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THE ADVENTURE OF THE BOAT + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +LORD PALMET, AND CERTAIN ELECTORS OF BEVISHAM + +Meantime the candidates raised knockers, rang bells, bowed, expounded +their views, praised their virtues, begged for votes, and greatly and +strangely did the youngest of them enlarge his knowledge of his +countrymen. But he had an insatiable appetite, and except in relation to +Mr. Cougham, considerable tolerance. With Cougham, he was like a young +hound in the leash. They had to run as twins; but Beauchamp's conjunct +would not run, he would walk. He imposed his experience on Beauchamp, +with an assumption that it must necessarily be taken for the law of +Beauchamp's reason in electoral and in political affairs, and this was +hard on Beauchamp, who had faith in his reason. Beauchamp's early +canvassing brought Cougham down to Bevisham earlier than usual in the +days when he and Seymour Austin divided the borough, and he inclined to +administer correction to the Radically-disposed youngster. 'Yes, I have +gone all over that,' he said, in speech sometimes, in manner perpetually, +upon the intrusion of an idea by his junior. Cougham also, Cougham had +passed through his Radical phase, as one does on the road to wisdom. +So the frog telleth tadpoles: he too has wriggled most preposterous of +tails; and he has shoved a circular flat head into corners unadapted to +its shape; and that the undeveloped one should dutifully listen to +experience and accept guidance, is devoutly to be hoped. Alas! +Beauchamp would not be taught that though they were yoked they stood at +the opposite ends of the process of evolution. + +The oddly coupled pair deplored, among their respective friends, the +disastrous Siamese twinship created by a haphazard improvident Liberal +camp. Look at us! they said:--Beauchamp is a young demagogue; Cougham +is chrysalis Tory. Such Liberals are the ruin of Liberalism; but of such +must it be composed when there is no new cry to loosen floods. It was +too late to think of an operation to divide them. They held the heart of +the cause between them, were bound fast together, and had to go on. +Beauchamp, with a furious tug of Radicalism, spoken or performed, pulled +Cougham on his beam-ends. Cougham, to right himself, defined his +Liberalism sharply from the politics of the pit, pointed to France and +her Revolutions, washed his hands of excesses, and entirely overset +Beauchamp. Seeing that he stood in the Liberal interest, the junior +could not abandon the Liberal flag; so he seized it and bore it ahead of +the time, there where Radicals trip their phantom dances like shadows on +a fog, and waved it as the very flag of our perfectible race. So great +was the impetus that Cougham had no choice but to step out with him +briskly--voluntarily as a man propelled by a hand on his coat-collar. +A word saved him: the word practical. 'Are we practical?' he inquired, +and shivered Beauchamp's galloping frame with a violent application of +the stop abrupt; for that question, 'Are we practical?' penetrates the +bosom of an English audience, and will surely elicit a response if not. +plaudits. Practical or not, the good people affectingly wish to be +thought practical. It has been asked by them + +If we're not practical, what are we?--Beauchamp, talking to Cougham +apart, would argue that the daring and the far-sighted course was often +the most practical. Cougham extended a deprecating hand: 'Yes, I have +gone over all that.' Occasionally he was maddening. + +The melancholy position of the senior and junior Liberals was known +abroad and matter of derision. + +It happened that the gay and good-humoured young Lord Palmet, heir to the +earldom of Elsea, walking up the High Street of Bevisham, met Beauchamp +on Tuesday morning as he sallied out of his hotel to canvass. Lord +Palmet was one of the numerous half-friends of Cecil Baskelett, and it +may be a revelation of his character to you, that he owned to liking +Beauchamp because of his having always been a favourite with the women. +He began chattering, with Beauchamp's hand in his: 'I've hit on you, have +I? My dear fellow, Miss Halkett was talking of you last night. +I slept at Mount Laurels; went on purpose to have a peep. I'm bound +for Itchincope. They've some grand procession in view there; Lespel +wrote for my team; I suspect he's for starting some new October races. +He talks of half-a-dozen drags. He must have lots of women there. +I say, what a splendid creature Cissy Halkett has shot up! She topped +the season this year, and will next. You're for the darkies, Beauchamp. +So am I, when I don't see a blonde; just as a fellow admires a girl when +there's no married woman or widow in sight. And, I say, it can't be true +you've gone in for that crazy Radicalism? There's nothing to be gained +by it, you know; the women hate it! A married blonde of five-and- +twenty's the Venus of them all. Mind you, I don't forget that Mrs. +Wardour-Devereux is a thorough-paced brunette; but, upon my honour, I'd +bet on Cissy Halkett at forty. "A dark eye in woman," if you like, but +blue and auburn drive it into a corner.' + +Lord Palmet concluded by asking Beauchamp what he was doing and whither +going. + +Beauchamp proposed to him maliciously, as one of our hereditary +legislators, to come and see something of canvassing. Lord Palmet had no +objection. 'Capital opportunity for a review of their women,' he +remarked. + +'I map the places for pretty women in England; some parts of Norfolk, and +a spot or two in Cumberland and Wales, and the island over there, I know +thoroughly. Those Jutes have turned out some splendid fair women. +Devonshire's worth a tour. My man Davis is in charge of my team, and he +drives to Itchincope from Washwater station. I am independent; I 'll +have an hour with you. Do you think much of the women here?' + +Beauchamp had not noticed them. + +Palmet observed that he should not have noticed anything else. + +'But you are qualifying for the Upper House,' Beauchamp said in the tone +of an encomium. + +Palmet accepted the statement. 'Though I shall never care to figure +before peeresses,' he said. 'I can't tell you why. There's a heavy +sprinkling of the old bird among them. It isn't that. There's too much +plumage; I think it must be that. A cloud of millinery shoots me off a +mile from a woman. In my opinion, witches are the only ones for wearing +jewels without chilling the feminine atmosphere about them. Fellows +think differently.' Lord Palmet waved a hand expressive of purely +amiable tolerance, for this question upon the most important topic of +human affairs was deep, and no judgement should be hasty in settling it. +'I'm peculiar,' he resumed. 'A rose and a string of pearls: a woman who +goes beyond that's in danger of petrifying herself and her fellow man. +Two women in Paris, last winter, set us on fire with pale thin gold +ornaments--neck, wrists, ears, ruche, skirts, all in a flutter, and so +were you. But you felt witchcraft. "The magical Orient," Vivian Ducie +called the blonde, and the dark beauty, "Young Endor."' + +'Her name?' said Beauchamp. + +'A marquise; I forget her name. The other was Countess Rastaglione; you +must have heard of her; a towering witch, an empress, Helen of Troy; +though Ducie would have it the brunette was Queen of Paris. For French +taste, if you like.' + +Countess Rastaglione was a lady enamelled on the scroll of Fame. 'Did +you see them together?' said Beauchamp. 'They weren't together?' + +Palmet looked at him and laughed. 'You're yourself again, are you? Go +to Paris in January, and cut out the Frenchmen.' + +'Answer me, Palmet: they weren't in couples?' + +'I fancy not. It was luck to meet them, so they couldn't have been.' + +'Did you dance with either of them?' + +Unable to state accurately that he had, Palmet cried, 'Oh! for dancing, +the Frenchwoman beat the Italian.' + +'Did you see her often--more than once?' + +'My dear fellow, I went everywhere to see her: balls, theatres, +promenades, rides, churches.' + +'And you say she dressed up to the Italian, to challenge her, rival her?' + +'Only one night; simple accident. Everybody noticed it, for they stood +for Night and Day,--both hung with gold; the brunette Etruscan, and the +blonde Asiatic; and every Frenchman present was epigramizing up and down +the rooms like mad.' + +'Her husband 's Legitimist; he wouldn't be at the Tuileries?' Beauchamp +spoke half to himself. + +'What, then, what?' Palmet stared and chuckled. 'Her husband must have +taken the Tuileries' bait, if we mean the same woman. My dear old +Beauchamp, have I seen her, then? She's a darling! The Rastaglione was +nothing to her. When you do light on a grand smoky pearl, the milky ones +may go and decorate plaster. That's what I say of the loveliest +brunettes. It must be the same: there can't be a couple of dark beauties +in Paris without a noise about them. Marquise--? I shall recollect her +name presently.' + +'Here's one of the houses I stop at,' said Beauchamp, 'and drop that +subject.' + +A scared servant-girl brought out her wizened mistress to confront the +candidate, and to this representative of the sex he addressed his arts of +persuasion, requesting her to repeat his words to her husband. The +contrast between Beauchamp palpably canvassing and the Beauchamp who was +the lover of the Marquise of the forgotten name, struck too powerfully on +Palmet for his gravity he retreated. + +Beauchamp found him sauntering on the pavement, and would have dismissed +him but for an agreeable diversion that occurred at that moment. A +suavely smiling unctuous old gentleman advanced to them, bowing, and +presuming thus far, he said, under the supposition that he was accosting +the junior Liberal candidate for the borough. He announced his name and +his principles Tomlinson, progressive Liberal. + +'A true distinction from some Liberals I know,' said Beauchamp. + +Mr. Tomlinson hoped so. Never, he said, did he leave it to the man of +his choice at an election to knock at his door for the vote. + +Beauchamp looked as if he had swallowed a cordial. Votes falling into +his lap are heavenly gifts to the candidate sick of the knocker and the +bell. Mr. Tomlinson eulogized the manly candour of the junior Liberal +candidate's address, in which he professed to see ideas that +distinguished it from the address of the sound but otherwise conventional +Liberal, Mr. Cougham. He muttered of plumping for Beauchamp. 'Don't +plump,' Beauchamp said; and a candidate, if he would be an honourable +twin, must say it. Cougham had cautioned him against the heresy of +plumping. + +They discoursed of the poor and their beverages, of pothouses, of the +anti-liquorites, and of the duties of parsons, and the value of a robust +and right-minded body of the poor to the country. Palmet found himself +following them into a tolerably spacious house that he took to be the old +gentleman's until some of the apparatus of an Institute for literary and +scientific instruction revealed itself to him, and he heard Mr. Tomlinson +exalt the memory of one Wingham for the blessing bequeathed by him to the +town of Bevisham. 'For,' said Mr. Tomlinson, 'it is open to both sexes, +to all respectable classes, from ten in the morning up to ten at night. +Such a place affords us, I would venture to say, the advantages without +the seductions of a Club. I rank it next--at a far remove, but next-the +church.' + +Lord Palmet brought his eyes down from the busts of certain worthies +ranged along the top of the book-shelves to the cushioned chairs, and +murmured, 'Capital place for an appointment with a woman.' + +Mr. Tomlinson gazed up at him mildly, with a fallen countenance. He +turned sadly agape in silence to the busts, the books, and the range of +scientific instruments, and directed a gaze under his eyebrows at +Beauchamp. 'Does your friend canvass with you?' he inquired. + +'I want him to taste it,' Beauchamp replied, and immediately introduced +the affable young lord--a proceeding marked by some of the dexterity he +had once been famous for, as was shown by a subsequent observation of Mr. +Tomlinson's: + +'Yes,' he said, on the question of classes, 'yes, I fear we have classes +in this country whose habitual levity sharp experience will have to +correct. I very much fear it.' + +'But if you have classes that are not to face realities classes that look +on them from the box-seats of a theatre,' said Beauchamp, 'how can you +expect perfect seriousness, or any good service whatever?' + +'Gently, sir, gently. No; we can, I feel confident, expand within the +limits of our most excellent and approved Constitution. I could wish +that socially . . . that is all.' + +'Socially and politically mean one thing in the end,' said Beauchamp. +'If you have a nation politically corrupt, you won't have a good state of +morals in it, and the laws that keep society together bear upon the +politics of a country.' + +'True; yes,' Mr. Tomlinson hesitated assent. He dissociated Beauchamp +from Lord Palmet, but felt keenly that the latter's presence desecrated +Wingham's Institute, and he informed the candidate that he thought he +would no longer detain him from his labours. + +'Just the sort of place wanted in every provincial town,' Palmet remarked +by way of a parting compliment. + +Mr. Tomlinson bowed a civil acknowledgement of his having again spoken. + +No further mention was made of the miraculous vote which had risen +responsive to the candidate's address of its own inspired motion; so +Beauchamp said, 'I beg you to bear in mind that I request you not to +plump.' + +'You may be right, Captain Beauchamp. Good day, sir.' + +Palmet strode after Beauchamp into the street. + +'Why did you set me bowing to that old boy?' he asked. + +'Why did you talk about women?' was the rejoinder. + +'Oh, aha!' Palmet sang to himself. 'You're a Romfrey, Beauchamp. A +blow for a blow! But I only said what would strike every fellow first +off. It is the place; the very place. Pastry-cooks' shops won't stand +comparison with it. Don't tell me you 're the man not to see how much a +woman prefers to be under the wing of science and literature, in a good- +sized, well-warmed room, with a book, instead of making believe, with a +red face, over a tart.' + +He received a smart lecture from Beauchamp, and began to think he had +enough of canvassing. But he was not suffered to escape. For his +instruction, for his positive and extreme good, Beauchamp determined that +the heir to an earldom should have a day's lesson. We will hope there +was no intention to punish him for having frozen the genial current of +Mr. Tomlinson's vote and interest; and it may be that he clung to one who +had, as he imagined, seen Renee. Accompanied by a Mr. Oggler, a +tradesman of the town, on the Liberal committee, dressed in a pea-jacket +and proudly nautical, they applied for the vote, and found it oftener +than beauty. Palmet contrasted his repeated disappointments with the +scoring of two, three, four and more in the candidate's list, and +informed him that he would certainly get the Election. 'I think you're +sure of it,' he said. 'There's not a pretty woman to be seen; not one.' + +One came up to them, the sight of whom counselled Lord Palmet to +reconsider his verdict. She was addressed by Beauchamp as Miss Denham, +and soon passed on. + +Palmet was guilty of staring at her, and of lingering behind the others +for a last look at her. + +They were on the steps of a voter's house, calmly enduring a rebuff from +him in person, when Palmet returned to them, exclaiming effusively, 'What +luck you have, Beauchamp!' He stopped till the applicants descended the +steps, with the voice of the voter ringing contempt as well as refusal in +their ears; then continued: 'You introduced me neck and heels to that +undertakerly old Tomlinson, of Wingham's Institute; you might have given +me a chance with that Miss--Miss Denham, was it? She has a bit of a +style!' + +'She has a head,' said Beauchamp. + +'A girl like that may have what she likes. I don't care what she has-- +there's woman in her. You might take her for a younger sister of Mrs. +Wardour-Devereux. Who 's the uncle she speaks of? She ought not to be +allowed to walk out by herself.' + +'She can take care of herself,' said Beauchamp. + +Palmet denied it. 'No woman can. Upon my honour, it's a shame that she +should be out alone. What are her people? I'll run--from you, you know +--and see her safe home. There's such an infernal lot of fellows about; +and a girl simply bewitching and unprotected! I ought to be after her.' + +Beauchamp held him firmly to the task of canvassing. + +'Then will you tell me where she lives?' Palmet stipulated. He +reproached Beauchamp for a notorious Grand Turk exclusiveness and +greediness in regard to women, as well as a disposition to run hard +races for them out of a spirit of pure rivalry. + +'It's no use contradicting, it's universally known of you,' reiterated +Palmet. 'I could name a dozen women, and dozens of fellows you +deliberately set yourself to cut out, for the honour of it. What's that +story they tell of you in one of the American cities or watering-places, +North or South? You would dance at a ball a dozen times with a girl +engaged to a man--who drenched you with a tumbler at the hotel bar, and +off you all marched to the sands and exchanged shots from revolvers; and +both of you, they say, saw the body of a drowned sailor in the water, in +the moonlight, heaving nearer and nearer, and you stretched your man just +as the body was flung up by a wave between you. Picturesque, if you +like!' + +'Dramatic, certainly. And I ran away with the bride next morning?' + +'No!' roared Palmet; 'you didn't. There's the cruelty of the whole +affair.' + +Beauchamp laughed. 'An old messmate of mine, Lieutenant Jack Wilmore, +can give you a different version of the story. I never have fought a +duel, and never will. Here we are at the shop of a tough voter, Mr. +Oggler. So it says in my note-book. Shall we put Lord Palmet to speak +to him first?' + +'If his lordship will put his heart into what he says,' Mr. Oggler bowed. +'Are you for giving the people recreation on a Sunday, my lord?' + +'Trap-bat and ball, cricket, dancing, military bands, puppet-shows, +theatres, merry-go-rounds, bosky dells--anything to make them happy,' +said Palmet. + +'Oh, dear! then I 'm afraid we cannot ask you to speak to this Mr. +Carpendike.' Oggler shook his head. + +'Does the fellow want the people to be miserable?' + +'I'm afraid, my lord, he would rather see them miserable.' + +They introduced themselves to Mr. Carpendike in his shop. He was a flat- +chested, sallow young shoemaker, with a shelving forehead, who seeing +three gentlemen enter to him recognized at once with a practised +resignation that they had not come to order shoe-leather, though he would +fain have shod them, being needy; but it was not the design of Providence +that they should so come as he in his blindness would have had them. +Admitting this he wished for nothing. + +The battle with Carpendike lasted three-quarters of an hour, during which +he was chiefly and most effectively silent. Carpendike would not vote +for a man that proposed to open museums on the Sabbath day. The striking +simile of the thin end of the wedge was recurred to by him for a damning +illustration. Captain Beauchamp might be honest in putting his mind on +most questions in his address, when there was no demand upon him to do +it; but honesty was no antidote to impiety. Thus Carpendike. + +As to Sunday museuming being an antidote to the pothouse--no. For the +people knew the frequenting of the pothouse to be a vice; it was a +temptation of Satan that often in overcoming them was the cause of their +flying back to grace: whereas museums and picture galleries were +insidious attractions cloaked by the name of virtue, whereby they were +allured to abandon worship. + +Beauchamp flew at this young monster of unreason: 'But the people are not +worshipping; they are idling and sotting, and if you carry your despotism +farther still, and shut them out of every shop on Sundays, do you suppose +you promote the spirit of worship? If you don't revolt them you unman +them, and I warn you we can't afford to destroy what manhood remains to +us in England. Look at the facts.' + +He flung the facts at Carpendike with the natural exaggeration of them +which eloquence produces, rather, as a rule, to assure itself in passing +of the overwhelming justice of the cause it pleads than to deceive the +adversary. Brewers' beer and publicans' beer, wife-beatings, the homes +and the blood of the people, were matters reviewed to the confusion of +Sabbatarians. + +Carpendike listened with a bent head, upraised eyes, and brows wrinkling +far on to his poll: a picture of a mind entrenched beyond the +potentialities of mortal assault. He signified that he had spoken. +Indeed Beauchamp's reply was vain to one whose argument was that he +considered the people nearer to holiness in the: indulging of an evil +propensity than in satisfying a harmless curiosity and getting a +recreation. The Sabbath claimed them; if they were disobedient, Sin +ultimately might scourge them back to the fold, but never if they were +permitted to regard themselves as innocent in their backsliding and +rebelliousness. + +Such language was quite new to Beauchamp. The parsons he had spoken +to were of one voice in objecting to the pothouse. He appealed to +Carpendike's humanity. Carpendike smote him with a text from Scripture. + +'Devilish cold in this shop,' muttered Palmet. + +Two not flourishing little children of the emaciated Puritan burst into +the shop, followed by their mother, carrying a child in her arms. She +had a sad look, upon traces of a past fairness, vaguely like a snow +landscape in the thaw. Palmet stooped to toss shillings with her young +ones, that he might avoid the woman's face. It cramped his heart. + +'Don't you see, Mr. Carpendike,' said fat Mr. Oggler, 'it's the happiness +of the people we want; that's what Captain Beauchamp works for--their +happiness; that's the aim of life for all of us. Look at me! I'm as +happy as the day. I pray every night, and I go to church every Sunday, +and I never know what it is to be unhappy. The Lord has blessed me with +a good digestion, healthy pious children, and a prosperous shop that's a +competency--a modest one, but I make it satisfy me, because I know it's +the Lord's gift. Well, now, and I hate Sabbath-breakers; I would punish +them; and I'm against the public-houses on a Sunday; but aboard my little +yacht, say on a Sunday morning in the Channel, I don't forget I owe it to +the Lord that he has been good enough to put me in the way of keeping a +yacht; no; I read prayers to my crew, and a chapter in the Bible-Genesis, +Deuteronomy, Kings, Acts, Paul, just as it comes. All's good that's +there. Then we're free for the day! man, boy, and me; we cook our +victuals, and we must look to the yacht, do you see. But we've made our +peace with the Almighty. We know that. He don't mind the working of the +vessel so long as we've remembered him. He put us in that situation, +exactly there, latitude and longitude, do you see, and work the vessel we +must. And a glass of grog and a pipe after dinner, can't be any offence. +And I tell you, honestly and sincerely, I'm sure my conscience is good, +and I really and truly don't know what it is not to know happiness.' + +'Then you don't know God,' said Carpendike, like a voice from a cave. + +'Or nature: or the state of the world,' said Beauchamp, singularly +impressed to find himself between two men, of whom--each perforce of his +tenuity and the evident leaning of his appetites--one was for the barren +black view of existence, the other for the fantastically bright. As to +the men personally, he chose Carpendike, for all his obstinacy and +sourness. Oggler's genial piety made him shrink with nausea. + +But Lord Palmet paid Mr. Oggler a memorable compliment, by assuring him +that he was altogether of his way of thinking about happiness. + +The frank young nobleman did not withhold a reference to the two or three +things essential to his happiness; otherwise Mr. Oggler might have been +pleased and flattered. + +Before quitting the shop, Beauchamp warned Carpendike that he should come +again. 'Vote or no vote, you're worth the trial. Texts as many as you +like. I'll make your faith active, if it's alive at all. You speak of +the Lord loving his own; you make out the Lord to be your own, and use +your religion like a drug. So it appears to me. That Sunday tyranny of +yours has to be defended. + +Remember that; for I for one shall combat it and expose it. Good day.' + +Beauchamp continued, in the street: 'Tyrannies like this fellow's have +made the English the dullest and wretchedest people in Europe.' + +Palmet animadverted on Carpendike: 'The dog looks like a deadly fungus +that has poisoned the woman.' + +'I'd trust him with a post of danger, though,' said Beauchamp. + +Before the candidate had opened his mouth to the next elector he was +beamed on. M'Gilliper, baker, a floured brick face, leaned on folded +arms across his counter and said, in Scotch: 'My vote? and he that asks +me for my vote is the man who, when he was midshipman, saved the life of +a relation of mine from death by drowning! my wife's first cousin, Johnny +Brownson--and held him up four to five minutes in the water, and never +left him till he was out of danger! There 's my hand on it, I will, and +a score of householders in Bevisham the same.' He dictated precious +names and addresses to Beauchamp, and was curtly thanked for his pains. + +Such treatment of a favourable voter seemed odd to Palmet. + +'Oh, a vote given for reasons of sentiment!' Beauchamp interjected. + +Palmet reflected and said: 'Well, perhaps that's how it is women don't +care uncommonly for the men who love them, though they like precious well +to be loved. Opposition does it.' + +'You have discovered my likeness to women,' said Beauchamp, eyeing him +critically, and then thinking, with a sudden warmth, that he had seen +Renee: 'Look here, Palmet, you're too late for Itchincope, to-day; come +and eat fish and meat with me at my hotel, and come to a meeting after +it. You can run by rail to Itchincope to breakfast in the morning, and +I may come with you. You'll hear one or two men speak well to-night.' + +'I suppose I shall have to be at this business myself some day,' sighed +Palmet. 'Any women on the platform? Oh, but political women! And the +Tories get the pick of the women. No, I don't think I 'll stay. Yes, I +will; I'll go through with it. I like to be learning something. You +wouldn't think it of me, Beauchamp, but I envy fellows at work.' + +'You might make a speech for me, Palmet.' + +'No man better, my dear fellow, if it were proposing a toast to the poor +devils and asking them to drink it. But a dry speech, like leading them +over the desert without a well to cheer them--no oasis, as we used to +call a five-pound note and a holiday--I haven't the heart for that. Is +your Miss Denham a Radical?' + +Beauchamp asserted that he had not yet met a woman at all inclining in +the direction of Radicalism. 'I don't call furies Radicals. There may +be women who think as well as feel; I don't know them.' + +'Lots of them, Beauchamp. Take my word for it. I do know women. They +haven't a shift, nor a trick, I don't know. They're as clear to me as +glass. I'll wager your Miss Denham goes to the meetings. Now, doesn't +she? Of course she does. And there couldn't be a gallanter way of +spending an evening, so I'll try it. Nothing to repent of next morning! +That's to be said for politics, Beauchamp, and I confess I'm rather +jealous of you. A thoroughly good-looking girl who takes to a fellow for +what he's doing in the world, must have ideas of him precious different +from the adoration of six feet three and a fine seat in the saddle. I +see that. There's Baskelett in the Blues; and if I were he I should +detest my cuirass and helmet, for if he's half as successful as he +boasts--it's the uniform.' + +Two notorious Radicals, Peter Molyneux and Samuel Killick, were called +on. The first saw Beauchamp and refused him; the second declined to see +him. He was amazed and staggered, but said little. + +Among the remainder of the electors of Bevisham, roused that day to a +sense of their independence by the summons of the candidates, only one +man made himself conspicuous, by premising that he had two important +questions to ask, and he trusted Commander Beauchamp to answer them +unreservedly. They were: first, What is a FRENCH MARQUEES? arid second: +Who was EURYDICEY? + +Beauchamp referred him to the Tory camp, whence the placard alluding to +those ladies had issued. + +'Both of them 's ladies! I guessed it,' said the elector. + +'Did you guess that one of them is a mythological lady?' + +'I'm not far wrong in guessing t'other's not much better, I reckon. Now, +sir, may I ask you, is there any tale concerning your morals?' + +'No: you may not ask; you take a liberty.' + +'Then I'll take the liberty to postpone talking about my vote. Look +here, Mr. Commander; if the upper classes want anything of me and come to +me for it, I'll know what sort of an example they're setting; now that's +me.' + +'You pay attention to a stupid Tory squib?' + +'Where there's smoke there's fire, sir.' + +Beauchamp glanced at his note-book for the name of this man, who was a +ragman and dustman. + +'My private character has nothing whatever to do with my politics,' he +said, and had barely said it when he remembered having spoken somewhat +differently, upon the abstract consideration of the case, to Mr. +Tomlinson. + +'You're quite welcome to examine my character for yourself, only I don't +consent to be catechized. Understand that.' + +'You quite understand that, Mr. Tripehallow,' said Oggler, bolder in +taking up the strange name than Beauchamp had been. + +'I understand that. But you understand, there's never been a word +against the morals of Mr. Cougham. Here's the point: Do we mean to be a +moral country? Very well, then so let our representatives be, I say. +And if I hear nothing against your morals, Mr. Commander, I don't say you +shan't have my vote. I mean to deliberate. You young nobs capering over +our heads--I nail you down to morals. Politics secondary. Adew, as the +dying spirit remarked to weeping friends.' + +'Au revoir--would have been kinder,' said Palmet. + +Mr. Tripehallow smiled roguishly, to betoken comprehension. + +Beauchamp asked Mr. Oggler whether that fellow was to be taken for a +humourist or a five-pound-note man. + +'It may be both, sir. I know he's called Morality Joseph.' + +An all but acknowledged five-pound-note man was the last they visited. +He cut short the preliminaries of the interview by saying that he was a +four-o'clock man; i.e. the man who waited for the final bids to him upon +the closing hour of the election day. + +'Not one farthing!' said Beauchamp, having been warned beforehand of the +signification of the phrase by his canvassing lieutenant. + +'Then you're nowhere,' the honest fellow replied in the mystic tongue of +prophecy. + +Palmet and Beauchamp went to their fish and meat; smoked a cigarette or +two afterward, conjured away the smell of tobacco from their persons as +well as they could, and betook themselves to the assembly-room of the +Liberal party, where the young lord had an opportunity of beholding Mr. +Cougham, and of listening to him for an hour and forty minutes. He heard +Mr. Timothy Turbot likewise. And Miss Denham was present. Lord Palmet +applauded when she smiled. When she looked attentive he was deeply +studious. Her expression of fatigue under the sonorous ring of +statistics poured out from Cougham was translated by Palmet into yawns +and sighs of a profoundly fraternal sympathy. Her face quickened on the +rising of Beauchamp to speak. She kept eye on him all the while, as +Palmet, with the skill of an adept in disguising his petty larceny of the +optics, did on her. Twice or thrice she looked pained: Beauchamp was +hesitating for the word. Once she looked startled and shut her eyes: a +hiss had sounded; Beauchamp sprang on it as if enlivened by hostility, +and dominated the factious note. Thereat she turned to a gentleman +sitting beside her; apparently they agreed that some incident had +occurred characteristic of Nevil Beauchamp; for whom, however, it was not +a brilliant evening. He was very well able to account for it, and did +so, after he had walked a few steps with Miss Denham on her homeward way. + +'You heard Cougham, Palmet! He's my senior, and I'm obliged to come +second to him, and how am I to have a chance when he has drenched the +audience for close upon a couple of hours!' + +Palmet mimicked the manner of Cougham. + +'They cry for Turbot naturally; they want a relief,' Beauchamp groaned. + +Palmet gave an imitation of Timothy Turbot. + +He was an admirable mimic, perfectly spontaneous, without stressing any +points, and Beauchamp was provoked to laugh his discontentment with the +evening out of recollection. + +But a grave matter troubled Palmet's head. + +'Who was that fellow who walked off with Miss Denham?' + +'A married man,' said Beauchamp: 'badly married; more 's the pity; he has +a wife in the madhouse. His name is Lydiard.' + +'Not her brother! Where's her uncle?' + +'She won't let him come to these meetings. It's her idea; well- +intended, but wrong, I think. She's afraid that Dr. Shrapnel will alarm +the moderate Liberals and damage Radical me.' + +Palmet muttered between his teeth, 'What queer things they let their +women do!' He felt compelled to say, 'Odd for her to be walking home at +night with a fellow like that.' + +It chimed too consonantly with a feeling of Beauchamp's, to repress which +he replied: 'Your ideas about women are simply barbarous, Palmet. Why +shouldn't she? Her uncle places his confidence in the man, and in her. +Isn't that better--ten times more likely to call out the sense of honour +and loyalty, than the distrust and the scandal going on in your class?' + +'Please to say yours too.' + +'I've no class. I say that the education for women is to teach them to +rely on themselves.' + +'Ah! well, I don't object, if I'm the man.' + +'Because you and your set are absolutely uncivilized in your views of +women.' + +'Common sense, Beauchamp!' + +'Prey. You eye them as prey. And it comes of an idle aristocracy. You +have no faith in them, and they repay you for your suspicion.' + +'All the same, Beauchamp, she ought not to be allowed to go about at +night with that fellow. "Rich and rare were the gems she wore": but that +was in Erin's isle, and if we knew the whole history, she'd better have +stopped at home. She's marvellously pretty, to my mind. She looks a +high-bred wench. Odd it is, Beauchamp, to see a lady's-maid now and then +catch the style of my lady. No, by Jove! I've known one or two--you +couldn't tell the difference! Not till you were intimate. I know one +would walk a minuet with a duchess. Of course--all the worse for her. +If you see that uncle of Miss Denham's--upon my honour, I should advise +him: I mean, counsel him not to trust her with any fellow but you.' + +Beauchamp asked Lord Palmet how old he was. + +Palmet gave his age; correcting the figures from six-and-twenty to one +year more. 'And never did a stroke of work in my life,' he said, +speaking genially out of an acute guess at the sentiments of the man he +walked with. + +It seemed a farcical state of things. + +There was a kind of contrition in Palmet's voice, and to put him at his +ease, as well as to stamp something in his own mind, Beauchamp said: +'It's common enough.' + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A DAY AT ITCHINCOPE + +An election in Bevisham was always an exciting period at Itchincope, the +large and influential old estate of the Lespels, which at one time, with +but a ceremonious drive through the town, sent you two good Whig men to +Parliament to sit at Reform banquets; two unswerving party men, blest +subscribers to the right Review, and personally proud of its trenchancy. +Mr. Grancey Lespel was the survivor of them, and well could he remember +the happier day of his grandfather, his father, and his own hot youth. +He could be carried so far by affectionate regrets as to think of the +Tories of that day benignly:--when his champion Review of the orange and +blue livery waved a wondrous sharp knife, and stuck and bled them, +proving to his party, by trenchancy alone, that the Whig was the cause of +Providence. Then politics presented you a table whereat two parties +feasted, with no fear of the intrusion of a third, and your backs were +turned on the noisy lower world, your ears were deaf to it. + +Apply we now the knocker to the door of venerable Quotation, and call the +aged creature forth, that he, half choked by his eheu!-- + + 'A sound between a sigh and bray,' + +may pronounce the familiar but respectable words, the burial-service of a +time so happy! + +Mr. Grancey Lespel would still have been sitting for Bevisham (or +politely at this elective moment bowing to resume the seat) had not those +Manchester jugglers caught up his cry, appropriated his colours, +displaced and impersonated him, acting beneficent Whig on a scale +approaching treason to the Constitution; leaning on the people in +earnest, instead of taking the popular shoulder for a temporary lift, all +in high party policy, for the clever manoeuvre, to oust the Tory and sway +the realm. See the consequences. For power, for no other consideration, +those manufacturing rascals have raised Radicalism from its primaeval +mire--from its petty backslum bookseller's shop and public-house back- +parlour effluvia of oratory--to issue dictates in England, and we, +England, formerly the oak, are topsy-turvy, like onions, our heels in the +air! + +The language of party is eloquent, and famous for being grand at +illustration; but it is equally well known that much of it gives us +humble ideas of the speaker, probably because of the naughty temper party +is prone to; which, while endowing it with vehemence, lessens the stout +circumferential view that should be taken, at least historically. +Indeed, though we admit party to be the soundest method for conducting +us, party talk soon expends its attractiveness, as would a summer's +afternoon given up to the contemplation of an encounter of rams' heads. +Let us be quit of Mr. Grancey Lespel's lamentations. The Whig gentleman +had some reason to complain. He had been trained to expect no other +attack than that of his hereditary adversary-ram in front, and a sham +ram--no honest animal, but a ramming engine rather--had attacked him in +the rear. Like Mr. Everard Romfrey and other Whigs, he was profoundly +chagrined by popular ingratitude: 'not the same man,' his wife said of +him. It nipped him early. He took to proverbs; sure sign of the sere +leaf in a man's mind. + +His wife reproached the people for their behaviour to him bitterly. The +lady regarded politics as a business that helped hunting-men a stage +above sportsmen, for numbers of the politicians she was acquainted with +were hunting-men, yet something more by virtue of the variety they could +introduce into a conversation ordinarily treating of sport and the +qualities of wines. Her husband seemed to have lost in that +Parliamentary seat the talisman which gave him notions distinguishing him +from country squires; he had sunk, and he no longer cared for the months +in London, nor for the speeches she read to him to re-awaken his mind and +make him look out of himself, as he had done when he was a younger man +and not a suspended Whig. Her own favourite reading was of love- +adventures written in the French tongue. She had once been in love, and +could be so sympathetic with that passion as to avow to Cecilia Halkett a +tenderness for Nevil Beauchamp, on account of his relations with the +Marquise de Rouaillout, and notwithstanding the demoniacal flame-halo of +the Radical encircling him. + +The allusion to Beauchamp occurred a few hours after Cecilia's arrival at +Itchincope. + +Cecilia begged for the French lady's name to be repeated; she had not +heard it before, and she tasted the strange bitter relish of realization +when it struck her ear to confirm a story that she believed indeed, but +had not quite sensibly felt. + +'And it is not over yet, they say,' Mrs. Grancey Lespel added, while +softly flipping some spots of the colour proper to radicals in morals on +the fame of the French lady. She possessed fully the grave judicial +spirit of her countrywomen, and could sit in judgement on the personages +of tales which had entranced her, to condemn the heroines: it was +impolitic in her sex to pity females. As for the men--poor weak things! +As for Nevil Beauchamp, in particular, his case, this penetrating lady +said, was clear: he ought to be married. 'Could you make a sacrifice?' +she asked Cecilia playfully. + +'Nevil Beauchamp and I are old friends, but we have agreed that we are +deadly political enemies,' Miss Halkett replied. + +'It is not so bad for a beginning,' said Mrs. Lespel. + +'If one were disposed to martyrdom.' + +The older woman nodded. 'Without that.' + +'My dear Mrs. Lespel, wait till you have heard him. He is at war with +everything we venerate and build on. The wife you would give him should +be a creature rooted in nothing--in sea-water. Simply two or three +conversations with him have made me uncomfortable ever since; I can see +nothing durable; I dream of surprises, outbreaks, dreadful events. At +least it is perfectly true that I do not look with the same eyes on my +country. He seems to delight in destroying one's peaceful contemplation +of life. The truth is that he blows a perpetual gale, and is all +agitation,' Cecilia concluded, affecting with a smile a slight shiver. + +'Yes, one tires of that,' said Mrs. Lespel. 'I was determined I would +have him here if we could get him to come. Grancey objected. We shall +have to manage Captain Beauchamp and the rest as well. He is sure to +come late to-morrow, and will leave early on Thursday morning for his +canvass; our driving into Bevisham is for Friday or Saturday. I do not +see that he need have any suspicions. Those verses you are so angry +about cannot be traced to Itchincope. My dear, they are a childish +trifle. When my husband stood first for Bevisham, the whole of his +University life appeared in print. What we have to do is to forewarn the +gentlemen to be guarded, and especially in what they say to my nephew +Lord Palmet, for that boy cannot keep a secret; he is as open as a +plate.' + +'The smoking-room at night?' Cecilia suggested, remembering her father's +words about Itchincope's tobacco-hall. + +'They have Captain Beauchamp's address hung up there, I have heard,' said +Mrs. Lespel. 'There may be other things--another address, though it is +not yet, placarded. Come with me. For fifteen years I have never once +put my head into that room, and now I 've a superstitious fear about it.' + +Mrs. Lespel led the way to the deserted smoking-room, where the stale +reek of tobacco assailed the ladies, as does that dire place of Customs +the stranger visiting savage (or too natural) potentates. + +In silence they tore down from the wall Beauchamp's electoral Address-- +flanked all its length with satirical pen and pencil comments and +sketches; and they consigned to flames the vast sheet of animated verses +relating to the FRENCH MARQUEES. A quarter-size chalk-drawing of a +slippered pantaloon having a duck on his shoulder, labelled to say +'Quack-quack,' and offering our nauseated Dame Britannia (or else it was +the widow Bevisham) a globe of a pill to swallow, crossed with the +consolatory and reassuring name of Shrapnel, they disposed of likewise. +And then they fled, chased forth either by the brilliancy of the +politically allusive epigrams profusely inscribed around them on the +walls, or by the atmosphere. Mrs. Lespel gave her orders for the walls +to be scraped, and said to Cecilia: 'A strange air to breathe, was it +not? The less men and women know of one another, the happier for them. +I knew my superstition was correct as a guide to me. I do so much wish +to respect men, and all my experience tells me the Turks know best how to +preserve it for us. Two men in this house would give their wives for +pipes, if it came to the choice. We might all go for a cellar of old +wine. After forty, men have married their habits, and wives are only an +item in the list, and not the most important.' + +With the assistance of Mr. Stukely Culbrett, Mrs. Lespel prepared the +house and those of the company who were in the secret of affairs for the +arrival of Beauchamp. The ladies were curious to see him. The +gentlemen, not anticipating extreme amusement, were calm: for it is an +axiom in the world of buckskins and billiard-cues, that one man is very +like another; and so true is it with them, that they can in time teach it +to the fair sex. Friends of Cecil Baskelett predominated, and the +absence of so sprightly a fellow was regretted seriously; but he was +shooting with his uncle at Holdesbury, and they did not expect him before +Thursday. + +On Wednesday morning Lord Palmet presented himself at a remarkably well- +attended breakfast-table at Itchincope. He passed from Mrs. Lespel to +Mrs. Wardour-Devsreux and Miss Halkett, bowed to other ladies, shook +hands with two or three men, and nodded over the heads of half-a-dozen, +accounting rather mysteriously for his delay in coming, it was thought, +until he sat down before a plate of Yorkshire pie, and said: + +'The fact is I've been canvassing hard. With Beauchamp!' + +Astonishment and laughter surrounded him, and Palmet looked from face to +face, equally astonished, and desirous to laugh too. + +'Ernest! how could you do that?' said Mrs. Lespel; and her husband +cried in stupefaction, 'With Beauchamp?' + +'Oh! it's because of the Radicalism,' Palmet murmured to himself. 'I +didn't mind that.' + +'What sort of a day did you have?' Mr. Culbrett asked him; and several +gentlemen fell upon him for an account of the day. + +Palmet grimaced over a mouthful of his pie. + +'Bad!' quoth Mr. Lespel; 'I knew it. I know Bevisham. The only chance +there is for five thousand pounds in a sack with a hole in it.' + +'Bad for Beauchamp? Dear me, no'; Palmet corrected the error. 'He is +carrying all before him. And he tells them,' Palmet mimicked Beauchamp, +'they shall not have one penny: not a farthing. I gave a couple of young +ones a shilling apiece, and he rowed me for bribery; somehow I did +wrong.' + +Lord Palmet described the various unearthly characters he had inspected +in their dens: Carpendike, Tripehallow, and the radicals Peter Molyneux +and Samuel Killick, and the ex-member for the borough, Cougham, posing to +suit sign-boards of Liberal inns, with a hand thrust in his waistcoat, +and his head well up, the eyes running over the under-lids, after the +traditional style of our aristocracy; but perhaps more closely resembling +an urchin on tiptoe peering above park-palings. Cougham's remark to +Beauchamp, heard and repeated by Palmet with the object of giving an +example of the senior Liberal's phraseology: 'I was necessitated to +vacate my town mansion, to my material discomfort and that of my wife, +whose equipage I have been compelled to take, by your premature canvass +of the borough, Captain Beauchamp: and now, I hear, on undeniable +authority, that no second opponent to us will be forthcoming'---this +produced the greatest effect on the company. + +'But do you tell me,' said Mr. Lespel, when the shouts of the gentlemen +were subsiding, 'do you tell me that young Beauchamp is going ahead?' + +'That he is. They flock to him in the street.' + +'He stands there, then, and jingles a money-bag.' + +Palmet resumed his mimicry of Beauchamp: 'Not a stiver; purity of +election is the first condition of instruction to the people! +Principles! Then they've got a capital orator: Turbot, an Irishman. I +went to a meeting last night, and heard him; never heard anything finer +in my life. You may laugh he whipped me off my legs; fellow spun me like +a top; and while he was orationing, a donkey calls, "Turbot! ain't you a +flat fish?" and he swings round, "Not for a fool's hook!" and out they +hustled the villain for a Tory. I never saw anything like it.' + +'That repartee wouldn't have done with a Dutchman or a Torbay trawler,' +said Stukely Culbrett. 'But let us hear more.' + +'Is it fair?' Miss Halkett murmured anxiously to Mrs. Lespel, who +returned a flitting shrug. + +'Charming women follow Beauchamp, you know,' Palmet proceeded, as he +conceived, to confirm and heighten the tale of success. 'There's a Miss +Denham, niece of a doctor, a Dr . . . . Shot--Shrapnel! a +wonderfully good-looking, clever-looking girl, comes across him in half- +a-dozen streets to ask how he's getting on, and goes every night to his +meetings, with a man who 's a writer and has a mad wife; a man named +Lydia-no, that's a woman--Lydiard. It's rather a jumble; but you should +see her when Beauchamp's on his legs and speaking.' + +'Mr. Lydiard is in Bevisham?' Mrs. Wardour-Devereux remarked. + +'I know the girl,' growled Mr. Lespel. 'She comes with that rascally +doctor and a bobtail of tea-drinking men and women and their brats to +Northeden Heath--my ground. There they stand and sing.' + +'Hymns?'inquired Mr. Culbrett. + +'I don't know what they sing. And when it rains they take the liberty to +step over my bank into my plantation. Some day I shall have them +stepping into my house.' + +'Yes, it's Mr. Lydiard; I'm sure of the man's name,' Palmet replied to +Mrs. Wardour-Devereux. + +'We met him in Spain the year before last,' she observed to Cecilia. + +The 'we' reminded Palmet that her husband was present. + +'Ah, Devereux, I didn't see you,' he nodded obliquely down the table. +'By the way, what's the grand procession? I hear my man Davis has come +all right, and I caught sight of the top of your coach-box in the +stableyard as I came in. What are we up to?' + +'Baskelett writes, it's to be for to-morrow morning at ten-the start.' +Mr. Wardour-Devereux addressed the table generally. He was a fair, huge, +bush-bearded man, with a voice of unvarying bass: a squire in his county, +and energetic in his pursuit of the pleasures of hunting, driving, +travelling, and tobacco. + +'Old Bask's the captain of us? Very well, but where do we drive the +teams? How many are we? What's in hand?' + +Cecilia threw a hurried glance at her hostess. + +Luckily some witling said, 'Fours-in-hand!' and so dryly that it passed +for humour, and gave Mrs. Lespel time to interpose. 'You are not to know +till to-morrow, Ernest.' + +Palmet had traced the authorship of the sally to Mr. Algy Borolick, and +crowned him with praise for it. He asked, 'Why not know till to-morrow?' +A word in a murmur from Mr. Culbrett, 'Don't frighten the women,' +satisfied him, though why it should he could not have imagined. + +Mrs. Lespel quitted the breakfast-table before the setting in of the +dangerous five minutes of conversation over its ruins, and spoke to her +husband, who contested the necessity for secresy, but yielded to her +judgement when it was backed by Stukely Culbrett. Soon after Lord Palmet +found himself encountered by evasions and witticisms, in spite of the +absence of the ladies, upon every attempt he made to get some light +regarding the destination of the four-in-hands next day. + +'What are you going to do?' he said to Mr. Devereux, thinking him the +likeliest one to grow confidential in private. + +'Smoke,' resounded from the depths of that gentleman. + +Palmet recollected the ground of division between the beautiful brunette +and her lord--his addiction to the pipe in perpetuity, and deemed it +sweeter to be with the lady. + +She and Miss Halkett were walking in the garden. + +Miss Halkett said to him: 'How wrong of you to betray the secrets of your +friend! Is he really making way?' + +'Beauchamp will head the poll to a certainty,' Palmet replied. + +'Still,' said Miss Halkett, 'you should not forget that you are not in +the house of a Liberal. Did you canvass in the town or the suburbs?' + +'Everywhere. I assure you, Miss Halkett, there's a feeling for +Beauchamp--they're in love with him!' + +'He promises them everything, I suppose?' + +'Not he. And the odd thing is, it isn't the Radicals he catches. He +won't go against the game laws for them, and he won't cut down army and +navy. So the Radicals yell at him. One confessed he had sold his vote +for five pounds last election: "you shall have it for the same," says he, +"for you're all humbugs." Beauchamp took him by the throat and shook +him--metaphorically, you know. But as for the tradesmen, he's their +hero; bakers especially.' + +'Mr. Austin may be right, then!' Cecilia reflected aloud. + +She went to Mrs. Lespel to repeat what she had extracted from Palmet, +after warning the latter not, in common loyalty, to converse about his +canvass with Beauchamp. + +'Did you speak of Mr. Lydiard as Captain Beauchamp's friend?' Mrs. +Devereux inquired of him. + +'Lydiard? why, he was the man who made off with that pretty Miss +Denham,' said Palmet. 'I have the greatest trouble to remember them all; +but it was not a day wasted. Now I know politics. Shall we ride or +walk? You will let me have the happiness? I'm so unlucky; I rarely meet +you!' + +'You will bring Captain Beauchamp to me the moment he comes?' + +'I'll bring him. Bring him? Nevil Beauchamp won't want bringing.' + +Mrs. Devereux smiled with some pleasure. + +Grancey Lespel, followed at some distance by Mr. Ferbrass, the Tory +lawyer, stepped quickly up to Palmet, and asked whether Beauchamp had +seen Dollikins, the brewer. + +Palmet could recollect the name of one Tomlinson, and also the calling at +a brewery. Moreover, Beauchamp had uttered contempt of the brewer's +business, and of the social rule to accept rich brewers for gentlemen. +The man's name might be Dollikins and not Tomlinson, and if so, it was +Dollikins who would not see Beauchamp. To preserve his political +importance, Palmet said, 'Dollikins! to be sure, that was the man.' + +'Treats him as he does you,' Mr. Lespel turned to Ferbrass. 'I've sent +to Dollikins to come to me this morning, if he's not driving into the +town. I'll have him before Beauchamp sees him. I've asked half-a-dozen +of these country gentlemen-tradesmen to lunch at my table to-day.' + +'Then, sir,' observed Ferbrass, 'if they are men to be persuaded, they +had better not see me.' + +'True; they're my old supporters, and mightn't like your Tory face,' Mr. +Lespel assented. + +Mr. Ferbrass congratulated him on the heartiness of his espousal of the +Tory cause. + +Mr. Lespel winced a little, and told him not to put his trust in that. + +'Turned Tory?' said Palmet. + +Mr. Lespel declined to answer. + +Palmet said to Mrs. Devereux, 'He thinks I'm not worth speaking to upon +politics. Now I'll give him some Beauchamp; I learned lots yesterday.' + +'Then let it be in Captain Beauchamp's manner,' said +she softly. + +Palmet obeyed her commands with the liveliest exhibition of his peculiar +faculty: Cecilia, rejoining them, seemed to hear Nevil himself in his +emphatic political mood. 'Because the Whigs are defunct! They had no +root in the people! Whig is the name of a tribe that was! You have +Tory, Liberal, and Radical. There is no place for Whig. He is played +out.' + +'Who has been putting that nonsense into your head?' Mr. Lespel +retorted. 'Go shooting, go shooting!' + +Shots were heard in the woods. Palmet pricked up his ears; but he was +taken out riding to act cavalier to Mrs. Devereux and Miss Halkett. + +Cecilia corrected his enthusiasm with the situation. 'No flatteries +to-day. There are hours when women feel their insignificance and +helplessness. I begin to fear for Mr. Austin; and I find I can do +nothing to aid him. My hands are tied. And yet I know I could win +voters if only it were permissible for me to go and speak to them.' + +'Win them!' cried Palmet, imagining the alacrity of men's votes to be +won by her. He recommended a gallop for the chasing away of melancholy, +and as they were on the Bevisham high road, which was bordered by strips +of turf and heath, a few good stretches brought them on the fir-heights, +commanding views of the town and broad water. + +'No, I cannot enjoy it,' Cecilia said to Mrs. Devereux; 'I don't mind the +grey light; cloud and water, and halftones of colour, are homely English +and pleasant, and that opal where the sun should be has a suggestiveness +richer than sunlight. I'm quite northern enough to understand it; but +with me it must be either peace or strife, and that Election down there +destroys my chance of peace. I never could mix reverie with excitement; +the battle must be over first, and the dead buried. Can you?' + +Mrs. Devereux answered: 'Excitement? I am not sure that I know what it +is. An Election does not excite me.' + +'There's Nevil Beauchamp himself!' Palmet sang out, and the ladies +discerned Beauchamp under a fir-tree, down by the road, not alone. A +man, increasing in length like a telescope gradually reaching its end for +observation, and coming to the height of a landmark, as if raised by +ropes, was rising from the ground beside him. 'Shall we trot on, Miss +Halkett?' + +Cecilia said, 'No.' + +'Now I see a third fellow,' said Palmet. 'It's the other fellow, the +Denham-Shrapnel-Radical meeting . . . Lydiard's his name: writes +books.! + +'We may as well ride on,' Mrs. Devereux remarked, and her horse fretted +singularly. + +Beauchamp perceived them, and lifted his hat. Palmet made demonstrations +for the ladies. Still neither party moved nearer. + +After some waiting, Cecilia proposed to turn back. + +Mrs. Devereux looked into her eyes. 'I'll take the lead,' she said, and +started forward, pursued by Palmet. Cecilia followed at a sullen canter. + +Before they came up to Beauchamp, the long-shanked man had stalked away +townward. Lydiard held Beauchamp by the hand. Some last words, after +the manner of instructions, passed between them, and then Lydiard also +turned away. + +'I say, Beauchamp, Mrs. Devereux wants to hear who that man is,' Palmet +said, drawing up. + +'That man is Dr. Shrapnel,' said Beauchamp, convinced that Cecilia had +checked her horse at the sight of the doctor. + +'Dr. Shrapnel,' Palmet informed Mrs. Devereux. + +She looked at him to seek his wits, and returning Beauchamp's admiring +salutation with a little bow and smile, said, 'I fancied it was a +gentleman we met in Spain.' + +'He writes books,' observed Palmet, to jog a slow intelligence. + +'Pamphlets, you mean.' + +'I think he is not a pamphleteer', Mrs. Devereux said. + +'Mr. Lydiard, then, of course; how silly I am! How can you pardon me!' +Beauchamp was contrite; he could not explain that a long guess he had +made at Miss Halkett's reluctance to come up to him when Dr. Shrapnel was +with him had preoccupied his mind. He sent off Palmet the bearer of a +pretext for bringing Lydiard back, and then said to Cecilia, 'You +recognized Dr. Shrapnel?' + +'I thought it might be Dr. Shrapnel', she was candid enough to reply. +'I could not well recognize him, not knowing him.' + +'Here comes Mr. Lydiard; and let me assure you, if I may take the liberty +of introducing him, he is no true Radical. He is a philosopher--one of +the flirts, the butterflies of politics, as Dr. Shrapnel calls them.' + +Beauchamp hummed over some improvized trifles to Lydiard, then introduced +him cursorily, and all walked in the direction of Itchincope. It was +really the Mr. Lydiard Mrs. Devereux had met in Spain, so they were left +in the rear to discuss their travels. Much conversation did not go on in +front. Cecilia was very reserved. By-and-by she said, 'I am glad you +have come into the country early to-day.' + +He spoke rapturously of the fresh air, and not too mildly of his pleasure +in meeting her. Quite off her guard, she began to hope he was getting to +be one of them again, until she heard him tell Lord Palmet that he had +come early out of Bevisham for the walk with Dr. Shrapnel, and to call on +certain rich tradesmen living near Itchincope. He mentioned the name of +Dollikins. + +'Dollikins?' Palmet consulted a perturbed recollection. Among the +entangled list of new names he had gathered recently from the study of +politics, Dollikins rang in his head. He shouted, 'Yes, Dollikins! to +be sure. Lespel has him to lunch to-day;--calls him a gentleman- +tradesman; odd fish! and told a fellow called--where is it now?--a name +like brass or copper . . . Copperstone? Brasspot? . . . told him +he'd do well to keep his Tory cheek out of sight. It 's the names of +those fellows bother one so! All the rest's easy.' + +'You are evidently in a state of confusion, Lord Palmet,' said Cecilia. + +The tone of rebuke and admonishment was unperceived. 'Not about the +facts,' he rejoined. 'I 'm for fair play all round; no trickery. I tell +Beauchamp all I know, just as I told you this morning, Miss Halkett. +What I don't like is Lespel turning Tory.' + +Cecilia put a stop to his indiscretions by halting for Mrs. Devereux, and +saying to Beauchamp, 'If your friend would return to Bevisham by rail, +this is the nearest point to the station.' + +Palmet, best-natured of men, though generally prompted by some of his +peculiar motives, dismounted from his horse, leaving him to Beauchamp, +that he might conduct Mr. Lydiard to the station, and perhaps hear a word +of Miss Denham: at any rate be able to form a guess as to the secret of +that art of his, which had in the space of an hour restored a happy and +luminous vivacity to the languid Mrs. Wardour-Devereux. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE QUESTION AS TO THE EXAMINATION OF THE WHIGS, AND THE FINE BLOW STRUCK +BY MR. EVERARD ROMFREY + +Itchincope was famous for its hospitality. Yet Beauchamp, when in the +presence of his hostess, could see that he was both unexpected and +unwelcome. Mrs. Lespel was unable to conceal it; she looked meaningly at +Cecilia, talked of the house being very full, and her husband engaged +till late in the afternoon. And Captain Baskelett had arrived on a +sudden, she said. And the luncheon-table in the dining-room could not +possibly hold more. + +'We three will sit in the library, anywhere,' said Cecilia. + +So they sat and lunched in the library, where Mrs. Devereux served +unconsciously for an excellent ally to Cecilia in chatting to Beauchamp, +principally of the writings of Mr. Lydiard. + +Had the blinds of the windows been drawn down and candles lighted, +Beauchamp would have been well contented to remain with these two ladies, +and forget the outer world; sweeter society could not have been offered +him: but glancing carelessly on to the lawn, he exclaimed in some +wonderment that the man he particularly wished to see was there. 'It +must be Dollikins, the brewer. I've had him pointed out to me in +Bevisham, and I never can light on him at his brewery.' + +No excuse for detaining the impetuous candidate struck Cecilia. She +betook herself to Mrs. Lespel, to give and receive counsel in the +emergency, while Beauchamp struck across the lawn to Mr. Dollikins, +who had the squire of Itchincope on the other side of him. + +Late in the afternoon a report reached the ladies of a furious contest +going on over Dollikins. Mr. Algy Borolick was the first to give them +intelligence of it, and he declared that Beauchamp had wrested Dollikins +from Grancey Lespel. This was contradicted subsequently by Mr. Stukely +Culbrett. 'But there's heavy pulling between them,' he said. + +'It will do all the good in the world to Grancey,' said Mrs. Lespel. + +She sat in her little blue-room, with gentlemen congregating at the open +window. + +Presently Grancey Lespel rounded a projection of the house where the +drawing-room stood out: 'The maddest folly ever talked!' he delivered +himself in wrath. 'The Whigs dead? You may as well say I'm dead.' + +It was Beauchamp answering: 'Politically, you're dead, if you call +yourself a Whig. You couldn't be a live one, for the party's in pieces, +blown to the winds. The country was once a chess-board for Whig and +Tory: but that game's at an end. There's no doubt on earth that the +Whigs are dead.' + +'But if there's no doubt about it, how is it I have a doubt about it?' + +'You know you're a Tory. You tried to get that man Dollikins from me in +the Tory interest.' + +'I mean to keep him out of Radical clutches. Now that 's the truth.' + +They came up to the group by the open window, still conversing hotly, +indifferent to listeners. + +'You won't keep him from me; I have him,' said Beauchamp. + +'You delude yourself; I have his promise, his pledged word,' said Grancey +Lespel. + +'The man himself told you his opinion of renegade Whigs.' + +'Renegade!' + +'Renegade Whig is an actionable phrase,' Mr. Culbrett observed. + +He was unnoticed. + +'If you don't like "renegade," take "dead,"' said Beauchamp. 'Dead Whig +resurgent in the Tory. You are dead.' + +'It's the stupid conceit of your party thinks that.' + +'Dead, my dear Mr. Lespel. I'll say for the Whigs, they would not be +seen touting for Tories if they were not ghosts of Whigs. You are dead. +There is no doubt of it.' + +'But,' Grancey Lespel repeated, 'if there's no doubt about it, how is it +I have a doubt about it?' + +'The Whigs preached finality in Reform. It was their own funeral +sermon.' + +'Nonsensical talk!' + +'I don't dispute your liberty of action to go over to the Tories, but you +have no right to attempt to take an honest Liberal with you. And that +I've stopped.' + +'Aha! Beauchamp; the man's mine. Come, you'll own he swore he wouldn't +vote for a Shrapnelite.' + +'Don't you remember?--that's how the Tories used to fight you; they stuck +an epithet to you, and hooted to set the mob an example; you hit them off +to the life,' said Beauchamp, brightening with the fine ire of strife, +and affecting a sadder indignation. 'You traded on the ignorance of a +man prejudiced by lying reports of one of the noblest of human +creatures.' + +'Shrapnel? There! I've had enough.' Grancey Lespel bounced away with +both hands outspread on the level of his ears. + +'Dead!' Beauchamp sent the ghastly accusation after him. + +Grancey faced round and said, 'Bo!' which was applauded for a smart +retort. And let none of us be so exalted above the wit of daily life as +to sneer at it. Mrs. Lespel remarked to Mr. Culbrett, 'Do you not see +how much he is refreshed by the interest he takes in this election? He +is ten years younger.' + +Beauchamp bent to her, saying mock-dolefully, 'I'm sorry to tell you that +if ever he was a sincere Whig, he has years of remorse before him.' + +'Promise me, Captain Beauchamp,' she answered, 'promise you will give us +no more politics to-day.' + +'If none provoke me.' + +'None shall.' + +'And as to Bevisham,' said Mr. Culbrett, 'it's the identical borough for +a Radical candidate, for every voter there demands a division of his +property, and he should be the last to complain of an adoption of his +principles.' + +'Clever,' rejoined Beauchamp; 'but I am under government'; and he swept a +bow to Mrs. Lespel. + +As they were breaking up the group, Captain Baskelett appeared. + +'Ah! Nevil,' said he, passed him, saluted Miss Halkett through the +window, then cordially squeezed his cousin's hand. 'Having a holiday out +of Bevisham? The baron expects to meet you at Mount Laurels to-morrow. +He particularly wishes me to ask you whether you think all is fair in +war.' + +'I don't,' said Nevil. + +'Not? The canvass goes on swimmingly.' + +'Ask Palmet! + +'Palmet gives you two-thirds of the borough. The poor old Tory tortoise +is nowhere. They've been writing about you, Nevil.' + +'They have. And if there 's a man of honour in the party I shall hold +him responsible for it.' + +'I allude to an article in the Bevisham Liberal paper; a magnificent +eulogy, upon my honour. I give you my word, I have rarely read an +article so eloquent. And what is the Conservative misdemeanour which the +man of honour in the party is to pay for?' + +'I'll talk to you about it by-and-by,' said Nevil. + +He seemed to Cecilia too trusting, too simple, considering his cousin's +undisguised tone of banter. Yet she could not put him on his guard. +She would have had Mr. Culbrett do so. She walked on the terrace with +him near upon sunset, and said, 'The position Captain Beauchamp is in +here is most unfair to him.' + +'There's nothing unfair in the lion's den,' said Stukely Culbrett; +adding, 'Now, observe, Miss Halkett; he talks for effect. He discovers +that Lespel is a Torified Whig; but that does not make him a bit more +alert. It's to say smart things. He speaks, but won't act, as if he +were among enemies. He's getting too fond of his bow-wow. Here he is, +and he knows the den, and he chooses to act the innocent. You see how +ridiculous? That trick of the ingenu, or peculiarly heavenly messenger, +who pretends that he ought never to have any harm done to him, though he +carries the lighted match, is the way of young Radicals. Otherwise +Beauchamp would be a dear boy. We shall see how he takes his thrashing.' + +'You feel sure he will be beaten?' + +'He has too strong a dose of fool's honesty to succeed--stands for the +game laws with Radicals, for example. He's loaded with scruples and +crotchets, and thinks more of them than of his winds and his tides. No +public man is to be made out of that. His idea of the Whigs being dead +shows a head that can't read the country. He means himself for mankind, +and is preparing to be the benefactor of a country parish.' + +'But as a naval officer?' + +'Excellent.' + +Cecilia was convinced that Mr. Culbrett underestimated Beauchamp. +Nevertheless the confidence expressed in Beauchamp's defeat reassured and +pleased her. At midnight she was dancing with him in the midst of great +matronly country vessels that raised a wind when they launched on the +waltz, and exacted an anxious pilotage on the part of gentlemen careful +of their partners; and why I cannot say, but contrasts produce quaint +ideas in excited spirits, and a dancing politician appeared to her so +absurd that at one moment she had to bite her lips not to laugh. It will +hardly be credited that the waltz with Nevil was delightful to Cecilia +all the while, and dancing with others a penance. He danced with none +other. He led her to a three o'clock morning supper: one of those +triumphant subversions of the laws and customs of earth which have the +charm of a form of present deification for all young people; and she, +while noting how the poor man's advocate dealt with costly pasties and +sparkling wines, was overjoyed at his hearty comrade's manner with the +gentlemen, and a leadership in fun that he seemed to have established. +Cecil Baskelett acknowledged it, and complimented him on it. 'I give you +my word, Nevil, I never heard you in finer trim. Here's to our drive +into Bevisham to-morrow! Do you drink it? I beg; I entreat.' + +'Oh, certainly,' said Nevil. + +'Will you take a whip down there?' + +'If you're all insured.' + +'On my honour, old Nevil, driving a four-in-hand is easier than governing +the country.' + +'I'll accept your authority for what you know best,' said Nevil. + +The toast of the Drive into Bevisham was drunk. + +Cecilia left the supper-table, mortified, and feeling disgraced by her +participation in a secret that was being wantonly abused to humiliate +Nevil, as she was made to think by her sensitiveness. All the gentlemen +were against him, excepting perhaps that chattering pie Lord Palmet, who +did him more mischief than his enemies. She could not sleep. She walked +out on the terrace with Mrs. Wardour-Devereux, in a dream, hearing that +lady breathe remarks hardly less than sentimental, and an unwearied +succession of shouts from the smoking-room. + +'They are not going to bed to-night,' said Mrs. Devereux. + +'They are mystifying Captain Beauchamp,' said Cecilia. + +'My husband tells me they are going to drive him into the town to- +morrow.' + +Cecilia flushed: she could scarcely get her breath. + +'Is that their plot?' she murmured. + +Sleep was rejected by her, bed itself. The drive into Bevisham had been +fixed for nine A.M. She wrote two lines on note-paper in her room: but +found them overfervid and mysterious. Besides, how were they to be +conveyed to Nevil's chamber + +She walked in the passage for half an hour, thinking it possible she +might meet him; not the most lady-like of proceedings, but her head was +bewildered. An arm-chair in her room invited her to rest and think--the +mask of a natural desire for sleep. At eight in the morning she was +awakened by her maid, and at a touch exclaimed, 'Have they gone?' and +her heart still throbbed after hearing that most of the gentlemen were in +and about the stables. Cecilia was down-stairs at a quarter to nine. +The breakfast-room was empty of all but Lord Palmet and Mr. Wardour- +Devereux; one selecting a cigar to light out of doors, the other debating +between two pipes. She beckoned to Palmet, and commissioned him to +inform Beauchamp that she wished him to drive her down to Bevisham in her +pony-carriage. Palmet brought back word from Beauchamp that he had an +appointment at ten o'clock in the town. 'I want to see him,' she said; +so Palmet ran out with the order. Cecilia met Beauchamp in the entrance- +hall. + +'You must not go,' she said bluntly. + +'I can't break an appointment,' said he--'for the sake of my own +pleasure,' was implied. + +'Will you not listen to me, Nevil, when I say you cannot go?' + +A coachman's trumpet blew. + +'I shall be late. That's Colonel Millington's team. He starts first, +then Wardour-Devereux, then Cecil, and I mount beside him; Palmet's at +our heels.' + +'But can't you even imagine a purpose for their driving into Bevisham so +pompously?' + +'Well, men with drags haven't commonly much purpose,' he said. + +'But on this occasion! At an Election time! Surely, Nevil, you can +guess at a reason.' + +A second trumpet blew very martially. Footmen came in search of Captain +Beauchamp. The alternative of breaking her pledged word to her father, +or of letting Nevil be burlesqued in the sight of the town, could no +longer be dallied with. + +Cecilia said, 'Well, Nevil, then you shall hear it.' + +Hereupon Captain Baskelett's groom informed Captain Beauchamp that he was +off. + +'Yes,' Nevil said to Cecilia, 'tell me on board the yacht.' + +'Nevil, you will be driving into the town with the second Tory candidate +of the borough.' + +'Which? who?' Nevil 'asked. + +'Your cousin Cecil.' + +'Tell Captain Baskelett that I don't drive down till an hour later,' +Nevil said to the groom. 'Cecilia, you're my friend; I wish you were +more. I wish we didn't differ. I shall hope to change you--make you +come half-way out of that citadel of yours. This is my uncle Everard! +I might have made sure there'd be a blow from him! And Cecil! of all +men for a politician! Cecilia, think of it! Cecil Baskelett! I beg +Seymour Austin's pardon for having suspected him . . .' + +Now sounded Captain Baskelett's trumpet. + +Angry though he was, Beauchamp laughed. 'Isn't it exactly like the baron +to spring a mine of this kind?' + +There was decidedly humour in the plot, and it was a lusty quarterstaff +blow into the bargain. Beauchamp's head rang with it. He could not +conceal the stunning effect it had on him. Gratitude and tenderness +toward Cecilia for saving him, at the cost of a partial breach of faith +that he quite understood, from the scandal of the public entry into +Bevisham on the Tory coach-box, alternated with his interjections +regarding his uncle Everard. + +At eleven, Cecilia sat in her pony-carriage giving final directions to +Mrs. Devereux where to look out for the Esperanza and the schooner's +boat. 'Then I drive down alone,' Mrs. Devereux said. + +The gentlemen were all off, and every available maid with them on the +coach-boxes, a brilliant sight that had been missed by Nevil and Cecilia. + +'Why, here's Lydiard!' said Nevil, supposing that Lydiard must be +approaching him with tidings of the second Tory candidate. But Lydiard +knew nothing of it. He was the bearer of a letter on foreign paper-- +marked urgent, in Rosamund's hand--and similarly worded in the well-known +hand which had inscribed the original address of the letter to Steynham. + +Beauchamp opened it and read: + + Chateau Tourdestelle + '(Eure). + + 'Come. I give you three days--no more. + + 'RENEE.' + +The brevity was horrible. Did it spring from childish imperiousness or +tragic peril? + +Beauchamp could imagine it to be this or that. In moments of excited +speculation we do not dwell on the possibility that there may be a +mixture of motives. + +'I fear I must cross over to France this evening,' he said to Cecilia. + +She replied, 'It is likely to be stormy to-night. The steamboat may not +run.' + +'If there's a doubt of it, I shall find a French lugger. You are tired, +from not sleeping last night.' + +'No,' she answered, and nodded to Mrs. Devereux, beside whom Mr. Lydiard +stood: 'You will not drive down alone, you see.' + +For a young lady threatened with a tempest in her heart, as disturbing to +her as the one gathering in the West for ships at sea, Miss Halkett bore +herself well. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE DRIVE INTO BEVISHAM + +Beauchamp was requested by Cecilia to hold the reins. His fair companion +in the pony-carriage preferred to lean back musing, and he had leisure to +think over the blow dealt him by his uncle Everard with so sure an aim so +ringingly on the head. And in the first place he made no attempt to +disdain it because it was nothing but artful and heavy-handed, after the +mediaeval pattern. Of old he himself had delighted in artfulness as well +as boldness and the unmistakeable hit. Highly to prize generalship was +in his blood, though latterly the very forces propelling him to his +political warfare had forbidden the use of it to him. He saw the patient +veteran laying his gun for a long shot--to give as good as he had +received; and in realizing Everard Romfrey's perfectly placid bearing +under provocation, such as he certainly would have maintained while +preparing his reply to it, the raw fighting humour of the plot touched +the sense of justice in Beauchamp enough to make him own that he had been +the first to offend. + +He could reflect also on the likelihood that other offended men of his +uncle's age and position would have sulked or stormed, threatening the +Parthian shot of the vindictive testator. If there was godlessness in +turning to politics for a weapon to strike a domestic blow, manfulness in +some degree signalized it. Beauchamp could fancy his uncle crying out, +Who set the example? and he was not at that instant inclined to dwell on +the occult virtues of the example he had set. To be honest, this +elevation of a political puppet like Cecil Baskelett, and the starting +him, out of the same family which Turbot, the journalist, had magnified, +into Bevisham with such pomp and flourish in opposition to the serious +young champion of popular rights and the Puritan style, was ludicrously +effective. Conscienceless of course. But that was the way of the Old +School. + +Beauchamp broke the silence by thanking Cecilia once more for saving him +from the absurd exhibition of the Radical candidate on the Tory coach- +box, and laughing at the grimmish slyness of his uncle Everard's +conspiracy a something in it that was half-smile half-sneer; not exactly +malignant, and by no means innocent; something made up of the simplicity +of a lighted match, and its proximity to powder, yet neither deadly, in +spite of a wicked twinkle, nor at all pretending to be harmless: in +short, a specimen of old English practical humour. + +He laboured to express these or corresponding views of it, with tolerably +natural laughter, and Cecilia rallied her spirits at his pleasant manner +of taking his blow. + +'I shall compliment the baron when I meet him tonight,' he said. 'What +can we compare him to?' + +She suggested the Commander of the Faithful, the Lord Haroun, who +likewise had a turn for buffooneries to serve a purpose, and could direct +them loftily and sovereignty. + +'No: Everard Romfrey's a Northerner from the feet up,' said Beauchamp. + +Cecilia compliantly offered him a sketch of the Scandinavian Troll: much +nearer the mark, he thought, and exclaimed: 'Baron Troll! I'm afraid, +Cecilia, you have robbed him of the best part of his fun. And you will +owe it entirely to him if you should be represented in Parliament by my +cousin Basketett.' + +'Promise me, Nevit, that you will, when you meet Captain Baskelett, not +forget I did you some service, and that I wish, I shall be so glad if you +do not resent certain things . . . .Very objectionable, we all think.' + +He released her from the embarrassing petition: 'Oh! now I know my man, +you may be sure I won't waste a word on him. The fact is, he would not +understand a word, and would require more--and that I don't do. When I +fancied Mr. Austin was the responsible person, I meant to speak to him.' + +Cecilia smiled gratefully. + +The sweetness of a love-speech would not have been sweeter to her than +this proof of civilized chivalry in Nevil. + +They came to the fir-heights overlooking Bevisham. Here the breezy +beginning of a South-western autumnal gale tossed the ponies' manes and +made threads of Cecilia's shorter locks of beautiful auburn by the +temples and the neck, blustering the curls that streamed in a thick +involution from the silken band gathering them off her uncovered clear- +swept ears. + +Beauchamp took an impression of her side face. It seemed to offer him +everything the world could offer of cultivated purity, intelligent beauty +and attractiveness; and 'Wilt thou?' said the winged minute. Peace, a +good repute in the mouths of men, home, and a trustworthy woman for mate, +an ideal English lady, the rarest growth of our country, and friends and +fair esteem, were offered. Last night he had waltzed with her, and the +manner of this tall graceful girl in submitting to the union of the +measure and reserving her individual distinction, had exquisitely +flattered his taste, giving him an auspicious image of her in +partnership, through the uses of life. + +He looked ahead at the low dead-blue cloud swinging from across channel. +What could be the riddle of Renee's letter! It chained him completely. + +'At all events, I shall not be away longer than three days,' he said; +paused, eyed Cecilia's profile, and added, 'Do we differ so much?' + +'It may not be so much as we think,' said she. + +'But if we do!' + +'Then, Nevil, there is a difference between us.' + +'But if we keep our lips closed?' + +'We should have to shut our eyes as well!' + +A lovely melting image of her stole over him; all the warmer for her +unwittingness in producing it: and it awakened a tenderness toward the +simple speaker. + +Cecilia's delicate breeding saved her from running on figuratively. She +continued: 'Intellectual differences do not cause wounds, except when +very unintellectual sentiments are behind them:--my conceit, or your +impatience, Nevil? "Noi veggiam come quei, che ha mala luce." . . . +I can confess my sight to be imperfect: but will you ever do so?' + +Her musical voice in Italian charmed his hearing. + +'What poet was that you quoted?' + +'The wisest: Dante.' + +'Dr. Shrapnel's favourite! I must try to read him.' + +'He reads Dante?' Cecilia threw a stress on the august name; and it was +manifest that she cared not for the answer. + +Contemptuous exclusiveness could not go farther. + +'He is a man of cultivation,' Beauchamp said cursorily, trying to avoid +dissension, but in vain. 'I wish I were half as well instructed, and the +world half as charitable as he!--You ask me if I shall admit my sight to +be imperfect. Yes; when you prove to me that priests and landlords are +willing to do their duty by the people in preference to their churches +and their property: but will you ever shake off prejudice?' + +Here was opposition sounding again. Cecilia mentally reproached Dr. +Shrapnel for it. + +'Indeed, Nevil, really, must not--may I not ask you this?--must not every +one feel the evil spell of some associations? And Dante and Dr. +Shrapnel!' + +'You don't know him, Cecilia.' + +'I saw him yesterday.' + +'You thought him too tall?' + +'I thought of his character.' + +'How angry I should be with you if you were not so beautiful!' + +'I am immensely indebted to my unconscious advocate.' + +'You are clad in steel; you flash back; you won't answer me out of the +heart. I 'm convinced it is pure wilfulness that makes you oppose me.' + +'I fancy you must be convinced because you cannot imagine women to have +any share of public spirit, Nevil.' + +A grain of truth in that remark set Nevil reflecting. + +'I want them to have it,' he remarked, and glanced at a Tory placard, +probably the puppet's fresh-printed address to the electors, on one of +the wayside fir-trees. 'Bevisham looks well from here. We might make a +North-western Venice of it, if we liked.' + +'Papa told you it would be money sunk in mud.' + +'Did I mention it to him?--Thoroughly Conservative!--So he would leave +the mud as it is. They insist on our not venturing anything--those +Tories! exactly as though we had gained the best of human conditions, +instead of counting crops of rogues, malefactors, egoists, noxious and +lumbersome creatures that deaden the country. Your town down there is +one of the ugliest and dirtiest in the kingdom: it might be the fairest.' + +'I have often thought that of Bevisham, Nevil.' + +He drew a visionary sketch of quays, embankments, bridged islands, public +buildings, magical emanations of patriotic architecture, with a practical +air, an absence of that enthusiasm which struck her with suspicion when +it was not applied to landscape or the Arts; and she accepted it, and +warmed, and even allowed herself to appear hesitating when he returned to +the similarity of the state of mud-begirt Bevisham and our great sluggish +England. + +Was he not perhaps to be pitied in his bondage to the Frenchwoman, who +could have no ideas in common with him? + +The rare circumstance that she and Nevil Beauchamp had found a subject of +agreement, partially overcame the sentiment Cecilia entertained for the +foreign lady; and having now one idea in common with him, she conceived +the possibility that there might be more. There must be many, for he +loved England, and she no less. She clung, however, to the topic of +Bevisham, preferring to dream of the many more, rather than run risks. +Undoubtedly the town was of an ignoble aspect; and it was declining in +prosperity; and it was consequently over-populated. And undoubtedly (so +she was induced to coincide for the moment) a Government, acting to any +extent like a supervising head, should aid and direct the energies of +towns and ports and trades, and not leave everything everywhere to +chance: schools for the people, public morality, should be the charge of +Government. Cecilia had surrendered the lead to him, and was forced to +subscribe to an equivalent of 'undoubtedly' the Tories just as little as +the Liberals had done these good offices. Party against party, neither +of them had a forethoughtful head for the land at large. They waited for +the Press to spur a great imperial country to be but defensively armed, +and they accepted the so-called volunteers, with a nominal one-month's +drill per annum, as a guarantee of defence! + +Beauchamp startled her, actually kindled her mind to an activity of +wonder and regret, with the statement of how much Government, acting with +some degree of farsightedness, might have won to pay the public debt and +remit taxation, by originally retaining the lines of railway, and +fastening on the valuable land adjoining stations. Hundreds of millions +of pounds! + +She dropped a sigh at the prodigious amount, but inquired, 'Who has +calculated it?' + +For though perfectly aware that this kind of conversation was a special +compliment paid to her by her friend Nevil, and dimly perceiving that it +implied something beyond a compliment-in fact, that it was his manner of +probing her for sympathy, as other men would have conducted the process +preliminary to deadly flattery or to wooing, her wits fenced her heart +about; the exercise of shrewdness was an instinct of self-preservation. +She had nothing but her poor wits, daily growing fainter, to resist him +with. And he seemed to know it, and therefore assailed them, never +trying at the heart. + +That vast army of figures might be but a phantom army conjured out of the +Radical mists, might it not? she hinted. And besides, we cannot surely +require a Government to speculate in the future, can we? + +Possibly not, as Governments go, Beauchamp said. + +But what think you of a Government of landowners decreeing the enclosure +of millions of acres of common land amongst themselves; taking the +property of the people to add to their own! Say, is not that plunder? +Public property, observe; decreed to them by their own law-making, under +the pretence that it was being reclaimed for cultivation, when in reality +it has been but an addition to their pleasure-grounds: a flat robbery of +pasture from the poor man's cow and goose, and his right of cutting furze +for firing. Consider that! Beauchamp's eyes flashed democratic in +reciting this injury to the objects of his warm solicitude--the man, the +cow, and the goose. But so must he have looked when fronting England's +enemies, and his aspect of fervour subdued Cecilia. She confessed her +inability to form an estimate of such conduct. + +'Are they doing it still?' she asked. + +'We owe it to Dr. Shrapnel foremost that there is now a watch over them +to stop them. But for him, Grancey Lespel would have enclosed half of +Northeden Heath. As it is, he has filched bits here and there, and he +will have to put back his palings.' + +However, now let Cecilia understand that we English, calling ourselves +free, are under morally lawless rule. Government is what we require, and +our means of getting it must be through universal suffrage. At present +we have no Government; only shifting Party Ministries, which are the +tools of divers interests, wealthy factions, to the sacrifice of the +Commonwealth. + +She listened, like Rosamund Culling overborne by Dr. Shrapnel, inwardly +praying that she might discover a man to reply to him. + +'A Despotism, Nevil?' + +He hoped not, declined the despot, was English enough to stand against +the best of men in that character; but he cast it on Tory, Whig, and +Liberal, otherwise the Constitutionalists, if we were to come upon the +despot. + +'They see we are close on universal suffrage; they've been bidding each +in turn for "the people," and that has brought them to it, and now +they're alarmed, and accuse one another of treason to the Constitution, +and they don't accept the situation: and there's a fear, that to carry on +their present system, they will be thwarting the people or corrupting +them: and in that case we shall have our despot in some shape or other, +and we shall suffer.' + +'Nevil,' said Cecilia, 'I am out of my depth.' + +'I'll support you; I can swim for two,' said he. + +'You are very self-confident, but I find I am not fit for battle; at +least not in the front ranks.' + +'Nerve me, then: will you? Try to comprehend once for all what the +battle is.' + +'I am afraid I am too indifferent; I am too luxurious. That reminds me: +you want to meet your uncle Everard and if you will sleep at Mount +Laurels to-night, the Esperanza shall take you to France to-morrow +morning, and can wait to bring you back.' + +As she spoke she perceived a flush mounting over Nevil's face. Soon it +was communicated to hers. + +The strange secret of the blood electrified them both, and revealed the +burning undercurrent running between them from the hearts of each. The +light that showed how near they were to one another was kindled at the +barrier dividing them. It remained as good as a secret, unchallenged +until they had separated, and after midnight Cecilia looked through her. +chamber windows at the driving moon of a hurricane scud, and read clearly +his honourable reluctance to be wafted over to his French love by her +assistance; and Beauchamp on board the tossing steamboat perceived in her +sympathetic reddening that she had divined him. + +This auroral light eclipsed the other events of the day. He drove into a +town royally decorated, and still humming with the ravishment of the Tory +entrance. He sailed in the schooner to Mount Laurels, in the society of +Captain Baskelett and his friends, who, finding him tamer than they +expected, bantered him in the cheerfullest fashion. He waited for his +uncle Everard several hours at Mount Laurels, perused the junior Tory's +address to the Electors, throughout which there was not an idea--safest +of addresses to canvass upon! perused likewise, at Captain Baskelett's +request, a broad sheet of an article introducing the new candidate to +Bevisham with the battle-axe Romfreys to back him, in high burlesque of +Timothy Turbot upon Beauchamp: and Cecil hoped his cousin would not +object to his borrowing a Romfrey or two for so pressing an occasion. +All very funny, and no doubt the presence of Mr. Everard Romfrey would +have heightened the fun from the fountain-head; but he happened to be +delayed, and Beauchamp had to leave directions behind him in the town, +besides the discussion of a whole plan of conduct with Dr. Shrapnel, so +he was under the necessity of departing without seeing his uncle, really +to his regret. He left word to that effect. + +Taking leave of Cecilia, he talked of his return 'home' within three or +four days as a certainty. + +She said: 'Canvassing should not be neglected now.' + +Her hostility was confused by what she had done to save him from +annoyance, while his behaviour to his cousin Cecil increased her respect +for him. She detected a pathetic meaning in his mention of the word +home; she mused on his having called her beautiful: whither was she +hurrying? Forgetful of her horror of his revolutionary ideas, forgetful +of the elevation of her own, she thrilled secretly on hearing it stated +by the jubilant young Tories at Mount Laurels, as a characteristic of +Beauchamp, that he was clever in parrying political thrusts, and slipping +from the theme; he who with her gave out unguardedly the thoughts deepest +in him. And the thoughts!--were they not of generous origin? Where so +true a helpmate for him as the one to whom his mind appealed? It could +not be so with the Frenchwoman. Cecilia divined a generous nature by +generosity, and set herself to believe that in honour he had not yet +dared to speak to her from the heart, not being at heart quite free. She +was at the same time in her remains of pride cool enough to examine and +rebuke the weakness she succumbed to in now clinging to him by that which +yesterday she hardly less than loathed, still deeply disliked. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +TOURDESTELLE + +On the part of Beauchamp, his conversation with Cecilia during the drive +into Bevisham opened out for the first time in his life a prospect of +home; he had felt the word in speaking it, and it signified an end to the +distractions produced by the sex, allegiance to one beloved respected +woman, and also a basis of operations against the world. For she was +evidently conquerable, and once matched with him would be the very woman +to nerve and sustain him. Did she not listen to him? He liked her +resistance. That element of the barbarous which went largely to form his +emotional nature was overjoyed in wresting such a woman from the enemy, +and subduing her personally. She was a prize. She was a splendid prize, +cut out from under the guns of the fort. He rendered all that was due to +his eminently good cause for its part in so signal a success, but +individual satisfaction is not diminished by the thought that the +individual's discernment selected the cause thus beneficent to him. + +Beauchamp's meditations were diverted by the sight of the coast of France +dashed in rain-lines across a weed-strewn sea. The 'three days' granted +him by Renee were over, and it scarcely troubled him that he should be +behind the time; he detested mystery, holding it to be a sign of +pretentious feebleness, often of imposture, it might be frivolity. +Punctilious obedience to the mysterious brevity of the summons, and not +to chafe at it, appeared to him as much as could be expected of a +struggling man. This was the state of the case with him, until he stood +on French earth, breathed French air, and chanced to hear the tongue of +France twittered by a lady on the quay. The charm was instantaneous. +He reminded himself that Renee, unlike her countrywomen, had no gift for +writing letters. They had never corresponded since the hour of her +marriage. They had met in Sicily, at Syracuse, in the presence of her +father and her husband, and so inanimate was she that the meeting seemed +like the conclusion of their history. Her brother Roland sent tidings of +her by fits, and sometimes a conventional message from Tourdestelle. +Latterly her husband's name had been cited as among the wildfires of +Parisian quays, in journals more or less devoted to those unreclaimed +spaces of the city. Well, if she was unhappy, was it not the fulfilment +of his prophecy in Venice? + +Renee's brevity became luminous. She needed him urgently, and knowing +him faithful to the death, she, because she knew him, dispatched purely +the words which said she needed him. Why, those brief words were the +poetry of noble confidence! But what could her distress be? The lover +was able to read that, 'Come; I give you three days,' addressed to him, +was not language of a woman free of her yoke. + +Excited to guess and guess, Beauchamp swept on to speculations of a +madness that seized him bodily at last. Were you loved, Cecilia? He +thought little of politics in relation to Renee; or of home, or of honour +in the world's eye, or of labouring to pay the fee for his share of life. +This at least was one of the forms of love which precipitate men: the +sole thought in him was to be with her. She was Renee, the girl of whom +he had prophetically said that she must come to regrets and tears. His +vision of her was not at Tourdestelle, though he assumed her to be there +awaiting him: she was under the sea-shadowing Alps, looking up to the red +and gold-rosed heights of a realm of morning that was hers inviolably, +and under which Renee was eternally his. + +The interval between then and now was but the space of an unquiet sea +traversed in the night, sad in the passage of it, but featureless--and it +had proved him right! It was to Nevil Beauchamp as if the spirit of his +old passion woke up again to glorious hopeful morning when he stood in +Renee's France. + +Tourdestelle enjoyed the aristocratic privilege of being twelve miles +from the nearest railway station. Alighting here on an evening of clear +sky, Beauchamp found an English groom ready to dismount for him and bring +on his portmanteau. The man said that his mistress had been twice to the +station, and was now at the neighbouring Chateau Dianet. Thither +Beauchamp betook himself on horseback. He was informed at the gates that +Madame la Marquise had left for Tourdestelle in the saddle only ten +minutes previously. The lodge-keeper had been instructed to invite him +to stay at Chateau Dianet in the event of his arriving late, but it would +be possible to overtake madame by a cut across the heights at a turn of +the valley. Beauchamp pushed along the valley for this visible +projection; a towering mass of woodland, in the midst of which a narrow +roadway, worn like the track of a torrent with heavy rain, wound upward. +On his descent to the farther side, he was to spy directly below in the +flat for Tourdestelle. He crossed the wooded neck above the valley, and +began descending, peering into gulfs of the twilight dusk. Some paces +down he was aided by a brilliant half-moon that divided the whole +underlying country into sharp outlines of dark and fair, and while +endeavouring to distinguish the chateau of Tourdestelle his eyes were +attracted to an angle of the downward zigzag, where a pair of horses +emerged into broad light swiftly; apparently the riders were disputing, +or one had overtaken the other in pursuit. Riding-habit and plumed hat +signalized the sex of one. Beauchamp sung out a gondolier's cry. He +fancied it was answered. + +He was heard, for the lady turned about, and as he rode down, still +uncertain of her, she came cantering up alone, and there could be no +uncertainty. + +Moonlight is friendless to eyes that would make sure of a face long +unseen. It was Renee whose hand he clasped, but the story of the years +on her, and whether she was in bloom, or wan as the beams revealing her, +he could not see. + +Her tongue sounded to him as if it were loosened without a voice. 'You +have come. That storm! You are safe!' + +So phantom-like a sound of speech alarmed him. 'I lost no time. But +you?' + +'I am well.' + +'Nothing hangs over you?' + +'Nothing.' + +'Why give me just three days?' + +'Pure impatience. Have you forgotten me?' + +Their horses walked on with them. They unlocked their hands. + +'You knew it was I?' said he. + +'Who else could it be? I heard Venice,' she replied. + +Her previous cavalier was on his feet, all but on his knees, it appeared, +searching for something that eluded him under the road-side bank. He +sprang at it and waved it, leapt in the saddle, and remarked, as he drew +up beside Renee: 'What one picks from the earth one may wear, I presume, +especially when we can protest it is our property.' + +Beauchamp saw him planting a white substance most carefully at the breast +buttonhole of his coat. It could hardly be a flower. Some drooping +exotic of the conservatory perhaps resembled it. + +Renee pronounced his name: 'M. le Comte Henri d'Henriel.' + +He bowed to Beauchamp with an extreme sweep of the hat. + +'Last night, M. Beauchamp, we put up vows for you to the Marine God, +beseeching an exemption from that horrible mal de mer. Thanks to the +storm, I suppose, I have won. I must maintain, madame, that I won.' + +'You wear your trophy,' said Renee, and her horse reared and darted +ahead. + +The gentleman on each side of her struck into a trot. Beauchamp glanced +at M. d'Henriel's breast-decoration. Renee pressed the pace, and +threading dense covers of foliage they reached the level of the valley, +where for a couple of miles she led them, stretching away merrily, now in +shadow, now in moonlight, between high land and meadow land, and a line +of poplars in the meadows winding with the river that fed the vale and +shot forth gleams of silvery disquiet by rustic bridge and mill. + +The strangeness of being beside her, not having yet scanned her face, +marvelling at her voice--that was like and unlike the Renee of old, full +of her, but in another key, a mellow note, maturer--made the ride magical +to Beauchamp, planting the past in the present like a perceptible ghost. + +Renee slackened speed, saying: 'Tourdestelle spans a branch of our little +river. This is our gate. Had it been daylight I would have taken you by +another way, and you would have seen the black tower burnt in the +Revolution; an imposing monument, I am assured. However, you will think +it pretty beside the stream. Do you come with us, M. le Comte?' + +His answer was inaudible to Beauchamp; he did not quit them. + +The lamp at the lodge-gates presented the young man's face in full view, +and Beauchamp thought him supremely handsome. He perceived it to be a +lady's glove that M. d'Henriel wore at his breast. + +Renee walked her horse up the park-drive, alongside the bright running +water. It seemed that she was aware of the method of provoking or +reproving M. d'Henriel. He endured some minutes of total speechlessness +at this pace, and abruptly said adieu and turned back. + +Renee bounded like a vessel free of her load. 'But why should we hurry?' +said she, and checked her course to the walk again. 'I hope you like our +Normandy, and my valley. You used to love France, Nevil; and Normandy, +they tell me, is cousin to the opposite coast of England, in climate, +soil, people, it may be in manners too. A Beauchamp never can feel that +he is a foreigner in Normandy. We claim you half French. You have +grander parks, they say. We can give you sunlight.' + +'And it was really only the wish to see me?' said Beauchamp. + +'Only, and really. One does not live for ever--on earth; and it becomes +a question whether friends should be shadows to one another before death. +I wrote to you because I wished to see you: I was impatient because I am +Renee.' + +'You relieve me!' + +'Evidently you have forgotten my character, Nevil.' + +'Not a feature of it.' + +'Ah!' she breathed involuntarily. + +'Would you have me forget it?' + +'When I think by myself, quite alone, yes, I would. Otherwise how can +one hope that one's friend is friendship, supposing him to read us as we +are--minutely, accurately? And it is in absence that we desire our +friends to be friendship itself. And . . . and I am utterly astray! +I have not dealt in this language since I last thought of writing a +diary, and stared at the first line. If I mistake not, you are fond of +the picturesque. If moonlight and water will satisfy you, look yonder.' + +The moon launched her fairy silver fleets on a double sweep of the little +river round an island of reeds and two tall poplars. + +'I have wondered whether I should ever see you looking at that scene,' +said Renee. + +He looked from it to her, and asked if Roland was well, and her father; +then alluded to her husband; but the unlettering elusive moon, bright +only in the extension of her beams, would not tell him what story this +face, once heaven to him, wore imprinted on it. Her smile upon a parted +mouth struck him as two-edged in replying: 'I have good news to give you +of them all: Roland is in garrison at Rouen, and will come when I +telegraph. My father is in Touraine, and greets you affectionately; he +hopes to come. They are both perfectly happy. My husband is +travelling.' + +Beauchamp was conscious of some bitter taste; unaware of what it was, +though it led him to say, undesigningly: 'How very handsome that M. +d'Henriel is!--if I have his name correctly.' + +Renee answered: 'He has the misfortune to be considered the handsomest +young man in France.' + +'He has an Italian look.' + +'His mother was Provencale.' + +She put her horse in motion, saying: 'I agree with you that handsome men +are rarities. And, by the way, they do not set our world on fire quite +as much as beautiful women do yours, my friend. Acknowledge so much in +our favour.' + +He assented indefinitely. He could have wished himself away canvassing +in Bevisham. He had only to imagine himself away from her, to feel the +flood of joy in being with her. + +'Your husband is travelling?' + +'It is his pleasure.' + +Could she have intended to say that this was good news to give of him as +well as of the happiness of her father and brother? + +'Now look on Tourdestelle,' said Renee. 'You will avow that for an +active man to be condemned to seek repose in so dull a place, after the +fatigues of the season in Paris, it is considerably worse than for women, +so I am here to dispense the hospitalities. The right wing of the +chateau, on your left, is new. The side abutting the river is inhabited +by Dame Philiberte, whom her husband imprisoned for attempting to take +her pleasure in travel. I hear upon authority that she dresses in white, +and wears a black crucifix. She is many centuries old, and still she +lives to remind people that she married a Rouaillout. Do you not think +she should have come to me to welcome me? She never has; and possibly of +ladies who are disembodied we may say that they know best. For me, I +desire the interview--and I am a coward: I need not state it.' She +ceased; presently continuing: 'The other inhabitants are my sister, Agnes +d'Auffray, wife of a general officer serving in Afric--my sister by +marriage, and my friend; the baronne d'Orbec, a relation by marriage; M. +d'Orbec, her son, a guest, and a sportsman; M. Livret, an erudite. No +young ladies: I can bear much, but not their presence; girls are odious +to me. I knew one in Venice.' + +They came within the rays of the lamp hanging above the unpretending +entrance to the chateau. Renee's broad grey Longueville hat curved low +with its black plume on the side farthest from him. He was favoured by +the gallant lift of the brim on the near side, but she had overshadowed +her eyes. + +'He wears a glove at his breast,' said Beauchamp. + +'You speak of M. d'Henriel. He wears a glove at his breast; yes, it is +mine,' said Renee. + +She slipped from her horse and stood against his shoulder, as if waiting +to be questioned before she rang the bell of the chateau. + +Beauchamp alighted, burning with his unutterable questions concerning +that glove. + +'Lift your hat, let me beg you; let me see you,' he said. + +This was not what she had expected. With one heave of her bosom, and +murmuring: 'I made a vow I would obey you absolutely if you came,' she +raised the hat above her brows, and lightning would not have surprised +him more; for there had not been a single vibration of her voice to tell +him of tears running: nay, the absence of the usual French formalities in +her manner of addressing him, had seemed to him to indicate her intention +to put him at once on an easy friendly footing, such as would be natural +to her, and not painful to him. Now she said: + +'You perceive, monsieur, that I have my sentimental fits like others; but +in truth I am not insensible to the picturesque or to gratitude, and I +thank you sincerely for coming, considering that I wrote like a Sphinx-- +to evade writing comme une folle!' + +She swept to the bell. + +Standing in the arch of the entrance, she stretched her whip out to a +black mass of prostrate timber, saying: + +'It fell in the storm at two o'clock after midnight, and you on the sea!' + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +HIS HOLIDAY + +A single day was to be the term of his holiday at Tourdestelle; but it +stood forth as one of those perfect days which are rounded by an evening +before and a morning after, giving him two nights under the same roof +with Renee, something of a resemblance to three days of her; anticipation +and wonder filling the first, she the next, the adieu the last: every +hour filled. And the first day was not over yet. He forced himself to +calmness, that he might not fritter it, and walked up and down the room +he was dressing in, examining its foreign decorations, and peering +through the window, to quiet his nerves. He was in her own France with +her! The country borrowed hues from Renee, and lent some. This +chivalrous France framed and interlaced her image, aided in idealizing +her, and was in turn transfigured. Not half so well would his native +land have pleaded for the forgiveness of a British damsel who had wrecked +a young man's immoderate first love. That glorified self-love requires +the touch upon imagination of strangeness and an unaccustomed grace, to +subdue it and make it pardon an outrage to its temples and altars, and +its happy reading of the heavens, the earth too: earth foremost, we ought +perhaps to say. It is an exacting heathen, best understood by a glance +at what will appease it: beautiful, however, as everybody has proved; and +shall it be decried in a world where beauty is not overcommon, though it +would slaughter us for its angry satisfaction, yet can be soothed by a +tone of colour, as it were by a novel inscription on a sweetmeat? + +The peculiarity of Beauchamp was that he knew the slenderness of the +thread which was leading him, and foresaw it twisting to a coil unless he +should hold firm. His work in life was much above the love of a woman in +his estimation, so he was not deluded by passion when he entered the +chateau; it is doubtful whether he would not hesitatingly have sacrificed +one of the precious votes in Bevisham for the pleasure of kissing her +hand when they were on the steps. She was his first love and only love, +married, and long ago forgiven:--married; that is to say, she especially +among women was interdicted to him by the lingering shadow of the +reverential love gone by; and if the anguish of the lover's worse than +death survived in a shudder of memory at the thought of her not solely +lost to him but possessed by another, it did but quicken a hunger that +was three parts curiosity to see how she who had suffered this bore the +change; how like or unlike she might be to the extinct Renee; what traces +she kept of the face he had known. Her tears were startling, but tears +tell of a mood, they do not tell the story of the years; and it was that +story he had such eagerness to read in one brief revelation: an eagerness +born only of the last few hours, and broken by fears of a tarnished +aspect; these again being partly hopes of a coming disillusion that would +restore him his independence and ask him only for pity. The slavery of +the love of a woman chained like Renee was the most revolting of +prospects to a man who cherished his freedom that he might work to the +end of his time. Moreover, it swung a thunder-cloud across his holiday. +He recurred to the idea of the holiday repeatedly, and the more he did so +the thinner it waned. He was exhausting the very air and spirit of it +with a mind that ran incessantly forward and back; and when he and the +lady of so much speculation were again together, an incapacity of +observation seemed to have come over him. In reality it was the +inability to reflect on his observations. Her presence resembled those +dark sunsets throwing the spell of colour across the world; when there is +no question with us of morning or of night, but of that sole splendour +only. + +Owing to their arrival late at the chateau, covers were laid for them in +the boudoir of Madame la Marquise, where he had his hostess to himself, +and certainly the opportunity of studying her. An English Navy List, +solitary on a shelf, and laid within it an extract of a paper announcing +the return of the Ariadne to port, explained the mystery of her knowing +that he was in England, as well as the correctness of the superscription +of her letter to him. 'You see, I follow you,' she said. + +Beauchamp asked if she read English now. + +'A little; but the paper was dispatched to me by M. Vivian Ducie, of your +embassy in Paris. He is in the valley.' + +The name of Ducie recalled Lord Palmet's description of the dark beauty +of the fluttering pale gold ornaments. She was now dressed without one +decoration of gold or jewel, with scarcely a wave in the silk, a modesty +of style eloquent of the pride of her form. + +Could those eyes fronting him under the lamp have recently shed tears? +They were the living eyes of a brilliant unembarrassed lady; shields +flinging light rather than well-depths inviting it. + +Beauchamp tried to compare her with the Renee of Venice, and found +himself thinking of the glove she had surrendered to the handsomest young +man in France. The effort to recover the younger face gave him a dead +creature, with the eyelashes of Renee, the cast of her mouth and throat, +misty as a shape in a dream. + +He could compare her with Cecilia, who never would have risked a glove, +never have betrayed a tear, and was the statelier lady, not without +language: but how much less vivid in feature and the gift of speech! +Renee's gift of speech counted unnumbered strings which she played on +with a grace that clothed the skill, and was her natural endowment--an +art perfected by the education of the world. Who cannot talk!--but who +can? Discover the writers in a day when all are writing! It is as rare +an art as poetry, and in the mouths of women as enrapturing, richer than +their voices in music. + +This was the fascination Beauchamp felt weaving round him. Would you, +that are separable from boys and mobs, and the object malignly called the +Briton, prefer the celestial singing of a woman to her excellently +talking? But not if it were given you to run in unison with her genius +of the tongue, following her verbal ingenuities and feminine silk-flashes +of meaning; not if she led you to match her fine quick perceptions with +more or less of the discreet concordance of the violoncello accompanying +the viol. It is not high flying, which usually ends in heavy falling. +You quit the level of earth no more than two birds that chase from bush +to bush to bill in air, for mutual delight to make the concert heavenly. +Language flowed from Renee in affinity with the pleasure-giving laws that +make the curves we recognize as beauty in sublimer arts. Accept +companionship for the dearest of the good things we pray to have, and +what equalled her! Who could be her rival! + +Her girl's crown of irradiated Alps began to tremble over her dimly, as +from moment to moment their intimacy warmed, and Beauchamp saw the young +face vanishing out of this flower of womanhood. He did not see it +appearing or present, but vanishing like the faint ray in the rosier. +Nay, the blot of her faithlessness underwent a transformation: it +affected him somewhat as the patch cunningly laid on near a liquid dimple +in fair cheeks at once allures and evades a susceptible attention. + +Unused in his French of late, he stumbled at times, and she supplied the +needed phrase, taking no note of a blunder. Now men of sweet blood +cannot be secretly accusing or criticizing a gracious lady. Domestic men +are charged with thinking instantly of dark death when an ordinary +illness befalls them; and it may be so or not: but it is positive that +the gallant man of the world, if he is in the sensitive condition, and +not yet established as the lord of her, feels paralyzed in his masculine +sense of leadership the moment his lady assumes the initiative and +directs him: he gives up at once; and thus have many nimble-witted dames +from one clear start retained their advantage. + +Concerning that glove: well! the handsomest young man in France wore the +glove of the loveliest woman. The loveliest? The very loveliest in the +purity of her French style--the woman to challenge England for a type of +beauty to eclipse her. It was possible to conceive her country wagering +her against all women. + +If Renee had faults, Beauchamp thought of her as at sea breasting +tempests, while Cecilia was a vessel lying safe in harbour, untried, +however promising: and if Cecilia raised a steady light for him, it was +over the shores he had left behind, while Renee had really nothing to do +with warning or rescuing, or with imperilling; she welcomed him simply to +a holiday in her society. He associated Cecilia strangely with the +political labours she would have had him relinquish; and Renee with a +pleasant state of indolence, that her lightest smile disturbed. Shun +comparisons. + +It is the tricksy heart which sets up that balance, to jump into it on +one side or the other. Comparisons come of a secret leaning that is sure +to play rogue under its mien of honest dealer: so Beauchamp suffered +himself to be unjust to graver England, and lost the strength she would +have given him to resist a bewitchment. The case with him was, that his +apprenticeship was new; he had been trotting in harness as a veritable +cab-horse of politics--he by blood a racer; and his nature craved for +diversions, against his will, against his moral sense and born tenacity +of spirit. + +Not a word further of the glove. But at night, in his bed, the glove was +a principal actor in events of extraordinary magnitude and inconsequence. + +He was out in the grounds with the early morning light. Coffee and sweet +French bread were brought out to him, and he was informed of the hours of +reunion at the chateau, whose mistress continued invisible. She might be +sleeping. He strolled about, within view of the windows, wondering at +her subservience to sleep. Tourdestelle lay in one of those Norman +valleys where the river is the mother of rich pasture, and runs hidden +between double ranks of sallows, aspens and poplars, that mark its +winding line in the arms of trenched meadows. The high land on either +side is an unwatered flat up to the horizon, little varied by dusty +apple-trees planted in the stubble here and there, and brown mud walls of +hamlets; a church-top, a copse, an avenue of dwarf limes leading to the +three-parts farm, quarter residence of an enriched peasant striking new +roots, or decayed proprietor pinching not to be severed from ancient. +Descending on the deep green valley in Summer is like a change of climes. +The chateau stood square at a branch of the river, tossing three light +bridges of pretty woodwork to park and garden. Great bouquets of +swelling blue and pink hydrangia nestled at his feet on shaven grass. An +open window showed a cloth of colour, as in a reminiscence of Italy. + +Beauchamp heard himself addressed:--'You are looking for my sister-in- +law, M. Beauchamp?' + +The speaker was Madame d'Auffray, to whom he had been introduced +overnight--a lady of the aquiline French outline, not ungentle. + +Renee had spoken affectionately of her, he remembered. There was nothing +to make him be on his guard, and he stated that he was looking for Madame +de Rouaillout, and did not conceal surprise at the information that she +was out on horseback. + +'She is a tireless person,' Madame d'Auffray remarked. 'You will not +miss her long. We all meet at twelve, as you know.' + +'I grudge an hour, for I go to-morrow,' said Beauchamp. + +The notification of so early a departure, or else his bluntness, +astonished her. She fell to praising Renee's goodness. He kept her to +it with lively interrogations, in the manner of a, guileless boy urging +for eulogies of his dear absent friend. Was it duplicity in him or +artlessness? + +'Has she, do you think, increased in beauty?' Madame d'Auffray inquired: +an insidious question, to which he replied: + +'Once I thought it would be impossible.' + +Not so bad an answer for an Englishman, in a country where speaking is +fencing; the race being little famous for dialectical alertness: but was +it artful or simple? + +They skirted the chateau, and Beauchamp had the history of Dame +Philiberte recounted to him, with a mixture of Gallic irony, innuendo, +openness, touchingness, ridicule, and charity novel to his ears. Madame +d'Auffray struck the note of intimacy earlier than is habitual. She +sounded him in this way once or twice, carelessly perusing him, and +waiting for the interesting edition of the Book of Man to summarize its +character by showing its pages or remaining shut. It was done +delicately, like the tap of a finger-nail on a vase. He rang clear; he +had nothing to conceal; and where he was reserved, that is, in speaking +of the developed beauty and grace of Renee, he was transparent. She read +the sort of man he was; she could also hazard a guess as to the man's +present state. She ventured to think him comparatively harmless--for the +hour: for she was not the woman to be hoodwinked by man's dark nature +because she inclined to think well of a particular man; nor was she one +to trust to any man subject to temptation. The wisdom of the +Frenchwoman's fortieth year forbade it. A land where the war between +the sexes is honestly acknowledged, and is full of instruction, abounds +in precepts; but it ill becomes the veteran to practise rigorously what +she would prescribe to young women. She may discriminate; as thus:-- +Trust no man. Still, this man may be better than that man; and it is bad +policy to distrust a reasonably guileless member of the preying sex +entirely, and so to lose his good services. Hawks have their uses in +destroying vermin; and though we cannot rely upon the taming of hawks, +one tied by the leg in a garden preserves the fruit. + +'There is a necessity for your leaving us to-morrow; M. Beauchamp?' + +'I regret to say, it is imperative, madame.' + +'My husband will congratulate me on the pleasure I have, and have long +desired, of making your acquaintance, and he will grieve that he has not +been so fortunate; he is on service in Africa. My brother, I need not +say, will deplore the mischance which has prevented him from welcoming +you. I have telegraphed to him; he is at one of the Baths in Germany, +and will come assuredly, if there is a prospect of finding you here. +None? Supposing my telegram not to fall short of him, I may count on his +being here within four days.' + +Beauchamp begged her to convey the proper expressions of his regret to M. +le Marquis. + +'And M. de Croisnel? And Roland, your old comrade and brother-in-arms? +What will be their disappointment!' she said. + +'I intend to stop for an hour at Rouen on my way back,' said Beauchamp. + +She asked if her belle-soeur was aware of the short limitation of his +visit. + +He had not mentioned it to Madame la Marquise. + +'Perhaps you may be moved by the grief of a friend: Renee may persuade +you to stay.' + +'I came imagining I could be of some use to Madame la Marquise. She +writes as if she were telegraphing.' + +'Perfectly true of her! For that matter, I saw the letter. Your looks +betray a very natural jealousy; but seeing it or not it would have been +the same: she and I have no secrets. She was, I may tell you, strictly +unable to write more words in the letter. Which brings me to inquire +what impression M. d'Henriel made on you yesterday evening.' + +'He is particularly handsome.' + +'We women think so. Did you take him to be . . . eccentric?' + +Beauchamp gave a French jerk of the shoulders. + +It confessed the incident of the glove to one who knew it as well as he: +but it masked the weight he was beginning to attach to that incident, and +Madame d'Auffray was misled. Truly, the Englishman may be just such an +ex-lover, uninflammable by virtue of his blood's native coldness; endued +with the frozen vanity called pride, which does not seek to be revenged. +Under wary espionage, he might be a young woman's friend, though male +friend of a half-abandoned wife should write himself down morally saint, +mentally sage, medically incurable, if he would win our confidence. + +This lady of sharp intelligence was the guardian of Renee during the +foolish husband's flights about Paris and over Europe, and, for a proof +of her consummate astuteness, Renee had no secrets and had absolute +liberty. And hitherto no man could build a boast on her reputation. The +liberty she would have had at any cost, as Madame d'Auffray knew; and an +attempt to restrict it would have created secrets. + +Near upon the breakfast-hour Renee was perceived by them going toward the +chateau at a walking pace. They crossed one of the garden bridges to +intercept her. She started out of some deep meditation, and raised her +whip hand to Beauchamp's greeting. 'I had forgotten to tell you, +monsieur, that I should be out for some hours in the morning.' + +'Are you aware,' said Madame d'Auffray, 'that M. Beauchamp leaves us +to-morrow?' + +'So soon?' It was uttered hardly with a tone of disappointment. + +The marquise alighted, crying hold, to the stables, caressed her horse, +and sent him off with a smack on the smoking flanks to meet the groom. + +'To-morrow? That is very soon; but M. Beauchamp is engaged in an +Election, and what have we to induce him to stay?' + +'Would it not be better to tell M. Beauchamp why he was invited to come?' +rejoined Madame d'Auffray. + +The sombre light in Renee's eyes quickened through shadowy spheres of +surprise and pain to resolution. She cried, 'You have my full consent,' +and left them. + +Madame d'Auffray smiled at Beauchamp, to excuse the childishness of the +little story she was about to relate; she gave it in the essence, without +a commencement or an ending. She had in fact but two or three hurried +minutes before the breakfast-bell would ring; and the fan she opened and +shut, and at times shaded her head with, was nearly as explicit as her +tongue. + +He understood that Renee had staked her glove on his coming within a +certain number of hours to the briefest wording of invitation possible. +Owing to his detention by the storm, M. d'Henriel had won the bet, and +now insisted on wearing the glove. 'He is the privileged young madman +our women make of a handsome youth,' said Madame d'Auffray. + +Where am I? thought Beauchamp--in what land, he would have phrased it, +of whirlwinds catching the wits, and whipping the passions? Calmer than +they, but unable to command them, and guessing that Renee's errand of the +morning, by which he had lost hours of her, pertained to the glove, he +said quiveringly, 'Madame la Marquise objects?' + +'We,' replied Madame d'Auffray, 'contend that the glove was not loyally +won. The wager was upon your coming to the invitation, not upon your +conquering the elements. As to his flaunting the glove for a favour, +I would ask you, whom does he advertize by that? Gloves do not wear +white; which fact compromises none but the wearer. He picked it up from +the ground, and does not restore it; that is all. You see a boy who +catches at anything to placard himself. There is a compatriot of yours, +a M. Ducie, who assured us you must be with an uncle in your county of +Sussex. Of course we ran the risk of the letter missing you, but the +chance was worth a glove. Can you believe it, M. Beauchamp? it was I, +old woman as I am, I who provoked the silly wager. I have long desired +to meet you; and we have little society here, we are desperate with +loneliness, half mad with our whims. I said, that if you were what I had +heard of you, you would come to us at a word. They dared Madame la +Marquise to say the same. I wished to see the friend of Frenchmen, +as M. Roland calls you; not merely to see him--to know him, whether he is +this perfect friend whose absolute devotion has impressed my dear sister +Renee's mind. She respects you: that is a sentiment scarcely +complimentary to the ideas of young men. She places you above human +creatures: possibly you may not dislike to be worshipped. It is not to +be rejected when one's influence is powerful for good. But you leave us +to-morrow!' + +'I' might stay . . .' Beauchamp hesitated to name the number of hours. +He stood divided between a sense of the bubbling shallowness of the life +about him, and a thought, grave as an eye dwelling on blood, of sinister +things below it. + +'I may stay another day or two,' he said, 'if I can be of any earthly +service.' + +Madame d'Auffray bowed as to a friendly decision on his part, saying, +'It would be a thousand pities to disappoint M. Roland; and it will be +offering my brother an amicable chance. I will send him word that you +await him; at least, that you defer your departure as long as possible. +Ah! now you perceive, M. Beauchamp, now you have become aware of our +purely infantile plan to bring you over to us, how very ostensible a +punishment it would be were you to remain so short a period.' + +Having no designs, he was neither dupe nor sceptic; but he felt oddly +entangled, and the dream of his holiday had fled like morning's beams, +as a self-deception will at a very gentle shaking. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE ADVENTURE OF THE BOAT + +Madame d'Auffray passed Renee, whispering on her way to take her seat at +the breakfast-table. + +Renee did not condescend to whisper. 'Roland will be glad,' she said +aloud. + +Her low eyelids challenged Beauchamp for a look of indifference. There +was more for her to unbosom than Madame d'Auffray had revealed, but the +comparative innocence of her position in this new light prompted her to +meet him defiantly, if he chose to feel injured. He was attracted by a +happy contrast of colour between her dress and complexion, together with +a cavalierly charm in the sullen brows she lifted; and seeing the reverse +of a look of indifference on his face, after what he had heard of her +frivolousness, she had a fear that it existed. + +'Are we not to have M. d'Henriel to-day? he amuses me,' the baronne +d'Orbec remarked. + +'If he would learn that he was fashioned for that purpose!' exclaimed +little M. Livret. + +'Do not ask young men for too much head, my friend; he would cease to be +amusing.' + +'D'Henriel should have been up in the fields at ten this morning,' said +M. d'Orbec. 'As to his head, I back him for a clever shot.' + +'Or a duelling-sword,' said Renee. 'It is a quality, count it for what +we will. Your favourite, Madame la Baronne, is interdicted from +presenting himself here so long as he persists in offending me.' + +She was requested to explain, and, with the fair ingenuousness which +outshines innocence, she touched on the story of the glove. + +Ah! what a delicate, what an exciting, how subtle a question! + +Had M. d'Henriel the right to possess it? and, having that, had he the +right to wear it at his breast? + +Beauchamp was dragged into the discussion of the case. + +Renee waited curiously for his judgement. + +Pleading an apology for the stormy weather, which had detained him, and +for his ignorance that so precious an article was at stake, he held, that +by the terms of the wager, the glove was lost; the claim to wear it was a +matter of taste. + +'Matters of taste, monsieur, are not, I think, decided by weapons in your +country?' said M. d'Orbec. + +'We have no duelling,' said Beauchamp. + +The Frenchman imagined the confession to be somewhat humbling, and +generously added, 'But you have your volunteers--a magnificent spectacle +of patriotism and national readiness for defence!' + +A shrewd pang traversed Beauchamp's heart, as he looked back on his +country from the outside and the inside, thinking what amount of +patriotic readiness the character of the volunteering signified, in the +face of all that England has to maintain. Like a politic islander, he +allowed the patriotic spectacle to be imagined; reflecting that it did a +sort of service abroad, and had only to be unmasked at home. + +'But you surrendered the glove, marquise!' The baronne d'Orbec spoke +judicially. + +'I flung it to the ground: that made it neutral,' said Renee. + +'Hum. He wears it with the dust on it, certainly.' + +'And for how long a time,' M. Livret wished to know, 'does this amusing +young man proclaim his intention of wearing the glove?' + +'Until he can see with us that his Order of Merit is utter kid,' said +Madame d'Auffray; and as she had spoken more or less neatly, satisfaction +was left residing in the ear of the assembly, and the glove was permitted +to be swept away on a fresh tide of dialogue. + +The admirable candour of Renee in publicly alluding to M. d'Henriel's +foolishness restored a peep of his holiday to Beauchamp. Madame +d'Auffray took note of the effect it produced, and quite excused her +sister-in-law for intending to produce is; but that speaking out the +half-truth that we may put on the mask of the whole, is no new trick; and +believing as she did that Renee was in danger with the handsome Count +Henri, the practice of such a kind of honesty on her part appeared +alarming. + +Still it is imprudent to press for confidences when our friend's heart is +manifestly trifling with sincerity. Who knows but that some foregone +reckless act or word may have superinduced the healthy shame which cannot +speak, which must disguise itself, and is honesty in that form, but +roughly troubled would resolve to rank dishonesty? So thought the +patient lady, wiser in that than in her perceptions. + +Renee made a boast of not persuading her guest to stay, avowing that she +would not willingly have him go. Praising him equably, she listened to +praise of him with animation. She was dumb and statue-like when Count +Henri's name was mentioned. Did not this betray liking for one, +subjection to the other? Indeed, there was an Asiatic splendour of +animal beauty about M. d'Henriel that would be serpent with most women, +Madame d'Auffray conceived; why not with the deserted Renee, who adored +beauty of shape and colour, and was compassionate toward a rashness of +character that her own unnatural solitariness and quick spirit made her +emulous of? + +Meanwhile Beauchamp's day of adieu succeeded that of his holiday, and no +adieu was uttered. The hours at Tourdestelle had a singular turn for +slipping. Interlinked and all as one they swam by, brought evening, +brought morning, never varied. They might have varied with such a +division as when flame lights up the night or a tempest shades the day, +had Renee chosen; she had that power over him. She had no wish to use +it; perhaps she apprehended what it would cause her to forfeit. She +wished him to respect her; felt that she was under the shadow of the +glove, slight though it was while it was nothing but a tale of a lady and +a glove; and her desire, like his, was that they should meet daily and +dream on, without a variation. He noticed how seldom she led him beyond +the grounds of the chateau. They were to make excursions when her +brother came, she said. Roland de Croisnel's colonel, Coin de +Grandchamp, happened to be engaged in a duel, which great business +detained Roland. It supplied Beauchamp with an excuse for staying, that +he was angry with himself for being pleased to have; so he attacked the +practice of duelling, and next the shrug, wherewith M. Livret and M. +d'Orbec sought at first to defend the foul custom, or apologize for it, +or plead for it philosophically, or altogether cast it off their +shoulders; for the literal interpretation of the shrug in argument is +beyond human capacity; it is the point of speech beyond our treasury of +language. He attacked the shrug, as he thought, very temperately; but in +controlling his native vehemence he grew, perforce of repression, and of +incompetency to deliver himself copiously in French, sarcastic. In fine, +his contrast of the pretence of their noble country to head civilization, +and its encouragement of a custom so barbarous, offended M. d'Orbec and +irritated M. Livret. + +The latter delivered a brief essay on Gallic blood; the former maintained +that Frenchmen were the best judges of their own ways and deeds. +Politeness reigned, but politeness is compelled to throw off cloak and +jacket when it steps into the arena to meet the encounter of a bull. +Beauchamp drew on their word 'solidaire' to assist him in declaring that +no civilized nation could be thus independent. Imagining himself in the +France of brave ideas, he contrived to strike out sparks of Legitimist +ire around him, and found himself breathing the atmosphere of the most +primitive nursery of Toryism. Again he encountered the shrug, and he +would have it a verbal matter. M. d'Orbec gravely recited the programme +of the country party in France. M. Livret carried the war across +Channel. You English have retired from active life, like the exhausted +author, to turn critic--the critic that sneers: unless we copy you +abjectly we are execrable. And what is that sneer? Materially it is an +acrid saliva, withering where it drops; in the way of fellowship it is a +corpse-emanation. As to wit, the sneer is the cloak of clumsiness; it is +the Pharisee's incense, the hypocrite's pity, the post of exaltation of +the fat citizen, etc.; but, said M. Livret, the people using it should +have a care that they keep powerful: they make no friends. He terminated +with this warning to a nation not devoid of superior merit. M. d'Orbec +said less, and was less consoled by his outburst. + +In the opinion of Mr. Vivian Ducie, present at the discussion, Beauchamp +provoked the lash; for, in the first place, a beautiful woman's apparent +favourite should be particularly discreet in all that he says: and next, +he should have known that the Gallic shrug over matters political is +volcanic--it is the heaving of the mountain, and, like the proverbial +Russ, leaps up Tartarly at a scratch. Our newspapers also had been flea- +biting M. Livret and his countrymen of late; and, to conclude, over in +old England you may fly out against what you will, and there is little +beyond a motherly smile, a nurse's rebuke, or a fool's rudeness to answer +you. In quick-blooded France you have whip for whip, sneer, sarcasm, +claw, fang, tussle, in a trice; and if you choose to comport yourself +according to your insular notion of freedom, you are bound to march out +to the measured ground at an invitation. To begin by saying that your +principles are opposed to it, naturally excites a malicious propensity to +try your temper. + +A further cause, unknown to Mr. Ducie, of M. Livret's irritation was, +that Beauchamp had vexed him on a subject peculiarly dear to him. The +celebrated Chateau Dianet was about to be visited by the guests at +Tourdestelle. In common with some French philosophers and English +matrons, he cherished a sentimental sad enthusiasm for royal concubines; +and when dilating upon one among them, the ruins of whose family's castle +stood in the neighbourhood-Agrees, who was really a kindly soul, though +not virtuous--M. Livret had been traversed by Beauchamp with questions as +to the condition of the people, the peasantry, that were sweated in taxes +to support these lovely frailties. They came oddly from a man in the +fire of youth, and a little old gentleman somewhat seduced by the melting +image of his theme might well blink at him to ask, of what flesh are you, +then? His historic harem was insulted. Personally too, the fair +creature picturesquely soiled, intrepid in her amorousness, and +ultimately absolved by repentance (a shuddering narrative of her sins +under showers of salt drops), cried to him to champion her. Excited by +the supposed cold critical mind in Beauchamp, M. Livret painted and +painted this lady, tricked her in casuistical niceties, scenes of pomp +and boudoir pathos, with many shifting sidelights and a risky word or +two, until Renee cried out, 'Spare us the esprit Gaulois, M. Livret!' +There was much to make him angry with this Englishman. + +'The esprit Gaulois is the sparkle of crystal common sense, madame, and +may we never abandon it for a Puritanism that hides its face to conceal +its filthiness, like a stagnant pond,' replied M. Livret, flashing. + +'It seems, then, that there are two ways of being objectionable,' said +Renee. + +'Ah! Madame la Marquise, your wit is French,' he breathed low; 'keep your +heart so!' + +Both M. Livret and M. d'Orbec had forgotten that when Count Henri +d'Henriel was received at Tourdestelle, the arrival of the Englishman was +pleasantly anticipated by them as an eclipse of the handsome boy; but a +foreign interloper is quickly dispossessed of all means of pleasing save +that one of taking his departure; and they now talked of Count Henri's +disgrace and banishment in a very warm spirit of sympathy, not at all +seeing why it should be made to depend upon the movements of this M. +Beauchamp, as it appeared to be. Madame d'Auffray heard some of their +dialogue, and hurried with a mouth full of comedy to Renee, who did not +reproach them for silly beings, as would be done elsewhere. On the +contrary, she appreciated a scene of such absolute comedy, recognizing it +instantly as a situation plucked out of human nature. She compared them +to republicans that regretted the sovereign they had deposed for a +pretender to start up and govern them. + +'Who hurries them round to the legitimate king again!' said Madame +d'Auffray. + +Renee cast her chin up. 'How, my dear?' + +'Your husband.' + +'What of him?' + +'He is returning.' + +'What brings him?' + +'You should ask who, my Renee! I was sure he would not hear of M. +Beauchamp's being here, without an effort to return and do the honours of +the chateau.' + +Renee looked hard at her, saying, 'How thoughtful of you! You must have +made use of the telegraph wires to inform him that M. Beauchamp was with +us.' + +'More; I made use of them to inform him that M. Beauchamp was expected.' + +'And that was enough to bring him! He pays M. Beauchamp a wonderful +compliment.' + +'Such as he would pay to no other man, my Renee. Virtually it is the +highest of compliments to you. I say that to M. Beauchamp's credit; for +Raoul has met him, and, whatever his personal feeling may be, must know +your friend is a man of honour.' + +'My friend is . . . yes, I have no reason to think otherwise,' Renee +replied. Her husband's persistent and exclusive jealousy of Beauchamp +was the singular point in the character of one who appeared to have no +sentiment of the kind as regarded men that were much less than men of +honour. 'So, then, my sister Agnes,' she said, 'you suggested the +invitation of M. Beauchamp for the purpose of spurring my husband to +return! Apparently he and I are surrounded by plotters.' + +'Am I so very guilty?' said Madame d'Auffray. + +'If that mad boy, half idiot, half panther, were by chance to insult +M. Beauchamp, you would feel so.' + +'You have taken precautions to prevent their meeting; and besides, +M. Beauchamp does not fight.' + +Renee flushed crimson. + +Madame d'Auffray added, 'I do not say that he is other than a perfectly +brave and chivalrous gentleman.' + +'Oh!' cried Renee, 'do not say it, if ever you should imagine it. +Bid Roland speak of him. He is changed, oppressed: I did him a terrible +wrong . . . .' She checked herself. 'But the chief thing to do is to +keep M. d'Henriel away from him. I suspect M. d'Orbec of a design to +make them clash: and you, my dear, will explain why, to flatter me. +Believe me, I thirst for flattery; I have had none since M. Beauchamp +came: and you, so acute, must have seen the want of it in my face. But +you, so skilful, Agnes, will manage these men. Do you know, Agnes, that +the pride of a woman so incredibly clever as you have shown me you are +should resent their intrigues and overthrow them. As for me, I thought +I could command M. d'Henriel, and I find he has neither reason in him nor +obedience. Singular to say, I knew him just as well a week back as I do +now, and then I liked him for his qualities--or the absence of any. But +how shall we avoid him on the road to Dianet? He is aware that we are +going.' + +'Take M. Beauchamp by boat,' said Madame d'Auffray. + +'The river winds to within a five minutes' walk of Dianet; we could go by +boat,' Renee said musingly. 'I thought of the boat. But does it not +give the man a triumph that we should seem to try to elude him? What +matter! Still, I do not like him to be the falcon, and Nevil Beauchamp +the . . . little bird. So it is, because we began badly, Agnes!' + +'Was it my fault?' + +'Mine. Tell me: the legitimate king returns when?' + +'In two days or three.' + +'And his rebel subjects are to address him--how?' + +Madame d'Auffray smote the point of a finger softly on her cheek. + +'Will they be pardoned?' said Renee. + +'It is for him to kneel, my dearest.' + +'Legitimacy kneeling for forgiveness is a painful picture, Agnes. +Legitimacy jealous of a foreigner is an odd one. However, we are women, +born to our lot. If we could rise en masse!--but we cannot. Embrace +me.' + +Madame d'Auffray embraced her, without an idea that she assisted in +performing the farewell of their confidential intimacy. + +When Renee trifled with Count Henri, it was playing with fire, and she +knew it; and once or twice she bemoaned to Agnes d'Auffray her abandoned +state, which condemned her, for the sake of the sensation of living, to +have recourse to perilous pastimes; but she was revolted, as at a piece +of treachery, that Agnes should have suggested the invitation of Nevil +Beauchamp with the secret design of winning home her husband to protect +her. This, for one reason, was because Beauchamp gave her no notion of +danger; none, therefore, of requiring protection; and the presence of her +husband could not but be hateful to him, an undeserved infliction. To +her it was intolerable that they should be brought into contact. It +seemed almost as hard that she should have to dismiss Beauchamp to +preclude their meeting. She remembered, nevertheless, a certain +desperation of mind, scarce imaginable in the retrospect, by which, +trembling, fever-smitten, scorning herself, she had been reduced to hope +for Nevil Beauchamp's coming as for a rescue. The night of the storm had +roused her heart. Since then his perfect friendliness had lulled, his +air of thoughtfulness had interested it; and the fancy that he, who +neither reproached nor sentimentalized, was to be infinitely +compassionated, stirred up remorse. She could not tell her friend Agnes +of these feelings while her feelings were angered against her friend. +So she talked lightly of 'the legitimate king,' and they embraced: a +situation of comedy quite as true as that presented by the humble +admirers of the brilliant chatelaine. + +Beauchamp had the pleasure of rowing Madame la Marquise to the short +shaded walk separating the river from Chateau Dianet, whither M. d'Orbec +went on horseback, and Madame d'Auffray and M. Livret were driven. +The portrait of Diane of Dianet was praised for the beauty of the dame, +a soft-fleshed acutely featured person, a fresh-of-the-toilette face, +of the configuration of head of the cat, relieved by a delicately +aquiline nose; and it could only be the cat of fairy metamorphosis which +should stand for that illustration: brows and chin made an acceptable +triangle, and eyes and mouth could be what she pleased for mice or +monarchs. M. Livret did not gainsay the impeachment of her by a great +French historian, tender to women, to frailties in particular--yes, she +was cold, perhaps grasping: but dwell upon her in her character of woman; +conceive her existing, to estimate the charm of her graciousness. Name +the two countries which alone have produced THE WOMAN, the ideal woman, +the woman of art, whose beauty, grace, and wit offer her to our +contemplation in an atmosphere above the ordinary conditions of the +world: these two countries are France and Greece! None other give you +the perfect woman, the woman who conquers time, as she conquers men, +by virtue of the divinity in her blood; and she, as little as illustrious +heroes, is to be judged by the laws and standards of lesser creatures. +In fashioning her, nature and art have worked together: in her, poetry +walks the earth. The question of good or bad is entirely to be put +aside: it is a rustic's impertinence--a bourgeois' vulgarity. She is +preeminent, voila tout. Has she grace and beauty? Then you are +answered: such possessions are an assurance that her influence in the +aggregate must be for good. Thunder, destructive to insects, refreshes +earth: so she. So sang the rhapsodist. Possibly a scholarly little +French gentleman, going down the grey slopes of sixty to second +childishness, recovers a second juvenility in these enthusiasms; +though what it is that inspires our matrons to take up with them is +unimaginable. M. Livret's ardour was a contrast to the young +Englishman's vacant gaze at Diane, and the symbols of her goddesship +running along the walls, the bed, the cabinets, everywhere that the +chaste device could find frontage and a corner. + +M. d'Orbec remained outside the chateau inspecting the fish-ponds. When +they rejoined him he complimented Beauchamp semi-ironically on his choice +of the river's quiet charms in preference to the dusty roads. Madame de +Rouaillout said, 'Come, M. d'Orbec; what if you surrender your horse to +M. Beauchamp, and row me back?' He changed colour, hesitated, and +declined he had an engagement to call on M. d'Henriel. + +'When did you see him?' said she. + +He was confused. 'It is not long since, madame.' + +'On the road?' + +'Coming along-the road.' + +'And our glove?' + +'Madame la Marquise, if I may trust my memory, M. d'Henriel was not in +official costume.' + +Renee allowed herself to be reassured. + +A ceremonious visit that M. Livret insisted on was paid to the chapel of +Diane, where she had worshipped and laid her widowed ashes, which, said +M. Livret, the fiends of the Revolution would not let rest. + +He raised his voice to denounce them. + +It was Roland de Croisnel that answered: 'The Revolution was our +grandmother, monsieur, and I cannot hear her abused.' + +Renee caught her brother by the hand. He stepped out of the chapel with +Beauchamp to embrace him; then kissed Renee, and, remarking that she was +pale, fetched flooding colour to her cheeks. He was hearty air to them +after the sentimentalism they had been hearing. Beauchamp and he walked +like loving comrades at school, questioning, answering, chattering, +laughing,--a beautiful sight to Renee, and she looked at Agrnes d'Auffray +to ask her whether 'this Englishman' was not one of them in his frankness +and freshness. + +Roland stopped to turn to Renee. 'I met d'Henriel on my ride here,' he +said with a sharp inquisitive expression of eye that passed immediately. + +'You rode here from Tourdestelle, then,' said Renee. + +'Has he been one of the company, marquise?' + +'Did he ride by you without speaking, Roland?' + +'Thus.' Roland described a Spanish caballero's formallest salutation, +saying to Beauchamp, 'Not the best sample of our young Frenchman;--woman- +spoiled! Not that the better kind of article need be spoiled by them-- +heaven forbid that! Friend Nevil,' he spoke lower, 'do you know, you +have something of the prophet in you? I remember: much has come true. +An old spoiler of women is worse than one spoiled by them! Ah, well: and +Madame Culling? and your seven-feet high uncle? And have you a fleet to +satisfy Nevil Beauchamp yet? You shall see a trial of our new field-guns +at Rouen.' + +They were separated with difficulty. + +Renee wished her brother to come in the boat; and he would have done so, +but for his objection to have his Arab bestridden by a man unknown to +him. + +'My love is a four-foot, and here's my love,' Roland said, going outside +the gilt gate-rails to the graceful little beast, that acknowledged his +ownership with an arch and swing of the neck round to him. + +He mounted and called, 'Au revoir, M. le Capitaine.' + +'Au revoir, M. le Commandant,' cried Beauchamp. + +'Admiral and marshal, each of us in good season,' said Roland. 'Thanks +to your promotion, I had a letter from my sister. Advance a grade, and I +may get another.' + +Beauchamp thought of the strange gulf now between him and the time when +he pined to be a commodore, and an admiral. The gulf was bridged as he +looked at Renee petting Roland's horse. + +'Is there in the world so lovely a creature?' she said, and appealed +fondlingly to the beauty that brings out beauty, and, bidding it disdain +rivalry, rivalled it insomuch that in a moment of trance Beauchamp with +his bodily vision beheld her, not there, but on the Lido of Venice, +shining out of the years gone. + +Old love reviving may be love of a phantom after all. We can, if it must +revive, keep it to the limits of a ghostly love. The ship in the Arabian +tale coming within the zone of the magnetic mountain, flies all its bolts +and bars, and becomes sheer timbers, but that is the carelessness of the +ship's captain; and hitherto Beauchamp could applaud himself for steering +with prudence, while Renee's attractions warned more than they beckoned. +She was magnetic to him as no other woman was. Then whither his course +but homeward? + +After they had taken leave of their host and hostess of Chateau Dianet, +walking across a meadow to a line of charmilles that led to the river- +side, he said, 'Now I have seen Roland I shall have to decide upon +going.' + +'Wantonly won is deservedly lost,' said Renee. 'But do not disappoint my +Roland much because of his foolish sister. Is he not looking handsome? +And he is young to be a commandant, for we have no interest at this +Court. They kept him out of the last war! My father expects to find you +at Tourdestelle, and how account to him for your hurried flight? save +with the story of that which brought you to us!' + +'The glove? I shall beg for the fellow to it before I depart, marquise.' + +'You perceived my disposition to light-headedness, monsieur, when I was a +girl.' + +'I said that I--But the past is dust. Shall I ever see you in +England?' + +'That country seems to frown on me. But if I do not go there, nor you +come here, except to imperious mysterious invitations, which will not be +repeated, the future is dust as well as the past: for me, at least. Dust +here, dust there!--if one could be like a silk-worm, and live lying on +the leaf one feeds on, it would be a sort of answer to the riddle--living +out of the dust, and in the present. I find none in my religion. No +doubt, Madame de Breze did: why did you call Diane so to M. Livret?' + +She looked at him smiling as they came out of the shadow of the clipped +trees. He was glancing about for the boat. + +'The boat is across the river,' Renee said, in a voice that made him seek +her eyes for an explanation of the dead sound. She was very pale. 'You +have perfect command of yourself? For my sake!' she said. + +He looked round. + +Standing up in the boat, against the opposite bank, and leaning with +crossed legs on one of the sculls planted in the gravel of the river, +Count Henri d'Henriel's handsome figure presented itself to Beauchamp's +gaze. + +With a dryness that smacked of his uncle Everard Romfrey, Beauchamp said +of the fantastical posture of the young man, 'One can do that on fresh +water.' + +Renee did not comprehend the sailor-sarcasm of the remark; but she also +commented on the statuesque appearance of Count Henri: 'Is the pose for +photography or for sculpture?' + +Neither of them showed a sign of surprise or of impatience. + +M. d'Henriel could not maintain the attitude. He uncrossed his legs +deliberately, drooped hat in hand, and came paddling over; apologized +indolently, and said, 'I am not, I believe, trespassing on the grounds +of Tourdestelle, Madame la Marquise!' + +'You happen to be in my boat, M. le Comte,' said Renee. + +'Permit me, madame.' He had set one foot on shore, with his back to +Beauchamp, and reached a hand to assist her step into the boat. + +Beauchamp caught fast hold of the bows while Renee laid a finger on Count +Henri's shoulder to steady herself. + +The instant she had taken her seat, Count Henri dashed the scull's blade +at the bank to push off with her, but the boat was fast. His manoeuvre +had been foreseen. Beauchamp swung on board like the last seaman of a +launch, and crouched as the boat rocked away to the stream; and still +Count Henri leaned on the scull, not in a chosen attitude, but for +positive support. He had thrown his force into the blow, to push off +triumphantly, and leave his rival standing. It occurred that the boat's +brief resistance and rocking away agitated his artificial equipoise, and, +by the operation of inexorable laws, the longer he leaned across an +extending surface the more was he dependent; so that when the measure of +the water exceeded the length of his failing support on land, there was +no help for it: he pitched in. His grimace of chagrin at the sight of +Beauchamp securely established, had scarcely yielded to the grimness of +feature of the man who feels he must go, as he took the plunge; and these +two emotions combined to make an extraordinary countenance. + +He went like a gallant gentleman; he threw up his heels to clear the +boat, dropping into about four feet of water, and his first remark on +rising was, 'I trust, madame, I have not had the misfortune to splash +you.' + +Then he waded to the bank, scrambled to his feet, and drew out his +moustachios to their curving ends. Renee nodded sharply to Beauchamp to +bid him row. He, with less of wisdom, having seized the floating scull +abandoned by Count Henri, and got it ready for the stroke, said a word of +condolence to the dripping man. + +Count Henri's shoulders and neck expressed a kind of negative that, like +a wet dog's shake of the head, ended in an involuntary whole length +shudder, dog-like and deplorable to behold. He must have been conscious +of this miserable exhibition of himself; he turned to Beauchamp: 'You +are, I am informed, a sailor, monsieur. I compliment you on your naval +tactics: our next meeting will be on land. Au revoir, monsieur. Madame +la Marquise, I have the honour to salute you.' + +With these words he retreated. + +'Row quickly, I beg of you,' Renee said to Beauchamp. Her desire was to +see Roland, and open her heart to her brother; for now it had to be +opened. Not a minute must be lost to prevent further mischief. And who +was guilty? she. Her heart clamoured of her guilt to waken a cry of +innocence. A disdainful pity for the superb young savage just made +ludicrous, relieved him of blame, implacable though he was. He was +nothing; an accident--a fool. But he might become a terrible instrument +of punishment. The thought of that possibility gave it an aspect of +retribution, under which her cry of innocence was insufferable in its +feebleness. It would have been different with her if Beauchamp had taken +advantage of her fever of anxiety, suddenly appeased by the sight of him +on the evening of his arrival at Tourdestelle after the storm, to attempt +a renewal of their old broken love-bonds. Then she would have seen only +a conflict between two men, neither of whom could claim a more secret +right than the other to be called her lover, and of whom both were on a +common footing, and partly despicable. But Nevil Beauchamp had behaved +as her perfect true friend, in the character she had hoped for when she +summoned him. The sense of her guilt lay in the recognition that he had +saved her. From what? From the consequences of delirium rather than +from love--surely delirium, founded on delusion; love had not existed. +She had said to Count Henri, 'You speak to me of love. I was beloved +when I was a girl, before my marriage, and for years I have not seen or +corresponded with the man who loved me, and I have only to lift my finger +now and he will come to me, and not once will he speak to me of love.' +Those were the words originating the wager of the glove. But what of +her, if Nevil Beauchamp had not come? + +Her heart jumped, and she blushed ungovernably in his face,--as if he +were seeing her withdraw her foot from the rock's edge, and had that +instant rescued her. But how came it she had been so helpless? She +could ask; she could not answer. + +Thinking, talking to her heart, was useless. The deceiver simply feigned +utter condemnation to make partial comfort acceptable. She burned to do +some act of extreme self-abasement that should bring an unwonted degree +of wrath on her externally, and so re-entitle her to consideration in her +own eyes. She burned to be interrogated, to have to weep, to be scorned, +abused, and forgiven, that she might say she did not deserve pardon. +Beauchamp was too English, evidently too blind, for the description of +judge-accuser she required; one who would worry her without mercy, until- +disgraced by the excess of torture inflicted--he should reinstate her by +as much as he had overcharged his accusation, and a little more. +Reasonably enough, instinctively in fact, she shunned the hollow of an +English ear. A surprise was in reserve for her. + +Beauchamp gave up rowing. As he rested on the sculls, his head was bent +and turned toward the bank. Renee perceived an over-swollen monster +gourd that had strayed from a garden adjoining the river, and hung +sliding heavily down the bank on one greenish yellow cheek, in prolonged +contemplation of its image in the mirror below. Apparently this obese +Narcissus enchained his attention. + +She tapped her foot. 'Are you tired of rowing, monsieur?' + +'It was exactly here,' said he, 'that you told me you expected your +husband's return.' + +She glanced at the gourd, bit her lip, and, colouring, said, 'At what +point of the river did I request you to congratulate me on it?' + +She would not have said that, if she had known the thoughts at work +within him. + +He set the boat swaying from side to side, and at once the hugeous +reflection of that conceivably self-enamoured bulk quavered and +distended, and was shattered in a thousand dancing fragments, to re-unite +and recompose its maudlin air of imaged satisfaction. + +She began to have a vague idea that he was indulging grotesque fancies. + +Very strangely, the ridiculous thing, in the shape of an over-stretched +likeness, that she never would have seen had he indicated it directly, +became transfused from his mind to hers by his abstract, half-amused +observation of the great dancing gourd--that capering antiquity, +lumbering volatility, wandering, self-adored, gross bald Cupid, elatest +of nondescripts! Her senses imagined the impressions agitating +Beauchamp's, and exaggerated them beyond limit; and when he amazed her +with a straight look into her eyes, and the words, 'Better let it be a +youth--and live, than fall back to that!' she understood him immediately; +and, together with her old fear of his impetuosity and downrightness, +came the vivid recollection, like a bright finger pointing upon darkness, +of what foul destiny, magnified by her present abhorrence of it, he would +have saved her from in the days of Venice and Touraine, and unto what +loathly example of the hideous grotesque she, in spite of her lover's +foresight on her behalf, had become allied. + +Face to face as they sat, she had no defence for her scarlet cheeks; her +eyes wavered. + +'We will land here; the cottagers shall row the boat up,' she said. + +'Somewhere--anywhere,' said Beauchamp. 'But I must speak. I will tell +you now. I do not think you to blame--barely; not in my sight; though no +man living would have suffered as I should. Probably some days more and +you would have been lost. You looked for me! Trust your instinct now +I'm with you as well as when I'm absent. Have you courage? that 's the +question. You have years to live. Can you live them in this place--with +honour? and alive really?' + +Renee's eyes grew wide; she tried to frown, and her brows merely +twitched; to speak, and she was inarticulate. His madness, miraculous +penetration, and the super-masculine charity in him, unknown to the world +of young men in their treatment of women, excited, awed, and melted her. +He had seen the whole truth of her relations with M. d'Henriel!--the +wickedness of them in one light, the innocence in another; and without +prompting a confession he forgave her. Could she believe it? This was +love, and manly love. + +She yearned to be on her feet, to feel the possibility of an escape from +him. + +She pointed to a landing. He sprang to the bank. 'It could end in +nothing else,' he said, 'unless you beat cold to me. And now I have your +hand, Renee! It's the hand of a living woman, you have no need to tell +me that; but faithful to her comrade! I can swear it for her--faithful +to a true alliance! You are not married, you are simply chained: and you +are terrorized. What a perversion of you it is! It wrecks you. But +with me? Am I not your lover? You and I are one life. What have we +suffered for but to find this out and act on it? Do I not know that a +woman lives, and is not the rooted piece of vegetation hypocrites and +tyrants expect her to be? Act on it, I say; own me, break the chains, +come to me; say, Nevil Beauchamp or death! And death for you? But you +are poisoned and thwart-eddying, as you live now: worse, shaming the +Renee I knew. Ah-Venice! But now we are both of us wiser and stronger: +we have gone through fire. Who foretold it? This day, and this misery +and perversion that we can turn to joy, if we will--if you will! No +heart to dare is no heart to love!--answer that! Shall I see you cower +away from me again? Not this time!' + +He swept on in a flood, uttered mad things, foolish things, and things of +an insight electrifying to her. Through the cottager's garden, across a +field, and within the park gates of Tourdestelle it continued +unceasingly; and deeply was she won by the rebellious note in all that +he said, deeply too by his disregard of the vulgar arts of wooers: she +detected none. He did not speak so much to win as to help her to see +with her own orbs. Nor was it roughly or chidingly, though it was +absolutely, that he stripped her of the veil a wavering woman will keep +to herself from her heart's lord if she can. + +They arrived long after the boat at Tourdestelle, and Beauchamp might +believe he had prevailed with her, but for her forlorn repetition of +the question he had put to her idly and as a new idea, instead of +significantly, with a recollection and a doubt 'Have I courage, Nevil?' + +The grain of common sense in cowardice caused her to repeat it when her +reason was bedimmed, and passion assumed the right to show the way of +right and wrong. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A cloud of millinery shoots me off a mile from a woman +A string of pearls: a woman who goes beyond that's in danger +Admires a girl when there's no married woman or widow in sight +After forty, men have married their habits +An old spoiler of women is worse than one spoiled by them! +And never did a stroke of work in my life +Are we practical?' penetrates the bosom of an English audience +As to wit, the sneer is the cloak of clumsiness +Contemptuous exclusiveness could not go farther +Discover the writers in a day when all are writing! +Feigned utter condemnation to make partial comfort acceptable +Frozen vanity called pride, which does not seek to be revenged +Half-truth that we may put on the mask of the whole +Hopes of a coming disillusion that would restore him +How angry I should be with you if you were not so beautiful! +I can confess my sight to be imperfect: but will you ever do so? +If there's no doubt about it, how is it I have a doubt about it? +It is not high flying, which usually ends in heavy falling +Let none of us be so exalted above the wit of daily life +No heart to dare is no heart to love! +Oggler's genial piety made him shrink with nausea +Past fairness, vaguely like a snow landscape in the thaw +Planting the past in the present like a perceptible ghost +Pleasure-giving laws that make the curves we recognize as beauty +Practical or not, the good people affectingly wish to be +Shun comparisons +So the frog telleth tadpoles +Socially and politically mean one thing in the end +Story that she believed indeed, but had not quite sensibly felt +The critic that sneers +The language of party is eloquent +The slavery of the love of a woman chained +There may be women who think as well as feel; I don't know them +Trust no man Still, this man may be better than that man +Use your religion like a drug +Who cannot talk!--but who can? +Wives are only an item in the list, and not the most important +Women don't care uncommonly for the men who love them +You are not married, you are simply chained + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Beauchamp's Career, v3 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4455.zip b/4455.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0f532b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/4455.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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