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CONCERNING THE ACT OF CANVASSING + + + +CHAPTER XI + +CAPTAIN BASKELETT + +Our England, meanwhile, was bustling over the extinguished war, counting +the cost of it, with a rather rueful eye on Manchester, and soothing the +taxed by an exhibition of heroes at brilliant feasts. Of course, the +first to come home had the cream of the praises. She hugged them in a +manner somewhat suffocating to modest men, but heroism must be brought to +bear upon these excesses of maternal admiration; modesty, too, when it +accepts the place of honour at a public banquet, should not protest +overmuch. To be just, the earliest arrivals, which were such as reached +the shores of Albion before her war was at an end, did cordially +reciprocate the hug. They were taught, and they believed most naturally, +that it was quite as well to repose upon her bosom as to have stuck to +their posts. Surely there was a conscious weakness in the Spartans, who +were always at pains to discipline their men in heroical conduct, and +rewarded none save the stand-fasts. A system of that sort seems to +betray the sense of poverty in the article. Our England does nothing +like it. All are welcome home to her so long as she is in want of them. +Besides, she has to please the taxpayer. You may track a shadowy line or +crazy zigzag of policy in almost every stroke of her domestic history: +either it is the forethought finding it necessary to stir up an impulse, +or else dashing impulse gives a lively pull to the afterthought: policy +becomes evident somehow, clumsily very possibly. How can she manage an +enormous middle-class, to keep it happy, other than a little clumsily? +The managing of it at all is the wonder. And not only has she to stupefy +the taxpayer by a timely display of feastings and fireworks, she has to +stop all that nonsense (to quote a satiated man lightened in his purse) +at the right moment, about the hour when the old standfasts, who have +simply been doing duty, return, poor jog-trot fellows, and a +complimentary motto or two is the utmost she can present to them. +On the other hand, it is true she gives her first loves, those early +birds, fully to understand that a change has come in their island +mother's mind. If there is a balance to be righted, she leaves that +business to society, and if it be the season for the gathering of +society, it will be righted more or less; and if no righting is done at +all, perhaps the Press will incidentally toss a leaf of laurel on a name +or two: thus in the exercise of grumbling doing good. + +With few exceptions, Nevil Beauchamp's heroes received the motto instead +of the sweetmeat. England expected them to do their duty; they did it, +and she was not dissatisfied, nor should they be. Beauchamp, at a +distance from the scene, chafed with customary vehemence, concerning the +unjust measure dealt to his favourites: Captain Hardist, of the Diomed, +twenty years a captain, still a captain! Young Michell denied the cross! +Colonel Evans Cuff, on the heights from first to last, and not advanced a +step! But Prancer, and Plunger, and Lammakin were thoroughly well taken +care of, this critic of the war wrote savagely, reviving an echo of a +queer small circumstance occurring in the midst of the high dolour and +anxiety of the whole nation, and which a politic country preferred to +forget, as we will do, for it was but an instance of strong family +feeling in high quarters; and is not the unity of the country founded on +the integrity of the family sentiment? Is it not certain, which the +master tells us, that a line is but a continuation of a number of dots? +Nevil Beauchamp was for insisting that great Government officers had paid +more attention to a dot or two than to the line. He appeared to be at +war with his country after the peace. So far he had a lively ally in his +uncle Everard; but these remarks of his were a portion of a letter, whose +chief burden was the request that Everard Romfrey would back him in +proposing for the hand of a young French lady, she being, Beauchamp +smoothly acknowledged, engaged to a wealthy French marquis, under the +approbation of her family. Could mortal folly outstrip a petition of +that sort? And apparently, according to the wording and emphasis of the +letter, it was the mature age of the marquis which made Mr. Beauchamp so +particularly desirous to stop the projected marriage and take the girl +himself. He appealed to his uncle on the subject in a 'really--really' +remonstrative tone, quite overwhelming to read. 'It ought not to be +permitted: by all the laws of chivalry, I should write to the girl's +father to interdict it: I really am particeps criminis in a sin against +nature if I don't!' Mr. Romfrey interjected in burlesque of his +ridiculous nephew, with collapsing laughter. But he expressed an +indignant surprise at Nevil for allowing Rosamund to travel alone. + +'I can take very good care of myself,' Rosamund protested. + +'You can do hundreds of things you should never be obliged to do while +he's at hand, or I, ma'am,' said Mr. Romfrey. 'The fellow's insane. He +forgets a gentleman's duty. Here's his "humanity" dogging a French +frock, and pooh!--the age of the marquis! Fifty? A man's beginning his +prime at fifty, or there never was much man in him. It's the mark of a +fool to take everybody for a bigger fool than himself-or he wouldn't have +written this letter to me. He can't come home yet, not yet, and he +doesn't know when he can! Has he thrown up the service? I am to +preserve the alliance between England and France by getting this French +girl for him in the teeth of her marquis, at my peril if I refuse!' + +Rosamund asked, 'Will you let me see where Nevil says that, sir?' + +Mr. Romfrey tore the letter to strips. 'He's one of your fellows who +cock their eyes when they mean to be cunning. He sends you to do the +wheedling, that's plain. I don't say he has hit on a bad advocate; but +tell him I back him in no mortal marriage till he shows a pair of +epaulettes on his shoulders. Tell him lieutenants are fledglings--he's +not marriageable at present. It's a very pretty sacrifice of himself he +intends for the sake of the alliance, tell him that, but a lieutenant's +not quite big enough to establish it. You will know what to tell him, +ma'am. And say, it's the fellow's best friend that advises him to be out +of it and home quick. If he makes one of a French trio, he's dished. +He's too late for his luck in England. Have him out of that mire, we +can't hope for more now.' + +Rosamund postponed her mission to plead. Her heart was with Nevil; her +understanding was easily led to side against him, and for better reasons +than Mr. Romfrey could be aware of: so she was assured by her experience +of the character of Mademoiselle de Croisnel. A certain belief in her +personal arts of persuasion had stopped her from writing on her homeward +journey to inform him that Nevil was not accompanying her, and when she +drove over Steynham Common, triumphal arches and the odour of a roasting +ox richly browning to celebrate the hero's return afflicted her mind with +all the solid arguments of a common-sense country in contravention of a +wild lover's vaporous extravagances. Why had he not come with her? The +disappointed ox put the question in a wavering drop of the cheers of the +villagers at the sight of the carriage without their bleeding hero. Mr. +Romfrey, at his hall-doors, merely screwed his eyebrows; for it was the +quality of this gentleman to foresee most human events, and his capacity +to stifle astonishment when they trifled with his prognostics. Rosamund +had left Nevil fast bound in the meshes of the young French sorceress, +no longer leading, but submissively following, expecting blindly, seeing +strange new virtues in the lurid indication of what appeared to border on +the reverse. How could she plead for her infatuated darling to one who +was common sense in person? + +Everard's pointed interrogations reduced her to speak defensively, +instead of attacking and claiming his aid for the poor enamoured young +man. She dared not say that Nevil continued to be absent because he was +now encouraged by the girl to remain in attendance on her, and was more +than half inspired to hope, and too artfully assisted to deceive the +count and the marquis under the guise of simple friendship. Letters +passed between them in books given into one another's hands with an +audacious openness of the saddest augury for the future of the pair, +and Nevil could be so lost to reason as to glory in Renee's intrepidity, +which he justified by their mutual situation, and cherished for a proof +that she was getting courage. In fine, Rosamund abandoned her task of +pleading. Nevil's communications gave the case a worse and worse aspect: +Renee was prepared to speak to her father; she delayed it; then the two +were to part; they were unable to perform the terrible sacrifice and slay +their last hope; and then Nevil wrote of destiny--language hitherto +unknown to him, evidently the tongue of Renee. He slipped on from Italy +to France. His uncle was besieged by a series of letters, and his +cousin, Cecil Baskelett, a captain in England's grand reserve force--her +Horse Guards, of the Blue division--helped Everard Romfrey to laugh over +them. + +It was not difficult, alack! Letters of a lover in an extremity of love, +crying for help, are as curious to cool strong men as the contortions of +the proved heterodox tied to a stake must have been to their chastening +ecclesiastical judges. Why go to the fire when a recantation will save +you from it? Why not break the excruciating faggot-bands, and escape, +when you have only to decide to do it? We naturally ask why. Those +martyrs of love or religion are madmen. Altogether, Nevil's adjurations +and supplications, his threats of wrath and appeals to reason, were an +odd mixture. 'He won't lose a chance while there's breath in his body,' +Everard said, quite good-humouredly, though he deplored that the chance +for the fellow to make his hero-parade in society, and haply catch an +heiress, was waning. There was an heiress at Steynham, on her way with +her father to Italy, very anxious to see her old friend Nevil--Cecilia +Halkett--and very inquisitive this young lady of sixteen was to know the +cause of his absence. She heard of it from Cecil. + +'And one morning last week mademoiselle was running away with him, and +the next morning she was married to her marquis!' + +Cecil was able to tell her that. + +'I used to be so fond of him,' said the ingenuous young lady. She had to +thank Nevil for a Circassian dress and pearls, which he had sent to her +by the hands of Mrs. Culling--a pretty present to a girl in the nursery, +she thought, and in fact she chose to be a little wounded by the cause of +his absence. + +'He's a good creature-really,' Cecil spoke on his cousin's behalf. +'Mad; he always will be mad. A dear old savage; always amuses me. +He does! I get half my entertainment from him.' + +Captain Baskelett was gifted with the art, which is a fine and a precious +one, of priceless value in society, and not wanting a benediction upon it +in our elegant literature, namely, the art of stripping his fellow-man +and so posturing him as to make every movement of the comical wretch +puppet-like, constrained, stiff, and foolish. He could present you +heroical actions in that fashion; for example: + +'A long-shanked trooper, bearing the name of John Thomas Drew, was +crawling along under fire of the batteries. Out pops old Nevil, tries to +get the man on his back. It won't do. Nevil insists that it's exactly +one of the cases that ought to be, and they remain arguing about it like +a pair of nine-pins while the Muscovites are at work with the bowls. +Very well. Let me tell you my story. It's perfectly true, I give you my +word. So Nevil tries to horse Drew, and Drew proposes to horse Nevil, as +at school. Then Drew offers a compromise. He would much rather have +crawled on, you know, and allowed the shot to pass over his head; but +he's a Briton, old Nevil the same; but old Nevil's peculiarity is that, +as you are aware, he hates a compromise--won't have it--retro Sathanas! +and Drew's proposal to take his arm instead of being carried pickaback +disgusts old Nevil. Still it won't do to stop where they are, like the +cocoa-nut and the pincushion of our friends, the gipsies, on the downs: +so they take arms and commence the journey home, resembling the best of +friends on the evening of a holiday in our native clime--two steps to the +right, half-a-dozen to the left, etcaetera.' + +Thus, with scarce a variation from the facts, with but a flowery chaplet +cast on a truthful narrative, as it were, Captain Baskelett could render +ludicrous that which in other quarters had obtained honourable mention. +Nevil and Drew being knocked down by the wind of a ball near the battery, +'Confound it!' cries Nevil, jumping on his feet, 'it's because I +consented to a compromise!'--a transparent piece of fiction this, but so +in harmony with the character stripped naked for us that it is accepted. +Imagine Nevil's love-affair in such hands! Recovering from a fever, +Nevil sees a pretty French girl in a gondola, and immediately thinks, +'By jingo, I'm marriageable.' He hears she is engaged. 'By jingo, she's +marriageable too.' He goes through a sum in addition, and the total is a +couple; so he determines on a marriage. 'You can't get it out of his +head; he must be married instantly, and to her, because she is going to +marry somebody else. Sticks to her, follows her, will have her, in spite +of her father, her marquis, her brother, aunts, cousins, religion, +country, and the young woman herself. I assure you, a perfect model of +male fidelity! She is married. He is on her track. He knows his time +will come; he has only to be handy. You see, old Nevil believes in +Providence, is perfectly sure he will one day hear it cry out, "Where's +Beauchamp?"--"Here I am!"--"And here's your marquise!"--"I knew I should +have her at last," says Nevil, calm as Mont Blanc on a reduced scale.' + +The secret of Captain Baskelett's art would seem to be to show the +automatic human creature at loggerheads with a necessity that winks at +remarkable pretensions, while condemning it perpetually to doll-like +action. You look on men from your own elevation as upon a quantity of +our little wooden images, unto whom you affix puny characteristics, under +restrictions from which they shall not escape, though they attempt it +with the enterprising vigour of an extended leg, or a pair of raised +arms, or a head awry, or a trick of jumping; and some of them are +extraordinarily addicted to these feats; but for all they do the end is +the same, for necessity rules, that exactly so, under stress of activity +must the doll Nevil, the doll Everard, or the dolliest of dolls, fair +woman, behave. The automatic creature is subject to the laws of its +construction, you perceive. It can this, it can that, but it cannot leap +out of its mechanism. One definition of the art is, humour made easy, +and that may be why Cecil Baskelett indulged in it, and why it is popular +with those whose humour consists of a readiness to laugh. + +The fun between Cecil Baskelett and Mr. Romfrey over the doll Nevil +threatened an intimacy and community of sentiment that alarmed Rosamund +on behalf of her darling's material prospects. She wrote to him, +entreating him to come to Steynham. Nevil Beauchamp replied to her both +frankly and shrewdly: 'I shall not pretend that I forgive my uncle +Everard, and therefore it is best for me to keep away. Have no fear. +The baron likes a man of his own tastes: they may laugh together, if it +suits them; he never could be guilty of treachery, and to disinherit me +would be that. If I were to become his open enemy to-morrow, I should +look on the estates as mine-unless I did anything to make him disrespect +me. You will not suppose it likely. I foresee I shall want money. As +for Cecil, I give him as much rope as he cares to have. I know very well +Everard Romfrey will see where the point of likeness between them stops. +I apply for a ship the moment I land.' + +To test Nevil's judgement of his uncle, Rosamund ventured on showing this +letter to Mr. Romfrey. He read it, and said nothing, but subsequently +asked, from time to time, 'Has he got his ship yet?' It assured her that +Nevil was not wrong, and dispelled her notion of the vulgar imbroglio of +a rich uncle and two thirsty nephews. She was hardly less relieved in +reflecting that he could read men so soberly and accurately. The +desperation of the youth in love had rendered her one little bit doubtful +of the orderliness of his wits. After this she smiled on Cecil's +assiduities. Nevil obtained his appointment to a ship bound for the +coast of Africa to spy for slavers. He called on his uncle in London, +and spent the greater part of the hour's visit with Rosamund; seemed +cured of his passion, devoid of rancour, glad of the prospect of a run +among the slaving hulls. He and his uncle shook hands manfully, at the +full outstretch of their arms, in a way so like them, to Rosamund's +thinking--that is, in a way so unlike any other possible couple of men so +situated--that the humour of the sight eclipsed all the pleasantries of +Captain Baskelett. 'Good-bye, sir,' Nevil said heartily; and Everard +Romfrey was not behind-hand with the cordial ring of his 'Good-bye, +Nevil'; and upon that they separated. Rosamund would have been willing +to speak to her beloved of his false Renee--the Frenchwoman, she termed +her, i.e. generically false, needless to name; and one question quivered +on her tongue's tip: 'How, when she had promised to fly with you, how +could she the very next day step to the altar with him now her husband?' +And, if she had spoken it, she would have added, 'Your uncle could not +have set his face against you, had you brought her to England.' She felt +strongly the mastery Nevil Beauchamp could exercise even over his uncle +Everard. But when he was gone, unquestioned, merely caressed, it came to +her mind that he had all through insisted on his possession of this +particular power, and she accused herself of having wantonly helped to +ruin his hope--a matter to be rejoiced at in the abstract; but what +suffering she had inflicted on him! To quiet her heart, she persuaded +herself that for the future she would never fail to believe in him and +second him blindly, as true love should; and contemplating one so brave, +far-sighted, and self-assured, her determination seemed to impose the +lightest of tasks. + +Practically humane though he was, and especially toward cattle and all +kinds of beasts, Mr. Romfrey entertained no profound fellow-feeling for +the negro, and, except as the representative of a certain amount of +working power commonly requiring the whip to wind it up, he inclined to +despise that black spot in the creation, with which our civilization +should never have had anything to do. So he pronounced his mind, and the +long habit of listening to oracles might grow us ears to hear and +discover a meaning in it. Nevil's captures and releases of the grinning +freights amused him for awhile. He compared them to strings of bananas, +and presently put the vision of the whole business aside by talking of +Nevil's banana-wreath. He desired to have Nevil out of it. He and Cecil +handed Nevil in his banana-wreath about to their friends. Nevil, in his +banana-wreath, was set preaching 'humanitomtity.' At any rate, they +contrived to keep the remembrance of Nevil Beauchamp alive during the +period of his disappearance from the world, and in so doing they did him +a service. + +There is a pause between the descent of a diver and his return to the +surface, when those who would not have him forgotten by the better world +above him do rightly to relate anecdotes of him, if they can, and to +provoke laughter at him. The encouragement of the humane sense of +superiority over an object of interest, which laughter gives, is good for +the object; and besides, if you begin to tell sly stories of one in the +deeps who is holding his breath to fetch a pearl or two for you all, you +divert a particular sympathetic oppression of the chest, that the +extremely sensitive are apt to suffer from, and you dispose the larger +number to keep in mind a person they no longer see. Otherwise it is +likely that he will, very shortly after he has made his plunge, fatigue +the contemplative brains above, and be shuffled off them, even as great +ocean smoothes away the dear vanished man's immediate circle of foam, and +rapidly confounds the rippling memory of him with its other agitations. +And in such a case the apparition of his head upon our common level once +more will almost certainly cause a disagreeable shock; nor is it +improbable that his first natural snorts in his native element, though +they be simply to obtain his share of the breath of life, will draw down +on him condemnation for eccentric behaviour and unmannerly; and this in +spite of the jewel he brings, unless it be an exceedingly splendid one. +The reason is, that our brave world cannot pardon a breach of continuity +for any petty bribe. + +Thus it chanced, owing to the prolonged efforts of Mr. Romfrey and Cecil +Baskelett to get fun out of him, at the cost of considerable +inventiveness, that the electoral Address of the candidate, signing +himself 'R. C. S. Nevil Beauchamp,' to the borough of Bevisham, did not +issue from an altogether unremembered man. + +He had been cruising in the Mediterranean, commanding the Ariadne, the +smartest corvette in the service. He had, it was widely made known, met +his marquise in Palermo. It was presumed that he was dancing the round +with her still, when this amazing Address appeared on Bevisham's walls, +in anticipation of the general Election. The Address, moreover, was +ultra-Radical: museums to be opened on Sundays; ominous references to the +Land question, etc.; no smooth passing mention of Reform, such as the +Liberal, become stately, adopts in speaking of that property of his, but +swinging blows on the heads of many a denounced iniquity. + +Cecil forwarded the Address to Everard Romfrey without comment. + +Next day the following letter, dated from Itchincope, the house of Mr. +Grancey Lespel, on the borders of Bevisham, arrived at Steynham: + +'I have despatched you the proclamation, folded neatly. The electors of +Bevisham are summoned, like a town at the sword's point, to yield him +their votes. Proclamation is the word. I am your born representative! +I have completed my political education on salt water, and I tackle you +on the Land question. I am the heir of your votes, gentlemen!--I forgot, +and I apologize; he calls them fellow-men. Fraternal, and not so risky. +Here at Lespel's we read the thing with shouts. It hangs in the smoking- +room. We throw open the curacoa to the intelligence and industry of the +assembled guests; we carry the right of the multitude to our host's +cigars by a majority. C'est un farceur que notre bon petit cousin. +Lespel says it is sailorlike to do something of this sort after a cruise. +Nevil's Radicalism would have been clever anywhere out of Bevisham. Of +all boroughs! Grancey Lespel knows it. He and his family were +Bevisham's Whig M.P.'s before the day of Manchester. In Bevisham an +election is an arrangement made by Providence to square the accounts of +the voters, and settle arrears. They reckon up the health of their two +members and the chances of an appeal to the country when they fix the +rents and leases. You have them pointed out to you in the street, with +their figures attached to them like titles. Mr. Tomkins, the twenty- +pound man; an elector of uncommon purity. I saw the ruffian yesterday. +He has an extra breadth to his hat. He has never been known to listen to +a member under L20, and is respected enormously--like the lady of the +Mythology, who was an intolerable Tartar of virtue, because her price was +nothing less than a god, and money down. Nevil will have to come down on +Bevisham in the Jupiter style. Bevisham is downright the dearest of +boroughs--"vaulting-boards," as Stukely Culbrett calls them--in the +kingdom. I assume we still say "kingdom." + +'He dashed into the Radical trap exactly two hours after landing. I +believe he was on his way to the Halketts at Mount Laurels. A notorious +old rascal revolutionist retired from his licenced business of +slaughterer--one of your gratis doctors--met him on the high-road, and +told him he was the man. Up went Nevil's enthusiasm like a bottle rid of +the cork. You will see a great deal about faith in the proclamation; +"faith in the future," and "my faith in you." When you become a Radical +you have faith in any quantity, just as an alderman gets turtle soup. +It is your badge, like a livery-servant's cockade or a corporal's sleeve +stripes--your badge and your bellyful. Calculations were gone through at +the Liberal newspaper-office, old Nevil adding up hard, and he was +informed that he was elected by something like a topping eight or nine +hundred and some fractions. I am sure that a fellow who can let himself +be gulled by a pile of figures trumped up in a Radical newspaper-office +must have great faith in the fractions. Out came Nevil's proclamation. + +'I have not met him, and I would rather not. I shall not pretend to +offer you advice, for I have the habit of thinking your judgement can +stand by itself. We shall all find this affair a nuisance. Nevil will +pay through the nose. We shall have the ridicule spattered on the +family. It would be a safer thing for him to invest his money on the +Turf, and I shall advise his doing it if I come across him. + +'Perhaps the best course would be to telegraph for the marquise!' + +This was from Cecil Baskelett. He added a postscript: + +'Seriously, the "mad commander" has not an ace of a chance. Grancey and +I saw some Working Men (you have to write them in capitals, king and +queen small); they were reading the Address on a board carried by a red- +nosed man, and shrugging. They are not such fools. + +'By the way, I am informed Shrapnel has a young female relative living +with him, said to be a sparkler. I bet you, sir, she is not a Radical. +Do you take me?' + +Rosamund Culling drove to the railway station on her way to Bevisham +within an hour after Mr. Romfrey's eyebrows had made acute play over this +communication. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +AN INTERVIEW WITH THE INFAMOUS DR. SHRAPNEL + +In the High street of the ancient and famous town and port of Bevisham, +Rosamund met the military governor of a neighbouring fortress, General +Sherwin, once colonel of her husband's regiment in India; and by him, as +it happened, she was assisted in finding the whereabout of the young +Liberal candidate, without the degrading recourse of an application at +the newspaper-office of his party. The General was leisurely walking to +a place of appointment to fetch his daughter home from a visit to an old +school-friend, a Miss Jenny Denham, no other than a ward, or a niece, or +an adoption of Dr. Shrapnel's: 'A nice girl; a great favourite of mine,' +the General said. Shrapnel he knew by reputation only as a wrong-headed +politician; but he spoke of Miss Denham pleasantly two or three times, +praising her accomplishments and her winning manners. His hearer +suspected that it might be done to dissociate the idea of her from the +ruffling agitator. 'Is she pretty?' was a question that sprang. from +Rosamund's intimate reflections. The answer was, 'Yes.' + +'Very pretty?' + +'I think very pretty,' said the General. + +'Captivatingly?' + +'Clara thinks she is perfect; she is tall and slim, and dresses well. +The girls were with a French Madam in Paris. But, if you are interested +about her, you can come on with me, and we shall meet them somewhere near +the head of the street. I don't,' the General hesitated and hummed-- +'I don't call at Shrapnel's.' + +'I have never heard her name before to-day,' said Rosamund. + +'Exactly,' said the General, crowing at the aimlessness of a woman's +curiosity. + +The young ladies were seen approaching, and Rosamund had to ask herself +whether the first sight of a person like Miss Denham would be of a kind +to exercise a lively influence over the political and other sentiments of +a dreamy sailor just released from ship-service. In an ordinary case she +would have said no, for Nevil enjoyed a range of society where faces +charming as Miss Denham's were plentiful as roses in the rose-garden. +But, supposing him free of his bondage to the foreign woman, there was, +she thought and feared, a possibility that a girl of this description +might capture a young man's vacant heart sighing for a new mistress. +And if so, further observation assured her Miss Denham was likely to be +dangerous far more than professedly attractive persons, enchantresses and +the rest. Rosamund watchfully gathered all the superficial indications +which incite women to judge of character profoundly. This new object of +alarm was, as the General had said of her, tall and slim, a friend of +neatness, plainly dressed, but exquisitely fitted, in the manner of +Frenchwomen. She spoke very readily, not too much, and had the rare gift +of being able to speak fluently with a smile on the mouth. Vulgar +archness imitates it. She won and retained the eyes of her hearer +sympathetically, it seemed. Rosamund thought her as little conscious as +a woman could be. She coloured at times quickly, but without confusion. +When that name, the key of Rosamund's meditations, chanced to be +mentioned, a flush swept over Miss Denham's face. The candour of it was +unchanged as she gazed at Rosamund, with a look that asked, 'Do you know +him?' + +Rosamund said, 'I am an old friend of his.' + +'He is here now, in this town.' + +'I wish to see him very much.' + +General Sherwin interposed: 'We won't talk about political characters +just for the present.' + +'I wish you knew him, papa, and would advise him,' his daughter said. + +The General nodded hastily. 'By-and-by, by-and-by.' + +They had in fact taken seats at a table of mutton pies in a pastrycook's +shop, where dashing military men were restrained solely by their presence +from a too noisy display of fascinations before the fashionable waiting- +women. + +Rosamund looked at Miss Denham. As soon as they were in the street the +latter said, 'If you will be good enough to come with me, madam . . .?' +Rosamund bowed, thankful to have been comprehended. The two young ladies +kissed cheeks and parted. General Sherwin raised his hat, and was +astonished to see Mrs. Culling join Miss Denham in accepting the salute, +for they had not been introduced, and what could they have in common? It +was another of the oddities of female nature. + +'My name is Mrs. Culling, and I will tell you how it is that I am +interested in Captain Beauchamp,' Rosamund addressed her companion. 'I +am his uncle's housekeeper. I have known him and loved him since he was +a boy. I am in great fear that he is acting rashly.' + +'You honour me, madam, by speaking to me so frankly,' Miss Denham +answered. + +'He is quite bent upon this Election?' + +'Yes, madam. I am not, as you can suppose, in his confidence, but I hear +of him from Dr. Shrapnel.' + +'Your uncle?' + +'I call him uncle: he is my guardian, madam.' + +It is perhaps excuseable that this communication did not cause the doctor +to shine with added lustre in Rosamund's thoughts, or ennoble the young +lady. + +'You are not relatives, then?' she said. + +'No, unless love can make us so.' + +'Not blood-relatives?' + +'No.' + +'Is he not very . . . extreme?' + +'He is very sincere.' + +'I presume you are a politician?' + +Miss Denham smiled. 'Could you pardon me, madam, if I said that I was?' +The counter-question was a fair retort enfolding a gentler irony. +Rosamund felt that she had to do with wits as well as with vivid feminine +intuitions in the person of this Miss Denham. + +She said, 'I really am of opinion that our sex might abstain from +politics.' + +'We find it difficult to do justice to both parties,' Miss Denham +followed. 'It seems to be a kind of clanship with women; hardly even +that.' + +Rosamund was inattentive to the conversational slipshod, and launched one +of the heavy affrmatives which are in dialogue full stops. She could not +have said why she was sensible of anger, but the sentiment of anger, or +spite (if that be a lesser degree of the same affliction), became stirred +in her bosom when she listened to the ward of Dr. Shrapnel. A silly +pretty puss of a girl would not have excited it, nor an avowed blood- +relative of the demagogue. + +Nevil's hotel was pointed out to Rosamund, and she left her card there. +He had been absent since eight in the morning. There was the probability +that he might be at Dr. Shrapnel's, so Rosamund walked on. + +'Captain Beauchamp gives himself no rest,' Miss Denham said. + +'Oh! I know him, when once his mind is set on anything,' said Rosamund. + +'Is it not too early to begin to--canvass, I think, is the word?' + +'He is studying whatever the town can teach him of its wants; that is, +how he may serve it.' + +'Indeed! But if the town will not have him to serve it?' + +'He imagines that he cannot do better, until that has been decided, than +to fit himself for the post.' + +'Acting upon your advice? I mean, of course, your uncle's; that is, Dr. +Shrapnel's.' + +'Dr. Shrapnel thinks it will not be loss of time for Captain Beauchamp to +grow familiar with the place, and observe as well as read.' + +'It sounds almost as if Captain Beauchamp had submitted to be Dr. +Shrapnel's pupil.' + +'It is natural, madam, that Dr. Shrapnel should know more of political +ways at present than Captain Beauchamp.' + +'To Captain Beauchamp's friends and relatives it appears very strange +that he should have decided to contest this election so suddenly. May I +inquire whether he and Dr. Shrapnel are old acquaintances?' + +'No, madam, they are not. They had never met before Captain Beauchamp +landed, the other day.' + +'I am surprised, I confess. I cannot understand the nature of an +influence that induces him to abandon a profession he loves and shines +in, for politics, at a moment's notice.' + +Miss Denham was silent, and then said: + +'I will tell you, madam, how it occurred, as far as circumstances explain +it. Dr. Shrapnel is accustomed to give a little country feast to the +children I teach, and their parents if they choose to come, and they +generally do. They are driven to Northeden Heath, where we set up a +booth for them, and try with cakes and tea and games to make them spend +one of their happy afternoons and evenings. We succeed, I know, for the +little creatures talk of it and look forward to the day. When they are +at their last romp, Dr. Shrapnel speaks to the parents.' + +'Can he obtain a hearing?' Rosamund asked. + +'He has not so very large a crowd to address, madam, and he is much +beloved by those that come.' + +'He speaks to them of politics on those occasions?' + +'Adouci a leur intention. It is not a political speech, but Dr. Shrapnel +thinks, that in a so-called free country seeking to be really free, men +of the lowest class should be educated in forming a political judgement.' + +'And women too?' + +'And women, yes. Indeed, madam, we notice that the women listen very +creditably.' + +'They can put on the air.' + +'I am afraid, not more than the men do. To get them to listen is +something. They suffer like the men, and must depend on their +intelligence to win their way out of it.' + +Rosamund's meditation was exclamatory: What can be the age of this +pretentious girl? + +An afterthought turned her more conciliatorily toward the person, but +less to the subject. She was sure that she was lending ear to the echo +of the dangerous doctor, and rather pitied Miss Denham for awhile, +reflecting that a young woman stuffed with such ideas would find it hard +to get a husband. Mention of Nevil revived her feeling of hostility. + +We had seen a gentleman standing near and listening attentively,' Miss +Denham resumed, 'and when Dr. Shrapnel concluded a card was handed to +him. He read it and gave it to me, and said, "You know that name." It +was a name we had often talked about during the war. + +He went to Captain Beauchamp and shook his hand. He does not pay many +compliments, and he does not like to receive them, but it was impossible +for him not to be moved by Captain Beauchamp's warmth in thanking him for +the words he had spoken. I saw that Dr. Shrapnel became interested in +Captain Beauchamp the longer they conversed. We walked home together. +Captain Beauchamp supped with us. I left them at half-past eleven at +night, and in the morning I found them walking in the garden. They had +not gone to bed at all. Captain Beauchamp has remained in Bevisham ever +since. He soon came to the decision to be a candidate for the borough.' + +Rosamund checked her lips from uttering: To be a puppet of +Dr. Shrapnel's! + +She remarked, 'He is very eloquent--Dr. Shrapnel?' + +Miss Denham held some debate with herself upon the term. + +'Perhaps it is not eloquence; he often . . . no, he is not an orator.' + +Rosamund suggested that he was persuasive, possibly. + +Again the young lady deliberately weighed the word, as though the nicest +measure of her uncle or adoptor's quality in this or that direction were +in requisition and of importance--an instance of a want of delicacy of +perception Rosamund was not sorry to detect. For good-looking, refined- +looking, quick-witted girls can be grown; but the nimble sense of +fitness, ineffable lightning-footed tact, comes of race and breeding, and +she was sure Nevil was a man soon to feel the absence of that. + +'Dr. Shrapnel is persuasive to those who go partly with him, or whose +condition of mind calls on him for great patience,' Miss Denham said at +last. + +'I am only trying to comprehend how it was that he should so rapidly have +won Captain Beauchamp to his views,' Rosamund explained; and the young +lady did not reply. + +Dr. Shrapnel's house was about a mile beyond the town, on a common of +thorn and gorse, through which the fir-bordered highway ran. A fence +waist-high enclosed its plot of meadow and garden, so that the doctor, +while protecting his own, might see and be seen of the world, as was the +case when Rosamund approached. He was pacing at long slow strides along +the gravel walk, with his head bent and bare, and his hands behind his +back, accompanied by a gentleman who could be no other than Nevil, +Rosamund presumed to think; but drawing nearer she found she was +mistaken. + +'That is not Captain Beauchamp's figure,' she said. + +'No, it is not he,' said Miss Denham. + +Rosamund saw that her companion was pale. She warmed to her at once; by +no means on account of the pallor in itself. + +'I have walked too fast for you, I fear.' + +'Oh no; I am accused of being a fast walker.' + +Rosamund was unwilling to pass through the demagogue's gate. On second +thoughts, she reflected that she could hardly stipulate to have news of +Nevil tossed to her over the spikes, and she entered. + +While receiving Dr. Shrapnel's welcome to a friend of Captain Beauchamp, +she observed the greeting between Miss Denham and the younger gentleman. +It reassured her. They met like two that have a secret. + +The dreaded doctor was an immoderately tall man, lean and wiry, +carelessly clad in a long loose coat of no colour, loose trowsers, and +huge shoes. + +He stooped from his height to speak, or rather swing the stiff upper half +of his body down to his hearer's level and back again, like a ship's mast +on a billowy sea. He was neither rough nor abrupt, nor did he roar +bullmouthedly as demagogues are expected to do, though his voice was +deep. He was actually, after his fashion, courteous, it could be said of +him, except that his mind was too visibly possessed by distant matters +for Rosamund's taste, she being accustomed to drawing-room and hunting +and military gentlemen, who can be all in the words they utter. +Nevertheless he came out of his lizard-like look with the down-dropped +eyelids quick at a resumption of the dialogue; sometimes gesturing, +sweeping his arm round. A stubborn tuft of iron-grey hair fell across +his forehead, and it was apparently one of his life's labours to get it +to lie amid the mass, for his hand rarely ceased to be in motion without +an impulsive stroke at the refractory forelock. He peered through his +eyelashes ordinarily, but from no infirmity of sight. The truth was, +that the man's nature counteracted his spirit's intenser eagerness and +restlessness by alternating a state of repose that resembled dormancy, +and so preserved him. Rosamund was obliged to give him credit for +straightforward eyes when they did look out and flash. Their filmy blue, +half overflown with grey by age, was poignant while the fire in them +lasted. Her antipathy attributed something electrical to the light they +shot. + +Dr. Shrapnel's account of Nevil stated him to have gone to call on +Colonel Halkett, a new resident at Mount Laurels, on the Otley river. He +offered the welcome of his house to the lady who was Captain Beauchamp's +friend, saying, with extraordinary fatuity (so it sounded in Rosamund's +ears), that Captain Beauchamp would certainly not let an evening pass +without coming to him. Rosamund suggested that he might stay late at +Mount Laurels. + +'Then he will arrive here after nightfall,' said the doctor. 'A bed is +at your service, ma'am.' + +The offer was declined. 'I should like to have seen him to-day; but he +will be home shortly.' + +'He will not quit Bevisham till this Election's decided unless to hunt a +stray borough vote, ma'am.' + +'He goes to Mount Laurels. + +'For that purpose.' + +'I do not think he will persuade Colonel Halkett to vote in the Radical +interest.' + +'That is the probability with a landed proprietor, ma'am. We must knock, +whether the door opens or not. Like,' the doctor laughed to himself up +aloft, 'like a watchman in the night to say that he smells smoke on the +premises.' + +'Surely we may expect Captain Beauchamp to consult his family about so +serious a step as this he is taking,' Rosamund said, with an effort to be +civil. + +Why should he?' asked the impending doctor. + +His head continued in the interrogative position when it had resumed its +elevation. The challenge for a definite reply to so outrageous a +question irritated Rosamund's nerves, and, loth though she was to admit +him to the subject, she could not forbear from saying, 'Why? Surely his +family have the first claim on him!' + +'Surely not, ma'am. There is no first claim. A man's wife and children +have a claim on him for bread. A man's parents have a claim on him for +obedience while he is a child. A man's uncles, aunts, and cousins have +no claim on him at all, except for help in necessity, which he can grant +and they require. None--wife, children, parents, relatives--none has a +claim to bar his judgement and his actions. Sound the conscience, and +sink the family! With a clear conscience, it is best to leave the family +to its own debates. No man ever did brave work who held counsel with his +family. The family view of a man's fit conduct is the weak point of the +country. It is no other view than, "Better thy condition for our sakes." +Ha! In this way we breed sheep, fatten oxen: men are dying off. +Resolution taken, consult the family means--waste your time! Those who +go to it want an excuse for altering their minds. The family view is +everlastingly the shopkeeper's! Purse, pence, ease, increase of worldly +goods, personal importance--the pound, the English pound! Dare do that, +and you forfeit your share of Port wine in this world; you won't be +dubbed with a title; you'll be fingered at! Lord, Lord! is it the region +inside a man, or out, that gives him peace? Out, they say; for they have +lost faith in the existence of an inner. They haven't it. Air-sucker, +blood-pump, cooking machinery, and a battery of trained instincts, +aptitudes, fill up their vacuum. I repeat, ma'am, why should young +Captain Beauchamp spend an hour consulting his family? They won't +approve him; he knows it. They may annoy him; and what is the gain of +that? They can't move him; on that I let my right hand burn. So it +would be useless on both sides. He thinks so. So do I. He is one of +the men to serve his country on the best field we can choose for him. In +a ship's cabin he is thrown away. Ay, ay, War, and he may go aboard. +But now we must have him ashore. Too few of such as he!' + +'It is matter of opinion,' said Rosamund, very tightly compressed; +scarcely knowing what she said. + +How strange, besides hateful, it was to her to hear her darling spoken +of by a stranger who not only pretended to appreciate but to possess him! +A stranger, a man of evil, with monstrous ideas! A terribly strong +inexhaustible man, of a magical power too; or would he otherwise have won +such a mastery over Nevil? + +Of course she could have shot a rejoinder, to confute him with all the +force of her indignation, save that the words were tumbling about in her +head like a world in disruption, which made her feel a weakness at the +same time that she gloated on her capacity, as though she had an enormous +army, quite overwhelming if it could but be got to move in advance. This +very common condition of the silent-stricken, unused in dialectics, +heightened Rosamund's disgust by causing her to suppose that Nevil had +been similarly silenced, in his case vanquished, captured, ruined; and he +dwindled in her estimation for a moment or two. She felt that among a +sisterhood of gossips she would soon have found her voice, and struck +down the demagogue's audacious sophisms: not that they affected her in +the slightest degree for her own sake. + +Shrapnel might think what he liked, and say what he liked, as far as she +was concerned, apart from the man she loved. Rosamund went through these +emotions altogether on Nevil's behalf, and longed for her affirmatizing +inspiring sisterhood until the thought of them threw another shade on +him. + +What champion was she to look to? To whom but to Mr. Everard Romfrey? + +It was with a spasm of delighted reflection that she hit on Mr. Romfrey. +He was like a discovery to her. With his strength and skill, his robust +common sense and rough shrewd wit, his prompt comparisons, his chivalry, +his love of combat, his old knightly blood, was not he a match, and an +overmatch, for the ramping Radical who had tangled Nevil in his rough +snares? She ran her mind over Mr. Romfrey's virtues, down even to his +towering height and breadth. Could she but once draw these two giants +into collision in Nevil's presence, she was sure it would save him. The +method of doing it she did not stop to consider: she enjoyed her triumph +in the idea. + +Meantime she had passed from Dr. Shrapnel to Miss Denham, and carried on +a conversation becomingly. + +Tea had been made in the garden, and she had politely sipped half a cup, +which involved no step inside the guilty house, and therefore no distress +to her antagonism. The sun descended. She heard the doctor reciting. +Could it be poetry? In her imagination the sombre hues surrounding an +incendiary opposed that bright spirit. She listened, smiling +incredulously. Miss Denham could interpret looks, and said, 'Dr. +Shrapnel is very fond of those verses.' + +Rosamund's astonishment caused her to say, 'Are they his own?'--a piece +of satiric innocency at which Miss Denham laughed softly as she answered, +'No.' + +Rosamund pleaded that she had not heard them with any distinctness. + +'Are they written by the gentleman at his side?' + +'Mr. Lydiard? No. He writes, but the verses are not his.' + +'Does he know--has he met Captain Beauchamp?' + +'Yes, once. Captain Beauchamp has taken a great liking to his works.' + +Rosamund closed her eyes, feeling that she was in a nest that had +determined to appropriate Nevil. But at any rate there was the hope and +the probability that this Mr. Lydiard of the pen had taken a long start +of Nevil in the heart of Miss Denham: and struggling to be candid, to +ensure some meditative satisfaction, Rosamund admitted to herself that +the girl did not appear to be one of the wanton giddy-pated pusses who +play two gentlemen or more on their line. Appearances, however, could be +deceptive: never pretend to know a girl by her face, was one of +Rosamund's maxims. + +She was next informed of Dr. Shrapnel's partiality for music toward the +hour of sunset. Miss Denham mentioned it, and the doctor, presently +sauntering up, invited Rosamund to a seat on a bench near the open window +of the drawing-room. He nodded to his ward to go in. + +'I am a fire-worshipper, ma'am,' he said. 'The God of day is the father +of poetry, medicine, music: our best friend. See him there! My Jenny +will spin a thread from us to him over the millions of miles, with one +touch of the chords, as quick as he shoots a beam on us. Ay! on her +wretched tinkler called a piano, which tries at the whole orchestra and +murders every instrument in the attempt. But it's convenient, like our +modern civilization--a taming and a diminishing of individuals for an +insipid harmony!' + +'You surely do not object to the organ?--I fear I cannot wait, though,' +said Rosamund. + +Miss Denham entreated her. 'Oh! do, madam. Not to hear me--I am not so +perfect a player that I should wish it--but to see him. Captain +Beauchamp may now be coming at any instant.' + +Mr. Lydiard added, 'I have an appointment with him here for this +evening.' + +'You build a cathedral of sound in the organ,' said Dr. Shrapnel, casting +out a league of leg as he sat beside his only half-persuaded fretful +guest. 'You subject the winds to serve you; that's a gain. You do +actually accomplish a resonant imitation of the various instruments; they +sing out as your two hands command them--trumpet, flute, dulcimer, +hautboy, drum, storm, earthquake, ethereal quire; you have them at your +option. But tell me of an organ in the open air? The sublimity would +vanish, ma'am, both from the notes and from the structure, because +accessories and circumstances produce its chief effects. Say that an +organ is a despotism, just as your piano is the Constitutional bourgeois. +Match them with the trained orchestral band of skilled individual +performers, indoors or out, where each grasps his instrument, and each +relies on his fellow with confidence, and an unrivalled concord comes of +it. That is our republic each one to his work; all in union! There's +the motto for us! Then you have music, harmony, the highest, fullest, +finest! Educate your men to form a band, you shame dexterous trickery +and imitation sounds. Then for the difference of real instruments from +clever shams! Oh, ay, one will set your organ going; that is, one in +front, with his couple of panting air-pumpers behind--his ministers!' +Dr. Shrapnel laughed at some undefined mental image, apparently careless +of any laughing companionship. 'One will do it for you, especially if +he's born to do it. Born!' A slap of the knee reported what seemed to +be an immensely contemptuous sentiment. 'But free mouths blowing into +brass and wood, ma'am, beat your bellows and your whifflers; your +artificial choruses--crash, crash! your unanimous plebiscitums! Beat +them? There's no contest: we're in another world; we're in the sun's +world,--yonder!' + +Miss Denham's opening notes on the despised piano put a curb on the +doctor. She began a Mass of Mozart's, without the usual preliminary +rattle of the keys, as of a crier announcing a performance, straight to +her task, for which Rosamund thanked her, liking that kind of composed +simplicity: she thanked her more for cutting short the doctor's fanatical +nonsense. It was perceptible to her that a species of mad metaphor had +been wriggling and tearing its passage through a thorn-bush in his +discourse, with the furious urgency of a sheep in a panic; but where the +ostensible subject ended and the metaphor commenced, and which was which +at the conclusion, she found it difficult to discern--much as the sheep +would, be when he had left his fleece behind him. She could now have +said, 'Silly old man!' + +Dr. Shrapnel appeared most placable. He was gazing at his Authority in +the heavens, tangled among gold clouds and purple; his head bent acutely +on one side, and his eyes upturned in dim speculation. His great feet +planted on their heels faced him, suggesting the stocks; his arms hung +loose. Full many a hero of the alehouse, anciently amenable to leg-and- +foot imprisonment in the grip of the parish, has presented as respectable +an air. His forelock straggled as it willed. + +Rosamund rose abruptly as soon as the terminating notes of the Mass had +been struck. + +Dr. Shrapnel seemed to be concluding his devotions before he followed her +example. + +'There, ma'am, you have a telegraphic system for the soul,' he said. +'It is harder work to travel from this place to this' (he pointed at ear +and breast) 'than from here to yonder' (a similar indication traversed +the distance between earth and sun). 'Man's aim has hitherto been to +keep men from having a soul for this world: he takes it for something +infernal. He?--I mean, they that hold power. They shudder to think the +conservatism of the earth will be shaken by a change; they dread they +won't get men with souls to fetch and carry, dig, root, mine, for them. +Right!--what then? Digging and mining will be done; so will harping and +singing. But then we have a natural optimacy! Then, on the one hand, +we whip the man-beast and the man-sloth; on the other, we seize that old +fatted iniquity--that tyrant! that tempter! that legitimated swindler +cursed of Christ! that palpable Satan whose name is Capital! by the +neck, and have him disgorging within three gasps of his life. He is the +villain! Let him live, for he too comes of blood and bone. He shall not +grind the faces of the poor and helpless--that's all.' + +The comicality of her having such remarks addressed to her provoked a +smile on Rosamund's lips. + +'Don't go at him like Samson blind,' said Mr. Lydiard; and Miss Denham, +who had returned, begged her guardian to entreat the guest to stay. + +She said in an undertone, 'I am very anxious you should see Captain +Beauchamp, madam.' + +'I too; but he will write, and I really can wait no longer,' Rosamund +replied, in extreme apprehension lest a certain degree of pressure should +overbear her repugnance to the doctor's dinner-table. Miss Denham's look +was fixed on her; but, whatever it might mean, Rosamund's endurance was +at an end. She was invited to dine; she refused. She was exceedingly +glad to find herself on the high-road again, with a prospect of reaching +Steynham that night; for it was important that she should not have to +confess a visit to Bevisham now when she had so little of favourable to +tell Mr. Everard Romfrey of his chosen nephew. Whether she had acted +quite wisely in not remaining to see Nevil, was an agitating question +that had to be silenced by an appeal to her instincts of repulsion, +and a further appeal for justification of them to her imaginary +sisterhood of gossips. How could she sit and eat, how pass an evening +in that house, in the society of that man? Her tuneful chorus cried, +'How indeed.' Besides, it would have offended Mr. Romfrey to hear that +she had done so. Still she could not refuse to remember Miss Denham's +marked intimations of there being a reason for Nevil's friend to seize +the chance of an immediate interview with him; and in her distress at the +thought, Rosamund reluctantly, but as if compelled by necessity, ascribed +the young lady's conduct to a strong sense of personal interests. + +'Evidently she has no desire he should run the risk of angering a rich +uncle.' + +This shameful suspicion was unavoidable: there was no other opiate for +Rosamund's blame of herself after letting her instincts gain the +ascendancy. + +It will be found a common case, that when we have yielded to our +instincts, and then have to soothe conscience, we must slaughter +somebody, for a sacrificial offering to our sense of comfort. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A SUPERFINE CONSCIENCE + +However much Mr. Everard Romfrey may have laughed at Nevil Beauchamp with +his 'banana-wreath,' he liked the fellow for having volunteered for that +African coast-service, and the news of his promotion by his admiral to +the post of commander through a death vacancy, had given him an exalted +satisfaction, for as he could always point to the cause of failures, he +strongly appreciated success. The circumstance had offered an occasion +for the new commander to hit him hard upon a matter of fact. Beauchamp +had sent word of his advance in rank, but requested his uncle not to +imagine him wearing an additional epaulette; and he corrected the +infallible gentleman's error (which had of course been reported to him +when he was dreaming of Renee, by Mrs. Culling) concerning a lieutenant's +shoulder decorations, most gravely; informing him of the anchor on the +lieutenant's pair of epaulettes, and the anchor and star on a +commander's, and the crown on a captain's, with a well-feigned +solicitousness to save his uncle from blundering further. This was done +in the dry neat manner which Mr. Romfrey could feel to be his own turned +on him. + +He began to conceive a vague respect for the fellow who had proved him +wrong upon a matter of fact. Beauchamp came from Africa rather worn by +the climate, and immediately obtained the command of the Ariadne +corvette, which had been some time in commission in the Mediterranean, +whither he departed, without visiting Steynham; allowing Rosamund to +think him tenacious of his wrath as well as of love. Mr. Romfrey +considered him to be insatiable for service. Beauchamp, during his +absence, had shown himself awake to the affairs of his country once only, +in an urgent supplication he had forwarded for all his uncle's influence +to be used to get him appointed to the first vacancy in Robert Hall's +naval brigade, then forming a part of our handful in insurgent India. +The fate of that chivalrous Englishman, that born sailor-warrior, that +truest of heroes, imperishable in the memory of those who knew him, and +in our annals, young though he was when death took him, had wrung from +Nevil Beauchamp such a letter of tears as to make Mr. Romfrey believe the +naval crown of glory his highest ambition. Who on earth could have +guessed him to be bothering his head about politics all the while! Or +was the whole stupid business a freak of the moment? + +It became necessary for Mr. Romfrey to contemplate his eccentric nephew +in the light of a mannikin once more. Consequently he called to mind, +and bade Rosamund Culling remember, that he had foreseen and had +predicted the mounting of Nevil Beauchamp on his political horse one day +or another; and perhaps the earlier the better. And a donkey could have +sworn that when he did mount he would come galloping in among the Radical +rough-riders. Letters were pouring upon Steynham from men and women of +Romfrey blood and relationship concerning the positive tone of Radicalism +in the commander's address. Everard laughed at them. As a practical +man, his objection lay against the poor fool's choice of the peccant +borough of Bevisham. Still, in view of the needfulness of his learning +wisdom, and rapidly, the disbursement of a lot of his money, certain to +be required by Bevisham's electors, seemed to be the surest method for +quickening his wits. Thus would he be acting as his own chirurgeon, +gaily practising phlebotomy on his person to cure him of his fever. Too +much money was not the origin of the fever in Nevil's case, but he had +too small a sense of the value of what he possessed, and the diminishing +stock would be likely to cry out shrilly. + +To this effect, never complaining that Nevil Beauchamp had not come to +him to take counsel with him, the high-minded old gentleman talked. At +the same time, while indulging in so philosophical a picture of himself +as was presented by a Romfrey mildly accounting for events and smoothing +them under the infliction of an offence, he could not but feel that Nevil +had challenged him: such was the reading of it; and he waited for some +justifiable excitement to fetch him out of the magnanimous mood, rather +in the image of an angler, it must be owned. + +'Nevil understands that I am not going to pay a farthing of his expenses +in Bevisham?' he said to Mrs. Culling. + +She replied blandly and with innocence, 'I have not seen him, sir.' + +He nodded. At the next mention of Nevil between them, he asked, 'Where +is it he's lying perdu, ma'am?' + +'I fancy in that town, in Bevisham.' + +'At the Liberal, Radical, hotel?' + +'I dare say; some place; I am not certain . . . .' + +'The rascal doctor's house there? Shrapnel's?' + +'Really . . . I have not seen him.' + +'Have you heard from him?' + +'I have had a letter; a short one.' + +'Where did he date his letter from?' + +'From Bevisham.' + +'From what house?' + +Rosamund glanced about for a way of escaping the question. There was +none but the door. She replied, 'From Dr. Shrapnel's.' + +'That's the Anti-Game-Law agitator.' + +'You do not imagine, sir, that Nevil subscribes to every thing the horrid +man agitates for?' + +'You don't like the man, ma'am?' + +'I detest him.' + +'Ha! So you have seen Shrapnel?' + +'Only for a moment; a moment or two. I cannot endure him. I am sure I +have reason.' + +Rosamund flushed exceedingly red. The visit to Dr. Shrapnel's house was +her secret, and the worming of it out made her feel guilty, and that +feeling revived and heated her antipathy to the Radical doctor. + +'What reason?' said Mr. Romfrey, freshening at her display of colour. + +She would not expose Nevil to the accusation of childishness by +confessing her positive reason, so she answered, 'The man is a kind of +man . . . I was not there long; I was glad to escape. He . . .' +she hesitated: for in truth it was difficult to shape the charge against +him, and the effort to be reticent concerning Nevil, and communicative, +now that he had been spoken of, as to the detested doctor, reduced her to +some confusion. She was also fatally anxious to be in the extreme degree +conscientious, and corrected and modified her remarks most suspiciously. + +'Did he insult you, ma'am?' Mr. Romfrey inquired. + +She replied hastily, 'Oh no. He may be a good man in his way. He is one +of those men who do not seem to think a woman may have opinions. He does +not scruple to outrage those we hold. I am afraid he is an infidel. His +ideas of family duties and ties, and his manner of expressing himself, +shocked me, that is all. He is absurd. I dare say there is no harm in +him, except for those who are so unfortunate as to fall under his +influence--and that, I feel sure, cannot be permanent. He could not +injure me personally. He could not offend me, I mean. Indeed, I have +nothing whatever to say against him, as far as I . . .' + +'Did he fail to treat you as a lady, ma'am?' + +Rosamund was getting frightened by the significant pertinacity of her +lord. + +'I am sure, sir, he meant no harm.' + +'Was the man uncivil to you, ma'am?' came the emphatic interrogation. + +She asked herself, had Dr. Shrapnel been uncivil toward her? And so +conscientious was she, that she allowed the question to be debated in her +mind for half a minute, answering then, 'No, not uncivil. I cannot +exactly explain . . . . He certainly did not intend to be uncivil. +He is only an unpolished, vexatious man; enormously tall.' + +Mr. Romfrey ejaculated, 'Ha! humph!' + +His view of Dr. Shrapnel was taken from that instant. It was, that this +enormously big blustering agitator against the preservation of birds, +had behaved rudely toward the lady officially the chief of his household, +and might be considered in the light of an adversary one would like to +meet. The size of the man increased his aspect of villany, which in +return added largely to his giant size. Everard Romfrey's mental eye +could perceive an attractiveness about the man little short of magnetic; +for he thought of him so much that he had to think of what was due to his +pacifical disposition (deeply believed in by him) to spare himself the +trouble of a visit to Bevisham. + +The young gentleman whom he regarded as the Radical doctor's dupe, fell +in for a share of his view of the doctor, and Mr. Romfrey became less +fitted to observe Nevil Beauchamp's doings with the Olympian gravity he +had originally assumed. + +The extreme delicacy of Rosamund's conscience was fretted by a remorseful +doubt of her having conveyed a just impression of Dr. Shrapnel, somewhat +as though the fine sleek coat of it were brushed the wrong way. +Reflection warned her that her deliberative intensely sincere pause +before she responded to Mr. Romfrey's last demand, might have implied +more than her words. She consoled herself with the thought that it was +the dainty susceptibility of her conscientiousness which caused these +noble qualms, and so deeply does a refined nature esteem the gift, that +her pride in it helped her to overlook her moral perturbation. She was +consoled, moreover, up to the verge of triumph in her realization of the +image of a rivalling and excelling power presented by Mr. Romfrey, though +it had frightened her at the time. Let not Dr. Shrapnel come across him! +She hoped he would not. Ultimately she could say to herself, 'Perhaps I +need not have been so annoyed with the horrid man.' It was on Nevil's +account. Shrapnel's contempt of the claims of Nevil's family upon him +was actually a piece of impudence, impudently expressed, if she +remembered correctly. And Shrapnel was a black malignant, the foe of the +nation's Constitution, deserving of punishment if ever man was; with his +ridiculous metaphors, and talk of organs and pianos, orchestras and +despotisms, and flying to the sun! How could Nevil listen to the +creature! Shrapnel must be a shameless, hypocrite to mask his wickedness +from one so clear-sighted as Nevil, and no doubt he indulged in his +impudence out of wanton pleasure in it. His business was to catch young +gentlemen of family, and to turn them against their families, plainly. +That was thinking the best of him. No doubt he had his objects to gain. +'He might have been as impudent as he liked to me; I would have pardoned +him!' Rosamund exclaimed. Personally, you see, she was generous. On +the whole, knowing Everard Romfrey as she did, she wished that she had +behaved, albeit perfectly discreet in her behaviour, and conscientiously +just, a shade or two differently. But the evil was done. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE LEADING ARTICLE AND MR. TIMOTHY TURBOT + +Nevil declined to come to Steynham, clearly owing to a dread of hearing +Dr. Shrapnel abused, as Rosamund judged by the warmth of his written +eulogies of the man, and an ensuing allusion to Game. He said that he +had not made up his mind as to the Game Laws. Rosamund mentioned the +fact to Mr. Romfrey. 'So we may stick by our licences to shoot to- +morrow,' he rejoined. Of a letter that he also had received from Nevil, +he did not speak. She hinted at it, and he stared. He would have deemed +it as vain a subject to discourse of India, or Continental affairs, at a +period when his house was full for the opening day of sport, and the +expectation of keeping up his renown for great bags on that day so +entirely occupied his mind. Good shots were present who had contributed +to the fame of Steynham on other opening days. Birds were plentiful and +promised not to be too wild. He had the range of the Steynham estate in +his eye, dotted with covers; and after Steynham, Holdesbury, which had +never yielded him the same high celebrity, but both lay mapped out for +action under the profound calculations of the strategist, ready to show +the skill of the field tactician. He could not attend to Nevil. Even +the talk of the forthcoming Elections, hardly to be avoided at his table, +seemed a puerile distraction. Ware the foe of his partridges and +pheasants, be it man or vermin! The name of Shrapnel was frequently on +the tongue of Captain Baskelett. Rosamund heard him, in her room, and +his derisive shouts of laughter over it. Cecil was a fine shot, quite as +fond of the pastime as his uncle, and always in favour with him while +sport stalked the land. He was in gallant spirits, and Rosamund, +brooding over Nevil's fortunes, and sitting much alone, as she did when +there were guests in the house, gave way to her previous apprehensions. +She touched on them to Mr. Stukely Culbrett, her husband's old friend, +one of those happy men who enjoy perceptions without opinions, and are +not born to administer comfort to other than themselves. As far as she +could gather, he fancied Nevil Beauchamp was in danger of something, but +he delivered his mind only upon circumstances and characters: Nevil +risked his luck, Cecil knew his game, Everard Romfrey was the staunchest +of mankind: Stukely had nothing further to say regarding the situation. +She asked him what he thought, and he smiled. Could a reasonable head +venture to think anything in particular? He repeated the amazed, 'You +don't say so' of Colonel Halkett, on hearing the name of the new Liberal +candidate for Bevisham at the dinner-table, together with some of Cecil's +waggish embroidery upon the theme. + +Rosamund exclaimed angrily, 'Oh! if I had been there he would not have +dared.' + +'Why not be there?' said Stukely. 'You have had your choice for a number +of years.' + +She shook her head, reddening. + +But supposing that she had greater privileges than were hers now? The +idea flashed. A taint of personal pique, awakened by the fancied +necessity for putting her devotedness to Nevil to proof, asked her if she +would then be the official housekeeper to whom Captain Baskelett bowed +low with affected respect and impertinent affability, ironically praising +her abroad as a wonder among women, that could at one time have played +the deuce in the family, had she chosen to do so. + +'Just as you like,' Mr. Culbrett remarked. It was his ironical habit of +mind to believe that the wishes of men and women--women as well as men-- +were expressed by their utterances. + +'But speak of Nevil to Colonel Halkett,' said Rosamund, earnestly +carrying on what was in her heart. 'Persuade the colonel you do not +think Nevil foolish--not more than just a little impetuous. I want +that marriage to come off! Not on account of her wealth. She is to +inherit a Welsh mine from her uncle, you know, besides being an only +child. Recall what Nevil was during the war. Miss Halkett has not +forgotten it, I am sure, and a good word for him from a man of the world +would, I am certain, counteract Captain Baskelett's--are they designs? +At any rate, you can if you like help Nevil with the colonel. I am +convinced they are doing him a mischief. Colonel Halkett has bought an +estate--and what a misfortune that is!--close to Bevisham. I fancy he is +Toryish. Will you not speak to him? At my request? I am so helpless I +could cry. + +'Fancy you have no handkerchief,' said Mr. Culbrett, 'and give up +scheming, pray. One has only to begin to scheme, to shorten life to +half-a-dozen hops and jumps. I could say to the colonel, "Young +Beauchamp's a political cub: he ought to have a motherly wife."' + +'Yes, yes, you are right; don't speak to him at all,' said Rosamund, +feeling that there must be a conspiracy to rob her of her proud +independence, since not a soul could be won to spare her from taking +some energetic step, if she would be useful to him she loved. + +Colonel Halkett was one of the guests at Steynham who knew and respected +her, and he paid her a visit and alluded to Nevil's candidature, +apparently not thinking much the worse of him. 'We can't allow him to +succeed,' he said, and looked for a smiling approval of such natural +opposition, which Rosamund gave him readily after he had expressed the +hope that Nevil Beauchamp would take advantage of his proximity to Mount +Laurels during the contest to try the hospitality of the house. 'He +won't mind meeting his uncle?' The colonel's eyes twinkled. 'My daughter +has engaged Mr. Romfrey and Captain Baskelett to come to us when they +have shot Holdesbury.' + +And Captain Baskelett! thought Rosamund; her jealousy whispering that the +mention of his name close upon Cecilia Halkett's might have a nuptial +signification. + +She was a witness from her window--a prisoner's window, her 'eager heart +could have termed it--of a remarkable ostentation of cordiality between +the colonel and Cecil, in the presence of Mr. Romfrey. Was it his humour +to conspire to hand Miss Halkett to Cecil, and then to show Nevil the +prize he had forfeited by his folly? The three were on the lawn a little +before Colonel Halkett's departure. The colonel's arm was linked with +Cecil's while they conversed. Presently the latter received his +afternoon's letters, and a newspaper. He soon had the paper out at a +square stretch, and sprightly information for the other two was visible +in his crowing throat. Mr. Romfrey raised the gun from his shoulder-pad, +and grounded it. Colonel Halkett wished to peruse the matter with his +own eyes, but Cecil could not permit it; he must read it aloud for them, +and he suited his action to his sentences. Had Rosamund been accustomed +to leading articles which are the composition of men of an imposing +vocabulary, she would have recognized and as good as read one in Cecil's +gestures as he tilted his lofty stature forward and back, marking his +commas and semicolons with flapping of his elbows, and all but doubling +his body at his periods. Mr. Romfrey had enough of it half-way down the +column; his head went sharply to left and right. Cecil's peculiar +foppish slicing down of his hand pictured him protesting that there was +more and finer of the inimitable stuff to follow. The end of the scene +exhibited the paper on the turf, and Colonel Halkett's hand on Cecil's +shoulder, Mr. Romfrey nodding some sort of acquiescence over the muzzle +of his gun, whether reflective or positive Rosamund could not decide. +She sent out a footman for the paper, and was presently communing with +its eloquent large type, quite unable to perceive where the comicality or +the impropriety of it lay, for it would have struck her that never were +truer things of Nevil Beauchamp better said in the tone befitting them. +This perhaps was because she never heard fervid praises of him, or of +anybody, delivered from the mouth, and it is not common to hear +Englishmen phrasing great eulogies of one another. Still, as a rule, +they do not object to have it performed in that region of our national +eloquence, the Press, by an Irishman or a Scotchman. And what could +there be to warrant Captain Baskelett's malicious derision, and Mr. +Romfrey's nodding assent to it, in an article where all was truth? + +The truth was mounted on an unusually high wind. It was indeed a leading +article of a banner-like bravery, and the unrolling of it was designed to +stir emotions. Beauchamp was the theme. Nevil had it under his eyes +earlier than Cecil. The paper was brought into his room with the beams +of day, damp from the presses of the Bevisham Gazette, exactly opposite +to him in the White Hart Hotel, and a glance at the paragraphs gave him a +lively ardour to spring to his feet. What writing! He was uplifted as +'The heroical Commander Beauchamp, of the Royal Navy,' and 'Commander +Beauchamp, R.N., a gentleman of the highest connections': he was 'that +illustrious Commander Beauchamp, of our matchless, navy, who proved on +every field of the last glorious war of this country that the traditional +valour of the noble and indomitable blood transmitted to his veins had +lost none of its edge and weight since the battle-axes of the Lords de +Romfrey, ever to the fore, clove the skulls of our national enemy on the +wide and fertile campaigns of France.' This was pageantry. + +There was more of it. Then the serious afflatus of the article +condescended, as it were, to blow a shrill and well-known whistle:--the +study of the science of navigation made by Commander Beauchamp, R.N., was +cited for a jocose warranty of a seaman's aptness to assist in steering +the Vessel of the State. After thus heeling over, to tip a familiar wink +to the multitude, the leader tone resumed its fit deportment. Commander +Beauchamp, in responding to the invitation of the great and united +Liberal party of the borough of Bevisham, obeyed the inspirations of +genius, the dictates of humanity, and what he rightly considered the +paramount duty, as it is the proudest ambition, of the citizen of a free +country. + +But for an occasional drop and bump of the sailing gasbag upon catch- +words of enthusiasm, which are the rhetoric of the merely windy, and a +collapse on a poetic line, which too often signalizes the rhetorician's +emptiness of his wind, the article was eminent for flight, sweep, and +dash, and sailed along far more grandly than ordinary provincial organs +for the promoting or seconding of public opinion, that are as little to +be compared with the mighty metropolitan as are the fife and bugle boys +practising on their instruments round melancholy outskirts of garrison +towns with the regimental marching full band under the presidency of its +drum-major. No signature to the article was needed for Bevisham to know +who had returned to the town to pen it. Those long-stretching sentences, +comparable to the very ship Leviathan, spanning two Atlantic billows, +appertained to none but the renowned Mr. Timothy Turbot, of the Corn Law +campaigns, Reform agitations, and all manifestly popular movements +requiring the heaven-endowed man of speech, an interpreter of multitudes, +and a prompter. Like most men who have little to say, he was an orator +in print, but that was a poor medium for him--his body without his fire. +Mr. Timothy's place was the platform. A wise discernment, or else a +lucky accident (for he came hurriedly from the soil of his native isle, +needing occupation), set him on that side in politics which happened to +be making an established current and strong headway. Oratory will not +work against the stream, or on languid tides. Driblets of movements that +allowed the world to doubt whether they were so much movements as +illusions of the optics, did not suit his genius. Thus he was a Liberal, +no Radical, fountain. Liberalism had the attraction for the orator of +being the active force in politics, between two passive opposing bodies, +the aspect of either of which it can assume for a menace to the other, +Toryish as against Radicals; a trifle red in the eyes of the Tory. It +can seem to lean back on the Past; it can seem to be amorous of the +Future. It is actually the thing of the Present and its urgencies, +therefore popular, pouring forth the pure waters of moderation, strong in +their copiousness. Delicious and rapturous effects are to be produced in +the flood of a Liberal oration by a chance infusion of the fierier +spirit, a flavour of Radicalism. That is the thing to set an audience +bounding and quirking. Whereas if you commence by tilling a Triton +pitcher full of the neat liquor upon them, 'you have to resort to the +natural element for the orator's art of variation, you are diluted--and +that's bathos, to quote Mr. Timothy. It was a fine piece of discernment +in him. Let Liberalism be your feast, Radicalism your spice. And now +and then, off and on, for a change, for diversion, for a new emotion, +just for half an hour or so-now and then the Sunday coat of Toryism will +give you an air. You have only to complain of the fit, to release your +shoulders in a trice. Mr. Timothy felt for his art as poets do for +theirs, and considered what was best adapted to speaking, purely to +speaking. Upon no creature did he look with such contempt as upon Dr. +Shrapnel, whose loose disjunct audiences he was conscious he could, +giving the doctor any start he liked, whirl away from him and have +compact, enchained, at his first flourish; yea, though they were composed +of 'the poor man,' with a stomach for the political distillery fit to +drain relishingly every private bogside or mountain-side tap in old +Ireland in its best days--the illicit, you understand. + +Further, to quote Mr. Timothy's points of view, the Radical orator has +but two notes, and one is the drawling pathetic, and the other is the +ultra-furious; and the effect of the former we liken to the English +working man's wife's hob-set queasy brew of well-meant villany, that she +calls by the innocent name of tea; and the latter is to be blown, asks to +be blown, and never should be blown without at least seeming to be blown, +with an accompaniment of a house on fire. Sir, we must adapt ourselves +to our times. Perhaps a spark or two does lurk about our house, but we +have vigilant watchmen in plenty, and the house has been pretty fairly +insured. Shrieking in it is an annoyance to the inmates, nonsensical; +weeping is a sickly business. The times are against Radicalism to the +full as much as great oratory is opposed to extremes. These drag the +orator too near to the matter. So it is that one Radical speech is +amazingly like another--they all have the earth-spots. They smell, too; +they smell of brimstone. Soaring is impossible among that faction; but +this they can do, they can furnish the Tory his opportunity to soar. +When hear you a thrilling Tory speech that carries the country with it, +save when the incendiary Radical has shrieked? If there was envy in the +soul of Timothy, it was addressed to the fine occasions offered to the +Tory speaker for vindicating our ancient principles and our sacred homes. +He admired the tone to be assumed for that purpose: it was a good note. +Then could the Tory, delivering at the right season the Shakesperian +'This England . . .' and Byronic--'The inviolate Island . . .' +shake the frame, as though smiting it with the tail of the gymnotus +electricus. Ah, and then could he thump out his Horace, the Tory's +mentor and his cordial, with other great ancient comic and satiric poets, +his old Port of the classical cellarage, reflecting veneration upon him +who did but name them to an audience of good dispositions. The Tory +possessed also an innate inimitably easy style of humour, that had the +long reach, the jolly lordly indifference, the comfortable masterfulness, +of the whip of a four-in-hand driver, capable of flicking and stinging, +and of being ironically caressing. Timothy appreciated it, for he had +winced under it. No professor of Liberalism could venture on it, unless +it were in the remote district of a back parlour, in the society of a +cherishing friend or two, and with a slice of lemon requiring to be +refloated in the glass. + +But gifts of this description were of a minor order. Liberalism gave the +heading cry, devoid of which parties are dogs without a scent, orators +mere pump-handles. The Tory's cry was but a whistle to his pack, the +Radical howled to the moon like any chained hound. And no wonder, for +these parties had no established current, they were as hard-bound waters; +the Radical being dyked and dammed most soundly, the Tory resembling a +placid lake of the plains, fed by springs and no confluents. For such +good reasons, Mr. Timothy rejoiced in the happy circumstances which had +expelled him from the shores of his native isle to find a refuge and a +vocation in Manchester at a period when an orator happened to be in +request because dozens were wanted. That centre of convulsions and +source of streams possessed the statistical orator, the reasoning orator, +and the inspired; with others of quality; and yet it had need of an ever- +ready spontaneous imperturbable speaker, whose bubbling generalizations +and ability to beat the drum humorous could swing halls of meeting from +the grasp of an enemy, and then ascend on incalescent adjectives to the +popular idea of the sublime. He was the artistic orator of Corn Law +Repeal--the Manchester flood, before which time Whigs were, since which +they have walked like spectral antediluvians, or floated as dead canine +bodies that are sucked away on the ebb of tides and flung back on the +flow, ignorant whether they be progressive or retrograde. Timothy Turbot +assisted in that vast effort. It should have elevated him beyond the +editorship of a country newspaper. Why it did not do so his antagonists +pretended to know, and his friends would smile to hear. The report was +that he worshipped the nymph Whisky. + +Timothy's article had plucked Beauchamp out of bed; Beauchamp's card in +return did the same for him. + +'Commander Beauchamp? I am heartily glad to make your acquaintance, +sir; I've been absent, at work, on the big business we have in common, +I rejoice to say, and am behind my fellow townsmen in this pleasure and +lucky I slept here in my room above, where I don't often sleep, for the +row of the machinery--it 's like a steamer that won't go, though it's +always starting ye,' Mr. Timothy said in a single breath, upon entering +the back office of the Gazette, like unto those accomplished violinists +who can hold on the bow to finger an incredible number of notes, and may +be imaged as representing slow paternal Time, that rolls his capering +dot-headed generation of mortals over the wheel, hundreds to the minute. +'You'll excuse my not shaving, sir, to come down to your summons without +an extra touch to the neck-band.' + +Beauchamp beheld a middle-sized round man, with loose lips and pendant +indigo jowl, whose eyes twinkled watery, like pebbles under the shore- +wash, and whose neck-band needed an extra touch from fingers other than +his own. + +'I am sorry to have disturbed you so early,' he replied. + +'Not a bit, Commander Beauchamp, not a bit, sir. Early or late, and ay +ready--with the Napiers; I'll wash, I'll wash.' + +'I came to speak to you of this article of yours on me. They tell me in +the office that you are the writer. Pray don't "Commander" me so much. +--It's not customary, and I object to it.' + +'Certainly, certainly,' Timothy acquiesced. + +'And for the future, Mr. Turbot, please to be good enough not to allude +in print to any of my performances here and there. Your intentions are +complimentary, but it happens that I don't like a public patting on the +back.' + +'No, and that's true,' said Timothy. + +His appreciative and sympathetic agreement with these sharp strictures on +the article brought Beauchamp to a stop. + +Timothy waited for him; then, smoothing his prickly cheek, remarked: +'If I'd guessed your errand, Commander Beauchamp, I'd have called in the +barber before I came down, just to make myself decent for a 'first +introduction.' + +Beauchamp was not insensible to the slyness of the poke at him. +'You see, I come to the borough unknown to it, and as quietly as +possible, and I want to be taken as a politician,' he continued, for the +sake of showing that he had sufficient to say to account for his hasty +and peremptory summons of the writer of that article to his presence. +'It's excessively disagreeable to have one's family lugged into notice in +a newspaper--especially if they are of different politics. I feel it.' + +All would, sir,' said Timothy. + +'Then why the deuce did you do it?' + +Timothy drew a lading of air into his lungs. 'Politics, Commander +Beauchamp, involves the doing of lots of disagreeable things to ourselves +and our relations; it 's positive. I'm a soldier of the Great Campaign: +and who knows it better than I, sir? It's climbing the greasy pole for +the leg o' mutton, that makes the mother's heart ache for the jacket and +the nether garments she mended neatly, if she didn't make them. Mutton +or no mutton, there's grease for certain! Since it's sure we can't be +disconnected from the family, the trick is to turn the misfortune to a +profit; and allow me the observation, that an old family, sir, and a high +and titled family, is not to be despised for a background of a portrait +in naval uniform, with medal and clasps, and some small smoke of powder +clearing off over there:--that's if we're to act sagaciously in +introducing an unknown candidate to a borough that has a sneaking liking +for the kind of person, more honour to it. I'm a political veteran, sir; +I speak from experience. We must employ our weapons, every one of them, +and all off the grindstone.' + +'Very well,' said Beauchamp. 'Now understand; you are not in future to +employ the weapons, as you call them, that I have objected to.' + +Timothy gaped slightly. + +'Whatever you will, but no puffery,' Beauchamp added. 'Can I by any +means arrest--purchase--is it possible, tell me, to lay an embargo--stop +to-day's issue of the Gazette?' + +'No more--than the bite of a mad dog,' Timothy replied, before he had +considered upon the monstrous nature of the proposal. + +Beauchamp humphed, and tossed his head. The simile of the dog struck him +with intense effect. + +'There'd be a second edition,' said Timothy, 'and you might buy up that. +But there'll be a third, and you may buy up that; but there'll be a +fourth and a fifth, and so on ad infinitum, with the advertisement of the +sale of the foregoing creating a demand like a rageing thirst in a +shipwreck, in Bligh's boat, in the tropics. I'm afraid, Com--Captain +Beauchamp, sir, there's no stopping the Press while the people have an +appetite for it--and a Company's at the back of it.' + +'Pooh, don't talk to me in that way; all I complain of is the figure you +have made of me,' said Beauchamp, fetching him smartly out of his +nonsense; 'and all I ask of you is not to be at it again. Who would +suppose from reading an article like that, that I am a candidate with a +single political idea!' + +'An article like that,' said Timothy, winking, and a little surer of his +man now that he suggested his possession of ideas, 'an article like that +is the best cloak you can put on a candidate with too many of 'em, +Captain Beauchamp. I'll tell you, sir; I came, I heard of your +candidature, I had your sketch, the pattern of ye, before me, and I was +told that Dr. Shrapnel fathered you politically. There was my brief! +I had to persuade our constituents that you, Commander Beauchamp of the +Royal Navy, and the great family of the Earls of Romfrey, one of the +heroes of the war, and the recipient of a Royal Humane Society's medal +for saving life in Bevisham waters, were something more than the Radical +doctor's political son; and, sir, it was to this end, aim, and object, +that I wrote the article I am not ashamed to avow as mine, and I do so, +sir, because of the solitary merit it has of serving your political +interests as the liberal candidate for Bevisham by counteracting the +unpopularity of Dr. Shrapnel's name, on the one part, and of reviving the +credit due to your valour and high bearing on the field of battle in +defence of your country, on the other, so that Bevisham may apprehend, in +spite of party distinctions, that it has the option, and had better seize +upon the honour, of making a M.P. of a hero.' + +Beauchamp interposed hastily: 'Thank you, thank you for the best of +intentions. But let me tell you I am prepared to stand or fall with +Dr. Shrapnel, and be hanged to all that humbug.' + +Timothy rubbed his hands with an abstracted air of washing. 'Well, +commander, well, sir, they say a candidate's to be humoured in his +infancy, for he has to do all the humouring before he's many weeks old at +it; only there's the fact!--he soon finds out he has to pay for his first +fling, like the son of a family sowing his oats to reap his Jews. Credit +me, sir, I thought it prudent to counteract a bit of an apothecary's shop +odour in the junior Liberal candidate's address. I found the town +sniffing, they scented Shrapnel in the composition.' + +'Every line of it was mine,' said Beauchamp. + +'Of course it was, and the address was admirably worded, sir, I make bold +to say it to your face; but most indubitably it threatened powerful drugs +for weak stomachs, and it blew cold on votes, which are sensitive plants +like nothing else in botany.' + +'If they are only to be got by abandoning principles, and by anything but +honesty in stating them, they may go,' said Beauchamp. + +'I repeat, my dear sir, I repeat, the infant candidate delights in his +honesty, like the babe in its nakedness, the beautiful virgin in her +innocence. So he does; but he discovers it's time for him to wear +clothes in a contested election. And what's that but to preserve the +outlines pretty correctly, whilst he doesn't shock and horrify the +optics? A dash of conventionalism makes the whole civilized world kin, +ye know. That's the truth. You must appear to be one of them, for them +to choose you. After all, there's no harm in a dyer's hand; and, sir, a +candidate looking at his own, when he has won the Election . . .' + +'Ah, well,' said Beauchamp, swinging on his heel, 'and now I'll take my +leave of you, and I apologize for bringing you down here so early. +Please attend to what I have said; it's peremptory. You will give me +great pleasure by dining with me to-night, at the hotel opposite. Will +you? I don't know what kind of wine I shall be able to offer you. +Perhaps you know the cellar, and may help me in that.' + +Timothy grasped his hand, 'With pleasure, Commander Beauchamp. They have +a bucellas over there that 's old, and a tolerable claret, and a Port to +be inquired for under the breath, in a mysteriously intimate tone of +voice, as one says, "I know of your treasure, and the corner under ground +where it lies." Avoid the champagne: 'tis the banqueting wine. Ditto +the sherry. One can drink them, one can drink them.' + +'At a quarter to eight this evening, then,' said Nevil. + +'I'll be there at the stroke of the clock, sure as the date of a bill,' +said Timothy. + +And it's early to guess whether you'll catch Bevisham or you won't, he +reflected, as he gazed at the young gentleman crossing the road; but +female Bevisham's with you, if that counts for much. Timothy confessed, +that without the employment of any weapon save arrogance and a look of +candour, the commander had gone some way toward catching the feminine +side of himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +CECILIA HALKETT + +Beauchamp walked down to the pier, where he took a boat for H.M.S. Isis, +to see Jack Wilmore, whom he had not met since his return from his last +cruise, and first he tried the efficacy of a dive in salt water, as a +specific for irritation. It gave the edge to a fine appetite that he +continued to satisfy while Wilmore talked of those famous dogs to which +the navy has ever been going. + +'We want another panic, Beauchamp,' said Lieutenant Wilmore. 'No one +knows better than you what a naval man has to complain of, so I hope +you'll get your Election, if only that we may reckon on a good look-out +for the interests of the service. A regular Board with a permanent Lord +High Admiral, and a regular vote of money to keep it up to the mark. +Stick to that. Hardist has a vote in Bevisham. I think I can get one or +two more. Why aren't you a Tory? No Whigs nor Liberals look after us +half so well as the Tories. It's enough to break a man's heart to see +the troops of dockyard workmen marching out as soon as ever a Liberal +Government marches in. Then it's one of our infernal panics again, and +patch here, patch there; every inch of it make-believe! I'll prove to +you from examples that the humbug of Government causes exactly the same +humbugging workmanship. It seems as if it were a game of "rascals all." +Let them sink us! but, by heaven! one can't help feeling for the country. +And I do say it's the doing of those Liberals. Skilled workmen, mind +you, not to be netted again so easily. America reaps the benefit of our +folly . . . . That was a lucky run of yours up the Niger; the admiral +was friendly, but you deserved your luck. For God's sake, don't forget +the state of our service when you're one of our cherubs up aloft, +Beauchamp. This I'll say, I've never heard a man talk about it as you +used to in old midshipmite days, whole watches through--don't you +remember? on the North American station, and in the Black Sea, and the +Mediterranean. And that girl at Malta! I wonder what has become of her? +What a beauty she was! I dare say she wasn't so fine a girl as the +Armenian you unearthed on the Bosphorus, but she had something about her +a fellow can't forget. That was a lovely creature coming down the hills +over Granada on her mule. Ay, we've seen handsome women, Nevil +Beauchamp. But you always were lucky, invariably, and I should bet on +you for the Election.' + +'Canvass for me, Jack,' said Beauchamp, smiling at his friend's +unconscious double-skeining of subjects. 'If I turn out as good a +politician as you are a seaman, I shall do. Pounce on Hardist's vote +without losing a day. I would go to him, but I've missed the Halketts +twice. They 're on the Otley river, at a place called Mount Laurels, +and I particularly want to see the colonel. Can you give me a boat +there, and come?' + +'Certainly,' said Wilmore. 'I've danced there with the lady, the +handsomest girl, English style, of her time. And come, come, our English +style's the best. It wears best, it looks best. Foreign women . . . +they're capital to flirt with. But a girl like Cecilia Halkett--one +can't call her a girl, and it won't do to say Goddess, and queen and +charmer are out of the question, though she's both, and angel into the +bargain; but, by George! what a woman to call wife, you say; and a man +attached to a woman like that never can let himself look small. No such +luck for me; only I swear if I stood between a good and a bad action, the +thought of that girl would keep me straight, and I've only danced with +her once!' + +Not long after sketching this rough presentation of the lady, with a +masculine hand, Wilmore was able to point to her in person on the deck of +her father's yacht, the Esperanza, standing out of Otley river. There +was a gallant splendour in the vessel that threw a touch of glory on its +mistress in the minds of the two young naval officers, as they pulled for +her in the ship's gig. + +Wilmore sang out, 'Give way, men!' + +The sailors bent to their oars, and presently the schooner's head was put +to the wind. + +'She sees we're giving chase,' Wilmore said. 'She can't be expecting me, +so it must be you. No, the colonel doesn't race her. They've only been +back from Italy six months: I mean the schooner. I remember she talked +of you when I had her for a partner. Yes, now I mean Miss Halkett. +Blest if I think she talked of anything else. She sees us. I'll tell +you what she likes: she likes yachting, she likes Italy, she likes +painting, likes things old English, awfully fond of heroes. I told her a +tale of one of our men saving life. "Oh!" said she, "didn't your friend +Nevil Beauchamp save a man from drowning, off the guardship, in exactly +the same place?" And next day she sent me a cheque for three pounds for +the fellow. Steady, men! I keep her letter.' + +The boat went smoothly alongside the schooner. Miss Halkett had come to +the side. The oars swung fore and aft, and Beauchamp sprang on deck. + +Wilmore had to decline Miss Halkett's invitation to him as well as his +friend, and returned in his boat. He left the pair with a ruffling +breeze, and a sky all sail, prepared, it seemed to him, to enjoy the most +delicious you-and-I on salt water that a sailor could dream of; and +placidly envying, devoid of jealousy, there was just enough of fancy +quickened in Lieutenant Wilmore to give him pictures of them without +disturbance of his feelings--one of the conditions of the singular +visitation we call happiness, if he could have known it. + +For a time his visionary eye followed them pretty correctly. So long +since they had parted last! such changes in the interval! and great +animation in Beauchamp's gaze, and a blush on Miss Halkett's cheeks. + +She said once, 'Captain Beauchamp.' He retorted with a solemn formality. +They smiled, and immediately took footing on their previous intimacy. + +'How good it was of you to come twice to Mount Laurels,' said she. +'I have not missed you to-day. No address was on your card. Where are +you staying in the neighbourhood? At Mr. Lespel's?' + +'I'm staying at a Bevisham hotel,' said Beauchamp. + +'You have not been to Steynham yet? Papa comes home from Steynham to- +night.' + +'Does he? Well, the Ariadne is only just paid off, and I can't well go +to Steynham yet. I--' Beauchamp was astonished at the hesitation he +found in himself to name it: 'I have business in Bevisham.' + +'Naval business?' she remarked. + +'No,' said he. + +The sensitive prescience we have of a critical distaste of our +proceedings is, the world is aware, keener than our intuition of contrary +opinions; and for the sake of preserving the sweet outward forms of +friendliness, Beauchamp was anxious not to speak of the business in +Bevisham just then, but she looked and he had hesitated, so he said +flatly, 'I am one of the candidates for the borough.' + +'Indeed!' + +'And I want the colonel to give me his vote.' + +The young lady breathed a melodious 'Oh!' not condemnatory or +reproachful--a sound to fill a pause. But she was beginning to reflect. + +'Italy and our English Channel are my two Poles,' she said. 'I am +constantly swaying between them. I have told papa we will not lay up the +yacht while the weather holds fair. Except for the absence of deep +colour and bright colour, what can be more beautiful than these green +waves and that dark forest's edge, and the garden of an island! The +yachting-water here is an unrivalled lake; and if I miss colour, which I +love, I remind myself that we have temperate air here, not a sun that +fiends you under cover. We can have our fruits too, you see.' One of +the yachtsmen was handing her a basket of hot-house grapes, reclining +beside crisp home-made loaflets. 'This is my luncheon. Will you share +it, Nevil?' + +His Christian name was pleasant to hear from her lips. She held out a +bunch to him. + +'Grapes take one back to the South,' said he. 'How do you bear +compliments? You have been in Italy some years, and it must be the South +that has worked the miracle.' + +'In my growth?' said Cecilia, smiling. 'I have grown out of my +Circassian dress, Nevil.' + +'You received it, then?' + +'I wrote you a letter of thanks--and abuse, for your not coming to +Steynham. You may recognize these pearls.' + +The pearls were round her right wrist. He looked at the blue veins. + +'They're not pearls of price,' he said. + +'I do not wear them to fascinate the jewellers,' rejoined Miss Halkett. +'So you are a candidate at an Election. You still have a tinge of +Africa, do you know? But you have not abandoned the navy?' + +'--Not altogether.' + +'Oh! no, no: I hope not. I have heard of you, . . . but who has not? +We cannot spare officers like you. Papa was delighted to hear of your +promotion. Parliament!' + +The exclamation was contemptuous. + +'It's the highest we can aim at,' Beauchamp observed meekly. + +'I think I recollect you used to talk politics when you were a +midshipman,' she said. 'You headed the aristocracy, did you not?' + +'The aristocracy wants a head,' said Beauchamp. + +'Parliament, in my opinion, is the best of occupations for idle men,' +said she. + +'It shows that it is a little too full of them.' + +'Surely the country can go on very well without so much speech-making?' + +'It can go on very well for the rich.' + +Miss Halkett tapped with her foot. + +'I should expect a Radical to talk in that way, Nevil.' + +'Take me for one.' + +'I would not even imagine it.' + +'Say Liberal, then.' + +'Are you not'--her eyes opened on him largely, and narrowed from surprise +to reproach, and then to pain--are you not one of us? Have you gone over +to the enemy, Nevil?' + +'I have taken my side, Cecilia; but we, on our side, don't talk of an +enemy.' + +'Most unfortunate! We are Tories, you know, Nevil. Papa is a thorough +Tory. He cannot vote for you. Indeed I have heard him say he is anxious +to defeat the plots of an old Republican in Bevisham--some doctor there; +and I believe he went to London to look out for a second Tory candidate +to oppose to the Liberals. Our present Member is quite safe, of course. +Nevil, this makes me unhappy. Do you not feel that it is playing traitor +to one's class to join those men?' + +Such was the Tory way of thinking, Nevil Beauchamp said: the Tories +upheld their Toryism in the place of patriotism. + +'But do we not owe the grandeur of the country to the Tories?' she said, +with a lovely air of conviction. 'Papa has told me how false the Whigs +played the Duke in the Peninsula: ruining his supplies, writing him down, +declaring, all the time he was fighting his first hard battles, that his +cause was hopeless--that resistance to Napoleon was impossible. The Duke +never, never had loyal support but from the Tory Government. The Whigs, +papa says, absolutely preached submission to Napoleon! The Whigs, I +hear, were the Liberals of those days. The two Pitts were Tories. The +greatness of England has been built up by the Tories. I do and will +defend them: it is the fashion to decry them now. They have the honour +and safety of the country at heart. They do not play disgracefully at +reductions of taxes, as the Liberals do. They have given us all our +heroes. Non fu mai gloria senza invidia. They have done service enough +to despise the envious mob. They never condescend to supplicate brute +force for aid to crush their opponents. You feel in all they do that the +instincts of gentlemen are active.' + +Beauchamp bowed. + +'Do I speak too warmly?' she asked. 'Papa and I have talked over it +often, and especially of late. You will find him your delighted host +and your inveterate opponent.' + +'And you?' + +'Just the same. You will have to pardon me; I am a terrible foe.' + +'I declare to you, Cecilia, I would prefer having you against me to +having you indifferent.' + +'I wish I had not to think it right that you should be beaten. And now-- +can you throw off political Nevil, and be sailor Nevil? I distinguish +between my old friend, and my . . .our . . .' + +'Dreadful antagonist?' + +'Not so dreadful, except in the shock he gives us to find him in the +opposite ranks. I am grieved. But we will finish our sail in peace. +I detest controversy. I suppose, Nevil, you would have no such things +as yachts? they are the enjoyments of the rich!' + +He reminded her that she wished to finish her sail in peace; and he +had to remind her of it more than once. Her scattered resources for +argumentation sprang up from various suggestions, such as the flight of +yachts, mention of the shooting season, sight of a royal palace; and +adopted a continually heightened satirical form, oddly intermixed with an +undisguised affectionate friendliness. Apparently she thought it +possible to worry him out of his adhesion to the wrong side in politics. +She certainly had no conception of the nature of his political views, +for one or two extreme propositions flung to him in jest, he swallowed +with every sign of a perfect facility, as if the Radical had come to +regard stupendous questions as morsels barely sufficient for his daily +sustenance. Cecilia reflected that he must be playing, and as it was +not a subject for play she tacitly reproved him by letting him be the +last to speak of it. He may not have been susceptible to the delicate +chastisement, probably was not, for when he ceased it was to look on the +beauty of her lowered eyelids, rather with an idea that the weight of his +argument lay on them. It breathed from him; both in the department of +logic and of feeling, in his plea for the poor man and his exposition of +the poor man's rightful claims, he evidently imagined that he had spoken +overwhelmingly; and to undeceive him in this respect, for his own good, +Cecilia calmly awaited the occasion when she might show the vanity of +arguments in their effort to overcome convictions. He stood up to take +his leave of her, on their return to the mouth of the Otley river, +unexpectedly, so that the occasion did not arrive; but on his mentioning +an engagement he had to give a dinner to a journalist and a tradesman of +the town of Bevisham, by way of excuse for not complying with her gentle +entreaty that he would go to Mount Laurels and wait to see the colonel +that evening, 'Oh! then your choice must be made irrevocably, I am sure,' +Miss Halkett said, relying upon intonation and manner to convey a great +deal more, and not without a minor touch of resentment for his having +dragged her into the discussion of politics, which she considered as a +slime wherein men hustled and tussled, no doubt worthily enough, and as +became them; not however to impose the strife upon the elect ladies of +earth. What gentleman ever did talk to a young lady upon the dreary +topic seriously? Least of all should Nevil Beauchamp have done it. That +object of her high imagination belonged to the exquisite sphere of the +feminine vision of the pure poetic, and she was vexed by the discord he +threw between her long-cherished dream and her unanticipated realization +of him:, if indeed it was he presenting himself to her in his own +character, and not trifling, or not passing through a phase of young +man's madness. + +Possibly he might be the victim of the latter and more pardonable state, +and so thinking she gave him her hand. + +'Good-bye, Nevil. I may tell papa to expect you tomorrow?' + +'Do, and tell him to prepare for a field-day.' + +She smiled. 'A sham fight that will not win you a vote! I hope you will +find your guests this evening agreeable companions.' + +Beauchamp half-shrugged involuntarily. He obliterated the piece of +treason toward them by saying that he hoped so; as though the meeting +them, instead of slipping on to Mount Laurels with her, were an enjoyable +prospect. + +He was dropped by the Esperanza's boat near Otley ferry, to walk along +the beach to Bevisham, and he kept eye on the elegant vessel as she +glided swan-like to her moorings off Mount Laurels park through dusky +merchant craft, colliers, and trawlers, loosely shaking her towering +snow-white sails, unchallenged in her scornful supremacy; an image of a +refinement of beauty, and of a beautiful servicelessness. + +As the yacht, so the mistress: things of wealth, owing their graces to +wealth, devoting them to wealth--splendid achievements of art both! and +dedicated to the gratification of the superior senses. + +Say that they were precious examples of an accomplished civilization; and +perhaps they did offer a visible ideal of grace for the rough world to +aim at. They might in the abstract address a bit of a monition to the +uncultivated, and encourage the soul to strive toward perfection, in +beauty: and there is no contesting the value of beauty when the soul is +taken into account. But were they not in too great a profusion in +proportion to their utility? That was the question for Nevil Beauchamp. +The democratic spirit inhabiting him, temporarily or permanently, asked +whether they were not increasing to numbers which were oppressive? And +further, whether it was good, for the country, the race, ay, the species, +that they should be so distinctly removed from the thousands who fought +the grand, and the grisly, old battle with nature for bread of life. +Those grimy sails of the colliers and fishing-smacks, set them in a great +sea, would have beauty for eyes and soul beyond that of elegance and +refinement. And do but look on them thoughtfully, the poor are +everlastingly, unrelievedly, in the abysses of the great sea . . . . + +One cannot pursue to conclusions a line of meditation that is half-built +on the sensations as well as on the mind. Did Beauchamp at all desire to +have those idly lovely adornments of riches, the Yacht and the Lady, +swept away? Oh, dear, no. He admired them, he was at home with them. +They were much to his taste. Standing on a point of the beach for a last +look at them before he set his face to the town, he prolonged the look in +a manner to indicate that the place where business called him was not in +comparison at all so pleasing: and just as little enjoyable were his +meditations opposed to predilections. Beauty plucked the heart from his +breast. But he had taken up arms; he had drunk of the questioning cup, +that which denieth peace to us, and which projects us upon the missionary +search of the How, the Wherefore, and the Why not, ever afterward. He +questioned his justification, and yours, for gratifying tastes in an ill- +regulated world of wrong-doing, suffering, sin, and bounties +unrighteously dispensed--not sufficiently dispersed. He said by-and-by +to pleasure, battle to-day. From his point of observation, and with the +store of ideas and images his fiery yet reflective youth had gathered, he +presented himself as it were saddled to that hard-riding force known as +the logical impetus, which spying its quarry over precipices, across +oceans and deserts, and through systems and webs, and into shops and +cabinets of costliest china, will come at it, will not be refused, let +the distances and the breakages be what they may. He went like the +meteoric man with the mechanical legs in the song, too quick for a cry of +protestation, and reached results amazing to his instincts, his tastes, +and his training, not less rapidly and naturally than tremendous Ergo is +shot forth from the clash of a syllogism. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A PARTIAL DISPLAY OF BEAUCHAMP IN HIS COLOURS + +Beauchamp presented himself at Mount Laurels next day, and formally asked +Colonel Halkett for his vote, in the presence of Cecilia. + +She took it for a playful glance at his new profession of politician: he +spoke half-playfully. Was it possible to speak in earnest? + +'I 'm of the opposite party,' said the colonel; as conclusive a reply +as could be: but he at once fell upon the rotten navy of a Liberal +Government. How could a true sailor think of joining those Liberals! +The question referred to the country, not to a section of it, Beauchamp +protested with impending emphasis: Tories and Liberals were much the same +in regard to the care of the navy. 'Nevil!' exclaimed Cecilia. He cited +beneficial Liberal bills recently passed, which she accepted for a +concession of the navy to the Tories, and she smiled. In spite of her +dislike of politics, she had only to listen a few minutes to be drawn +into the contest: and thus it is that one hot politician makes many among +women and men of a people that have the genius of strife, or else in this +case the young lady did unconsciously feel a deep interest in refuting +and overcoming Nevil Beauchamp. Colonel Halkett denied the benefits of +those bills. 'Look,' said he, 'at the scarecrow plight of the army under +a Liberal Government!' This laid him open to the charge that he was for +backing Administrations instead of principles. + +'I do,' said the colonel. 'I would rather have a good Administration +than all your talk of principles: one's a fact, but principles? +principles?' He languished for a phrase to describe the hazy things. +'I have mine, and you have yours. It's like a dispute between religions. +There's no settling it except by main force. That's what principles lead +you to.' + +Principles may be hazy, but heavy artillery is disposable in defence of +them, and Beauchamp fired some reverberating guns for the eternal against +the transitory; with less of the gentlemanly fine taste, the light and +easy social semi-irony, than Cecilia liked and would have expected from +him. However, as to principles, no doubt Nevil was right, and Cecilia +drew her father to another position. 'Are not we Tories to have +principles as well as the Liberals, Nevil?' + +'They may have what they call principles,' he admitted, intent on +pursuing his advantage over the colonel, who said, to shorten the +controversy: 'It's a question of my vote, and my liking. I like a Tory +Government, and I don't like the Liberals. I like gentlemen; I don't +like a party that attacks everything, and beats up the mob for power, and +repays it with sops, and is dragging us down from all we were proud of.' + +'But the country is growing, the country wants expansion,' said +Beauchamp; 'and if your gentlemen by birth are not up to the mark, you +must have leaders that are.' + +'Leaders who cut down expenditure, to create a panic that doubles the +outlay! I know them.' + +'A panic, Nevil.' Cecilia threw stress on the memorable word. + +He would hear no reminder in it. The internal condition of the country +was now the point for seriously-minded Englishmen. + +'My dear boy, what have you seen of the country?' Colonel Halkett +inquired. + +'Every time I have landed, colonel, I have gone to the mining and the +manufacturing districts, the centres of industry; wherever there was +dissatisfaction. I have attended meetings, to see and hear for myself. +I have read the papers . . . .' + +'The papers!' + +'Well, they're the mirror of the country.' + +'Does one see everything in a mirror, Nevil?' said Cecilia: 'even in the +smoothest?' + +He retorted softly: 'I should be glad to see what you see,' and felled +her with a blush. + +For an example of the mirror offered by the Press, Colonel Halkett +touched on Mr. Timothy Turbot's article in eulogy of the great Commander +Beauchamp. 'Did you like it?' he asked. 'Ah, but if you meddle with +politics, you must submit to be held up on the prongs of a fork, my boy; +soaped by your backers and shaved by the foe; and there's a figure for a +gentleman! as your uncle Romfrey says.' + +Cecilia did not join this discussion, though she had heard from her +father that something grotesque had been written of Nevil. Her +foolishness in blushing vexed body and mind. She was incensed by a silly +compliment that struck at her feminine nature when her intellect stood in +arms. Yet more hurt was she by the reflection that a too lively +sensibility might have conjured up the idea of the compliment. And +again, she wondered at herself for not resenting so rare a presumption +as it implied, and not disdaining so outworn a form of flattery. She +wondered at herself too for thinking of resentment and disdain in +relation to the familiar commonplaces of licenced impertinence. Over all +which hung a darkened image of her spirit of independence, like a moon in +eclipse. + +Where lay his weakness? Evidently in the belief that he had thought +profoundly. But what minor item of insufficiency or feebleness was +discernible? She discovered that he could be easily fretted by similes +and metaphors they set him staggering and groping like an ancient knight +of faery in a forest bewitched. + +'Your specific for the country is, then, Radicalism,' she said, after +listening to an attack on the Tories for their want of a policy and +indifference to the union of classes. + +'I would prescribe a course of it, Cecilia; yes,' he turned to her. + +'The Dr. Dulcamara of a single drug?' + +'Now you have a name for me! Tory arguments always come to epithets.' + +'It should not be objectionable. Is it not honest to pretend to have +only one cure for mortal maladies? There can hardly be two panaceas, +can there be?' + +'So you call me quack?' + +'No, Nevil, no,' she breathed a rich contralto note of denial: 'but if +the country is the patient, and you will have it swallow your +prescription . . .' + +'There's nothing like a metaphor for an evasion,' said Nevil, blinking +over it. + +She drew him another analogy, longer than was at all necessary; so +tedious that her father struck through it with the remark: + +'Concerning that quack--that's one in the background, though!' + +'I know of none,' said Beauchamp, well-advised enough to forbear mention +of the name of Shrapnel. + +Cecilia petitioned that her stumbling ignorance, which sought the road of +wisdom, might be heard out. She had a reserve entanglement for her +argumentative friend. 'You were saying, Nevil, that you were for +principles rather than for individuals, and you instanced Mr. Cougham, +the senior Liberal candidate of Bevisham, as one whom you would prefer to +see in Parliament instead of Seymour Austin, though you confess to Mr. +Austin's far superior merits as a politician and servant of his country: +but Mr. Cougham supports Liberalism while Mr. Austin is a Tory. You are +for the principle.' + +'I am,' said he, bowing. + +She asked: 'Is not that equivalent to the doctrine of election by Grace?' + +Beauchamp interjected: 'Grace! election?' + +Cecilia was tender to his inability to follow her allusion. + +'Thou art a Liberal--then rise to membership,' she said. 'Accept my +creed, and thou art of the chosen. Yes, Nevil, you cannot escape from +it. Papa, he preaches Calvinism in politics.' + +'We stick to men, and good men,' the colonel flourished. 'Old English +for me!' + +'You might as well say, old timber vessels, when Iron's afloat, colonel.' + +'I suspect you have the worst of it there, papa,' said Cecilia, taken by +the unexpectedness and smartness of the comparison coming from wits that +she had been undervaluing. + +'I shall not own I'm worsted until I surrender my vote,' the colonel +rejoined. + +'I won't despair of it,' said Beauchamp. + +Colonel Halkett bade him come for it as often as he liked. You'll be +beaten in Bevisham, I warn you. Tory reckonings are safest: it's an +admitted fact: and we know you can't win. According to my judgement a +man owes a duty to his class.' + +'A man owes a duty to his class as long as he sees his class doing its +duty to the country,' said Beauchamp; and he added, rather prettily in +contrast with the sententious commencement, Cecilia thought, that the +apathy of his class was proved when such as he deemed it an obligation on +them to come forward and do what little they could. The deduction of the +proof was not clearly consequent, but a meaning was expressed; and in +that form it brought him nearer to her abstract idea of Nevil Beauchamp +than when he raged and was precise. + +After his departure she talked of him with her father, to be charitably +satirical over him, it seemed. + +The critic in her ear had pounced on his repetition of certain words that +betrayed a dialectical stiffness and hinted a narrow vocabulary: his use +of emphasis, rather reminding her of his uncle Everard, was, in a young +man, a little distressing. 'The apathy of the country, papa; the apathy +of the rich; a state of universal apathy. Will you inform me, papa, what +the Tories are doing? Do we really give our consciences to the keeping +of the parsons once a week, and let them dogmatize for us to save us from +exertion? We must attach ourselves to principles; nothing is permanent +but principles. Poor Nevil! And still I am sure you have, as I have, +the feeling that one must respect him. I am quite convinced that he +supposes he is doing his best to serve his country by trying for +Parliament, fancying himself a Radical. I forgot to ask him whether he +had visited his great-aunt, Mrs. Beauchamp. They say the dear old lady +has influence with him.' + +'I don't think he's been anywhere,' Colonel Halkett half laughed at the +quaint fellow. 'I wish the other great-nephew of hers were in England, +for us to run him against Nevil Beauchamp. He's touring the world. I'm +told he's orthodox, and a tough debater. We have to take what we can +get.' + +'My best wishes for your success, and you and I will not talk of politics +any more, papa. I hope Nevil will come often, for his own good; he will +meet his own set of people here. And if he should dogmatize so much as +to rouse our apathy to denounce his principles, we will remember that we +are British, and can be sweet-blooded in opposition. Perhaps he may +change, even tra le tre ore a le quattro: electioneering should be a +lesson. From my recollection of Blackburn Tuckham, he was a boisterous +boy.' + +'He writes uncommonly clever letters home to his aunt Beauchamp. She has +handed them to me to read,' said the colonel. 'I do like to see +tolerably solid young fellows: they give one some hope of the stability +of the country.' + +'They are not so interesting to study, and not half so amusing,' said +Cecilia. + +Colonel Halkett muttered his objections to the sort of amusement +furnished by firebrands. + +'Firebrand is too strong a word for poor Nevil,' she remonstrated. + +In that estimate of the character of Nevil Beauchamp, Cecilia soon had to +confess that she had been deceived, though not by him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +HIS FRIEND AND FOE + +Looking from her window very early on a Sunday morning, Miss Halkett saw +Beauchamp strolling across the grass of the park. She dressed hurriedly +and went out to greet him, smiling and thanking him for his friendliness +in coming. + +He said he was delighted, and appeared so, but dashed the sweetness. +'You know I can't canvass on Sundays! + +'I suppose not,' she replied. 'Have you walked up from Bevisham? You +must be tired.' + +'Nothing tires me,' said he. + +With that they stepped on together. + +Mount Laurels, a fair broad house backed by a wood of beeches and firs, +lay open to view on the higher grassed knoll of a series of descending +turfy mounds dotted with gorseclumps, and faced South-westerly along the +run of the Otley river to the gleaming broad water and its opposite +border of forest, beyond which the downs of the island threw long +interlapping curves. Great ships passed on the line of the water to and +fro; and a little mist of masts of the fishing and coasting craft by +Otley village, near the river's mouth, was like a web in air. Cecilia +led him to her dusky wood of firs, where she had raised a bower for a +place of poetical contemplation and reading when the clear lapping salt +river beneath her was at high tide. She could hail the Esperanza from +that cover; she could step from her drawing-room window, over the flower- +beds, down the gravel walk to the hard, and be on board her yacht within +seven minutes, out on her salt-water lake within twenty, closing her +wings in a French harbour by nightfall of a summer's day, whenever she +had the whim to fly abroad. Of these enviable privileges she boasted +with some happy pride. + +'It's the finest yachting-station in England,' said Beauchamp. + +She expressed herself very glad that he should like it so much. +Unfortunately she added, 'I hope you will find it pleasanter to be here +than canvassing.' + +'I have no pleasure in canvassing,' said he. 'I canvass poor men +accustomed to be paid for their votes, and who get nothing from me but +what the baron would call a parsonical exhortation. I'm in the thick of +the most spiritless crew in the kingdom. Our southern men will not +compare with the men of the north. But still, even among these fellows, +I see danger for the country if our commerce were to fail, if distress +came on them. There's always danger in disunion. That's what the rich +won't see. They see simply nothing out of their own circle; and they +won't take a thought of the overpowering contrast between their luxury +and the way of living, that's half-starving, of the poor. They +understand it when fever comes up from back alleys and cottages, and then +they join their efforts to sweep the poor out of the district. The poor +are to get to their work anyhow, after a long morning's walk over the +proscribed space; for we must have poor, you know. The wife of a parson +I canvassed yesterday, said to me, "Who is to work for us, if you do away +with the poor, Captain Beauchamp?"' + +Cecilia quitted her bower and traversed the wood silently. + +'So you would blow up my poor Mount Laurels for a peace-offering to the +lower classes?' + +'I should hope to put it on a stronger foundation, Cecilia.' + +'By means of some convulsion?' + +'By forestalling one.' + +'That must be one of the new ironclads,' observed Cecilia, gazing at the +black smoke-pennon of a tower that slipped along the water-line. 'Yes? +You were saying? Put us on a stronger----?' + +'It's, I think, the Hastings: she broke down the other day on her trial +trip,' said Beauchamp, watching the ship's progress animatedly. 'Peppel +commands her--a capital officer. I suppose we must have these costly big +floating barracks. I don't like to hear of everything being done for the +defensive. The defensive is perilous policy in war. It's true, the +English don't wake up to their work under half a year. But, no: +defending and looking to defences is bad for the fighting power; and +there's half a million gone on that ship. Half a million! Do you know +how many poor taxpayers it takes to make up that sum, Cecilia?' + +'A great many,' she slurred over them; 'but we must have big ships, and +the best that are to be had.' + +'Powerful fast rams, sea-worthy and fit for running over shallows, +carrying one big gun; swarms of harryers and worriers known to be kept +ready for immediate service; readiness for the offensive in case of war +--there's the best defence against a declaration of war by a foreign +State.' + +'I like to hear you, Nevil,' said Cecilia, beaming: 'Papa thinks we have +a miserable army--in numbers. He says, the wealthier we become the more +difficult it is to recruit able-bodied men on the volunteering system. +Yet the wealthier we are the more an army is wanted, both to defend our +wealth and to preserve order. I fancy he half inclines to compulsory +enlistment. Do speak to him on that subject.' + +Cecilia must have been innocent of a design to awaken the fire-flash in +Nevil's eyes. She had no design, but hostility was latent, and hence +perhaps the offending phrase. + +He nodded and spoke coolly. 'An army to preserve order? So, then, an +army to threaten civil war!' + +'To crush revolutionists.' + +'Agitators, you mean. My dear good old colonel--I have always loved him +--must not have more troops at his command.' + +'Do you object to the drilling of the whole of the people?' + +'Does not the colonel, Cecilia? I am sure he does in his heart, and, for +different reasons, I do. He won't trust the working-classes, nor I the +middle.' + +'Does Dr. Shrapnel hate the middle-class?' + +'Dr. Shrapnel cannot hate. He and I are of opinion, that as the middle- +class are the party in power, they would not, if they knew the use of +arms, move an inch farther in Reform, for they would no longer be in fear +of the class below them.' + +'But what horrible notions of your country have you, Nevil! It is +dreadful to hear. Oh! do let us avoid politics for ever. Fear!' + +'All concessions to the people have been won from fear.' + +'I have not heard so.' + +'I will read it to you in the History of England.' + +'You paint us in a condition of Revolution.' + +'Happily it's not a condition unnatural to us. The danger would be in +not letting it be progressive, and there's a little danger too at times +in our slowness. We change our blood or we perish.' + +'Dr. Shrapnel?' + +'Yes, I have heard Dr. Shrapnel say that. And, by-the-way, Cecilia--will +you? can you?--take me for the witness to his character. He is the most +guileless of men, and he's the most unguarded. My good Rosamund saw him. +She is easily prejudiced when she is a trifle jealous, and you may hear +from her that he rambles, talks wildly. It may seem so. I maintain +there is wisdom in him when conventional minds would think him at his +wildest. Believe me, he is the humanest, the best of men, tenderhearted +as a child: the most benevolent, simple-minded, admirable old man--the +man I am proudest to think of as an Englishman and a man living in my +time, of all men existing. I can't overpraise him.' + +'He has a bad reputation.' + +'Only with the class that will not meet him and answer him.' + +'Must we invite him to our houses?' + +'It would be difficult to get him to come, if you did. I mean, meet him +in debate and answer his arguments. Try the question by brains.' + +'Before mobs?' + +'Not before mobs. I punish you by answering you seriously.' + +'I am sensible of the flattery.' + +'Before mobs!' Nevil ejaculated. 'It's the Tories that mob together and +cry down every man who appears to them to threaten their privileges. Can +you guess what Dr. Shrapnel compares them to?' + +'Indeed, Nevil, I have not an idea. I only wish your patriotism were +large enough to embrace them.' + +'He compares them to geese claiming possession of the whole common, and +hissing at every foot of ground they have to yield. They're always +having to retire and always hissing. "Retreat and menace," that's the +motto for them.' + +'Very well, Nevil, I am a goose upon a common.' + +So saying, Cecilia swam forward like a swan on water to give the morning +kiss to her papa, by the open window of the breakfast-room. + +Never did bird of Michaelmas fling off water from her feathers more +thoroughly than this fair young lady the false title she pretended to +assume. + +'I hear you're of the dinner party at Grancey Lespel's on Wednesday,' +the colonel said to Beauchamp. 'You'll have to stand fire.' + +'They will, papa,' murmured Cecilia. 'Will Mr. Austin be there?' + +'I particularly wish to meet Mr. Austin,' said Beauchamp. + +'Listen to him, if you do meet him,' she replied. + +His look was rather grave. + +'Lespel 's a Whig,' he said. + +The colonel answered. 'Lespel was a Whig. Once a Tory always a Tory,-- +but court the people and you're on quicksands, and that's where the Whigs +are. What he is now I don't think he knows himself. You won't get a +vote.' + +Cecilia watched her friend Nevil recovering from his short fit of gloom. +He dismissed politics at breakfast and grew companionable, with the charm +of his earlier day. He was willing to accompany her to church too. + +'You will hear a long sermon,' she warned him. + +'Forty minutes.' Colonel Halkett smothered a yawn that was both retro +and prospective. + +'It has been fifty, papa.' + +'It has been an hour, my dear.' + +It was good discipline nevertheless, the colonel affirmed, and Cecilia +praised the Rev. Mr. Brisk of Urplesdon vicarage as one of our few +remaining Protestant clergymen. + +'Then he ought to be supported,' said Beauchamp. 'In the dissensions of +religious bodies it is wise to pat the weaker party on the back--I quote +Stukely Culbrett.' + +'I 've heard him,' sighed the colonel. 'He calls the Protestant clergy +the social police of the English middle-class. Those are the things he +lets fly. I have heard that man say that the Church stands to show the +passion of the human race for the drama. He said it in my presence. And +there 's a man who calls himself a Tory + +You have rather too much of that playing at grudges and dislikes at +Steynham, with squibs, nicknames, and jests at things that--well, that +our stability is bound up in. I hate squibs.' + +'And I,' said Beauchamp. Some shadow of a frown crossed him; but Stukely +Culbrett's humour seemed to be a refuge. 'Protestant parson-not clergy,' +he corrected the colonel. 'Can't you hear Mr. Culbrett, Cecilia? The +Protestant parson is the policeman set to watch over the respectability +of the middle-class. He has sharp eyes for the sins of the poor. As for +the rich, they support his church; they listen to his sermon--to set an +example: discipline, colonel. You discipline the tradesman, who's afraid +of losing your custom, and the labourer, who might be deprived of his +bread. But the people? It's put down to the wickedness of human nature +that the parson has not got hold of the people. The parsons have lost +them by senseless Conservatism, because they look to the Tories for the +support of their Church, and let the religion run down the gutters. And +how many thousands have you at work in the pulpit every Sunday? I'm told +the Dissenting ministers have some vitality.' + +Colonel Halkett shrugged with disgust at the mention of Dissenters. + +'And those thirty or forty thousand, colonel, call the men that do the +work they ought to be doing demagogues. The parsonry are a power +absolutely to be counted for waste, as to progress.' + +Cecilia perceived that her father was beginning to be fretted. + +She said, with a tact that effected its object: 'I am one who hear Mr. +Culbrett without admiring his wit.' + +'No, and I see no good in this kind of Steynham talk,' Colonel Halkett +said, rising. 'We're none of us perfect. Heaven save us from political +parsons!' + +Beauchamp was heard to utter, 'Humanity.' + +The colonel left the room with Cecilia, muttering the Steynham tail to +that word: 'tomtity,' for the solace of an aside repartee. + +She was on her way to dress for church. He drew her into the library, +and there threw open a vast placard lying on the table. It was printed +in blue characters and red. 'This is what I got by the post this +morning. I suppose Nevil knows about it. He wants tickling, but I don't +like this kind of thing. It 's not fair war. It 's as bad as using +explosive bullets in my old game.' + +'Can he expect his adversaries to be tender with him?' Cecilia simulated +vehemence in an underbreath. She glanced down the page: + +'FRENCH MARQUEES' caught her eye. + +It was a page of verse. And, oh! could it have issued from a Tory +Committee? + +'The Liberals are as bad, and worse,' her father said. + +She became more and more distressed. 'It seems so very mean, papa; so +base. Ungenerous is no word for it. And how vulgar! Now I remember, +Nevil said he wished to see Mr. Austin.' + +'Seymour Austin would not sanction it.' + +'No, but Nevil might hold him responsible for it.' + +'I suspect Mr. Stukely Culbrett, whom he quotes, and that smoking-room +lot at Lespel's. I distinctly discountenance it. So I shall tell them +on Wednesday night. Can you keep a secret?' + +'And after all Nevil Beauchamp is very young, papa!--of course I can keep +a secret.' + +The colonel exacted no word of honour, feeling quite sure of her. + +He whispered the secret in six words, and her cheeks glowed vermilion. + +'But they will meet on Wednesday after this,' she said, and her sight +went dancing down the column of verse, of which the following trotting +couplet is a specimen:-- + + 'O did you ever, hot in love, a little British middy see, + Like Orpheus asking what the deuce to do without Eurydice?' + +The middy is jilted by his FRENCH MARQUEES, whom he 'did adore,' and in +his wrath he recommends himself to the wealthy widow Bevisham, concerning +whose choice of her suitors there is a doubt: but the middy is encouraged +to persevere: + + 'Up, up, my pretty middy; take a draught of foaming Sillery; + Go in and win the uriddy with your Radical artillery.' + +And if Sillery will not do, he is advised, he being for superlatives, +to try the sparkling Sillery of the Radical vintage, selected grapes. + +This was but impudent nonsense. But the reiterated apostrophe to +'MY FRENCH MARQUEES' was considered by Cecilia to be a brutal offence. + +She was shocked that her party should have been guilty of it. Nevil +certainly provoked, and he required, hard blows; and his uncle Everard +might be right in telling her father that they were the best means of +teaching him to come to his understanding. Still a foul and stupid squib +did appear to her a debasing weapon to use. + +'I cannot congratulate you on your choice of a second candidate, papa,' +she said scornfully. + +'I don't much congratulate myself,' said the colonel. + +'Here's a letter from Mrs. Beauchamp informing me that her boy Blackburn +will be home in a month. There would have been plenty of time for him. +However, we must make up our minds to it. Those two 'll be meeting on +Wednesday, so keep your secret. It will be out tomorrow week.' + +'But Nevil will be accusing Mr. Austin.' + +'Austin won't be at Lespel's. And he must bear it, for the sake of +peace.' + +'Is Nevil ruined with his uncle, papa?' + +'Not a bit, I should imagine. It's Romfrey's fun.' + +'And this disgraceful squib is a part of the fun?' + +'That I know nothing about, my dear. I'm sorry, but there's pitch and +tar in politics as well as on shipboard.' + +'I do not see that there should be,' said Cecilia resolutely. + +'We can't hope to have what should be.' + +'Why not? I would have it: I would do my utmost to have it,' she flamed +out. + +'Your utmost?' Her father was glancing at her foregone mimicry of +Beauchamp's occasional strokes of emphasis. 'Do your utmost to have your +bonnet on in time for us to walk to church. I can't bear driving there.' + +Cecilia went to her room with the curious reflection, awakened by what +her father had chanced to suggest to her mind, that she likewise could be +fervid, positive, uncompromising--who knows? Radicalish, perhaps, when +she looked eye to eye on an evil. For a moment or so she espied within +herself a gulf of possibilities, wherein black night-birds, known as +queries, roused by shot of light, do flap their wings.--Her utmost to +have be what should be! And why not? + +But the intemperate feeling subsided while she was doing duty before her +mirror, and the visionary gulf closed immediately. + +She had merely been very angry on Nevil Beauchamp's behalf, and had dimly +seen that a woman can feel insurgent, almost revolutionary, for a +personal cause, Tory though her instinct of safety and love of smoothness +make her. + +No reflection upon this casual piece of self or sex revelation troubled +her head. She did, however, think of her position as the friend of Nevil +in utter antagonism to him. It beset her with contradictions that blew +rough on her cherished serenity; for she was of the order of ladies who, +by virtue of their pride and spirit, their port and their beauty, decree +unto themselves the rank of princesses among women, before our world has +tried their claim to it. She had lived hitherto in upper air, high above +the clouds of earth. Her ideal of a man was of one similarly disengaged +and lofty-loftier. Nevil, she could honestly say, was not her ideal; +he was only her old friend, and she was opposed to him in his present +adventure. The striking at him to cure him of his mental errors and +excesses was an obligation; she could descend upon him calmly with the +chastening rod, pointing to the better way; but the shielding of him was +a different thing; it dragged her down so low, that in her condemnation +of the Tory squib she found herself asking herself whether haply Nevil +had flung off the yoke of the French lady; with the foolish excuse for +the question, that if he had not, he must be bitterly sensitive to the +slightest public allusion to her. Had he? And if not, how desperately +faithful he was! or else how marvellously seductive she! + +Perhaps it was a lover's despair that had precipitated him into the mire +of politics. She conceived the impression that it must be so, and +throughout the day she had an inexplicable unsweet pleasure in inciting +him to argumentation and combating him, though she was compelled to admit +that he had been colloquially charming antecedent to her naughty +provocation; and though she was indebted to him for his patient decorum +under the weary wave of the Reverend Mr. Brisk. Now what does it matter +what a woman thinks in politics? But he deemed it of great moment. +Politically, he deemed that women have souls, a certain fire of life for +exercise on earth. He appealed to reason in them; he would not hear of +convictions. He quoted the Bevisham doctor + +'Convictions are generally first impressions that are sealed with later +prejudices,' and insisted there was wisdom in it. Nothing tired him, as +he had said, and addressing woman or man, no prospect of fatigue or of +hopeless effort daunted him in the endeavour to correct an error of +judgement in politics--his notion of an error. The value he put upon +speaking, urging his views, was really fanatical. It appeared that he +canvassed the borough from early morning till near midnight, and nothing +would persuade him that his chance was poor; nothing that an entrenched +Tory like her father, was not to be won even by an assault of all the +reserve forces of Radical pathos, prognostication, and statistics. + +Only conceive Nevil Beauchamp knocking at doors late at night, the sturdy +beggar of a vote! or waylaying workmen, as he confessed without shame +that he had done, on their way trooping to their midday meal; penetrating +malodoriferous rooms of dismal ten-pound cottagers, to exhort bedraggled +mothers and babes, and besotted husbands; and exposed to rebuffs from +impertinent tradesmen; and lampooned and travestied, shouting speeches to +roaring men, pushed from shoulder to shoulder of the mob! . . . + +Cecilia dropped a curtain on her mind's picture of him. But the blinding +curtain rekindled the thought that the line he had taken could not but be +the desperation of a lover abandoned. She feared it was, she feared it +was not. Nevil Beauchamp's foe persisted in fearing that it was not; his +friend feared that it was. Yet why? For if it was, then he could not be +quite in earnest, and might be cured. Nay, but earnestness works out its +own cure more surely than frenzy, and it should be preferable to think +him sound of heart, sincere though mistaken. Cecilia could not decide +upon what she dared wish for his health's good. Friend and foe were not +further separable within her bosom than one tick from another of a clock; +they changed places, and next his friend was fearing what his foe had +feared: they were inextricable. + +Why had he not sprung up on a radiant aquiline ambition, whither one +might have followed him, with eyes and prayers for him, if it was not +possible to do so companionably? At present, in the shape of a +canvassing candidate, it was hardly honourable to let imagination dwell +on him, save compassionately. + +When he rose to take his leave, Cecilia said, 'Must you go to Itchincope +on Wednesday, Nevil?' + +Colonel Halkett added: 'I don't think I would go to Lespel's if I were +you. I rather suspect Seymour Austin will be coming on Wednesday, and +that 'll detain me here, and you might join us and lend him an ear for an +evening.' + +'I have particular reasons for going to Lespel's; I hear he wavers toward +a Tory conspiracy of some sort,' said Beauchamp. + +The colonel held his tongue. + +The untiring young candidate chose to walk down to Bevisham at eleven +o'clock at night, that he might be the readier to continue his canvass of +the borough on Monday morning early. He was offered a bed or a +conveyance, and he declined both; the dog-cart he declined out of +consideration for horse and groom, which an owner of stables could not +but approve. + +Colonel Halkett broke into exclamations of pity for so good a young +fellow so misguided. + +The night was moonless, and Cecilia, looking through the window, said +whimsically, 'He has gone out into the darkness, and is no light in it!' + +Certainly none shone. She however carried a lamp that revealed him +footing on with a wonderful air of confidence, and she was rather +surprised to hear her father regret that Nevil Beauchamp should be losing +his good looks already, owing to that miserable business of his in +Bevisham. She would have thought the contrary, that he was looking as +well as ever. + +'He dresses just as he used to dress,' she observed. + +The individual style of a naval officer of breeding, in which you see +neatness trifling with disorder, or disorder plucking at neatness, like +the breeze a trim vessel, had been caught to perfection by Nevil +Beauchamp, according to Cecilia. It presented him to her mind in a +cheerful and a very undemocratic aspect, but in realizing it, the +thought, like something flashing black, crossed her--how attractive such +a style must be to a Frenchwoman! + +'He may look a little worn,' she acquiesced. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CONCERNING THE ACT OF CANVASSING + +Tories dread the restlessness of Radicals, and Radicals are in awe of the +organization of Tories. Beauchamp thought anxiously of the high degree +of confidence existing in the Tory camp, whose chief could afford to keep +aloof, while he slaved all day and half the night to thump ideas into +heads, like a cooper on a cask:--an impassioned cooper on an empty cask! +if such an image is presentable. Even so enviously sometimes the writer +and the barrister, men dependent on their active wits, regard the man +with a business fixed in an office managed by clerks. That man seems by +comparison celestially seated. But he has his fits of trepidation; for +new tastes prevail and new habits are formed, and the structure of his +business will not allow him to adapt himself to them in a minute. The +secure and comfortable have to pay in occasional panics for the serenity +they enjoy. Mr. Seymour Austin candidly avowed to Colonel Halkett, on +his arrival at Mount Laurels, that he was advised to take up his quarters +in the neighbourhood of Bevisham by a recent report of his committee, +describing the young Radical's canvass as redoubtable. Cougham he did +not fear: he could make a sort of calculation of the votes for the +Liberal thumping on the old drum of Reform; but the number for him who +appealed to feelings and quickened the romantic sentiments of the common +people now huddled within our electoral penfold, was not calculable. +Tory and Radical have an eye for one another, which overlooks the Liberal +at all times except when he is, as they imagine, playing the game of +either of them. + +'Now we shall see the passions worked,' Mr. Austin said, deploring the +extension of the franchise. + +He asked whether Beauchamp spoke well. + +Cecilia left it to her father to reply; but the colonel appealed to her, +saying, 'Inclined to dragoon one, isn't he?' + +She did not think that. 'He speaks . . . he speaks well in +conversation. I fancy he would be liked by the poor. I should doubt his +being a good public speaker. He certainly has command of his temper: +that is one thing. I cannot say whether it favours oratory. He is +indefatigable. One may be sure he will not faint by the way. He quite +believes in himself. But, Mr. Austin, do you really regard him as a +serious rival?' + +Mr. Austin could not tell. No one could tell the effect of an extended +franchise. The untried venture of it depressed him. 'Men have come +suddenly on a borough before now and carried it,' he said. + +'Not a borough like Bevisham?' + +He shook his head. 'A fluid borough, I'm afraid.' + +Colonel Halkettt interposed: 'But Ferbrass is quite sure of his +district.' + +Cecilia wished to know who the man was, of the mediaevally sounding name. + +'Ferbrass is an old lawyer, my dear. He comes of five generations of +lawyers, and he 's as old in the county as Grancey Lespel. Hitherto he +has always been to be counted on for marching his district to the poll +like a regiment. That's our strength--the professions, especially +lawyers.' + +'Are not a great many lawyers Liberals, papa?' + +'A great many barristers are, my dear.' + +Thereat the colonel and Mr. Austin smiled together. + +It was a new idea to Cecilia that Nevil Beauchamp should be considered by +a man of the world anything but a well-meaning, moderately ridiculous +young candidate; and the fact that one so experienced as Seymour Austin +deemed him an adversary to be grappled with in earnest, created a small +revolution in her mind, entirely altering her view of the probable +pliability of his Radicalism under pressure of time and circumstances. +Many of his remarks, that she had previously half smiled at, came across +her memory hard as metal. She began to feel some terror of him, and +said, to reassure herself: 'Captain Beauchamp is not likely to be a +champion with a very large following. He is too much of a political +mystic, I think.' + +'Many young men are, before they have written out a fair copy of their +meaning,' said Mr. Austin. + +Cecilia laughed to herself at the vision of the fiery Nevil engaged in +writing out a fair copy of his meaning. How many erasures! what foot- +notes! + +The arrangement was for Cecilia to proceed to Itchincope alone for a +couple of days, and bring a party to Mount Laurels through Bevisham by +the yacht on Thursday, to meet Mr. Seymour Austin and Mr. Everard +Romfrey. An early day of the next week had been agreed on for the +unmasking of the second Tory candidate. She promised that in case Nevil +Beauchamp should have the hardihood to enter the enemy's nest at +Itchincope on Wednesday, at the great dinner and ball there, she would do +her best to bring him back to Mount Laurels, that he might meet his uncle +Everard, who was expected there. At least he may consent to come for an +evening,' she said. 'Nothing will take him from that canvassing. It +seems to me it must be not merely distasteful . . . ?' + +Mr. Austin replied: 'It 's disagreeable, but it's' the practice. I would +gladly be bound by a common undertaking to abstain.' + +'Captain Beauchamp argues that it would be all to your advantage. He +says that a personal visit is the only chance for an unknown candidate to +make the people acquainted with him.' + +'It's a very good opportunity for making him acquainted with them; and I +hope he may profit by it.' + +'Ah! pah! "To beg the vote and wink the bribe,"' Colonel Halkett +subjoined abhorrently: + + "'It well becomes the Whiggish tribe + To beg the vote and wink the bribe." + +Canvassing means intimidation or corruption.' + +'Or the mixture of the two, called cajolery,' said Mr. Austin; 'and that +was the principal art of the Whigs.' + +Thus did these gentlemen converse upon canvassing. + +It is not possible to gather up in one volume of sound the rattle of the +knocks at Englishmen's castle-gates during election days; so, with the +thunder of it unheard, the majesty of the act of canvassing can be but +barely appreciable, and he, therefore, who would celebrate it must follow +the candidate obsequiously from door to door, where, like a cross between +a postman delivering a bill and a beggar craving an alms, patiently he +attempts the extraction of the vote, as little boys pick periwinkles with +a pin. + +'This is your duty, which I most abjectly entreat you to do,' is pretty +nearly the form of the supplication. + +How if, instead of the solicitation of the thousands by the unit, the +meritorious unit were besought by rushing thousands?--as a mound of the +plains that is circumvented by floods, and to which the waters cry, Be +thou our island. Let it be answered the questioner, with no discourteous +adjectives, Thou fool! To come to such heights of popular discrimination +and political ardour the people would have to be vivified to a pitch +little short of eruptive: it would be Boreas blowing AEtna inside them; +and we should have impulse at work in the country, and immense importance +attaching to a man's whether he will or he won't--enough to womanize him. +We should be all but having Parliament for a sample of our choicest +rather than our likest: and see you not a peril in that? + +Conceive, for the fleeting instants permitted to such insufferable +flights of fancy, our picked men ruling! So despotic an oligarchy as +would be there, is not a happy subject of contemplation. It is not too +much to say that a domination of the Intellect in England would at once +and entirely alter the face of the country. We should be governed by the +head with a vengeance: all the rest of the country being base members +indeed; Spartans--helots. Criticism, now so helpful to us, would wither +to the root: fun would die out of Parliament, and outside of it: we could +never laugh at our masters, or command them: and that good old-fashioned +shouldering of separate interests, which, if it stops progress, like a +block in the pit entrance to a theatre, proves us equal before the law, +puts an end to the pretence of higher merit in the one or the other, and +renders a stout build the safest assurance for coming through ultimately, +would be transformed to a painful orderliness, like a City procession +under the conduct of the police, and to classifications of things +according to their public value: decidedly no benefit to burly freedom. +None, if there were no shouldering and hustling, could tell whether +actually the fittest survived; as is now the case among survivors +delighting in a broad-chested fitness. + +And consider the freezing isolation of a body of our quintessential +elect, seeing below them none to resemble them! Do you not hear in +imagination the land's regrets for that amiable nobility whose +pretensions were comically built on birth, acres, tailoring, style, and +an air? Ah, that these unchallengeable new lords could be exchanged for +those old ones! These, with the traditions of how great people should +look in our country, these would pass among us like bergs of ice--a pure +Polar aristocracy, inflicting the woes of wintriness upon us. Keep them +from concentrating! At present I believe it to be their honest opinion, +their wise opinion, and the sole opinion common to a majority of them, +that it is more salutary, besides more diverting, to have the fools of +the kingdom represented than not. As professors of the sarcastic art +they can easily take the dignity out of the fools' representative at +their pleasure, showing him at antics while he supposes he is exhibiting +an honourable and a decent series of movements. Generally, too, their +archery can check him when he is for any of his measures; and if it does +not check, there appears to be such a property in simple sneering, that +it consoles even when it fails to right the balance of power. Sarcasm, +we well know, confers a title of aristocracy straightway and sharp on the +sconce of the man who does but imagine that he is using it. What, then, +must be the elevation of these princes of the intellect in their own +minds! Hardly worth bartering for worldly commanderships, it is evident. + +Briefly, then, we have a system, not planned but grown, the outcome and +image of our genius, and all are dissatisfied with parts of it; but, as +each would preserve his own, the surest guarantee is obtained for the +integrity of the whole by a happy adjustment of the energies of +opposition, which--you have only to look to see--goes far beyond concord +in the promotion of harmony. This is our English system; like our +English pudding, a fortuitous concourse of all the sweets in the grocer's +shop, but an excellent thing for all that, and let none threaten it. +Canvassing appears to be mixed up in the system; at least I hope I have +shown that it will not do to reverse the process, for fear of changes +leading to a sovereignty of the austere and antipathetic Intellect in our +England, that would be an inaccessible tyranny of a very small minority, +necessarily followed by tremendous convulsions. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A dash of conventionalism makes the whole civilized world kin +Aimlessness of a woman's curiosity +All concessions to the people have been won from fear +Appealed to reason in them; he would not hear of convictions +Automatic creature is subject to the laws of its construction +Beautiful servicelessness +Canvassing means intimidation or corruption +Comfortable have to pay in occasional panics for the serenity +Consult the family means--waste your time +Convictions are generally first impressions +Country can go on very well without so much speech-making +Crazy zigzag of policy in almost every stroke (of history) +Dialectical stiffness +Effort to be reticent concerning Nevil, and communicative +Give our consciences to the keeping of the parsons +Hates a compromise +Man owes a duty to his class +Mark of a fool to take everybody for a bigger fool than himself +Martyrs of love or religion are madmen +Never pretend to know a girl by her face +No stopping the Press while the people have an appetite for it +Oratory will not work against the stream, or on languid tides +Parliament, is the best of occupations for idle men +Protestant clergy the social police of the English middle-class +The defensive is perilous policy in war +The family view is everlastingly the shopkeeper's +The infant candidate delights in his honesty +There is no first claim +There's nothing like a metaphor for an evasion +They're always having to retire and always hissing +Those happy men who enjoy perceptions without opinions +Those whose humour consists of a readiness to laugh +Threatened powerful drugs for weak stomachs +To beg the vote and wink the bribe +We can't hope to have what should be +We have a system, not planned but grown +World cannot pardon a breach of continuity + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Beauchamp's Career, v2 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4454.zip b/4454.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2fc6ac3 --- /dev/null +++ b/4454.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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