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CAPTAIN BASKELETT +XII. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE INFAMOUS Dr. SHRAPNEL +XIII. A SUPERFINE CONSCIENCE +XIV. THE LEADING ARTICLE AND MR. TIMOTHY TURBOT +XV. CECILIA HALKETT +XVI. A PARTIAL DISPLAY OF BEAUCHAMP IN HIS COLOURS +XVII. HIS FRIEND AND FOE +XVIII. CONCERNING THE ACT OF CANVASSING + +BOOK 3. +XIX. LORD PALMET, AND CERTAIN ELECTORS +XX. A DAY AT ITCHINCOPE +XXI. THE QUESTION AS TO THE EXAMINATION OF THE WHIGS, + AND THE FINE BLOW STRUCK BY MR. EVERARD ROMFREY +XXII. THE DRIVE INTO BEVISHAM +XXIII. TOURDESTELLE +XXIV. HIS HOLIDAY +XXV. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BOAT. + +BOOK 4. +XXVI. MR. BLACKBURN TUCKHAM +XXVII. A SHORT SIDELOOK AT THE ELECTION +XXVIII. TOUCHING A YOUNG LADY'S HEART AND HER INTELLECT +XXIX. THE EPISTLE OF DR. SHRAPNEL TO COMMANDER BEAUCHAMP +XXX. THE BAITING OF DR. SHRAPNEL +XXXI. SHOWING A CHIVALROUS GENTLEMAN SET IN MOTION +XXXII. AN EFFORT TO CONQUER CECILIA IN BEAUCHAMP'S FASHION +XXXIII. THE FIRST ENCOUNTER AT STEYNHAM + +BOOK 5. +XXXIV. THE FACE OF RENEE +XXXV. THE RIDE IN THE WRONG DIRECTION +XXXVI. PURSUIT OF THE APOLOGY OF MR. ROMFREY TO DR. SHRAPNEL +XXXVII. CECILIA CONQUERED +XXXVIII. LORD AVONLEY +XXXIX. BETWEEN BEAUCHAMP AND CECILIA +XL. A TRIAL OF HIM +XLI. A LAME VICTORY + +BOOK 6. +XLII. THE TWO PASSIONS +XLIII. THE EARL OF ROMFREY AND THE COUNTESS +XLIV. THE NEPHEWS OF THE EARL, AND ANOTHER EXHIBITION OF THE TWO + PASSIONS IN BEAUCHAMP. +XLV. A LITTLE PLOT AGAINST CECILIA +XLVI. AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN FORESEEN +XLVII. THE REFUSAL OF HIM +XLVIII. OF THE TRIAL AWAITING THE EARL OF ROMFREY +XLIX. A FABRIC OF BARONIAL DESPOTISM CRUMBLES + +BOOK 7. +L. AT THE COTTAGE ON THE COMMON +LI. IN THE NIGHT +LII. QUESTION OF A PILGRIMAGE AND AN ACT OF PENANCE +LIII. THE APOLOGY TO DR. SHRAPNEL +LIV. THE FRUITS OF THE APOLOGY +LV. WITHOUT LOVE +LVI. THE LAST OF NEVIL BEAUCHAMP + + + + +BEAUCHAMP'S CAREER + + +BOOK 1. + +I. THE CHAMPION OF HIS COUNTRY +II. UNCLE, NEPHEW, AND ANOTHER +III. CONTAINS BARONIAL VIEWS OF THE PRESENT +IV. A GLIMPSE OF NEVIL IN ACTION +V. RENEE +VI. LOVE IN VENICE +VII. AN AWAKENING FOR BOTH +VIII. A NIGHT ON THE ADRIATIC +IX. MORNING AT SEA UNDER THE ALPS +X. A SINGULAR COUNCIL + + + +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 Moliere; +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 Francaise,' 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 FRANCAISE, + + '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 Francaise!' he commenced. + +Her criticism followed swiftly. + +'I think you are writing to the Garde Imperiale.' + +He admitted his error, and thanked her warmly. + +'Messieurs de la Garde Imperiale!' + +'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 Imperiale.' 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. Calling'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 scar que +vous comprendrez mes sentiments, et m'accorderez l'honneur que je reclame +au nom de ma patrie outrage.' 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 naivete 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 + +RENEE + +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 Renee. 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 Renee 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. Renee 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. Renee 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. + +Renee 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. + +Renee 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 Renee. 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.' + +Renee 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 Renee, 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. + +Renee added: 'Let us hope she will not escape being seen.' + +'I give her my benediction,' said Nevil. + +'And I,' said Renee; '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!' + +Renee 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?' + +Renee 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 se, ma se, + Cotanto beve, + Mi no, mi no, + No ve sposero.' + +'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 + +Renee 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. Renee 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 Renee 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 Renee 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. +Renee will have a fine hotel 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 Renee 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 Renee of the past +hour! But that Renee 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 Renee 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? Renee complains that she loses the vulgar art +of walking in her complaisant attention to the fine Arts. I weary my +poor child.' + +Renee 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 Renee; '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. + +'Renee, 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.' + +Renee 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 Renee, 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!' + +Renee 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, Renee, 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 Renee?' + +'With your friend Renee. 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 Renee 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 Renee. +'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 Renee. 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 Renee +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 Renee?' + +'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. + +Renee 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 Renee +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 Renee 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: Renee 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 Renee, +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.' + +Renee 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 Renee. + +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 Renee +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. Renee 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. + +Renee said to her presently: 'He saved my brother's life'; the apropos +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. Renee 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 Renee 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 Renee 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. Renee 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 + . . ? . . . Renee 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 Renee. + +'I know it well,' Rosamund replied. + +Renee 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.' + +Renee kissed her hand. + +She is terribly winning, Rosamund avowed. Renee 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 Renee has no more +shore-qualms; she is smoothly chaperoned, and madame will present us tea +on board. All the etcaeteras 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 Renee 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. Renee 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 +Renee. + +'You hear, Francois; we are on the open sea,' Roland addressed the valet. + +'Monsieur has cut loose his communications with land,' Francois +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, Renee 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 Renee, 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. + +Renee 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 Renee, 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 Renee. 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, Renee 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. + +Renee 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?' + +Renee 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 Renee's life-blood ran with his, +began to heave under him like a swelling sea. For Nevil the starred +black night was Renee. 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 Renee 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. + +Renee 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 Renee, had been separated from her husband last on these waters. + +'Ah! to be unhappy here,' sighed Renee. '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. Renee 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 Renee. + +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. + +Renee 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. + +'Renee, 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 manoeuvre?' + +'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. Renee is in misery. She must +not go back.' + +Roland sprang to his feet, stared, and walked over to Renee. + +'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? Renee 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 Renee 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 Renee--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 Renee 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. + +'Renee!' 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 Renee at Trieste, under the care of madame,' said Beauchamp, +'and we return to Venice, and I go to your father. This method protects +Renee 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. + +Renee 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 Renee, and for him. + +Roland was inflexible. Seeing which, Renee 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 Renee'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 Renee 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. + +Renee 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 Renee, +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 Renee'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 Renee 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 +Renee'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 Renee 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. + +Renee was told by her father to follow madame. He had jumped into the +spare gondola and offered a seat to Beauchamp. + +'No,' cried Renee, 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 Renee 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. + +Renee took his hand to be assisted in the step down to her father's arms, +murmuring: + +'Do nothing--nothing! until you hear from me.' + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A bone in a boy's mind for him to gnaw and worry +A kind of anchorage in case of indiscretion +A night that had shivered repose +Am I thy master, or thou mine? +An instinct labouring to supply the deficiencies of stupidity +And now came war, the purifier and the pestilence +And one gets the worst of it (in any bargain) +Anticipate opposition by initiating measures +Appetite to flourish at the cost of the weaker +As for titles, the way to defend them is to be worthy of them +Boys are unjust +Braggadocioing in deeds is only next bad to mouthing it +Calm fanaticism of the passion of love +Compassionate sentiments veered round to irate amazement +Despises the pomades and curling-irons of modern romance +Disqualification of constantly offending prejudices +Efforts to weary him out of his project were unsuccessful +Empty magnanimity which his uncle presented to him +Energy to something, that was not to be had in a market +Feminine pity, which is nearer to contempt than to tenderness +Fit of Republicanism in the nursery +Forewarn readers of this history that there is no plot in it +Haunted many pillows +He had expected romance, and had met merchandize +He was too much on fire to know the taste of absurdity +Holding to his work after the strain's over--That tells the man +Humour preserved her from excesses of sentiment +I cannot say less, and will say no more +Impudent boy's fling at superiority over the superior +In India they sacrifice the widows, in France the virgins +Incessantly speaking of the necessity we granted it unknowingly +Levelling a finger at the taxpayer +Men had not pleased him of late +Mental and moral neuters +Never was a word fitter for a quack's mouth than "humanity" +No case is hopeless till a man consents to think it is +Peace-party which opposed was the actual cause of the war +Peculiar subdued form of laughter through the nose +Play the great game of blunders +Please to be pathetic on that subject after I am wrinkled +Politics as well as the other diseases +Press, which had kindled, proceeded to extinguished +Presumptuous belief +Ready is the ardent mind to take footing on the last thing done +She was not, happily, one of the women who betray strong feeling +Shuns the statuesque pathetic, or any kind of posturing +Straining for common talk, and showing the strain +Style resembling either early architecture or utter dilapidation +The people always wait for the winner +The system is cursed by nature, and that means by heaven +The tragedy of the mirror is one for a woman to write +Times when an example is needed by brave men +Tongue flew, thought followed +We could row and ride and fish and shoot, and breed largely +We dare not be weak if we would +We were unarmed, and the spectacle was distressing +We're treated like old-fashioned ornaments! +You're talking to me, not to a gallery + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Beauchamp's Career, v1 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4453.zip b/4453.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..06024b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/4453.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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