brought her history +spinning about her head, and threw a finger of light on her real +position. In that she saw the slenderness of her hold on respect, as +well as felt her personal stainlessness. The boy warmed her chill +widowhood. It was written that her, second love should be of the +pattern of mother’s love. She loved him hungrily and jealously, always +in fear for him when he was absent, even anxiously when she had him +near. For some cause, born, one may fancy, of the hour of her love’s +conception, his image in her heart was steeped in tears. She was not, +happily, one of the women who betray strong feeling, and humour +preserved her from excesses of sentiment. + + + + +CHAPTER III. +CONTAINS BARONIAL VIEWS OF THE PRESENT TIME + + +Upon the word of honour of Rosamund, the letter to the officers of the +French Guard was posted. + +“Post it, post it,” Everard said, on her consulting him, with the +letter in her hand. “Let the fellow stand his luck.” It was addressed +to the Colonel of the First Regiment of the Imperial Guard, Paris. That +superscription had been suggested by Colonel Halkett. Rosamund was in +favour of addressing it to Versailles, Nevil to the Tuileries; but +Paris could hardly fail to hit the mark, and Nevil waited for the +reply, half expecting an appointment on the French sands: for the act +of posting a letter, though it be to little short of the Pleiades even, +will stamp an incredible proceeding as a matter of business, so ready +is the ardent mind to take footing on the last thing done. The flight +of Mr. Beauchamp’s letter placed it in the common order of occurrences +for the youthful author of it. Jack Wilmore, a messmate, offered to +second him, though he should be dismissed the service for it. Another +second would easily be found somewhere; for, as Nevil observed, you +have only to set these affairs going, and British blood rises: we are +not the people you see on the surface. Wilmore’s father was a parson, +for instance. What did he do? He could not help himself: he supplied +the army and navy with recruits! One son was in a marching regiment, +the other was Jack, and three girls had vowed never to quit the rectory +save as brides of officers. Nevil thought that seemed encouraging; we +were evidently not a nation of shopkeepers at heart; and he quoted +sayings of Mr. Stukely Culbrett’s, in which neither his ear nor +Wilmore’s detected the under-ring Stukely was famous for: as that +England had saddled herself with India for the express purpose of +better obeying the Commandments in Europe; and that it would be a +lamentable thing for the Continent and our doctrines if ever beef +should fail the Briton, and such like. “Depend upon it we’re a fighting +nation naturally, Jack,” said Nevil. “How can we submit!... however, I +shall not be impatient. I dislike duelling, and hate war, but I will +have the country respected.” They planned a defence of the country, +drawing their strategy from magazine articles by military pens, +reverberations of the extinct voices of the daily and weekly journals, +customary after a panic, and making bloody stands on spots of extreme +pastoral beauty, which they visited by coach and rail, looking back on +unfortified London with particular melancholy. + +Rosamund’s word may be trusted that she dropped the letter into a +London post-office in pursuance of her promise to Nevil. The singular +fact was that no answer to it ever arrived. Nevil, without a doubt of +her honesty, proposed an expedition to Paris; he was ordered to join +his ship, and he lay moored across the water in the port of Bevisham, +panting for notice to be taken of him. The slight of the total +disregard of his letter now affected him personally; it took him some +time to get over this indignity put upon him, especially because of his +being under the impression that the country suffered, not he at all. +The letter had served its object: ever since the transmission of it the +menaces and insults had ceased. + +But they might be renewed, and he desired to stop them altogether. His +last feeling was one of genuine regret that Frenchmen should have +behaved unworthily of the high estimation he held them in. With which +he dismissed the affair. + +He was rallied about it when he next sat at his uncle’s table, and had +to pardon Rosamund for telling. + +Nevil replied modestly: “I dare say you think me half a fool, sir. All +I know is, I waited for my betters to speak first. I have no dislike of +Frenchmen.” + +Everard shook his head to signify, “not _half_.” But he was gentle +enough in his observations. “There’s a motto, Ex pede Herculem. You +stepped out for the dogs to judge better of us. It’s an infernally +tripping motto for a composite structure like the kingdom of Great +Britain and Manchester, boy Nevil. We can fight foreigners when the +time comes.” He directed Nevil to look home, and cast an eye on the +cotton-spinners, with the remark that they were binding us hand and +foot to sell us to the biggest buyer, and were not Englishmen but +“Germans and Jews, and quakers and hybrids, diligent clerks and +speculators, and commercial travellers, who have raised a fortune from +foisting drugged goods on an idiot population.” + +He loathed them for the curse they were to the country. And he was one +of the few who spoke out. The fashion was to pet them. We stood against +them; were halfhearted, and were beaten; and then we petted them, and +bit by bit our privileges were torn away. We made lords of them to +catch them, and they grocers of us by way of a return. “Already,” said +Everard, “they have knocked the nation’s head off, and dry-rotted the +bone of the people.” + +“Don’t they,” Nevil asked, “belong to the Liberal party?” + +“I’ll tell you,” Everard replied, “they belong to any party that upsets +the party above them. They belong to the GEORGE FOXE party, and my +poultry-roosts are the mark they aim at. You shall have a glance at the +manufacturing district some day. You shall see the machines they work +with. You shall see the miserable lank-jawed half-stewed pantaloons +they’ve managed to make of Englishmen there. My blood’s past boiling. +They work young children in their factories from morning to night. +Their manufactories are spreading like the webs of the devil to suck +the blood of the country. In that district of theirs an epidemic levels +men like a disease in sheep. Skeletons can’t make a stand. On the top +of it all they sing Sunday tunes!” + +This behaviour of corn-law agitators and protectors of poachers was an +hypocrisy too horrible for comment. Everard sipped claret. Nevil lashed +his head for the clear idea which objurgation insists upon implanting, +but batters to pieces in the act. + +“Manchester’s the belly of this country!” Everard continued. “So long +as Manchester flourishes, we’re a country governed and led by the +belly. The head and the legs of the country are sound still; I don’t +guarantee it for long, but the middle’s rapacious and corrupt. Take it +on a question of foreign affairs, it’s an alderman after a feast. Bring +it upon home politics, you meet a wolf.” + +The faithful Whig veteran spoke with jolly admiration of the speech of +a famous Tory chief. + +“That was the way to talk to them! Denounce them traitors! Up whip, and +set the ruffians capering! Hit them facers! Our men are always for the +too-clever trick. They pluck the sprouts and eat them, as if the loss +of a sprout or two thinned Manchester! Your policy of absorption is +good enough when you’re dealing with fragments. It’s a devilish unlucky +thing to attempt with a concrete mass. You might as well ask your head +to absorb a wall by running at it like a pugnacious nigger. I don’t +want you to go into Parliament ever. You’re a fitter man out of it; but +if ever you’re bitten—and it’s the curse of our country to have +politics as well as the other diseases—don’t follow a flag, be +independent, keep a free vote; remember how I’ve been tied, and hold +foot against Manchester. Do it blindfold; you don’t want counselling, +you’re sure to be right. I’ll lay you a blood-brood mare to a cabstand +skeleton, you’ll have an easy conscience and deserve the thanks of the +country.” + +Nevil listened gravely. The soundness of the head and legs of the +country he took for granted. The inflated state of the unchivalrous +middle, denominated Manchester, terrified him. Could it be true that +England was betraying signs of decay? and signs how ignoble! +Half-a-dozen crescent lines cunningly turned, sketched her figure +before the world, and the reflection for one ready to die upholding her +was that the portrait was no caricature. Such an emblematic +presentation of the land of his filial affection haunted him with +hideous mockeries. Surely the foreigner hearing our boasts of her must +compare us to showmen bawling the attractions of a Fat Lady at a fair! + +Swoln Manchester bore the blame of it. Everard exulted to hear his +young echo attack the cotton-spinners. But Nevil was for a plan, a +system, immediate action; the descending among the people, and taking +an initiative, LEADING them, insisting on their following, not standing +aloof and shrugging. + +“We lead them in war,” said he; “why not in peace? There’s a front for +peace as well as war, and that’s our place rightly. We’re pushed aside; +why, it seems to me we’re treated like old-fashioned ornaments! The +fault must be ours. Shrugging and sneering is about as honourable as +blazing fireworks over your own defeat. Back we have to go! that’s the +point, sir. And as for jeering the cotton-spinners, I can’t while +they’ve the lead of us. We let them have it! And we have thrice the +stake in the country. I don’t mean properties and titles.” + +“Deuce you don’t,” said his uncle. + +“I mean our names, our histories; I mean our duties. As for titles, the +way to defend them is to be worthy of them.” + +“Damned fine speech,” remarked Everard. “Now you get out of that trick +of prize-orationing. I call it snuffery, sir; it’s all to your own +nose! You’re talking to me, not to a gallery. ‘Worthy of them!’ Caesar +wraps his head in his robe: he gets his dig in the ribs for all his +attitudinizing. It’s very well for a man to talk like that who owns no +more than his barebodkin life, poor devil. Tall talk’s his jewelry: he +must have his dandification in bunkum. You ought to know better. +Property and titles are worth having, whether you are ‘worthy of them’ +or a disgrace to your class. The best way of defending them is to keep +a strong fist, and take care you don’t draw your fore-foot back more +than enough.” + +“Please propose something to be done,” said Nevil, depressed by the +recommendation of that attitude. + +Everard proposed a fight for every privilege his class possessed. “They +say,” he said, “a nobleman fighting the odds is a sight for the gods: +and I wouldn’t yield an inch of ground. It’s no use calling things by +fine names—the country’s ruined by cowardice. Poursuivez! I cry. Haro! +at them! The biggest hart wins in the end. I haven’t a doubt about +that. And I haven’t a doubt we carry the tonnage.” + +“There’s the people,” sighed Nevil, entangled in his uncle’s haziness. + +“What people?” + +“I suppose the people of Great Britain count, sir.” + +“Of course they do; when the battle’s done, the fight lost and won.” + +“Do you expect the people to look on, sir?” + +“The people always wait for the winner, boy Nevil.” + +The young fellow exclaimed despondingly, “If it were a race!” + +“It’s like a race, and we’re confoundedly out of training,” said +Everard. + +There he rested. A mediaeval gentleman with the docile notions of the +twelfth century, complacently driving them to grass and wattling them +in the nineteenth, could be of no use to a boy trying to think, though +he could set the youngster galloping. Nevil wandered about the woods of +Steynham, disinclined to shoot and lend a hand to country sports. The +popping of the guns of his uncle and guests hung about his ears much +like their speech, which was unobjectionable in itself, but not +sufficient; a little hard, he thought, a little idle. He wanted +something, and wanted them to give their time and energy to something, +that was not to be had in a market. The nobles, he felt sure, might +resume their natural alliance with the people, and lead them, as they +did of old, to the battle-field. How might they? A comely Sussex lass +could not well tell him how. Sarcastic reports of the troublesome +questioner represented him applying to a nymph of the country for +enlightenment. He thrilled surprisingly under the charm of feminine +beauty. “The fellow’s sound at bottom,” his uncle said, hearing of his +having really been seen walking in the complete form proper to his +budding age, that is, in two halves. Nevil showed that he had gained an +acquaintance with the struggles of the neighbouring agricultural poor +to live and rear their children. His uncle’s table roared at his +enumeration of the sickly little beings, consumptive or bandy-legged, +within a radius of five miles of Steynham. Action was what he wanted, +Everard said. Nevil perhaps thought the same, for he dashed out of his +mooning with a wave of the Tory standard, delighting the ladies, though +in that conflict of the Lion and the Unicorn (which was a Tory song) he +seemed rather to wish to goad the dear lion than crush the one-horned +intrusive upstart. His calling on the crack corps of Peers to enrol +themselves forthwith in the front ranks, and to anticipate opposition +by initiating measures, and so cut out that funny old crazy old +galleon, the People, from under the batteries of the enemy, highly +amused the gentlemen. + +Before rejoining his ship, Nevil paid his customary short visit of +ceremony to his great-aunt Beauchamp—a venerable lady past eighty, +hitherto divided from him in sympathy by her dislike of his uncle +Everard, who had once been his living hero. That was when he was in +frocks, and still the tenacious fellow could not bear to hear his uncle +spoken ill of. + +“All the men of that family are heartless, and he is a man of wood, my +dear, and a bad man,” the old lady said. “He should have kept you at +school, and sent you to college. You want reading and teaching and +talking to. Such a house as that is should never be a home for you.” +She hinted at Rosamund. Nevil defended the persecuted woman, but with +no better success than from the attacks of the Romfrey ladies; with +this difference, however, that these decried the woman’s vicious arts, +and Mistress Elizabeth Mary Beauchamp put all the sin upon the man. +Such a man! she said. “Let me hear that he has married her, I will not +utter another word.” Nevil echoed, “Married!” in a different key. + +“I am as much of an aristocrat as any of you, only I rank morality +higher,” said Mrs. Beauchamp. “When you were a child I offered to take +you and make you my heir, and _I_ would have educated you. You shall +see a great-nephew of mine that I did educate; he is eating his dinners +for the bar in London, and comes to me every Sunday. I shall marry him +to a good girl, and I shall show your uncle what my kind of man-making +is.” + +Nevil had no desire to meet the other great-nephew, especially when he +was aware of the extraordinary circumstance that a Beauchamp +great-niece, having no money, had bestowed her hand on a Manchester man +defunct, whereof this young Blackburn Tuckham, the lawyer, was issue. +He took his leave of Mrs. Elizabeth Beauchamp, respecting her for her +constitutional health and brightness, and regretting for the sake of +the country that she had not married to give England men and women +resembling her. On the whole he considered her wiser in her +prescription for the malady besetting him than his uncle. He knew that +action was but a temporary remedy. College would have been his chronic +medicine, and the old lady’s acuteness in seeing it impressed him +forcibly. She had given him a peaceable two days on the Upper Thames, +in an atmosphere of plain good sense and just-mindedness. He wrote to +thank her, saying: + +“My England at sea will be your parlour-window looking down the grass +to the river and rushes; and when you do me the honour to write, please +tell me the names of those wildflowers growing along the banks in +Summer.” The old lady replied immediately, enclosing a cheque for fifty +pounds: “Colonel Halkett informs me you are under a cloud at Steynham, +and I have thought you may be in want of pocket-money. The wild-flowers +are willowherb, meadow-sweet, and loosestrife. I shall be glad when you +are here in Summer to see them.” + +Nevil despatched the following: “I thank you, but I shall not cash the +cheque. The Steynham tale is this: + +I happened to be out at night, and stopped the keepers in chase of a +young fellow trespassing. I caught him myself, but recognized him as +one of a family I take an interest in, and let him run before they came +up. My uncle heard a gun; I sent the head gamekeeper word in the +morning to out with it all. Uncle E. was annoyed, and we had a rough +parting. If you are rewarding me for this, I have no right to it.” + +Mrs. Beauchamp rejoined: “Your profession should teach you +subordination, if it does nothing else that is valuable to a Christian +gentleman. You will receive from the publisher the ‘Life and Letters of +Lord Collingwood,’ whom I have it in my mind that a young midshipman +should task himself to imitate. Spend the money as you think fit.” + +Nevil’s ship, commanded by Captain Robert Hall (a most gallant officer, +one of his heroes, and of Lancashire origin, strangely!), flew to the +South American station, in and about Lord Cochrane’s waters; then as +swiftly back. For, like the frail Norwegian bark on the edge of the +maelstrom, liker to a country of conflicting interests and passions, +that is not mentally on a level with its good fortune, England was +drifting into foreign complications. A paralyzed Minister proclaimed +it. The governing people, which is looked to for direction in grave +dilemmas by its representatives and reflectors, shouted that it had +been accused of pusillanimity. No one had any desire for war, only we +really had (and it was perfectly true) been talking gigantic nonsense +of peace, and of the everlastingness of the exchange of fruits for +money, with angels waving raw-groceries of Eden in joy of the +commercial picture. Therefore, to correct the excesses of that fit, we +held the standing by the Moslem, on behalf of the Mediterranean (and +the Moslem is one of our customers, bearing an excellent reputation for +the payment of debts), to be good, granting the necessity. We deplored +the necessity. The Press wept over it. That, however, was not the +politic tone for us while the Imperial berg of Polar ice watched us +keenly; and the Press proceeded to remind us that we had once been +bull-dogs. Was there not an animal within us having a right to a turn +now and then? And was it not (Falstaff, on a calm world, was quoted) +for the benefit of our constitutions now and then to loosen the animal? +Granting the necessity, of course. By dint of incessantly speaking of +the necessity we granted it unknowingly. The lighter hearts regarded +our period of monotonously lyrical prosperity as a man sensible of +fresh morning air looks back on the snoring bolster. Many of the graver +were glad of a change. After all that maundering over the blessed peace +which brings the raisin and the currant for the pudding, and shuts up +the cannon with a sheep’s head, it became a principle of popular taste +to descant on the vivifying virtues of war; even as, after ten months +of money-mongering in smoky London, the citizen hails the sea-breeze +and an immersion in unruly brine, despite the cost, that breeze and +brine may make a man of him, according to the doctor’s prescription: +sweet is home, but health is sweeter! Then was there another curious +exhibition of us. Gentlemen, to the exact number of the Graces, dressed +in drab of an ancient cut, made a pilgrimage to the icy despot, and +besought him to give way for Piety’s sake. He, courteous, colossal, and +immoveable, waved them homeward. They returned and were hooted for +belying the bellicose by their mission, and interpreting too well the +peaceful. They were the unparalyzed Ministers of the occasion, but +helpless. + +And now came war, the purifier and the pestilence. + +The cry of the English people for war was pretty general, as far as the +criers went. They put on their Sabbath face concerning the declaration +of war, and told with approval how the Royal hand had trembled in +committing itself to the form of signature to which its action is +limited. If there was money to be paid, there was a bugbear to be slain +for it; and a bugbear is as obnoxious to the repose of commercial +communities as rivals are to kings. + +The cry for war was absolutely unanimous, and a supremely national cry, +Everard Romfrey said, for it excluded the cotton-spinners. + +He smacked his hands, crowing at the vociferations of disgust of those +negrophiles and sweaters of Christians, whose isolated clamour amid the +popular uproar sounded of gagged mouths. + +One of the half-stifled cotton-spinners, a notorious one, a spouter of +rank sedition and hater of aristocracy, a political poacher, managed to +make himself heard. He was tossed to the Press for morsel, and tossed +back to the people in strips. Everard had a sharp return of appetite in +reading the daily and weekly journals. They printed logic, they printed +sense; they abused the treasonable barking cur unmercifully. They +printed almost as much as he would have uttered, excepting the strong +salt of his similes, likening that rascal and his crew to the American +weed in our waters, to the rotting wild bees’ nest in our trees, to the +worm in our ships’ timbers, and to lamentable afflictions of the human +frame, and of sheep, oxen, honest hounds. Manchester was in eclipse. +The world of England discovered that the peace-party which opposed was +the actual cause of the war: never was indication clearer. But my +business is with Mr. Beauchamp, to know whom, and partly understand his +conduct in after-days, it will be as well to take a bird’seye glance at +him through the war. + +“Now,” said Everard, “we shall see what staff there is in that fellow +Nevil.” + +He expected, as you may imagine, a true young Beauchamp-Romfrey to be +straining his collar like a leash-hound. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +A GLIMPSE OF NEVIL IN ACTION + + +The young gentleman to whom Everard Romfrey transferred his combative +spirit despatched a letter from the Dardanelles, requesting his uncle +not to ask him for a spark of enthusiasm. He despised our Moslem +allies, he said, and thought with pity of the miserable herds of men in +regiments marching across the steppes at the bidding of a despot that +we were helping to popularize. He certainly wrote in the tone of a +jejune politician; pardonable stuff to seniors entertaining similar +opinions, but most exasperating when it runs counter to them: though +one question put by Nevil was not easily answerable. He wished to know +whether the English people would be so anxious to be at it if their man +stood on the opposite shore and talked of trying conclusions on their +green fields. And he suggested that they had become so ready for war +because of their having grown rather ashamed of themselves, and for the +special reason that they could have it at a distance. + +“The rascal’s liver’s out of order,” Everard said. + +Coming to the sentence: “Who speaks out in this crisis? There is one, +and I am with him”; Mr. Romfrey’s compassionate sentiments veered round +to irate amazement. For the person alluded to was indeed the infamous +miauling cotton-spinner. Nevil admired him. He said so bluntly. He +pointed to that traitorous George-Foxite as the one heroical Englishman +of his day, declaring that he felt bound in honour to make known his +admiration for the man; and he hoped his uncle would excuse him. “If we +differ, I am sorry, sir; but I should be a coward to withhold what I +think of him when he has all England against him, and he is in the +right, as England will discover. I maintain he speaks wisely—I don’t +mind saying, like a prophet; and he speaks on behalf of the poor as +well as of the country. He appears to me the only public man who looks +to the state of the poor—I mean, their interests. They pay for war, and +if we are to have peace at home and strength for a really national war, +the only war we can ever call necessary, the poor must be contented. He +sees that. I shall not run the risk of angering you by writing to +defend him, unless I hear of his being shamefully mishandled, and the +bearer of an old name can be of service to him. I cannot say less, and +will say no more.” + +Everard apostrophized his absent nephew: “You jackass!” + +I am reminded by Mr. Romfrey’s profound disappointment in the youth, +that it will be repeatedly shared by many others: and I am bound to +forewarn readers of this history that there is no plot in it. The hero +is chargeable with the official disqualification of constantly +offending prejudices, never seeking to please; and all the while it is +upon him the narrative hangs. To be a public favourite is his last +thought. Beauchampism, as one confronting him calls it, may be said to +stand for nearly everything which is the obverse of Byronism, and +rarely woos your sympathy, shuns the statuesque pathetic, or any kind +of posturing. For Beauchamp will not even look at happiness to mourn +its absence; melodious lamentations, demoniacal scorn, are quite alien +to him. His faith is in working and fighting. With every inducement to +offer himself for a romantic figure, he despises the pomades and +curling-irons of modern romance, its shears and its labels: in fine, +every one of those positive things by whose aid, and by some adroit +flourishing of them, the nimbus known as a mysterious halo is produced +about a gentleman’s head. And a highly alluring adornment it is! We are +all given to lose our solidity and fly at it; although the faithful +mirror of fiction has been showing us latterly that a too superhuman +beauty has disturbed popular belief in the bare beginnings of the +existence of heroes: but this, very likely, is nothing more than a fit +of Republicanism in the nursery, and a deposition of the leading doll +for lack of variety in him. That conqueror of circumstances will, the +dullest soul may begin predicting, return on his cockhorse to favour +and authority. Meantime the exhibition of a hero whom circumstances +overcome, and who does not weep or ask you for a tear, who continually +forfeits attractiveness by declining to better his own fortunes, must +run the chances of a novelty during the interregnum. Nursery +Legitimists will be against him to a man; Republicans likewise, after a +queer sniff at his pretensions, it is to be feared. For me, I have so +little command over him, that in spite of my nursery tastes, he drags +me whither he lists. It is artless art and monstrous innovation to +present so wilful a figure, but were I to create a striking fable for +him, and set him off with scenic effects and contrasts, it would be +only a momentary tonic to you, to him instant death. He could not live +in such an atmosphere. The simple truth has to be told: how he loved +his country, and for another and a broader love, growing out of his +first passion, fought it; and being small by comparison, and finding no +giant of the Philistines disposed to receive a stone in his fore-skull, +pummelled the obmutescent mass, to the confusion of a conceivable epic. +His indifferent England refused it to him. That is all I can say. The +greater power of the two, she seems, with a quiet derision that does +not belie her amiable passivity, to have reduced in Beauchamp’s career +the boldest readiness for public action, and some good stout efforts +besides, to the flat result of an optically discernible influence of +our hero’s character in the domestic circle; perhaps a faintly-outlined +circle or two beyond it. But this does not forbid him to be ranked as +one of the most distinguishing of her children of the day he lived in. +Blame the victrix if you think he should have been livelier. + +Nevil soon had to turn his telescope from politics. The torch of war +was actually lighting, and he was not fashioned to be heedless of what +surrounded him. Our diplomacy, after dancing with all the suppleness of +stilts, gravely resigned the gift of motion. Our dauntless Lancastrian +thundered like a tempest over a gambling tent, disregarded. Our worthy +people, consenting to the doctrine that war is a scourge, contracted +the habit of thinking it, in this case, the dire necessity which is the +sole excuse for giving way to an irritated pugnacity, and sucked the +comforting caramel of an alliance with their troublesome next-door +neighbour, profuse in comfits as in scorpions. Nevil detected that +politic element of their promptitude for war. His recollections of +dissatisfaction in former days assisted him to perceive the nature of +it, but he was too young to hold his own against the hubbub of a noisy +people, much too young to remain sceptical of a modern people’s +enthusiasm for war while journals were testifying to it down the length +of their columns, and letters from home palpitated with it, and +shipmates yawned wearily for the signal, and shiploads of red coats and +blue, infantry, cavalry, artillery, were singing farewell to the girl +at home, and hurrah for anything in foreign waters. He joined the +stream with a cordial spirit. Since it must be so! The wind of that +haughty proceeding of the Great Bear in putting a paw over the neutral +brook brushed his cheek unpleasantly. He clapped hands for the fezzy +defenders of the border fortress, and when the order came for the fleet +to enter the old romantic sea of storms and fables, he wrote home a +letter fit for his uncle Everard to read. Then there was the sailing +and the landing, and the march up the heights, which Nevil was +condemned to look at. To his joy he obtained an appointment on shore, +and after that Everard heard of him from other channels. The two were +of a mind when the savage winter advanced which froze the attack of the +city, and might be imaged as the hoar god of hostile elements pointing +a hand to the line reached, and menacing at one farther step. Both +blamed the Government, but they divided as to the origin of +governmental inefficiency; Nevil accusing the Lords guilty of foulest +sloth, Everard the Quakers of dry-rotting the country. He passed with a +shrug Nevil’s puling outcry for the enemy as well as our own poor +fellows: “At his steppes again!” And he had to be forgiving when +reports came of his nephew’s turn for overdoing his duty: +“show-fighting,” as he termed it. + +“Braggadocioing in deeds is only next bad to mouthing it,” he wrote +very rationally. “Stick to your line. Don’t go out of it till you are +ordered out. Remember that we want _soldiers_ and _sailors_, we don’t +want _suicides_.” He condescended to these italics, considering +impressiveness to be urgent. In his heart, notwithstanding his +implacably clear judgement, he was passably well pleased with the +congratulations encompassing him on account of his nephew’s gallantry +at a period of dejection in Britain: for the winter was dreadful; every +kind heart that went to bed with cold feet felt acutely for our +soldiers on the frozen heights, and thoughts of heroes were as good as +warming-pans. Heroes we would have. It happens in war as in wit, that +all the birds of wonder fly to a flaring reputation. He that has done +one wild thing must necessarily have done the other; so Nevil found +himself standing in the thick of a fame that blew rank eulogies on him +for acts he had not performed. The Earl of Romfrey forwarded hampers +and a letter of praise. “They tell me that while you were facing the +enemy, temporarily attaching yourself to one of the regiments—I forget +which, though I have heard it named—you sprang out under fire on an +eagle clawing a hare. I like that. I hope you had the benefit of the +hare. She is our property, and I have issued an injunction that she +shall not go into the newspapers.” Everard was entirely of a contrary +opinion concerning the episode of eagle and hare, though it was a case +of a bird of prey interfering with an object of the chase. Nevil wrote +home most entreatingly and imperatively, like one wincing, begging him +to contradict that and certain other stories, and prescribing the form +of a public renunciation of his proclaimed part in them. “The hare,” he +sent word, “is the property of young Michell of the _Rodney_, and he is +the humanest and the gallantest fellow in the service. I have written +to my Lord. Pray help to rid me of burdens that make me feel like a +robber and impostor.” + +Everard replied: + +“I have a letter from your captain, informing me that I am unlikely to +see you home unless you learn to hold yourself in. I wish you were in +another battery than Robert Hall’s. He forgets the force of example, +however much of a dab he may be at precept. But there you are, and +please clap a hundredweight on your appetite for figuring, will you. Do +you think there is any good in helping to Frenchify our army? I loathe +a fellow who shoots at a medal. I wager he is easy enough to be caught +by circumvention—put me in the open with him. Tom Biggot, the boxer, +went over to Paris, and stood in the ring with one of their dancing +pugilists, and the first round he got a crack on the chin from the +rogue’s foot; the second round he caught him by the lifted leg, and +punished him till pec was all he could say of peccavi. Fight the +straightforward fight. Hang flan! Battle is a game of give and take, +and if our men get elanned, we shall see them refusing to come up to +time. This new crossing and medalling is the devil’s own notion for +upsetting a solid British line, and tempting fellows to get invalided +that they may blaze it before the shopkeepers and their wives in the +city. Give us an army!—none of your caperers. Here are lots of circusy +heroes coming home to rest after their fatigues. One was spouting at a +public dinner yesterday night. He went into it upright, and he ran out +of it upright—at the head of his men!—and here he is feasted by the +citizens and making a speech upright, and my boy fronting the enemy!” + +Everard’s involuntary break-down from his veteran’s roughness to a +touch of feeling thrilled Nevil, who began to perceive what his uncle +was driving at when he rebuked the coxcombry of the field, and spoke of +the description of compliment your hero was paying Englishmen in +affecting to give them examples of bravery and preternatural coolness. +Nevil sent home humble confessions of guilt in this respect, with fresh +praises of young Michell: for though Everard, as Nevil recognized it, +was perfectly right in the abstract, and generally right, there are +times when an example is needed by brave men—times when the fiery +furnace of death’s dragon-jaw is not inviting even to Englishmen +receiving the word that duty bids them advance, and they require a +leader of the way. A national coxcombry that pretends to an +independence of human sensations, and makes a motto of our dandiacal +courage, is more perilous to the armies of the nation than that of a +few heroes. It is this coxcombry which has too often caused disdain of +the wise chief’s maxim of calculation for winners, namely, to have +always the odds on your side, and which has bled, shattered, and +occasionally disgraced us. Young Michell’s carrying powder-bags to the +assault, and when ordered to retire, bearing them on his back, and +helping a wounded soldier on the way, did surely well; nor did Mr. +Beauchamp himself behave so badly on an occasion when the sailors of +his battery caught him out of a fire of shell that raised jets of dust +and smoke like a range of geysers over the open, and hugged him as +loving women do at a meeting or a parting. He was penitent before his +uncle, admitting, first, that the men were not in want of an example of +the contempt of death, and secondly, that he doubted whether it was +contempt of death on his part so much as pride—a hatred of being seen +running. + +“I don’t like the fellow to be drawing it so fine,” said Everard. It +sounded to him a trifle parsonical. But his heart was won by Nevil’s +determination to wear out the campaign rather than be invalided or +entrusted with a holiday duty. + +“I see with shame (admiration of _them_) old infantry captains and +colonels of no position beyond their rank in the army, sticking to +their post,” said Nevil, “and a lord and a lord and a lord slipping off +as though the stuff of the man in him had melted. I shall go through +with it.” Everard approved him. Colonel Halkett wrote that the youth +was a skeleton. Still Everard encouraged him to persevere, and said of +him: + +“I like him for holding to his work _after_ the strain’s over. That +tells the man.” + +He observed at his table, in reply to commendations of his nephew: + +“Nevil’s leak is his political craze, and that seems to be going: I +hope it is. You can’t rear a man on politics. When I was of his age I +never looked at the newspapers, except to read the divorce cases. I +came to politics with a ripe judgement. He shines in action, and he’ll +find that out, and leave others the palavering.” + +It was upon the close of the war that Nevil drove his uncle to avow a +downright undisguised indignation with him. He caught a fever in the +French camp, where he was dispensing vivers and provends out of English +hampers. + +“Those French fellows are every man of them trained up to +snapping-point,” said Everard. “You’re sure to have them if you hold +out long against them. And greedy dogs too: they’re for half our +hampers, and all the glory. And there’s Nevil down on his back in the +thick of them! Will anybody tell me why the devil he must be poking +into the French camp? They were ready enough to run to him and beg +potatoes. It’s all for humanity he does it—mark that. Never was a word +fitter for a quack’s mouth than ‘humanity.’ Two syllables more, and the +parsons would be riding it to sawdust. Humanity! Humanitomtity! It’s +the best word of the two for half the things done in the name of it.” + +A tremendously bracing epistle, excellent for an access of fever, was +despatched to humanity’s curate, and Everard sat expecting a hot +rejoinder, or else a black sealed letter, but neither one nor the other +arrived. + +Suddenly, to his disgust, came rumours of peace between the mighty +belligerents. + +The silver trumpets of peace were nowhere hearkened to with +satisfaction by the bull-dogs, though triumph rang sonorously through +the music, for they had been severely mangled, as usual at the outset, +and they had at last got their grip, and were in high condition for +fighting. + +The most expansive panegyrists of our deeds did not dare affirm of the +most famous of them, that England had embarked her costly cavalry to +offer it for a mark of artillery-balls on three sides of a square: and +the belief was universal that we could do more business-like deeds and +play the great game of blunders with an ability refined by experience. +Everard Romfrey was one of those who thought themselves justified in +insisting upon the continuation of the war, in contempt of our allies. +His favourite saying that constitution beats the world, was being +splendidly manifested by our bearing. He was very uneasy; he would not +hear of peace; and not only that, the imperial gentleman soberly +committed the naïveté of sending word to Nevil to let him know +immediately the opinion of the camp concerning it, as perchance an old +Roman knight may have written to some young aquilifer of the +Praetorians. + +Allies, however, are of the description of twins joined by a membrane, +and supposing that one of them determines to sit down, the other will +act wisely in bending his knees at once, and doing the same: he cannot +but be extremely uncomfortable left standing. Besides, there was the +Ottoman cleverly poised again; the Muscovite was battered; fresh guilt +was added to the military glory of the Gaul. English grumblers might +well be asked what they had fought for, if they were not contented. + +Colonel Halkett mentioned a report that Nevil had received a slight +thigh-wound of small importance. At any rate, something was the matter +with him, and it was naturally imagined that he would have double cause +to write home; and still more so for the reason, his uncle confessed, +that he had foreseen the folly of a war conducted by milky +cotton-spinners and their adjuncts, in partnership with a throned +gambler, who had won his stake, and now snapped his fingers at them. +Everard expected, he had prepared himself for, the young naval +politician’s crow, and he meant to admit frankly that he had been wrong +in wishing to fight anybody without having first crushed the cotton +faction. But Nevil continued silent. + +“Dead in hospital or a Turk hotel!” sighed Everard; “and no more to the +scoundrels over there than a body to be shovelled into slack lime.” + +Rosamund Culling was the only witness of his remarkable betrayal of +grief. + + + + +CHAPTER V. +RENÉE + + +At last, one morning, arrived a letter from a French gentleman signing +himself Comte Cresnes de Croisnel, in which Everard was informed that +his nephew had accompanied the son of the writer, Captain de Croisnel, +on board an Austrian boat out of the East, and was lying in Venice +under a return-attack of fever,—not, the count stated pointedly, in the +hands of an Italian physician. He had brought his own with him to meet +his son, who was likewise disabled. + +Everard was assured by M. de Croisnel that every attention and +affectionate care were being rendered to his gallant and adored +nephew—“vrai type de tout ce qu’il y a de noble et de chevaleresque +dans la vieille Angleterre”—from a family bound to him by the tenderest +obligations, personal and national; one as dear to every member of it +as the brother, the son, they welcomed with thankful hearts to the +Divine interposition restoring him to them. In conclusion, the count +proposed something like the embrace of a fraternal friendship should +Everard think fit to act upon the spontaneous sentiments of a loving +relative, and join them in Venice to watch over his nephew’s recovery. +Already M. Nevil was stronger. The gondola was a medicine in itself, +the count said. + +Everard knitted his mouth to intensify a peculiar subdued form of +laughter through the nose, in hopeless ridicule of a Frenchman’s +notions of an Englishman’s occupations—presumed across Channel to allow +of his breaking loose from shooting engagements at a minute’s notice, +to rush off to a fetid foreign city notorious for mud and mosquitoes, +and commence capering and grimacing, pouring forth a jugful of +ready-made extravagances, with _mon fils! mon cher neveu! Dieu!_ and +similar fiddlededee. These were matters for women to do, if they chose: +women and Frenchmen were much of a pattern. Moreover, he knew the hotel +this Comte de Croisnel was staying at. He gasped at the name of it: he +had rather encounter a grisly bear than a mosquito any night of his +life, for no stretch of cunning outwits a mosquito; and enlarging on +the qualities of the terrific insect, he vowed it was damnation without +trial or judgement. + +Eventually, Mrs. Culling’s departure was permitted. He argued, “Why go? +the fellow’s comfortable, getting himself together, and you say the +French are good nurses.” But her entreaties to go were vehement, though +Venice had no happy place in her recollections, and he withheld his +objections to her going. For him, the fields forbade it. He sent hearty +messages to Nevil, and that was enough, considering that the young dog +of “humanity” had clearly been running out of his way to catch a +jaundice, and was bereaving his houses of the matronly government, +deprived of which they were all of them likely soon to be at sixes and +sevens with disorderly lacqueys, peccant maids, and cooks in hysterics. + +Now if the master of his fortunes had come to Venice!—Nevil started the +supposition in his mind often after hope had sunk.—Everard would have +seen a young sailor and a soldier the thinner for wear, reclining in a +gondola half the day, fanned by a brunette of the fine lineaments of +the good blood of France. She chattered snatches of Venetian caught +from the gondoliers, she was like a delicate cup of crystal brimming +with the beauty of the place, and making one of them drink in all his +impressions through her. Her features had the soft irregularities which +run to rarities of beauty, as the ripple rocks the light; mouth, eyes, +brows, nostrils, and bloomy cheeks played into one another liquidly; +thought flew, tongue followed, and the flash of meaning quivered over +them like night-lightning. Or oftener, to speak truth, tongue flew, +thought followed: her age was but newly seventeen, and she was French. + +Her name was Renée. She was the only daughter of the Comte de Croisnel. +Her brother Roland owed his life to Nevil, this Englishman proud of a +French name—Nevil Beauchamp. If there was any warm feeling below the +unruffled surface of the girl’s deliberate eyes while gazing on him, it +was that he who had saved her brother must be nearly brother himself, +yet was not quite, yet must be loved, yet not approached. He was her +brother’s brother-in-arms, brother-in-heart, not hers, yet hers through +her brother. His French name rescued him from foreignness. He spoke her +language with a piquant accent, unlike the pitiable English. Unlike +them, he was gracious, and could be soft and quick. The battle-scarlet, +battle-black, Roland’s tales of him threw round him in her imagination, +made his gentleness a surprise. If, then, he was hers through her +brother, what was she to him? The question did not spring clearly +within her, though she was alive to every gradual change of manner +toward the convalescent necessitated by the laws overawing her sex. + +Venice was the French girl’s dream. She was realizing it hungrily, +revelling in it, anatomizing it, picking it to pieces, reviewing it, +comparing her work with the original, and the original with her first +conception, until beautiful sad Venice threatened to be no more her +dream, and in dread of disenchantment she tried to take impressions +humbly, really tasked herself not to analyze, not to dictate from a +French footing, not to scorn. Not to be petulant with objects +disappointing her, was an impossible task. She could not consent to a +compromise with the people, the merchandize, the odours of the city. +Gliding in the gondola through the narrow canals at low tide, she +leaned back simulating stupor, with one word—“Venezia!” Her brother was +commanded to smoke: “Fumez, fumez, Roland!” As soon as the +steel-crested prow had pushed into her Paradise of the Canal Grande, +she quietly shrouded her hair from tobacco, and called upon rapture to +recompense her for her sufferings. The black gondola was unendurable to +her. She had accompanied her father to the Accademia, and mused on the +golden Venetian streets of Carpaccio: she must have an open gondola to +decorate in his manner, gaily, splendidly, and mock at her efforts—a +warning to all that might hope to improve the prevailing gloom and +squalor by levying contributions upon the Merceria! Her most constant +admiration was for the English lord who used once to ride on the Lido +sands and visit the Armenian convent—a lord and a poet. [Lord Byron +D.W.] + +This was to be infinitely more than a naval lieutenant. But Nevil +claimed her as little personally as he allowed her to be claimed by +another. The graces of her freaks of petulance and airy whims, her +sprightly jets of wilfulness, fleeting frowns of contempt, imperious +decisions, were all beautiful, like silver-shifting waves, in this +lustrous planet of her pure freedom; and if you will seize the divine +conception of Artemis, and own the goddess French, you will understand +his feelings. + +But though he admired fervently, and danced obediently to her tunes, +Nevil could not hear injustice done to a people or historic poetic city +without trying hard to right the mind guilty of it. A newspaper +correspondent, a Mr. John Holles, lingering on his road home from the +army, put him on the track of an Englishman’s books—touching the spirit +as well as the stones of Venice, and Nevil thanked him when he had +turned some of the leaves. + +The study of the books to school Renée was pursued, like the +Bianchina’s sleep, in gondoletta, and was not unlike it at intervals. A +translated sentence was the key to a reverie. Renée leaned back, +meditating; he forward, the book on his knee: Roland left them to +themselves, and spied for the Bianchina behind the window-bars. The +count was in the churches or the Galleries. Renée thought she began to +comprehend the spirit of Venice, and chided her rebelliousness. + +“But our Venice was the Venice of the decadence, then!” she said, +complaining. Nevil read on, distrustful of the perspicuity of his own +ideas. + +“Ah, but,” said she, “when these Venetians were rough men, chanting +like our Huguenots, how cold it must have been here!” + +She hoped she was not very wrong in preferring the times of the great +Venetian painters and martial doges to that period of faith and +stone-cutting. What was done then might be beautiful, but the life was +monotonous; she insisted that it was Huguenot; harsh, nasal, sombre, +insolent, self-sufficient. Her eyes lightened for the flashing colours +and pageantries, and the threads of desperate adventure crossing the +Rii to this and that palace-door and balcony, like faint blood-streaks; +the times of Venice in full flower. She reasoned against the hard +eloquent Englishman of the books. “But we are known by our fruits, are +we not? and the Venice I admire was surely the fruit of these +stonecutters chanting hymns of faith; it could not but be: and if it +deserved, as he says, to die disgraced, I think we should go back to +them and ask them whether their minds were as pure and holy as he +supposes.” Her French wits would not be subdued. Nevil pointed to the +palaces. “Pride,” said she. He argued that the original Venetians were +not responsible for their offspring. “You say it?” she cried, “you, of +an old race? Oh, no; you do not feel it!” and the trembling fervour of +her voice convinced him that he did not, could not. + +Renée said: “I know my ancestors are bound up in me, by my sentiments +to them; and so do you, M. Nevil. We shame them if we fail in courage +and honour. Is it not so? If we break a single pledged word we cast +shame on them. Why, that makes us what we are; that is our distinction: +we dare not be weak if we would. And therefore when Venice is +reproached with avarice and luxury, I choose to say—what do we hear of +the children of misers? and I say I am certain that those old cold +Huguenot stonecutters were proud and grasping. I am sure they were, and +they _shall_ share the blame.” + +Nevil plunged into his volume. + +He called on Roland for an opinion. + +“Friend,” said Roland, “opinions may differ: mine is, considering the +defences of the windows, that the only way into these houses or out of +them bodily was the doorway.” + +Roland complimented his sister and friend on the prosecution of their +studies: he could not understand a word of the subject, and yawning, he +begged permission to be allowed to land and join the gondola at a +distant quarter. The gallant officer was in haste to go. + +Renée stared at her brother. He saw nothing; he said a word to the +gondoliers, and quitted the boat. Mars was in pursuit. She resigned +herself, and ceased then to be a girl. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +LOVE IN VENICE + + +The air flashed like heaven descending for Nevil alone with Renée. They +had never been alone before. Such happiness belonged to the avenue of +wishes leading to golden mists beyond imagination, and seemed, coming +on him suddenly, miraculous. He leaned toward her like one who has +broken a current of speech, and waits to resume it. She was all +unsuspecting indolence, with gravely shadowed eyes. + +“I throw the book down,” he said. + +She objected. “No; continue: I like it.” + +Both of them divined that the book was there to do duty for Roland. + +He closed it, keeping a finger among the leaves; a kind of anchorage in +case of indiscretion. + +“Permit me to tell you, M. Nevil, you are inclined to play truant +to-day.” + +“I am.” + +“Now is the very time to read; for my poor Roland is at sea when we +discuss our questions, and the book has driven him away.” + +“But we have plenty of time to read. We miss the scenes.” + +“The scenes are green shutters, wet steps, barcaroli, brown women, +striped posts, a scarlet night-cap, a sick fig-tree, an old shawl, +faded spots of colour, peeling walls. They might be figured by a +trodden melon. They all resemble one another, and so do the days here.” + +“That’s the charm. I wish I could look on you and think the same. You, +as you are, for ever.” + +“Would you not let me live my life?” + +“I would not have you alter.” + +“Please to be pathetic on that subject after I am wrinkled, monsieur.” + +“You want commanding, mademoiselle.” + +Renée nestled her chin, and gazed forward through her eyelashes. + +“Venice is like a melancholy face of a former beauty who has ceased to +rouge, or wipe away traces of her old arts,” she said, straining for +common talk, and showing the strain. + +“Wait; now we are rounding,” said he; “now you have three of what you +call your theatre-bridges in sight. The people mount and drop, mount +and drop; I see them laugh. They are full of fun and good-temper. Look +on living Venice.” + +“Provided that my papa is not crossing when we go under.” + +“Would he not trust you to me?” + +“Yes.” + +“He would? And you?” + +“I do believe they are improvizing an operetta on the second bridge.” + +“You trust yourself willingly?” + +“As to my second brother. You hear them? How delightfully quick and +spontaneous they are! Ah, silly creatures! they have stopped. They +might have held it on for us while we were passing.” + +“Where would the naturalness have been then?” + +“Perhaps, M. Nevil, I do want commanding. I am wilful. Half my days +will be spent in fits of remorse, I begin to think.” + +“Come to me to be forgiven.” + +“Shall I? I should be forgiven too readily.” + +“I am not so sure of that.” + +“Can you be harsh? No, not even with enemies. Least of all with... with +us.” + +Oh for the black gondola!—the little gliding dusky chamber for two; +instead of this open, flaunting, gold and crimson cotton-work, which +exacted discretion on his part and that of the mannerly gondoliers, and +exposed him to window, balcony, bridge, and borderway. + +They slipped on beneath a red balcony where a girl leaned on her folded +arms, and eyed them coming and going by with Egyptian gravity. + +“How strange a power of looking these people have,” said Renée, whose +vivacity was fascinated to a steady sparkle by the girl. “Tell me, is +she glancing round at us?” + +Nevil turned and reported that she was not. She had exhausted them +while they were in transit; she had no minor curiosity. + +“Let us fancy she is looking for her lover,” he said. + +Renée added: “Let us hope she will not escape being seen.” + +“I give her my benediction,” said Nevil. + +“And I,” said Renée; “and adieu to her, if you please. Look for +Roland.” + +“You remind me; I have but a few instants.” + +“M. Nevil, you are a preux of the times of my brother’s patronymic. And +there is my Roland awaiting us. Is he not handsome?” + +“How glad you are to have him to relieve guard!” + +Renée bent on Nevil one of her singular looks of raillery. She had +hitherto been fencing at a serious disadvantage. + +“Not so very glad,” she said, “if that deprived me of the presence of +his friend.” + +Roland was her tower. But Roland was not yet on board. She had peeped +from her citadel too rashly. Nevil had time to spring the flood of +crimson in her cheeks, bright as the awning she reclined under. + +“Would you have me with you always?” + +“Assuredly,” said she, feeling the hawk in him, and trying to baffle +him by fluttering. + +“Always? forever? and—listen—give me a title?” + +Renée sang out to Roland like a bird in distress, and had some trouble +not to appear too providentially rescued. Roland on board, she resumed +the attack. + +“M. Nevil vows he is a better brother to me than you, who dart away on +an impulse and leave us threading all Venice till we do not know where +we are, naughty brother!” + +“My little sister, the spot where you are,” rejoined Roland, “is +precisely the spot where I left you, and I defy you to say you have +gone on without me. This is the identical riva I stepped out on to buy +you a packet of Venetian ballads.” + +They recognized the spot, and for a confirmation of the surprising +statement, Roland unrolled several sheets of printed blotting-paper, +and rapidly read part of a Canzonetta concerning Una Giovine who +reproved her lover for his extreme addiction to wine: + +“Ma sè, ma sè, +Cotanto bevè, +Mi nò, mi nò, +No ve sposerò.” + +“This astounding vagabond preferred Nostrani to his heart’s mistress. I +tasted some of their Nostrani to see if it could be possible for a +Frenchman to exonerate him.” + +Roland’s wry face at the mention of Nostrani brought out the chief +gondolier, who delivered himself: + +“Signore, there be hereditary qualifications. One must be born Italian +to appreciate the merits of Nostrani!” + +Roland laughed. He had covered his delinquency in leaving his sister, +and was full of an adventure to relate to Nevil, a story promising well +for him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +AN AWAKENING FOR BOTH + + +Renée was downcast. Had she not coquetted? The dear young Englishman +had reduced her to defend herself, the which fair ladies, like besieged +garrisons, cannot always do successfully without an attack at times, +which, when the pursuer is ardent, is followed by a retreat, which is a +provocation; and these things are coquettry. Her still fresh +convent-conscience accused her of it pitilessly. She could not forgive +her brother, and yet she dared not reproach him, for that would have +inculpated Nevil. She stepped on to the Piazzetta thoughtfully. Her +father was at Florian’s, perusing letters from France. “We are to have +the marquis here in a week, my child,” he said. Renée nodded. +Involuntarily she looked at Nevil. He caught the look, with a lover’s +quick sense of misfortune in it. + +She heard her brother reply to him: “Who? the Marquis de Rouaillout? It +is a jolly gaillard of fifty who spoils no fun.” + +“You mistake his age, Roland,” she said. + +“Forty-nine, then, my sister.” + +“He is not that.” + +“He looks it.” + +“You have been absent.” + +“Probably, my arithmetical sister, he has employed the interval to grow +younger. They say it is the way with green gentlemen of a certain age. +They advance and they retire. They perform the first steps of a +quadrille ceremoniously, and we admire them.” + +“What’s that?” exclaimed the Comte de Croisnel. “You talk nonsense, +Roland. M. le marquis is hardly past forty. He is in his prime.” + +“Without question, mon pere. For me, I was merely offering proof that +he can preserve his prime unlimitedly.” + +“He is not a subject for mockery, Roland.” + +“Quite the contrary; for reverence!” + +“Another than you, my boy, and he would march you out.” + +“I am to imagine, then, that his hand continues firm?” + +“Imagine to the extent of your capacity; but remember that respect is +always owing to your own family, and deliberate before you draw on +yourself such a chastisement as mercy from an accepted member of it.” + +Roland bowed and drummed on his knee. + +The conversation had been originated by Renée for the enlightenment of +Nevil and as a future protection to herself. Now that it had disclosed +its burden she could look at him no more, and when her father addressed +her significantly: “Marquise, you did me the honour to consent to +accompany me to the Church of the Frari this afternoon?” she felt her +self-accusation of coquettry biting under her bosom like a thing alive. + +Roland explained the situation to Nevil. + +“It is the mania with us, my dear Nevil, to marry our girls young to +established men. Your established man carries usually all the signs, +visible to the multitude or not, of the stages leading to that +eminence. We cannot, I believe, unless we have the good fortune to +boast the paternity of Hercules, disconnect ourselves from the steps we +have mounted; not even, the priests inform us, if we are ascending to +heaven; we carry them beyond the grave. However, it seems that our +excellent marquis contrives to keep them concealed, and he is ready to +face marriage—the Grandest Inquisitor, next to Death. Two furious +matchmakers—our country, beautiful France, abounds in them—met one day; +they were a comtesse and a baronne, and they settled the alliance. The +bell was rung, and Renée came out of school. There is this to be said: +she has no mother; the sooner a girl without a mother has a husband the +better. That we are all agreed upon. I have no personal objection to +the marquis; he has never been in any great scandals. He is Norman, and +has estates in Normandy, Dauphiny, Touraine; he is hospitable, +luxurious. Renée will have a fine hôtel in Paris. But I am eccentric: I +have read in our old Fabliaux of December and May. Say the marquis is +November, say October; he is still some distance removed from the plump +Spring month. And we in our family have wits and passions. In fine, a +bud of a rose in an old gentleman’s button-hole! it is a challenge to +the whole world of youth; and if the bud should leap? Enough of this +matter, friend Nevil; but sometimes a friend must allow himself to be +bothered. I have perfect confidence in my sister, you see; I simply +protest against her being exposed to... You know men. I protest, that +is, in the privacy of my cigar-case, for I have no chance elsewhere. +The affair is on wheels. The very respectable matchmakers have kindled +the marquis on the one hand, and my father on the other, and Renée +passes obediently from the latter to the former. In India they +sacrifice the widows, in France the virgins.” + +Roland proceeded to relate his adventure. Nevil’s inattention piqued +him to salt and salt it wonderfully, until the old story of He and She +had an exciting savour in its introductory chapter; but his friend was +flying through the circles of the Inferno, and the babble of an +ephemeral upper world simply affected him by its contrast with the +overpowering horrors, repugnances, despairs, pities, rushing at him, +surcharging his senses. Those that live much by the heart in their +youth have sharp foretastes of the issues imaged for the soul. St. +Mark’s was in a minute struck black for him. He neither felt the +sunlight nor understood why column and campanile rose, nor why the +islands basked, and boats and people moved. All were as remote little +bits of mechanism. + +Nevil escaped, and walked in the direction of the Frari down calle and +campiello. Only to see her—to compare her with the Renée of the past +hour! But _that_ Renée had been all the while a feast of delusion; she +could never be resuscitated in the shape he had known, not even clearly +visioned. Not a day of her, not an hour, not a single look had been his +own. She had been sold when he first beheld her, and should, he +muttered austerely, have been ticketed the property of a middle-aged +man, a worn-out French marquis, whom she had agreed to marry, unwooed, +without love—the creature of a transaction. But she was innocent, she +was unaware of the sin residing in a loveless marriage; and this +restored her to him somewhat as a drowned body is given back to +mourners. + +After aimless walking he found himself on the Zattere, where the lonely +Giudecca lies in front, covering mud and marsh and lagune-flames of +later afternoon, and you have sight of the high mainland hills which +seem to fling forth one over other to a golden sea-cape. + +Midway on this unadorned Zattere, with its young trees and spots of +shade, he was met by Renée and her father. Their gondola was below, +close to the riva, and the count said, “She is tired of standing gazing +at pictures. There is a Veronese in one of the churches of the Giudecca +opposite. Will you, M. Nevil, act as parade-escort to her here for half +an hour, while I go over? Renée complains that she loses the vulgar art +of walking in her complaisant attention to the fine Arts. I weary my +poor child.” + +Renée protested in a rapid chatter. + +“Must I avow it?” said the count; “she damps my enthusiasm a little.” + +Nevil mutely accepted the office. + +Twice that day was she surrendered to him: once in his ignorance, when +time appeared an expanse of many sunny fields. On this occasion it +puffed steam; yet, after seeing the count embark, he commenced the +parade in silence. + +“This is a nice walk,” said Renée; “we have not the steps of the Riva +dei Schiavoni. It is rather melancholy though. How did you discover it? +I persuaded my papa to send the gondola round, and walk till we came to +the water. Tell me about the Giudecca.” + +“The Giudecca was a place kept apart for the Jews, I believe. You have +seen their burial-ground on the Lido. Those are, I think, the Euganean +hills. You are fond of Petrarch.” + +“M. Nevil, omitting the allusion to the poet, you have, permit me to +remark, the brevity without the precision of an accredited guide to +notabilities.” + +“I tell you what I know,” said Nevil, brooding on the finished tone and +womanly aplomb of her language. It made him forget that she was a girl +entrusted to his guardianship. His heart came out. + +“Renée, if you loved him, I, on my honour, would not utter a word for +myself. Your heart’s inclinations are sacred for me. I would stand by, +and be your friend and his. If he were young, that I might see a chance +of it!” + +She murmured, “You should not have listened to Roland.” + +“Roland should have warned me. How could I be near you and not... But I +am nothing. Forget me; do not think I speak interestedly, except to +save the dearest I have ever known from certain wretchedness. To yield +yourself hand and foot for life! I warn you that it must end miserably. +Your countrywomen... You have the habit in France; but like what are +you treated? You! none like you in the whole world! You consent to be +extinguished. And I have to look on! Listen to me now.” + +Renée glanced at the gondola conveying her father. And he has not yet +landed! she thought, and said, “Do you pretend to judge of my welfare +better than my papa?” + +“Yes; in this. He follows a fashion. You submit to it. His anxiety is +to provide for you. But I know the system is cursed by nature, and that +means by heaven.” + +“Because it is not English?” + +“O Renée, my beloved for ever! Well, then, tell me, tell me you can say +with pride and happiness that the Marquis de Rouaillout is to be +your—there’s the word—husband!” + +Renée looked across the water. + +“Friend, if my father knew you were asking me!” + +“I will speak to him.” + +“Useless.” + +“He is generous, he loves you.” + +“He cannot break an engagement binding his honour.” + +“Would you, Renée, would you—it must be said—consent to have it known +to him—I beg for more than life—that your are not averse... that you +support me?” + +His failing breath softened the bluntness. + +She replied, “I would not have him ever break an engagement binding his +honour.” + +“You stretch the point of honour.” + +“It is our way. Dear friend, we are French. And I presume to think that +our French system is not always wrong, for if my father had not broken +it by treating you as one of us and leaving me with you, should I have +heard...?” + +“I have displeased you.” + +“Do not suppose that. But, I mean, a mother would not have left me.” + +“You wished to avoid it.” + +“Do not blame me. I had some instinct; you were very pale.” + +“You knew I loved you.” + +“No.” + +“Yes; for this morning...” + +“This morning it seemed to me, and I regretted my fancy, that you were +inclined to trifle, as, they say, young men do.” + +“With Renée?” + +“With your friend Renée. And those are the hills of Petrarch’s tomb? +They are mountains.” + +They were purple beneath a large brooding cloud that hung against the +sun, waiting for him to enfold him, and Nevil thought that a tomb there +would be a welcome end, if he might lift Renée in one wild flight over +the chasm gaping for her. He had no language for thoughts of such a +kind, only tumultuous feeling. + +She was immoveable, in perfect armour. + +He said despairingly, “Can you have realized what you are consenting +to?” + +She answered, “It is my duty.” + +“Your duty! it’s like taking up a dice-box, and flinging once, to +certain ruin!” + +“I must oppose my father to you, friend. Do you not understand duty to +parents? They say the English are full of the idea of duty.” + +“Duty to country, duty to oaths and obligations; but with us the heart +is free to choose.” + +“Free to choose, and when it is most ignorant?” + +“The heart? ask it. Nothing is surer.” + +“That is not what we are taught. We are taught that the heart deceives +itself. The heart throws your dicebox; not prudent parents.” + +She talked like a woman, to plead the cause of her obedience as a girl, +and now silenced in the same manner that she had previously excited +him. + +“Then you are lost to me,” he said. + +They saw the gondola returning. + +“How swiftly it comes home; it loitered when it went,” said Renée. +“There sits my father, brimming with his picture; he has seen one more! +We will congratulate him. This little boulevard is not much to speak +of. The hills are lovely. Friend,” she dropped her voice on the +gondola’s approach, “we have conversed on common subjects.” + +Nevil had her hand in his, to place her in the gondola. + +She seemed thankful that he should prefer to go round on foot. At +least, she did not join in her father’s invitation to him. She leaned +back, nestling her chin and half closing her eyes, suffering herself to +be divided from him, borne away by forces she acquiesced in. + +Roland was not visible till near midnight on the Piazza. The +promenaders, chiefly military of the garrison, were few at that period +of social protestation, and he could declare his disappointment aloud, +ringingly, as he strolled up to Nevil, looking as if the cigar in his +mouth and the fists entrenched in his wide trowsers-pockets were +mortally at feud. His adventure had not pursued its course luminously. +He had expected romance, and had met merchandize, and his vanity was +offended. To pacify him, Nevil related how he had heard that since the +Venetian rising of “49, Venetian ladies had issued from the ordeal of +fire and famine of another pattern than the famous old Benzon one, in +which they touched earthiest earth. He praised Republicanism for that. +The spirit of the new and short-lived Republic wrought that change in +Venice. + +“Oh, if they’re republican as well as utterly decayed,” said Roland, “I +give them up; let them die virtuous.” + +Nevil told Roland that he had spoken to Renée. He won sympathy, but +Roland could not give him encouragement. They crossed and recrossed the +shadow of the great campanile, on the warm-white stones of the square, +Nevil admitting the weight of whatsoever Roland pointed to him in +favour of the arrangement according to French notions, and indeed, of +aristocratic notions everywhere, saving that it was imperative for +Renée to be disposed of in marriage early. Why rob her of her young +springtime! + +“French girls,” replied Roland, confused by the nature of the +explication in his head—“well, they’re not English; they want a hand to +shape them, otherwise they grow all awry. My father will not have one +of her aunts to live with him, so there she is. But, my dear Nevil, I +owe my life to you, and I was no party to this affair. I would do +anything to help you. What says Renée?” + +“She obeys.” + +“Exactly. You see! Our girls are chess-pieces until they’re married. +Then they have life and character sometimes too much.” + +“She is not like them, Roland; she is like none. When I spoke to her +first, she affected no astonishment; never was there a creature so +nobly sincere. She’s a girl in heart, not in mind. Think of her +sacrificed to this man thrice her age!” + +“She differs from other girls only on the surface, Nevil. As for the +man, I wish she were going to marry a younger. I wish, yes, my friend,” +Roland squeezed Nevil’s hand, “I wish! I’m afraid it’s hopeless. She +did not tell you to hope?” + +“Not by one single sign,” said Nevil. + +“You see, my friend!” + +“For that reason,” Nevil rejoined, with the calm fanaticism of the +passion of love, “I hope all the more... because I will not believe +that she, so pure and good, can be sacrificed. Put me aside—I am +nothing. I hope to save her from that.” + +“We have now,” said Roland, “struck the current of duplicity. You are +really in love, my poor fellow.” + +Lover and friend came to no conclusion, except that so lovely a night +was not given for slumber. A small round brilliant moon hung almost +globed in the depths of heaven, and the image of it fell deep between +San Giorgio and the Dogana. + +Renée had the scene from her window, like a dream given out of sleep. +She lay with both arms thrown up beneath her head on the pillow, her +eyelids wide open, and her visage set and stern. Her bosom rose and +sank regularly but heavily. The fluctuations of a night stormy for her, +hitherto unknown, had sunk her to this trance, in which she lay like a +creature flung on shore by the waves. She heard her brother’s voice and +Nevil’s, and the pacing of their feet. She saw the long shaft of +moonlight broken to zigzags of mellow lightning, and wavering back to +steadiness; dark San Giorgio, and the sheen of the Dogana’s front. But +the visible beauty belonged to a night that had shivered repose, +humiliated and wounded her, destroyed her confident happy half-infancy +of heart, and she had flown for a refuge to hard feelings. Her +predominant sentiment was anger; an anger that touched all and +enveloped none, for it was quite fictitious, though she felt it, and +suffered from it. She turned it on Nevil, as against an enemy, and +became the victim in his place. Tears for him filled in her eyes, and +ran over; she disdained to notice them, and blinked offendedly to have +her sight clear of the weakness; but these interceding tears would +flow; it was dangerous to blame him, harshly. She let them roll down, +figuring to herself with quiet simplicity of mind that her spirit was +independent of them as long as she restrained her hands from being +accomplices by brushing them away, as weeping girls do that cry for +comfort. Nevil had saved her brother’s life, and had succoured her +countrymen; he loved her, and was a hero. He should not have said he +loved her; that was wrong; and it was shameful that he should have +urged her to disobey her father. But this hero’s love of her might +plead excuses she did not know of; and if he was to be excused, he, +unhappy that he was, had a claim on her for more than tears. She wept +resentfully. Forces above her own swayed and hurried her like a +lifeless body dragged by flying wheels: they could not unnerve her +will, or rather, what it really was, her sense of submission to a +destiny. Looked at from the height of the palm-waving cherubs over the +fallen martyr in the picture, she seemed as nerveless as a dreamy girl. +The raised arms and bent elbows were an illusion of indifference. Her +shape was rigid from hands to feet, as if to keep in a knot the +resolution of her mind; for the second and in that young season the +stronger nature grafted by her education fixed her to the religious +duty of obeying and pleasing her father, in contempt, almost in +abhorrence, of personal inclinations tending to thwart him and imperil +his pledged word. She knew she had inclinations to be tender. Her hands +released, how promptly might she not have been confiding her +innumerable perplexities of sentiment and emotion to paper, undermining +self-governance; self-respect, perhaps! Further than that, she did not +understand the feelings she struggled with; nor had she any impulse to +gaze on him, the cause of her trouble, who walked beside her brother +below, talking betweenwhiles in the night’s grave undertones. Her +trouble was too overmastering; it had seized her too mysteriously, +coming on her solitariness without warning in the first watch of the +night, like a spark crackling serpentine along dry leaves to sudden +flame. A thought of Nevil and a regret had done it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +A NIGHT ON THE ADRIATIC + + +The lovers met after Roland had spoken to his sister—not exactly to +advocate the cause of Nevil, though he was under the influence of that +grave night’s walk with him, but to sound her and see whether she at +all shared Nevil’s view of her situation. Roland felt the awfulness of +a French family arrangement of a marriage, and the impertinence of a +foreign Cupid’s intrusion, too keenly to plead for his friend: at the +same time he loved his friend and his sister, and would have been very +ready to smile blessings on them if favourable circumstances had raised +a signal; if, for example, apoplexy or any other cordial ex machina +intervention had removed the middle-aged marquis; and, perhaps, if +Renée had shown the repugnance to her engagement which Nevil declared +she must have in her heart, he would have done more than smile; he +would have laid the case deferentially before his father. His own +opinion was that young unmarried women were incapable of the passion of +love, being, as it were, but half-feathered in that state, and unable +to fly; and Renée confirmed it. The suspicion of an advocacy on Nevil’s +behalf steeled her. His tentative observations were checked at the +outset. + +“Can such things be spoken of to me, Roland? I am plighted. You know +it.” + +He shrugged, said a word of pity for Nevil, and went forth to let his +friend know that it was as he had predicted: Renée was obedience in +person, like a rightly educated French girl. He strongly advised his +friend to banish all hope of her from his mind. But the mind he +addressed was of a curious order; far-shooting, tough, persistent, and +when acted on by the spell of devotion, indomitable. Nevil put hope +aside, or rather, he clad it in other garments, in which it was hardly +to be recognized by himself, and said to Roland: “You must bear this +from me; you must let me follow you to the end, and if she wavers she +will find me near.” + +Roland could not avoid asking the use of it, considering that Renée, +however much she admired and liked, was not in love with him. + +Nevil resigned himself to admit that she was not: and therefore, said +he, “you won’t object to my remaining.” + +Renée greeted Nevil with as clear a conventional air as a woman could +assume. + +She was going, she said, to attend High Mass in the church of S. Moise, +and she waved her devoutest Roman Catholicism to show the breadth of +the division between them. He proposed to go likewise. She was mute. +After some discourse she contrived to say inoffensively that people who +strolled into her churches for the music, or out of curiosity, played +the barbarian. + +“Well, I will not go,” said Nevil. + +“But I do not wish to number you among them,” she said. + +“Then,” said Nevil, “I will go, for it cannot be barbarous to try to be +with you.” + +“No, that is wickedness,” said Renée. + +She was sensible that conversation betrayed her, and Nevil’s apparently +deliberate pursuit signified to her that he must be aware of his +mastery, and she resented it, and stumbled into pitfalls whenever she +opened her lips. It seemed to be denied to them to utter what she +meant, if indeed she had a meaning in speaking, save to hurt herself +cruelly by wounding the man who had caught her in the toils: and so +long as she could imagine that she was the only one hurt, she was the +braver and the harsher for it; but at the sight of Nevil in pain her +heart relented and shifted, and discovering it to be so weak as to be +almost at his mercy, she defended it with an aggressive unkindness, for +which, in charity to her sweeter nature, she had to ask his pardon, and +then had to fib to give reasons for her conduct, and then to pretend to +herself that her pride was humbled by him; a most humiliating round, +constantly recurring; the worse for the reflection that she created it. +She attempted silence. Nevil spoke, and was like the magical piper: she +was compelled to follow him and dance the round again, with the +wretched thought that it must resemble coquettry. Nevil did not think +so, but a very attentive observer now upon the scene, and possessed of +his half of the secret, did, and warned him. Rosamund Culling added +that the French girl might be only an unconscious coquette, for she was +young. The critic would not undertake to pronounce on her suggestion, +whether the candour apparent in merely coquettish instincts was not +more dangerous than a battery of the arts of the sex. She had heard +Nevil’s frank confession, and seen Renée twice, when she tried in his +service, though not greatly wishing for success, to stir the sensitive +girl for an answer to his attachment. Probably she went to work +transparently, after the insular fashion of opening a spiritual mystery +with the lancet. Renée suffered herself to be probed here and there, +and revealed nothing of the pain of the operation. She said to Nevil, +in Rosamund’s hearing: + +“Have you the sense of honour acute in your country?” Nevil inquired +for the apropos. + +“None,” said she. + +Such pointed insolence disposed Rosamund to an irritable antagonism, +without reminding her that she had given some cause for it. + +Renée said to her presently: “He saved my brother’s life”; the àpropos +being as little perceptible as before. + +Her voice dropped to her sweetest deep tones, and there was a +supplicating beam in her eyes, unintelligible to the direct +Englishwoman, except under the heading of a power of witchery fearful +to think of in one so young, and loved by Nevil. + +The look was turned upon her, not upon her hero, and Rosamund thought, +“Does she want to entangle me as well?” + +It was, in truth, a look of entreaty from woman to woman, signifying +need of womanly help. Renée would have made a confidante of her, if she +had not known her to be Nevil’s, and devoted to him. “I would speak to +you, but that I feel you would betray me,” her eyes had said. The +strong sincerity dwelling amid multiform complexities might have made +itself comprehensible to the English lady for a moment or so, had Renée +spoken words to her ears; but belief in it would hardly have survived +the girl’s next convolutions. “She is intensely French,” Rosamund said +to Nevil—a volume of insular criticism in a sentence. + +“You do not know her, ma’am,” said Nevil. “You think her older than she +is, and that is the error I fell into. She is a child.” + +“A serpent in the egg is none the less a serpent, Nevil. Forgive me; +but when she tells you the case is hopeless!” + +“No case is hopeless till a man consents to think it is; and I shall +stay.” + +“But then again, Nevil, you have not consulted your uncle.” + +“Let him see her! let him only see her!” + +Rosamund Culling reserved her opinion compassionately. His uncle would +soon be calling to have him home: society panted for him to make much +of him and here he was, cursed by one of his notions of duty, in +attendance on a captious “young French beauty, who was the less to be +excused for not dismissing him peremptorily, if she cared for him at +all. His career, which promised to be so brilliant, was spoiling at the +outset. Rosamund thought of Renée almost with detestation, as a species +of sorceress that had dug a trench in her hero’s road, and unhorsed and +fast fettered him. + +The marquis was expected immediately. Renée sent up a little note to +Mrs. Calling’s chamber early in the morning, and it was with an air of +one-day-more-to-ourselves, that, meeting her, she entreated the English +lady to join the expedition mentioned in her note. Roland had hired a +big Chioggian fishing-boat to sail into the gulf at night, and return +at dawn, and have sight of Venice rising from the sea. Her father had +declined; but M. Nevil wished to be one of the party, and in that +case.... Renée threw herself beseechingly into the mute interrogation, +keeping both of Rosamund’s hands. They could slip away only by deciding +to, and this rare Englishwoman had no taste for the petty overt +hostilities. “If I can be of use to you,” she said. + +“If you can bear sea-pitching and tossing for the sake of the loveliest +sight in the whole world,” said Renée. + +“I know it well,” Rosamund replied. + +Renée rippled her eyebrows. She divined a something behind that remark, +and as she was aware of the grief of Rosamund’s life, her quick +intuition whispered that it might be connected with the gallant officer +dead on the battle-field. + +“Madame, if you know it too well...” she said. + +“No; it is always worth seeing,” said Rosamund, “and I think, +mademoiselle, with your permission, I should accompany you.” + +“It is only a whim of mine, madame. I can stay on shore.” + +“Not when it is unnecessary to forego a pleasure.” + +“Say, my last day of freedom.” + +Renée kissed her hand. + +She is terribly winning, Rosamund avowed. Renée was in debate whether +the woman devoted to Nevil would hear her and help. + +Just then Roland and Nevil returned from their boat, where they had +left carpenters and upholsterers at work, and the delicate chance for +an understanding between the ladies passed by. + +The young men were like waves of ocean overwhelming it, they were so +full of their boat, and the scouring and cleaning out of it, and +provisioning, and making it worthy of its freight. Nevil was surprised +that Mrs. Culling should have consented to come, and asked her if she +really wished it—really; and “Really,” said Rosamund; “certainly.” + +“Without dubitation,” cried Roland. “And now my little Renée has no +more shore-qualms; she is smoothly chaperoned, and madame will present +us tea on board. All the etcæteras of life are there, and a mariner’s +eye in me spies a breeze at sunset to waft us out of Malamocco.” + +The count listened to the recital of their preparations with his usual +absent interest in everything not turning upon Art, politics, or social +intrigue. He said, “Yes, good, good,” at the proper intervals, and +walked down the riva to look at the busy boat, said to Nevil, “You are +a sailor; I confide my family to you,” and prudently counselled Renée +to put on the dresses she could toss to the deep without regrets. Mrs. +Culling he thanked fervently for a wonderful stretch of generosity in +lending her presence to the madcaps. + +Altogether the day was a reanimation of external Venice. But there was +a thunderbolt in it; for about an hour before sunset, when the ladies +were superintending and trying not to criticize the ingenious efforts +to produce a make-believe of comfort on board for them, word was +brought down to the boat by the count’s valet that the Marquis de +Rouaillout had arrived. Renée turned her face to her brother +superciliously. Roland shrugged. “Note this, my sister,” he said; “an +anticipation of dates in paying visits precludes the ripeness of the +sentiment of welcome. It is, however, true that the marquis has less +time to spare than others.” + +“We have started; we are on the open sea. How can we put back?” said +Renée. + +“You hear, François; we are on the open sea,” Roland addressed the +valet. + +“Monsieur has cut loose his communications with land,” François +responded, and bowed from the landing. + +Nevil hastened to make this a true report; but they had to wait for +tide as well as breeze, and pilot through intricate mud-channels before +they could see the outside of the Lido, and meanwhile the sun lay like +a golden altarplatter on mud-banks made bare by the ebb, and curled in +drowsy yellow links along the currents. All they could do was to push +off and hang loose, bumping to right and left in the midst of volleys +and countervolleys of fishy Venetian, Chioggian, and Dalmatian, quite +as strong as anything ever heard down the Canalaggio. The +representatives of these dialects trotted the decks and hung their +bodies half over the sides of the vessels to deliver fire, flashed eyes +and snapped fingers, not a whit less fierce than hostile crews in the +old wars hurling an interchange of stink-pots, and then resumed the +trot, apparently in search of fresh ammunition. An Austrian sentinel +looked on passively, and a police inspector peeringly. They were used +to it. Happily, the combustible import of the language was unknown to +the ladies, and Nevil’s attempts to keep his crew quiet, contrasting +with Roland’s phlegm, which a Frenchman can assume so philosophically +when his tongue is tied, amused them. During the clamour, Renée saw her +father beckoning from the riva. She signified that she was no longer in +command of circumstances; the vessel was off. But the count stamped his +foot, and nodded imperatively. Thereupon Roland repeated the eloquent +demonstrations of Renée, and the count lost patience, and Roland +shouted, “For the love of heaven, don’t join this babel; we’re nearly +bursting.” The rage of the babel was allayed by degrees, though not +appeased, for the boat was behaving wantonly, as the police officer +pointed out to the count. + +Renée stood up to bend her head. It was in reply to a salute from the +Marquis de Rouaillout, and Nevil beheld his rival. + +“M. le Marquis, seeing it is out of the question that we can come to +you, will you come to us?” cried Roland. + +The marquis gesticulated “With alacrity” in every limb. + +“We will bring you back on to-morrow midnight’s tide, safe, we promise +you.” + +The marquis advanced a foot, and withdrew it. Could he have heard +correctly? They were to be out a whole night at sea! The count +dejectedly confessed his incapability to restrain them: the young +desperadoes were ready for anything. He had tried the voice of +authority, and was laughed at. As to Renée, an English lady was with +her. + +“The English lady must be as mad as the rest,” said the marquis. + +“The English are mad,” said the count; “but their women are strict upon +the proprieties.” + +“Possibly, my dear count; but what room is there for the proprieties on +board a fishing-boat?” + +“It is even as you say, my dear marquis.” + +“You allow it?” + +“Can I help myself? Look at them. They tell me they have given the boat +the fittings of a yacht.” + +“And the young man?” + +“That is the M. Beauchamp of whom I have spoken to you, the very pick +of his country, fresh, lively, original; and he can converse. You will +like him.” + +“I hope so,” said the marquis, and roused a doleful laugh. “It would +seem that one does not arrive by hastening!” + +“Oh! but my dear marquis, you have paid the compliment; you are like +Spring thrusting in a bunch of lilac while the winds of winter blow. If +you were not expected, your expeditiousness is appreciated, be sure.” + +Roland fortunately did not hear the marquis compared to Spring. He was +saying: “I wonder what those two elderly gentlemen are talking about”; +and Nevil confused his senses by trying to realize that one of them was +destined to be the husband of his now speechless Renée. The marquis was +clad in a white silken suit, and a dash of red round the neck set off +his black beard; but when he lifted his broad straw hat, a baldness of +sconce shone. There was elegance in his gestures; he looked a +gentleman, though an ultra-Gallican one, that is, too scrupulously +finished for our taste, smelling of the valet. He had the habit of +balancing his body on the hips, as if to emphasize a juvenile vigour, +and his general attitude suggested an idea that he had an oration for +you. Seen from a distance, his baldness and strong nasal projection +were not winning features; the youthful standard he had evidently +prescribed to himself in his dress and his ready jerks of acquiescence +and delivery might lead a forlorn rival to conceive him something of an +ogre straining at an Adonis. It could not be disputed that he bore his +disappointment remarkably well; the more laudably, because his position +was within a step of the ridiculous, for he had shot himself to the +mark, despising sleep, heat, dust, dirt, diet, and lo, that charming +object was deliberately slipping out of reach, proving his headlong +journey an absurdity. + +As he stood declining to participate in the lunatic voyage, and bidding +them perforce good speed off the tips of his fingers, Renée turned her +eyes on him, and away. She felt a little smart of pity, arising partly +from her antagonism to Roland’s covert laughter: but it was the colder +kind of feminine pity, which is nearer to contempt than to tenderness. +She sat still, placid outwardly, in fear of herself, so strange she +found it to be borne out to sea by her sailor lover under the eyes of +her betrothed. She was conscious of a tumultuous rush of sensations, +none of them of a very healthy kind, coming as it were from an unlocked +chamber of her bosom, hitherto of unimagined contents; and the marquis +being now on the spot to defend his own, she no longer blamed Nevil: it +was otherwise utterly. All the sweeter side of pity was for him. + +He was at first amazed by the sudden exquisite transition. Tenderness +breathed from her, in voice, in look, in touch; for she accepted his +help that he might lead her to the stern of the vessel, to gaze well on +setting Venice, and sent lightnings up his veins; she leaned beside him +over the vessel’s rails, not separated from him by the breadth of a +fluttering riband. Like him, she scarcely heard her brother when for an +instant he intervened, and with Nevil she said adieu to Venice, where +the faint red Doge’s palace was like the fading of another sunset +north-westward of the glory along the hills. Venice dropped lower and +lower, breasting the waters, until it was a thin line in air. The line +was broken, and ran in dots, with here and there a pillar standing on +opal sky. At last the topmost campanile sank. + +Renée looked up at the sails, and back for the submerged city. + +“It is gone!” she said, as though a marvel had been worked; and +swiftly: “we have one night!” + +She breathed it half like a question, like a petition, catching her +breath. The adieu to Venice was her assurance of liberty, but Venice +hidden rolled on her the sense of the return and plucked shrewdly at +her tether of bondage. + +They set their eyes toward the dark gulf ahead. The night was growing +starry. The softly ruffled Adriatic tossed no foam. + +“One night?” said Nevil; “one? Why only one?” + +Renée shuddered. “Oh! do not speak.” + +“Then, give me your hand.” + +“There, my friend.” + +He pressed a hand that was like a quivering chord. She gave it as +though it had been his own to claim. But that it meant no more than a +hand he knew by the very frankness of her compliance, in the manner +natural to her; and this was the charm, it filled him with her peculiar +image and spirit, and while he held it he was subdued. + +Lying on the deck at midnight, wrapt in his cloak and a coil of rope +for a pillow, considerably apart from jesting Roland, the recollection +of that little sanguine spot of time when Renée’s life-blood ran with +his, began to heave under him like a swelling sea. For Nevil the +starred black night was Renée. Half his heart was in it: but the +combative division flew to the morning and the deadly iniquity of the +marriage, from which he resolved to save her; in pure devotedness, he +believed. And so he closed his eyes. She, a girl, with a heart +fluttering open and fearing, felt only that she had lost herself +somewhere, and she had neither sleep nor symbols, nothing but a sense +of infinite strangeness, as though she were borne superhumanly through +space. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +MORNING AT SEA UNDER THE ALPS + + +The breeze blew steadily, enough to swell the sails and sweep the +vessel on smoothly. The night air dropped no moisture on deck. + +Nevil Beauchamp dozed for an hour. He was awakened by light on his +eyelids, and starting up beheld the many pinnacles of grey and red +rocks and shadowy high white regions at the head of the gulf waiting +for the sun; and the sun struck them. One by one they came out in +crimson flame, till the vivid host appeared to have stepped forward. +The shadows on the snow-fields deepened to purple below an irradiation +of rose and pink and dazzling silver. There of all the world you might +imagine Gods to sit. A crowd of mountains endless in range, erect, or +flowing, shattered and arid, or leaning in smooth lustre, hangs above +the gulf. The mountains are sovereign Alps, and the sea is beneath +them. The whole gigantic body keeps the sea, as with a hand, to right +and left. + +Nevil’s personal rapture craved for Renée with the second long breath +he drew; and now the curtain of her tent-cabin parted, and greeting him +with a half smile, she looked out. The Adriatic was dark, the Alps had +heaven to themselves. Crescents and hollows, rosy mounds, white +shelves, shining ledges, domes and peaks, all the towering heights were +in illumination from Friuli into farthest Tyrol; beyond earth to the +stricken senses of the gazers. Colour was stedfast on the massive front +ranks: it wavered in the remoteness, and was quick and dim as though it +fell on beating wings; but there too divine colour seized and shaped +forth solid forms, and thence away to others in uttermost distances +where the incredible flickering gleam of new heights arose, that +soared, or stretched their white uncertain curves in sky like wings +traversing infinity. + +It seemed unlike morning to the lovers, but as if night had broken with +a revelation of the kingdom in the heart of night. While the broad +smooth waters rolled unlighted beneath that transfigured upper sphere, +it was possible to think the scene might vanish like a view caught out +of darkness by lightning. Alp over burning Alp, and around them a +hueless dawn! The two exulted they threw off the load of wonderment, +and in looking they had the delicious sensation of flight in their +veins. + +Renée stole toward Nevil. She was mystically shaken and at his mercy; +and had he said then, “Over to the other land, away from Venice!” she +would have bent her head. + +She asked his permission to rouse her brother and madame, so that they +should not miss the scene. + +Roland lay in the folds of his military greatcoat, too completely happy +to be disturbed, Nevil Beauchamp chose to think; and Rosamund Culling, +he told Renée, had been separated from her husband last on these +waters. + +“Ah! to be unhappy here,” sighed Renée. “I fancied it when I begged her +to join us. It was in her voice.” + +The impressionable girl trembled. He knew he was dear to her, and for +that reason, judging of her by himself, he forbore to urge his +advantage, conceiving it base to fear that loving him she could yield +her hand to another; and it was the critical instant. She was almost in +his grasp. A word of sharp entreaty would have swung her round to see +her situation with his eyes, and detest and shrink from it. He +committed the capital fault of treating her as his equal in passion and +courage, not as metal ready to run into the mould under temporary +stress of fire. + +Even later in the morning, when she was cooler and he had come to +speak, more than her own strength was needed to resist him. The +struggle was hard. The boat’s head had been put about for Venice, and +they were among the dusky-red Chioggian sails in fishing quarters, +expecting momently a campanile to signal the sea-city over the level. +Renée waited for it in suspense. To her it stood for the implacable key +of a close and stifling chamber, so different from this brilliant +boundless region of air, that she sickened with the apprehension; but +she knew it must appear, and soon, and therewith the contraction and +the gloom it indicated to her mind. He talked of the beauty. She +fretted at it, and was her petulant self again in an epigrammatic note +of discord. + +He let that pass. + +“Last night you said ‘one night,’” he whispered. “We will have another +sail before we leave Venice.” + +“One night, and in a little time one hour! and next one minute! and +there’s the end,” said Renée. + +Her tone alarmed him. “Have you forgotten that you gave me your hand?” + +“I gave my hand to my friend.” + +“You gave it to me for good.” + +“No; I dared not; it is not mine.” + +“It is mine,” said Beauchamp. + +Renée pointed to the dots and severed lines and isolated columns of the +rising city, black over bright sea. + +“Mine there as well as here,” said Beauchamp, and looked at her with +the fiery zeal of eyes intent on minutest signs for a confirmation, to +shake that sad negation of her face. + +“Renée, you cannot break the pledge of the hand you gave me last +night.” + +“You tell me how weak a creature I am.” + +“You are me, myself; more, better than me. And say, would you not +rather coast here and keep the city under water?” + +She could not refrain from confessing that she would be glad never to +land there. + +“So, when you land, go straight to your father,” said Beauchamp, to +whose conception it was a simple act resulting from the avowal. + +“Oh! you torture me,” she cried. Her eyelashes were heavy with tears. +“I cannot do it. Think what you will of me! And, my friend, help me. +Should you not help me? I have not once actually disobeyed my father, +and he has indulged me, but he has been sure of me as a dutiful girl. +That is my source of self-respect. My friend can always be my friend.” + +“Yes, while it’s not too late,” said Beauchamp. + +She observed a sudden stringing of his features. He called to the chief +boatman, made his command intelligible to that portly capitano, and +went on to Roland, who was puffing his after-breakfast cigarette in +conversation with the tolerant English lady. + +“You condescend to notice us, Signor Beauchamp,” said Roland. “The +vessel is up to some manœuvre?” + +“We have decided not to land,” replied Beauchamp. “And Roland,” he +checked the Frenchman’s shout of laughter, “I think of making for +Trieste. Let me speak to you, to both. Renée is in misery. She must not +go back.” + +Roland sprang to his feet, stared, and walked over to Renée. + +“Nevil,” said Rosamund Culling, “do you know what you are doing?” + +“Perfectly,” said he. “Come to her. She is a girl, and I must think and +act for her.” + +Roland met them. + +“My dear Nevil, are you in a state of delusion? Renée denies...” + +“There’s no delusion, Roland. I am determined to stop a catastrophe. I +see it as plainly as those Alps. There is only one way, and that’s the +one I have chosen.” + +“Chosen! my friend. But allow me to remind you that you have others to +consult. And Renée herself...” + +“She is a girl. She loves me, and I speak for her.” + +“She has said it?” + +“She has more than said it.” + +“You strike me to the deck, Nevil. Either you are downright mad—which +seems the likeliest, or we are all in a nightmare. Can you suppose I +will let my sister be carried away the deuce knows where, while her +father is expecting her, and to fulfil an engagement affecting his +pledged word?” + +Beauchamp simply replied: + +“Come to her.” + + + + +CHAPTER X. +A SINGULAR COUNCIL + + +The four sat together under the shadow of the helmsman, by whom they +were regarded as voyagers in debate upon the question of some hours +further on salt water. “No bora,” he threw in at intervals, to assure +them that the obnoxious wind of the Adriatic need not disturb their +calculations. + +It was an extraordinary sitting, but none of the parties to it thought +of it so when Nevil Beauchamp had plunged them into it. He compelled +them, even Renée—and she would have flown had there been wings on her +shoulders—to feel something of the life and death issues present to his +soul, and submit to the discussion, in plain language of the +market-place, of the most delicate of human subjects for her, for him, +and hardly less for the other two. An overmastering fervour can do +this. It upsets the vessel we float in, and we have to swim our way out +of deep waters by the directest use of the natural faculties, without +much reflection on the change in our habits. To others not under such +an influence the position seems impossible. This discussion occurred. +Beauchamp opened the case in a couple of sentences, and when the turn +came for Renée to speak, and she shrank from the task in manifest pain, +he spoke for her, and no one heard her contradiction. She would have +wished the fearful impetuous youth to succeed if she could have slept +through the storm he was rousing. + +Roland appealed to her. “You! my sister! it is you that consent to this +wild freak, enough to break your father’s heart?” + +He had really forgotten his knowledge of her character—what much he +knew—in the dust of the desperation flung about her by Nevil Beauchamp. + +She shook her head; she had not consented. + +“The man she loves is her voice and her will,” said Beauchamp. “She +gives me her hand and I lead her.” + +Roland questioned her. It could not be denied that she had given her +hand, and her bewildered senses made her think that it had been with an +entire abandonment; and in the heat of her conflict of feelings, the +deliciousness of yielding to him curled round and enclosed her, as in a +cool humming sea-shell. + +“Renée!” said Roland. + +“Brother!” she cried. + +“You see that I cannot suffer you to be borne away.” + +“No; do not!” + +But the boat was flying fast from Venice, and she could have fallen at +his feet and kissed them for not countermanding it. + +“You are in my charge, my sister.” + +“Yes.” + +“And now, Nevil, between us two,” said Roland. + +Beauchamp required no challenge. He seemed, to Rosamund Culling, twice +older than he was, strangely adept, yet more strangely wise of worldly +matters, and eloquent too. But it was the eloquence of frenzy, madness, +in Roland’s ear. The arrogation of a terrible foresight that harped on +present and future to persuade him of the righteousness of this +headlong proceeding advocated by his friend, vexed his natural +equanimity. The argument was out of the domain of logic. He could +hardly sit to listen, and tore at his moustache at each end. +Nevertheless his sister listened. The mad Englishman accomplished the +miracle of making her listen, and appear to consent. + +Roland laughed scornfully. “Why Trieste? I ask you, why Trieste? You +can’t have a Catholic priest at your bidding, without her father’s +sanction.” + +“We leave Renée at Trieste, under the care of madame,” said Beauchamp, +“and we return to Venice, and I go to your father. This method protects +Renée from annoyance.” + +“It strikes me that if she arrives at any determination she must take +the consequences.” + +“She does. She is brave enough for that. But she is a girl; she has to +fight the battle of her life in a day, and I am her lover, and she +leaves it to me.” + +“Is my sister such a coward?” said Roland. + +Renée could only call out his name. + +“It will never do, my dear Nevil”; Roland tried to deal with his +unreasonable friend affectionately. “I am responsible for her. It’s +your own fault—if you had not saved my life I should not have been in +your way. Here I am, and your proposal can’t be heard of. Do as you +will, both of you, when you step ashore in Venice.” + +“If she goes back she is lost,” said Beauchamp, and he attacked Roland +on the side of his love for Renée, and for him. + +Roland was inflexible. Seeing which, Renée said, “To Venice, quickly, +my brother!” and now she almost sighed with relief to think that she +was escaping from this hurricane of a youth, who swept her off her feet +and wrapt her whole being in a delirium. + +“We were in sight of the city just now!” cried Roland, staring and +frowning. “What’s this?” + +Beauchamp answered him calmly, “The boat’s under my orders.” + +“Talk madness, but don’t act it,” said Roland. “Round with the boat at +once. Hundred devils! you haven’t your wits.” + +To his amazement, Beauchamp refused to alter the boat’s present course. + +“You heard my sister?” said Roland. + +“You frighten her,” said Beauchamp. + +“You heard her wish to return to Venice, I say.” + +“She has no wish that is not mine.” + +It came to Roland’s shouting his command to the men, while Beauchamp +pointed the course on for them. + +“You will make this a ghastly pleasantry,” said Roland. + +“I do what I know to be right,” said Beauchamp. + +“You want an altercation before these fellows?” + +“There won’t be one; they obey me.” + +Roland blinked rapidly in wrath and doubt of mind. + +“Madame,” he stooped to Rosamund Culling, with a happy inspiration, +“convince him; you have known him longer than I, and I desire not to +lose my friend. And tell me, madame—I can trust you to be truth itself, +and you can see it is actually the time for truth to be spoken—is he +justified in taking my sister’s hand? You perceive that I am obliged to +appeal to you. Is he not dependent on his uncle? And is he not, +therefore, in your opinion, bound in reason as well as in honour to +wait for his uncle’s approbation before he undertakes to speak for my +sister? And, since the occasion is urgent, let me ask you one thing +more: whether, by your knowledge of his position, you think him +entitled to presume to decide upon my sister’s destiny? She, you are +aware, is not so young but that she can speak for herself...” + +“There you are wrong, Roland,” said Beauchamp; “she can neither speak +nor think for herself: you lead her blindfolded.” + +“And you, my friend, suppose that you are wiser than any of us. It is +understood. I venture to appeal to madame on the point in question.” + +The poor lady’s heart beat dismally. She was constrained to answer, and +said, “His uncle is one who must be consulted.” + +“You hear that, Nevil,” said Roland. + +Beauchamp looked at her sharply; angrily, Rosamund feared. She had +struck his hot brain with the vision of Everard Romfrey as with a bar +of iron. If Rosamund had inclined to the view that he was sure of his +uncle’s support, it would have seemed to him a simple confirmation of +his sentiments, but he was not of the same temper now as when he +exclaimed, “Let him see her!” and could imagine, give him only Renée’s +love, the world of men subservient to his wishes. + +Then he was dreaming; he was now in fiery earnest, for that reason +accessible to facts presented to him; and Rosamund’s reluctantly spoken +words brought his stubborn uncle before his eyes, inflicting a sense of +helplessness of the bitterest kind. + +They were all silent. Beauchamp stared at the lines of the deck-planks. + +His scheme to rescue Renée was right and good; but was he the man that +should do it? And was she, moreover, he thought—speculating on her bent +head—the woman to be forced to brave the world with him, and poverty? +She gave him no sign. He was assuredly not the man to pretend to powers +he did not feel himself to possess, and though from a personal, and +still more from a lover’s, inability to see all round him at one time +and accurately to weigh the forces at his disposal, he had gone far, he +was not a wilful dreamer nor so very selfish a lover. The instant his +consciousness of a superior strength failed him he acknowledged it. + +Renée did not look up. She had none of those lightnings of primitive +energy, nor the noble rashness and reliance on her lover, which his +imagination had filled her with; none. That was plain. She could not +even venture to second him. Had she done so he would have held out. He +walked to the head of the boat without replying. + +Soon after this the boat was set for Venice again. + +When he rejoined his companions he kissed Rosamund’s hand, and Renée, +despite a confused feeling of humiliation and anger, loved him for it. + +Glittering Venice was now in sight; the dome of Sta. Maria Salute +shining like a globe of salt. + +Roland flung his arm round his friend’s neck, and said, “Forgive me.” + +“You do what you think right,” said Beauchamp. + +“You are a perfect man of honour, my friend, and a woman would adore +you. Girls are straws. It’s part of Renée’s religion to obey her +father. That’s why I was astonished!... I owe you my life, and I would +willingly give you my sister in part payment, if I had the giving of +her; most willingly. The case is, that she’s a child, and you?” + +“Yes, I’m dependent,” Beauchamp assented. “I can’t act; I see it. That +scheme wants two to carry it out: she has no courage. I feel that I +could carry the day with my uncle, but I can’t subject her to the +risks, since she dreads them; I see it. Yes, I see that! I should have +done well, I believe; I should have saved her.” + +“Run to England, get your uncle’s consent, and then try.” + +“No; I shall go to her father.” + +“My dear Nevil, and supposing you have Renée to back you—supposing it, +I say—won’t you be falling on exactly the same bayonet-point?” + +“If I leave her!” Beauchamp interjected. He perceived the quality of +Renée’s unformed character which he could not express. + +“But we are to suppose that she loves you?” + +“She is a girl.” + +“You return, my friend, to the place you started from, as you did on +the canal without knowing it. In my opinion, frankly, she is best +married. And I think so all the more after this morning’s lesson. You +understand plainly that if you leave her she will soon be pliant to the +legitimate authorities; and why not?” + +“Listen to me, Roland. I tell you she loves me. I am bound to her, and +when—if ever I see her unhappy, I will not stand by and look on +quietly.” + +Roland shrugged. “The future not being born, my friend, we will abstain +from baptizing it. For me, less privileged than my fellows, I have +never seen the future. Consequently I am not in love with it, and to +declare myself candidly I do not care for it one snap of the fingers. +Let us follow our usages, and attend to the future at the hour of its +delivery. I prefer the sage-femme to the prophet. From my heart, Nevil, +I wish I could help you. We have charged great guns together, but a +family arrangement is something different from a hostile battery. +There’s Venice! and, as soon as you land, my responsibility’s ended. +Reflect, I pray you, on what I have said about girls. Upon my word, I +discover myself talking wisdom to you. Girls are precious fragilities. +Marriage is the mould for them; they get shape, substance, solidity: +that is to say, sense, passion, a will of their own: and grace and +tenderness, delicacy; all out of the rude, raw, quaking creatures we +call girls. Paris! my dear Nevil. Paris! It’s the book of women.” + +The grandeur of the decayed sea-city, where folly had danced Parisianly +of old, spread brooding along the waters in morning light; beautiful; +but with that inner light of history seen through the beauty Venice was +like a lowered banner. The great white dome and the campanili watching +above her were still brave emblems. Would Paris leave signs of an +ancient vigour standing to vindicate dignity when her fall came? Nevil +thought of Renée in Paris. + +She avoided him. She had retired behind her tent-curtains, and +reappeared only when her father’s voice hailed the boat from a gondola. +The count and the marquis were sitting together, and there was a spare +gondola for the voyagers, so that they should not have to encounter +another babel of the riva. Salutes were performed with lifted hats, +nods, and bows. + +“Well, my dear child, it has all been very wonderful and +uncomfortable?” said the count. + +“Wonderful, papa; splendid.” + +“No qualms of any kind?” + +“None, I assure you.” + +“And madame?” + +“Madame will confirm it, if you find a seat for her.” + +Rosamund Culling was received in the count’s gondola, cordially +thanked, and placed beside the marquis. + +“I stay on board and pay these fellows,” said Roland. + +Renée was told by her father to follow madame. He had jumped into the +spare gondola and offered a seat to Beauchamp. + +“No,” cried Renée, arresting Beauchamp, “it is I who mean to sit with +papa.” + +Up sprang the marquis with an entreating, “Mademoiselle!” + +“M. Beauchamp will entertain you, M. le Marquis.” + +“I want him here,” said the count; and Beauchamp showed that his wish +was to enter the count’s gondola, but Renée had recovered her aplomb, +and decisively said “No,” and Beauchamp had to yield. + +That would have been an opportunity of speaking to her father without a +formal asking of leave. She knew it as well as Nevil Beauchamp. + +Renée took his hand to be assisted in the step down to her father’s +arms, murmuring: + +“Do nothing—nothing! until you hear from me.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +CAPTAIN BASKELETT + + +Our England, meanwhile, was bustling over the extinguished war, +counting the cost of it, with a rather rueful eye on Manchester, and +soothing the taxed by an exhibition of heroes at brilliant feasts. Of +course, the first to come home had the cream of the praises. She hugged +them in a manner somewhat suffocating to modest men, but heroism must +be brought to bear upon these excesses of maternal admiration; modesty, +too, when it accepts the place of honour at a public banquet, should +not protest overmuch. To be just, the earliest arrivals, which were +such as reached the shores of Albion before her war was at an end, did +cordially reciprocate the hug. They were taught, and they believed most +naturally, that it was quite as well to repose upon her bosom as to +have stuck to their posts. Surely there was a conscious weakness in the +Spartans, who were always at pains to discipline their men in heroical +conduct, and rewarded none save the stand-fasts. A system of that sort +seems to betray the sense of poverty in the article. Our England does +nothing like it. All are welcome home to her so long as she is in want +of them. Besides, she has to please the taxpayer. You may track a +shadowy line or crazy zigzag of policy in almost every stroke of her +domestic history: either it is the forethought finding it necessary to +stir up an impulse, or else dashing impulse gives a lively pull to the +afterthought: policy becomes evident somehow, clumsily very possibly. +How can she manage an enormous middle-class, to keep it happy, other +than a little clumsily? The managing of it at all is the wonder. And +not only has she to stupefy the taxpayer by a timely display of +feastings and fireworks, she has to stop all that nonsense (to quote a +satiated man lightened in his purse) at the right moment, about the +hour when the old standfasts, who have simply been doing duty, return, +poor jog-trot fellows, and a complimentary motto or two is the utmost +she can present to them. On the other hand, it is true she gives her +first loves, those early birds, fully to understand that a change has +come in their island mother’s mind. If there is a balance to be +righted, she leaves that business to society, and if it be the season +for the gathering of society, it will be righted more or less; and if +no righting is done at all, perhaps the Press will incidentally toss a +leaf of laurel on a name or two: thus in the exercise of grumbling +doing good. + +With few exceptions, Nevil Beauchamp’s heroes received the motto +instead of the sweetmeat. England expected them to do their duty; they +did it, and she was not dissatisfied, nor should they be. Beauchamp, at +a distance from the scene, chafed with customary vehemence, concerning +the unjust measure dealt to his favourites: Captain Hardist, of the +_Diomed_, twenty years a captain, still a captain! Young Michell denied +the cross! Colonel Evans Cuff, on the heights from first to last, and +not advanced a step! But Prancer, and Plunger, and Lammakin were +thoroughly _well taken care of_, this critic of the war wrote savagely, +reviving an echo of a queer small circumstance occurring in the midst +of the high dolour and anxiety of the whole nation, and which a politic +country preferred to forget, as we will do, for it was but an instance +of strong family feeling in high quarters; and is not the unity of the +country founded on the integrity of the family sentiment? Is it not +certain, which the master tells us, that a line is but a continuation +of a number of dots? Nevil Beauchamp was for insisting that great +Government officers had paid more attention to a dot or two than to the +line. He appeared to be at war with his country after the peace. So far +he had a lively ally in his uncle Everard; but these remarks of his +were a portion of a letter, whose chief burden was the request that +Everard Romfrey would back him in proposing for the hand of a young +French lady, she being, Beauchamp smoothly acknowledged, engaged to a +wealthy French marquis, under the approbation of her family. Could +mortal folly outstrip a petition of that sort? And apparently, +according to the wording and emphasis of the letter, it was the mature +age of the marquis which made Mr. Beauchamp so particularly desirous to +stop the projected marriage and take the girl himself. He appealed to +his uncle on the subject in a “really—really” remonstrative tone, quite +overwhelming to read. “It ought not to be permitted: by all the laws of +chivalry, I should write to the girl’s father to interdict it: I really +am particeps criminis in a sin against nature if I don’t!” Mr. Romfrey +interjected in burlesque of his ridiculous nephew, with collapsing +laughter. But he expressed an indignant surprise at Nevil for allowing +Rosamund to travel alone. + +“I can take very good care of myself,” Rosamund protested. + +“You can do hundreds of things you should never be obliged to do while +he’s at hand, or I, ma’am,” said Mr. Romfrey. “The fellow’s insane. He +forgets a gentleman’s duty. Here’s his ‘humanity’ dogging a French +frock, and pooh!—the age of the marquis! Fifty? A man’s beginning his +prime at fifty, or there never was much man in him. It’s the mark of a +fool to take everybody for a bigger fool than himself—or he wouldn’t +have written this letter to me. He can’t come home yet, not yet, and he +doesn’t know when he can! Has he thrown up the service? I am to +preserve the alliance between England and France by getting this French +girl for him in the teeth of her marquis, at my peril if I refuse!” + +Rosamund asked, “Will you let me see where Nevil says that, sir?” + +Mr. Romfrey tore the letter to strips. “He’s one of your fellows who +cock their eyes when they mean to be cunning. He sends you to do the +wheedling, that’s plain. I don’t say he has hit on a bad advocate; but +tell him I back him in no mortal marriage till he shows a pair of +epaulettes on his shoulders. Tell him lieutenants are fledglings—he’s +not marriageable at present. It’s a very pretty sacrifice of himself he +intends for the sake of the alliance, tell him that, but a lieutenant’s +not quite big enough to establish it. You will know what to tell him, +ma’am. And say, it’s the fellow’s best friend that advises him to be +out of it and home quick. If he makes one of a French trio, he’s +dished. He’s too late for his luck in England. Have him out of that +mire, we can’t hope for more now.” + +Rosamund postponed her mission to plead. Her heart was with Nevil; her +understanding was easily led to side against him, and for better +reasons than Mr. Romfrey could be aware of: so she was assured by her +experience of the character of Mademoiselle de Croisnel. A certain +belief in her personal arts of persuasion had stopped her from writing +on her homeward journey to inform him that Nevil was not accompanying +her, and when she drove over Steynham Common, triumphal arches and the +odour of a roasting ox richly browning to celebrate the hero’s return +afflicted her mind with all the solid arguments of a common-sense +country in contravention of a wild lover’s vaporous extravagances. Why +had he not come with her? The disappointed ox put the question in a +wavering drop of the cheers of the villagers at the sight of the +carriage without their bleeding hero. Mr. Romfrey, at his hall-doors, +merely screwed his eyebrows; for it was the quality of this gentleman +to foresee most human events, and his capacity to stifle astonishment +when they trifled with his prognostics. Rosamund had left Nevil fast +bound in the meshes of the young French sorceress, no longer leading, +but submissively following, expecting blindly, seeing strange new +virtues in the lurid indication of what appeared to border on the +reverse. How could she plead for her infatuated darling to one who was +common sense in person? + +Everard’s pointed interrogations reduced her to speak defensively, +instead of attacking and claiming his aid for the poor enamoured young +man. She dared not say that Nevil continued to be absent because he was +now encouraged by the girl to remain in attendance on her, and was more +than half inspired to hope, and too artfully assisted to deceive the +count and the marquis under the guise of simple friendship. Letters +passed between them in books given into one another’s hands with an +audacious openness of the saddest augury for the future of the pair, +and Nevil could be so lost to reason as to glory in Renée’s +intrepidity, which he justified by their mutual situation, and +cherished for a proof that she was getting courage. In fine, Rosamund +abandoned her task of pleading. Nevil’s communications gave the case a +worse and worse aspect: Renée was prepared to speak to her father; she +delayed it; then the two were to part; they were unable to perform the +terrible sacrifice and slay their last hope; and then Nevil wrote of +destiny—language hitherto unknown to him, evidently the tongue of +Renée. He slipped on from Italy to France. His uncle was besieged by a +series of letters, and his cousin, Cecil Baskelett, a captain in +England’s grand reserve force—her Horse Guards, of the Blue +division—helped Everard Romfrey to laugh over them. + +It was not difficult, alack! Letters of a lover in an extremity of +love, crying for help, are as curious to cool strong men as the +contortions of the proved heterodox tied to a stake must have been to +their chastening ecclesiastical judges. Why go to the fire when a +recantation will save you from it? Why not break the excruciating +faggot-bands, and escape, when you have only to decide to do it? We +naturally ask why. Those martyrs of love or religion are madmen. +Altogether, Nevil’s adjurations and supplications, his threats of wrath +and appeals to reason, were an odd mixture. “He won’t lose a chance +while there’s breath in his body,” Everard said, quite good-humouredly, +though he deplored that the chance for the fellow to make his +hero-parade in society, and haply catch an heiress, was waning. There +was an heiress at Steynham, on her way with her father to Italy, very +anxious to see her old friend Nevil—Cecilia Halkett—and very +inquisitive this young lady of sixteen was to know the cause of his +absence. She heard of it from Cecil. + +“And one morning last week mademoiselle was running away with him, and +the next morning she was married to her marquis!” + +Cecil was able to tell her that. + +“I used to be so fond of him,” said the ingenuous young lady. She had +to thank Nevil for a Circassian dress and pearls, which he had sent to +her by the hands of Mrs. Culling—a pretty present to a girl in the +nursery, she thought, and in fact she chose to be a little wounded by +the cause of his absence. + +“He’s a good creature-really,” Cecil spoke on his cousin’s behalf. +“Mad; he always will be mad. A dear old savage; always amuses me. He +does! I get half my entertainment from him.” + +Captain Baskelett was gifted with the art, which is a fine and a +precious one, of priceless value in society, and not wanting a +benediction upon it in our elegant literature, namely, the art of +stripping his fellow-man and so posturing him as to make every movement +of the comical wretch puppet-like, constrained, stiff, and foolish. He +could present you heroical actions in that fashion; for example: + +“A long-shanked trooper, bearing the name of John Thomas Drew, was +crawling along under fire of the batteries. Out pops old Nevil, tries +to get the man on his back. It won’t do. Nevil insists that it’s +exactly one of the cases that ought to be, and they remain arguing +about it like a pair of nine-pins while the Muscovites are at work with +the bowls. Very well. Let me tell you my story. It’s perfectly true, I +give you my word. So Nevil tries to horse Drew, and Drew proposes to +horse Nevil, as at school. Then Drew offers a compromise. He would much +rather have crawled on, you know, and allowed the shot to pass over his +head; but he’s a Briton, old Nevil the same; but old Nevil’s +peculiarity is that, as you are aware, he hates a compromise—won’t have +it—retro Sathanas! and Drew’s proposal to take his arm instead of being +carried pickaback disgusts old Nevil. Still it won’t do to stop where +they are, like the cocoa-nut and the pincushion of our friends, the +gipsies, on the downs: so they take arms and commence the journey home, +resembling the best of friends on the evening of a holiday in our +native clime—two steps to the right, half-a-dozen to the left, +etcætera.” + +Thus, with scarce a variation from the facts, with but a flowery +chaplet cast on a truthful narrative, as it were, Captain Baskelett +could render ludicrous that which in other quarters had obtained +honourable mention. Nevil and Drew being knocked down by the wind of a +ball near the battery, “Confound it!” cries Nevil, jumping on his feet, +“it’s because I consented to a compromise!”—a transparent piece of +fiction this, but so in harmony with the character stripped naked for +us that it is accepted. Imagine Nevil’s love-affair in such hands! +Recovering from a fever, Nevil sees a pretty French girl in a gondola, +and immediately thinks, “By jingo, I’m marriageable.” He hears she is +engaged. “By jingo, she’s marriageable too.” He goes through a sum in +addition, and the total is a couple; so he determines on a marriage. +“You can’t get it out of his head; he must be married instantly, and to +her, because she is going to marry somebody else. Sticks to her, +follows her, will have her, in spite of her father, her marquis, her +brother, aunts, cousins, religion, country, and the young woman +herself. I assure you, a perfect model of male fidelity! She is +married. He is on her track. He knows his time will come; he has only +to be handy. You see, old Nevil believes in Providence, is perfectly +sure he will one day hear it cry out, ‘Where’s Beauchamp?’—‘Here I +am!’—‘And here’s your marquise!’—‘I knew I should have her at last,’ +says Nevil, calm as Mont Blanc on a reduced scale.” + +The secret of Captain Baskelett’s art would seem to be to show the +automatic human creature at loggerheads with a necessity that winks at +remarkable pretensions, while condemning it perpetually to doll-like +action. You look on men from your own elevation as upon a quantity of +our little wooden images, unto whom you affix puny characteristics, +under restrictions from which they shall not escape, though they +attempt it with the enterprising vigour of an extended leg, or a pair +of raised arms, or a head awry, or a trick of jumping; and some of them +are extraordinarily addicted to these feats; but for all they do the +end is the same, for necessity rules, that exactly so, under stress of +activity must the doll Nevil, the doll Everard, or the dolliest of +dolls, fair woman, behave. The automatic creature is subject to the +laws of its construction, you perceive. It can this, it can that, but +it cannot leap out of its mechanism. One definition of the art is, +humour made easy, and that may be why Cecil Baskelett indulged in it, +and why it is popular with those whose humour consists of a readiness +to laugh. + +The fun between Cecil Baskelett and Mr. Romfrey over the doll Nevil +threatened an intimacy and community of sentiment that alarmed Rosamund +on behalf of her darling’s material prospects. She wrote to him, +entreating him to come to Steynham. Nevil Beauchamp replied to her both +frankly and shrewdly: “I shall not pretend that I forgive my uncle +Everard, and therefore it is best for me to keep away. Have no fear. +The baron likes a man of his own tastes: they may laugh together, if it +suits them; he never could be guilty of treachery, and to disinherit me +would be that. If I were to become his open enemy to-morrow, I should +look on the estates as mine—unless I did anything to make him +disrespect me. You will not suppose it likely. I foresee I shall want +money. As for Cecil, I give him as much rope as he cares to have. I +know very well Everard Romfrey will see where the point of likeness +between them stops. I apply for a ship the moment I land.” + +To test Nevil’s judgement of his uncle, Rosamund ventured on showing +this letter to Mr. Romfrey. He read it, and said nothing, but +subsequently asked, from time to time, “Has he got his ship yet?” It +assured her that Nevil was not wrong, and dispelled her notion of the +vulgar imbroglio of a rich uncle and two thirsty nephews. She was +hardly less relieved in reflecting that he could read men so soberly +and accurately. The desperation of the youth in love had rendered her +one little bit doubtful of the orderliness of his wits. After this she +smiled on Cecil’s assiduities. Nevil obtained his appointment to a ship +bound for the coast of Africa to spy for slavers. He called on his +uncle in London, and spent the greater part of the hour’s visit with +Rosamund; seemed cured of his passion, devoid of rancour, glad of the +prospect of a run among the slaving hulls. He and his uncle shook hands +manfully, at the full outstretch of their arms, in a way so like them, +to Rosamund’s thinking—that is, in a way so unlike any other possible +couple of men so situated—that the humour of the sight eclipsed all the +pleasantries of Captain Baskelett. “Good-bye, sir,” Nevil said +heartily; and Everard Romfrey was not behind-hand with the cordial ring +of his “Good-bye, Nevil”; and upon that they separated. Rosamund would +have been willing to speak to her beloved of his false Renée—the +Frenchwoman, she termed her, _i.e._ generically false, needless to +name; and one question quivered on her tongue’s tip: “How, when she had +promised to fly with you, _how could she_ the very next day step to the +altar with him now her husband?” And, if she had spoken it, she would +have added, “Your uncle could not have set his face against you, had +you brought her to England.” She felt strongly the mastery Nevil +Beauchamp could exercise even over his uncle Everard. But when he was +gone, unquestioned, merely caressed, it came to her mind that he had +all through insisted on his possession of this particular power, and +she accused herself of having wantonly helped to ruin his hope—a matter +to be rejoiced at in the abstract; but what suffering she had inflicted +on him! To quiet her heart, she persuaded herself that for the future +she would never fail to believe in him and second him blindly, as true +love should; and contemplating one so brave, far-sighted, and +self-assured, her determination seemed to impose the lightest of tasks. + +Practically humane though he was, and especially toward cattle and all +kinds of beasts, Mr. Romfrey entertained no profound fellow-feeling for +the negro, and, except as the representative of a certain amount of +working power commonly requiring the whip to wind it up, he inclined to +despise that black spot in the creation, with which our civilization +should never have had anything to do. So he pronounced his mind, and +the long habit of listening to oracles might grow us ears to hear and +discover a meaning in it. Nevil’s captures and releases of the grinning +freights amused him for awhile. He compared them to strings of bananas, +and presently put the vision of the whole business aside by talking of +Nevil’s banana-wreath. He desired to have Nevil out of it. He and Cecil +handed Nevil in his banana-wreath about to their friends. Nevil, in his +banana-wreath, was set preaching “humanitomtity.” At any rate, they +contrived to keep the remembrance of Nevil Beauchamp alive during the +period of his disappearance from the world, and in so doing they did +him a service. + +There is a pause between the descent of a diver and his return to the +surface, when those who would not have him forgotten by the better +world above him do rightly to relate anecdotes of him, if they can, and +to provoke laughter at him. The encouragement of the humane sense of +superiority over an object of interest, which laughter gives, is good +for the object; and besides, if you begin to tell sly stories of one in +the deeps who is holding his breath to fetch a pearl or two for you +all, you divert a particular sympathetic oppression of the chest, that +the extremely sensitive are apt to suffer from, and you dispose the +larger number to keep in mind a person they no longer see. Otherwise it +is likely that he will, very shortly after he has made his plunge, +fatigue the contemplative brains above, and be shuffled off them, even +as great ocean smoothes away the dear vanished man’s immediate circle +of foam, and rapidly confounds the rippling memory of him with its +other agitations. And in such a case the apparition of his head upon +our common level once more will almost certainly cause a disagreeable +shock; nor is it improbable that his first natural snorts in his native +element, though they be simply to obtain his share of the breath of +life, will draw down on him condemnation for eccentric behaviour and +unmannerly; and this in spite of the jewel he brings, unless it be an +exceedingly splendid one. The reason is, that our brave world cannot +pardon a breach of continuity for any petty bribe. + +Thus it chanced, owing to the prolonged efforts of Mr. Romfrey and +Cecil Baskelett to get fun out of him, at the cost of considerable +inventiveness, that the electoral Address of the candidate, signing +himself “R. C. S. Nevil Beauchamp,” to the borough of Bevisham, did not +issue from an altogether unremembered man. + +He had been cruising in the Mediterranean, commanding the _Ariadne_, +the smartest corvette in the service. He had, it was widely made known, +met his marquise in Palermo. It was presumed that he was dancing the +round with her still, when this amazing Address appeared on Bevisham’s +walls, in anticipation of the general Election. The Address, moreover, +was ultra-Radical: museums to be opened on Sundays; ominous references +to the Land question, etc.; no smooth passing mention of Reform, such +as the Liberal, become stately, adopts in speaking of that property of +his, but swinging blows on the heads of many a denounced iniquity. + +Cecil forwarded the Address to Everard Romfrey without comment. + +Next day the following letter, dated from Itchincope, the house of Mr. +Grancey Lespel, on the borders of Bevisham, arrived at Steynham: + +“I have despatched you the proclamation, folded neatly. The electors of +Bevisham are summoned, like a town at the sword’s point, to yield him +their votes. Proclamation is the word. I am your born representative! I +have completed my political education on salt water, and I tackle you +on the Land question. I am the heir of your votes, gentlemen!—I forgot, +and I apologize; he calls them fellow-men. Fraternal, and not so risky. +Here at Lespel’s we read the thing with shouts. It hangs in the +smoking-room. We throw open the curacoa to the intelligence and +industry of the assembled guests; we carry the right of the multitude +to our host’s cigars by a majority. C’est un farceur que notre bon +petit cousin. Lespel says it is sailorlike to do something of this sort +after a cruise. Nevil’s Radicalism would have been clever anywhere out +of Bevisham. Of all boroughs! Grancey Lespel knows it. He and his +family were Bevisham’s Whig M.P.“s before the day of Manchester. In +Bevisham an election is an arrangement made by Providence to square the +accounts of the voters, and settle arrears. They reckon up the health +of their two members and the chances of an appeal to the country when +they fix the rents and leases. You have them pointed out to you in the +street, with their figures attached to them like titles. Mr. Tomkins, +the twenty-pound man; an elector of uncommon purity. I saw the ruffian +yesterday. He has an extra breadth to his hat. He has never been known +to listen to a member under £20, and is respected enormously—like the +lady of the Mythology, who was an intolerable Tartar of virtue, because +her price was nothing less than a god, and money down. Nevil will have +to come down on Bevisham in the Jupiter style. Bevisham is downright +the dearest of boroughs—‘vaulting-boards,’ as Stukely Culbrett calls +them—in the kingdom. I assume we still say ‘kingdom.’ + +“He dashed into the Radical trap exactly two hours after landing. I +believe he was on his way to the Halketts at Mount Laurels. A notorious +old rascal revolutionist retired from his licenced business of +slaughterer—one of your _gratis_ doctors—met him on the high-road, and +told him he was the man. Up went Nevil’s enthusiasm like a bottle rid +of the cork. You will see a great deal about faith in the proclamation; +‘faith in the future,’ and ‘my faith in you.’ When you become a Radical +you have faith in any quantity, just as an alderman gets turtle soup. +It is your badge, like a livery-servant’s cockade or a corporal’s +sleeve stripes—your badge and your bellyful. Calculations were gone +through at the Liberal newspaper-office, old Nevil adding up hard, and +he was informed that he was elected by something like a topping eight +or nine hundred and some fractions. I am sure that a fellow who can let +himself be gulled by a pile of figures trumped up in a Radical +newspaper-office must have great faith in the fractions. Out came +Nevil’s proclamation. + +“I have not met him, and I would rather not. I shall not pretend to +offer you advice, for I have the habit of thinking your judgement can +stand by itself. We shall all find this affair a nuisance. Nevil will +pay through the nose. We shall have the ridicule spattered on the +family. It would be a safer thing for him to invest his money on the +Turf, and I shall advise his doing it if I come across him. + +“Perhaps the best course would be to telegraph for the marquise!” + +This was from Cecil Baskelett. He added a postscript: + +“Seriously, the ‘mad commander’ has not an ace of a chance. Grancey and +I saw some Working Men (you have to write them in capitals, king and +queen small); they were reading the Address on a board carried by a +red-nosed man, and shrugging. They are not such fools. + +“By the way, I am informed Shrapnel has a young female relative living +with him, said to be a sparkler. I bet you, sir, she is not a Radical. +Do you take me?” + +Rosamund Culling drove to the railway station on her way to Bevisham +within an hour after Mr. Romfrey’s eyebrows had made acute play over +this communication. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +AN INTERVIEW WITH THE INFAMOUS DR. SHRAPNEL + + +In the High street of the ancient and famous town and port of Bevisham, +Rosamund met the military governor of a neighbouring fortress, General +Sherwin, once colonel of her husband’s regiment in India; and by him, +as it happened, she was assisted in finding the whereabout of the young +Liberal candidate, without the degrading recourse of an application at +the newspaper-office of his party. The General was leisurely walking to +a place of appointment to fetch his daughter home from a visit to an +old school-friend, a Miss Jenny Denham, no other than a ward, or a +niece, or an adoption of Dr. Shrapnel’s: “A nice girl; a great +favourite of mine,” the General said. Shrapnel he knew by reputation +only as a wrong-headed politician; but he spoke of Miss Denham +pleasantly two or three times, praising her accomplishments and her +winning manners. His hearer suspected that it might be done to +dissociate the idea of her from the ruffling agitator. “Is she pretty?” +was a question that sprang from Rosamund’s intimate reflections. The +answer was, “Yes.” + +“Very pretty?” + +“I think very pretty,” said the General. + +“Captivatingly?” + +“Clara thinks she is perfect; she is tall and slim, and dresses well. +The girls were with a French Madam in Paris. But, if you are interested +about her, you can come on with me, and we shall meet them somewhere +near the head of the street. I don’t,” the General hesitated and +hummed—“I don’t call at Shrapnel’s.” + +“I have never heard her name before to-day,” said Rosamund. + +“Exactly,” said the General, crowing at the aimlessness of a woman’s +curiosity. + +The young ladies were seen approaching, and Rosamund had to ask herself +whether the first sight of a person like Miss Denham would be of a kind +to exercise a lively influence over the political and other sentiments +of a dreamy sailor just released from ship-service. In an ordinary case +she would have said no, for Nevil enjoyed a range of society where +faces charming as Miss Denham’s were plentiful as roses in the +rose-garden. But, supposing him free of his bondage to the foreign +woman, there was, she thought and feared, a possibility that a girl of +this description might capture a young man’s vacant heart sighing for a +new mistress. And if so, further observation assured her Miss Denham +was likely to be dangerous far more than professedly attractive +persons, enchantresses and the rest. Rosamund watchfully gathered all +the superficial indications which incite women to judge of character +profoundly. This new object of alarm was, as the General had said of +her, tall and slim, a friend of neatness, plainly dressed, but +exquisitely fitted, in the manner of Frenchwomen. She spoke very +readily, not too much, and had the rare gift of being able to speak +fluently with a smile on the mouth. Vulgar archness imitates it. She +won and retained the eyes of her hearer sympathetically, it seemed. +Rosamund thought her as little conscious as a woman could be. She +coloured at times quickly, but without confusion. When that name, the +key of Rosamund’s meditations, chanced to be mentioned, a flush swept +over Miss Denham’s face. The candour of it was unchanged as she gazed +at Rosamund, with a look that asked, “Do you know him?” + +Rosamund said, “I am an old friend of his.” + +“He is here now, in this town.” + +“I wish to see him very much.” + +General Sherwin interposed: “We won’t talk about political characters +just for the present.” + +“I wish you knew him, papa, and would advise him,” his daughter said. + +The General nodded hastily. “By-and-by, by-and-by.” + +They had in fact taken seats at a table of mutton pies in a +pastrycook’s shop, where dashing military men were restrained solely by +their presence from a too noisy display of fascinations before the +fashionable waiting-women. + +Rosamund looked at Miss Denham. As soon as they were in the street the +latter said, “If you will be good enough to come with me, madam...?” +Rosamund bowed, thankful to have been comprehended. The two young +ladies kissed cheeks and parted. General Sherwin raised his hat, and +was astonished to see Mrs. Culling join Miss Denham in accepting the +salute, for they had not been introduced, and what could they have in +common? It was another of the oddities of female nature. + +“My name is Mrs. Culling, and I will tell you how it is that I am +interested in Captain Beauchamp,” Rosamund addressed her companion. “I +am his uncle’s housekeeper. I have known him and loved him since he was +a boy. I am in great fear that he is acting rashly.” + +“You honour me, madam, by speaking to me so frankly,” Miss Denham +answered. + +“He is quite bent upon this Election?” + +“Yes, madam. I am not, as you can suppose, in his confidence, but I +hear of him from Dr. Shrapnel.” + +“Your uncle?” + +“I call him uncle: he is my guardian, madam.” + +It is perhaps excuseable that this communication did not cause the +doctor to shine with added lustre in Rosamund’s thoughts, or ennoble +the young lady. + +“You are not relatives, then?” she said. + +“No, unless love can make us so.” + +“Not blood-relatives?” + +“No.” + +“Is he not very... extreme?” + +“He is very sincere.” + +“I presume you are a politician?” + +Miss Denham smiled. “Could you pardon me, madam, if I said that I was?” +The counter-question was a fair retort enfolding a gentler irony. +Rosamund felt that she had to do with wits as well as with vivid +feminine intuitions in the person of this Miss Denham. + +She said, “I really am of opinion that our sex might abstain from +politics.” + +“We find it difficult to do justice to both parties,” Miss Denham +followed. “It seems to be a kind of clanship with women; hardly even +that.” + +Rosamund was inattentive to the conversational slipshod, and launched +one of the heavy affirmatives which are in dialogue full stops. She +could not have said why she was sensible of anger, but the sentiment of +anger, or spite (if that be a lesser degree of the same affliction), +became stirred in her bosom when she listened to the ward of Dr. +Shrapnel. A silly pretty puss of a girl would not have excited it, nor +an avowed blood-relative of the demagogue. + +Nevil’s hotel was pointed out to Rosamund, and she left her card there. +He had been absent since eight in the morning. There was the +probability that he might be at Dr. Shrapnel’s, so Rosamund walked on. + +“Captain Beauchamp gives himself no rest,” Miss Denham said. + +“Oh! I know him, when once his mind is set on anything,” said Rosamund. + +“Is it not too early to begin to—canvass, I think, is the word?” + +“He is studying whatever the town can teach him of its wants; that is, +how he may serve it.” + +“Indeed! But if the town will not have him to serve it?” + +“He imagines that he cannot do better, until that has been decided, +than to fit himself for the post.” + +“Acting upon your advice? I mean, of course, your uncle’s; that is, Dr. +Shrapnel’s.” + +“Dr. Shrapnel thinks it will not be loss of time for Captain Beauchamp +to grow familiar with the place, and observe as well as read.” + +“It sounds almost as if Captain Beauchamp had submitted to be Dr. +Shrapnel’s pupil.” + +“It is natural, madam, that Dr. Shrapnel should know more of political +ways at present than Captain Beauchamp.” + +“To Captain Beauchamp’s friends and relatives it appears very strange +that he should have decided to contest this election so suddenly. May I +inquire whether he and Dr. Shrapnel are old acquaintances?” + +“No, madam, they are not. They had never met before Captain Beauchamp +landed, the other day.” + +“I am surprised, I confess. I cannot understand the nature of an +influence that induces him to abandon a profession he loves and shines +in, for politics, at a moment’s notice.” + +Miss Denham was silent, and then said: + +“I will tell you, madam, how it occurred, as far as circumstances +explain it. Dr. Shrapnel is accustomed to give a little country feast +to the children I teach, and their parents if they choose to come, and +they generally do. They are driven to Northeden Heath, where we set up +a booth for them, and try with cakes and tea and games to make them +spend one of their happy afternoons and evenings. We succeed, I know, +for the little creatures talk of it and look forward to the day. When +they are at their last romp, Dr. Shrapnel speaks to the parents.” + +“Can he obtain a hearing?” Rosamund asked. + +“He has not so very large a crowd to address, madam, and he is much +beloved by those that come.” + +“He speaks to them of politics on those occasions?” + +“_Adouci à leur intention_. It is not a political speech, but Dr. +Shrapnel thinks, that in a so-called free country seeking to be really +free, men of the lowest class should be educated in forming a political +judgement.” + +“And women too?” + +“And women, yes. Indeed, madam, we notice that the women listen very +creditably.” + +“They can put on the air.” + +“I am afraid, not more than the men do. To get them to listen is +something. They suffer like the men, and must depend on their +intelligence to win their way out of it.” + +Rosamund’s meditation was exclamatory: What can be the age of this +pretentious girl? + +An afterthought turned her more conciliatorily toward the person, but +less to the subject. She was sure that she was lending ear to the echo +of the dangerous doctor, and rather pitied Miss Denham for awhile, +reflecting that a young woman stuffed with such ideas would find it +hard to get a husband. Mention of Nevil revived her feeling of +hostility. + +“We had seen a gentleman standing near and listening attentively,” Miss +Denham resumed, “and when Dr. Shrapnel concluded a card was handed to +him. He read it and gave it to me, and said, ‘You know that name.’ It +was a name we had often talked about during the war. + +“He went to Captain Beauchamp and shook his hand. He does not pay many +compliments, and he does not like to receive them, but it was +impossible for him not to be moved by Captain Beauchamp’s warmth in +thanking him for the words he had spoken. I saw that Dr. Shrapnel +became interested in Captain Beauchamp the longer they conversed. We +walked home together. Captain Beauchamp supped with us. I left them at +half-past eleven at night, and in the morning I found them walking in +the garden. They had not gone to bed at all. Captain Beauchamp has +remained in Bevisham ever since. He soon came to the decision to be a +candidate for the borough.” + +Rosamund checked her lips from uttering: To be a puppet of Dr. +Shrapnel’s! + +She remarked, “He is very eloquent—Dr. Shrapnel?” + +Miss Denham held some debate with herself upon the term. + +“Perhaps it is not eloquence; he often... no, he is not an orator.” + +Rosamund suggested that he was persuasive, possibly. + +Again the young lady deliberately weighed the word, as though the +nicest measure of her uncle or adoptor’s quality in this or that +direction were in requisition and of importance—an instance of a want +of delicacy of perception Rosamund was not sorry to detect. For +good-looking, refined-looking, quick-witted girls can be grown; but the +nimble sense of fitness, ineffable lightning-footed tact, comes of race +and breeding, and she was sure Nevil was a man soon to feel the absence +of that. + +“Dr. Shrapnel is persuasive to those who go partly with him, or whose +condition of mind calls on him for great patience,” Miss Denham said at +last. + +“I am only trying to comprehend how it was that he should so rapidly +have won Captain Beauchamp to his views,” Rosamund explained; and the +young lady did not reply. + +Dr. Shrapnel’s house was about a mile beyond the town, on a common of +thorn and gorse, through which the fir-bordered highway ran. A fence +waist-high enclosed its plot of meadow and garden, so that the doctor, +while protecting his own, might see and be seen of the world, as was +the case when Rosamund approached. He was pacing at long slow strides +along the gravel walk, with his head bent and bare, and his hands +behind his back, accompanied by a gentleman who could be no other than +Nevil, Rosamund presumed to think; but drawing nearer she found she was +mistaken. + +“That is not Captain Beauchamp’s figure,” she said. + +“No, it is not he,” said Miss Denham. + +Rosamund saw that her companion was pale. She warmed to her at once; by +no means on account of the pallor in itself. + +“I have walked too fast for you, I fear.” + +“Oh no; I am accused of being a fast walker.” + +Rosamund was unwilling to pass through the demagogue’s gate. On second +thoughts, she reflected that she could hardly stipulate to have news of +Nevil tossed to her over the spikes, and she entered. + +While receiving Dr. Shrapnel’s welcome to a friend of Captain +Beauchamp, she observed the greeting between Miss Denham and the +younger gentleman. It reassured her. They met like two that have a +secret. + +The dreaded doctor was an immoderately tall man, lean and wiry, +carelessly clad in a long loose coat of no colour, loose trowsers, and +huge shoes. + +He stooped from his height to speak, or rather swing the stiff upper +half of his body down to his hearer’s level and back again, like a +ship’s mast on a billowy sea. He was neither rough nor abrupt, nor did +he roar bullmouthedly as demagogues are expected to do, though his +voice was deep. He was actually, after his fashion, courteous, it could +be said of him, except that his mind was too visibly possessed by +distant matters for Rosamund’s taste, she being accustomed to +drawing-room and hunting and military gentlemen, who can be all in the +words they utter. Nevertheless he came out of his lizard-like look with +the down-dropped eyelids quick at a resumption of the dialogue; +sometimes gesturing, sweeping his arm round. A stubborn tuft of +iron-grey hair fell across his forehead, and it was apparently one of +his life’s labours to get it to lie amid the mass, for his hand rarely +ceased to be in motion without an impulsive stroke at the refractory +forelock. He peered through his eyelashes ordinarily, but from no +infirmity of sight. The truth was, that the man’s nature counteracted +his spirit’s intenser eagerness and restlessness by alternating a state +of repose that resembled dormancy, and so preserved him. Rosamund was +obliged to give him credit for straightforward eyes when they did look +out and flash. Their filmy blue, half overflown with grey by age, was +poignant while the fire in them lasted. Her antipathy attributed +something electrical to the light they shot. + +Dr. Shrapnel’s account of Nevil stated him to have gone to call on +Colonel Halkett, a new resident at Mount Laurels, on the Otley river. +He offered the welcome of his house to the lady who was Captain +Beauchamp’s friend, saying, with extraordinary fatuity (so it sounded +in Rosamund’s ears), that Captain Beauchamp would certainly not let an +evening pass without coming to him. Rosamund suggested that he might +stay late at Mount Laurels. + +“Then he will arrive here after nightfall,” said the doctor. “A bed is +at your service, ma’am.” + +The offer was declined. “I should like to have seen him to-day; but he +will be home shortly.” + +“He will not quit Bevisham till this Election’s decided unless to hunt +a stray borough vote, ma’am.” + +“He goes to Mount Laurels.” + +“For that purpose.” + +“I do not think he will persuade Colonel Halkett to vote in the Radical +interest.” + +“That is the probability with a landed proprietor, ma’am. We must +knock, whether the door opens or not. Like,” the doctor laughed to +himself up aloft, “like a watchman in the night to say that he smells +smoke on the premises.” + +“Surely we may expect Captain Beauchamp to consult his family about so +serious a step as this he is taking,” Rosamund said, with an effort to +be civil. + +“Why should he?” asked the impending doctor. + +His head continued in the interrogative position when it had resumed +its elevation. The challenge for a definite reply to so outrageous a +question irritated Rosamund’s nerves, and, loth though she was to admit +him to the subject, she could not forbear from saying, “Why? Surely his +family have the first claim on him!” + +“Surely not, ma’am. There is no first claim. A man’s wife and children +have a claim on him for bread. A man’s parents have a claim on him for +obedience while he is a child. A man’s uncles, aunts, and cousins have +no claim on him at all, except for help in necessity, which he can +grant and they require. None—wife, children, parents, relatives—none +has a claim to bar his judgement and his actions. Sound the conscience, +and sink the family! With a clear conscience, it is best to leave the +family to its own debates. No man ever did brave work who held counsel +with his family. The family view of a man’s fit conduct is the weak +point of the country. It is no other view than, ‘Better thy condition +for our sakes.’ Ha! In this way we breed sheep, fatten oxen: men are +dying off. Resolution taken, consult the family means—waste your time! +Those who go to it want an excuse for altering their minds. The family +view is everlastingly the shopkeeper’s! Purse, pence, ease, increase of +worldly goods, personal importance—the pound, the English pound! Dare +do that, and you forfeit your share of Port wine in this world; you +won’t be dubbed with a title; you’ll be fingered at! Lord, Lord! is it +the region inside a man, or out, that gives him peace? _Out_, they say; +for they have lost faith in the existence of an inner. They haven’t it. +Air-sucker, blood-pump, cooking machinery, and a battery of trained +instincts, aptitudes, fill up their vacuum. I repeat, ma’am, why should +young Captain Beauchamp spend an hour consulting his family? They won’t +approve him; he knows it. They may annoy him; and what is the gain of +that? They can’t move him; on that I let my right hand burn. So it +would be useless on both sides. He thinks so. So do I. He is one of the +men to serve his country on the best field we can choose for him. In a +ship’s cabin he is thrown away. Ay, ay, War, and he may go aboard. But +now we must have him ashore. Too few of such as he!” + +“It is matter of opinion,” said Rosamund, very tightly compressed; +scarcely knowing what she said. + +How strange, besides hateful, it was to her to hear her darling spoken +of by a stranger who not only pretended to appreciate but to possess +him! A stranger, a man of evil, with monstrous ideas! A terribly strong +inexhaustible man, of a magical power too; or would he otherwise have +won such a mastery over Nevil? + +Of course she could have shot a rejoinder, to confute him with all the +force of her indignation, save that the words were tumbling about in +her head like a world in disruption, which made her feel a weakness at +the same time that she gloated on her capacity, as though she had an +enormous army, quite overwhelming if it could but be got to move in +advance. This very common condition of the silent-stricken, unused in +dialectics, heightened Rosamund’s disgust by causing her to suppose +that Nevil had been similarly silenced, in his case vanquished, +captured, ruined; and he dwindled in her estimation for a moment or +two. She felt that among a sisterhood of gossips she would soon have +found her voice, and struck down the demagogue’s audacious sophisms: +not that they affected her in the slightest degree for her own sake. + +Shrapnel might think what he liked, and say what he liked, as far as +she was concerned, apart from the man she loved. Rosamund went through +these emotions altogether on Nevil’s behalf, and longed for her +affirmatizing inspiring sisterhood until the thought of them threw +another shade on him. + +What champion was she to look to? To whom but to Mr. Everard Romfrey? + +It was with a spasm of delighted reflection that she hit on Mr. +Romfrey. He was like a discovery to her. With his strength and skill, +his robust common sense and rough shrewd wit, his prompt comparisons, +his chivalry, his love of combat, his old knightly blood, was not he a +match, and an overmatch, for the ramping Radical who had tangled Nevil +in his rough snares? She ran her mind over Mr. Romfrey’s virtues, down +even to his towering height and breadth. Could she but once draw these +two giants into collision in Nevil’s presence, she was sure it would +save him. The method of doing it she did not stop to consider: she +enjoyed her triumph in the idea. + +Meantime she had passed from Dr. Shrapnel to Miss Denham, and carried +on a conversation becomingly. + +Tea had been made in the garden, and she had politely sipped half a +cup, which involved no step inside the guilty house, and therefore no +distress to her antagonism. The sun descended. She heard the doctor +reciting. Could it be poetry? In her imagination the sombre hues +surrounding an incendiary opposed that bright spirit. She listened, +smiling incredulously. Miss Denham could interpret looks, and said, +“Dr. Shrapnel is very fond of those verses.” + +Rosamund’s astonishment caused her to say, “Are they his own?”—a piece +of satiric innocency at which Miss Denham laughed softly as she +answered, “No.” + +Rosamund pleaded that she had not heard them with any distinctness. + +“Are they written by the gentleman at his side?” + +“Mr. Lydiard? No. He writes, but the verses are not his.” + +“Does he know—has he met Captain Beauchamp?” + +“Yes, once. Captain Beauchamp has taken a great liking to his works.” + +Rosamund closed her eyes, feeling that she was in a nest that had +determined to appropriate Nevil. But at any rate there was the hope and +the probability that this Mr. Lydiard of the pen had taken a long start +of Nevil in the heart of Miss Denham: and struggling to be candid, to +ensure some meditative satisfaction, Rosamund admitted to herself that +the girl did not appear to be one of the wanton giddy-pated pusses who +play two gentlemen or more on their line. Appearances, however, could +be deceptive: never pretend to know a girl by her face, was one of +Rosamund’s maxims. + +She was next informed of Dr. Shrapnel’s partiality for music toward the +hour of sunset. Miss Denham mentioned it, and the doctor, presently +sauntering up, invited Rosamund to a seat on a bench near the open +window of the drawing-room. He nodded to his ward to go in. + +“I am a fire-worshipper, ma’am,” he said. “The God of day is the father +of poetry, medicine, music: our best friend. See him there! My Jenny +will spin a thread from us to him over the millions of miles, with one +touch of the chords, as quick as he shoots a beam on us. Ay! on her +wretched tinkler called a piano, which tries at the whole orchestra and +murders every instrument in the attempt. But it’s convenient, like our +modern civilization—a taming and a diminishing of individuals for an +insipid harmony!” + +“You surely do not object to the organ?—I fear I cannot wait, though,” +said Rosamund. + +Miss Denham entreated her. “Oh! do, madam. Not to hear me—I am not so +perfect a player that I should wish it—but to see him. Captain +Beauchamp may now be coming at any instant.” + +Mr. Lydiard added, “I have an appointment with him here for this +evening.” + +“You build a cathedral of sound in the organ,” said Dr. Shrapnel, +casting out a league of leg as he sat beside his only half-persuaded +fretful guest. “You subject the winds to serve you; that’s a gain. You +do actually accomplish a resonant imitation of the various instruments; +they sing out as your two hands command them—trumpet, flute, dulcimer, +hautboy, drum, storm, earthquake, ethereal quire; you have them at your +option. But tell me of an organ in the open air? The sublimity would +vanish, ma’am, both from the notes and from the structure, because +accessories and circumstances produce its chief effects. Say that an +organ is a despotism, just as your piano is the Constitutional +bourgeois. Match them with the trained orchestral band of skilled +individual performers, indoors or out, where each grasps his +instrument, and each relies on his fellow with confidence, and an +unrivalled concord comes of it. That is our republic each one to his +work; all in union! There’s the motto for us! _Then_ you have music, +harmony, the highest, fullest, finest! Educate your men to form a band, +you shame dexterous trickery and imitation sounds. _Then_ for the +difference of real instruments from clever shams! Oh, ay, _one_ will +set your organ going; that is, one in front, with his couple of panting +air-pumpers behind—his ministers!” Dr. Shrapnel laughed at some +undefined mental image, apparently careless of any laughing +companionship. “_One_ will do it for you, especially if he’s born to do +it. Born!” A slap of the knee reported what seemed to be an immensely +contemptuous sentiment. “But free mouths blowing into brass and wood, +ma’am, beat your bellows and your whifflers; your artificial +choruses—crash, crash! your unanimous plebiscitums! Beat them? There’s +no contest: we’re in another world; we’re in the sun’s world,—yonder!” + +Miss Denham’s opening notes on the despised piano put a curb on the +doctor. She began a Mass of Mozart’s, without the usual preliminary +rattle of the keys, as of a crier announcing a performance, straight to +her task, for which Rosamund thanked her, liking that kind of composed +simplicity: she thanked her more for cutting short the doctor’s +fanatical nonsense. It was perceptible to her that a species of mad +metaphor had been wriggling and tearing its passage through a +thorn-bush in his discourse, with the furious urgency of a sheep in a +panic; but where the ostensible subject ended and the metaphor +commenced, and which was which at the conclusion, she found it +difficult to discern—much as the sheep would, be when he had left his +fleece behind him. She could now have said, “Silly old man!” + +Dr. Shrapnel appeared most placable. He was gazing at his Authority in +the heavens, tangled among gold clouds and purple; his head bent +acutely on one side, and his eyes upturned in dim speculation. His +great feet planted on their heels faced him, suggesting the stocks; his +arms hung loose. Full many a hero of the alehouse, anciently amenable +to leg-and-foot imprisonment in the grip of the parish, has presented +as respectable an air. His forelock straggled as it willed. + +Rosamund rose abruptly as soon as the terminating notes of the Mass had +been struck. + +Dr. Shrapnel seemed to be concluding his devotions before he followed +her example. + +“There, ma’am, you have a telegraphic system for the soul,” he said. +“It is harder work to travel from this place to this” (he pointed at +ear and breast) “than from here to yonder” (a similar indication +traversed the distance between earth and sun). “Man’s aim has hitherto +been to keep men from having a soul for _this_ world: he takes it for +something infernal. He?—I mean, they that hold power. They shudder to +think the conservatism of the earth will be shaken by a change; they +dread they won’t get men with souls to fetch and carry, dig, root, +mine, for them. Right!—what then? Digging and mining will be done; so +will harping and singing. But _then_ we have a natural optimacy! Then, +on the one hand, we whip the man-beast and the man-sloth; on the other, +we seize that old fatted iniquity—that tyrant! that tempter! that +legitimated swindler cursed of Christ! that palpable Satan whose name +is Capital! by the neck, and have him disgorging within three gasps of +his life. He is the villain! Let him live, for he too comes of blood +and bone. He shall not grind the faces of the poor and helpless—that’s +all.” + +The comicality of her having such remarks addressed to her provoked a +smile on Rosamund’s lips. + +“Don’t go at him like Samson blind,” said Mr. Lydiard; and Miss Denham, +who had returned, begged her guardian to entreat the guest to stay. + +She said in an undertone, “I am very anxious you should see Captain +Beauchamp, madam.” + +“I too; but he will write, and I really can wait no longer,” Rosamund +replied, in extreme apprehension lest a certain degree of pressure +should overbear her repugnance to the doctor’s dinner-table. Miss +Denham’s look was fixed on her; but, whatever it might mean, Rosamund’s +endurance was at an end. She was invited to dine; she refused. She was +exceedingly glad to find herself on the high-road again, with a +prospect of reaching Steynham that night; for it was important that she +should not have to confess a visit to Bevisham now when she had so +little of favourable to tell Mr. Everard Romfrey of his chosen nephew. +Whether she had acted quite wisely in not remaining to see Nevil, was +an agitating question that had to be silenced by an appeal to her +instincts of repulsion, and a further appeal for justification of them +to her imaginary sisterhood of gossips. How could she sit and eat, how +pass an evening in that house, in the society of that man? Her tuneful +chorus cried, “How indeed.” Besides, it would have offended Mr. Romfrey +to hear that she had done so. Still she could not refuse to remember +Miss Denham’s marked intimations of there being a reason for Nevil’s +friend to seize the chance of an immediate interview with him; and in +her distress at the thought, Rosamund reluctantly, but as if compelled +by necessity, ascribed the young lady’s conduct to a strong sense of +personal interests. + +“Evidently _she_ has no desire he should run the risk of angering a +rich uncle.” + +This shameful suspicion was unavoidable: there was no other opiate for +Rosamund’s blame of herself after letting her instincts gain the +ascendancy. + +It will be found a common case, that when we have yielded to our +instincts, and then have to soothe conscience, we must slaughter +somebody, for a sacrificial offering to our sense of comfort. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +A SUPERFINE CONSCIENCE + + +However much Mr. Everard Romfrey may have laughed at Nevil Beauchamp +with his “banana-wreath,” he liked the fellow for having volunteered +for that African coast-service, and the news of his promotion by his +admiral to the post of commander through a death vacancy, had given him +an exalted satisfaction, for as he could always point to the cause of +failures, he strongly appreciated success. The circumstance had offered +an occasion for the new commander to hit him hard upon a matter of +fact. Beauchamp had sent word of his advance in rank, but requested his +uncle not to imagine him wearing an _additional epaulette;_ and he +corrected the infallible gentleman’s error (which had of course been +reported to him when he was dreaming of Renée, by Mrs. Culling) +concerning a lieutenant’s shoulder decorations, most gravely; informing +him of the anchor on the lieutenant’s _pair_ of epaulettes, and the +anchor and star on a commander’s, and the crown on a captain’s, with a +well-feigned solicitousness to save his uncle from blundering further. +This was done in the dry neat manner which Mr. Romfrey could feel to be +his own turned on him. + +He began to conceive a vague respect for the fellow who had proved him +wrong upon a matter of fact. Beauchamp came from Africa rather worn by +the climate, and immediately obtained the command of the _Ariadne_ +corvette, which had been some time in commission in the Mediterranean, +whither he departed, without visiting Steynham; allowing Rosamund to +think him tenacious of his wrath as well as of love. Mr. Romfrey +considered him to be insatiable for service. Beauchamp, during his +absence, had shown himself awake to the affairs of his country once +only, in an urgent supplication he had forwarded for all his uncle’s +influence to be used to get him appointed to the first vacancy in +Robert Hall’s naval brigade, then forming a part of our handful in +insurgent India. The fate of that chivalrous Englishman, that born +sailor-warrior, that truest of heroes, imperishable in the memory of +those who knew him, and in our annals, young though he was when death +took him, had wrung from Nevil Beauchamp such a letter of tears as to +make Mr. Romfrey believe the naval crown of glory his highest ambition. +Who on earth could have guessed him to be bothering his head about +politics all the while! Or was the whole stupid business a freak of the +moment? + +It became necessary for Mr. Romfrey to contemplate his eccentric nephew +in the light of a mannikin once more. Consequently he called to mind, +and bade Rosamund Culling remember, that he had foreseen and had +predicted the mounting of Nevil Beauchamp on his political horse one +day or another; and perhaps the earlier the better. And a donkey could +have sworn that when he did mount he would come galloping in among the +Radical rough-riders. Letters were pouring upon Steynham from men and +women of Romfrey blood and relationship concerning the positive tone of +Radicalism in the commander’s address. Everard laughed at them. As a +practical man, his objection lay against the poor fool’s choice of the +peccant borough of Bevisham. Still, in view of the needfulness of his +learning wisdom, and rapidly, the disbursement of a lot of his money, +certain to be required by Bevisham’s electors, seemed to be the surest +method for quickening his wits. Thus would he be acting as his own +chirurgeon, gaily practising phlebotomy on his person to cure him of +his fever. Too much money was not the origin of the fever in Nevil’s +case, but he had too small a sense of the value of what he possessed, +and the diminishing stock would be likely to cry out shrilly. + +To this effect, never complaining that Nevil Beauchamp had not come to +him to take counsel with him, the high-minded old gentleman talked. At +the same time, while indulging in so philosophical a picture of himself +as was presented by a Romfrey mildly accounting for events and +smoothing them under the infliction of an offence, he could not but +feel that Nevil had challenged him: such was the reading of it; and he +waited for some justifiable excitement to fetch him out of the +magnanimous mood, rather in the image of an angler, it must be owned. + +“Nevil understands that I am not going to pay a farthing of his +expenses in Bevisham?” he said to Mrs. Culling. + +She replied blandly and with innocence, “I have not seen him, sir.” + +He nodded. At the next mention of Nevil between them, he asked, “Where +is it he’s lying perdu, ma’am?” + +“I fancy in that town, in Bevisham.” + +“At the Liberal, Radical, hotel?” + +“I dare say; some place; I am not certain....” + +“The rascal doctor’s house there? Shrapnel’s?” + +“Really... I have not seen him.” + +“Have you heard from him?” + +“I have had a letter; a short one.” + +“Where did he date his letter from?” + +“From Bevisham.” + +“From what house?” + +Rosamund glanced about for a way of escaping the question. There was +none but the door. She replied, “From Dr. Shrapnel’s.” + +“That’s the Anti-Game-Law agitator.” + +“You do not imagine, sir, that Nevil subscribes to every thing the +horrid man agitates for?” + +“You don’t like the man, ma’am?” + +“I detest him.” + +“Ha! So you have seen Shrapnel?” + +“Only for a moment; a moment or two. I cannot endure him. I am sure I +have reason.” + +Rosamund flushed exceedingly red. The visit to Dr. Shrapnel’s house was +her secret, and the worming of it out made her feel guilty, and that +feeling revived and heated her antipathy to the Radical doctor. + +“What reason?” said Mr. Romfrey, freshening at her display of colour. + +She would not expose Nevil to the accusation of childishness by +confessing her positive reason, so she answered, “The man is a kind of +man... I was not there long; I was glad to escape. He...” she +hesitated: for in truth it was difficult to shape the charge against +him, and the effort to be reticent concerning Nevil, and communicative, +now that he had been spoken of, as to the detested doctor, reduced her +to some confusion. She was also fatally anxious to be in the extreme +degree conscientious, and corrected and modified her remarks most +suspiciously. + +“Did he insult you, ma’am?” Mr. Romfrey inquired. + +She replied hastily, “Oh no. He may be a good man in his way. He is one +of those men who do not seem to think a woman may have opinions. He +does not scruple to outrage those we hold. I am afraid he is an +infidel. His ideas of family duties and ties, and his manner of +expressing himself, shocked me, that is all. He is absurd. I dare say +there is no harm in him, except for those who are so unfortunate as to +fall under his influence—and that, I feel sure, cannot be permanent. He +could not injure me personally. He could not offend me, I mean. Indeed, +I have nothing whatever to say against him, as far as I...” + +“Did he fail to treat you as a lady, ma’am?” + +Rosamund was getting frightened by the significant pertinacity of her +lord. + +“I am sure, sir, he meant no harm.” + +“Was the man uncivil to you, ma’am?” came the emphatic interrogation. + +She asked herself, had Dr. Shrapnel been uncivil toward her? And so +conscientious was she, that she allowed the question to be debated in +her mind for half a minute, answering then, “No, not uncivil. I cannot +exactly explain.... He certainly did not intend to be uncivil. He is +only an unpolished, vexatious man; enormously tall.” + +Mr. Romfrey ejaculated, “Ha! humph!” + +His view of Dr. Shrapnel was taken from that instant. It was, that this +enormously big blustering agitator against the preservation of birds, +had behaved rudely toward the lady officially the chief of his +household, and might be considered in the light of an adversary one +would like to meet. The size of the man increased his aspect of +villany, which in return added largely to his giant size. Everard +Romfrey’s mental eye could perceive an attractiveness about the man +little short of magnetic; for he thought of him so much that he had to +think of what was due to his pacifical disposition (deeply believed in +by him) to spare himself the trouble of a visit to Bevisham. + +The young gentleman whom he regarded as the Radical doctor’s dupe, fell +in for a share of his view of the doctor, and Mr. Romfrey became less +fitted to observe Nevil Beauchamp’s doings with the Olympian gravity he +had originally assumed. + +The extreme delicacy of Rosamund’s conscience was fretted by a +remorseful doubt of her having conveyed a just impression of Dr. +Shrapnel, somewhat as though the fine sleek coat of it were brushed the +wrong way. Reflection warned her that her deliberative intensely +sincere pause before she responded to Mr. Romfrey’s last demand, might +have implied more than her words. She consoled herself with the thought +that it was the dainty susceptibility of her conscientiousness which +caused these noble qualms, and so deeply does a refined nature esteem +the gift, that her pride in it helped her to overlook her moral +perturbation. She was consoled, moreover, up to the verge of triumph in +her realization of the image of a rivalling and excelling power +presented by Mr. Romfrey, though it had frightened her at the time. Let +not Dr. Shrapnel come across him! She hoped he would not. Ultimately +she could say to herself, “Perhaps I need not have been so annoyed with +the horrid man.” It was on Nevil’s account. Shrapnel’s contempt of the +claims of Nevil’s family upon him was actually a piece of impudence, +impudently expressed, if she remembered correctly. And Shrapnel was a +black malignant, the foe of the nation’s Constitution, deserving of +punishment if ever man was; with his ridiculous metaphors, and talk of +organs and pianos, orchestras and despotisms, and flying to the sun! +How could Nevil listen to the creature! Shrapnel must be a shameless, +hypocrite to mask his wickedness from one so clear-sighted as Nevil, +and no doubt he indulged in his impudence out of wanton pleasure in it. +His business was to catch young gentlemen of family, and to turn them +against their families, plainly. That was thinking the best of him. No +doubt he had his objects to gain. “He might have been as impudent as he +liked to _me;_ I would have pardoned him!” Rosamund exclaimed. +Personally, you see, she was generous. On the whole, knowing Everard +Romfrey as she did, she wished that she had behaved, albeit perfectly +discreet in her behaviour, and conscientiously just, a shade or two +differently. But the evil was done. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +THE LEADING ARTICLE AND MR. TIMOTHY TURBOT + + +Nevil declined to come to Steynham, clearly owing to a dread of hearing +Dr. Shrapnel abused, as Rosamund judged by the warmth of his written +eulogies of the man, and an ensuing allusion to Game. He said that he +had not made up his mind as to the Game Laws. Rosamund mentioned the +fact to Mr. Romfrey. “So we may stick by our licences to shoot +to-morrow,” he rejoined. Of a letter that he also had received from +Nevil, he did not speak. She hinted at it, and he stared. He would have +deemed it as vain a subject to discourse of India, or Continental +affairs, at a period when his house was full for the opening day of +sport, and the expectation of keeping up his renown for great bags on +that day so entirely occupied his mind. Good shots were present who had +contributed to the fame of Steynham on other opening days. Birds were +plentiful and promised not to be too wild. He had the range of the +Steynham estate in his eye, dotted with covers; and after Steynham, +Holdesbury, which had never yielded him the same high celebrity, but +both lay mapped out for action under the profound calculations of the +strategist, ready to show the skill of the field tactician. He could +not attend to Nevil. Even the talk of the forthcoming Elections, hardly +to be avoided at his table, seemed a puerile distraction. Ware the foe +of his partridges and pheasants, be it man or vermin! The name of +Shrapnel was frequently on the tongue of Captain Baskelett. Rosamund +heard him, in her room, and his derisive shouts of laughter over it. +Cecil was a fine shot, quite as fond of the pastime as his uncle, and +always in favour with him while sport stalked the land. He was in +gallant spirits, and Rosamund, brooding over Nevil’s fortunes, and +sitting much alone, as she did when there were guests in the house, +gave way to her previous apprehensions. She touched on them to Mr. +Stukely Culbrett, her husband’s old friend, one of those happy men who +enjoy perceptions without opinions, and are not born to administer +comfort to other than themselves. As far as she could gather, he +fancied Nevil Beauchamp was in danger of something, but he delivered +his mind only upon circumstances and characters: Nevil risked his luck, +Cecil knew his game, Everard Romfrey was the staunchest of mankind: +Stukely had nothing further to say regarding the situation. She asked +him what he thought, and he smiled. Could a reasonable head venture to +think anything in particular? He repeated the amazed, “You don’t say +so” of Colonel Halkett, on hearing the name of the new Liberal +candidate for Bevisham at the dinner-table, together with some of +Cecil’s waggish embroidery upon the theme. + +Rosamund exclaimed angrily, “Oh! if I had been there he would not have +dared.” + +“Why not be there?” said Stukely. “You have had your choice for a +number of years.” + +She shook her head, reddening. + +But supposing that she had greater privileges than were hers now? The +idea flashed. A taint of personal pique, awakened by the fancied +necessity for putting her devotedness to Nevil to proof, asked her if +she would then be the official housekeeper to whom Captain Baskelett +bowed low with affected respect and impertinent affability, ironically +praising her abroad as a wonder among women, that could at one time +have played the deuce in the family, had she chosen to do so. + +“Just as you like,” Mr. Culbrett remarked. It was his ironical habit of +mind to believe that the wishes of men and women—women as well as +men—were expressed by their utterances. + +“But speak of Nevil to Colonel Halkett,” said Rosamund, earnestly +carrying on what was in her heart. “Persuade the colonel you do not +think Nevil foolish—not more than just a little impetuous. I want that +marriage to come off! Not on account of her wealth. She is to inherit a +Welsh mine from her uncle, you know, besides being an only child. +Recall what Nevil was during the war. Miss Halkett has not forgotten +it, I am sure, and a good word for him from a man of the world would, I +am certain, counteract Captain Baskelett’s—are they designs? At any +rate, you can if you like help Nevil with the colonel. I am convinced +they are doing him a mischief. Colonel Halkett has bought an estate—and +what a misfortune that is!—close to Bevisham. I fancy he is Toryish. +Will you not speak to him? At my request? I am so helpless I could cry. + +“Fancy you have no handkerchief,” said Mr. Culbrett, “and give up +scheming, pray. One has only to begin to scheme, to shorten life to +half-a-dozen hops and jumps. I could say to the colonel, ‘Young +Beauchamp’s a political cub: he ought to have a motherly wife.’” + +“Yes, yes, you are right; don’t speak to him at all,” said Rosamund, +feeling that there must be a conspiracy to rob her of her proud +independence, since not a soul could be won to spare her from taking +some energetic step, if she would be useful to him she loved. + +Colonel Halkett was one of the guests at Steynham who knew and +respected her, and he paid her a visit and alluded to Nevil’s +candidature, apparently not thinking much the worse of him. “We can’t +allow him to succeed,” he said, and looked for a smiling approval of +such natural opposition, which Rosamund gave him readily after he had +expressed the hope that Nevil Beauchamp would take advantage of his +proximity to Mount Laurels during the contest to try the hospitality of +the house. “He won’t mind meeting his uncle?” The colonel’s eyes +twinkled. “My daughter has engaged Mr. Romfrey and Captain Baskelett to +come to us when they have shot Holdesbury.” + +And Captain Baskelett! thought Rosamund; her jealousy whispering that +the mention of his name close upon Cecilia Halkett’s might have a +nuptial signification. + +She was a witness from her window—a prisoner’s window, her eager heart +could have termed it—of a remarkable ostentation of cordiality between +the colonel and Cecil, in the presence of Mr. Romfrey. Was it his +humour to conspire to hand Miss Halkett to Cecil, and then to show +Nevil the prize he had forfeited by his folly? The three were on the +lawn a little before Colonel Halkett’s departure. The colonel’s arm was +linked with Cecil’s while they conversed. Presently the latter received +his afternoon’s letters, and a newspaper. He soon had the paper out at +a square stretch, and sprightly information for the other two was +visible in his crowing throat. Mr. Romfrey raised the gun from his +shoulder-pad, and grounded it. Colonel Halkett wished to peruse the +matter with his own eyes, but Cecil could not permit it; he must read +it aloud for them, and he suited his action to his sentences. Had +Rosamund been accustomed to leading articles which are the composition +of men of an imposing vocabulary, she would have recognized and as good +as read one in Cecil’s gestures as he tilted his lofty stature forward +and back, marking his commas and semicolons with flapping of his +elbows, and all but doubling his body at his periods. Mr. Romfrey had +enough of it half-way down the column; his head went sharply to left +and right. Cecil’s peculiar foppish slicing down of his hand pictured +him protesting that there was more and finer of the inimitable stuff to +follow. The end of the scene exhibited the paper on the turf, and +Colonel Halkett’s hand on Cecil’s shoulder, Mr. Romfrey nodding some +sort of acquiescence over the muzzle of his gun, whether reflective or +positive Rosamund could not decide. She sent out a footman for the +paper, and was presently communing with its eloquent large type, quite +unable to perceive where the comicality or the impropriety of it lay, +for it would have struck her that never were truer things of Nevil +Beauchamp better said in the tone befitting them. This perhaps was +because she never heard fervid praises of him, or of anybody, delivered +from the mouth, and it is not common to hear Englishmen phrasing great +eulogies of one another. Still, as a rule, they do not object to have +it performed in that region of our national eloquence, the Press, by an +Irishman or a Scotchman. And what could there be to warrant Captain +Baskelett’s malicious derision, and Mr. Romfrey’s nodding assent to it, +in an article where all was truth? + +The truth was mounted on an unusually high wind. It was indeed a +leading article of a banner-like bravery, and the unrolling of it was +designed to stir emotions. Beauchamp was the theme. Nevil had it under +his eyes earlier than Cecil. The paper was brought into his room with +the beams of day, damp from the presses of the _Bevisham Gazette_, +exactly opposite to him in the White Hart Hotel, and a glance at the +paragraphs gave him a lively ardour to spring to his feet. What +writing! He was uplifted as “The heroical Commander Beauchamp, of the +Royal Navy,” and “Commander Beauchamp, R.N., a gentleman of the highest +connections”: he was “that illustrious Commander Beauchamp, of our +matchless, navy, who proved on every field of the last glorious war of +this country that the traditional valour of the noble and indomitable +blood transmitted to his veins had lost none of its edge and weight +since the battle-axes of the Lords de Romfrey, ever to the fore, clove +the skulls of our national enemy on the wide and fertile campaigns of +France.” This was pageantry. + +There was more of it. Then the serious afflatus of the article +condescended, as it were, to blow a shrill and well-known whistle:—the +study of the science of navigation made by Commander Beauchamp, R.N., +was cited for a jocose warranty of a seaman’s aptness to assist in +steering the Vessel of the State. After thus heeling over, to tip a +familiar wink to the multitude, the leader tone resumed its fit +deportment. Commander Beauchamp, in responding to the invitation of the +great and united Liberal party of the borough of Bevisham, obeyed the +inspirations of genius, the dictates of humanity, and what he rightly +considered the paramount duty, as it is the proudest ambition, of the +citizen of a free country. + +But for an occasional drop and bump of the sailing gasbag upon +catch-words of enthusiasm, which are the rhetoric of the merely windy, +and a collapse on a poetic line, which too often signalizes the +rhetorician’s emptiness of his wind, the article was eminent for +flight, sweep, and dash, and sailed along far more grandly than +ordinary provincial organs for the promoting or seconding of public +opinion, that are as little to be compared with the mighty metropolitan +as are the fife and bugle boys practising on their instruments round +melancholy outskirts of garrison towns with the regimental marching +full band under the presidency of its drum-major. No signature to the +article was needed for Bevisham to know who had returned to the town to +pen it. Those long-stretching sentences, comparable to the very ship +_Leviathan_, spanning two Atlantic billows, appertained to none but the +renowned Mr. Timothy Turbot, of the Corn Law campaigns, Reform +agitations, and all manifestly popular movements requiring the +heaven-endowed man of speech, an interpreter of multitudes, and a +prompter. Like most men who have little to say, he was an orator in +print, but that was a poor medium for him—his body without his fire. +Mr. Timothy’s place was the platform. A wise discernment, or else a +lucky accident (for he came hurriedly from the soil of his native isle, +needing occupation), set him on that side in politics which happened to +be making an established current and strong headway. Oratory will not +work against the stream, or on languid tides. Driblets of movements +that allowed the world to doubt whether they were so much movements as +illusions of the optics, did not suit his genius. Thus he was a +Liberal, no Radical, fountain. Liberalism had the attraction for the +orator of being the active force in politics, between two passive +opposing bodies, the aspect of either of which it can assume for a +menace to the other, Toryish as against Radicals; a trifle red in the +eyes of the Tory. It can seem to lean back on the Past; it can seem to +be amorous of the Future. It is actually the thing of the Present and +its urgencies, therefore popular, pouring forth the pure waters of +moderation, strong in their copiousness. Delicious and rapturous +effects are to be produced in the flood of a Liberal oration by a +chance infusion of the fierier spirit, a flavour of Radicalism. That is +the thing to set an audience bounding and quirking. Whereas if you +commence by tilling a Triton pitcher full of the neat liquor upon them, +you have to resort to the natural element for the orator’s art of +variation, you are diluted—and that’s bathos, to quote Mr. Timothy. It +was a fine piece of discernment in him. Let Liberalism be your feast, +Radicalism your spice. And now and then, off and on, for a change, for +diversion, for a new emotion, just for half an hour or so—now and then +the Sunday coat of Toryism will give you an air. You have only to +complain of the fit, to release your shoulders in a trice. Mr. Timothy +felt for his art as poets do for theirs, and considered what was best +adapted to speaking, purely to speaking. Upon no creature did he look +with such contempt as upon Dr. Shrapnel, whose loose disjunct audiences +he was conscious he could, giving the doctor any start he liked, whirl +away from him and have compact, enchained, at his first flourish; yea, +though they were composed of “the poor man,” with a stomach for the +political distillery fit to drain relishingly every private bogside or +mountain-side tap in old Ireland in its best days—the illicit, you +understand. + +Further, to quote Mr. Timothy’s points of view, the Radical orator has +but two notes, and one is the drawling pathetic, and the other is the +ultra-furious; and the effect of the former we liken to the English +working man’s wife’s hob-set queasy brew of well-meant villany, that +she calls by the innocent name of tea; and the latter is to be blown, +asks to be blown, and never should be blown without at least seeming to +be blown, with an accompaniment of a house on fire. Sir, we must adapt +ourselves to our times. Perhaps a spark or two does lurk about our +house, but we have vigilant watchmen in plenty, and the house has been +pretty fairly insured. Shrieking in it is an annoyance to the inmates, +nonsensical; weeping is a sickly business. The times are against +Radicalism to the full as much as great oratory is opposed to extremes. +These drag the orator too near to the matter. So it is that one Radical +speech is amazingly like another—they all have the earth-spots. They +smell, too; they smell of brimstone. Soaring is impossible among that +faction; but this they can do, they can furnish the Tory his +opportunity to soar. When hear you a thrilling Tory speech that carries +the country with it, save when the incendiary Radical has shrieked? If +there was envy in the soul of Timothy, it was addressed to the fine +occasions offered to the Tory speaker for vindicating our ancient +principles and our sacred homes. He admired the tone to be assumed for +that purpose: it was a good note. Then could the Tory, delivering at +the right season the Shakesperian “_This England_...” and Byronic—“_The +inviolate Island_...” shake the frame, as though smiting it with the +tail of the gymnotus electricus. Ah, and then could he thump out his +Horace, the Tory’s mentor and his cordial, with other great ancient +comic and satiric poets, his old Port of the classical cellarage, +reflecting veneration upon him who did but name them to an audience of +good dispositions. The Tory possessed also an innate inimitably easy +style of humour, that had the long reach, the jolly lordly +indifference, the comfortable masterfulness, of the whip of a +four-in-hand driver, capable of flicking and stinging, and of being +ironically caressing. Timothy appreciated it, for he had winced under +it. No professor of Liberalism could venture on it, unless it were in +the remote district of a back parlour, in the society of a cherishing +friend or two, and with a slice of lemon requiring to be refloated in +the glass. + +But gifts of this description were of a minor order. Liberalism gave +the heading cry, devoid of which parties are dogs without a scent, +orators mere pump-handles. The Tory’s cry was but a whistle to his +pack, the Radical howled to the moon like any chained hound. And no +wonder, for these parties had no established current, they were as +hard-bound waters; the Radical being dyked and dammed most soundly, the +Tory resembling a placid lake of the plains, fed by springs and no +confluents. For such good reasons, Mr. Timothy rejoiced in the happy +circumstances which had expelled him from the shores of his native isle +to find a refuge and a vocation in Manchester at a period when an +orator happened to be in request because dozens were wanted. That +centre of convulsions and source of streams possessed the statistical +orator, the reasoning orator, and the inspired; with others of quality; +and yet it had need of an ever-ready spontaneous imperturbable speaker, +whose bubbling generalizations and ability to beat the drum humorous +could swing halls of meeting from the grasp of an enemy, and then +ascend on incalescent adjectives to the popular idea of the sublime. He +was the artistic orator of Corn Law Repeal—the Manchester flood, before +which time Whigs were, since which they have walked like spectral +antediluvians, or floated as dead canine bodies that are sucked away on +the ebb of tides and flung back on the flow, ignorant whether they be +progressive or retrograde. Timothy Turbot assisted in that vast effort. +It should have elevated him beyond the editorship of a country +newspaper. Why it did not do so his antagonists pretended to know, and +his friends would smile to hear. The report was that he worshipped the +nymph Whisky. + +Timothy’s article had plucked Beauchamp out of bed; Beauchamp’s card in +return did the same for him. + +“Commander Beauchamp? I am heartily glad to make your acquaintance, +sir; I’ve been absent, at work, on the big business we have in common, +I rejoice to say, and am behind my fellow townsmen in this pleasure and +lucky I slept here in my room above, where I don’t often sleep, for the +row of the machinery—it’s like a steamer that won’t go, though it’s +always starting ye,” Mr. Timothy said in a single breath, upon entering +the back office of the _Gazette_, like unto those accomplished +violinists who can hold on the bow to finger an incredible number of +notes, and may be imaged as representing slow paternal Time, that rolls +his capering dot-headed generation of mortals over the wheel, hundreds +to the minute. “You’ll excuse my not shaving, sir, to come down to your +summons without an extra touch to the neck-band.” + +Beauchamp beheld a middle-sized round man, with loose lips and pendant +indigo jowl, whose eyes twinkled watery, like pebbles under the +shore-wash, and whose neck-band needed an extra touch from fingers +other than his own. + +“I am sorry to have disturbed you so early,” he replied. + +“Not a bit, Commander Beauchamp, not a bit, sir. Early or late, and ay +ready—with the Napiers; I’ll wash, I’ll wash.” + +“I came to speak to you of this article of yours on me. They tell me in +the office that you are the writer. Pray don’t ‘Commander’ me so +much.—It’s not customary, and I object to it.” + +“Certainly, certainly,” Timothy acquiesced. + +“And for the future, Mr. Turbot, please to be good enough not to allude +in print to any of my performances here and there. Your intentions are +complimentary, but it happens that I don’t like a public patting on the +back.” + +“No, and that’s true,” said Timothy. + +His appreciative and sympathetic agreement with these sharp strictures +on the article brought Beauchamp to a stop. + +Timothy waited for him; then, smoothing his prickly cheek, remarked: +“If I’d guessed your errand, Commander Beauchamp, I’d have called in +the barber before I came down, just to make myself decent for a “first +introduction.” + +Beauchamp was not insensible to the slyness of the poke at him. “You +see, I come to the borough unknown to it, and as quietly as possible, +and I want to be taken as a politician,” he continued, for the sake of +showing that he had sufficient to say to account for his hasty and +peremptory summons of the writer of that article to his presence. “It’s +excessively disagreeable to have one’s family lugged into notice in a +newspaper—especially if they are of different politics. _I_ feel it.” + +“All would, sir,” said Timothy. + +“Then why the deuce did you do it?” + +Timothy drew a lading of air into his lungs. “Politics, Commander +Beauchamp, involves the doing of lots of disagreeable things to +ourselves and our relations; it’s positive. I’m a soldier of the Great +Campaign: and who knows it better than I, sir? It’s climbing the greasy +pole for the leg o’ mutton, that makes the mother’s heart ache for the +jacket and the nether garments she mended neatly, if she didn’t make +them. Mutton or no mutton, there’s grease for certain! Since it’s sure +we can’t be disconnected from the family, the trick is to turn the +misfortune to a profit; and allow me the observation, that an old +family, sir, and a high and titled family, is not to be despised for a +background of a portrait in naval uniform, with medal and clasps, and +some small smoke of powder clearing off over there:—that’s if we’re to +act sagaciously in introducing an unknown candidate to a borough that +has a sneaking liking for the kind of person, more honour to it. I’m a +political veteran, sir; I speak from experience. We must employ our +weapons, every one of them, and all off the grindstone.” + +“Very well,” said Beauchamp. “Now understand; you are not in future to +employ the weapons, as you call them, that I have objected to.” + +Timothy gaped slightly. + +“Whatever you will, but no puffery,” Beauchamp added. “Can I by any +means arrest—purchase—is it possible, tell me, to lay an embargo—stop +to-day’s issue of the _Gazette?_” + +“No more—than the bite of a mad dog,” Timothy replied, before he had +considered upon the monstrous nature of the proposal. + +Beauchamp humphed, and tossed his head. The simile of the dog struck +him with intense effect. + +“There’d be a second edition,” said Timothy, “and you might buy up +that. But there’ll be a third, and you may buy up that; but there’ll be +a fourth and a fifth, and so on ad infinitum, with the advertisement of +the sale of the foregoing creating a demand like a rageing thirst in a +shipwreck, in Bligh’s boat, in the tropics. I’m afraid, Com—Captain +Beauchamp, sir, there’s no stopping the Press while the people have an +appetite for it—and a Company’s at the back of it.” + +“Pooh, don’t talk to me in that way; all I complain of is the figure +you have made of me,” said Beauchamp, fetching him smartly out of his +nonsense; “and all I ask of you is not to be at it again. Who would +suppose from reading an article like that, that I am a candidate with a +single political idea!” + +“An article like that,” said Timothy, winking, and a little surer of +his man now that he suggested his possession of ideas, “an article like +that is the best cloak you can put on a candidate with too many of “em, +Captain Beauchamp. I’ll tell you, sir; I came, I heard of your +candidature, I had your sketch, the pattern of ye, before me, and I was +told that Dr. Shrapnel fathered you politically. There was my brief! I +had to persuade our constituents that you, Commander Beauchamp of the +Royal Navy, and the great family of the Earls of Romfrey, one of the +heroes of the war, and the recipient of a Royal Humane Society’s medal +for saving life in Bevisham waters, were something more than the +Radical doctor’s political son; and, sir, it was to this end, aim, and +object, that I wrote the article I am not ashamed to avow as mine, and +I do so, sir, because of the solitary merit it has of serving your +political interests as the liberal candidate for Bevisham by +counteracting the unpopularity of Dr. Shrapnel’s name, on the one part, +and of reviving the credit due to your valour and high bearing on the +field of battle in defence of your country, on the other, so that +Bevisham may apprehend, in spite of party distinctions, that it has the +option, and had better seize upon the honour, of making a M.P. of a +hero.” + +Beauchamp interposed hastily: “Thank you, thank you for the best of +intentions. But let me tell you I am prepared to stand or fall with Dr. +Shrapnel, and be hanged to all that humbug.” + +Timothy rubbed his hands with an abstracted air of washing. “Well, +commander, well, sir, they say a candidate’s to be humoured in his +infancy, for _he_ has to do all the humouring before he’s many weeks +old at it; only there’s the fact!—he soon finds out he has to pay for +his first fling, like the son of a family sowing his oats to reap his +Jews. Credit me, sir, I thought it prudent to counteract a bit of an +apothecary’s shop odour in the junior Liberal candidate’s address. I +found the town sniffing, they scented Shrapnel in the composition.” + +“Every line of it was mine,” said Beauchamp. + +“Of course it was, and the address was admirably worded, sir, I make +bold to say it to your face; but most indubitably it threatened +powerful drugs for weak stomachs, and it blew cold on votes, which are +sensitive plants like nothing else in botany.” + +“If they are only to be got by abandoning principles, and by anything +but honesty in stating them, they may go,” said Beauchamp. + +“I repeat, my dear sir, I repeat, the infant candidate delights in his +honesty, like the babe in its nakedness, the beautiful virgin in her +innocence. So he does; but he discovers it’s time for him to wear +clothes in a contested election. And what’s that but to preserve the +outlines pretty correctly, whilst he doesn’t shock and horrify the +optics? A dash of conventionalism makes the whole civilized world kin, +ye know. That’s the truth. You must appear to be one of them, for them +to choose you. After all, there’s no harm in a dyer’s hand; and, sir, a +candidate looking at his own, when he has won the Election...” + +“Ah, well,” said Beauchamp, swinging on his heel, “and now I’ll take my +leave of you, and I apologize for bringing you down here so early. +Please attend to what I have said; it’s peremptory. You will give me +great pleasure by dining with me to-night, at the hotel opposite. Will +you? I don’t know what kind of wine I shall be able to offer you. +Perhaps you know the cellar, and may help me in that.” + +Timothy grasped his hand, “With pleasure, Commander Beauchamp. They +have a bucellas over there that’s old, and a tolerable claret, and a +Port to be inquired for under the breath, in a mysteriously intimate +tone of voice, as one says, ‘I know of your treasure, and the corner +under ground where it lies.’ Avoid the champagne: ’tis the banqueting +wine. Ditto the sherry. One can drink them, one can drink them.” + +“At a quarter to eight this evening, then,” said Nevil. + +“I’ll be there at the stroke of the clock, sure as the date of a bill,” +said Timothy. + +And it’s early to guess whether you’ll catch Bevisham or you won’t, he +reflected, as he gazed at the young gentleman crossing the road; but +female Bevisham’s with you, if that counts for much. Timothy confessed, +that without the employment of any weapon save arrogance and a look of +candour, the commander had gone some way toward catching the feminine +side of himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. +CECILIA HALKETT + + +Beauchamp walked down to the pier, where he took a boat for H.M.S. +_Isis_, to see Jack Wilmore, whom he had not met since his return from +his last cruise, and first he tried the efficacy of a dive in salt +water, as a specific for irritation. It gave the edge to a fine +appetite that he continued to satisfy while Wilmore talked of those +famous dogs to which the navy has ever been going. + +“We want another panic, Beauchamp,” said Lieutenant Wilmore. “No one +knows better than you what a naval man has to complain of, so I hope +you’ll get your Election, if only that we may reckon on a good look-out +for the interests of the service. A regular Board with a permanent Lord +High Admiral, and a regular vote of money to keep it up to the mark. +Stick to that. Hardist has a vote in Bevisham. I think I can get one or +two more. Why aren’t you a Tory? No Whigs nor Liberals look after us +half so well as the Tories. It’s enough to break a man’s heart to see +the troops of dockyard workmen marching out as soon as ever a Liberal +Government marches in. Then it’s one of our infernal panics again, and +patch here, patch there; every inch of it make-believe! I’ll prove to +you from examples that the humbug of Government causes exactly the same +humbugging workmanship. It seems as if it were a game of ‘rascals all.’ +Let them sink us! but, by heaven! one can’t help feeling for the +country. And I do say it’s the doing of those Liberals. Skilled +workmen, mind you, not to be netted again so easily. America reaps the +benefit of our folly .... That was a lucky run of yours up the Niger; +the admiral was friendly, but you deserved your luck. For God’s sake, +don’t forget the state of our service when you’re one of our cherubs up +aloft, Beauchamp. This I’ll say, I’ve never heard a man talk about it +as you used to in old midshipmite days, whole watches through—don’t you +remember? on the North American station, and in the Black Sea, and the +Mediterranean. And that girl at Malta! I wonder what has become of her? +What a beauty she was! I dare say she wasn’t so fine a girl as the +Armenian you unearthed on the Bosphorus, but she had something about +her a fellow can’t forget. That was a lovely creature coming down the +hills over Granada on her mule. Ay, we’ve seen handsome women, Nevil +Beauchamp. But you always were lucky, invariably, and I should bet on +you for the Election.” + +“Canvass for me, Jack,” said Beauchamp, smiling at his friend’s +unconscious double-skeining of subjects. “If I turn out as good a +politician as you are a seaman, I shall do. Pounce on Hardist’s vote +without losing a day. I would go to him, but I’ve missed the Halketts +twice. They’re on the Otley river, at a place called Mount Laurels, and +I particularly want to see the colonel. Can you give me a boat there, +and come?” + +“Certainly,” said Wilmore. “I’ve danced there with the lady, the +handsomest girl, English style, of her time. And come, come, our +English style’s the best. It wears best, it looks best. Foreign +women... they’re capital to flirt with. But a girl like Cecilia +Halkett—one can’t call her a girl, and it won’t do to say Goddess, and +queen and charmer are out of the question, though she’s both, and angel +into the bargain; but, by George! what a woman to call wife, you say; +and a man attached to a woman like that never can let himself look +small. No such luck for me; only I swear if I stood between a good and +a bad action, the thought of that girl would keep me straight, and I’ve +only danced with her once!” + +Not long after sketching this rough presentation of the lady, with a +masculine hand, Wilmore was able to point to her in person on the deck +of her father’s yacht, the _Esperanza_, standing out of Otley river. +There was a gallant splendour in the vessel that threw a touch of glory +on its mistress in the minds of the two young naval officers, as they +pulled for her in the ship’s gig. + +Wilmore sang out, “Give way, men!” + +The sailors bent to their oars, and presently the schooner’s head was +put to the wind. + +“She sees we’re giving chase,” Wilmore said. “She can’t be expecting +_me_, so it must be you. No, the colonel doesn’t race her. They’ve only +been back from Italy six months: I mean the schooner. I remember she +talked of you when I had her for a partner. Yes, now I mean Miss +Halkett. Blest if I think she talked of anything else. She sees us. +I’ll tell you what she likes: she likes yachting, she likes Italy, she +likes painting, likes things old English, awfully fond of heroes. I +told her a tale of one of our men saving life. ‘Oh!’ said she, ‘didn’t +your friend Nevil Beauchamp save a man from drowning, off the +guardship, in exactly the same place?’ And next day she sent me a +cheque for three pounds for the fellow. Steady, men! I keep her +letter.” + +The boat went smoothly alongside the schooner. Miss Halkett had come to +the side. The oars swung fore and aft, and Beauchamp sprang on deck. + +Wilmore had to decline Miss Halkett’s invitation to him as well as his +friend, and returned in his boat. He left the pair with a ruffling +breeze, and a sky all sail, prepared, it seemed to him, to enjoy the +most delicious you-and-I on salt water that a sailor could dream of; +and placidly envying, devoid of jealousy, there was just enough of +fancy quickened in Lieutenant Wilmore to give him pictures of them +without disturbance of his feelings—one of the conditions of the +singular visitation we call happiness, if he could have known it. + +For a time his visionary eye followed them pretty correctly. So long +since they had parted last! such changes in the interval! and great +animation in Beauchamp’s gaze, and a blush on Miss Halkett’s cheeks. + +She said once, “Captain Beauchamp.” He retorted with a solemn +formality. They smiled, and immediately took footing on their previous +intimacy. + +“How good it was of you to come twice to Mount Laurels,” said she. “I +have not missed you to-day. No address was on your card. Where are you +staying in the neighbourhood? At Mr. Lespel’s?” + +“I’m staying at a Bevisham hotel,” said Beauchamp. + +“You have not been to Steynham yet? Papa comes home from Steynham +to-night.” + +“Does he? Well, the _Ariadne_ is only just paid off, and I can’t well +go to Steynham yet. I—” Beauchamp was astonished at the hesitation he +found in himself to name it: “I have business in Bevisham.” + +“Naval business?” she remarked. + +“No,” said he. + +The sensitive prescience we have of a critical distaste of our +proceedings is, the world is aware, keener than our intuition of +contrary opinions; and for the sake of preserving the sweet outward +forms of friendliness, Beauchamp was anxious not to speak of the +business in Bevisham just then, but she looked and he had hesitated, so +he said flatly, “I am one of the candidates for the borough.” + +“Indeed!” + +“And I want the colonel to give me his vote.” + +The young lady breathed a melodious “Oh!” not condemnatory or +reproachful—a sound to fill a pause. But she was beginning to reflect. + +“Italy and our English Channel are my two Poles,” she said. “I am +constantly swaying between them. I have told papa we will not lay up +the yacht while the weather holds fair. Except for the absence of deep +colour and bright colour, what can be more beautiful than these green +waves and that dark forest’s edge, and the garden of an island! The +yachting-water here is an unrivalled lake; and if I miss colour, which +I love, I remind myself that we have temperate air here, not a sun that +sends you under cover. We can have our fruits too, you see.” One of the +yachtsmen was handing her a basket of hot-house grapes, reclining +beside crisp home-made loaflets. “This is my luncheon. Will you share +it, Nevil?” + +His Christian name was pleasant to hear from her lips. She held out a +bunch to him. + +“Grapes take one back to the South,” said he. “How do you bear +compliments? You have been in Italy some years, and it must be the +South that has worked the miracle.” + +“In my growth?” said Cecilia, smiling. “I have grown out of my +Circassian dress, Nevil.” + +“You received it, then?” + +“I wrote you a letter of thanks—and abuse, for your not coming to +Steynham. You may recognize these pearls.” + +The pearls were round her right wrist. He looked at the blue veins. + +“They’re not pearls of price,” he said. + +“I do not wear them to fascinate the jewellers,” rejoined Miss Halkett. +“So you are a candidate at an Election. You still have a tinge of +Africa, do you know? But you have not abandoned the navy?” + +“—Not altogether.” + +“Oh! no, no: I hope not. I have heard of you,... but who has not? We +cannot spare officers like you. Papa was delighted to hear of your +promotion. Parliament!” + +The exclamation was contemptuous. + +“It’s the highest we can aim at,” Beauchamp observed meekly. + +“I think I recollect you used to talk politics when you were a +midshipman,” she said. “You headed the aristocracy, did you not?” + +“The aristocracy wants a head,” said Beauchamp. + +“Parliament, in my opinion, is the best of occupations for idle men,” +said she. + +“It shows that it is a little too full of them.” + +“Surely the country can go on very well without so much speech-making?” + +“It can go on very well for the rich.” + +Miss Halkett tapped with her foot. + +“I should expect a Radical to talk in that way, Nevil.” + +“Take me for one.” + +“I would not even imagine it.” + +“Say Liberal, then.” + +“Are you not”—her eyes opened on him largely, and narrowed from +surprise to reproach, and then to pain—are you not one of us? Have you +gone over to the enemy, Nevil?” + +“I have taken my side, Cecilia; but we, on our side, don’t talk of an +enemy.” + +“Most unfortunate! We are Tories, you know, Nevil. Papa is a thorough +Tory. He cannot vote for you. Indeed I have heard him say he is anxious +to defeat the plots of an old Republican in Bevisham—some doctor there; +and I believe he went to London to look out for a second Tory candidate +to oppose to the Liberals. Our present Member is quite safe, of course. +Nevil, this makes me unhappy. Do you not feel that it is playing +traitor to one’s class to join those men?” + +Such was the Tory way of thinking, Nevil Beauchamp said: the Tories +upheld their Toryism in the place of patriotism. + +“But do we not owe the grandeur of the country to the Tories?” she +said, with a lovely air of conviction. “Papa has told me how false the +Whigs played the Duke in the Peninsula: ruining his supplies, writing +him down, declaring, all the time he was fighting his first hard +battles, that his cause was hopeless—that resistance to Napoleon was +impossible. The Duke never, never had loyal support but from the Tory +Government. The Whigs, papa says, absolutely preached _submission_ to +Napoleon! The Whigs, I hear, were the Liberals of those days. The two +Pitts were Tories. The greatness of England has been built up by the +Tories. I do and will defend them: it is the fashion to decry them now. +They have the honour and safety of the country at heart. They do not +play disgracefully at reductions of taxes, as the Liberals do. They +have given us all our heroes. _Non fu mai gloria senza invidia_. They +have done service enough to despise the envious mob. They never +condescend to supplicate brute force for aid to crush their opponents. +You feel in all they do that the instincts of gentlemen are active.” + +Beauchamp bowed. + +“Do I speak too warmly?” she asked. “Papa and I have talked over it +often, and especially of late. You will find him your delighted host +and your inveterate opponent.” + +“And you?” + +“Just the same. You will have to pardon me; I am a terrible foe.” + +“I declare to you, Cecilia, I would prefer having you against me to +having you indifferent.” + +“I wish I had not to think it right that you should be beaten. And +now—can you throw off political Nevil, and be sailor Nevil? I +distinguish between my old friend, and my... our...” + +“Dreadful antagonist?” + +“Not so dreadful, except in the shock he gives us to find him in the +opposite ranks. I am grieved. But we will finish our sail in peace. I +detest controversy. I suppose, Nevil, you would have no such things as +yachts? they are the enjoyments of the rich!” + +He reminded her that she wished to finish her sail in peace; and he had +to remind her of it more than once. Her scattered resources for +argumentation sprang up from various suggestions, such as the flight of +yachts, mention of the shooting season, sight of a royal palace; and +adopted a continually heightened satirical form, oddly intermixed with +an undisguised affectionate friendliness. Apparently she thought it +possible to worry him out of his adhesion to the wrong side in +politics. She certainly had no conception of the nature of his +political views, for one or two extreme propositions flung to him in +jest, he swallowed with every sign of a perfect facility, as if the +Radical had come to regard stupendous questions as morsels barely +sufficient for his daily sustenance. Cecilia reflected that he must be +playing, and as it was not a subject for play she tacitly reproved him +by letting him be the last to speak of it. He may not have been +susceptible to the delicate chastisement, probably was not, for when he +ceased it was to look on the beauty of her lowered eyelids, rather with +an idea that the weight of his argument lay on them. It breathed from +him; both in the department of logic and of feeling, in his plea for +the poor man and his exposition of the poor man’s rightful claims, he +evidently imagined that he had spoken overwhelmingly; and to undeceive +him in this respect, for his own good, Cecilia calmly awaited the +occasion when she might show the vanity of arguments in their effort to +overcome convictions. He stood up to take his leave of her, on their +return to the mouth of the Otley river, unexpectedly, so that the +occasion did not arrive; but on his mentioning an engagement he had to +give a dinner to a journalist and a tradesman of the town of Bevisham, +by way of excuse for not complying with her gentle entreaty that he +would go to Mount Laurels and wait to see the colonel that evening, +“Oh! then your choice must be made irrevocably, I am sure,” Miss +Halkett said, relying upon intonation and manner to convey a great deal +more, and not without a minor touch of resentment for his having +dragged her into the discussion of politics, which she considered as a +slime wherein men hustled and tussled, no doubt worthily enough, and as +became them; not however to impose the strife upon the elect ladies of +earth. What gentleman ever did talk to a young lady upon the dreary +topic seriously? Least of all should Nevil Beauchamp have done it. That +object of her high imagination belonged to the exquisite sphere of the +feminine vision of the pure poetic, and she was vexed by the discord he +threw between her long-cherished dream and her unanticipated +realization of him, if indeed it was he presenting himself to her in +his own character, and not trifling, or not passing through a phase of +young man’s madness. + +Possibly he might be the victim of the latter and more pardonable +state, and so thinking she gave him her hand. + +“Good-bye, Nevil. I may tell papa to expect you tomorrow?” + +“Do, and tell him to prepare for a field-day.” + +She smiled. “A sham fight that will not win you a vote! I hope you will +find your guests this evening agreeable companions.” + +Beauchamp half-shrugged involuntarily. He obliterated the piece of +treason toward them by saying that he hoped so; as though the meeting +them, instead of slipping on to Mount Laurels with her, were an +enjoyable prospect. + +He was dropped by the _Esperanza’s_ boat near Otley ferry, to walk +along the beach to Bevisham, and he kept eye on the elegant vessel as +she glided swan-like to her moorings off Mount Laurels park through +dusky merchant craft, colliers, and trawlers, loosely shaking her +towering snow-white sails, unchallenged in her scornful supremacy; an +image of a refinement of beauty, and of a beautiful servicelessness. + +As the yacht, so the mistress: things of wealth, owing their graces to +wealth, devoting them to wealth—splendid achievements of art both! and +dedicated to the gratification of the superior senses. + +Say that they were precious examples of an accomplished civilization; +and perhaps they did offer a visible ideal of grace for the rough world +to aim at. They might in the abstract address a bit of a monition to +the uncultivated, and encourage the soul to strive toward perfection, +in beauty: and there is no contesting the value of beauty when the soul +is taken into account. But were they not in too great a profusion in +proportion to their utility? That was the question for Nevil Beauchamp. +The democratic spirit inhabiting him, temporarily or permanently, asked +whether they were not increasing to numbers which were oppressive? And +further, whether it was good, for the country, the race, ay, the +species, that they should be so distinctly removed from the thousands +who fought the grand, and the grisly, old battle with nature for bread +of life. Those grimy sails of the colliers and fishing-smacks, set them +in a great sea, would have beauty for eyes and soul beyond that of +elegance and refinement. And do but look on them thoughtfully, the poor +are everlastingly, unrelievedly, in the abysses of the great sea.... + +One cannot pursue to conclusions a line of meditation that is +half-built on the sensations as well as on the mind. Did Beauchamp at +all desire to have those idly lovely adornments of riches, the Yacht +and the Lady, swept away? Oh, dear, no. He admired them, he was at home +with them. They were much to his taste. Standing on a point of the +beach for a last look at them before he set his face to the town, he +prolonged the look in a manner to indicate that the place where +business called him was not in comparison at all so pleasing: and just +as little enjoyable were his meditations opposed to predilections. +Beauty plucked the heart from his breast. But he had taken up arms; he +had drunk of the _questioning_ cup, that which denieth peace to us, and +which projects us upon the missionary search of the How, the Wherefore, +and the Why not, ever afterward. He questioned his justification, and +yours, for gratifying tastes in an ill-regulated world of wrong-doing, +suffering, sin, and bounties unrighteously dispensed—not sufficiently +dispersed. He said by-and-by to pleasure, battle to-day. From his point +of observation, and with the store of ideas and images his fiery yet +reflective youth had gathered, he presented himself as it were saddled +to that hard-riding force known as the logical impetus, which spying +its quarry over precipices, across oceans and deserts, and through +systems and webs, and into shops and cabinets of costliest china, will +come at it, will not be refused, let the distances and the breakages be +what they may. He went like the meteoric man with the mechanical legs +in the song, too quick for a cry of protestation, and reached results +amazing to his instincts, his tastes, and his training, not less +rapidly and naturally than tremendous Ergo is shot forth from the clash +of a syllogism. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. +A PARTIAL DISPLAY OF BEAUCHAMP IN HIS COLOURS + + +Beauchamp presented himself at Mount Laurels next day, and formally +asked Colonel Halkett for his vote, in the presence of Cecilia. + +She took it for a playful glance at his new profession of politician: +he spoke half-playfully. Was it possible to speak in earnest? + +“I’m of the opposite party,” said the colonel; as conclusive a reply as +could be: but he at once fell upon the rotten navy of a Liberal +Government. How could a true sailor think of joining those Liberals! +The question referred to the country, not to a section of it, Beauchamp +protested with impending emphasis: Tories and Liberals were much the +same in regard to the care of the navy. “Nevil!” exclaimed Cecilia. He +cited beneficial Liberal bills recently passed, which she accepted for +a concession of the navy to the Tories, and she smiled. In spite of her +dislike of politics, she had only to listen a few minutes to be drawn +into the contest: and thus it is that one hot politician makes many +among women and men of a people that have the genius of strife, or else +in this case the young lady did unconsciously feel a deep interest in +refuting and overcoming Nevil Beauchamp. Colonel Halkett denied the +benefits of those bills. “Look,” said he, “at the scarecrow plight of +the army under a Liberal Government!” This laid him open to the charge +that he was for backing Administrations instead of principles. + +“I do,” said the colonel. “I would rather have a good Administration +than all your talk of principles: one’s a fact, but principles? +principles?” He languished for a phrase to describe the hazy things. “I +have mine, and you have yours. It’s like a dispute between religions. +There’s no settling it except by main force. That’s what principles +lead you to.” + +Principles may be hazy, but heavy artillery is disposable in defence of +them, and Beauchamp fired some reverberating guns for the eternal +against the transitory; with less of the gentlemanly fine taste, the +light and easy social semi-irony, than Cecilia liked and would have +expected from him. However, as to principles, no doubt Nevil was right, +and Cecilia drew her father to another position. “Are not we Tories to +have principles as well as the Liberals, Nevil?” + +“They may have what they call principles,” he admitted, intent on +pursuing his advantage over the colonel, who said, to shorten the +controversy: “It’s a question of my vote, and my liking. I like a Tory +Government, and I don’t like the Liberals. I like gentlemen; I don’t +like a party that attacks everything, and beats up the mob for power, +and repays it with sops, and is dragging us down from all we were proud +of.” + +“But the country is growing, the country wants expansion,” said +Beauchamp; “and if your gentlemen by birth are not up to the mark, you +must have leaders that are.” + +“Leaders who cut down expenditure, to create a panic that doubles the +outlay! I know them.” + +“A _panic_, Nevil.” Cecilia threw stress on the memorable word. + +He would hear no reminder in it. The internal condition of the country +was now the point for seriously-minded Englishmen. + +“My dear boy, what _have_ you seen of the country?” Colonel Halkett +inquired. + +“Every time I have landed, colonel, I have gone to the mining and the +manufacturing districts, the centres of industry; wherever there was +dissatisfaction. I have attended meetings, to see and hear for myself. +I have read the papers....” + +“The papers!” + +“Well, they’re the mirror of the country.” + +“Does one see everything in a mirror, Nevil?” said Cecilia: “even in +the smoothest?” + +He retorted softly: “I should be glad to see what you see,” and felled +her with a blush. + +For an example of the mirror offered by the Press, Colonel Halkett +touched on Mr. Timothy Turbot’s article in eulogy of the great +Commander Beauchamp. “Did you like it?” he asked. “Ah, but if you +meddle with politics, you must submit to be held up on the prongs of a +fork, my boy; soaped by your backers and shaved by the foe; and there’s +a figure for a gentleman! as your uncle Romfrey says.” + +Cecilia did not join this discussion, though she had heard from her +father that something grotesque had been written of Nevil. Her +foolishness in blushing vexed body and mind. She was incensed by a +silly compliment that struck at her feminine nature when her intellect +stood in arms. Yet more hurt was she by the reflection that a too +lively sensibility might have conjured up the idea of the compliment. +And again, she wondered at herself for not resenting so rare a +presumption as it implied, and not disdaining so outworn a form of +flattery. She wondered at herself too for thinking of resentment and +disdain in relation to the familiar commonplaces of licenced +impertinence. Over all which hung a darkened image of her spirit of +independence, like a moon in eclipse. + +Where lay _his_ weakness? Evidently in the belief that he had thought +profoundly. But what minor item of insufficiency or feebleness was +discernible? She discovered that he could be easily fretted by similes +and metaphors they set him staggering and groping like an ancient +knight of faery in a forest bewitched. + +“Your specific for the country is, then, Radicalism,” she said, after +listening to an attack on the Tories for their want of a policy and +indifference to the union of classes. + +“I would prescribe a course of it, Cecilia; yes,” he turned to her. + +“The Dr. Dulcamara of a single drug?” + +“Now you have a name for me! Tory arguments always come to epithets.” + +“It should not be objectionable. Is it not honest to pretend to have +only one cure for mortal maladies? There can hardly be two panaceas, +can there be?” + +“So you call me quack?” + +“No, Nevil, no,” she breathed a rich contralto note of denial: “but if +the country is the patient, and you will have it swallow your +prescription...” + +“There’s nothing like a metaphor for an evasion,” said Nevil, blinking +over it. + +She drew him another analogy, longer than was at all necessary; so +tedious that her father struck through it with the remark: + +“Concerning that quack—that’s one in the background, though!” + +“I know of none,” said Beauchamp, well-advised enough to forbear +mention of the name of Shrapnel. + +Cecilia petitioned that her stumbling ignorance, which sought the road +of wisdom, might be heard out. She had a reserve entanglement for her +argumentative friend. “You were saying, Nevil, that you were for +principles rather than for individuals, and you instanced Mr. Cougham, +the senior Liberal candidate of Bevisham, as one whom you would prefer +to see in Parliament instead of Seymour Austin, though you confess to +Mr. Austin’s far superior merits as a politician and servant of his +country: but Mr. Cougham supports Liberalism while Mr. Austin is a +Tory. You are for the principle.” + +“I am,” said he, bowing. + +She asked: “Is not that equivalent to the doctrine of election by +Grace?” + +Beauchamp interjected: “Grace! election?” + +Cecilia was tender to his inability to follow her allusion. + +“Thou art a Liberal—then rise to membership,” she said. “Accept my +creed, and thou art of the chosen. Yes, Nevil, you cannot escape from +it. Papa, he preaches Calvinism in politics.” + +“We stick to men, and good men,” the colonel flourished. “Old English +for me!” + +“You might as well say, old timber vessels, when Iron’s afloat, +colonel.” + +“I suspect you have the worst of it there, papa,” said Cecilia, taken +by the unexpectedness and smartness of the comparison coming from wits +that she had been undervaluing. + +“I shall not own I’m worsted until I surrender my vote,” the colonel +rejoined. + +“I won’t despair of it,” said Beauchamp. + +Colonel Halkett bade him come for it as often as he liked. You’ll be +beaten in Bevisham, I warn you. Tory reckonings are safest: it’s an +admitted fact: and _we know_ you can’t win. According to my judgement a +man owes a duty to his class.” + +“A man owes a duty to his class as long as he sees his class doing its +duty to the country,” said Beauchamp; and he added, rather prettily in +contrast with the sententious commencement, Cecilia thought, that the +apathy of his class was proved when such as he deemed it an obligation +on them to come forward and do what little they could. The deduction of +the proof was not clearly consequent, but a meaning was expressed; and +in that form it brought him nearer to her abstract idea of Nevil +Beauchamp than when he raged and was precise. + +After his departure she talked of him with her father, to be charitably +satirical over him, it seemed. + +The critic in her ear had pounced on his repetition of certain words +that betrayed a dialectical stiffness and hinted a narrow vocabulary: +his use of emphasis, rather reminding her of his uncle Everard, was, in +a young man, a little distressing. “The _apathy_ of the country, papa; +the _apathy_ of the rich; a state of universal _apathy_. Will you +inform me, papa, what the Tories are _doing?_ Do we really give our +consciences to the keeping of the parsons once a week, and let them +_dogmatize_ for us to save us from exertion? We must attach ourselves +to _principles; nothing_ is _permanent_ but _principles_. Poor Nevil! +And still I am sure you have, as I have, the feeling that one must +respect him. I am quite convinced that he supposes he is doing his best +to serve his country by trying for Parliament, fancying himself a +Radical. I forgot to ask him whether he had visited his great-aunt, +Mrs. Beauchamp. They say the dear old lady has influence with him.” + +“I don’t think he’s been anywhere,” Colonel Halkett half laughed at the +quaint fellow. “I wish the other great-nephew of hers were in England, +for us to run him against Nevil Beauchamp. He’s touring the world. I’m +told he’s orthodox, and a tough debater. We have to take what we can +get.” + +“My best wishes for your success, and you and I will not talk of +politics any more, papa. I hope Nevil will come often, for his own +good; he will meet his own set of people here. And if he should +dogmatize so much as to rouse our apathy to denounce his principles, we +will remember that we are British, and can be sweet-blooded in +opposition. Perhaps he may change, even _tra le tre ore a le quattro:_ +electioneering should be a lesson. From my recollection of Blackburn +Tuckham, he was a boisterous boy.” + +“He writes uncommonly clever letters home to his aunt Beauchamp. She +has handed them to me to read,” said the colonel. “I do like to see +tolerably solid young fellows: they give one some hope of the stability +of the country.” + +“They are not so interesting to study, and not half so amusing,” said +Cecilia. + +Colonel Halkett muttered his objections to the sort of amusement +furnished by firebrands. + +“Firebrand is too strong a word for poor Nevil,” she remonstrated. + +In that estimate of the character of Nevil Beauchamp, Cecilia soon had +to confess that she had been deceived, though not by him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. +HIS FRIEND AND FOE + + +Looking from her window very early on a Sunday morning, Miss Halkett +saw Beauchamp strolling across the grass of the park. She dressed +hurriedly and went out to greet him, smiling and thanking him for his +friendliness in coming. + +He said he was delighted, and appeared so, but dashed the sweetness. +“You know I can’t canvass on Sundays!” + +“I suppose not,” she replied. “Have you walked up from Bevisham? You +must be tired.” + +“Nothing tires me,” said he. + +With that they stepped on together. + +Mount Laurels, a fair broad house backed by a wood of beeches and firs, +lay open to view on the higher grassed knoll of a series of descending +turfy mounds dotted with gorseclumps, and faced South-westerly along +the run of the Otley river to the gleaming broad water and its opposite +border of forest, beyond which the downs of the island threw long +interlapping curves. Great ships passed on the line of the water to and +fro; and a little mist of masts of the fishing and coasting craft by +Otley village, near the river’s mouth, was like a web in air. Cecilia +led him to her dusky wood of firs, where she had raised a bower for a +place of poetical contemplation and reading when the clear lapping salt +river beneath her was at high tide. She could hail the _Esperanza_ from +that cover; she could step from her drawing-room window, over the +flower-beds, down the gravel walk to the hard, and be on board her +yacht within seven minutes, out on her salt-water lake within twenty, +closing her wings in a French harbour by nightfall of a summer’s day, +whenever she had the whim to fly abroad. Of these enviable privileges +she boasted with some happy pride. + +“It’s the finest yachting-station in England,” said Beauchamp. + +She expressed herself very glad that he should like it so much. +Unfortunately she added, “I hope you will find it pleasanter to be here +than canvassing.” + +“I have no pleasure in canvassing,” said he. “I canvass poor men +accustomed to be paid for their votes, and who get nothing from me but +what the baron would call a parsonical exhortation. I’m in the thick of +the most spiritless crew in the kingdom. Our southern men will not +compare with the men of the north. But still, even among these fellows, +I see danger for the country if our commerce were to fail, if distress +came on them. There’s always danger in disunion. That’s what the rich +won’t see. They see simply nothing out of their own circle; and they +won’t take a thought of the overpowering contrast between their luxury +and the way of living, that’s half-starving, of the poor. They +understand it when fever comes up from back alleys and cottages, and +then they join their efforts to sweep the poor out of the district. The +poor are to get to their work anyhow, after a long morning’s walk over +the proscribed space; for we must have poor, you know. The wife of a +parson I canvassed yesterday, said to me, ‘Who is to work for us, if +you do away with the poor, Captain Beauchamp?’” + +Cecilia quitted her bower and traversed the wood silently. + +“So you would blow up my poor Mount Laurels for a peace-offering to the +lower classes?” + +“I should hope to put it on a stronger foundation, Cecilia.” + +“By means of some convulsion?” + +“By forestalling one.” + +“That must be one of the new ironclads,” observed Cecilia, gazing at +the black smoke-pennon of a tower that slipped along the water-line. +“Yes? You were saying? Put us on a stronger——?” + +“It’s, I think, the _Hastings:_ she broke down the other day on her +trial trip,” said Beauchamp, watching the ship’s progress animatedly. +“Peppel commands her—a capital officer. I suppose we must have these +costly big floating barracks. I don’t like to hear of everything being +done for the defensive. The defensive is perilous policy in war. It’s +true, the English don’t wake up to their work under half a year. But, +no: defending and looking to defences is bad for the fighting power; +and there’s half a million gone on that ship. _Half a million!_ Do you +know how many poor taxpayers it takes to make up that sum, Cecilia?” + +“A great many,” she slurred over them; “but we must have big ships, and +the best that are to be had.” + +“Powerful fast rams, sea-worthy and fit for running over shallows, +carrying one big gun; swarms of harryers and worriers known to be kept +ready for immediate service; readiness for the offensive in case of +war—there’s the best defence against a declaration of war by a foreign +State.” + +“I like to hear you, Nevil,” said Cecilia, beaming: “Papa thinks we +have a miserable army—in numbers. He says, the wealthier we become the +more difficult it is to recruit able-bodied men on the volunteering +system. Yet the wealthier we are the more an army is wanted, both to +defend our wealth and to preserve order. I fancy he half inclines to +compulsory enlistment. Do speak to him on that subject.” + +Cecilia must have been innocent of a design to awaken the fire-flash in +Nevil’s eyes. She had no design, but hostility was latent, and hence +perhaps the offending phrase. + +He nodded and spoke coolly. “An army _to preserve order?_ So, then, an +army to threaten civil war!” + +“To crush revolutionists.” + +“Agitators, you mean. My dear good old colonel—I have always loved +him—must not have more troops at his command.” + +“Do you object to the drilling of the whole of the people?” + +“Does not the colonel, Cecilia? I am sure he does in his heart, and, +for different reasons, I do. He won’t trust the working-classes, nor I +the middle.” + +“Does Dr. Shrapnel hate the middle-class?” + +“Dr. Shrapnel cannot hate. He and I are of opinion, that as the +middle-class are the party in power, they would not, if they knew the +use of arms, move an inch farther in Reform, for they would no longer +be in fear of the class below them.” + +“But what horrible notions of your country have you, Nevil! It is +dreadful to hear. Oh! do let us avoid politics for ever. Fear!” + +“All concessions to the people have been won from fear.” + +“I have not heard so.” + +“I will read it to you in the History of England.” + +“You paint us in a condition of Revolution.” + +“Happily it’s not a condition unnatural to us. The danger would be in +not letting it be progressive, and there’s a little danger too at times +in our slowness. We change our blood or we perish.” + +“Dr. Shrapnel?” + +“Yes, I _have_ heard Dr. Shrapnel say that. And, by-the-way, +Cecilia—will you? can you?—take me for the witness to his character. He +is the most guileless of men, and he’s the most unguarded. My good +Rosamund saw him. She is easily prejudiced when she is a trifle +jealous, and you may hear from her that he rambles, talks wildly. It +may seem so. I maintain there is wisdom in him when conventional minds +would think him at his wildest. Believe me, he is the humanest, the +best of men, tenderhearted as a child: the most benevolent, +simple-minded, admirable old man—the man I am proudest to think of as +an Englishman and a man living in my time, of all men existing. I can’t +overpraise him.” + +“He has a bad reputation.” + +“Only with the class that will not meet him and answer him.” + +“Must we invite him to our houses?” + +“It would be difficult to get him to come, if you did. I mean, meet him +in debate and answer his arguments. Try the question by brains.” + +“Before mobs?” + +“_Not_ before mobs. I punish you by answering you seriously.” + +“I am sensible of the flattery.” + +“Before mobs!” Nevil ejaculated. “It’s the Tories that mob together and +cry down every man who appears to them to threaten their privileges. +Can you guess what Dr. Shrapnel compares them to?” + +“Indeed, Nevil, I have not an idea. I only wish your patriotism were +large enough to embrace them.” + +“He compares them to geese claiming possession of the whole common, and +hissing at every foot of ground they have to yield. They’re always +having to retire and always hissing. ‘Retreat and menace,’ that’s the +motto for them.” + +“Very well, Nevil, I am a goose upon a common.” + +So saying, Cecilia swam forward like a swan on water to give the +morning kiss to her papa, by the open window of the breakfast-room. + +Never did bird of Michaelmas fling off water from her feathers more +thoroughly than this fair young lady the false title she pretended to +assume. + +“I hear you’re of the dinner party at Grancey Lespel’s on Wednesday,” +the colonel said to Beauchamp. “You’ll have to stand fire.” + +“_They_ will, papa,” murmured Cecilia. “Will Mr. Austin be there?” + +“I particularly wish to meet Mr. Austin,” said Beauchamp. + +“Listen to him, if you do meet him,” she replied. + +His look was rather grave. + +“Lespel’s a Whig,” he said. + +The colonel answered. “Lespel _was_ a Whig. Once a Tory always a +Tory,—but court the people and you’re on quicksands, and that’s where +the Whigs are. What he is now I don’t think he knows himself. You won’t +get a vote.” + +Cecilia watched her friend Nevil recovering from his short fit of +gloom. He dismissed politics at breakfast and grew companionable, with +the charm of his earlier day. He was willing to accompany her to church +too. + +“You will hear a long sermon,” she warned him. + +“Forty minutes.” Colonel Halkett smothered a yawn that was both retro +and prospective. + +“It has been fifty, papa.” + +“It has been an hour, my dear.” + +It was good discipline nevertheless, the colonel affirmed, and Cecilia +praised the Rev. Mr. Brisk of Urplesdon vicarage as one of our few +remaining Protestant clergymen. + +“Then he ought to be supported,” said Beauchamp. “In the dissensions of +religious bodies it is wise to pat the weaker party on the back—I quote +Stukely Culbrett.” + +“I’ve heard him,” sighed the colonel. “He calls the Protestant clergy +the social police of the English middle-class. Those are the things he +lets fly. I have heard that man say that the Church stands to show the +passion of the human race for the drama. He said it in my presence. And +there’s a man who calls himself a Tory! + +“You have rather too much of that playing at grudges and dislikes at +Steynham, with squibs, nicknames, and jests at things that—well, that +our stability is bound up in. I hate squibs.” + +“And I,” said Beauchamp. Some shadow of a frown crossed him; but +Stukely Culbrett’s humour seemed to be a refuge. “Protestant +_parson_—not clergy,” he corrected the colonel. “Can’t you hear Mr. +Culbrett, Cecilia? The Protestant parson is the policeman set to watch +over the respectability of the middle-class. He has sharp eyes for the +sins of the poor. As for the rich, they support his church; they listen +to his sermon—to set an example: _discipline_, colonel. You discipline +the tradesman, who’s afraid of losing your custom, and the labourer, +who might be deprived of his bread. But the people? It’s put down to +the wickedness of human nature that the parson has not got hold of the +people. The parsons have lost them by senseless Conservatism, because +they look to the Tories for the support of their Church, and let the +religion run down the gutters. And how many thousands have you at work +in the pulpit every Sunday? I’m told the Dissenting ministers have some +vitality.” + +Colonel Halkett shrugged with disgust at the mention of Dissenters. + +“And those thirty or forty thousand, colonel, call the men that do the +work they ought to be doing demagogues. The parsonry are a power +absolutely to be counted for waste, as to progress.” + +Cecilia perceived that her father was beginning to be fretted. + +She said, with a tact that effected its object: “I am one who hear Mr. +Culbrett without admiring his wit.” + +“No, and I see no good in this kind of Steynham talk,” Colonel Halkett +said, rising. “We’re none of us perfect. Heaven save us from political +parsons!” + +Beauchamp was heard to utter, “Humanity.” + +The colonel left the room with Cecilia, muttering the Steynham tail to +that word: “tomtity,” for the solace of an aside repartee. + +She was on her way to dress for church. He drew her into the library, +and there threw open a vast placard lying on the table. It was printed +in blue characters and red. “This is what I got by the post this +morning. I suppose Nevil knows about it. He wants tickling, but I don’t +like this kind of thing. It’s not fair war. It’s as bad as using +explosive bullets in my old game.” + +“_Can_ he expect his adversaries to be tender with him?” Cecilia +simulated vehemence in an underbreath. She glanced down the page: + +“FRENCH MARQUEES” caught her eye. + +It was a page of verse. And, oh! could it have issued from a Tory +Committee? + +“The Liberals are as bad, and worse,” her father said. + +She became more and more distressed. “It seems so very mean, papa; so +base. Ungenerous is no word for it. And how vulgar! Now I remember, +Nevil said he wished to see Mr. Austin.” + +“Seymour Austin would not sanction it.” + +“No, but Nevil might hold him responsible for it.” + +“I suspect Mr. Stukely Culbrett, whom he quotes, and that smoking-room +lot at Lespel’s. I distinctly discountenance it. So I shall tell them +on Wednesday night. Can you keep a secret?” + +“And after all Nevil Beauchamp is very young, papa!—of course I can +keep a secret.” + +The colonel exacted no word of honour, feeling quite sure of her. + +He whispered the secret in six words, and her cheeks glowed vermilion. + +“But they will meet on Wednesday after _this_,” she said, and her sight +went dancing down the column of verse, of which the following trotting +couplet is a specimen:— + +“O did you ever, hot in love, a little British middy see, +Like Orpheus asking what the deuce to do without Eurydice?” + +The middy is jilted by his FRENCH MARQUEES, whom he “did adore,” and in +his wrath he recommends himself to the wealthy widow Bevisham, +concerning whose choice of her suitors there is a doubt: but the middy +is encouraged to persevere: + +“Up, up, my pretty middy; take a draught of foaming Sillery; +Go in and win the uriddy with your Radical artillery.” + +And if Sillery will not do, he is advised, he being for superlatives, +to try the sparkling _Silliery_ of the Radical vintage, selected +grapes. + +This was but impudent nonsense. But the reiterated apostrophe to “MY +FRENCH MARQUEES” was considered by Cecilia to be a brutal offence. + +She was shocked that her party should have been guilty of it. Nevil +certainly provoked, and he required, hard blows; and his uncle Everard +might be right in telling her father that they were the best means of +teaching him to come to his understanding. Still a foul and stupid +squib did appear to her a debasing weapon to use. + +“I cannot congratulate you on your choice of a second candidate, papa,” +she said scornfully. + +“I don’t much congratulate myself,” said the colonel. + +“Here’s a letter from Mrs. Beauchamp informing me that her boy +Blackburn will be home in a month. There would have been plenty of time +for him. However, we must make up our minds to it. Those two’ll be +meeting on Wednesday, so keep your secret. It will be out tomorrow +week.” + +“But Nevil will be accusing Mr. Austin.” + +“Austin won’t be at Lespel’s. And he must bear it, for the sake of +peace.” + +“Is Nevil ruined with his uncle, papa?” + +“Not a bit, I should imagine. It’s Romfrey’s fun.” + +“And this disgraceful squib is a part of the fun?” + +“That I know nothing about, my dear. I’m sorry, but there’s pitch and +tar in politics as well as on shipboard.” + +“I do not see that there should be,” said Cecilia resolutely. + +“We can’t hope to have what should be.” + +“Why not? I would have it: I would do my utmost to have it,” she flamed +out. + +“Your _utmost?_” Her father was glancing at her foregone mimicry of +Beauchamp’s occasional strokes of emphasis. “Do your utmost to have +your bonnet on in time for us to walk to church. I can’t bear driving +there.” + +Cecilia went to her room with the curious reflection, awakened by what +her father had chanced to suggest to her mind, that she likewise could +be fervid, positive, uncompromising—who knows? Radicalish, perhaps, +when she looked eye to eye on an evil. For a moment or so she espied +within herself a gulf of possibilities, wherein black night-birds, +known as queries, roused by shot of light, do flap their wings.—Her +utmost to have be what should be! And why not? + +But the intemperate feeling subsided while she was doing duty before +her mirror, and the visionary gulf closed immediately. + +She had merely been very angry on Nevil Beauchamp’s behalf, and had +dimly seen that a woman can feel insurgent, almost revolutionary, for a +personal cause, Tory though her instinct of safety and love of +smoothness make her. + +No reflection upon this casual piece of self or sex revelation troubled +her head. She did, however, think of her position as the friend of +Nevil in utter antagonism to him. It beset her with contradictions that +blew rough on her cherished serenity; for she was of the order of +ladies who, by virtue of their pride and spirit, their port and their +beauty, decree unto themselves the rank of princesses among women, +before our world has tried their claim to it. She had lived hitherto in +upper air, high above the clouds of earth. Her ideal of a man was of +one similarly disengaged and lofty—loftier. Nevil, she could honestly +say, was not her ideal; he was only her old friend, and she was opposed +to him in his present adventure. The striking at him to cure him of his +mental errors and excesses was an obligation; she could descend upon +him calmly with the chastening rod, pointing to the better way; but the +shielding of him was a different thing; it dragged her down so low, +that in her condemnation of the Tory squib she found herself asking +herself whether haply Nevil had flung off the yoke of the French lady; +with the foolish excuse for the question, that if he had not, he must +be bitterly sensitive to the slightest public allusion to her. Had he? +And if not, how desperately faithful he was! or else how marvellously +seductive she! + +Perhaps it was a lover’s despair that had precipitated him into the +mire of politics. She conceived the impression that it must be so, and +throughout the day she had an inexplicable unsweet pleasure in inciting +him to argumentation and combating him, though she was compelled to +admit that he had been colloquially charming antecedent to her naughty +provocation; and though she was indebted to him for his patient decorum +under the weary wave of the Reverend Mr. Brisk. Now what does it matter +what a woman thinks in politics? But he deemed it of great moment. +Politically, he deemed that women have souls, a certain fire of life +for exercise on earth. He appealed to reason in them; he would not hear +of convictions. He quoted the Bevisham doctor: “Convictions are +generally first impressions that are sealed with later prejudices,” and +insisted there was wisdom in it. Nothing tired him, as he had said, and +addressing woman or man, no prospect of fatigue or of hopeless effort +daunted him in the endeavour to correct an error of judgement in +politics—_his_ notion of an error. The value he put upon speaking, +urging his views, was really fanatical. It appeared that he canvassed +the borough from early morning till near midnight, and nothing would +persuade him that his chance was poor; nothing that an entrenched Tory +like her father, was not to be won even by an assault of all the +reserve forces of Radical pathos, prognostication, and statistics. + +Only conceive Nevil Beauchamp knocking at doors late at night, the +sturdy beggar of a vote! or waylaying workmen, as he confessed without +shame that he had done, on their way trooping to their midday meal; +penetrating malodoriferous rooms of dismal ten-pound cottagers, to +exhort bedraggled mothers and babes, and besotted husbands; and exposed +to rebuffs from impertinent tradesmen; and lampooned and travestied, +shouting speeches to roaring men, pushed from shoulder to shoulder of +the mob!... + +Cecilia dropped a curtain on her mind’s picture of him. But the +blinding curtain rekindled the thought that the line he had taken could +not but be the desperation of a lover abandoned. She feared it was, she +feared it was not. Nevil Beauchamp’s foe persisted in fearing that it +was not; his friend feared that it was. Yet why? For if it was, then he +could not be quite in earnest, and might be cured. Nay, but earnestness +works out its own cure more surely than frenzy, and it should be +preferable to think him sound of heart, sincere though mistaken. +Cecilia could not decide upon what she dared wish for his health’s +good. Friend and foe were not further separable within her bosom than +one tick from another of a clock; they changed places, and next his +friend was fearing what his foe had feared: they were inextricable. + +Why had he not sprung up on a radiant aquiline ambition, whither one +might have followed him, with eyes and prayers for him, if it was not +possible to do so companionably? At present, in the shape of a +canvassing candidate, it was hardly honourable to let imagination dwell +on him, save compassionately. + +When he rose to take his leave, Cecilia said, “_Must_ you go to +Itchincope on Wednesday, Nevil?” + +Colonel Halkett added: “I don’t think I would go to Lespel’s if I were +you. I rather suspect Seymour Austin will be coming on Wednesday, and +that’ll detain me here, and you might join us and lend him an ear for +an evening.” + +“I have particular reasons for going to Lespel’s; I hear he wavers +toward a Tory conspiracy of some sort,” said Beauchamp. + +The colonel held his tongue. + +The untiring young candidate chose to walk down to Bevisham at eleven +o’clock at night, that he might be the readier to continue his canvass +of the borough on Monday morning early. He was offered a bed or a +conveyance, and he declined both; the dog-cart he declined out of +consideration for horse and groom, which an owner of stables could not +but approve. + +Colonel Halkett broke into exclamations of pity for so good a young +fellow so misguided. + +The night was moonless, and Cecilia, looking through the window, said +whimsically, “He has gone out into the darkness, and is no light in +it!” + +Certainly none shone. She however carried a lamp that revealed him +footing on with a wonderful air of confidence, and she was rather +surprised to hear her father regret that Nevil Beauchamp should be +losing his good looks already, owing to that miserable business of his +in Bevisham. She would have thought the contrary, that he was looking +as well as ever. + +“He dresses just as he used to dress,” she observed. + +The individual style of a naval officer of breeding, in which you see +neatness trifling with disorder, or disorder plucking at neatness, like +the breeze a trim vessel, had been caught to perfection by Nevil +Beauchamp, according to Cecilia. It presented him to her mind in a +cheerful and a very undemocratic aspect, but in realizing it, the +thought, like something flashing black, crossed her—how attractive such +a style must be to a Frenchwoman! + +“He may look a little worn,” she acquiesced. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. +CONCERNING THE ACT OF CANVASSING + + +Tories dread the restlessness of Radicals, and Radicals are in awe of +the organization of Tories. Beauchamp thought anxiously of the high +degree of confidence existing in the Tory camp, whose chief could +afford to keep aloof, while he slaved all day and half the night to +thump ideas into heads, like a cooper on a cask:—an impassioned cooper +on an empty cask! if such an image is presentable. Even so enviously +sometimes the writer and the barrister, men dependent on their active +wits, regard the man with a business fixed in an office managed by +clerks. That man seems by comparison celestially seated. But he has his +fits of trepidation; for new tastes prevail and new habits are formed, +and the structure of his business will not allow him to adapt himself +to them in a minute. The secure and comfortable have to pay in +occasional panics for the serenity they enjoy. Mr. Seymour Austin +candidly avowed to Colonel Halkett, on his arrival at Mount Laurels, +that he was advised to take up his quarters in the neighbourhood of +Bevisham by a recent report of his committee, describing the young +Radical’s canvass as redoubtable. Cougham he did not fear: he could +make a sort of calculation of the votes for the Liberal thumping on the +old drum of Reform; but the number for him who appealed to feelings and +quickened the romantic sentiments of the common people now huddled +within our electoral penfold, was not calculable. Tory and Radical have +an eye for one another, which overlooks the Liberal at all times except +when he is, as they imagine, playing the game of either of them. + +“Now we shall see the passions worked,” Mr. Austin said, deploring the +extension of the franchise. + +He asked whether Beauchamp spoke well. + +Cecilia left it to her father to reply; but the colonel appealed to +her, saying, “Inclined to dragoon one, isn’t he?” + +She did not think that. “He speaks... he speaks well in conversation. I +fancy he would be liked by the poor. I should doubt his being a good +public speaker. He certainly has command of his temper: that is one +thing. I cannot say whether it favours oratory. He is indefatigable. +One may be sure he will not faint by the way. He quite believes in +himself. But, Mr. Austin, do you really regard him as a serious rival?” + +Mr. Austin could not tell. No one could tell the effect of an extended +franchise. The untried venture of it depressed him. “Men have come +suddenly on a borough before now and carried it,” he said. + +“Not a borough like Bevisham?” + +He shook his head. “A fluid borough, I’m afraid.” + +Colonel Halkettt interposed: “But Ferbrass is quite sure of his +district.” + +Cecilia wished to know who the man was, of the mediaevally sounding +name. + +“Ferbrass is an old lawyer, my dear. He comes of five generations of +lawyers, and he’s as old in the county as Grancey Lespel. Hitherto he +has always been to be counted on for marching his district to the poll +like a regiment. That’s our strength—the professions, especially +lawyers.” + +“Are not a great many lawyers Liberals, papa?” + +“A great many _barristers_ are, my dear.” + +Thereat the colonel and Mr. Austin smiled together. + +It was a new idea to Cecilia that Nevil Beauchamp should be considered +by a man of the world anything but a well-meaning, moderately +ridiculous young candidate; and the fact that one so experienced as +Seymour Austin deemed him an adversary to be grappled with in earnest, +created a small revolution in her mind, entirely altering her view of +the probable pliability of his Radicalism under pressure of time and +circumstances. Many of his remarks, that she had previously half smiled +at, came across her memory hard as metal. She began to feel some terror +of him, and said, to reassure herself: “Captain Beauchamp is not likely +to be a champion with a very large following. He is too much of a +political mystic, I think.” + +“Many young men are, before they have written out a fair copy of their +meaning,” said Mr. Austin. + +Cecilia laughed to herself at the vision of the fiery Nevil engaged in +writing out a fair copy of his meaning. How many erasures! what +foot-notes! + +The arrangement was for Cecilia to proceed to Itchincope alone for a +couple of days, and bring a party to Mount Laurels through Bevisham by +the yacht on Thursday, to meet Mr. Seymour Austin and Mr. Everard +Romfrey. An early day of the next week had been agreed on for the +unmasking of the second Tory candidate. She promised that in case Nevil +Beauchamp should have the hardihood to enter the enemy’s nest at +Itchincope on Wednesday, at the great dinner and ball there, she would +do her best to bring him back to Mount Laurels, that he might meet his +uncle Everard, who was expected there. At least he may consent to come +for an evening,” she said. “Nothing will take him from that canvassing. +It seems to me it must be not merely distasteful...?” + +Mr. Austin replied: “It’s disagreeable, but it’s the practice. I would +gladly be bound by a common undertaking to abstain.” + +“Captain Beauchamp argues that it would be all to your advantage. He +says that a personal visit is the only chance for an unknown candidate +to make the people acquainted with him.” + +“It’s a very good opportunity for making him acquainted with _them;_ +and I hope he may profit by it.” + +“Ah! pah! ‘To beg the vote and wink the bribe,’” Colonel Halkett +subjoined abhorrently: + +‘“It well becomes the Whiggish tribe +To beg the vote and wink the bribe.’ + +Canvassing means intimidation or corruption.” + +“Or the mixture of the two, called cajolery,” said Mr. Austin; “and +that was the principal art of the Whigs.” + +Thus did these gentlemen converse upon canvassing. + +It is not possible to gather up in one volume of sound the rattle of +the knocks at Englishmen’s castle-gates during election days; so, with +the thunder of it unheard, the majesty of the act of canvassing can be +but barely appreciable, and he, therefore, who would celebrate it must +follow the candidate obsequiously from door to door, where, like a +cross between a postman delivering a bill and a beggar craving an alms, +patiently he attempts the extraction of the vote, as little boys pick +periwinkles with a pin. + +“This is your duty, which I most abjectly entreat you to do,” is pretty +nearly the form of the supplication. + +How if, instead of the solicitation of the thousands by the unit, the +meritorious unit were besought by rushing thousands?—as a mound of the +plains that is circumvented by floods, and to which the waters cry, Be +thou our island. Let it be answered the questioner, with no +discourteous adjectives, Thou fool! To come to such heights of popular +discrimination and political ardour the people would have to be +vivified to a pitch little short of eruptive: it would be Boreas +blowing AEtna inside them; and we should have impulse at work in the +country, and immense importance attaching to a man’s whether he will or +he won’t—enough to womanize him. We should be all but having Parliament +for a sample of our choicest rather than our likest: and see you not a +peril in that? + +Conceive, for the fleeting instants permitted to such insufferable +flights of fancy, our picked men ruling! So despotic an oligarchy as +would be there, is not a happy subject of contemplation. It is not too +much to say that a domination of the Intellect in England would at once +and entirely alter the face of the country. We should be governed by +the head with a vengeance: all the rest of the country being base +members indeed; Spartans—helots. Criticism, now so helpful to us, would +wither to the root: fun would die out of Parliament, and outside of it: +we could never laugh at our masters, or command them: and that good +old-fashioned shouldering of separate interests, which, if it stops +progress, like a block in the pit entrance to a theatre, proves us +equal before the law, puts an end to the pretence of higher merit in +the one or the other, and renders a stout build the safest assurance +for coming through ultimately, would be transformed to a painful +orderliness, like a City procession under the conduct of the police, +and to classifications of things according to their public value: +decidedly no benefit to burly freedom. None, if there were no +shouldering and hustling, could tell whether actually the fittest +survived; as is now the case among survivors delighting in a +broad-chested fitness. + +And consider the freezing isolation of a body of our quintessential +elect, seeing below them none to resemble them! Do you not hear in +imagination the land’s regrets for that amiable nobility whose +pretensions were comically built on birth, acres, tailoring, style, and +an air? Ah, that these unchallengeable new lords could be exchanged for +those old ones! These, with the traditions of how great people should +look in our country, these would pass among us like bergs of ice—a pure +Polar aristocracy, inflicting the woes of wintriness upon us. Keep them +from concentrating! At present I believe it to be their honest opinion, +their wise opinion, and the sole opinion common to a majority of them, +that it is more salutary, besides more diverting, to have the fools of +the kingdom represented than not. As professors of the sarcastic art +they can easily take the dignity out of the fools’ representative at +their pleasure, showing him at antics while he supposes he is +exhibiting an honourable and a decent series of movements. Generally, +too, their archery can check him when he is for any of his measures; +and if it does not check, there appears to be such a property in simple +sneering, that it consoles even when it fails to right the balance of +power. Sarcasm, we well know, confers a title of aristocracy +straightway and sharp on the sconce of the man who does but imagine +that he is using it. What, then, must be the elevation of these princes +of the intellect in their own minds! Hardly worth bartering for worldly +commanderships, it is evident. + +Briefly, then, we have a system, not planned but grown, the outcome and +image of our genius, and all are dissatisfied with parts of it; but, as +each would preserve his own, the surest guarantee is obtained for the +integrity of the whole by a happy adjustment of the energies of +opposition, which—you have only to look to see—goes far beyond concord +in the promotion of harmony. This is our English system; like our +English pudding, a fortuitous concourse of all the sweets in the +grocer’s shop, but an excellent thing for all that, and let none +threaten it. Canvassing appears to be mixed up in the system; at least +I hope I have shown that it will not do to reverse the process, for +fear of changes leading to a sovereignty of the austere and +antipathetic Intellect in our England, that would be an inaccessible +tyranny of a very small minority, necessarily followed by tremendous +convulsions. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. +LORD PALMET, AND CERTAIN ELECTORS OF BEVISHAM + + +Meantime the candidates raised knockers, rang bells, bowed, expounded +their views, praised their virtues, begged for votes, and greatly and +strangely did the youngest of them enlarge his knowledge of his +countrymen. But he had an insatiable appetite, and except in relation +to Mr. Cougham, considerable tolerance. With Cougham, he was like a +young hound in the leash. They had to run as twins; but Beauchamp’s +conjunct would not run, he would walk. He imposed his experience on +Beauchamp, with an assumption that it must necessarily be taken for the +law of Beauchamp’s reason in electoral and in political affairs, and +this was hard on Beauchamp, who had faith in his reason. Beauchamp’s +early canvassing brought Cougham down to Bevisham earlier than usual in +the days when he and Seymour Austin divided the borough, and he +inclined to administer correction to the Radically-disposed youngster. +“Yes, I have gone all over that,” he said, in speech sometimes, in +manner perpetually, upon the intrusion of an idea by his junior. +Cougham also, Cougham had passed through his Radical phase, as one does +on the road to wisdom. So the frog telleth tadpoles: he too has +wriggled most preposterous of tails; and he has shoved a circular flat +head into corners unadapted to its shape; and that the undeveloped one +should dutifully listen to experience and accept guidance, is devoutly +to be hoped. Alas! Beauchamp would not be taught that though they were +yoked they stood at the opposite ends of the process of evolution. + +The oddly coupled pair deplored, among their respective friends, the +disastrous Siamese twinship created by a haphazard improvident Liberal +camp. Look at us! they said:—Beauchamp is a young demagogue; Cougham is +chrysalis Tory. Such Liberals are the ruin of Liberalism; but of such +must it be composed when there is no new cry to loosen floods. It was +too late to think of an operation to divide them. They held the heart +of the cause between them, were bound fast together, and had to go on. +Beauchamp, with a furious tug of Radicalism, spoken or performed, +pulled Cougham on his beam-ends. Cougham, to right himself, defined his +Liberalism sharply from the politics of the pit, pointed to France and +her Revolutions, washed his hands of excesses, and entirely overset +Beauchamp. Seeing that he stood in the Liberal interest, the junior +could not abandon the Liberal flag; so he seized it and bore it ahead +of the time, there where Radicals trip their phantom dances like +shadows on a fog, and waved it as the very flag of our perfectible +race. So great was the impetus that Cougham had no choice but to step +out with him briskly—voluntarily as a man propelled by a hand on his +coat-collar. A word saved him: the word practical. “Are we practical?” +he inquired, and shivered Beauchamp’s galloping frame with a violent +application of the stop abrupt; for that question, “Are we practical?” +penetrates the bosom of an English audience, and will surely elicit a +response if not plaudits. Practical or not, the good people affectingly +wish to be thought practical. It has been asked by them. + +If we’re not practical, what are we?—Beauchamp, talking to Cougham +apart, would argue that the daring and the far-sighted course was often +the most practical. Cougham extended a deprecating hand: “Yes, I have +gone over all that.” Occasionally he was maddening. + +The melancholy position of the senior and junior Liberals was known +abroad and matter of derision. + +It happened that the gay and good-humoured young Lord Palmet, heir to +the earldom of Elsea, walking up the High Street of Bevisham, met +Beauchamp on Tuesday morning as he sallied out of his hotel to canvass. +Lord Palmet was one of the numerous half-friends of Cecil Baskelett, +and it may be a revelation of his character to you, that he owned to +liking Beauchamp because of his having always been a favourite with the +women. He began chattering, with Beauchamp’s hand in his: “I’ve hit on +you, have I? My dear fellow, Miss Halkett was talking of you last +night. I slept at Mount Laurels; went on purpose to have a peep. I’m +bound for Itchincope. They’ve some grand procession in view there; +Lespel wrote for my team; I suspect he’s for starting some new October +races. He talks of half-a-dozen drags. He must have lots of women +there. I _say_, what a splendid creature Cissy Halkett has shot up! She +topped the season this year, and will next. You’re for the darkies, +Beauchamp. So am I, when I don’t see a blonde; just as a fellow admires +a girl when there’s no married woman or widow in sight. And, I say, it +can’t be true you’ve gone in for that crazy Radicalism? There’s nothing +to be gained by it, you know; the women hate it! A married blonde of +five-and-twenty’s the Venus of them all. Mind you, I don’t forget that +Mrs. Wardour-Devereux is a thorough-paced brunette; but, upon my +honour, I’d bet on Cissy Halkett at forty. ‘A dark eye in woman,’ if +you like, but blue and auburn drive it into a corner.” + +Lord Palmet concluded by asking Beauchamp what he was doing and whither +going. + +Beauchamp proposed to him maliciously, as one of our hereditary +legislators, to come and see something of canvassing. Lord Palmet had +no objection. “Capital opportunity for a review of their women,” he +remarked. + +“I map the places for pretty women in England; some parts of Norfolk, +and a spot or two in Cumberland and Wales, and the island over there, I +know thoroughly. Those Jutes have turned out some splendid fair women. +Devonshire’s worth a tour. My man Davis is in charge of my team, and he +drives to Itchincope from Washwater station. I am independent; I’ll +have an hour with you. Do you think much of the women here?” + +Beauchamp had not noticed them. + +Palmet observed that he should not have noticed anything else. + +“But you are qualifying for the _Upper_ House,” Beauchamp said in the +tone of an encomium. + +Palmet accepted the statement. “Though I shall never care to figure +before peeresses,” he said. “I can’t tell you why. There’s a heavy +sprinkling of the old bird among them. It isn’t that. There’s too much +plumage; I think it must be that. A cloud of millinery shoots me off a +mile from a woman. In my opinion, witches are the only ones for wearing +jewels without chilling the feminine atmosphere about them. Fellows +think differently.” Lord Palmet waved a hand expressive of purely +amiable tolerance, for this question upon the most important topic of +human affairs was deep, and no judgement should be hasty in settling +it. “I’m peculiar,” he resumed. “A rose and a string of pearls: a woman +who goes beyond that’s in danger of petrifying herself and her fellow +man. Two women in Paris, last winter, set us on fire with pale thin +gold ornaments—neck, wrists, ears, ruche, skirts, all in a flutter, and +so were you. But you felt witchcraft. ‘The magical Orient,’ Vivian +Ducie called the blonde, and the dark beauty, ‘Young Endor.’” + +“Her name?” said Beauchamp. + +“A marquise; I forget her name. The other was Countess Rastaglione; you +must have heard of her; a towering witch, an empress, Helen of Troy; +though Ducie would have it the brunette was Queen of _Paris_. For +French taste, if you like.” + +Countess Rastaglione was a lady enamelled on the scroll of Fame. “Did +you see them together?” said Beauchamp. “They weren’t together?” + +Palmet looked at him and laughed. “You’re yourself again, are you? Go +to Paris in January, and cut out the Frenchmen.” + +“Answer me, Palmet: they weren’t in couples?” + +“I fancy not. It was luck to meet them, so they couldn’t have been.” + +“Did you dance with either of them?” + +Unable to state accurately that he had, Palmet cried, “Oh! for dancing, +the Frenchwoman beat the Italian.” + +“Did you see her often—more than once?” + +“My dear fellow, I went everywhere to see her: balls, theatres, +promenades, rides, churches.” + +“And you say she dressed up to the Italian, to challenge her, rival +her?” + +“Only one night; simple accident. Everybody noticed it, for they stood +for Night and Day,—both hung with gold; the brunette Etruscan, and the +blonde Asiatic; and every Frenchman present was epigramizing up and +down the rooms like mad.” + +“Her husband’s Legitimist; he wouldn’t be at the Tuileries?” Beauchamp +spoke half to himself. + +“What, then, what?” Palmet stared and chuckled. “Her husband must have +taken the Tuileries’ bait, if we mean the same woman. My dear old +Beauchamp, have I seen her, then? She’s a darling! The Rastaglione was +nothing to her. When you do light on a grand smoky pearl, the milky +ones may go and decorate plaster. That’s what I say of the loveliest +brunettes. It must be the same: there can’t be a couple of dark +beauties in Paris without a noise about them. Marquise—? I shall +recollect her name presently.” + +“Here’s one of the houses I stop at,” said Beauchamp, “and drop that +subject.” + +A scared servant-girl brought out her wizened mistress to confront the +candidate, and to this representative of the sex he addressed his arts +of persuasion, requesting her to repeat his words to her husband. The +contrast between Beauchamp palpably canvassing and the Beauchamp who +was the lover of the Marquise of the forgotten name, struck too +powerfully on Palmet for his gravity he retreated. + +Beauchamp found him sauntering on the pavement, and would have +dismissed him but for an agreeable diversion that occurred at that +moment. A suavely smiling unctuous old gentleman advanced to them, +bowing, and presuming thus far, he said, under the supposition that he +was accosting the junior Liberal candidate for the borough. He +announced his name and his principles Tomlinson, progressive Liberal. + +“A true distinction from some Liberals I know,” said Beauchamp. + +Mr. Tomlinson hoped so. Never, he said, did he leave it to the man of +his choice at an election to knock at his door for the vote. + +Beauchamp looked as if he had swallowed a cordial. Votes falling into +his lap are heavenly gifts to the candidate sick of the knocker and the +bell. Mr. Tomlinson eulogized the manly candour of the junior Liberal +candidate’s address, in which he professed to see ideas that +distinguished it from the address of the sound but otherwise +conventional Liberal, Mr. Cougham. He muttered of plumping for +Beauchamp. “Don’t plump,” Beauchamp said; and a candidate, if he would +be an honourable twin, must say it. Cougham had cautioned him against +the heresy of plumping. + +They discoursed of the poor and their beverages, of pothouses, of the +anti-liquorites, and of the duties of parsons, and the value of a +robust and right-minded body of the poor to the country. Palmet found +himself following them into a tolerably spacious house that he took to +be the old gentleman’s until some of the apparatus of an Institute for +literary and scientific instruction revealed itself to him, and he +heard Mr. Tomlinson exalt the memory of one Wingham for the blessing +bequeathed by him to the town of Bevisham. “For,” said Mr. Tomlinson, +“it is open to both sexes, to all respectable classes, from ten in the +morning up to ten at night. Such a place affords us, I would venture to +say, the advantages without the seductions of a Club. I rank it next—at +a far remove, but next—the church.” + +Lord Palmet brought his eyes down from the busts of certain worthies +ranged along the top of the book-shelves to the cushioned chairs, and +murmured, “Capital place for an appointment with a woman.” + +Mr. Tomlinson gazed up at him mildly, with a fallen countenance. He +turned sadly agape in silence to the busts, the books, and the range of +scientific instruments, and directed a gaze under his eyebrows at +Beauchamp. “Does your friend canvass with you?” he inquired. + +“I want him to taste it,” Beauchamp replied, and immediately introduced +the affable young lord—a proceeding marked by some of the dexterity he +had once been famous for, as was shown by a subsequent observation of +Mr. Tomlinson’s: + +“Yes,” he said, on the question of classes, “yes, I fear we have +classes in this country whose habitual levity sharp experience will +have to correct. I very much fear it.” + +“But if you have classes that are not to face realities classes that +look on them from the box-seats of a theatre,” said Beauchamp, “how can +you expect perfect seriousness, or any good service whatever?” + +“Gently, sir, gently. No; we can, I feel confident, expand within the +limits of our most excellent and approved Constitution. I could wish +that socially... that is all.” + +“Socially and politically mean one thing in the end,” said Beauchamp. +“If you have a nation politically corrupt, you won’t have a good state +of morals in it, and the laws that keep society together bear upon the +politics of a country.” + +“True; yes,” Mr. Tomlinson hesitated assent. He dissociated Beauchamp +from Lord Palmet, but felt keenly that the latter’s presence desecrated +Wingham’s Institute, and he informed the candidate that he thought he +would no longer detain him from his labours. + +“Just the sort of place wanted in every provincial town,” Palmet +remarked by way of a parting compliment. + +Mr. Tomlinson bowed a civil acknowledgement of his having again spoken. + +No further mention was made of the miraculous vote which had risen +responsive to the candidate’s address of its own inspired motion; so +Beauchamp said, “I beg you to bear in mind that I request you not to +plump.” + +“You may be right, Captain Beauchamp. Good day, sir.” + +Palmet strode after Beauchamp into the street. + +“Why did you set me bowing to that old boy?” he asked. + +“Why did you talk about women?” was the rejoinder. + +“Oh, aha!” Palmet sang to himself. “You’re a Romfrey, Beauchamp. A blow +for a blow! But I only said what would strike every fellow first off. +It _is_ the place; the very place. Pastry-cooks’ shops won’t stand +comparison with it. Don’t tell me you’re the man not to see how much a +woman prefers to be under the wing of science and literature, in a +good-sized, well-warmed room, with a book, instead of making believe, +with a red face, over a tart.” + +He received a smart lecture from Beauchamp, and began to think he had +enough of canvassing. But he was not suffered to escape. For his +instruction, for his positive and extreme good, Beauchamp determined +that the heir to an earldom should have a day’s lesson. We will hope +there was no intention to punish him for having frozen the genial +current of Mr. Tomlinson’s vote and interest; and it may be that he +clung to one who had, as he imagined, seen Renée. Accompanied by a Mr. +Oggler, a tradesman of the town, on the Liberal committee, dressed in a +pea-jacket and proudly nautical, they applied for the vote, and found +it oftener than beauty. Palmet contrasted his repeated disappointments +with the scoring of two, three, four and more in the candidate’s list, +and informed him that he would certainly get the Election. “I think +you’re sure of it,” he said. “There’s not a pretty woman to be seen; +not one.” + +One came up to them, the sight of whom counselled Lord Palmet to +reconsider his verdict. She was addressed by Beauchamp as Miss Denham, +and soon passed on. + +Palmet was guilty of staring at her, and of lingering behind the others +for a last look at her. + +They were on the steps of a voter’s house, calmly enduring a rebuff +from him in person, when Palmet returned to them, exclaiming +effusively, “What luck you have, Beauchamp!” He stopped till the +applicants descended the steps, with the voice of the voter ringing +contempt as well as refusal in their ears; then continued: “You +introduced me neck and heels to that undertakerly old Tomlinson, of +Wingham’s Institute; you might have given me a chance with that +Miss—Miss Denham, was it? She has a bit of a style!” + +“She has a head,” said Beauchamp. + +“A girl like that may have what she likes. I don’t care what she +has—there’s woman in her. You might take her for a younger sister of +Mrs. Wardour-Devereux. Who’s the uncle she speaks of? She ought not to +be allowed to walk out by herself.” + +“She can take care of herself,” said Beauchamp. + +Palmet denied it. “No woman can. Upon my honour, it’s a shame that she +should be out alone. What are her people? I’ll run—from you, you +know—and see her safe home. There’s such an infernal lot of fellows +about; and a girl simply bewitching and unprotected! I ought to be +after her.” + +Beauchamp held him firmly to the task of canvassing. + +“Then will you tell me where she lives?” Palmet stipulated. He +reproached Beauchamp for a notorious Grand Turk exclusiveness and +greediness in regard to women, as well as a disposition to run hard +races for them out of a spirit of pure rivalry. + +“It’s no use contradicting, it’s universally known of you,” reiterated +Palmet. “I could name a dozen women, and dozens of fellows you +deliberately set yourself to cut out, for the honour of it. What’s that +story they tell of you in one of the American cities or +watering-places, North or South? You would dance at a ball a dozen +times with a girl engaged to a man—who drenched you with a tumbler at +the hotel bar, and off you all marched to the sands and exchanged shots +from revolvers; and both of you, they say, saw the body of a drowned +sailor in the water, in the moonlight, heaving nearer and nearer, and +you stretched your man just as the body was flung up by a wave between +you. Picturesque, if you like!” + +“Dramatic, certainly. And I ran away with the bride next morning?” + +“No!” roared Palmet; “you didn’t. There’s the cruelty of the whole +affair.” + +Beauchamp laughed. “An old messmate of mine, Lieutenant Jack Wilmore, +can give you a different version of the story. I never have fought a +duel, and never will. Here we are at the shop of a tough voter, Mr. +Oggler. So it says in my note-book. Shall we put Lord Palmet to speak +to him first?” + +“If his lordship will put his heart into what he says,” Mr. Oggler +bowed. “Are you for giving the people recreation on a Sunday, my lord?” + +“Trap-bat and ball, cricket, dancing, military bands, puppet-shows, +theatres, merry-go-rounds, bosky dells—anything to make them happy,” +said Palmet. + +“Oh, dear! then I’m afraid we cannot ask you to speak to this Mr. +Carpendike.” Oggler shook his head. + +“Does the fellow want the people to be miserable?” + +“I’m afraid, my lord, he would rather see them miserable.” + +They introduced themselves to Mr. Carpendike in his shop. He was a +flat-chested, sallow young shoemaker, with a shelving forehead, who +seeing three gentlemen enter to him recognized at once with a practised +resignation that they had not come to order shoe-leather, though he +would fain have shod them, being needy; but it was not the design of +Providence that they should so come as he in his blindness would have +had them. Admitting this he wished for nothing. + +The battle with Carpendike lasted three-quarters of an hour, during +which he was chiefly and most effectively silent. Carpendike would not +vote for a man that proposed to open museums on the Sabbath day. The +striking simile of the thin end of the wedge was recurred to by him for +a damning illustration. Captain Beauchamp might be honest in putting +his mind on most questions in his address, when there was no demand +upon him to do it; but honesty was no antidote to impiety. Thus +Carpendike. + +As to Sunday museuming being an antidote to the pothouse—no. For the +people knew the frequenting of the pothouse to be a vice; it was a +temptation of Satan that often in overcoming them was the cause of +their flying back to grace: whereas museums and picture galleries were +insidious attractions cloaked by the name of virtue, whereby they were +allured to abandon worship. + +Beauchamp flew at this young monster of unreason: “But the people are +_not_ worshipping; they are idling and sotting, and if you carry your +despotism farther still, and shut them out of every shop on Sundays, do +you suppose you promote the spirit of worship? If you don’t revolt them +you unman them, and I warn you we can’t afford to destroy what manhood +remains to us in England. Look at the facts.” + +He flung the facts at Carpendike with the natural exaggeration of them +which eloquence produces, rather, as a rule, to assure itself in +passing of the overwhelming justice of the cause it pleads than to +deceive the adversary. Brewers’ beer and publicans’ beer, +wife-beatings, the homes and the blood of the people, were matters +reviewed to the confusion of Sabbatarians. + +Carpendike listened with a bent head, upraised eyes, and brows +wrinkling far on to his poll: a picture of a mind entrenched beyond the +potentialities of mortal assault. He signified that he had spoken. +Indeed Beauchamp’s reply was vain to one whose argument was that he +considered the people nearer to holiness in the indulging of an evil +propensity than in satisfying a harmless curiosity and getting a +recreation. The Sabbath claimed them; if they were disobedient, Sin +ultimately might scourge them back to the fold, but never if they were +permitted to regard themselves as innocent in their backsliding and +rebelliousness. + +Such language was quite new to Beauchamp. The parsons he had spoken to +were of one voice in objecting to the pothouse. He appealed to +Carpendike’s humanity. Carpendike smote him with a text from Scripture. + +“Devilish cold in this shop,” muttered Palmet. + +Two not flourishing little children of the emaciated Puritan burst into +the shop, followed by their mother, carrying a child in her arms. She +had a sad look, upon traces of a past fairness, vaguely like a snow +landscape in the thaw. Palmet stooped to toss shillings with her young +ones, that he might avoid the woman’s face. It cramped his heart. + +“Don’t you see, Mr. Carpendike,” said fat Mr. Oggler, “it’s the +happiness of the people we want; that’s what Captain Beauchamp works +for—their happiness; that’s the aim of life for all of us. Look at me! +I’m as happy as the day. I pray every night, and I go to church every +Sunday, and I never know what it is to be unhappy. The Lord has blessed +me with a good digestion, healthy pious children, and a prosperous shop +that’s a competency—a modest one, but I make it satisfy me, because I +know it’s the Lord’s gift. Well, now, and I hate Sabbath-breakers; I +would punish them; and I’m against the public-houses on a Sunday; but +aboard my little yacht, say on a Sunday morning in the Channel, I don’t +forget I owe it to the Lord that he has been good enough to put me in +the way of keeping a yacht; no; I read prayers to my crew, and a +chapter in the Bible—Genesis, Deuteronomy, Kings, Acts, Paul, just as +it comes. All’s good that’s there. Then we’re free for the day! man, +boy, and me; we cook our victuals, and we _must_ look to the yacht, do +you see. But we’ve made our peace with the Almighty. We know that. He +don’t mind the working of the vessel so long as we’ve remembered him. +He put us in that situation, exactly there, latitude and longitude, do +you see, and work the vessel we must. And a glass of grog and a pipe +after dinner, can’t be any offence. And I tell you, honestly and +sincerely, I’m sure my conscience is good, and I really and truly don’t +know what it is _not_ to know happiness.” + +“Then you don’t know God,” said Carpendike, like a voice from a cave. + +“Or nature: or the state of the world,” said Beauchamp, singularly +impressed to find himself between two men, of whom—each perforce of his +tenuity and the evident leaning of his appetites—one was for the barren +black view of existence, the other for the fantastically bright. As to +the men personally, he chose Carpendike, for all his obstinacy and +sourness. Oggler’s genial piety made him shrink with nausea. + +But Lord Palmet paid Mr. Oggler a memorable compliment, by assuring him +that he was altogether of his way of thinking about happiness. + +The frank young nobleman did not withhold a reference to the two or +three things essential to his happiness; otherwise Mr. Oggler might +have been pleased and flattered. + +Before quitting the shop, Beauchamp warned Carpendike that he should +come again. “Vote or no vote, you’re worth the trial. Texts as many as +you like. I’ll make your faith active, if it’s alive at all. You speak +of the Lord loving his own; you make out the Lord to be _your_ own, and +use your religion like a drug. So it appears to me. That Sunday tyranny +of yours has to be defended. + +Remember that; for I for one shall combat it and expose it. Good day.” + +Beauchamp continued, in the street: “Tyrannies like this fellow’s have +made the English the dullest and wretchedest people in Europe.” + +Palmet animadverted on Carpendike: “The dog looks like a deadly fungus +that has poisoned the woman.” + +“I’d trust him with a post of danger, though,” said Beauchamp. + +Before the candidate had opened his mouth to the next elector he was +beamed on. M’Gilliper, baker, a floured brick face, leaned on folded +arms across his counter and said, in Scotch: “My vote? and he that asks +me for my vote is the man who, when he was midshipman, saved the life +of a relation of mine from death by drowning! my wife’s first cousin, +Johnny Brownson—and held him up four to five minutes in the water, and +never left him till he was out of danger! There’s my hand on it, I +will, and a score of householders in Bevisham the same.” He dictated +precious names and addresses to Beauchamp, and was curtly thanked for +his pains. + +Such treatment of a favourable voter seemed odd to Palmet. + +“Oh, a vote given for reasons of sentiment!” Beauchamp interjected. + +Palmet reflected and said: “Well, perhaps that’s how it is women don’t +care uncommonly for the men who love them, though they like precious +well to be loved. Opposition does it.” + +“You have discovered my likeness to women,” said Beauchamp, eyeing him +critically, and then thinking, with a sudden warmth, that he had seen +Renée: “Look here, Palmet, you’re too late for Itchincope, to-day; come +and eat fish and meat with me at my hotel, and come to a meeting after +it. You can run by rail to Itchincope to breakfast in the morning, and +I may come with you. You’ll hear one or two men speak well to-night.” + +“I suppose I shall have to be at this business myself some day,” sighed +Palmet. “Any women on the platform? Oh, but political women! And the +Tories get the pick of the women. No, I don’t think I’ll stay. Yes, I +will; I’ll go through with it. I like to be learning something. You +wouldn’t think it of me, Beauchamp, but I envy fellows at work.” + +“You might make a speech for me, Palmet.” + +“No man better, my dear fellow, if it were proposing a toast to the +poor devils and asking them to drink it. But a dry speech, like leading +them over the desert without a well to cheer them—no oasis, as we used +to call a five-pound note and a holiday—I haven’t the heart for that. +Is your Miss Denham a Radical?” + +Beauchamp asserted that he had not yet met a woman at all inclining in +the direction of Radicalism. “I don’t call furies Radicals. There may +be women who think as well as feel; I don’t know them.” + +“Lots of them, Beauchamp. Take my word for it. I do know women. They +haven’t a shift, nor a trick, I don’t know. They’re as clear to me as +glass. I’ll wager your Miss Denham goes to the meetings. Now, doesn’t +she? Of course she does. And there couldn’t be a gallanter way of +spending an evening, so I’ll try it. Nothing to repent of next morning! +That’s to be said for politics, Beauchamp, and I confess I’m rather +jealous of you. A thoroughly good-looking girl who takes to a fellow +for what he’s doing in the world, must have ideas of him precious +different from the adoration of six feet three and a fine seat in the +saddle. I see that. There’s Baskelett in the Blues; and if I were he I +should detest my cuirass and helmet, for if he’s half as successful as +he boasts—it’s the uniform.” + +Two notorious Radicals, Peter Molyneux and Samuel Killick, were called +on. The first saw Beauchamp and refused him; the second declined to see +him. He was amazed and staggered, but said little. + +Among the remainder of the electors of Bevisham, roused that day to a +sense of their independence by the summons of the candidates, only one +man made himself conspicuous, by premising that he had two important +questions to ask, and he trusted Commander Beauchamp to answer them +unreservedly. They were: first, What is a FRENCH MARQUEES? and second: +Who was EURYDICEY? + +Beauchamp referred him to the Tory camp, whence the placard alluding to +those ladies had issued. + +“Both of them’s ladies! I guessed it,” said the elector. + +“Did you guess that one of them is a mythological lady?” + +“I’m not far wrong in guessing t’other’s not much better, I reckon. +Now, sir, may I ask you, is there any tale concerning your morals?” + +“No: you may not ask; you take a liberty.” + +“Then I’ll take the liberty to postpone talking about my vote. Look +here, Mr. Commander; if the upper classes want anything of me and come +to me for it, I’ll know what sort of an example they’re setting; now +that’s me.” + +“You pay attention to a stupid Tory squib?” + +“Where there’s smoke there’s fire, sir.” + +Beauchamp glanced at his note-book for the name of this man, who was a +ragman and dustman. + +“My private character has nothing whatever to do with my politics,” he +said, and had barely said it when he remembered having spoken somewhat +differently, upon the abstract consideration of the case, to Mr. +Tomlinson. + +“You’re quite welcome to examine my character for yourself, only I +don’t consent to be catechized. Understand that.” + +“You quite understand that, Mr. Tripehallow,” said Oggler, bolder in +taking up the strange name than Beauchamp had been. + +“I understand that. But you understand, there’s never been a word +against the morals of Mr. Cougham. Here’s the point: Do we mean to be a +moral country? Very well, then so let our representatives be, I say. +And if I hear nothing against your morals, Mr. Commander, I don’t say +you shan’t have my vote. I mean to deliberate. You young nobs capering +over our heads—I nail you down to morals. Politics secondary. Adew, as +the dying spirit remarked to weeping friends.” + +“Au revoir—would have been kinder,” said Palmet. + +Mr. Tripehallow smiled roguishly, to betoken comprehension. + +Beauchamp asked Mr. Oggler whether that fellow was to be taken for a +humourist or a five-pound-note man. + +“It may be both, sir. I know he’s called Morality Joseph.” + +An all but acknowledged five-pound-note man was the last they visited. +He cut short the preliminaries of the interview by saying that he was a +four-o’clock man; i.e. the man who waited for the final bids to him +upon the closing hour of the election day. + +“Not one farthing!” said Beauchamp, having been warned beforehand of +the signification of the phrase by his canvassing lieutenant. + +“Then you’re nowhere,” the honest fellow replied in the mystic tongue +of prophecy. + +Palmet and Beauchamp went to their fish and meat; smoked a cigarette or +two afterward, conjured away the smell of tobacco from their persons as +well as they could, and betook themselves to the assembly-room of the +Liberal party, where the young lord had an opportunity of beholding Mr. +Cougham, and of listening to him for an hour and forty minutes. He +heard Mr. Timothy Turbot likewise. And Miss Denham was present. Lord +Palmet applauded when she smiled. When she looked attentive he was +deeply studious. Her expression of fatigue under the sonorous ring of +statistics poured out from Cougham was translated by Palmet into yawns +and sighs of a profoundly fraternal sympathy. Her face quickened on the +rising of Beauchamp to speak. She kept eye on him all the while, as +Palmet, with the skill of an adept in disguising his petty larceny of +the optics, did on her. Twice or thrice she looked pained: Beauchamp +was hesitating for the word. Once she looked startled and shut her +eyes: a hiss had sounded; Beauchamp sprang on it as if enlivened by +hostility, and dominated the factious note. Thereat she turned to a +gentleman sitting beside her; apparently they agreed that some incident +had occurred characteristic of Nevil Beauchamp; for whom, however, it +was not a brilliant evening. He was very well able to account for it, +and did so, after he had walked a few steps with Miss Denham on her +homeward way. + +“You heard Cougham, Palmet! He’s my senior, and I’m obliged to come +second to him, and how am I to have a chance when he has drenched the +audience for close upon a couple of hours!” + +Palmet mimicked the manner of Cougham. + +“They cry for Turbot naturally; they want a relief,” Beauchamp groaned. + +Palmet gave an imitation of Timothy Turbot. + +He was an admirable mimic, perfectly spontaneous, without stressing any +points, and Beauchamp was provoked to laugh his discontentment with the +evening out of recollection. + +But a grave matter troubled Palmet’s head. + +“Who was that fellow who walked off with Miss Denham?” + +“A married man,” said Beauchamp: “badly married; more’s the pity; he +has a wife in the madhouse. His name is Lydiard.” + +“Not her brother! Where’s her uncle?” + +“She won’t let him come to these meetings. It’s her idea; +well-intended, but wrong, I think. She’s afraid that Dr. Shrapnel will +alarm the moderate Liberals and damage Radical me.” + +Palmet muttered between his teeth, “What queer things they let their +women do!” He felt compelled to say, “Odd for her to be walking home at +night with a fellow like that.” + +It chimed too consonantly with a feeling of Beauchamp’s, to repress +which he replied: “Your ideas about women are simply barbarous, Palmet. +Why shouldn’t she? Her uncle places his confidence in the man, and in +her. Isn’t that better—ten times more likely to call out the sense of +honour and loyalty, than the distrust and the scandal going on in your +class?” + +“Please to say yours too.” + +“I’ve no class. I say that the education for women is to teach them to +rely on themselves.” + +“Ah! well, I don’t object, if I’m the man.” + +“Because you and your set are absolutely uncivilized in your views of +women.” + +“Common sense, Beauchamp!” + +“Prey. You eye them as prey. And it comes of an idle aristocracy. You +have no faith in them, and they repay you for your suspicion.” + +“All the same, Beauchamp, she ought not to be allowed to go about at +night with that fellow. ‘Rich and rare were the gems she wore’: but +that was in Erin’s isle, and if we knew the whole history, she’d better +have stopped at home. She’s marvellously pretty, to my mind. She looks +a high-bred wench. Odd it is, Beauchamp, to see a lady’s-maid now and +then catch the style of my lady. No, by Jove! I’ve known one or two—you +couldn’t tell the difference! Not till you were intimate. I know one +would walk a minuet with a duchess. Of course—all the worse for her. If +you see that uncle of Miss Denham’s—upon my honour, I should advise +him: I mean, counsel him not to trust her with any fellow but you.” + +Beauchamp asked Lord Palmet how old he was. + +Palmet gave his age; correcting the figures from six-and-twenty to one +year more. “And never did a stroke of work in my life,” he said, +speaking genially out of an acute guess at the sentiments of the man he +walked with. + +It seemed a farcical state of things. + +There was a kind of contrition in Palmet’s voice, and to put him at his +ease, as well as to stamp something in his own mind, Beauchamp said: +“It’s common enough.” + + + + +CHAPTER XX. +A DAY AT ITCHINCOPE + + +An election in Bevisham was always an exciting period at Itchincope, +the large and influential old estate of the Lespels, which at one time, +with but a ceremonious drive through the town, sent you two good Whig +men to Parliament to sit at Reform banquets; two unswerving party men, +blest subscribers to the right Review, and personally proud of its +trenchancy. Mr. Grancey Lespel was the survivor of them, and well could +he remember the happier day of his grandfather, his father, and his own +hot youth. He could be carried so far by affectionate regrets as to +think of the Tories of that day benignly:—when his champion Review of +the orange and blue livery waved a wondrous sharp knife, and stuck and +bled them, proving to his party, by trenchancy alone, that the Whig was +the cause of Providence. Then politics presented you a table whereat +two parties feasted, with no fear of the intrusion of a third, and your +backs were turned on the noisy lower world, your ears were deaf to it. + +Apply we now the knocker to the door of venerable Quotation, and call +the aged creature forth, that he, half choked by his eheu—! + +“A sound between a sigh and bray,” + +may pronounce the familiar but respectable words, the burial-service of +a time so happy! + +Mr. Grancey Lespel would still have been sitting for Bevisham (or +politely at this elective moment bowing to resume the seat) had not +those Manchester jugglers caught up his cry, appropriated his colours, +displaced and impersonated him, acting beneficent Whig on a scale +approaching treason to the Constitution; leaning on the people in +earnest, instead of taking the popular shoulder for a temporary lift, +all in high party policy, for the clever manœuvre, to oust the Tory and +sway the realm. See the consequences. For power, for no other +consideration, those manufacturing rascals have raised Radicalism from +its primaeval mire—from its petty backslum bookseller’s shop and +public-house back-parlour effluvia of oratory—to issue dictates in +England, and we, England, formerly the oak, are topsy-turvy, like +onions, our heels in the air! + +The language of party is eloquent, and famous for being grand at +illustration; but it is equally well known that much of it gives us +humble ideas of the speaker, probably because of the naughty temper +party is prone to; which, while endowing it with vehemence, lessens the +stout circumferential view that should be taken, at least historically. +Indeed, though we admit party to be the soundest method for conducting +us, party talk soon expends its attractiveness, as would a summer’s +afternoon given up to the contemplation of an encounter of rams’ heads. +Let us be quit of Mr. Grancey Lespel’s lamentations. The Whig gentleman +had some reason to complain. He had been trained to expect no other +attack than that of his hereditary adversary-ram in front, and a sham +ram—no honest animal, but a ramming engine rather—had attacked him in +the rear. Like Mr. Everard Romfrey and other Whigs, he was profoundly +chagrined by popular ingratitude: “not the same man,” his wife said of +him. It nipped him early. He took to proverbs; sure sign of the sere +leaf in a man’s mind. + +His wife reproached the people for their behaviour to him bitterly. The +lady regarded politics as a business that helped hunting-men a stage +above sportsmen, for numbers of the politicians she was acquainted with +were hunting-men, yet something more by virtue of the variety they +could introduce into a conversation ordinarily treating of sport and +the qualities of wines. Her husband seemed to have lost in that +Parliamentary seat the talisman which gave him notions distinguishing +him from country squires; he had sunk, and he no longer cared for the +months in London, nor for the speeches she read to him to re-awaken his +mind and make him look out of himself, as he had done when he was a +younger man and not a suspended Whig. Her own favourite reading was of +love-adventures written in the French tongue. She had once been in +love, and could be so sympathetic with that passion as to avow to +Cecilia Halkett a tenderness for Nevil Beauchamp, on account of his +relations with the Marquise de Rouaillout, and notwithstanding the +demoniacal flame-halo of the Radical encircling him. + +The allusion to Beauchamp occurred a few hours after Cecilia’s arrival +at Itchincope. + +Cecilia begged for the French lady’s name to be repeated; she had not +heard it before, and she tasted the strange bitter relish of +realization when it struck her ear to confirm a story that she believed +indeed, but had not quite sensibly felt. + +“And it is not over yet, they say,” Mrs. Grancey Lespel added, while +softly flipping some spots of the colour proper to radicals in morals +on the fame of the French lady. She possessed fully the grave judicial +spirit of her countrywomen, and could sit in judgement on the +personages of tales which had entranced her, to condemn the heroines: +it was impolitic in her sex to pity females. As for the men—poor weak +things! As for Nevil Beauchamp, in particular, his case, this +penetrating lady said, was clear: he ought to be married. “Could _you_ +make a sacrifice?” she asked Cecilia playfully. + +“Nevil Beauchamp and I are old friends, but we have agreed that we are +deadly political enemies,” Miss Halkett replied. + +“It is not so bad for a beginning,” said Mrs. Lespel. + +“If one were disposed to martyrdom.” + +The older woman nodded. “Without that.” + +“My dear Mrs. Lespel, wait till you have heard him. He is at war with +everything we venerate and build on. The wife you would give him should +be a creature rooted in nothing—in sea-water. Simply two or three +conversations with him have made me uncomfortable ever since; I can see +nothing durable; I dream of surprises, outbreaks, dreadful events. At +least it is perfectly true that I do not look with the same eyes on my +country. He seems to delight in destroying one’s peaceful contemplation +of life. The truth is that he blows a perpetual gale, and is all +agitation,” Cecilia concluded, affecting with a smile a slight shiver. + +“Yes, one tires of that,” said Mrs. Lespel. “I was determined I would +have him here if we could get him to come. Grancey objected. We shall +have to manage Captain Beauchamp and the rest as well. He is sure to +come late to-morrow, and will leave early on Thursday morning for his +canvass; our driving into Bevisham is for Friday or Saturday. I do not +see that he need have any suspicions. Those verses you are so angry +about cannot be traced to Itchincope. My dear, they are a childish +trifle. When my husband stood first for Bevisham, the whole of his +University life appeared in print. What we have to do is to forewarn +the gentlemen to be guarded, and especially in what they say to my +nephew Lord Palmet, for that boy cannot keep a secret; he is as open as +a plate.” + +“The smoking-room at night?” Cecilia suggested, remembering her +father’s words about Itchincope’s tobacco-hall. + +“They have Captain Beauchamp’s address hung up there, I have heard,” +said Mrs. Lespel. “There may be other things—another address, though it +is not yet, placarded. Come with me. For fifteen years I have never +once put my head into that room, and now I’ve a superstitious fear +about it.” + +Mrs. Lespel led the way to the deserted smoking-room, where the stale +reek of tobacco assailed the ladies, as does that dire place of Customs +the stranger visiting savage (or too natural) potentates. + +In silence they tore down from the wall Beauchamp’s electoral +Address—flanked all its length with satirical pen and pencil comments +and sketches; and they consigned to flames the vast sheet of animated +verses relating to the FRENCH MARQUEES. A quarter-size chalk-drawing of +a slippered pantaloon having a duck on his shoulder, labelled to say +“Quack-quack,” and offering our nauseated Dame Britannia (or else it +was the widow Bevisham) a globe of a pill to swallow, crossed with the +consolatory and reassuring name of _Shrapnel_, they disposed of +likewise. And then they fled, chased forth either by the brilliancy of +the politically allusive epigrams profusely inscribed around them on +the walls, or by the atmosphere. Mrs. Lespel gave her orders for the +walls to be scraped, and said to Cecilia: “A strange air to breathe, +was it not? The less men and women know of one another, the happier for +them. I knew my superstition was correct as a guide to me. I do so much +wish to respect men, and all my experience tells me the Turks know best +how to preserve it for us. Two men in this house would give their wives +for pipes, if it came to the choice. We might all go for a cellar of +old wine. After forty, men have married their habits, and wives are +only an item in the list, and not the most important.” + +With the assistance of Mr. Stukely Culbrett, Mrs. Lespel prepared the +house and those of the company who were in the secret of affairs for +the arrival of Beauchamp. The ladies were curious to see him. The +gentlemen, not anticipating extreme amusement, were calm: for it is an +axiom in the world of buckskins and billiard-cues, that one man is very +like another; and so true is it with them, that they can in time teach +it to the fair sex. Friends of Cecil Baskelett predominated, and the +absence of so sprightly a fellow was regretted seriously; but he was +shooting with his uncle at Holdesbury, and they did not expect him +before Thursday. + +On Wednesday morning Lord Palmet presented himself at a remarkably +well-attended breakfast-table at Itchincope. He passed from Mrs. Lespel +to Mrs. Wardour-Devsreux and Miss Halkett, bowed to other ladies, shook +hands with two or three men, and nodded over the heads of half-a-dozen, +accounting rather mysteriously for his delay in coming, it was thought, +until he sat down before a plate of Yorkshire pie, and said: + +“The fact is I’ve been canvassing hard. With Beauchamp!” + +Astonishment and laughter surrounded him, and Palmet looked from face +to face, equally astonished, and desirous to laugh too. + +“Ernest! how could you do that?” said Mrs. Lespel; and her husband +cried in stupefaction, “With Beauchamp?” + +“Oh! it’s because of the Radicalism,” Palmet murmured to himself. “I +didn’t mind that.” + +“What sort of a day did you have?” Mr. Culbrett asked him; and several +gentlemen fell upon him for an account of the day. + +Palmet grimaced over a mouthful of his pie. + +“Bad!” quoth Mr. Lespel; “I knew it. I know Bevisham. The only chance +there is for five thousand pounds in a sack with a hole in it.” + +“Bad for Beauchamp? Dear me, no”; Palmet corrected the error. “He is +carrying all before him. And he tells them,” Palmet mimicked Beauchamp, +“they shall not have one penny: not a farthing. I gave a couple of +young ones a shilling apiece, and he rowed me for bribery; somehow I +did wrong.” + +Lord Palmet described the various unearthly characters he had inspected +in their dens: Carpendike, Tripehallow, and the radicals Peter Molyneux +and Samuel Killick, and the ex-member for the borough, Cougham, posing +to suit sign-boards of Liberal inns, with a hand thrust in his +waistcoat, and his head well up, the eyes running over the under-lids, +after the traditional style of our aristocracy; but perhaps more +closely resembling an urchin on tiptoe peering above park-palings. +Cougham’s remark to Beauchamp, heard and repeated by Palmet with the +object of giving an example of the senior Liberal’s phraseology: “I was +necessitated to vacate my town mansion, to my material discomfort and +that of my wife, whose equipage I have been compelled to take, by your +premature canvass of the borough, Captain Beauchamp: and now, I hear, +on undeniable authority, that no second opponent to us will be +forthcoming”—this produced the greatest effect on the company. + +“But do you tell me,” said Mr. Lespel, when the shouts of the gentlemen +were subsiding, “do you tell me that young Beauchamp is going ahead?” + +“That he is. They flock to him in the street.” + +“He stands there, then, and jingles a money-bag.” + +Palmet resumed his mimicry of Beauchamp: “Not a stiver; purity of +election is the first condition of instruction to the people! +Principles! Then they’ve got a capital orator: Turbot, an Irishman. I +went to a meeting last night, and heard him; never heard anything finer +in my life. You may laugh he whipped me off my legs; fellow spun me +like a top; and while he was orationing, a donkey calls, ‘Turbot! ain’t +you a flat fish?’ and he swings round, ‘Not for a fool’s hook!’ and out +they hustled the villain for a Tory. I never saw anything like it.” + +“That repartee wouldn’t have done with a Dutchman or a Torbay trawler,” +said Stukely Culbrett. “But let us hear more.” + +“Is it fair?” Miss Halkett murmured anxiously to Mrs. Lespel, who +returned a flitting shrug. + +“Charming women follow Beauchamp, you know,” Palmet proceeded, as he +conceived, to confirm and heighten the tale of success. “There’s a Miss +Denham, niece of a doctor, a Dr.... Shot—Shrapnel! a wonderfully +good-looking, clever-looking girl, comes across him in half-a-dozen +streets to ask how he’s getting on, and goes every night to his +meetings, with a man who’s a writer and has a mad wife; a man named +Lydia—no, that’s a woman—Lydiard. It’s rather a jumble; but you should +see her when Beauchamp’s on his legs and speaking.” + +“Mr. Lydiard is in Bevisham?” Mrs. Wardour-Devereux remarked. + +“I know the girl,” growled Mr. Lespel. “She comes with that rascally +doctor and a bobtail of tea-drinking men and women and their brats to +Northeden Heath—my ground. There they stand and sing.” + +“Hymns?” inquired Mr. Culbrett. + +“I don’t know what they sing. And when it rains they take the liberty +to step over my bank into my plantation. Some day I shall have them +stepping into my house.” + +“Yes, it’s Mr. Lydiard; I’m sure of the man’s name,” Palmet replied to +Mrs. Wardour-Devereux. + +“We met him in Spain the year before last,” she observed to Cecilia. + +The “we” reminded Palmet that her husband was present. + +“Ah, Devereux, I didn’t see you,” he nodded obliquely down the table. +“By the way, what’s the grand procession? I hear my man Davis has come +all right, and I caught sight of the top of your coach-box in the +stableyard as I came in. What are we up to?” + +“Baskelett writes, it’s to be for to-morrow morning at ten—the start.” +Mr. Wardour-Devereux addressed the table generally. He was a fair, +huge, bush-bearded man, with a voice of unvarying bass: a squire in his +county, and energetic in his pursuit of the pleasures of hunting, +driving, travelling, and tobacco. + +“Old Bask’s the captain of us? Very well, but where do we drive the +teams? How many are we? What’s in hand?” + +Cecilia threw a hurried glance at her hostess. + +Luckily some witling said, “Fours-in-hand!” and so dryly that it passed +for humour, and gave Mrs. Lespel time to interpose. “You are not to +know till to-morrow, Ernest.” + +Palmet had traced the authorship of the sally to Mr. Algy Borolick, and +crowned him with praise for it. He asked, “Why not know till +to-morrow?” A word in a murmur from Mr. Culbrett, “Don’t frighten the +women,” satisfied him, though why it should he could not have imagined. + +Mrs. Lespel quitted the breakfast-table before the setting in of the +dangerous five minutes of conversation over its ruins, and spoke to her +husband, who contested the necessity for secresy, but yielded to her +judgement when it was backed by Stukely Culbrett. Soon after Lord +Palmet found himself encountered by evasions and witticisms, in spite +of the absence of the ladies, upon every attempt he made to get some +light regarding the destination of the four-in-hands next day. + +“What are you going to do?” he said to Mr. Devereux, thinking him the +likeliest one to grow confidential in private. + +“Smoke,” resounded from the depths of that gentleman. + +Palmet recollected the ground of division between the beautiful +brunette and her lord—his addiction to the pipe in perpetuity, and +deemed it sweeter to be with the lady. + +She and Miss Halkett were walking in the garden. + +Miss Halkett said to him: “How wrong of you to betray the secrets of +your friend! Is he really making way?” + +“Beauchamp will head the poll to a certainty,” Palmet replied. + +“Still,” said Miss Halkett, “you should not forget that you are not in +the house of a Liberal. Did you canvass in the town or the suburbs?” + +“Everywhere. I assure you, Miss Halkett, there’s a feeling for +Beauchamp—they’re in love with him!” + +“He promises them everything, I suppose?” + +“Not he. And the odd thing is, it isn’t the Radicals he catches. He +won’t go against the game laws for them, and he won’t cut down army and +navy. So the Radicals yell at him. One confessed he had sold his vote +for five pounds last election: ‘you shall have it for the same,’ says +he, ‘for you’re all humbugs.’ Beauchamp took him by the throat and +shook him—metaphorically, you know. But as for the tradesmen, he’s +their hero; bakers especially.” + +“Mr. Austin may be right, then!” Cecilia reflected aloud. + +She went to Mrs. Lespel to repeat what she had extracted from Palmet, +after warning the latter not, in common loyalty, to converse about his +canvass with Beauchamp. + +“Did you speak of Mr. Lydiard as Captain Beauchamp’s friend?” Mrs. +Devereux inquired of him. + +“Lydiard? why, he was the man who made off with that pretty Miss +Denham,” said Palmet. “I have the greatest trouble to remember them +all; but it was not a day wasted. Now I know politics. Shall we ride or +walk? You will let me have the happiness? I’m so unlucky; I rarely meet +you!” + +“You will bring Captain Beauchamp to me the moment he comes?” + +“I’ll bring him. Bring him? Nevil Beauchamp won’t want bringing.” + +Mrs. Devereux smiled with some pleasure. + +Grancey Lespel, followed at some distance by Mr. Ferbrass, the Tory +lawyer, stepped quickly up to Palmet, and asked whether Beauchamp had +seen Dollikins, the brewer. + +Palmet could recollect the name of one Tomlinson, and also the calling +at a brewery. Moreover, Beauchamp had uttered contempt of the brewer’s +business, and of the social rule to accept rich brewers for gentlemen. +The man’s name might be Dollikins and not Tomlinson, and if so, it was +Dollikins who would not see Beauchamp. To preserve his political +importance, Palmet said, “Dollikins! to be sure, that was the man.” + +“Treats him as he does you,” Mr. Lespel turned to Ferbrass. “I’ve sent +to Dollikins to come to me this morning, if he’s not driving into the +town. I’ll have him before Beauchamp sees him. I’ve asked half-a-dozen +of these country gentlemen-tradesmen to lunch at my table to-day.” + +“Then, sir,” observed Ferbrass, “if they are men to be persuaded, they +had better not see me.” + +“True; they’re my old supporters, and mightn’t like your Tory face,” +Mr. Lespel assented. + +Mr. Ferbrass congratulated him on the heartiness of his espousal of the +Tory cause. + +Mr. Lespel winced a little, and told him not to put his trust in that. + +“Turned Tory?” said Palmet. + +Mr. Lespel declined to answer. + +Palmet said to Mrs. Devereux, “He thinks I’m not worth speaking to upon +politics. Now I’ll give him some Beauchamp; I learned lots yesterday.” + +“Then let it be in Captain Beauchamp’s manner,” said she softly. + +Palmet obeyed her commands with the liveliest exhibition of his +peculiar faculty: Cecilia, rejoining them, seemed to hear Nevil himself +in his emphatic political mood. “Because the Whigs are defunct! They +had no root in the people! Whig is the name of a tribe that was! You +have Tory, Liberal, and Radical. There is no place for Whig. He is +played out.” + +“Who has been putting that nonsense into your head?” Mr. Lespel +retorted. “Go shooting, go shooting!” + +Shots were heard in the woods. Palmet pricked up his ears; but he was +taken out riding to act cavalier to Mrs. Devereux and Miss Halkett. + +Cecilia corrected his enthusiasm with the situation. “No flatteries +to-day. There are hours when women feel their insignificance and +helplessness. I begin to fear for Mr. Austin; and I find I can do +nothing to aid him. My hands are tied. And yet I know I could win +voters if only it were permissible for me to go and speak to them.” + +“Win them!” cried Palmet, imagining the alacrity of men’s votes to be +won by her. He recommended a gallop for the chasing away of melancholy, +and as they were on the Bevisham high road, which was bordered by +strips of turf and heath, a few good stretches brought them on the +fir-heights, commanding views of the town and broad water. + +“No, I cannot enjoy it,” Cecilia said to Mrs. Devereux; “I don’t mind +the grey light; cloud and water, and halftones of colour, are homely +English and pleasant, and that opal where the sun should be has a +suggestiveness richer than sunlight. I’m quite northern enough to +understand it; but with me it must be either peace or strife, and that +Election down there destroys my chance of peace. I never could mix +reverie with excitement; the battle must be over first, and the dead +buried. Can you?” + +Mrs. Devereux answered: “Excitement? I am not sure that I know what it +is. An Election does not excite me.” + +“There’s Nevil Beauchamp himself!” Palmet sang out, and the ladies +discerned Beauchamp under a fir-tree, down by the road, not alone. A +man, increasing in length like a telescope gradually reaching its end +for observation, and coming to the height of a landmark, as if raised +by ropes, was rising from the ground beside him. “Shall we trot on, +Miss Halkett?” + +Cecilia said, “No.” + +“Now I see a third fellow,” said Palmet. “It’s the other fellow, the +Denham-Shrapnel-Radical meeting... Lydiard’s his name: writes books!” + +“We may as well ride on,” Mrs. Devereux remarked, and her horse fretted +singularly. + +Beauchamp perceived them, and lifted his hat. Palmet made +demonstrations for the ladies. Still neither party moved nearer. + +After some waiting, Cecilia proposed to turn back. + +Mrs. Devereux looked into her eyes. “I’ll take the lead,” she said, and +started forward, pursued by Palmet. Cecilia followed at a sullen +canter. + +Before they came up to Beauchamp, the long-shanked man had stalked away +townward. Lydiard held Beauchamp by the hand. Some last words, after +the manner of instructions, passed between them, and then Lydiard also +turned away. + +“I say, Beauchamp, Mrs. Devereux wants to hear who that man is,” Palmet +said, drawing up. + +“That man is Dr. Shrapnel,” said Beauchamp, convinced that Cecilia had +checked her horse at the sight of the doctor. + +“Dr. Shrapnel,” Palmet informed Mrs. Devereux. + +She looked at him to seek his wits, and returning Beauchamp’s admiring +salutation with a little bow and smile, said, “I fancied it was a +gentleman we met in Spain.” + +“He writes books,” observed Palmet, to jog a slow intelligence. + +“Pamphlets, you mean.” + +“I think he is not a pamphleteer”, Mrs. Devereux said. + +“Mr. Lydiard, then, of course; how silly I am! How can you pardon me!” +Beauchamp was contrite; he could not explain that a long guess he had +made at Miss Halkett’s reluctance to come up to him when Dr. Shrapnel +was with him had preoccupied his mind. He sent off Palmet the bearer of +a pretext for bringing Lydiard back, and then said to Cecilia, “You +recognized Dr. Shrapnel?” + +“I thought it might be Dr. Shrapnel”, she was candid enough to reply. +“I could not well recognize him, not knowing him.” + +“Here comes Mr. Lydiard; and let me assure you, if I may take the +liberty of introducing him, he is no true Radical. He is a +philosopher—one of the flirts, the butterflies of politics, as Dr. +Shrapnel calls them.” + +Beauchamp hummed over some improvized trifles to Lydiard, then +introduced him cursorily, and all walked in the direction of +Itchincope. It was really the Mr. Lydiard Mrs. Devereux had met in +Spain, so they were left in the rear to discuss their travels. Much +conversation did not go on in front. Cecilia was very reserved. +By-and-by she said, “I am glad you have come into the country early +to-day.” + +He spoke rapturously of the fresh air, and not too mildly of his +pleasure in meeting her. Quite off her guard, she began to hope he was +getting to be one of them again, until she heard him tell Lord Palmet +that he had come early out of Bevisham for the walk with Dr. Shrapnel, +and to call on certain rich tradesmen living near Itchincope. He +mentioned the name of Dollikins. + +“Dollikins?” Palmet consulted a perturbed recollection. Among the +entangled list of new names he had gathered recently from the study of +politics, Dollikins rang in his head. He shouted, “Yes, Dollikins! to +be sure. Lespel has him to lunch to-day;—calls him a +gentleman-tradesman; odd fish! and told a fellow called—where is it +now?—a name like brass or copper... Copperstone? Brasspot?... told him +he’d do well to keep his Tory cheek out of sight. It’s the names of +those fellows bother one so! All the rest’s easy.” + +“You are evidently in a state of confusion, Lord Palmet,” said Cecilia. + +The tone of rebuke and admonishment was unperceived. “Not about the +facts,” he rejoined. “I’m for fair play all round; no trickery. I tell +Beauchamp all I know, just as I told you this morning, Miss Halkett. +What I don’t like is Lespel turning Tory.” + +Cecilia put a stop to his indiscretions by halting for Mrs. Devereux, +and saying to Beauchamp, “If your friend would return to Bevisham by +rail, this is the nearest point to the station.” + +Palmet, best-natured of men, though generally prompted by some of his +peculiar motives, dismounted from his horse, leaving him to Beauchamp, +that he might conduct Mr. Lydiard to the station, and perhaps hear a +word of Miss Denham: at any rate be able to form a guess as to the +secret of that art of his, which had in the space of an hour restored a +happy and luminous vivacity to the languid Mrs. Wardour-Devereux. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. +THE QUESTION AS TO THE EXAMINATION OF THE WHIGS, AND THE FINE BLOW +STRUCK BY MR. EVERARD ROMFREY + + +Itchincope was famous for its hospitality. Yet Beauchamp, when in the +presence of his hostess, could see that he was both unexpected and +unwelcome. Mrs. Lespel was unable to conceal it; she looked meaningly +at Cecilia, talked of the house being very full, and her husband +engaged till late in the afternoon. And Captain Baskelett had arrived +on a sudden, she said. And the luncheon-table in the dining-room could +not possibly hold more. + +“We three will sit in the library, anywhere,” said Cecilia. + +So they sat and lunched in the library, where Mrs. Devereux served +unconsciously for an excellent ally to Cecilia in chatting to +Beauchamp, principally of the writings of Mr. Lydiard. + +Had the blinds of the windows been drawn down and candles lighted, +Beauchamp would have been well contented to remain with these two +ladies, and forget the outer world; sweeter society could not have been +offered him: but glancing carelessly on to the lawn, he exclaimed in +some wonderment that the man he particularly wished to see was there. +“It must be Dollikins, the brewer. I’ve had him pointed out to me in +Bevisham, and I never can light on him at his brewery.” + +No excuse for detaining the impetuous candidate struck Cecilia. She +betook herself to Mrs. Lespel, to give and receive counsel in the +emergency, while Beauchamp struck across the lawn to Mr. Dollikins, who +had the squire of Itchincope on the other side of him. + +Late in the afternoon a report reached the ladies of a furious contest +going on over Dollikins. Mr. Algy Borolick was the first to give them +intelligence of it, and he declared that Beauchamp had wrested +Dollikins from Grancey Lespel. This was contradicted subsequently by +Mr. Stukely Culbrett. “But there’s heavy pulling between them,” he +said. + +“It will do all the good in the world to Grancey,” said Mrs. Lespel. + +She sat in her little blue-room, with gentlemen congregating at the +open window. + +Presently Grancey Lespel rounded a projection of the house where the +drawing-room stood out: “The maddest folly ever talked!” he delivered +himself in wrath. “The Whigs dead? You may as well say I’m dead.” + +It was Beauchamp answering: “Politically, you’re dead, if you call +yourself a Whig. You couldn’t be a live one, for the party’s in pieces, +blown to the winds. The country was once a chess-board for Whig and +Tory: but that game’s at an end. There’s no doubt on earth that the +Whigs are dead.” + +“But if there’s no doubt about it, how is it I have a doubt about it?” + +“You know you’re a Tory. You tried to get that man Dollikins from me in +the Tory interest.” + +“I mean to keep him out of Radical clutches. Now that’s the truth.” + +They came up to the group by the open window, still conversing hotly, +indifferent to listeners. + +“You won’t keep him from me; I have him,” said Beauchamp. + +“You delude yourself; I have his promise, his pledged word,” said +Grancey Lespel. + +“The man himself told you his opinion of renegade Whigs.” + +“Renegade!” + +“Renegade Whig is an actionable phrase,” Mr. Culbrett observed. + +He was unnoticed. + +“If you don’t like ‘renegade,’ take ‘dead,’” said Beauchamp. “Dead Whig +resurgent in the Tory. You are dead.” + +“It’s the stupid conceit of your party thinks that.” + +“_Dead_, my dear Mr. Lespel. I’ll say for the Whigs, they would not be +seen touting for Tories if they were not ghosts of Whigs. You are dead. +There is no doubt of it.” + +“But,” Grancey Lespel repeated, “if there’s no doubt about it, how is +it I have a doubt about it?” + +“The Whigs preached finality in Reform. It was their own funeral +sermon.” + +“Nonsensical talk!” + +“I don’t dispute your liberty of action to go over to the Tories, but +you have no right to attempt to take an honest Liberal with you. And +that I’ve stopped.” + +“Aha! Beauchamp; the man’s mine. Come, you’ll own he swore he wouldn’t +vote for a Shrapnelite.” + +“Don’t you remember?—that’s how the Tories used to fight _you;_ they +stuck an epithet to you, and hooted to set the mob an example; you hit +them off to the life,” said Beauchamp, brightening with the fine ire of +strife, and affecting a sadder indignation. “You traded on the +ignorance of a man prejudiced by lying reports of one of the noblest of +human creatures.” + +“Shrapnel? There! I’ve had enough.” Grancey Lespel bounced away with +both hands outspread on the level of his ears. + +“Dead!” Beauchamp sent the ghastly accusation after him. + +Grancey faced round and said, “Bo!” which was applauded for a smart +retort. And let none of us be so exalted above the wit of daily life as +to sneer at it. Mrs. Lespel remarked to Mr. Culbrett, “Do you not see +how much he is refreshed by the interest he takes in this election? He +is ten years younger.” + +Beauchamp bent to her, saying mock-dolefully, “I’m sorry to tell you +that if ever he was a sincere Whig, he has years of remorse before +him.” + +“Promise me, Captain Beauchamp,” she answered, “promise you will give +us no more politics to-day.” + +“If none provoke me.” + +“None shall.” + +“And as to Bevisham,” said Mr. Culbrett, “it’s the identical borough +for a Radical candidate, for every voter there demands a division of +his property, and he should be the last to complain of an adoption of +his principles.” + +“Clever,” rejoined Beauchamp; “but I am under government”; and he swept +a bow to Mrs. Lespel. + +As they were breaking up the group, Captain Baskelett appeared. + +“Ah! Nevil,” said he, passed him, saluted Miss Halkett through the +window, then cordially squeezed his cousin’s hand. “Having a holiday +out of Bevisham? The baron expects to meet you at Mount Laurels +to-morrow. He particularly wishes me to ask you whether you think all +is fair in war.” + +“I don’t,” said Nevil. + +“Not? The canvass goes on swimmingly?” + +“Ask Palmet.” + +“Palmet gives you two-thirds of the borough. The poor old Tory tortoise +is nowhere. They’ve been writing about you, Nevil.” + +“They have. And if there’s a man of honour in the party I shall hold +him responsible for it.” + +“I allude to an article in the Bevisham Liberal paper; a magnificent +eulogy, upon my honour. I give you my word, I have rarely read an +article so eloquent. And what is the Conservative misdemeanour which +the man of honour in the party is to pay for?” + +“I’ll talk to you about it by-and-by,” said Nevil. + +He seemed to Cecilia too trusting, too simple, considering his cousin’s +undisguised tone of banter. Yet she could not put him on his guard. She +would have had Mr. Culbrett do so. She walked on the terrace with him +near upon sunset, and said, “The position Captain Beauchamp is in here +is most unfair to him.” + +“There’s nothing unfair in the lion’s den,” said Stukely Culbrett; +adding, “Now, observe, Miss Halkett; he talks for effect. He discovers +that Lespel is a Torified Whig; but that does not make him a bit more +alert. It’s to say smart things. He speaks, but won’t act, as if he +were among enemies. He’s getting too fond of his bow-wow. Here he is, +and he knows the den, and he chooses to act the innocent. You see how +ridiculous? That trick of the ingenu, or peculiarly heavenly messenger, +who pretends that he ought never to have any harm done to him, though +he carries the lighted match, is the way of young Radicals. Otherwise +Beauchamp would be a dear boy. We shall see how he takes his +thrashing.” + +“You feel sure he will be beaten?” + +“He has too strong a dose of fool’s honesty to succeed—stands for the +game laws with Radicals, for example. He’s loaded with scruples and +crotchets, and thinks more of them than of his winds and his tides. No +public man is to be made out of that. His idea of the Whigs being dead +shows a head that can’t read the country. He means himself for mankind, +and is preparing to be the benefactor of a country parish.” + +“But as a naval officer?” + +“Excellent.” + +Cecilia was convinced that Mr. Culbrett underestimated Beauchamp. +Nevertheless the confidence expressed in Beauchamp’s defeat reassured +and pleased her. At midnight she was dancing with him in the midst of +great matronly country vessels that raised a wind when they launched on +the waltz, and exacted an anxious pilotage on the part of gentlemen +careful of their partners; and why I cannot say, but contrasts produce +quaint ideas in excited spirits, and a dancing politician appeared to +her so absurd that at one moment she had to bite her lips not to laugh. +It will hardly be credited that the waltz with Nevil was delightful to +Cecilia all the while, and dancing with others a penance. He danced +with none other. He led her to a three o’clock morning supper: one of +those triumphant subversions of the laws and customs of earth which +have the charm of a form of present deification for all young people; +and she, while noting how the poor man’s advocate dealt with costly +pasties and sparkling wines, was overjoyed at his hearty comrade’s +manner with the gentlemen, and a leadership in fun that he seemed to +have established. Cecil Baskelett acknowledged it, and complimented him +on it. “I give you my word, Nevil, I never heard you in finer trim. +Here’s to our drive into Bevisham to-morrow! Do you drink it? I beg; I +entreat.” + +“Oh, certainly,” said Nevil. + +“Will you take a whip down there?” + +“If you’re all insured.” + +“On my honour, old Nevil, driving a four-in-hand is easier than +governing the country.” + +“I’ll accept your authority for what you know best,” said Nevil. + +The toast of the Drive into Bevisham was drunk. + +Cecilia left the supper-table, mortified, and feeling disgraced by her +participation in a secret that was being wantonly abused to humiliate +Nevil, as she was made to think by her sensitiveness. All the gentlemen +were against him, excepting perhaps that chattering pie Lord Palmet, +who did him more mischief than his enemies. She could not sleep. She +walked out on the terrace with Mrs. Wardour-Devereux, in a dream, +hearing that lady breathe remarks hardly less than sentimental, and an +unwearied succession of shouts from the smoking-room. + +“They are not going to bed to-night,” said Mrs. Devereux. + +“They are mystifying Captain Beauchamp,” said Cecilia. + +“My husband tells me they are going to drive him into the town +to-morrow.” + +Cecilia flushed: she could scarcely get her breath. + +“Is that their plot?” she murmured. + +Sleep was rejected by her, bed itself. The drive into Bevisham had been +fixed for nine A.M. She wrote two lines on note-paper in her room: but +found them overfervid and mysterious. Besides, how were they to be +conveyed to Nevil’s chamber. + +She walked in the passage for half an hour, thinking it possible she +might meet him; not the most lady-like of proceedings, but her head was +bewildered. An arm-chair in her room invited her to rest and think—the +mask of a natural desire for sleep. At eight in the morning she was +awakened by her maid, and at a touch exclaimed, “Have they gone?” and +her heart still throbbed after hearing that most of the gentlemen were +in and about the stables. Cecilia was down-stairs at a quarter to nine. +The breakfast-room was empty of all but Lord Palmet and Mr. +Wardour-Devereux; one selecting a cigar to light out of doors, the +other debating between two pipes. She beckoned to Palmet, and +commissioned him to inform Beauchamp that she wished him to drive her +down to Bevisham in her pony-carriage. Palmet brought back word from +Beauchamp that he had an appointment at ten o’clock in the town. “I +want to see him,” she said; so Palmet ran out with the order. Cecilia +met Beauchamp in the entrance-hall. + +“You must not go,” she said bluntly. + +“I can’t break an appointment,” said he—“for the sake of my own +pleasure,” was implied. + +“Will you not listen to me, Nevil, when I say you cannot go?” + +A coachman’s trumpet blew. + +“I shall be late. That’s Colonel Millington’s team. He starts first, +then Wardour-Devereux, then Cecil, and I mount beside him; Palmet’s at +our heels.” + +“But can’t you even imagine a purpose for their driving into Bevisham +so pompously?” + +“Well, men with drags haven’t commonly much purpose,” he said. + +“But on this occasion! At an Election time! Surely, Nevil, you can +guess at a reason.” + +A second trumpet blew very martially. Footmen came in search of Captain +Beauchamp. The alternative of breaking her pledged word to her father, +or of letting Nevil be burlesqued in the sight of the town, could no +longer be dallied with. + +Cecilia said, “Well, Nevil, then you shall hear it.” + +Hereupon Captain Baskelett’s groom informed Captain Beauchamp that he +was off. + +“Yes,” Nevil said to Cecilia, “tell me on board the yacht.” + +“Nevil, you will be driving into the town with the second Tory +candidate of the borough.” + +“Which? who?” Nevil asked. + +“Your cousin Cecil.” + +“Tell Captain Baskelett that I don’t drive down till an hour later,” +Nevil said to the groom. “Cecilia, you’re my friend; I wish you were +more. I wish we didn’t differ. I shall hope to change you—make you come +half-way out of that citadel of yours. This is my uncle Everard! I +might have made sure there’d be a blow from him! And Cecil! of all men +for a politician! Cecilia, think of it! Cecil Baskelett! I beg Seymour +Austin’s pardon for having suspected him...” + +Now sounded Captain Baskelett’s trumpet. + +Angry though he was, Beauchamp laughed. “Isn’t it exactly like the +baron to spring a mine of this kind?” + +There was decidedly humour in the plot, and it was a lusty quarterstaff +blow into the bargain. Beauchamp’s head rang with it. He could not +conceal the stunning effect it had on him. Gratitude and tenderness +toward Cecilia for saving him, at the cost of a partial breach of faith +that he quite understood, from the scandal of the public entry into +Bevisham on the Tory coach-box, alternated with his interjections +regarding his uncle Everard. + +At eleven, Cecilia sat in her pony-carriage giving final directions to +Mrs. Devereux where to look out for the _Esperanza_ and the schooner’s +boat. “Then I drive down alone,” Mrs. Devereux said. + +The gentlemen were all off, and every available maid with them on the +coach-boxes, a brilliant sight that had been missed by Nevil and +Cecilia. + +“Why, here’s Lydiard!” said Nevil, supposing that Lydiard must be +approaching him with tidings of the second Tory candidate. But Lydiard +knew nothing of it. He was the bearer of a letter on foreign +paper—marked urgent, in Rosamund’s hand—and similarly worded in the +well-known hand which had inscribed the original address of the letter +to Steynham. + +Beauchamp opened it and read: + +Château Tourdestelle +“(Eure). + +“Come. I give you three days—no more. + +“RENÉE.” + +The brevity was horrible. Did it spring from childish imperiousness or +tragic peril? + +Beauchamp could imagine it to be this or that. In moments of excited +speculation we do not dwell on the possibility that there may be a +mixture of motives. + +“I fear I must cross over to France this evening,” he said to Cecilia. + +She replied, “It is likely to be stormy to-night. The steamboat may not +run.” + +“If there’s a doubt of it, I shall find a French lugger. You are tired, +from not sleeping last night.” + +“No,” she answered, and nodded to Mrs. Devereux, beside whom Mr. +Lydiard stood: “You will not drive down alone, you see.” + +For a young lady threatened with a tempest in her heart, as disturbing +to her as the one gathering in the West for ships at sea, Miss Halkett +bore herself well. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. +THE DRIVE INTO BEVISHAM + + +Beauchamp was requested by Cecilia to hold the reins. His fair +companion in the pony-carriage preferred to lean back musing, and he +had leisure to think over the blow dealt him by his uncle Everard with +so sure an aim so ringingly on the head. And in the first place he made +no attempt to disdain it because it was nothing but artful and +heavy-handed, after the mediaeval pattern. Of old he himself had +delighted in artfulness as well as boldness and the unmistakeable hit. +Highly to prize generalship was in his blood, though latterly the very +forces propelling him to his political warfare had forbidden the use of +it to him. He saw the patient veteran laying his gun for a long shot—to +give as good as he had received; and in realizing Everard Romfrey’s +perfectly placid bearing under provocation, such as he certainly would +have maintained while preparing his reply to it, the raw fighting +humour of the plot touched the sense of justice in Beauchamp enough to +make him own that he had been the first to offend. + +He could reflect also on the likelihood that other offended men of his +uncle’s age and position would have sulked or stormed, threatening the +Parthian shot of the vindictive testator. If there was godlessness in +turning to politics for a weapon to strike a domestic blow, manfulness +in some degree signalized it. Beauchamp could fancy his uncle crying +out, Who set the example? and he was not at that instant inclined to +dwell on the occult virtues of the example he had set. To be honest, +this elevation of a political puppet like Cecil Baskelett, and the +starting him, out of the same family which Turbot, the journalist, had +magnified, into Bevisham with such pomp and flourish in opposition to +the serious young champion of popular rights and the Puritan style, was +ludicrously effective. Conscienceless of course. But that was the way +of the Old School. + +Beauchamp broke the silence by thanking Cecilia once more for saving +him from the absurd exhibition of the Radical candidate on the Tory +coach-box, and laughing at the grimmish slyness of his uncle Everard’s +conspiracy a something in it that was half-smile half-sneer; not +exactly malignant, and by no means innocent; something made up of the +simplicity of a lighted match, and its proximity to powder, yet neither +deadly, in spite of a wicked twinkle, nor at all pretending to be +harmless: in short, a specimen of old English practical humour. + +He laboured to express these or corresponding views of it, with +tolerably natural laughter, and Cecilia rallied her spirits at his +pleasant manner of taking his blow. + +“I shall compliment the baron when I meet him tonight,” he said. “What +can we compare him to?” + +She suggested the Commander of the Faithful, the Lord Haroun, who +likewise had a turn for buffooneries to serve a purpose, and could +direct them loftily and sovereignty. + +“No: Everard Romfrey’s a Northerner from the feet up,” said Beauchamp. + +Cecilia compliantly offered him a sketch of the Scandinavian Troll: +much nearer the mark, he thought, and exclaimed: “Baron Troll! I’m +afraid, Cecilia, you have robbed him of the best part of his fun. And +you will owe it entirely to him if you should be represented in +Parliament by my cousin Baskelett.” + +“Promise me, Nevil, that you will, when you meet Captain Baskelett, not +forget I did you some service, and that I wish, I shall be so glad if +you do not resent certain things.... Very objectionable, we all think.” + +He released her from the embarrassing petition: “Oh! now I know my man, +you may be sure I won’t waste a word on him. The fact is, he would not +understand a word, and would require more—and that I don’t do. When I +fancied Mr. Austin was the responsible person, I meant to speak to +him.” + +Cecilia smiled gratefully. + +The sweetness of a love-speech would not have been sweeter to her than +this proof of civilized chivalry in Nevil. + +They came to the fir-heights overlooking Bevisham. Here the breezy +beginning of a South-western autumnal gale tossed the ponies’ manes and +made threads of Cecilia’s shorter locks of beautiful auburn by the +temples and the neck, blustering the curls that streamed in a thick +involution from the silken band gathering them off her uncovered +clear-swept ears. + +Beauchamp took an impression of her side face. It seemed to offer him +everything the world could offer of cultivated purity, intelligent +beauty and attractiveness; and “Wilt thou?” said the winged minute. +Peace, a good repute in the mouths of men, home, and a trustworthy +woman for mate, an ideal English lady, the rarest growth of our +country, and friends and fair esteem, were offered. Last night he had +waltzed with her, and the manner of this tall graceful girl in +submitting to the union of the measure and reserving her individual +distinction, had exquisitely flattered his taste, giving him an +auspicious image of her in partnership, through the uses of life. + +He looked ahead at the low dead-blue cloud swinging from across +channel. What could be the riddle of Renée’s letter! It chained him +completely. + +“At all events, I shall not be away longer than three days,” he said; +paused, eyed Cecilia’s profile, and added, “Do we differ so much?” + +“It may not be so much as we think,” said she. + +“But if we do!” + +“Then, Nevil, there is a difference between us.” + +“But if we keep our lips closed?” + +“We should have to shut our eyes as well!” + +A lovely melting image of her stole over him; all the warmer for her +unwittingness in producing it: and it awakened a tenderness toward the +simple speaker. + +Cecilia’s delicate breeding saved her from running on figuratively. She +continued: “Intellectual differences do not cause wounds, except when +very unintellectual sentiments are behind them:—my conceit, or your +impatience, Nevil? ‘_Noi veggiam come quei, che ha mala luce._’... I +can confess my sight to be imperfect: but will you ever do so?” + +Her musical voice in Italian charmed his hearing. + +“What poet was that you quoted?” + +“The wisest: Dante.” + +“Dr. Shrapnel’s favourite! I must try to read him.” + +“He reads Dante?” Cecilia threw a stress on the august name; and it was +manifest that she cared not for the answer. + +Contemptuous exclusiveness could not go farther. + +“He is a man of cultivation,” Beauchamp said cursorily, trying to avoid +dissension, but in vain. “I wish I were half as well instructed, and +the world half as charitable as he!—You ask me if I shall admit my +sight to be imperfect. Yes; when you prove to me that priests and +landlords are willing to do their duty by the people in preference to +their churches and their property: but will you ever shake off +prejudice?” + +Here was opposition sounding again. Cecilia mentally reproached Dr. +Shrapnel for it. + +“Indeed, Nevil, really, must not—may I not ask you this?—must not every +one feel the evil spell of some associations? And Dante and Dr. +Shrapnel!” + +“You don’t know him, Cecilia.” + +“I saw him yesterday.” + +“You thought him too tall?” + +“I thought of his character.” + +“How angry I should be with you if you were not so beautiful!” + +“I am immensely indebted to my unconscious advocate.” + +“You are clad in steel; you flash back; you won’t answer me out of the +heart. I’m convinced it is pure wilfulness that makes you oppose me.” + +“I fancy you must be convinced because you cannot imagine women to have +any share of public spirit, Nevil.” + +A grain of truth in that remark set Nevil reflecting. + +“I want them to have it,” he remarked, and glanced at a Tory placard, +probably the puppet’s fresh-printed address to the electors, on one of +the wayside fir-trees. “Bevisham looks well from here. We might make a +North-western Venice of it, if we liked.” + +“Papa told you it would be money sunk in mud.” + +“Did I mention it to him?—Thoroughly Conservative!—So he would leave +the mud as it is. They insist on our not venturing anything—those +Tories! exactly as though we had gained the best of human conditions, +instead of counting crops of rogues, malefactors, egoists, noxious and +lumbersome creatures that deaden the country. Your town down there is +one of the ugliest and dirtiest in the kingdom: it might be the +fairest.” + +“I have often thought that of Bevisham, Nevil.” + +He drew a visionary sketch of quays, embankments, bridged islands, +public buildings, magical emanations of patriotic architecture, with a +practical air, an absence of that enthusiasm which struck her with +suspicion when it was not applied to landscape or the Arts; and she +accepted it, and warmed, and even allowed herself to appear hesitating +when he returned to the similarity of the state of mud-begirt Bevisham +and our great sluggish England. + +Was he not perhaps to be pitied in his bondage to the Frenchwoman, who +could have no ideas in common with him? + +The rare circumstance that she and Nevil Beauchamp had found a subject +of agreement, partially overcame the sentiment Cecilia entertained for +the foreign lady; and having now one idea in common with him, she +conceived the possibility that there might be more. There must be many, +for he loved England, and she no less. She clung, however, to the topic +of Bevisham, preferring to dream of the many more, rather than run +risks. Undoubtedly the town was of an ignoble aspect; and it was +declining in prosperity; and it was consequently over-populated. And +undoubtedly (so she was induced to coincide for the moment) a +Government, acting to any extent like a supervising head, should aid +and direct the energies of towns and ports and trades, and not leave +everything everywhere to chance: schools for the people, public +morality, should be the charge of Government. Cecilia had surrendered +the lead to him, and was forced to subscribe to an equivalent of +“undoubtedly” the Tories just as little as the Liberals had done these +good offices. Party against party, neither of them had a forethoughtful +head for the land at large. They waited for the Press to spur a great +imperial country to be but defensively armed, and they accepted the +so-called volunteers, with a nominal one-month’s drill per annum, as a +guarantee of defence! + +Beauchamp startled her, actually kindled her mind to an activity of +wonder and regret, with the statement of how much Government, acting +with some degree of farsightedness, _might_ have won to pay the public +debt and remit taxation, by originally retaining the lines of railway, +and fastening on the valuable land adjoining stations. Hundreds of +millions of pounds! + +She dropped a sigh at the prodigious amount, but inquired, “Who has +calculated it?” + +For though perfectly aware that this kind of conversation was a special +compliment paid to her by her friend Nevil, and dimly perceiving that +it implied something beyond a compliment—in fact, that it was his +manner of probing her for sympathy, as other men would have conducted +the process preliminary to deadly flattery or to wooing, her wits +fenced her heart about; the exercise of shrewdness was an instinct of +self-preservation. She had nothing but her poor wits, daily growing +fainter, to resist him with. And he seemed to know it, and therefore +assailed them, never trying at the heart. + +That vast army of figures might be but a phantom army conjured out of +the Radical mists, might it not? she hinted. And besides, we cannot +surely require a Government to speculate in the future, can we? + +Possibly not, as Governments go, Beauchamp said. + +But what think you of a Government of landowners decreeing the +enclosure of millions of acres of common land amongst themselves; +taking the property of the people to add to their own! Say, is not that +plunder? Public property, observe; decreed to them by their own +law-making, under the pretence that it was being reclaimed for +cultivation, when in reality it has been but an addition to their +pleasure-grounds: a flat robbery of pasture from the poor man’s cow and +goose, and his right of cutting furze for firing. Consider that! +Beauchamp’s eyes flashed democratic in reciting this injury to the +objects of his warm solicitude—the man, the cow, and the goose. But so +must he have looked when fronting England’s enemies, and his aspect of +fervour subdued Cecilia. She confessed her inability to form an +estimate of such conduct. + +“Are they doing it still?” she asked. + +“We owe it to Dr. Shrapnel foremost that there is now a watch over them +to stop them. But for him, Grancey Lespel would have enclosed half of +Northeden Heath. As it is, he has filched bits here and there, and he +will have to put back his palings.” + +However, now let Cecilia understand that we English, calling ourselves +free, are under morally lawless rule. _Government_ is what we require, +and our means of getting it must be through universal suffrage. At +present we have no Government; only shifting Party Ministries, which +are the tools of divers interests, wealthy factions, to the sacrifice +of the Commonwealth. + +She listened, like Rosamund Culling overborne by Dr. Shrapnel, inwardly +praying that she might discover a man to reply to him. + +“A Despotism, Nevil?” + +He hoped not, declined the despot, was English enough to stand against +the best of men in that character; but he cast it on Tory, Whig, and +Liberal, otherwise the Constitutionalists, if we were to come upon the +despot. + +“They see we are close on universal suffrage; they’ve been bidding each +in turn for ‘the people,’ and that has brought them to it, and now +they’re alarmed, and accuse one another of treason to the Constitution, +and they don’t accept the situation: and there’s a fear, that to carry +on their present system, they will be thwarting the people or +corrupting them: and in that case we shall have our despot in some +shape or other, and we shall suffer.” + +“Nevil,” said Cecilia, “I am out of my depth.” + +“I’ll support you; I can swim for two,” said he. + +“You are very self-confident, but I find I am not fit for battle; at +least not in the front ranks.” + +“Nerve me, then: will you? Try to comprehend once for all what the +battle is.” + +“I am afraid I am too indifferent; I am too luxurious. That reminds me: +you want to meet your uncle Everard and if you will sleep at Mount +Laurels to-night, the _Esperanza_ shall take you to France to-morrow +morning, and can wait to bring you back.” + +As she spoke she perceived a flush mounting over Nevil’s face. Soon it +was communicated to hers. + +The strange secret of the blood electrified them both, and revealed the +burning undercurrent running between them from the hearts of each. The +light that showed how near they were to one another was kindled at the +barrier dividing them. It remained as good as a secret, unchallenged +until they had separated, and after midnight Cecilia looked through her +chamber windows at the driving moon of a hurricane scud, and read +clearly his honourable reluctance to be wafted over to his French love +by her assistance; and Beauchamp on board the tossing steamboat +perceived in her sympathetic reddening that she had divined him. + +This auroral light eclipsed the other events of the day. He drove into +a town royally decorated, and still humming with the ravishment of the +Tory entrance. He sailed in the schooner to Mount Laurels, in the +society of Captain Baskelett and his friends, who, finding him tamer +than they expected, bantered him in the cheerfullest fashion. He waited +for his uncle Everard several hours at Mount Laurels, perused the +junior Tory’s address to the Electors, throughout which there was not +an idea—safest of addresses to canvass upon! perused likewise, at +Captain Baskelett’s request, a broad sheet of an article introducing +the new candidate to Bevisham with the battle-axe Romfreys to back him, +in high burlesque of Timothy Turbot upon Beauchamp: and Cecil hoped his +cousin would not object to his borrowing a Romfrey or two for so +pressing an occasion. All very funny, and no doubt the presence of Mr. +Everard Romfrey would have heightened the fun from the fountain-head; +but he happened to be delayed, and Beauchamp had to leave directions +behind him in the town, besides the discussion of a whole plan of +conduct with Dr. Shrapnel, so he was under the necessity of departing +without seeing his uncle, really to his regret. He left word to that +effect. + +Taking leave of Cecilia, he talked of his return “home” within three or +four days as a certainty. + +She said: “Canvassing should not be neglected now.” + +Her hostility was confused by what she had done to save him from +annoyance, while his behaviour to his cousin Cecil increased her +respect for him. She detected a pathetic meaning in his mention of the +word home; she mused on his having called her beautiful: whither was +she hurrying? Forgetful of her horror of his revolutionary ideas, +forgetful of the elevation of her own, she thrilled secretly on hearing +it stated by the jubilant young Tories at Mount Laurels, as a +characteristic of Beauchamp, that he was clever in parrying political +thrusts, and slipping from the theme; he who with her gave out +unguardedly the thoughts deepest in him. And the thoughts!—were they +not of generous origin? Where so true a helpmate for him as the one to +whom his mind appealed? It could not be so with the Frenchwoman. +Cecilia divined a generous nature by generosity, and set herself to +believe that in honour he had not yet dared to speak to her from the +heart, not being at heart quite free. She was at the same time in her +remains of pride cool enough to examine and rebuke the weakness she +succumbed to in now clinging to him by that which yesterday she hardly +less than loathed, still deeply disliked. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. +TOURDESTELLE + + +On the part of Beauchamp, his conversation with Cecilia during the +drive into Bevisham opened out for the first time in his life a +prospect of home; he had felt the word in speaking it, and it signified +an end to the distractions produced by the sex, allegiance to one +beloved respected woman, and also a basis of operations against the +world. For she was evidently conquerable, and once matched with him +would be the very woman to nerve and sustain him. Did she not listen to +him? He liked her resistance. That element of the barbarous which went +largely to form his emotional nature was overjoyed in wresting such a +woman from the enemy, and subduing her personally. She was a prize. She +was a splendid prize, cut out from under the guns of the fort. He +rendered all that was due to his eminently good cause for its part in +so signal a success, but individual satisfaction is not diminished by +the thought that the individual’s discernment selected the cause thus +beneficent to him. + +Beauchamp’s meditations were diverted by the sight of the coast of +France dashed in rain-lines across a weed-strewn sea. The “three days” +granted him by Renée were over, and it scarcely troubled him that he +should be behind the time; he detested mystery, holding it to be a sign +of pretentious feebleness, often of imposture, it might be frivolity. +Punctilious obedience to the mysterious brevity of the summons, and not +to chafe at it, appeared to him as much as could be expected of a +struggling man. This was the state of the case with him, until he stood +on French earth, breathed French air, and chanced to hear the tongue of +France twittered by a lady on the quay. The charm was instantaneous. He +reminded himself that Renée, unlike her countrywomen, had no gift for +writing letters. They had never corresponded since the hour of her +marriage. They had met in Sicily, at Syracuse, in the presence of her +father and her husband, and so inanimate was she that the meeting +seemed like the conclusion of their history. Her brother Roland sent +tidings of her by fits, and sometimes a conventional message from +Tourdestelle. Latterly her husband’s name had been cited as among the +wildfires of Parisian quays, in journals more or less devoted to those +unreclaimed spaces of the city. Well, if she was unhappy, was it not +the fulfilment of his prophecy in Venice? + +Renée’s brevity became luminous. She needed him urgently, and knowing +him faithful to the death, she, because she knew him, dispatched purely +the words which said she needed him. Why, those brief words were the +poetry of noble confidence! But what could her distress be? The lover +was able to read that, “Come; I give you three days,” addressed to him, +was not language of a woman free of her yoke. + +Excited to guess and guess, Beauchamp swept on to speculations of a +madness that seized him bodily at last. Were you loved, Cecilia? He +thought little of politics in relation to Renée; or of home, or of +honour in the world’s eye, or of labouring to pay the fee for his share +of life. This at least was one of the forms of love which precipitate +men: the sole thought in him was to be with her. She was Renée, the +girl of whom he had prophetically said that she must come to regrets +and tears. His vision of her was not at Tourdestelle, though he assumed +her to be there awaiting him: she was under the sea-shadowing Alps, +looking up to the red and gold-rosed heights of a realm of morning that +was hers inviolably, and under which Renée was eternally his. + +The interval between then and now was but the space of an unquiet sea +traversed in the night, sad in the passage of it, but featureless—and +it had proved him right! It was to Nevil Beauchamp as if the spirit of +his old passion woke up again to glorious hopeful morning when he stood +in Renée’s France. + +Tourdestelle enjoyed the aristocratic privilege of being twelve miles +from the nearest railway station. Alighting here on an evening of clear +sky, Beauchamp found an English groom ready to dismount for him and +bring on his portmanteau. The man said that his mistress had been twice +to the station, and was now at the neighbouring Château Dianet. Thither +Beauchamp betook himself on horseback. He was informed at the gates +that Madame la Marquise had left for Tourdestelle in the saddle only +ten minutes previously. The lodge-keeper had been instructed to invite +him to stay at Château Dianet in the event of his arriving late, but it +would be possible to overtake madame by a cut across the heights at a +turn of the valley. Beauchamp pushed along the valley for this visible +projection; a towering mass of woodland, in the midst of which a narrow +roadway, worn like the track of a torrent with heavy rain, wound +upward. On his descent to the farther side, he was to spy directly +below in the flat for Tourdestelle. He crossed the wooded neck above +the valley, and began descending, peering into gulfs of the twilight +dusk. Some paces down he was aided by a brilliant half-moon that +divided the whole underlying country into sharp outlines of dark and +fair, and while endeavouring to distinguish the château of Tourdestelle +his eyes were attracted to an angle of the downward zigzag, where a +pair of horses emerged into broad light swiftly; apparently the riders +were disputing, or one had overtaken the other in pursuit. Riding-habit +and plumed hat signalized the sex of one. Beauchamp sung out a +gondolier’s cry. He fancied it was answered. + +He was heard, for the lady turned about, and as he rode down, still +uncertain of her, she came cantering up alone, and there could be no +uncertainty. + +Moonlight is friendless to eyes that would make sure of a face long +unseen. It was Renée whose hand he clasped, but the story of the years +on her, and whether she was in bloom, or wan as the beams revealing +her, he could not see. + +Her tongue sounded to him as if it were loosened without a voice. “You +have come. That storm! You are safe!” + +So phantom-like a sound of speech alarmed him. “I lost no time. But +you?” + +“I am well.” + +“Nothing hangs over you?” + +“Nothing.” + +“Why give me just three days?” + +“Pure impatience. Have you forgotten me?” + +Their horses walked on with them. They unlocked their hands. + +“You knew it was I?” said he. + +“Who else could it be? I heard Venice,” she replied. + +Her previous cavalier was on his feet, all but on his knees, it +appeared, searching for something that eluded him under the road-side +bank. He sprang at it and waved it, leapt in the saddle, and remarked, +as he drew up beside Renée: “What one picks from the earth one may +wear, I presume, especially when we can protest it is our property.” + +Beauchamp saw him planting a white substance most carefully at the +breast buttonhole of his coat. It could hardly be a flower. Some +drooping exotic of the conservatory perhaps resembled it. + +Renée pronounced his name: “M. le Comte Henri d’Henriel.” + +He bowed to Beauchamp with an extreme sweep of the hat. + +“Last night, M. Beauchamp, we put up vows for you to the Marine God, +beseeching an exemption from that horrible mal de mer. Thanks to the +storm, I suppose, I have won. I must maintain, madame, that I won.” + +“You wear your trophy,” said Renée, and her horse reared and darted +ahead. + +The gentleman on each side of her struck into a trot. Beauchamp glanced +at M. d’Henriel’s breast-decoration. Renée pressed the pace, and +threading dense covers of foliage they reached the level of the valley, +where for a couple of miles she led them, stretching away merrily, now +in shadow, now in moonlight, between high land and meadow land, and a +line of poplars in the meadows winding with the river that fed the vale +and shot forth gleams of silvery disquiet by rustic bridge and mill. + +The strangeness of being beside her, not having yet scanned her face, +marvelling at her voice—that was like and unlike the Renée of old, full +of her, but in another key, a mellow note, maturer—made the ride +magical to Beauchamp, planting the past in the present like a +perceptible ghost. + +Renée slackened speed, saying: “Tourdestelle spans a branch of our +little river. This is our gate. Had it been daylight I would have taken +you by another way, and you would have seen the black tower burnt in +the Revolution; an imposing monument, I am assured. However, you will +think it pretty beside the stream. Do you come with us, M. le Comte?” + +His answer was inaudible to Beauchamp; he did not quit them. + +The lamp at the lodge-gates presented the young man’s face in full +view, and Beauchamp thought him supremely handsome. He perceived it to +be a lady’s glove that M. d’Henriel wore at his breast. + +Renée walked her horse up the park-drive, alongside the bright running +water. It seemed that she was aware of the method of provoking or +reproving M. d’Henriel. He endured some minutes of total speechlessness +at this pace, and abruptly said adieu and turned back. + +Renée bounded like a vessel free of her load. “But why should we +hurry?” said she, and checked her course to the walk again. “I hope you +like our Normandy, and my valley. You used to love France, Nevil; and +Normandy, they tell me, is cousin to the opposite coast of England, in +climate, soil, people, it may be in manners too. A Beauchamp never can +feel that he is a foreigner in Normandy. We claim you half French. You +have grander parks, they say. We can give you sunlight.” + +“And it was really only the wish to see me?” said Beauchamp. + +“Only, and really. One does not live for ever—on earth; and it becomes +a question whether friends should be shadows to one another before +death. I wrote to you because I wished to see you: I was impatient +because I am Renée.” + +“You relieve me!” + +“Evidently you have forgotten my character, Nevil.” + +“Not a feature of it.” + +“Ah!” she breathed involuntarily. + +“Would you have me forget it?” + +“When I think by myself, quite alone, yes, I would. Otherwise how can +one hope that one’s friend is friendship, supposing him to read us as +we are—minutely, accurately? And it is in absence that we desire our +friends to be friendship itself. And... and I am utterly astray! I have +not dealt in this language since I last thought of writing a diary, and +stared at the first line. If I mistake not, you are fond of the +picturesque. If moonlight and water will satisfy you, look yonder.” + +The moon launched her fairy silver fleets on a double sweep of the +little river round an island of reeds and two tall poplars. + +“I have wondered whether I should ever see you looking at that scene,” +said Renée. + +He looked from it to her, and asked if Roland was well, and her father; +then alluded to her husband; but the unlettering elusive moon, bright +only in the extension of her beams, would not tell him what story this +face, once heaven to him, wore imprinted on it. Her smile upon a parted +mouth struck him as two-edged in replying: “I have good news to give +you of them all: Roland is in garrison at Rouen, and will come when I +telegraph. My father is in Touraine, and greets you affectionately; he +hopes to come. They are both perfectly happy. My husband is +travelling.” + +Beauchamp was conscious of some bitter taste; unaware of what it was, +though it led him to say, undesigningly: “How very handsome that M. +d’Henriel is!—if I have his name correctly.” + +Renée answered: “He has the misfortune to be considered the handsomest +young man in France.” + +“He has an Italian look.” + +“His mother was Provençale.” + +She put her horse in motion, saying: “I agree with you that handsome +men are rarities. And, by the way, they do not set _our_ world on fire +quite as much as beautiful women do yours, my friend. Acknowledge so +much in our favour.” + +He assented indefinitely. He could have wished himself away canvassing +in Bevisham. He had only to imagine himself away from her, to feel the +flood of joy in being with her. + +“Your husband is travelling?” + +“It is his pleasure.” + +Could she have intended to say that this was good news to give of him +as well as of the happiness of her father and brother? + +“Now look on Tourdestelle,” said Renée. “You will avow that for an +active man to be condemned to seek repose in so dull a place, after the +fatigues of the season in Paris, it is considerably worse than for +women, so I am here to dispense the hospitalities. The right wing of +the château, on your left, is new. The side abutting the river is +inhabited by Dame Philiberte, whom her husband imprisoned for +attempting to take her pleasure in travel. I hear upon authority that +she dresses in white, and wears a black crucifix. She is many centuries +old, and still she lives to remind people that she married a +Rouaillout. Do you not think she should have come to me to welcome me? +She never has; and possibly of ladies who are disembodied we may say +that they know best. For me, I desire the interview—and I am a coward: +I need not state it.” She ceased; presently continuing: “The other +inhabitants are my sister, Agnès d’Auffray, wife of a general officer +serving in Afric—my sister by marriage, and my friend; the baronne +d’Orbec, a relation by marriage; M. d’Orbec, her son, a guest, and a +sportsman; M. Livret, an erudite. No young ladies: I can bear much, but +not their presence; girls are odious to me. I knew one in Venice.” + +They came within the rays of the lamp hanging above the unpretending +entrance to the château. Renée’s broad grey Longueville hat curved low +with its black plume on the side farthest from him. He was favoured by +the gallant lift of the brim on the near side, but she had overshadowed +her eyes. + +“He wears a glove at his breast,” said Beauchamp. + +“You speak of M. d’Henriel. He wears a glove at his breast; yes, it is +mine,” said Renée. + +She slipped from her horse and stood against his shoulder, as if +waiting to be questioned before she rang the bell of the château. + +Beauchamp alighted, burning with his unutterable questions concerning +that glove. + +“Lift your hat, let me beg you; let me see you,” he said. + +This was not what she had expected. With one heave of her bosom, and +murmuring: “I made a vow I would obey you absolutely if you came,” she +raised the hat above her brows, and lightning would not have surprised +him more; for there had not been a single vibration of her voice to +tell him of tears running: nay, the absence of the usual French +formalities in her manner of addressing him, had seemed to him to +indicate her intention to put him at once on an easy friendly footing, +such as would be natural to her, and not painful to him. Now she said: + +“You perceive, monsieur, that I have my sentimental fits like others; +but in truth I am not insensible to the picturesque or to gratitude, +and I thank you sincerely for coming, considering that I wrote like a +Sphinx—to evade writing _comme une folle!_” + +She swept to the bell. + +Standing in the arch of the entrance, she stretched her whip out to a +black mass of prostrate timber, saying: + +“It fell in the storm at two o’clock after midnight, and you on the +sea!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. +HIS HOLIDAY + + +A single day was to be the term of his holiday at Tourdestelle; but it +stood forth as one of those perfect days which are rounded by an +evening before and a morning after, giving him two nights under the +same roof with Renée, something of a resemblance to three days of her; +anticipation and wonder filling the first, she the next, the adieu the +last: every hour filled. And the first day was not over yet. He forced +himself to calmness, that he might not fritter it, and walked up and +down the room he was dressing in, examining its foreign decorations, +and peering through the window, to quiet his nerves. He was in her own +France with her! The country borrowed hues from Renée, and lent some. +This chivalrous France framed and interlaced her image, aided in +idealizing her, and was in turn transfigured. Not half so well would +his native land have pleaded for the forgiveness of a British damsel +who had wrecked a young man’s immoderate first love. That glorified +self-love requires the touch upon imagination of strangeness and an +unaccustomed grace, to subdue it and make it pardon an outrage to its +temples and altars, and its happy reading of the heavens, the earth +too: earth foremost, we ought perhaps to say. It is an exacting +heathen, best understood by a glance at what will appease it: +beautiful, however, as everybody has proved; and shall it be decried in +a world where beauty is not overcommon, though it would slaughter us +for its angry satisfaction, yet can be soothed by a tone of colour, as +it were by a novel inscription on a sweetmeat? + +The peculiarity of Beauchamp was that he knew the slenderness of the +thread which was leading him, and foresaw it twisting to a coil unless +he should hold firm. His work in life was much above the love of a +woman in his estimation, so he was not deluded by passion when he +entered the château; it is doubtful whether he would not hesitatingly +have sacrificed one of the precious votes in Bevisham for the pleasure +of kissing her hand when they were on the steps. She was his first love +and only love, married, and long ago forgiven:—married; that is to say, +she especially among women was interdicted to him by the lingering +shadow of the reverential love gone by; and if the anguish of the +lover’s worse than death survived in a shudder of memory at the thought +of her not solely lost to him but possessed by another, it did but +quicken a hunger that was three parts curiosity to see how she who had +suffered this bore the change; how like or unlike she might be to the +extinct Renée; what traces she kept of the face he had known. Her tears +were startling, but tears tell of a mood, they do not tell the story of +the years; and it was that story he had such eagerness to read in one +brief revelation: an eagerness born only of the last few hours, and +broken by fears of a tarnished aspect; these again being partly hopes +of a coming disillusion that would restore him his independence and ask +him only for pity. The slavery of the love of a woman chained like +Renée was the most revolting of prospects to a man who cherished his +freedom that he might work to the end of his time. Moreover, it swung a +thunder-cloud across his holiday. He recurred to the idea of the +holiday repeatedly, and the more he did so the thinner it waned. He was +exhausting the very air and spirit of it with a mind that ran +incessantly forward and back; and when he and the lady of so much +speculation were again together, an incapacity of observation seemed to +have come over him. In reality it was the inability to reflect on his +observations. Her presence resembled those dark sunsets throwing the +spell of colour across the world; when there is no question with us of +morning or of night, but of that sole splendour only. + +Owing to their arrival late at the château, covers were laid for them +in the boudoir of Madame la Marquise, where he had his hostess to +himself, and certainly the opportunity of studying her. An English Navy +List, solitary on a shelf, and laid within it an extract of a paper +announcing the return of the _Ariadne_ to port, explained the mystery +of her knowing that he was in England, as well as the correctness of +the superscription of her letter to him. “You see, I follow you,” she +said. + +Beauchamp asked if she read English now. + +“A little; but the paper was dispatched to me by M. Vivian Ducie, of +your embassy in Paris. He is in the valley.” + +The name of Ducie recalled Lord Palmet’s description of the dark beauty +of the fluttering pale gold ornaments. She was now dressed without one +decoration of gold or jewel, with scarcely a wave in the silk, a +modesty of style eloquent of the pride of her form. + +Could those eyes fronting him under the lamp have recently shed tears? +They were the living eyes of a brilliant unembarrassed lady; shields +flinging light rather than well-depths inviting it. + +Beauchamp tried to compare her with the Renée of Venice, and found +himself thinking of the glove she had surrendered to the handsomest +young man in France. The effort to recover the younger face gave him a +dead creature, with the eyelashes of Renée, the cast of her mouth and +throat, misty as a shape in a dream. + +He could compare her with Cecilia, who never would have risked a glove, +never have betrayed a tear, and was the statelier lady, not without +language: but how much less vivid in feature and the gift of speech! +Renée’s gift of speech counted unnumbered strings which she played on +with a grace that clothed the skill, and was her natural endowment—an +art perfected by the education of the world. Who cannot talk!—but who +can? Discover the writers in a day when all are writing! It is as rare +an art as poetry, and in the mouths of women as enrapturing, richer +than their voices in music. + +This was the fascination Beauchamp felt weaving round him. Would you, +that are separable from boys and mobs, and the object malignly called +the Briton, prefer the celestial singing of a woman to her excellently +talking? But not if it were given you to run in unison with her genius +of the tongue, following her verbal ingenuities and feminine +silk-flashes of meaning; not if she led you to match her fine quick +perceptions with more or less of the discreet concordance of the +violoncello accompanying the viol. It is not high flying, which usually +ends in heavy falling. You quit the level of earth no more than two +birds that chase from bush to bush to bill in air, for mutual delight +to make the concert heavenly. Language flowed from Renée in affinity +with the pleasure-giving laws that make the curves we recognize as +beauty in sublimer arts. Accept companionship for the dearest of the +good things we pray to have, and what equalled her! Who could be her +rival! + +Her girl’s crown of irradiated Alps began to tremble over her dimly, as +from moment to moment their intimacy warmed, and Beauchamp saw the +young face vanishing out of this flower of womanhood. He did not see it +appearing or present, but vanishing like the faint ray in the rosier. +Nay, the blot of her faithlessness underwent a transformation: it +affected him somewhat as the patch cunningly laid on near a liquid +dimple in fair cheeks at once allures and evades a susceptible +attention. + +Unused in his French of late, he stumbled at times, and she supplied +the needed phrase, taking no note of a blunder. Now men of sweet blood +cannot be secretly accusing or criticizing a gracious lady. Domestic +men are charged with thinking instantly of dark death when an ordinary +illness befalls them; and it may be so or not: but it is positive that +the gallant man of the world, if he is in the sensitive condition, and +not yet established as the lord of her, feels paralyzed in his +masculine sense of leadership the moment his lady assumes the +initiative and directs him: he gives up at once; and thus have many +nimble-witted dames from one clear start retained their advantage. + +Concerning that glove: well! the handsomest young man in France wore +the glove of the loveliest woman. The loveliest? The very loveliest in +the purity of her French style—the woman to challenge England for a +type of beauty to eclipse her. It was possible to conceive her country +wagering her against all women. + +If Renée had faults, Beauchamp thought of her as at sea breasting +tempests, while Cecilia was a vessel lying safe in harbour, untried, +however promising: and if Cecilia raised a steady light for him, it was +over the shores he had left behind, while Renée had really nothing to +do with warning or rescuing, or with imperilling; she welcomed him +simply to a holiday in her society. He associated Cecilia strangely +with the political labours she would have had him relinquish; and Renée +with a pleasant state of indolence, that her lightest smile disturbed. +Shun comparisons. + +It is the tricksy heart which sets up that balance, to jump into it on +one side or the other. Comparisons come of a secret leaning that is +sure to play rogue under its mien of honest dealer: so Beauchamp +suffered himself to be unjust to graver England, and lost the strength +she would have given him to resist a bewitchment. The case with him +was, that his apprenticeship was new; he had been trotting in harness +as a veritable cab-horse of politics—he by blood a racer; and his +nature craved for diversions, against his will, against his moral sense +and born tenacity of spirit. + +Not a word further of the glove. But at night, in his bed, the glove +was a principal actor in events of extraordinary magnitude and +inconsequence. + +He was out in the grounds with the early morning light. Coffee and +sweet French bread were brought out to him, and he was informed of the +hours of reunion at the château, whose mistress continued invisible. +She might be sleeping. He strolled about, within view of the windows, +wondering at her subservience to sleep. Tourdestelle lay in one of +those Norman valleys where the river is the mother of rich pasture, and +runs hidden between double ranks of sallows, aspens and poplars, that +mark its winding line in the arms of trenched meadows. The high land on +either side is an unwatered flat up to the horizon, little varied by +dusty apple-trees planted in the stubble here and there, and brown mud +walls of hamlets; a church-top, a copse, an avenue of dwarf limes +leading to the three-parts farm, quarter residence of an enriched +peasant striking new roots, or decayed proprietor pinching not to be +severed from ancient. Descending on the deep green valley in Summer is +like a change of climes. The château stood square at a branch of the +river, tossing three light bridges of pretty woodwork to park and +garden. Great bouquets of swelling blue and pink hydrangia nestled at +his feet on shaven grass. An open window showed a cloth of colour, as +in a reminiscence of Italy. + +Beauchamp heard himself addressed:—“You are looking for my +sister-in-law, M. Beauchamp?” + +The speaker was Madame d’Auffray, to whom he had been introduced +overnight—a lady of the aquiline French outline, not ungentle. + +Renée had spoken affectionately of her, he remembered. There was +nothing to make him be on his guard, and he stated that he was looking +for Madame de Rouaillout, and did not conceal surprise at the +information that she was out on horseback. + +“She is a tireless person,” Madame d’Auffray remarked. “You will not +miss her long. We all meet at twelve, as you know.” + +“I grudge an hour, for I go to-morrow,” said Beauchamp. + +The notification of so early a departure, or else his bluntness, +astonished her. She fell to praising Renée’s goodness. He kept her to +it with lively interrogations, in the manner of a guileless boy urging +for eulogies of his dear absent friend. Was it duplicity in him or +artlessness? + +“Has she, do you think, increased in beauty?” Madame d’Auffray +inquired: an insidious question, to which he replied: + +“Once I thought it would be impossible.” + +Not so bad an answer for an Englishman, in a country where speaking is +fencing; the race being little famous for dialectical alertness: but +was it artful or simple? + +They skirted the château, and Beauchamp had the history of Dame +Philiberte recounted to him, with a mixture of Gallic irony, innuendo, +openness, touchingness, ridicule, and charity novel to his ears. Madame +d’Auffray struck the note of intimacy earlier than is habitual. She +sounded him in this way once or twice, carelessly perusing him, and +waiting for the interesting edition of the Book of Man to summarize its +character by showing its pages or remaining shut. It was done +delicately, like the tap of a finger-nail on a vase. He rang clear; he +had nothing to conceal; and where he was reserved, that is, in speaking +of the developed beauty and grace of Renée, he was transparent. She +read the sort of man he was; she could also hazard a guess as to the +man’s present state. She ventured to think him comparatively +harmless—for the hour: for she was not the woman to be hoodwinked by +man’s dark nature because she inclined to think well of a particular +man; nor was she one to trust to any man subject to temptation. The +wisdom of the Frenchwoman’s fortieth year forbade it. A land where the +war between the sexes is honestly acknowledged, and is full of +instruction, abounds in precepts; but it ill becomes the veteran to +practise rigorously what she would prescribe to young women. She may +discriminate; as thus:—Trust no man. Still, this man may be better than +that man; and it is bad policy to distrust a reasonably guileless +member of the preying sex entirely, and so to lose his good services. +Hawks have their uses in destroying vermin; and though we cannot rely +upon the taming of hawks, one tied by the leg in a garden preserves the +fruit. + +“There is a necessity for your leaving us to-morrow; M. Beauchamp?” + +“I regret to say, it is imperative, madame.” + +“My husband will congratulate me on the pleasure I have, and have long +desired, of making your acquaintance, and he will grieve that he has +not been so fortunate; he is on service in Africa. My brother, I need +not say, will deplore the mischance which has prevented him from +welcoming you. I have telegraphed to him; he is at one of the Baths in +Germany, and will come assuredly, if there is a prospect of finding you +here. None? Supposing my telegram not to fall short of him, I may count +on his being here within four days.” + +Beauchamp begged her to convey the proper expressions of his regret to +M. le Marquis. + +“And M. de Croisnel? And Roland, your old comrade and brother-in-arms? +What will be their disappointment!” she said. + +“I intend to stop for an hour at Rouen on my way back,” said Beauchamp. + +She asked if her belle-soeur was aware of the short limitation of his +visit. + +He had not mentioned it to Madame la Marquise. + +“Perhaps you may be moved by the grief of a friend: Renée may persuade +you to stay.” + +“I came imagining I could be of some use to Madame la Marquise. She +writes as if she were telegraphing.” + +“Perfectly true of her! For that matter, I saw the letter. Your looks +betray a very natural jealousy; but seeing it or not it would have been +the same: she and I have no secrets. She was, I may tell you, strictly +unable to write more words in the letter. Which brings me to inquire +what impression M. d’Henriel made on you yesterday evening.” + +“He is particularly handsome.” + +“We women think so. Did you take him to be... eccentric?” + +Beauchamp gave a French jerk of the shoulders. + +It confessed the incident of the glove to one who knew it as well as +he: but it masked the weight he was beginning to attach to that +incident, and Madame d’Auffray was misled. Truly, the Englishman may be +just such an ex-lover, uninflammable by virtue of his blood’s native +coldness; endued with the frozen vanity called pride, which does not +seek to be revenged. Under wary espionage, he might be a young woman’s +friend, though male friend of a half-abandoned wife should write +himself down morally saint, mentally sage, medically incurable, if he +would win our confidence. + +This lady of sharp intelligence was the guardian of Renée during the +foolish husband’s flights about Paris and over Europe, and, for a proof +of her consummate astuteness, Renée had no secrets and had absolute +liberty. And hitherto no man could build a boast on her reputation. The +liberty she would have had at any cost, as Madame d’Auffray knew; and +an attempt to restrict it would have created secrets. + +Near upon the breakfast-hour Renée was perceived by them going toward +the château at a walking pace. They crossed one of the garden bridges +to intercept her. She started out of some deep meditation, and raised +her whip hand to Beauchamp’s greeting. “I had forgotten to tell you, +monsieur, that I should be out for some hours in the morning.” + +“Are you aware,” said Madame d’Auffray, “that M. Beauchamp leaves us +to-morrow?” + +“So soon?” It was uttered hardly with a tone of disappointment. + +The marquise alighted, crying hold, to the stables, caressed her horse, +and sent him off with a smack on the smoking flanks to meet the groom. + +“To-morrow? That is very soon; but M. Beauchamp is engaged in an +Election, and what have we to induce him to stay?” + +“Would it not be better to tell M. Beauchamp why he was invited to +come?” rejoined Madame d’Auffray. + +The sombre light in Renée’s eyes quickened through shadowy spheres of +surprise and pain to resolution. She cried, “You have my full consent,” +and left them. + +Madame d’Auffray smiled at Beauchamp, to excuse the childishness of the +little story she was about to relate; she gave it in the essence, +without a commencement or an ending. She had in fact but two or three +hurried minutes before the breakfast-bell would ring; and the fan she +opened and shut, and at times shaded her head with, was nearly as +explicit as her tongue. + +He understood that Renée had staked her glove on his coming within a +certain number of hours to the briefest wording of invitation possible. +Owing to his detention by the storm, M. d’Henriel had won the bet, and +now insisted on wearing the glove. “He is the privileged young madman +our women make of a handsome youth,” said Madame d’Auffray. + +Where am I? thought Beauchamp—in what land, he would have phrased it, +of whirlwinds catching the wits, and whipping the passions? Calmer than +they, but unable to command them, and guessing that Renée’s errand of +the morning, by which he had lost hours of her, pertained to the glove, +he said quiveringly, “Madame la Marquise objects?” + +“We,” replied Madame d’Auffray, “contend that the glove was not loyally +won. The wager was upon your coming to the invitation, not upon your +conquering the elements. As to his flaunting the glove for a favour, I +would ask you, whom does he advertize by that? Gloves do not wear +white; which fact compromises none but the wearer. He picked it up from +the ground, and does not restore it; that is all. You see a boy who +catches at anything to placard himself. There is a compatriot of yours, +a M. Ducie, who assured us you must be with an uncle in your county of +Sussex. Of course we ran the risk of the letter missing you, but the +chance was worth a glove. Can you believe it, M. Beauchamp? it was I, +old woman as I am, I who provoked the silly wager. I have long desired +to meet you; and we have little society here, we are desperate with +loneliness, half mad with our whims. I said, that if you were what I +had heard of you, you would come to us at a word. They dared Madame la +Marquise to say the same. I wished to see the friend of Frenchmen, as +M. Roland calls you; not merely to see him—to know him, whether he is +this perfect friend whose absolute devotion has impressed my dear +sister Renée’s mind. She respects you: that is a sentiment scarcely +complimentary to the ideas of young men. She places you above human +creatures: possibly you may not dislike to be worshipped. It is not to +be rejected when one’s influence is powerful for good. But you leave us +to-morrow!” + +“I might stay...” Beauchamp hesitated to name the number of hours. He +stood divided between a sense of the bubbling shallowness of the life +about him, and a thought, grave as an eye dwelling on blood, of +sinister things below it. + +“I may stay another day or two,” he said, “if I can be of any earthly +service.” + +Madame d’Auffray bowed as to a friendly decision on his part, saying, +“It would be a thousand pities to disappoint M. Roland; and it will be +offering my brother an amicable chance. I will send him word that you +await him; at least, that you defer your departure as long as possible. +Ah! now you perceive, M. Beauchamp, now you have become aware of our +purely infantile plan to bring you over to us, how very ostensible a +punishment it would be were you to remain so short a period.” + +Having no designs, he was neither dupe nor sceptic; but he felt oddly +entangled, and the dream of his holiday had fled like morning’s beams, +as a self-deception will at a very gentle shaking. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. +THE ADVENTURE OF THE BOAT + + +Madame d’Auffray passed Renée, whispering on her way to take her seat +at the breakfast-table. + +Renée did not condescend to whisper. “Roland will be glad,” she said +aloud. + +Her low eyelids challenged Beauchamp for a look of indifference. There +was more for her to unbosom than Madame d’Auffray had revealed, but the +comparative innocence of her position in this new light prompted her to +meet him defiantly, if he chose to feel injured. He was attracted by a +happy contrast of colour between her dress and complexion, together +with a cavalierly charm in the sullen brows she lifted; and seeing the +reverse of a look of indifference on his face, after what he had heard +of her frivolousness, she had a fear that it existed. + +“Are we not to have M. d’Henriel to-day? he amuses me,” the baronne +d’Orbec remarked. + +“If he would learn that he was fashioned for that purpose!” exclaimed +little M. Livret. + +“Do not ask young men for too much head, my friend; he would cease to +be amusing.” + +“D’Henriel should have been up in the fields at ten this morning,” said +M. d’Orbec. “As to his head, I back him for a clever shot.” + +“Or a duelling-sword,” said Renée. “It is a quality, count it for what +we will. Your favourite, Madame la Baronne, is interdicted from +presenting himself here so long as he persists in offending me.” + +She was requested to explain, and, with the fair ingenuousness which +outshines innocence, she touched on the story of the glove. + +Ah! what a delicate, what an exciting, how subtle a question! + +Had M. d’Henriel the right to possess it? and, having that, had he the +right to wear it at his breast? + +Beauchamp was dragged into the discussion of the case. + +Renée waited curiously for his judgement. + +Pleading an apology for the stormy weather, which had detained him, and +for his ignorance that so precious an article was at stake, he held, +that by the terms of the wager, the glove was lost; the claim to wear +it was a matter of taste. + +“Matters of taste, monsieur, are not, I think, decided by weapons in +your country?” said M. d’Orbec. + +“We have no duelling,” said Beauchamp. + +The Frenchman imagined the confession to be somewhat humbling, and +generously added, “But you have your volunteers—a magnificent spectacle +of patriotism and national readiness for defence!” + +A shrewd pang traversed Beauchamp’s heart, as he looked back on his +country from the outside and the inside, thinking what amount of +patriotic readiness the character of the volunteering signified, in the +face of all that England has to maintain. Like a politic islander, he +allowed the patriotic spectacle to be imagined; reflecting that it did +a sort of service abroad, and had only to be unmasked at home. + +“But you surrendered the glove, marquise!” The baronne d’Orbec spoke +judicially. + +“I flung it to the ground: that made it neutral,” said Renée. + +“Hum. He wears it with the dust on it, certainly.” + +“And for how long a time,” M. Livret wished to know, “does this amusing +young man proclaim his intention of wearing the glove?” + +“Until he can see with us that his Order of Merit is utter kid,” said +Madame d’Auffray; and as she had spoken more or less neatly, +satisfaction was left residing in the ear of the assembly, and the +glove was permitted to be swept away on a fresh tide of dialogue. + +The admirable candour of Renée in publicly alluding to M. d’Henriel’s +foolishness restored a peep of his holiday to Beauchamp. Madame +d’Auffray took note of the effect it produced, and quite excused her +sister-in-law for intending to produce it; but that speaking out the +half-truth that we may put on the mask of the whole, is no new trick; +and believing as she did that Renée was in danger with the handsome +Count Henri, the practice of such a kind of honesty on her part +appeared alarming. + +Still it is imprudent to press for confidences when our friend’s heart +is manifestly trifling with sincerity. Who knows but that some foregone +reckless act or word may have superinduced the healthy shame which +cannot speak, which must disguise itself, and is honesty in that form, +but roughly troubled would resolve to rank dishonesty? So thought the +patient lady, wiser in that than in her perceptions. + +Renée made a boast of not persuading her guest to stay, avowing that +she would not willingly have him go. Praising him equably, she listened +to praise of him with animation. She was dumb and statue-like when +Count Henri’s name was mentioned. Did not this betray liking for one, +subjection to the other? Indeed, there was an Asiatic splendour of +animal beauty about M. d’Henriel that would be serpent with most women, +Madame d’Auffray conceived; why not with the deserted Renée, who adored +beauty of shape and colour, and was compassionate toward a rashness of +character that her own unnatural solitariness and quick spirit made her +emulous of? + +Meanwhile Beauchamp’s day of adieu succeeded that of his holiday, and +no adieu was uttered. The hours at Tourdestelle had a singular turn for +slipping. Interlinked and all as one they swam by, brought evening, +brought morning, never varied. They might have varied with such a +division as when flame lights up the night or a tempest shades the day, +had Renée chosen; she had that power over him. She had no wish to use +it; perhaps she apprehended what it would cause her to forfeit. She +wished him to respect her; felt that she was under the shadow of the +glove, slight though it was while it was nothing but a tale of a lady +and a glove; and her desire, like his, was that they should meet daily +and dream on, without a variation. He noticed how seldom she led him +beyond the grounds of the château. They were to make excursions when +her brother came, she said. Roland de Croisnel’s colonel, Coïn de +Grandchamp, happened to be engaged in a duel, which great business +detained Roland. It supplied Beauchamp with an excuse for staying, that +he was angry with himself for being pleased to have; so he attacked the +practice of duelling, and next the shrug, wherewith M. Livret and M. +d’Orbec sought at first to defend the foul custom, or apologize for it, +or plead for it philosophically, or altogether cast it off their +shoulders; for the literal interpretation of the shrug in argument is +beyond human capacity; it is the point of speech beyond our treasury of +language. He attacked the shrug, as he thought, very temperately; but +in controlling his native vehemence he grew, perforce of repression, +and of incompetency to deliver himself copiously in French, sarcastic. +In fine, his contrast of the pretence of their noble country to head +civilization, and its encouragement of a custom so barbarous, offended +M. d’Orbec and irritated M. Livret. + +The latter delivered a brief essay on Gallic blood; the former +maintained that Frenchmen were the best judges of their own ways and +deeds. Politeness reigned, but politeness is compelled to throw off +cloak and jacket when it steps into the arena to meet the encounter of +a bull. Beauchamp drew on their word “solidaire” to assist him in +declaring that no civilized nation could be thus independent. Imagining +himself in the France of brave ideas, he contrived to strike out sparks +of Legitimist ire around him, and found himself breathing the +atmosphere of the most primitive nursery of Toryism. Again he +encountered the shrug, and he would have it a verbal matter. M. d’Orbec +gravely recited the programme of the country party in France. M. Livret +carried the war across Channel. You English have retired from active +life, like the exhausted author, to turn critic—the critic that sneers: +unless we copy you abjectly we are execrable. And what is that sneer? +Materially it is an acrid saliva, withering where it drops; in the way +of fellowship it is a corpse-emanation. As to wit, the sneer is the +cloak of clumsiness; it is the Pharisee’s incense, the hypocrite’s +pity, the post of exaltation of the fat citizen, etc.; but, said M. +Livret, the people using it should have a care that they keep powerful: +they make no friends. He terminated with this warning to a nation not +devoid of superior merit. M. d’Orbec said less, and was less consoled +by his outburst. + +In the opinion of Mr. Vivian Ducie, present at the discussion, +Beauchamp provoked the lash; for, in the first place, a beautiful +woman’s apparent favourite should be particularly discreet in all that +he says: and next, he should have known that the Gallic shrug over +matters political is volcanic—it is the heaving of the mountain, and, +like the proverbial Russ, leaps up Tartarly at a scratch. Our +newspapers also had been flea-biting M. Livret and his countrymen of +late; and, to conclude, over in old England you may fly out against +what you will, and there is little beyond a motherly smile, a nurse’s +rebuke, or a fool’s rudeness to answer you. In quick-blooded France you +have whip for whip, sneer, sarcasm, claw, fang, tussle, in a trice; and +if you choose to comport yourself according to your insular notion of +freedom, you are bound to march out to the measured ground at an +invitation. To begin by saying that your principles are opposed to it, +naturally excites a malicious propensity to try your temper. + +A further cause, unknown to Mr. Ducie, of M. Livret’s irritation was, +that Beauchamp had vexed him on a subject peculiarly dear to him. The +celebrated Château Dianet was about to be visited by the guests at +Tourdestelle. In common with some French philosophers and English +matrons, he cherished a sentimental sad enthusiasm for royal +concubines; and when dilating upon one among them, the ruins of whose +family’s castle stood in the neighbourhood-Agrees, who was really a +kindly soul, though not virtuous—M. Livret had been traversed by +Beauchamp with questions as to the condition of the people, the +peasantry, that were sweated in taxes to support these lovely +frailties. They came oddly from a man in the fire of youth, and a +little old gentleman somewhat seduced by the melting image of his theme +might well blink at him to ask, of what flesh are you, then? His +historic harem was insulted. Personally too, the fair creature +picturesquely soiled, intrepid in her amorousness, and ultimately +absolved by repentance (a shuddering narrative of her sins under +showers of salt drops), cried to him to champion her. Excited by the +supposed cold critical mind in Beauchamp, M. Livret painted and painted +this lady, tricked her in casuistical niceties, scenes of pomp and +boudoir pathos, with many shifting sidelights and a risky word or two, +until Renée cried out, “Spare us the esprit Gaulois, M. Livret!” There +was much to make him angry with this Englishman. + +“The esprit Gaulois is the sparkle of crystal common sense, madame, and +may we never abandon it for a Puritanism that hides its face to conceal +its filthiness, like a stagnant pond,” replied M. Livret, flashing. + +“It seems, then, that there are two ways of being objectionable,” said +Renée. + +“Ah! Madame la Marquise, your wit is French,” he breathed low; “keep +your heart so!” + +Both M. Livret and M. d’Orbec had forgotten that when Count Henri +d’Henriel was received at Tourdestelle, the arrival of the Englishman +was pleasantly anticipated by them as an eclipse of the handsome boy; +but a foreign interloper is quickly dispossessed of all means of +pleasing save that one of taking his departure; and they now talked of +Count Henri’s disgrace and banishment in a very warm spirit of +sympathy, not at all seeing why it should be made to depend upon the +movements of this M. Beauchamp, as it appeared to be. Madame d’Auffray +heard some of their dialogue, and hurried with a mouth full of comedy +to Renée, who did not reproach them for silly beings, as would be done +elsewhere. On the contrary, she appreciated a scene of such absolute +comedy, recognizing it instantly as a situation plucked out of human +nature. She compared them to republicans that regretted the sovereign +they had deposed for a pretender to start up and govern them. + +“Who hurries them round to the legitimate king again!” said Madame +d’Auffray. + +Renée cast her chin up. “How, my dear?” + +“Your husband.” + +“What of him?” + +“He is returning.” + +“What brings him?” + +“You should ask who, my Renée! I was sure he would not hear of M. +Beauchamp’s being here, without an effort to return and do the honours +of the château.” + +Renée looked hard at her, saying, “How thoughtful of you! You must have +made use of the telegraph wires to inform him that M. Beauchamp was +with us.” + +“More; I made use of them to inform him that M. Beauchamp was +expected.” + +“And that was enough to bring him! He pays M. Beauchamp a wonderful +compliment.” + +“Such as he would pay to no other man, my Renée. Virtually it is the +highest of compliments to you. I say that to M. Beauchamp’s credit; for +Raoul has met him, and, whatever his personal feeling may be, must know +your friend is a man of honour.” + +“My friend is... yes, I have no reason to think otherwise,” Renée +replied. Her husband’s persistent and exclusive jealousy of Beauchamp +was the singular point in the character of one who appeared to have no +sentiment of the kind as regarded men that were much less than men of +honour. “So, then, my sister Agnès,” she said, “you suggested the +invitation of M. Beauchamp for the purpose of spurring my husband to +return! Apparently he and I are surrounded by plotters.” + +“Am I so very guilty?” said Madame d’Auffray. + +“If that mad boy, half idiot, half panther, were by chance to insult M. +Beauchamp, you would feel so.” + +“You have taken precautions to prevent their meeting; and besides, M. +Beauchamp does not fight.” + +Renée flushed crimson. + +Madame d’Auffray added, “I do not say that he is other than a perfectly +brave and chivalrous gentleman.” + +“Oh!” cried Renée, “do not say it, if ever you should imagine it. Bid +Roland speak of him. He is changed, oppressed: I did him a terrible +wrong ....” She checked herself. “But the chief thing to do is to keep +M. d’Henriel away from him. I suspect M. d’Orbec of a design to make +them clash: and you, my dear, will explain why, to flatter me. Believe +me, I thirst for flattery; I have had none since M. Beauchamp came: and +you, so acute, must have seen the want of it in my face. But you, so +skilful, Agnès, will manage these men. Do you know, Agnès, that the +pride of a woman so incredibly clever as you have shown me you are +should resent their intrigues and overthrow them. As for me, I thought +I could command M. d’Henriel, and I find he has neither reason in him +nor obedience. Singular to say, I knew him just as well a week back as +I do now, and then I liked him for his qualities—or the absence of any. +But how shall we avoid him on the road to Dianet? He is aware that we +are going.” + +“Take M. Beauchamp by boat,” said Madame d’Auffray. + +“The river winds to within a five minutes’ walk of Dianet; we could go +by boat,” Renée said musingly. “I thought of the boat. But does it not +give the man a triumph that we should seem to try to elude him? What +matter! Still, I do not like him to be the falcon, and Nevil Beauchamp +the... little bird. So it is, because we began badly, Agnès!” + +“Was it my fault?” + +“Mine. Tell me: the legitimate king returns when?” + +“In two days or three.” + +“And his rebel subjects are to address him—how?” + +Madame d’Auffray smote the point of a finger softly on her cheek. + +“Will they be pardoned?” said Renée. + +“It is for _him_ to kneel, my dearest.” + +“Legitimacy kneeling for forgiveness is a painful picture, Agnès. +Legitimacy jealous of a foreigner is an odd one. However, we are women, +born to our lot. If we could rise en masse!—but we cannot. Embrace me.” + +Madame d’Auffray embraced her, without an idea that she assisted in +performing the farewell of their confidential intimacy. + +When Renée trifled with Count Henri, it was playing with fire, and she +knew it; and once or twice she bemoaned to Agnès d’Auffray her +abandoned state, which condemned her, for the sake of the sensation of +living, to have recourse to perilous pastimes; but she was revolted, as +at a piece of treachery, that Agnès should have suggested the +invitation of Nevil Beauchamp with the secret design of winning home +her husband to protect her. This, for one reason, was because Beauchamp +gave her no notion of danger; none, therefore, of requiring protection; +and the presence of her husband could not but be hateful to him, an +undeserved infliction. To her it was intolerable that they should be +brought into contact. It seemed almost as hard that she should have to +dismiss Beauchamp to preclude their meeting. She remembered, +nevertheless, a certain desperation of mind, scarce imaginable in the +retrospect, by which, trembling, fever-smitten, scorning herself, she +had been reduced to hope for Nevil Beauchamp’s coming as for a rescue. +The night of the storm had roused her heart. Since then his perfect +friendliness had lulled, his air of thoughtfulness had interested it; +and the fancy that he, who neither reproached nor sentimentalized, was +to be infinitely compassionated, stirred up remorse. She could not tell +her friend Agnès of these feelings while her feelings were angered +against her friend. So she talked lightly of “the legitimate king,” and +they embraced: a situation of comedy quite as true as that presented by +the humble admirers of the brilliant chatelaine. + +Beauchamp had the pleasure of rowing Madame la Marquise to the short +shaded walk separating the river from Château Dianet, whither M. +d’Orbec went on horseback, and Madame d’Auffray and M. Livret were +driven. The portrait of Diane of Dianet was praised for the beauty of +the dame, a soft-fleshed acutely featured person, a +fresh-of-the-toilette face, of the configuration of head of the cat, +relieved by a delicately aquiline nose; and it could only be the cat of +fairy metamorphosis which should stand for that illustration: brows and +chin made an acceptable triangle, and eyes and mouth could be what she +pleased for mice or monarchs. M. Livret did not gainsay the impeachment +of her by a great French historian, tender to women, to frailties in +particular—yes, she was cold, perhaps grasping: but dwell upon her in +her character of woman; conceive her existing, to estimate the charm of +her graciousness. Name the two countries which alone have produced THE +WOMAN, the ideal woman, the woman of art, whose beauty, grace, and wit +offer her to our contemplation in an atmosphere above the ordinary +conditions of the world: these two countries are France and Greece! +None other give you the perfect woman, the woman who conquers time, as +she conquers men, by virtue of the divinity in her blood; and she, as +little as illustrious heroes, is to be judged by the laws and standards +of lesser creatures. In fashioning her, nature and art have worked +together: in her, poetry walks the earth. The question of good or bad +is entirely to be put aside: it is a rustic’s impertinence—a bourgeois’ +vulgarity. She is preeminent, voilà tout. Has she grace and beauty? +Then you are answered: such possessions are an assurance that her +influence in the aggregate must be for good. Thunder, destructive to +insects, refreshes earth: so she. So sang the rhapsodist. Possibly a +scholarly little French gentleman, going down the grey slopes of sixty +to second childishness, recovers a second juvenility in these +enthusiasms; though what it is that inspires our matrons to take up +with them is unimaginable. M. Livret’s ardour was a contrast to the +young Englishman’s vacant gaze at Diane, and the symbols of her +goddesship running along the walls, the bed, the cabinets, everywhere +that the chaste device could find frontage and a corner. + +M. d’Orbec remained outside the château inspecting the fish-ponds. When +they rejoined him he complimented Beauchamp semi-ironically on his +choice of the river’s quiet charms in preference to the dusty roads. +Madame de Rouaillout said, “Come, M. d’Orbec; what if you surrender +your horse to M. Beauchamp, and row me back?” He changed colour, +hesitated, and declined he had an engagement to call on M. d’Henriel. + +“When did you see him?” said she. + +He was confused. “It is not long since, madame.” + +“On the road?” + +“Coming along the road.” + +“And our glove?” + +“Madame la Marquise, if I may trust my memory, M. d’Henriel was not in +official costume.” + +Renée allowed herself to be reassured. + +A ceremonious visit that M. Livret insisted on was paid to the chapel +of Diane, where she had worshipped and laid her widowed ashes, which, +said M. Livret, the fiends of the Revolution would not let rest. + +He raised his voice to denounce them. + +It was Roland de Croisnel that answered: “The Revolution was our +grandmother, monsieur, and I cannot hear her abused.” + +Renée caught her brother by the hand. He stepped out of the chapel with +Beauchamp to embrace him; then kissed Renée, and, remarking that she +was pale, fetched flooding colour to her cheeks. He was hearty air to +them after the sentimentalism they had been hearing. Beauchamp and he +walked like loving comrades at school, questioning, answering, +chattering, laughing,—a beautiful sight to Renée, and she looked at +Agnès d’Auffray to ask her whether “this Englishman” was not one of +them in his frankness and freshness. + +Roland stopped to turn to Renée. “I met d’Henriel on my ride here,” he +said with a sharp inquisitive expression of eye that passed +immediately. + +“You rode here from Tourdestelle, then,” said Renée. + +“Has he been one of the company, marquise?” + +“Did he ride by you without speaking, Roland?” + +“Thus.” Roland described a Spanish caballero’s formallest salutation, +saying to Beauchamp, “Not the best sample of our young +Frenchman;—woman-spoiled! Not that the better kind of article need be +spoiled by them—heaven forbid that! Friend Nevil,” he spoke lower, “do +you know, you have something of the prophet in you? I remember: much +has come true. An old spoiler of women is worse than one spoiled by +them! Ah, well: and Madame Culling? and your seven-feet high uncle? And +have you a fleet to satisfy Nevil Beauchamp yet? You shall see a trial +of our new field-guns at Rouen.” + +They were separated with difficulty. + +Renée wished her brother to come in the boat; and he would have done +so, but for his objection to have his Arab bestridden by a man unknown +to him. + +“My love is a four-foot, and here’s my love,” Roland said, going +outside the gilt gate-rails to the graceful little beast, that +acknowledged his ownership with an arch and swing of the neck round to +him. + +He mounted and called, “Au revoir, M. le Capitaine.” + +“Au revoir, M. le Commandant,” cried Beauchamp. + +“Admiral and marshal, each of us in good season,” said Roland. “Thanks +to your promotion, I had a letter from my sister. Advance a grade, and +I may get another.” + +Beauchamp thought of the strange gulf now between him and the time when +he pined to be a commodore, and an admiral. The gulf was bridged as he +looked at Renée petting Roland’s horse. + +“Is there in the world so lovely a creature?” she said, and appealed +fondlingly to the beauty that brings out beauty, and, bidding it +disdain rivalry, rivalled it insomuch that in a moment of trance +Beauchamp with his bodily vision beheld her, not there, but on the Lido +of Venice, shining out of the years gone. + +Old love reviving may be love of a phantom after all. We can, if it +must revive, keep it to the limits of a ghostly love. The ship in the +Arabian tale coming within the zone of the magnetic mountain, flies all +its bolts and bars, and becomes sheer timbers, but that is the +carelessness of the ship’s captain; and hitherto Beauchamp could +applaud himself for steering with prudence, while Renée’s attractions +warned more than they beckoned. She was magnetic to him as no other +woman was. Then whither his course but homeward? + +After they had taken leave of their host and hostess of Château Dianet, +walking across a meadow to a line of charmilles that led to the +river-side, he said, “Now I have seen Roland I shall have to decide +upon going.” + +“Wantonly won is deservedly lost,” said Renée. “But do not disappoint +my Roland much because of his foolish sister. Is he not looking +handsome? And he is young to be a commandant, for we have no interest +at this Court. They kept him out of the last war! My father expects to +find you at Tourdestelle, and how account to him for your hurried +flight? save with the story of that which brought you to us!” + +“The glove? I shall beg for the fellow to it before I depart, +marquise.” + +“You perceived my disposition to light-headedness, monsieur, when I was +a girl.” + +“I said that I—But the past is dust. Shall I ever see you in England?” + +“That country seems to frown on me. But if I do not go there, nor you +come here, except to imperious mysterious invitations, which will not +be repeated, the future is dust as well as the past: for me, at least. +Dust here, dust there!—if one could be like a silk-worm, and live lying +on the leaf one feeds on, it would be a sort of answer to the +riddle—living out of the dust, and in the present. I find none in my +religion. No doubt, Madame de Brézé did: why did you call Diane so to +M. Livret?” + +She looked at him smiling as they came out of the shadow of the clipped +trees. He was glancing about for the boat. + +“The boat is across the river,” Renée said, in a voice that made him +seek her eyes for an explanation of the dead sound. She was very pale. +“You have perfect command of yourself? For my sake!” she said. + +He looked round. + +Standing up in the boat, against the opposite bank, and leaning with +crossed legs on one of the sculls planted in the gravel of the river, +Count Henri d’Henriel’s handsome figure presented itself to Beauchamp’s +gaze. + +With a dryness that smacked of his uncle Everard Romfrey, Beauchamp +said of the fantastical posture of the young man, “One can do that on +fresh water.” + +Renée did not comprehend the sailor-sarcasm of the remark; but she also +commented on the statuesque appearance of Count Henri: “Is the pose for +photography or for sculpture?” + +Neither of them showed a sign of surprise or of impatience. + +M. d’Henriel could not maintain the attitude. He uncrossed his legs +deliberately, drooped hat in hand, and came paddling over; apologized +indolently, and said, “I am not, I believe, trespassing on the grounds +of Tourdestelle, Madame la Marquise!” + +“You happen to be in my boat, M. le Comte,” said Renée. + +“Permit me, madame.” He had set one foot on shore, with his back to +Beauchamp, and reached a hand to assist her step into the boat. + +Beauchamp caught fast hold of the bows while Renée laid a finger on +Count Henri’s shoulder to steady herself. + +The instant she had taken her seat, Count Henri dashed the scull’s +blade at the bank to push off with her, but the boat was fast. His +manœuvre had been foreseen. Beauchamp swung on board like the last +seaman of a launch, and crouched as the boat rocked away to the stream; +and still Count Henri leaned on the scull, not in a chosen attitude, +but for positive support. He had thrown his force into the blow, to +push off triumphantly, and leave his rival standing. It occurred that +the boat’s brief resistance and rocking away agitated his artificial +equipoise, and, by the operation of inexorable laws, the longer he +leaned across an extending surface the more was he dependent; so that +when the measure of the water exceeded the length of his failing +support on land, there was no help for it: he pitched in. His grimace +of chagrin at the sight of Beauchamp securely established, had scarcely +yielded to the grimness of feature of the man who feels he must go, as +he took the plunge; and these two emotions combined to make an +extraordinary countenance. + +He went like a gallant gentleman; he threw up his heels to clear the +boat, dropping into about four feet of water, and his first remark on +rising was, “I trust, madame, I have not had the misfortune to splash +you.” + +Then he waded to the bank, scrambled to his feet, and drew out his +moustachios to their curving ends. Renée nodded sharply to Beauchamp to +bid him row. He, with less of wisdom, having seized the floating scull +abandoned by Count Henri, and got it ready for the stroke, said a word +of condolence to the dripping man. + +Count Henri’s shoulders and neck expressed a kind of negative that, +like a wet dog’s shake of the head, ended in an involuntary whole +length shudder, dog-like and deplorable to behold. He must have been +conscious of this miserable exhibition of himself; he turned to +Beauchamp: “You are, I am informed, a sailor, monsieur. I compliment +you on your naval tactics: our next meeting will be on land. Au revoir, +monsieur. Madame la Marquise, I have the honour to salute you.” + +With these words he retreated. + +“Row quickly, I beg of you,” Renée said to Beauchamp. Her desire was to +see Roland, and open her heart to her brother; for now it had to be +opened. Not a minute must be lost to prevent further mischief. And who +was guilty? she. Her heart clamoured of her guilt to waken a cry of +innocence. A disdainful pity for the superb young savage just made +ludicrous, relieved him of blame, implacable though he was. He was +nothing; an accident—a fool. But he might become a terrible instrument +of punishment. The thought of that possibility gave it an aspect of +retribution, under which her cry of innocence was insufferable in its +feebleness. It would have been different with her if Beauchamp had +taken advantage of her fever of anxiety, suddenly appeased by the sight +of him on the evening of his arrival at Tourdestelle after the storm, +to attempt a renewal of their old broken love-bonds. Then she would +have seen only a conflict between two men, neither of whom could claim +a more secret right than the other to be called her lover, and of whom +both were on a common footing, and partly despicable. But Nevil +Beauchamp had behaved as her perfect true friend, in the character she +had hoped for when she summoned him. The sense of her guilt lay in the +recognition that he had saved her. From what? From the consequences of +delirium rather than from love—surely delirium, founded on delusion; +love had not existed. She had said to Count Henri, “You speak to me of +love. I was beloved when I was a girl, before my marriage, and for +years I have not seen or corresponded with the man who loved me, and I +have only to lift my finger now and he will come to me, and not once +will he speak to me of love.” Those were the words originating the +wager of the glove. But what of her, if Nevil Beauchamp had not come? + +Her heart jumped, and she blushed ungovernably in his face,—as if he +were seeing her withdraw her foot from the rock’s edge, and had that +instant rescued her. But how came it she had been so helpless? She +could ask; she could not answer. + +Thinking, talking to her heart, was useless. The deceiver simply +feigned utter condemnation to make partial comfort acceptable. She +burned to do some act of extreme self-abasement that should bring an +unwonted degree of wrath on her externally, and so re-entitle her to +consideration in her own eyes. She burned to be interrogated, to have +to weep, to be scorned, abused, and forgiven, that she might say she +did not deserve pardon. Beauchamp was too English, evidently too blind, +for the description of judge-accuser she required; one who would worry +her without mercy, until—disgraced by the excess of torture +inflicted—he should reinstate her by as much as he had overcharged his +accusation, and a little more. Reasonably enough, instinctively in +fact, she shunned the hollow of an English ear. A surprise was in +reserve for her. + +Beauchamp gave up rowing. As he rested on the sculls, his head was bent +and turned toward the bank. Renée perceived an over-swollen monster +gourd that had strayed from a garden adjoining the river, and hung +sliding heavily down the bank on one greenish yellow cheek, in +prolonged contemplation of its image in the mirror below. Apparently +this obese Narcissus enchained his attention. + +She tapped her foot. “Are you tired of rowing, monsieur?” + +“It was exactly here,” said he, “that you told me you expected your +husband’s return.” + +She glanced at the gourd, bit her lip, and, colouring, said, “At what +point of the river did I request you to congratulate me on it?” + +She would not have said that, if she had known the thoughts at work +within him. + +He set the boat swaying from side to side, and at once the hugeous +reflection of that conceivably self-enamoured bulk quavered and +distended, and was shattered in a thousand dancing fragments, to +re-unite and recompose its maudlin air of imaged satisfaction. + +She began to have a vague idea that he was indulging grotesque fancies. + +Very strangely, the ridiculous thing, in the shape of an over-stretched +likeness, that she never would have seen had he indicated it directly, +became transfused from his mind to hers by his abstract, half-amused +observation of the great dancing gourd—that capering antiquity, +lumbering volatility, wandering, self-adored, gross bald Cupid, elatest +of nondescripts! Her senses imagined the impressions agitating +Beauchamp’s, and exaggerated them beyond limit; and when he amazed her +with a straight look into her eyes, and the words, “Better let it be a +youth—and live, than fall back to that!” she understood him +immediately; and, together with her old fear of his impetuosity and +downrightness, came the vivid recollection, like a bright finger +pointing upon darkness, of what foul destiny, magnified by her present +abhorrence of it, he would have saved her from in the days of Venice +and Touraine, and unto what loathly example of the hideous grotesque +she, in spite of her lover’s foresight on her behalf, had become +allied. + +Face to face as they sat, she had no defence for her scarlet cheeks; +her eyes wavered. + +“We will land here; the cottagers shall row the boat up,” she said. + +“Somewhere—anywhere,” said Beauchamp. “But I must speak. I will tell +you now. I do not think you to blame—barely; not in my sight; though no +man living would have suffered as I should. Probably some days more and +you would have been lost. You looked for me! Trust your instinct now +I’m with you as well as when I’m absent. Have you courage? that’s the +question. You have years to live. Can you live them in this place—with +honour? and alive really?” + +Renée’s eyes grew wide; she tried to frown, and her brows merely +twitched; to speak, and she was inarticulate. His madness, miraculous +penetration, and the super-masculine charity in him, unknown to the +world of young men in their treatment of women, excited, awed, and +melted her. He had seen the whole truth of her relations with M. +d’Henriel!—the wickedness of them in one light, the innocence in +another; and without prompting a confession he forgave her. Could she +believe it? This was love, and manly love. + +She yearned to be on her feet, to feel the possibility of an escape +from him. + +She pointed to a landing. He sprang to the bank. “It could end in +nothing else,” he said, “unless you beat cold to me. And now I have +your hand, Renée! It’s the hand of a living woman, you have no need to +tell me that; but faithful to her comrade! I can swear it for +her—faithful to a _true_ alliance! You are not married, you are simply +chained: and you are terrorized. What a perversion of you it is! It +wrecks you. But with me? Am I not your lover? You and I are one life. +What have we suffered for but to find this out and act on it? Do I not +know that a woman lives, and is not the rooted piece of vegetation +hypocrites and tyrants expect her to be? Act on it, I say; own me, +break the chains, come to me; say, Nevil Beauchamp or death! And death +for you? But you are poisoned and thwart-eddying, as you live now: +worse, shaming the Renée I knew. Ah—Venice! But now we are both of us +wiser and stronger: we have gone through fire. Who foretold it? This +day, and this misery and perversion that we can turn to joy, if we +will—if you will! No heart to dare is no heart to love!—answer that! +Shall I see you cower away from me again? Not this time!” + +He swept on in a flood, uttered mad things, foolish things, and things +of an insight electrifying to her. Through the cottager’s garden, +across a field, and within the park gates of Tourdestelle it continued +unceasingly; and deeply was she won by the rebellious note in all that +he said, deeply too by his disregard of the vulgar arts of wooers: she +detected none. He did not speak so much to win as to help her to see +with her own orbs. Nor was it roughly or chidingly, though it was +absolutely, that he stripped her of the veil a wavering woman will keep +to herself from her heart’s lord if she can. + +They arrived long after the boat at Tourdestelle, and Beauchamp might +believe he had prevailed with her, but for her forlorn repetition of +the question he had put to her idly and as a new idea, instead of +significantly, with a recollection and a doubt “Have I courage, Nevil?” + +The grain of common sense in cowardice caused her to repeat it when her +reason was bedimmed, and passion assumed the right to show the way of +right and wrong. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. +MR. BLACKBURN TUCKHAM + + +Some time after Beauchamp had been seen renewing his canvass in +Bevisham a report reached Mount Laurels that he was lame of a leg. The +wits of the opposite camp revived the FRENCH MARQUEES, but it was +generally acknowledged that he had come back without the lady: she was +invisible. Cecilia Halkett rode home with her father on a dusky Autumn +evening, and found the card of Commander Beauchamp awaiting her. He +might have stayed to see her, she thought. Ladies are not customarily +so very late in returning from a ride on chill evenings of Autumn. Only +a quarter of an hour was between his visit and her return. The +shortness of the interval made it appear the deeper gulf. She noticed +that her father particularly inquired of the man-servant whether +Captain Beauchamp limped. It seemed a piece of kindly anxiety on his +part. The captain was mounted, the man said. Cecilia was conscious of +rumours being abroad relating to Nevil’s expedition to France; but he +had enemies, and was at war with them, and she held herself indifferent +to tattle. This card bearing his name, recently in his hand, was much +more insidious and precise. She took it to her room to look at it. +Nothing but his name and naval title was inscribed; no pencilled line; +she had not expected to discover one. The simple card was her dark +light, as a handkerchief, a flower, a knot of riband, has been for men +luridly illuminated by such small sparks to fling their beams on +shadows and read the monstrous things for truths. Her purer virgin +blood was not inflamed. She read the signification of the card sadly as +she did clearly. What she could not so distinctly imagine was, how he +could reconcile the devotion to his country, which he had taught her to +put her faith in, with his unhappy subjection to Madame de Rouaillout. +How could the nobler sentiment exist side by side with one that was +lawless? Or was the wildness characteristic of his political views +proof of a nature inclining to disown moral ties? She feared so; he did +not speak of the clergy respectfully. Reading in the dark, she was +forced to rely on her social instincts, and she distrusted her personal +feelings as much as she could, for she wished to know the truth of him; +anything, pain and heartrending, rather than the shutting of the eyes +in an unworthy abandonment to mere emotion and fascination. Cecilia’s +love could not be otherwise given to a man, however near she might be +drawn to love—though she should suffer the pangs of love cruelly. + +She placed his card in her writing-desk; she had his likeness there. +Commander Beauchamp encouraged the art of photography, as those that +make long voyages do, in reciprocating what they petition their friends +for. Mrs. Rosamund Culling had a whole collection of photographs of +him, equal to a visual history of his growth in chapters, from boyhood +to midshipmanship and to manhood. The specimen possessed by Cecilia was +one of a couple that Beauchamp had forwarded to Mrs. Grancey Lespel on +the day of his departure for France, and was a present from that lady, +purchased, like so many presents, at a cost Cecilia would have paid +heavily in gold to have been spared, namely, a public blush. She was +allowed to make her choice, and she chose the profile, repeating a +remark of Mrs. Culling’s, that it suggested an arrow-head in the +upflight; whereupon Mr. Stukely Culbrett had said, “Then there is the +man, for he is undoubtedly a projectile”; nor were politically-hostile +punsters on an arrow-head inactive. But Cecilia was thinking of the +side-face she (less intently than Beauchamp at hers) had glanced at +during the drive into Bevisham. At that moment, she fancied Madame de +Rouaillout might be doing likewise; and oh that she had the portrait of +the French lady as well! + +Next day her father tossed her a photograph of another gentleman, +coming out of a letter he had received from old Mrs. Beauchamp. He +asked her opinion of it. She said, “I think he would have suited +Bevisham better than Captain Baskelett.” Of the original, who presented +himself at Mount Laurels in the course of the week, she had nothing to +say, except that he was very like the photograph, very unlike Nevil +Beauchamp. “Yes, there I’m of your opinion,” her father observed. The +gentleman was Mr. Blackburn Tuckham, and it was amusing to find an +exuberant Tory in one who was the reverse of the cavalier type. Nevil +and he seemed to have been sorted to the wrong sides. Mr. Tuckham had a +round head, square flat forehead, and ruddy face; he stood as if his +feet claimed the earth under them for his own, with a certain shortness +of leg that detracted from the majesty of his resemblance to our Eighth +Harry, but increased his air of solidity; and he was authoritative in +speaking. “Let me set you right, sir,” he said sometimes to Colonel +Halkett, and that was his modesty. “You are altogether wrong,” Miss +Halkett heard herself informed, which was his courtesy. He examined +some of her water-colour drawings before sitting down to dinner, +approved of them, but thought it necessary to lay a broad finger on +them to show their defects. On the question of politics, “I venture to +state,” he remarked, in anything but the tone of a venture, “that no +educated man of ordinary sense who has visited our colonies will come +back a Liberal.” As for a man of sense and education being a Radical, +he scouted the notion with a pooh sufficient to awaken a vessel in the +doldrums. He said carelessly of Commander Beauchamp, that he might +think himself one. Either the Radical candidate for Bevisham stood +self-deceived, or—the other supposition. Mr. Tuckham would venture to +state that no English gentleman, exempt from an examination by order of +the Commissioners of Lunacy, could be sincerely a Radical. “Not a bit +of it; nonsense,” he replied to Miss Halkett’s hint at the existence of +Radical views; “that is, those views are out of politics; they are +matters for the police. Dutch dykes are built to shut away the sea from +cultivated land, and of course it’s a part of the business of the Dutch +Government to keep up the dykes,—and of ours to guard against the mob; +but that is only a political consideration after the mob has been +allowed to undermine our defences.” + +“They speak,” said Miss Halkett, “of educating the people to fit them—” + +“They speak of commanding the winds and tides,” he cut her short, with +no clear analogy; “wait till we have a storm. It’s a delusion amounting +to dementedness to suppose, that with the people inside our defences, +we can be taming them and tricking them. As for sending them to school +after giving them power, it’s like asking a wild beast to sit down to +dinner with us—he wants the whole table and us too. The best education +for the people is government. They’re beginning to see that in +Lancashire at last. I ran down to Lancashire for a couple of days on my +landing, and I’m thankful to say Lancashire is preparing to take a step +back. Lancashire leads the country. Lancashire men see what this +Liberalism has done for the Labour-market.” + +“Captain Beauchamp considers that the political change coming over the +minds of the manufacturers is due to the large fortunes they have +made,” said Miss Halkett, maliciously associating a Radical prophet +with him. + +He was unaffected by it, and continued: “Property is ballast as well as +treasure. I call property funded good sense. I would give it every +privilege. If we are to speak of patriotism, I say the possession of +property guarantees it. I maintain that the lead of men of property is +in most cases sure to be the safe one.” + +“_I_ think so,” Colonel Halkett interposed, and he spoke as a man of +property. + +Mr. Tuckham grew fervent in his allusions to our wealth and our +commerce. Having won the race and gained the prize, shall we let it +slip out of our grasp? Upon this topic his voice descended to tones of +priestlike awe: for are we not the envy of the world? Our wealth is +countless, fabulous. It may well inspire veneration. And we have won it +with our hands, thanks (he implied it so) to our religion. We are rich +in money and industry, in those two things only, and the corruption of +an energetic industry is constantly threatened by the profusion of +wealth giving it employment. This being the case, either your Radicals +do not know the first conditions of human nature, or they do; and if +they do they are traitors, and the Liberals opening the gates to them +are fools: and some are knaves. We perish as a Great Power if we cease +to look sharp ahead, hold firm together, and make the utmost of what we +possess. The word for the performance of those duties is Toryism: a +word with an older flavour than Conservatism, and Mr. Tuckham preferred +it. By all means let workmen be free men but a man must earn his +freedom daily, or he will become a slave in some form or another: and +the way to earn it is by work and obedience to right direction. In a +country like ours, open on all sides to the competition of intelligence +and strength, with a Press that is the voice of all parties and of +every interest; in a country offering to your investments three and a +half and more per cent., secure as the firmament! + +He perceived an amazed expression on Miss Halkett’s countenance; and +“Ay,” said he, “that means the certainty of food to millions of mouths, +and comforts, if not luxuries, to half the population. A safe +percentage on savings is the basis of civilization.” + +But he had bruised his eloquence, for though you may start a sermon +from stones to hit the stars, he must be a practised orator who shall +descend out of the abstract to take up a heavy lump of the concrete +without unseating himself, and he stammered and came to a flat ending: +“In such a country—well, I venture to say, we have a right to condemn +in advance disturbers of the peace, and they must show very good cause +indeed for not being summarily held—to account for their conduct.” + +The allocution was not delivered in the presence of an audience other +than sympathetic, and Miss Halkett rightly guessed that it was intended +to strike Captain Beauchamp by ricochet. He puffed at the mention of +Beauchamp’s name. He had read a reported speech or two of Beauchamp’s, +and shook his head over a quotation of the stuff, as though he would +have sprung at him like a lion, but for his enrolment as a constable. + +Not a whit the less did Mr. Tuckham drink his claret relishingly, and +he told stories incidental to his travels now and then, commended the +fishing here, the shooting there, and in some few places the cookery, +with much bright emphasis when it could be praised; it appeared to be +an endearing recollection to him. Still, as a man of progress, he +declared his belief that we English would ultimately turn out the best +cooks, having indubitably the best material. “Our incomprehensible +political pusillanimity” was the one sad point about us: we had been +driven from surrender to surrender. + +“Like geese upon a common, I have heard it said,” Miss Halkett assisted +him to Dr. Shrapnel’s comparison. + +Mr. Tuckham laughed, and half yawned and sighed, “Dear me!” + +His laughter was catching, and somehow more persuasive of the soundness +of the man’s heart and head than his remarks. + +She would have been astonished to know that a gentleman so uncourtly, +if not uncouth—judged by the standard of the circle she moved in—and so +unskilled in pleasing the sight and hearing of ladies as to treat them +like junior comrades, had raised the vow within himself on seeing her: +You, or no woman! + +The colonel delighted in him, both as a strong and able young fellow, +and a refreshingly aggressive recruit of his party, who was for +onslaught, and invoked common sense, instead of waving the flag of +sentiment in retreat; a very horse-artillery man of Tories. Regretting +immensely that Mr. Tuckham had not reached England earlier, that he +might have occupied the seat for Bevisham, about to be given to Captain +Baskelett, Colonel Halkett set up a contrast of Blackburn Tuckham and +Nevil Beauchamp; a singular instance of unfairness, his daughter +thought, considering that the distinct contrast presented by the +circumstances was that of Mr. Tuckham and Captain Baskelett. + +“It seems to me, papa,—that you are contrasting the idealist and the +realist,” she said. + +“Ah, well, we don’t want the idealist in politics,” muttered the +colonel. + +Latterly he also had taken to shaking his head over Nevil: Cecilia +dared not ask him why. + +Mr. Tuckham arrived at Mount Laurels on the eve of the Nomination day +in Bevisham. An article in the Bevisham Gazette calling upon all true +Liberals to demonstrate their unanimity by a multitudinous show of +hands, he ascribed to the writing of a child of Erin; and he was highly +diverted by the Liberal’s hiring of Paddy to “pen and spout” for him. +“A Scotchman manages, and Paddy does the sermon for _all_ their +journals,” he said off-hand; adding: “And the English are the +compositors, I suppose.” You may take that for an instance of the +national spirit of Liberal newspapers! + +“Ah!” sighed the colonel, as at a case clearly demonstrated against +them. + +A drive down to Bevisham to witness the ceremony of the nomination in +the town-hall sobered Mr. Tuckham’s disposition to generalize. +Beauchamp had the show of hands, and to say with Captain Baskelett, +that they were a dirty majority, was beneath Mr. Tuckham’s verbal +antagonism. He fell into a studious reserve, noting everything, +listening to everybody, greatly to Colonel Halkett’s admiration of one +by nature a talker and a thunderer. + +The show of hands Mr. Seymour Austin declared to be the most delusive +of electoral auspices; and it proved so. A little later than four +o’clock in the afternoon of the election-day, Cecilia received a +message from her father telling her that both of the Liberals were +headed; “Beauchamp nowhere.” + +Mrs. Grancey Lespel was the next herald of Beauchamp’s defeat. She +merely stated the fact that she had met the colonel and Mr. Blackburn +Tuckham driving on the outskirts of the town, and had promised to bring +Cecilia the final numbers of the poll. Without naming them, she +unrolled the greater business in her mind. + +“A man who in the middle of an Election goes over to France to fight a +duel, can hardly expect to win; he has all the morality of an English +borough opposed to him,” she said; and seeing the young lady stiffen: +“Oh! the duel is positive,” she dropped her voice. “With the husband. +Who else could it be? And returns invalided. That is evidence. My +nephew Palmet has it from Vivian Ducie, and he is acquainted with her +tolerably intimately, and the story is, she was overtaken in her flight +in the night, and the duel followed at eight o’clock in the morning; +but her brother insisted on fighting for Captain Beauchamp, and I +cannot tell you how—but _his_ place in it I can’t explain—there was a +beau jeune homme, and it’s quite possible that _he_ should have been +the person to stand up against the marquis. At any rate, he insulted +Captain Beauchamp, or thought your hero had insulted him, and the duel +was with one or the other. It matters exceedingly little with whom, if +a duel was fought, and you see we have quite established that.” + +“I hope it is not true,” said Cecilia. + +“My dear, that is the Christian thing to do,” said Mrs. Lespel. +“Duelling is horrible: though those Romfreys!—and the Beauchamps were +just as bad, or nearly. Colonel Richard fought for a friend’s wife or +sister. But in these days duelling is incredible. It was an inhuman +practice always, and it is now worse—it is a breach of manners. I would +hope it is not true; and you may mean that I have it from Lord Palmet. +But I know Vivian Ducie as well as I know my nephew, and if he +distinctly mentions an occurrence, we may too surely rely on the truth +of it; he is not a man to spread mischief. Are you unaware that he met +Captain Beauchamp at the château of the marquise? The whole story was +acted under his eyes. He had only to take up his pen. Generally he +favours me with his French gossip. I suppose there were circumstances +in this affair more suitable to Palmet than to me. He wrote a +description of Madame de Rouaillout that set Palmet strutting about for +an hour. I have no doubt she must be a very beautiful woman, for a +Frenchwoman: not regular features; expressive, capricious. Vivian Ducie +lays great stress on her eyes and eyebrows, and, I think, her hair. +With a Frenchwoman’s figure, that is enough to make men crazy. He says +her husband deserves—but what will not young men write? It is deeply to +be regretted that Englishmen abroad—women the same, I fear—get the +Continental tone in morals. But how Captain Beauchamp could expect to +carry on an Election and an intrigue together, only a head like his can +tell us. Grancey is in high indignation with him. It does not concern +the Election, you can imagine. Something that man Dr. Shrapnel has +done, which he says Captain Beauchamp could have prevented. Quarrels of +men! I have instructed Palmet to write to Vivian Ducie for a photograph +of Madame de Rouaillout. Do you know, one has a curiosity to see the +face of the woman for whom a man ruins himself. But I say again, he +ought to be married.” + +“That there may be two victims?” Cecilia said it smiling. + +She was young in suffering, and thought, as the unseasoned and +inexperienced do, that a mask is a concealment. + +“Married—settled; to have him bound in honour,” said Mrs. Lespel. “I +had a conversation with him when he was at Itchincope; and his look, +and what I know of his father, that gallant and handsome Colonel +Richard Beauchamp, would give one a kind of confidence in him; +supposing always that he is not struck with one of those deadly +passions that are like snakes, like magic. I positively believe in +them. I have seen them. And if they end, they end as if the man were +burnt out, and was ashes inside; as you see Mr. Stukely Culbrett, all +cynicism. You would not now suspect him of a passion! It is true. Oh, I +know it! That is what the men go to. The women die. Vera Winter died at +twenty-three. Caroline Ormond was hardly older. You know her story; +everybody knows it. The most singular and convincing case was that of +Lord Alfred Burnley and Lady Susan Gardiner, wife of the general; and +there was an instance of two similarly afflicted—a very rare case, most +rare: they never could meet to part! It was almost ludicrous. It is now +quite certain that they did not conspire to meet. At last the absolute +fatality became so well understood by the persons immediately +interested—You laugh?” + +“Do I laugh?” said Cecilia. + +“We should all know the world, my dear, and you are a strong head. The +knowledge is only dangerous for fools. And if romance is occasionally +ridiculous, as I own it can be, humdrum, I protest, is everlastingly +so. By-the-by, I should have told you that Captain Beauchamp was one +hundred and ninety below Captain Baskelett when the state of the poll +was handed to me. The gentleman driving with your father compared the +Liberals to a parachute cut away from the balloon. Is he army or navy?” + +“He is a barrister, and some cousin of Captain Beauchamp.” + +“I should not have taken him for a Beauchamp,” said Mrs. Lespel; and, +resuming her worldly sagacity, “I should not like to be in opposition +to that young man.” + +She seemed to have a fancy unexpressed regarding Mr. Tuckham. Reminding +herself that she might be behind time at Itchincope, where the guests +would be numerous that evening, and the song of triumph loud, with +Captain Baskelett to lead it, she kissed the young lady she had +unintentionally been torturing so long, and drove away. + +Cecilia hoped it was not true. Her heart sank heavily under the belief +that it was. She imagined the world abusing Nevil and casting him out, +as those electors of Bevisham had just done, and impulsively she +pleaded for him, and became drowned in criminal blushes that forced her +to defend herself with a determination not to believe the dreadful +story, though she continued mitigating the wickedness of it; as if, by +a singular inversion of the fact, her clear good sense excused, and it +was her heart that condemned him. She dwelt fondly on an image of the +“gallant and handsome Colonel Richard Beauchamp,” conjured up in her +mind from the fervour of Mrs. Lespel when speaking of Nevil’s father, +whose chivalry threw a light on the son’s, and whose errors, condoned +by time, and with a certain brilliancy playing above them, interceded +strangely on behalf of Nevil. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. +A SHORT SIDELOOK AT THE ELECTION + + +The brisk Election-day, unlike that wearisome but instructive canvass +of the Englishman in his castle vicatim, teaches little; and its +humours are those of a badly managed Christmas pantomime without a +columbine—old tricks, no graces. Nevertheless, things hang together so +that it cannot be passed over with a bare statement of the fact of the +Liberal-Radical defeat in Bevisham: the day was not without fruit in +time to come for him whom his commiserating admirers of the non-voting +sex all round the borough called the poor dear commander. Beauchamp’s +holiday out of England had incited Dr. Shrapnel to break a positive +restriction put upon him by Jenny Denham, and actively pursue the +canvass and the harangue in person; by which conduct, as Jenny had +foreseen, many temperate electors were alienated from Commander +Beauchamp, though no doubt the Radicals were made compact: for they may +be the skirmishing faction—poor scattered fragments, none of them +sufficiently downright for the other; each outstripping each; +rudimentary emperors, elementary prophets, inspired physicians, +nostrum-devouring patients, whatsoever you will; and still here and +there a man shall arise to march them in close columns, if they can but +trust him; in perfect subordination, a model even for Tories while they +keep shoulder to shoulder. And to behold such a disciplined body is +intoxicating to the eye of a leader accustomed to count ahead upon +vapourish abstractions, and therefore predisposed to add a couple of +noughts to every tangible figure in his grasp. Thus will a realized +fifty become five hundred or five thousand to him: the very sense of +number is instinct with multiplication in his mind; and those years far +on in advance, which he has been looking to with some fatigue to the +optics, will suddenly and rollickingly roll up to him at the shutting +of his eyes in a temporary fit of gratification. So, by looking and by +not looking, he achieves his phantom victory—embraces his cloud. + +Dr. Shrapnel conceived that the day was to be a Radical success; and +he, a citizen aged and exercised in reverses, so rounded by the habit +of them indeed as to tumble and recover himself on the wind of the blow +that struck him, was, it must be acknowledged, staggered and cast down +when he saw Beauchamp drop, knowing full well his regiment had polled +to a man. Radicals poll early; they would poll at cockcrow if they +might; they dance on the morning. As for their chagrin at noon, you +will find descriptions of it in the poet’s Inferno. They are for +lifting our clay soil on a lever of Archimedes, and are not great +mathematicians. They have perchance a foot of our earth, and +perpetually do they seem to be producing an effect, perpetually does +the whole land roll back on them. You have not surely to be reminded +that it hurts them; the weight is immense. Dr. Shrapnel, however, +speedily looked out again on his vast horizon, though prostrate. He +regained his height of stature with no man’s help. Success was but +postponed for a generation or two. Is it so very distant? Gaze on it +with the eye of our parent orb! “I shall not see it here; you may,” he +said to Jenny Denham; and he fortified his outlook by saying to Mr. +Lydiard that the Tories of our time walked, or rather stuck, in the +track of the Radicals of a generation back. Note, then, that Radicals, +always marching to the triumph, never taste it; and for Tories it is +Dead Sea fruit, ashes in their mouths! Those Liberals, those +temporisers, compromisers, a concourse of atoms! glorify themselves in +the animal satisfaction of sucking the juice of the fruit, for which +they pay with their souls. They have no true cohesion, for they have no +vital principle. + +Mr. Lydiard being a Liberal, bade the doctor not to forget the work of +the Liberals, who touched on Tory and Radical with a pretty steady +swing, from side to side, in the manner of the pendulum of a clock, +which is the clock’s life, remember that. The Liberals are the +professors of the practicable in politics. + +“A suitable image for time-servers!” Dr. Shrapnel exclaimed, intolerant +of any mention of the Liberals as a party, especially in the hour of +Radical discomfiture, when the fact that compromisers should exist +exasperates men of a principle. “Your Liberals are the band of Pyrrhus, +an army of bastards, mercenaries professing the practicable for pay. +They know us the motive force, the Tories the resisting power, and they +feign to aid us in battering our enemy, that they may stop the shock. +We fight, they profit. What are they? Stranded Whigs, crotchetty +manufacturers; dissentient religionists; the half-minded, the +hare-hearted; the I would and I would-not—shifty creatures, with +youth’s enthusiasm decaying in them, and a purse beginning to jingle; +fearing lest we do too much for safety, our enemy not enough for +safety. They a party? Let them take action and see! _We_ stand a +thousand defeats; they not one! Compromise begat them. Once let them +leave sucking the teats of compromise, yea, once put on the air of men +who fight and die for a cause, they fly to pieces. And whither the +fragments? Chiefly, my friend, into the _Tory_ ranks. Seriously so I +say. You between future and past are for the present—but with the +hunted look behind of all godless livers in the present. You Liberals +are Tories with foresight, Radicals without faith. You start, in fear +of Toryism, on an errand of Radicalism, and in fear of Radicalism to +Toryism you draw back. There is your pendulum-swing!” + +Lectures to this effect were delivered by Dr. Shrapnel throughout the +day, for his private spiritual solace it may be supposed, unto Lydiard, +Turbot, Beauchamp, or whomsoever the man chancing to be near him, and +never did Sir Oracle wear so extraordinary a garb. The favourite +missiles of the day were flour-bags. Dr. Shrapnel’s uncommon height, +and his outrageous long brown coat, would have been sufficient to +attract them, without the reputation he had for desiring to subvert +everything old English. The first discharges gave him the appearance of +a thawing snowman. Drenchings of water turned the flour to ribs of +paste, and in colour at least he looked legitimately the cook’s own +spitted hare, escaped from her basting ladle, elongated on two legs. It +ensued that whenever he was caught sight of, as he walked unconcernedly +about, the young street-professors of the decorative arts were seized +with a frenzy to add their share to the whitening of him, until he +might have been taken for a miller that had gone bodily through his +meal. The popular cry proclaimed him a ghost, and he walked like one, +impassive, blanched, and silent amid the uproar of mobs of jolly +ruffians, for each of whom it was a point of honour to have a shy at +old Shrapnel. + +Clad in this preparation of pie-crust, he called from time to time at +Beauchamp’s hotel, and renewed his monologue upon that Radical empire +in the future which was for ever in the future for the pioneers of men, +yet not the less their empire. “Do we live in our bodies?” quoth he, +replying to his fiery interrogation: “Ay, the Tories! the Liberals!” + +_They_ lived in their bodies. Not one syllable of personal consolation +did he vouchsafe to Beauchamp. He did not imagine it could be required +by a man who had bathed in the pure springs of Radicalism; and it +should be remarked that Beauchamp deceived him by imitating his air of +happy abstraction, or subordination of the faculties to a distant view, +comparable to a ship’s crew in difficulties receiving the report of the +man at the masthead. Beauchamp deceived Miss Denham too, and himself, +by saying, as if he cherished the philosophy of defeat, besides the +resolution to fight on: + +“It’s only a skirmish lost, and that counts for nothing in a battle +without end: it must be incessant.” + +“But does incessant battling keep the intellect clear?” was her +memorable answer. + +He glanced at Lydiard, to indicate that it came of that gentleman’s +influence upon her mind. It was impossible for him to think that women +thought. The idea of a pretty woman exercising her mind independently, +and moreover moving him to examine his own, made him smile. Could a +sweet-faced girl, the nearest to Renée in grace of manner and in +feature of all women known to him, originate a sentence that would set +him reflecting? He was unable to forget it, though he allowed her no +credit for it. + +On the other hand, his admiration of her devotedness to Dr. Shrapnel +was unbounded. There shone a strictly feminine quality! according to +the romantic visions of the sex entertained by Commander Beauchamp, and +by others who would be the objects of it. But not alone the passive +virtues were exhibited by Jenny Denham: she proved that she had high +courage. No remonstrance could restrain Dr. Shrapnel from going out to +watch the struggle, and she went with him as a matter of course on each +occasion. Her dress bore witness to her running the gauntlet beside +him. + +“It was not thrown at me purposely,” she said, to quiet Beauchamp’s +wrath. She saved the doctor from being rough mobbed. Once when they +were surrounded she fastened his arm under hers, and by simply moving +on with an unswerving air of serenity obtained a passage for him. So +much did she make herself respected, that the gallant rascals became +emulous in dexterity to avoid powdering her, by loudly execrating any +but dead shots at the detested one, and certain boys were maltreated +for an ardour involving clumsiness. A young genius of this horde +conceiving, in the spirit of the inventors of our improved modern +ordnance, that it was vain to cast missiles which left a thing +standing, hurled a stone wrapped in paper. It missed its mark. Jenny +said nothing about it. The day closed with a comfortable fight or two +in by-quarters of the town, probably to prove that an undaunted English +spirit, spite of fickle Fortune, survived in our muscles. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. +TOUCHING A YOUNG LADY’S HEART AND HER INTELLECT + + +Mr. Tuckham found his way to Dr. Shrapnel’s cottage to see his kinsman +on the day after the election. There was a dinner in honour of the +Members for Bevisham at Mount Laurels in the evening, and he was five +minutes behind military time when he entered the restive drawing-room +and stood before the colonel. No sooner had he stated that he had been +under the roof of Dr. Shrapnel, than his unpunctuality was immediately +overlooked in the burst of impatience evoked by the name. + +“That pestilent fellow!” Colonel Halkett ejaculated. “I understand he +has had the impudence to serve a notice on Grancey Lespel about +encroachments on common land.” + +Some one described Dr. Shrapnel’s appearance under the flour storm. + +“He deserves anything,” said the colonel, consulting his mantelpiece +clock. + +Captain Baskelett observed: “I shall have my account to settle with Dr. +Shrapnel.” He spoke like a man having a right to be indignant, but +excepting that the doctor had bestowed nicknames upon him in a speech +at a meeting, no one could discover the grounds for it. He nodded +briefly. A Radical apple had struck him on the left cheekbone as he +performed his triumphal drive through the town, and a slight +disfigurement remained, to which his hand was applied sympathetically +at intervals, for the cheek-bone was prominent in his countenance, and +did not well bear enlargement. And when a fortunate gentleman, desiring +to be still more fortunate, would display the winning amiability of his +character, distension of one cheek gives him an afflictingly false look +of sweetness. + +The bent of his mind, nevertheless, was to please Miss Halkett. He +would be smiling, and intimately smiling. Aware that she had a kind of +pitiful sentiment for Nevil, he smiled over Nevil—poor Nevil! “I give +you my word, Miss Halkett, old Nevil was off his head yesterday. I +daresay he meant to be civil. I met him; I called out to him, ‘Good +day, cousin, I’m afraid you’re beaten’ and says he, ‘I fancy you’ve +gained it, _uncle_.’ He didn’t know where he was; all abroad, poor boy. +Uncle!—to me!” + +Miss Halkett would have accepted the instance for a proof of Nevil’s +distraction, had not Mr. Seymour Austin, who sat beside her, laughed +and said to her: “I suppose ‘uncle’ was a chance shot, but it’s equal +to a poetic epithet in the light it casts on the story.” Then it seemed +to her that Nevil had been keenly quick, and Captain Baskelett’s +impenetrability was a sign of his density. Her mood was to think Nevil +Beauchamp only too quick, too adventurous and restless: one that +wrecked brilliant gifts in a too general warfare; a lover of hazards, a +hater of laws. Her eyes flew over Captain Baskelett as she imagined +Nevil addressing him as uncle, and, to put aside a spirit of mockery +rising within her, she hinted a wish to hear Seymour Austin’s opinion +of Mr. Tuckham. He condensed it in an interrogative tone: “The _other_ +extreme?” The Tory extreme of Radical Nevil Beauchamp. She assented. +Mr. Tuckham was at that moment prophesying the Torification of mankind; +not as the trembling venturesome idea which we cast on doubtful winds, +but as a ship is launched to ride the waters, with huzzas for a thing +accomplished. Mr. Austin raised his shoulders imperceptibly, saying to +Miss Halkett: “The turn will come to us as to others—and go. Nothing +earthly can escape _that_ revolution. We have to meet it with a policy, +and let it pass with measures carried and our hands washed of some of +our party sins. I am, I hope, true to my party, but the enthusiasm of +party I do not share. He is right, however, when he accuses the nation +of cowardice for the last ten years. One third of the Liberals have +been with us at heart, and dared not speak, and we dared not say what +we wished. We accepted a compact that satisfied us both—satisfied _us_ +better than when we were opposed by Whigs—that is, the Liberal reigned, +and we governed: and I should add, a very clever juggler was our common +chief. Now we have the consequences of hollow peacemaking, in a +suffrage that bids fair to extend to the wearing of hats and boots for +a qualification. The moral of it seems to be that cowardice is even +worse for nations than for individual men, though the consequences come +on us more slowly.” + +“You spoke of party sins,” Miss Halkett said incredulously. + +“I shall think we are the redoubtable party when we admit the charge.” + +“Are you alluding to the landowners?” + +“Like the land itself, they have rich veins in heavy matter. For +instance, the increasing wealth of the country is largely recruiting +our ranks; and we shall be tempted to mistake numbers for strength, and +perhaps again be reading Conservatism for a special thing of our own—a +fortification. That would be a party sin. Conservatism is a principle +of government; the best because the safest for an old country; and the +guarantee that we do not lose the wisdom of past experience in our +struggle with what is doubtful. Liberalism stakes too much on the +chance of gain. It is uncomfortably seated on half-a-dozen horses; and +it has to feed them too, and on varieties of corn.” + +“Yes,” Miss Halkett said, pausing, “and I know you would not talk down +to me, but the use of imagery makes me feel that I am addressed as a +primitive intelligence.” + +“That’s the fault of my trying at condensation, as the hieroglyphists +put an animal for a paragraph. I am incorrigible, you see; but the +lecture in prose must be for by-and-by, if you care to have it.” + +“If you care to read it to me. Did a single hieroglyphic figure stand +for so much?” + +“I have never deciphered one.” + +“You have been speaking to me too long in earnest, Mr. Austin!” + +“I accept the admonition, though it is wider than the truth. Have you +ever consented to listen to politics before?” + +Cecilia reddened faintly, thinking of him who had taught her to listen, +and of her previous contempt of the subject. + +A political exposition devoid of imagery was given to her next day on +the sunny South-western terrace of Mount Laurels, when it was only by +mentally translating it into imagery that she could advance a step +beside her intellectual guide; and she was ashamed of the volatility of +her ideas. She was constantly comparing Mr. Austin and Nevil Beauchamp, +seeing that the senior and the junior both talked to her with the +familiar recognition of her understanding which was a compliment +without the gross corporeal phrase. But now she made another discovery, +that should have been infinitely more of a compliment, and it was +bewildering, if not repulsive to her:—could it be credited? Mr. Austin +was a firm believer in new and higher destinies for women. He went +farther than she could concede the right of human speculation to go; he +was, in fact, as Radical there as Nevil Beauchamp politically; and +would not the latter innovator stare, perchance frown conservatively, +at a prospect of woman taking counsel, _in council_, with men upon +public affairs, like the women in the Germania! Mr. Austin, if this +time he talked in earnest, deemed that Englishwomen were on the road to +win such a promotion, and would win it ultimately. He said soberly that +he saw more certain indications of the reality of progress among women +than any at present shown by men. And he was professedly temperate. He +was but for opening avenues to the means of livelihood for them, and +leaving it to their strength to conquer the position they might wish to +win. His belief that they would do so was the revolutionary sign. + +“Are there points of likeness between Radicals and Tories?” she +inquired. + +“I suspect a cousinship in extremes,” he answered. + +“If one might be present at an argument,” said she. + +“We have only to meet to fly apart as wide as the Poles,” Mr. Austin +rejoined. + +But she had not spoken of a particular person to meet him; and how, +then, had she betrayed herself? She fancied he looked unwontedly arch +as he resumed: + +“The end of the argument would see us each entrenched in his party. +Suppose me to be telling your Radical friend such truisms as that we +English have not grown in a day, and were not originally made free and +equal by decree; that we have grown, and must continue to grow, by the +aid and the development of our strength; that ours is a fairly legible +history, and a fair example of the good and the bad in human growth; +that his landowner and his peasant have no clear case of right and +wrong to divide them, one being the descendant of strong men, the other +of weak ones; and that the former may sink, the latter may rise—there +is no artificial obstruction; and if it is difficult to rise, it is +easy to sink. Your Radical friend, who would bring them to a level by +proclamation, could not adopt a surer method for destroying the manhood +of a people: he is for doctoring wooden men, and I for not letting our +stout English be cut down short as Laplanders; he would have them in a +forcing house, and I in open air, as hitherto. Do you perceive a +discussion? and you apprehend the nature of it. We have nerves. That is +why it is better for men of extremely opposite opinions not to meet. I +dare say Radicalism has a function, and so long as it respects the laws +I am ready to encounter it where it cannot be avoided. Pardon my +prosing.” + +“Recommend me some hard books to study through the Winter,” said +Cecilia, refreshed by a discourse that touched no emotions, as by a +febrifuge. Could Nevil reply to it? She fancied him replying, with that +wild head of his—wildest of natures. She fancied also that her wish was +like Mr. Austin’s not to meet him. She was enjoying a little rest. + +It was not quite generous in Mr. Austin to assume that “her Radical +friend” had been prompting her. However, she thanked him in her heart +for the calm he had given her. To be able to imagine Nevil Beauchamp +intellectually erratic was a tonic satisfaction to the proud young +lady, ashamed of a bondage that the bracing and pointing of her +critical powers helped her to forget. She had always preferred the +society of men of Mr. Austin’s age. How old was he? Her father would +know. And why was he unmarried? A light frost had settled on the hair +about his temples; his forehead was lightly wrinkled; but his mouth and +smile, and his eyes, were lively as a young man’s, with more in them. +His age must be something less than fifty. O for peace! she sighed. +When he stepped into his carriage, and stood up in it to wave adieu to +her, she thought his face and figure a perfect example of an English +gentleman in his prime. + +Captain Baskelett requested the favour of five minutes of conversation +with Miss Halkett before he followed Mr. Austin, on his way to +Steynham. + +She returned from that colloquy to her father and Mr. Tuckham. The +colonel looked straight in her face, with an elevation of the brows. To +these points of interrogation she answered with a placid fall of her +eyelids. He sounded a note of approbation in his throat. + +All the company having departed, Mr. Tuckham for the first time spoke +of his interview with his kinsman Beauchamp. Yesterday evening he had +slurred it, as if he had nothing to relate, except the finding of an +old schoolfellow at Dr. Shrapnel’s named Lydiard, a man of ability fool +enough to have turned author on no income. But that which had appeared +to Miss Halkett a want of observancy, became attributable to depth of +character on its being clear that he had waited for the departure of +the transient guests of the house, to pour forth his impressions +without holding up his kinsman to public scorn. He considered Shrapnel +mad and Beauchamp mad. No such grotesque old monster as Dr. Shrapnel +had he seen in the course of his travels. He had never listened to a +madman running loose who was at all up to Beauchamp. At a loss for +words to paint him, he said: “Beauchamp seems to have a head like a +firework manufactory, he’s perfectly pyrocephalic.” For an example of +Dr. Shrapnel’s talk: “I happened,” said Mr. Tuckham, “casually, meaning +no harm, and not supposing I was throwing a lighted match on powder, to +mention the word Providence. I found myself immediately confronted by +Shrapnel—overtopped, I should say. He is a lank giant of about seven +feet in height; the kind of show man that used to go about in caravans +over the country; and he began rocking over me like a poplar in a gale, +and cries out: ‘Stay there! away with that! Providence? Can you set a +thought on Providence, not seeking to propitiate it? And have you not +there the damning proof that you are at the foot of an Idol?’—The old +idea about a special Providence, I suppose. These fellows have nothing +new but their trimmings. And he went on with: ‘Ay, invisible,’ and his +arm chopping, ‘but an Idol! an Idol!’—I was to think of ‘nought but +Laws.’ He admitted there might be one above the Laws. ‘To realize him +is to fry the brains in their pan,’ says he, and struck his forehead—a +slap: and off he walked down the garden, with his hands at his +coat-tails. I venture to say it may be taken for a proof of incipient +insanity to care to hear such a fellow twice. And Beauchamp holds him +up for a sage and a prophet!” + +“He is a very dangerous dog,” said Colonel Halkett. + +“The best of it is—and I take this for the strongest possible proof +that Beauchamp is mad—Shrapnel stands for an _advocate of morality_ +against him. I’ll speak of it....” + +Mr. Tuckham nodded to the colonel, who said: “Speak out. My daughter +has been educated for a woman of the world.” + +“Well, sir, it’s nothing to offend a young lady’s ears. Beauchamp is +for socially enfranchising the sex—that is all. Quite enough. Not a +whit politically. Love is to be the test: and if a lady ceases to love +her husband... if she sets her fancy elsewhere, she’s bound to leave +him. The laws are tyrannical, our objections are cowardly. Well, this +Dr. Shrapnel harangued about society; and men as well as women are to +sacrifice their passions _on that altar_. If he could burlesque himself +it would be in coming out as a cleric—the old Pagan!” + +“Did he convince Captain Beauchamp?” the colonel asked, manifestly for +his daughter to hear the reply; which was: “Oh dear, no!” + +“Were you able to gather from Captain Beauchamp’s remarks whether he is +much disappointed by the result of the election?” said Cecilia. + +Mr. Tuckham could tell her only that Captain Beauchamp was incensed +against an elector named Tomlinson for withdrawing a promised vote on +account of lying rumours, and elated by the conquest of a Mr. +Carpendike, who was reckoned a tough one to drag by the neck. “The only +sane people in the house are a Miss Denham and the cook: I lunched +there,” Mr. Tuckham nodded approvingly. “Lydiard must be mad. What he’s +wasting his time there for I can’t guess. He says he’s engaged there in +writing a prefatory essay to a new publication of Harry Denham’s +poems—whoever that may be. And why wasting it there? I don’t like it. +He ought to be earning his bread. He’ll be sure to be borrowing money +by-and-by. We’ve got ten thousand too many fellows writing already, and +they’ve seen a few inches of the world, on the Continent! He can write. +But it’s all unproductive—dead weight on the country, these fellows +with their writings! He says Beauchamp’s praise of Miss Denham is quite +deserved. He tells me, that at great peril to herself—and she nearly +had her arm broken by a stone he saved Shrapnel from rough usage on the +election-day.” + +“Hum!” Colonel Halkett grunted significantly. + +“So I thought,” Mr. Tuckham responded. “One doesn’t want the man to be +hurt, but he ought to be put down in some way. My belief is he’s a +Fire-worshipper. I warrant I would extinguish him if he came before me. +He’s an incendiary, at any rate.” + +“Do you think,” said Cecilia, “that Captain Beauchamp is now satisfied +with his experience of politics?” + +“Dear me, no,” said Mr. Tuckham. “It’s the opening of a campaign. He’s +off to the North, after he has been to Sussex and Bucks. He’s to be at +it all his life. One thing he shows common sense in. If I heard him +once I heard him say half-a-dozen times, that he must have money:—‘_I +must have money!_’ And so he must if he’s to head the Radicals. He +wants to start a newspaper! Is he likely to get money from his uncle +Romfrey?” + +“Not for his present plan of campaign.” Colonel Halkett enunciated the +military word sarcastically. “Let’s hope he won’t get money.” + +“He says he must have it.” + +“Who is to stand and deliver, then?” + +“I don’t know; I only repeat what he says: unless he has an eye on my +Aunt Beauchamp; and I doubt his luck there, if he wants money for +political campaigning.” + +“Money!” Colonel Halkett ejaculated. + +That word too was in the heart of the heiress. + +Nevil must have money! Could he have said it? Ordinary men might say or +think it inoffensively; Captain Baskelett, for instance: but not Nevil +Beauchamp. + +Captain Baskelett, as she had conveyed the information to her father +for his comfort in the dumb domestic language familiar between them on +these occasions, had proposed to her unavailingly. Italian and English +gentlemen were in the list of her rejected suitors: and hitherto she +had seen them come and go, one might say, from a watchtower in the +skies. None of them was the ideal she waited for: what their feelings +were, their wishes, their aims, she had not reflected on. They dotted +the landscape beneath the unassailable heights, busy after their +fashion, somewhat quaint, much like the pigmy husbandmen in the fields +were to the giant’s daughter, who had more curiosity than Cecilia. But +Nevil Beauchamp had compelled her to quit her lofty station, pulled her +low as the littlest of women that throb and flush at one man’s +footstep: and being well able to read the nature and aspirations of +Captain Baskelett, it was with the knowledge of her having been +proposed to as heiress of a great fortune that she chanced to hear of +Nevil’s resolve to have money. If he did say it! And was anything +likelier? was anything unlikelier? His foreign love denied to him, why, +now he devoted himself to money: money—the last consideration of a man +so single-mindedly generous as he! But he must have money to pursue his +contest! But would he forfeit the truth in him for money for any +purpose? + +The debate on this question grew as incessant as the thought of him. +Was it not to be supposed that the madness of the pursuit of his +political chimaera might change his character? + +She hoped he would not come to Mount Laurels, thinking she should +esteem him less if he did; knowing that her defence of him, on her own +behalf, against herself, depended now on an esteem lodged perhaps in +her wilfulness. Yet if he did not come, what an Arctic world! + +He came on a November afternoon when the woods glowed, and no sun. The +day was narrowed in mist from earth to heaven: a moveless and +possessing mist. It left space overhead for one wreath of high cloud +mixed with touches of washed red upon moist blue, still as the mist, +insensibly passing into it. Wet webs crossed the grass, chill in the +feeble light. The last flowers of the garden bowed to decay. Dead +leaves, red and brown and spotted yellow, fell straight around the +stems of trees, lying thick. The glow was universal, and the chill. + +Cecilia sat sketching the scene at a window of her study, on the level +of the drawing-room, and he stood by outside till she saw him. He +greeted her through the glass, then went round to the hall door, giving +her time to recover, if only her heart had been less shaken. + +Their meeting was like the features of the day she set her brush to +picture: characteristic of a season rather than cheerless in tone, +though it breathed little cheer. Is there not a pleasure in +contemplating that which is characteristic? Her unfinished sketch +recalled him after he had gone: he lived in it, to startle her again, +and bid her heart gallop and her cheeks burn. The question occurred to +her: May not one love, not craving to be beloved? Such a love does not +sap our pride, but supports it; increases rather than diminishes our +noble self-esteem. To attain such a love the martyrs writhed up to the +crown of saints. For a while Cecilia revelled in the thought that she +could love in this most saint-like manner. How they fled, the sordid +ideas of him which accused him of the world’s one passion, and were +transferred to her own bosom in reproach that she should have imagined +them existing in his! He talked simply and sweetly of his defeat, of +time wasted away from the canvass, of loss of money: and he had little +to spare, he said. The water-colour drawing interested him. He said he +envied her that power of isolation, and the eye for beauty in every +season. She opened a portfolio of Mr. Tuckham’s water-colour drawings +in every clime; scenes of Europe, Asia, and the Americas; and he was to +be excused for not caring to look through them. His remark, that they +seemed hard and dogged, was not so unjust, she thought, smiling to +think of the critic criticized. His wonderment that a young man like +his Lancastrian cousin should be “an unmitigated Tory” was perhaps +natural. + +Cecilia said, “Yet I cannot discern in him a veneration for +aristocracy.” “That’s not wanted for modern Toryism,” said Nevil. “One +may venerate old families when they show the blood of the founder, and +are not dead wood. I do. And I believe the blood of the founder, though +the man may have been a savage and a robber, had in his day finer +elements in it than were common. But let me say at a meeting that I +respect true aristocracy, I hear a growl and a hiss beginning: why? +Don’t judge them hastily: because the people have seen the aristocracy +opposed to the cause that was weak, and only submitting to it when it +commanded them to resist at their peril; clinging to traditions, and +not anywhere standing for humanity: much more a herd than the people +themselves. Ah! well, we won’t talk of it now. I say that is no +aristocracy, if it does not head the people in virtue—military, +political, national: I mean the qualities required by the times for +leadership. I won’t bother you with my ideas now. I love to see you +paint-brush in hand.” + +Her brush trembled on the illumination of a scarlet maple. “In this +country we were not originally made free and equal by decree, Nevil.” + +“No,” said he, “and I cast no blame on our farthest ancestors.” + +It struck her that this might be an outline of a reply to Mr. Austin. + +“So you have been thinking over it?” he asked. + +“Not to conclusions,” she said, trying to retain in her mind the +evanescent suggestiveness of his previous remark, and vexed to find +herself upon nothing but a devious phosphorescent trail there. + +Her forehead betrayed the unwonted mental action. He cried out for +pardon. “What right have I to bother you? I see it annoys you. The +truth is, I came for peace. I think of you when they talk of English +homes.” + +She felt then that he was comparing her home with another, a foreign +home. After he had gone she felt that there had been a comparison of +two persons. She remembered one of his observations: “Few women seem to +have courage”; when his look at her was for an instant one of scrutiny +or calculation. Under a look like that we perceive that we are being +weighed. She had no clue to tell her what it signified. + +Glorious and solely glorious love, that has risen above emotion, quite +independent of craving! That is to be the bird of upper air, poised on +his wings. It is a home in the sky. Cecilia took possession of it +systematically, not questioning whether it would last; like one who is +too enamoured of the habitation to object to be a tenant-at-will. If it +was cold, it was in recompense immeasurably lofty, a star-girdled +place; and dwelling in it she could avow to herself the secret which +was now working self-deception, and still preserve her pride unwounded. +Her womanly pride, she would have said in vindication of it: but +Cecilia Halkett’s pride went far beyond the merely womanly. + +Thus she was assisted to endure a journey down to Wales, where Nevil +would surely not be. She passed a Winter without seeing him. She +returned to Mount Laurels from London at Easter, and went on a visit to +Steynham, and back to London, having sight of him nowhere, still firm +in the thought that she loved ethereally, to bless, forgive, direct, +encourage, pray for him, impersonally. She read certain speeches +delivered by Nevil at assemblies of Liberals or Radicals, which were +reported in papers in the easy irony of the style of here and there a +sentence, here and there a summary: salient quotations interspersed +with running abstracts: a style terrible to friends of the speaker so +reported, overwhelming if they differ in opinion: yet her charity was a +match for it. She was obliged to have recourse to charity, it should be +observed. Her father drew her attention to the spectacle of R. C. S. +Nevil Beauchamp, Commander R.N., fighting those reporters with letters +in the newspapers, and the dry editorial comment flanked by three stars +on the left. He was shocked to see a gentleman writing such letters to +the papers. “But one thing hangs on another,” said he. + +“But you seem angry with Nevil, papa,” said she. + +“I do hate a turbulent, restless fellow, my dear,” the colonel burst +out. + +“Papa, he has really been unfairly reported.” + +Cecilia laid three privately-printed full reports of Commander +Beauchamp’s speeches (very carefully corrected by him) before her +father. + +He suffered his eye to run down a page. “Is it possible you read +this?—this trash!—dangerous folly, I call it.” + +Cecilia’s reply, “In the interests of justice, I do,” was meant to +express her pure impartiality. By a toleration of what is detested we +expose ourselves to the keenness of an adverse mind. + +“Does he write to you, too?” said the colonel. + +She answered: “Oh, no; I am not a politician.” + +“He seems to have expected you to read those tracts of his, though.” + +“Yes, I think he would convert me if he could,” said Cecilia. + +“Though you’re not a politician.” + +“He relies on the views he delivers in public, rather than on writing +to persuade; that was my meaning, papa.” + +“Very well,” said the colonel, not caring to show his anxiety. + +Mr. Tuckham dined with them frequently in London. This gentleman +betrayed his accomplishments one by one. He sketched, and was no +artist; he planted, and was no gardener; he touched the piano neatly, +and was no musician; he sang, and he had no voice. Apparently he tried +his hand at anything, for the privilege of speaking decisively upon all +things. He accompanied the colonel and his daughter on a day’s +expedition to Mrs. Beauchamp, on the Upper Thames, and they agreed that +he shone to great advantage in her society. Mrs. Beauchamp said she had +seen her great-nephew Nevil, but without a comment on his conduct or +his person; grave silence. Reflecting on it, Cecilia grew indignant at +the thought that Mr. Tuckham might have been acting a sinister part. +Mrs. Beauchamp alluded to a newspaper article of her favourite +great-nephew Blackburn, written, Cecilia knew through her father, to +controvert some tremendous proposition of Nevil’s. _That_ was writing, +Mrs. Beauchamp said. “I am not in the habit of fearing a conflict, so +long as we have stout defenders. I rather like it,” she said. + +The colonel entertained Mrs. Beauchamp, while Mr. Tuckham led Miss +Halkett over the garden. Cecilia considered that his remarks upon Nevil +were insolent. + +“Seriously, Miss Halkett, to take him at his best, he is a very good +fellow, I don’t doubt; I am told so; and a capital fellow among men, a +good friend and not a bad boon-fellow, and for that matter, the +smoking-room is a better test than the drawing-room; all he wants is +emphatically school—school—school. I have recommended the simple +iteration of that one word in answer to him at his meetings, and the +printing of it as a foot-note to his letters.” + +Cecilia’s combative spirit precipitated her to say, “I hear the mob in +it shouting Captain Beauchamp down.” + +“Ay,” said Mr. Tuckham, “it would be setting the mob to shout wisely at +last.” + +“The mob is a wild beast.” + +“Then we should hear wisdom coming out of the mouth of the wild beast.” + +“Men have the phrase, ‘fair play.’” + +“Fair play, I say, is not applicable to a man who deliberately goes +about to stir the wild beast. He is laughed at, plucked, hustled, and +robbed, by those who deafen him with their ‘plaudits’—their roars. Did +you see his advertisement of a great-coat, lost at some rapscallion +gathering down in the North, near my part of the country? A great-coat +and a packet of letters. He offers a reward of L10. But that’s honest +robbery compared with the bleeding he’ll get.” + +“Do you know Mr. Seymour Austin?” Miss Halkett asked him. + +“I met him once at your father’s table. Why?” + +“I think you would like to listen to him.” + +“Yes, my fault is not listening enough,” said Mr. Tuckham. + +He was capable of receiving correction. + +Her father told her he was indebted to Mr. Tuckham past payment in +coin, for services rendered by him on a trying occasion among the +miners in Wales during the first spring month. “I dare say he can speak +effectively to miners,” Cecilia said, outvying the contemptuous young +man in superciliousness, but with effort and not with satisfaction. + +She left London in July, two days before her father could be induced to +return to Mount Laurels. Feverish, and strangely subject to caprices +now, she chose the longer way round by Sussex, and alighted at the +station near Steynham to call on Mrs. Culling, whom she knew to be at +the Hall, preparing it for Mr. Romfrey’s occupation. In imitation of +her father she was Rosamund’s fast friend, though she had never quite +realized her position, and did not thoroughly understand her. Would it +not please her father to hear that she had chosen the tedious route for +the purpose of visiting this lady, whose champion he was? + +So she went to Steynham, and for hours she heard talk of no one, of +nothing, but her friend Nevil. Cecilia was on her guard against +Rosamund’s defence of his conduct in France. The declaration that there +had been no misbehaviour at all could not be accepted; but the news of +Mr. Romfrey’s having installed Nevil in Holdesbury to manage that +property, and of his having mooted to her father the question of an +alliance between her and Nevil, was wonderful. Rosamund could not say +what answer her father had made: hardly favourable, Cecilia supposed, +since he had not spoken of the circumstance to her. But Mr. Romfrey’s +influence with him would certainly be powerful. + +It was to be assumed, also, that Nevil had been consulted by his uncle. +Rosamund said full-heartedly that this alliance had for years been her +life’s desire, and then she let the matter pass, nor did she once loop +at Cecilia searchingly, or seem to wish to probe her. Cecilia disagreed +with Rosamund on an insignificant point in relation to something Mr. +Romfrey and Captain Baskelett had done, and, as far as she could +recollect subsequently, there was a packet of letters, or a pocket-book +containing letters of Nevil’s which he had lost, and which had been +forwarded to Mr. Romfrey; for the pocket-book was originally his, and +his address was printed inside. But among these letters was one from +Dr. Shrapnel to Nevil: a letter so horrible that Rosamund frowned at +the reminiscence of it, holding it to be too horrible for the quotation +of a sentence. She owned she had forgotten any three consecutive words. +Her known dislike of Captain Baskelett, however, was insufficient to +make her see that it was unjustifiable in him to run about London +reading it, with comments of the cruellest. Rosamund’s greater +detestation of Dr. Shrapnel blinded her to the offence committed by the +man she would otherwise have been very ready to scorn. So small did the +circumstance appear to Cecilia, notwithstanding her gentle opposition +at the time she listened to it, that she never thought of mentioning it +to her father, and only remembered it when Captain Baskelett, with Lord +Palmet in his company, presented himself at Mount Laurels, and proposed +to the colonel to read to him “a letter from that scoundrelly old +Shrapnel to Nevil Beauchamp, upon women, wives, thrones, republics, +British loyalty, et cætera,”—an et cætera that rolled a series of +tremendous reverberations down the list of all things held precious by +freeborn Englishmen. + +She would have prevented the reading. But the colonel would have it. + +“Read on,” said he. “Mr. Romfrey saw no harm.” + +Captain Baskelett held up Dr. Shrapnel’s letter to Commander Beauchamp, +at about half a yard’s distance on the level of his chin, as a +big-chested singer in a concert-room holds his music-scroll. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. +THE EPISTLE OF DR. SHRAPNEL TO COMMANDER BEAUCHAMP + + +Before we give ear to the recital of Dr. Shrapnel’s letter to his pupil +in politics by the mouth of Captain Baskelett, it is necessary to +defend this gentleman, as he would handsomely have defended himself, +from the charge that he entertained ultimate designs in regard to the +really abominable scrawl, which was like a child’s drawing of ocean +with here and there a sail capsized, and excited his disgust almost as +much as did the contents his great indignation. He was prepared to read +it, and stood blown out for the task, but it was temporarily too much +for him. “My dear Colonel, look at it, I entreat you,” he said, handing +the letter for exhibition, after fixing his eye-glass, and dropping it +in repulsion. The common sentiment of mankind is offended by heterodoxy +in mean attire; for there we see the self-convicted villain—the +criminal caught in the act; we try it and convict it by instinct +without the ceremony of a jury; and so thoroughly aware of our +promptitude in this respect has our arch-enemy become since his +mediaeval disgraces that his particular advice to his followers is now +to scrupulously copy the world in externals; never to appear poorly +clothed, nor to impart deceptive communications in bad handwriting. We +can tell black from white, and our sagacity has taught him a lesson. + +Colonel Halkett glanced at the detestable penmanship. Lord Palmet did +the same, and cried, “Why, it’s worse than mine!” + +Cecilia had protested against the reading of the letter, and she +declined to look at the writing. She was entreated, adjured to look, in +Captain Baskelett’s peculiarly pursuing fashion; a “nay, but you +shall,” that she had been subjected to previously, and would have +consented to run like a schoolgirl to escape from. + +To resume the defence of him: he was a man incapable of forming plots, +because his head would not hold them. He was an impulsive man, who +could impale a character of either sex by narrating fables touching +persons of whom he thought lightly, and that being done he was devoid +of malice, unless by chance his feelings or his interests were so +aggrieved that his original haphazard impulse was bent to embrace new +circumstances and be the parent of a line of successive impulses, in +the main resembling an extremely far-sighted plot, whereat he gazed +back with fondness, all the while protesting sincerely his perfect +innocence of anything of the kind. Circumstances will often interwind +with the moods of simply irritated men. In the present instance he +could just perceive what might immediately come of his reading out of +this atrocious epistle wherein Nevil Beauchamp was displayed the +dangling puppet of a mountebank wire-pulley, infidel, agitator, +leveller, and scoundrel. Cognizant of Mr. Romfrey’s overtures to +Colonel Halkett, he traced them to that scheming woman in the house at +Steynham, and he was of opinion that it was a friendly and good thing +to do to let the old colonel and Cissy Halkett know Mr. Nevil through a +bit of his correspondence. This, then, was a matter of business and +duty that furnished an excuse for his going out of his, way to call at +Mount Laurels on the old familiar footing, so as not to alarm the +heiress. + +A warrior accustomed to wear the burnished breastplates between London +and Windsor has, we know, more need to withstand than to discharge the +shafts of amorous passion; he is indeed, as an object of beauty, +notoriously compelled to be of the fair sex in his tactics, and must +practise the arts and whims of nymphs to preserve himself: and no doubt +it was the case with the famous Captain Baskelett, in whose mind sweet +ladies held the place that the pensive politician gives to the masses, +dreadful in their hatred, almost as dreadful in their affection. But an +heiress is a distinct species among women; he hungered for the heiress; +his elevation to Parliament made him regard her as both the ornament +and the prop of his position; and it should be added that his pride, +all the habits of thought of a conqueror of women, had been shocked by +that stupefying rejection of him, which Cecilia had intimated to her +father with the mere lowering of her eyelids. Conceive the highest +bidder at an auction hearing the article announce that it will not have +_him!_ Captain Baskelett talked of it everywhere for a month or so:—the +girl could not know her own mind, for she suited him exactly! and he +requested the world to partake of his astonishment. Chronicles of the +season in London informed him that he was not the only fellow to whom +the gates were shut. She could hardly be thinking of Nevil? However, +let the epistle be read. “Now for the Shrapnel shot,” he nodded finally +to Colonel Halkett, expanded his bosom, or natural cuirass, as +before-mentioned, and was vocable above the common pitch:— + +“‘MY BRAVE BEAUCHAMP,—On with your mission, and never a summing of +results in hand, nor thirst for _prospects_, nor counting upon +harvests; for seed sown in faith day by day is the nightly harvest of +the soul, and with the soul we work. With the soul we see.’” + +Captain Baskelett intervened: “Ahem! I beg to observe that this +delectable rubbish is underlined by old Nevil’s pencil.” He promised to +do a little roaring whenever it occurred, and continued with ghastly +false accentuation, an intermittent sprightliness and depression of +tone in the wrong places. + +“‘The soul,’ et cætera. Here we are! ‘Desires to realize our gains are +akin to the passion of usury; these are tricks of the usurer to grasp +his gold in act and imagination. Have none of them. Work at the +people!’ —_At_ them, remark!—‘Moveless do they seem to you? Why, so is +the earth to the sowing husbandman, and though we cannot forecast a +reaping season, we have in history durable testification that our +seasons come in the souls of men, yea, as a planet that we have set in +motion, and faster and faster are we spinning it, and firmer and firmer +shall we set it to regularity of revolution. _That means +life!_’—Shrapnel roars: you will have Nevil in a minute.—‘Recognize +that now we have bare life; at best for the bulk of men the Saurian +lizard’s broad back soaking and roasting in primeval slime; or say, in +the so-called teachers of men, as much of life as pricks the frog in +March to stir and yawn, and up on a flaccid leap that rolls him over +some three inches nearer to the ditchwater besought by his instinct.’ + +“I ask you, did you ever hear? The flaccid frog! But on we go.” + +“‘Professors, prophets, masters, each hitherto has had his creed and +system to offer, good mayhap for the term; and each has put it forth +for the truth everlasting, to drive the dagger to the heart of time, +and put the axe to human growth!—that one circle of wisdom issuing of +the experience and needs of their day, should act the despot over all +other circles for ever!—so where at first light shone to light the +yawning frog to his wet ditch, there, with the necessitated revolution +of men’s minds in the course of ages, _darkness radiates_.’ + +“That’s old Nevil. Upon my honour, I haven’t a notion of what it all +means, and I don’t believe the old rascal Shrapnel has himself. And +pray be patient, my dear colonel. You will find him practical +presently. I’ll skip, if you tell me to. Darkness radiates, does it! + +“‘The creed that rose in heaven sets below; and where we had an angel +we have claw-feet and fangs. Ask how that is! The creed is much what it +was when the followers diverged it from the Founder. But humanity is +not _where_ it was when that creed was food and guidance. Creeds will +not die not fighting. We cannot root them up out of us without blood.’ + +“He threatens blood!—‘Ours, my Beauchamp, is the belief that humanity +advances beyond the limits of creeds, is to be tied to none. We +reverence the Master in his teachings; we behold the limits of him in +his creed— and that is not his work. We truly are his disciples, who +see how far it was in him to do service; not they that made of his +creed a strait-jacket for humanity. So, in our prayers we dedicate the +world to God, not calling him great for a title, no—showing him we know +him great in a limitless world, lord of a truth we tend to, have not +grasped. I say Prayer is good. I counsel it to you again and again: in +joy, in sickness of heart. The infidel will not pray; the creed-slave +prays to the image in his box.’” + +“I’ve had enough!” Colonel Halkett ejaculated. + +“‘We,’” Captain Baskelett put out his hand for silence with an +ineffable look of entreaty, for here was Shrapnel’s hypocrisy in full +bloom: “‘We make prayer a part of us, praying for no gifts, no +interventions; through the faith in prayer opening the soul to the +undiscerned. And take this, my Beauchamp, for the good in prayer, that +it makes us repose on the unknown with confidence, makes us flexible to +change, makes us ready for revolution—for life, then! He who has the +fountain of prayer in him will not complain of hazards. Prayer is the +recognition of laws; the soul’s exercise and source of strength; its +thread of conjunction with them. Prayer for an object is the cajolery +of an idol; the resource of superstition. There you misread it, +Beauchamp. We that fight the living world must have the universal for +succour of the truth in it. Cast forth the soul in prayer, you meet the +effluence of the outer truth, you join with the creative elements +giving breath to you; and that crust of habit which is the soul’s tomb; +and custom, the soul’s tyrant; and pride, our volcano-peak that sinks +us in a crater; and fear, which plucks the feathers from the wings of +the soul and sits it naked and shivering in a vault, where the passing +of a common hodman’s foot above sounds like the king of terrors +coming,—you are free of them, you live in the day and for the future, +by this exercise and discipline of the soul’s faith. Me it keeps young +everlastingly, like the fountain of...’” + +“I say I cannot sit and hear any more of it!” exclaimed the colonel, +chafing out of patience. + +Lord Palmet said to Miss Halkett: “Isn’t it like what we used to +remember of a sermon?” + +Cecilia waited for her father to break away, but Captain Baskelett had +undertaken to skip, and was murmuring in sing-song some of the phrases +that warned him off: + +“‘History—Bible of Humanity;... Permanency—enthusiast’s dream—despot’s +aim—clutch of dead men’s fingers in live flesh... Man animal; man +angel; man rooted; man winged’:... Really, all this is too bad. Ah! +here we are: ‘At them with outspeaking, Beauchamp!’ Here we are, +colonel, and you will tell me whether you think it treasonable or not. +‘At them,’ et cætera: ‘We have signed no convention to respect +their’—he speaks of Englishmen, Colonel Halkett—‘their passive +idolatries; a people with whom a mute conformity is as good as worship, +but a word of dissent holds you up to execration; and only for the +freedom won in foregone days their hate would be active. _As we have +them in their present stage_,’—old Nevil’s mark—‘We are not parties to +the tacit agreement to fill our mouths and shut our eyes. We speak +because it is better they be roused to lapidate us than soused in their +sty, with none to let them hear they live like swine, craving only not +to be disturbed at the trough. The religion of this vast English +middle-class ruling the land is Comfort. It is their central thought; +their idea of necessity; their sole aim. Whatsoever ministers to +Comfort, seems to belong to it, pretends to support it, they yield +their passive worship to. Whatsoever alarms it they join to crush. +There you get at their point of unity. They will pay for the security +of Comfort, calling it national worship, or national defence, if too +much money is not subtracted from the means of individual comfort: if +too much foresight is not demanded for the comfort of their brains. +Have at them there. Speak. Moveless as you find them, they are not yet +all gross clay, and I say again, the true word spoken has its chance of +somewhere alighting and striking root. Look not to that. Seeds perish +in nature; good men fail. Look to the truth in you, and deliver it, +with no afterthought of hope, for hope is dogged by dread; we give our +courage as hostage for the fulfilment of what we hope. Meditate on that +transaction. Hope is for boys and girls, to whom nature is kind. For +men to hope is to tremble. Let prayer—the soul’s overflow, the heart’s +resignation—supplant it...’ + +“Pardon, colonel; I forgot to roar, but old Nevil marks all down that +page for encomium,” said Captain Baskelett. “Oh! here we are. English +loyalty is the subject. Now, pray attend to this, colonel. Shrapnel +communicates to Beauchamp that if ten Beauchamps were spouting over the +country without intermission he might condescend to hope. So on—to +British loyalty. We are, so long as our sovereigns are well-conducted +persons, and we cannot unseat them—observe; he is eminently explicit, +the old traitor!—we are to submit to the outward forms of respect, but +we are frankly to say we are Republicans; he has the impudence to swear +that England is a Republican country, and calls our thoroughgoing +loyalty—yours and mine, colonel—disloyalty. Hark: ‘Where kings lead, it +is to be supposed they are wanted. Service is the noble office on +earth, and where kings do service let them take the first honours of +the State: but’—hark at this—‘the English middle-class, which has +absorbed the upper, and despises, when it is not quaking before it, the +lower, will have nothing above it but a ricketty ornament like that you +see on a confectioner’s twelfth-cake.’” + +“The man deserves hanging!” said Colonel Halkett. + +“Further, my dear colonel, and Nevil marks it pretty much throughout: +‘This loyalty smacks of a terrible perfidy. Pass the lords and squires; +they are old trees, old foundations, or joined to them, whether old or +new; they naturally apprehend dislocation when a wind blows, a river +rises, or a man speaks;—that comes of age or aping age: their hearts +are in their holdings! For the loyalty of the rest of the land, it is +the shopkeeper’s loyalty, which is to be computed by the exact annual +sum of his net profits. It is now at high tide. It will last with the +prosperity of our commerce.’—The insolent old vagabond!—‘Let commercial +disasters come on us, and what of the loyalty now paying its hundreds +of thousands, and howling down questioners! In a day of bankruptcies, +how much would you bid for the loyalty of a class shivering under +deprivation of luxuries, with its God Comfort beggared? Ay, my +Beauchamp,’—the most offensive thing to me is that ‘my Beauchamp,’ but +old Nevil has evidently given himself up hand and foot to this +ruffian—‘ay, when you reflect that fear of the so-called rabble, i.e. +the people, the unmoneyed class, which knows not Comfort, tastes not of +luxuries, is the main component of their noisy frigid loyalty, and that +the people are not with them but against, and yet that the people might +be won by visible forthright kingly service to a loyalty outdoing +theirs as the sun the moon; ay, that the people verily thirst to love +and reverence; and _that their love is the only love worth having_, +because it is disinterested love, and endures, and takes heat in +adversity,—reflect on it and wonder at the inversion of things! So with +a Church. It lives if it is at home with the poor. In the arms of +enriched shopkeepers it rots, goes to decay in vestments—vestments! +flakes of mummy-wraps for it! or else they use it for one of their +political truncheons—to awe the ignorant masses: I quote them. So. Not +much ahead of ancient Egyptians in spirituality or in priestcraft! They +call it statesmanship. O for a word for it! Let Palsy and Cunning go to +form a word. _Deadmanship_, I call it.’—To quote my uncle the baron, +this is lunatic dribble!—‘Parsons and princes are happy with the homage +of this huge passive fleshpot class. It is enough for them. Why not? +The taxes are paid and the tithes. Whilst commercial prosperity +lasts!’” + +Colonel Halkett threw his arms aloft. + +“‘Meanwhile, note this: the people are the Power to come. Oppressed, +unprotected, abandoned; left to the ebb and flow of the tides of the +market, now taken on to work, now cast off to starve, committed to the +shifting laws of demand and supply, slaves of Capital—the whited name +for old accursed Mammon: and of all the ranked and black-uniformed host +no pastor to come out of the association of shepherds, and proclaim +before heaven and man the primary claim of their cause; they are, I +say, the power, worth the seduction of by another Power not mighty in +England now: and likely in time to set up yet another Power not +existing in England now. What if a passive comfortable clergy hand them +over to men on the models of Irish pastors, who will succour, console, +enfold, champion them? what if, when they have learnt to use their +majority, sick of deceptions and the endless pulling of interests, they +raise ONE representative to force the current of action with an +authority as little fictitious as their preponderance of numbers? The +despot and the priest! There I see _our_ danger, Beauchamp. You and I +and some dozen labour to tie and knot them to manliness. We are few; +they are many and weak. Rome offers them real comfort in return for +their mites in coin, and—poor souls! mites in conscience, many of them. +A Tyrant offers them to be directly their friend. Ask, Beauchamp, why +they should not have comfort for pay as well as the big round—’” +Captain Baskelett stopped and laid the letter out for Colonel Halkett +to read an unmentionable word, shamelessly marked by Nevil’s +pencil:—‘_belly-class!_’ Ask, too, whether the comfort they wish for is +not approaching divine compared with the stagnant fleshliness of that +fat shopkeeper’s Comfort. + +“‘Warn the people of this. Ay, warn the clergy. It is not only the poor +that are caught by ranters. Endeavour to make those accommodating +shepherds understand that they stand a chance of losing rich as well as +poor! It should awaken them. The helpless poor and the uneasy rich are +alike open to the seductions of Romish priests and intoxicated ranters. +I say so it will be if that band of forty thousand go on slumbering and +nodding. They walk in a dream. The flesh is a dream. The soul only is +life.’ + +“Now for you, colonel. + +“‘No extension of the army—no! A thousand times no. Let India go, then! +Good for India that we hold India? Ay, good: but not at such a cost as +an extra tax, or compulsory service of our working man. If India is to +be held for the good of India, throw open India to the civilized +nations, that they help us in a task that overstrains us. At present +India means utter perversion of the policy of England. Adrift India! +rather than England red-coated. We dissent, Beauchamp! For by-and-by.’ + +“That is,” Captain Baskelett explained, “by-and-by Shrapnel will have +old Nevil fast enough.” + +“Is there more of it?” said Colonel Halkett, flapping his forehead for +coolness. + +“The impudence of this dog in presuming to talk about India!—eh, +colonel? Only a paragraph or two more: I skip a lot.... Ah! here we +are.” Captain Baskelett read to himself and laughed in derision: “He +calls our Constitution a compact unsigned by the larger number involved +in it. What’s this? ‘A band of dealers in _fleshpottery_.’ Do you +detect a gleam of sense? He underscores it. Then he comes to this”: +Captain Baskelett requested Colonel Halkett to read for himself: “The +stench of the trail of Ego in our History.” + +The colonel perused it with an unsavoury expression of his features, +and jumped up. + +“Oddly, Mr. Romfrey thought this rather clever,” said Captain +Baskelett, and read rapidly: “‘Trace the course of Ego for them: first +the king who conquers and can govern. In his egoism he dubs him holy; +his family is of a selected blood; he makes the crown hereditary—Ego. +Son by son the shame of egoism increases; valour abates; hereditary +Crown, no hereditary qualities. The Barons rise. They in turn hold +sway, and for their order—Ego. The traders overturn them: each class +rides the classes under it while it can. It is ego—ego, the fountain +cry, origin, sole source of war! Then death to ego, I say! If those +traders had ruled for other than ego, power might have rested with them +on broad basis enough to carry us forward for centuries. The workmen +have ever been too anxious _to be ruled_. Now comes on the workman’s +era. Numbers win in the end: proof of small wisdom in the world. +Anyhow, with numbers there is rough nature’s wisdom and justice. With +numbers ego is inter-dependent and dispersed; it is universalized. Yet +these may require correctives. If so, they will have it in a series of +despots and revolutions that toss, mix, and bind the classes together: +despots, revolutions; _panting alternations of the quickened heart of +humanity:_’ marked by our friend Nevil in notes of admiration.” + +“Mad as the writer,” groaned Colonel Halkett. “Never in my life have I +heard such stuff.” + +“Stay, colonel; here’s Shrapnel defending Morality and Society,” said +Captain Baskelett. + +Colonel Halkett vowed he was under no penal law to listen, and would +not; but Captain Baskelett persuaded him: “Yes, here it is: I give you +my word. Apparently old Nevil has been standing up for every man’s +right to run away with... Yes, really! I give you my word; and here we +have Shrapnel insisting on respect for the marriage laws. Do hear this; +here it is in black and white:—‘Society is our one tangible gain, our +one roofing and flooring in a world of most uncertain structures built +on morasses. Toward the laws that support it men hopeful of progress +give their adhesion. If it is martyrdom, what then? Let the martyrdom +be. Contumacy is animalism. And attend to me,’ says Shrapnel, ‘the +truer the love the readier for sacrifice! A thousand times yes. +Rebellion against Society, and advocacy of Humanity, run counter. Tell +me Society is the whited sepulchre, that it is blotched, hideous, +hollow: and I say, add not another disfigurement to it; add to the +purification of it. And you, if you answer, what can only one? I say +that is the animal’s answer, and applies also to politics, where the +question, _what can one?_ put in the relapsing tone, shows the country +decaying in the individual. Society is the protection of the weaker, +therefore a shield of women, who are our temple of civilization, to be +kept sacred; and he that loves a woman will assuredly esteem and pity +her sex, and not drag her down for another example of their frailty. +Fight this out within you—!’ + +But you are right, colonel; we have had sufficient. I shall be getting +a democratic orator’s twang, or a crazy parson’s, if I go on much +further. He covers thirty-two pages of letter-paper. The conclusion +is:—‘Jenny sends you her compliments, respects, and best wishes, and +hopes she may see you before she goes to her friend Clara Sherwin and +the General.’” + +“Sherwin? Why, General Sherwin’s a perfect gentleman,” Colonel Halkett +interjected; and Lord Palmet caught the other name: “Jenny? That’s Miss +Denham, Jenny Denham; an amazingly pretty girl: beautiful thick brown +hair, real hazel eyes, and walks like a yacht before the wind.” + +“Perhaps, colonel, _Jenny_ accounts for the defence of society,” said +Captain Baskelett. “I have no doubt Shrapnel has a scheme for Jenny. +The old communist and socialist!” He folded up the letter: “A curious +composition, is it not, Miss Halkett?” + +Cecilia was thinking that he tempted her to be the apologist of even +such a letter. + +“One likes to know the worst, and what’s possible,” said the colonel. + +After Captain Baskelett had gone, Colonel Halkett persisted in talking +of the letter, and would have impressed on his daughter that the person +to whom the letter was addressed must be partly responsible for the +contents of it. Cecilia put on the argumentative air of a Court of +Equity to discuss the point with him. + +“Then you defend that letter?” he cried. + +Oh, no: she did not defend the letter; she thought it wicked and +senseless. “But,” said she, “the superior strength of men to women +seems to me to come from their examining all subjects, shrinking from +none. At least, I should not condemn Nevil on account of his +correspondence.” + +“We shall see,” said her father, sighing rather heavily. “I must have a +talk with Mr. Romfrey about that letter.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. +THE BAITING OF DR. SHRAPNEL + + +Captain Baskelett went down from Mount Laurels to Bevisham to arrange +for the giving of a dinner to certain of his chief supporters in the +borough, that they might know he was not obliged literally to sit in +Parliament in order to pay a close attention to their affairs. He had +not distinguished himself by a speech during the session, but he had +stored a political precept or two in his memory, and, as he told Lord +Palmet, he thought a dinner was due to his villains. “The way to manage +your Englishman, Palmet, is to dine him.” As the dinner would decidedly +be dull, he insisted on having Lord Palmet’s company. + +They crossed over to the yachting island, where portions of the letter +of Commander Beauchamp’s correspondent were read at the Club, under the +verandah, and the question put, whether a man who held those opinions +had a right to wear his uniform. + +The letter was transmitted to Steynham in time to be consigned to the +pocket-book before Beauchamp arrived there on one of his rare visits. +Mr. Romfrey handed him the pocketbook with the frank declaration that +he had read Shrapnel’s letter. “All is fair in war, Sir!” Beauchamp +quoted him ambiguously. + +The thieves had amused Mr. Romfrey by their scrupulous honesty in +returning what was useless to them, while reserving the coat: but +subsequently seeing the advertized reward, they had written to claim +it; and, according to Rosamund Culling, he had been so tickled that he +had deigned to reply to them, very briefly, but very comically. + +Speaking of the matter with her, Beauchamp said (so greatly was he +infatuated with the dangerous man) that the reading of a letter of Dr. +Shrapnel’s could do nothing but good to any reflecting human creature: +he admitted that as the lost pocket-book was addressed to Mr. Romfrey, +it might have been by mistake that he had opened it, and read the +topmost letter lying open. But he pressed Rosamund to say whether that +one only had been read. + +“Only Dr. Shrapnel’s letter,” Rosamund affirmed. “The letter from +Normandy was untouched by him.” + +“Untouched by anybody?” + +“Unopened, Nevil. You look incredulous.” + +“Not if I have your word, ma’am.” + +He glanced somewhat contemptuously at his uncle Everard’s anachronistic +notions of what was fair in war. + +To prove to him Mr. Romfrey’s affectionate interest in his fortunes, +Rosamund mentioned the overtures which had been made to Colonel Halkett +for a nuptial alliance between the two houses; and she said: “Your +uncle Everard was completely won by your manly way of taking his +opposition to you in Bevisham. He pays for Captain Baskelett, but you +and your fortunes are nearest his heart, Nevil.” + +Beauchamp hung silent. His first remark was, “Yes, I want money. I must +have money.” By degrees he seemed to warm to some sense of gratitude. +“It was kind of the baron,” he said. + +“He has a great affection for you, Nevil, though you know he spares no +one who chooses to be antagonistic. All that is over. But do you not +second him, Nevil? You admire her? You are not adverse?” + +Beauchamp signified the horrid intermixture of yes and no, frowned in +pain of mind, and Walked up and down. “There’s no living woman I admire +so much.” + +“She has refused the highest matches.” + +“I hold her in every way incomparable.” + +“She tries to understand your political ideas, if she cannot quite +sympathize with them, Nevil. And consider how hard it is for a young +English lady, bred in refinement, to understand such things.” + +“Yes,” Beauchamp nodded; yes. Well, more’s the pity for me!” + +“Ah! Nevil, that fatal Renée!” + +“Ma’am, I acquit you of any suspicion of your having read her letter in +this pocket-book. She wishes me to marry. You would have seen it +written here. She wishes it.” + +“Fly, clipped wing!” murmured Rosamund, and purposely sent a buzz into +her ears to shut out his extravagant talk of Renée’s friendly wishes. + +“How is it you women will not believe in the sincerity of a woman!” he +exclaimed. + +“Nevil, I am not alluding to the damage done to your election.” + +“To my candidature, ma’am. You mean those rumours, those lies of the +enemy. Tell me how I could suppose you were alluding to them. You bring +them forward now to justify your charge of ‘fatal’ against her. She has +one fault; she wants courage; she has none other, not one that is not +excuseable. We won’t speak of France. What did her father say?” + +“Colonel Halkett? I do not know. He and his daughter come here next +week, and the colonel will expect to meet you here. That does not look +like so positive an objection to you?” + +“To me personally, no,” said Beauchamp. “But Mr. Romfrey has not told +me that I am to meet them.” + +“Perhaps he has not thought it worth while. It is not his way. He has +asked you to come. You and Miss Halkett will be left to yourselves. Her +father assured Mr. Romfrey that he should not go beyond advising her. +His advice might not be exactly favourable to you at present, but if +you sued and she accepted—and she would, I am convinced she would; she +was here with me, talking of you a whole afternoon, and I have +eyes—then he would not oppose the match, and then I should see you +settled, the husband of the handsomest wife and richest heiress in +England.” + +A vision of Cecilia swam before him, gracious in stateliness. + +Two weeks back Renée’s expression of a wish that he would marry had +seemed to him an idle sentence in a letter breathing of her own +intolerable situation. The marquis had been struck down by illness. +What if she were to be soon suddenly free? But Renée could not be +looking to freedom, otherwise she never would have written the wish for +him to marry. She wrote perhaps hearing temptation whisper; perhaps +wishing to save herself and him by the aid of a tie that would bring +his honour into play and fix his loyalty. He remembered Dr. Shrapnel’s +written words: “_Rebellion against society and advocacy of humanity run +counter._” They had a stronger effect on him than when he was ignorant +of his uncle Everard’s plan to match him with Cecilia. He took refuge +from them in the image of that beautiful desolate Renée, born to be +beloved, now wasted, worse than trodden under foot—perverted; a life +that looked to him for direction and resuscitation. She was as good as +dead in her marriage. It was impossible for him ever to think of Renée +without the surprising thrill of his enchantment with her, and tender +pity that drew her closer to him by darkening her brightness. + +Still a man may love his wife. A wife like Cecilia was not to be +imagined coldly. Let the knot once be tied, it would not be regretted, +could not be; hers was a character, and hers a smile, firmly assuring +him of that. + +He told Mr. Romfrey that he should be glad to meet Colonel Halkett and +Cecilia. Business called him to Holdesbury. Thence he betook himself to +Dr. Shrapnel’s cottage to say farewell to Jenny Denham previous to her +departure for Switzerland with her friend Clara Sherwin. She had never +seen a snow-mountain, and it was pleasant to him to observe in her +eyes, which he had known weighing and balancing intellectual questions +more than he quite liked, a childlike effort to conjure in imagination +the glories of the Alps. She appeared very happy, only a little anxious +about leaving Dr. Shrapnel with no one to take care of him for a whole +month. Beauchamp promised he would run over to him from Holdesbury, +only an hour by rail, as often as he could. He envied her the sight of +the Alps, he said, and tried to give her an idea of them, from which he +broke off to boast of a famous little Jersey bull that he had won from +a rival, an American, deeply in love with the bull; cutting him out by +telegraph by just five minutes. The latter had examined the bull in the +island and had passed on to Paris, not suspecting there would be haste +to sell him. Beauchamp, seeing the bull advertized, took him on trust, +galloped to the nearest telegraph station forthwith, and so obtained +possession of him; and the bull was now shipped on the voyage. But for +this precious bull, however, and other business, he would have been +able to spend almost the entire month with Dr. Shrapnel, he said +regretfully. Miss Denham on the contrary did not regret his active +occupation. The story of his rush from the breakfast-table to the +stables, and gallop away to the station, while the American Quaker +gentleman soberly paced down a street in Paris on the same errand, in +invisible rivalry, touched her risible fancy. She was especially +pleased to think of him living in harmony with his uncle—that strange, +lofty, powerful man, who by plot or by violence punished opposition to +his will, but who must be kind at heart, as well as forethoughtful of +his nephew’s good; the assurance of it being, that when the conflict +was at an end he had immediately installed him as manager of one of his +estates, to give his energy play and make him practically useful. + +The day before she left home was passed by the three in botanizing, +some miles distant from Bevisham, over sand country, marsh and meadow; +Dr. Shrapnel, deep in the science, on one side of her, and Beauchamp, +requiring instruction in the names and properties of every plant and +simple, on the other. It was a day of summer sweetness, gentle +laughter, conversation, and the happiest homeliness. The politicians +uttered barely a syllable of politics. The dinner basket was emptied +heartily to make way for herb and flower, and at night the expedition +homeward was crowned with stars along a road refreshed by mid-day +thunder-showers and smelling of the rain in the dust, past meadows +keenly scenting, gardens giving out their innermost balm and odour. +Late at night they drank tea in Jenny’s own garden. They separated a +little after two in the morning, when the faded Western light still lay +warm on a bow of sky, and on the level of the East it quickened. Jenny +felt sure she should long for that yesterday when she was among foreign +scenes, even among high Alps—those mysterious eminences which seemed in +her imagination to know of heaven and have the dawn of a new life for +her beyond their peaks. + +Her last words when stepping into the railway carriage were to +Beauchamp: “_Will_ you take care of him?” She flung her arms round Dr. +Shrapnel’s neck, and gazed at him under troubled eyelids which seemed +to be passing in review every vision of possible harm that might come +to him during her absence; and so she continued gazing, and at no one +but Dr. Shrapnel until the bend of the line cut him from her sight. +Beauchamp was a very secondary person on that occasion, and he was +unused to being so in the society of women—unused to find himself +entirely eclipsed by their interest in another. He speculated on it, +wondering at her concentrated fervency; for he had not supposed her to +possess much warmth. + +After she was fairly off on her journey, Dr. Shrapnel mentioned to +Beauchamp a case of a Steynham poacher, whom he had thought it his duty +to supply with means of defence. It was a common poaching case. + +Beauchamp was not surprised that Mr. Romfrey and Dr. Shrapnel should +come to a collision; the marvel was that it had never occurred before, +and Beauchamp said at once: “Oh, my uncle Mr. Romfrey would rather see +them stand their ground than not.” He was disposed to think well of his +uncle. The Jersey bull called him away to Holdesbury. + +Captain Baskelett heard of this poaching case at Steynham, where he had +to appear in person when he was in want of cheques, and the Bevisham +dinner furnished an excuse for demanding one. He would have preferred a +positive sum annually. Mr. Romfrey, however, though he wrote his +cheques out like the lord he was by nature, exacted the request for +them; a system that kept the gallant gentleman on his good behaviour, +probably at a lower cost than the regular stipend. In handing the +cheque to Cecil Baskelett, Mr. Romfrey spoke of a poacher, of an old +poaching family called the Dicketts, who wanted punishment and was to +have it, but Mr. Romfrey’s local lawyer had informed him that the man +Shrapnel was, as usual, supplying the means of defence. For his own +part, Mr. Romfrey said, he had no objection to one rascal’s backing +another, and Shrapnel might hit his hardest, only perhaps Nevil might +somehow get mixed up in it, and Nevil was going on quietly now—he had +in fact just done capitally in lassoing with a shot of the telegraph a +splendid little Jersey bull that a Yankee was after: and on the whole +it was best to try to keep him quiet, for he was mad about that man +Shrapnel; Shrapnel was his joss: and if legal knocks came of this +business Nevil might be thinking of interfering: “Or he and I may be +getting to exchange a lot of shindy letters,” Mr. Romfrey said. “Tell +him I take Shrapnel just like any other man, and don’t want to hear +apologies, and I don’t mix him up in it. Tell him if he likes to have +an explanation from me, I’ll give it him when he comes here. You can +run over to Holdesbury the morning after your dinner.” + +Captain Baskelett said he would go. He was pleased with his cheque at +the time, but hearing subsequently that Nevil was coming to Steynham to +meet Colonel Halkett and his daughter, he became displeased, +considering it a very silly commission. The more he thought of it the +more ridiculous and unworthy it appeared. He asked himself and Lord +Palmet also why he should have to go to Nevil at Holdesbury to tell him +of circumstances that he would hear of two or three days later at +Steynham. There was no sense in it. The only conclusion for him was +that the scheming woman Culling had determined to bring down every man +concerned in the Bevisham election, and particularly Mr. Romfrey, on +his knees before Nevil. Holdesbury had been placed at his disposal, and +the use of the house in London, which latter would have been extremely +serviceable to Cecil as a place of dinners to the Parliament of Great +Britain in lieu of the speech-making generally expected of Members, and +not so effectively performed. One would think the baron had grown +afraid of old Nevil! He had spoken as if he were. + +Cecil railed unreservedly to Lord Palmet against that woman “Mistress +Culling,” as it pleased him to term her, and who could be offended by +his calling her so? His fine wit revelled in bestowing titles that were +at once batteries directed upon persons he hated, and entrenchments for +himself. + +At four o’clock on a sultry afternoon he sat at table with his Bevisham +supporters, and pledged them correspondingly in English hotel +champagne, sherry and claret. At seven he was rid of them, but parched +and heated, as he deserved to be, he owned, for drinking the poison. It +would be a good subject for Parliament if he could get it up, he +reflected. + +“And now,” said he to Palmet, “we might be crossing over to the Club if +I hadn’t to go about that stupid business to Holdesbury to-morrow +morning. We shall miss the race, or, at least, the start.” + +The idea struck him: “Ten to one old Nevil’s with Shrapnel,” and no +idea could be more natural. + +“We’ll call on Shrapnel,” said Palmet. “We shall see Jenny Denham. He +gives her out as his niece. Whatever she is she’s a brimming little +beauty. I assure you, Bask, you seldom see so pretty a girl.” + +Wine, which has directed men’s footsteps upon more marvellous +adventures, took them to a chemist’s shop for a cooling effervescent +draught, and thence through the town to the address, furnished to them +by the chemist, of Dr. Shrapnel on the common. + +Bad wine, which is responsible for the fate of half the dismal bodies +hanging from trees, weltering by rocks, grovelling and bleaching round +the bedabbled mouth of the poet’s Cave of Despair, had rendered Captain +Baskelett’s temper extremely irascible; so when he caught sight of Dr. +Shrapnel walling in his garden, and perceived him of a giant’s height, +his eyes fastened on the writer of the abominable letter with an +exultation peculiar to men having a devil inside them that kicks to be +out. The sun was low, blazing among the thicker branches of the pollard +forest trees, and through sprays of hawthorn. Dr. Shrapnel stopped, +facing the visible master of men, at the end of his walk before he +turned his back to continue the exercise and some discourse he was +holding aloud either to the heavens or bands of invisible men. + +“Ahem, Dr. Shrapnel!” He was accosted twice, the second time +imperiously. + +He saw two gentlemen outside the garden-hedge. + +“I spoke, sir,” said Captain Baskelett. + +“I hear you now, sir,” said the doctor, walking in a parallel line with +them. + +“I desired to know, sir, if you are Dr. Shrapnel?” + +“I am.” + +They arrived at the garden-gate. + +“You have a charming garden, Dr. Shrapnel,” said Lord Palmet, very +affably and loudly, with a steady observation of the cottage windows. + +Dr. Shrapnel flung the gate open. + +Lord Palmet raised his hat and entered, crying loudly, “A very charming +garden, upon my word!” + +Captain Baskelett followed him, bowing stiffly. + +“I am,” he said, “Captain Beauchamp’s cousin. I am Captain Baskelett, +one of the Members for the borough.” + +The doctor said, “Ah.” + +“I wish to see Captain Beauchamp, sir. He is absent?” + +“I shall have him here shortly, sir.” + +“Oh, you will have him!” Cecil paused. + +“Admirable roses!” exclaimed Lord Palmet. + +“You _have_ him, I think,” said Cecil, “if what we hear is correct. I +wish to know, sir, whether the case you are conducting against his +uncle is one you have communicated to Captain Beauchamp. I repeat, I am +here to inquire if he is privy to it. You may hold family ties in +contempt—Now, sir! I request you abstain from provocations with me.” + +Dr. Shrapnel had raised his head, with something of the rush of a +rocket, from the stooping posture to listen, and his frown of +non-intelligence might be interpreted as the coming on of the fury +Radicals are prone to, by a gentleman who believed in their constant +disposition to explode. + +Cecil made play with a pacifying hand. “We shall arrive at no +understanding unless you are good enough to be perfectly calm. I +repeat, my cousin Captain Beauchamp is more or less at variance with +his family, owing to these doctrines of yours, and your extraordinary +Michael-Scott-the-wizard kind of spell you seem to have cast upon his +common sense as a man of the world. _You have him_, as you say. I do +not dispute it. I have no doubt you have him fast. But here is a case +demanding a certain respect for decency. Pray, if I may ask you, be +still, be quiet, and hear me out if you can. I am accustomed to explain +myself to the comprehension of most men who are at large, and I tell +you candidly I am not to be deceived or diverted from my path by a show +of ignorance.” + +“What is your immediate object, sir?” said Dr. Shrapnel, chagrined by +the mystification within him, and a fear that his patience was going. + +“Exactly,” Cecil nodded. He was acute enough to see that he had +established the happy commencement of fretfulness in the victim, which +is equivalent to a hook well struck in the mouth of your fish, and with +an angler’s joy he prepared to play his man. “Exactly. I have stated +it. And you ask me. But I really must decline to run over the whole +ground again for you. I am here to fulfil a duty to my family; a highly +disagreeable one to me. I may fail, like the lady who came here +previous to the Election, for the result of which I am assured I ought +to thank your eminently disinterested services. I do. You recollect a +lady calling on you?” + +Dr. Shrapnel consulted his memory. “I think I have a recollection of +some lady calling.” + +“Oh! you think you have a recollection of some lady calling.” + +“Do you mean a lady connected with Captain Beauchamp?” + +“A lady connected with Captain Beauchamp. You are not aware of the +situation of the lady?” + +“If I remember, she was a kind of confidential housekeeper, some one +said, to Captain Beauchamp’s uncle.” + +“A kind of confidential housekeeper! She is recognized in our family as +a lady, sir. I can hardly expect better treatment at your hands than +she met with, but I do positively request you to keep your temper +whilst I am explaining my business to you. Now, sir! what now?” + +A trifling breeze will set the tall tree bending, and Dr. Shrapnel did +indeed appear to display the agitation of a full-driving storm when he +was but harassed and vexed. + +“Will you mention your business concisely, if you Please?” he said. + +“Precisely; it is my endeavour. I supposed I had done so. To be frank, +I would advise you to summon a member of your household, wife, +daughter, housekeeper, any one you like, to whom you may appeal, and I +too, whenever your recollections are at fault.” + +“I am competent,” said the doctor. + +“But in justice to you,” urged Cecil considerately. + +Dr. Shrapnel smoothed his chin hastily. “Have you done?” + +“Believe me, the instant I have an answer to my question, I have done.” + +“Name your question.” + +“Very well, sir. Now mark, I will be plain with you. There is no escape +for you from this. You destroy my cousin’s professional prospects—I +request you to listen—you blast his career in the navy; it was +considered promising. He was a gallant officer and a smart seaman. Very +well. You set him up as a politician, to be knocked down, to a dead +certainty. You set him against his class; you embroil him with his +family ...” + +“On all those points,” interposed Dr. Shrapnel, after dashing a hand to +straighten his forelock; but Cecil vehemently entreated him to control +his temper. + +“I say you embroil him with his family, you cause him to be in +everlasting altercation with his uncle Mr. Romfrey, materially to his +personal detriment; and the question of his family is one that every +man of sense would apprehend on the spot; for we, you should know, +have, sir, an opinion of Captain Beauchamp’s talents and abilities +forbidding us to think he could possibly be the total simpleton you +make him appear, unless to the seductions of your political +instructions, other seductions were added.... You apprehend me, I am +sure.” + +“I don’t,” cried the doctor, descending from his height and swinging +about forlornly. + +“Oh! yes, you do; you do indeed, you cannot avoid it; you quite +apprehend me; it is admitted that you take my meaning: I insist on +that. I have nothing to say but what is complimentary of the young +lady, whoever she may turn out to be; bewitching, no doubt; and to +speak frankly, Dr. Shrapnel, I, and I am pretty certain every honest +man would think with me, I take it to be ten times more creditable to +my cousin Captain Beauchamp that he should be under a lady’s influence +than under yours. Come, sir! I ask you. You must confess that a gallant +officer and great admirer of the sex does not look such a donkey if he +is led in silken strings by a beautiful creature. And mark—stop! mark +this, Dr. Shrapnel: I say, to the lady we can all excuse a good deal, +and at the same time you are to be congratulated on first-rate +diplomacy in employing so charming an agent. I wish, I really wish you +did it generally, I assure you: only, mark this—I do beg you to contain +yourself for a minute, if possible—I say, my cousin Captain Beauchamp +is fair game to hunt, and there is no law to prevent the chase, only +you must not expect us to be quiet spectators of your sport; and we +have, I say, undoubtedly a right to lay the case before the lady, and +induce her to be a peace-agent in the family if we can. Very well.” + +“This garden is redolent of a lady’s hand,” sighed Palmet, poetical in +his dejection. + +“Have you taken too much wine, gentlemen?” said Dr. Shrapnel. + +Cecil put this impertinence aside with a graceful sweep of his fingers. +“You attempt to elude me, sir.” + +“Not I! You mention some lady.” + +“Exactly. A young lady.” + +“What is the name of the lady?” + +“Oh! You ask the name of the lady. And I too. What is it? I have heard +two or three names.” + +“Then you have heard villanies.” + +“Denham, Jenny Denham, Miss Jenny Denham,” said Palmet, rejoiced at the +opportunity of trumpeting her name so that she should not fail to hear +it. + +“I stake my reputation I have heard her called Shrapnel—Miss Shrapnel,” +said Cecil. + +The doctor glanced hastily from one to the other of his visitors. “The +young lady is my ward; I am her guardian,” he said. + +Cecil pursed his mouth. “I have heard her called your niece.” + +“Niece—ward; she is a lady by birth and education, in manners, +accomplishments, and character; and she is under my protection,” cried +Dr. Shrapnel. + +Cecil bowed. “So you are for gentle birth? I forgot you are for +morality too, and for praying; exactly; I recollect. But now let me +tell you, entirely with the object of conciliation, my particular +desire is to see the young lady, in your presence of course, and +endeavour to persuade her, as I have very little doubt I shall do, +assuming that you give me fair play, to exercise her influence, on this +occasion contrary to yours, and save my cousin Captain Beauchamp from a +fresh misunderstanding with his uncle Mr. Romfrey. Now, sir; now, +there!” + +“You will not see Miss Denham with my sanction ever,” said Dr. +Shrapnel. + +“Oh! Then I perceive your policy. Mark, sir, my assumption was that the +young lady would, on hearing my representations, exert herself to heal +the breach between Captain Beauchamp and his family. You stand in the +way. You treat me as you treated the lady who came here formerly to +wrest your dupe from your clutches. If I mistake not, she saw the young +lady you acknowledge to be your ward.” + +Dr. Shrapnel flashed back: “I acknowledge? Mercy and justice! is there +no peace with the man? You walk here to me, I can’t yet guess why, from +a town where I have enemies, and every scandal flies touching me and +mine; and you—” He stopped short to master his anger. He subdued it so +far as to cloak it in an attempt to speak reasoningly, as angry men +sometimes deceive themselves in doing, despite the good maxim for the +wrathful—speak not at all. “See,” said he, “I was never married. My +dear friend dies, and leaves me his child to protect and rear; and +though she bears her father’s name, she is most wrongly and foully made +to share the blows levelled at her guardian. Ay, have at me, all of +you, as much as you will! Hold off from her. Were it true, the +cowardice would be not a whit the smaller. Why, casting a stone like +that, were it the size of a pebble and the weight of a glance, is to +toss the whole cowardly world on an innocent young girl. And why +suspect evil? You talk of that lady who paid me a visit here once, and +whom I treated becomingly, I swear. I never do otherwise. She was a +handsome woman; and what was she? The housekeeper of Captain +Beauchamp’s uncle. Hear me, if you please! To go with the world, I have +as good a right to suppose the worst of an attractive lady in that +situation as you regarding my ward: better warrant for scandalizing, I +think; to go with the world. But now—” + +Cecil checked him, ejaculating, “Thank you, Dr. Shrapnel; I thank you +most cordially,” with a shining smile. “Stay, sir! no more. I take my +leave of you. Not another word. No ‘buts’! I recognize that +conciliation is out of the question: you are the natural protector of +poachers, and you will not grant me an interview with the young lady +you call your ward, that I may represent to her, as a person we presume +to have a chance of moving you, how easily—I am determined you shall +hear me, Dr. Shrapnel!—how easily the position of Captain Beauchamp may +become precarious with his uncle Mr. Romfrey. And let me add—‘but’ and +‘but’ me till Doomsday, sir!—if you were—I _do_ hear you, sir, and you +shall hear me—if you were a younger man, I say, I would hold you +answerable to me for your scandalous and disgraceful insinuations.” + +Dr. Shrapnel was adroitly fenced and over-shouted. He shrugged, +stuttered, swayed, wagged a bulrush-head, flapped his elbows, puffed +like a swimmer in the breakers, tried many times to expostulate, and +finding the effort useless, for his adversary was copious and +commanding, relapsed, eyeing him as an object far removed. + +Cecil rounded one of his perplexingly empty sentences and turned on his +heel. + +“War, then!” he said. + +“As you like,” retorted the doctor. + +“Oh! Very good. Good evening.” Cecil slightly lifted his hat, with the +short projection of the head of the stately peacock in its walk, and +passed out of the garden. Lord Palmet, deeply disappointed and +mystified, went after him, leaving Dr. Shrapnel to shorten his garden +walk with enormous long strides. + +“I’m afraid you didn’t manage the old boy,” Palmet complained. “They’re +people who have tea in their gardens; we might have sat down with them +and talked, the best friends in the world, and come again to-morrow +might have called her Jenny in a week. She didn’t show her pretty nose +at any of the windows.” + +His companion pooh-poohed and said: “Foh! I’m afraid I permitted myself +to lose my self-command for a moment.” + +Palmet sang out an amorous couplet to console himself. Captain +Baskelett respected the poetic art for its magical power over woman’s +virtue, but he disliked hearing verses, and they were ill-suited to +Palmet. He abused his friend roundly, telling him it was contemptible +to be quoting verses. He was irritable still. + +He declared himself nevertheless much refreshed by his visit to Dr. +Shrapnel. “We shall have to sleep tonight in this unhallowed town, but +I needn’t be off to Holdesbury in the morning; I’ve done my business. I +shall write to the baron to-night, and we can cross the water to-morrow +in time for operations.” + +The letter to Mr. Romfrey was composed before midnight. It was a long +one, and when he had finished it, Cecil remembered that the act of +composition had been assisted by a cigar in his mouth, and Mr. Romfrey +detested the smell of tobacco. There was nothing to be done but to +write the letter over again, somewhat more briefly: it ran thus: + +“Thinking to kill two birds at a blow, I went yesterday with Palmet +after the dinner at this place to Shrapnel’s house, where, as I heard, +I stood a chance of catching friend Nevil. The young person living +under the man’s protection was absent, and so was the ‘poor dear +commander,’ perhaps attending on his bull. Shrapnel said he was +expecting him. I write to you to confess I thought myself a cleverer +fellow than I am. I talked to Shrapnel and tried hard to reason with +him. I hope I can keep my temper under ordinary circumstances. You will +understand that it required remarkable restraint when I make you +acquainted with the fact that a lady’s name was introduced, which, as +your representative in relation to her, I was bound to defend from a +gratuitous and scoundrelly aspersion. Shrapnel’s epistle to ‘brave +Beauchamp’ is Church hymnification in comparison with his conversation. +He is indubitably one of the greatest ruffians of his time. + +“I took the step with the best of intentions, and all I can plead is +that I am not a diplomatist of sixty. His last word was that he is for +war with us. As far as we men are concerned it is of small importance. +I should think that the sort of society he would scandalize a lady in +is not much to be feared. I have given him his warning. He tops me by +about a head, and loses his temper every two minutes. I could have +drawn him out deliciously if he had not rather disturbed mine. By this +time my equanimity is restored. The only thing I apprehend is your +displeasure with me for having gone to the man. I have done no good, +and it prevents me from running over to Holdesbury to see Nevil, for if +‘shindy letters,’ as you call them, are bad, shindy meetings are worse. +I should be telling him my opinion of Shrapnel, he would be firing out, +I should retort, he would yell, I should snap my fingers, and he would +go into convulsions. I am convinced that a cattle-breeder ought to keep +himself particularly calm. So unless I have further orders from you I +refrain from going. + +“The dinner was enthusiastic. I sat three hours among my Commons, they +on me for that length of time—fatiguing, but a duty.” + +Cecil subscribed his name with the warmest affection toward his uncle. + +The brevity of the second letter had not brought him nearer to the +truth in rescinding the picturesque accessories of his altercation with +Dr. Shrapnel, but it veraciously expressed the sentiments he felt, and +that was the palpable truth for him. + +He posted the letter next morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. +SHOWING A CHIVALROUS GENTLEMAN SET IN MOTION + + +About noon the day following, on board the steam-yacht of the Countess +of Menai, Cecil was very much astonished to see Mr. Romfrey descending +into a boat hard by, from Grancey Lespel’s hired cutter. Steam was up, +and the countess was off for a cruise in the Channel, as it was not a +race-day, but seeing Mr. Romfrey’s hand raised, she spoke to Cecil, and +immediately gave orders to wait for the boat. This lady was a fervent +admirer of the knightly gentleman, and had reason to like him, for he +had once been her champion. Mr. Romfrey mounted the steps, received her +greeting, and beckoned to Cecil. He carried a gold-headed horsewhip +under his arm. Lady Menai would gladly have persuaded him to be one of +her company for the day’s voyage, but he said he had business in +Bevisham, and moving aside with Cecil, put the question to him +abruptly: “What were the words used by Shrapnel?” + +“The identical words?” Captain Baskelett asked. He could have tripped +out the words with the fluency of ancient historians relating what +great kings, ambassadors, or Generals may well have uttered on State +occasions, but if you want the identical words, who is to remember them +the day after they have been delivered? He said: + +“Well, as for the identical words, I really, and I was tolerably +excited, sir, and upon my honour, the identical words are rather +difficult to....” He glanced at the horsewhip, and pricked by the sight +of it to proceed, thought it good to soften the matter if possible. “I +don’t quite recollect... I wrote off to you rather hastily. I think he +said—but Palmet was there.” + +“Shrapnel spoke the words before Lord Palmet?” said Mr. Romfrey +austerely. + +Captain Baskelett summoned Palmet to come near, and inquired of him +what he had heard Shrapnel say, suggesting: “He spoke of a handsome +woman for a housekeeper, and all the world knew her character?” + +Mr. Romfrey cleared his throat. + +“Or knew she had _no_ character,” Cecil pursued in a fit of gratified +spleen, in scorn of the woman. “Don’t you recollect his accent in +pronouncing _housekeeper?_” + +The menacing thunder sounded from Mr. Romfrey. He was patient in +appearance, and waited for Cecil’s witness to corroborate the evidence. + +It happened (and here we are in one of the circles of small things +producing great consequences, which have inspired diminutive +philosophers with ironical visions of history and the littleness of +man), it happened that Lord Palmet, the humanest of young aristocrats, +well-disposed toward the entire world, especially to women, also to men +in any way related to pretty women, had just lit a cigar, and it was a +cigar that he had been recommended to try the flavour of; and though +he, having his wits about him, was fully aware that shipboard is no +good place for a trial of the delicacy of tobacco in the leaf, he had +begun puffing and sniffing in a critical spirit, and scarcely knew for +the moment what to decide as to this particular cigar. He remembered, +however, Mr. Romfrey’s objection to tobacco. Imagining that he saw the +expression of a profound distaste in that gentleman’s more than usually +serious face, he hesitated between casting the cigar into the water and +retaining it. He decided upon the latter course, and held the cigar +behind his back, bowing to Mr. Romfrey at about a couple of yards +distance, and saying to Cecil, “Housekeeper; yes, I remember hearing +housekeeper. I think so. Housekeeper? yes, oh yes.” + +“And handsome housekeepers were doubtful characters,” Captain Baskelett +prompted him. + +Palmet laughed out a single “Ha!” that seemed to excuse him for +lounging away to the forepart of the vessel, where he tugged at his +fine specimen of a cigar to rekindle it, and discharged it with a wry +grimace, so delicate is the flavour of that weed, and so adversely ever +is it affected by a breeze and a moist atmosphere. He could then return +undivided in his mind to Mr. Romfrey and Cecil, but the subject was not +resumed in his presence. + +The Countess of Menai steamed into Bevisham to land Mr. Romfrey there. +“I can be out in the Channel any day; it is not every day that I see +you,” she said, in support of her proposal to take him over. + +They sat together conversing, apart from the rest of the company, until +they sighted Bevisham, when Mr. Romfrey stood up, and a little crowd of +men came round him to enjoy his famous racy talk. Captain Baskelett +offered to land with him. He declined companionship. Dropping her hand +in his, the countess asked him what he had to do in that town, and he +replied, “I have to demand an apology.” + +Answering the direct look of his eyes, she said, “Oh, I shall not speak +of it.” + +In his younger days, if the rumour was correct, he had done the same on +her account. + +He stepped into the boat, and presently they saw him mount the +pier-steps, with the riding-whip under his arm, his head more than +commonly bent, a noticeable point in a man of his tall erect figure. +The ladies and some of the gentlemen thought he was looking +particularly grave, even sorrowful. + +Lady Menai inquired of Captain Baskelett whether he knew the nature of +his uncle’s business in Bevisham, the town he despised. + +What could Cecil say but no? His uncle had not imparted it to him. + +She was flattered in being the sole confidante, and said no more. + +The sprightly ingenuity of Captain Baskelett’s mind would have informed +him of the nature of his uncle’s expedition, we may be sure, had he put +it to the trial; for Mr. Romfrey was as plain to read as a rudimentary +sum in arithmetic, and like the tracings of a pedigree-map his +preliminary steps to deeds were seen pointing on their issue in lines +of straight descent. But Cecil could protest that he was not bound to +know, and considering that he was neither bound to know nor to +speculate, he determined to stand on his right. So effectually did he +accomplish the task, that he was frequently surprised during the +evening and the night by the effervescence of a secret exultation +rising imp-like within him, that was, he assured himself, perfectly +unaccountable. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. +AN EFFORT TO CONQUER CECILIA IN BEAUCHAMP’S FASHION + + +The day after Mr. Romfrey’s landing in Bevisham a full South-wester +stretched the canvas of yachts of all classes, schooner, cutter and +yawl, on the lively green water between the island and the forest +shore. Cecilia’s noble schooner was sure to be out in such a ringing +breeze, for the pride of it as well as the pleasure. She landed her +father at the Club steps, and then bore away Eastward to sight a cutter +race, the breeze beginning to stiffen. Looking back against sun and +wind, she saw herself pursued by a saucy little 15-ton craft that had +been in her track since she left the Otley river before noon, dipping +and straining, with every inch of sail set; as mad a stern chase as +ever was witnessed: and who could the man at the tiller, clad cap-A-pie +in tarpaulin, be? She led him dancing away, to prove his resoluteness +and laugh at him. She had the powerful wings, and a glory in them +coming of this pursuit: her triumph was delicious, until the occasional +sparkle of the tarpaulin was lost, the small boat appeared a motionless +object far behind, and all ahead of her exceedingly dull, though the +race hung there and the crowd of sail. + +Cecilia’s transient flutter of coquettry created by the animating air +and her queenly flight was over. She fled splendidly and she came back +graciously. But he refused her open hand, as it were. He made as if to +stand across her tack, and, reconsidering it, evidently scorned his +advantage and challenged the stately vessel for a beat up against the +wind. It was as pretty as a Court minuet. But presently Cecilia stood +too far on one tack, and returning to the centre of the channel, found +herself headed by seamanship. He waved an ironical salute with his +sou’wester. Her retort consisted in bringing her vessel to the wind, +and sending a boat for him. + +She did it on the impulse; had she consulted her wishes she would +rather have seen him at his post, where he seemed in his element, +facing the spray and cunningly calculating to get wind and tide in his +favour. Partly with regret she saw him, stripped of his tarpaulin, jump +into her boat, as though she had once more to say farewell to sailor +Nevil Beauchamp; farewell the bright youth, the hero, the true servant +of his country! + +That feeling of hers changed when he was on board. The stirring cordial +day had put new breath in him. + +“Should not the flag be dipped?” he said, looking up at the peak, where +the white flag streamed. + +“Can you really mistake compassion for defeat?” said she, with a smile. + +“Oh! before the wind of course I hadn’t a chance.” + +“How could you be so presumptuous as to give chase? And who has lent +you that little cutter?” + +Beauchamp had hired her for a month, and he praised her sailing, and +pretended to say that the race was not always to the strong in a stiff +breeze. + +“But in point” of fact I was bent on trying how my boat swims, and had +no idea of overhauling you. To-day our salt-water lake is as fine as +the Mediterranean.” + +“Omitting the islands and the Mediterranean colour, it is. I have often +told you how I love it. I have landed papa at the Club. Are you aware +that we meet you at Steynham the day after to-morrow?” + +“Well, we can ride on the downs. The downs between three and four of a +summer’s morning are as lovely as anything in the world. They have the +softest outlines imaginable... and remind me of a friend’s upper lip +when she deigns to smile.” + +“Is one to rise at that hour to behold the effect? And let me remind +you further, Nevil, that the comparison of nature’s minor work beside +her mighty is an error, if you will be poetical.” + +She cited a well-known instance of degradation in verse. + +But a young man who happens to be intimately acquainted with a certain +“dark eye in woman” will not so lightly be brought to consider that the +comparison of tempestuous night to the flashing of those eyes of hers +topples the scene headlong from grandeur. And if Beauchamp remembered +rightly, the scene was the Alps at night. + +He was prepared to contest Cecilia’s judgement. At that moment the +breeze freshened and the canvas lifted: from due South the yacht swung +her sails to drive toward the West, and Cecilia’s face and hair came +out golden in the sunlight. Speech was difficult, admiration natural, +so he sat beside her, admiring in silence. + +She said a good word for the smartness of his little yacht. + +“This is my first trial of her,” said Beauchamp. “I hired her chiefly +to give Dr. Shrapnel a taste of salt air. I’ve no real right to be +idling about. His ward Miss Denham is travelling in Switzerland; the +dear old man is alone, and not quite so well as I should wish. Change +of scene will do him good. I shall land him on the French coast for a +couple of days, or take him down Channel.” + +Cecilia gazed abstractedly at a passing schooner. + +“He works too hard,” said Beauchamp. + +“Who does?” + +“Dr. Shrapnel.” + +Some one else whom we have heard of works too hard, and it would be +happy for mankind if he did not. + +Cecilia named the schooner; an American that had beaten our crack +yachts. Beauchamp sprang up to spy at the American. + +“That’s the _Corinne_, is she!” + +Yankee craftiness on salt water always excited his respectful attention +as a spectator. + +“And what is the name of your boat, Nevil?” + +“The fool of an owner calls her the _Petrel_. It’s not that I’m +superstitious, but to give a boat a name of bad augury to sailors +appears to me... however, I’ve argued it with him and I will have her +called the _Curlew_. Carrying Dr. Shrapnel and me, _Petrel_ would be +thought the proper title for her—isn’t that your idea?” + +He laughed and she smiled, and then he became overcast with his +political face, and said, “I hope—I believe—you will alter your opinion +of him. Can it be an opinion when it’s founded on nothing? You know +really nothing of him. I have in my pocket what I believe would alter +your mind about him entirely. I do think so; and I think so because I +feel you would appreciate his deep sincerity and real nobleness.” + +“Is it a talisman that you have, Nevil?” + +“No, it’s a letter.” + +Cecilia’s cheeks took fire. + +“I should so much like to read it to you,” said he. + +“Do not, please,” she replied with a dash of supplication in her voice. + +“Not the whole of it—an extract here and there? I want you so much to +understand him.” + +“I am sure I should not.” + +“Let me try you!” + +“Pray do not.” + +“Merely to show you...” + +“But, Nevil, I do not wish to understand him.” + +“But you have only to listen for a few minutes, and I want you to know +what good reason I have to reverence him as a teacher and a friend.” + +Cecilia looked at Beauchamp with wonder. A confused recollection of the +contents of the letter declaimed at Mount Laurels in Captain +Baskelett’s absurd sing-song, surged up in her mind revoltingly. She +signified a decided negative. Something of a shudder accompanied the +expression of it. + +But he as little as any member of the Romfrey blood was framed to let +the word no stand quietly opposed to him. And the no that a woman +utters! It calls for wholesome tyranny. Those old, those hoar-old +duellists, Yes and No, have rarely been better matched than in +Beauchamp and Cecilia. For if he was obstinate in attack she had great +resisting power. Twice to listen to that letter was beyond her +endurance. Indeed it cast a shadow on him and disfigured him; and when, +affecting to plead, he said: “You must listen to it to please me, for +my sake, Cecilia,” she answered: “It is for your sake, Nevil, I decline +to.” + +“Why, what do you know of it?” he exclaimed. + +“I know the kind of writing it would be.” + +“How do you know it?” + +“I have heard of some of Dr. Shrapnel’s opinions.” + +“You imagine him to be subversive, intolerant, immoral, and the rest! +all that comes under your word revolutionary.” + +“Possibly; but I must defend myself from hearing what I know will be +certain to annoy me.” + +“But he is the reverse of immoral: and I intend to read you parts of +the letter to prove to you that he is not the man you would blame, but +I, and that if ever I am worthier... worthier of you, as I hope to +become, it will be owing to this admirable and good old man.” + +Cecilia trembled: she was touched to the quick. Yet it was not pleasant +to her to be wooed obliquely, through Dr. Shrapnel. + +She recognized the very letter, crowned with many stamps, thick with +many pages, in Beauchamp’s hands. + +“When you are at Steynham you will probably hear my uncle Everard’s +version of this letter,” he said. “The baron chooses to think +everything fair in war, and the letter came accidentally into his hands +with the seal broken; well, he read it. And, Cecilia, you can fancy the +sort of stuff he would make of it. Apart from that, I want you +particularly to know how much I am indebted to Dr. Shrapnel. Won’t you +learn to like him a little? Won’t you tolerate him?—I could almost say, +for my sake! He and I are at variance on certain points, but taking him +altogether, I am under deeper obligations to him than to any man on +earth. He has found where I bend and waver.” + +“I recognize your chivalry, Nevil.” + +“He has done his best to train me to be of some service. Where’s the +chivalry in owning a debt? He is one of our true warriors; fearless and +blameless. I have had my heroes before. You know how I loved Robert +Hall: his death is a gap in my life. He is a light for fighting +Englishmen—who fight with the sword. But the scale of the war, the +cause, and the end in view, raise Dr. Shrapnel above the bravest I have +ever had the luck to meet. Soldiers and sailors have their excitement +to keep them up to the mark; praise and rewards. He is in his +eight-and-sixtieth year, and he has never received anything but obloquy +for his pains. Half of the small fortune he has goes in charities and +subscriptions. Will that touch you? But I think little of that, and so +does he. Charity is a common duty. The dedication of a man’s life and +whole mind to a cause, there’s heroism. I wish I were eloquent; I wish +I could move you.” + +Cecilia turned her face to him. “I listen to you with pleasure, Nevil; +but please do not read the letter.” + +“Yes; a paragraph or two I must read.” + +She rose. + +He was promptly by her side. “If I say I ask you for one sign that you +care for me in some degree?” + +“I have not for a moment ceased to be your friend, Nevil, since I was a +child.” + +“But if you allow yourself to be so prejudiced against my best friend +that you will not hear a word of his writing, are you friendly?” + +“Feminine, and obstinate,” said Cecilia. + +“Give me your eyes an instant. I know you think me reckless and +lawless: now is not that true? You doubt whether, if a lady gave me her +hand I should hold to it in perfect faith. Or, perhaps not that: but +you do suspect I should be capable of every sophism under the sun to +persuade a woman to break her faith, if it suited me: supposing some +passion to be at work. Men who are open to passion have to be taught +reflection before they distinguish between the woman they should sue +for love because she would be their best mate, and the woman who has +thrown a spell on them. Now, what I beg you to let me read you in this +letter is a truth nobly stated that has gone into my blood, and changed +me. It cannot fail, too, in changeing your opinion of Dr. Shrapnel. It +makes me wretched that you should be divided from me in your ideas of +him. I, you see—and I confess I think it my chief title to +honour—reverence him.” + +“I regret that I am unable to utter the words of Ruth,” said Cecilia, +in a low voice. She felt rather tremulously; opposed only to the letter +and the writer of it, not at all to Beauchamp, except on account of his +idolatry of the wicked revolutionist. Far from having a sense of +opposition to Beauchamp; she pitied him for his infatuation, and in her +lofty mental serenity she warmed to him for the seeming boyishness of +his constant and extravagant worship of the man, though such an +enthusiasm cast shadows on his intellect. + +He was reading a sentence of the letter. + +“I hear nothing but the breeze, Nevil,” she said. + +The breeze fluttered the letter-sheets: they threatened to fly. Cecilia +stepped two paces away. + +“Hark; there is a military band playing on the pier,” said she. “I am +so fond of hearing music a little off shore.” + +Beauchamp consigned the letter to his pocket. + +“You are not offended, Nevil?” + +“Dear me, no. You haven’t a mind for tonics, that’s all.” + +“Healthy persons rarely have,” she remarked, and asked him, smiling +softly, whether he had a mind for music. + +His insensibility to music was curious, considering how impressionable +he was to verse, and to songs of birds. He listened with an oppressed +look, as to something the particular secret of which had to be reached +by a determined effort of sympathy for those whom it affected. He liked +it if she did, and said he liked it, reiterated that he liked it, +clearly trying hard to comprehend it, as unmoved by the swell and sigh +of the resonant brass as a man could be, while her romantic spirit +thrilled to it, and was bountiful in glowing visions and in tenderness. + +There hung her hand. She would not have refused to yield it. The hero +of her childhood, the friend of her womanhood, and her hero still, +might have taken her with half a word. + +Beauchamp was thinking: She can listen to that brass band, and she +shuts her ears to this letter! + +The reading of it would have been a prelude to the opening of his heart +to her, at the same time that it vindicated his dear and honoured +master, as he called Dr. Shrapnel. To speak, without the explanation of +his previous reticence which this letter would afford, seemed useless: +even the desire to speak was absent, passion being absent. + +“I see papa; he is getting into a boat with some one,” said Cecilia, +and gave orders for the yacht to stand in toward the Club steps. “Do +you know, Nevil, the Italian common people are not so subject to the +charm of music as other races? They have more of the gift, and I think +less of the feeling. You do not hear much music in Italy. I remember in +the year of Revolution there was danger of a rising in some Austrian +city, and a colonel of a regiment commanded his band to play. The mob +was put in good humour immediately.” + +“It’s a soporific,” said Beauchamp. + +“You would not rather have had them rise to be slaughtered?” + +“Would you have them waltzed into perpetual servility?” + +Cecilia hummed, and suggested: “If one can have them happy in any way?” + +“Then the day of destruction may almost be dated.” + +“Nevil, your terrible view of life must be false.” + +“I make it out worse to you than to any one else, because I want our +minds to be united.” + +“Give me a respite now and then.” + +“With all my heart. And forgive me for beating my drum. I see what +others don’t see, or else I feel it more; I don’t know; but it appears +to me our country needs rousing if it’s to live. There’s a division +between poor and rich that you have no conception of, and it can’t +safely be left unnoticed. I’ve done.” + +He looked at her and saw tears on her under-lids. + +“My dearest Cecilia!” + +“Music makes me childish,” said she. + +Her father was approaching in the boat. Beside him sat the Earl of +Lockrace, latterly classed among the suitors of the lady of Mount +Laurels. + +A few minutes remained to Beauchamp of his lost opportunity. Instead of +seizing them with his usual promptitude, he let them slip, painfully +mindful of his treatment of her last year after the drive into +Bevisham, when she was England, and Renée holiday France. + +This feeling he fervently translated into the reflection that the bride +who would bring him beauty and wealth, and her especial gift of tender +womanliness, was not yet so thoroughly mastered as to grant her husband +his just prevalence with her, or even indeed his complete independence +of action, without which life itself was not desireable. + +Colonel Halkett stared at Beauchamp as if he had risen from the deep. + +“Have you been in that town this morning?” was one of his first +questions to him when he stood on board. + +“I came through it,” said Beauchamp, and pointed to his little cutter +labouring in the distance. “She’s mine for a month; I came from +Holdesbury to try her; and then he stated how he had danced attendance +on the schooner for a couple of hours before any notice was taken of +him, and Cecilia with her graceful humour held up his presumption to +scorn. + +Her father was eyeing Beauchamp narrowly, and appeared troubled. + +“Did you see Mr. Romfrey yesterday, or this morning?” the colonel asked +him, mentioning that Mr. Romfrey had been somewhere about the island +yesterday, at which Beauchamp expressed astonishment, for his uncle +Everard seldom visited a yachting station. + +Colonel Halkett exchanged looks with Cecilia. Hers were inquiring, and +he confirmed her side-glance at Beauchamp. She raised her brows; he +nodded, to signify that there was gravity in the case. Here the +signalling stopped short; she had to carry on a conversation with Lord +Lockrace, one of those men who betray the latent despot in an +exhibition of discontentment unless they have all a lady’s hundred eyes +attentive to their discourse. + +At last Beauchamp quitted the vessel. + +When he was out of hearing, Colonel Halkett said to Cecilia: “Grancey +Lespel tells me that Mr. Romfrey called on the man Shrapnel yesterday +evening at six o’clock.” + +“Yes, Papa?” + +“Now come and see the fittings below,” the colonel addressed Lord +Lockrace, and murmured to his daughter: + +“And soundly horsewhipped him!” + +Cecilia turned on the instant to gaze after Nevil Beauchamp. She could +have wept for pity. Her father’s emphasis on “soundly” declared an +approval of the deed, and she was chilled by a sickening abhorrence and +dread of the cruel brute in men, such as, awakened by she knew not +what, had haunted her for a year of her girlhood. + +“And he deserved it!” the colonel pursued, on emerging from the cabin +at Lord Lockrace’s heels. “I’ve no doubt he richly deserved it. The +writer of that letter we heard Captain Baskelett read the other day +deserves the very worst he gets.” + +“Baskelett bored the Club the other night with a letter of a Radical +fellow,” said Lord Lockrace. “Men who write that stuff should be strung +up and whipped by the common hangman.” + +“It was a private letter,” said Cecilia. + +“Public or private, Miss Halkett.” + +Her mind flew back to Seymour Austin for the sense of stedfastness when +she heard such language as this, which, taken in conjunction with Dr. +Shrapnel’s, seemed to uncloak our Constitutional realm and show it +boiling up with the frightful elements of primitive societies. + +“I suppose we are but half civilized,” she said. + +“If that,” said the earl. + +Colonel Halkett protested that he never could quite make out what +Radicals were driving at. + +“The rents,” Lord Lockrace observed in the conclusive tone of brevity. +He did not stay very long. + +The schooner was boarded subsequently by another nobleman, an Admiral +of the Fleet and ex-minister of the Whig Government, Lord Croyston, who +was a friend of Mr. Romfrey’s, and thought well of Nevil Beauchamp as a +seaman and naval officer, but shook an old head over him as a +politician. He came to beg a passage across the water to his marine +Lodge, an accident having happened early in the morning to his yacht, +the _Lady Violet_. He was able to communicate the latest version of the +horsewhipping of Dr. Shrapnel, from which it appeared that after Mr. +Romfrey had handsomely flogged the man he flung his card on the +prostrate body, to let men know who was responsible for the act. He +expected that Mr. Romfrey would be subjected to legal proceedings. “But +if there’s a pleasure worth paying for it’s the trouncing of a +villain,” said he; and he had been informed that Dr. Shrapnel was a big +one. Lord Croyston’s favourite country residence was in the +neighbourhood of old Mrs. Beauchamp, on the Upper Thames. Speaking of +Nevil Beauchamp a second time, he alluded to his relations with his +great-aunt, said his prospects were bad, that she had interdicted her +house to him, and was devoted to her other great-nephew. + +“And so she should be,” said Colonel Halkett. “That’s a young man who’s +an Englishman without French gunpowder notions in his head. He works +for us down at the mine in Wales a good part of the year, and has tided +us over a threatening strike there: gratuitously: I can’t get him to +accept anything. I can’t think why he does it.” + +“He’ll have plenty,” said Lord Croyston, levelling his telescope to +sight the racing cutters. + +Cecilia fancied she descried Nevil’s _Petrel_, dubbed _Curlew_, to +Eastward, and had a faint gladness in the thought that his knowledge of +his uncle Everard’s deed of violence would be deferred for another two +or three hours. + +She tried to persuade her father to wait for Nevil, and invite him to +dine at Mount Laurels, and break the news to him gently. Colonel +Halkett argued that in speaking of the affair he should certainly not +commiserate the man who had got his deserts, and saying this he burst +into a petty fury against the epistle of Dr. Shrapnel, which appeared +to be growing more monstrous in proportion to his forgetfulness of the +details, as mountains gather vastness to the eye at a certain remove. +Though he could not guess the reason for Mr. Romfrey’s visit to +Bevisham, he was, he said, quite prepared to maintain that Mr. Romfrey +had a perfect justification for his conduct. + +Cecilia hinted at barbarism. The colonel hinted at high police duties +that gentlemen were sometimes called on to perform for the protection +of society. “In defiance of its laws?” she asked; and he answered: +“Women must not be judging things out of their sphere,” with the +familiar accent on “women” which proves their inferiority. He was +rarely guilty of it toward his daughter. Evidently he had resolved to +back Mr. Romfrey blindly. That epistle of Dr. Shrapnel’s merited +condign punishment and had met with it, he seemed to rejoice in saying: +and this was his abstract of the same: “An old charlatan who tells his +dupe to pray every night of his life for the beheading of kings and +princes, and scattering of the clergy, and disbanding the army, that he +and his rabble may fall upon the wealthy, and show us numbers win; and +he’ll undertake to make them moral!” + +“I wish we were not going to Steynham,” said Cecilia. + +“So do I. Well, no, I don’t,” the colonel corrected himself, “no; it’s +an engagement. I gave my consent so far. We shall see whether Nevil +Beauchamp’s a man of any sense.” + +Her heart sank. This was as much as to let her know that if Nevil broke +with his uncle, the treaty of union between the two families, which her +father submitted to entertain out of consideration for Mr. Romfrey, +would be at an end. + +The wind had fallen. Entering her river, Cecilia gazed back at the +smooth broad water, and the band of golden beams flung across it from +the evening sun over the forest. No little cutter was visible. She +could not write to Nevil to bid him come and concert with her in what +spirit to encounter his uncle Everard at Steynham. And guests would be +at Mount Laurels next day; Lord Lockrace, Lord Croyston, and the +Lespels; she could not drive down to Bevisham on the chance of seeing +him. Nor was it to be acknowledged even to herself that she so greatly +desired to see him and advise him. Why not? Because she was one of the +artificial creatures called women (with the accent) who dare not be +spontaneous, and cannot act independently if they would continue to be +admirable in the world’s eye, and who for that object must remain fixed +on shelves, like other marketable wares, avoiding motion to avoid +shattering or tarnishing. This is their fate, only in degree less +inhuman than that of Hellenic and Trojan princesses offered up to the +Gods, or pretty slaves to the dealers. Their artificiality is at once +their bane and their source of superior pride. + +Seymour Austin might have reason for seeking to emancipate them, she +thought, and blushed in thought that she could never be learning +anything but from her own immediate sensations. + +Of course it was in her power to write to Beauchamp, just as it had +been in his to speak to her, but the fire was wanting in her blood and +absent from his mood, so they were kept apart. + +Her father knew as little as she what was the positive cause of Mr. +Romfrey’s chastisement of Dr. Shrapnel. “Cause enough, I don’t doubt,” +he said, and cited the mephitic letter. + +Cecilia was not given to suspicions, or she would have had them kindled +by a certain wilfulness in his incessant reference to the letter, and +exoneration, if not approval, of Mr. Romfrey’s conduct. + +How did that chivalrous gentleman justify himself for condescending to +such an extreme as the use of personal violence? Was there a +possibility of his justifying it to Nevil? She was most wretched in her +reiteration of these inquiries, for, with a heart subdued, she had +still a mind whose habit of independent judgement was not to be +constrained, and while she felt that it was only by siding with Nevil +submissively and blindly in this lamentable case that she could hope +for happiness, she foresaw the likelihood of her not being able to do +so as much as he would desire and demand. This she took for the protest +of her pure reason. In reality, grieved though she was on account of +that Dr. Shrapnel, her captive heart resented the anticipated challenge +to her to espouse his cause or languish. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. +THE FIRST ENCOUNTER AT STEYNHAM + + +The judge pronouncing sentence of condemnation on the criminal is +proverbially a sorrowfully-minded man; and still more would he be so +had he to undertake the part of executioner as well. This is equivalent +to saying that the simple pleasures are no longer with us; it must be a +personal enemy now to give us any satisfaction in chastising and +slaying. Perhaps by-and-by that will be savourless: we degenerate. +There is, nevertheless, ever (and let nature be praised for it) a +strong sustainment in the dutiful exertion of our physical energies, +and Mr. Everard Romfrey experienced it after he had fulfilled his +double office on the person of Dr. Shrapnel by carrying out his own +decree. His conscience approved him cheerlessly, as it is the habit of +that secret monitor to do when we have no particular advantage coming +of the act we have performed; but the righteous labour of his arm gave +him high breathing and an appetite. + +He foresaw that he and Nevil would soon be having a wrestle over the +matter, hand and thigh; but a gentleman in the right engaged with a +fellow in the wrong has nothing to apprehend; is, in fact, in the +position of a game-preserver with a poacher. The nearest approach to +gratification in that day’s work which Mr. Romfrey knew was offered by +the picture of Nevil’s lamentable attitude above his dirty idol. He +conceived it in the mock-mediaeval style of our caricaturists:—Shrapnel +stretched at his length, half a league, in slashed yellows and blacks, +with his bauble beside him, and prodigious pointed toes; Nevil in +parti-coloured tights, on one leg, raising his fists in imprecation to +a nose in the firmament. + +Gentlemen of an unpractised imaginative capacity cannot vision for +themselves exactly what they would, being unable to exercise authority +over the proportions and the hues of the objects they conceive, which +are very much at the mercy of their sportive caprices; and the state of +mind of Mr. Romfrey is not to be judged by his ridiculous view of the +pair. In the abstract he could be sorry for Shrapnel. As he knew +himself magnanimous, he promised himself to be forbearing with Nevil. + +Moreover, the month of September was drawing nigh; he had plenty to +think of. The entire land (signifying all but all of those who occupy +the situation of thinkers in it) may be said to have been exhaling the +same thought in connection with September. Our England holds possession +of a considerable portion of the globe, and it keeps the world in awe +to see her bestowing so considerable a portion of her intelligence upon +her recreations. To prosecute them with her whole heart is an ingenious +exhibition of her power. Mr. Romfrey was of those who said to his +countrymen, “Go yachting; go cricketing; go boat-racing; go shooting; +go horseracing, nine months of the year, while the other Europeans go +marching and drilling.” Those occupations he considered good for us; +and our much talking, writing, and thinking about them characteristic, +and therefore good. And he was not one of those who do penance for that +sweating indolence in the fits of desperate panic. Beauchamp’s argument +that the rich idler begets the idling vagabond, the rich wagerer the +brutal swindler, the general thirst for a mad round of recreation a +generally-increasing disposition to avoid serious work, and the +unbraced moral tone of the country an indifference to national +responsibility (an argument doubtless extracted from Shrapnel, talk +tall as the very demagogue when he stood upright), Mr. Romfrey laughed +at scornfully, affirming that our manufactures could take care of +themselves. As for invasion, we are circled by the sea. Providence has +done that for us, and may be relied on to do more in an emergency.—The +children of wealth and the children of the sun alike believe that +Providence is for them, and it would seem that the former can do +without it less than the latter, though the former are less inclined to +give it personification. + +This year, however, the array of armaments on the Continent made Mr. +Romfrey anxious about our navy. Almost his first topic in welcoming +Colonel Halkett and Cecilia to Steynham was the rottenness of navy +administration; for if Providence is to do anything for us it must have +a sea-worthy fleet for the operation. How loudly would his contemptuous +laughter have repudiated the charge that he trusted to supernatural +agency for assistance in case of need! But so it was: and he owned to +believing in English luck. Partly of course he meant that steady fire +of combat which his countrymen have got heated to of old till fortune +blessed them. + +“Nevil is not here?” the colonel asked. + +“No, I suspect he’s gruelling and plastering a doctor of his +acquaintance,” Mr. Romfrey said, with his nasal laugh composed of scorn +and resignation. + +“Yes, yes, I’ve heard,” said Colonel Halkett hastily. + +He would have liked to be informed of Dr. Shrapnel’s particular +offence: he mentioned the execrable letter. + +Mr. Romfrey complacently interjected: “Drug-vomit!” and after an +interval: “Gallows!” + +“That man has done Nevil Beauchamp a world of mischief, Romfrey.” + +“We’ll hope for a cure, colonel.” + +“Did the man come across you?” + +“He did.” + +Mr. Romfrey was mute on the subject. Colonel Halkett abstained from +pushing his inquiries. + +Cecilia could only tell her father when they were alone in the +drawing-room a few minutes before dinner that Mrs. Culling was entirely +ignorant of any cause to which Nevil’s absence might be attributed. + +“Mr. Romfrey had good cause,” the colonel said, emphatically. + +He repeated it next day, without being a bit wiser of the cause. + +Cecilia’s happiness or hope was too sensitive to allow of a beloved +father’s deceiving her in his opposition to it. + +She saw clearly now that he had fastened on this miserable incident, +expecting an imbroglio that would divide Nevil and his uncle, and be an +excuse for dividing her and Nevil. O for the passionate will to make +head against what appeared as a fate in this matter! She had it not. + +Mr. and Mrs. Wardour-Devereux, Sir John and Lady Baskelett, and the +Countess of Welshpool, another sister of Mr. Romfrey’s, arrived at +Steynham for a day and a night. Lady Baskelett and Lady Welshpool came +to see their brother, not to countenance his household; and Mr. +Wardour-Devereux could not stay longer than a certain number of hours +under a roof where tobacco was in evil odour. From her friend Louise, +his wife, Cecilia learnt that Mr. Lydiard had been summoned to Dr. +Shrapnel’s bedside, as Mrs. Devereux knew by a letter she had received +from Mr. Lydiard, who was no political devotee of that man, she assured +Cecilia, but had an extraordinary admiration for the Miss Denham living +with him. This was kindly intended to imply that Beauchamp was released +from his attendance on Dr. Shrapnel, and also that it was not he whom +the Miss Denham attracted. + +“She is in Switzerland,” said Cecilia. + +“She is better there,” said Mrs. Devereux. + +Mr. Stukely Culbrett succeeded to these visitors. He heard of the case +of Dr. Shrapnel from Colonel Halkett, and of Beauchamp’s missing of his +chance with the heiress from Mr. Romfrey. + +Rosamund Culling was in great perplexity about Beauchamp’s prolonged +absence; for he had engaged to come, he had written to her to say he +would be sure to come; and she feared he was ill. She would have +persuaded Mr. Culbrett to go down to Bevisham to see him: she declared +that she could even persuade herself to call on Dr. Shrapnel a second +time, in spite of her horror of the man. Her anger at the thought of +his keeping Nevil away from good fortune and happiness caused her to +speak in resentment and loathing of the man. + +“He behaved badly when you saw him, did he?” said Stukely. + +“Badly, is no word. He is detestable,” Rosamund replied. + +“You think he ought to be whipped?” + +She feigned an extremity of vindictiveness, and twisted her brows in +comic apology for the unfeminine sentiment, as she said: “I really do.” + +The feminine gentleness of her character was known to Stukely, so she +could afford to exaggerate the expression of her anger, and she did not +modify it, forgetful that a woman is the representative of the sex with +cynical men, and escapes from contempt at the cost of her sisterhood. + +Looking out of an upper window in the afternoon she beheld Nevil +Beauchamp in a group with his uncle Everard, the colonel and Cecilia, +and Mr. Culbrett. Nevil was on his feet; the others were seated under +the great tulip-tree on the lawn. + +A little observation of them warned her that something was wrong. There +was a vacant chair; Nevil took it in his hand at times, stamped it to +the ground, walked away and sharply back fronting his uncle, speaking +vehemently, she perceived, and vainly, as she judged by the cast of his +uncle’s figure. Mr. Romfrey’s head was bent, and wagged slightly, as he +screwed his brows up and shot his eyes, queerly at the agitated young +man. Colonel Halkett’s arms crossed his chest. Cecilia’s eyelids +drooped their lashes. Mr. Culbrett was balancing on the hind-legs of +his chair. No one appeared to be speaking but Nevil. + +It became evident that Nevil was putting a series of questions to his +uncle. Mechanical nods were given him in reply. + +Presently Mr. Romfrey rose, thundering out a word or two, without a +gesture. + +Colonel Halkett rose. + +Nevil flung his hand out straight to the house. + +Mr. Romfrey seemed to consent; the colonel shook his head: Nevil +insisted. + +A footman carrying a tea-tray to Miss Halkett received some commission +and swiftly disappeared, making Rosamund wonder whether sugar, milk or +cream had been omitted. + +She met him on the first landing, and heard that Mr. Romfrey requested +her to step out on the lawn. + +Expecting to hear of a piece of misconduct on the part of the household +servants, she hurried forth, and found that she had to traverse the +whole space of the lawn up to the tuliptree. Colonel Halkett and Mr. +Romfrey had resumed their seats. The colonel stood up and bowed to her. + +Mr. Romfrey said: “One question to you, ma’am, and you shall not be +detained. Did not that man Shrapnel grossly insult you on the day you +called on him to see Captain Beauchamp about a couple of months before +the Election?” + +“Look at me when you speak, ma’am,” said Beauchamp. + +Rosamund looked at him. + +The whiteness of his face paralyzed her tongue. A dreadful levelling of +his eyes penetrated and chilled her. Instead of thinking of her answer +she thought of what could possibly have happened. + +“Did he insult you at all, ma’am?” said Beauchamp. + +Mr. Romfrey reminded him that he was not a cross-examining criminal +barrister. + +They waited for her to speak. + +She hesitated, coloured, betrayed confusion; her senses telling her of +a catastrophe, her conscience accusing her as the origin of it. + +“Did Dr. Shrapnel, to your belief, intentionally hurt your feelings or +your dignity?” said Beauchamp, and made the answer easier: + +“Not intentionally, surely: not... I certainly do not accuse him.” + +“Can you tell me you feel that he wounded you in the smallest degree? +And if so, how? I ask you this, because he is anxious, if he lives, to +apologize to you for any offence that he may have been guilty of: he +was ignorant of it. I have his word for that, and his commands to me to +bear it to you. I may tell you I have never known him injure the most +feeble thing—anything alive, or wish to.” + +Beauchamp’s voice choked. Rosamund saw tears leap out of the stern face +of her dearest now in wrath with her. + +“Is he ill?” she faltered. + +“He is. You own to a strong dislike of him, do you not?” + +“But not to desire any harm to him.” + +“Not a whipping,” Mr. Culbrett murmured. + +Everard Romfrey overheard it. + +He had allowed Mrs. Culling to be sent for, that she might with a bare +affirmative silence Nevil, when his conduct was becoming intolerable +before the guests of the house. + +“That will do, ma’am,” he dismissed her. + +Beauchamp would not let her depart. + +“I must have your distinct reply, and in Mr. Romfrey’s presence:—say, +that if you accused him you were mistaken, or that they were mistaken +who supposed you had accused him. I must have the answer before you +go.” + +“Sir, will you learn manners!” Mr. Romfrey said to him, with a rattle +of the throat. + +Beauchamp turned his face from her. + +Colonel Halkett offered her his arm to lead her away. + +“What is it? Oh, what is it?” she whispered, scarcely able to walk, but +declining the colonel’s arm. + +“You ought not to have been dragged out here,” said he. “Any one might +have known there would be no convincing of Captain Beauchamp. That old +rascal in Bevisham has been having a beating; that’s all. And a very +beautiful day it is!—a little too hot, though. Before we leave, you +must give me a lesson or two in gardening.” + +“Dr. Shrapnel—Mr. Romfrey!” said Rosamund half audibly under the +oppression of the more she saw than what she said. + +The colonel talked of her renown in landscape-gardening. He added +casually: “They met the other day.” + +“By accident?” + +“By chance, I suppose. Shrapnel defends one of your Steynham poaching +vermin.” + +“Mr. Romfrey struck him?—for that? Oh, never!” Rosamund exclaimed. + +“I suppose he had a long account to settle.” + +She fetched her breath painfully. “I shall never be forgiven.” + +“And I say that a gentleman has no business with idols,” the colonel +fumed as he spoke. “Those letters of Shrapnel to Nevil Beauchamp are a +scandal on the name of Englishman.” + +“You have read that shocking one, Colonel Halkett?” + +“Captain Baskelett read it out to us.” + +“He? Oh! then...” She stopped:—Then the author of this mischief is +clear to me! her divining hatred of Cecil would have said, but her +humble position did not warrant such speech. A consideration of the +lowliness necessitating this restraint at a moment when loudly to +denounce another’s infamy with triumphant insight would have solaced +and supported her, kept Rosamund dumb. + +She could not bear to think of her part in the mischief. + +She was not bound to think of it, knowing actually nothing of the +occurrence. + +Still she felt that she was on her trial. She detected herself running +in and out of her nature to fortify it against accusations rather than +cleanse it for inspection. It was narrowing in her own sight. The +prospect of her having to submit to a further interrogatory, shut it up +entrenched in the declaration that Dr. Shrapnel had so far outraged her +sentiments as to be said to have offended her: not insulted, perhaps, +but certainly offended. + +And this was a generous distinction. It was generous; and, having +recognized the generosity, she was unable to go beyond it. + +She was presently making the distinction to Miss Halkett. The colonel +had left her at the door of the house: Miss Halkett sought admission to +her private room on an errand of condolence, for she had sympathized +with her very much in the semi-indignity Nevil had forced her to +undergo: and very little indeed had she been able to sympathize with +Nevil, who had been guilty of the serious fault of allowing himself to +appear moved by his own commonplace utterances; or, in other words, the +theme being hostile to his audience, he had betrayed emotion over it +without first evoking the spirit of pathos. + +“As for me,” Rosamund replied, to some comforting remarks of Miss +Halkett’s, “I do not understand why I should be mixed up in Dr. +Shrapnel’s misfortunes: I really am quite unable to recollect his words +to me or his behaviour: I have only a positive impression that I left +his house, where I had gone to see Captain Beauchamp, in utter disgust, +so repelled by his language that I could hardly trust myself to speak +of the man to Mr. Romfrey when he questioned me. I did not volunteer +it. I am ready to say that I believe Dr. Shrapnel did not intend to be +insulting. I cannot say that he was not offensive. + +You know, Miss Halkett, I would willingly, gladly have saved him from +anything like punishment.” + +“You are too gentle to have thought of it,” said Cecilia. + +“But I shall never be forgiven by Captain Beauchamp. I see in his eyes +that he accuses me and despises me.” + +“He will not be so unjust, Mrs. Culling.” + +Rosamund begged that she might hear what Nevil had first said on his +arrival. + +Cecilia related that they had seen him walking swiftly across the park, +and that Mr. Romfrey had hailed him, and held his hand out; and that +Captain Beauchamp had overlooked it, saying he feared Mr. Romfrey’s +work was complete. He had taken her father’s hand and hers and his +touch was like ice. + +“His worship of that Dr. Shrapnel is extraordinary,” quoth Rosamund. +“And how did Mr. Romfrey behave to him?” + +“My father thinks, very forbearingly.” + +Rosamund sighed and made a semblance of wringing her hands. “It seems +to me that I anticipated ever since I heard of the man... or at least +ever since I saw him and heard him, he would be the evil genius of us +all: if I dare include myself. But I am not permitted to escape! And, +Miss Halkett, can you tell me how it was that my name—that I became +involved? I cannot imagine the circumstances which would bring me +forward in this unhappy affair.” + +Cecilia replied: “The occasion was, that Captain Beauchamp so +scornfully contrasted the sort of injury done by Dr. Shrapnel’s defence +of a poacher on his uncle’s estate, with the severe chastisement +inflicted by Mr. Romfrey in revenge for it. He would not leave the +subject.” + +“I see him—see his eyes!” cried Rosamund, her bosom heaving and sinking +deep, as her conscience quavered within her. “At last Mr. Romfrey +mentioned me?” + +“He stood up and said you had been personally insulted by Dr. +Shrapnel.” + +Rosamund meditated in a distressing doubt of her conscientious +truthfulness. + +“Captain Beauchamp will be coming to me; and how can I answer him? +Heaven knows I would have shielded the poor man, if possible—poor +wretch! Wicked though he is, one has only to hear of him suffering! But +what can I answer? I do recollect now that Mr. Romfrey compelled me +from question to question to confess that the man had vexed me. +Insulted, I never said. At the worst, I said vexed. I would not have +said insulted, or even offended, because Mr. Romfrey... ah! we know +him. What I did say, I forget. I have no guide to what I said but my +present feelings, and they are pity for the unfortunate man much more +than dislike.—Well, I must go through the scene with Nevil!” Rosamund +concluded her outcry of ostensible exculpation. + +She asked in a cooler moment how it was that Captain Beauchamp had so +far forgotten himself as to burst out on his uncle before the guests of +the house. It appeared that he had wished his uncle to withdraw with +him, and Mr. Romfrey had bidden him postpone private communications. +Rosamund gathered from one or two words of Cecilia’s that Mr. Romfrey, +until finally stung by Nevil, had indulged in his best-humoured banter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. +THE FACE OF RENÉE + + +Shortly before the ringing of the dinner-bell Rosamund knocked at +Beauchamp’s dressing-room door, the bearer of a telegram from Bevisham. +He read it in one swift run of the eyes, and said: “Come in, ma’am, I +have something for you. Madame de Rouaillout sends you this.” + +Rosamund saw her name written in a French hand on the back of the card. + +“You stay with us, Nevil?” + +“To-night and to-morrow, perhaps. The danger seems to be over.” + +“Has Dr. Shrapnel been in danger?” + +“He has. If it’s quite over now!” + +“I declare to you, Nevil...” + +“Listen to me, ma’am; I’m in the dark about this murderous business:—an +old man, defenceless, harmless as a child!—but I know this, that you +are somewhere in it.” + +“Nevil, do you not guess at some one else?” + +“He! yes, he! But Cecil Baskelett led no blind man to Dr. Shrapnel’s +gate.” + +“Nevil, as I live, I knew nothing of it!” + +“No, but you set fire to the train. You hated the old man, and you +taught Mr. Romfrey to think that you had been insulted. I see it all. +Now you must have the courage to tell him of your error. There’s no +other course for you. I mean to take Mr. Romfrey to Dr. Shrapnel, to +save the honour of our family, as far as it can be saved.” + +“What? Nevil!” exclaimed Rosamund, gaping. + +“It seems little enough, ma’am. But he must go. I will have the apology +spoken, and man to man.” + +“But you would never tell your uncle that?” + +He laughed in his uncle’s manner. + +“But, Nevil, my dearest, forgive me, I think of you—why are the +Halketts here? It is not entirely with Colonel Halkett’s consent. It is +your uncle’s influence with him that gives you your chance. Do you not +care to avail yourself of it? Ever since he heard Dr. Shrapnel’s letter +to you, Colonel Halkett has, I am sure, been tempted to confound you +with him in his mind: ah! Nevil, but recollect that it is _only_ Mr. +Romfrey who can help to give you your Cecilia. There is no dispensing +with him. Postpone your attempt to humiliate—I mean, that is, Oh! +Nevil, whatever you intend to do to overcome your uncle, trust to time, +be friends with him; be a little worldly! for her sake! to ensure her +happiness!” + +Beauchamp obtained the information that his cousin Cecil had read out +the letter of Dr. Shrapnel at Mount Laurels. + +The bell rang. + +“Do you imagine I should sit at my uncle’s table if I did not intend to +force him to repair the wrong he has done to himself and to us?” he +said. + +“Oh! Nevil, do you not see Captain Baskelett at work here?” + +“What amends can Cecil Baskelett make? My uncle is a man of honour: it +is in his power. There, I leave you to speak to him; you will do it +to-night, after we break up in the drawing-room.” + +Rosamund groaned: “An apology to Dr. Shrapnel from Mr. Romfrey! It is +an impossibility, Nevil! utter!” + +“So you say to sit idle: but do as I tell you.” + +He went downstairs. + +He had barely reproached her. She wondered at that; and then remembered +his alien sad half-smile in quitting the room. + +Rosamund would not present herself at her lord’s dinner-table when +there were any guests at Steynham. She prepared to receive Miss Halkett +in the drawing-room, as the guests of the house this evening chanced to +be her friends. + +Madame de Rouaillout’s present to her was a photograph of M. de +Croisnel, his daughter and son in a group. Rosamund could not bear to +look at the face of Renée, and she put it out of sight. But she had +looked. She was reduced to look again. + +Roland stood beside his father’s chair; Renée sat at his feet, clasping +his right hand. M. de Croisnel’s fallen eyelids and unshorn white chin +told the story of the family reunion. He was dying: his two children +were nursing him to the end. + +Decidedly Cecilia was a more beautiful woman than Renée: but on which +does the eye linger longest—which draws the heart? a radiant landscape, +where the tall ripe wheat flashes between shadow and shine in the +stately march of Summer, or the peep into dewy woodland on to dark +water? + +Dark-eyed Renée was not beauty but attraction; she touched the double +chords within us which are we know not whether harmony or discord, but +a divine discord if an uncertified harmony, memorable beyond plain +sweetness or majesty. There are touches of bliss in anguish that +superhumanize bliss, touches of mystery in simplicity, of the eternal +in the variable. These two chords of poignant antiphony she struck +throughout the range of the hearts of men, and strangely intervolved +them in vibrating unison. Only to look at her face, without hearing her +voice, without the charm of her speech, was to feel it. On Cecilia’s +entering the drawing-room sofa, while the gentlemen drank claret, +Rosamund handed her the card of the photographic artist of Tours, +mentioning no names. + +“I should say the portrait is correct. A want of spirituality,” +Rosamund said critically, using one of the insular commonplaces, after +that manner of fastening upon what there is _not_ in a piece of Art or +nature. + +Cecilia’s avidity to see and study the face preserved her at a higher +mark. + +She knew the person instantly; had no occasion to ask who this was. She +sat over the portrait blushing burningly: “And that is a brother?” she +said. + +“That is her brother Roland, and very like her, except in complexion,” +said Rosamund. + +Cecilia murmured of a general resemblance in the features. Renée +enchained her. Though but a sun-shadow, the vividness of this French +face came out surprisingly; air was in the nostrils and speech flew +from the tremulous mouth. The eyes? were they quivering with internal +light, or were they set to seem so in the sensitive strange curves of +the eyelids whose awakened lashes appeared to tremble on some +borderland between lustreful significance and the mists? She caught at +the nerves like certain aoristic combinations in music, like tones of a +stringed instrument swept by the wind, enticing, unseizable. Yet she +sat there at her father’s feet gazing out into the world indifferent to +spectators, indifferent even to the common sentiment of gracefulness. +Her left hand clasped his right, and she supported herself on the floor +with the other hand leaning away from him, to the destruction of +conventional symmetry in the picture. None but a woman of consummate +breeding dared have done as she did. It was not Southern suppleness +that saved her from the charge of harsh audacity, but something of the +kind of genius in her mood which has hurried the greater poets of sound +and speech to impose their naturalness upon accepted laws, or show the +laws to have been our meagre limitations. + +The writer in this country will, however, be made safest, and the +excellent body of self-appointed thongmen, who walk up and down our +ranks flapping their leathern straps to terrorize us from experiments +in imagery, will best be satisfied, by the statement that she was +indescribable: a term that exacts no labour of mind from him or from +them, for it flows off the pen as readily as it fills a vacuum. + +That posture of Renée displeased Cecilia and fascinated her. In an +exhibition of paintings she would have passed by it in pure +displeasure: but here was Nevil’s first love, the woman who loved him; +and she was French. After a continued study of her Cecilia’s growing +jealousy betrayed itself in a conscious rivalry of race, coming to the +admission that Englishwomen cannot fling themselves about on the floor +without agonizing the graces: possibly, too, they cannot look +singularly without risks in the direction of slyness and brazen +archness; or talk animatedly without dipping in slang. Conventional +situations preserve them and interchange dignity with them; still life +befits them; pre-eminently that judicial seat from which in briefest +speech they deliver their judgements upon their foreign sisters. +Jealousy it was that plucked Cecilia from her majestic place and caused +her to envy in Renée things she would otherwise have disapproved. + +At last she had seen the French lady’s likeness! The effect of it was a +horrid trouble in Cecilia’s cool blood, abasement, a sense of eclipse, +hardly any sense of deserving worthiness: “What am I but an heiress!” +Nevil had once called her beautiful; his praise had given her beauty. +But what is beauty when it is outshone! Ask the owners of gems. You +think them rich; they are pining. + +Then, too, this Renée, who looked electrical in repose, might really +love Nevil with a love that sent her heart out to him in his +enterprises, justifying and adoring him, piercing to the hero in his +very thoughts. Would she not see that his championship of the +unfortunate man Dr. Shrapnel was heroic? + +Cecilia surrendered the card to Rosamund, and it was out of sight when +Beauchamp stepped in the drawing-room. His cheeks were flushed; he had +been one against three for the better part of an hour. + +“Are you going to show me the downs to-morrow morning?” Cecilia said to +him; and he replied, “You will have to be up early.” + +“What’s that?” asked the colonel, at Beauchamp’s heels. + +He was volunteering to join the party of two for the early morning’s +ride to the downs. Mr. Romfrey pressed his shoulder, saying, “There’s +no third horse can do it in my stables.” + +Colonel Halkett turned to him. + +“I had your promise to come over the kennels with me and see how I +treat a cry of mad dog, which is ninety-nine times out of a hundred mad +fool man,” Mr. Romfrey added. + +By that the colonel knew he meant to stand by Nevil still and offer him +his chance of winning Cecilia. + +Having pledged his word not to interfere, Colonel Halkett submitted, +and muttered, “Ah! the kennels.” Considering however what he had been +witnessing of Nevil’s behaviour to his uncle, the colonel was amazed at +Mr. Romfrey’s magnanimity in not cutting him off and disowning him. + +“Why the downs?” he said. + +“Why the deuce, colonel?” A question quite as reasonable, and Mr. +Romfrey laughed under his breath. To relieve an uncertainty in +Cecilia’s face, that might soon have become confusion, he described the +downs fronting the paleness of earliest dawn, and then their arch and +curve and dip against the pearly grey of the half-glow; and then, among +their hollows, lo, the illumination of the East all around, and up and +away, and a gallop for miles along the turfy thymy rolling billows, +land to left, sea to right, below you. “It’s the nearest hit to wings +we can make, Cecilia.” He surprised her with her Christian name, which +kindled in her the secret of something he expected from that ride on +the downs. Compare you the Alps with them? If you could jump on the +back of an eagle, you might. The Alps have height. But the downs have +swiftness. Those long stretching lines of the downs are greyhounds in +full career. To look at them is to set the blood racing! Speed is on +the downs, glorious motion, odorous air of sea and herb, exquisite as +in the isles of Greece. And the Continental travelling ninnies leave +England for health!—run off and forth from the downs to the steamboat, +the railway, the steaming hotel, the tourist’s shivering mountain-top, +in search of sensations! There on the downs the finest and liveliest +are at their bidding ready to fly through them like hosts of angels. + +He spoke somewhat in that strain, either to relieve Cecilia or prepare +the road for Nevil, not in his ordinary style; on the contrary, with a +swing of enthusiasm that seemed to spring of ancient heartfelt +fervours. And indeed soon afterward he was telling her that there on +those downs, in full view of Steynham, he and his wife had first joined +hands. + +Beauchamp sat silent. Mr. Romfrey despatched orders to the stables, and +Rosamund to the kitchen. Cecilia was rather dismayed by the formal +preparations for the ride. She declined the early cup of coffee. Mr. +Romfrey begged her to take it. “Who knows the hour when you’ll be +back?” he said. Beauchamp said nothing. + +The room grew insufferable to Cecilia. She would have liked to be +wafted to her chamber in a veil, so shamefully unveiled did she seem to +be. But the French lady would have been happy in her place! Her father +kissed her as fathers do when they hand the bride into the +travelling-carriage. His “Good-night, my darling!” was in the voice of +a soldier on duty. For a concluding sign that her dim apprehensions +pointed correctly, Mr. Romfrey kissed her on the forehead. She could +not understand how it had come to pass that she found herself suddenly +on this incline, precipitated whither she would fain be going, only +less hurriedly, less openly, and with her secret merely peeping, like a +dove in the breast. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. +THE RIDE IN THE WRONG DIRECTION + + +That pure opaque of the line of downs ran luminously edged against the +pearly morning sky, with its dark landward face crepusculine yet clear +in every combe, every dotting copse and furze-bush, every wavy fall, +and the ripple, crease, and rill-like descent of the turf. Beauty of +darkness was there, as well as beauty of light above. + +Beauchamp and Cecilia rode forth before the sun was over the line, +while the West and North-west sides of the rolling downs were stamped +with such firmness of dusky feature as you see on the indentations of a +shield of tarnished silver. The mounting of the sun behind threw an +obscurer gloom, and gradually a black mask overcame them, until the +rays shot among their folds and windings, and shadows rich as the black +pansy, steady as on a dialplate rounded with the hour. + +Mr. Everard Romfrey embraced this view from Steynham windows, and loved +it. The lengths of gigantic “greyhound backs” coursing along the South +were his vision of delight; no image of repose for him, but of the life +in swiftness. He had known them when the great bird of the downs was +not a mere tradition, and though he owned conscientiously to never +having beheld the bird, a certain mystery of holiness hung about the +region where the bird had been in his time. There, too, with a timely +word he had gained a wealthy and good wife. He had now sent Nevil to do +the same. + +This astute gentleman had caught at the idea of a ride of the young +couple to the downs with his customary alacrity of perception as being +the very best arrangement for hurrying them to the point. At Steynham +Nevil was sure to be howling all day over his tumbled joss Shrapnel. +Once away in the heart of the downs, and Cecilia beside him, it was a +matter of calculation that two or three hours of the sharpening air +would screw his human nature to the pitch. In fact, unless each of them +was reluctant, they could hardly return unbetrothed. Cecilia’s consent +was foreshadowed by her submission in going: Mr. Romfrey had noticed +her fright at the suggestive formalities he cast round the expedition, +and felt sure of her. Taking Nevil for a man who could smell the +perfume of a ripe affirmative on the sweetest of lips, he was pretty +well sure of him likewise. And then a truce to all that Radical rageing +and hot-pokering of the country! and lie in peace, old Shrapnel! and +get on your legs when you can, and offend no more; especially be +mindful not to let fly one word against a woman! With Cecilia for wife, +and a year of marriage devoted to a son and heir, Nevil might be +expected to resume his duties as a naval officer, and win an honourable +name for the inheritance of the young one he kissed. + +There was benevolence in these previsions of Mr. Romfrey, proving how +good it is for us to bow to despotic authority, if only we will bring +ourselves unquestioningly to accept the previous deeds of the directing +hand. + +Colonel Halkett gave up his daughter for lost when she did not appear +at the breakfast-table: for yet more decidedly lost when the luncheon +saw her empty place; and as time drew on toward the dinner-hour, he +began to think her lost beyond hope, embarked for good and all with the +madbrain. Some little hope of a dissension between the pair, arising +from the natural antagonism of her strong sense to Nevil’s +extravagance, had buoyed him until it was evident that they must have +alighted at an inn to eat, which signified that they had overleaped the +world and its hurdles, and were as dreamy a leash of lovers as ever +made a dreamland of hard earth. The downs looked like dreamland through +the long afternoon. They shone as in a veil of silk—softly fair, softly +dark. No spot of harshness was on them save where a quarry +South-westward gaped at the evening sun. + +Red light struck into that round chalk maw, and the green slopes and +channels and half-circle hollows were brought a mile-stride nigher +Steynham by the level beams. + +The poor old colonel fell to a more frequent repetition of the “Well!” +with which he had been unconsciously expressing his perplexed mind in +the kennels and through the covers during the day. None of the +gentlemen went to dress. Mr. Culbrett was indoors conversing with +Rosamund Culling. + +“What’s come to them?” the colonel asked of Mr. Romfrey, who said +shrugging, “Something wrong with one of the horses.” It had happened to +him on one occasion to set foot in the hole of a baked hedgehog that +had furnished a repast, not without succulence, to some shepherd of the +downs. Such a case might have recurred; it was more likely to cause an +upset at a walk than at a gallop: or perhaps a shoe had been cast; and +young people break no bones at a walking fall; ten to one if they do at +their top speed. Horses manage to kill their seniors for them: the +young are exempt from accident. + +Colonel Halkett nodded and sighed: “I daresay they’re safe. It’s that +man Shrapnel’s letter—that letter, Romfrey! A private letter, I know; +but I’ve not heard Nevil disown the opinions expressed in it. I submit. +It’s no use resisting. I treat my daughter as a woman capable of +judging for herself. I repeat, I submit. I haven’t a word against Nevil +except on the score of his politics. I like him. All I have to say is, +I don’t approve of a republican and a sceptic for my son-in-law. I +yield to you, and my daughter, if she...!” + +“I think she does, colonel. Marriage’ll cure the fellow. Nevil will +slough his craze. Off! old coat. Cissy will drive him in strings. ‘My +wife!’ I hear him.” Mr. Romfrey laughed quietly. “It’s all ‘my +country,’ now. The dog’ll be uxorious. He wants fixing; nothing worse.” + +“How he goes on about Shrapnel!” + +“I shouldn’t think much of him if he didn’t.” + +“You’re one in a thousand, Romfrey. I object to seeing a man +worshipped.” + +“It’s Nevil’s green-sickness, and Shrapnel’s the god of it.” + +“I trust to heaven you’re right. It seems to me young fellows ought to +be out of it earlier.” + +“They generally are.” Mr. Romfrey named some of the processes by which +they are relieved of brain-flightiness, adding philosophically, “This +way or that.” + +His quick ear caught a sound of hoofs cantering down the avenue on the +Northern front of the house. + +He consulted his watch. “Ten minutes to eight. Say a quarter-past for +dinner. They’re here, colonel.” + +Mr. Romfrey met Nevil returning from the stables. Cecilia had +disappeared. + +“Had a good day?” said Mr. Romfrey. + +Beauchamp replied: “I’ll tell you of it after dinner,” and passed by +him. + +Mr. Romfrey edged round to Colonel Halkett, conjecturing in his mind: +They have not hit it; as he remarked: “Breakfast and luncheon have been +omitted in this day’s fare,” which appeared to the colonel a +confirmation of his worst fears, or rather the extinction of his last +spark of hope. + +He knocked at his daughter’s door in going upstairs to dress. + +Cecilia presented herself and kissed him. + +“Well?” said he. + +“By-and-by, papa,” she answered. “I have a headache. Beg Mr. Romfrey to +excuse me.” + +“No news for me?” + +She had no news. + +Mrs. Culling was with her. The colonel stepped on mystified to his +room. + +When the door had closed Cecilia turned to Rosamund and burst into +tears. Rosamund felt that it must be something grave indeed for the +proud young lady so to betray a troubled spirit. + +“He is ill—Dr. Shrapnel is very ill,” Cecilia responded to one or two +subdued inquiries in as clear a voice as she could command. + +“Where have you heard of him?” Rosamund asked. + +“We have been there.” + +“Bevisham? to Bevisham?” Rosamund was considering the opinion Mr. +Romfrey would form of the matter from the point of view of his horses. + +“It was Nevil’s wish,” said Cecilia. + +“Yes? and you went with him,” Rosamund encouraged her to proceed, +gladdened at hearing her speak of Nevil by that name; “you have not +been on the downs at all?” + +Cecilia mentioned a junction railway station they had ridden to; and +thence, boxing the horses, by train to Bevisham. Rosamund understood +that some haunting anxiety had fretted Nevil during the night; in the +morning he could not withstand it, and he begged Cecilia to change +their destination, apparently with a vehemence of entreaty that had +been irresistible, or else it was utter affection for him had reduced +her to undertake the distasteful journey. She admitted that she was not +the most sympathetic companion Nevil could have had on the way, either +going or coming. She had not entered Dr. Shrapnel’s cottage. Remaining +on horseback she had seen the poor man reclining in his garden chair. +Mr. Lydiard was with him, and also his ward Miss Denham, who had been +summoned by telegraph by one of the servants from Switzerland. And +Cecilia had heard Nevil speak of his uncle to her, and too humbly, she +hinted. Nor had the expression of Miss Denham’s countenance in +listening to him pleased her; but it was true that a heavily burdened +heart cannot be expected to look pleasing. On the way home Cecilia had +been compelled in some degree to defend Mr. Romfrey. Blushing through +her tears at the remembrance of a past emotion that had been mixed with +foresight, she confessed to Rosamund she thought it now too late to +prevent a rupture between Nevil and his uncle. Had some one whom Nevil +trusted and cared for taken counsel with him and advised him before +uncle and nephew met to discuss this most unhappy matter, then there +might have been hope. As it was, the fate of Dr. Shrapnel had gained +entire possession of Nevil. Every retort of his uncle’s in reference to +it rose up in him: he used language of contempt neighbouring +abhorrence: he stipulated for one sole thing to win back his esteem for +his uncle; and that was, the apology to Dr. Shrapnel. + +“And to-night,” Cecilia concluded, “he will request Mr. Romfrey to +accompany him to Bevisham to-morrow morning, to make the apology in +person. He will not accept the slightest evasion. He thinks Dr. +Shrapnel may die, and the honour of the family—what is it he says of +it?” Cecilia raised her eyes to the ceiling, while Rosamund blinked in +impatience and grief, just apprehending the alien state of the young +lady’s mind in her absence of recollection, as well as her bondage in +the effort to recollect accurately. + +“Have you not eaten any food to-day, Miss Halkett?” she said; for it +might be the want of food which had broken her and changed her manner. + +Cecilia replied that she had ridden for an hour to Mount Laurels. + +“Alone? Mr. Romfrey must not hear of that,” said Rosamund. + +Cecilia consented to lie down on her bed. She declined the dainties +Rosamund pressed on her. She was feverish with a deep and unconcealed +affliction, and behaved as if her pride had gone. But if her pride had +gone she would have eased her heart by sobbing outright. A similar +division harassed her as when her friend Nevil was the candidate for +Bevisham. She condemned his extreme wrath with his uncle, yet was +attracted and enchained by the fire of passionate attachment which +aroused it: and she was conscious that she had but shown obedience to +his wishes throughout the day, not sympathy with his feelings. Under +cover of a patient desire to please she had nursed irritation and +jealousy; the degradation of the sense of jealousy increasing the +irritation. Having consented to the ride to Dr. Shrapnel, should she +not, to be consistent, have dismounted there? O half heart! A whole +one, though it be an erring, like that of the French lady, does at +least live, and has a history, and makes music: but the faint and +uncertain is jarred in action, jarred in memory, ever behind the day +and in the shadow of it! Cecilia reviewed herself: jealous, +disappointed, vexed, ashamed, she had been all day a graceless +companion, a bad actress: and at the day’s close she was loving Nevil +the better for what had dissatisfied, distressed, and wounded her. She +was loving him in emulation of his devotedness to another person: and +that other was a revolutionary common people’s doctor! an infidel, a +traitor to his country’s dearest interests! But Nevil loved him, and it +had become impossible for her not to covet the love, or to think of the +old offender without the halo cast by Nevil’s attachment being upon +him. So intensely was she moved by her intertwisting reflections that +in an access of bodily fever she stood up and moved before the glass, +to behold the image of the woman who could be the victim of these +childish emotions: and no wonderful contrast struck her eyes; she +appeared to herself as poor and small as they. How could she aspire to +a man like Nevil Beauchamp? If he had made her happy by wooing her she +would not have adored him as she did now. He likes my hair, she said, +smoothing it out, and then pressing her temples, like one insane. Two +minutes afterward she was telling Rosamund her head ached less. + +“This terrible Dr. Shrapnel!” Rosamund exclaimed, but reported that no +loud voices were raised in the dining-room. + +Colonel Halkett came to see his daughter, full of anxiety and +curiosity. Affairs had been peaceful below, for he was ignorant of the +expedition to Bevisham. On hearing of it he frowned, questioned Cecilia +as to whether she had set foot on that man’s grounds, then said: “Ah! +well, we leave to-morrow: I must go, I have business at home; I can’t +delay it. I sanctioned no calling there, nothing of the kind. From +Steynham to Bevisham? Goodness, it’s rank madness. I’m not astonished +you’re sick and ill.” + +He waited till he was assured Cecilia had no special matter to relate, +and recommending her to drink the tea Mrs. Culling had made for her, +and then go to bed and sleep, he went down to the drawing-room, charged +with the worst form of hostility toward Nevil, the partly diplomatic. + +Cecilia smiled at her father’s mention of sleep. She was in the contest +of the two men, however inanimately she might be lying overhead, and +the assurance in her mind that neither of them would give ground, so +similar were they in their tenacity of will, dissimilar in all else, +dragged her this way and that till she swayed lifeless between them. +One may be as a weed of the sea while one’s fate is being decided. To +love is to be on the sea, out of sight of land: to love a man like +Nevil Beauchamp is to be on the sea in tempest. Still to persist in +loving would be noble, and but for this humiliation of utter +helplessness an enviable power. Her thoughts ran thus in shame and +yearning and regret, dimly discerning where her heart failed in the +strength which was Nevil’s, though it was a full heart, faithful and +not void of courage. But he never brooded, he never blushed from +insufficiency—the faintness of a desire, the callow passion that cannot +fly and feed itself: he never tottered; he walked straight to his mark. +She set up his image and Renée’s, and cowered under the heroical shapes +till she felt almost extinct. With her weak limbs and head worthlessly +paining, the little infantile I within her ceased to wail, dwindled +beyond sensation. Rosamund, waiting on her in the place of her maid, +saw two big drops come through her closed eyelids, and thought that if +it could be granted to Nevil to look for a moment on this fair and +proud young lady’s loveliness in abandonment, it would tame, melt, and +save him. The Gods presiding over custom do not permit such renovating +sights to men. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. +PURSUIT OF THE APOLOGY OF Mr. ROMFREY TO DR. SHRAPNEL + + +The contest, which was an alternation of hard hitting and close +wrestling, had recommenced when Colonel Halkett stepped into the +drawing-room. + +“Colonel, I find they’ve been galloping to Bevisham and back,” said Mr. +Romfrey. + +“I’ve heard of it,” the colonel replied. Not perceiving a sign of +dissatisfaction on his friend’s face, he continued: “To that man +Shrapnel.” + +“Cecilia did not dismount,” said Beauchamp. + +“You took her to that man’s gate. It was not with my sanction. You know +my ideas of the man.” + +“If you were to see him now, colonel, I don’t think you would speak +harshly of him.” + +“We’re not obliged to go and look on men who have had their measure +dealt them.” + +“Barbarously,” said Beauchamp. + +Mr. Romfrey in the most placid manner took a chair. “Windy talk, that!” +he said. + +Colonel Halkett seated himself. Stukely Culbrett turned a sheet of +manuscript he was reading. + +Beauchamp began a caged lion’s walk on the rug under the mantelpiece. + +“I shall not spare you from hearing what I think of it, sir.” + +“We’ve had what you think of it twice over,” said Mr. Romfrey. “I +suppose it was the first time for information, the second time for +emphasis, and the rest counts to keep it alive in your recollection.” + +“This is what you have to take to heart, sir; that Dr. Shrapnel is now +seriously ill.” + +“I’m sorry for it, and I’ll pay the doctor’s bill.” + +“You make it hard for me to treat you with respect.” + +“Fire away. Those Radical friends of yours have to learn a lesson, and +it’s worth a purse to teach them that a lady, however feeble she may +seem to them, is exactly of the strength of the best man of her +acquaintance.” + +“That’s well said!” came from Colonel Halkett. + +Beauchamp stared at him, amazed by the commendation of empty language. + +“You acted in error; barbarously, but in error,” he addressed his +uncle. + +“And you have got a fine topic for mouthing,” Mr. Romfrey rejoined. + +“You mean to sit still under Dr. Shrapnel’s forgiveness?” + +“He’s taken to copy the Christian religion, has he?” + +“You know you were deluded when you struck him.” + +“Not a whit.” + +“Yes, you know it now: Mrs. Culling—” + +“Drag in no woman, Nevil Beauchamp!” + +“She has confessed to you that Dr. Shrapnel neither insulted her nor +meant to ruffle her.” + +“She has done no such nonsense.” + +“If she has not!—but I trust her to have done it.” + +“You play the trumpeter, you terrorize her.” + +“Into opening her lips wider; nothing else. I’ll have the truth from +her, and no mincing: and from Cecil Baskelett and Palmet.” + +“Give Cecil a second licking, if you can, and have him off to +Shrapnel.” + +“You!” cried Beauchamp. + +At this juncture Stukely Culbrett closed the manuscript in his hands, +and holding it out to Beauchamp, said: + +“Here’s your letter, Nevil. It’s tolerably hard to decipher. It’s mild +enough; it’s middling good pulpit. I like it.” + +“What have you got there?” Colonel Halkett asked him. + +“A letter of his friend Dr. Shrapnel on the Country. Read a bit, +colonel.” + +“I? That letter! Mild, do you call it?” The colonel started back his +chair in declining to touch the letter. + +“Try it,” said Stukely. “It’s the letter they have been making the +noise about. It ought to be printed. There’s a hit or two at the +middle-class that I should like to see in print. It’s really not bad +pulpit; and I suspect that what you object to, colonel, is only the +dust of a well-thumped cushion. Shrapnel thumps with his fist. He +doesn’t say much that’s new. If the parsons were men they’d be saying +it every Sunday. If they did, colonel, I should hear you saying, amen.” + +“Wait till they do say it.” + +“That’s a long stretch. They’re turn-cocks of one Water-company—to wash +the greasy citizens!” + +“You’re keeping Nevil on the gape;” said Mr. Romfrey, with a whimsical +shrewd cast of the eye at Beauchamp, who stood alert not to be foiled, +arrow-like in look and readiness to repeat his home-shot. Mr. Romfrey +wanted to hear more of that unintelligible “You!” of Beauchamp’s. But +Stukely Culbrett intended that the latter should be foiled, and he +continued his diversion from the angry subject. + +“We’ll drop the sacerdotals,” he said. “They’re behind a veil for us, +and so are we for them. I’m with you, colonel; I wouldn’t have them +persecuted; they sting fearfully when whipped. No one listens to them +now except the class that goes to sleep under them, to ‘set an example’ +to the class that can’t understand them. Shrapnel is like the breeze +shaking the turf-grass outside the church-doors; a trifle fresher. He +knocks nothing down.” + +“He can’t!” ejaculated the colonel. + +“He sermonizes to shake, that’s all. I know the kind of man.” + +“Thank heaven, it’s not a common species in England!” + +“Common enough to be classed.” + +Beauchamp struck through the conversation of the pair: “Can I see you +alone to-night, sir, or to-morrow morning?” + +“You may catch me where you can,” was Mr. Romfrey’s answer. + +“Where’s that? It’s for your sake and mine, not for Dr. Shrapnel’s. I +have to speak to you, and must. You have done your worst with him; you +can’t undo it. You have to think of your honour as a gentleman. I +intend to treat you with respect, but wolf is the title now, whether I +say it or not.” + +“Shrapnel’s a rather long-legged sheep?” + +“He asks for nothing from you.” + +“He would have got nothing, at a cry of peccavi!” + +“He was innocent, perfectly blameless; he would not lie to save +himself. You mistook that for—but you were an engine shot along a line +of rails. He does you the justice to say you acted in error.” + +“And you’re his parrot.” + +“He pardons you.” + +“Ha! t’ other cheek!” + +“You went on that brute’s errand in ignorance. Will you keep to the +character now you know the truth? Hesitation about it doubles the +infamy. An old man! the best of men! the kindest and truest! the most +unselfish!” + +“He tops me by half a head, and he’s my junior.” + +Beauchamp suffered himself to give out a groan of sick derision: “Ah!” + +“And it was no joke holding him tight,” said Mr. Romfrey, “I’d as lief +snap an ash. The fellow (he leaned round to Colonel Halkett) must be a +fellow of a fine constitution. And he took his punishment like a man. +I’ve known worse: and far worse: gentlemen by birth. There’s the choice +of taking it upright or fighting like a rabbit with a weasel in his +hole. Leave him to think it over, he’ll come right. I think no harm of +him, I’ve no animus. A man must have his lesson at some time of life. I +did what I had to do.” + +“Look here, Nevil,” Stukely Culbrett checked Beauchamp in season: “I +beg to inquire what Dr. Shrapnel means by ‘the people.’ We have in our +country the nobles and the squires, and after them, as I understand it, +the people: that’s to say, the middle-class and the working-class—fat +and lean. I’m quite with Shrapnel when he lashes the fleshpots. They +want it, and they don’t get it from ‘their organ,’ the Press. I fancy +you and I agree about their organ; the dismallest organ that ever +ground a hackneyed set of songs and hymns to madden the thoroughfares.” + +“The Press of our country!” interjected Colonel Halkett in moaning +parenthesis. + +“It’s the week-day Parson of the middle-class, colonel. They have their +thinking done for them as the Chinese have their dancing. But, Nevil, +your Dr. Shrapnel seems to treat the traders as identical with the +aristocracy in opposition to his ‘people.’ The traders are the cursed +middlemen, bad friends of the ‘people,’ and infernally treacherous to +the nobles till money hoists them. It’s they who pull down the country. +They hold up the nobles to the hatred of the democracy, and the +democracy to scare the nobles. One’s when they want to swallow a +privilege, and the other’s when they want to ring-fence their gains. +How is it Shrapnel doesn’t expose the trick? He must see through it. I +like that letter of his. People is one of your Radical big words that +burst at a query. He can’t mean Quince, and Bottom, and Starveling, +Christopher Sly, Jack Cade, Caliban, and poor old Hodge? No, no, Nevil. +Our clowns are the stupidest in Europe. They can’t cook their meals. +They can’t spell; they can scarcely speak. They haven’t a jig in their +legs. And I believe they’re losing their grin! They’re nasty when their +blood’s up. Shakespeare’s Cade tells you what he thought of +Radicalizing the people. ‘And as for your mother, I’ll make her a +duke’; that’s one of their songs. The word people, in England, is a +dyspeptic agitator’s dream when he falls nodding over the red chapter +of French history. Who won the great liberties for England? My book +says, the nobles. And who made the great stand later?—the squires. What +have the middlemen done but bid for the people they despise and fear, +dishonour us abroad and make a hash of us at home? Shrapnel sees that. +Only he has got the word people in his mouth. The people of England, my +dear fellow, want _heading_. Since the traders obtained power we have +been a country on all fours. Of course Shrapnel sees it: I say so. But +talk to him and teach him where to look for the rescue.” + +Colonel Halkett said to Stukely: “If you have had a clear idea in what +you have just spoken, my head’s no place for it!” + +Stukely’s unusually lengthy observations had somewhat heated him, and +he protested with earnestness: “It was pure Tory, my dear colonel.” + +But the habitually and professedly cynical should not deliver +themselves at length: for as soon as they miss their customary incision +of speech they are apt to aim to recover it in loquacity, and thus it +may be that the survey of their ideas becomes disordered. + +Mr. Culbrett endangered his reputation for epigram in a good cause, it +shall be said. + +These interruptions were torture to Beauchamp. Nevertheless the end was +gained. He sank into a chair silent. + +Mr. Romfrey wished to have it out with his nephew, of whose comic +appearance as a man full of thunder, and occasionally rattling, yet all +the while trying to be decorous and politic, he was getting tired. He +foresaw that a tussle between them in private would possibly be too hot +for his temper, admirably under control though it was. + +“Why not drag Cecil to Shrapnel?” he said, for a provocation. + +Beauchamp would not be goaded. + +Colonel Halkett remarked that he would have to leave Steynham the next +day. His host remonstrated with him. The colonel said: “Early.” He had +very particular business at home. He was positive, and declined every +inducement to stay. Mr. Romfrey glanced at Nevil, thinking, You poor +fool! And then he determined to let the fellow have five minutes alone +with him. + +This occurred at midnight, in that half-armoury, half-library, which +was his private room. + +Rosamund heard their voices below. She cried out to herself that it was +her doing, and blamed her beloved, and her master, and Dr. Shrapnel, in +the breath of her self-recrimination. The demagogue, the +over-punctilious gentleman, the faint lover, surely it must be reason +wanting in the three for each of them in turn to lead the other, by an +excess of some sort of the quality constituting their men’s natures, to +wreck a calm life and stand in contention! Had Shrapnel been commonly +reasonable he would have apologized to Mr. Romfrey, or had Mr. Romfrey, +he would not have resorted to force to punish the supposed offender, or +had Nevil, he would have held his peace until he had gained his bride. +As it was; the folly of the three knocked at her heart, uniting to +bring the heavy accusation against one poor woman, quite in the old +way: the Who is she? of the mocking Spaniard at mention of a social +catastrophe. Rosamund had a great deal of the pride of her sex, and she +resented any slur on it. She felt almost superciliously toward Mr. +Romfrey and Nevil for their not taking hands to denounce the plotter, +Cecil Baskelett. They seemed a pair of victims to him, nearly as much +so as the wretched man Shrapnel. It was their senselessness which made +her guilty! And simply because she had uttered two or three +exclamations of dislike of a revolutionary and infidel she was +compelled to groan under her present oppression! Is there anything to +be hoped of men? Rosamund thought bitterly of Nevil’s idea of their +progress. Heaven help them! But the unhappy creatures have ceased to +look to a heaven for help. + +We see the consequence of it in this Shrapnel complication. + +Three men: and one struck down; the other defeated in his benevolent +intentions; the third sacrificing fortune and happiness: all three +owing their mischance to one or other of the vague ideas disturbing +men’s heads! Where shall we look for mother wit?—or say, common +suckling’s instinct? Not to men, thought Rosamund. + +She was listening to the voices of Mr. Romfrey and Beauchamp in a +fever. Ordinarily the lord of Steynham was not out of his bed later +than twelve o’clock at night. His door opened at half-past one. Not a +syllable was exchanged by the couple in the hall. They had fought it +out. Mr. Romfrey came upstairs alone, and on the closing of his +chamber-door she slipped down to Beauchamp and had a dreadful hour with +him that subdued her disposition to sit in judgement upon men. The +unavailing attempt to move his uncle had wrought him to the state in +which passionate thoughts pass into speech like heat to flame. Rosamund +strained her mental sight to gain a conception of his prodigious horror +of the treatment of Dr. Shrapnel that she might think him sane: and to +retain a vestige of comfort in her bosom she tried to moderate and make +light of as much as she could conceive. Between the two efforts she had +no sense but that of helplessness. Once more she was reduced to promise +that she would speak the whole truth to Mr. Romfrey, even to the fact +that she had experienced a common woman’s jealousy of Dr. Shrapnel’s +influence, and had alluded to him jealously, spitefully, and falsely. +There was no mercy in Beauchamp. He was for action at any cost, with +all the forces he could gather, and without delays. He talked of +Cecilia as his uncle’s bride to him. Rosamund could hardly trust her +ears when he informed her he had told his uncle of his determination to +compel him to accomplish the act of penitence. “Was it prudent to say +it, Nevil?” she asked. But, as in his politics, he disdained prudence. +A monstrous crime had been committed, involving the honour of the +family. No subtlety of insinuation, no suggestion, could wean him from +the fixed idea that the apology to Dr. Shrapnel must be spoken by his +uncle in person. + +“If one could only imagine Mr. Romfrey doing it!” Rosamund groaned. + +“He shall: and you will help him,” said Beauchamp. + +“If you loved a woman half as much as you do that man!” + +“If I knew a woman as good, as wise, as noble as he!” + +“You are losing her.” + +“You expect me to go through ceremonies of courtship at a time like +this! If she cares for me she will feel with me. Simple compassion—but +let Miss Halkett be. I’m afraid I overtasked her in taking her to +Bevisham. She remained outside the garden. Ma’am, she is unsullied by +contact with a single shrub of Dr. Shrapnel’s territory.” + +“Do not be so bitterly ironical, Nevil. You have not seen her as I +have.” + +Rosamund essayed a tender sketch of the fair young lady, and fancied +that she drew forth a sigh; she would have coloured the sketch, but he +commanded her to hurry off to bed, and think of her morning’s work. + +A commission of which we feel we can accurately forecast the +unsuccessful end is not likely to be undertaken with an ardour that +might perhaps astound the presageing mind with unexpected issues. +Rosamund fulfilled hers in the style of one who has learnt a lesson, +and, exactly as she had anticipated, Mr. Romfrey accused her of coming +to him from a conversation with that fellow Nevil overnight. He +shrugged and left the house for his morning’s walk across the fields. + +Colonel Halkett and Cecilia beheld him from the breakfast-room +returning with Beauchamp, who had waylaid him and was hammering his +part in the now endless altercation. It could be descried at any +distance; and how fine was Mr. Romfrey’s bearing!—truly noble by +contrast, as of a grave big dog worried by a small barking dog. There +is to an unsympathetic observer an intense vexatiousness in the +exhibition of such pertinacity. To a soldier accustomed at a glance to +estimate powers of attack and defence, this repeated puny assailing of +a fortress that required years of siege was in addition ridiculous. Mr. +Romfrey appeared impregnable, and Beauchamp mad. “He’s foaming again!” +said the colonel, and was only ultra-pictorial. “Before breakfast!” was +a further slur on Beauchamp. + +Mr. Romfrey was elevated by the extraordinary comicality of the notion +of the proposed apology to heights of humour beyond laughter, whence we +see the unbounded capacity of the general man for folly, and rather +commiserate than deride him. He was quite untroubled. It demanded a +steady view of the other side of the case to suppose of one whose +control of his temper was perfect, that he could be in the wrong. He at +least did not think so, and Colonel Halkett relied on his common sense. +Beauchamp’s brows were smouldering heavily, except when he had to talk. +He looked paleish and worn, and said he had been up early. Cecilia +guessed that he had not been to bed. + +It was dexterously contrived by her host, in spite of the colonel’s +manifest anxiety to keep them asunder, that she should have some +minutes with Beauchamp out in the gardens. Mr. Romfrey led them out, +and then led the colonel away to offer him a choice of pups of rare +breed. + +“Nevil,” said Cecilia, “you will not think it presumption in me to give +you advice?” + +Her counsel to him was, that he should leave Steynham immediately, and +trust to time for his uncle to reconsider his conduct. + +Beauchamp urged the counter-argument of the stain on the family honour. + +She hinted at expediency; he frankly repudiated it. + +The downs faced them, where the heavenly vast “might have been” of +yesterday wandered thinner than a shadow of to-day; weaving a story +without beginning, crisis, or conclusion, flowerless and fruitless, but +with something of infinite in it sweeter to brood on than the future of +her life to Cecilia. + +“If meanwhile Dr. Shrapnel should die, and repentance comes too late!” +said Beauchamp. + +She had no clear answer to that, save the hope of its being an +unfounded apprehension. “As far as it is in my power, Nevil, I will +avoid injustice to him in my thoughts.” + +He gazed at her thankfully. “Well,” said he, “that’s like sighting the +cliffs. But I don’t feel home round me while the colonel is so +strangely prepossessed. For a high-spirited gentleman like your father +to approve, or at least accept, an act so barbarous is +incomprehensible. Speak to him, Cecilia, will you? Let him know your +ideas.” + +She assented. He said instantly, “Persuade him to speak to my uncle +Everard.” + +She was tempted to smile. + +“I must do only what I think wise, if I am to be of service, Nevil.” + +“True, but paint that scene to him. An old man, utterly defenceless, +making no defence! a cruel error. The colonel can’t, or he doesn’t, +clearly get it inside him, otherwise I’m certain it would revolt him: +just as I am certain my uncle Everard is at this moment a stone-blind +man. If he has done a thing, he can’t question it, won’t examine it. +The thing becomes a part of him, as much as his hand or his head. He’s +a man of the twelfth century. Your father might be helped to understand +him first.” + +“Yes,” she said, not very warmly, though sadly. + +“Tell the colonel how it must have been brought about. For Cecil +Baskelett called on Dr. Shrapnel two days before Mr. Romfrey stood at +his gate.” + +The name of Cecil caused her to draw in her shoulders in a +half-shudder. “It may indeed be Captain Baskelett who set this cruel +thing in motion!” + +“Then point that out to your father, said he, perceiving a chance of +winning her to his views through a concrete object of her dislike, and +cooling toward the woman who betrayed a vulgar characteristic of her +sex; who was merely woman, unable sternly to recognize the doing of a +foul wrong because of her antipathy, until another antipathy +enlightened her. + +He wanted in fact a ready-made heroine, and did not give her credit for +the absence of fire in her blood, as well as for the unexercised +imagination which excludes young women from the power to realize +unwonted circumstances. We men walking about the world have perhaps no +more imagination of matters not domestic than they; but what we have is +quick with experience: we see the thing we hear of: women come to it +how they can. + +Cecilia was recommended to weave a narrative for her father, and +ultimately induce him, if she could, to give a gentleman’s opinion of +the case to Mr. Romfrey. + +Her sensitive ear caught a change of tone in the directions she +received. “Your father will say so and so: answer him with this and +that.” Beauchamp supplied her with phrases. She was to renew and renew +the attack; hammer as he did. Yesterday she had followed him: to-day +she was to march beside him—hardly as an equal. Patience! was the word +she would have uttered in her detection of the one frailty in his +nature which this hurrying of her off her feet opened her eyes to with +unusual perspicacity. Still she leaned to him sufficiently to admit +that he had grounds for a deep disturbance of his feelings. + +He said: “I go to Dr. Shrapnel’s cottage, and don’t know how to hold up +my head before Miss Denham. She confided him to me when she left for +Switzerland!” + +There was that to be thought of, certainly. + +Colonel Halkett came round a box-bush and discovered them pacing +together in a fashion to satisfy his paternal scrutiny. + +“I’ve been calling you several times, my dear,” he complained. “We +start in seven minutes. Bustle, and bonnet at once. Nevil, I’m sorry +for this business. Good-bye. Be a good boy, Nevil,” he murmured +kindheartedly, and shook Beauchamp’s hand with the cordiality of an +extreme relief in leaving him behind. + +The colonel and Mr. Romfrey and Beauchamp were standing on the +hall-steps when Rosamund beckoned the latter and whispered a request +for _that letter_ of Dr. Shrapnel’s. “It is for Miss Halkett, Nevil.” + +He plucked the famous epistle from his bulging pocketbook, and added a +couple of others in the same handwriting. + +“Tell her, a first reading—it’s difficult to read at first,” he said, +and burned to read it to Cecilia himself: to read it to her with his +comments and explanations appeared imperative. It struck him in a flash +that Cecilia’s counsel to him to quit Steynham for awhile was good. And +if he went to Bevisham he would be assured of Dr. Shrapnel’s condition: +notes and telegrams from the cottage were too much tempered to console +and deceive him. + +“Send my portmanteau and bag after me to Bevisham,” he said to +Rosamund, and announced to the woefully astonished colonel that he +would have the pleasure of journeying in his company as far as the +town. + +“Are you ready? No packing?” said the colonel. + +“It’s better to have your impediments in the rear of you, and march!” +said Mr. Romfrey. + +Colonel Halkett declined to wait for anybody. He shouted for his +daughter. The lady’s maid appeared, and then Cecilia with Rosamund. + +“We can’t entertain you, Nevil; we’re away to the island: I’m sorry,” +said the colonel; and observing Cecilia’s face in full crimson, he +looked at her as if he had lost a battle by the turn of events at the +final moment. + +Mr. Romfrey handed Cecilia into the carriage. He exchanged a friendly +squeeze with the colonel, and offered his hand to his nephew. Beauchamp +passed him with a nod and “Good-bye, sir.” + +“Have ready at Holdesbury for the middle of the month,” said Mr. +Romfrey, unruffled, and bowed to Cecilia. + +“If you think of bringing my cousin Baskelett, give me warning, sir,” +cried Beauchamp. + +“Give me warning, if you want the house for Shrapnel,” replied his +uncle, and remarked to Rosamund, as the carriage wheeled round the +mounded laurels to the avenue, “He mayn’t be quite cracked. The fellow +seems to have a turn for catching his opportunity by the tail. He had +better hold fast, for it’s his last.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. +CECILIA CONQUERED + + +The carriage rolled out of the avenue and through the park, for some +time parallel with the wavy downs. Once away from Steynham Colonel +Halkett breathed freely, as if he had dropped a load: he was free of +his bond to Mr. Romfrey, and so great was the sense of relief in him +that he resolved to do battle against his daughter, supposing her still +lively blush to be the sign of the enemy’s flag run up on a surrendered +citadel. His authority was now to be thought of: his paternal sanction +was in his own keeping. Beautiful as she looked, it was hardly credible +that a fellow in possession of his reason could have let slip his +chance of such a prize; but whether he had or had not, the colonel felt +that he occupied a position enabling him either to out-manœuvre, or, if +need were, interpose forcibly and punish him for his half-heartedness. + +Cecilia looked the loveliest of women to Beauchamp’s eyes, with her +blush, and the letters of Dr. Shrapnel in her custody, at her express +desire. Certain terms in the letters here and there, unsweet to ladies, +began to trouble his mind. + +“By the way, colonel,” he said, “you had a letter of Dr. Shrapnel’s +read to you by Captain Baskelett.” + +“Iniquitous rubbish!” + +“With his comments on it, I dare say you thought it so. I won’t speak +of his right to make it public. He wanted to produce his impressions of +it and me, and that is a matter between him and me. Dr. Shrapnel makes +use of strong words now and then, but I undertake to produce a totally +different impression on you by reading the letter myself—sparing you” +(he turned to Cecilia) “a word or two, common enough to men who write +in black earnest and have humour.” He cited his old favourite, the +black and bright lecturer on Heroes. “You have read him, I know, +Cecilia. Well, Dr. Shrapnel is another, who writes in his own style, +not the leading-article style or modern pulpit stuff. He writes to +rouse.” + +“He does that to my temper,” said the colonel. + +“Perhaps here and there he might offend Cecilia’s taste,” Beauchamp +pursued for her behoof. “Everything depends on the mouthpiece. I should +not like the letter to be read without my being by;—except by men: any +just-minded man may read it: Seymour Austin, for example. Every line is +a text to the mind of the writer. Let me call on you to-morrow.” + +“To-morrow?” Colonel Halkett put on a thoughtful air. “To-morrow we’re +off to the island for a couple of days; and there’s Lord Croyston’s +garden party, and the Yacht Ball. Come this evening-dine with us. No +reading of letters, please. I can’t stand it, Nevil.” + +The invitation was necessarily declined by a gentleman who could not +expect to be followed by supplies of clothes and linen for evening wear +that day. + +“Ah, we shall see you some day or other,” said the colonel. + +Cecilia was less alive to Beauchamp’s endeavour to prepare her for the +harsh words in the letter than to her father’s insincerity. She would +have asked her friend to come in the morning next day, but for the +dread of deepening her blush. + +“Do you intend to start so early in the morning, papa?” she ventured to +say; and he replied, “As early as possible.” + +“I don’t know what news I shall have in Bevisham, or I would engage to +run over to the island,” said Beauchamp, with a flattering persistency +or singular obtuseness. + +“You will dance,” he subsequently observed to Cecilia, out of the heart +of some reverie. He had been her admiring partner on the night before +the drive from Itchincope into Bevisham, and perhaps thought of her +graceful dancing at the Yacht Ball, and the contrast it would present +to his watch beside a sick man—struck down by one of his own family. + +She could have answered, “Not if you wish me not to”; while smiling at +the quaint sorrowfulness of his tone. + +“Dance!” quoth Colonel Halkett, whose present temper discerned a +healthy antagonism to misanthropic Radicals in the performance, “all +young people dance. Have you given over dancing?” + +“Not entirely, colonel.” + +Cecilia danced with Mr. Tuckham at the Yacht Ball, and was vividly +mindful of every slight incident leading to and succeeding her lover’s +abrupt, “You will dance”: which had all passed by her dream-like up to +that hour: his attempt to forewarn her of the phrases she would deem +objectionable in Dr. Shrapnel’s letter; his mild acceptation of her +father’s hostility; his adieu to her, and his melancholy departure on +foot from the station, as she drove away to Mount Laurels and gaiety. +Why do I dance? she asked herself. It was not in the spirit of +happiness. Her heart was not with Dr. Shrapnel, but very near him, and +heavy as a chamber of the sick. She was afraid of her father’s +favourite, imagining, from the colonel’s unconcealed opposition to +Beauchamp, that he had designs in the interests of Mr. Tuckham. But the +hearty gentleman scattered her secret terrors by his bluffness and +openness. He asked her to remember that she had recommended him to +listen to Seymour Austin, and he had done so, he said. Undoubtedly he +was much improved, much less overbearing. + +He won her confidence by praising and loving her father, and when she +alluded to the wonderful services he had rendered on the Welsh estate, +he said simply that her father’s thanks repaid him. He recalled his +former downrightness only in speaking of the case of Dr. Shrapnel, upon +which, both with the colonel and with her, he was unreservedly +condemnatory of Mr. Romfrey. Colonel Halkett’s defence of the true +knight and guardian of the reputation of ladies, fell to pieces in the +presence of Mr. Tuckham. He had seen Dr. Shrapnel, on a visit to Mr. +Lydiard, whom he described as hanging about Bevisham, philandering as a +married man should not, though in truth he might soon expect to be +released by the death of his crazy wife. The doctor, he said, had been +severely shaken by the monstrous assault made on him, and had been most +unrighteously handled. The doctor was an inoffensive man in his private +life, detestable and dangerous though his teachings were. Outside +politics Mr. Tuckham went altogether with Beauchamp. He promised also +that old Mrs. Beauchamp should be accurately informed of the state of +matters between Captain Beauchamp and Mr. Romfrey. He left Mount +Laurels to go back in attendance on the venerable lady, without once +afflicting Cecilia with a shiver of well-founded apprehension, and she +was grateful to him almost to friendly affection in the vanishing of +her unjust suspicion, until her father hinted that there was the man of +his heart. Then she closed all avenues to her own. + +A period of maidenly distress not previously unknown to her ensued. +Proposals of marriage were addressed to her by two untitled gentlemen, +and by the Earl of Lockrace: three within a fortnight. The recognition +of the young heiress’s beauty at the Yacht Ball was accountable for the +bursting out of these fires. Her father would not have deplored her +acceptance of the title of Countess of Lockrace. In the matter of +rejections, however, her will was paramount, and he was on her side +against relatives when the subject was debated among them. He called +her attention to the fact impressively, telling her that she should not +hear a syllable from him to persuade her to marry: the emphasis of +which struck the unspoken warning on her intelligence: Bring no man to +me of whom I do not approve! + +“Worthier of you, _as I hope to become_,” Beauchamp had said. Cecilia +lit on that part of Dr. Shrapnel’s letter where “Fight this out within +you,” distinctly alluded to the unholy love. Could she think ill of the +man who thus advised him? She shared Beauchamp’s painful feeling for +him in a sudden tremour of her frame; as it were through his touch. To +the rest of the letter her judgement stood opposed, save when a +sentence here and there reminded her of Captain Baskelett’s insolent +sing-song declamation of it: and that would have turned Sacred Writing +to absurdity. + +Beauchamp had mentioned Seymour Austin as one to whom he would +willingly grant a perusal of the letter. Mr. Austin came to Mount +Laurels about the close of the yachting season, shortly after Colonel +Halkett had spent his customary days of September shooting at Steynham. +Beauchamp’s folly was the colonel’s theme, for the fellow had dragged +Lord Palmet there, and driven his uncle out of patience. Mr. Romfrey’s +monumental patience had been exhausted by him. The colonel boiled over +with accounts of Beauchamp’s behaviour toward his uncle, and Palmet, +and Baskelett, and Mrs. Culling: how he flew at and worried everybody +who seemed to him to have had a hand in the proper chastisement of that +man Shrapnel. That pestiferous letter of Shrapnel’s was animadverted +on, of course; and, “I should like you to have heard it, Austin,” the +colonel said, “just for you to have a notion of the kind of universal +blow-up those men are scheming, and would hoist us with, if they could +get a little more blasting-powder than they mill in their lunatic +heads.” + +Now Cecilia wished for Mr. Austin’s opinion of Dr. Shrapnel; and as the +delicate state of her inclinations made her conscious that to give him +the letter covertly would be to betray them to him, who had once, not +knowing it, moved her to think of a possible great change in her life, +she mustered courage to say, “Captain Beauchamp at my request lent me +the letter to read; I have it, and others written by Dr. Shrapnel.” + +Her father hummed to himself, and immediately begged Seymour Austin not +to waste his time on the stuff, though he had no idea that a perusal of +it could awaken other than the gravest reprehension in so rational a +Tory gentleman. + +Mr. Austin read the letter through. He asked to see the other letters +mentioned by Cecilia, and read them calmly, without a frown or an +interjection. She sat sketching, her father devouring newspaper +columns. + +“It’s the writing of a man who means well,” Mr. Austin delivered his +opinion. + +“Why, the man’s an infidel!” Colonel Halkett exclaimed. + +“There are numbers.” + +“They have the grace not to confess, then.” + +“It’s as well to know what the world’s made of, colonel. The clergy +shut their eyes. There’s no treating a disease without reading it; and +if we are to acknowledge a ‘vice,’ as Dr. Shrapnel would say of the +so-called middle-class, it is the smirking over what they think, or +their not caring to think at all. Too many time-servers rot the State. +I can understand the effect of such writing on a mind like Captain +Beauchamp’s. It would do no harm to our young men to have those letters +read publicly and lectured on—by competent persons. Half the thinking +world may think pretty much the same on some points as Dr. Shrapnel; +they are too wise or too indolent to say it: and of the other half, +about a dozen members would be competent to reply to him. He is the +earnest man, and flies at politics as uneasy young brains fly to +literature, fancying they can write because they can write with a pen. +He perceives a bad adjustment of things: which is correct. He is +honest, and takes his honesty for a virtue: and that entitles him to +believe in himself: and that belief causes him to see in all opposition +to him the wrong he has perceived in existing circumstances: and so in +a dream of power he invokes the people: and as they do not stir, he +takes to prophecy. This is the round of the politics of impatience. The +study of politics should be guided by some light of statesmanship, +otherwise it comes to this wild preaching. + +These men are theory-tailors, not politicians. They are the men who +make the ‘strait-waistcoat for humanity.’ They would fix us to first +principles like tethered sheep or hobbled horses. I should enjoy +replying to him, if I had time. The whole letter is composed of +variations upon one idea. Still I must say the man interests me; I +should like to talk to him.” + +Mr. Austin paid no heed to the colonel’s “Dear me! dear me!” of +amazement. He said of the style of the letters, that it was the puffing +of a giant: a strong wind rather than speech: and begged Cecilia to +note that men who labour to force their dreams on mankind and turn +vapour into fact, usually adopt such a style. Hearing that this private +letter had been deliberately read through by Mr. Romfrey, and handed by +him to Captain Baskelett, who had read it out in various places, Mr. +Austin said: + +“A strange couple!” He appeared perplexed by his old friend’s approval +of them. “There we decidedly differ,” said he, when the case of Dr. +Shrapnel was related by the colonel, with a refusal to condemn Mr. +Romfrey. He pronounced Mr. Romfrey’s charges against Dr. Shrapnel, +taken in conjunction with his conduct, to be baseless, childish, and +wanton. The colonel would not see the case in that light; but Cecilia +did. It was a justification of Beauchamp; and how could she ever have +been blind to it?—scarcely blind, she remembered, but sensitively +blinking her eyelids to distract her sight in contemplating it, and to +preserve her repose. As to Beauchamp’s demand of the apology, Mr. +Austin considered that it might be an instance of his want of knowledge +of men, yet could not be called silly, and to call it insane was the +rhetoric of an adversary. + +“I do call it insane,” said the colonel. + +He separated himself from his daughter by a sharp division. + +Had Beauchamp appeared at Mount Laurels, Cecilia would have been ready +to support and encourage him, boldly. Backed by Mr. Austin, she saw +some good in Dr. Shrapnel’s writing, much in Beauchamp’s devotedness. +He shone clear to her reason, at last: partly because her father in his +opposition to him did not, but was on the contrary unreasonable, cased +in mail, mentally clouded. She sat with Mr. Austin and her father, +trying repeatedly, in obedience to Beauchamp’s commands, to bring the +latter to a just contemplation of the unhappy case; behaviour on her +part which rendered the colonel inveterate. + +Beauchamp at this moment was occupied in doing secretary’s work for Dr. +Shrapnel. So Cecilia learnt from Mr. Lydiard, who came to pay his +respects to Mrs. Wardour-Devereux at Mount Laurels. The pursuit of the +apology was continued in letters to his uncle and occasional interviews +with him, which were by no means instigated by the doctor, Mr. Lydiard +informed the ladies. He described Beauchamp as acting in the spirit of +a man who has sworn an oath to abandon every pleasure in life, that he +may, as far as it lies in his power, indemnify his friend for the wrong +done to him. + +“Such men are too terrible for me,” said Mrs. Devereux. + +Cecilia thought the reverse: Not for me! But she felt a strain upon her +nature, and she was miserable in her alienation from her father. +Kissing him one night, she laid her head on his breast, and begged his +forgiveness. He embraced her tenderly. “Wait, only wait; you will see I +am right,” he said, and prudently said no more, and did not ask her to +speak. + +She was glad that she had sought the reconciliation from her heart’s +natural warmth, on hearing some time later that M. de Croisnel was +dead, and that Beauchamp meditated starting for France to console his +Renée. Her continual agitations made her doubtful of her human +feelings: she clung to that instance of her filial stedfastness. + +The day before Cecilia and her father left Mount Laurels for their +season in Wales, Mr. Tuckham and Beauchamp came together to the house, +and were closeted an hour with her father. Cecilia sat in the +drawing-room, thinking that she did indeed wait, and had great +patience. Beauchamp entered the room alone. He looked worn and thin, of +a leaden colour, like the cloud that bears the bolt. News had reached +him of the death of Lord Avonley in the hunting-field, and he was going +on to Steynham to persuade his uncle to accompany him to Bevisham and +wash the guilt of his wrong-doing off him before applying for the +title. “You would advise me not to go?” he said. “I must. I should be +dishonoured myself if I let a chance pass. I run the risk of being a +beggar: I’m all but one now.” + +Cecilia faltered: “Do you see a chance?” + +“Hardly more than an excuse for trying it,” he replied. + +She gave him back Dr. Shrapnel’s letters. “I have read them,” was all +she said. For he might have just returned from France, with the breath +of Renée about him, and her pride would not suffer her to melt him in +rivalry by saying what she had been led to think of the letters. + +Hearing nothing from her, he silently put them in his pocket. The +struggle with his uncle seemed to be souring him or deadening him. + +They were not alone for long. Mr. Tuckham presented himself to take his +leave of her. Old Mrs. Beauchamp was dying, and he had only come to +Mount Laurels on special business. Beauchamp was just as anxious to +hurry away. + +Her father found her sitting in the solitude of a drawing-room at +midday, pale-faced, with unoccupied fingers, not even a book in her +lap. + +He walked up and down the room until Cecilia, to say something, said: +“Mr. Tuckham could not stay.” + +“No,” said her father; “he could not. He has to be back as quick as he +can to cut his legacy in halves!” + +Cecilia looked perplexed. + +“I’ll speak plainly,” said the colonel. “He sees that Nevil has ruined +himself with his uncle. The old lady won’t allow Nevil to visit her; in +her condition it would be an excitement beyond her strength to bear. +She sent Blackburn to bring Nevil here, and give him the option of +stating before me whether those reports about his misconduct in France +were true or not. He demurred at first: however, he says they are not +true. He would have run away with the Frenchwoman, and he would have +fought the duel: but he did neither. Her brother ran ahead of him and +fought for him: so he declares and she wouldn’t run. So the reports are +false. We shall know what Blackburn makes of the story when we hear of +the legacy. I have been obliged to write word to Mrs. Beauchamp that I +believe Nevil to have made a true statement of the facts. But I +distinctly say, and so I told Blackburn, I don’t think money will do +Nevil Beauchamp a farthing’s worth of good. Blackburn follows his own +counsel. He induced the old lady to send him; so I suppose he intends +to let her share the money between them. I thought better of him; I +thought him a wiser man.” + +Gratitude to Mr. Tuckham on Beauchamp’s behalf caused Cecilia to praise +him, in the tone of compliments. The difficulty of seriously admiring +two gentlemen at once is a feminine dilemma, with the maidenly among +women. + +“He has disappointed me,” said Colonel Halkett. + +“Would you have had him allow a falsehood to enrich him and ruin Nevil, +papa?” + +“My dear child, I’m sick to death of romantic fellows. I took Blackburn +for one of our solid young men. Why should he share his aunt’s +fortune?” + +“You mean, why should Nevil have money?” + +“Well, I do mean that. Besides, the story was not false as far as his +intentions went: he confessed it, and I ought to have put it in a +postscript. If Nevil wants money, let him learn to behave himself like +a gentleman at Steynham.” + +“He has not failed.” + +“I’ll say, then, behave himself, simply. He considers it a point of +honour to get his uncle Everard to go down on his knees to Shrapnel. +But he has no moral sense where I should like to see it: none: he +confessed it.” + +“What were his words, papa?” + +“I don’t remember words. He runs over to France, whenever it suits him, +to carry on there...” The colonel ended in a hum and buzz. + +“Has he been to France lately?” asked Cecilia. + +Her breath hung for the answer, sedately though she sat. + +“The woman’s father is dead, I hear,” Colonel Halkett remarked. + +“But he has not been there?” + +“How can I tell? He’s anywhere, wherever his passions whisk him.” + +“No!” + +“I say, yes. And if he has money, we shall see him going sky-high and +scattering it in sparks, not merely spending; I mean living immorally, +infidelizing, republicanizing, scandalizing his class and his country.” + +“Oh no!” exclaimed Cecilia, rising and moving to the window to feast +her eyes on driving clouds, in a strange exaltation of mind, secretly +sure now that her idea of Nevil’s having gone over to France was +groundless; and feeling that she had been unworthy of him who strove to +be “worthier of her, as he hoped to become.” + +Colonel Halkett scoffed at her “Oh no,” and called it woman’s logic. + +She could not restrain herself. “Have you forgotten Mr. Austin, papa? +It is Nevil’s perfect truthfulness that makes him appear worse to you +than men who are timeservers. Too many time-servers rot the State, Mr. +Austin said. Nevil is not one of them. I am not able to judge or +speculate whether he has a great brain or is likely to distinguish +himself out of his profession: I would rather he did not abandon it: +but Mr. Austin said to me in talking of him...” + +“That notion of Austin’s of screwing women’s minds up to the pitch of +men’s!” interjected the colonel with a despairing flap of his arm. + +“He said, papa, that honestly active men in a country, who decline to +practise hypocrisy, show that the blood runs, and are a sign of +health.” + +“You misunderstood him, my dear.” + +“I think I thoroughly understood him. He did not call them wise. He +said they might be dangerous if they were not met in debate. But he +said, and I presume to think truly, that the reason why they are +decried is, that it is too great a trouble for a lazy world to meet +them. And, he said, the reason why the honest factions agitate is +because they encounter sneers until they appear in force. If they were +met earlier, and fairly—I am only quoting him—they would not, I think +he said, or would hardly, or would not generally, fall into +professional agitation.” + +“Austin’s a speculative Tory, I know; and that’s his weakness,” +observed the colonel. “But I’m certain you misunderstood him. He never +would have called us a lazy people.” + +“Not in matters of business: in matters of thought.” + +“My dear Cecilia! You’ve got hold of a language!... a way of speaking! +.... Who set you thinking on these things?” + +“That I owe to Nevil Beauchamp!” + +Colonel Halkett indulged in a turn or two up and down the room. He +threw open a window, sniffed the moist air, and went to his daughter to +speak to her resolutely. + +“Between a Radical and a Tory, I don’t know where your head has been +whirled to, my dear. Your heart seems to be gone: more sorrow for us! +And for Nevil Beauchamp to be pretending to love you while carrying on +with this Frenchwoman!” + +“He has never said that he loved me.” + +The splendour of her beauty in humility flashed on her father, and he +cried out: “You are too good for any man on earth! We won’t talk in the +dark, my darling. You tell me he has never, as they say, made love to +you?” + +“Never, papa.” + +“Well, that proves the French story. At any rate, he’s a man of honour. +But you love him?” + +“The French story is untrue, papa.” + +Cecilia stood in a blush like the burning cloud of the sunset. + +“Tell me frankly: I’m your father, your old dada, your friend, my dear +girl! do you think the man cares for you, loves you?” + +She replied: “I know, papa, the French story is untrue.” + +“But when I tell you, silly woman, he confessed it to me out of his own +mouth!” + +“It is not true now.” + +“It’s not going on, you mean? How do you know?” + +“I know.” + +“Has he been swearing it?” + +“He has not spoken of it to me.” + +“Here I am in a woman’s web!” cried the colonel. “Is it your instinct +tells you it’s not true? or what? what? You have not denied that you +love the man.” + +“I know he is not immoral.” + +“There you shoot again! Haven’t you a yes or a no for your father?” + +Cecilia cast her arms round his neck, and sobbed. + +She could not bring it to her lips to say (she would have shunned the +hearing) that her defence of Beauchamp, which was a shadowed avowal of +the state of her heart, was based on his desire to read to her the +conclusion of Dr. Shrapnel’s letter touching a passion to be overcome; +necessarily therefore a passion that was vanquished, and the fullest +and bravest explanation of his shifting treatment of her: nor would she +condescend to urge that her lover would have said he loved her when +they were at Steynham, but for the misery and despair of a soul too +noble to be diverted from his grief and sense of duty, and, as she +believed, unwilling to speak to win her while his material fortune was +in jeopardy. + +The colonel cherished her on his breast, with one hand regularly +patting her shoulder: a form of consolation that cures the disposition +to sob as quickly as would the drip of water. + +Cecilia looked up into his eyes, and said, “We will not be parted, +papa, ever.” + +The colonel said absently: “No”; and, surprised at himself, added: “No, +certainly not. How can we be parted? You won’t run away from me? No, +you know too well I can’t resist you. I appeal to your judgement, and I +must accept what you decide. But he is immoral. I repeat that. He has +no roots. We shall discover it before it’s too late, I hope.” + +Cecilia gazed away, breathing through tremulous dilating nostrils. + +“One night after dinner at Steynham,” pursued the colonel, “Nevil was +rattling against the Press, with Stukely Culbrett to prime him: and he +said editors of papers were growing to be like priests, and as timid as +priests, and arrogant: and for one thing, it was because they supposed +themselves to be guardians of the national morality. I forget exactly +what the matter was: but he sneered at priests and morality.” + +A smile wove round Cecilia’s lips, and in her towering superiority to +one who talked nonsense, she slipped out of maiden shame and said: +“Attack Nevil for his political heresies and his wrath with the Press +for not printing him. The rest concerns his honour, where he is quite +safe, and all are who trust him.” + +“If you find out you’re wrong?” + +She shook her head. + +“But if you find out you’re wrong about him,” her father reiterated +piteously, “you won’t tear me to strips to have him in spite of it?” + +“No, papa, not I. I will not.” + +“Well, that’s something for me to hold fast to,” said Colonel Halkett, +sighing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. +LORD AVONLEY + + +Mr. Everard Romfrey was now, by consent, Lord Avonley, mounted on his +direct heirship and riding hard at the earldom. His elevation occurred +at a period of life that would have been a season of decay with most +men; but the prolonged and lusty Autumn of the veteran took new fires +from a tangible object to live for. His brother Craven’s death had +slightly stupefied, and it had grieved him: it seemed to him peculiarly +pathetic; for as he never calculated on the happening of mortal +accidents to men of sound constitution, the circumstance imparted a +curious shake to his own solidity. It was like the quaking of earth, +which tries the balance of the strongest. If he had not been raised to +so splendid a survey of the actual world, he might have been led to +think of the imaginary, where perchance a man may meet his old dogs and +a few other favourites, in a dim perpetual twilight. Thither at all +events Craven had gone, and goodnight to him! The earl was a rapidly +lapsing invalid. There could be no doubt that Everard was to be the +head of his House. + +Outwardly he was the same tolerant gentleman who put aside the poor +fools of the world to walk undisturbed by them in the paths he had +chosen: in this aspect he knew himself: nor was the change so great +within him as to make him cognizant of a change. It was only a secret +turn in the bent of the mind, imperceptible as the touch of the cunning +artist’s brush on a finished portrait, which will alter the expression +without discomposing a feature, so that you cannot say it is another +face, yet it is not the former one. His habits were invariable, as were +his meditations. He thought less of Romfrey Castle than of his dogs and +his devices for trapping vermin; his interest in birds and beasts and +herbs, “what ninnies call Nature in books,” to quote him, was +undiminished; imagination he had none to clap wings to his head and be +off with it. He betrayed as little as he felt that the coming Earl of +Romfrey was different from the cadet of the family. + +A novel sharpness in the “Stop that,” with which he crushed Beauchamp’s +affectedly gentle and unusually roundabout opening of the vexed +Shrapnel question, rang like a shot in the room at Steynham, and +breathed a different spirit from his customary easy pugnacity that +welcomed and lured on an adversary to wild outhitting. Some sorrowful +preoccupation is, however, to be expected in the man who has lost a +brother, and some degree of irritability at the intrusion of past +disputes. He chose to repeat a similar brief forbidding of the subject +before they started together for the scene of the accident and Romfrey +Castle. No notice was taken of Beauchamp’s remark, that he consented to +go though his duty lay elsewhere. Beauchamp had not the faculty of +reading inside men, or he would have apprehended that his uncle was +engaged in silently heaping aggravations to shoot forth one fine day a +thundering and astonishing counterstroke. + +He should have known his uncle Everard better. + +In this respect he seemed to have no memory. But who has much that has +given up his brains for a lodging to a single idea? It is at once a +devouring dragon, and an intractable steamforce; it is a tyrant that +has eaten up a senate, and a prophet with a message. Inspired of +solitariness and gigantic size, it claims divine origin. The world can +have no peace for it. + +Cecilia had not pleased him; none had. He did not bear in mind that the +sight of Dr. Shrapnel sick and weak, which constantly reanimated his +feelings of pity and of wrath, was not given to the others of whom he +demanded a corresponding energy of just indignation and sympathy. The +sense that he was left unaided to the task of bending his tough uncle, +combined with his appreciation of the righteousness of the task to +embitter him and set him on a pedestal, from which he descended at +every sign of an opportunity for striking, and to which he retired +continually baffled and wrathful, in isolation. + +Then ensued the dreadful division in his conception of his powers: for +he who alone saw the just and right thing to do, was incapable of +compelling it to be done. Lay on to his uncle as he would, that +wrestler shook him off. And here was one man whom he could not move! +How move a nation? + +There came on him a thirst for the haranguing of crowds. They agree +with you or they disagree; exciting you to activity in either case. +They do not interpose cold Tory exclusiveness and inaccessibility. You +have them in the rough; you have nature in them, and all that is +hopeful in nature. You drive at, over, and through them, for their +good; you plough them. You sow them too. Some of them perceive that it +_is_ for their good, and what if they be a minority? Ghastly as a +minority is in an Election, in a lifelong struggle it is refreshing and +encouraging. The young world and its triumph is with the minority. Oh +to be speaking! Condemned to silence beside his uncle, Beauchamp chafed +for a loosed tongue and an audience tossing like the well-whipped +ocean, or open as the smooth sea-surface to the marks of the breeze. +Let them be hostile or amicable, he wanted an audience as hotly as the +humped Richard a horse. + +At Romfrey Castle he fell upon an audience that became transformed into +a swarm of chatterers, advisers, and reprovers the instant his lips +were parted. The ladies of the family declared his pursuit of the +Apology to be worse and vainer than his politics. The gentlemen said +the same, but they were not so outspoken to him personally, and +indulged in asides, with quotations of some of his uncle Everard’s +recent observations concerning him: as for example, “Politically he’s a +mad harlequin jumping his tights and spangles when nobody asks him to +jump; and in private life he’s a mad dentist poking his tongs at my +sound tooth:” a highly ludicrous image of the persistent fellow, and a +reminder of situations in Molière, as it was acted by Cecil Baskelett +and Lord Welshpool. Beauchamp had to a certain extent restored himself +to favour with his uncle Everard by offering a fair suggestion on the +fatal field to account for the accident, after the latter had taken +measurements and examined the place in perplexity. His elucidation of +the puzzle was referred to by Lord Avonley at Romfrey, and finally +accepted as possible and this from a wiseacre who went quacking about +the county, expecting to upset the order of things in England! Such a +mixing of sense and nonsense in a fellow’s noddle was never before met +with, Lord Avonley said. Cecil took the hint. He had been unworried by +Beauchamp: Dr. Shrapnel had not been mentioned: and it delighted Cecil +to let it be known that he thought old Nevil had some good notions, +particularly as to the duties of the aristocracy—that first war-cry of +his when a midshipman. News of another fatal accident in the +hunting-field confirmed Cecil’s higher opinion of his cousin. On the +day of Craven’s funeral they heard at Romfrey that Mr. Wardour-Devereux +had been killed by a fall from his horse. Two English gentlemen +despatched by the same agency within a fortnight! “He smoked,” Lord +Avonley said of the second departure, to allay some perturbation in the +bosoms of the ladies who had ceased to ride, by accounting for this +particular mishap in the most reassuring fashion. Cecil’s immediate +reflection was that the unfortunate smoker had left a rich widow. Far +behind in the race for Miss Halkett, and uncertain of a settled +advantage in his other rivalry with Beauchamp, he fixed his mind on the +widow, and as Beauchamp did not stand in his way, but on the contrary +might help him—for she, like the generality of women, admired Nevil +Beauchamp in spite of her feminine good sense and conservatism—Cecil +began to regard the man he felt less opposed to with some recognition +of his merits. The two nephews accompanied Lord Avonley to London, and +slept at his town-house. + +They breakfasted together the next morning on friendly terms. Half an +hour afterward there was an explosion; uncle and nephews were scattered +fragments: and if Cecil was the first to return to cohesion with his +lord and chief, it was, he protested energetically, common policy in a +man in his position to do so: all that he looked for being a decent +pension and a share in the use of the town-house. Old Nevil, he +related, began cross-examining him and entangling him with the cunning +of the deuce, in my lord’s presence, and having got him to make an +admission, old Nevil flung it at the baron, and even crossed him and +stood before him when he was walking out of the room. A furious wrangle +took place. Nevil and the baron gave it to one another unmercifully. +The end of it was that all three flew apart, for Cecil confessed to +having a temper, and in contempt of him for the admission wrung out of +him, Lord Avonley had pricked it. My lord went down to Steynham, +Beauchamp to Holdesbury, and Captain Baskelett to his quarters; whence +in a few days he repaired penitently to my lord—the most placable of +men when a full submission was offered to him. + +Beauchamp did nothing of the kind. He wrote a letter to Steynham in the +form of an ultimatum. + +This egregious letter was handed to Rosamund for a proof of her +darling’s lunacy. She in conversation with Stukely Culbrett +unhesitatingly accused Cecil of plotting his cousin’s ruin. + +Mr. Culbrett thought it possible that Cecil had been a little more than +humorous in the part he had played in the dispute, and spoke to him. + +Then it came out that Lord Avonley had also delivered an ultimatum to +Beauchamp. + +Time enough had gone by for Cecil to forget his ruffling, and relish +the baron’s grandly comic spirit in appropriating that big word +Apology, and demanding it from Beauchamp on behalf of the lady ruling +his household. What could be funnier than the knocking of Beauchamp’s +blunderbuss out of his hands, and pointing the muzzle at him! + +Cecil dramatized the fun to amuse Mr. Culbrett. Apparently Beauchamp +had been staggered on hearing himself asked for the definite article he +claimed. He had made a point of speaking of _the_ Apology. Lord Avonley +did likewise. And each professed to exact it for a deeply aggrieved +person: each put it on the ground that it involved the other’s rightful +ownership of the title of gentleman. + +‘“An apology to the amiable and virtuous Mistress Culling?’ says old +Nevil: ‘an apology? what for?’—‘For unbecoming and insolent behaviour,’ +says my lord.” + +“I am that lady’s friend,” Stukely warned Captain Baskelett. “Don’t let +us have a third apology in the field.” + +“Perfectly true; you are her friend, and you know what a friend of mine +she is,” rejoined Cecil. “I could swear ‘that lady’ flings the whole +affair at me. I give you my word, old Nevil and I were on a capital +footing before he and the baron broke up. I praised him for tickling +the aristocracy. I backed him heartily; I do now; I’ll do it in +Parliament. I know a case of a noble lord, a General in the army, and +he received an intimation that he might as well attend the Prussian +cavalry manœuvres last Autumn on the Lower Rhine or in Silesia—no +matter where. He couldn’t go: he was engaged to shoot birds! I give you +my word. Now there I see old Nevil’s right. It’s as well we should know +something about the Prussian and Austrian cavalry, and if our +aristocracy won’t go abroad to study cavalry, who is to? no class in +the kingdom understands horses as they do. My opinion is, they’re +asleep. Nevil should have stuck to that, instead of trying to galvanize +the country and turning against his class. But fancy old Nevil asked +for the Apology! It petrified him. ‘I’ve told her nothing but the +truth,’ says Nevil. ‘Telling the truth to women is an impertinence,’ +says my lord. Nevil swore he’d have a revolution in the country before +he apologized.” + +Mr. Culbrett smiled at the absurdity of the change of positions between +Beauchamp and his uncle Everard, which reminded him somewhat of the old +story of the highwayman innkeeper and the market farmer who had been +thoughtful enough to recharge his pistols after quitting the inn at +midnight. A practical “tu quoque” is astonishingly laughable, and +backed by a high figure and manner it had the flavour of triumphant +repartee. Lord Avonley did not speak of it as a retort upon Nevil, +though he reiterated the word Apology amusingly. He put it as due to +the lady governing his household; and his ultimatum was, that the +Apology should be delivered in terms to satisfy _him_ within three +months of the date of the demand for it: otherwise blank; but the +shadowy index pointed to the destitution of Nevil Beauchamp. + +No stroke of retributive misfortune could have been severer to Rosamund +than to be thrust forward as the object of humiliation for the man she +loved. She saw at a glance how much more likely it was (remote as the +possibility appeared) that her lord would perform the act of penitence +than her beloved Nevil. And she had no occasion to ask herself why. +Lord Avonley had done wrong, and Nevil had not. It was inconceivable +that Nevil should apologize to her. It was horrible to picture the act +in her mind. She was a very rational woman, quite a woman of the world, +yet such was her situation between these two men that the childish tale +of a close and consecutive punishment for sins, down to our little +naughtinesses and naturalnesses, enslaved her intelligence, and amazed +her with the example made of her, as it were to prove the tale true of +our being surely hauled back like domestic animals learning the habits +of good society, to the rueful contemplation of certain of our deeds, +however wildly we appeal to nature to stand up for them. + +But is it so with all of us? No, thought Rosamund, sinking dejectedly +from a recognition of the heavenliness of the justice which lashed her +and Nevil, and did not scourge Cecil Baskelett. That fine eye for +celestially directed consequences is ever haunted by shadows of unfaith +likely to obscure it completely when chastisement is not seen to fall +on the person whose wickedness is evident to us. It has been +established that we do not wax diviner by dragging down the Gods to our +level. + +Rosamund knew Lord Avonley too well to harass him with further +petitions and explanations. Equally vain was it to attempt to persuade +Beauchamp. He made use of the house in London, where he met his uncle +occasionally, and he called at Steynham for money, that he could have +obtained upon the one condition, which was no sooner mentioned than +fiery words flew in the room, and the two separated. The leaden look in +Beauchamp, noticed by Cecilia Halkett in their latest interview, was +deepening, and was of itself a displeasure to Lord Avonley, who liked +flourishing faces, and said: “That fellow’s getting the look of a +sweating smith”: presumptively in the act of heating his poker at the +furnace to stir the country. + +It now became an offence to him that Beauchamp should continue doing +this in the speeches and lectures he was reported to be delivering; he +stamped his foot at the sight of his nephew’s name in the daily +journals; a novel sentiment of social indignation was expressed by his +crying out, at the next request for money: “Money to prime you to turn +the country into a rat-hole? Not a square inch of Pennsylvanian +paper-bonds! What right have you to be lecturing and orationing? You’ve +no knowledge. All you’ve got is your instincts, and that you show in +your readiness to exhibit them like a monkey. You ought to be turned +inside out on your own stage. You’ve lumped your brains on a point or +two about Land, and Commonland, and the Suffrage, and you pound away +upon them, as if you had the key of the difficulty. It’s the +Scotchman’s metaphysics; you know nothing clear, and your +working-classes know nothing at all; and you blow them with wind like +an over-stuffed cow. What you’re driving at is to get hob-nail boots to +dance on our heads. Stukely says you should be off over to Ireland. +There you’d swim in your element, and have speechifying from instinct, +and howling and pummelling too, enough to last you out. I’ll hand you +money for that expedition. You’re one above the number wanted here. +You’ve a look of bad powder fit only to flash in the pan. I saved you +from the post of public donkey, by keeping you out of Parliament. +You’re braying and kicking your worst for it still at these meetings of +yours. A naval officer preaching about Republicanism and parcelling out +the Land!” + +Beauchamp replied quietly, “The lectures I read are Dr. Shrapnel’s. +When I speak I have his knowledge to back my deficiencies. He is too +ill to work, and I consider it my duty to do as much of his work as I +can undertake.” + +“Ha! You’re the old infidel’s Amen clerk. It would rather astonish +orthodox congregations to see clerks in our churches getting into the +pulpit to read the sermon for sick clergymen,” said Lord Avonley. His +countenance furrowed. “I’ll pay that bill,” he added. + +“Pay down half a million!” thundered Beauchamp; and dropping his voice, +“or go to him.” + +“You remind me,” his uncle observed. “I recommend you to ring that +bell, and have Mrs. Culling here.” + +“If she comes she will hear what I think of her.” + +“Then, out of the house!” + +“Very well, sir. You decline to supply me with money?” + +“I do.” + +“I must have it!” + +“I dare say. Money’s a chain-cable for holding men to their senses.” + +“I ask you, my lord, how I am to carry on Holdesbury?” + +“Give it up.” + +“I shall have to,” said Beauchamp, striving to be prudent. + +“There isn’t a doubt of it,” said his uncle, upon a series of nods +diminishing in their depth until his head assumed a droll interrogative +fixity, with an air of “What next?” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. +BETWEEN BEAUCHAMP AND CECILIA + + +Beauchamp quitted the house without answering as to what next, and +without seeing Rosamund. + +In the matter of money, as of his physical health, he wanted to do too +much at once; he had spent largely of both in his efforts to repair the +injury done to Dr. Shrapnel. He was overworked, anxious, restless, +craving for a holiday somewhere in France, possibly; he was all but +leaping on board the boat at times, and, unwilling to leave his dear +old friend who clung to him, he stayed, keeping his impulses below the +tide-mark which leads to action, but where they do not yield peace of +spirit. The tone of Renée’s letters filled him with misgivings. She +wrote word that she had seen M. d’Henriel for the first time since his +return from Italy, and he was much changed, and inclined to thank +Roland for the lesson he had received from him at the sword’s point. +And next she urged Beauchamp to marry, so that he and she might meet, +as if she felt a necessity for it. “I shall love your wife; teach her +to think amiably of me,” she said. And her letter contained womanly +sympathy for him in his battle with his uncle. Beauchamp thought of his +experiences of Cecilia’s comparative coldness. He replied that there +was no prospect of his marrying; he wished there were one of meeting! +He forbore from writing too fervently, but he alluded to happy days in +Normandy, and proposed to renew them if she would say she had need of +him. He entreated her to deal with him frankly; he reminded her that +she must constantly look to him, as she had vowed she would, when in +any kind of trouble; and he declared to her that he was unchanged. He +meant, of an unchanged disposition to shield and serve her; but the +review of her situation, and his knowledge of her quick blood, wrought +him to some jealous lover’s throbs, which led him to impress his +unchangeableness upon her, to bind her to that standard. + +She declined his visit: not now; “not yet”: and for that he presumed to +chide her, half-sincerely. As far as he knew he stood against everybody +save his old friend and Renée; and she certainly would have refreshed +his heart for a day. In writing, however, he had an ominous vision of +the morrow to the day; and, both for her sake and his own, he was not +unrejoiced to hear that she was engaged day and night in nursing her +husband. Pursuing his vision of the morrow of an unreproachful day with +Renée, the madness of taking her to himself, should she surrender at +last to a third persuasion, struck him sharply, now that he and his +uncle were foot to foot in downright conflict, and money was the +question. He had not much remaining of his inheritance—about fifteen +hundred pounds. He would have to vacate Holdesbury and his uncle’s +town-house in a month. Let his passion be never so desperate, for a +beggared man to think of running away with a wife, or of marrying one, +the folly is as big as the worldly offence: no justification is to be +imagined. Nay, and there is no justification for the breach of a moral +law. Beauchamp owned it, and felt that Renée’s resistance to him in +Normandy placed her above him. He remembered a saying of his moralist: +“We who interpret things heavenly by things earthly must not hope to +juggle with them for our pleasures, and can look to no absolution of +evil acts.” The school was a hard one. It denied him holidays; it cut +him off from dreams. It ran him in heavy harness on a rough highroad, +allowing no turnings to right or left, no wayside croppings; with the +simple permission to him that he should daily get thoroughly tired. And +what was it Jenny Denham had said on the election day? “Does incessant +battling keep the intellect clear?” + +His mind was clear enough to put the case, that either he beheld a +tremendous magnification of things, or else that other men did not +attach common importance to them; and he decided that the latter was +the fact. + +An incessant struggle of one man with the world, which position usually +ranks his relatives against him, does not conduce to soundness of +judgement. He may nevertheless be right in considering that he is right +in the main. The world in motion is not so wise that it can pretend to +silence the outcry of an ordinarily generous heart even—the very infant +of antagonism to its methods and establishments. It is not so difficult +to be right against the world when the heart is really active; but the +world is our book of humanity, and before insisting that _his_ +handwriting shall occupy the next blank page of it, the noble rebel is +bound for the sake of his aim to ask himself how much of a giant he is, +lest he fall like a blot on the page, instead of inscribing +intelligible characters there. + +Moreover, his relatives are present to assure him that he did not jump +out of Jupiter’s head or come of the doctor. They hang on him like an +ill-conditioned prickly garment; and if he complains of the irritation +they cause him, they one and all denounce his irritable skin. + +Fretted by his relatives he cannot be much of a giant. + +Beauchamp looked from Dr. Shrapnel in his invalid’s chair to his uncle +Everard breathing robustly, and mixed his uncle’s errors with those of +the world which honoured and upheld him. His remainder of equability +departed; his impatience increased. His appetite for work at Dr. +Shrapnel’s writing-desk was voracious. He was ready for any labour, the +transcribing of papers, writing from dictation, whatsoever was of +service to Lord Avonley’s victim: and he was not like the Spartan boy +with the wolf at his vitals; he betrayed it in the hue his uncle +Everard detested, in a visible nervousness, and indulgence in fits of +scorn. Sharp epigrams and notes of irony provoked his laughter more +than fun. He seemed to acquiesce in some of the current contemporary +despair of our immoveable England, though he winced at a satire on his +country, and attempted to show that the dull dominant class of +moneymakers was the ruin of her. Wherever he stood to represent Dr. +Shrapnel, as against Mr. Grancey Lespel on account of the Itchincope +encroachments, he left a sting that spread the rumour of his having +become not only a black torch of Radicalism—our modern provincial +estateholders and their wives bestow that reputation lightly—but a +gentleman with the polish scratched off him in parts. And he, though +individually he did not understand how there was to be game in the land +if game-preserving was abolished, signed his name R. C. S. NEVIL +BEAUCHAMP for DR. SHRAPNEL, in the communications directed to +solicitors of the persecutors of poachers. + +His behaviour to Grancey Lespel was eclipsed by his treatment of +Captain Baskelett. Cecil had ample reason to suppose his cousin to be +friendly with him. He himself had forgotten Dr. Shrapnel, and all other +dissensions, in a supremely Christian spirit. He paid his cousin the +compliment to think that he had done likewise. At Romfrey and in London +he had spoken to Nevil of his designs upon the widow: Nevil said +nothing against it and it was under Mrs. Wardour-Devereux’s eyes, and +before a man named Lydiard, that, never calling to him to put him on +his guard, Nevil fell foul of him with every capital charge that can be +brought against a gentleman, and did so abuse, worry, and disgrace him +as to reduce him to quit the house to avoid the scandal of a resort to +a gentleman’s last appeal in vindication of his character. Mrs. +Devereux spoke of the terrible scene to Cecilia, and Lydiard to Miss +Denham. The injured person communicated it to Lord Avonley, who told +Colonel Halkett emphatically that his nephew Cecil deserved well of him +in having kept command of his temper out of consideration for the +family. There was a general murmur of the family over this incident. +The widow was rich, and it ranked among the unwritten crimes against +blood for one offshoot of a great house wantonly to thwart another in +the wooing of her by humbling him in her presence, doing his utmost to +expose him as a schemer, a culprit, and a poltroon. + +Could it be that Beauchamp had reserved his wrath with his cousin to +avenge Dr. Shrapnel upon him signally? Miss Denham feared her guardian +was the cause. Lydiard was indefinitely of her opinion. The idea struck +Cecilia Halkett, and as an example of Beauchamp’s tenacity of purpose +and sureness of aim it fascinated her. But Mrs. Wardour-Devereux did +not appear to share it. She objected to Beauchamp’s intemperateness and +unsparingness, as if she was for conveying a sisterly warning to +Cecilia; and that being off her mind, she added, smiling a little and +colouring a little: “We learn only from men what men are.” How the +scene commenced and whether it was provoked, she failed to recollect. +She described Beauchamp as very self-contained in manner throughout his +tongue was the scorpion. Cecilia fancied he must have resembled his +uncle Everard. + +Cecilia was conquered, but unclaimed. While supporting and approving +him in her heart she was dreading to receive some new problem of his +conduct; and still while she blamed him for not seeking an interview +with her, she liked him for this instance of delicacy in the present +state of his relations with Lord Avonley. + +A problem of her own conduct disturbed the young lady’s clear +conception of herself: and this was a ruffling of unfaithfulness in her +love of Beauchamp, that was betrayed to her by her forgetfulness of him +whenever she chanced to be with Seymour Austin. In Mr. Austin’s company +she recovered her forfeited repose, her poetry of life, her image of +the independent Cecilia throned above our dust of battle, gazing on +broad heaven. She carried the feeling so far that Blackburn Tuckham’s +enthusiasm for Mr. Austin gave him grace in her sight, and praise of +her father’s favourite from Mr. Austin’s mouth made him welcome to her. +The image of that grave capable head, dusty-grey about the temples, and +the darkly sanguine face of the tried man, which was that of a seasoned +warrior and inspired full trust in him, with his vivid look, his +personal distinction, his plain devotion to the country’s business, and +the domestic solitude he lived in, admired, esteemed, loved perhaps, +but unpartnered, was often her refuge and haven from tempestuous +Beauchamp. She could see in vision the pride of Seymour Austin’s mate. +It flushed her reflectively. Conquered but not claimed, Cecilia was +like the frozen earth insensibly moving round to sunshine in nature, +with one white flower in her breast as innocent a sign of strong sweet +blood as a woman may wear. She ascribed to that fair mate of Seymour +Austin’s many lofty charms of womanhood; above all, stateliness: her +especial dream of an attainable superlative beauty in women. And +supposing that lady to be accused of the fickle breaking of another +love, who walked beside him, matched with his calm heart and one with +him in counsel, would the accusation be repeated by them that beheld +her husband? might it not rather be said that she had not deviated, but +had only stepped higher? She chose no youth, no glistener, no idler: it +was her soul striving upward to air like a seed in the earth that +raised her to him: and she could say to the man once enchaining her: +Friend, by the good you taught me I was led to this! + +Cecilia’s reveries fled like columns of mist before the gale when +tidings reached her of a positive rupture between Lord Avonley and +Nevil Beauchamp, and of the mandate to him to quit possession of +Holdesbury and the London house within a certain number of days, +because of his refusal to utter an apology to Mrs. Culling. Angrily on +his behalf she prepared to humble herself to him. Louise +Wardour-Devereux brought them to a meeting, at which Cecilia, with her +heart in her hand, was icy. Mr. Lydiard, prompted by Mrs. Devereux, +gave him better reasons for her singular coldness than Cecilia could +give to herself, and some time afterward Beauchamp went to Mount +Laurels, where Colonel Halkett mounted guard over his daughter, and +behaved, to her thinking, cruelly. “Now you have ruined yourself +there’s nothing ahead for you but to go to the Admiralty and apply for +a ship,” he said, sugaring the unkindness with the remark that the +country would be the gainer. He let fly a side-shot at London men +calling themselves military men who sought to repair their fortunes by +chasing wealthy widows, and complimented Beauchamp: “You’re not one of +that sort.” + +Cecilia looked at Beauchamp stedfastly. “Speak,” said the look. + +But he, though not blind, was keenly wounded. + +“Money I must have,” he said, half to the colonel, half to himself. + +Colonel Halkett shrugged. Cecilia waited for a directness in +Beauchamp’s eyes. + +Her father was too wary to leave them. + +Cecilia’s intuition told her that by leading to a discussion of +politics, and adopting Beauchamp’s views, she could kindle him. Why did +she refrain? It was that the conquered young lady was a captive, not an +ally. To touch the subject in cold blood, voluntarily to launch on +those vexed waters, as if his cause were her heart’s, as much as her +heart was the man’s, she felt to be impossible. He at the same time +felt that the heiress, endowing him with money to speed the good cause, +should be his match in ardour for it, otherwise he was but a common +adventurer, winning and despoiling an heiress. + +They met in London. Beauchamp had not vacated either Holdesbury or the +town-house; he was defying his uncle Everard, and Cecilia thought with +him that it was a wise temerity. She thought with him passively +altogether. On this occasion she had not to wait for directness in his +eyes; she had to parry it. They were at a dinner-party at Lady Elsea’s, +generally the last place for seeing Lord Palmet, but he was present, +and arranged things neatly for them, telling Beauchamp that he acted +under Mrs. Wardour-Devereux’s orders. Never was an opportunity, more +propitious for a desperate lover. Had it been Renée next him, no petty +worldly scruples of honour would have held him back. And if Cecilia had +spoken feelingly of Dr. Shrapnel, or had she simulated a thoughtful +interest in his pursuits, his hesitations would have vanished. As it +was, he dared to look what he did not permit himself to speak. She was +nobly lovely, and the palpable envy of men around cried fool at his +delays. Beggar and heiress he said in his heart, to vitalize the +three-parts fiction of the point of honour which Cecilia’s beauty was +fast submerging. When she was leaving he named a day for calling to see +her. Colonel Halkett stood by, and she answered, “Come.” + +Beauchamp kept the appointment. Cecilia was absent. + +He was unaware that her father had taken her to old Mrs. Beauchamp’s +death-bed. Her absence, after she had said, “Come,” appeared a +confirmation of her glacial manner when they met at the house of Mrs. +Wardour-Devereux; and he charged her with waywardness. A wound of the +same kind that we are inflicting is about the severest we can feel. + +Beauchamp received intelligence of his venerable great-aunt’s death +from Blackburn Tuckham, and after the funeral he was informed that +eighty thousand pounds had been bequeathed to him: a goodly sum of +money for a gentleman recently beggared; yet, as the political +enthusiast could not help reckoning (apart from a fervent sentiment of +gratitude toward his benefactress), scarcely enough to do much more +than start and push for three or more years a commanding daily +newspaper, devoted to Radical interests, and to be entitled THE DAWN. + +True, he might now conscientiously approach the heiress, take her hand +with an open countenance, and retain it. + +Could he do so quite conscientiously? The point of honour had been +centred in his condition of beggary. Something still was in his way. A +quick spring of his blood for air, motion, excitement, holiday freedom, +sent his thoughts travelling whither they always shot away when his +redoubtable natural temper broke loose. + +In the case of any other woman than Cecilia Halkett he would not have +been obstructed by the minor consideration as to whether he was wholly +heart-free to ask her in marriage that instant; for there was no +hindrance, and she was beautiful. She was exceedingly beautiful; and +she was an unequalled heiress. She would be able with her wealth to +float his newspaper, THE DAWN, so desired of Dr. Shrapnel!—the best +restorative that could be applied to him! Every temptation came +supplicating him to take the step which indeed he wished for: one +feeling opposed. He really respected Cecilia: it is not too much to say +that he worshipped her with the devout worship rendered to the ideal +Englishwoman by the heart of the nation. For him she was purity, +charity, the keeper of the keys of whatsoever is held precious by men; +she was a midway saint, a light between day and darkness, in whom the +spirit in the flesh shone like the growing star amid thin sanguine +colour, the sweeter, the brighter, the more translucent the longer +known. And if the image will allow it, the nearer down to him the +holier she seemed. + +How offer himself when he was not perfectly certain that he was worthy +of her? + +Some jugglery was played by the adept male heart in these later +hesitations. Up to the extent of his knowledge of himself, the man was +fairly sincere. Passion would have sped him to Cecilia, but passion is +not invariably love; and we know what it can be. + +The glance he cast over the water at Normandy was withdrawn. He went to +Bevisham to consult with Dr. Shrapnel about the starting of a weekly +journal, instead of a daily, and a name for it—a serious question: for +though it is oftener weekly than daily that the dawn is visible in +England, titles must not invite the public jest; and the glorious +project of the daily DAWN was prudently abandoned for by-and-by. He +thought himself rich enough to put a Radical champion weekly in the +field and this matter, excepting the title, was arranged in Bevisham. +Thence he proceeded to Holdesbury, where he heard that the house, +grounds, and farm were let to a tenant preparing to enter. Indifferent +to the blow, he kept an engagement to deliver a speech at the great +manufacturing town of Gunningham, and then went to London, visiting his +uncle’s town-house for recent letters. Not one was from Renée: she had +not written for six weeks, not once for his thrice! A letter from Cecil +Baskelett informed him that “my lord” had placed the town-house at his +disposal. Returning to dress for dinner on a thick and murky evening of +February, Beauchamp encountered his cousin on the steps. He said to +Cecil, “I sleep here to-night: I leave the house to you tomorrow.” + +Cecil struck out his underjaw to reply: “Oh! good. You sleep here +to-night. You are a fortunate man. I congratulate you. I shall not +disturb you. I have just entered on my occupation of the house. I have +my key. Allow me to recommend you to go straight to the drawing-room. +And I may inform you that the Earl of Romfrey is at the point of death. +My lord is at the castle.” + +Cecil accompanied his descent of the steps with the humming of an opera +melody: Beauchamp tripped into the hall-passage. A young maid-servant +held the door open, and she accosted him: “If you please, there is a +lady up-stairs in the drawing-room; she speaks foreign English, sir.” + +Beauchamp asked if the lady was alone, and not waiting for the answer, +though he listened while writing, and heard that she was heavily +veiled, he tore a strip from his notebook, and carefully traced +half-a-dozen telegraphic words to Mrs. Culling at Steynham. His rarely +failing promptness, which was like an inspiration, to conceive and +execute measures for averting peril, set him on the thought of possibly +counteracting his cousin Cecil’s malignant tongue by means of a message +to Rosamund, summoning her by telegraph to come to town by the next +train that night. He despatched the old woman keeping the house, as +trustier than the young one, to the nearest office, and went up to the +drawing-room, with a quick thumping heart that was nevertheless as +little apprehensive of an especial trial and danger as if he had done +nothing at all to obviate it. Indeed he forgot that he had done +anything when he turned the handle of the drawing-room door. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. +A TRIAL OF HIM + + +A low-burning lamp and fire cast a narrow ring on the shadows of the +dusky London room. One of the window-blinds was drawn up. Beauchamp +discerned a shape at that window, and the fear seized him that it might +be Madame d’Auffray with evil news of Renée: but it was Renée’s name he +called. She rose from her chair, saying, “I!” + +She was trembling. + +Beauchamp asked her whisperingly if she had come alone. + +“Alone; without even a maid,” she murmured. + +He pulled down the blind of the window exposing them to the square, and +led her into the light to see her face. + +The dimness of light annoyed him, and the miserable reception of her; +this English weather, and the gloomy house! And how long had she been +waiting for him? and what was the mystery? Renée in England seemed +magical; yet it was nothing stranger than an old dream realized. He +wound up the lamp, holding her still with one hand. She was woefully +pale; scarcely able to bear the increase of light. + +“It is I who come to you”: she was half audible. + +“This time!” said he. “You have been suffering?” + +“No.” + +Her tone was brief; not reassuring. + +“You came straight to me?” + +“Without a deviation that I know of.” + +“From Tourdestelle?” + +“You have not forgotten Tourdestelle, Nevil?” + +The memory of it quickened his rapture in reading her features. It was +his first love, his enchantress, who was here: and how? Conjectures +shot through him like lightnings in the dark. + +Irrationally, at a moment when reason stood in awe, he fancied it must +be that her husband was dead. He forced himself to think it, and could +have smiled at the hurry of her coming, one, without even a maid: and +deeper down in him the devouring question burned which dreaded the +answer. + +But of old, in Normandy, she had pledged herself to join him with no +delay when free, if ever free! + +So now she was free. + +One side of him glowed in illumination; the other was black as Winter +night; but light subdues darkness; and in a situation like Beauchamp’s, +the blood is livelier than the prophetic mind. + +“Why did you tell me to marry? What did that mean?” said he. “Did you +wish me to be the one in chains? And you have come quite alone!—you +will give me an account of everything presently:—You are here! in +England! and what a welcome for you! You are cold.” + +“I am warmly clad,” said Renée, suffering her hand to be drawn to his +breast at her arm’s-length, not bending with it. + +Alive to his own indirectness, he was conscious at once of the slight +sign of reservation, and said: “Tell me...” and swerved sheer away from +his question: “how is Madame d’Auffray?” + +“Agnès? I left her at Tourdestelle,” said Renée. + +“And Roland? He never writes to me.” + +“Neither he nor I write much. He is at the military camp of instruction +in the North.” + +“He will run over to us.” + +“Do not expect it.” + +“Why not?” + +Renée sighed. “We shall have to live longer than I look for...” she +stopped. “Why do you ask me why not? He is fond of us both, and sorry +for us; but have you forgotten Roland that morning on the Adriatic?” + +Beauchamp pressed her hand. The stroke of Then and Now rang in his +breast like a bell instead of a bounding heart. Something had stunned +his heart. He had no clear central feeling; he tried to gather it from +her touch, from his joy in beholding her and sitting with her alone, +from the grace of her figure, the wild sweetness of her eyes, and the +beloved foreign lips bewitching him with their exquisite French and +perfection of speech. + +His nature was too prompt in responding to such a call on it for +resolute warmth. + +“If I had been firmer then, or you one year older!” he said. + +“That girl in Venice had no courage,” said Renée. + +She raised her head and looked about the room. + +Her instinct of love sounded her lover through, and felt the deficiency +or the contrariety in him, as surely as musical ears are pained by a +discord that they require no touchstone to detect. Passion has the +sensitiveness of fever, and is as cruelly chilled by a tepid air. + +“Yes, a London house after Venice and Normandy!” said Beauchamp, +following her look. + +“Sicily: do not omit Syracuse; you were in your naval uniform: Normandy +was our third meeting,” said Renée. “This is the fourth. I should have +reckoned that.” + +“Why? Superstitiously?” + +“We cannot be entirely wise when we have staked our fate. Sailors are +credulous: you know them. Women are like them when they embark... Three +chances! Who can boast of so many, and expect one more! Will you take +me to my hotel, Nevil?” + +The fiction of her being free could not be sustained. + +“Take you and leave you? I am absolutely at your command. But leave +you? You are alone: and you have told me nothing.” + +What was there to tell? The desperate act was apparent, and told all. + +Renée’s dark eyelashes lifted on him, and dropped. + +“Then things are as I left them in Normandy?” said he. + +She replied: “Almost.” + +He quivered at the solitary word; for his conscience was on edge. It +ran the shrewdest irony through him, inexplicably. “Almost”: that is, +“with this poor difference of one person, now finding herself +worthless, subtracted from the list; no other; it should be little to +them as it is little to you”: or, reversing it, the substance of the +word became magnified and intensified by its humble slightness: “Things +are the same, but for the jewel of the province, a lustre of France, +lured hither to her eclipse”—meanings various, indistinguishable, +thrilling and piercing sad as the half-tones humming round the note of +a strung wire, which is a blunt single note to the common ear. + +Beauchamp sprang to his feet and bent above her: “You have come to me, +for the love of me, to give yourself to me, and for ever, for good, +till death? Speak, my beloved Renée.” + +Her eyes were raised to his: “You see me here. It is for you to speak.” + +“I do. There’s nothing I ask for now—if the step can’t be retrieved.” + +“The step retrieved, my friend? There is no step backward in life.” + +“I am thinking of you, Renée.” + +“Yes, I know,” she answered hurriedly. + +“If we discover that the step is a wrong one?” he pursued: “why is +there no step backward?” + +“I am talking of women,” said Renée. + +“Why not for women?” + +“Honourable women, I mean,” said Renée. + +Beauchamp inclined to forget his position in finding matter to contest. + +Yet it is beyond contest that there is no step backward in life. She +spoke well; better than he, and she won his deference by it. Not only +she spoke better: she was truer, distincter, braver: and a man ever on +the look-out for superior qualities, and ready to bow to them, could +not refuse her homage. With that a saving sense of power quitted him. + +“You wrote to me that you were unchanged, Nevil.” + +“I am.” + +“So, then, I came.” + +His rejoinder was the dumb one, commonly eloquent and satisfactory. + +Renée shut her eyes with a painful rigour of endurance. She opened them +to look at him steadily. + +The desperate act of her flight demanded immediate recognition from him +in simple language and a practical seconding of it. There was the test. + +“I cannot stay in this house, Nevil; take me away.” + +She named her hotel in her French English, and the sound of it +penetrated him with remorseful pity. It was for him, and of his doing, +that she was in an alien land and an outcast! + +“This house is wretched for you,” said he: “and you must be hungry. Let +me...” + +“I cannot eat. I will ask you”: she paused, drawing on her energies, +and keeping down the throbs of her heart: “this: do you love me?” + +“I love you with all my heart and soul.” + +“As in Normandy?” + +“Yes.” + +“In Venice?” + +“As from the first, Renée! That I can swear.” + +“Oaths are foolish. I meant to ask you—my friend, there is no question +in my mind of any other woman: I see you love me: I am so used to +consider myself the vain and cowardly creature, and you the boldest and +faithfullest of men, that I could not abandon the habit if I would: I +started confiding in you, sure that I should come to land. But I have +to ask you: to me you are truth: I have no claim on my lover for +anything but the answer to this:—Am I a burden to you?” + +His brows flew up in furrows. He drew a heavy breath, for never had he +loved her more admiringly, and never on such equal terms. She was his +mate in love and daring at least. A sorrowful comparison struck him, of +a little boat sailing out to a vessel in deep seas and left to founder. + +Without knotting his mind to acknowledge or deny the burden, for he +could do neither, he stood silent, staring at her, not so much in +weakness as in positive mental division. No, would be false; and Yes, +not less false; and if the step was irretrievable, to say Yes would be +to plunge a dagger in her bosom; but No was a vain deceit involving a +double wreck. Assuredly a man standing against the world in a good +cause, with a runaway wife on his hands, carries a burden, however +precious it be to him. + +A smile of her lips, parted in an anguish of expectancy, went to death +over Renée’s face. She looked at him tenderly. “The truth,” she +murmured to herself, and her eyelids fell. + +“I am ready to bear anything,” said Beauchamp. “I weigh what you ask +me, that is all. You a burden to me? But when you ask me, you make me +turn round and inquire how we stand before the world.” + +“The world does not stone men,” said Renée. + +“Can’t I make you feel that I am not thinking of myself?” Beauchamp +stamped in his extreme perplexity. He was gagged; he could not possibly +talk to her, who had cast the die, of his later notions of morality and +the world’s dues, fees, and claims on us. + +“No, friend, I am not complaining.” Renée put out her hand to him; with +compassionate irony feigning to have heard excuses. “What right have I +to complain? I have not the sensation. I could not expect you to be +everlastingly the sentinel of love. Three times I rejected you! Now +that I have lost my father—Oh! poor father: I trifled with my lover, I +tricked him that my father might live in peace. He is dead. I wished +you to marry one of your own countrywomen, Nevil. You said it was +impossible; and I, with my snake at my heart, and a husband grateful +for nursing and whimpering to me for his youth like a beggar on the +road, I thought I owed you this debt of body and soul, to prove to you +I have some courage; and for myself, to reward myself for my long +captivity and misery with one year of life: and adieu to Roland my +brother! adieu to friends! adieu to France! Italy was our home. I +dreamed of one year in Italy; I fancied it might be two; more than that +was unimaginable. Prisoners of long date do not hope; they do not +calculate: air, light, they say; to breathe freely and drop down! They +are reduced to the instincts of the beasts. I thought I might give you +happiness, pay part of my debt to you. Are you remembering Count Henri? +That paints what I was! I could fly to that for a taste of life! a +dance to death! And again you ask: Why, if I loved you then, not turn +to you in preference? No, you have answered it yourself, Nevil;—on that +day in the boat, when generosity in a man so surprised me, it seemed a +miracle to me; and it was, in its divination. How I thank my dear +brother Roland for saving me the sight of you condemned to fight, +against your conscience! He taught poor M. d’Henriel his lesson. You, +Nevil, were my teacher. And see how it hangs: there was mercy for me in +not having drawn down my father’s anger on my heart’s beloved. He loved +you. He pitied us. He reproached himself. In his last days he was +taught to suspect our story: perhaps from Roland; perhaps I breathed it +without speaking. He called heaven’s blessings on you. He spoke of you +with tears, clutching my hand. He made me feel he would have cried out: +‘If I were leaving her with Nevil Beauchamp!’ and ‘Beauchamp,’ I heard +him murmuring once: ‘take down Froissart’: he named a chapter. It was +curious: if he uttered my name Renée, yours, ‘Nevil,’ soon followed. +That was noticed by Roland. Hope for us, he could not have had; as +little as I! But we were his two: his children. I buried him—I thought +he would know our innocence, and now pardon our love. I read your +letters, from my name at the beginning, to yours at the end, and from +yours back to mine, and between the lines, for any doubtful spot: and +oh, rash! But I would not retrace the step for my own sake. I am +certain of your love for me, though...” She paused: “Yes, I am certain +of it. And if I am a burden to you?” + +“About as much as the air, which I can’t do without since I began to +breathe it,” said Beauchamp, more clear-mindedly now that he supposed +he was addressing a mind, and with a peril to himself that escaped his +vigilance. There was a secret intoxication for him already in the +half-certainty that the step could not be retraced. The idea that he +might reason with her, made her seductive to the heart and head of him. + +“I am passably rich, Nevil,” she said. “I do not care for money, except +that it gives wings. Roland inherits the château in Touraine. I have +one in Burgundy, and rentes and shares, my notary informs me.” + +“I have money,” said he. His heart began beating violently. He lost +sight of his intention of reasoning. “Good God! if you were free!” + +She faltered: “At Tourdestelle...” + +“Yes, and I _am_ unchanged,” Beauchamp cried out. “Your life there was +horrible, and mine’s intolerable.” He stretched his arms cramped like +the yawning of a wretch in fetters. That which he would and would not +became so intervolved that he deemed it reasonable to instance their +common misery as a ground for their union against the world. And what +has that world done for us, that a joy so immeasurable should be +rejected on its behalf? And what have we succeeded in doing, that the +childish effort to move it should be continued at such a cost? + +For years, down to one year back, and less—yesterday, it could be +said—all human blessedness appeared to him in the person of Renée, +given him under any condition whatsoever. She was not less adorable +now. In her decision, and a courage that he especially prized in women, +she was a sweeter to him than when he was with her in France: too sweet +to be looked at and refused. + +“But we must live in England,” he cried abruptly out of his inner mind. + +“Oh! not England, Italy, Italy!” Renée exclaimed: “Italy, or Greece: +anywhere where we have sunlight. Mountains and valleys are my dream. +Promise it, Nevil. I will obey you; but this is my wish. Take me +through Venice, that I may look at myself and wonder. We can live at +sea, in a yacht; anywhere with you but in England. This country frowns +on me; I can hardly fetch my breath here, I am suffocated. The people +all walk in lines in England. Not here, Nevil! They are good people, I +am sure; and it is your country: but their faces chill me, their voices +grate; I should never understand them; they would be to me like their +fogs eternally; and I to them? O me! it would be like hearing sentence +in the dampness of the shroud perpetually. Again I say I do not doubt +that they are very good: they claim to be; they judge others; they may +know how to make themselves happy in their climate; it is common to +most creatures to do so, or to imagine it. Nevil! not England!” + +Truly “the mad commander and his French marquise” of the Bevisham +Election ballad would make a pretty figure in England! + +His friends of his own class would be mouthing it. The story would be a +dogging shadow of his public life, and, quite as bad, a reflection on +his party. He heard the yelping tongues of the cynics. He saw the +consternation and grief of his old Bevisham hero, his leader and his +teacher. + +“Florence,” he said, musing on the prospect of exile and idleness: +“there’s a kind of society to be had in Florence.” + +Renée asked him if he cared so much for society. + +He replied that women must have it, just as men must have exercise. + +“Old women, Nevil; intriguers, tattlers.” + +“Young women, Renée.” + +She signified no. + +He shook the head of superior knowledge paternally. + +Her instinct of comedy set a dimple faintly working in her cheek. + +“Not if they love, Nevil.” + +“At least,” said he, “a man does not like to see the woman he loves +banished by society and browbeaten.” + +“Putting me aside, do you care for it, Nevil?” + +“Personally not a jot.” + +“I am convinced of that,” said Renée. + +She spoke suspiciously sweetly, appearing perfect candour. + +The change in him was perceptible to her. The nature of the change was +unfathomable. + +She tried her wits at the riddle. But though she could be an actress +before him with little difficulty, the torment of her situation roused +the fever within her at a bare effort to think acutely. Scarlet +suffused her face: her brain whirled. + +“Remember, dearest, I have but offered myself: you have your choice. I +can pass on. Yes, I know well I speak to Nevil Beauchamp; you have +drilled me to trust you and your word as a soldier trusts to his +officer—once a faint-hearted soldier! I need not remind you: fronting +the enemy now, in hard truth. But I want your whole heart to decide. +Give me no silly compassion! Would it have been better to me to have +written to you? If I had written I should have clipped my glorious +impulse, brought myself down to earth with my own arrow. I did not +write, for I believed in you.” + +So firm had been her faith in him that her visions of him on the +passage to England had resolved all to one flash of blood-warm welcome +awaiting her: and it says much for her natural generosity that the +savage delicacy of a woman placed as she now was, did not take a mortal +hurt from the apparent voidness of this home of his bosom. The +passionate gladness of the lover was wanting: the chivalrous valiancy +of manful joy. + +Renée shivered at the cloud thickening over her new light of intrepid +defiant life. + +“Think it not improbable that I have weighed everything I surrender in +quitting France,” she said. + +Remorse wrestled with Beauchamp and flung him at her feet. + +Renée remarked on the lateness of the hour. + +He promised to conduct her to her hotel immediately. + +“And to-morrow?” said Renée, simply, but breathlessly. + +“To-morrow, let it be Italy! But first I telegraph to Roland and +Tourdestelle. I can’t run and hide. The step may be retrieved: or no, +you are right; the step cannot, but the next to it may be stopped—that +was the meaning I had! I’ll try. It’s cutting my hand off, tearing my +heart out; but I will. O that you were free! You left your husband at +Tourdestelle?” + +“I presume he is there at present: he was in Paris when I left.” + +Beauchamp spoke hoarsely and incoherently in contrast with her +composure: “You will misunderstand me for a day or two, Renée. I say if +you were free I should have my first love mine for ever. Don’t fear me: +I have no right even to press your fingers. He may throw you into my +arms. Now you are the same as if you were in your own home: and you +must accept me for your guide. By all I hope for in life, I’ll see you +through it, and keep the dogs from barking, if I can. Thousands are +ready to give tongue. And if they can get me in the character of a +law-breaker!—I hear them.” + +“Are you imagining, Nevil, that there is a possibility of my returning +to him?” + +“To your place in the world! You have not had to endure tyranny?” + +“I should have had a certain respect for a tyrant, Nevil. At least I +should have had an occupation in mocking him and conspiring against +him. Tyranny! There would have been some amusement to me in that.” + +“It was neglect.” + +“If I could still charge it on neglect, Nevil! Neglect is very +endurable. He rewards me for nursing him... he rewards me with a little +persecution: wives should be flattered by it: it comes late.” + +“What?” cried Beauchamp, oppressed and impatient. + +Renée sank her voice. + +Something in the run of the unaccented French: “Son amour, mon ami”: +drove the significance of the bitterness of the life she had left +behind her burningly through him. This was to have fled from a dragon! +was the lover’s thought: he perceived the motive of her flight: and it +was a vindication of it that appealed to him irresistibly. The proposal +for her return grew hideous: and this ever multiplying horror and sting +of the love of a married woman came on him with a fresh throbbing +shock, more venom. + +He felt for himself now, and now he was full of feeling for her. +Impossible that she should return! Tourdestelle shone to him like a +gaping chasm of fire. And becoming entirely selfish he impressed his +total abnegation of self upon Renée so that she could have worshipped +him. A lover that was like a starry frost, froze her veins, bewildered +her intelligence. She yearned for meridian warmth, for repose in a +directing hand; and let it be hard as one that grasps a sword: what +matter? unhesitatingness was the warrior virtue of her desire. And for +herself the worst might happen if only she were borne along. Let her +life be torn and streaming like the flag of battle, it must be forward +to the end. + +That was a quality of godless young heroism not unexhausted in +Beauchamp’s blood. Reanimated by him, she awakened his imagination of +the vagrant splendours of existence and the rebel delights which have +their own laws and “nature” for an applauding mother. Radiant Alps rose +in his eyes, and the morning born in the night suns that from mountain +and valley, over sea and desert, called on all earth to witness their +death. The magnificence of the contempt of humanity posed before him +superbly satanesque, grand as thunder among the crags and it was not a +sensual cry that summoned him from his pedlar labours, pack on back +along the level road, to live and breathe deep, gloriously mated: Renée +kindled his romantic spirit, and could strike the feeling into him that +to be proud of his possession of her was to conquer the fretful vanity +to possess. She was not a woman of wiles and lures. + +Once or twice she consulted her watch: but as she professed to have no +hunger, Beauchamp’s entreaty to her to stay prevailed, and the subtle +form of compliment to his knightly manliness in her remaining with him, +gave him a new sense of pleasure that hung round her companionable +conversation, deepening the meaning of the words, or sometimes +contrasting the sweet surface commonplace with the undercurrent of +strangeness in their hearts, and the reality of a tragic position. Her +musical volubility flowed to entrance and divert him, as it did. + +Suddenly Beauchamp glanced upward. + +Renée turned from a startled contemplation of his frown, and beheld +Mrs. Rosamund Culling in the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. +A LAME VICTORY + + +The intruder was not a person that had power to divide them; yet she +came between their hearts with a touch of steel. + +“I am here in obedience to your commands in your telegram of this +evening,” Rosamund replied to Beauchamp’s hard stare at her; she +courteously spoke French, and acquitted herself demurely of a bow to +the lady present. + +Renée withdrew her serious eyes from Beauchamp. She rose and +acknowledged the bow. + +“It is my first visit to England, madame!” + +“I could have desired, Madame la marquise, more agreeable weather for +you.” + +“My friends in England will dispel the bad weather for me, madame”; +Renée smiled softly: “I have been studying my French-English +phrase-book, that I may learn how dialogues are conducted in your +country to lead to certain ceremonies when old friends meet, and +without my book I am at fault. I am longing to be embraced by you... if +it will not be offending your rules?” + +Rosamund succumbed to the seductive woman, whose gentle tooth bit +through her tutored simplicity of manner and natural graciousness, +administering its reproof, and eluding a retort or an excuse. + +She gave the embrace. In doing so she fell upon her conscious +awkwardness for an expression of reserve that should be as good as +irony for irony, though where Madame de Rouaillout’s irony lay, or +whether it was irony at all, our excellent English dame could not have +stated, after the feeling of indignant prudery responding to it so +guiltily had subsided. + +Beauchamp asked her if she had brought servants with her; and it +gratified her to see that he was no actor fitted to carry a scene +through in virtue’s name and vice’s mask with this actress. + +She replied, “I have brought a man and a maid-servant. The +establishment will be in town the day after tomorrow, in time for my +lord’s return from the Castle.” + +“You can have them up to-morrow morning.” + +“I could,” Rosamund admitted the possibility. Her idolatry of him was +tried on hearing him press the hospitality of the house upon Madame de +Rouaillout, and observing the lady’s transparent feint of a reluctant +yielding. For the voluble Frenchwoman scarcely found a word to utter: +she protested languidly that she preferred the independence of her +hotel, and fluttered a singular look at him, as if overcome by his +vehement determination to have her in the house. Undoubtedly she had a +taking face and style. His infatuation, nevertheless, appeared to +Rosamund utter dementedness, considering this woman’s position, and +Cecilia Halkett’s beauty and wealth, and that the house was no longer +at his disposal. He was really distracted, to judge by his forehead, or +else he was over-acting his part. + +The absence of a cook in the house, Rosamund remarked, must prevent her +from seconding Captain Beauchamp’s invitation. + +He turned on her witheringly. “The telegraph will do that. You’re in +London; cooks can be had by dozens. Madame de Rouaillout is alone here; +she has come to see a little of England, and you will do the honours of +the house.” + +“M. le marquis is not in London?” said Rosamund, disregarding the dumb +imprecation she saw on Beauchamp’s features. + +“No, madame, my husband is not in London,” Renée rejoined collectedly. + +“See to the necessary comforts of the house instantly,” said Beauchamp, +and telling Renée, without listening to her, that he had to issue +orders, he led Rosamund, who was out of breath at the effrontery of the +pair, toward the door. “Are you blind, ma’am? Have you gone foolish? +What should I have sent for you for, but to protect her? I see your +mind; and off with the prude, pray! Madame will have my room; clear +away every sign of me there. I sleep out; I can find a bed anywhere. +And bolt and chain the house-door to-night against Cecil Baskelett; he +informs me that he has taken possession.” + +Rosamund’s countenance had become less austere. + +“Captain Baskelett!” she exclaimed, leaning to Beauchamp’s views on the +side of her animosity to Cecil; “he has been promised by his uncle the +use of a set of rooms during the year, when the mistress of the house +is not in occupation. I stipulated expressly that he was to see you and +suit himself to your convenience, and to let me hear that you and he +had agreed to an arrangement, before he entered the house. He has no +right to be here, and I shall have no hesitation in locking him out.” + +Beauchamp bade her go, and not be away more than five minutes; and then +he would drive to the hotel for the luggage. + +She scanned him for a look of ingenuousness that might be trusted, and +laughed in her heart at her credulity for expecting it of a man in such +a case. She saw Renée sitting stonily, too proudly self-respecting to +put on a mask of flippant ease. These lovers might be accomplices in +deceiving her; they were not happy ones, and that appeared to her to be +some assurance that she did well in obeying him. + +Beauchamp closed the door on her. He walked back to Renée with a +thoughtful air that was consciously acted; his only thought being—now +she knows me! + +Renée looked up at him once. Her eyes were unaccusing, unquestioning. + +With the violation of the secresy of her flight she had lost her +initiative and her intrepidity. The world of human eyes glared on her +through the windows of the two she had been exposed to, paralyzing her +brain and caging her spirit of revolt. That keen wakefulness of her +self-defensive social instinct helped her to an understanding of her +lover’s plan to preserve her reputation, or rather to give her a corner +of retreat in shielding the worthless thing—twice detested as her cloak +of slavery coming from him! She comprehended no more. She was a house +of nerves crowding in against her soul like fiery thorns, and had no +space within her torture for a sensation of gratitude or suspicion; but +feeling herself hurried along at lightning speed to some dreadful +shock, her witless imagination apprehended it in his voice: not what he +might say, only the sound. She feared to hear him speak, as the +shrinking ear fears a thunder at the cavity; yet suspense was worse +than the downward-driving silence. + +The pang struck her when he uttered some words about Mrs. Culling, and +protection, and Roland. + +She thanked him. + +So have common executioners been thanked by queenly ladies baring their +necks to the axe. + +He called up the pain he suffered to vindicate him; and it was really +an agony of a man torn to pieces. + +“I have done the best.” + +This dogged and stupid piece of speech was pitiable to hear from Nevil +Beauchamp. + +“You think so?” said she; and her glass-like voice rang a tremour in +its mildness that swelled through him on the plain submissive note, +which was more assent than question. + +“I am sure of it. I believe it. I see it. At least I hope so.” + +“We are chiefly led by hope,” said Renée. + +“At least, if not!” Beauchamp cried. “And it’s not too late. I have no +right—I do what I can. I am at your mercy. Judge me later. If I am ever +to know what happiness is, it will be with you. It’s not too late +either way. There is Roland—my brother as much as if you were my wife!” + +He begged her to let him have Roland’s exact address. + +She named the regiment, the corps d’armée, the postal town, and the +department. + +“Roland will come at a signal,” he pursued; “we are not bound to +consult others.” + +Renée formed the French word of “we” on her tongue. + +He talked of Roland and Roland, his affection for him as a brother and +as a friend, and Roland’s love of them both. + +“It is true,” said Renée. + +“We owe him this; he represents your father.” + +“All that you say is true, my friend.” + +“Thus, you have come on a visit to madame, your old friend here—oh! +your hand. What have I done?” + +Renée motioned her hand as if it were free to be taken, and smiled +faintly to make light of it, but did not give it. + +“If you had been widowed!” he broke down to the lover again. + +“That man is attached to the remnant of his life: I could not wish him +dispossessed of it,” said Renée. + +“Parted! who parts us? It’s for a night. Tomorrow!” + +She breathed: “To-morrow.” + +To his hearing it craved an answer. He had none. To talk like a lover, +or like a man of honour, was to lie. Falsehood hemmed him in to the +narrowest ring that ever statue stood on, if he meant to be stone. + +“That woman will be returning,” he muttered, frowning at the vacant +door. “I could lay out my whole life before your eyes, and show you I +am unchanged in my love of you since the night when Roland and I walked +on the Piazzetta...” + +“Do not remind me; let those days lie black!” A sympathetic vision of +her maiden’s tears on the night of wonderful moonlight when, as it +seemed to her now, San Giorgio stood like a dark prophet of her present +abasement and chastisement, sprang tears of a different character, and +weak as she was with her soul’s fever and for want of food, she was +piteously shaken. She said with some calmness: “It is useless to look +back. I have no reproaches but for myself. Explain nothing to me. +Things that are not comprehended by one like me are riddles I must put +aside. I know where I am: I scarcely know more. Here is madame.” + +The door had not opened, and it did not open immediately. + +Beauchamp had time to say, “Believe in me.” Even that was false to his +own hearing, and in a struggle with the painful impression of +insincerity which was denied and scorned by his impulse to fling his +arms round her and have her his for ever, he found himself +deferentially accepting her brief directions concerning her boxes at +the hotel, with Rosamund Culling to witness. + +She gave him her hand. + +He bowed over the fingers. “Until to-morrow, madame.” + +“Adieu!” said Renée. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. +THE TWO PASSIONS + + +The foggy February night refreshed his head, and the business of +fetching the luggage from the hotel—a commission that necessitated the +delivery of his card and some very commanding language—kept his mind in +order. Subsequently he drove to his cousin Baskelett’s Club, where he +left a short note to say the house was engaged for the night and +perhaps a week further. Concise, but sufficient: and he stated a hope +to his cousin that he would not be inconvenienced. This was courteous. + +He had taken a bed at Renée’s hotel, after wresting her boxes from the +vanquished hotel proprietor, and lay there, hearing the clear sound of +every little sentence of hers during the absence of Rosamund: her +“_Adieu_,” and the strange “_Do you think so?_” and “_I know where I +am; I scarcely know more_.” Her eyes and their darker lashes, and the +fitful little sensitive dimples of a smile without joy, came with her +voice, but hardened to an aspect unlike her. Not a word could he +recover of what she had spoken before Rosamund’s intervention. He +fancied she must have related details of her journey. Especially there +must have been mention, he thought, of her drive to the station from +Tourdestelle; and this flashed on him the scene of his ride to the +château, and the meeting her on the road, and the white light on the +branching river, and all that was Renée in the spirit of the place she +had abandoned for him, believing in him. She had proved that she +believed in him. What in the name of sanity had been the meaning of his +language? and what was it between them that arrested him and caused him +to mumble absurdly of “doing best,” when in fact he was her bondman, +rejoiced to be so, by his pledged word? and when she, for some reason +that he was sure she had stated, though he could recollect no more than +the formless hideousness of it, was debarred from returning to +Tourdestelle? + +He tossed in his bed as over a furnace, in the extremity of perplexity +of one accustomed to think himself ever demonstrably in the right, and +now with his whole nature in insurrection against that legitimate +claim. It led him to accuse her of a want of passionate warmth, in her +not having supplicated and upbraided him—not behaving theatrically, in +fine, as the ranting pen has made us expect of emergent ladies that +they will naturally do. Concerning himself, he thought commendingly, a +tear would have overcome him. She had not wept. The kaleidoscope was +shaken in his fragmentary mind, and she appeared thrice adorable for +this noble composure, he brutish. + +Conscience and reason had resolved to a dead weight in him, like an +inanimate force, governing his acts despite the man, while he was with +Renée. Now his wishes and waverings conjured up a semblance of a +conscience and much reason to assure him that he had done foolishly as +well as unkindly, most unkindly: that he was even the ghastly spectacle +of a creature attempting to be more than he can be. Are we never to +embrace our inclinations? Are the laws regulating an old dry man like +his teacher and guide to be the same for the young and vigorous? + +Is a good gift to be refused? And this was his first love! The +brilliant Renée, many-hued as a tropic bird! his lady of shining grace, +with her sole fault of want of courage devotedly amended! his pupil, he +might say, of whom he had foretold that she must come to such a pass, +at the same time prefixing his fidelity. And he was handing her over +knowingly to one kind of wretchedness—“_son amour, mon ami_,” shot +through him, lighting up the gulfs of a mind in wreck;—and one kind of +happiness could certainly be promised her! + +All these and innumerable other handsome pleadings of the simulacra of +the powers he had set up to rule, were crushed at daybreak by the +realities in a sense of weight that pushed him mechanically on. He +telegraphed to Roland, and mentally gave chase to the message to recall +it. The slumberer roused in darkness by the relentless insane-seeming +bell which hales him to duty, melts at the charms of sleep, and feels +that logic is with him in his preference of his pillow; but the +tireless revolving world outside, nature’s pitiless antagonist, has +hung one of its balances about him, and his actions are directed by the +state of the scales, wherein duty weighs deep and desireability swings +like a pendant doll: so he throws on his harness, astounded, till his +blood quickens with work, at the round of sacrifices demanded of +nature: which is indeed curious considering what we are taught here and +there as to the infallibility of our august mother. Well, the world of +humanity had done this for Beauchamp. His afflicted historian is +compelled to fling his net among prosaic similitudes for an +illustration of one thus degradedly in its grip. If he had been off +with his love like the rover! why, then the Muse would have loosened +her lap like May showering flower-buds, and we might have knocked great +nature up from her sleep to embellish his desperate proceedings with +hurricanes to be danced over, to say nothing of imitative spheres +dashing out into hurly-burly after his example. + +Conscious rectitude, too, after the pattern of the well-behaved AEneas +quitting the fair bosom of Carthage in obedience to the Gods, for an +example to his Roman progeny, might have stiffened his backbone and put +a crown upon his brows. It happened with him that his original training +rather imposed the idea that he was a figure to be derided. The +approval of him by the prudent was a disgust, and by the pious +tasteless. He had not any consolation in reverting to Dr. Shrapnel’s +heavy Puritanism. On the contrary, such a general proposition as that +of the sage of Bevisham could not for a moment stand against the +pathetic special case of Renée: and as far as Beauchamp’s active mind +went, he was for demanding that Society should take a new position in +morality, considerably broader, and adapted to very special cases. + +Nevertheless he was hardly grieved in missing Renée at Rosamund’s +breakfast-table. Rosamund informed him that Madame de Rouaillout’s door +was locked. Her particular news for him was of a disgraceful alarum +raised by Captain Baskelett in the night, to obtain admission; and of +an interview she had with him in the early morning, when he subjected +her to great insolence. Beauchamp’s attention was drawn to her +repetition of the phrase “mistress of the house.” However, she did him +justice in regard to Renée, and thoroughly entered into the fiction of +Renée’s visit to her as her guest: he passed over everything else. + +To stop the mouth of a scandal-monger, he drove full speed to Cecil’s +Club, where he heard that the captain had breakfasted and had just +departed for Romfrey Castle. He followed to the station. The train had +started. So mischief was rolling in that direction. + +Late at night Rosamund was allowed to enter the chill unlighted +chamber, where the unhappy lady had been lying for hours in the gloom +of a London Winter’s daylight and gaslight. + +“Madame de Rouaillout is indisposed with headache,” was her report to +Beauchamp. + +The conventional phraseology appeased him, though he saw his grief +behind it. + +Presently he asked if Renée had taken food. + +“No: you know what a headache is,” Rosamund replied. + +It is true that we do not care to eat when we are in pain. + +He asked if she looked ill. + +“She will not have lights in the room,” said Rosamund. + +Piecemeal he gained the picture of Renée in an image of the death +within which welcomed a death without. + +Rosamund was impatient with him for speaking of medical aid. These men! +She remarked very honestly: + +“Oh, no; doctors are not needed.” + +“Has she mentioned me?” + +“Not once.” + +“Why do you swing your watch-chain, ma’am?” cried Beauchamp, bounding +off his chair. + +He reproached her with either pretending to indifference or feeling it; +and then insisted on his privilege of going up-stairs—accompanied by +her, of course; and then it was to be only to the door; then an answer +to a message was to satisfy him. + +“Any message would trouble her: what message would you send?” Rosamund +asked him. + +The weighty and the trivial contended; no fitting message could be +thought of. + +“You are unused to real suffering—that is for women!—and want to be +doing instead of enduring,” said Rosamund. + +She was beginning to put faith in the innocence of these two mortally +sick lovers. Beauchamp’s outcries against himself gave her the shadows +of their story. He stood in tears—a thing to see to believe of Nevil +Beauchamp; and plainly he did not know it, or else he would have taken +her advice to him to leave the house at an hour that was long past +midnight. Her method for inducing him to go was based on her intimate +knowledge of him: she made as if to soothe and kiss him +compassionately. + +In the morning there was a flying word from Roland, on his way to +England. Rosamund tempered her report of Renée by saying of her, that +she was very quiet. He turned to the window. + +“Look, what a climate ours is!” Beauchamp abused the persistent fog. +“Dull, cold, no sky, a horrible air to breathe! This is what she has +come to! Has she spoken of me yet?” + +“No.” + +“Is she dead silent?” + +“She answers, if I speak to her.” + +“I believe, ma’am,” said Beauchamp, “that we are the coldest-hearted +people in Europe.” + +Rosamund did not defend us, or the fog. Consequently nothing was left +for him to abuse but himself. In that she tried to moderate him, and +drew forth a torrent of self-vituperation, after which he sank into the +speechless misery he had been evading; until sophistical fancy, another +evolution of his nature, persuaded him that Roland, seeing Renée, would +for love’s sake be friendly to them. + +“I should have told you, Nevil, by the way, that the earl is dead,” +said Rosamund. + +“Her brother will be here to-day; he can’t be later than the evening,” +said Beauchamp. “Get her to eat, ma’am; you must. Command her to eat. +This terrible starvation!” + +“You ate nothing yourself, Nevil, all day yesterday.” + +He surveyed the table. “You have your cook in town, I see. Here’s a +breakfast to feed twenty hungry families in Spitalfields. Where does +the mass of meat go? One excess feeds another. You’re overdone with +servants. Gluttony, laziness, and pilfering come of your host of +unmanageable footmen and maids; you stuff them, and wonder they’re idle +and immoral. If—I suppose I must call him the earl now, or Colonel +Halkett, or any one of the army of rich men, hear of an increase of the +income-tax, or some poor wretch hints at a sliding scale of taxation, +they yell as if they were thumb-screwed: but five shillings in the +pound goes to the kitchen as a matter of course—to puff those pompous +idiots! and the parsons, who should be preaching against this sheer +waste of food and perversion of the strength of the nation, as a public +sin, are maundering about schism. There’s another idle army! Then we +have artists, authors, lawyers, doctors—the honourable professions! all +hanging upon wealth, all ageing the rich, and all bearing upon labour! +it’s incubus on incubus. In point of fact, the rider’s too heavy for +the horse in England.” + +He began to nibble at bread. + +Rosamund pushed over to him a plate of the celebrated Steynham pie, of +her own invention, such as no house in the county of Sussex could +produce or imitate. + +“What would you have the parsons do?” she said. + +“Take the rich by the throat and show them in the kitchen-mirror that +they’re swine running down to the sea with a devil in them.” She had +set him off again, but she had enticed him to eating. “Pooh! it has all +been said before. Stones are easier to move than your English. May I be +forgiven for saying it! an invasion is what they want to bring them to +their senses. I’m sick of the work. Why should I be denied—am I to kill +the woman I love that I may go on hammering at them? Their idea of +liberty is, an evasion of public duty. Dr. Shrapnel’s right—it’s a +money-logged Island! Men like the Earl of Romfrey, who have never done +work in their days except to kill bears and birds, I say they’re +stifled by wealth: and he at least would have made an Admiral of mark, +or a General: not of much value, but useful in case of need. But he, +like a pretty woman, was under no obligation to contribute more than an +ornamental person to the common good. As to that, we count him by tens +of thousands now, and his footmen and maids by hundreds of thousands. +The rich love the nation through their possessions; otherwise they have +no country. If they loved the country they would care for the people. +Their hearts are eaten up by property. I am bidden to hold my tongue +because I have no knowledge. When men who have this ‘knowledge’ will go +down to the people, speak to them, consult and argue with them, and +come into suitable relations with them—I don’t say of lords and +retainers, but of knowers and doers, leaders and followers—out of +consideration for public safety, if not for the common good, I shall +hang back gladly; though I won’t hear misstatements. My fault is, that +I am too moderate. I should respect myself more if I deserved their +hatred. This flood of luxury, which is, as Dr. Shrapnel says, the +body’s drunkenness and the soul’s death, cries for execration. I’m too +moderate. But I shall quit the country: I’ve no place here.” + +Rosamund ahemed. “France, Nevil? I should hardly think that France +would please you, in the present state of things over there.” + +Half cynically, with great satisfaction, she had watched him fretting +at the savoury morsels of her pie with a fork like a sparrow-beak +during the monologue that would have been so dreary to her but for her +appreciation of the wholesome effect of the letting off of steam, and +her admiration of the fire of his eyes. After finishing his plate he +had less the look of a ship driving on to reef—some of his images of +the country. He called for claret and water, sighing as he munched +bread in vast portions, evidently conceiving that to eat unbuttered +bread was to abstain from luxury. He praised passingly the quality of +the bread. It came from Steynham, and so did the milk and cream, the +butter, chicken and eggs. He was good enough not to object to the +expenditure upon the transmission of the accustomed dainties. +Altogether the gradual act of nibbling had conduced to his eating +remarkably well—royally. Rosamund’s more than half-cynical ideas of +men, and her custom of wringing unanimous verdicts from a jury of +temporary impressions, inclined her to imagine him a lover that had not +to be so very much condoled with, and a politician less alarming in +practice than in theory:—somewhat a gentleman of domestic tirades on +politics: as it is observed of your generous young Radical of birth and +fortune, that he will become on the old high road to a round +Conservatism. + +He pitched one of the morning papers to the floor in disorderly sheets, +muttering: “So they’re at me!” + +“Is Dr. Shrapnel better?” she asked. “I hold to a good appetite as a +sign of a man’s recovery.” + +Beauchamp was confronting the fog at the window. He swung round: “Dr. +Shrapnel is better. He has a particularly clever young female cook.” + +“Ah! then...” + +“Yes, then, naturally! He would naturally hasten to recover to partake +of the viands, ma’am.” + +Rosamund murmured of her gladness that he should be able to enjoy them. + +“Oddly enough, he is not an eater of meat,” said Beauchamp. + +“A vegetarian!” + +“I beg you not to mention the fact to my lord. You see, you yourself +can scarcely pardon it. He does not exclude flesh from his table. +Blackburn Tuckham dined there once. ‘You are a thorough revolutionist, +Dr. Shrapnel,’ he observed. The doctor does not exclude wine, but he +does not drink it. Poor Tuckham went away entirely opposed to a Radical +he could not even meet as a boon-fellow. I begged him not to mention +the circumstances, as I have begged you. He pledged me his word to that +effect solemnly; he correctly felt that if the truth were known, there +would be further cause for the reprobation of the man who had been his +host.” + +“And that poor girl, Nevil?” + +“Miss Denham? She contracted the habit of eating meat at school, and +drinking wine in Paris, and continues it, occasionally. Now run +upstairs. Insist on food. Inform Madame de Rouaillout that her brother +M. le comte de Croisnel will soon be here, and should not find her ill. +Talk to her as you women can talk. Keep the blinds down in her room; +light a dozen wax-candles. Tell her I have no thought but of her. It’s +a lie: of no woman but of her: that you may say. But that you can’t +say. You can say I am devoted—ha, what stuff! I’ve only to open my +mouth!—say nothing of me: let her think the worst—unless it comes to a +question of her life: then be a merciful good woman...” He squeezed her +fingers, communicating his muscular tremble to her sensitive woman’s +frame, and electrically convincing her that he was a lover. + +She went up-stairs. In ten minutes she descended, and found him pacing +up and down the hall. “Madame de Rouaillout is much the same,” she +said. He nodded, looked up the stairs, and about for his hat and +gloves, drew on the gloves, fixed the buttons, blinked at his watch, +and settled his hat as he was accustomed to wear it, all very +methodically, and talking rapidly, but except for certain precise +directions, which were not needed by so careful a housekeeper and nurse +as Rosamund was known to be, she could not catch a word of meaning. He +had some appointment, it seemed; perhaps he was off for a doctor—a +fresh instance of his masculine incapacity to understand patient +endurance. After opening the housedoor, and returning to the foot of +the stairs, listening and sighing, he disappeared. + +It struck her that he was trying to be two men at once. + +The litter of newspaper sheets in the morning-room brought his +exclamation to her mind: “They’re at me!” Her eyes ran down the +columns, and were seized by the print of his name in large type. A +leading article was devoted to Commander’s Beauchamp’s recent speech +delivered in the great manufacturing town of Gunningham, at a meeting +under the presidency of the mayor, and his replies to particular +questions addressed to him; one being, what right did he conceive +himself to have to wear the Sovereign’s uniform in professing +Republican opinions? Rosamund winced for her darling during her first +perusal of the article. It was of the sarcastically caressing kind, +masterly in ease of style, as the flourish of the executioner well may +be with poor Bare-back hung up to a leisurely administration of the +scourge. An allusion to “Jack on shore” almost persuaded her that his +uncle Everard had inspired the writer of the article. Beauchamp’s reply +to the question of his loyalty was not quoted: he was, however, +complimented on his frankness. At the same time he was assured that his +error lay in a too great proneness to make distinctions, and that there +was no distinction between sovereign and country in a loyal and +contented land, which could thank him for gallant services in war, +while taking him for the solitary example to be cited at the present +period of the evils of a comparatively long peace. + +“Doubtless the tedium of such a state to a man of the temperament of +the gallant commander,” etc., the termination of the article was +indulgent. Rosamund recurred to the final paragraph for comfort, and +though she loved Beauchamp, the test of her representative feminine +sentiment regarding his political career, when personal feeling on his +behalf had subsided, was, that the writer of the article must have +received an intimation to deal both smartly and forbearingly with the +offender: and from whom but her lord? Her notions of the conduct of the +Press were primitive. In a summary of the article Beauchamp was treated +as naughty boy, formerly brave boy, and likely by-and-by to be good +boy. Her secret heart would have spoken similarly, with more emphasis +on the flattering terms. + +A telegram arrived from her lord. She was bidden to have the house +clear for him by noon of the next day. + +How could that be done? + +But to write blankly to inform the Earl of Romfrey that he was excluded +from his own house was another impossibility. + +“Hateful man!” she apostrophized Captain Baskelett, and sat down, +supporting her chin in a prolonged meditation. + +The card of a French lady, bearing the name of Madame d’Auffray, was +handed to her. + +Beauchamp had gone off to his friend Lydiard, to fortify himself in his +resolve to reply to that newspaper article by eliciting counsel to the +contrary. Phrase by phrase he fought through the first half of his +composition of the reply against Lydiard, yielding to him on a point or +two of literary judgement, only the more vehemently to maintain his +ideas of discretion, which were, that he would not take shelter behind +a single subterfuge; that he would try this question nakedly, though he +should stand alone; that he would stake his position on it, and +establish his right to speak his opinions: and as for unseasonable +times, he protested it was the cry of a gorged middle-class, frightened +of further action, and making snug with compromise. Would it be a +seasonable time when there was uproar? Then it would be a time to be +silent on such themes: they could be discussed calmly now, and without +danger; and whether he was hunted or not, he cared nothing. He declined +to consider the peculiar nature of Englishmen: they must hear truth or +perish. + +Knowing the difficulty once afflicting Beauchamp in the art of speaking +on politics tersely, Lydiard was rather astonished at his +well-delivered cannonade; and he fancied that his modesty had been +displaced by the new acquirement; not knowing the nervous fever of his +friend’s condition, for which the rattle of speech was balm, and +contention a native element, and the assumption of truth a necessity. +Beauchamp hugged his politics like some who show their love of the +pleasures of life by taking to them angrily. It was all he had: he had +given up all for it. He forced Lydiard to lay down his pen and walk +back to the square with him, and went on arguing, interjecting, +sneering, thumping the old country, raising and oversetting her, +treating her alternately like a disrespected grandmother, and like a +woman anciently beloved; as a dead lump, and as a garden of seeds; +reviewing prominent political men, laughing at the dwarf-giants; +finally casting anchor on a Mechanics’ Institute that he had recently +heard of, where working men met weekly for the purpose of reading the +British poets. + +“That’s the best thing I’ve heard of late,” he said, shaking Lydiard’s +hand on the door-steps. + +“Ah! You’re Commander Beauchamp; I think I know you. I’ve seen you on a +platform,” cried a fresh-faced man in decent clothes, halting on his +way along the pavement; “and if you were in your uniform, you damned +Republican dog! I’d strip you with my own hands, for the disloyal +scoundrel you are, with your pimping Republicanism and capsizing +everything in a country like Old England. It’s the cat-o’-nine-tails +you want, and the bosen to lay on; and I’d do it myself. And mind me, +when next I catch sight of you in blue and gold lace, I’ll compel you +to show cause why you wear it, and prove your case, or else I’ll make a +Cupid of you, and no joke about it. I don’t pay money for a nincompoop +to outrage my feelings of respect and loyalty, when he’s in my pay, d’ +ye hear? You’re in my pay: and you do your duty, or I’ll kick ye out of +it. It’s no empty threat. You look out for your next public speech, if +it’s anywhere within forty mile of London. Get along.” + +With a scowl, and a very ugly “yah!” worthy of cannibal jaws, the man +passed off. + +Beauchamp kept eye on him. “What class does a fellow like that come +of?” + +“He’s a harmless enthusiast,” said Lydiard. “He has been reading the +article, and has got excited over it.” + +“I wish I had the fellow’s address.” Beauchamp looked wistfully at +Lydiard, but he did not stimulate the generous offer to obtain it for +him. Perhaps it was as well to forget the fellow. + +“You see the effect of those articles,” he said. + +“You see what I mean by unseasonable times,” Lydiard retorted. + +“He didn’t talk like a tradesman,” Beauchamp mused. + +“He may be one, for all that. It’s better to class him as an +enthusiast.” + +“An enthusiast!” Beauchamp stamped: “for what?” + +“For the existing order of things; for his beef and ale; for the titles +he is accustomed to read in the papers. You don’t study your +countrymen.” + +“I’d study that fellow, if I had the chance.” + +“You would probably find him one of the emptiest, with a rather worse +temper than most of them.” + +Beauchamp shook Lydiard’s hand, saying, “The widow?” + +“There’s no woman like her!” + +“Well, now you’re free—why not? I think I put one man out of the +field.” + +“Too early! Besides—” + +“Repeat that, and you may have to say too late.” + +“When shall you go down to Bevisham?” + +“When? I can’t tell: when I’ve gone through fire. There never was a +home for me like the cottage, and the old man, and the dear good +girl—the best of girls! if you hadn’t a little spoilt her with your +philosophy of the two sides of the case.” + +“I’ve not given her the brains.” + +“She’s always doubtful of doing, doubtful of action: she has no will. +So she is fatalistic, and an argument between us ends in her +submitting, as if she must submit to me, because I’m overbearing, +instead of accepting the fact.” + +“She feels your influence.” + +“She’s against the publication of THE DAWN—for the present. It’s an +‘unseasonable time.’ I argue with her: I don’t get hold of her mind a +bit; but at last she says, ‘very well.’ She has your head.” + +And you have her heart, Lydiard could have rejoined. + +They said good-bye, neither of them aware of the other’s task of +endurance. + +As they were parting, Beauchamp perceived his old comrade Jack Wilmore +walking past. + +“Jack!” he called. + +Wilmore glanced round. “How do you do, Beauchamp?” + +“Where are you off to, Jack?” + +“Down to the Admiralty. I’m rather in a hurry; I have an appointment.” + +“Can’t you stop just a minute?” + +“I’m afraid I can’t. Good morning.” + +It was incredible; but this old friend, the simplest heart alive, +retreated without a touch of his hand, and with a sorely wounded air. + +“That newspaper article appears to have been generally read,” Beauchamp +said to Lydiard, who answered: + +“The article did not put the idea of you into men’s minds, but gave +tongue to it: you may take it for an instance of the sagacity of the +Press.” + +“You wouldn’t take that man and me to have been messmates for years! +Old Jack Wilmore! Don’t go, Lydiard.” + +Lydiard declared that he was bound to go: he was engaged to read +Italian for an hour with Mrs. Wardour-Devereux. + +“Then go, by all means,” Beauchamp dismissed him. + +He felt as if he had held a review of his friends and enemies on the +door-step, and found them of one colour. If it was an accident +befalling him in a London square during a space of a quarter of an +hour, what of the sentiments of universal England? Lady Barbara’s +elopement with Lord Alfred last year did not rouse much execration; +hardly worse than gossip and compassion. Beauchamp drank a great deal +of bitterness from his reflections. + +They who provoke huge battles, and gain but lame victories over +themselves, insensibly harden to the habit of distilling sour thoughts +from their mischances and from most occurrences. So does the world they +combat win on them. + +“For,” says Dr. Shrapnel, “the world and nature, which are opposed in +relation to our vital interests, each agrees to demand of us a perfect +victory, on pain otherwise of proving it a stage performance; and the +victory over the world, as over nature, is over self: and this victory +lies in yielding perpetual service to the world, and none to nature: +for the world has to be wrought out, nature to be subdued.” + +The interior of the house was like a change of elements to Beauchamp. +He had never before said to himself, “I have done my best, and I am +beaten!” Outside of it, his native pugnacity had been stimulated; but +here, within the walls where Renée lay silently breathing, barely +breathing, it might be dying, he was overcome, and left it to +circumstance to carry him to a conclusion. He went up-stairs to the +drawing-room, where he beheld Madame d’Auffray in conversation with +Rosamund. + +“I was assured by Madame la Comtesse that I should see you to-day,” the +French lady said as she swam to meet him; “it is a real pleasure”: and +pressing his hand she continued, “but I fear you will be disappointed +of seeing my sister. She would rashly try your climate at its worst +period. Believe me, I do not join in decrying it, except on her +account: I could have forewarned her of an English Winter and early +Spring. You know her impetuosity; suddenly she decided on accepting the +invitation of Madame la Comtesse; and though I have no fears of her +health, she is at present a victim of the inclement weather.” + +“You have seen her, madame?” said Beauchamp. So well had the clever +lady played the dupe that he forgot there was a part for him to play. +Even the acquiescence of Rosamund in the title of countess bewildered +him. + +“Madame d’Auffray has been sitting for an hour with Madame de +Rouaillout,” said Rosamund. + +He spoke of Roland’s coming. + +“Ah?” said Madame d’Auffray, and turned to Rosamund: “you have +determined to surprise us: then you will have a gathering of the whole +family in your hospitable house, Madame la Comtesse.” + +“If M. la Marquis will do it that honour, madame.” + +“My brother is in London,” Madame d’Auffray said to Beauchamp. + +The shattering blow was merited by one who could not rejoice that he +had acted rightly. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. +THE EARL OF ROMFREY AND THE COUNTESS + + +An extraordinary telegraphic message, followed by a still more +extraordinary letter the next morning, from Rosamund Culling, all but +interdicted the immediate occupation of his house in town to Everard, +now Earl of Romfrey. She begged him briefly not to come until after the +funeral, and proposed to give him good reasons for her request at their +meeting. “I repeat, I pledge myself to satisfy you on this point,” she +wrote. Her tone was that of one of your heroic women of history +refusing to surrender a fortress. + +Everard’s wrath was ever of a complexion that could suffer +postponements without his having to fear an abatement of it. He had no +business to transact in London, and he had much at the Castle, so he +yielded himself up to his new sensations, which are not commonly the +portion of gentlemen of his years. He anticipated that Nevil would at +least come down to the funeral, but there was no appearance of him, nor +a word to excuse his absence. Cecil was his only supporter. They walked +together between the double ranks of bare polls of the tenantry and +peasantry, resembling in a fashion old Froissart engravings the earl +used to dote on in his boyhood, representing bodies of manacled +citizens, whose humbled heads looked like nuts to be cracked, outside +the gates of captured French towns, awaiting the disposition of their +conqueror, with his banner above him and prancing knights around. That +was a glory of the past. He had no successor. The thought was chilling; +the solitariness of childlessness to an aged man, chief of a most +ancient and martial House, and proud of his blood, gave him the +statue’s outlook on a desert, and made him feel that he was no more +than a whirl of the dust, settling to the dust. + +He listened to the parson curiously and consentingly. We are ashes. Ten +centuries had come to an end in him to prove the formula correct. The +chronicle of the House would state that the last Earl of Romfrey left +no heir. + +Cecil was a fine figure walking beside him. Measured by feet, he might +be a worthy holder of great lands. But so heartily did the earl despise +this nephew that he never thought of trying strength with the fellow, +and hardly cared to know what his value was, beyond his immediate uses +as an instrument to strike with. Beauchamp of Romfrey had been his +dream, not Baskelett: and it increased his disgust of Beauchamp that +Baskelett should step forward as the man. No doubt Cecil would hunt the +county famously: he would preserve game with the sleepless eye of a +General of the Jesuits. These things were to be considered. + +Two days after the funeral Lord Romfrey proceeded to London. He was met +at the station by Rosamund, and informed that his house was not yet +vacated by the French family. + +“And where have you arranged for me to go, ma’am?” he asked her +complacently. + +She named an hotel where she had taken rooms for him. + +He nodded, and was driven to the hotel, saying little on the road. + +As she expected, he was heavily armed against her and Nevil. + +“You’re the slave of the fellow, ma’am. You are so infatuated that you +second his amours, in my house. I must wait for a clearance, it seems.” + +He cast a comical glance of disapprobation on the fittings of the hotel +apartment, abhorring gilt. + +“They leave us the day after to-morrow,” said Rosamund, out of breath +with nervousness at the commencement of the fray, and skipping over the +opening ground of a bold statement of facts. “Madame de Rouaillout has +been unwell. She is not yet recovered; she has just risen. Her +sister-in-law has nursed her. Her husband seems much broken in health; +he is perfect on the points of courtesy.” + +“That is lucky, ma’am.” + +“Her brother, Nevil’s comrade in the war, was there also.” + +“Who came first?” + +“My lord, you have only heard Captain Baskelett’s version of the story. +She has been my guest since the first day of her landing in England. +There cannot possibly be an imputation on her.” + +“Ma’am, if her husband manages to be satisfied, what on earth have I to +do with it?” + +“I am thinking of Nevil, my lord.” + +“You’re never thinking of any one else, ma’am.” + +“He sleeps here, at this hotel. He left the house to Madame de +Rouaillout. I bear witness to that.” + +“You two seem to have made your preparations to stand a criminal +trial.” + +“It is pure truth, my lord.” + +“Do you take me to be anxious about the fellow’s virtue?” + +“She is a lady who would please you.” + +“A scandal in my house does not please me.” + +“The only approach to a scandal was made by Captain Baskelett.” + +“A poor devil locked out of his bed on a Winter’s night hullabaloos +with pretty good reason. I suppose he felt the contrast.” + +“My lord, this lady did me the honour to come to me on a visit. I have +not previously presumed to entertain a friend. She probably formed no +estimate of my exact position.” + +The earl with a gesture implied Rosamund’s privilege to act the hostess +to friends. + +“You invited her?” he said. + +“That is, I had told her I hoped she would come to England.” + +“She expected you to be at the house in town on her arrival?” + +“It was her impulse to come.” + +“She came alone?” + +“She may have desired to be away from her own people for a time: there +may have been domestic differences. These cases are delicate.” + +“This case appears to have been so delicate that you had to lock out a +fourth party.” + +“It is indelicate and base of Captain Baskelett to complain and to +hint. Nevil had to submit to the same; and Captain Baskelett took his +revenge on the housedoor and the bells. The house was visited by the +police next morning.” + +“Do you suspect him to have known you were inside the house that +night?” + +She could not say so: but hatred of Cecil urged her past the bounds of +habitual reticence to put it to her lord whether he, imagining the +worst, would have behaved like Cecil. + +To this he did not reply, but remarked, “I am sorry he annoyed you, +ma’am.” + +“It is not the annoyance to me; it is the shocking, the unmanly +insolence to a lady, and a foreign lady.” + +“That’s a matter between him and Nevil. I uphold him.” + +“Then, my lord, I am silent.” + +Silent she remained; but Lord Romfrey was also silent: and silence +being a weapon of offence only when it is practised by one out of two, +she had to reflect whether in speaking no further she had finished her +business. + +“Captain Baskelett stays at the Castle?” she asked. + +“He likes his quarters there.” + +“Nevil could not go down to Romfrey, my lord. He was obliged to wait, +and see, and help me to entertain, her brother and her husband.” + +“Why, ma’am? But I have no objection to his making the marquis a happy +husband.” + +“He has done what few men would have done, that she may be a +self-respecting wife.” + +“The parson’s in that fellow!” Lord Romfrey exclaimed. “Now I have the +story. She came to him, he declined the gift, and you were turned into +the curtain for them. If he had only been off with her, he would have +done the country good service. Here he’s a failure and a nuisance; he’s +a common cock-shy for the journals. I’m tired of hearing of him; he’s a +stench in our nostrils. He’s tired of the woman.” + +“He loves her.” + +“Ma’am, you’re hoodwinked. If he refused to have her, there’s a +something he loves better. I don’t believe we’ve bred a downright +lackadaisical donkey in our family: I know him. He’s not a fellow for +abstract morality: I know him. It’s bargain against bargain with him; +I’ll do him that justice. I hear he has ordered the removal of the +Jersey bull from Holdesbury, and the beast is mine,” Lord Romfrey +concluded in a lower key. + +“Nevil has taken him.” + +“Ha! pull and pull, then!” + +“He contends that he is bound by a promise to give an American +gentleman the refusal of the bull, and you must sign an engagement to +keep the animal no longer than two years.” + +“I sign no engagement. I stick to the bull.” + +“Consent to see Nevil to-night, my lord.” + +“When he has apologized to you, I may, ma’am.” + +“Surely he did more, in requesting me to render him a service.” + +“There’s not a creature living that fellow wouldn’t get to serve him, +if he knew the trick. We should all of us be marching on London at +Shrapnel’s heels. The political mania is just as incurable as +hydrophobia, and he’s bitten. That’s clear.” + +“Bitten perhaps: but not mad. As you have always contended, the true +case is incurable, but it is very rare: and is this one?” + +“It’s uncommonly like a true case, though I haven’t seen him foam at +the mouth, and shun water—as his mob does.” + +Rosamund restrained some tears, betraying the effort to hide the +moisture. “I am no match for you, my lord. I try to plead on his +behalf;—I do worse than if I were dumb. This I most earnestly say: he +is the Nevil Beauchamp who fought for his country, and did not abandon +her cause, though he stood there—we had it from Colonel Halkett—a +skeleton: and he is the Nevil who—I am poorly paying my debt to +him!—defended me from the aspersions of his cousin.” + +“Boys!” Lord Romfrey ejaculated. + +“It is the same dispute between them as men.” + +“Have you forgotten my proposal to shield you from liars and +scandalmongers?” + +“Could I ever forget it?” Rosamund appeared to come shining out of a +cloud. “Princeliest and truest gentleman, I thought you then, and I +know you to be, my dear lord. I fancied I had lived the scandal down. I +was under the delusion that I had grown to be past backbiting: and that +no man could stand before me to insult and vilify me. But, for a woman +in any so-called doubtful position, it seems that the coward will not +be wanting to strike her. In quitting your service, I am able to affirm +that only once during the whole term of it have I consciously +overstepped the line of my duties: it was for Nevil: and Captain +Baskelett undertook to defend your reputation, in consequence.” + +“Has the rascal been questioning your conduct?” The earl frowned. + +“Oh, no! not questioning: he does not question, he accuses: he never +doubted: and what he went shouting as a boy, is plain matter of fact to +him now. He is devoted to you. It was for your sake that he desired me +to keep my name from being mixed up in a scandal he foresaw the +occurrence of in your house.” + +“He permitted himself to sneer at you?” + +“He has the art of sneering. On this occasion he wished to be direct +and personal.” + +“What sort of hints were they?” + +Lord Romfrey strode away from her chair that the answer might be easy +to her, for she was red, and evidently suffering from shame as well as +indignation. + +“The hints we call distinct.” said Rosamund. + +“In words?” + +“In hard words.” + +“Then you won’t meet Cecil?” + +Such a question, and the tone of indifference in which it came, +surprised and revolted her so that the unreflecting reply leapt out: + +“I would rather meet a devil.” + +Of how tremblingly, vehemently, and hastily she had said it, she was +unaware. To her lord it was an outcry of nature, astutely touched by +him to put her to proof. + +He continued his long leisurely strides, nodding over his feet. + +Rosamund stood up. She looked a very noble figure in her broad +black-furred robe. “I have one serious confession to make, sir.” + +“What’s that?” said he. + +“I would avoid it, for it cannot lead to particular harm; but I have an +enemy who may poison your ear in my absence. And first I resign my +position. I have forfeited it.” + +“Time goes forward, ma’am, and you go round. Speak to the point. Do you +mean that you toss up the reins of my household?” + +“I do. You trace it to Nevil immediately?” + +“I do. The fellow wants to upset the country, and he begins with me.” + +“You are wrong, my lord. What I have done places me at Captain +Baskelett’s mercy. It is too loathsome to think of: worse than the +whip; worse than your displeasure. It might never be known; but the +thought that it might gives me courage. You have said that to protect a +woman everything is permissible. It is your creed, my lord, and because +the world, I have heard you say, is unjust and implacable to women. In +some cases, I think so too. In reality I followed your instructions; I +mean, your example. Cheap chivalry on my part! But it pained me not a +little. I beg to urge that in my defence.” + +“Well, ma’am, you have tied the knot tight enough; perhaps now you’ll +cut it,” said the earl. + +Rosamund gasped softly. “M. le Marquis is a gentleman who, after a life +of dissipation, has been reminded by bad health that he has a young and +beautiful wife.” + +“He dug his pit to fall into it:—he’s jealous?” + +She shook her head to indicate the immeasurable. + +“Senile jealousy is anxious to be deceived. He could hardly be deceived +so far as to imagine that Madame la Marquise would visit me, such as I +am, as my guest. Knowingly or not, his very clever sister, a good +woman, and a friend to husband and wife—a Frenchwoman of the purest +type—gave me the title. She insisted on it, and I presumed to guess +that she deemed it necessary for the sake of peace in that home.” + +Lord Romfrey appeared merely inquisitive; his eyebrows were lifted in +permanence; his eyes were mild. + +She continued: “They leave England in a few hours. They are not likely +to return. I permitted him to address me with the title of countess.” + +“Of Romfrey?” said the earl. + +Rosamund bowed. + +His mouth contracted. She did not expect thunder to issue from it, but +she did fear to hear a sarcasm, or that she would have to endure a +deadly silence: and she was gathering her own lips in imitation of his, +to nerve herself for some stroke to come, when he laughed in his +peculiar close-mouthed manner. + +“I’m afraid you’ve dished yourself.” + +“You cannot forgive me, my lord?” + +He indulged in more of his laughter, and abruptly summoning gravity, +bade her talk to him of affairs. He himself talked of the condition of +the Castle, and with a certain off-hand contempt of the ladies of the +family, and Cecil’s father, Sir John. “What are they to me?” said he, +and he complained of having been called Last Earl of Romfrey. + +“The line ends undegenerate,” said Rosamund fervidly, though she knew +not where she stood. + +“Ends!” quoth the earl. + +“I must see Stukely,” he added briskly, and stooped to her: “I beg you +to drive me to my Club, countess.” + +“Oh! sir.” + +“Once a countess, always a countess!” + +“But once an impostor, my lord?” + +“Not always, we’ll hope.” + +He enjoyed this little variation in the language of comedy; letting it +drop, to say: “Be here to-morrow early. Don’t chase that family away +from the house. Do as you will, but not a word of Nevil to me: he’s a +bad mess in any man’s porringer; it’s time for me to claim exemption of +him from mine.” + +She dared not let her thoughts flow, for to think was to triumph, and +possibly to be deluded. They came in copious volumes when Lord Romfrey, +alighting at his Club, called to the coachman: “Drive the countess +home.” + +They were not thoughts of triumph absolutely. In her cooler mind she +felt that it was a bad finish of a gallant battle. Few women had risen +against a tattling and pelting world so stedfastly; and would it not +have been better to keep her own ground, which she had won with tears +and some natural strength, and therewith her liberty, which she prized? +The hateful Cecil, a reminder of whom set her cheeks burning and turned +her heart to serpent, had forced her to it. So she honestly conceived, +owing to the circumstance of her honestly disliking the pomps of life +and not desiring to occupy any position of brilliancy. She thought +assuredly of her hoard of animosity toward the scandalmongers, and of +the quiet glance she would cast behind on them, and below. That thought +came as a fruit, not as a reflection. + +But if ever two offending young gentlemen, nephews of a long-suffering +uncle, were circumvented, undermined, and struck to earth, with one +blow, here was the instance. This was accomplished by Lord Romfrey’s +resolution to make the lady he had learnt to esteem his countess: and +more, it fixed to him for life one whom he could not bear to think of +losing: and still more, it might be; but what more was unwritten on his +tablets. + +Rosamund failed to recollect that Everard Romfrey never took a step +without seeing a combination of objects to be gained by it. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. +THE NEPHEWS OF THE EARL, AND ANOTHER EXHIBITION OF THE TWO PASSIONS IN +BEAUCHAMP + + +It was now the season when London is as a lighted tower to her +provinces, and, among other gentlemen hurried thither by attraction, +Captain Baskelett arrived. Although not a personage in the House of +Commons, he was a vote; and if he never committed himself to the perils +of a speech, he made himself heard. His was the part of chorus, which +he performed with a fairly close imitation of the original cries of +periods before parliaments were instituted, thus representing a stage +in the human development besides the borough of Bevisham. He arrived in +the best of moods for the emission of high-pitched vowel-sounds; +otherwise in the worst of tempers. His uncle had notified an addition +of his income to him at Romfrey, together with commands that he should +quit the castle instantly: and there did that woman, Mistress Culling, +do the honours to Nevil Beauchamp’s French party. He assured Lord +Palmet of his positive knowledge of the fact, incredible as the +sanction of such immoral proceedings by the Earl of Romfrey must appear +to that young nobleman. Additions to income are of course acceptable, +but in the form of a palpable stipulation for silence, they neither +awaken gratitude nor effect their purpose. Quite the contrary; they +prick the moral mind to sit in judgement on the donor. It means, she +fears me! Cecil confidently thought and said of the intriguing woman +who managed his patron. + +The town-house was open to him. Lord Romfrey was at Steynham. Cecil +could not suppose that he was falling into a pit in entering it. He +happened to be the favourite of the old housekeeper, who liked him for +his haughtiness, which was to her thinking the sign of real English +nobility, and perhaps it is the popular sign, and a tonic to the +people. She raised lamentations over the shame of the locking of the +door against him that awful night, declaring she had almost mustered +courage to go down to him herself, in spite of Mrs. Culling’s orders. +The old woman lowered her voice to tell him that her official superior +had permitted the French gentleman and ladies to call her countess. +This she knew for a certainty, though she knew nothing of French; but +the French lady who came second brought a maid who knew English a +little, and she said the very words—the countess, and said also that +her party took Mrs. Culling for the Countess of Romfrey. What was more, +my lord’s coachman caught it up, and he called her countess, and he had +a quarrel about it with the footman Kendall; and the day after a +dreadful affair between them in the mews, home drives madam, and +Kendall is to go up to her, and down the poor man comes, and not a word +to be got out of him, but as if he had seen a ghost. “She have such +power,” Cecil’s admirer concluded. + +“I wager I match her,” Cecil said to himself, pulling at his wristbands +and letting his lower teeth shine out. The means of matching her were +not so palpable as the resolution. First he took men into his +confidence. Then he touched lightly on the story to ladies, with the +question, “What ought I to do?” In consideration for the Earl of +Romfrey he ought not to pass it over, he suggested. The ladies of the +family urged him to go to Steynham and boldly confront the woman. He +was not prepared for that. Better, it seemed to him, to blow the +rumour, and make it the topic of the season, until Lord Romfrey should +hear of it. Cecil had the ear of the town for a month. He was in the +act of slicing the air with his right hand in his accustomed style, one +evening at Lady Elsea’s, to protest how vast was the dishonour done to +the family by Mistress Culling, when Stukely Culbrett stopped him, +saying, “The lady you speak of is the Countess of Romfrey. I was +present at the marriage.” + +Cecil received the shock in the attitude of those martial figures we +see wielding two wooden swords in provincial gardens to tell the +disposition of the wind: abruptly abandoned by it, they stand +transfixed, one sword aloft, the other at their heels. The resemblance +extended to his astonished countenance. His big chest heaved. Like many +another wounded giant before him, he experienced the insufficiency of +interjections to solace pain. For them, however, the rocks were handy +to fling, the trees to uproot; heaven’s concave resounded companionably +to their bellowings. Relief of so concrete a kind is not to be obtained +in crowded London assemblies. + +“You are jesting?—you are a jester,” he contrived to say. + +“It was a private marriage, and I was a witness,” replied Stukely. + +“Lord Romfrey has made an honest woman of her, has he?” + +“A peeress, you mean.” + +Cecil bowed. “Exactly. I am corrected. I mean a peeress.” + +He got out of the room with as high an air as he could command, feeling +as if a bar of iron had flattened his head. + +Next day it was intimated to him by one of the Steynham servants that +apartments were ready for him at the residence of the late earl: Lord +Romfrey’s house was about to be occupied by the Countess of Romfrey. +Cecil had to quit, and he chose to be enamoured of that dignity of +sulking so seductive to the wounded spirit of man. + +Rosamund, Countess of Romfrey, had worse to endure from Beauchamp. He +indeed came to the house, and he went through the formalities of +congratulation, but his opinion of her step was unconcealed, that she +had taken it for the title. He distressed her by reviving the case of +Dr. Shrapnel, as though it were a matter of yesterday, telling her she +had married a man with a stain on him; she should have exacted the +Apology as a nuptial present; ay, and she would have done it if she had +cared for the earl’s honour or her own. So little did he understand +men! so tenacious was he of his ideas! She had almost forgotten the +case of Dr. Shrapnel, and to see it shooting up again in the new path +of her life was really irritating. + +Rosamund did not defend herself. + +“I am very glad you have come, Nevil,” she said; “your uncle holds to +the ceremony. I may be of real use to you now; I wish to be.” + +“You have only to prove it,” said he. “If you can turn his mind to +marriage, you can send him to Bevisham.” + +“My chief thought is to serve you.” + +“I know it is, I know it is,” he rejoined with some fervour. “You have +served me, and made me miserable for life, and rightly. Never mind, +all’s well while the hand’s to the axe.” Beauchamp smoothed his +forehead roughly, trying hard to inspire himself with the tonic +draughts of sentiments cast in the form of proverbs. “Lord Romfrey saw +her, you say?” + +“He did, Nevil, and admired her.” + +“Well, if I suffer, let me think of _her!_ For courage and nobleness I +shall never find her equal. Have you changed your ideas of Frenchwomen +now? Not a word, you say, not a look, to show her disdain of me +whenever my name was mentioned!” + +“She could scarcely feel disdain. She was guilty of a sad error.” + +“Through trusting in me. Will nothing teach you where the fault lies? +You women have no mercy for women. She went through the parade to +Romfrey Castle and back, and she must have been perishing at heart. +That, you English call acting. In history you have a respect for such +acting up to the scaffold. Good-bye to her! There’s a story ended. One +thing you must promise: you’re a peeress, ma’am: the story’s out, +everybody has heard of it; that babbler has done his worst: if you have +a becoming appreciation of your title, you will promise me honestly—no, +give me your word as a woman I can esteem—that you will not run about +excusing me. Whatever you hear said or suggested, say nothing yourself. +I insist on your keeping silence. Press my hand.” + +“Nevil, how foolish!” + +“It’s my will.” + +“It is unreasonable. You give your enemies licence.” + +“I know what’s in your head. Take my hand, and let me have your word +for it.” + +“But if persons you like very much, Nevil, should hear?” + +“Promise. You are a woman not to break your word.” + +“If I decline?” + +“Your hand! I’ll kiss it.” + +“Oh! my darling.” Rosamund flung her arms round him and strained him an +instant to her bosom. “What have I but you in the world? My comfort was +the hope that I might serve you.” + +“Yes! by slaying one woman as an offering to another. It would be +impossible for you to speak the truth. Don’t you see, it would be a lie +against her, and making a figure of me that a man would rather drop to +the ground than have shown of him? I was to blame, and only I. Madame +de Rouaillout was as utterly deceived by me as ever a trusting woman by +a brute. I look at myself and hardly believe it’s the same man. I wrote +to her that I was unchanged—and I was entirely changed, another +creature, anything Lord Romfrey may please to call me.” + +“But, Nevil, I repeat, if Miss Halkett should hear...?” + +“She knows by this time.” + +“At present she is ignorant of it.” + +“And what is Miss Halkett to me?” + +“More than you imagined in that struggle you underwent, I think, Nevil. +Oh! if only to save her from Captain Baskelett! He gained your uncle’s +consent when they were at the Castle, to support him in proposing for +her. He is persistent. Women have been snared without loving. She is a +great heiress. Reflect on his use of her wealth. You respect her, if +you have no warmer feeling. Let me assure you that the husband of +Cecilia, if he is of Romfrey blood, has the fairest chance of the +estates. That man will employ every weapon. He will soon be here bowing +to me to turn me to his purposes.” + +“Cecilia can see through Baskelett,” said Beauchamp. + +“Single-mindedly selfish men may be seen through and through, and still +be dangerous, Nevil. The supposition is, that we know the worst of +them. He carries a story to poison her mind. She could resist it, if +you and she were in full confidence together. If she did not love you, +she could resist it. She does, and for some strange reason beyond my +capacity to fathom, you have not come to an understanding. Sanction my +speaking to her, just to put her on her guard, privately: not to injure +that poor lady, but to explain. Shall she not know the truth? I need +say but very little. Indeed, all I can say is, that finding the +marquise in London one evening, you telegraphed for me to attend on +her, and I joined you. You shake your head. But surely it is due to +Miss Halkett. She should be protected from what will certainly wound +her deeply. Her father is afraid of you, on the score of your theories. +I foresee it: he will hear the scandal: he will imagine you as bad in +morals as in politics. And you have lost your friend in Lord +Romfrey—though he shall not be your enemy. Colonel Halkett and Cecilia +called on us at Steynham. She was looking beautiful; a trifle +melancholy. The talk was of your—that—I do not like it, but you hold +those opinions—the Republicanism. She had read your published letters. +She spoke to me of your sincerity. Colonel Halkett of course was vexed. + +It is the same with all your friends. She, however, by her tone, led me +to think that she sees you as you are, more than in what you do. They +are now in Wales. They will be in town after Easter. Then you must +expect that her feeling for you will be tried, unless but you will! You +will let me speak to her, Nevil. My position allows me certain +liberties I was previously debarred from. You have not been so very +tender to your Cecilia that you can afford to give her fresh reasons +for sorrowful perplexity. And why should you stand to be blackened by +scandalmongers when a few words of mine will prove that instead of weak +you have been strong, instead of libertine blameless? I am not using +fine phrases: I would not. I would be as thoughtful of you as if you +were present. And for her sake, I repeat, the truth should be told to +her. I have a lock of her hair.” + +“Cecilia’s? Where?” said Beauchamp. + +“It is at Steynham.” Rosamund primmed her lips at the success of her +probing touch; but she was unaware of the chief reason for his doting +on those fair locks, and how they coloured his imagination since the +day of the drive into Bevisham. + +“Now leave me, my dear Nevil,” she said. “Lord Romfrey will soon be +here, and it is as well for the moment that you should not meet him, if +it can be avoided.” + +Beauchamp left her, like a man out-argued and overcome. He had no wish +to meet his uncle, whose behaviour in contracting a misalliance and +casting a shadow on the family, in a manner so perfectly objectless and +senseless, appeared to him to call for the reverse of compliments. +Cecilia’s lock of hair lying at Steynham hung in his mind. He saw the +smooth flat curl lying secret like a smile. + +The graceful head it had fallen from was dimmer in his mental eye. He +went so far in this charmed meditation as to feel envy of the possessor +of the severed lock: passingly he wondered, with the wonder of +reproach, that the possessor should deem it enough to possess the lock, +and resign it to a drawer or a desk. And as when life rolls back on us +after the long ebb of illness, little whispers and diminutive images of +the old joys and prizes of life arrest and fill our hearts; or as, to +men who have been beaten down by storms, the opening of a daisy is +dearer than the blazing orient which bids it open; so the visionary +lock of Cecilia’s hair became Cecilia’s self to Beauchamp, yielding him +as much of her as he could bear to think of, for his heart was +shattered. + +Why had she given it to his warmest friend? For the asking, probably. + +This question was the first ripple of the breeze from other emotions +beginning to flow fast. + +He walked out of London, to be alone, and to think and from the palings +of a road on a South-western run of high land, he gazed, at the great +city—a place conquerable yet, with the proper appliances for +subjugating it: the starting of his daily newspaper, THE DAWN, say, as +a commencement. It began to seem a possible enterprise. It soon seemed +a proximate one. If Cecilia! He left the exclamation a blank, but not +an empty dash in the brain; rather like the shroud of night on a vast +and gloriously imagined land. + +Nay, the prospect was partly visible, as the unknown country becomes by +degrees to the traveller’s optics on the dark hill-tops. It is much, of +course, to be domestically well-mated: but to be fortified and armed by +one’s wife with a weapon to fight the world, is rare good fortune; a +rapturous and an infinite satisfaction. He could now support of his own +resources a weekly paper. A paper published weekly, however, is a poor +thing, out of the tide, behind the date, mainly a literary periodical, +no foremost combatant in politics, no champion in the arena; hardly +better than a commentator on the events of the six past days; an echo, +not a voice. It sits on a Saturday bench and pretends to sum up. Who +listens? The verdict knocks dust out of a cushion. It has no steady +continuous pressure of influence. It is the organ of sleepers. Of all +the bigger instruments of money, it is the feeblest, Beauchamp thought. +His constant faith in the good effects of utterance naturally inclined +him to value six occasions per week above one; and in the fight he was +for waging, it was necessary that he should enter the ring and hit blow +for blow sans intermission. A statement that he could call false must +be challenged hot the next morning. The covert Toryism, the fits of +flunkeyism, the cowardice, of the relapsing middle-class, which is now +England before mankind, because it fills the sails of the Press, must +be exposed. It supports the Press in its own interests, affecting to +speak for the people. It belies the people. And this Press, declaring +itself independent, can hardly walk for fear of treading on an interest +here, an interest there. It cannot have a conscience. It is a bad +guide, a false guardian; its abject claim to be our national and +popular interpreter—even that is hollow and a mockery! It is powerful +only while subservient. An engine of money, appealing to the +sensitiveness of money, it has no connection with the mind of the +nation. And that it is not of, but apart from, the people, may be seen +when great crises come. Can it stop a war? The people would, and with +thunder, had they the medium. But in strong gales the power of the +Press collapses; it wheezes like a pricked pigskin of a piper. At its +best Beauchamp regarded our lordly Press as a curiously diapered +curtain and delusive mask, behind which the country struggles vainly to +show an honest feature; and as a trumpet that deafened and terrorized +the people; a mere engine of leaguers banded to keep a smooth face upon +affairs, quite soullessly: he meanwhile having to be dumb. + +But a Journal that should be actually independent of circulation and +advertisements: a popular journal in the true sense, very lungs to the +people, for them to breathe freely through at last, and be heard out of +it, with well-paid men of mark to head and aid them;—the establishment +of such a Journal seemed to him brave work of a life, though one should +die early. The money launching it would be coin washed pure of its +iniquity of selfish reproduction, by service to mankind. This DAWN of +his conception stood over him like a rosier Aurora for the country. He +beheld it in imagination as a new light rising above hugeous London. +You turn the sheets of THE DAWN, and it is the manhood of the land +addressing you, no longer that alternately puling and insolent cry of +the coffers. The health, wealth, comfort, contentment of the greater +number are there to be striven for, in contempt of compromise and +“unseasonable times.” + +Beauchamp’s illuminated dream of the power of his DAWN to vitalize old +England, liberated him singularly from his wearing regrets and +heart-sickness. + +Surely Cecilia, who judged him sincere, might be bent to join hands +with him for so good a work! She would bring riches to her husband: +sufficient. He required the ablest men of the country to write for him, +and it was just that they should be largely paid. They at least in +their present public apathy would demand it. To fight the brewers, +distillers, publicans, the shopkeepers, the parsons, the landlords, the +law limpets, and also the indifferents, the logs, the cravens and the +fools, high talent was needed, and an ardour stimulated by rates of pay +outdoing the offers of the lucre-journals. A large annual outlay would +therefore be needed; possibly for as long as a quarter of a century. +Cecilia and her husband would have to live modestly. But her +inheritance would be immense. Colonel Halkett had never spent a tenth +of his income. In time he might be taught to perceive in THE DAWN the +one greatly beneficent enterprise of his day. He might through his +daughter’s eyes, and the growing success of the Journal. Benevolent and +gallant old man, patriotic as he was, and kind at heart, he might learn +to see in THE DAWN a broader channel of philanthropy and chivalry than +any we have yet had a notion of in England!—a school of popular +education into the bargain. + +Beauchamp reverted to the shining curl. It could not have been clearer +to vision if it had lain under his eyes. + +Ay, that first wild life of his was dead. He had slain it. Now for the +second and sober life! Who can say? The Countess of Romfrey suggested +it:—Cecilia may have prompted him in his unknown heart to the sacrifice +of a lawless love, though he took it for simply barren iron duty. +Brooding on her, he began to fancy the victory over himself less and +less a lame one: for it waxed less and less difficult in his +contemplation of it. He was looking forward instead of back. + +Who cut off the lock? Probably Cecilia herself; and thinking at the +moment that he would see it, perhaps beg for it. The lustrous little +ring of hair wound round his heart; smiled both on its emotions and its +aims; bound them in one. + +But proportionately as he grew tender to Cecilia, his consideration for +Renée increased; that became a law to him: pity nourished it, and +glimpses of self-contempt, and something like worship of her +high-heartedness. + +He wrote to the countess, forbidding her sharply and absolutely to +attempt a vindication of him by explanations to any persons whomsoever; +and stating that he would have no falsehoods told, he desired her to +keep to the original tale of the visit of the French family to her as +guests of the Countess of Romfrey. Contradictory indeed. Rosamund shook +her head over him. For a wilful character that is guilty of issuing +contradictory commands to friends who would be friends in spite of him, +appears to be expressly angling for the cynical spirit, so surely does +it rise and snap at such provocation. He was even more emphatic when +they next met. He would not listen to a remonstrance; and though, of +course, her love of him granted him the liberty to speak to her in what +tone he pleased, there were sensations proper to her new rank which his +intemperateness wounded and tempted to revolt when he vexed her with +unreason. She had a glimpse of the face he might wear to his enemies. + +He was quite as resolute, too, about that slight matter of the Jersey +bull. He had the bull in Bevisham, and would not give him up without +the sign manual of Lord Romfrey to an agreement to resign him over to +the American Quaker gentleman, after a certain term. Moreover, not once +had he, by exclamation or innuendo, during the period of his recent +grief for the loss of his first love, complained of his uncle Everard’s +refusal in the old days to aid him in suing for Renée. Rosamund had +expected that he would. She thought it unloverlike in him not to stir +the past, and to bow to intolerable facts. This idea of him, coming in +conjunction with his present behaviour, convinced her that there +existed a contradiction in his nature: whence it ensued that she lost +her warmth as an advocate designing to intercede for him with Cecilia; +and warmth being gone, the power of the scandal seemed to her +unassailable. How she could ever have presumed to combat it, was an +astonishment to her. Cecilia might be indulgent, she might have faith +in Nevil. Little else could be hoped for. + +The occupations, duties, and ceremonies of her new position contributed +to the lassitude into which Rosamund sank. And she soon had a +communication to make to her lord, the nature of which was more +startling to herself, even tragic. The bondwoman is a free woman +compared with the wife. + +Lord Romfrey’s friends noticed a glow of hearty health in the splendid +old man, and a prouder animation of eye and stature; and it was agreed +that matrimony suited him well. Luckily for Cecil he did not sulk very +long. A spectator of the earl’s first introduction to the House of +Peers, he called on his uncle the following day, and Rosamund accepted +his homage in her husband’s presence. He vowed that my lord was the +noblest figure in the whole assembly; that it had been to him the most +moving sight he had ever witnessed; that Nevil should have been there +to see it and experience what he had felt; it would have done old Nevil +incalculable good! and as far as his grief at the idea and some +reticence would let him venture, he sighed to think of the last Earl of +Romfrey having been seen by him taking the seat of his fathers. + +Lord Romfrey shouted “Ha!” like a checked peal of laughter, and glanced +at his wife. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. +A LITTLE PLOT AGAINST CECILIA + + +Some days before Easter week Seymour Austin went to Mount Laurels for +rest, at an express invitation from Colonel Halkett. The working +barrister, who is also a working member of Parliament, is occasionally +reminded that this mortal machine cannot adapt itself in perpetuity to +the long hours of labour by night in the House of Commons as well as by +day in the Courts, which would seem to have been arranged by a +compliant country for the purpose of aiding his particular, and most +honourable, ambition to climb, while continuing to fill his purse. Mr. +Austin broke down early in the year. He attributed it to a cold. Other +representative gentlemen were on their backs, of whom he could admit +that the protracted nightwork had done them harm, with the reservation +that their constitutions were originally unsound. But the House cannot +get on without lawyers, and lawyers must practise their profession, and +if they manage both to practise all day and sit half the night, others +should be able to do the simple late sitting; and we English are an +energetic people, we must toil or be beaten: and besides, “night brings +counsel,” men are cooler and wiser by night. Any amount of work can be +performed by careful feeders: it is the stomach that kills the +Englishman. Brains are never the worse for activity; they subsist on +it. + +These arguments and citations, good and absurd, of a man more at home +in his harness than out of it, were addressed to the colonel to stop +his remonstrances and idle talk about burning the candle at both ends. +To that illustration Mr. Austin replied that he did not burn it in the +middle. + +“But you don’t want money, Austin.” + +“No; but since I’ve had the habit of making it I have taken to like +it.” + +“But you’re not ambitious.” + +“Very little; but I should be sorry to be out of the tideway.” + +“I call it a system of slaughter,” said the colonel; and Mr. Austin +said, “The world goes in that way—love and slaughter.” + +“Not suicide though,” Colonel Halkett muttered. + +“No, that’s only incidental.” + +The casual word “love” led Colonel Halkett to speak to Cecilia of an +old love-affair of Seymour Austin’s, in discussing the state of his +health with her. The lady was the daughter of a famous admiral, +handsome, and latterly of light fame. Mr. Austin had nothing to regret +in her having married a man richer than himself. + +“I wish he had married a good woman,” said the colonel. + +“He looks unwell, papa.” + +“He thinks you’re looking unwell, my dear.” + +“He thinks that of me?” + +Cecilia prepared a radiant face for Mr. Austin. + +She forgot to keep it kindled, and he suspected her to be a victim of +one of the forms of youthful melancholy, and laid stress on the benefit +to health of a change of scene. + +“We have just returned from Wales,” she said. + +He remarked that it was hardly a change to be within shot of our +newspapers. + +The colour left her cheeks. She fancied her father had betrayed her to +the last man who should know her secret. Beauchamp and the newspapers +were rolled together in her mind by the fever of apprehension wasting +her ever since his declaration of Republicanism, and defence of it, and +an allusion to one must imply the other, she feared: feared, but far +from quailingly. She had come to think that she could read the man she +loved, and detect a reasonableness in his extravagance. Her father had +discovered the impolicy of attacking Beauchamp in her hearing. The +fever by which Cecilia was possessed on her lover’s behalf, often +overcame discretion, set her judgement in a whirl, was like a delirium. +How it had happened she knew not. She knew only her wretched state; a +frenzy seized her whenever his name was uttered, to excuse, account +for, all but glorify him publicly. And the immodesty of her conduct was +perceptible to her while she thus made her heart bare. She exposed +herself once of late at Itchincope, and had tried to school her tongue +before she went there. She felt that she should inevitably be seen +through by Seymour Austin if he took the world’s view of Beauchamp, and +this to her was like a descent on the rapids to an end one shuts eyes +from. + +He noticed her perturbation, and spoke of it to her father. + +“Yes, I’m very miserable about her,” the colonel confessed. “Girls +don’t see... they can’t guess... they have no idea of the right kind of +man for them. A man like Blackburn Tuckham, now, a man a father could +leave his girl to, with confidence! He works for me like a slave; I +can’t guess why. He doesn’t look as if he were attracted. There’s a +man! but, no; harum-scarum fellows take their fancy.” + +“Is _she_ that kind of young lady?” said Mr. Austin. + +“No one would have thought so. She pretends to have opinions upon +politics now. It’s of no use to talk of it!” + +But Beauchamp was fully indicated. + +Mr. Austin proposed to Cecilia that they should spend Easter week in +Rome. + +Her face lighted and clouded. + +“I should like it,” she said, negatively. + +“What’s the objection?” + +“None, except that Mount Laurels in Spring has grown dear to me; and we +have engagements in London. I am not quick, I suppose, at new projects. +I have ordered the yacht to be fitted out for a cruise in the +Mediterranean early in the Summer. There is an objection, I am +sure—yes; papa has invited Mr. Tuckham here for Easter.” + +“We could carry him with us.” + +“Yes, but I should wish to be entirely under your tutelage in Rome.” + +“We would pair: your father and he; you and I.” + +“We might do that. But Mr. Tuckham is like you, devoted to work; and, +unlike you, careless of Antiquities and Art.” + +“He is a hard and serious worker, and therefore the best of companions +for a holiday. At present he is working for the colonel, who would +easily persuade him to give over, and come with us.” + +“He certainly does love papa,” said Cecilia. + +Mr. Austin dwelt on that subject. + +Cecilia perceived that she had praised Mr. Tuckham for his devotedness +to her father without recognizing the beauty of nature in the young man +who could voluntarily take service under the elder he esteemed, in +simple admiration of him. Mr. Austin scarcely said so much, or expected +her to see the half of it, but she wished to be extremely grateful, and +could only see at all by kindling altogether. + +“He does himself injustice in his manner,” said Cecilia. + +“That has become somewhat tempered,” Mr. Austin assured her, and he +acknowledged what it had been with a smile that she reciprocated. + +A rough man of rare quality civilizing under various influences, and +half ludicrous, a little irritating, wholly estimable, has frequently +won the benign approbation of the sex. In addition, this rough man over +whom she smiled was one of the few that never worried her concerning +her hand. There was not a whisper of it in him. He simply loved her +father. + +Cecilia welcomed him to Mount Laurels with grateful gladness. The +colonel had hastened Mr. Tuckham’s visit in view of the expedition to +Rome, and they discoursed of it at the luncheon table. Mr. Tuckham let +fall that he had just seen Beauchamp. + +“Did he thank you for his inheritance?” Colonel Halkett inquired. + +“Not he!” Tuckham replied jovially. + +Cecilia’s eyes, quick to flash, were dropped. + +The colonel said: “I suppose you told him nothing of what you had done +for him?” and said Tuckham: “Oh no: what anybody else would have done”; +and proceeded to recount that he had called at Dr. Shrapnel’s on the +chance of an interview with his friend Lydiard, who used generally to +be hanging about the cottage. “But now he’s free: his lunatic wife is +dead, and I’m happy to think I was mistaken as to Miss Denham. Men +practising literature should marry women with money. The poor girl +changed colour when I informed her he had been released for upwards of +three months. The old Radical’s not the thing in health. He’s anxious +about leaving her alone in the world; he said so to me. Beauchamp’s for +rigging out a yacht to give him a sail. It seems that salt water did +him some good last year. They’re both of them rather the worse for a +row at one of their meetings in the North in support of that public +nuisance, the democrat and atheist Roughleigh. The Radical doctor lost +a hat, and Beauchamp almost lost an eye. He would have been a Nelson of +politics, if he had been a monops, with an excuse for not seeing. It’s +a trifle to them; part of their education. They call themselves +students. Rome will be capital, Miss Halkett. You’re an Italian +scholar, and I beg to be accepted as a pupil.” + +“I fear we have postponed the expedition too long,” said Cecilia. She +could have sunk with languor. + +“Too long?” cried Colonel Halkett, mystified. + +“Until too late, I mean, papa. Do you not think, Mr. Austin, that a +fortnight in Rome is too short a time?” + +“Not if we make it a month, my dear Cecilia.” + +“Is not our salt air better for you? The yacht shall be fitted out.” + +“I’m a poor sailor!” + +“Besides, a hasty excursion to Italy brings one’s anticipated regrets +at the farewell too close to the pleasure of beholding it, for the +enjoyment of that luxury of delight which I associate with the name of +Italy.” + +“Why, my dear child,” said her father, “you were all for going, the +other day.” + +“I do not remember it,” said she. “One plans agreeable schemes. At +least we need not hurry from home so very soon after our return. We +have been travelling incessantly. The cottage in Wales is not home. It +is hardly fair to Mount Laurels to quit it without observing the +changes of the season in our flowers and birds here. And we have +visitors coming. Of course, papa, I would not chain you to England. If +I am not well enough to accompany you, I can go to Louise for a few +weeks.” + +Was ever transparency so threadbare? Cecilia shrank from herself in +contemplating it when she was alone; and Colonel Halkett put the +question to Mr. Austin, saying to him privately, with no further +reserve: “It’s that fellow Beauchamp in the neighbourhood; I’m not so +blind. He’ll be knocking at my door, and I can’t lock him out. Austin, +would you guess it was my girl speaking? I never in my life had such an +example of intoxication before me. I’m perfectly miserable at the +sight. You know her; she was the proudest girl living. Her ideas were +orderly and sound; she had a good intellect. Now she more than half +defends him—a naval officer! good Lord!—for getting up in a public room +to announce that he’s a Republican, and writing heaps of mad letters to +justify himself. He’s ruined in his profession: hopeless! He can never +get a ship: his career’s cut short, he’s a rudderless boat. A gentleman +drifting to Bedlam, his uncle calls him. I call his treatment of +Grancey Lespel anything but gentlemanly. This is the sort of fellow my +girl worships! What can I do? I can’t interdict the house to him: it +would only make matters worse. Thank God, the fellow hangs fire +somehow, and doesn’t come to me. I expect it every day, either in a +letter or the man in person. And I declare to heaven I’d rather be +threading a Khyber Pass with my poor old friend who fell to a shot +there.” + +“She certainly has another voice,” Mr. Austin assented gravely. + +He did not look on Beauchamp as the best of possible husbands for +Cecilia. + +“Let her see that you’re anxious, Austin,” said the colonel. “I’m her +old opponent in this affair. She loves me, but she’s accustomed to +think me prejudiced: you she won’t. You may have a good effect.” + +“Not by speaking.” + +“No, no; no assault: not a word, and not a word against him. Lay the +wind to catch a gossamer. I’ve had my experience of blowing cold, and +trying to run her down. He’s at Shrapnel’s. He’ll be up here to-day, +and I have an engagement in the town. Don’t quit her side. Let her +fancy you are interested in some discussion—Radicalism, if you like.” + +Mr. Austin readily undertook to mount guard over her while her father +rode into Bevisham on business. + +The enemy appeared. + +Cecilia saw him, and could not step to meet him for trouble of heart. +It was bliss to know that he lived and was near. + +A transient coldness following the fit of ecstasy enabled her to swim +through the terrible first minutes face to face with him. + +He folded her round like a mist; but it grew a problem to understand +why Mr. Austin should be perpetually at hand, in the garden, in the +woods, in the drawing-room, wheresoever she wakened up from one of her +trances to see things as they were. + +Yet Beauchamp, with a daring and cunning at which her soul exulted, and +her feminine nature trembled, as at the divinely terrible, had managed +to convey to her no less than if they had been alone together. + +His parting words were: “I must have five minutes with your father +to-morrow.” + +How had she behaved? What could be Seymour Austin’s idea of her? + +She saw the blind thing that she was, the senseless thing, the +shameless; and vulture-like in her scorn of herself, she alighted on +that disgraced Cecilia and picked her to pieces hungrily. It was clear: +Beauchamp had meant nothing beyond friendly civility: it was only her +abject greediness pecking at crumbs. No! he loved her. Could a woman’s +heart be mistaken? She melted and wept, thanking him: she offered him +her remnant of pride, pitiful to behold. + +And still she asked herself between-whiles whether it could be true of +an English lady of our day, that she, the fairest stature under sun, +was ever knowingly twisted to this convulsion. She seemed to look forth +from a barred window on flower, and field, and hill. Quietness existed +as a vision. Was it impossible to embrace it? How pass into it? By +surrendering herself to the flames, like a soul unto death! For why, if +they were overpowering, attempt to resist them? It flattered her to +imagine that she had been resisting them in their present burning might +ever since her lover stepped on the _Esperanza’s_ deck at the mouth of +Otley River. How foolish, seeing that they are fatal! A thrill of +satisfaction swept her in reflecting that her ability to reason was +thus active. And she was instantly rewarded for surrendering; pain +fled, to prove her reasoning good; the flames devoured her gently they +cared not to torture so long as they had her to themselves. + +At night, candle in hand, on the corridor, her father told her he had +come across Grancey Lespel in Bevisham, and heard what he had not quite +relished of the Countess of Romfrey. The glittering of Cecilia’s eyes +frightened him. Taking her for the moment to know almost as much as he, +the colonel doubted the weight his communication would have on her; he +talked obscurely of a scandalous affair at Lord Romfrey’s house in +town, and Beauchamp and that Frenchwoman. “But,” said he, “Mrs. Grancey +will be here to-morrow.” + +“So will Nevil, papa,” said Cecilia. + +“Ah! he’s coming, yes; well!” the colonel puffed. “Well, I shall see +him, of course, but I... I can only say that if his oath’s worth +having, I ... and I think you too, my dear, if you... but it’s no use +anticipating. I shall stand out for your honour and happiness. There, +your cheeks are flushed. Go and sleep.” + +Some idle tale! Cecilia murmured to herself a dozen times, undisturbed +by the recurrence of it. Nevil was coming to speak to her father +tomorrow! Adieu to doubt and division! Happy to-morrow! and dear Mount +Laurels! The primroses were still fair in the woods: and soon the +cowslips would come, and the nightingale; she lay lapt in images of +everything innocently pleasing to Nevil. Soon the _Esperanza_ would be +spreading wings. She revelled in a picture of the yacht on a tumbling +Mediterranean Sea, meditating on the two specks near the tiller,—who +were blissful human creatures, blest by heaven and in themselves—with +luxurious Olympian benevolence. + +For all that, she awoke, starting up in the first cold circle of +twilight, her heart in violent action. She had dreamed that the vessel +was wrecked. “I did not think myself so cowardly,” she said aloud, +pressing her side and then, with the dream in her eyes, she gasped: “It +would be together!” + +Strangely chilled, she tried to recover some fallen load. The birds of +the dawn twittered, chirped, dived aslant her window, fluttered back. +Instead of a fallen load, she fancied presently that it was an +expectation she was desiring to realize: but what? What could be +expected at that hour? She quitted her bed, and paced up and down the +room beneath a gold-starred ceiling. Her expectation, she resolved to +think, was of a splendid day of the young Spring at Mount Laurels—a day +to praise to Nevil. + +She raised her window-blind at a window letting in sweet air, to gather +indications of promising weather. Her lover stood on the grass-plot +among the flower-beds below, looking up, as though it had been his +expectation to see her which had drawn her to gaze out with an idea of +some expectation of her own. So visionary was his figure in the grey +solitariness of the moveless morning that she stared at the apparition, +scarce putting faith in him as man, until he kissed his hand to her, +and had softly called her name. + +Impulsively she waved a hand from her lips. + +Now there was no retreat for either of them! + +She awoke to this conviction after a flight of blushes that burnt her +thoughts to ashes as they sprang. Thoughts born blushing, all of the +crimson colour, a rose-garden, succeeded, and corresponding with their +speed her feet paced the room, both slender hands crossed at her throat +under an uplifted chin, and the curves of her dark eyelashes dropped as +in a swoon. + +“He loves me!” The attestation of it had been visible. “No one but me!” +Was that so evident? + +Her father picked up silly stories of him—a man who made enemies +recklessly! + +Cecilia was petrified by a gentle tapping at her door. Her father +called to her, and she threw on her dressing-gown, and opened the door. + +The colonel was in his riding-suit. + +“I haven’t slept a wink, and I find it’s the same with you,” he said, +paining her with his distressed kind eyes. “I ought not to have hinted +anything last night without proofs. Austin’s as unhappy as I am.” + +“At what, my dear papa, at what?” cried Cecilia. + +“I ride over to Steynham this morning, and I shall bring you proofs, my +poor child, proofs. That foreign tangle of his...” + +“You speak of Nevil, papa?” + +“It’s a common scandal over London. That Frenchwoman was found at Lord +Romfrey’s house; Lady Romfrey cloaked it. I believe the woman would +swear black’s white to make Nevil Beauchamp appear an angel; and he’s a +desperately cunning hand with women. You doubt that.” + +She had shuddered slightly. + +“You won’t doubt if I bring you proofs. Till I come back from Steynham, +I ask you not to see him alone: not to go out to him.” + +The colonel glanced at her windows. + +Cecilia submitted to the request, out of breath, consenting to feel +like a tutored girl, that she might conceal her guilty knowledge of +what was to be seen through the windows. + +“Now I’m off,” said he, and kissed her. + +“If you would accept Nevil’s word!” she murmured. + +“Not where women are concerned!” + +He left her with this remark, which found no jealous response in her +heart, yet ranged over certain dispersed inflammable grains, like a +match applied to damp powder; again and again running in little leaps +of harmless firm keeping her alive to its existence, and surprising her +that it should not have been extinguished. + +Beauchamp presented himself rather late in the afternoon, when Mr. +Austin and Blackburn Tuckham were sipping tea in Cecilia’s boudoir with +that lady, and a cousin of her sex, by whom she was led to notice a +faint discoloration over one of his eyes, that was, considering whence +it came, repulsive to compassion. A blow at a Radical meeting! He spoke +of Dr. Shrapnel to Tuckham, and assuredly could not complain that the +latter was unsympathetic in regard to the old man’s health, though when +he said, “Poor old man! he fears he will die!” Tuckham rejoined: “He +had better make his peace.” + +“He fears he will die, because of his leaving Miss Denham unprotected,” +said Beauchamp. + +“Well, she’s a good-looking girl: he’ll be able to leave her something, +and he might easily get her married, I should think,” said Tuckham. + +“He’s not satisfied with handing her to any kind of man.” + +“If the choice is to be among Radicals and infidels, I don’t wonder. He +has come to one of the tests.” + +Cecilia heard Beauchamp speaking of a newspaper. A great Radical +Journal, unmatched in sincerity, superior in ability, soon to be equal +in power, to the leader and exemplar of the lucre-Press, would some day +see the light. + +“You’ll want money for that,” said Tuckham. + +“I know,” said Beauchamp. + +“Are you prepared to stand forty or fifty thousand a year?” + +“It need not be half so much.” + +“Counting the libels, I rate the outlay rather low.” + +“Yes, lawyers, judges, and juries of tradesmen, dealing justice to a +Radical print!” + +Tuckham brushed his hand over his mouth and ahemed. “It’s to be a penny +journal?” + +“Yes, a penny. I’d make it a farthing—” + +“Pay to have it read?” + +“Willingly.” + +Tuckham did some mental arithmetic, quaintly, with rapidly blinking +eyelids and open mouth. “You may count it at the cost of two paying +mines,” he said firmly. “That is, if it’s to be a consistently Radical +Journal, at law with everybody all round the year. And by the time it +has won a reputation, it will be undermined by a radicaller Radical +Journal. That’s how we’ve lowered the country to this level. That’s an +Inferno of Circles, down to the ultimate mire. And what on earth are +you contending for?” + +“Freedom of thought, for one thing.” + +“We have quite enough free-thinking.” + +“There’s not enough if there’s not perfect freedom.” + +“Dangerous!” quoth Mr. Austin. + +“But it’s that danger which makes men, sir; and it’s fear of the danger +that makes our modern Englishman.” + +“Oh! Oh!” cried Tuckham in the voice of a Parliamentary Opposition. +“Well, you start your paper, we’ll assume it: what class of men will +you get to write?” + +“I shall get good men for the hire.” + +“You won’t get the best men; you may catch a clever youngster or two, +and an old rogue of talent; you won’t get men of weight. They’re +prejudiced, I dare say. The Journals which are commercial speculations +give us a guarantee that they mean to be respectable; they must, if +they wouldn’t collapse. That’s why the best men consent to write for +them.” + +“Money will do it,” said Beauchamp. + +Mr. Austin disagreed with that observation. + +“Some patriotic spirit, I may hope, sir.” + +Mr. Austin shook his head. “We put different constructions upon +patriotism.” + +“Besides—fiddle! nonsense!” exclaimed Tuckham in the mildest +interjections he could summon for a vent in society to his offended +common sense; “the better your men the worse your mark. You’re not +dealing with an intelligent people.” + +“There’s the old charge against the people.” + +“But they’re not. You can madden, you can’t elevate them by writing and +writing. Defend us from the uneducated English! The common English are +doltish; except in the North, where you won’t do much with them. +Compare them with the Yankees for shrewdness, the Spaniards for +sobriety, the French for ingenuity, the Germans for enlightenment, the +Italians in the Arts; yes, the Russians for good-humour and +obedience—where are they? They’re only worth something when they’re +led. They fight well; there’s good stuff in them.” + +“I’ve heard all that before,” returned Beauchamp, unruffled. “You don’t +know them. I mean to educate them by giving them an interest in their +country. At present they have next to none. Our governing class is +decidedly unintelligent, in my opinion brutish, for it’s indifferent. +My paper shall render your traders justice for what they do, and +justice for what they don’t do.” + +“My traders, as you call them, are the soundest foundation for a +civilized state that the world has yet seen.” + +“What is your paper to be called?” said Cecilia. + +“The DAWN,” Beauchamp answered. + +She blushed fiery red, and turned the leaves of a portfolio of +drawings. + +“The DAWN!” ejaculated Tuckham. “The grey-eyed, or the red? +Extraordinary name for a paper, upon my word!” + +“A paper that doesn’t devote half its columns to the vices of the +rich—to money-getting, spending and betting—will be an extraordinary +paper.” + +“I have it before me now!—two doses of flattery to one of the whip. No, +no; you haven’t hit the disease. We want union, not division. Turn your +mind to being a moralist, instead of a politician.” + +“The distinction shouldn’t exist!” + +“Only it does!” + +Mrs. Grancey Lespel’s entrance diverted their dialogue from a theme +wearisome to Cecilia, for Beauchamp shone but darkly in it, and Mr. +Austin did not join in it. Mrs. Grancey touched Beauchamp’s fingers. +“Still political?” she said. “You have been seen about London with a +French officer in uniform.” + +“It was M. le comte de Croisnel, a very old friend and comrade of +mine,” Beauchamp replied. + +“Why do those Frenchmen everlastingly wear their uniforms?—tell me! +Don’t you think it detestable style?” + +“He came over in a hurry.” + +“Now, don’t be huffed. I know you, for defending your friends, Captain +Beauchamp! Did he not come over with ladies?” + +“With relatives, yes.” + +“Relatives of course. But when British officers travel with ladies, +relatives or other, they prefer the simplicity of mufti, and so do I, +as a question of taste, I must say.” + +“It was quite by misadventure that M. de Croisnel chanced to come in +his uniform.” + +“Ah! I know you, for defending your friends, Captain Beauchamp. He was +in too great a hurry to change his uniform before he started, or en +route?” + +“So it happened.” + +Mrs. Grancey let a lingering eye dwell maliciously on Beauchamp, who +said, to shift the burden of it: “The French are not so jealous of +military uniforms as we are. M. de Croisnel lost his portmanteau.” + +“Ah! lost it! Then of course he is excuseable, except to the naked eye. +Dear me! you have had a bruise on yours. Was Monsieur votre ami in the +Italian campaign?” + +“No, poor fellow, he was not. He is not an Imperialist; he had to +remain in garrison.” + +“He wore a multitude of medals, I have been told. A cup of tea, +Cecilia. And how long did he stay in England with his relatives?” + +“Two days.” + +“Only two days! A very short visit indeed—singularly short. Somebody +informed me of their having been seen at Romfrey Castle, which cannot +have been true.” + +She turned her eyes from Beauchamp silent to Cecilia’s hand on the +teapot. “Half a cup,” she said mildly, to spare the poor hand its +betrayal of nervousness, and relapsed from her air of mistress of the +situation to chatter to Mr. Austin. + +Beauchamp continued silent. He took up a book, and presently a pencil +from his pocket, then talked of the book to Cecilia’s cousin; and +leaving a paper-cutter between the leaves, he looked at Cecilia and +laid the book down. + +She proceeded to conduct Mrs. Grancey Lespel to her room. + +“I do admire Captain Beauchamp’s cleverness; he is as good as a French +romance!” Mrs. Grancey exclaimed on the stairs. “He fibs charmingly. I +could not help drawing him out. Two days! Why, my dear, his French +party were a fortnight in the country. It was the marquise, you +know—the old affair; and one may say he’s a constant man.” + +“I have not heard Captain Beauchamp’s cleverness much praised,” said +Cecilia. “This is your room, Mrs. Grancey.” + +“Stay with me a moment. It is the room I like. Are we to have him at +dinner?” + +Cecilia did not suppose that Captain Beauchamp would remain to dine. +Feeling herself in the clutches of a gossip, she would fain have gone. + +“I am just one bit glad of it, though I can’t dislike him personally,” +said Mrs. Grancey, detaining her and beginning to whisper. “It was +really too bad. There was a French _party_ at the end, but there was +only _one_ at the commencement. The brother was got over for a curtain, +before the husband arrived in pursuit. They say the trick Captain +Beauchamp played his cousin Cecil, to get him out of the house when he +had made a discovery, was monstrous—fiendishly cunning. However, Lady +Romfrey, as that woman appears to be at last, covered it all. You know +she has one of those passions for Captain Beauchamp which completely +blind women to right and wrong. He is her saint, let him sin ever so! +The story’s in everybody’s mouth. By the way, Palmet saw her. He +describes her pale as marble, with dark long eyes, the most innocent +look in the world, and a walk, the absurd fellow says, like a statue +set gliding. No doubt Frenchwomen do walk well. He says her eyes are +terrible traitors; I need not quote Palmet. The sort of eyes that would +look fondly on a stone, you know. What her reputation is in France I +have only indistinctly heard. She has one in England by this time, I +can assure you. She found her match in Captain Beauchamp for boldness. +Where any other couple would have seen danger, _they_ saw safety; and +they contrived to accomplish it, according to those horrid talebearers. +You have plenty of time to dress, my dear; I have an immense deal to +talk about. There are half-a-dozen scandals in London already, and you +ought to know them, or you will be behind the tittle-tattle when you go +to town; and I remember, as a girl, I knew nothing so excruciating as +to hear blanks, dashes, initials, and half words, without the key. +Nothing makes a girl look so silly and unpalatable. Naturally, the +reason why Captain Beauchamp is more talked about than the rest is the +politics. Your grand reformer should be careful. Doubly heterodox will +not do! It makes him interesting to women, if you like, but he won’t +soon hear the last of it, if he is for a public career. Grancey +literally crowed at the story. And the wonderful part of it is, that +Captain Beauchamp refused to be present at the earl’s first ceremonial +dinner in honour of his countess. Now, that, we all think, was +particularly ungrateful: now, was it not?” + +“If the countess—if ingratitude had anything to do with it,” said +Cecilia. + +She escaped to her room and dressed impatiently. + +Her boudoir was empty: Beauchamp had departed. She recollected his look +at her, and turned over the leaves of the book he had been hastily +scanning, and had condescended to approve of. On the two pages where +the paper-cutter was fixed she perceived small pencil dots under +certain words. Read consecutively, with a participle termination struck +out to convey his meaning, they formed the pathetically ungrammatical +line: + +“Hear: none: but: accused: false.” + +Treble dots were under the word “to-morrow.” He had scored the margin +of the sentences containing his dotted words, as if in admiration of +their peculiar wisdom. + +She thought it piteous that he should be reduced to such means of +communication. The next instant Cecilia was shrinking from the adept +intriguer—French-taught! + +In the course of the evening her cousin remarked: + +“Captain Beauchamp must see merit in things undiscoverable by my poor +faculties. I will show you a book he has marked.” + +“Did you see it? I was curious to examine it,” interposed Cecilia; “and +I am as much at a loss as you to understand what could have attracted +him. One sentence...” + +“About the sheikh in the stables, where he accused the pretended +physician? Yes, what was there in that?” + +“Where is the book?” said Mrs. Grancey. + +“Not here, I think.” Cecilia glanced at the drawing-room book-table, +and then at Mr. Austin, the victim of an unhappy love in his youth, and +unhappy about her, as her father had said. Seymour Austin was not one +to spread the contagion of intrigue! She felt herself caught by it, +even melting to feel enamoured of herself in consequence, though not +loving Beauchamp the more. + +“This newspaper, if it’s not merely an airy project, will be +ruination,” said Tuckham. “The fact is, Beauchamp has no _bend_ in him. +He can’t meet a man without trying a wrestle, and as long as he keeps +his stiffness, he believes he has won. I’ve heard an oculist say that +the eye that doesn’t blink ends in blindness, and he who won’t bend +breaks. It’s a pity, for he’s a fine fellow. A Radical daily Journal of +Shrapnel’s colour, to educate the people by giving them an interest in +the country! Goodness, what a delusion! and what a waste of money! +He’ll not be able to carry it on a couple of years. And there goes his +eighty thousand!” + +Cecilia’s heart beat fast. She had no defined cause for its excitement. + +Colonel Halkett returned to Mount Laurels close upon midnight, very +tired, coughing and complaining of the bitter blowing East. His guests +shook hands with him, and went to bed. + +“I think I’ll follow their example,” he said to Cecilia, after drinking +a tumbler of mulled wine. + +“Have you nothing to tell me, dear papa?” said she, caressing him +timidly. + +“A confirmation of the whole story from Lord Romfrey in person—that’s +all. He says Beauchamp’s mad. I begin to believe it. You must use your +judgement. I suppose I must not expect you to consider me. You might +open your heart to Austin. As to my consent, knowing what I do, you +will have to tear it out of me. Here’s a country perfectly contented, +and that fellow at work digging up grievances to persuade the people +they’re oppressed by us. Why should I talk of it? He can’t do much +harm; unless he has money—money! Romfrey says he means to start a +furious paper. He’ll make a bonfire of himself. I can’t stand by and +see you in it too. I may die; I may be spared the sight.” + +Cecilia flung her arms round his neck. “Oh! papa.” + +“I don’t want to make him out worse than he is, my dear. I own to his +gallantry—in the French sense as well as the English, it seems! It’s +natural that Romfrey should excuse his wife. She’s another of the women +who are crazy about Nevil Beauchamp. She spoke to me of the ‘pleasant +visit of her French friends,’ and would have enlarged on it, but +Romfrey stopped her. By the way, he proposes Captain Baskelett for you, +and we’re to look for Baskelett’s coming here, backed by his uncle. +There’s no end to it; there never will be till you’re married: and no +peace for me! I hope I shan’t find myself with a cold to-morrow.” + +The colonel coughed, and perhaps exaggerated the premonitory symptoms +of a cold. + +“Italy, papa, would do you good,” said Cecilia. + +“It might,” said he. + +“If we go immediately, papa; to-morrow, early in the morning, before +there is a chance of any visitors coming to the house.” + +“From Bevisham?” + +“From Steynham. I cannot endure a second persecution.” + +“But you have a world of packing, my dear.” + +“An hour before breakfast will be sufficient for me.” + +“In that case, we might be off early, as you say, and have part of the +Easter week in Rome.” + +“Mr. Austin wishes it greatly, papa, though he has not mentioned it.” + +“Austin, my darling girl, is not one of your impatient men who burst +with everything they have in their heads or their hearts.” + +“Oh! but I know him so well,” said Cecilia, conjuring up that innocent +enthusiasm of hers for Mr. Austin as an antidote to her sharp +suffering. The next minute she looked on her father as the key of an +enigma concerning Seymour Austin, whom, she imagined, possibly she had +not hitherto known at all. Her curiosity to pierce it faded. She and +her maid were packing through the night. At dawn she requested her maid +to lift the window-blind and give her an opinion of the weather. “Grey, +Miss,” the maid reported. It signified to Cecilia: no one roaming +outside. + +The step she was taking was a desperate attempt at a cure; and she +commenced it, though sorely wounded, with pity for Nevil’s +disappointment, and a singularly clear-eyed perception of his aims and +motives.—“I am rich, and he wants riches; he likes me, and he reads my +weakness.”—Jealousy shook her by fits, but she had no right to be +jealous, nor any right to reproach him. Her task was to climb back to +those heavenly heights she sat on before he distracted her and drew her +down. + +Beauchamp came to a vacated house that day. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. +AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN FORESEEN + + +It was in Italy that Cecilia’s maiden dreams of life had opened. She +hoped to recover them in Italy, and the calm security of a mind +untainted. Italy was to be her reviving air. + +While this idea of a specific for her malady endured travelling at +speed to the ridges of the Italian frontier, across France—she simply +remembered Nevil: he was distant; he had no place in the storied +landscape, among the images of Art and the names of patient great men +who bear, as they bestow, an atmosphere other than earth’s for those +adoring them. If at night, in her sleep, he was a memory that conducted +her through scenes which were lightnings, the cool swift morning of her +flight released her. France, too, her rival!—the land of France, +personified by her instinctively, though she had no vivid imaginative +gift, did not wound her with a poisoned dart.—“She knew him first: she +was his first love.” The Alps, and the sense of having Italy below +them, renewed Cecilia’s lofty-perching youth. Then—I am in Italy! she +sighed with rapture. The wine of delight and oblivion was at her lips. + +But thirst is not enjoyment, and a satiated thirst that we insist on +over-satisfying to drown the recollection of past anguish, is baneful +to the soul. In Rome Cecilia’s vision of her track to Rome was of a run +of fire over a heath. She could scarcely feel common pleasure in Rome. +It seemed burnt out. + +Flung back on herself, she was condemned to undergo the bitter torment +she had flown from: jealous love, and reproachful; and a shame in it +like nothing she had yet experienced. Previous pains were but Summer +lightnings, passing shadows. She could have believed in sorcery: the +man had eaten her heart! + +A disposition to mocking humour, foreign to her nature, gave her the +notion of being off her feet, in the claws of a fabulous bird. It +served to veil her dulness. An ultra-English family in Rome, composed, +shocking to relate, of a baronet banker and his wife, two faint-faced +girls, and a young gentleman of our country, once perhaps a +light-limbed boy, chose to be followed by their footman in the +melancholy pomp of state livery. Wherever she encountered them Cecilia +talked Nevil Beauchamp. Even Mr. Tuckham perceived it. She was +extremely uncharitable: she extended her ungenerous criticism to the +institution of the footman: England, and the English, were lashed. + +“These people are caricatures,” Tuckham said, in apology for poor +England burlesqued abroad. “You must not generalize on them. Footmen +are footmen all the world over. The cardinals have a fine set of +footmen.” + +“They are at home. Those English sow contempt of us all over Europe. We +cannot but be despised. One comes abroad foredoomed to share the +sentiment. This is your middle-class! What society can they move in, +that sanctions a vulgarity so perplexing? They have the air of +ornaments on a cottager’s parlour mantelpiece.” + +Tuckham laughed. “Something of that,” he said. + +“Evidently they seek distinction, and they have it, of that kind,” she +continued. “It is not wonderful that we have so much satirical writing +in England, with such objects of satire. It may be as little wonderful +that the satire has no effect. Immense wealth and native obtuseness +combine to disfigure us with this aspect of overripeness, not to say +monstrosity. I fall in love with the poor, and think they have a cause +to be pleaded, when I look at those people. We scoff at the vanity of +the French, but it is a graceful vanity; pardonable compared with +ours.” + +“I’ve read all that a hundred times,” quoth Tuckham bluntly. + +“So have I. I speak of it because I see it. We scoff at the simplicity +of the Germans.” + +“The Germans live in simple fashion, because they’re poor. French +vanity’s pretty and amusing. I don’t know whether it’s deep in them, +for I doubt their depth; but I know it’s in their joints. The first +spring of a Frenchman comes of vanity. That you can’t say of the +English. Peace to all! but I abhor cosmopolitanism. No man has a firm +foothold who pretends to it. None despises the English in reality. +Don’t be misled, Miss Halkett. We’re solid: that is the main point. The +world feels our power, and has confidence in our good faith. I ask for +no more.” + +“With Germans we are supercilious Celts; with Frenchmen we are sneering +Teutons:—Can we be loved, Mr. Tuckham?” + +“That’s a quotation from my friend Lydiard. Loved? No nation ever was +loved while it lived. As Lydiard says, it may be a good beast or a bad, +but a beast it is. A nation’s much too big for refined feelings and +affections. It must be powerful or out of the way, or down it goes. +When a nation’s dead you may love it; but I don’t see the use of dying +to be loved. My aim for my country is to have the land respected. For +that purpose we must have power; for power wealth; for wealth industry; +for industry internal peace: therefore no agitation, no artificial +divisions. All’s plain in history and fact, so long as we do not +obtrude sentimentalism. Nothing mixes well with that stuff—except +poetical ideas!” + +Contrary to her anticipation, Cecilia was thrown more into +companionship with Mr. Tuckham than with Mr. Austin; and though it +often vexed her, she acknowledged that she derived a benefit from his +robust antagonism of opinion. And Italy had grown tasteless to her. She +could hardly simulate sufficient curiosity to serve for a vacant echo +to Mr. Austin’s historic ardour. Pliny the Younger might indeed be the +model of a gentleman of old Rome; there might be a scholarly pleasure +in calculating, as Mr. Austin did, the length of time it took Pliny to +journey from the city to his paternal farm, or villa overlooking the +lake, or villa overlooking the bay, and some abstruse fun in the tender +ridicule of his readings of his poems to friends; for Mr. Austin smiled +effusively in alluding to the illustrious Roman pleader’s foible of +verse: but Pliny bore no resemblance to that island barbarian Nevil +Beauchamp: she could not realize the friend of Trajan, orator, lawyer, +student, statesman, benefactor of his kind, and model of her own modern +English gentleman, though he was. “Yes!” she would reply encouragingly +to Seymour Austin’s fond brooding hum about his hero; and “Yes!” +conclusively: like an incarnation of stupidity dealing in +monosyllables. She was unworthy of the society of a scholar. Nor could +she kneel at the feet of her especial heroes: Dante, Raphael, +Buonarotti: she was unworthy of them. She longed to be at Mount +Laurels. Mr. Tuckham’s conversation was the nearest approach to it—as +it were round by Greenland; but it was homeward. + +She was really grieved to lose him. Business called him to England. + +“What business can it be, papa?” she inquired: and the colonel replied +briefly: “Ours.” + +Mr. Austin now devoted much of his time to the instruction of her in +the ancient life of the Eternal City. He had certain volumes of Livy, +Niebuhr, and Gibbon, from which he read her extracts at night, shunning +the scepticism and the irony of the moderns, so that there should be no +jar on the awakening interest of his fair pupil and patient. A gentle +cross-hauling ensued between them, that they grew conscious of and +laughed over during their peregrinations in and out of Rome: she pulled +for the Republic of the Scipios; his predilections were toward the Rome +of the wise and clement emperors. To Cecilia’s mind Rome rocked at a +period so closely neighbouring her decay: to him, with an imagination +brooding on the fuller knowledge of it, the city breathed securely, the +sky was clear; jurisprudence, rhetoric, statesmanship, then flourished +supreme, and men eminent for culture: the finest flowers of our race, +he thought them: and he thought their Age the manhood of Rome. + +Struck suddenly by a feminine subtle comparison that she could not have +framed in speech, Cecilia bowed to his views of the happiness and +elevation proper to the sway of a sagacious and magnanimous Imperialism +of the Roman pattern:—he rejected the French. She mused on dim old +thoughts of the gracious dignity of a woman’s life under high +governorship. Turbulent young men imperilled it at every step. The +trained, the grave, the partly grey, were fitting lords and mates for +women aspiring to moral beauty and distinction. Beside such they should +be planted, if they would climb! Her walks and conversations with +Seymour Austin charmed her as the haze of a summer evening charms the +sight. + +Upon the conclusion of her term of exile Cecilia would gladly have +remained in Italy another month. An appointment of her father’s with +Mr. Tuckham at Mount Laurels on a particular day she considered as of +no consequence whatever, and she said so, in response to a meaningless +nod. But Mr. Austin was obliged to return to work. She set her face +homeward with his immediately, and he looked pleased: he did not try to +dissuade her from accompanying him by affecting to think it a +sacrifice: clearly he knew that to be near him was her greatest +delight. + +Thus do we round the perilous headland called love by wooing a good man +for his friendship, and requiting him with faithful esteem for the +grief of an ill-fortuned passion of his youth! + +Cecilia would not suffer her fancy to go very far in pursuit of the +secret of Mr. Austin’s present feelings. Until she reached Mount +Laurels she barely examined her own. The sight of the house warned her +instantly that she must have a defence: and then, in desperation but +with perfect distinctness, she entertained the hope of hearing him +speak the protecting words which could not be broken through when +wedded to her consent. + +If Mr. Austin had no intentions, it was at least strange that he did +not part from her in London. + +He whose coming she dreaded had been made aware of the hour of her +return, as his card, with the pencilled line, “Will call on the 17th,” +informed her. The 17th was the morrow. + +After breakfast on the morning of the 17th Seymour Austin looked her in +the eyes longer than it is customary for ladies to have to submit to +keen inspection. + +“Will you come into the library?” he said. + +She went with him into the library. + +Was it to speak of his anxiousness as to the state of her father’s +health that he had led her there, and that he held her hand? He alarmed +her, and he pacified her alarm, yet bade her reflect on the matter, +saying that her father, like other fathers, would be more at peace upon +the establishment of his daughter. Mr. Austin remarked that the colonel +was troubled. + +“Does he wish for my pledge never to marry without his approval? I will +give it,” said Cecilia. + +“He would like you to undertake to marry the man of his choice.” +Cecilia’s features hung on an expression equivalent to:—“I could almost +do that.” + +At the same time she felt it was not Seymour Austin’s manner of +speaking. He seemed to be praising an unknown person—some gentleman who +was rough, but of solid promise and singular strength of character. + +The house-bell rang. Believing that Beauchamp had now come, she showed +a painful ridging of the brows, and Mr. Austin considerately mentioned +the name of the person he had in his mind. + +She readily agreed with him regarding Mr. Tuckham’s excellent +qualities—if that was indeed the name; and she hastened to recollect +how little she had forgotten Mr. Tuckham’s generosity to Beauchamp, and +confessed to herself it might as well have been forgotten utterly for +the thanks he had received. While revolving these ideas she was +listening to Mr. Austin; gradually she was beginning to understand that +she was parting company with her original conjectures, but going at so +swift a pace in so supple and sure a grasp, that, like the speeding +train slipped on new lines of rails by the pointsman, her hurrying +sensibility was not shocked, or the shock was imperceptible, when she +heard him proposing Mr. Tuckham to her for a husband, by her father’s +authority, and with his own warm seconding. He had not dropped her +hand: he was very eloquent, a masterly advocate: he pleaded her +father’s cause; it was not put to her as Mr. Tuckham’s: her father had +set his heart on this union: he was awaiting her decision. + +“Is it so urgent?” she asked. + +“It is urgent. It saves him from an annoyance. He requires a son-in-law +whom he can confidently rely on to manage the estates, which you are +woman of the world enough to know should be in strong hands. He gives +you to a man of settled principles. It is urgent, because he may wish +to be armed with your answer at any instant.” + +Her father entered the library. He embraced her, and “Well?” he said. + +“I must think, papa, I must think.” + +She pressed her hand across her eyes. Disillusioned by Seymour Austin, +she was utterly defenceless before Beauchamp: and possibly Beauchamp +was in the house. She fancied he was, by the impatient brevity of her +father’s voice. + +Seymour Austin and Colonel Halkett left the room, and Blackburn Tuckham +walked in, not the most entirely self-possessed of suitors, puffing +softly under his breath, and blinking eyes as rapidly as a skylark +claps wings on the ascent. + +Half an hour later Beauchamp appeared. He asked to see the colonel, +delivered himself of his pretensions and wishes to the colonel, and was +referred to Cecilia; but Colonel Halkett declined to send for her. +Beauchamp declined to postpone his proposal until the following day. He +went outside the house and walked up and down the grass-plot. + +Cecilia came to him at last. + +“I hear, Nevil, that you are waiting to speak to me.” + +“I’ve been waiting some weeks. Shall I speak here?” + +“Yes, here, quickly.” + +“Before the house? I have come to ask you for your hand.” + +“Mine? I cannot...” + +“Step into the park with me. I ask you to marry me.” + +“It is too late.” + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. +THE REFUSAL OF HIM + + +Passing from one scene of excitement to another, Cecilia was perfectly +steeled for her bitter task; and having done that which separated her a +sphere’s distance from Beauchamp, she was cold, inaccessible to the +face of him who had swayed her on flood and ebb so long, incapable of +tender pity, even for herself. All she could feel was a harsh joy to +have struck off her tyrant’s fetters, with a determination to cherish +it passionately lest she should presently be hating herself: for the +shadow of such a possibility fell within the narrow circle of her +strung sensations. But for the moment her delusion reached to the idea +that she had escaped from him into freedom, when she said, “It is too +late.” Those words were the sum and voice of her long term of +endurance. She said them hurriedly, almost in a whisper, in the manner +of one changeing a theme of conversation for subjects happier and +livelier, though none followed. + +The silence bore back on her a suspicion of a faint reproachfulness in +the words; and perhaps they carried a poetical tone, still more +distasteful. + +“You have been listening to tales of me,” said Beauchamp. + +“Nevil, we can always be friends, the best of friends.” + +“Were you astonished at my asking you for your hand? You said ‘mine?’ +as if you wondered. You have known my feelings for you. Can you deny +that? I have reckoned on yours—too long?—But not falsely? No, hear me +out. The truth is, I cannot lose you. And don’t look so resolute. +Overlook little wounds: I was never indifferent to you. How could I +be—with eyes in my head? The colonel is opposed to me of course: he +will learn to understand me better: but you and I! we cannot be mere +friends. It’s like daylight blotted out—or the eyes gone blind:—Too +late? Can you repeat it? I tried to warn you before you left England: I +should have written a letter to put you on your guard against my +enemies:—I find I have some: but a letter is sure to stumble; I should +have been obliged to tell you that I do not stand on my defence; and I +thought I should see you the next day. You went: and not a word for me! +You gave me no chance. If you have no confidence in me I must bear it. +I may say the story is false. With your hand in mine I would swear it.” + +“Let it be forgotten,” said Cecilia, surprised and shaken to think that +her situation required further explanations; fascinated and unnerved by +simply hearing him. “We are now—we are walking away from the house.” + +“Do you object to a walk with me?” + +They had crossed the garden plot and were at the gate of the park +leading to the Western wood. Beauchamp swung the gate open. He cast a +look at the clouds coming up from the South-west in folds of grey and +silver. + +“Like the day of our drive into Bevisham!—without the storm behind,” he +said, and doated on her soft shut lips, and the mild sun-rays of her +hair in sunless light. “There are flowers that grow only in certain +valleys, and your home is Mount Laurels, whatever your fancy may be for +Italy. You colour the whole region for me. When you were absent, you +were here. I called here six times, and walked and talked with you.” + +Cecilia set her face to the garden. Her heart had entered on a course +of heavy thumping, like a sapper in the mine. + +Pain was not unwelcome to her, but this threatened weakness. + +What plain words could she use? If Mr. Tuckham had been away from the +house, she would have found it easier to speak of her engagement; she +knew not why. Or if the imperative communication could have been +delivered in Italian or French, she was as little able to say why it +should have slipped from her tongue without a critic shudder to arrest +it. She was cold enough to revolve the words: betrothed, affianced, +plighted: and reject them, pretty words as they are. Between the +vulgarity of romantic language, and the baldness of commonplace, it +seemed to her that our English gives us no choice; that we cannot be +dignified in simplicity. And for some reason, feminine and remote, she +now detested her “hand” so much as to be unable to bring herself to the +metonymic mention of it. The lady’s difficulty was peculiar to sweet +natures that have no great warmth of passion; it can only be indicated. +Like others of the kind, it is traceable to the most delicate of +sentiments, and to the flattest:—for Mr. Blackburn’s Tuckham’s figure +was (she thought of it with no personal objection) not of the graceful +order, neither cavalierly nor kingly: and imagining himself to say, “I +am engaged,” and he suddenly appearing on the field, Cecilia’s whole +mind was shocked in so marked a way did he contrast with Beauchamp. + +This was the effect of Beauchamp’s latest words on her. He had disarmed +her anger. + +“We _must_ have a walk to-day,” he said commandingly, but it had stolen +into him that he and she were not walking on the same bank of the +river, though they were side by side: a chill water ran between them. +As in other days, there hung her hand: but not to be taken. Incredible +as it was, the icy sense of his having lost her benumbed him. Her +beautiful face and beautiful tall figure, so familiar to him that they +were like a possession, protested in his favour while they snatched her +from him all the distance of the words “too late.” + +“Will you not give me one half-hour?” + +“I am engaged,” Cecilia plunged and extricated herself, “I am engaged +to walk with Mr. Austin and papa.” + +Beauchamp tossed his head. Something induced him to speak of Mr. +Tuckham. “The colonel has discovered his Tory young man! It’s an object +as incomprehensible to me as a Tory working-man. I suppose I must take +it that they exist. As for Blackburn Tuckham, I have nothing against +him. He’s an honourable fellow enough, and would govern Great Britain +as men of that rich middle-class rule their wives—with a strict regard +for ostensible humanity and what the law allows them. His manners have +improved. Your cousin Mary seems to like him: it struck me when I saw +them together. Cecilia! one half-hour! You refuse me: you have not +heard me. You will not say too late.” + +“Nevil, I have said it finally. I have no longer the right to conceive +it unsaid.” + +“So we speak! It’s the language of indolence, temper, faint hearts. +‘Too late’ has no meaning. Turn back with me to the park. I offer you +my whole heart; I love you. There’s no woman living who could be to me +the wife you would be. I’m like your male nightingale that you told me +of: I must have my mate to sing to—that is, work for and live for; and +she must not delay too long. Did _I?_ Pardon me if you think I did. You +have known I love you. I have been distracted by things that kept me +from thinking of myself and my wishes: and love’s a selfish business +while... while one has work in hand. It’s clear I can’t do two things +at a time—make love and carry on my taskwork. I have been idle for +weeks. I believed you were mine and wanted no lovemaking. There’s no +folly in that, if you understand me at all. As for vanity about women, +I’ve outlived it. In comparison with you I’m poor, I know:—you look +distressed, but one has to allude to it:—I admit that wealth would help +me. To see wealth supporting the cause of the people for once would—but +you say, too late! Well, I don’t renounce you till I see you giving +your hand to a man who’s not myself. You have been offended: +groundlessly, on my honour! You are the woman of all women in the world +to hold me fast in faith and pride in you. It’s useless to look icy: +you feel what I say.” + +“Nevil, I feel grief, and beg you to cease. I am——It is——” + +“‘Too late’ has not a rag of meaning, Cecilia! I love your name. I love +this too: this is mine, and no one can rob me of it.” + +He drew forth a golden locket and showed her a curl of her hair. + +Crimsoning, she said instantly: “Language of the kind I used is open to +misconstruction, I fear. I have not even the right to listen to you. I +am ... You ask me for what I have it no longer in my power to give. I +am engaged.” + +The shot rang through him and partly stunned him; but incredulity made +a mocking effort to sustain him. The greater wounds do not immediately +convince us of our fate, though we may be conscious that we have been +hit. + +“Engaged in earnest?” said he. + +“Yes.” + +“Of your free will?” + +“Yes.” + +Her father stepped out on the terrace, from one of the open windows, +trailing a newspaper like a pocket-handkerchief. Cecilia threaded the +flower-beds to meet him. + +“Here’s an accident to one of our ironclads,” he called to Beauchamp. + +“Lives lost, sir?” + +“No, thank heaven! but, upon my word, it’s a warning. Read the +telegram; it’s the _Hastings_. If these are our defences, at a cost of +half a million of money, each of them, the sooner we look to our land +forces the better.” + +“The Shop will not be considered safe!” said Beauchamp, taking in the +telegram at a glance. “Peppel’s a first-rate officer too: she couldn’t +have had a better captain. Ship seriously damaged!” + +He handed back the paper to the colonel. + +Cecilia expected him to say that he had foreseen such an event. + +He said nothing; and with a singular contraction of the heart she +recollected how he had denounced our system of preparing mainly for the +defensive in war, on a day when they stood together in the park, +watching the slow passage of that very ship, the _Hastings_, along the +broad water, distant below them. The “_swarms of swift vessels of +attack_,” she recollected particularly, and “_small wasps and rams +under mighty steam-power_,” that he used to harp on when declaring that +England must be known for the assailant in war: she was to “ray out” +her worrying fleets. “_The defensive is perilous policy in war:_” he +had said it. She recollected also her childish ridicule of his excess +of emphasis: he certainly had foresight.” + +Mr. Austin and Mr. Tuckham came strolling in conversation round the +house to the terrace. Beauchamp bowed to the former, nodded to the +latter, scrutinizing him after he had done so, as if the flash of a +thought were in his mind. Tuckham’s radiant aspect possibly excited it: +“Congratulate me!” was the honest outcry of his face and frame. He was +as over-flowingly rosy as a victorious candidate at the hustings +commencing a speech. Cecilia laid her hand on an urn, in dread of the +next words from either of the persons present. Her father put an arm in +hers, and leaned on her. She gazed at her chamber window above, wishing +to be wafted thither to her seclusion within. The trembling limbs of +physical irresoluteness was a new experience to her. + +“Anything else in the paper, colonel? I’ve not seen it to-day,” said +Beauchamp, for the sake of speaking. + +“No, I don’t think there’s anything,” Colonel Halkett replied. “Our +diplomatists haven’t been shining much: that’s not our forte.” + +“No: it’s our field for younger sons.” + +“Is it? Ah! There’s an expedition against the hilltribes in India, and +we’re such a peaceful nation, eh? We look as if we were in for a +complication with China.” + +“Well, sir, we must sell our opium.” + +“Of course we must. There’s a man writing about surrendering +Gibraltar!” + +“I’m afraid we can’t do that.” + +“But where do you draw the line?” quoth Tuckham, very susceptible to a +sneer at the colonel, and entirely ignorant of the circumstances +attending Beauchamp’s position before him. “You defend the Chinaman; +and it’s questionable if his case is as good as the Spaniard’s.” + +“The Chinaman has a case against our traders. Gibraltar concerns our +imperial policy.” + +“As to the case against the English merchants, the Chinaman is for +shutting up his millions of acres of productive land, and the action of +commerce is merely a declaration of a universal public right, to which +all States must submit.” + +“Immorality brings its punishment, be sure of that. Some day we shall +have enough of China. As to the Rock, I know the argument; I may be +wrong. I’ve had the habit of regarding it as necessary to our naval +supremacy.” + +“Come! there we agree.” + +“I’m not so certain.” + +“The counter-argument, I call treason.” + +“Well,” said Beauchamp, “there’s a broad policy, and a narrow. There’s +the Spanish view of the matter—if you are for peace and harmony and +disarmament.” + +“I’m not.” + +“Then strengthen your forces.” + +“Not a bit of it!” + +“Then bully the feeble and truckle to the strong; consent to be hated +till you have to stand your ground.” + +“Talk!” + +“It seems to me logical.” + +“That’s the French notion—c’est lodgique!” + +Tuckham’s pronunciation caused Cecilia to level her eyes at him +passingly. + +“By the way,” said Colonel Halkett, “there are lots of horrors in the +paper to-day; wife kickings, and starvations—oh, dear me! and the +murder of a woman: two columns to that.” + +“That, the Tory reaction is responsible for!” said Tuckham, rather by +way of a joke than a challenge. + +Beauchamp accepted it as a challenge. Much to the benevolent amusement +of Mr. Austin and Colonel Halkett, he charged the responsibility of +every crime committed in the country, and every condition of misery, +upon the party which declined to move in advance, and which _therefore_ +apologized for the perpetuation of knavery, villany, brutality, +injustice, and foul dealing. + +“Stick to your laws and systems and institutions, and so long as you +won’t stir to amend them, I hold you accountable for that long +newspaper list daily.” + +He said this with a visible fire of conviction. + +Tuckham stood bursting at the monstrousness of such a statement. + +He condensed his indignant rejoinder to: “Madness can’t go farther!” + +“There’s an idea in it,” said Mr. Austin. + +“It’s an idea foaming at the mouth, then.” + +“Perhaps it has no worse fault than that of not marching parallel with +the truth,” said Mr. Austin, smiling. “The party accusing in those +terms ... what do you say, Captain Beauchamp?—supposing us to be +pleading before a tribunal?” + +Beauchamp admitted as much as that he had made the case gigantic, +though he stuck to his charge against the Tory party. And moreover: the +Tories—and the old Whigs, now Liberals, ranked under the heading of +Tories—those Tories possessing and representing the wealth of the +country, yet had not started one respectable journal that a lady could +read through without offence to her, or a gentleman without disgust! If +there was not one English newspaper in existence independent of +circulation and advertisements, and of the tricks to win them, the +Tories were answerable for the vacancy. They, being the rich who, if +they chose, could set an example to our Press by subscribing to +maintain a Journal superior to the flattering of vile appetites—“all +that nauseous matter,” Beauchamp stretched his fingers at the sheets +Colonel Halkett was holding, and which he had not read—“those Tories,” +he bowed to the colonel, “I’m afraid I must say you, sir, are +answerable for it.” + +“I am very well satisfied with my paper,” said the colonel. + +Beauchamp sighed to himself. “We choose to be satisfied,” he said. His +pure and mighty DAWN was in his thoughts: the unborn light of a day +denied to earth! + +One of the doctors of Bevisham, visiting a sick maid of the house, +trotted up the terrace to make his report to her master of the state of +her health. He hoped to pull her through with the aid of high feeding. +He alluded cursorily to a young girl living on the outskirts of the +town, whom he had been called in to see at the eleventh hour, and had +lost, owing to the lowering of his patient from a prescription of a +vegetable diet by a certain Dr. Shrapnel. + +That ever-explosive name precipitated Beauchamp to the front rank of +the defence. + +“I happen to be staying with Dr. Shrapnel,” he observed. “I don’t eat +meat there because he doesn’t, and I am certain I take no harm by +avoiding it. I think vegetarianism a humaner system, and hope it may be +wise. I should like to set the poor practising it, for their own sakes; +and I have half an opinion that it would be good for the rich—if we are +to condemn gluttony.” + +“Ah? Captain Beauchamp!” the doctor bowed to him. “But my case was one +of poor blood requiring to be strengthened. The girl was allowed to +sink so low that stimulants were ineffective when I stepped in. There’s +the point. It’s all very well while you are in health. You may do +without meat till your system demands the stimulant, or else—as with +this poor girl! And, indeed, Captain Beauchamp, if I may venture the +remark—I had the pleasure of seeing you during the last Election in our +town—and if I may be so bold, I should venture to hint that the +avoidance of animal food—to judge by appearances—has not been quite +wholesome for you.” + +Eyes were turned on Beauchamp. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. +OF THE TRIAL AWAITING THE EARL OF ROMFREY + + +Cecilia softly dropped her father’s arm, and went into the house. The +exceeding pallor of Beauchamp’s face haunted her in her room. She heard +the controversy proceeding below, and an exclamation of Blackburn +Tuckham’s: “Immorality of meat-eating? What nonsense are they up to +now?” + +Beauchamp was inaudible, save in a word or two. As usual, he was the +solitary minority. + +But how mournfully changed he was! She had not noticed it, agitated by +her own emotions as she had been, and at one time three parts frozen. +He was the ghost of the Nevil Beauchamp who had sprung on the deck of +the _Esperanza_ out of Lieutenant Wilmore’s boat, that sunny breezy day +which was the bright first chapter of her new life—of her late life, as +it seemed to her now, for she was dead to it, and another creature, the +coldest of the women of earth. She felt sensibly cold, coveted warmth, +flung a shawl on her shoulders, and sat in a corner of her room, hidden +and shivering beside the open window, till long after the gentlemen had +ceased to speak. + +How much he must have suffered of late! The room she had looked to as a +refuge from Nevil was now her stronghold against the man whom she had +incredibly accepted. She remained there, the victim of a heart malady, +under the term of headache. Feeling entrapped, she considered that she +must have been encircled and betrayed. She looked back on herself as a +giddy figure falling into a pit: and in the pit she lay. + +And how vile to have suspected of unfaithfulness and sordidness the +generous and stedfast man of earth! He never abandoned a common +friendship. His love of his country was love still, whatever the form +it had taken. His childlike reliance on effort and outspeaking, for +which men laughed at him, was beautiful. + +Where am I? she cried amid her melting images of him, all dominated by +his wan features. She was bound fast, imprisoned and a slave. Even Mr. +Austin had conspired against him: for only she read Nevil justly. His +defence of Dr. Shrapnel filled her with an envy that no longer maligned +the object of it, but was humble, and like the desire of the sick to +creep into sunshine. + +The only worthy thing she could think of doing was (it must be +mentioned for a revelation of her fallen state, and, moreover, she was +not lusty of health at the moment) to abjure meat. The body loathed it, +and consequently the mind of the invalided lady shrank away in horror +of the bleeding joints, and the increasingly fierce scramble of +Christian souls for the dismembered animals: she saw the innocent +pasturing beasts, she saw the act of slaughter. She had actually +sweeping before her sight a spectacle of the ludicrous-terrific, in the +shape of an entire community pursuing countless herds of poor +scampering animal life for blood: she, meanwhile, with Nevil and Dr. +Shrapnel, stood apart contemning. For whoso would not partake of flesh +in this kingdom of roast beef must be of the sparse number of Nevil’s +execrated minority in politics. + +The example will show that she touched the borders of delirium. +Physically, the doctor pronounces her bilious. She was in earnest so +far as to send down to the library for medical books, and books upon +diet. These, however, did not plead for the beasts. They treated the +subject without question of man’s taking that which he has conquered. +Poets and philosophers did the same. Again she beheld Nevil Beauchamp +solitary in the adverse rank to the world;—to his countrymen +especially. But that it was no material cause which had wasted his +cheeks and lined his forehead, she was sure: and to starve with him, to +embark with him in his little boat on the seas he whipped to frenzy, +would have been a dream of bliss, had she dared to contemplate herself +in a dream as his companion. + +It was not to be thought of. + +No: but this was, and to be thought of seriously: Cecilia had said to +herself for consolation that Beauchamp was no spiritual guide; he had +her heart within her to plead for him, and the reflection came to her, +like a bubble up from the heart, that most of our spiritual guides +neglect the root to trim the flower: and thence, turning sharply on +herself, she obtained a sudden view of her allurement and her sin in +worshipping herself, and recognized that the aim at an ideal life +closely approaches, or easily inclines, to self-worship; to which the +lady was woman and artist enough to have had no objection, but that +therein visibly she discerned the retributive vain longings, in the +guise of high individual superiority and distinction, that had thwarted +her with Nevil Beauchamp, never permitting her to love single-mindedly +or whole-heartedly, but always in reclaiming her rights and sighing for +the loss of her ideal; adoring her own image, in fact, when she +pretended to cherish, and regret that she could not sufficiently +cherish, the finer elements of nature. What was this ideal she had +complained of losing? It was a broken mirror: she could think of it in +no other form. + +Dr. Shrapnel’s “Ego-Ego” yelped and gave chase to her through the pure +beatitudes of her earlier days down to her present regrets. It hunted +all the saints in the calendar till their haloes top-sided on their +heads—her favourite St. Francis of Assisi excepted. + +The doctor was called up from Bevisham next day, and pronounced her +bilious. He was humorous over Captain Beauchamp, who had gone to the +parents of the dead girl, and gathered the information that they were a +consumptive family, to vindicate Dr. Shrapnel. “The very family to +require strong nourishment,” said the doctor. + +Cecilia did not rest in her sick-room before, hunting through one book +and another, she had found arguments on the contrary side; a waste of +labour that heaped oppression on her chest, as with the world’s weight. +Apparently one had only to be in Beauchamp’s track to experience that. +She horrified her father by asking questions about consumption. +Homoeopathy, hydropathy,—the revolutionaries of medicine attracted her. +Blackburn Tuckham, a model for an elected lover who is not beloved, +promised to procure all sorts of treatises for her: no man could have +been so deferential to a diseased mind. Beyond calling her by her +Christian name, he did nothing to distress her with the broad aspect of +their new relations together. He and Mr. Austin departed from Mount +Laurels, leaving her to sink into an agreeable stupor, like one +deposited on a mudbank after buffeting the waves. She learnt that her +father had seen Captain Baskelett, and remembered, marvelling, how her +personal dread of an interview, that threatened to compromise her ideal +of her feminine and peculiar dignity, had assisted to precipitate her +where she now lay helpless, almost inanimate. + +She was unaware of the passage of time save when her father spoke of a +marriage-day. It told her that she lived and was moving. The fear of +death is not stronger in us, nor the desire to put it off, than +Cecilia’s shunning of such a day. The naming of it numbed her blood +like a snakebite. Yet she openly acknowledged her engagement; and, +happily for Tuckham, his visits, both in London and at Mount Laurels, +were few and short, and he inflicted no foretaste of her coming +subjection to him to alarm her. + +Under her air of calm abstraction she watched him rigorously for some +sign of his ownership that should tempt her to revolt from her pledge, +or at least dream of breaking loose: the dream would have sufficed. He +was never intrusive, never pressing. He did not vex, because he +absolutely trusted to the noble loyalty which made her admit to herself +that she belonged irrevocably to him, while her thoughts were upon +Beauchamp. With a respectful gravity he submitted to her perusal a +collection of treatises on diet, classed _pro_ and _con_, and paged and +pencil-marked to simplify her study of the question. They sketched in +company; she played music to him, he read poetry to her, and read it +well. He seemed to feel the beauty of it sensitively, as she did +critically. In other days the positions had been reversed. He +invariably talked of Beauchamp with kindness, deploring only that he +should be squandering his money on workmen’s halls and other hazy +projects down in Bevisham. + +“Lydiard tells me he has a very sound idea of the value of money, and +has actually made money by cattle breeding; but he has flung ten +thousand pounds on a single building outside the town, and he’ll have +to endow it to support it—a Club to educate Radicals. The fact is, he +wants to jam the business of two or three centuries into a life-time. +These men of their so-called progress are like the majority of +religious minds: they can’t believe without seeing and touching. That +is to say, they don’t believe in the abstract at all, but they go to +work blindly by agitating, and proselytizing, and persecuting to get +together a mass they can believe in. You see it in their way of +arguing; it’s half done with the fist. Lydiard tells me he left him +last in a horrible despondency about progress. Ha! ha! Beauchamp’s no +Radical. He hasn’t forgiven the Countess of Romfrey for marrying above +her rank. He may be a bit of a Republican: but really in this country +Republicans are fighting with the shadow of an old hat and a cockhorse. +I beg to state that I have a reverence for constituted authority: I +speak of what those fellows are contending with.” + +“Right,” said Colonel Halkett. “But ‘the shadow of an old hat and a +cockhorse’: what does that mean?” + +“That’s what our Republicans are hitting at, sir.” + +“Ah! so; yes,” quoth the colonel. “And I say this to Nevil Beauchamp, +that what we’ve grown up well with, powerfully with, it’s base +ingratitude and dangerous folly to throw over.” + +He blamed Beauchamp for ingratitude to the countess, who had, he +affirmed of his own knowledge, married Lord Romfrey to protect +Beauchamp’s interests. + +A curious comment on this allegation was furnished by the announcement +of the earl’s expectations of a son and heir. The earl wrote to Colonel +Halkett from Romfrey Castle inviting him to come and spend some time +there. + +“Now, that’s brave news!” the colonel exclaimed. + +He proposed a cruise round by the Cornish coast to the Severn, and so +to Romfrey Castle, to squeeze the old lord’s hand and congratulate him +with all his heart. Cecilia was glad to acquiesce, for an expedition of +any description was a lull in the storm that hummed about her ears in +the peace of home, where her father would perpetually speak of the day +to be fixed. Sailing the sea on a cruise was like the gazing at +wonderful colours of a Western sky: an oblivion of earthly dates and +obligations. What mattered it that there were gales in August? She +loved the sea, and the stinging salt spray, and circling gull and +plunging gannet, the sun on the waves, and the torn cloud. The +revelling libertine open sea wedded her to Beauchamp in that veiled +cold spiritual manner she could muse on as a circumstance out of her +life. + +Fair companies of racing yachts were left behind. The gales of August +mattered frightfully to poor Blackburn Tuckham, who was to be dropped +at a town in South Wales, and descended greenish to his cabin as soon +as they had crashed on the first wall-waves of the chalk-race, a throw +beyond the peaked cliffs edged with cormorants, and were really tasting +sea. Cecilia reclined on deck, wrapped in shawl and waterproof. As the +Alpine climber claims the upper air, she had the wild sea to herself +through her love of it; quite to herself. It was delicious to look +round and ahead, and the perturbation was just enough to preserve her +from thoughts too deep inward in a scene where the ghost of Nevil was +abroad. + +The hard dry gale increased. Her father, stretched beside her, drew her +attention to a small cutter under double-reefed main-sail and small jib +on the _Esperanza’s_ weather bow—a gallant boat carefully handled. She +watched it with some anxiety, but the _Esperanza_ was bound for a Devon +bay, and bore away from the black Dorsetshire headland, leaving the +little cutter to run into haven if she pleased. The passing her was no +event.—In a representation of the common events befalling us in these +times, upon an appreciation of which this history depends, one turns at +whiles a languishing glance toward the vast potential mood, pluperfect +tense. For Nevil Beauchamp was on board the cutter, steering her, with +Dr. Shrapnel and Lydiard in the well, and if an accident had happened +to cutter or schooner, what else might not have happened? Cecilia +gathered it from Mrs. Wardour-Devereux, whom, to her surprise and +pleasure, she found at Romfrey Castle. Her friend Louise received a +letter from Mr. Lydiard, containing a literary amateur seaman’s log of +a cruise of a fifteen-ton cutter in a gale, and a pure literary sketch +of Beauchamp standing drenched at the helm from five in the morning up +to nine at night, munching a biscuit for nourishment. The beautiful +widow prepared the way for what was very soon to be publicly known +concerning herself by reading out this passage of her correspondent’s +letter in the breakfast room. + +“Yes, the fellow’s a sailor!” said Lord Romfrey. + +The countess rose from her chair and walked out. + +“Now, was that abuse of the fellow?” the old lord asked Colonel +Halkett. “I said he was a sailor, I said nothing else. He is a sailor, +and he’s fit for nothing else, and no ship will he get unless he bends +his neck never ’s nearer it.” + +He hesitated a moment, and went after his wife. + +Cecilia sat with the countess, in the afternoon, at a window +overlooking the swelling woods of Romfrey. She praised the loveliness +of the view. + +“It is fire to me,” said Rosamund. + +Cecilia looked at her, startled. Rosamund said no more. + +She was an excellent hostess, nevertheless, unpretending and simple in +company; and only when it chanced that Beauchamp’s name was mentioned +did she cast that quick supplicating nervous glance at the earl, with a +shadow of an elevation of her shoulders, as if in apprehension of +mordant pain. + +We will make no mystery about it. I would I could. Those happy tales of +mystery are as much my envy as the popular narratives of the deeds of +bread and cheese people, for they both create a tide-way in the +attentive mind; the mysterious pricking our credulous flesh to creep, +the familiar urging our obese imagination to constitutional exercise. +And oh, the refreshment there is in dealing with characters either +contemptibly beneath us or supernaturally above! My way is like a Rhone +island in the summer drought, stony, unattractive and difficult between +the two forceful streams of the unreal and the over-real, which delight +mankind—honour to the conjurors! My people conquer nothing, win none; +they are actual, yet uncommon. It is the clock-work of the brain that +they are directed to set in motion, and—poor troop of actors to vacant +benches!—the conscience residing in thoughtfulness which they would +appeal to; and if you are there impervious to them, we are lost: back I +go to my wilderness, where, as you perceive, I have contracted the +habit of listening to my own voice more than is good:— + +The burden of a child in her bosom had come upon Rosamund with the +visage of the Angel of Death fronting her in her path. She believed +that she would die; but like much that we call belief, there was a +kernel of doubt in it, which was lively when her frame was enlivened, +and she then thought of the giving birth to this unloved child, which +was to disinherit the man she loved, in whose interest solely (so she +could presume to think, because it had been her motive reason) she had +married the earl. She had no wish to be a mother; but that prospect, +and the dread attaching to it at her time of life, she could have +submitted to for Lord Romfrey’s sake. It struck her like a scoffer’s +blow that she, the one woman on earth loving Nevil, should have become +the instrument for dispossessing him. The revulsion of her feelings +enlightened her so far as to suggest, without enabling her to fathom +him, that instead of having cleverly swayed Lord Romfrey, she had been +his dupe, or a blind accomplice; and though she was too humane a woman +to think of punishing him, she had so much to forgive that the trifles +daily and at any instant added to the load, flushed her resentment, +like fresh lights showing new features and gigantic outlines. Nevil’s +loss of Cecilia she had anticipated; she had heard of it when she was +lying in physical and mental apathy at Steynham. Lord Romfrey had +repeated to her the nature of his replies to the searching parental +questions of Colonel Halkett, and having foreseen it all, and what was +more, foretold it, she was not aroused from her torpor. Latterly, with +the return of her natural strength, she had shown herself incapable of +hearing her husband speak of Nevil; nor was the earl tardy in taking +the hint to spare the mother of his child allusions that vexed her. Now +and then they occurred perforce. The presence of Cecilia exasperated +Rosamund’s peculiar sensitiveness. It required Louise +Wardour-Devereux’s apologies and interpretations to account for what +appeared to Cecilia strangely ill-conditioned, if not insane, in Lady +Romfrey’s behaviour. The most astonishing thing to hear was, that Lady +Romfrey had paid Mrs. Devereux a visit at her Surrey house unexpectedly +one Sunday in the London season, for the purpose, as it became evident, +of meeting Mr. Blackburn Tuckham: and how she could have known that Mr. +Tuckham would be there, Mrs. Devereux could not tell, for it was, +Louise assured Cecilia, purely by chance that he and Mr. Lydiard were +present: but the countess obtained an interview with him alone, and Mr. +Tuckham came from it declaring it to have been more terrible than any +he had ever been called upon to endure. The object of the countess was +to persuade him to renounce his bride. + +Louise replied to the natural inquiry—“Upon what plea?” with a +significant evasiveness. She put her arms round Cecilia’s neck: “I +trust you are not unhappy. You will get no release from him.” + +“I am not unhappy,” said Cecilia, musically clear to convince her +friend. + +She was indeed glad to feel the stout chains of her anchor restraining +her when Lady Romfrey talked of Nevil; they were like the safety of +marriage without the dreaded ceremony, and with solitude to let her +weep. Bound thus to a weaker man than Blackburn Tuckham, though he had +been more warmly esteemed, her fancy would have drifted away over the +deeps, perhaps her cherished loyalty would have drowned in her +tears—for Lady Romfrey tasked it very severely: but he from whom she +could hope for no release, gave her some of the firmness which her +nature craved in this trial. + +From saying quietly to her: “I thought once you loved him,” when +alluding to Nevil, Lady Romfrey passed to mournful exclamations, and by +degrees on to direct entreaties. She related the whole story of Renée +in England, and appeared distressed with a desperate wonderment at +Cecilia’s mildness after hearing it. Her hearer would have imagined +that she had no moral sense, if it had not been so perceptible that the +poor lady’s mind was distempered on the one subject of Nevil Beauchamp. +Cecilia’s high conception of duty, wherein she was a peerless flower of +our English civilization, was incommunicable: she could practise, not +explain it. She bowed to Lady Romfrey’s praises of Nevil, suffered her +hands to be wrung, her heart to be touched, all but an avowal of her +love of him to be wrested from her, and not the less did she retain her +cold resolution to marry to please her father and fulfil her pledge. In +truth, it was too late to speak of Renée to her now. It did not beseem +Cecilia to remember that she had ever been a victim of jealousy; and +while confessing to many errors, because she felt them, and gained a +necessary strength from them—in the comfort of the consciousness of +pain, for example, which she sorely needed, that the pain in her own +breast might deaden her to Nevil’s jealousy, the meanest of the errors +of a lofty soul, yielded no extract beyond the bare humiliation proper +to an acknowledgement that it had existed: so she discarded the +recollection of the passion which had wrought the mischief. Since we +cannot have a peerless flower of civilization without artificial aid, +it may be understood how it was that Cecilia could extinguish some +lights in her mind and kindle others, and wherefore what it was not +natural for her to do, she did. She had, briefly, a certain control of +herself. + +Our common readings in the fictitious romances which mark out a plot +and measure their characters to fit into it, had made Rosamund hopeful +of the effect of that story of Renée. A wooden young woman, or a +galvanized (sweet to the writer, either of them, as to the reader—so +moveable they are!) would have seen her business at this point, and +have glided melting to reconciliation and the chamber where romantic +fiction ends joyously. Rosamund had counted on it. + +She looked intently at Cecilia. “He is ruined, wasted, ill, unloved; he +has lost you—I am the cause!” she cried in a convulsion of grief. + +“Dear Lady Romfrey!” Cecilia would have consoled her. “There is nothing +to lead us to suppose that Nevil is unwell, and you are not to blame +for anything: how can you be?” + +“I spoke falsely of Dr. Shrapnel; I am the cause. It lies on me! it +pursues me. Let me give to the poor as I may, and feel for the poor, as +I do, to get nearer to Nevil—I cannot have peace! His heart has turned +from me. He despises me. If I had spoken to Lord Romfrey at Steynham, +as he commanded me, you and he—Oh! cowardice: he is right, cowardice is +the chief evil in the world. He is ill; he is desperately ill; he will +die.” + +“Have you heard he is very ill, Lady Romfrey?” + +“No! no!” Rosamund exclaimed; “it is by not hearing that I _know_ it!” + +With the assistance of Louise Devereux, Cecilia gradually awakened to +what was going on in the house. There had been a correspondence between +Miss Denham and the countess. Letters from Bevisham had suddenly +ceased. Presumably the earl had stopped them: and if so it must have +been for a tragic reason. + +Cecilia hinted some blame of Lord Romfrey to her father. + +He pressed her hand and said: “You don’t know what that man suffers. +Romfrey is fond of Nevil too, but he must guard his wife; and the fact +is Nevil is down with fever. It’s in the papers now; he may be able to +conceal it, and I hope he will. There’ll be a crisis, and then he can +tell her good news—a little illness and all right now! Of course,” the +colonel continued buoyantly, “Nevil will recover; he’s a tough wiry +young fellow, but poor Romfrey’s fears are natural enough about the +countess. Her mind seems to be haunted by the doctor there—Shrapnel, I +mean; and she’s exciteable to a degree that threatens the worst—in case +of any accident in Bevisham.” + +“Is it not a kind of cowardice to conceal it?” Cecilia suggested. + +“It saves her from fretting,” said the colonel. + +“But she is fretting! If Lord Romfrey would confide in her and trust to +her courage, papa, it would be best.” + +Colonel Halkett thought that Lord Romfrey was the judge. + +Cecilia wished to leave a place where this visible torture of a human +soul was proceeding, and to no purpose. She pointed out to her father, +by a variety of signs, that Lady Romfrey either knew or suspected the +state of affairs in Bevisham, and repeated her remarks upon Nevil’s +illness. But Colonel Halkett was restrained from departing by the +earl’s constant request to him to stay. Old friendship demanded it of +him. He began to share his daughter’s feelings at the sight of Lady +Romfrey. She was outwardly patient and submissive; by nature she was a +strong healthy woman; and she attended to all her husband’s +prescriptions for the regulating of her habits, walked with him, lay +down for the afternoon’s rest, appeared amused when he laboured to that +effect, and did her utmost to subdue the worm devouring her heart but +the hours of the delivery of the letter-post were fatal to her. Her +woeful: “No letter for me!” was piteous. When that was heard no longer, +her silence and famished gaze chilled Cecilia. At night Rosamund eyed +her husband expressionlessly, with her head leaning back in her chair, +to the sorrow of the ladies beholding her. Ultimately the contagion of +her settled misery took hold of Cecilia. Colonel Halkett was induced by +his daughter and Mrs. Devereux to endeavour to combat a system that +threatened consequences worse than those it was planned to avert. He by +this time was aware of the serious character of the malady which had +prostrated Nevil. Lord Romfrey had directed his own medical man to go +down to Bevisham, and Dr. Gannet’s report of Nevil was grave. The +colonel made light of it to his daughter, after the fashion he +condemned in Lord Romfrey, to whom however he spoke earnestly of the +necessity for partially taking his wife into his confidence to the +extent of letting her know that a slight fever was running its course +with Nevil. + +“There will be no slight fever in my wife’s blood,” said the earl. “I +stand to weather the cape or run to wreck, and it won’t do to be taking +in reefs on a lee-shore. You don’t see what frets her, colonel. For +years she has been bent on Nevil’s marriage. It’s off: but if you catch +Cecilia by the hand and bring her to us—I swear she loves the +fellow!—that’s the medicine for my wife. Say: will you do it? Tell Lady +Romfrey it shall be done. We shall stand upright again!” + +“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Romfrey,” said the colonel. + +“Play at it, then! Let her think it. You’re helping me treat an +invalid. Colonel! my old friend! You save my house and name if you do +that. It’s a hand round a candle in a burst of wind. There’s Nevil +dragged by a woman into one of their reeking hovels—so that Miss Denham +at Shrapnel’s writes to Lady Romfrey—because the woman’s drunken +husband voted for him at the Election, and was kicked out of +employment, and fell upon the gin-bottle, and the brats of the den died +starving, and the man sickened of a fever; and Nevil goes in and sits +with him! Out of that tangle of folly is my house to be struck down? It +looks as if the fellow with his infernal ‘humanity,’ were the bad +genius of an old nurse’s tale. He’s a good fellow, colonel, he means +well. This fever will cure him, they say it sobers like bloodletting. +He’s a gallant fellow; you know that. He fought to the skeleton in our +last big war. On my soul, I believe he’s good for a husband. +Frenchwoman or not, that affair’s over. He shall have Steynham and +Holdesbury. Can I say more? Now, colonel, you go in to the countess. +Grasp my hand. Give me that help, and God bless you! You light up my +old days. She’s a noble woman: I would not change her against the best +in the land. She has this craze about Nevil. I suppose she’ll never get +over it. But there it is: and we must feed her with the spoon.” + +Colonel Halkett argued stutteringly with the powerful man: “It’s the +truth she ought to hear, Romfrey; indeed it is, if you’ll believe me. +It’s his life she is fearing for. She knows half.” + +“She knows positively nothing, colonel. Miss Denham’s first letter +spoke of the fellow’s having headaches, and staggering. He was out on a +cruise, and saw your schooner pass, and put into some port, and began +falling right and left, and they got him back to Shrapnel’s: and here +it is—that if you go to him you’ll save him, and if you go to my wife +you’ll save her: and there you have it: and I ask my old friend, I beg +him to go to them both.” + +“But you can’t surely expect me to force my daughter’s inclinations, my +dear Romfrey?” + +“Cecilia loves the fellow!” + +“She is engaged to Mr. Tuckham.” + +“I’ll see the man Tuckham.” + +“Really, my dear lord!” + +“Play at it, Halkett, play at it! Tide us over this! Talk to her: hint +it and nod it. We have to round November. I could strangle the world +till that month’s past. You’ll own,” he added mildly after his thunder, +“I’m not much of the despot Nevil calls me. She has not a wish I don’t +supply. I’m at her beck, and everything that’s mine. She’s a brave good +woman. I don’t complain. I run my chance. But if we lose the child—good +night! Boy or girl!—boy!” + +Lord Romfrey flung an arm up. The child of his old age lived for him +already: he gave it all the life he had. This miracle, this young son +springing up on an earth decaying and dark, absorbed him. This reviver +of his ancient line must not be lost. Perish every consideration to +avert it! He was ready to fear, love, or hate terribly, according to +the prospects of his child. + +Colonel Halkett was obliged to enter into a consultation, of a shadowy +sort, with his daughter, whose only advice was that they should leave +the castle. The penetrable gloom there, and the growing apprehension +concerning the countess and Nevil, tore her to pieces. Even if she +could have conspired with the earl to hoodwink his wife, her strong +sense told her it would be fruitless, besides base. Father and daughter +had to make the stand against Lord Romfrey. He saw their departure from +the castle gates, and kissed his hand to Cecilia, courteously, without +a smile. + +“He may well praise the countess, papa,” said Cecilia, while they were +looking back at the castle and the moveless flag that hung in folds by +the mast above it. “She has given me her promise to avoid questioning +him and to accept his view of her duty. She said to me that if Nevil +should die she...” + +Cecilia herself broke down, and gave way to sobs in her father’s arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. +A FABRIC OF BARONIAL DESPOTISM CRUMBLES + + +The earl’s precautions did duty night and day in all the avenues +leading to the castle and his wife’s apartments; and he could believe +that he had undertaken as good a defence as the mountain guarding the +fertile vale from storms: but him the elements pelted heavily. Letters +from acquaintances of Nevil, from old shipmates and from queer +political admirers and opponents, hailed on him; things not to be +frigidly read were related of the fellow. + +Lord Romfrey’s faith in the power of constitution to beat disease +battled sturdily with the daily reports of his physician and friends, +whom he had directed to visit the cottage on the common outside +Bevisham, and with Miss Denham’s intercepted letters to the countess. +Still he had to calculate on the various injuries Nevil had done to his +constitution, which had made of him another sort of man for a struggle +of life and death than when he stood like a riddled flag through the +war. That latest freak of the fellow’s, the abandonment of our natural +and wholesome sustenance in animal food, was to be taken in the +reckoning. Dr. Gannet did not allude to it; the Bevisham doctor did; +and the earl meditated with a fury of wrath on the dismal chance that +such a folly as this of one old vegetable idiot influencing a younger +noodle, might strike his House to the dust. + +His watch over his wife had grown mechanical: he failed to observe that +her voice was missing. She rarely spoke. He lost the art of observing +himself: the wrinkling up and dropping of his brows became his habitual +language. So long as he had not to meet inquiries or face tears, he +enjoyed the sense of security. He never quitted his wife save to walk +to the Southern park lodge, where letters and telegrams were piled +awaiting him; and she was forbidden to take the air on the castle +terrace without his being beside her, lest a whisper, some accident of +the kind that donkeys who nod over their drowsy nose-length-ahead +precautions call fatality, should rouse her to suspect, and in a turn +of the hand undo his labour: for the race was getting terrible: Death +had not yet stepped out of that evil chamber in Dr. Shrapnel’s cottage +to aim his javelin at the bosom containing the prized young life to +come, but, like the smoke of waxing fire, he shadowed forth his +presence in wreaths blacker and thicker day by day: and Everard Romfrey +knew that the hideous beast of darkness had only to spring up and pass +his guard to deal a blow to his House the direr from all he supposed +himself to have gained by masking it hitherto. The young life he looked +to for renewal swallowed him: he partly lost human feeling for his wife +in the tremendous watch and strain to hurry her as a vessel round the +dangerous headland. He was oblivious that his eyebrows talked, that his +head was bent low, that his mouth was shut, and that where a doubt had +been sown, silence and such signs are like revelations in black night +to the spirit of a woman who loves. + +One morning after breakfast Rosamund hung on his arm, eyeing him +neither questioningly nor invitingly, but long. He kissed her forehead. +She clung to him and closed her eyes, showing him a face of slumber, +like a mask of the dead. + +Mrs. Devereux was present. Cecilia had entreated her to stay with Lady +Romfrey. She stole away, for the time had come which any close observer +of the countess must have expected. + +The earl lifted his wife, and carried her to her sitting-room. A +sunless weltering September day whipped the window-panes and brought +the roar of the beaten woods to her ears. He was booted and gaitered +for his customary walk to the park lodge, and as he bent a knee beside +her, she murmured: “Don’t wait; return soon.” + +He placed a cord attached to the bellrope within her reach. This utter +love of Nevil Beauchamp was beyond his comprehension, but there it was, +and he had to submit to it and manœuvre. His letters and telegrams told +the daily tale. “He’s better,” said the earl, preparing himself to +answer what his wife’s look had warned him would come. + +She was an image of peace, in the same posture on the couch where he +had left her, when he returned. She did not open her eyes, but felt +about for his hand, and touching it, she seemed to weigh the fingers. + +At last she said: “The fever should be at its height.” + +“Why, my dear brave girl, what ails you?” said he. + +“Ignorance.” + +She raised her eyelids. His head was bent down over her, like a raven’s +watching, a picture of gravest vigilance. + +Her bosom rose and sank. “What has Miss Denham written to-day?” + +“To-day?” he asked her gently. + +“I shall bear it,” she answered. “You were my master before you were my +husband. I bear anything you think is good for my government. Only, my +ignorance is fever; I share Nevil’s.” + +“Have you been to my desk at all?” + +“No. I read your eyes and your hands: I have been living on them. +To-day I find that I have not gained by it, as I hoped I should. +Ignorance kills me. I really have courage to bear to hear—just at this +moment I have.” + +“There’s no bad news, my love,” said the earl. + +“High fever, is it?” + +“The usual fever. Gannet’s with him. I sent for Gannet to go there, to +satisfy you.” + +“Nevil is not dead?” + +“Lord! ma’am, my dear soul!” + +“He is alive?” + +“Quite: certainly alive; as much alive as I am; only going a little +faster, as fellows do in the jumps of a fever. The best doctor in +England is by his bed. He’s doing fairly. You should have let me know +you were fretting, my Rosamund.” + +“I did not wish to tempt you to lie, my dear lord.” + +“Well, there are times when a woman... as you are: but you’re a brave +woman, a strong heart, and my wife. You want some one to sit with you, +don’t you? Louise Devereux is a pleasant person, but you want a man to +amuse you. I’d have sent to Stukely, but you want a serious man, I +fancy.” + +So much had the earl been thrown out of his plan for protecting his +wife, that he felt helpless, and hinted at the aids and comforts of +religion. He had not rejected the official Church, and regarding it now +as in alliance with great Houses, he considered that its ministers +might also be useful to the troubled women of noble families. He +offered, if she pleased, to call in the rector to sit with her—the +bishop of the diocese, if she liked. + +“But just as you like, my love,” he added. “You know you have to avoid +fretting. I’ve heard my sisters talk of the parson doing them good off +and on about the time of their being brought to bed. He elevated their +minds, they said. I’m sure I’ve no objection. If he can doctor the +minds of women he’s got a profession worth something.” + +Rosamund smothered an outcry. “You mean that Nevil is past hope!” + +“Not if he’s got a fair half of our blood in him. And Richard Beauchamp +gave the fellow good stock. He has about the best blood in England. +That’s not saying much when they’ve taken to breed as they build—stuff +to keep the plasterers at work; devil a thought of posterity!” + +“There I see you and Nevil one, my dear lord,” said Rosamund. “You +think of those that are to follow us. Talk to me of him. Do not say, +‘the fellow.’ Say ‘Nevil.’ No, no; call him ‘the fellow.’ He was alive +and well when you used to say it. But smile kindly, as if he made you +love him down in your heart, in spite of you. We have both known that +love, and that opposition to him; not liking his ideas, yet liking him +so: we were obliged to laugh—I have seen you! as love does laugh! If I +am not crying over his grave, Everard? Oh!” + +The earl smoothed her forehead. All her suspicions were rekindled. +“Truth! truth! give me truth. Let me know what world I am in.” + +“My dear, a ship’s not lost because she’s caught in a squall; nor a man +buffeting the waves for an hour. He’s all right: he keeps up.” + +“He is delirious? I ask you—I have fancied I heard him.” + +Lord Romfrey puffed from his nostrils: but in affecting to blow to the +winds her foolish woman’s wildness of fancy, his mind rested on Nevil, +and he said: “Poor boy! It seems he’s chattering hundreds to the +minute.” + +His wife’s looks alarmed him after he had said it, and he was for +toning it and modifying it, when she gasped to him to help her to her +feet; and standing up, she exclaimed: “O heaven! now I hear _you;_ now +I know he lives. See how much better it is for me to know the real +truth. It takes me to his bedside. Ignorance and suspense have been +poison. I have been washed about like a dead body. Let me read all my +letters now. Nothing will harm me now. You will do your best for me, my +husband, will you not?” She tore at her dress at her throat for +coolness, panting and smiling. “For me—us—yours—ours! Give me my +letters, lunch with me, and start for Bevisham. Now you see how good it +is for me to hear the very truth, you will give me your own report, and +I shall absolutely trust in it, and go down with it if it’s false! But +you see I am perfectly strong for the truth. It must be you or I to go. +I burn to go; but your going will satisfy me. If _you_ look on him, I +look. I feel as if I had been nailed down in a coffin, and have got +fresh air. I pledge you my word, sir, my honour, my dear husband, that +I will think first of my duty. I know it would be Nevil’s wish. He has +not quite forgiven me—he thought me ambitious—ah! stop: he said that +the birth of our child would give him greater happiness than he had +known for years: he begged me to persuade you to call a boy Nevil +Beauchamp, and a girl Renée. He has never believed in his own long +living.” + +Rosamund refreshed her lord’s heart by smiling archly as she said: “The +boy to be _educated_ to take the side of the people, of course! The +girl is to learn a profession.” + +“Ha! bless the fellow!” Lord Romfrey interjected. “Well, I might go +there for an hour. Promise me, no fretting! You have hollows in your +cheeks, and your underlip hangs: I don’t like it. I haven’t seen that +before.” + +“We do not see clearly when we are trying to deceive,” said Rosamund. +“My letters! my letters!” + +Lord Romfrey went to fetch them. They were intact in his desk. His +wife, then, had actually been reading the facts through a wall! For he +was convinced of Mrs. Devereux’s fidelity, as well as of the colonel’s +and Cecilia’s. He was not a man to be disobeyed: nor was his wife the +woman to court or to acquiesce in trifling acts of disobedience to him. +He received the impression, consequently, that this matter of the visit +to Nevil was one in which the poor loving soul might be allowed to +guide him, singular as the intensity of her love of Nevil Beauchamp +was, considering that they were not of kindred blood. + +He endeavoured to tone her mind for the sadder items in Miss Denham’s +letters. + +“Oh!” said Rosamund, “what if I shed the ‘screaming eyedrops,’ as you +call them? They will not hurt me, but relieve. I was sure I should +someday envy that girl! If he dies she will have nursed him and had the +last of him.” + +“He’s not going to die!” said Everard powerfully. + +“We must be prepared. These letters will do that for me. I have written +out the hours of your trains. Stanton will attend on you. I have +directed him to telegraph to the Dolphin in Bevisham for rooms for the +night: that is to-morrow night. To-night you sleep at your hotel in +London, which will be ready to receive you, and is more comfortable +than the empty house. Stanton takes wine, madeira and claret, and other +small necessaries. If Nevil should be _very_ unwell, you will not leave +him immediately. I shall look to the supplies. You will telegraph to me +twice a day, and write once. We lunch at half-past twelve, so that you +may hit the twenty-minutes-to-two o’clock train. And now I go to see +that the packing is done.” + +She carried off her letters to her bedroom, where she fell upon the +bed, shutting her eyelids hard before she could suffer her eyes to be +the intermediaries of that fever-chamber in Bevisham and her bursting +heart. But she had not positively deceived her husband in the +reassurance she had given him by her collectedness and by the precise +directions she had issued for his comforts, indicating a mind so much +more at ease. She was firmer to meet the peril of her beloved: and +being indeed, when thrown on her internal resources, one among the +brave women of earth, though also one who required a lift from +circumstances to take her stand calmly fronting a menace to her heart, +she saw the evidence of her influence with Lord Romfrey: the level she +could feel that they were on together so long as she was courageous, +inspirited her sovereignly. + +He departed at the hour settled for him. Rosamund sat at her boudoir +window, watching the carriage that was conducting him to the railway +station. Neither of them had touched on the necessity of his presenting +himself at the door of Dr. Shrapnel’s house. That, and the disgust +belonging to it, was a secondary consideration with Lord Romfrey, after +he had once resolved on it as the right thing to do: and his wife +admired and respected him for so supreme a loftiness. And fervently she +prayed that it might not be her evil fate to disappoint his hopes. +Never had she experienced so strong a sense of devotedness to him as +when she saw the carriage winding past the middle oak-wood of the park, +under a wet sky brightened from the West, and on out of sight. + + + + +CHAPTER L. +AT THE COTTAGE ON THE COMMON + + +Rain went with Lord Romfrey in a pursuing cloud all the way to +Bevisham, and across the common to the long garden and plain little +green-shuttered, neat white cottage of Dr. Shrapnel. Carriages were +driving from the door; idle men with hands deep in their pockets hung +near it, some women pointing their shoulders under wet shawls, and +boys. The earl was on foot. With no sign of discomposure, he stood at +the half-open door and sent in his card, bearing the request for +permission to visit his nephew. The reply failing to come to him +immediately, he began striding to and fro. That garden gate where he +had flourished the righteous whip was wide. Foot-farers over the sodden +common were attracted to the gateway, and lingered in it, looking at +the long, green-extended windows, apparently listening, before they +broke away to exchange undertone speech here and there. Boys had pushed +up through the garden to the kitchen area. From time to time a woman in +a dripping bonnet whimpered aloud. + +An air of a country churchyard on a Sunday morning when the curate has +commenced the service prevailed. The boys were subdued by the moisture, +as they are when they sit in the church aisle or organ-loft, before +their members have been much cramped. + +The whole scene, and especially the behaviour of the boys, betokened to +Lord Romfrey that an event had come to pass. + +In the chronicle of a sickness the event is death. + +He bethought him of various means of stopping the telegraph and +smothering the tale, if matters should have touched the worst here. He +calculated abstrusely the practicable shortness of the two routes from +Bevisham to Romfrey, by post-horses on the straightest line of road, or +by express train on the triangle of railway, in case of an extreme need +requiring him to hasten back to his wife and renew his +paternal-despotic system with her. She had but persuaded him of the +policy of a liberal openness and confidence for the moment’s occasion: +she could not turn his nature, which ran to strokes of craft and blunt +decision whenever the emergency smote him and he felt himself hailed to +show generalship. + +While thus occupied in thoughtfulness he became aware of the monotony +of a tuneless chant, as if, it struck him, an insane young chorister or +canon were galloping straight on end hippomaniacally through the +Psalms. There was a creak at intervals, leading him to think it a +machine that might have run away with the winder’s arm. + +The earl’s humour proposed the notion to him that this perhaps was one +of the forms of Radical lamentation, ululation, possibly practised by a +veteran impietist like Dr. Shrapnel for the loss of his youngster, his +political cub—poor lad! + +Deriding any such paganry, and aught that could be set howling, Lord +Romfrey was presently moved to ask of the small crowd at the gate what +that sound was. + +“It’s the poor commander, sir,” said a wet-shawled woman, shivering. + +“He’s been at it twenty hours already, sir,” said one of the boys. + +“Twenty-foor hour he’ve been at it,” said another. + +A short dispute grew over the exact number of hours. One boy declared +that thirty hours had been reached. “Father heerd ’n yesterday morning +as he was aff to ’s work in the town afore six: that brings ’t nigh +thirty and he ha’n’t stopped yet.” + +The earl was invited to step inside the gate, a little way up to the +house, and under the commander’s window, that he might obtain a better +hearing. + +He swung round, walked away, walked back, and listened. + +If it was indeed a voice, the voice, he would have said, was travelling +high in air along the sky. + +Yesterday he had described to his wife Nevil’s chattering of hundreds +to the minute. He had not realized the description, which had been only +his manner of painting delirium: there had been no warrant for it. He +heard the wild scudding voice imperfectly: it reminded him of a string +of winter geese changeing waters. Shower gusts, and the wail and hiss +of the rows of fir-trees bordering the garden, came between, and +allowed him a moment’s incredulity as to its being a human voice. Such +a cry will often haunt the moors and wolds from above at nightfall. The +voice hied on, sank, seemed swallowed; it rose, as if above water, in a +hush of wind and trees. The trees bowed their heads rageing, the voice +drowned; once more to rise, chattering thrice rapidly, in a +high-pitched key, thin, shrill, weird, interminable, like winds through +a crazy chamber-door at midnight. + +The voice of a broomstick-witch in the clouds could not be thinner and +stranger: Lord Romfrey had some such thought. + +Dr. Gannet was the bearer of Miss Denham’s excuses to Lord Romfrey for +the delay in begging him to enter the house: in the confusion of the +household his lordship’s card had been laid on the table below, and she +was in the sick-room. + +“Is my nephew a dead man?” said the earl. + +The doctor weighed his reply. “He lives. Whether he will, after the +exhaustion of this prolonged fit of raving, I don’t dare to predict. In +the course of my experience I have never known anything like it. He +lives: there’s the miracle, but he lives.” + +“On brandy?” + +“That would soon have sped him.” + +“Ha. You have everything here that you want?” + +“Everything.” + +“He’s in your hands, Gannet.” + +The earl was conducted to a sitting-room, where Dr. Gannet left him for +a while. + +Mindful that he was under the roof of his enemy, he remained standing, +observing nothing. + +The voice overheard was off at a prodigious rate, like the far sound of +a yell ringing on and on. + +The earl unconsciously sought a refuge from it by turning the leaves of +a book upon the table, which was a complete edition of Harry Denham’s +Poems, with a preface by a man named Lydiard; and really, to read the +preface one would suppose that these poets were the princes of the +earth. Lord Romfrey closed the volume. It was exquisitely bound, and +presented to Miss Denham by the Mr. Lydiard. “The works of your +illustrious father,” was written on the title-page. These writers deal +queerly with their words of praise of one another. There is no law to +restrain them. Perhaps it is the consolation they take for the poor +devil’s life they lead! + +A lady addressing him familiarly, invited him to go upstairs. + +He thanked her. At the foot of the stairs he turned; he had recognized +Cecilia Halkett. + +Seeing her there was more strange to him than being there himself; but +he bowed to facts. + +“What do you think?” he said. + +She did not answer intelligibly. + +He walked up. + +The crazed gabbling tongue had entire possession of the house, and rang +through it at an amazing pitch to sustain for a single minute. + +A reflection to the effect that dogs die more decently than we men, +saddened the earl. But, then, it is true, we shorten their pangs by +shooting them. + +A dismal figure loomed above him at the head of the stairs. + +He distinguished it in the vast lean length he had once whipped and +flung to earth. + +Dr. Shrapnel was planted against the wall outside that raving chamber, +at the salient angle of a common prop or buttress. The edge of a +shoulder and a heel were the supports to him sideways in his distorted +attitude. His wall arm hung dead beside his pendent frock-coat; the +hair of his head had gone to wildness, like a field of barley whipped +by tempest. One hand pressed his eyeballs: his unshaven jaw dropped. + +Lord Romfrey passed him by. + +The dumb consent of all present affirmed the creature lying on the bed +to be Nevil Beauchamp. + +Face, voice, lank arms, chicken neck: what a sepulchral sketch of him! + +It was the revelry of a corpse. + +Shudders of alarm for his wife seized Lord Romfrey at the sight. He +thought the poor thing on the bed must be going, resolving to a cry, +unwinding itself violently in its hurricane of speech, that was not +speech nor exclamation, rather the tongue let loose to run to the +death. It seemed to be out in mid-sea, up wave and down wave. + +A nurse was at the pillow smoothing it. Miss Denham stood at the foot +of the bed. + +“Is that pain?” Lord Romfrey said low to Dr. Gannet. + +“Unconscious,” was the reply. + +Miss Denham glided about the room and disappeared. + +Her business was to remove Dr. Shrapnel, that he might be out of the +way when Lord Romfrey should pass him again: but Dr. Shrapnel heard one +voice only, and moaned, “My Beauchamp!” She could not get him to stir. + +Miss Denham saw him start slightly as the earl stepped forth and, +bowing to him, said: “I thank you, sir, for permitting me to visit my +nephew.” + +Dr. Shrapnel made a motion of the hand, to signify freedom of access to +his house. He would have spoken, the effort fetched a burst of terrible +chuckles. He covered his face. + +Lord Romfrey descended. The silly old wretch had disturbed his +equanimity as a composer of fiction for the comfort and sustainment of +his wife: and no sooner had he the front door in view than the +calculation of the three strides requisite to carry him out of the +house plucked at his legs, much as young people are affected by a +dancing measure; for he had, without deigning to think of matters +disagreeable to him in doing so, performed the duty imposed upon him by +his wife, and now it behoved him to ward off the coming blow from that +double life at Romfrey Castle. + +He was arrested in his hasty passage by Cecilia Halkett. + +She handed him a telegraphic message: Rosamund requested him to stay +two days in Bevisham. She said additionally: “Perfectly well. Shall +fear to see you returning yet. Have sent to Tourdestelle. All his +friends. Ni espoir, ni crainte, mais point de déceptions. Lumière. Ce +sont les ténèbres qui tuent.” + +Her nimble wits had spied him on the road he was choosing, and outrun +him. + +He resigned himself to wait a couple of days at Bevisham. Cecilia +begged him to accept a bed at Mount Laurels. He declined, and asked +her: “How is it you are here?” + +“I called here,” said she, compressing her eyelids in anguish at a +wilder cry of the voice overhead, and forgetting to state why she had +called at the house and what services she had undertaken. A heap of +letters in her handwriting explained the nature of her task. + +Lord Romfrey asked her where the colonel was. + +“He drives me down in the morning and back at night, but they will give +me a bed or a sofa here to-night—I can’t...” Cecilia stretched her hand +out, blinded, to the earl. + +He squeezed her hand. + +“These letters take away my strength: crying is quite useless, I know +that,” said she, glancing at a pile of letters that she had partly +replied to. “Some are from people who can hardly write. There were +people who distrusted him! Some are from people who abused him and +maltreated him. See those poor creatures out in the rain!” + +Lord Romfrey looked through the venetian blinds of the parlour window. + +“It’s as good as a play to them,” he remarked. + +Cecilia lit a candle and applied a stick of black wax to the flame, +saying: “Envelopes have fallen short. These letters will frighten the +receivers. I cannot help it.” + +“I will bring letter paper and envelopes in the afternoon,” said Lord +Romfrey. “Don’t use black wax, my dear.” + +“I can find no other: I do not like to trouble Miss Denham. Letter +paper has to be sealed. These letters must go by the afternoon post: I +do not like to rob the poor anxious people of a little hope while he +lives. Let me have note paper and envelopes quickly: not black-edged.” + +“Plain; that’s right,” said Lord Romfrey. + +Black appeared to him like the torch of death flying over the country. + +“There may be hope,” he added. + +She sighed: “Oh! yes.” + +“Gannet will do everything that man can do to save him.” + +“He will, I am sure.” + +“You don’t keep watch in the room, my dear, do you?” + +“Miss Denham allows me an hour there in the day: it is the only rest +she takes. She gives me her bedroom.” + +“Ha: well: women!” ejaculated the earl, and paused. “That sounded like +him!” + +“At times,” murmured Cecilia. “All yesterday! all through the night! +and to-day!” + +“He’ll be missed.” + +Any sudden light of happier expectation that might have animated him +was extinguished by the flight of chatter following the cry which had +sounded like Beauchamp. + +He went out into the rain, thinking that Beauchamp would be missed. The +fellow had bothered the world, but the world without him would be heavy +matter. + +The hour was mid-day, workmen’s meal-time. A congregation of shipyard +workmen and a multitude of children crowded near the door. In passing +through them, Lord Romfrey was besought for the doctor’s report of +Commander Beauchamp, variously named Beesham, Bosham, Bitcham, Bewsham. +The earl heard his own name pronounced as he particularly disliked to +hear it—Rumfree. Two or three men scowled at him. + +It had not occurred to him ever before in his meditations to separate +his blood and race from the common English; and he was not of a +character to dwell on fantastical and purposeless distinctions, but the +mispronunciation of his name and his nephew’s at an instant when he was +thinking of Nevil’s laying down his life for such men as these gross +excessive breeders, of ill shape and wooden countenance, pushed him to +reflections on the madness of Nevil in endeavouring to lift them up and +brush them up; and a curious tenderness for Nevil’s madness worked in +his breast as he contrasted this much-abused nephew of his with our +general English—the so-called nobles, who were sunk in the mud of the +traders: the traders, who were sinking in the mud of the workmen: the +workmen, who were like harbour-flats at ebb tide round a stuck-fast +fleet of vessels big and little. + +Decidedly a fellow like Nevil would be missed by _him!_ + +These English, huddling more and more in flocks, turning to lumps, +getting to be cut in a pattern and marked by a label—how they bark and +snap to rend an obnoxious original! One may chafe at the botheration +everlastingly raised by the fellow; but if our England is to keep her +place she must have him, and many of him. Have him? He’s gone! + +Lord Romfrey reasoned himself into pathetic sentiment by degrees. + +He purchased the note paper and envelopes in the town for Cecilia. Late +in the afternoon he deposited them on the parlour table at Dr. +Shrapnel’s. Miss Denham received him. She was about to lie down for her +hour of rest on the sofa. Cecilia was upstairs. He inquired if there +was any change in his nephew’s condition. + +“Not any,” said Miss Denham. + +The voice was abroad for proof of that. + +He stood with a swelling heart. + +Jenny flung out a rug to its length beside the sofa, and; holding it by +one end, said: “I must have my rest, to be of service, my lord.” + +He bowed. He was mute and surprised. + +The young lady was like no person of her age and sex that he remembered +ever to have met. + +“I will close the door,” he said, retiring softly. + +“Do not, my lord.” + +The rug was over her, up to her throat, and her eyes were shut. He +looked back through the doorway in going out. She was asleep. + +“Some delirium. Gannet of good hope. All in the usual course”; he +transmitted intelligence to his wife. + +A strong desire for wine at his dinner-table warned him of something +wrong with his iron nerves. + + + + +CHAPTER LI. +IN THE NIGHT + + +The delirious voice haunted him. It came no longer accompanied by +images and likenesses to this and that of animate nature, which were +relieving and distracting; it came to him in its mortal nakedness—an +afflicting incessant ringing peal, bare as death’s ribs in telling of +death. When would it stop? And when it stopped, what would succeed? +What ghastly silence! + +He walked to within view of the lights of Dr. Shrapnel’s at night: then +home to his hotel. + +Miss Denham’s power of commanding sleep, as he could not, though +contrary to custom he tried it on the right side and the left, set him +thinking of her. He owned she was pretty. But that, he contended, was +not the word; and the word was undiscoverable. Not Cecilia Halkett +herself had so high-bred an air, for Cecilia had not her fineness of +feature and full quick eyes, of which the thin eyelids were part of the +expression. And Cecilia sobbed, sniffled, was patched about the face, +reddish, bluish. This girl was pliable only to service, not to grief: +she did her work for three-and-twenty hours, and fell to her sleep of +one hour like a soldier. Lord Romfrey could not recollect anything in a +young woman that had taken him so much as the girl’s tossing out of the +rug and covering herself, lying down and going to sleep under his nose, +absolutely independent of his presence. + +She had not betrayed any woman’s petulance with him for his conduct to +her uncle or guardian. Nor had she hypocritically affected the reverse, +as ductile women do, when they feel wanting in force to do the other. +She was not unlike Nevil’s marquise in face, he thought: less foreign +of course; looking thrice as firm. Both were delicately featured. + +He had a dream. + +It was of an interminable procession of that odd lot called the People. +All of them were quarrelling under a deluge. One party was for +umbrellas, one was against them: and sounding the dispute with a +question or two, Everard held it logical that there should be +protection from the wet: just as logical on the other hand that so +frail a shelter should be discarded, considering the tremendous +downpour. But as he himself was dry, save for two or three drops, he +deemed them all lunatics. He requested them to gag their empty +chatter-boxes, and put the mother upon that child’s cry. + +He was now a simple unit of the procession. Asking naturally whither +they were going, he saw them point. “St. Paul’s,” he heard. In his own +bosom it was, and striking like the cathedral big bell. + +Several ladies addressed him sorrowfully. He stood alone. It had become +notorious that he was to do battle, and no one thought well of his +chances. Devil an enemy to be seen! he muttered. Yet they said the +enemy was close upon him. His right arm was paralyzed. There was the +enemy hard in front, mailed, vizored, gauntleted. He tried to lift his +right hand, and found it grasping an iron ring at the bottom of the +deep Steynham well, sunk one hundred feet through the chalk. But the +unexampled cunning of his left arm was his little secret; and, acting +upon this knowledge, he telegraphed to his first wife at Steynham that +Dr. Gannet was of good hope, and thereupon he re-entered the ranks of +the voluminous procession, already winding spirally round the dome of +St. Paul’s. And there, said he, is the tomb of Beauchamp. Everything +occurred according to his predictions, and he was entirely devoid of +astonishment. Yet he would fain have known the titles of the slain +admiral’s naval battles. He protested he had a right to know, for he +was the hero’s uncle, and loved him. He assured the stupid scowling +people that he loved Nevil Beauchamp, always loved the boy, and was the +staunchest friend the fellow had. And saying that, he certainly felt +himself leaning up against the cathedral rails in the attitude of Dr. +Shrapnel, and crying, “Beauchamp! Beauchamp!” And then he walked firmly +out of Romfrey oakwoods, and, at a mile’s distance from her, related to +his countess Rosamund that the burial was over without much silly +ceremony, and that she needed to know nothing of it whatever. + +Rosamund’s face awoke him. It was the face of a chalk-quarry, +featureless, hollowed, appalling. + +The hour was no later than three in the morning. He quitted the +detestable bed where a dream—one of some half-dozen in the course of +his life—had befallen him. For the maxim of the healthy man is: up, and +have it out in exercise when sleep is for foisting base coin of dreams +upon you! And as the healthy only are fit to live, their maxims should +be law. He dressed and directed his leisurely steps to the common, +under a black sky, and stars of lively brilliancy. The lights of a +carriage gleamed on Dr. Shrapnel’s door. A footman informed Lord +Romfrey that Colonel Halkett was in the house, and soon afterward the +colonel appeared. + +“Is it over? I don’t hear him,” said Lord Romfrey. + +Colonel Halkett grasped his hand. “Not yet,” he said. “Cissy can’t be +got away. It’s killing her. No, he’s alive. You may hear him now.” + +Lord Romfrey bent his ear. + +“It’s weaker,” the colonel resumed. “By the way, Romfrey, step out with +me. My dear friend, the circumstances will excuse me: you know I’m not +a man to take liberties. I’m bound to tell you what your wife writes to +me. She says she has it on her conscience, and can’t rest for it. You +know women. She wants you to speak to the man here—Shrapnel. She wants +Nevil to hear that you and he were friendly before he dies; thinks it +would console the poor dear fellow. That’s only an idea; but it +concerns her, you see. I’m shocked to have to talk to you about it.” + +“My dear colonel, I have no feeling against the man,” Lord Romfrey +replied. “I spoke to him when I saw him yesterday. I bear no grudges. +Where is he? You can send to her to say I have spoken to him twice.” + +“Yes, yes,” the colonel assented. + +He could not imagine that Lady Romfrey required more of her husband. +“Well, I must be off. I leave Blackburn Tuckham here, with a friend of +his; a man who seems to be very sweet with Mrs. Wardour-Devereux.” + +“Ha! Fetch him to me, colonel; I beg you to do that,” said Lord +Romfrey. + +The colonel brought out Lydiard to the earl. + +“You have been at my nephew’s bedside, Mr. Lydiard?” + +“Within ten minutes, my lord.” + +“What is your opinion of the case?” + +“My opinion is, the chances are in his favour.” + +“Lay me under obligation by communicating that to Romfrey Castle at the +first opening of the telegraph office to-morrow morning.” + +Lydiard promised. + +“The raving has ended?” + +“Hardly, sir, but the exhaustion is less than we feared it would be.” + +“Gannet is there?” + +“He is in an arm-chair in the room.” + +“And Dr. Shrapnel?” + +“He does not bear speaking to; he is quiet.” + +“He is attached to my nephew?” + +“As much as to life itself.” + +Lord Romfrey thanked Lydiard courteously. “Let us hope, sir, that some +day I shall have the pleasure of entertaining you, as well as another +friend of yours.” + +“You are very kind, my lord.” + +The earl stood at the door to see Colonel Halkett drive off: he +declined to accompany him to Mount Laurels. + +In the place of the carriage stood a man, who growled “Where’s your +horsewhip, butcher?” + +He dogged the earl some steps across the common. Everard returned to +his hotel and slept soundly during the remainder of the dark hours. + + + + +CHAPTER LII. +QUESTION OF A PILGRIMAGE AND AN ACT OF PENANCE + + +Then came a glorious morning for sportsmen. One sniffed the dews, and +could fancy fresh smells of stubble earth and dank woodland grass in +the very streets of dirty Bevisham. Sound sleep, like hearty dining, +endows men with a sense of rectitude, and sunlight following the +former, as a pleasant spell of conversational ease or sweet music the +latter, smiles a celestial approval of the performance: Lord Romfrey +dismissed his anxieties. His lady slightly ruffled him at breakfast in +a letter saying that she wished to join him. He was annoyed at noon by +a message, wherein the wish was put as a request. And later arrived +another message, bearing the character of an urgent petition. True, it +might be laid to the account of telegraphic brevity. + +He saw Dr. Shrapnel, and spoke to him, as before, to thank him for the +permission to visit his nephew. Nevil he contemplated for the space of +five minutes. He cordially saluted Miss Denham. He kissed Cecilia’s +hand. + +“All here is going on so well that I am with you for a day or two +to-morrow,” he despatched the message to his wife. + +Her case was now the gravest. He could not understand why she desired +to be in Bevisham. She must have had execrable dreams!—rank poison to +mothers. + +However, her constitutional strength was great, and his pride in the +restoration of his House by her agency flourished anew, what with fair +weather and a favourable report from Dr. Gannet: The weather was most +propitious to the hopes of any soul bent on dispersing the shadows of +death, and to sportsmen. From the windows of his railway carriage he +beheld the happy sportsmen stalking afield. The birds whirred and +dropped just where he counted on their dropping. The smoke of the guns +threaded to dazzling silver in the sunshine. Say what poor old Nevil +will, or _did_ say, previous to the sobering of his blood, where is +there a land like England? Everard rejoiced in his country temperately. +Having Nevil as well,—of which fact the report he was framing in his +mind to deliver to his wife assured him—he was rich. And you that put +yourselves forward for republicans and democrats, do you deny the +aristocracy of an oaklike man who is young upon the verge of eighty? + +These were poetic flights, but he knew them not by name, and had not to +be ashamed of them. + +Rosamund met him in the hall of the castle. “You have not deceived me, +my dear lord,” she said, embracing him. “You have done what you could +for me. The rest is for me to do.” + +He reciprocated her embrace warmly, in commendation of her fresher good +looks. + +She asked him, “You have spoken to Dr. Shrapnel?” + +He answered her, “Twice.” + +The word seemed quaint. She recollected that he was quaint. + +He repeated, “I spoke to him the first day I saw him, and the second.” + +“We are so much indebted to him,” said Rosamund. “His love of Nevil +surpasses ours. Poor man! poor man! At least we may now hope the blow +will be spared him which would have carried off his life with Nevil’s. +I have later news of Nevil than you.” + +“Good, of course?” + +“Ah me! the pleasure of the absence of pain. He is not gone.” + +Lord Romfrey liked her calm resignation. + +“There’s a Mr. Lydiard,” he said, “a friend of Nevil’s, and a friend of +Louise Devereux’s.” + +“Yes; we hear from him every four hours,” Rosamund rejoined. “Mention +him to her before me.” + +“That’s exactly what I was going to tell you to do before me,” said her +husband, smiling. + +“Because, Everard, is it not so?—widows... and she loves this +gentleman!” + +“Certainly, my dear; I think with you about widows. The world asks them +to practise its own hypocrisy. Louise Devereux was married to a pipe; +she’s the widow of tobacco ash. We’ll make daylight round her.” + +“How good, how kind you are, my lord! I did not think so shrewd! But +benevolence is almost all-seeing: You said you spoke to Dr. Shrapnel +twice. Was he... polite?” + +“Thoroughly upset, you know.” + +“What did he say?” + +“What was it? ‘Beauchamp! Beauchamp!’ the first time; and the second +time he said he thought it had left off raining.” + +“Ah!” Rosamund drooped her head. + +She looked up. “Here is Louise. My lord has had a long conversation +with Mr. Lydiard.” + +“I trust he will come here before you leave us,” added the earl. + +Rosamund took her hand. “My lord has been more acute than I, or else +your friend is less guarded than you.” + +“What have you seen?” said the blushing lady. + +“Stay. I have an idea you are one of the women I promised to Cecil +Baskelett,” said the earl. “Now may I tell him there’s _no_ chance?” + +“Oh! do.” + +They spent so very pleasant an evening that the earl settled down into +a comfortable expectation of the renewal of his old habits in the +September and October season. Nevil’s frightful cry played on his +ear-drum at whiles, but not too affectingly. He conducted Rosamund to +her room, kissed her, hoped she would sleep well, and retired to his +good hard bachelor’s bed, where he confidently supposed he would sleep. +The sleep of a dyspeptic, with a wilder than the monstrous Bevisham +dream, befell him, causing him to rise at three in the morning and +proceed to his lady’s chamber, to assure himself that at least she +slept well. She was awake. + +“I thought you might come,” she said. + +He reproached her gently for indulging foolish nervous fears. + +She replied, “No, I do not; I am easier about Nevil. I begin to think +he will live. I have something at my heart that prevents me from +sleeping. It concerns me. Whether he is to live or die, I should like +him to know he has not striven in vain—not in everything: not where my +conscience tells me he was right, and we, I, wrong—utterly wrong, +wickedly wrong.” + +“My dear girl, you are exciting yourself.” + +“No; feel my pulse. The dead of night brings out Nevil to me like the +Writing on the Wall. It shall not be said he failed in everything. +Shame to us if it could be said! He tried to make me see what my duty +was, and my honour.” + +“He was at every man Jack of us.” + +“I speak of one thing. I thought I might not have to go. Now I feel I +must. I remember him at Steynham, when Colonel Halkett and Cecilia were +there. But for me, Cecilia would now be his wife. Of that there is no +doubt; that is not the point; regrets are fruitless. I see how the +struggle it cost him to break with his old love—that endearing Madame +de Rouaillout, his Renée—broke his heart; and then his loss of Cecilia +Halkett. But I do believe, true as that I am lying here, and you hold +my hand, my dear husband, those losses were not so fatal to him as his +sufferings he went through on account of his friend Dr. Shrapnel. I +will not keep you here. + +Go and have some rest. What I shall beg of you tomorrow will not injure +my health in the slightest: the reverse: it will raise me from a bitter +depression. It shall not be said that those who loved him were unmoved +by him. Before he comes back to life, or is carried to his grave, he +shall know that I was not false to my love of him.” + +“My dear, your pulse is at ninety,” said the earl. + +“Look lenient, be kind, be just, my husband. Oh! let us cleanse our +hearts. This great wrong was my doing. I am not only quite strong +enough to travel to Bevisham, I shall be happy in going: and when I +have done it—said: ‘The wrong was all mine,’ I shall rejoice like the +pure in spirit. Forgiveness does not matter, though I now believe that +poor loving old man who waits outside his door weeping, is wrong-headed +only in his political views. We women can read men by their power to +love. Where love exists there is goodness. But it is not for the sake +of the poor old man himself that I would go: it is for Nevil’s; it is +for ours, chiefly for me, for my child’s, if ever...!” Rosamund turned +her head on her pillow. + +The earl patted her cheek. “We’ll talk it over in the morning,” he +said. “Now go to sleep.” + +He could not say more, for he did not dare to attempt cajolery with +her. Shading his lamp he stepped softly away to wrestle with a worse +nightmare than sleep’s. Her meaning was clear: and she was a woman to +insist on doing it. She was nevertheless a woman not impervious to +reason, if only he could shape her understanding to perceive that the +state of her nerves, incident to her delicate situation and the shock +of that fellow Nevil’s illness—poor lad!—was acting on her mind, +rendering her a victim of exaggerated ideas of duty, and so forth. + +Naturally, apart from allowing her to undertake the journey by rail, he +could not sanction his lady’s humbling of herself so egregiously and +unnecessarily. Shrapnel had behaved unbecomingly, and had been punished +for it. He had spoken to Shrapnel, and the affair was virtually at an +end. With his assistance she would see that, when less excited. Her +eternal brooding over Nevil was the cause of these mental vagaries. + +Lord Romfrey was for postponing the appointed discussion in the morning +after breakfast. He pleaded business engagements. + +“None so urgent as this of mine,” said Rosamund. + +“But we have excellent news of Nevil: you have Gannet’s word for it,” +he argued. “There’s really nothing to distress you.” + +“My heart: I must be worthy of good news, to know happiness,” she +answered. “I will say, let me go to Bevisham two, three, four days +hence, if you like, but there is peace for me, and nowhere else.” + +“My precious Rosamund! have you set your two eyes on it? What you are +asking, is for permission to make an _apology_ to Shrapnel!” + +“That is the word.” + +“That’s Nevil’s word.” + +“It is a prescription to me.” + +“An apology?” + +The earl’s gorge rose. Why, such an act was comparable to the circular +mission of the dog! + +“If I do not make the apology, the mother of your child is a coward,” +said Rosamund. + +“She’s not.” + +“I trust not.” + +“You are a reasonable woman, my dear. Now listen: the man insulted you. +It’s past: done with. He insulted you...” + +“He did not.” + +“What?” + +“He was courteous to me, hospitable to me, kind to me. He did not +insult me. I belied him.” + +“My dear saint, you’re dreaming. He spoke insultingly of you to Cecil.” + +“Is my lord that man’s dupe? I would stand against him before the +throne of God, with what little I know of his interview with Dr. +Shrapnel, to confront him and expose his lie. Do not speak of him. He +stirs my evil passions, and makes me feel myself the creature I was +when I returned to Steynham from my first visit to Bevisham, enraged +with jealousy of Dr. Shrapnel’s influence over Nevil, spiteful, +malicious: Oh! such a nest of vileness as I pray to heaven I am not +now, if it is granted me to give life to another. Nevil’s misfortunes +date from that,” she continued, in reply to the earl’s efforts to +soothe her. “Not the loss of the Election: that was no misfortune, but +a lesson. He would not have shone in Parliament: he runs too much from +first principles to extremes. You see I am perfectly reasonable, +Everard: I can form an exact estimate of character and things.” She +smiled in his face. “And I know my husband too: what he will grant; +what he would not, and justly would not. I know to a certainty that +vexatious as I must be to you now, you are conscious of my having +reason for being so.” + +“You carry it so far—fifty miles beyond the mark,” said he. “The man +roughed you, and I taught him manners.” + +“No!” she half screamed her interposition. “I repeat, he was in no way +discourteous or disobliging to me. He offered me a seat at his table, +and, heaven forgive me! I believe a bed in his house, that I might wait +and be sure of seeing Nevil, because I was very anxious to see him.” + +“All the same, you can’t go to the man.” + +“I should have said so too, before my destiny touched me.” + +“A certain dignity of position, my dear, demands a corresponding +dignity of conduct: you can’t go.” + +“If I am walking in the very eye of heaven, and feeling it shining on +me where I go, there is no question for me of human dignity.” + +Such flighty talk offended Lord Romfrey. + +“It comes to this: you’re in want of a parson.” + +Rosamund was too careful to hint that she would have expected succour +and seconding from one or other of the better order of clergymen. + +She shook her head. “To this, my dear lord: I have a troubled mind; and +it is not to listen nor to talk, that I am in need of, but to act.” + +“Yes, my dear girl, but not to act insanely. I do love soundness of +head. You have it, only just now you’re a little astray. We’ll leave +this matter for another time.” + +Rosamund held him by the arm. “Not too long!” + +Both of them applied privately to Mrs. Wardour-Devereux for her opinion +and counsel on the subject of the proposal to apologize to Dr. +Shrapnel. She was against it with the earl, and became Rosamund’s echo +when with her. When alone, she was divided into two almost equal +halves: deeming that the countess should not insist, and the earl +should not refuse: him she condemned for lack of sufficient spiritual +insight to perceive the merits of his wife’s request: her she accused +of some vestige of something underbred in her nature, for putting such +fervid stress upon the supplication: i.e. making too much of it—a trick +of the vulgar: and not known to the languid. + +She wrote to Lydiard for advice. + +He condensed a paragraph into a line: + +“It should be the earl. She is driving him to it, intentionally or +not.” + +Mrs. Devereux doubted that the countess could have so false an idea of +her husband’s character as to think it possible he would ever be bent +to humble himself to the man he had castigated. She was right. It was +by honestly presenting to his mind something more loathsome still, the +humbling of herself, that Rosamund succeeded in awakening some remote +thoughts of a compromise, in case of necessity. Better I than she! + +But the necessity was inconceivable. + +He had really done everything required of him, if anything was really +required, by speaking to Shrapnel civilly. He had spoken to Shrapnel +twice. + +Besides, the castle was being gladdened by happier tidings of +Beauchamp. Gannet now pledged his word to the poor fellow’s recovery, +and the earl’s particular friends arrived, and the countess entertained +them. October passed smoothly. + +She said once: “Ancestresses of yours, my lord, have undertaken +pilgrimages as acts of penance for sin, to obtain heaven’s intercession +in their extremity.” + +“I dare say they did,” he replied. “The monks got round them.” + +“It is not to be laughed at, if it eased their hearts.” + +Timidly she renewed her request for permission to perform the +pilgrimage to Bevisham. + +“Wait,” said he, “till Nevil is on his legs.” + +“Have you considered where I may then be, Everard?” + +“My love, you sleep well, don’t you?” + +“You see me every night.” + +“I see you sound asleep.” + +“I see you watching me.” + +“Let’s reason,” said the earl; and again they went through the argument +upon the apology to Dr. Shrapnel. + +He was willing to indulge her in any amount of it: and she perceived +why. Fox! she thought. Grand fox, but fox downright. For her time was +shortening to days that would leave her no free-will. + +On the other hand, the exercise of her free-will in a fast resolve, was +growing all the more a privilege that he was bound to respect. As she +became sacreder and doubly precious to him, the less would he venture +to thwart her, though he should think her mad. There would be an +analogy between his manner of regarding her and the way that +superstitious villagers look on their crazy innocents, she thought +sadly. And she bled for him too: she grieved to hurt his pride. But she +had come to imagine that there was no avoidance of this deed of +personal humiliation. + +Nevil had scrawled a note to her. She had it in her hand one forenoon +in mid November, when she said to her husband: “I have ordered the +carriage for two o’clock to meet the quarter to three train to London, +and I have sent Stanton on to get the house ready for us tonight.” + +Lord Romfrey levelled a marksman’s eye at her. + +“Why London? You know my wish that it should be here at the castle.” + +“I have decided to go to Bevisham. I have little time left.” + +“None, to my thinking.” + +“Oh I yes; my heart will be light. I shall gain. You come with me to +London?” + +“You can’t go.” + +“Don’t attempt to reason with me, please, please!” + +“I command, madam.” + +“My lord, it is past the hour of commanding.” + +He nodded his head, with the eyes up amid the puckered brows, and +blowing one of his long nasal expirations, cried, “Here we are, in for +another bout of argument.” + +“No; I can bear the journey, rejoice in confessing my fault, but more +argument I cannot bear. I will reason with you when I can: submit to me +in this.” + +“Feminine reasoning!” he interjected. + +“I have nothing better to offer. It will be prudent to attend to me. +Take my conduct for the portion I bring you. Before I put myself in +God’s care I must be clean. I am unclean. Language like that offends +you. I have no better. My reasoning has not touched you; I am helpless, +except in this determination that my contrition shall be expressed to +Dr. Shrapnel. If I am to have life, to be worthy of living and being a +mother, it must be done. Now, my dear lord, see that, and submit. +You’re but one voice: I am two.” + +He jumped off his chair, frowning up his forehead, and staring awfully +at the insulting prospect. “An apology to the man? By you? Away with +it.” + +“Make allowances for me if you can, my dear lord that is what I am +going to do.” + +“My wife going there?” He strode along furiously. “No!” + +“You will not stop her.” + +“There’s a palsy in my arm if I don’t.” + +She plucked at her watch. + +“Why, ma’am, I don’t know you,” he said, coming close to her. “Let “s +reason. Perhaps you overshot it; you were disgusted with Shrapnel. +Perhaps I was hasty; I get fired by an insult to a woman. There was a +rascal kissed a girl once against her will, and I heard her cry out; I +laid him on his back for six months; just to tell you; I’d do the same +to lord or beggar. Very well, my dear heart, we’ll own I might have +looked into the case when that dog Cecil... what’s the matter?” + +“Speak on, my dear husband,” said Rosamund, panting. + +“But your making the journey to Bevisham is a foolish notion.” + +“Yes? well?” + +“Well, we’ll wait.” + +“Oh! have we to travel over it all again?” she exclaimed in despair at +the dashing out of a light she had fancied. “You see the wrong. You +know the fever it is in my blood, and you bid me wait.” + +“Drop a line to Nevil.” + +“To trick my conscience! I might have done that, and done well, once. +Do you think I dislike the task I propose to myself? It is for your +sake that I would shun it. As for me, the thought of going there is an +ecstasy. I shall be with Nevil, and be able to look in his face. And +how can I be actually abasing you when I am so certain that I am +worthier of you in what I do?” + +Her exaltation swept her on. “Hurry there, my lord, if you will. If you +think it prudent that you should go in my place, go: you deprive me of +a great joy, but I will not put myself in your way, and I consent. The +chief sin was mine; remember that. I rank it viler than Cecil +Baskelett’s. And listen: when—can you reckon?—when will he confess his +wickedness? We separate ourselves from a wretch like that.” + +“Pooh,” quoth the earl. + +“But you will go?” She fastened her arms round the arm nearest: “You or +I! Does it matter which? We are one. You speak for me; I should have +been forced to speak for you. You spare me the journey. I do not in +truth suppose it would have injured me; but I would not run one +unnecessary risk.” + +Lord Romfrey sighed profoundly. He could not shake her off. How could +he refuse her? + +How on earth had it come about that suddenly he was expected to be the +person to go? + +She would not let him elude her; and her stained cheeks and her +trembling on his arm pleaded most pressingly and masteringly. It might +be that she spoke with a knowledge of her case. Positive it undoubtedly +was that she meant to go if he did not. Perhaps the hopes of his House +hung on it. Having admitted that a wrong had been done, he was not the +man to leave it unamended; only he would have chosen his time, and the +manner. Since Nevil’s illness, too, he had once or twice been clouded +with a little bit of regret at the recollection of poor innocent old +Shrapnel posted like a figure of total inebriation beside the doorway +of the dreadful sickroom. + +There had been women of the earl’s illustrious House who would have +given their hands to the axe rather than conceal a stain and have to +dread a scandal. His Rosamund, after all, was of their pattern; even +though she blew that conscience she prattled of into trifles, and +swelled them, as women of high birth in this country, out of the +clutches of the priests, do not do. + +She clung to him for his promise to go. + +He said: “Well, well.” + +“That means, you will,” said she. + +His not denying it passed for the affirmative. + +Then indeed she bloomed with love of him. + +“Yet do say yes,” she begged. + +“I’ll go, ma’am,” shouted the earl. “I’ll go, my love,” he said softly. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. +THE APOLOGY TO DR. SHRAPNEL + + +“You and Nevil are so alike,” Lady Romfrey said to her lord, at some +secret resemblance she detected and dwelt on fondly, when the earl was +on the point of starting a second time for Bevisham to perform what she +had prompted him to conceive his honourable duty, without a single +intimation that he loathed the task, neither shrug nor grimace. + +“Two ends of a stick are pretty much alike: they’re all that length +apart,” said he, very little in the humour for compliments, however +well braced for his work. + +His wife’s admiring love was pleasant enough. He preferred to have it +unspoken. Few of us care to be eulogized in the act of taking a +nauseous medical mixture. + +For him the thing was as good as done, on his deciding to think it both +adviseable and right: so he shouldered his load and marched off with +it. He could have postponed the right proceeding, even after the +partial recognition of his error:—one drops a word or two by hazard, +one expresses an anxiety to afford reparation, one sends a message, and +so forth, for the satisfaction of one’s conventionally gentlemanly +feeling: but the adviseable proceeding under stress of peculiar +circumstances, his clearly-awakened recognition of that, impelled him +unhesitatingly. His wife had said it was the portion she brought him. +Tears would not have persuaded him so powerfully, that he might prove +to her he was glad of her whatever the portion she brought. She was a +good wife, a brave woman, likely to be an incomparable mother. At +present her very virtues excited her to fancifulness nevertheless she +was in his charge, and he was bound to break the neck of his will, to +give her perfect peace of wind. The child suffers from the mother’s +mental agitation. It might be a question of a nervous or an idiot +future Earl of Romfrey. Better death to the House than such a mockery +of his line! These reflections reminded him of the heartiness of his +whipping of that poor old tumbled signpost Shrapnel, in the name of +outraged womankind. If there was no outrage? + +Assuredly if there was no outrage, consideration for the state of his +wife would urge him to speak the apology in the most natural manner +possible. She vowed there was none. + +He never thought of blaming her for formerly deceiving him, nor of +blaming her for now expediting him. + +In the presence of Colonel Halkett, Mr. Tuckham, and Mr. Lydiard, on a +fine November afternoon, standing bareheaded in the fir-bordered garden +of the cottage on the common, Lord Romfrey delivered his apology to Dr. +Shrapnel, and he said: + +“I call you to witness, gentlemen, I offer Dr. Shrapnel the fullest +reparation he may think fit to demand of me for an unprovoked assault +on him, that I find was quite unjustified, and for which I am here to +ask his forgiveness.” + +Speech of man could not have been more nobly uttered. + +Dr. Shrapnel replied: + +“To the half of that, sir—“tis over! What remains is done with the +hand.” + +He stretched his hand out. + +Lord Romfrey closed his own on it. + +The antagonists, between whom was no pretence of their being other +after the performance of a creditable ceremony, bowed and exchanged +civil remarks: and then Lord Romfrey was invited to go into the house +and see Beauchamp, who happened to be sitting with Cecilia Halkett and +Jenny Denham. Beauchamp was thin, pale, and quiet; but the sight of him +standing and conversing after that scene of the skinny creature +struggling with bareribbed obstruction on the bed, was an example of +constitutional vigour and a compliment to the family very gratifying to +Lord Romfrey. Excepting by Cecilia, the earl was coldly received. He +had to leave early by special express for London to catch the last +train to Romfrey. Beauchamp declined to fix a day for his visit to the +castle with Lydiard, but proposed that Lydiard should accompany the +earl on his return. Lydiard was called in, and at once accepted the +earl’s invitation, and quitted the room to pack his portmanteau. + +A faint sign of firm-shutting shadowed the corners of Jenny’s lips. + +“You have brought my nephew to life,” Lord Romfrey said to her. + +“My share in it was very small, my lord.” + +“Gannet says that your share in it was very great.” + +“And I say so, with the authority of a witness,” added Cecilia. + +“And I, from my experience,” came from Beauchamp. + +His voice had a hollow sound, unlike his natural voice. + +The earl looked at him remembering the bright laughing lad he had once +been, and said: “Why not try a month of Madeira? You have only to step +on board the boat.” + +“I don’t want to lose a month of my friend,” said Beauchamp. + +“Take your friend with you. After these fevers our Winters are bad.” + +“I’ve been idle too long.” + +“But, Captain Beauchamp,” said Jenny, “you proposed to do nothing but +read for a couple of years.” + +“Ay, there’s the voyage!” sighed he, with a sailor-invalid’s vision of +sunny seas dancing in the far sky. + +“You must persuade Dr. Shrapnel to come; and he will not come unless +you come too, and you won’t go anywhere but to the Alps!” She bent her +eyes on the floor. Beauchamp remembered what had brought her home from +the Alps. He cast a cold look on his uncle talking with Cecilia: +granite, as he thought. And the reflux of that slight feeling of +despair seemed to tear down with it in wreckage every effort he had +made in life, and cry failure on him. Yet he was hoping that he had not +been created for failure. + +He touched his uncle’s hand indifferently: “My love to the countess: +let me hear of her, sir, if you please.” + +“You shall,” said the earl. “But, off to Madeira, and up Teneriffe: +sail the Azores. I’ll hire you a good-sized schooner.” + +“There is the _Esperanza_,” said Cecilia. “And the vessel is lying +_idle_, Nevil! Can you allow it?” + +He consented to laugh at himself, and fell to coughing. + +Jenny Denham saw a real human expression of anxiety cross the features +of the earl at the sound of the cough. + +Lord Romfrey said “Adieu,” to her. + +He offered her his hand, which she contrived to avoid taking by +dropping a formal half-reverence. + +“Think of the _Esperanza;_ she will be coasting her nominal native +land! and adieu for to-day,” Cecilia said to Beauchamp. + +Jenny Denham and he stood at the window to watch the leave-taking in +the garden, for a distraction. They interchanged no remark of surprise +at seeing the earl and Dr. Shrapnel hand-locked: but Jenny’s heart +reproached her uncle for being actually servile, and Beauchamp accused +the earl of aristocratic impudence. + +Both were overcome with remorse when Colonel Halkett, putting his head +into the room to say good-bye to Beauchamp and place the _Esperanza_ at +his disposal for a Winter cruise, chanced to mention in two or three +half words the purpose of the earl’s visit, and what had occurred. He +took it for known already. + +To Miss Denham he remarked: “Lord Romfrey is very much concerned about +your health; he fears you have overdone it in nursing Captain +Beauchamp.” + +“I must be off after him,” said Beauchamp, and began trembling so that +he could not stir. + +The colonel knew the pain and shame of that condition of weakness to a +man who has been strong and swift, and said: “Seven-league boots are +not to be caught. You’ll see him soon. Why, I thought some letter of +yours had fetched him here! I gave you all the credit of it.” + +“No, he deserves it all himself—all,” said Beauchamp and with a dubious +eye on Jenny Denham: “You see, we were unfair.” + +The “we” meant “you” to her sensitiveness; and probably he did mean it +for “you”: for as he would have felt, so he supposed that his uncle +must have felt, Jenny’s coldness was much the crueller. Her features, +which in animation were summer light playing upon smooth water, could +be exceedingly cold in repose: the icier to those who knew her, because +they never expressed disdain. No expression of the baser sort belonged +to them. Beauchamp was intimate with these delicately-cut features; he +would have shuddered had they chilled on him. He had fallen in love +with his uncle; he fancied she ought to have done so too; and from his +excess of sympathy he found her deficient in it. + +He sat himself down to write a hearty letter to his “dear old uncle +Everard.” + +Jenny left him, to go to her chamber and cry. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. +THE FRUITS OF THE APOLOGY + + +This clear heart had cause for tears. Her just indignation with Lord +Romfrey had sustained her artificially hitherto: now that it was +erased, she sank down to weep. Her sentiments toward Lydiard had been +very like Cecilia Halkett’s in favour of Mr. Austin; with something +more to warm them on the part of the gentleman. He first had led her +mind in the direction of balanced thought, when, despite her affection +for Dr. Shrapnel, her timorous maiden wits, unable to contend with the +copious exclamatory old politician, opposed him silently. Lydiard had +helped her tongue to speak, as well as her mind to rational views; and +there had been a bond of union in common for them in his admiration of +her father’s writings. She had known that he was miserably yoked, and +had respected him when he seemed inclined for compassion without wooing +her for tenderness. He had not trifled with her, hardly flattered; he +had done no more than kindle a young girl’s imaginative liking. The +pale flower of imagination, fed by dews, not by sunshine, was born +drooping, and hung secret in her bosom, shy as a bell of the frail +wood-sorrel. Yet there was pain for her in the perishing of a thing so +poor and lowly. She had not observed the change in Lydiard after +Beauchamp came on the scene: and that may tell us how passionlessly +pure the little maidenly sentiment was. For do but look on the dewy +wood-sorrel flower; it is not violet or rose inviting hands to pluck +it: still it is there, happy in the woods. And Jenny’s feeling was that +a foot had crushed it. + +She wept, thinking confusedly of Lord Romfrey; trying to think he had +made his amends tardily, and that Beauchamp prized him too highly for +the act. She had no longer anything to resent: she was obliged to weep. +In truth, as the earl had noticed, she was physically depressed by the +strain of her protracted watch over Beauchamp, as well as rather +heartsick. + +But she had been of aid and use in saving him! She was not quite a +valueless person; sweet, too, was the thought that he consulted her, +listened to her, weighed her ideas. He had evidently taken to study +her, as if dispersing some wonderment that one of her sex should have +ideas. He had repeated certain of her own which had been forgotten by +her. His eyes were often on her with this that she thought humorous +intentness. She smiled. She had assisted in raising him from his bed of +sickness, whereof the memory affrighted her and melted her. The +difficulty now was to keep him indoors, and why he would not go even +temporarily to a large house like Mount Laurels, whither Colonel +Halkett was daily requesting him to go, she was unable to comprehend. +His love of Dr. Shrapnel might account for it. + +“Own, Jenny,” said Beauchamp, springing up to meet her as she entered +the room where he and Dr. Shrapnel sat discussing Lord Romfrey’s +bearing at his visit, “own that my uncle Everard is a true nobleman. He +has to make the round to the right mark, but he comes to it. _I_ could +not move him—and I like him the better for that. He worked round to it +himself. I ought to have been sure he would. You’re right: I break my +head with impatience.” + +“No; you sowed seed,” said Dr. Shrapnel. “Heed not that girl, my +Beauchamp. The old woman’s in the Tory, and the Tory leads the young +maid. Here’s a fable I draw from a Naturalist’s book, and we’ll set it +against the dicta of Jenny Do-nothing, Jenny Discretion, Jenny +Wait-for-the-Gods: Once upon a time in a tropical island a man lay +sick; so ill that he could not rise to trouble his neighbours for help; +so weak that it was lifting a mountain to get up from his bed; so +hopeless of succour that the last spark of distraught wisdom perching +on his brains advised him to lie where he was and trouble not himself, +since peace at least he could command, before he passed upon the black +highroad men call our kingdom of peace: ay, he lay there. Now it +chanced that this man had a mess to cook for his nourishment. And life +said, Do it, and death said, To what end? He wrestled with the stark +limbs of death, and cooked the mess; and that done he had no strength +remaining to him to consume it, but crept to his bed like the toad into +winter. Now, meanwhile a steam arose from the mess, and he lay +stretched. So it befel that the birds of prey of the region scented the +mess, and they descended and thronged at that man’s windows. And the +man’s neighbours looked up at them, for it was the sign of one who is +fit for the beaks of birds, lying unburied. Fail to spread the pall one +hour where suns are decisive, and the pall comes down out of heaven! +They said, The man is dead within. And they went to his room, and saw +him and succoured him. They lifted him out of death by the last uncut +thread. + +“Now, my Jenny Weigh-words, Jenny Halt-there! was it they who saved the +man, or he that saved himself? The man taxed his expiring breath to sow +seed of life. Lydiard shall put it into verse for a fable in song for +our people. I say it is a good fable, and sung spiritedly may serve for +nourishment, and faith in work, to many of our poor fainting fellows! +Now you?” + +Jenny said: “I think it is a good fable of self-help. Does it quite +illustrate the case? I mean, the virtue of impatience. But I like the +fable and the moral; and I think it would do good if it were made +popular, though it would be hard to condense it to a song.” + +“It would be hard! ay, then we do it forthwith. And you shall compose +the music. As for the ‘case of impatience,’ my dear, you tether the +soaring universal to your pet-lamb’s post, the special. I spoke of seed +sown. I spoke of the fruits of energy and resolution. Cared I for an +apology? I took the blows as I take hail from the clouds—which +apologize to you the moment you are in shelter, if you laugh at them. +So, good night to that matter! Are we to have rain this evening? I must +away into Bevisham to the Workmen’s Hall, and pay the men.” + +“There will not be rain; there will be frost, and you must be well +wrapped if you must go,” said Jenny. “And tell them not to think of +deputations to Captain Beauchamp yet.” + +“No, no deputations; let them send Killick, if they want to say +anything,” said Beauchamp. + +“Wrong!” the doctor cried; “wrong! wrong! Six men won’t hurt you more +than one. And why check them when their feelings are up? They burn to +be speaking some words to you. Trust me, Beauchamp, if we shun to +encounter the good warm soul of numbers, our hearts are narrowed to +them. The business of our modern world is to open heart and stretch out +arms to numbers. In numbers we have our sinews; they are our iron and +gold. Scatter them not; teach them the secret of cohesion. Practically, +since they gave you not their entire confidence once, you should not +rebuff them to suspicions of you as aristocrat, when they rise on the +effort to believe a man of, as “tis called, birth their undivided +friend. Meet them!” + +“Send them,” said Beauchamp. + +Jenny Denham fastened a vast cloak and a comforter on the doctor’s +heedless shoulders and throat, enjoining on him to return in good time +for dinner. + +He put his finger to her cheek in reproof of such supererogatory +counsel to a man famous for his punctuality. + +The day had darkened. + +Beauchamp begged Jenny to play to him on the piano. + +“Do you indeed care to have music?” said she. “I did not wish you to +meet a deputation, because your strength is not yet equal to it. Dr. +Shrapnel dwells on principles, forgetful of minor considerations.” + +“I wish thousands did!” cried Beauchamp. “When you play I seem to hear +ideas. Your music makes me think.” + +Jenny lit a pair of candles and set them on the piano. “Waltzes?” she +asked. + +“Call in a puppet-show at once!” + +She smiled, turned over some leaves, and struck the opening notes of +the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, and made her selections. + +At the finish he said: “Now read me your father’s poem, ‘_The Hunt of +the Fates._’” + +She read it to him. + +“Now read, ‘_The Ascent from the Inferno._’” + +That she read: and also “_Soul and Brute_,” another of his favourites. + +He wanted more, and told her to read “_First Love—Last Love._” + +“I fear I have not the tone of voice for love-poems,” Jenny said, +returning the book to him. + +“I’ll read it,” said he. + +He read with more impressiveness than effect. Lydiard’s reading +thrilled her: Beauchamp’s insisted too much on particular lines. But it +was worth while observing him. She saw him always as in a picture, +remote from herself. His loftier social station and strange character +precluded any of those keen suspicions by which women learn that a fire +is beginning to glow near them. + +“How I should like to have known your father!” he said. “I don’t wonder +at Dr. Shrapnel’s love of him. Yes, he was one of the great men of his +day! and it’s a higher honour to be of his blood than any that rank can +give. You were ten years old when you lost him. Describe him to me.” + +“He used to play with me like a boy,” said Jenny. She described her +father from a child’s recollection of him. + +“Dr. Shrapnel declares he would have been one of the first surgeons in +Europe: and he was one of the first of poets,” Beauchamp pursued with +enthusiasm. “So he was doubly great. I hold a good surgeon to be in the +front rank of public benefactors—where they put rich brewers, bankers, +and speculative manufacturers now. Well! the world is young. We shall +alter that in time. Whom did your father marry?” + +Jenny answered, “My mother was the daughter of a London lawyer. She +married without her father’s approval of the match, and he left her +nothing.” + +Beauchamp interjected: “Lawyer’s money!” + +“It would have been useful to my mother’s household when I was an +infant,” said Jenny. + +“Poor soul! I suppose so. Yes; well,” Beauchamp sighed. “Money! never +mind how it comes. We’re in such a primitive condition that we catch at +anything to keep us out of the cold; dogs with a bone!—instead of +living, as Dr. Shrapnel prophecies, for and, with one another. It’s war +now, and money’s the weapon of war. And we’re the worst nation in +Europe for that. But if we fairly recognize it, we shall be the first +to alter our ways. There’s the point. Well, Jenny, I can look you in +the face to-night. Thanks to my uncle Everard at last!” + +“Captain Beauchamp, you have never been blamed.” + +“I am Captain Beauchamp by courtesy, in public. My friends call me +Nevil. I think I have heard the name on your lips?” + +“When you were very ill.” + +He stood closer to her, very close. + +“Which was the arm that bled for me? May I look at it? There was a +bruise.” + +“Have you not forgotten that trifle? There is the faintest possible +mark of it left.” + +“I wish to see.” + +She gently defended the arm, but he made it so much a matter of earnest +to see the bruise of the old Election missile on her fair arm, that, +with a pardonable soft blush, to avoid making much of it herself, she +turned her sleeve a little above the wrist. He took her hand. + +“It was for me!” + +“It was quite an accident: no harm was intended.” + +“But it was in my cause—for me!” + +“Indeed, Captain Beauchamp...” + +“Nevil, we say indoors.” + +“Nevil—but is it not wiser to say what comes naturally to us?” + +“Who told you to-day that you had brought me to life? I am here to +prove it true. If I had paid attention to your advice, I should not +have gone into the cottage of those poor creatures and taken away the +fever. I did no good there. But the man’s wife said her husband had +been ruined by voting for me: and it was a point of honour to go in and +sit with him. You are not to have your hand back: it is mine. Don’t you +remember, Jenny, how you gave me your arm on the road when I staggered; +two days before the fever knocked me over? Shall I tell you what I +thought then? I thought that he who could have you for a mate would +have the bravest and helpfullest wife in all England. And not a mere +beauty, for you have good looks: but you have the qualities I have been +in search of. Why do your eyes look so mournfully at me? I am full of +hope. We’ll sail the _Esperanza_ for the Winter: you and I, and our +best friend with us. And you shall have a voice in the council, be +sure.” + +“If you are two to one?” Jenny said quickly, to keep from faltering. + +Beauchamp pressed his mouth to the mark of the bruise on her arm. He +held her fast. + +“I mean it, if you will join me, that you and I should rejoice the +heart of the dear old man—will you? He has been brooding over your +loneliness here if you are unmarried, ever since his recovery. I owe my +life to you, and every debt of gratitude to him. Now, Jenny!” + +“Oh! Captain Beauchamp—Nevil, if you will... if I may have my hand. You +exaggerate common kindness. He loves you. We both esteem you.” + +“But you don’t love me?” + +“Indeed I have no fear that I shall be unable to support myself, if I +am left alone.” + +“But I want your help. I wake from illness with my eyes open. I must +have your arm to lean on now and then.” + +Jenny dropped a shivering sigh. + +“Uncle is long absent!” she said. + +Her hand was released. Beauchamp inspected his watch. + +“He may have fallen! He may be lying on the common!” + +“Oh!” cried Jenny, “why did I let him go out without me?” + +“Let me have his lantern; I’ll go and search over the common.” + +“You must not go out,” said she. + +“I must. The old man may be perishing.” + +“It will be death to you... Nevil!” + +“That’s foolish. I can stand the air for a few minutes.” + +“I’ll go,” said Jenny. + +“Unprotected? No.” + +“Cook shall come with me.” + +“Two women!” + +“Nevil, if you care a little for me, be good, be kind, submit.” + +“He is half an hour behind dinner-time, and he’s never late. Something +must have happened to him. Way for me, my dear girl.” + +She stood firm between him and the door. It came to pass that she +stretched her hands to arrest him, and he seized the hands. + +“Rather than you should go out in this cold weather, anything!” she +said, in the desperation of physical inability to hold him back. + +“Ah!” Beauchamp crossed his arms round her. “I’ll wait for five +minutes.” + +One went by, with Jenny folded, broken and sobbing, senseless, against +his breast. + +They had not heard Dr. Shrapnel quietly opening the hall door and +hanging up his hat. He looked in. + +“Beauchamp!” he exclaimed. + +“Come, doctor,” said Beauchamp, and loosened his clasp of Jenny +considerately. + +She disengaged herself. + +“Beauchamp! now I die a glad man.” + +“Witness, doctor, she’s mine by her own confession.” + +“Uncle!” Jenny gasped. “Oh! Captain Beauchamp, what an error! what +delusion!... Forget it. I will. Here are more misunderstandings! You +shall be excused. But be...” + +“Be you the blessedest woman alive on this earth, my Jenny!” shouted +Dr. Shrapnel. “You have the choice man on all the earth for husband, +sweetheart! Ay, of all the earth! I go with a message for my old friend +Harry Denham, to quicken him in the grave; for the husband of his girl +is Nevil Beauchamp! The one thing I dared not dream of thousands is +established. Sunlight, my Jenny!” + +Beauchamp kissed her hand. + +She slipped away to her chamber, grovelling to find her diminished self +somewhere in the mid-thunder of her amazement, as though it were to +discover a pin on the floor by the flash of lightning. Where was she! + +This ensued from the apology of Lord Romfrey to Dr. Shrapnel. + + + + +CHAPTER LV. +WITHOUT LOVE + + +At the end of November, Jenny Denham wrote these lines to Mr. Lydiard, +in reply to his request that she should furnish the latest particulars +of Nevil Beauchamp, for the satisfaction of the Countess of Romfrey: + +“There is everything to reassure Lady Romfrey in the state of Captain +Beauchamp’s health, and I have never seen him so placidly happy as he +has been since the arrival, yesterday morning, of a lady from France, +Madame la Marquise de Rouaillout, with her brother, M. le Comte de +Croisnel. Her husband, I hear from M. de Croisnel, dreads our climate +and coffee too much to attempt the voyage. I understand that she writes +to Lady Romfrey to-day. Lady Romfrey’s letter to her, informing her of +Captain Beauchamp’s alarming illness, went the round from Normandy to +Touraine and Dauphiny, otherwise she would have come over earlier. + +“Her first inquiry of me was, ‘Il est mort?’ You would have supposed +her disappointed by my answer. A light went out in her eyes, like that +of a veilleuse in the dawn. She looked at me without speaking, while +her beautiful eyes regained their natural expression. She shut them and +sighed. ‘Tell him that M. de Croisnel and his sister are here.’ + +“This morning her wish to see Miss Halkett was gratified. You know my +taste was formed in France; I agree with Captain Beauchamp in his more +than admiration of Frenchwomen; ours, though more accomplished, are +colder and less plastic. But Miss Halkett is surpassingly beautiful, +very amiable, very generous, a perfect friend. She is our country at +its best. Probably she is shy of speaking French; she frequently puts +the Italian accent. Madame de Rouaillout begged to speak with her +alone: I do not know what passed. Miss Halkett did not return to us. + +“Dr. Shrapnel and Captain Beauchamp have recently been speculating on +our becoming a nation of artists, and authorities in science and +philosophy, by the time our coalfields and material wealth are +exhausted. That, and the cataclysm, are their themes. + +“They say, will things end utterly?—all our gains be lost? The question +seems to me to come of that love of earth which is recognition of God: +for if they cannot reconcile themselves to believe in extinction, to +what must they be looking? It is a confirmation of your saying, that +love leads to God, through art or in acts. + +“You will regret to hear that the project of Captain Beauchamp’s voyage +is in danger of being abandoned. A committee of a vacant Radical +borough has offered to nominate him. My influence is weak; madame would +have him go back with her and her brother to Normandy. My influence is +weak, I suppose, because he finds me constantly leaning to expediency—I +am your pupil. It may be quite correct that powder is intended for +explosion: we do not therefore apply a spark to the barrel. I ventured +on that. He pitied me in the snares of simile and metaphor. He is the +same, you perceive. How often have we not discussed what would have +become of him, with that ‘rocket brain’ of his, in less quiet times! +Yet, when he was addressing a deputation of workmen the other day, he +recommended patience to them as one of the virtues that count under +wisdom. He is curiously impatient for knowledge. One of his reasons for +not accepting Colonel Halkett’s offer of his yacht is, that he will not +be able to have books enough on board. Definite instead of vast and +hazy duties are to be desired for him, I think. Most fervently I pray +that he will obtain a ship and serve some years. At the risk of your +accusing me of ‘sententious posing,’ I would say, that men who do not +live in the present chiefly, but hamper themselves with giant tasks in +excess of alarm for the future, however devoted and noble they may +be—and he is an example of one that is—reduce themselves to the +dimensions of pigmies; they have the cry of infants. You reply, +Foresight is an element of love of country and mankind. But how often +is not the foresight guess-work? + +“He has not spoken of the DAWN project. To-day he is repeating one of +uncle’s novelties—‘Sultry Tories.’ The sultry Tory sits in the sun and +prophecies woefully of storm, it appears. Your accusation that I am one +at heart amuses me; I am not quite able to deny it. ‘Sultriness’ I am +not conscious of. But it would appear to be an epithet for the +Conservatives of wealth. So that England, being very wealthy, we are to +call it a sultry country? You are much wanted, for where there is no +‘middleman Liberal’ to hold the scales for them, these two have it all +their own way, which is not good for them. + +Captain Beauchamp quotes you too. It seems that you once talked to him +of a machine for measuring the force of blows delivered with the fist, +and compared his efforts to those of one perpetually practising at it: +and this you are said to have called ‘The case of the Constitutional +Realm and the extreme Radical.’ Elsewhere the Radical smites at iron or +rotten wood; _in England it is a cushion on springs_. Did you say it? +He quotes it as yours, half acquiescingly, and ruefully. + +“For visitors, we have had Captain Baskelett for two minutes, and Lord +Palmet, who stayed longer, and seems to intend to come daily. He +attempts French with Madame de R., and amuses her a little: a silver +foot and a ball of worsted. Mr. and Mrs. Grancey Lespel have called, +and Lord and Lady Croyston. Colonel Halkett, Miss Halkett, and Mr. +Tuckham come frequently. Captain Beauchamp spoke to her yesterday of +her marriage. “Madame de R. leaves us to-morrow. Her brother is a +delightful, gay-tempered, very handsome boyish Frenchman—not her equal, +to my mind, for I do not think Frenchmen comparable to the women of +France; but she is exceedingly grave, with hardly a smile, and his high +spirits excite Nevil’s, so it is pleasant to see them together.” + +The letter was handed to Lady Romfrey. She read through it thoughtfully +till she came to the name of Nevil, when she frowned. On the morrow she +pronounced it a disingenuous letter. Renée had sent her these lines: + +“I should come to you if my time were not restricted; my brother’s +leave of absence is short. I have done here what lay in my power, to +show you I have learnt something in the school of self-immolation. I +have seen Mlle. Halkett. She is a beautiful young woman, deficient only +in words, doubtless. My labour, except that it may satisfy you, was the +vainest of tasks. She marries a ruddy monsieur of a name that I forget, +and of the bearing of a member of the gardes du corps, without the +stature. Enfin, madame, I have done my duty, and do not regret it, +since I may hope that it will win for me some approbation and a portion +of the esteem of a lady to whom I am indebted for that which is now the +best of life to me: and I do not undervalue it in saying I would gladly +have it stamped on brass and deposited beside my father’s. I have my +faith. I would it were Nevil’s too—and yours, should you be in need of +it. + +“He will marry Mlle. Denham. If I may foretell events, she will steady +him. She is a young person who will not feel astray in society of his +rank; she possesses the natural grace we do not expect to see out of +our country—from sheer ignorance of what is beyond it. For the moment +she affects to consider herself unworthy; and it is excuseable that she +should be slightly alarmed at her prospect. But Nevil must have a wife. +I presume to think that he could not have chosen better. Above all, +make him leave England for the Winter. Adieu, dear countess. Nevil +promises me a visit after his marriage. I shall not set foot on England +again: but you, should you ever come to our land of France, will find +my heart open to you at the gates of undying grateful recollection. I +am not skilled in writing. You have looked into me once; look now; I am +the same. Only I have succeeded in bringing myself to a greater +likeness to the dead, as it becomes a creature to be who is coupled +with one of their body. Meanwhile I shall have news of you. I trust +that soon I may be warranted in forwarding congratulations to Lord +Romfrey.” + +Rosamund handed the letters to her husband. Not only did she think Miss +Denham disingenuous, she saw that the girl was not in love with +Beauchamp: and the idea of a loveless marriage for him threw the +mournfullest of Hecate’s beams along the course of a career that the +passionate love of a bride, though she were not well-born and not +wealthy, would have rosily coloured. + +“Without love!” she exclaimed to herself. She asked the earl’s opinion +of the startling intelligence, and of the character of that Miss +Denham, who could pen such a letter, after engaging to give her hand to +Nevil. + +Lord Romfrey laughed in his dumb way. “If Nevil must have a wife—and +the marquise tells you so, and she ought to know—he may as well marry a +girl who won’t go all the way down hill with him at his pace. He’ll be +cogged.” + +“You do not object to such an alliance?” + +“I’m past objection. There’s no law against a man’s marrying his +nurse.” + +“But she is not even in love with him!” + +“I dare say not. He wants a wife: she accepts a husband. The two women +who were in love with him he wouldn’t have.” + +Lady Romfrey sighed deeply: “He has lost Cecilia! She might still have +been his: but he has taken to that girl. And Madame de Rouaillout +praises the girl because—oh! I see it—she has less to be jealous of in +Miss Denham: of whose birth and blood we know nothing. Let that pass! +If only she loved him! I cannot endure the thought of his marrying a +girl who is not in love with him.” + +“Just as you like, my dear.” + +“I used to suspect Mr. Lydiard.” + +“Perhaps he’s the man.” + +“Oh, what an end of so brilliant a beginning!” + +“It strikes me, my dear,” said the earl, “it’s the proper common sense +beginning that may have a fairish end.” + +“No, but what I feel is that he—our Nevil!—has accomplished hardly +anything, if anything!” + +“He hasn’t marched on London with a couple of hundred thousand men: no, +he hasn’t done that,” the earl said, glancing back in his mind through +Beauchamp’s career. “And he escapes what Stukely calls his nation’s +scourge, in the shape of a statue turned out by an English chisel. No: +we haven’t had much public excitement out of him. But one thing he did +do: _he got me down on my knees!_” + +Lord Romfrey pronounced these words with a sober emphasis that struck +the humour of it sharply into Rosamund’s heart, through some contrast +it presented between Nevil’s aim at the world and hit of a man: the +immense deal thought of it by the earl, and the very little that Nevil +would think of it—the great domestic achievement to be boasted of by an +enthusiastic devotee of politics! + +She embraced her husband with peals of loving laughter: the last +laughter heard in Romfrey Castle for many a day. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI. +THE LAST OF NEVIL BEAUCHAMP + + +Not before Beauchamp was flying with the Winter gales to warmer climes +could Rosamund reflect on his career unshadowed by her feminine +mortification at the thought that he was unloved by the girl he had +decided to marry. But when he was away and winds blew, the clouds which +obscured an embracing imagination of him—such as, to be true and full +and sufficient, should stretch like the dome of heaven over the +humblest of lives under contemplation—broke, and revealed him to her as +one who had other than failed: rather as one in mid career, in mid +forest, who, by force of character, advancing in self-conquest, strikes +his impress right and left around him, because of his aim at stars. He +had faults, and she gloried to think he had; for the woman’s heart +rejoiced in his portion of our common humanity while she named their +prince to men: but where was he to be matched in devotedness and in +gallantry? and what man of blood fiery as Nevil’s ever fought so to +subject it? Rosamund followed him like a migratory bird, hovered over +his vessel, perched on deck beside the helm, where her sailor was sure +to be stationed, entered his breast, communed with him, and wound him +round and round with her love. He has mine! she cried. Her craving that +he should be blest in the reward, or flower-crown, of his wife’s love +of him lessened in proportion as her brooding spirit vividly realized +his deeds. In fact it had been but an example of our very general +craving for a climax, palpable and scenic. She was completely satisfied +by her conviction that his wife would respect and must be subordinate +to him. So it had been with her. As for love, let him come to his +Rosamund for love, and appreciation, adoration! + +Rosamund drew nigh to her hour of peril with this torch of her love of +Beauchamp to illuminate her. + +There had been a difficulty in getting him to go. One day Cecilia +walked down to Dr. Shrapnel’s with Mr. Tuckham, to communicate that the +_Esperanza_ awaited Captain Beauchamp, manned and provisioned, off the +pier. Now, he would not go without Dr. Shrapnel, nor the doctor without +Jenny; and Jenny could not hold back, seeing that the wish of her heart +was for Nevil to be at sea, untroubled by political questions and +prowling Radical deputies. So her consent was the seal of the voyage. +What she would not consent to, was the proposal to have her finger +ringed previous to the voyage, altogether in the manner of a sailor’s +bride. She seemed to stipulate for a term of courtship. Nevil frankly +told the doctor that he was not equal to it; anything that was kind he +was quite ready to say; and anything that was pretty: but nothing +particularly kind and pretty occurred to him: he was exactly like a +juvenile correspondent facing a blank sheet of letter paper:—he really +did not know what to say, further than the uncomplicated exposition of +his case, that he wanted a wife and had found the very woman. How, +then, fathom Jenny’s mood for delaying? Dr. Shrapnel’s exhortations +were so worded as to induce her to comport herself like a Scriptural +woman, humbly wakeful to the surpassing splendour of the high fortune +which had befallen her in being so selected, and obedient at a sign. +But she was, it appeared that she was, a maid of scaly vision, not +perceptive of the blessedness of her lot. She could have been very +little perceptive, for she did not understand his casual allusion to +Beauchamp’s readiness to overcome “a natural repugnance,” for the +purpose of making her his wife. + +Up to the last moment, before Cecilia Halkett left the deck of the +_Esperanza_ to step on the pier, Jenny remained in vague but excited +expectation of something intervening to bring Cecilia and Beauchamp +together. It was not a hope; it was with pure suspense that she awaited +the issue. Cecilia was pale. Beauchamp shook Mr. Tuckham by the hand, +and said: “I shall not hear the bells, but send me word of it, will +you?” and he wished them both all happiness. + +The sails of the schooner filled. On a fair frosty day, with a light +wind ruffling from the North-west, she swept away, out of sight of +Bevisham, and the island, into the Channel, to within view of the coast +of France. England once below the water-line, alone with Beauchamp and +Dr. Shrapnel, Jenny Denham knew her fate. + +As soon as that grew distinctly visible in shape and colour, she ceased +to be reluctant. All about her, in air and sea and unknown coast, was +fresh and prompting. And if she looked on Beauchamp, the thought—my +husband! palpitated, and destroyed and re-made her. Rapidly she +underwent her transformation from doubtfully-minded woman to woman +awakening clear-eyed, and with new sweet shivers in her temperate +blood, like the tremulous light seen running to the morn upon a quiet +sea. She fell under the charm of Beauchamp at sea. + +In view of the island of Madeira, Jenny noticed that some trouble had +come upon Dr. Shrapnel and Beauchamp, both of whom had been hilarious +during the gales; but sailing into Summer they began to wear that look +which indicated one of their serious deliberations. She was not taken +into their confidence, and after awhile they recovered partially. + +The truth was, they had been forced back upon old English ground by a +recognition of the absolute necessity, for her sake, of handing +themselves over to a parson. In England, possibly, a civil marriage +might have been proposed to the poor girl. In a foreign island, they +would be driven not simply to accept the services of a parson, but to +seek him and solicit him: otherwise the knot, faster than any sailor’s +in binding, could not be tied. Decidedly it could not; and how submit? +Neither Dr. Shrapnel nor Beauchamp were of a temper to deceive the +clerical gentleman; only they had to think of Jenny’s feelings. Alas +for us!—this our awful baggage in the rear of humanity, these women who +have not moved on their own feet one step since the primal mother +taught them to suckle, are perpetually pulling us backward on the +march. Slaves of custom, forms, shows and superstitions, they are +slaves of the priests. “They are so in gratitude perchance, as the +matter works,” Dr. Shrapnel admitted. For at one period the priests did +cherish and protect the weak from animal man. But we have entered a +broader daylight now, when the sun of high heaven has crowned our +structure with the flower of brain, like him to scatter mists, and +penetrate darkness, and shoot from end to end of earth; and must we +still be grinning subserviently to ancient usages and stale forms, +because of a baggage that it is, woe to us! too true, we cannot cut +ourselves loose from? Lydiard might say we are compelling the priests +to fight, and that they are compact foemen, not always passive. Battle, +then!—The cry was valiant. Nevertheless, Jenny would certainly insist +upon the presence of a parson, in spite of her bridegroom’s “natural +repugnance.” Dr. Shrapnel offered to argue it with her, being of +opinion that a British consul could satisfactorily perform the +ceremony. Beauchamp knew her too well. Moreover, though tongue-tied as +to love-making, he was in a hurry to be married. Jenny’s eyes were +lovely, her smiles were soft; the fair promise of her was in bloom on +her face and figure. He could not wait; he must off to the parson. + +Then came the question as to whether honesty and honour did not impose +it on them to deal openly with that gentle, and on such occasions +unobtrusive official, by means of a candid statement to him overnight, +to the effect that they were the avowed antagonists of his Church, +which would put him on his defence, and lead to an argument that would +accomplish his overthrow. You parsons, whose cause is good, marshal out +the poor of the land, that we may see the sort of army your stewardship +has gained for you. What! no army? only women and hoary men? And in the +rear rank, to support you as an institution, none but fanatics, +cowards, white-eyeballed dogmatists, timeservers, money-changers, +mockers in their sleeves? What is this? + +But the prospect of so completely confounding the unfortunate parson +warned Beauchamp that he might have a shot in his locker: the parson +heavily trodden on will turn. “I suppose we must be hypocrites,” he +said in dejection. Dr. Shrapnel was even more melancholy. He again +offered to try his persuasiveness upon Jenny. Beauchamp declined to let +her be disturbed. + +She did not yield so very lightly to the invitation to go before a +parson. She had to be wooed after all; a Harry Hotspur’s wooing. Three +clergymen of the Established Church were on the island: “And where +won’t they be, where there’s fine scenery and comforts abound?” +Beauchamp said to the doctor ungratefully. + +“Whether a celibate clergy ruins the Faith faster than a non-celibate, +I won’t dispute,” replied the doctor; “but a non-celibate interwinds +with us, and is likely to keep up a one-storied edifice longer.” + +Jenny hesitated. She was a faltering unit against an ardent and +imperative two in the council. And Beauchamp had shown her a letter of +Lady Romfrey’s very clearly signifying that she and her lord +anticipated tidings of the union. Marrying Beauchamp was no simple +adventure. She feared in her bosom, and resigned herself. + +She had a taste of what it was to be, at the conclusion of the service. +Beauchamp thanked the good-natured clergyman, and spoke approvingly of +him to his bride, as an agreeable well-bred gentlemanly person. Then, +fronting her and taking both her hands: “Now, my darling,” he said: +“you must pledge me your word to this: I have stooped my head to the +parson, and I am content to have done that to win you, though I don’t +think much of myself for doing it. I can’t look so happy as I am. And +this idle ceremony—however, I thank God I have you, and I thank you for +taking me. But you won’t expect me to give in to the parson again.” + +“But, Nevil,” she said, fearing what was to come: “they are gentlemen, +good men.” + +“Yes, yes.” + +“They are educated men, Nevil.” + +“Jenny! Jenny Beauchamp, they’re not men, they’re Churchmen. My +experience of the priest in our country is, that he has abandoned—he’s +dead against the only cause that can justify and keep up a Church: the +cause of the poor—the people. He is a creature of the moneyed class. I +look on him as a pretender. I go through his forms, to save my wife +from annoyance, but there’s the end of it: and if ever I’m helpless, +unable to resist him, I rely on your word not to let him intrude; he’s +to have nothing to do with the burial of me. He’s against the cause of +the people. Very well: I make my protest to the death against him. When +he’s a Christian instead of a Churchman, then may my example not be +followed. It’s little use looking for that.” + +Jenny dropped some tears on her bridal day. She sighed her submission. +“So long as you do not change,” said she. + +“Change!” cried Nevil. “That’s for the parson. Now it’s over: we start +fair. My darling! I have you. I don’t mean to bother you. I’m sure +you’ll see that the enemies of Reason are the enemies of the human +race; you will see that. I can wait.” + +“If we can be sure that we ourselves are using reason rightly, +Nevil!—not prejudice.” + +“Of course. But don’t you see, my Jenny, we have no interest in +opposing reason?” + +“But have we not all grown up together? And is it just or wise to +direct our efforts to overthrow a solid structure that is a part...?” + +He put his legal right in force to shut her mouth, telling her +presently she might _Lydiardize_ as much as she liked. While practising +this mastery, he assured her he would always listen to her: yes, +whether she Lydiardized, or what Dr. Shrapnel called Jenny-prated. + +“That is to say, dear Nevil, that you have quite made up your mind to a +toddling chattering little nursery wife?” + +Very much the contrary to anything of the sort, he declared; and he +proved his honesty by announcing an immediate reflection that had come +to him: “How oddly things are settled! Cecilia Halkett and Tuckham; you +and I! Now, I know for certain that I have brought Cecilia Halkett out +of her woman’s Toryism, and given her at least liberal views, and she +goes and marries an arrant Tory; while you, a bit of a Tory at heart, +more than anything else, have married an ultra.” + +“Perhaps we may hope that the conflict will be seasonable on both +sides?—if you give me fair play, Nevil!” + +As fair play as a woman’s lord could give her, she was to have; with +which, adieu to argumentation and controversy, and all the thanks in +life to the parson! On a lovely island, free from the seductions of +care, possessing a wife who, instead of starting out of romance and +poetry with him to the supreme honeymoon, led him back to those +forsaken valleys of his youth, and taught him the joys of colour and +sweet companionship, simple delights, a sister mind, with a loveliness +of person and nature unimagined by him, Beauchamp drank of a happiness +that neither Renée nor Cecilia had promised. His wooing of Jenny +Beauchamp was a flattery richer than any the maiden Jenny Denham could +have deemed her due; and if his wonder in experiencing such strange +gladness was quaintly ingenuous, it was delicious to her to see and +know full surely that he who was at little pains to court, or please, +independently of the agency of the truth in him, had come to be her +lover through being her husband. + +Here I would stop. It is Beauchamp’s career that carries me on to its +close, where the lanterns throw their beams off the mudbanks by the +black riverside; when some few English men and women differed from the +world in thinking that it had suffered a loss. + +They sorrowed for the earl when tidings came to them of the loss of his +child, alive one hour in his arms. Rosamund caused them to be deceived +as to her condition. She survived; she wrote to Jenny, bidding her keep +her husband cruising. Lord Romfrey added a brief word: he told Nevil +that he would see no one for the present; hoped he would be absent a +year, not a day less. To render it the more easily practicable, in the +next packet of letters Colonel Halkett and Cecilia begged them not to +bring the _Esperanza_ home for the yachting season: the colonel said +his daughter was to be married in April, and that bridegroom and bride +had consented to take an old man off with them to Italy; perhaps in the +autumn all might meet in Venice. + +“And you’ve never seen Venice,” Beauchamp said to Jenny. + +“Everything is new to me,” said she, penetrating and gladly joining the +conspiracy to have him out of England. + +Dr. Shrapnel was not so compliant as the young husband. Where he could +land and botanize, as at Madeira, he let time fly and drum his wings on +air, but the cities of priests along the coast of Portugal and Spain +roused him to a burning sense of that flight of time and the vacuity it +told of in his labours. Greatly to his astonishment, he found that it +was no longer he and Beauchamp against Jenny, but Jenny and Beauchamp +against him. + +“What!” he cried, “to draw breath day by day, and not to pay for it by +striking daily at the rock Iniquity? Are you for that, Beauchamp? And +in a land where these priests walk with hats curled like the +water-lily’s leaf without the flower? How far will you push indolent +unreason to gain the delusion of happiness? There is no such thing: but +there’s trance. That talk of happiness is a carrion clamour of the +creatures of prey. Take it—and you’re helping tear some poor wretch to +pieces, whom you might be constructing, saving perchance: some one? +some thousands! You, Beauchamp, when I met you first, you were for +England, England! for a breadth of the palm of my hand +comparatively—the round of a copper penny, no wider! And from that you +jumped at a bound to the round of this earth: you were for humanity. +Ay, we sailed our planet among the icy spheres, and were at blood-heat +for its destiny, you and I! And now you hover for a wind to catch you. +So it is for a soul rejecting prayer. This wind and that has it: the +well-springs within are shut down fast! I pardon my Jenny, my Harry +Denham’s girl. She is a woman, and has a brain like a bell that rings +all round to the tongue. It is her kingdom, of the interdicted +untraversed frontiers. But what cares she, or any woman, that this Age +of ours should lie like a carcase against the Sun? What cares any woman +to help to hold up Life to him? He breeds divinely upon life, filthy +upon stagnation. Sail you away, if you will, in your trance. I go. I go +home by land alone, and I await you. Here in this land of moles +upright, I do naught but execrate; I am a pulpit of curses. +Counter-anathema, you might call me.” + +“Oh! I feel the comparison so, for England shining spiritually bright,” +said Jenny, and cut her husband adrift with the exclamation, and saw +him float away to Dr. Shrapnel. + +“_Spiritually_ bright!” + +“By comparison, Nevil.” + +“There’s neither spiritual nor political brightness in England, but a +common resolution to eat of good things and stick to them,” said the +doctor: “and we two out of England, there’s barely a voice to cry scare +to the feeders. I’m back! I’m home!” + +They lost him once in Cadiz, and discovered him on the quay, looking +about for a vessel. In getting him to return to the _Esperanza_, they +nearly all three fell into the hands of the police. Beauchamp gave him +a great deal of his time, reading and discussing with him on deck and +in the cabin, and projecting future enterprises, to pacify his +restlessness. A translation of Plato had become Beauchamp’s +intellectual world. This philosopher singularly anticipated his ideas. +Concerning himself he was beginning to think that he had many years +ahead of him for work. He was with Dr. Shrapnel, as to the battle, and +with Jenny as to the delay in recommencing it. Both the men laughed at +the constant employment she gave them among the Greek islands in +furnishing her severely accurate accounts of sea-fights and +land-fights: and the scenes being before them they could neither of +them protest that their task-work was an idle labour. Dr. Shrapnel +assisted in fighting Marathon and Salamis over again cordially—to +shield Great Britain from the rule of a satrapy. + +Beauchamp often tried to conjure words to paint his wife. On grave +subjects she had the manner of speaking of a shy scholar, and between +grave and playful, between smiling and serious, her clear head, her +nobly poised character, seemed to him to have never had a prototype and +to elude the art of picturing it in expression, until he heard Lydiard +call her whimsically, “Portia disrobing.” + +Portia half in her doctor’s gown, half out of it. They met Lydiard and +his wife Louise, and Mr. and Mrs. Tuckham, in Venice, where, upon the +first day of October, Jenny Beauchamp gave birth to a son. The +thrilling mother did not perceive on this occasion the gloom she cast +over the father of the child and Dr. Shrapnel. The youngster would +insist on his right to be sprinkled by the parson, to get a legal name +and please his mother. At all turns in the history of our healthy +relations with women we are confronted by the parson! “And, upon my +word, I believe,” Beauchamp said to Lydiard, “those parsons—not bad +creatures in private life: there was one in Madeira I took a personal +liking to—but they’re utterly ignorant of what men feel to them—more +ignorant than women!” Mr. Tuckham and Mrs. Lydiard would not listen to +his foolish objections; nor were they ever mentioned to Jenny. +Apparently the commission of the act of marriage was to force Beauchamp +from all his positions one by one. + +“The education of that child?” Mrs. Lydiard said to her husband. + +He considered that the mother would prevail. + +Cecilia feared she would not. + +“Depend upon it, he’ll make himself miserable if he can,” said Tuckham. + +That gentleman, however, was perpetually coming fuming from arguments +with Beauchamp, and his opinion was a controversialist’s. His common +sense was much afflicted. “I thought marriage would have stopped all +those absurdities,” he said, glaring angrily, laughing, and then +frowning. “I’ve warned him I’ll go out of my way to come across him if +he carries on his headlong folly. A man should accept his country for +what it is when he’s born into it. Don’t tell me he’s a good fellow. I +know he is, but there’s an ass mounted on the good fellow. Talks of the +parsons! Why, they’re men of education.” + +“They couldn’t steer a ship in a gale, though.” + +“Oh! he’s a good sailor. And let him go to sea,” said Tuckham. “His +wife’s a prize. He’s hardly worthy of her. If she manages him she’ll +deserve a monument for doing a public service.” + +How fortunate it is for us that here and there we do not succeed in +wresting our temporary treasure from the grasp of the Fates! + +This good old commonplace reflection came to Beauchamp while clasping +his wife’s hand on the deck of the _Esperanza_, and looking up at the +mountains over the Gulf of Venice. The impression of that marvellous +dawn when he and Renée looked up hand-in-hand was ineffaceable, and +pity for the tender hand lost to him wrought in his blood, but Jenny +was a peerless wife; and though not in the music of her tongue, or in +subtlety of delicate meaning did she excel Renée, as a sober adviser +she did, and as a firm speaker; and she had homelier deep eyes, +thoughtfuller brows. The father could speculate with good hope of +Jenny’s child. Cecilia’s wealth, too, had gone over to the Tory party, +with her incomprehensible espousal of Tuckham. Let it go; let all go +for dowerless Jenny! + +It was (she dared to recollect it in her anguish) Jenny’s choice to go +home in the yacht that decided her husband not to make the journey by +land in company with the Lydiards. + +The voyage was favourable. Beauchamp had a passing wish to land on the +Norman coast, and take Jenny for a day to Tourdestelle. He deferred to +her desire to land baby speedily, now they were so near home. They ran +past Otley river, having sight of Mount Laurels, and on to Bevisham, +with swelling sails. There they parted. Beauchamp made it one of his +“points of honour” to deliver the vessel where he had taken her, at her +moorings in the Otley. One of the piermen stood before Beauchamp, and +saluting him, said he had been directed to inform him that the Earl of +Romfrey was with Colonel Halkett, expecting him at Mount Laurels. +Beauchamp wanted his wife to return in the yacht. She turned her eyes +to Dr. Shrapnel. It was out of the question that the doctor should +think of going. Husband and wife parted. She saw him no more. + +This is no time to tell of weeping. The dry chronicle is fittest. Hard +on nine o’clock in the December darkness, the night being still and +clear, Jenny’s babe was at her breast, and her ears were awake for the +return of her husband. A man rang at the door of the house, and asked +to see Dr. Shrapnel. This man was Killick, the Radical Sam of politics. +He said to the doctor: “I’m going to hit you sharp, sir; I’ve had it +myself: please put on your hat and come out with me; and close the +door. They mustn’t hear inside. And here’s a fly. I knew you’d be off +for the finding of the body. Commander Beauchamp’s drowned.” + +Dr. Shrapnel drove round by the shore of the broad water past a great +hospital and ruined abbey to Otley village. Killick had lifted him into +the conveyance, and he lifted him out. Dr. Shrapnel had not spoken a +word. Lights were flaring on the river, illuminating the small craft +sombrely. Men, women, and children crowded the hard and landing-places, +the marshy banks and the decks of colliers and trawlers. Neither +Killick nor Dr. Shrapnel questioned them. The lights were torches and +lanterns; the occupation of the boats moving in couples was the +dragging for the dead. + +“O God, let’s find his body,” a woman called out. + +“Just a word; is it Commander Beauchamp?” Killick said to her. + +She was scarcely aware of a question. “Here, this one,” she said, and +plucked a little boy of eight by the hand close against her side, and +shook him roughly and kissed him. + +An old man volunteered information. “That’s the boy. That boy was in +his father’s boat out there, with two of his brothers, larking; and he +and another older than him fell overboard; and just then Commander +Beauchamp was rowing by, and I saw him from off here, where I stood, +jump up and dive, and he swam to his boat with one of them, and got him +in safe: that boy: and he dived again after the other, and was down a +long time. Either he burst a vessel or he got cramp, for he’d been +rowing himself from the schooner grounded down at the river-mouth, and +must have been hot when he jumped in: either way, he fetched the second +up, and sank with him. Down he went.” + +A fisherman said to Killick: “Do you hear that voice thundering? That’s +the great Lord Romfrey. He’s been directing the dragging since five o’ +the evening, and will till he drops or drowns, or up comes the body.” + +“O God, let’s find the body!” the woman with the little boy called out. + +A torch lit up Lord Romfrey’s face as he stepped ashore. “The flood has +played us a trick,” he said. “We want more drags, or with the next ebb +the body may be lost for days in this infernal water.” + +The mother of the rescued boy sobbed, “Oh, my lord, my lord!” + +The earl caught sight of Dr. Shrapnel, and went to him. + +“My wife has gone down to Mrs. Beauchamp,” he said. “She will bring her +and the baby to Mount Laurels. The child will have to be hand-fed. I +take you with me. You must not be alone.” + +He put his arm within the arm of the heavily-breathing man whom he had +once flung to the ground, to support him. + +“My lord! my lord!” sobbed the woman, and dropped on her knees. + +“What’s this?” the earl said, drawing his hand away from the woman’s +clutch at it. + +“She’s the mother, my lord,” several explained to him. + +“Mother of what?” + +“My boy,” the woman cried, and dragged the urchin to Lord Romfrey’s +feet, cleaning her boy’s face with her apron. + +“It’s the boy Commander Beauchamp drowned to save,” said a man. + +All the lights of the ring were turned on the head of the boy. Dr. +Shrapnel’s eyes and Lord Romfrey’s fell on the abashed little creature. +The boy struck out both arms to get his fists against his eyelids. + +This is what we have in exchange for Beauchamp! + +It was not uttered, but it was visible in the blank stare at one +another of the two men who loved Beauchamp, after they had examined the +insignificant bit of mudbank life remaining in this world in the place +of him. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEAUCHAMP'S CAREER, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 4460-0.txt or 4460-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/4/6/4460/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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