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AN EFFORT TO CONQUER CECILIA IN BEAUCHAMP'S FASHION +XXXIII. THE FIRST ENCOUNTER AT STEYNHAM + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +MR. BLACKBURN TUCKHAM + +Some time after Beauchamp had been seen renewing his canvass in Bevisham +a report reached Mount Laurels that he was lame of a leg. The wits of +the opposite camp revived the FRENCH MARQUEES, but it was generally +acknowledged that he had come back without the lady: she was invisible. +Cecilia Halkett rode home with her father on a dusky Autumn evening, and +found the card of Commander Beauchamp awaiting her. He might have stayed +to see her, she thought. Ladies are not customarily so very late in +returning from a ride on chill evenings of Autumn. Only a quarter of an +hour was between his visit and her return. The shortness of the interval +made it appear the deeper gulf. She noticed that her father particularly +inquired of the man-servant whether Captain Beauchamp limped. It seemed +a piece of kindly anxiety on his part. The captain was mounted, the man +said. Cecilia was conscious of rumours being abroad relating to Nevil's +expedition to France; but he had enemies, and was at war with them, and +she held herself indifferent to tattle. This card bearing his name, +recently in his hand, was much more insidious and precise. She took it +to her room to look at it. Nothing but his name and naval title was +inscribed; no pencilled line; she had not expected to discover one. The +simple card was her dark light, as a handkerchief, a flower, a knot of +riband, has been for men luridly illuminated by such small sparks to +fling their beams on shadows and read the monstrous things for truths. +Her purer virgin blood was, not inflamed. She read the signification of +the card sadly as she did clearly. What she could not so distinctly +imagine was, how he could reconcile the devotion to his country, which he +had taught her to put her faith in, with his unhappy subjection to Madame +de Rouaillout. How could the nobler sentiment exist side by side with +one that was lawless? Or was the wildness characteristic of his +political views proof of a nature inclining to disown moral ties? She +feared so; he did not speak of the clergy respectfully. Reading in the +dark, she was forced to rely on her social instincts, and she distrusted +her personal feelings as much as she could, for she wished to know the +truth of him; anything, pain and heartrending, rather than the shutting +of the eyes in an unworthy abandonment to mere emotion and fascination. +Cecilia's love could not be otherwise given to a man, however near she +might be drawn to love--though she should suffer the pangs of love +cruelly. + +She placed his card in her writing-desk; she had his likeness there. +Commander Beauchamp encouraged the art of photography, as those that make +long voyages do, in reciprocating what they petition their friends for. +Mrs. Rosamund Culling had a whole collection of photographs of him, +equal to a visual history of his growth in chapters, from boyhood to +midshipmanship and to manhood. The specimen possessed by Cecilia was one +of a couple that Beauchamp had forwarded to Mrs. Grancey Lespel on the +day of his departure for France, and was a present from that lady, +purchased, like so many presents, at a cost Cecilia would have paid +heavily in gold to have been spared, namely, a public blush. She was +allowed to make her choice, and she chose the profile, repeating a remark +of Mrs. Culling's, that it suggested an arrow-head in the upflight; +whereupon Mr. Stukely Culbrett had said, 'Then there is the man, for he +is undoubtedly a projectile'; nor were politically-hostile punsters on an +arrow-head inactive. But Cecilia was thinking of the side-face she (less +intently than Beauchamp at hers) had glanced at during the drive into +Bevisham. At that moment, she fancied Madame de Rouaillout might be +doing likewise; and oh that she had the portrait of the French lady as +well! + +Next day her father tossed her a photograph of another gentleman, coming +out of a letter he had received from old Mrs. Beauchamp. He asked her +opinion of it. She said, 'I think he would have suited Bevisham better +than Captain Baskelett.' Of the original, who presented himself at Mount +Laurels in the course of the week, she had nothing to say, except that he +was very like the photograph, very unlike Nevil Beauchamp. 'Yes, there +I'm of your opinion,' her father observed. The gentleman was Mr. +Blackburn Tuckham, and it was amusing to find an exuberant Tory in one +who was the reverse of the cavalier type. Nevil and he seemed to have +been sorted to the wrong sides. Mr. Tuckham had a round head, square +flat forehead, and ruddy face; he stood as if his feet claimed the earth +under them for his own, with a certain shortness of leg that detracted +from the majesty of his resemblance to our Eighth Harry, but increased +his air of solidity; and he was authoritative in speaking. 'Let me set +you right, sir,' he said sometimes to Colonel Halkett, and that was his +modesty. 'You are altogether wrong,' Miss Halkett heard herself +informed, which was his courtesy. He examined some of her water-colour +drawings before sitting down to dinner, approved of them, but thought it +necessary to lay a broad finger on them to show their defects. On the +question of politics, 'I venture to state,' he remarked, in anything but +the tone of a venture, 'that no educated man of ordinary sense who has +visited our colonies will come back a Liberal.' As for a man of sense +and education being a Radical, he scouted the notion with a pooh +sufficient to awaken a vessel in the doldrums. He said carelessly of +Commander Beauchamp, that he might think himself one. Either the Radical +candidate for Bevisham stood self-deceived, or--the other supposition. +Mr. Tuckham would venture to state that no English gentleman, exempt from +an examination by order of the Commissioners of Lunacy, could be +sincerely a Radical. 'Not a bit of it; nonsense,' he replied to Miss +Halkett's hint at the existence of Radical views; 'that is, those views +are out of politics; they are matters for the police. Dutch dykes are +built to shut away the sea from cultivated land, and of course it's a +part of the business of the Dutch Government to keep up the dykes,--and +of ours to guard against the mob; but that is only a political +consideration after the mob has been allowed to undermine our defences.' + +'They speak,' said Miss Halkett, 'of educating the people to fit them--' + +'They speak of commanding the winds and tides,' he cut her short, with no +clear analogy; 'wait till we have a storm. It's a delusion amounting to +dementedness to suppose, that with the people inside our defences, we can +be taming them and tricking them. As for sending them to school after +giving them power, it's like asking a wild beast to sit down to dinner +with us--he wants the whole table and us too. The best education for the +people is government. They're beginning to see that in Lancashire at +last. I ran down to Lancashire for a couple of days on my landing, and +I'm thankful to say Lancashire is preparing to take a step back. +Lancashire leads the country. Lancashire men see what this Liberalism +has done for the Labour-market.' + +'Captain Beauchamp considers that the political change coming over the +minds of the manufacturers is due to the large fortunes they have made,' +said Miss Halkett, maliciously associating a Radical prophet with him. + +He was unaffected by it, and continued: 'Property is ballast as well as +treasure. I call property funded good sense. I would give it every +privilege. If we are to speak of patriotism, I say the possession of +property guarantees it. I maintain that the lead of men of property is +in most cases sure to be the safe one.' + +'I think so,' Colonel Halkett interposed, and he spoke as a man of +property. + +Mr. Tuckham grew fervent in his allusions to our wealth and our commerce. +Having won the race and gained the prize, shall we let it slip out of our +grasp? Upon this topic his voice descended to tones of priestlike awe: +for are we not the envy of the world? Our wealth is countless, fabulous. +It may well inspire veneration. And we have won it with our hands, +thanks (he implied it so) to our religion. We are rich in money and +industry, in those two things only, and the corruption of an energetic +industry is constantly threatened by the profusion of wealth giving it +employment. This being the case, either your Radicals do not know the +first conditions of human nature, or they do; and if they do they are +traitors, and the Liberals opening the gates to them are fools: and some +are knaves. We perish as a Great Power if we cease to look sharp ahead, +hold firm together, and make the utmost of what we possess. The word for +the performance of those duties is Toryism: a word with an older flavour +than Conservatism, and Mr. Tuckham preferred it. By all means let +workmen be free men but a man must earn his freedom daily, or he will +become a slave in some form or another: and the way to earn it is by work +and obedience to right direction. In a country like ours, open on all +sides to the competition of intelligence and strength, with a Press that +is the voice of all parties and of every interest; in a country offering +to your investments three and a half and more per cent., secure as the +firmament! + +He perceived an amazed expression on Miss Halkett's countenance; and +'Ay,' said he, 'that means the certainty of food to millions of mouths, +and comforts, if not luxuries, to half the population. A safe percentage +on savings is the basis of civilization.' + +But he had bruised his eloquence, for though you may start a sermon from +stones to hit the stars, he must be a practised orator who shall descend +out of the abstract to take up a heavy lump of the concrete without +unseating himself, and he stammered and came to a flat ending: 'In such a +country--well, I venture to say, we have a right to condemn in advance +disturbers of the peace, and they must show very good cause indeed for +not being summarily held--to account for their conduct.' + +The allocution was not delivered in the presence of an audience other +than sympathetic, and Miss Halkett rightly guessed that it was intended +to strike Captain Beauchamp by ricochet. He puffed at the mention of +Beauchamp's name. He had read a reported speech or two of Beauchamp's, +and shook his head over a quotation of the stuff, as though he would have +sprung at him like a lion, but for his enrolment as a constable. + +Not a whit the less did Mr. Tuckham drink his claret relishingly, and he +told stories incidental to his travels now and then, commended the +fishing here, the shooting there, and in some few places the cookery, +with much bright emphasis when it could be praised; it appeared to be an +endearing recollection to him. Still, as a man of progress, he declared +his belief that we English would ultimately turn out the best cooks, +having indubitably the best material. 'Our incomprehensible political +pusillanimity' was the one sad point about us: we had been driven from +surrender to surrender. + +'Like geese upon a common, I have heard it said,' Miss Halkett assisted +him to Dr. Shrapnel's comparison. + +Mr. Tuckham laughed, and half yawned and sighed, 'Dear me!' + +His laughter was catching, and somehow more persuasive of the soundness +of the man's heart and head than his remarks. + +She would have been astonished to know that a gentleman so uncourtly, +if not uncouth--judged by the standard of the circle she moved in--and so +unskilled in pleasing the sight and hearing of ladies as to treat them +like junior comrades, had raised the vow within himself on seeing her: +You, or no woman! + +The colonel delighted in him, both as a strong and able young fellow, and +a refreshingly aggressive recruit of his party, who was for onslaught, +and invoked common sense, instead of waving the flag of sentiment in +retreat; a very horse-artillery man of Tories. Regretting immensely that +Mr. Tuckham had not reached England earlier, that he might have occupied +the seat for Bevisham, about to be given to Captain Baskelett, Colonel +Halkett set up a contrast of Blackburn Tuckham and Nevil Beauchamp; a +singular instance of unfairness, his daughter thought, considering that +the distinct contrast presented by the circumstances was that of Mr. +Tuckham and Captain Baskelett. + +'It seems to me, papa,--that you are contrasting the idealist and the +realist,' she said. + +'Ah, well, we don't want the idealist in politics,' muttered the colonel. + +Latterly he also had taken to shaking his head over Nevil: Cecilia dared +not ask him why. + +Mr. Tuckham arrived at Mount Laurels on the eve of the Nomination day in +Bevisham. An article in the Bevisham Gazette calling upon all true +Liberals to demonstrate their unanimity by a multitudinous show of hands, +he ascribed to the writing of a child of Erin; and he was highly diverted +by the Liberal's hiring of Paddy to 'pen and spout' for him. +'A Scotchman manages, and Paddy does the sermon for all their journals,' +he said off-hand; adding: 'And the English are the compositors, +I suppose.' You may take that for an instance of the national spirit +of Liberal newspapers! + +'Ah!' sighed the colonel, as at a case clearly demonstrated against +them. + +A drive down to Bevisham to witness the ceremony of the nomination in the +town-hall sobered Mr. Tuckham's disposition to generalize. Beauchamp had +the show of hands, and to say with Captain Baskelett, that they were a +dirty majority, was beneath Mr. Tuckham's verbal antagonism. He fell +into a studious reserve, noting everything, listening to everybody, +greatly to Colonel Halkett's admiration of one by nature a talker and a +thunderer. + +The show of hands Mr. Seymour Austin declared to be the most delusive of +electoral auspices; and it proved so. A little later than four o'clock +in the afternoon of the election-day, Cecilia received a message from her +father telling her that both of the Liberals were headed; 'Beauchamp +nowhere.' + +Mrs. Grancey Lespel was the next herald of Beauchamp's defeat. She +merely stated the fact that she had met the colonel and Mr. Blackburn +Tuckham driving on the outskirts of the town, and had promised to bring +Cecilia the final numbers of the poll. Without naming them, she unrolled +the greater business in her mind. + +'A man who in the middle of an Election goes over to France to fight a +duel, can hardly expect to win; he has all the morality of an English +borough opposed to him,' she said; and seeing the young lady stiffen: +'Oh! the duel is positive,' she dropped her voice. 'With the husband. +Who else could it be? And returns invalided. That is evidence. My +nephew Palmet has it from Vivian Ducie, and he is acquainted with her +tolerably intimately, and the story is, she was overtaken in her flight +in the night, and the duel followed at eight o'clock in the morning; but +her brother insisted on fighting for Captain Beauchamp, and I cannot tell +you how--but his place in it I can't explain--there was a beau jeune +homme, and it's quite possible that he should have been the person to +stand up against the marquis. At any rate, he insulted Captain +Beauchamp, or thought your hero had insulted him, and the duel was with +one or the other. It matters exceedingly little with whom, if a duel was +fought, and you see we have quite established that.' + +'I hope it is not true,' said Cecilia. + +'My dear, that is the Christian thing to do,' said Mrs. Lespel. +'Duelling is horrible: though those Romfreys!--and the Beauchamps were +just as bad, or nearly. Colonel Richard fought for a friend's wife or +sister. But in these days duelling is incredible. It was an inhuman +practice always, and it is now worse--it is a reach of manners. I would +hope it is not true; and you may mean that I have it from Lord Palmet. +But I know Vivian Ducie as well as I know my nephew, and if he distinctly +mentions an occurrence, we may too surely rely on the truth of it; he is +not a man to spread mischief. Are you unaware that he met Captain +Beauchamp at the chateau of the marquise? The whole story was acted +under his eyes. He had only to take up his pen. Generally he favours +me with his French gossip. I suppose there were circumstances in this +affair more suitable to Palmet than to me. He wrote a description of +Madame de Rouaillout that set Palmet strutting about for an hour. I have +no doubt she must be a very beautiful woman, for a Frenchwoman: not +regular features; expressive, capricious. Vivian Ducie lays great stress +on her eyes and eyebrows, and, I think, her hair. With a Frenchwoman's +figure, that is enough to make men crazy. He says her husband deserves-- +but what will not young men write? It is deeply to be regretted that +Englishmen abroad--women the same, I fear--get the Continental tone in +morals. But how Captain Beauchamp could expect to carry on an Election +and an intrigue together, only a head like his can tell us. Grancey is +in high indignation with him. It does not concern the Election, you can +imagine. Something that man Dr. Shrapnel has done, which he says Captain +Beauchamp could have prevented. Quarrels of men! I have instructed +Palmet to write to Vivian Ducie for a photograph of Madame de Rouaillout. +Do you know, one has a curiosity to see the face of the woman for whom a +man ruins himself. But I say again, he ought to be married.' + +'That there may be two victims?' Cecilia said it smiling. + +She was young in suffering, and thought, as the unseasoned and +inexperienced do, that a mask is a concealment. + +'Married--settled; to have him bound in honour,' said Mrs. Lespel. +'I had a conversation with him when he was at Itchincope; and his look, +and what I know of his father, that gallant and handsome Colonel Richard +Beauchamp, would give one a kind of confidence in him; supposing always +that he is not struck with one of those deadly passions that are like +snakes, like magic. I positively believe in them. I have seen them. +And if they end, they end as if the man were burnt out, and was ashes +inside; as you see Mr. Stukely Culbrett, all cynicism. You would not now +suspect him of a passion! It is true. Oh, I know it! That is what the +men go to. The women die. Vera Winter died at twenty-three. Caroline +Ormond was hardly older. You know her story; everybody knows it. The +most singular and convincing case was that of Lord Alfred Burnley and +Lady Susan Gardiner, wife of the general; and there was an instance of +two similarly afflicted--a very rare case, most rare: they never could +meet to part! It was almost ludicrous. It is now quite certain that +they did not conspire to meet. At last the absolute fatality became so +well understood by the persons immediately interested--You laugh?' + +'Do I laugh?' said Cecilia. + +'We should all know the world, my dear, and you are a strong head. The +knowledge is only dangerous for fools. And if romance is occasionally +ridiculous, as I own it can be, humdrum, I protest, is everlastingly so. +By-the-by, I should have told you that Captain Beauchamp was one hundred +and ninety below Captain Baskelett when the state of the poll was handed +to me. The gentleman driving with your father compared the Liberals to a +parachute cut away from the balloon. Is he army or navy?' + +'He is a barrister, and some cousin of Captain Beauchamp.' + +'I should not have taken him for a Beauchamp,' said Mrs. Lespel; and, +resuming her worldly sagacity, 'I should not like to be in opposition to +that young man.' + +She seemed to have a fancy unexpressed regarding Mr. Tuckham. Reminding +herself that she might be behind time at Itchincope, where the guests +would be numerous that evening, and the song of triumph loud, with +Captain Baskelett to lead it, she kissed the young lady she had +unintentionally been torturing so long, and drove away. + +Cecilia hoped it was not true. Her heart sank heavily under the belief +that it was. She imagined the world abusing Nevil and casting him out, +as those electors of Bevisham had just done, and impulsively she pleaded +for him, and became drowned in criminal blushes that forced her to defend +herself with a determination not to believe the dreadful story, though +she continued mitigating the wickedness of it; as if, by a singular +inversion of the fact, her clear good sense excused, and it was her heart +that condemned him. She dwelt fondly on an image of the 'gallant and +handsome Colonel Richard Beauchamp,' conjured up in her mind from the +fervour of Mrs. Lespel when speaking of Nevil's father, whose chivalry +threw a light on the son's, and whose errors, condoned by time, and with +a certain brilliancy playing above them, interceded strangely on behalf +of Nevil. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +A SHORT SIDELOOK AT THE ELECTION + +The brisk Election-day, unlike that wearisome but instructive canvass of +the Englishman in his castle vicatim, teaches little; and its humours are +those of a badly managed Christmas pantomime without a columbine--old +tricks, no graces. Nevertheless, things hang together so that it cannot +be passed over with a bare statement of the fact of the Liberal-Radical +defeat in Bevisham: the day was not without fruit in time to come for him +whom his commiserating admirers of the non-voting sex all round the +borough called the poor dear commander. Beauchamp's holiday out of +England had incited Dr. Shrapnel to break a positive restriction put upon +him by Jenny Denham, and actively pursue the canvass and the harangue in +person; by which conduct, as Jenny had foreseen, many temperate electors +were alienated from Commander Beauchamp, though no doubt the Radicals +were made compact: for they may be the skirmishing faction--poor +scattered fragments, none of them sufficiently downright for the other; +each outstripping each; rudimentary emperors, elementary prophets, +inspired physicians, nostrum-devouring patients, whatsoever you will; +and still here and there a man shall arise to march them in close +columns, if they can but trust him; in perfect subordination, a model +even for Tories while they keep shoulder to shoulder. And to behold such +a disciplined body is intoxicating to the eye of a leader accustomed to +count ahead upon vapourish abstractions, and therefore predisposed to add +a couple of noughts to every tangible figure in his grasp. Thus will a +realized fifty become five hundred or five thousand to him: the very +sense of number is instinct with multiplication in his mind; and those +years far on in advance, which he has been looking to with some fatigue +to the optics, will suddenly and rollickingly roll up to him at the +shutting of his eyes in a temporary fit of gratification. So, by looking +and by not looking, he achieves his phantom victory--embraces his cloud. + +Dr. Shrapnel conceived that the day was to be a Radical success; and he, +a citizen aged and exercised in reverses, so rounded by the habit of them +indeed as to tumble and recover himself on the wind of the blow that +struck him, was, it must be acknowledged, staggered and cast down when he +saw Beauchamp drop, knowing full well his regiment had polled to a man. +Radicals poll early; they would poll at cockcrow if they might; they +dance on the morning. As for their chagrin at noon, you will find +descriptions of it in the poet's Inferno. They are for lifting our clay +soil on a lever of Archimedes, and are not great mathematicians. They +have perchance a foot of our earth, and perpetually do they seem to be +producing an effect, perpetually does the whole land roll back on them. +You have not surely to be reminded that it hurts them; the weight is +immense. Dr. Shrapnel, however, speedily looked out again on his vast +horizon, though prostrate. He regained his height of stature with no +man's help. Success was but postponed for a generation or two. Is it so +very distant? Gaze on it with the eye of our parent orb! 'I shall not +see it here; you may,' he said to Jenny Denham; and he fortified his +outlook by saying to Mr. Lydiard that the Tories of our time walked, or +rather stuck, in the track of the Radicals of a generation back. Note, +then, that Radicals, always marching to the triumph, never taste it; and +for Tories it is Dead Sea fruit, ashes in their mouths! Those Liberals, +those temporisers, compromisers, a concourse of atoms! glorify +themselves in the animal satisfaction of sucking the juice of the fruit, +for which they pay with their souls. They have no true cohesion, for +they have no vital principle. + +Mr. Lydiard being a Liberal, bade the doctor not to forget the work of +the Liberals, who touched on Tory and Radical with a pretty steady swing, +from side to side, in the manner of the pendulum of a clock, which is the +clock's life, remember that. The Liberals are the professors of the +practicable in politics. + +'A suitable image for time-servers!' Dr. Shrapnel exclaimed, intolerant +of any mention of the Liberals as a party, especially in the hour of +Radical discomfiture, when the fact that compromisers should exist +exasperates men of a principle. 'Your Liberals are the band of Pyrrhus, +an army of bastards, mercenaries professing the practicable for pay. +They know us the motive force, the Tories the resisting power, and they +feign to aid us in battering our enemy, that they may stop the shock. +We fight, they profit. What are they? Stranded Whigs, crotchetty +manufacturers; dissentient religionists; the half-minded, the hare- +hearted; the I would and I would-not--shifty creatures, with youth's +enthusiasm decaying in them, and a purse beginning to jingle; fearing +lest we do too much for safety, our enemy not enough for safety. They a +party? Let them take action and see! We stand a thousand defeats; they +not one! Compromise begat them. Once let them leave sucking the teats +of compromise, yea, once put on the air of men who fight and die for a +cause, they fly to pieces. And whither the fragments? Chiefly, my +friend, into the Tory ranks. Seriously so I say. You between future and +past are for the present--but with the hunted look behind of all godless +livers in the present. You Liberals are Tories with foresight, Radicals +without faith. You start, in fear of Toryism, on an errand of +Radicalism, and in fear of Radicalism to Toryism you draw back. There is +your pendulum-swing!' + +Lectures to this effect were delivered by Dr. Shrapnel throughout the +day, for his private spiritual solace it may be supposed, unto Lydiard, +Turbot, Beauchamp, or whomsoever the man chancing to be near him, and +never did Sir Oracle wear so extraordinary a garb. The favourite +missiles of the day were flour-bags. Dr. Shrapnel's uncommon height, and +his outrageous long brown coat, would have been sufficient to attract +them, without the reputation he had for desiring to subvert everything +old English. The first discharges gave him the appearance of a thawing +snowman. Drenchings of water turned the flour to ribs of paste, and in +colour at least he looked legitimately the cook's own spitted hare, +escaped from her basting ladle, elongated on two legs. It ensued that +whenever he was caught sight of, as he walked unconcernedly about, the +young street-professors of the decorative arts were seized with a frenzy +to add their share to the whitening of him, until he might have been +taken for a miller that had gone bodily through his meal. The popular +cry proclaimed him a ghost, and he walked like one, impassive, blanched, +and silent amid the uproar of mobs of jolly ruffians, for each of whom it +was a point of honour to have a shy at old Shrapnel. + +Clad in this preparation of pie-crust, he called from time to time at +Beauchamp's hotel, and renewed his monologue upon that Radical empire in +the future which was for ever in the future for the pioneers of men, yet +not the less their empire. 'Do we live in our bodies?' quoth he, +replying to his fiery interrogation: 'Ay, the Tories! the Liberals!' +They lived in their bodies. Not one syllable of personal consolation did +he vouchsafe to Beauchamp. He did not imagine it could be required by a +man who had bathed in the pure springs of Radicalism; and it should be +remarked that Beauchamp deceived him by imitating his air of happy +abstraction, or subordination of the faculties to a distant view, +comparable to a ship's crew in difficulties receiving the report of the +man at the masthead. Beauchamp deceived Miss Denham too, and himself, +by saying, as if he cherished the philosophy of defeat, besides the +resolution to fight on: + +'It's only a skirmish lost, and that counts for nothing in a battle +without end: it must be incessant.' + +'But does incessant battling keep the intellect clear?' was her +memorable answer. + +He glanced at Lydiard, to indicate that it came of that gentleman's +influence upon her mind. It was impossible for him to think that women +thought. The idea of a pretty woman exercising her mind independently, +and moreover moving him to examine his own, made him smile. Could a +sweet-faced girl, the nearest to Renee in grace of manner and in feature +of all women known to him, originate a sentence that would set him +reflecting? He was unable to forget it, though he allowed her no credit +for it. + +On the other hand, his admiration of her devotedness to Dr. Shrapnel was +unbounded. There shone a strictly feminine quality! according to the +romantic visions of the sex entertained by Commander Beauchamp, and by +others who would be the objects of it. But not alone the passive virtues +were exhibited by Jenny Denham: she proved that she had high courage. +No remonstrance could restrain Dr. Shrapnel from going out to watch the +struggle, and she went with him as a matter of course on each occasion. +Her dress bore witness to her running the gauntlet beside him. + +'It was not thrown at me purposely,' she said, to quiet Beauchamp's +wrath. She saved the doctor from being rough mobbed. Once when they +were surrounded she fastened his arm under hers, and by simply moving on +with an unswerving air of serenity obtained a passage for him. So much +did she make herself respected, that the gallant rascals became emulous +in dexterity to avoid powdering her, by loudly execrating any but dead +shots at the detested one, and certain boys were maltreated for an ardour +involving clumsiness. A young genius of this horde conceiving, in the +spirit of the inventors of our improved modern ordnance, that it was vain +to cast missiles which left a thing standing, hurled a stone wrapped in +paper. It missed its mark. Jenny said nothing about it. The day closed +with a comfortable fight or two in by-quarters of the town, probably to +prove that an undaunted English spirit, spite of fickle Fortune, survived +in our muscles. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +TOUCHING A YOUNG LADY'S HEART AND HER INTELLECT + +Mr. Tuckham found his way to Dr. Shrapnel's cottage to see his kinsman on +the day after the election. There was a dinner in honour of the Members +for Bevisham at Mount Laurels in the evening, and he was five minutes +behind military time when he entered the restive drawing-room and stood +before the colonel. No sooner had he stated that he had been under the +roof of Dr. Shrapnel, than his unpunctuality was immediately overlooked +in the burst of impatience evoked by the name. + +'That pestilent fellow!' Colonel Halkett ejaculated. 'I understand he +has had the impudence to serve a notice on Grancey Lespel about +encroachments on common land.' + +Some one described Dr. Shrapnel's appearance under the flour storm. + +'He deserves anything,' said the colonel, consulting his mantelpiece +clock. + +Captain Baskelett observed: 'I shall have my account to settle with Dr. +Shrapnel.' He spoke like a man having a right to be indignant, but +excepting that the doctor had bestowed nicknames upon him in a speech at +a meeting, no one could discover the grounds for it. He nodded briefly. +A Radical apple had struck him on the left cheekbone as he performed his +triumphal drive through the town, and a slight disfigurement remained, to +which his hand was applied sympathetically at intervals, for the cheek- +bone was prominent in his countenance, and did not well bear enlargement. +And when a fortunate gentleman, desiring to be still more fortunate, +would display the winning amiability of his character, distension of one +cheek gives him an afflictingly false look of sweetness. + +The bent of his mind, nevertheless, was to please Miss Halkett. He would +be smiling, and intimately smiling. Aware that she had a kind of pitiful +sentiment for Nevil, he smiled over Nevil--poor Nevil! 'I give you my +word, Miss Halkett, old Nevil was off his head yesterday. I daresay he +meant to be civil. I met him; I called out to him, "Good day, cousin, +I'm afraid you're beaten" and says he, "I fancy you've gained it, uncle." +He didn't know where he was; all abroad, poor boy. Uncle!--to me!' + +Miss Halkett would have accepted the instance for a proof of Nevil's +distraction, had not Mr. Seymour Austin, who sat beside her, laughed and +said to her: 'I suppose "uncle" was a chance shot, but it's equal to a +poetic epithet in the light it casts on the story.' Then it seemed to +her that Nevil had been keenly quick, and Captain Baskelett's +impenetrability was a sign of his density. Her mood was to think Nevil +Beauchamp only too quick, too adventurous and restless: one that wrecked +brilliant gifts in a too general warfare; a lover of hazards, a hater of +laws. Her eyes flew over Captain Baskelett as she imagined Nevil +addressing him as uncle, and, to put aside a spirit of mockery rising +within her, she hinted a wish to hear Seymour Austin's opinion of Mr. +Tuckham. He condensed it in an interrogative tone: 'The other extreme?' +The Tory extreme of Radical Nevil Beauchamp. She assented. Mr. Tuckham +was at that moment prophesying the Torification of mankind; not as the +trembling venturesome idea which we cast on doubtful winds, but as a ship +is launched to ride the waters, with huzzas for a thing accomplished. +Mr. Austin raised his shoulders imperceptibly, saying to Miss Halkett: +'The turn will come to us as to others--and go. Nothing earthly can +escape that revolution. We have to meet it with a policy, and let it +pass with measures carried and our hands washed of some of our party +sins. I am, I hope, true to my party, but the enthusiasm of party I do +not share. He is right, however, when he accuses the nation of cowardice +for the last ten years. One third of the Liberals have been with us at +heart, and dared not speak, and we dared not say what we wished. We +accepted a compact that satisfied us both--satisfied us better than when +we were opposed by Whigs--that is, the Liberal reigned, and we governed: +and I should add, a very clever juggler was our common chief. Now we +have the consequences of hollow peacemaking, in a suffrage that bids fair +to extend to the wearing of hats and boots for a qualification. The +moral of it seems to be that cowardice is even worse for nations than for +individual men, though the consequences come on us more slowly.' + +'You spoke of party sins,' Miss Halkett said incredulously. + +'I shall think we are the redoubtable party when we admit the charge.' + +'Are you alluding to the landowners?' + +'Like the land itself, they have rich veins in heavy matter. For +instance, the increasing wealth of the country is largely recruiting our +ranks; and we shall be tempted to mistake numbers for strength, and +perhaps again be reading Conservatism for a special thing of our own--a +fortification. That would be a party sin. Conservatism is a principle +of government; the best because the safest for an old country; and the +guarantee that we do not lose the wisdom of past experience in our +struggle with what is doubtful. Liberalism stakes too much on the chance +of gain. It is uncomfortably seated on half-a-dozen horses; and it has +to feed them too, and on varieties of corn.' + +'Yes,' Miss Halkett said, pausing, 'and I know you would not talk down to +me, but the use of imagery makes me feel that I am addressed as a +primitive intelligence.' + +'That's the fault of my trying at condensation, as the hieroglyphists put +an animal for a paragraph. I am incorrigible, you see; but the lecture +in prose must be for by-and-by, if you care to have it.' + +'If you care to read it to me. Did a single hieroglyphic figure stand +for so much?' + +'I have never deciphered one.' + +'You have been speaking to me too long in earnest, Mr. Austin!' + +'I accept the admonition, though it is wider than the truth. Have you +ever consented to listen to politics before?' + +Cecilia reddened faintly, thinking of him who had taught her to listen, +and of her previous contempt of the subject. + +A political exposition devoid of imagery was given to her next day on the +sunny South-western terrace of Mount Laurels, when it was only by +mentally translating it into imagery that she could advance a step beside +her intellectual guide; and she was ashamed of the volatility of her +ideas. She was constantly comparing Mr. Austin and Nevil Beauchamp, +seeing that the senior and the junior both talked to her with the +familiar recognition of her understanding which was a compliment without +the gross corporeal phrase. But now she made another discovery, that +should have been infinitely more of a compliment, and it was bewildering, +if not repulsive to her:--could it be credited? Mr. Austin was a firm +believer in new and higher destinies for women. He went farther than she +could concede the right of human speculation to go; he was, in fact, as +Radical there as Nevil Beauchamp politically; and would not the latter +innovator stare, perchance frown conservatively, at a prospect of woman +taking counsel, in council, with men upon public affairs, like the women +in the Germania! Mr. Austin, if this time he talked in earnest, deemed +that Englishwomen were on the road to win such a promotion, and would win +it ultimately. He said soberly that he saw more certain indications of +the reality of progress among women than any at present shown by men. +And he was professedly temperate. He was but for opening avenues to the +means of livelihood for them, and leaving it to their strength to conquer +the position they might wish to win. His belief that they would do so +was the revolutionary sign. + +'Are there points of likeness between Radicals and Tories?' she +inquired. + +'I suspect a cousinship in extremes,' he answered. + +'If one might be present at an argument,' said she. + +'We have only to meet to fly apart as wide as the Poles,' Mr. Austin +rejoined. + +But she had not spoken of a particular person to meet him; and how, then, +had she betrayed herself? She fancied he looked unwontedly arch as he +resumed: + +'The end of the argument would see us each entrenched in his party. +Suppose me to be telling your Radical friend such truisms as that we +English have not grown in a day, and were not originally made free and +equal by decree; that we have grown, and must continue to grow, by the +aid and the development of our strength; that ours is a fairly legible +history, and a fair example of the good and the bad in human growth; that +his landowner and his peasant have no clear case of right and wrong to +divide them, one being the descendant of strong men, the other of weak +ones; and that the former may sink, the latter may rise--there is no +artificial obstruction; and if it is difficult to rise, it is easy to +sink. Your Radical friend, who would bring them to a level by +proclamation, could not adopt a surer method for destroying the manhood +of a people: he is for doctoring wooden men, and I for not letting our +stout English be cut down short as Laplanders; he would have them in a +forcing house, and I in open air, as hitherto. Do you perceive a +discussion? and you apprehend the nature of it. We have nerves. That is +why it is better for men of extremely opposite opinions not to meet. I +dare say Radicalism has a function, and so long as it respects the laws I +am ready to encounter it where it cannot be avoided. Pardon my prosing.' + +'Recommend me some hard books to study through the Winter,' said Cecilia, +refreshed by a discourse that touched no emotions, as by a febrifuge. +Could Nevil reply to it? She fancied him replying, with that wild head +of his--wildest of natures. She fancied also that her wish was like Mr. +Austin's not to meet him. She was enjoying a little rest. + +It was not quite generous in Mr. Austin to assume that 'her Radical +friend' had been prompting her. However, she thanked him in her heart +for the calm he had given her. To be able to imagine Nevil Beauchamp +intellectually erratic was a tonic satisfaction to the proud young lady, +ashamed of a bondage that the bracing and pointing of her critical powers +helped her to forget. She had always preferred the society of men of Mr. +Austin's age. How old was he? Her father would know. And why was he +unmarried? A light frost had settled on the hair about his temples; his +forehead was lightly wrinkled; but his mouth and smile, and his eyes, +were lively as a young man's, with more in them. His age must be +something less than fifty. O for peace! she sighed. When he stepped +into his carriage, and stood up in it to wave adieu to her, she thought +his face and figure a perfect example of an English gentleman in his +prime. + +Captain Baskelett requested the favour of five minutes of conversation +with Miss Halkett before he followed Mr. Austin, on his way to Steynham. + +She returned from that colloquy to her father and Mr. Tuckham. The +colonel looked straight in her face, with an elevation of the brows. +To these points of interrogation she answered with a placid fall of her +eyelids. He sounded a note of approbation in his throat. + +All the company having departed, Mr. Tuckham for the first time spoke of +his interview with his kinsman Beauchamp. Yesterday evening he had +slurred it, as if he had nothing to relate, except the finding of an old +schoolfellow at Dr. Shrapnel's named Lydiard, a man of ability fool +enough to have turned author on no income. But that which had appeared +to Miss Halkett a want of observancy, became attributable to depth of +character on its being clear that he had waited for the departure of the +transient guests of the house, to pour forth his impressions without +holding up his kinsman to public scorn. He considered Shrapnel mad and +Beauchamp mad. No such grotesque old monster as Dr. Shrapnel had he seen +in the course of his travels. He had never listened to a madman running +loose who was at all up to Beauchamp. At a loss for words to paint him, +he said: 'Beauchamp seems to have a head like a firework manufactory, +he's perfectly pyrocephalic.' For an example of Dr. Shrapnel's talk: 'I +happened,' said Mr. Tuckham, 'casually, meaning no harm, and not +supposing I was throwing a lighted match on powder, to mention the word +Providence. I found myself immediately confronted by Shrapnel-- +overtopped, I should say. He is a lank giant of about seven feet in +height; the kind of show man that used to go about in caravans over the +country; and he began rocking over me like a poplar in a gale, and cries +out: "Stay there! away with that! Providence? Can you set a thought on +Providence, not seeking to propitiate it? And have you not there the +damning proof that you are at the foot of an Idol?"--The old idea about a +special Providence, I suppose. These fellows have nothing new but their +trimmings. And he went on with: "Ay, invisible," and his arm chopping, +"but an Idol! an Idol!"--I was to think of "nought but Laws." He +admitted there might be one above the Laws. "To realize him is to fry +the brains in their pan," says he, and struck his forehead--a slap: and +off he walked down the garden, with his hands at his coat-tails. I +venture to say it may be taken for a proof of incipient insanity to care +to hear such a fellow twice. And Beauchamp holds him up for a sage and a +prophet!' + +'He is a very dangerous dog,' said Colonel Halkett. + +'The best of it is--and I take this for the strongest possible proof that +Beauchamp is mad--Shrapnel stands for an advocate of morality against +him. I'll speak of it . . . .' + +Mr. Tuckham nodded to the colonel, who said: 'Speak out. My daughter has +been educated for a woman of the world.' + +'Well, sir, it's nothing to offend a young lady's ears. Beauchamp is for +socially enfranchising the sex--that is all. Quite enough. Not a whit +politically. Love is to be the test: and if a lady ceases to love her +husband . . . if she sets her fancy elsewhere, she's bound to leave +him. The laws are tyrannical, our objections are cowardly. Well, this +Dr. Shrapnel harangued about society; and men as well as women are to +sacrifice their passions on that altar. If he could burlesque himself it +would be in coming out as a cleric--the old Pagan!' + +'Did he convince Captain Beauchamp?' the colonel asked, manifestly for +his daughter to hear the reply; which was: 'Oh dear, no!' + +'Were you able to gather from Captain Beauchamp's remarks whether he is +much disappointed by the result of the election?' said Cecilia. + +Mr. Tuckham could tell her only that Captain Beauchamp was incensed +against an elector named Tomlinson for withdrawing a promised vote on +account of lying rumours, and elated by the conquest of a Mr. Carpendike, +who was reckoned a tough one to drag by the neck. 'The only sane +people in the house are a Miss Denham and the cook: I lunched there,' +Mr. Tuckham nodded approvingly. 'Lydiard must be mad. What he's wasting +his time there for I can't guess. He says he's engaged there in writing +a prefatory essay to a new publication of Harry Denham's poems--whoever +that may be. And why wasting it there? I don't like it. He ought to be +earning his bread. He'll be sure to be borrowing money by-and-by. We've +got ten thousand too many fellows writing already, and they 've seen a +few inches of the world, on the Continent! He can write. But it's all +unproductive-dead weight on the country, these fellows with their +writings! He says Beauchamp's praise of Miss Denham is quite deserved. +He tells me, that at great peril to herself--and she nearly had her arm +broken by a stone he saved Shrapnel from rough usage on the election- +day.' + +'Hum!' Colonel Halkett grunted significantly. + +'So I thought,' Mr. Tuckham responded. 'One doesn't want the man to be +hurt, but he ought to be put down in some way. My belief is he's a Fire- +worshipper. I warrant I would extinguish him if he came before me. He's +an incendiary, at any rate.' + +'Do you think,' said Cecilia, 'that Captain Beauchamp is now satisfied +with his experience of politics?' + +'Dear me, no,' said Mr. Tuckham. 'It's the opening of a campaign. He's +off to the North, after he has been to Sussex and Bucks. He's to be at +it all his life. One thing he shows common sense in. If I heard him +once I heard him say half-a-dozen times, that he must have money:-- +"I must have money!" And so he must if he 's to head the Radicals. He +wants to start a newspaper! Is he likely to get money from his uncle +Romfrey?' + +'Not for his present plan of campaign.' Colonel Halkett enunciated the +military word sarcastically. 'Let's hope he won't get money.' + +'He says he must have it.' + +'Who is to stand and deliver, then?' + +'I don't know; I only repeat what he says: unless he has an eye on my +Aunt Beauchamp; and I doubt his luck there, if he wants money for +political campaigning.' + +'Money!' Colonel Halkett ejaculated. + +That word too was in the heart of the heiress. + +Nevil must have money! Could he have said it? Ordinary men might say or +think it inoffensively; Captain Baskelett, for instance: but not Nevil +Beauchamp. + +Captain Baskelett, as she had conveyed the information to her father for +his comfort in the dumb domestic language familiar between them on these +occasions, had proposed to her unavailingly. Italian and English +gentlemen were in the list of her rejected suitors: and hitherto she had +seen them come and go, one might say, from a watchtower in the skies. +None of them was the ideal she waited for: what their feelings were, +their wishes, their aims, she had not reflected on. They dotted the +landscape beneath the unassailable heights, busy after their fashion, +somewhat quaint, much like the pigmy husbandmen in the fields were to the +giant's daughter, who had more curiosity than Cecilia. But Nevil +Beauchamp had compelled her to quit her lofty station, pulled her low as +the littlest of women that throb and flush at one man's footstep: and +being well able to read the nature and aspirations of Captain Baskelett, +it was with the knowledge of her having been proposed to as heiress of a +great fortune that she chanced to hear of Nevil's resolve to have money. +If he did say it! And was anything likelier? was anything unlikelier? +His foreign love denied to him, why, now he devoted himself to money: +money--the last consideration of a man so single-mindedly generous as he! +But he must have money to pursue his contest! But would he forfeit the +truth in him for money for any purpose? + +The debate on this question grew as incessant as the thought of him. +Was it not to be supposed that the madness of the pursuit of his +political chimaera might change his character? + +She hoped he would not come to Mount Laurels, thinking she should esteem +him less if he did; knowing that her defence of him, on her own behalf, +against herself, depended now on an esteem lodged perhaps in her +wilfulness. Yet if he did not come, what an Arctic world! + +He came on a November afternoon when the woods glowed, and no sun. The +day was narrowed in mist from earth to heaven: a moveless and possessing +mist. It left space overhead for one wreath of high cloud mixed with +touches of washed red upon moist blue, still as the mist, insensibly +passing into it. Wet webs crossed the grass, chill in the feeble light. +The last flowers of the garden bowed to decay. Dead leaves, red and +brown and spotted yellow, fell straight around the stems of trees, lying +thick. The glow was universal, and the chill. + +Cecilia sat sketching the scene at a window of her study, on the level of +the drawing-room, and he stood by outside till she saw him. He greeted +her through the glass, then went round to the hall door, giving her time +to recover, if only her heart had been less shaken. + +Their meeting was like the features of the day she set her brush to +picture: characteristic of a season rather than cheerless in tone, though +it breathed little cheer. Is there not a pleasure in contemplating that +which is characteristic? Her unfinished sketch recalled him after he had +gone: he lived in it, to startle her again, and bid her heart gallop and +her cheeks burn. The question occurred to her: May not one love, not +craving to be beloved? Such a love does not sap our pride, but supports +it; increases rather than diminishes our noble self-esteem. To attain +such a love the martyrs writhed up to the crown of saints. For a while +Cecilia revelled in the thought that she could love in this most saint- +like manner. How they fled, the sordid ideas of him which accused him +of the world's one passion, and were transferred to her own bosom in +reproach that she should have imagined them existing in his! He talked +simply and sweetly of his defeat, of time wasted away from the canvass, +of loss of money: and he had little to spare, he said. The water-colour +drawing interested him. He said he envied her that power of isolation, +and the eye for beauty in every season. She opened a portfolio of Mr. +Tuckham's water-colour drawings in every clime; scenes of Europe, Asia, +and the Americas; and he was to be excused for not caring to look through +them. His remark, that they seemed hard and dogged, was not so unjust, +she thought, smiling to think of the critic criticized. His wonderment +that a young man like his Lancastrian cousin should be 'an unmitigated +Tory' was perhaps natural. + +Cecilia said, 'Yet I cannot discern in him a veneration for aristocracy.' +'That's not wanted for modern Toryism,' said Nevil. 'One may venerate +old families when they show the blood of the founder, and are not dead +wood. I do. And I believe the blood of the founder, though the man may +have been a savage and a robber, had in his day finer elements in it than +were common. But let me say at a meeting that I respect true +aristocracy, I hear a growl and a hiss beginning: why? Don't judge them +hastily: because the people have seen the aristocracy opposed to the +cause that was weak, and only submitting to it when it commanded them to +resist at their peril; clinging to traditions, and not anywhere standing +for humanity: much more a herd than the people themselves. Ah! well, we +won't talk of it now. I say that is no aristocracy, if it does not head +the people in virtue--military, political, national: I mean the qualities +required by the times for leadership. I won't bother you with my ideas +now. I love to see you paint-brush in hand.' + +Her brush trembled on the illumination of a scarlet maple. 'In this +country we were not originally made free and equal by decree, Nevil.' + +'No,' said he, 'and I cast no blame on our farthest ancestors.' + +It struck her that this might be an outline of a reply to Mr. Austin. + +'So you have been thinking over it?' he asked. + +'Not to conclusions,' she said, trying to retain in her mind the +evanescent suggestiveness of his previous remark, and vexed to find +herself upon nothing but a devious phosphorescent trail there. + +Her forehead betrayed the unwonted mental action. He cried out for +pardon. 'What right have I to bother you? I see it annoys you. The +truth is, I came for peace. I think of you when they talk of English +homes.' + +She felt then that he was comparing her home with another, a foreign +home. After he had gone she felt that there had been a comparison of two +persons. She remembered one of his observations: 'Few women seem to have +courage'; when his look at her was for an instant one of scrutiny or +calculation. Under a look like that we perceive that we are being +weighed. She had no clue to tell her what it signified. + +Glorious and solely glorious love, that has risen above emotion, quite +independent of craving! That is to be the bird of upper air, poised on +his wings. It is a home in the sky. Cecilia took possession of it +systematically, not questioning whether it would last; like one who is +too enamoured of the habitation to object to be a tenant-at-will. If it +was cold, it was in recompense immeasurably lofty, a star-girdled place; +and dwelling in it she could avow to herself the secret which was now +working self-deception, and still preserve her pride unwounded. Her +womanly pride, she would have said in vindication of it: but Cecilia +Halkett's pride went far beyond the merely womanly. + +Thus she was assisted to endure a journey down to Wales, where Nevil +would surely not be. She passed a Winter without seeing him. She +returned to Mount Laurels from London at Easter, and went on a visit to +Steynham, and back to London, having sight of him nowhere, still firm in +the thought that she loved ethereally, to bless, forgive, direct, +encourage, pray for him, impersonally. She read certain speeches +delivered by Nevil at assemblies of Liberals or Radicals, which were +reported in papers in the easy irony of the style of here and there a +sentence, here and there a summary: salient quotations interspersed with +running abstracts: a style terrible to friends of the speaker so +reported, overwhelming if they differ in opinion: yet her charity was a +match for it. She was obliged to have recourse to charity, it should be +observed. Her father drew her attention to the spectacle of R. C. S. +Nevil Beauchamp, Commander R.N., fighting those reporters with letters in +the newspapers, and the dry editorial comment flanked by three stars on +the left. He was shocked to see a gentleman writing such letters to the +papers. 'But one thing hangs on another,' said he. + +'But you seem angry with Nevil, papa,' said she. + +'I do hate a turbulent, restless fellow, my dear,' the colonel burst out. + +'Papa, he has really been unfairly reported.' + +Cecilia laid three privately-printed full reports of Commander +Beauchamp's speeches (very carefully corrected by him) before her father. + +He suffered his eye to run down a page. 'Is it possible you read this?-- +this trash!--dangerous folly, I call it.' + +Cecilia's reply, 'In the interests of justice, I do,' was meant to +express her pure impartiality. By a toleration of what is detested we +expose ourselves to the keenness of an adverse mind. + +'Does he write to you, too?' said the colonel. + +She answered: 'Oh, no; I am not a politician.' + +'He seems to have expected you to read those tracts of his, though.' + +'Yes, I think he would convert me if he could,' said Cecilia. + +'Though you're not a politician.' + +'He relies on the views he delivers in public, rather than on writing to +persuade; that was my meaning, papa.' + +'Very well,' said the colonel, not caring to show his anxiety. + +Mr. Tuckham dined with them frequently in London. This gentleman betrayed +his accomplishments one by one. He sketched, and was no artist; he +planted, and was no gardener; he touched the piano neatly, and was no +musician; he sang, and he had no voice. Apparently he tried his hand at +anything, for the privilege of speaking decisively upon all things. He +accompanied the colonel and his daughter on a day's expedition to Mrs. +Beauchamp, on the Upper Thames, and they agreed that he shone to great +advantage in her society. Mrs. Beauchamp said she had seen her great- +nephew Nevil, but without a comment on his conduct or his person; grave +silence. Reflecting on it, Cecilia grew indignant at the thought that +Mr. Tuckham might have been acting a sinister part. Mrs. Beauchamp +alluded to a newspaper article of her favourite great-nephew Blackburn, +written, Cecilia knew through her father, to controvert some tremendous +proposition of Nevil's. That was writing, Mrs. Beauchamp said. 'I am +not in the habit of fearing a conflict, so long as we have stout +defenders. I rather like it,' she said. + +The colonel entertained Mrs. Beauchamp, while Mr. Tuckham led Miss +Halkett over the garden. Cecilia considered that his remarks upon Nevil +were insolent. + +'Seriously, Miss Halkett, to take him at his best, he is a very good +fellow, I don't doubt; I am told so; and a capital fellow among men, a +good friend and not a bad boon-fellow, and for that matter, the smoking- +room is a better test than the drawing-room; all he wants is emphatically +school--school--school. I have recommended the simple iteration of that +one word in answer to him at his meetings, and the printing of it as a +foot-note to his letters.' + +Cecilia's combative spirit precipitated her to say, 'I hear the mob in it +shouting Captain Beauchamp down.' + +'Ay,' said Mr. Tuckham, 'it would be setting the mob to shout wisely at +last.' + +'The mob is a wild beast.' + +'Then we should hear wisdom coming out of the mouth of the wild beast.' + +'Men have the phrase, "fair play."' + +'Fair play, I say, is not applicable to a man who deliberately goes about +to stir the wild beast. He is laughed at, plucked, hustled, and robbed, +by those who deafen him with their "plaudits"--their roars. Did you see +his advertisement of a great-coat, lost at some rapscallion gathering +down in the North, near my part of the country? A great-coat and a +packet of letters. He offers a reward of L10. But that's honest robbery +compared with the bleeding he'll get.' + +'Do you know Mr. Seymour Austin?' Miss Halkett asked him. + +'I met him once at your father's table. Why?' + +'I think you would like to listen to him.' + +'Yes, my fault is not listening enough,' said Mr. Tuckham. + +He was capable of receiving correction. + +Her father told her he was indebted to Mr. Tuckham past payment in coin, +for services rendered by him on a trying occasion among the miners in +Wales during the first spring month. 'I dare say he can speak +effectively to miners,' Cecilia said, outvying the contemptuous young man +in superciliousness, but with effort and not with satisfaction. + +She left London in July, two days before her father could be induced to +return to Mount Laurels. Feverish, and strangely subject to caprices +now, she chose the longer way round by Sussex, and alighted at the +station near Steynham to call on Mrs. Culling, whom she knew to be at the +Hall, preparing it for Mr. Romfrey's occupation. In imitation of her +father she was Rosamund's fast friend, though she had never quite +realized her position, and did not thoroughly understand her. Would it +not please her father to hear that she had chosen the tedious route for +the purpose of visiting this lady, whose champion he was? + +So she went to Steynham, and for hours she heard talk of no one, of +nothing, but her friend Nevil. Cecilia was on her guard against +Rosamund's defence of his conduct in France. The declaration that there +had been no misbehaviour at all could not be accepted; but the news of +Mr. Romfrey's having installed Nevil in Holdesbury to manage that +property, and of his having mooted to her father the question of an +alliance between her and Nevil, was wonderful. Rosamund could not say +what answer her father had made: hardly favourable, Cecilia supposed, +since he had not spoken of the circumstance to her. But Mr. Romfrey's +influence with him would certainly be powerful. + +It was to be assumed, also, that Nevil had been consulted by his uncle. +Rosamund said full-heartedly that this alliance had for years been her +life's desire, and then she let the matter pass, nor did she once loop at +Cecilia searchingly, or seem to wish to probe her. Cecilia disagreed +with Rosamund on an insignificant point in relation to something Mr. +Romfrey and Captain Baskelett had done, and, as far as she could +recollect subsequently, there was a packet of letters, or a pocket-book +containing letters of Nevil's which he had lost, and which had been +forwarded to Mr. Romfrey; for the pocket-book was originally his, and his +address was printed inside. But among these letters was one from Dr. +Shrapnel to Nevil: a letter so horrible that Rosamund frowned at the +reminiscence of it, holding it to be too horrible for the quotation of a +sentence. She owned she had forgotten any three consecutive words. Her +known dislike of Captain Baskelett, however, was insufficient to make her +see that it was unjustifiable in him to run about London reading it, with +comments of the cruellest. Rosamund's greater detestation of Dr. +Shrapnel blinded her to the offence committed by the man she would +otherwise have been very ready to scorn. So small did the circumstance +appear to Cecilia, notwithstanding her gentle opposition at the time she +listened to it, that she never thought of mentioning it to her father, +and only remembered it when Captain Baskelett, with Lord Palmet in his +company, presented himself at Mount Laurels, and proposed to the colonel +to read to him 'a letter from that scoundrelly old Shrapnel to Nevil +Beauchamp, upon women, wives, thrones, republics, British loyalty, et +caetera,'--an et caetera that rolled a series of tremendous +reverberations down the list of all things held precious by freeborn +Englishmen. + +She would have prevented the reading. But the colonel would have it. + +'Read on,' said he. 'Mr. Romfrey saw no harm.' + +Captain Baskelett held up Dr. Shrapnel's letter to Commander Beauchamp, +at about half a yard's distance on the level of his chin, as a big- +chested singer in a concert-room holds his music-scroll. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE EPISTLE OF DR. SHRAPNEL TO COMMANDER BEAUCHAMP + +Before we give ear to the recital of Dr. Shrapnel's letter to his pupil +in politics by the mouth of Captain Baskelett, it is necessary to defend +this gentleman, as he would handsomely have defended himself, from the +charge that he entertained ultimate designs in regard to the really +abominable scrawl, which was like a child's drawing of ocean with here +and there a sail capsized, and excited his disgust almost as much as did +the contents his great indignation. He was prepared to read it, and +stood blown out for the task, but it was temporarily too much for him. +'My dear Colonel, look at it, I entreat you,' he said, handing the letter +for exhibition, after fixing his eye-glass, and dropping it in repulsion. +The common sentiment of mankind is offended by heterodoxy in mean attire; +for there we see the self-convicted villain--the criminal caught in the +act; we try it and convict it by instinct without the ceremony of a jury; +and so thoroughly aware of our promptitude in this respect has our arch- +enemy become since his mediaeval disgraces that his particular advice to +his followers is now to scrupulously copy the world in externals; never +to appear poorly clothed, nor to impart deceptive communications in bad +handwriting. We can tell black from white, and our sagacity has taught +him a lesson. + +Colonel Halkett glanced at the detestable penmanship. Lord Palmet did +the same, and cried, 'Why, it's worse than mine!' + +Cecilia had protested against the reading of the letter, and she declined +to look at the writing. She was entreated, adjured to look, in Captain +Baskelett's peculiarly pursuing fashion; a 'nay, but you shall,' that she +had been subjected to previously, and would have consented to run like a +schoolgirl to escape from. + +To resume the defence of him: he was a man incapable of forming plots, +because his head would not hold them. He was an impulsive man, who could +impale a character of either sex by narrating fables touching persons of +whom he thought lightly, and that being done he was devoid of malice, +unless by chance his feelings or his interests were so aggrieved that his +original haphazard impulse was bent to embrace new circumstances and be +the parent of a line of successive impulses, in the main resembling an +extremely far-sighted plot, whereat he gazed back with fondness, all the +while protesting sincerely his perfect innocence of anything of the kind. +Circumstances will often interwind with the moods of simply irritated +men. In the present instance he could just perceive what might +immediately come of his reading out of this atrocious epistle wherein +Nevil Beauchamp was displayed the dangling puppet of a mountebank wire- +pulley, infidel, agitator, leveller, and scoundrel. Cognizant of Mr. +Romfrey's overtures to Colonel Halkett, he traced them to that scheming +woman in the house at Steynham, and he was of opinion that it was a +friendly and good thing to do to let the old colonel and Cissy Halkett +know Mr. Nevil through a bit of his correspondence. This, then, was a +matter of business and duty that furnished an excuse for his going out of +his, way to call at Mount Laurels on the old familiar footing, so as not +to alarm the heiress. + +A warrior accustomed to wear the burnished breastplates between London +and Windsor has, we know, more need to withstand than to discharge the +shafts of amorous passion; he is indeed, as an object of beauty, +notoriously compelled to be of the fair sex in his tactics, and must +practise the arts and whims of nymphs to preserve himself: and no doubt +it was the case with the famous Captain Baskelett, in whose mind sweet +ladies held the place that the pensive politician gives to the masses, +dreadful in their hatred, almost as dreadful in their affection. But an +heiress is a distinct species among women; he hungered for the heiress; +his elevation to Parliament made him regard her as both the ornament and +the prop of his position; and it should be added that his pride, all the +habits of thought of a conqueror of women, had been shocked by that +stupefying rejection of him, which Cecilia had intimated to her father +with the mere lowering of her eyelids. Conceive the highest bidder at an +auction hearing the article announce that it will not have him! Captain +Baskelett talked of it everywhere for a month or so:--the girl could not +know her own mind, for she suited him exactly! and he requested the world +to partake of his astonishment. Chronicles of the season in London +informed him that he was not the only fellow to whom the gates were shut. +She could hardly be thinking of Nevil? However, let the epistle be read. +'Now for the Shrapnel shot,' he nodded finally to Colonel Halkett, +expanded his bosom, or natural cuirass, as before-mentioned, and was +vocable above the common pitch:-- + + '"MY BRAVE BEAUCHAMP,--On with your mission, and never a summing of + results in hand, nor thirst for prospects, nor counting upon + harvests; for seed sown in faith day by day is the nightly harvest + of the soul, and with the soul we work. With the soul we see."' + +Captain Baskelett intervened: 'Ahem! I beg to observe that this +delectable rubbish is underlined by old Nevil's pencil.' He promised to +do a little roaring whenever it occurred, and continued with ghastly +false accentuation, an intermittent sprightliness and depression of tone +in the wrong places. + +'"The soul," et caetera. Here we are! + + "Desires to realize our gains are akin to the passion of usury; + these are tricks of the usurer to grasp his gold in act and + imagination. Have none of them. Work at the people!" + +--At them, remark!-- + + "Moveless do they seem to you? Why, so is the earth to the sowing + husbandman, and though we cannot forecast a reaping season, we have + in history durable testification that our seasons come in the souls + of men, yea, as a planet that we have set in motion, and faster and + faster are we spinning it, and firmer and firmer shall we set it to + regularity of revolution. That means life!" + +--Shrapnel roars: you will have Nevil in a minute. + + "Recognize that now we have bare life; at best for the bulk of men + the Saurian lizard's broad back soaking and roasting in primeval + slime; or say, in the so-called teachers of men, as much of life as + pricks the frog in March to stir and yawn, and up on a flaccid leap + that rolls him over some three inches nearer to the ditchwater + besought by his instinct." + +'I ask you, did you ever hear? The flaccid frog! But on we go.' + + '"Professors, prophets, masters, each hitherto has had his creed and + system to offer, good mayhap for the term; and each has put it forth + for the truth everlasting, to drive the dagger to the heart of time, + and put the axe to human growth!--that one circle of wisdom issuing + of the experience and needs of their day, should act the despot over + all other circles for ever!--so where at first light shone to light + the yawning frog to his wet ditch, there, with the necessitated + revolution of men's minds in the course of ages, darkness radiates." + +'That's old Nevil. Upon my honour, I haven't a notion of what it all +means, and I don't believe the old rascal Shrapnel has himself. And pray +be patient, my dear colonel. You will find him practical presently. +I'll skip, if you tell me to. Darkness radiates, does it! + + '"The creed that rose in heaven sets below; and where we had an + angel we have claw-feet and fangs. Ask how that is! The creed is + much what it was when the followers diverged it from the Founder. + But humanity is not where it was when that creed was food and + guidance. Creeds will not die not fighting. We cannot root them up + out of us without blood." + +'He threatens blood!--' + + '"Ours, my Beauchamp, is the belief that humanity advances beyond + the limits of creeds, is to be tied to none. We reverence the + Master in his teachings; we behold the limits of him in his creed-- + and that is not his work. We truly are his disciples, who see how + far it was in him to do service; not they that made of his creed a + strait-jacket for humanity. So, in our prayers we dedicate the + world to God, not calling him great for a title, no--showing him we + know him great in a limitless world, lord of a truth we tend to, + have not grasped. I say Prayer is good. I counsel it to you again + and again: in joy, in sickness of heart. The infidel will not pray; + the creed-slave prays to the image in his box."' + +'I've had enough!' Colonel Halkett ejaculated. + +'"We,"' Captain Baskelett put out his hand for silence with an ineffable +look of entreaty, for here was Shrapnel's hypocrisy in full bloom: + + '"We make prayer a part of us, praying for no gifts, no + interventions; through the faith in prayer opening the soul to the + undiscerned. And take this, my Beauchamp, for the good in prayer, + that it makes us repose on the unknown with confidence, makes us + flexible to change, makes us ready for revolution--for life, then! + He who has the fountain of prayer in him will not complain of + hazards. Prayer is the recognition of laws; the soul's exercise and + source of strength; its thread of conjunction with them. Prayer for + an object is the cajolery of an idol; the resource of superstition. + There you misread it, Beauchamp. We that fight the living world + must have the universal for succour of the truth in it. Cast forth + the soul in prayer, you meet the efuence of the outer truth, you + join with the creative elements giving breath to you; and that crust + of habit which is the soul's tomb; and custom, the soul's tyrant; + and pride, our volcano-peak that sinks us in a crater; and fear, + which plucks the feathers from the wings of the soul and sits it + naked and shivering in a vault, where the passing of a common + hodman's foot above sounds like the king of terrors coming,--you are + free of them, you live in the day and for the future, by this + exercise and discipline of the soul's faith. Me it keeps young + everlastingly, like the fountain of . . ."' + +'I say I cannot sit and hear any more of it!' exclaimed the colonel, +chafing out of patience. + +Lord Palmet said to Miss Halkett: 'Isn't it like what we used to remember +of a sermon?' + +Cecilia waited for her father to break away, but Captain Baskelett had +undertaken to skip, and was murmuring in sing-song some of the phrases +that warned him off: + +'"History--Bible of Humanity; . . . Permanency--enthusiast's dream-- +despot's aim--clutch of dead men's fingers in live flesh . . . Man +animal; man angel; man rooted; man winged": . . . Really, all this is +too bad. Ah! here we are: "At them with outspeaking, Beauchamp!" Here +we are, colonel, and you will tell me whether you think it treasonable or +not. "At them," et caetera: "We have signed no convention to respect +their"--he speaks of Englishmen, Colonel Halkett--"their passive +idolatries; a people with whom a mute conformity is as good as worship, +but a word of dissent holds you up to execration; and only for the +freedom won in foregone days their hate would be active. As we have them +in their present stage,"--old Nevil's mark--"We are not parties to the +tacit agreement to fill our mouths and shut our eyes. We speak because +it is better they be roused to lapidate us than soused in their sty, with +none to let them hear they live like swine, craving only not to be +disturbed at the trough. The religion of this vast English middle-class +ruling the land is Comfort. It is their central thought; their idea of +necessity; their sole aim. Whatsoever ministers to Comfort, seems to +belong to it, pretends to support it, they yield their passive worship +to. Whatsoever alarms it they join to crush. There you get at their +point of unity. They will pay for the security of Comfort, calling it +national worship, or national defence, if too much money is not +subtracted from the means of individual comfort: if too much foresight +is not demanded for the comfort of their brains. Have at them there. +Speak. Moveless as you find them, they are not yet all gross clay, and I +say again, the true word spoken has its chance of somewhere alighting and +striking root. Look not to that. Seeds perish in nature; good men fail. +Look to the truth in you, and deliver it, with no afterthought of hope, +for hope is dogged by dread; we give our courage as hostage for the +fulfilment of what we hope. Meditate on that transaction. Hope is for +boys and girls, to whom nature is kind. For men to hope is to tremble. +Let prayer--the soul's overflow, the heart's resignation--supplant it . +. ." + +'Pardon, colonel; I forgot to roar, but old Nevil marks all down that +page for encomium,' said Captain Baskelett. 'Oh! here we are. English +loyalty is the subject. Now, pray attend to this, colonel. Shrapnel +communicates to Beauchamp that if ten Beauchamps were spouting over the +country without intermission he might condescend to hope. So on--to +British loyalty. We are, so long as our sovereigns are well-conducted +persons, and we cannot unseat them--observe; he is eminently explicit, +the old traitor!--we are to submit to the outward forms of respect, but +we are frankly to say we are Republicans; he has the impudence to swear +that England is a Republican country, and calls our thoroughgoing loyalty +--yours and mine, colonel--disloyalty. Hark: "Where kings lead, it is to +be supposed they are wanted. Service is the noble office on earth, and +where kings do service let them take the first honours of the State: +but"--hark at this--"the English middle-class, which has absorbed the +upper, and despises, when it is not quaking before it, the lower, will +have nothing above it but a ricketty ornament like that you see on a +confectioner's twelfth-cake."' + +'The man deserves hanging!' said Colonel Halkett. + +'Further, my dear colonel, and Nevil marks it pretty much throughout: +"This loyalty smacks of a terrible perfidy. Pass the lords and squires; +they are old trees, old foundations, or joined to them, whether old or +new; they naturally apprehend dislocation when a wind blows, a river +rises, or a man speaks;--that comes of age or aping age: their hearts are +in their holdings! For the loyalty of the rest of the land, it is the +shopkeeper's loyalty, which is to be computed by the exact annual sum of +his net profits. It is now at high tide. It will last with the +prosperity of our commerce."--The insolent old vagabond!--"Let commercial +disasters come on us, and what of the loyalty now paying its hundreds of +thousands, and howling down questioners! In a day of bankruptcies, how +much would you bid for the loyalty of a class shivering under deprivation +of luxuries, with its God Comfort beggared? Ay, my Beauchamp,"--the most +offensive thing to me is that "my Beauchamp," but old Nevil has evidently +given himself up hand and foot to this ruffian--"ay, when you reflect +that fear of the so-called rabble, i.e. the people, the unmoneyed class, +which knows not Comfort, tastes not of luxuries, is the main component of +their noisy frigid loyalty, and that the people are not with them but +against, and yet that the people might be won by visible forthright +kingly service to a loyalty outdoing theirs as the sun the moon; ay, that +the people verily thirst to love and reverence; and that their love is +the only love worth having, because it is disinterested love, and +endures, and takes heat in adversity,--reflect on it and wonder at the +inversion of things! So with a Church. It lives if it is at home with +the poor. In the arms of enriched shopkeepers it rots, goes to decay in +vestments--vestments! flakes of mummy-wraps for it! or else they use it +for one of their political truncheons--to awe the ignorant masses: I +quote them. So. Not much ahead of ancient Egyptians in spirituality or +in priestcraft! They call it statesmanship. O for a word for it! Let +Palsy and Cunning go to form a word. Deadmanship, I call it."--To quote +my uncle the baron, this is lunatic dribble!--"Parsons and princes are +happy with the homage of this huge passive fleshpot class. It is enough +for them. Why not? The taxes are paid and the tithes. Whilst +commercial prosperity lasts!"' + +Colonel Halkett threw his arms aloft. + + '"Meanwhile, note this: the people are the Power to come. + Oppressed, unprotected, abandoned; left to the ebb and flow of the + tides of the market, now taken on to work, now cast off to starve, + committed to the shifting laws of demand and supply, slaves of + Capital-the whited name for old accursed. Mammon: and of all the. + ranked and black-uniformed host no pastor to come out of the + association of shepherds, and proclaim before heaven and man the + primary claim of their cause; they are, I say, the power, worth the + seduction of by another Power not mighty in England now: and likely + in time to set up yet another Power not existing in England now. + What if a passive comfortable clergy hand them over to men on the + models of Irish pastors, who will succour, console, enfold, champion + them? what if, when they have learnt to use their majority, sick of + deceptions and the endless pulling of interests, they raise ONE + representative to force the current of action with an authority as + little fictitious as their preponderance of numbers? The despot and + the priest! There I see our danger, Beauchamp. You and I and some + dozen labour to tie and knot them to manliness. We are few; they + are many and weak. Rome offers them real comfort in return for + their mites in coin, and--poor souls! mites in conscience, many of + them. A Tyrant offers them to be directly their friend. Ask, + Beauchamp, why they should not have comfort for pay as well as the + big round--"' + +Captain Baskelett stopped and laid the letter out for Colonel Halkett to +read an unmentionable word, shamelessly marked by Nevil's pencil: + + "--belly-class!" Ask, too, whether the comfort they wish for is not + approaching divine compared with the stagnant fleshliness of that + fat shopkeeper's Comfort. + + '"Warn the people of this. Ay, warn the clergy. It is not only the + poor that are caught by ranters. Endeavour to make those + accommodating shepherds understand that they stand a chance of + losing rich as well as poor! It should awaken them. The helpless + poor and the uneasy rich are alike open to the seductions of Romish + priests and intoxicated ranters. I say so it will be if that band + of forty thousand go on slumbering and nodding. They walk in a + dream. The flesh is a dream. The soul only is life." + +'Now for you, colonel. + + '"No extension of the army--no! A thousand times no. Let India go, + then! Good for India that we hold India? Ay, good: but not at such + a cost as an extra tax, or compulsory service of our working man. + If India is to be held for the good of India, throw open India to + the civilized nations, that they help us in a task that overstrains + us. At present India means utter perversion of the policy of + England. Adrift India! rather than England red-coated. We dissent, + Beauchamp! For by-and-by." + +'That is,' Captain Baskelett explained, 'by-and-by Shrapnel will have old +Nevil fast enough.' + +'Is there more of it?' said Colonel Halkett, flapping his forehead for +coolness. + +'The impudence of this dog in presuming to talk about India!--eh, +colonel? Only a paragraph or two more: I skip a lot . . . . Ah! +here we are.' Captain Baskelett read to himself and laughed in derision: +'He calls our Constitution a compact unsigned by the larger number +involved in it. What's this? "A band of dealers in fleshpottery." Do +you detect a gleam of sense? He underscores it. Then he comes to this': +Captain Baskelett requested Colonel Halkett to read for himself: 'The +stench of the trail of Ego in our History.' + +The colonel perused it with an unsavoury expression of his features, and +jumped up. + +'Oddly, Mr. Romfrey thought this rather clever,' said Captain Baskelett, +and read rapidly: + + '"Trace the course of Ego for them: first the king who conquers and + can govern. In his egoism he dubs him holy; his family is of a + selected blood; he makes the crown hereditary--Ego. Son by son the + shame of egoism increases; valour abates; hereditary Crown, no + hereditary qualities. The Barons rise. They in turn hold sway, and + for their order--Ego. The traders overturn them: each class rides + the classes under it while it can. It is ego--ego, the fountain + cry, origin, sole source of war! Then death to ego, I say! If + those traders had ruled for other than ego, power might have rested + with them on broad basis enough to carry us forward for centuries. + The workmen have ever been too anxious to be ruled. Now comes on + the workman's era. Numbers win in the end: proof of small wisdom in + the world. Anyhow, with numbers there is rough nature's wisdom and + justice. With numbers ego is inter-dependent and dispersed; it is + universalized. Yet these may require correctives. If so, they will + have it in a series of despots and revolutions that toss, mix, and + bind the classes together: despots, revolutions; panting + alternations of the quickened heart of humanity." + +'Marked by our friend Nevil in notes of admiration.' + +'Mad as the writer,' groaned Colonel Halkett. 'Never in my life have I +heard such stuff.' + +'Stay, colonel; here's Shrapnel defending Morality and Society,' said +Captain Baskelett. + +Colonel Halkett vowed he was under no penal law to listen, and would not; +but Captain Baskelett persuaded him: 'Yes, here it is: I give you my +word. Apparently old Nevil has been standing up for every man's right to +run away with . . . Yes, really! I give you my word; and here we have +Shrapnel insisting on respect for the marriage laws. Do hear this; here +it is in black and white:-- + + "Society is our one tangible gain, our one roofing and flooring in a + world of most uncertain structures built on morasses. Toward the + laws that support it men hopeful of progress give their adhesion. + If it is martyrdom, what then? Let the martyrdom be. Contumacy is + animalism. And attend to me," says Shrapnel, "the truer the love + the readier for sacrifice! A thousand times yes. Rebellion against + Society, and advocacy of Humanity, run counter. Tell me Society is + the whited sepulchre, that it is blotched, hideous, hollow: and I + say, add not another disfigurement to it; add to the purification of + it. And you, if you answer, what can only one? I say that is the + animal's answer, and applies also to politics, where the question, + what can one? put in the relapsing tone, shows the country decaying + in the individual. Society is the protection of the weaker, + therefore a shield of women, who are our temple of civilization, to + be kept sacred; and he that loves a woman will assuredly esteem and + pity her sex, and not drag her down for another example of their + frailty. Fight this out within you--!" + +But you are right, colonel; we have had sufficient. I shall be getting a +democratic orator's twang, or a crazy parson's, if I go on much further. +He covers thirty-two pages of letter-paper. The conclusion is:--"Jenny +sends you her compliments, respects, and best wishes, and hopes she may +see you before she goes to her friend Clara Sherwin and the General."' + +'Sherwin? Why, General Sherwin's a perfect gentleman,' Colonel Halkett +interjected; and Lord Palmet caught the other name: 'Jenny? That's Miss +Denham, Jenny Denham; an amazingly pretty girl: beautiful thick brown +hair, real hazel eyes, and walks like a yacht before the wind.' + +'Perhaps, colonel, Jenny accounts for the defence of society,' said +Captain Baskelett. 'I have no doubt Shrapnel has a scheme for Jenny. +The old communist and socialist!' He folded up the letter: 'A curious +composition, is it not, Miss Halkett?' + +Cecilia was thinking that he tempted her to be the apologist of even such +a letter. + +'One likes to know the worst, and what's possible,' said the colonel. + +After Captain Baskelett had gone, Colonel Halkett persisted in talking of +the letter, and would have impressed on his daughter that the person to +whom the letter was addressed must be partly responsible for the contents +of it. Cecilia put on the argumentative air of a Court of Equity to +discuss the point with him. + +'Then you defend that letter?' he cried. + +Oh, no: she did not defend the letter; she thought it wicked and +senseless. 'But,' said she, 'the superior strength of men to women seems +to me to come from their examining all subjects, shrinking from none. At +least, I should not condemn Nevil on account of his correspondence.' + +'We shall see,' said her father, sighing rather heavily. 'I must have a +talk with Mr. Romfrey about that letter.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE BAITING OF DR. SHRAPNEL + +Captain Baskelett went down from Mount Laurels to Bevisham to arrange for +the giving of a dinner to certain of his chief supporters in the borough, +that they might know he was not obliged literally to sit in Parliament in +order to pay a close attention to their affairs. He had not +distinguished himself by a speech during the session, but he had stored +a political precept or two in his memory, and, as he told Lord Palmet, +he thought a dinner was due to his villains. 'The way to manage your +Englishman, Palmet, is to dine him.' As the dinner would decidedly be +dull, he insisted on having Lord Palmet's company. + +They crossed over to the yachting island, where portions of the letter +of Commander Beauchamp's correspondent were read at the Club, under the +verandah, and the question put, whether a man who held those opinions had +a right to wear his uniform. + +The letter was transmitted to Steynham in time to be consigned to the +pocket-book before Beauchamp arrived there on one of his rare visits. +Mr. Romfrey handed him the pocketbook with the frank declaration that he +had read Shrapnel's letter. 'All is fair in war, Sir!' Beauchamp quoted +him ambiguously. + +The thieves had amused Mr. Romfrey by their scrupulous honesty in +returning what was useless to them, while reserving the coat: but +subsequently seeing the advertized reward, they had written to claim it; +and, according to Rosamund Culling, he had been so tickled that he had +deigned to reply to them, very briefly, but very comically. + +Speaking of the matter with her, Beauchamp said (so greatly was he +infatuated with the dangerous man) that the reading of a letter of Dr. +Shrapnel's could do nothing but good to any reflecting human creature: +he admitted that as the lost pocket-book was addressed to Mr. Romfrey, +it might have been by mistake that he had opened it, and read the topmost +letter lying open. But he pressed Rosamund to say whether that one only +had been read. + +'Only Dr. Shrapnel's letter,' Rosamund affirmed. 'The letter from +Normandy was untouched by him.' + +'Untouched by anybody?' + +'Unopened, Nevil. You look incredulous.' + +'Not if I have your word, ma'am.' + +He glanced somewhat contemptuously at his uncle Everard's anachronistic +notions of what was fair in war. + +To prove to him Mr. Romfrey's affectionate interest in his fortunes, +Rosamund mentioned the overtures which had been made to Colonel Halkett +for a nuptial alliance between the two houses; and she said: 'Your uncle +Everard was completely won by your manly way of taking his opposition to +you in Bevisham. He pays for Captain Baskelett, but you and your +fortunes are nearest his heart, Nevil.' + +Beauchamp hung silent. His first remark was, 'Yes, I want money. I must +have money.' By degrees he seemed to warm to some sense of gratitude. +'It was kind of the baron,' he said. + +'He has a great affection for you, Nevil, though you know he spares no +one who chooses to be antagonistic. All that is over. But do you not +second him, Nevil? You admire her? You are not adverse?' + +Beauchamp signified the horrid intermixture of yes and no, frowned in +pain of mind, and Walked up and down. 'There's no living woman I admire +so much.' + +'She has refused the highest matches.' + +'I hold her in every way incomparable.' + +'She tries to understand your political ideas, if she cannot quite +sympathize with them, Nevil. And consider how hard it is for a young +English lady, bred in refinement, to understand such things.' + +'Yes,' Beauchamp nodded; yes. Well, more 's the pity for me!' + +'Ah! Nevil, that fatal Renee!' + +'Ma'am, I acquit you of any suspicion of your having read her letter in +this pocket-book. She wishes me to marry. You would have seen it +written here. She wishes it.' + +'Fly, clipped wing!' murmured Rosamund, and purposely sent a buzz into +her ears to shut out his extravagant talk of Renee's friendly wishes. + +'How is it you women will not believe in the sincerity of a woman!' he +exclaimed. + +'Nevil, I am not alluding to the damage done to your election.' + +'To my candidature, ma'am. You mean those rumours, those lies of the +enemy. Tell me how I could suppose you were alluding to them. You bring +them forward now to justify your charge of "fatal" against her. She has +one fault; she wants courage; she has none other, not one that is not +excuseable. We won't speak of France. What did her father say?' + +'Colonel Halkett? I do not know. He and his daughter come here next +week, and the colonel will expect to meet you here. That does not look +like so positive an objection to you?' + +'To me personally, no,' said Beauchamp. 'But Mr. Romfrey has not told me +that I am to meet them.' + +'Perhaps he has not thought it worth while. It is not his way. He has +asked you to come. You and Miss Halkett will be left to yourselves. Her +father assured Mr. Romfrey that he should not go beyond advising her. +His advice might not be exactly favourable to you at present, but if you +sued and she accepted--and she would, I am convinced she would; she was +here with me, talking of you a whole afternoon, and I have eyes--then he +would not oppose the match, and then I should see you settled, the +husband of the handsomest wife and richest heiress in England.' + +A vision of Cecilia swam before him, gracious in stateliness. + +Two weeks back Renee's expression of a wish that he would marry had +seemed to him an idle sentence in a letter breathing of her own +intolerable situation. The marquis had been struck down by illness. +What if she were to be soon suddenly free? But Renee could not be +looking to freedom, otherwise she never would have written the wish for +him to marry. She wrote perhaps hearing temptation whisper; perhaps +wishing to save herself and him by the aid of a tie that would bring his +honour into play and fix his loyalty. He remembered Dr. Shrapnel's +written words: 'Rebellion against society and advocacy of humanity run +counter.' They had a stronger effect on him than when he was ignorant of +his uncle Everard's plan to match him with Cecilia. He took refuge from +them in the image of that beautiful desolate Renee, born to be beloved, +now wasted, worse than trodden under foot--perverted; a life that looked +to him for direction and resuscitation. She was as good as dead in her +marriage. It was impossible for him ever to think of Renee without the +surprising thrill of his enchantment with her, and tender pity that drew +her closer to him by darkening her brightness. + +Still a man may love his wife. A wife like Cecilia was not to be +imagined coldly. Let the knot once be tied, it would not be regretted, +could not be; hers was a character, and hers a smile, firmly assuring him +of that. + +He told Mr. Romfrey that he should be glad to meet Colonel Halkett and +Cecilia. Business called him to Holdesbury. Thence he betook himself to +Dr. Shrapnel's cottage to say farewell to Jenny Denham previous to her +departure for Switzerland with her friend Clara Sherwin. She had never +seen a snow-mountain, and it was pleasant to him to observe in her eyes, +which he had known weighing and balancing intellectual questions more +than he quite liked, a childlike effort to conjure in imagination the +glories of the Alps. She appeared very happy, only a little anxious +about leaving Dr. Shrapnel with no one to take care of him for a whole +month. Beauchamp promised he would run over to him from Holdesbury, only +an hour by rail, as often as he could. He envied her the sight of the +Alps, he said, and tried to give her an idea of them, from which he broke +off to boast of a famous little Jersey bull that he had won from a rival, +an American, deeply in love with the bull; cutting him out by telegraph +by just five minutes. The latter had examined the bull in the island and +had passed on to Paris, not suspecting there would be haste to sell him. +Beauchamp, seeing the bull advertized, took him on trust, galloped to the +nearest telegraph station forthwith, and so obtained possession of him; +and the bull was now shipped on the voyage. But for this precious bull, +however, and other business, he would have been able to spend almost the +entire month with Dr. Shrapnel, he said regretfully. Miss Denham on the +contrary did not regret his active occupation. The story of his rush +from the breakfast-table to the stables, and gallop away to the station, +while the American Quaker gentleman soberly paced down a street in Paris +on the same errand, in invisible rivalry, touched her risible fancy. She +was especially pleased to think of him living in harmony with his uncle-- +that strange, lofty, powerful man, who by plot or by violence punished +opposition to his will, but who must be kind at heart, as well as +forethoughtful of his nephew's good; the assurance of it being, that when +the conflict was at an end he had immediately installed him as manager of +one of his estates, to give his energy play and make him practically +useful. + +The day before she left home was passed by the three in botanizing, some +miles distant from Bevisham, over sand country, marsh and meadow; Dr. +Shrapnel, deep in the science, on one side of her, and Beauchamp, +requiring instruction in the names and properties of every plant and +simple, on the other. It was a day of summer sweetness, gentle laughter, +conversation, and the happiest homeliness. The politicians uttered +barely a syllable of politics. The dinner basket was emptied heartily to +make way for herb and flower, and at night the expedition homeward was +crowned with stars along a road refreshed by mid-day thunder-showers and +smelling of the rain in the dust, past meadows keenly scenting, gardens +giving out their innermost balm and odour. Late at night they drank tea +in Jenny's own garden. They separated a little after two in the morning, +when the faded Western light still lay warm on a bow of sky, and on the +level of the East it quickened. Jenny felt sure she should long for that +yesterday when she was among foreign scenes, even among high Alps-those +mysterious eminences which seemed in her imagination to know of heaven +and have the dawn of a new life for her beyond their peaks. + +Her last words when stepping into the railway carriage were to Beauchamp: +'Will you take care of him?' She flung her arms round Dr. Shrapnel's +neck, and gazed at him under troubled eyelids which seemed to be passing +in review every vision of possible harm that might come to him during her +absence; and so she continued gazing, and at no one but Dr. Shrapnel +until the bend of the line cut him from her sight. Beauchamp was a very +secondary person on that occasion, and he was unused to being so in the +society of women--unused to find himself entirely eclipsed by their +interest in another. He speculated on it, wondering at her concentrated +fervency; for he had not supposed her to possess much warmth. + +After she was fairly off on her journey, Dr. Shrapnel mentioned to +Beauchamp a case of a Steynham poacher, whom he had thought it his duty +to supply with means of defence. It was a common poaching case. + +Beauchamp was not surprised that Mr. Romfrey and Dr. Shrapnel should come +to a collision; the marvel was that it had never occurred before, and +Beauchamp said at once: 'Oh, my uncle Mr. Romfrey would rather see them +stand their ground than not.' He was disposed to think well of his +uncle. The Jersey bull called him away to Holdesbury. + +Captain Baskelett heard of this poaching case at Steynham, where he had +to appear in person when he was in want of cheques, and the Bevisham +dinner furnished an excuse for demanding one. He would have preferred a +positive sum annually. Mr. Romfrey, however, though he wrote his cheques +out like the lord he was by nature, exacted the request for them; a +system that kept the gallant gentleman on his good behaviour, probably at +a lower cost than the regular stipend. In handing the cheque to Cecil +Baskelett, Mr. Romfrey spoke of a poacher, of an old poaching family +called the Dicketts, who wanted punishment and was to have it, but Mr. +Romfrey's local lawyer had informed him that the man Shrapnel was, as +usual, supplying the means of defence. For his own part, Mr. Romfrey +said, he had no objection to one rascal's backing another, and Shrapnel +might hit his hardest, only perhaps Nevil might somehow get mixed up in +it, and Nevil was going on quietly now--he had in fact just done +capitally in lassoing with a shot of the telegraph a splendid little +Jersey bull that a Yankee was after: and on the whole it was best to try +to keep him quiet, for he was mad about that man Shrapnel; Shrapnel was +his joss: and if legal knocks came of this business Nevil might be +thinking of interfering: 'Or he and I may be getting to exchange a lot of +shindy letters,' Mr. Romfrey said. 'Tell him I take Shrapnel just like +any other man, and don't want to hear apologies, and I don't mix him up +in it. Tell him if he likes to have an explanation from me, I'll give it +him when he comes here. You can run over to Holdesbury the morning after +your dinner.' + +Captain Baskelett said he would go. He was pleased with his cheque at +the time, but hearing subsequently that Nevil was coming to Steynham to +meet Colonel Halkett and his daughter, he became displeased, considering +it a very silly commission. The more he thought of it the more +ridiculous and unworthy it appeared. He asked himself and Lord Palmet +also why he should have to go to Nevil at Holdesbury to tell him of +circumstances that he would hear of two or three days later at Steynham. +There was no sense in it. The only conclusion for him was that the +scheming woman Culling had determined to bring down every man concerned +in the Bevisham election, and particularly Mr. Romfrey, on his knees +before Nevil. Holdesbury had been placed at his disposal, and the use of +the house in London, which latter would have been extremely serviceable +to Cecil as a place of dinners to the Parliament of Great Britain in lieu +of the speech-making generally expected of Members, and not so +effectively performed. One would think the baron had grown afraid of old +Nevil! He had spoken as if he were. + +Cecil railed unreservedly to Lord Palmet against that woman 'Mistress +Culling,' as it pleased him to term her, and who could be offended by his +calling her so? His fine wit revelled in bestowing titles that were at +once batteries directed upon persons he hated, and entrenchments for +himself. + +At four o'clock on a sultry afternoon he sat at table with his Bevisham +supporters, and pledged them correspondingly in English hotel champagne, +sherry and claret. At seven he was rid of them, but parched and heated, +as he deserved to be, he owned, for drinking the poison. It would be a +good subject for Parliament if he could get it up, he reflected. + +'And now,' said he to Palmet, 'we might be crossing over to the Club if I +hadn't to go about that stupid business to Holdesbury to-morrow morning. +We shall miss the race, or, at least, the start.' + +The idea struck him: 'Ten to one old Nevil 's with Shrapnel,' and no idea +could be more natural. + +'We 'll call on Shrapnel,' said Palmet. 'We shall see Jenny Denham. +He gives her out as his niece. Whatever she is she's a brimming little +beauty. I assure you, Bask, you seldom see so pretty a girl.' + +Wine, which has directed men's footsteps upon more marvellous adventures, +took them to a chemist's shop for a cooling effervescent draught, and +thence through the town to the address, furnished to them by the chemist, +of Dr. Shrapnel on the common. + +Bad wine, which is responsible for the fate of half the dismal bodies +hanging from trees, weltering by rocks, grovelling and bleaching round +the bedabbled mouth of the poet's Cave of Despair, had rendered Captain +Baskelett's temper extremely irascible; so when he caught sight of Dr. +Shrapnel walling in his garden, and perceived him of a giant's height, +his eyes fastened on the writer of the abominable letter with an +exultation peculiar to men having a devil inside them that kicks to be +out. The sun was low, blazing among the thicker branches of the pollard +forest trees, and through sprays of hawthorn. Dr. Shrapnel stopped, +facing the visible master of men, at the end of his walk before he turned +his back to continue the exercise and some discourse he was holding aloud +either to the heavens or bands of invisible men. + +'Ahem, Dr. Shrapnel!' He was accosted twice, the second time +imperiously. + +He saw two gentlemen outside the garden-hedge. + +'I spoke, sir,' said Captain Baskelett. + +'I hear you now, sir,' said the doctor, walking in a parallel line with +them. + +'I desired to know, sir, if you are Dr. Shrapnel?' + +'I am.' + +They arrived at the garden-gate. + +'You have a charming garden, Dr. Shrapnel,' said Lord Palmet, very +affably and loudly, with a steady observation of the cottage windows. + +Dr. Shrapnel flung the gate open. + +Lord Palmet raised his hat and entered, crying loudly, 'A very charming +garden, upon my word!' + +Captain Baskelett followed him, bowing stiffly. + +'I am,' he said, 'Captain Beauchamp's cousin. I am Captain Baskelett, +one of the Members for the borough.' + +The doctor said, 'Ah.' + +'I wish to see Captain Beauchamp, sir. He is absent?' + +'I shall have him here shortly, sir.' + +'Oh, you will have him!' Cecil paused. + +'Admirable roses!' exclaimed Lord Palmet. + +'You have him, I think,' said Cecil, 'if what we hear is correct. I wish +to know, sir, whether the case you are conducting against his uncle is +one you have communicated to Captain Beauchamp. I repeat, I am here to +inquire if he is privy to it. You may hold family ties in contempt--Now, +sir! I request you abstain from provocations with me.' + +Dr. Shrapnel had raised his head, with something of the rush of a rocket, +from the stooping posture to listen, and his frown of non-intelligence +might be interpreted as the coming on of the fury Radicals are prone to, +by a gentleman who believed in their constant disposition to explode. + +Cecil made play with a pacifying hand. 'We shall arrive at no +understanding unless you are good enough to be perfectly calm. I repeat, +my cousin Captain Beauchamp is more or less at variance with his family, +owing to these doctrines of yours, and your extraordinary Michael-Scott- +the-wizard kind of spell you seem to have cast upon his common sense as a +man of the world. You have him, as you say. I do not dispute it. I +have no, doubt you have him fast. But here is a case demanding a certain +respect for decency. Pray, if I may ask you, be still, be quiet, and +hear me out if you can. I am accustomed to explain myself to the +comprehension of most men who are at large, and I tell you candidly I am +not to be deceived or diverted from my path by a show of ignorance.' + +'What is your immediate object, sir?' said Dr. Shrapnel, chagrined by +the mystification within him, and a fear that his patience was going. + +'Exactly,' Cecil nodded. He was acute enough to see that he had +established the happy commencement of fretfulness in the victim, which is +equivalent to a hook well struck in the mouth of your fish, and with an +angler's joy he prepared to play his man. 'Exactly. I have stated it. +And you ask me. But I really must decline to run over the whole ground +again for you. I am here to fulfil a duty to my family; a highly +disagreeable one to me. I may fail, like the lady who came here previous +to the Election, for the result of which I am assured I ought to thank +your eminently disinterested services. I do. You recollect a lady +calling on you?' + +Dr. Shrapnel consulted his memory. 'I think I have a recollection of +some lady calling.' + +'Oh! you think you have a recollection of some lady calling.' + +'Do you mean a lady connected with Captain Beauchamp?' + +'A lady connected with Captain Beauchamp. You are not aware of the +situation of the lady?' + +'If I remember, she was a kind of confidential housekeeper, some one +said, to Captain Beauchamp's uncle.' + +'A kind of confidential housekeeper! She is recognized in our family as +a lady, sir. I can hardly expect better treatment at your hands than she +met with, but I do positively request you to keep your temper whilst I am +explaining my business to you. Now, sir! what now?' + +A trifling breeze will set the tall tree bending, and Dr. Shrapnel did +indeed appear to display the agitation of a full-driving storm when he +was but harassed and vexed. + +'Will you mention your business concisely, if you Please?' he said. + +'Precisely; it is my endeavour. I supposed I had done so. To be frank, +I would advise you to summon a member of your household, wife, daughter, +housekeeper, any one you like, to whom you may appeal, and I too, +whenever your recollections are at fault.' + +'I am competent,' said the doctor. + +'But in justice to you,' urged Cecil considerately. + +Dr. Shrapnel smoothed his chin hastily. 'Have you done?' + +'Believe me, the instant I have an answer to my question, I have done.' + +'Name your question.' + +'Very well, sir. Now mark, I will be plain with you. There is no escape +for you from this. You destroy my cousin's professional prospects--I +request you to listen--you blast his career in the navy; it was +considered promising. He was a gallant officer and a smart seaman. Very +well. You set him up as a politician, to be knocked down, to a dead +certainty. You set him against his class; you embroil him with his +family . . .' + +'On all those points,' interposed Dr. Shrapnel, after dashing a hand to +straighten his forelock; but Cecil vehemently entreated him to control +his temper. + +'I say you embroil him with his family, you cause him to be in +everlasting altercation with his uncle Mr. Romfrey, materially to his +personal detriment; and the question of his family is one that every man +of sense would apprehend on the spot; for we, you should know, have, sir, +an opinion of Captain Beauchamp's talents and abilities forbidding us to +think he could possibly be the total simpleton you make him appear, +unless to the seductions of your political instructions, other seductions +were added . . . . You apprehend me, I am sure.' + +'I don't,' cried the doctor, descending from his height and swinging +about forlornly. + +'Oh! yes, you do; you do indeed, you cannot avoid it; you quite +apprehend me; it is admitted that you take my meaning: I insist on that. +I have nothing to say but what is complimentary of the young lady, +whoever she may turn out to be; bewitching, no doubt; and to speak +frankly, Dr. Shrapnel, I, and I am pretty certain every honest man would +think with me, I take it to be ten times more creditable to my cousin +Captain Beauchamp that he should be under a lady's influence than under +yours. Come, sir! I ask you. You must confess that a gallant officer +and great admirer of the sex does not look such a donkey if he is led in +silken strings by a beautiful creature. And mark--stop! mark this, Dr. +Shrapnel: I say, to the lady we can all excuse a good deal, and at the +same time you are to be congratulated on first-rate diplomacy in +employing so charming an agent. I wish, I really wish you did it +generally, I assure you: only, mark this--I do beg you to contain +yourself for a minute, if possible--I say, my cousin Captain Beauchamp is +fair game to hunt, and there is no law to prevent the chase, only you +must not expect us to be quiet spectators of your sport; and we have, I +say, undoubtedly a right to lay the case before the lady, and induce her +to be a peace-agent in the family if we can. Very well.' + +'This garden is redolent of a lady's hand,' sighed Palmet, poetical in +his dejection. + +'Have you taken too much wine, gentlemen?' said Dr. Shrapnel. + +Cecil put this impertinence aside with a graceful sweep of his fingers. +'You attempt to elude me, sir.' + +'Not I! You mention some lady.' + +'Exactly. A young lady.' + +'What is the name of the lady?' + +'Oh! You ask the name of the lady. And I too. What is it? I have heard +two or three names.' + +'Then you have heard villanies.' + +'Denham, Jenny Denham, Miss Jenny Denham,' said Palmet, rejoiced at the +opportunity of trumpeting her name so that she should not fail to hear +it. + +'I stake my reputation I have heard her called Shrapnel--Miss Shrapnel,' +said Cecil. + +The doctor glanced hastily from one to the other of his visitors. 'The +young lady is my ward; I am her guardian,' he said. + +Cecil pursed his mouth. 'I have heard her called your niece.' + +'Niece--ward; she is a lady by birth and education, in manners, +accomplishments, and character; and she is under my protection,' cried +Dr. Shrapnel. + +Cecil bowed. 'So you are for gentle birth? I forgot you are for +morality too, and for praying; exactly; I recollect. But now let me tell +you, entirely with the object of conciliation, my particular desire is to +see the young lady, in your presence of course, and endeavour to persuade +her, as I have very little doubt I shall do, assuming that you give me +fair play, to exercise her influence, on this occasion contrary to yours, +and save my cousin Captain Beauchamp from a fresh misunderstanding with +his uncle Mr. Romfrey. Now, sir; now, there!' + +'You will not see Miss Denham with my sanction ever,' said Dr. Shrapnel. + +'Oh! Then I perceive your policy. Mark, sir, my assumption was that the +young lady would, on hearing my representations, exert herself to heal +the breach between Captain Beauchamp and his family. You stand in the +way. You treat me as you treated the lady who came here formerly to +wrest your dupe from your clutches. If I mistake not, she saw the young +lady you acknowledge to be your ward.' + +Dr. Shrapnel flashed back: 'I acknowledge? Mercy and justice! is there +no peace with the man? You walk here to me, I can't yet guess why, from +a town where I have enemies, and every scandal flies touching me and +mine; and you--' He stopped short to master his anger. He subdued it so +far as to cloak it in an attempt to speak reasoningly, as angry men +sometimes deceive themselves in doing, despite the good maxim for the +wrathful--speak not at all. 'See,' said he, 'I was never married. My +dear friend dies, and leaves me his child to protect and rear; and though +she bears her father's name, she is most wrongly and foully made to share +the blows levelled at her guardian. Ay, have at me, all of you, as much +as you will! Hold off from her. Were it true, the cowardice would be +not a whit the smaller. Why, casting a stone like that, were it the size +of a pebble and the weight of a glance, is to toss the whole cowardly +world on an innocent young girl. And why suspect evil? You talk of that +lady who paid me a visit here once, and whom I treated becomingly, I +swear. I never do otherwise. She was a handsome woman; and what was +she? The housekeeper of Captain Beauchamp's uncle. Hear me, if you +please! To go with the world, I have as good a right to suppose the +worst of an attractive lady in that situation as you regarding my ward: +better warrant for scandalizing, I think; to go with the world. +But now--' + +Cecil checked him, ejaculating, 'Thank you, Dr. Shrapnel; I thank you +most cordially,' with a shining smile. 'Stay, sir! no more. I take my +leave of you. Not another word. No "buts"! I recognize that +conciliation is out of the question: you are the natural protector of +poachers, and you will not grant me an interview with the young lady you +call your ward, that I may represent to her, as a person we presume to +have a chance of moving you, how easily--I am determined you shall hear +me, Dr. Shrapnel!--how easily the position of Captain Beauchamp may +become precarious with his uncle Mr. Romfrey. And let me add--"but" and +"but" me till Doomsday, sir!--if you were--I do hear you, sir, and you +shall hear me--if you were a younger man, I say, I would hold you +answerable to me for your scandalous and disgraceful insinuations.' + +Dr. Shrapnel was adroitly fenced and over-shouted. He shrugged, +stuttered, swayed, wagged a bulrush-head, flapped his elbows, puffed like +a swimmer in the breakers, tried many times to expostulate, and finding +the effort useless, for his adversary was copious and commanding, +relapsed, eyeing him as an object far removed. + +Cecil rounded one of his perplexingly empty sentences and turned on his +heel. + +'War, then!' he said. + +'As you like,' retorted the doctor. + +'Oh! Very good. Good evening.' Cecil slightly lifted his hat, with the +short projection of the head of the stately peacock in its walk, and +passed out of the garden. Lord Palmet, deeply disappointed and +mystified, went after him, leaving Dr. Shrapnel to shorten his garden +walk with enormous long strides. + +'I'm afraid you didn't manage the old boy,' Palmet complained. 'They're +people who have tea in their gardens; we might have sat down with them +and talked, the best friends in the world, and come again to-morrow might +have called her Jenny in a week. She didn't show her pretty nose at any +of the windows.' + +His companion pooh-poohed and said: 'Foh! I'm afraid I permitted myself +to lose my self-command for a moment.' + +Palmet sang out an amorous couplet to console himself. Captain Baskelett +respected the poetic art for its magical power over woman's virtue, but +he disliked hearing verses, and they were ill-suited to Palmet. He +abused his friend roundly, telling him it was contemptible to be quoting +verses. He was irritable still. + +He declared himself nevertheless much refreshed by his visit to Dr. +Shrapnel. 'We shall have to sleep tonight in this unhallowed town, +but I needn't be off to Holdesbury in the morning; I've done my business. +I shall write to the baron to-night, and we can cross the water to-morrow +in time for operations.' + +The letter to Mr. Romfrey was composed before midnight. It was a long +one, and when he had finished it, Cecil remembered that the act of +composition had been assisted by a cigar in his mouth, and Mr. Romfrey +detested the smell of tobacco. There was nothing to be done but to write +the letter over again, somewhat more briefly: it ran thus: + +'Thinking to kill two birds at a blow, I went yesterday with Palmet after +the dinner at this place to Shrapnel's house, where, as I heard, I stood +a chance of catching friend Nevil. The young person living under the +man's protection was absent, and so was the "poor dear commander," +perhaps attending on his bull. Shrapnel said he was expecting him. I +write to you to confess I thought myself a cleverer fellow than I am. I +talked to Shrapnel and tried hard to reason with him. I hope I can keep +my temper under ordinary circumstances. You will understand that it +required remarkable restraint when I make you acquainted with the fact +that a lady's name was introduced, which, as your representative in +relation to her, I was bound to defend from a gratuitous and scoundrelly +aspersion. Shrapnel's epistle to "brave Beauchamp" is Church +hymnification in comparison with his conversation. He is indubitably one +of the greatest ruffians of his time. + +'I took the step with the best of intentions, and all I can plead is that +I am not a diplomatist of sixty. His last word was that he is for war +with us. As far as we men are concerned it is of small importance. I +should think that the sort of society he would scandalize a lady in is +not much to be feared. I have given him his warning. He tops me by +about a head, and loses his temper every two minutes. I could have drawn +him out deliciously if he had not rather disturbed mine. By this time my +equanimity is restored. The only thing I apprehend is your displeasure +with me for having gone to the man. I have done no good, and it prevents +me from running over to Holdesbury to see Nevil, for if "shindy letters," +as you call them, are bad, shindy meetings are worse. I should be +telling him my opinion of Shrapnel, he would be firing out, I should +retort, he would yell, I should snap my fingers, and he would go into +convulsions. I am convinced that a cattle-breeder ought to keep himself +particularly calm. So unless I have further orders from you I refrain +from going. + +'The dinner was enthusiastic. I sat three hours among my Commons, they +on me for that length of time--fatiguing, but a duty.' + +Cecil subscribed his name with the warmest affection toward his uncle. + +The brevity of the second letter had not brought him nearer to the truth +in rescinding the picturesque accessories of his altercation with Dr. +Shrapnel, but it veraciously expressed the sentiments he felt, and that +was the palpable truth for him. + +He posted the letter next morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +SHOWING A CHIVALROUS GENTLEMAN SET IN MOTION + +About noon the day following, on board the steam-yacht of the Countess of +Menai, Cecil was very much astonished to see Mr. Romfrey descending into +a boat hard by, from Grancey Lespel's hired cutter. Steam was up, and +the countess was off for a cruise in the Channel, as it was not a race- +day, but seeing Mr. Romfrey's hand raised, she spoke to Cecil, and +immediately gave orders to wait for the boat. This lady was a fervent +admirer of the knightly gentleman, and had reason to like him, for he had +once been her champion. Mr. Romfrey mounted the steps, received her +greeting, and beckoned to Cecil. He carried a gold-headed horsewhip +under his arm. Lady Menai would gladly have persuaded him to be one of +her company for the day's voyage, but he said he had business in +Bevisham, and moving aside with Cecil, put the question to him abruptly: +'What were the words used by Shrapnel?' + +'The identical words?' Captain Baskelett asked. He could have tripped +out the words with the fluency of ancient historians relating what great +kings, ambassadors, or Generals may well have uttered on State occasions, +but if you want the identical words, who is to remember them the day +after they have been delivered? He said: + +'Well, as for the identical words, I really, and I was tolerably excited, +sir, and upon my honour, the identical words are rather difficult to....' +He glanced at the horsewhip, and pricked by the sight of it to proceed, +thought it good to soften the matter if possible. 'I don't quite +recollect . . . I wrote off to you rather hastily. I think he said-- +but Palmet was there.' + +'Shrapnel spoke the words before Lord Palmet?' said Mr. Romfrey +austerely. + +Captain Baskelett summoned Palmet to come near, and inquired of him what +he had heard Shrapnel say, suggesting: 'He spoke of a handsome woman for +a housekeeper, and all the world knew her character?' + +Mr. Romfrey cleared his throat. + +'Or knew she had no character,' Cecil pursued in a fit of gratified +spleen, in scorn of the woman. 'Don't you recollect his accent in +pronouncing housekeeper?' + +The menacing thunder sounded from Mr. Romfrey. He was patient in +appearance, and waited for Cecil's witness to corroborate the evidence. + +It happened (and here we are in one of the circles of small things +producing great consequences, which have inspired diminutive philosophers +with ironical visions of history and the littleness of man), it happened +that Lord Palmet, the humanest of young aristocrats, well-disposed toward +the entire world, especially to women, also to men in any way related to +pretty women, had just lit a cigar, and it was a cigar that he had been +recommended to try the flavour of; and though he, having his wits about +him, was fully aware that shipboard is no good place for a trial of the +delicacy of tobacco in the leaf, he had begun puffing and sniffing in a +critical spirit, and scarcely knew for the moment what to decide as to +this particular cigar. He remembered, however, Mr. Romfrey's objection +to tobacco. Imagining that he saw the expression of a profound distaste +in that gentleman's more than usually serious face, he hesitated between +casting the cigar into the water and retaining it. He decided upon the +latter course, and held the cigar behind his back, bowing to Mr. Romfrey +at about a couple of yards distance, and saying to Cecil, 'Housekeeper; +yes, I remember hearing housekeeper. I think so. Housekeeper? yes, oh +yes.' + +'And handsome housekeepers were doubtful characters,' Captain Baskelett +prompted him. + +Palmet laughed out a single 'Ha!' that seemed to excuse him for +lounging away to the forepart of the vessel, where he tugged at his fine +specimen of a cigar to rekindle it, and discharged it with a wry grimace, +so delicate is the flavour of that weed, and so adversely ever is it +affected by a breeze and a moist atmosphere. He could then return +undivided in his mind to Mr. Romfrey and Cecil, but the subject was not +resumed in his presence. + +The Countess of Menai steamed into Bevisham to land Mr. Romfrey there. +'I can be out in the Channel any day; it is not every day that I see +you,' she said, in support of her proposal to take him over. + +They sat together conversing, apart from the rest of the company, until +they sighted Bevisham, when Mr. Romfrey stood up, and a little crowd of +men came round him to enjoy his famous racy talk. Captain Baskelett +offered to land with him. He declined companionship. Dropping her hand +in his, the countess asked him what he had to do in that town, and he +replied, 'I have to demand an apology.' + +Answering the direct look of his eyes, she said, 'Oh, I shall not speak +of it.' + +In his younger days, if the rumour was correct, he had done the same on +her account. + +He stepped into the boat, and presently they saw him mount the pier- +steps, with the riding-whip under his arm, his head more than commonly +bent, a noticeable point in a man of his tall erect figure. The ladies +and some of the gentlemen thought he was looking particularly grave, even +sorrowful. + +Lady Menai inquired of Captain Baskelett whether he knew the nature of +his uncle's business in Bevisham, the town he despised. + +What could Cecil say but no? His uncle had not imparted it to him. + +She was flattered in being the sole confidante, and said no more. + +The sprightly ingenuity of Captain Baskelett's mind would have informed +him of the nature of his uncle's expedition, we may be sure, had he put +it to the trial; for Mr. Romfrey was as plain to read as a rudimentary +sum in arithmetic, and like the tracings of a pedigree-map his +preliminary steps to deeds were seen pointing on their issue in lines of +straight descent. But Cecil could protest that he was not bound to know, +and considering that he was neither bound to know nor to speculate, he +determined to stand on his right. So effectually did he accomplish the +task, that he was frequently surprised during the evening and the night +by the effervescence of a secret exultation rising imp-like within him, +that was, he assured himself, perfectly unaccountable. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +AN EFFORT TO CONQUER CECILIA IN BEAUCHAMP'S FASHION + +The day after Mr. Romfrey's landing in Bevisham a full South-wester +stretched the canvas of yachts of all classes, schooner, cutter and yawl, +on the lively green water between the island and the forest shore. +Cecilia's noble schooner was sure to be out in such a ringing breeze, for +the pride of it as well as the pleasure. She landed her father at the +Club steps, and then bore away Eastward to sight a cutter race, the +breeze beginning to stiffen. Looking back against sun and wind, she saw +herself pursued by a saucy little 15-ton craft that had been in her track +since she left the Otley river before noon, dipping and straining, with +every inch of sail set; as mad a stern chase as ever was witnessed: and +who could the man at the tiller, clad cap-A-pie in tarpaulin, be? She +led him dancing away, to prove his resoluteness and laugh at him. She +had the powerful wings, and a glory in them coming of this pursuit: her +triumph was delicious, until the occasional sparkle of the tarpaulin was +lost, the small boat appeared a motionless object far behind, and all +ahead of her exceedingly dull, though the race hung there and the crowd +of sail. + +Cecilia's transient flutter of coquettry created by the animating air and +her queenly flight was over. She fled splendidly and she came back +graciously. But he refused her open hand, as it were. He made as if to +stand across her tack, and, reconsidering it, evidently scorned his +advantage and challenged the stately vessel for a beat up against the +wind. It was as pretty as a Court minuet. But presently Cecilia stood +too far on one tack, and returning to the centre of the channel, found +herself headed by seamanship. He waved an ironical salute with his +sou'wester. Her retort consisted in bringing her vessel to the wind, and +sending a boat for him. + +She did it on the impulse; had she consulted her wishes she would rather +have seen him at his post, where he seemed in his element, facing the +spray and cunningly calculating to get wind and tide in his favour. +Partly with regret she saw him, stripped of his tarpaulin, jump into her +boat, as though she had once more to say farewell to sailor Nevil +Beauchamp; farewell the bright youth, the hero, the true servant of his +country! + +That feeling of hers changed when he was on board. The stirring cordial +day had put new breath in him. + +'Should not the flag be dipped?' he said, looking up at the peak, where +the white flag streamed. + +'Can you really mistake compassion for defeat?' said she, with a smile. + +'Oh! before the wind of course I hadn't a chance.' + +'How could you be so presumptuous as to give chase? And who has lent you +that little cutter?' + +Beauchamp had hired her for a month, and he praised her sailing, and +pretended to say that the race was not always to the strong in a stiff +breeze. + +'But in point' of fact I was bent on trying how my boat swims, and had no +idea of overhauling you. To-day our salt-water lake is as fine as the +Mediterranean.' + +'Omitting the islands and the Mediterranean colour, it is. I have often +told you how I love it. I have landed papa at the Club. Are you aware +that we meet you at Steynham the day after to-morrow?' + +'Well, we can ride on the downs. The downs between three and four of a +summer's morning are as lovely as anything in the world. They have the +softest outlines imaginable . . . and remind me of a friend's upper +lip when she deigns to smile.' + +'Is one to rise at that hour to behold the effect? And let me remind you +further, Nevil, that the comparison of nature's minor work beside her +mighty is an error, if you will be poetical.' + +She cited a well-known instance of degradation in verse. + +But a young man who happens to be intimately acquainted with a certain +'dark eye in woman' will not so lightly be brought to consider that the +comparison of tempestuous night to the flashing of those eyes of hers +topples the scene headlong from grandeur. And if Beauchamp remembered +rightly, the scene was the Alps at night. + +He was prepared to contest Cecilia's judgement. At that moment the +breeze freshened and the canvas lifted from due South the yacht swung her +sails to drive toward the West, and Cecilia's face and hair came out +golden in the sunlight. Speech was difficult, admiration natural, so he +sat beside her, admiring in silence. + +She said a good word for the smartness of his little yacht. + +'This is my first trial of her,' said Beauchamp. 'I hired her chiefly to +give Dr. Shrapnel a taste of salt air. I 've no real right to be idling +about. His ward Miss Denham is travelling in Switzerland; the dear old +man is alone, and not quite so well as I should wish. Change of scene +will do him good. I shall land him on the French coast for a couple of +days, or take him down Channel.' + +Cecilia gazed abstractedly at a passing schooner. + +'He works too hard,' said Beauchamp. + +'Who does?' + +'Dr. Shrapnel.' + +Some one else whom we have heard of works too hard, and it would be happy +for mankind if he did not. + +Cecilia named the schooner; an American that had beaten our crack yachts. +Beauchamp sprang up to spy at the American. + +'That's the Corinne, is she!' + +Yankee craftiness on salt water always excited his respectful attention +as a spectator. + +'And what is the name of your boat, Nevil?' + +'The fool of an owner calls her the Petrel. It's not that I'm +superstitious, but to give a boat a name of bad augury to sailors appears +to me . . . however, I 've argued it with him and I will have her +called the Curlew. Carrying Dr. Shrapnel and me, Petrel would be thought +the proper title for her isn't that your idea?' + +He laughed and she smiled, and then he became overcast with his political +face, and said, 'I hope--I believe--you will alter your opinion of him. +Can it be an opinion when it's founded on nothing? You know really +nothing of him. I have in my pocket what I believe would alter your mind +about him entirely. I do think so; and I think so because I feel you +would appreciate his deep sincerity and real nobleness.' + +'Is it a talisman that you have, Nevil?' + +'No, it's a letter.' + +Cecilia's cheeks took fire. + +'I should so much like to read it to you,' said he. + +'Do not, please,' she replied with a dash of supplication in her voice. + +'Not the whole of it--an extract here and there? I want you so much to +understand him.' + +'I am sure I should not.' + +'Let me try you!' + +'Pray do not.' + +'Merely to show you...' + +'But, Nevil, I do not wish to understand him.' + +'But you have only to listen for a few minutes, and I want you to know +what good reason I have to reverence him as a teacher and a friend.' + +Cecilia looked at Beauchamp with wonder. A confused recollection of the +contents of the letter declaimed at Mount Laurels in Captain Baskelett's +absurd sing-song, surged up in her mind revoltingly. She signified a +decided negative. Something of a shudder accompanied the expression of +it. + +But he as little as any member of the Romfrey blood was framed to let the +word no stand quietly opposed to him. And the no that a woman utters! +It calls for wholesome tyranny. Those old, those hoar-old duellists, Yes +and No, have rarely been better matched than in Beauchamp and Cecilia. +For if he was obstinate in attack she had great resisting power. Twice +to listen to that letter was beyond her endurance. Indeed it cast a +shadow on him and disfigured him; and when, affecting to plead, he said: +'You must listen to it to please me, for my sake, Cecilia,' she answered: +'It is for your sake, Nevil, I decline to.' + +'Why, what do you know of it?' he exclaimed. + +'I know the kind of writing it would be.' + +'How do you know it?' + +'I have heard of some of Dr. Shrapnel's opinions.' + +'You imagine him to be subversive, intolerant, immoral, and the rest! +all that comes under your word revolutionary.' + +'Possibly; but I must defend myself from hearing what I know will be +certain to annoy me.' + +'But he is the reverse of immoral: and I intend to read you parts of the +letter to prove to you that he is not the man you would blame, but I, and +that if ever I am worthier . . . worthier of you, as I hope to become, +it will be owing to this admirable and good old man.' + +Cecilia trembled: she was touched to the quick. Yet it was not pleasant +to her to be wooed obliquely, through Dr. Shrapnel. + +She recognized the very letter, crowned with many stamps, thick with many +pages, in Beauchamp's hands. + +'When you are at Steynham you will probably hear my uncle Everard's +version of this letter,' he said. 'The baron chooses to think everything +fair in war, and the letter came accidentally into his hands with the +seal broken; well, he read it. And, Cecilia, you can fancy the sort of +stuff he would make of it. Apart from that, I want you particularly to +know how much I am indebted to Dr. Shrapnel. Won't you learn to like him +a little? Won't you tolerate him?--I could almost say, for my sake! He +and I are at variance on certain points, but taking him altogether, I am +under deeper obligations to him than to any man on earth. He has found +where I bend and waver.' + +'I recognize your chivalry, Nevil.' + +'He has done his best to train me to be of some service. Where's the +chivalry in owning a debt? He is one of our true warriors; fearless and +blameless. I have had my heroes before. You know how I loved Robert +Hall: his death is a gap in my life. He is a light for fighting +Englishmen--who fight with the sword. But the scale of the war, the +cause, and the end in view, raise Dr. Shrapnel above the bravest I have +ever had the luck to meet. Soldiers and sailors have their excitement to +keep them up to the mark; praise and rewards. He is in his eight-and- +sixtieth year, and he has never received anything but obloquy for his +pains. Half of the small fortune he has goes in charities and +subscriptions. Will that touch you? But I think little of that, and so +does he. Charity is a common duty. The dedication of a man's life and +whole mind to a cause, there's heroism. I wish I were eloquent; I wish I +could move you.' + +Cecilia turned her face to him. 'I listen to you with pleasure, Nevil; +but please do not read the letter.' + +'Yes; a paragraph or two I must read.' + +She rose. + +He was promptly by her side. 'If I say I ask you for one sign that you +care for me in some degree?' + +'I have not for a moment ceased to be your friend, Nevil, since I was a +child.' + +'But if you allow yourself to be so prejudiced against my best friend +that you will not hear a word of his writing, are you friendly?' + +'Feminine, and obstinate,' said Cecilia. + +'Give me your eyes an instant. I know you think me reckless and lawless: +now is not that true? You doubt whether, if a lady gave me her hand I +should hold to it in perfect faith. Or, perhaps not that: but you do +suspect I should be capable of every sophism under the sun to persuade a +woman to break her faith, if it suited me: supposing some passion to be +at work. Men who are open to passion have to be taught reflection before +they distinguish between the woman they should sue for love because she +would be their best mate, and the woman who has thrown a spell on them. +Now, what I beg you to let me read you in this letter is a truth nobly +stated that has gone into my blood, and changed me. It cannot fail, too, +in changeing your opinion of Dr. Shrapnel. It makes me wretched that you +should be divided from me in your ideas of him. I, you see--and I +confess I think it my chief title to honour--reverence him.' + +'I regret that I am unable to utter the words of Ruth,' said Cecilia, in +a low voice. She felt rather tremulously; opposed only to the letter and +the writer of it, not at all to Beauchamp, except on account of his +idolatry of the wicked revolutionist. Far from having a sense of +opposition to Beauchamp; she pitied him for his infatuation, and in her +lofty mental serenity she warmed to him for the seeming boyishness of his +constant and extravagant worship of the man, though such an enthusiasm +cast shadows on his intellect. + +He was reading a sentence of the letter. + +'I hear nothing but the breeze, Nevil,' she said. + +The breeze fluttered the letter-sheets: they threatened to fly. Cecilia +stepped two paces away. + +'Hark; there is a military band playing on the pier,' said she. 'I am so +fond of hearing music a little off shore.' + +Beauchamp consigned the letter to his pocket. + +'You are not offended, Nevil?' + +'Dear me, no. You haven't a mind for tonics, that's all.' + +'Healthy persons rarely have,' she remarked, and asked him, smiling +softly, whether he had a mind for music. + +His insensibility to music was curious, considering how impressionable he +was to verse, and to songs of birds. He listened with an oppressed look, +as to something the particular secret of which had to be reached by a +determined effort of sympathy for those whom it affected. He liked it if +she did, and said he liked it, reiterated that he liked it, clearly +trying hard to comprehend it, as unmoved by the swell and sigh of the +resonant brass as a man could be, while her romantic spirit thrilled to +it, and was bountiful in glowing visions and in tenderness. + +There hung her hand. She would not have refused to yield it. The hero +of her childhood, the friend of her womanhood, and her hero still, might +have taken her with half a word. + +Beauchamp was thinking: She can listen to that brass band, and she shuts +her ears to this letter: + +The reading of it would have been a prelude to the opening of his heart +to her, at the same time that it vindicated his dear and honoured master, +as he called Dr. Shrapnel. To speak, without the explanation of his +previous reticence which this letter would afford, seemed useless: even +the desire to speak was absent, passion being absent. + +'I see papa; he is getting into a boat with some one,' said Cecilia, and +gave orders for the yacht to stand in toward the Club steps. 'Do you +know, Nevil, the Italian common people are not so subject to the charm of +music as other races? They have more of the gift, and I think less of +the feeling. You do not hear much music in Italy. I remember in the +year of Revolution there was danger of a rising in some Austrian city, +and a colonel of a regiment commanded his band to play. The mob was put +in good humour immediately.' + +'It's a soporific,' said Beauchamp. + +'You would not rather have had them rise to be slaughtered?' + +'Would you have them waltzed into perpetual servility?' + +Cecilia hummed, and suggested: 'If one can have them happy in any way?' + +'Then the day of destruction may almost be dated.' + +'Nevil, your terrible view of life must be false.' + +'I make it out worse to you than to any one else, because I want our +minds to be united.' + +'Give me a respite now and then.' + +'With all my heart. And forgive me for beating my drum. I see what +others don't see, or else I feel it more; I don't know; but it appears to +me our country needs rousing if it's to live. There 's a division +between poor and rich that you have no conception of, and it can't safely +be left unnoticed. I've done.' + +He looked at her and saw tears on her under-lids. + +'My dearest Cecilia!' + +'Music makes me childish,' said she. + +Her father was approaching in the boat. Beside him sat the Earl of +Lockrace, latterly classed among the suitors of the lady of Mount +Laurels. + +A few minutes remained to Beauchamp of his lost opportunity. Instead of +seizing them with his usual promptitude, he let them slip, painfully +mindful of his treatment of her last year after the drive into Bevisham, +when she was England, and Renee holiday France. + +This feeling he fervently translated into the reflection that the bride +who would bring him beauty and wealth, and her especial gift of tender +womanliness, was not yet so thoroughly mastered as to grant her husband +his just prevalence with her, or even indeed his complete independence of +action, without which life itself was not desireable. + +Colonel Halkett stared at Beauchamp as if he had risen from the deep. + +'Have you been in that town this morning?' was one of his first +questions to him when he stood on board. + +'I came through it,' said Beauchamp, and pointed to his little cutter +labouring in the distance. 'She's mine for a month; I came from +Holdesbury to try her; and then he stated how he had danced attendance on +the schooner for a couple of hours before any notice was taken of him, +and Cecilia with her graceful humour held up his presumption to scorn. + +Her father was eyeing Beauchamp narrowly, and appeared troubled. + +'Did you see Mr. Romfrey yesterday, or this morning?' the colonel asked +him, mentioning that Mr. Romfrey had been somewhere about the island +yesterday, at which Beauchamp expressed astonishment, for his uncle +Everard seldom visited a yachting station. + +Colonel Halkett exchanged looks with Cecilia. Hers were inquiring, and +he confirmed her side-glance at Beauchamp. She raised her brows; he +nodded, to signify that there was gravity in the case. Here the +signalling stopped short; she had to carry on a conversation with Lord +Lockrace, one of those men who betray the latent despot in an exhibition +of discontentment unless they have all a lady's hundred eyes attentive to +their discourse. + +At last Beauchamp quitted the vessel. + +When he was out of hearing, Colonel Halkett said to Cecilia: 'Grancey +Lespel tells me that Mr. Romfrey called on the man Shrapnel yesterday +evening at six o'clock.' + +'Yes, Papa?' + +'Now come and see the fittings below,' the colonel addressed Lord +Lockrace, and murmured to his daughter: + +'And soundly horsewhipped him!' + +Cecilia turned on the instant to gaze after Nevil Beauchamp. She could +have wept for pity. Her father's emphasis on 'soundly' declared an +approval of the deed, and she was chilled by a sickening abhorrence and +dread of the cruel brute in men, such as, awakened by she knew not what, +had haunted her for a year of her girlhood. + +'And he deserved it!' the colonel pursued, on emerging from the cabin at +Lord Lockrace's heels. 'I've no doubt he richly deserved it. The writer +of that letter we heard Captain Baskelett read the other day deserves the +very worst he gets.' + +'Baskelett bored the Club the other night with a letter of a Radical +fellow,' said Lord Lockrace. 'Men who write that stuff should be strung +up and whipped by the common hangman.' + +'It was a private letter,' said Cecilia. + +'Public or private, Miss Halkett.' + +Her mind flew back to Seymour Austin for the sense of stedfastness when +she heard such language as this, which, taken in conjunction with Dr. +Shrapnel's, seemed to uncloak our Constitutional realm and show it +boiling up with the frightful elements of primitive societies. + +'I suppose we are but half civilized,' she said. + +'If that,' said the earl. + +Colonel Halkett protested that he never could quite make out what +Radicals were driving at. + +'The rents,' Lord Lockrace observed in the conclusive tone of brevity. +He did not stay very long. + +The schooner was boarded subsequently by another nobleman, an Admiral of +the Fleet and ex-minister of the Whig Government, Lord Croyston, who was +a friend of Mr. Romfrey's, and thought well of Nevil Beauchamp as a +seaman and naval officer, but shook an old head over him as a politician. +He came to beg a passage across the water to his marine Lodge, an +accident having happened early in the morning to his yacht, the Lady +Violet. He was able to communicate the latest version of the +horsewhipping of Dr. Shrapnel, from which it appeared that after Mr. +Romfrey had handsomely flogged the man he flung his card on the prostrate +body, to let men know who was responsible for the act. He expected that +Mr. Romfrey would be subjected to legal proceedings. 'But if there's a +pleasure worth paying for it's the trouncing of a villain,' said he; and +he had been informed that Dr. Shrapnel was a big one. Lord Croyston's +favourite country residence was in the neighbourhood of old Mrs. +Beauchamp, on the Upper Thames. Speaking of Nevil Beauchamp a second +time, he alluded to his relations with his great-aunt, said his prospects +were bad, that she had interdicted her house to him, and was devoted to +her other great-nephew. + +'And so she should be,' said Colonel Halkett. 'That's a young man who's +an Englishman without French gunpowder notions in his head. He works for +us down at the mine in Wales a good part of the year, and has tided us +over a threatening strike there: gratuitously: I can't get him to accept +anything. I can't think why he does it.' + +'He'll have plenty,' said Lord Croyston, levelling his telescope to sight +the racing cutters. + +Cecilia fancied she descried Nevil's Petrel, dubbed Curlew, to Eastward, +and had a faint gladness in the thought that his knowledge of his uncle +Everard's deed of violence would be deferred for another two or three +hours. + +She tried to persuade her father to wait for Nevil, and invite him to +dine at Mount Laurels, and break the news to him gently. Colonel Halkett +argued that in speaking of the affair he should certainly not commiserate +the man who had got his deserts, and saying this he burst into a petty +fury against the epistle of Dr. Shrapnel, which appeared to be growing +more monstrous in proportion to his forgetfulness of the details, as +mountains gather vastness to the eye at a certain remove. Though he +could not guess the reason for Mr. Romfrey's visit to Bevisham, he was, +he said, quite prepared to maintain that Mr. Romfrey had a perfect +justification for his conduct. + +Cecilia hinted at barbarism. The colonel hinted at high police duties +that gentlemen were sometimes called on to perform for the protection of +society. 'In defiance of its laws?' she asked; and he answered: 'Women +must not be judging things out of their sphere,' with the familiar accent +on 'women' which proves their inferiority. He was rarely guilty of it +toward his daughter. Evidently he had resolved to back Mr. Romfrey +blindly. That epistle of Dr. Shrapnel's merited condign punishment and +had met with it, he seemed to rejoice in saying: and this was his +abstract of the same: 'An old charlatan who tells his dupe to pray every +night of his life for the beheading of kings and princes, and scattering +of the clergy, and disbanding the army, that he and his rabble may fall +upon the wealthy, and show us numbers win; and he'll undertake to make +them moral!' + +'I wish we were not going to Steynham,' said Cecilia. + +'So do I. Well, no, I don't,' the colonel corrected himself, 'no; it 's +an engagement. I gave my consent so far. We shall see whether Nevil +Beauchamp's a man of any sense.' + +Her heart sank. This was as much as to let her know that if Nevil broke +with his uncle, the treaty of union between the two families, which her +father submitted to entertain out of consideration for Mr. Romfrey, would +be at an end. + +The wind had fallen. Entering her river, Cecilia gazed back at the +smooth broad water, and the band of golden beams flung across it from the +evening sun over the forest. No little cutter was visible. She could +not write to Nevil to bid him come and concert with her in what spirit to +encounter his uncle Everard at Steynham. And guests would be at Mount +Laurels next day; Lord Lockrace, Lord Croyston, and the Lespels; she +could not drive down to Bevisham on the chance of seeing him. Nor was it +to be acknowledged even to herself that she so greatly desired to see him +and advise him. Why not? Because she was one of the artificial +creatures called women (with the accent) who dare not be spontaneous, and +cannot act independently if they would continue to be admirable in the +world's eye, and who for that object must remain fixed on shelves, like +other marketable wares, avoiding motion to avoid shattering or +tarnishing. This is their fate, only in degree less inhuman than that of +Hellenic and Trojan princesses offered up to the Gods, or pretty slaves +to the dealers. Their artificiality is at once their bane and their +source of superior pride. + +Seymour Austin might have reason for seeking to emancipate them, she +thought, and blushed in thought that she could never be learning anything +but from her own immediate sensations. + +Of course it was in her power to write to Beauchamp, just as it had been +in his to speak to her, but the fire was wanting in her blood and absent +from his mood, so they were kept apart. + +Her father knew as little as she what was the positive cause of Mr. +Romfrey's chastisement of Dr. Shrapnel. 'Cause enough, I don't doubt,' +he said, and cited the mephitic letter. + +Cecilia was not given to suspicions, or she would have had them kindled +by a certain wilfulness in his incessant reference to the letter, and +exoneration, if not approval, of Mr. Romfrey's conduct. + +How did that chivalrous gentleman justify himself for condescending to +such an extreme as the use of personal violence? Was there a possibility +of his justifying it to Nevil? She was most wretched in her reiteration +of these inquiries, for, with a heart subdued, she had still a mind whose +habit of independent judgement was not to be constrained, and while she +felt that it was only by siding with Nevil submissively and blindly in +this lamentable case that she could hope for happiness, she foresaw the +likelihood of her not being able to do so as much as he would desire and +demand. This she took for the protest of her pure reason. In reality, +grieved though she was on account of that Dr. Shrapnel, her captive heart +resented the anticipated challenge to her to espouse his cause or +languish. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +THE FIRST ENCOUNTER AT STEYNHAM + +The judge pronouncing sentence of condemnation on the criminal is +proverbially a sorrowfully-minded man; and still more would he be so had +he to undertake the part of executioner as well. This is equivalent to +saying that the simple pleasures are no longer with us; it must be a +personal enemy now to give us any satisfaction in chastising and slaying. +Perhaps by-and-by that will be savourless: we degenerate. There is, +nevertheless, ever (and let nature be praised for it) a strong +sustainment in the dutiful exertion of our physical energies, and Mr. +Everard Romfrey experienced it after he had fulfilled his double office +on the person of Dr. Shrapnel by carrying out his own decree. His +conscience approved him cheerlessly, as it is the habit of that secret +monitor to do when we have no particular advantage coming of the act we +have performed; but the righteous labour of his arm gave him high +breathing and an appetite. + +He foresaw that he and Nevil would soon be having a wrestle over the +matter, hand and thigh; but a gentleman in the right engaged with a +fellow in the wrong has nothing to apprehend; is, in fact, in the +position of a game-preserver with a poacher. The nearest approach to +gratification in that day's work which Mr. Romfrey knew was offered by +the picture of Nevil's lamentable attitude above his dirty idol. He +conceived it in the mock-mediaeval style of our caricaturists:--Shrapnel +stretched at his length, half a league, in slashed yellows and blacks, +with his bauble beside him, and prodigious pointed toes; Nevil in parti- +coloured tights, on one leg, raising his fists in imprecation to a nose +in the firmament. + +Gentlemen of an unpractised imaginative capacity cannot vision for +themselves exactly what they would, being unable to exercise authority +over the proportions and the hues of the objects they conceive, which are +very much at the mercy of their sportive caprices; and the state of mind +of Mr. Romfrey is not to be judged by his ridiculous view of the pair. +In the abstract he could be sorry for Shrapnel. As he knew himself +magnanimous, he promised himself to be forbearing with Nevil. + +Moreover, the month of September was drawing nigh; he had plenty to think +of. The entire land (signifying all but all of those who occupy the +situation of thinkers in it) may be said to have been exhaling the same +thought in connection with September. Our England holds possession of a +considerable portion of the globe, and it keeps the world in awe to see +her bestowing so considerable a portion of her intelligence upon her +recreations. To prosecute them with her whole heart is an ingenious +exhibition of her power. Mr. Romfrey was of those who said to his +countrymen, 'Go yachting; go cricketing; go boat-racing; go shooting; go +horseracing, nine months of the year, while the other Europeans go +marching and drilling.' Those occupations he considered good for us; and +our much talking, writing, and thinking about them characteristic, and +therefore good. And he was not one of those who do penance for that +sweating indolence in the fits of desperate panic. Beauchamp's argument +that the rich idler begets the idling vagabond, the rich wagerer the +brutal swindler, the general thirst for a mad round of recreation a +generally-increasing disposition to avoid serious work, and the unbraced +moral tone of the country an indifference to national responsibility (an +argument doubtless extracted from Shrapnel, talk tall as the very +demagogue when he stood upright), Mr. Romfrey laughed at scornfully, +affirming that our manufactures could take care of themselves. As for +invasion, we are circled by the sea. Providence has done that for us, +and may be relied on to do more in an emergency.--The children of wealth +and the children of the sun alike believe that Providence is for them, +and it would seem that the former can do without it less than the latter, +though the former are less inclined to give it personification. + +This year, however, the array of armaments on the Continent made Mr. +Romfrey anxious about our navy. Almost his first topic in welcoming +Colonel Halkett and Cecilia to Steynham was the rottenness of navy +administration; for if Providence is to do anything for us it must have a +sea-worthy fleet for the operation. How loudly would his contemptuous +laughter have repudiated the charge that he trusted to supernatural +agency for assistance in case of need! But so it was: and he owned to +believing in English luck. Partly of course he meant that steady fire of +combat which his countrymen have got heated to of old till fortune +blessed them. + +'Nevil is not here?' the colonel asked. + +'No, I suspect he's gruelling and plastering a doctor of his +acquaintance,' Mr. Romfrey said, with his nasal laugh composed of scorn +and resignation. + +'Yes, yes, I've heard,' said Colonel Halkett hastily. + +He would have liked to be informed of Dr. Shrapnel's particular offence: +he mentioned the execrable letter. + +Mr. Romfrey complacently interjected: 'Drug-vomit!' and after an +interval: 'Gallows!' + +'That man has done Nevil Beauchamp a world of mischief, Romfrey.' + +'We'll hope for a cure, colonel.' + +'Did the man come across you?' + +'He did.' + +Mr. Romfrey was mute on the subject. Colonel Halkett abstained from +pushing his inquiries. + +Cecilia could only tell her father when they were alone in the drawing- +room a few minutes before dinner that Mrs. Culling was entirely ignorant +of any cause to which Nevil's absence might be attributed. + +'Mr. Romfrey had good cause,' the colonel said, emphatically. + +He repeated it next day, without being a bit wiser of the cause. + +Cecilia's happiness or hope was too sensitive to allow of a beloved +father's deceiving her in his opposition to it. + +She saw clearly now that he had fastened on this miserable incident, +expecting an imbroglio that would divide Nevil and his uncle, and be an +excuse for dividing her and Nevil. O for the passionate will to make +head against what appeared as a fate in this matter! She had it not. + +Mr. and Mrs. Wardour-Devereux, Sir John and Lady Baskelett, and the +Countess of Welshpool, another sister of Mr. Romfrey's, arrived at +Steynham for a day and a night. Lady Baskelett and Lady Welshpool came +to see their brother, not to countenance his household; and Mr. Wardour- +Devereux could not stay longer than a certain number of hours under a +roof where tobacco was in evil odour. From her friend Louise, his wife, +Cecilia learnt that Mr. Lydiard had been summoned to Dr. Shrapnel's +bedside, as Mrs. Devereux knew by a letter she had received from Mr. +Lydiard, who was no political devotee of that man, she assured Cecilia, +but had an extraordinary admiration for the Miss Denham living with him. +This was kindly intended to imply that Beauchamp was released from his +attendance on Dr. Shrapnel, and also that it was not he whom the Miss +Denham attracted. + +'She is in Switzerland,' said Cecilia. + +'She is better there,' said Mrs. Devereux. + +Mr. Stukely Culbrett succeeded to these visitors. He heard of the case +of Dr. Shrapnel from Colonel Halkett, and of Beauchamp's missing of his +chance with the heiress from Mr. Romfrey. + +Rosamund Culling was in great perplexity about Beauchamp's prolonged +absence; for he had engaged to come, he had written to her to say he +would be sure to come; and she feared he was ill. She would have +persuaded Mr. Culbrett to go down to Bevisham to see him: she declared +that she could even persuade herself to call on Dr. Shrapnel a second +time, in spite of her horror of the man. Her anger at the thought of his +keeping Nevil away from good fortune and happiness caused her to speak in +resentment and loathing of the man. + +'He behaved badly when you saw him, did he?' said Stukely. + +'Badly, is no word. He is detestable,' Rosamund replied. + +'You think he ought to be whipped?' + +She feigned an extremity of vindictiveness, and twisted her brows in +comic apology for the unfeminine sentiment, as she said: 'I really do.' + +The feminine gentleness of her character was known to Stukely, so she +could afford to exaggerate the expression of her anger, and she did not +modify it, forgetful that a woman is the representative of the sex with +cynical men, and escapes from contempt at the cost of her sisterhood. + +Looking out of an upper window in the afternoon she beheld Nevil +Beauchamp in a group with his uncle Everard, the colonel and Cecilia, and +Mr. Culbrett. Nevil was on his feet; the others were seated under the +great tulip-tree on the lawn. + +A little observation of them warned her that something was wrong. There +was a vacant chair; Nevil took it in his hand at times, stamped it to the +ground, walked away and sharply back fronting his uncle, speaking +vehemently, she perceived, and vainly, as she judged by the cast of his +uncle's figure. Mr. Romfrey's head was bent, and wagged slightly, as he +screwed his brows up and shot his eyes, queerly at the agitated young +man. Colonel Halkett's arms crossed his chest. Cecilia's eyelids +drooped their, lashes. Mr. Culbrett was balancing on the hind-legs of +his chair. No one appeared to be speaking but Nevil. + +It became evident that Nevil was putting a series of questions to his +uncle. Mechanical nods were given him in reply. + +Presently Mr. Romfrey rose, thundering out a word or two, without a +gesture. + +Colonel Halkett rose. + +Nevil flung his hand out straight to the house. + +Mr. Romfrey seemed to consent; the colonel shook his head: Nevil +insisted. + +A footman carrying a tea-tray to Miss Halkett received some commission +and swiftly disappeared, making Rosamund wonder whether sugar, milk or +cream had been omitted. + +She met him on the first landing, and heard that Mr. Romfrey requested +her to step out on the lawn. + +Expecting to hear of a piece of misconduct on the part of the household +servants, she hurried forth, and found that she had to traverse the whole +space of the lawn up to the tuliptree. Colonel Halkett and Mr. Romfrey +had resumed their seats. The colonel stood up and bowed to her. + +Mr. Romfrey said: 'One question to you, ma'am, and you shall not be +detained. Did not that man Shrapnel grossly insult you on the day you +called on him to see Captain Beauchamp about a couple of months before +the Election?' + +'Look at me when you speak, ma'am,' said Beauchamp. + +Rosamund looked at him. + +The whiteness of his face paralyzed her tongue. A dreadful levelling of +his eyes penetrated and chilled her. Instead of thinking of her answer +she thought of what could possibly have happened. + +'Did he insult you at all, ma'am?' said Beauchamp. + +Mr. Romfrey reminded him that he was not a cross-examining criminal +barrister. + +They waited for her to speak. + +She hesitated, coloured, betrayed confusion; her senses telling her of a +catastrophe, her conscience accusing her as the origin of it. + +'Did Dr. Shrapnel, to your belief, intentionally hurt your feelings or +your dignity?' said Beauchamp, and made the answer easier: + +'Not intentionally, surely: not . . . I certainly do not accuse him.' + +'Can you tell me you feel that he wounded you in the smallest degree? +And if so, how? I ask you this, because he is anxious, if he lives, to +apologize to you for any offence that he may have been guilty of: he was +ignorant of it. I have his word for that, and his commands to me to bear +it to you. I may tell you I have never known him injure the most feeble +thing--anything alive, or wish to.' + +Beauchamp's voice choked. Rosamund saw tears leap out of the stern face +of her dearest now in wrath with her. + +'Is he ill?' she faltered. + +'He is. You own to a strong dislike of him, do you not?' + +'But not to desire any harm to him.' + +'Not a whipping,' Mr. Culbrett murmured. + +Everard Romfrey overheard it. + +He had allowed Mrs. Culling to be sent for, that she might with a bare +affirmative silence Nevil, when his conduct was becoming intolerable +before the guests of the house. + +'That will do, ma'am,' he dismissed her. + +Beauchamp would not let her depart. + +'I must have your distinct reply, and in Mr. Romfrey's presence:--say, +that if you accused him you were mistaken, or that they were mistaken who +supposed you had accused him. I must have the answer before you go.' + +'Sir, will you learn manners!' Mr. Romfrey said to him, with a rattle of +the throat. + +Beauchamp turned his face from-her. + +Colonel Halkett offered her his arm to lead her away. + +'What is it? Oh, what is it?' she whispered, scarcely able to walk, but +declining the colonel's arm. + +'You ought not to have been dragged out here,' said he. 'Any one might +have known there would be no convincing of Captain Beauchamp. That old +rascal in Bevisham has been having a beating; that's all. And a very +beautiful day it is!--a little too hot, though. Before we leave, you +must give me a lesson or two in gardening.' + +'Dr. Shrapnel--Mr. Romfrey!' said Rosamund half audibly under the +oppression of the more she saw than what she said. + +The colonel talked of her renown in landscape-gardening. He added +casually: 'They met the other day.' + +'By accident?' + +'By chance, I suppose. Shrapnel defends one of your Steynham poaching +vermin.' + +'Mr. Romfrey struck him?--for that? Oh, never!' Rosamund exclaimed. + +'I suppose he had a long account to settle.' + +She fetched her breath painfully. 'I shall never be forgiven.' + +'And I say that a gentleman has no business with idols,' the colonel +fumed as he spoke. 'Those letters of Shrapnel to Nevil Beauchamp are a +scandal on the name of Englishman.' + +'You have read that shocking one, Colonel Halkett?' + +'Captain Baskelett read it out to us.' + +'He? Oh! then . . .' She stopped:--Then the author of this mischief +is clear to me! her divining hatred of Cecil would have said, but her +humble position did not warrant such speech. A consideration of the +lowliness necessitating this restraint at a moment when loudly to +denounce another's infamy with triumphant insight would have solaced and +supported her, kept Rosamund dumb. + +She could not bear to think of her part in the mischief. + +She was not bound to think of it, knowing actually nothing of the +occurrence. + +Still she felt that she was on her trial. She detected herself running +in and out of her nature to fortify it against accusations rather than +cleanse it for inspection. It was narrowing in her own sight. The +prospect of her having to submit to a further interrogatory, shut it up +entrenched in the declaration that Dr. Shrapnel had so far outraged her +sentiments as to be said to have offended her: not insulted, perhaps, but +certainly offended. + +And this was a generous distinction. It was generous; and, having +recognized the generosity, she was unable to go beyond it. + +She was presently making the distinction to Miss Halkett. The colonel +had left her at the door of the house: Miss Halkett sought admission to +her private room on an errand of condolence, for she had sympathized with +her very much in the semi-indignity Nevil had forced her to undergo: and +very little indeed had she been able to sympathize with Nevil, who had +been guilty of the serious fault of allowing himself to appear moved by +his own commonplace utterances; or, in other words, the theme being +hostile to his audience, he had betrayed emotion over it without first +evoking the spirit of pathos. + +'As for me,' Rosamund replied, to some comforting remarks of Miss +Halkett's, 'I do not understand why I should be mixed up in Dr. +Shrapnel's misfortunes: I really am quite unable to recollect his words +to me or his behaviour: I have only a positive impression that I left his +house, where I had gone to see Captain Beauchamp, in utter disgust, so +repelled by his language that I could hardly trust myself to speak of the +man to Mr. Romfrey when he questioned me. I did not volunteer it. I am +ready to say that I believe Dr. Shrapnel did not intend to be insulting. +I cannot say that he was not offensive. + +You know, Miss Halkett, I would willingly, gladly have saved him from +anything like punishment.' + +'You are too gentle to have thought of it,' said Cecilia. + +'But I shall never be forgiven by Captain Beauchamp. I see in his eyes +that he accuses me and despises me.' + +'He will not be so unjust, Mrs. Culling.' + +Rosamund begged that she might hear what Nevil had first said on his +arrival. + +Cecilia related that they had seen him walking swiftly across the park, +and that Mr. Romfrey had hailed him, and held his hand out; and that +Captain Beauchamp had overlooked it, saying he feared Mr. Romfrey's work +was complete. He had taken her father's hand and hers and his touch was +like ice. + +'His worship of that Dr. Shrapnel is extraordinary,' quoth Rosamund. +'And how did Mr. Romfrey behave to him?' + +'My father thinks, very forbearingly.' + +Rosamund sighed and made a semblance of wringing her hands. 'It seems to +me that I anticipated ever since I heard of the man . . . or at least +ever since I saw him and heard him, he would be the evil genius of us +all: if I dare include myself. But I am not permitted to escape! And, +Miss Halkett, can you tell me how it was that my name--that I became +involved? I cannot imagine the circumstances which would bring me +forward in this unhappy affair.' + +Cecilia replied: 'The occasion was, that Captain Beauchamp so scornfully +contrasted the sort of injury done by Dr. Shrapnel's defence of a poacher +on his uncle's estate, with the severe chastisement inflicted by Mr. +Romfrey in revenge for it. He would not leave the subject.' + +'I see him--see his eyes!' cried Rosamund, her bosom heaving and sinking +deep, as her conscience quavered within her. 'At last Mr. Romfrey +mentioned me?' + +'He stood up and said you had been personally insulted by Dr. Shrapnel.' + +Rosamund meditated in a distressing doubt of her conscientious +truthfulness. + +'Captain Beauchamp will be coming to me; and how can I answer him? +Heaven knows I would have shielded the poor man, if possible--poor +wretch! Wicked though he is, one has only to hear of him suffering! +But what can I answer? I do recollect now that Mr. Romfrey compelled +me from question to question to confess that the man had vexed me. +Insulted, I never said. At the worst, I said vexed. I would not have +said insulted, or even offended, because Mr. Romfrey . . . ah! we +know him. What I did say, I forget. I have no guide to what I said but +my present feelings, and they are pity for the unfortunate man much more +than dislike.--Well, I must go through the scene with Nevil!' Rosamund +concluded her outcry of ostensible exculpation. + +She asked in a cooler moment how it was that Captain Beauchamp had so far +forgotten himself as to burst out on his uncle before the guests of the +house. It appeared that he had wished his uncle to withdraw with him, +and Mr. Romfrey had bidden him postpone private communications. Rosamund +gathered from one or two words of Cecilia's that Mr. Romfrey, until +finally stung by Nevil, had indulged in his best-humoured banter. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Alike believe that Providence is for them +Better for men of extremely opposite opinions not to meet +Convict it by instinct without the ceremony of a jury +Cowardice is even worse for nations than for individual men +Give our courage as hostage for the fulfilment of what we hope +Good maxim for the wrathful--speak not at all +Impossible for him to think that women thought +Leader accustomed to count ahead upon vapourish abstractions +Love, that has risen above emotion, quite independent of craving +Made of his creed a strait-jacket for humanity +Mankind is offended by heterodoxy in mean attire +May not one love, not craving to be beloved? +People with whom a mute conformity is as good as worship +Prayer for an object is the cajolery of an idol +Rebellion against society and advocacy of humanity run counter +Small things producing great consequences +That a mask is a concealment +The girl could not know her own mind, for she suited him exactly +The religion of this vast English middle-class--Comfort +The turn will come to us as to others--and go +Women must not be judging things out of their sphere + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Beauchamp's Career, v4 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4456.zip b/4456.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0de43b --- /dev/null +++ b/4456.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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