Beauchamps Career, v1

G >> George Meredith >> Beauchamps Career, v1

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'We leave Renee at Trieste, under the care of madame,' said Beauchamp,
'and we return to Venice, and I go to your father. This method protects
Renee from annoyance.'

'It strikes me that if she arrives at any determination she must take the
consequences.'

'She does. She is brave enough for that. But she is a girl; she has to
fight the battle of her life in a day, and I am her lover, and she leaves
it to me.'

'Is my sister such a coward?' said Roland.

Renee could only call out his name.

'It will never do, my dear Nevil; Roland tried to deal with his
unreasonable friend affectionately. 'I am responsible for her. It's
your own fault--if you had not saved my life I should not have been in
your way. Here I am, and your proposal can't be heard of. Do as you
will, both of you, when you step ashore in Venice.'

'If she goes back she is lost,' said Beauchamp, and he attacked Roland on
the side of his love for Renee, and for him.

Roland was inflexible. Seeing which, Renee said, 'To Venice, quickly, my
brother!' and now she almost sighed with relief to think that she was
escaping from this hurricane of a youth, who swept her off her feet and
wrapt her whole being in a delirium.

'We were in sight of the city just now!' cried Roland, staring and
frowning. 'What's this?'

Beauchamp answered him calmly, 'The boat's under my orders.'

'Talk madness, but don't act it,' said Roland. 'Round with the boat at
once. Hundred devils! you haven't your wits.'

To his amazement, Beauchamp refused to alter the boat's present course.

'You heard my sister?' said Roland.

'You frighten her,' said Beauchamp.

'You heard her wish to return to Venice, I say.'

'She has no wish that is not mine.'

It came to Roland's shouting his command to the men, while Beauchamp
pointed the course on for them.

'You will make this a ghastly pleasantry,' said Roland.

'I do what I know to be right,' said Beauchamp.

'You want an altercation before these fellows?'

'There won't be one; they obey me.'

Roland blinked rapidly in wrath and doubt of mind.

'Madame,' he stooped to Rosamund Culling, with a happy inspiration,
'convince him; you have known him longer than I, and I desire not to lose
my friend. And tell me, madame--I can trust you to be truth itself, and
you can see it is actually the time for truth to be spoken--is he
justified in taking my sister's hand? You perceive that I am obliged to
appeal to you. Is he not dependent on his uncle? And is he not,
therefore, in your opinion, bound in reason as well as in honour to wait
for his uncle's approbation before he undertakes to speak for my sister?
And, since the occasion is urgent, let me ask you one thing more:
whether, by your knowledge of his position, you think him entitled to
presume to decide upon my sister's destiny? She, you are aware, is not
so young but that she can speak for herself . . .'

'There you are wrong, Roland,' said Beauchamp; 'she can neither speak nor
think for herself: you lead her blindfolded.'

'And you, my friend, suppose that you are wiser than any of us. It is
understood. I venture to appeal to madame on the point in question.'

The poor lady's heart beat dismally. She was constrained to answer, and
said, 'His uncle is one who must be consulted.'

'You hear that, Nevil,' said Roland.

Beauchamp looked at her sharply; angrily, Rosamund feared. She had
struck his hot brain with the vision of Everard Romfrey as with a bar of
iron. If Rosamund had inclined to the view that he was sure of his
uncle's support, it would have seemed to him a simple confirmation of his
sentiments, but he was not of the same temper now as when he exclaimed,
'Let him see her!' and could imagine, give him only Renee's love, the
world of men subservient to his wishes.

Then he was dreaming; he was now in fiery earnest, for that reason
accessible to facts presented to him; and Rosamund's reluctantly spoken
words brought his stubborn uncle before his eyes, inflicting a sense of
helplessness of the bitterest kind.

They were all silent. Beauchamp stared at the lines of the deck-planks.

His scheme to rescue Renee was right and good; but was he the man that
should do it? And was she, moreover, he thought--speculating on her bent
head--the woman to be forced to brave the world with him, and poverty?
She gave him no sign. He was assuredly not the man to pretend to powers
he did not feel himself to possess, and though from a personal, and still
more from a lover's, inability to see all round him at one time and
accurately to weigh the forces at his disposal, he had gone far, he was
not a wilful dreamer nor so very selfish a lover. The instant his
consciousness of a superior strength failed him he acknowledged it.

Renee did not look up. She had none of those lightnings of primitive
energy, nor the noble rashness and reliance on her lover, which his
imagination had filled her with; none. That was plain. She could not
even venture to second him. Had she done so he would have held out. He
walked to the head of the boat without replying.

Soon after this the boat was set for Venice again.

When he rejoined his companions he kissed Rosamund's hand, and Renee,
despite a confused feeling of humiliation and anger, loved him for it.

Glittering Venice was now in sight; the dome of Sta. Maria Salute shining
like a globe of salt.

Roland flung his arm round his friend's neck, and said, 'Forgive me.'

'You do what you think right,' said Beauchamp.

'You are a perfect man of honour, my friend, and a woman would adore you.
Girls are straws. It's part of Renee's religion to obey her father.
That's why I was astonished! . . . I owe you my life, and I would
willingly give you my sister in part payment, if I had the giving of her;
most willingly. The case is, that she's a child, and you?'

'Yes, I'm dependent,' Beauchamp assented. 'I can't act; I see it. That
scheme wants two to carry it out: she has no courage. I feel that I
could carry the day with my uncle, but I can't subject her to the risks,
since she dreads them; I see it. Yes, I see that! I should have done
well, I believe; I should have saved her.'

'Run to England, get your uncle's consent, and then try.'

'No; I shall go to her father.'

'My dear Nevil, and supposing you have Renee to back you--supposing it,
I say--won't you be falling on exactly the same bayonet-point?'

'If I leave her!' Beauchamp interjected. He perceived the quality of
Renee's unformed character which he could not express.

'But we are to suppose that she loves you?'

'She is a girl.'

'You return, my friend, to the place you started from, as you did on the
canal without knowing it. In my opinion, frankly, she is best married.
And I think so all the more after this morning's lesson. You understand
plainly that if you leave her she will soon be pliant to the legitimate
authorities; and why not?'

'Listen to me, Roland. I tell you she loves me. I am bound to her, and
when--if ever I see her unhappy, I will not stand by and look on
quietly.'

Roland shrugged. 'The future not being born, my friend, we will abstain
from baptizing it. For me, less privileged than my fellows, I have never
seen the future. Consequently I am not in love with it, and to declare
myself candidly I do not care for it one snap of the fingers. Let us
follow our usages, and attend to the future at the hour of its delivery.
I prefer the sage-femme to the prophet. From my heart, Nevil, I wish I
could help you. We have charged great guns together, but a family
arrangement is something different from a hostile battery. There's
Venice! and, as soon as you land, my responsibility's ended. Reflect,
I pray you, on what I have said about girls. Upon my word, I discover
myself talking wisdom to you. Girls are precious fragilities. Marriage
is the mould for them; they get shape, substance, solidity: that is to
say, sense, passion, a will of their own: and grace and tenderness,
delicacy; all out of the rude, raw, quaking creatures we call girls.
Paris! my dear Nevil. Paris! It's the book of women.'

The grandeur of the decayed sea-city, where folly had danced Parisianly
of old, spread brooding along the waters in morning light; beautiful; but
with that inner light of history seen through the beauty Venice was like
a lowered banner. The great white dome and the campanili watching above
her were still brave emblems. Would Paris leave signs of an ancient
vigour standing to vindicate dignity when her fall came? Nevil thought
of Renee in Paris.

She avoided him. She had retired behind her tent-curtains, and
reappeared only when her father's voice hailed the boat from a gondola.
The count and the marquis were sitting together, and there was a spare
gondola for the voyagers, so that they should not have to encounter
another babel of the riva. Salutes were performed with lifted hats,
nods, and bows.

'Well, my dear child, it has all been very wonderful and uncomfortable?'
said the count.

'Wonderful, papa; splendid.'

'No qualms of any kind?'

'None, I assure you.' And madame?'

'Madame will confirm it, if you find a seat for her.'

Rosamund Culling was received in the count's gondola, cordially thanked,
and placed beside the marquis.

'I stay on board and pay these fellows,' said Roland.

Renee was told by her father to follow madame. He had jumped into the
spare gondola and offered a seat to Beauchamp.

'No,' cried Renee, arresting Beauchamp, 'it is I who mean to sit with
papa.'

Up sprang the marquis with an entreating, 'Mademoiselle!'

'M. Beauchamp will entertain you, M. le Marquis.'

'I want him here,' said the count; and Beauchamp showed that his wish was
to enter the count's gondola, but Renee had recovered her aplomb, and
decisively said 'No,' and Beauchamp had to yield.

That would have been an opportunity of speaking to her father without a
formal asking of leave. She knew it as well as Nevil Beauchamp.

Renee took his hand to be assisted in the step down to her father's arms,
murmuring:

'Do nothing--nothing! until you hear from me.'

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A bone in a boy's mind for him to gnaw and worry
A kind of anchorage in case of indiscretion
A night that had shivered repose
Am I thy master, or thou mine?
An instinct labouring to supply the deficiencies of stupidity
And now came war, the purifier and the pestilence
And one gets the worst of it (in any bargain)
Anticipate opposition by initiating measures
Appetite to flourish at the cost of the weaker
As for titles, the way to defend them is to be worthy of them
Boys are unjust
Braggadocioing in deeds is only next bad to mouthing it
Calm fanaticism of the passion of love
Compassionate sentiments veered round to irate amazement
Despises the pomades and curling-irons of modern romance
Disqualification of constantly offending prejudices
Efforts to weary him out of his project were unsuccessful
Empty magnanimity which his uncle presented to him
Energy to something, that was not to be had in a market
Feminine pity, which is nearer to contempt than to tenderness
Fit of Republicanism in the nursery
Forewarn readers of this history that there is no plot in it
Haunted many pillows
He had expected romance, and had met merchandize
He was too much on fire to know the taste of absurdity
Holding to his work after the strain's over--That tells the man
Humour preserved her from excesses of sentiment
I cannot say less, and will say no more
Impudent boy's fling at superiority over the superior
In India they sacrifice the widows, in France the virgins
Incessantly speaking of the necessity we granted it unknowingly
Levelling a finger at the taxpayer
Men had not pleased him of late
Mental and moral neuters
Never was a word fitter for a quack's mouth than "humanity"
No case is hopeless till a man consents to think it is
Peace-party which opposed was the actual cause of the war
Peculiar subdued form of laughter through the nose
Play the great game of blunders
Please to be pathetic on that subject after I am wrinkled
Politics as well as the other diseases
Press, which had kindled, proceeded to extinguished
Presumptuous belief
Ready is the ardent mind to take footing on the last thing done
She was not, happily, one of the women who betray strong feeling
Shuns the statuesque pathetic, or any kind of posturing
Straining for common talk, and showing the strain
Style resembling either early architecture or utter dilapidation
The people always wait for the winner
The system is cursed by nature, and that means by heaven
The tragedy of the mirror is one for a woman to write
Times when an example is needed by brave men
Tongue flew, thought followed
We could row and ride and fish and shoot, and breed largely
We dare not be weak if we would
We were unarmed, and the spectacle was distressing
We're treated like old-fashioned ornaments!
You're talking to me, not to a gallery

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