Beauchamps Career, v2

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Miss Denham's opening notes on the despised piano put a curb on the
doctor. She began a Mass of Mozart's, without the usual preliminary
rattle of the keys, as of a crier announcing a performance, straight to
her task, for which Rosamund thanked her, liking that kind of composed
simplicity: she thanked her more for cutting short the doctor's fanatical
nonsense. It was perceptible to her that a species of mad metaphor had
been wriggling and tearing its passage through a thorn-bush in his
discourse, with the furious urgency of a sheep in a panic; but where the
ostensible subject ended and the metaphor commenced, and which was which
at the conclusion, she found it difficult to discern--much as the sheep
would, be when he had left his fleece behind him. She could now have
said, 'Silly old man!'

Dr. Shrapnel appeared most placable. He was gazing at his Authority in
the heavens, tangled among gold clouds and purple; his head bent acutely
on one side, and his eyes upturned in dim speculation. His great feet
planted on their heels faced him, suggesting the stocks; his arms hung
loose. Full many a hero of the alehouse, anciently amenable to leg-and-
foot imprisonment in the grip of the parish, has presented as respectable
an air. His forelock straggled as it willed.

Rosamund rose abruptly as soon as the terminating notes of the Mass had
been struck.

Dr. Shrapnel seemed to be concluding his devotions before he followed her
example.

'There, ma'am, you have a telegraphic system for the soul,' he said.
'It is harder work to travel from this place to this' (he pointed at ear
and breast) 'than from here to yonder' (a similar indication traversed
the distance between earth and sun). 'Man's aim has hitherto been to
keep men from having a soul for this world: he takes it for something
infernal. He?--I mean, they that hold power. They shudder to think the
conservatism of the earth will be shaken by a change; they dread they
won't get men with souls to fetch and carry, dig, root, mine, for them.
Right!--what then? Digging and mining will be done; so will harping and
singing. But then we have a natural optimacy! Then, on the one hand,
we whip the man-beast and the man-sloth; on the other, we seize that old
fatted iniquity--that tyrant! that tempter! that legitimated swindler
cursed of Christ! that palpable Satan whose name is Capital! by the
neck, and have him disgorging within three gasps of his life. He is the
villain! Let him live, for he too comes of blood and bone. He shall not
grind the faces of the poor and helpless--that's all.'

The comicality of her having such remarks addressed to her provoked a
smile on Rosamund's lips.

'Don't go at him like Samson blind,' said Mr. Lydiard; and Miss Denham,
who had returned, begged her guardian to entreat the guest to stay.

She said in an undertone, 'I am very anxious you should see Captain
Beauchamp, madam.'

'I too; but he will write, and I really can wait no longer,' Rosamund
replied, in extreme apprehension lest a certain degree of pressure should
overbear her repugnance to the doctor's dinner-table. Miss Denham's look
was fixed on her; but, whatever it might mean, Rosamund's endurance was
at an end. She was invited to dine; she refused. She was exceedingly
glad to find herself on the high-road again, with a prospect of reaching
Steynham that night; for it was important that she should not have to
confess a visit to Bevisham now when she had so little of favourable to
tell Mr. Everard Romfrey of his chosen nephew. Whether she had acted
quite wisely in not remaining to see Nevil, was an agitating question
that had to be silenced by an appeal to her instincts of repulsion,
and a further appeal for justification of them to her imaginary
sisterhood of gossips. How could she sit and eat, how pass an evening
in that house, in the society of that man? Her tuneful chorus cried,
'How indeed.' Besides, it would have offended Mr. Romfrey to hear that
she had done so. Still she could not refuse to remember Miss Denham's
marked intimations of there being a reason for Nevil's friend to seize
the chance of an immediate interview with him; and in her distress at the
thought, Rosamund reluctantly, but as if compelled by necessity, ascribed
the young lady's conduct to a strong sense of personal interests.

'Evidently she has no desire he should run the risk of angering a rich
uncle.'

This shameful suspicion was unavoidable: there was no other opiate for
Rosamund's blame of herself after letting her instincts gain the
ascendancy.

It will be found a common case, that when we have yielded to our
instincts, and then have to soothe conscience, we must slaughter
somebody, for a sacrificial offering to our sense of comfort.

CHAPTER XIII

A SUPERFINE CONSCIENCE

However much Mr. Everard Romfrey may have laughed at Nevil Beauchamp with
his 'banana-wreath,' he liked the fellow for having volunteered for that
African coast-service, and the news of his promotion by his admiral to
the post of commander through a death vacancy, had given him an exalted
satisfaction, for as he could always point to the cause of failures, he
strongly appreciated success. The circumstance had offered an occasion
for the new commander to hit him hard upon a matter of fact. Beauchamp
had sent word of his advance in rank, but requested his uncle not to
imagine him wearing an additional epaulette; and he corrected the
infallible gentleman's error (which had of course been reported to him
when he was dreaming of Renee, by Mrs. Culling) concerning a lieutenant's
shoulder decorations, most gravely; informing him of the anchor on the
lieutenant's pair of epaulettes, and the anchor and star on a
commander's, and the crown on a captain's, with a well-feigned
solicitousness to save his uncle from blundering further. This was done
in the dry neat manner which Mr. Romfrey could feel to be his own turned
on him.

He began to conceive a vague respect for the fellow who had proved him
wrong upon a matter of fact. Beauchamp came from Africa rather worn by
the climate, and immediately obtained the command of the Ariadne
corvette, which had been some time in commission in the Mediterranean,
whither he departed, without visiting Steynham; allowing Rosamund to
think him tenacious of his wrath as well as of love. Mr. Romfrey
considered him to be insatiable for service. Beauchamp, during his
absence, had shown himself awake to the affairs of his country once only,
in an urgent supplication he had forwarded for all his uncle's influence
to be used to get him appointed to the first vacancy in Robert Hall's
naval brigade, then forming a part of our handful in insurgent India.
The fate of that chivalrous Englishman, that born sailor-warrior, that
truest of heroes, imperishable in the memory of those who knew him, and
in our annals, young though he was when death took him, had wrung from
Nevil Beauchamp such a letter of tears as to make Mr. Romfrey believe the
naval crown of glory his highest ambition. Who on earth could have
guessed him to be bothering his head about politics all the while! Or
was the whole stupid business a freak of the moment?

It became necessary for Mr. Romfrey to contemplate his eccentric nephew
in the light of a mannikin once more. Consequently he called to mind,
and bade Rosamund Culling remember, that he had foreseen and had
predicted the mounting of Nevil Beauchamp on his political horse one day
or another; and perhaps the earlier the better. And a donkey could have
sworn that when he did mount he would come galloping in among the Radical
rough-riders. Letters were pouring upon Steynham from men and women of
Romfrey blood and relationship concerning the positive tone of Radicalism
in the commander's address. Everard laughed at them. As a practical
man, his objection lay against the poor fool's choice of the peccant
borough of Bevisham. Still, in view of the needfulness of his learning
wisdom, and rapidly, the disbursement of a lot of his money, certain to
be required by Bevisham's electors, seemed to be the surest method for
quickening his wits. Thus would he be acting as his own chirurgeon,
gaily practising phlebotomy on his person to cure him of his fever. Too
much money was not the origin of the fever in Nevil's case, but he had
too small a sense of the value of what he possessed, and the diminishing
stock would be likely to cry out shrilly.

To this effect, never complaining that Nevil Beauchamp had not come to
him to take counsel with him, the high-minded old gentleman talked. At
the same time, while indulging in so philosophical a picture of himself
as was presented by a Romfrey mildly accounting for events and smoothing
them under the infliction of an offence, he could not but feel that Nevil
had challenged him: such was the reading of it; and he waited for some
justifiable excitement to fetch him out of the magnanimous mood, rather
in the image of an angler, it must be owned.

'Nevil understands that I am not going to pay a farthing of his expenses
in Bevisham?' he said to Mrs. Culling.

She replied blandly and with innocence, 'I have not seen him, sir.'

He nodded. At the next mention of Nevil between them, he asked, 'Where
is it he's lying perdu, ma'am?'

'I fancy in that town, in Bevisham.'

'At the Liberal, Radical, hotel?'

'I dare say; some place; I am not certain . . . .'

'The rascal doctor's house there? Shrapnel's?'

'Really . . . I have not seen him.'

'Have you heard from him?'

'I have had a letter; a short one.'

'Where did he date his letter from?'

'From Bevisham.'

'From what house?'

Rosamund glanced about for a way of escaping the question. There was
none but the door. She replied, 'From Dr. Shrapnel's.'

'That's the Anti-Game-Law agitator.'

'You do not imagine, sir, that Nevil subscribes to every thing the horrid
man agitates for?'

'You don't like the man, ma'am?'

'I detest him.'

'Ha! So you have seen Shrapnel?'

'Only for a moment; a moment or two. I cannot endure him. I am sure I
have reason.'

Rosamund flushed exceedingly red. The visit to Dr. Shrapnel's house was
her secret, and the worming of it out made her feel guilty, and that
feeling revived and heated her antipathy to the Radical doctor.

'What reason?' said Mr. Romfrey, freshening at her display of colour.

She would not expose Nevil to the accusation of childishness by
confessing her positive reason, so she answered, 'The man is a kind of
man . . . I was not there long; I was glad to escape. He . . .'
she hesitated: for in truth it was difficult to shape the charge against
him, and the effort to be reticent concerning Nevil, and communicative,
now that he had been spoken of, as to the detested doctor, reduced her to
some confusion. She was also fatally anxious to be in the extreme degree
conscientious, and corrected and modified her remarks most suspiciously.

'Did he insult you, ma'am?' Mr. Romfrey inquired.

She replied hastily, 'Oh no. He may be a good man in his way. He is one
of those men who do not seem to think a woman may have opinions. He does
not scruple to outrage those we hold. I am afraid he is an infidel. His
ideas of family duties and ties, and his manner of expressing himself,
shocked me, that is all. He is absurd. I dare say there is no harm in
him, except for those who are so unfortunate as to fall under his
influence--and that, I feel sure, cannot be permanent. He could not
injure me personally. He could not offend me, I mean. Indeed, I have
nothing whatever to say against him, as far as I . . .'

'Did he fail to treat you as a lady, ma'am?'

Rosamund was getting frightened by the significant pertinacity of her
lord.

'I am sure, sir, he meant no harm.'

'Was the man uncivil to you, ma'am?' came the emphatic interrogation.

She asked herself, had Dr. Shrapnel been uncivil toward her? And so
conscientious was she, that she allowed the question to be debated in her
mind for half a minute, answering then, 'No, not uncivil. I cannot
exactly explain . . . . He certainly did not intend to be uncivil.
He is only an unpolished, vexatious man; enormously tall.'

Mr. Romfrey ejaculated, 'Ha! humph!'

His view of Dr. Shrapnel was taken from that instant. It was, that this
enormously big blustering agitator against the preservation of birds,
had behaved rudely toward the lady officially the chief of his household,
and might be considered in the light of an adversary one would like to
meet. The size of the man increased his aspect of villany, which in
return added largely to his giant size. Everard Romfrey's mental eye
could perceive an attractiveness about the man little short of magnetic;
for he thought of him so much that he had to think of what was due to his
pacifical disposition (deeply believed in by him) to spare himself the
trouble of a visit to Bevisham.

The young gentleman whom he regarded as the Radical doctor's dupe, fell
in for a share of his view of the doctor, and Mr. Romfrey became less
fitted to observe Nevil Beauchamp's doings with the Olympian gravity he
had originally assumed.

The extreme delicacy of Rosamund's conscience was fretted by a remorseful
doubt of her having conveyed a just impression of Dr. Shrapnel, somewhat
as though the fine sleek coat of it were brushed the wrong way.
Reflection warned her that her deliberative intensely sincere pause
before she responded to Mr. Romfrey's last demand, might have implied
more than her words. She consoled herself with the thought that it was
the dainty susceptibility of her conscientiousness which caused these
noble qualms, and so deeply does a refined nature esteem the gift, that
her pride in it helped her to overlook her moral perturbation. She was
consoled, moreover, up to the verge of triumph in her realization of the
image of a rivalling and excelling power presented by Mr. Romfrey, though
it had frightened her at the time. Let not Dr. Shrapnel come across him!
She hoped he would not. Ultimately she could say to herself, 'Perhaps I
need not have been so annoyed with the horrid man.' It was on Nevil's
account. Shrapnel's contempt of the claims of Nevil's family upon him
was actually a piece of impudence, impudently expressed, if she
remembered correctly. And Shrapnel was a black malignant, the foe of the
nation's Constitution, deserving of punishment if ever man was; with his
ridiculous metaphors, and talk of organs and pianos, orchestras and
despotisms, and flying to the sun! How could Nevil listen to the
creature! Shrapnel must be a shameless, hypocrite to mask his wickedness
from one so clear-sighted as Nevil, and no doubt he indulged in his
impudence out of wanton pleasure in it. His business was to catch young
gentlemen of family, and to turn them against their families, plainly.
That was thinking the best of him. No doubt he had his objects to gain.
'He might have been as impudent as he liked to me; I would have pardoned
him!' Rosamund exclaimed. Personally, you see, she was generous. On
the whole, knowing Everard Romfrey as she did, she wished that she had
behaved, albeit perfectly discreet in her behaviour, and conscientiously
just, a shade or two differently. But the evil was done.

CHAPTER XIV

THE LEADING ARTICLE AND MR. TIMOTHY TURBOT

Nevil declined to come to Steynham, clearly owing to a dread of hearing
Dr. Shrapnel abused, as Rosamund judged by the warmth of his written
eulogies of the man, and an ensuing allusion to Game. He said that he
had not made up his mind as to the Game Laws. Rosamund mentioned the
fact to Mr. Romfrey. 'So we may stick by our licences to shoot to-
morrow,' he rejoined. Of a letter that he also had received from Nevil,
he did not speak. She hinted at it, and he stared. He would have deemed
it as vain a subject to discourse of India, or Continental affairs, at a
period when his house was full for the opening day of sport, and the
expectation of keeping up his renown for great bags on that day so
entirely occupied his mind. Good shots were present who had contributed
to the fame of Steynham on other opening days. Birds were plentiful and
promised not to be too wild. He had the range of the Steynham estate in
his eye, dotted with covers; and after Steynham, Holdesbury, which had
never yielded him the same high celebrity, but both lay mapped out for
action under the profound calculations of the strategist, ready to show
the skill of the field tactician. He could not attend to Nevil. Even
the talk of the forthcoming Elections, hardly to be avoided at his table,
seemed a puerile distraction. Ware the foe of his partridges and
pheasants, be it man or vermin! The name of Shrapnel was frequently on
the tongue of Captain Baskelett. Rosamund heard him, in her room, and
his derisive shouts of laughter over it. Cecil was a fine shot, quite as
fond of the pastime as his uncle, and always in favour with him while
sport stalked the land. He was in gallant spirits, and Rosamund,
brooding over Nevil's fortunes, and sitting much alone, as she did when
there were guests in the house, gave way to her previous apprehensions.
She touched on them to Mr. Stukely Culbrett, her husband's old friend,
one of those happy men who enjoy perceptions without opinions, and are
not born to administer comfort to other than themselves. As far as she
could gather, he fancied Nevil Beauchamp was in danger of something, but
he delivered his mind only upon circumstances and characters: Nevil
risked his luck, Cecil knew his game, Everard Romfrey was the staunchest
of mankind: Stukely had nothing further to say regarding the situation.
She asked him what he thought, and he smiled. Could a reasonable head
venture to think anything in particular? He repeated the amazed, 'You
don't say so' of Colonel Halkett, on hearing the name of the new Liberal
candidate for Bevisham at the dinner-table, together with some of Cecil's
waggish embroidery upon the theme.

Rosamund exclaimed angrily, 'Oh! if I had been there he would not have
dared.'

'Why not be there?' said Stukely. 'You have had your choice for a number
of years.'

She shook her head, reddening.

But supposing that she had greater privileges than were hers now? The
idea flashed. A taint of personal pique, awakened by the fancied
necessity for putting her devotedness to Nevil to proof, asked her if she
would then be the official housekeeper to whom Captain Baskelett bowed
low with affected respect and impertinent affability, ironically praising
her abroad as a wonder among women, that could at one time have played
the deuce in the family, had she chosen to do so.

'Just as you like,' Mr. Culbrett remarked. It was his ironical habit of
mind to believe that the wishes of men and women--women as well as men--
were expressed by their utterances.

'But speak of Nevil to Colonel Halkett,' said Rosamund, earnestly
carrying on what was in her heart. 'Persuade the colonel you do not
think Nevil foolish--not more than just a little impetuous. I want
that marriage to come off! Not on account of her wealth. She is to
inherit a Welsh mine from her uncle, you know, besides being an only
child. Recall what Nevil was during the war. Miss Halkett has not
forgotten it, I am sure, and a good word for him from a man of the world
would, I am certain, counteract Captain Baskelett's--are they designs?
At any rate, you can if you like help Nevil with the colonel. I am
convinced they are doing him a mischief. Colonel Halkett has bought an
estate--and what a misfortune that is!--close to Bevisham. I fancy he is
Toryish. Will you not speak to him? At my request? I am so helpless I
could cry.

'Fancy you have no handkerchief,' said Mr. Culbrett, 'and give up
scheming, pray. One has only to begin to scheme, to shorten life to
half-a-dozen hops and jumps. I could say to the colonel, "Young
Beauchamp's a political cub: he ought to have a motherly wife."'

'Yes, yes, you are right; don't speak to him at all,' said Rosamund,
feeling that there must be a conspiracy to rob her of her proud
independence, since not a soul could be won to spare her from taking
some energetic step, if she would be useful to him she loved.

Colonel Halkett was one of the guests at Steynham who knew and respected
her, and he paid her a visit and alluded to Nevil's candidature,
apparently not thinking much the worse of him. 'We can't allow him to
succeed,' he said, and looked for a smiling approval of such natural
opposition, which Rosamund gave him readily after he had expressed the
hope that Nevil Beauchamp would take advantage of his proximity to Mount
Laurels during the contest to try the hospitality of the house. 'He
won't mind meeting his uncle?' The colonel's eyes twinkled. 'My daughter
has engaged Mr. Romfrey and Captain Baskelett to come to us when they
have shot Holdesbury.'

And Captain Baskelett! thought Rosamund; her jealousy whispering that the
mention of his name close upon Cecilia Halkett's might have a nuptial
signification.

She was a witness from her window--a prisoner's window, her 'eager heart
could have termed it--of a remarkable ostentation of cordiality between
the colonel and Cecil, in the presence of Mr. Romfrey. Was it his humour
to conspire to hand Miss Halkett to Cecil, and then to show Nevil the
prize he had forfeited by his folly? The three were on the lawn a little
before Colonel Halkett's departure. The colonel's arm was linked with
Cecil's while they conversed. Presently the latter received his
afternoon's letters, and a newspaper. He soon had the paper out at a
square stretch, and sprightly information for the other two was visible
in his crowing throat. Mr. Romfrey raised the gun from his shoulder-pad,
and grounded it. Colonel Halkett wished to peruse the matter with his
own eyes, but Cecil could not permit it; he must read it aloud for them,
and he suited his action to his sentences. Had Rosamund been accustomed
to leading articles which are the composition of men of an imposing
vocabulary, she would have recognized and as good as read one in Cecil's
gestures as he tilted his lofty stature forward and back, marking his
commas and semicolons with flapping of his elbows, and all but doubling
his body at his periods. Mr. Romfrey had enough of it half-way down the
column; his head went sharply to left and right. Cecil's peculiar
foppish slicing down of his hand pictured him protesting that there was
more and finer of the inimitable stuff to follow. The end of the scene
exhibited the paper on the turf, and Colonel Halkett's hand on Cecil's
shoulder, Mr. Romfrey nodding some sort of acquiescence over the muzzle
of his gun, whether reflective or positive Rosamund could not decide.
She sent out a footman for the paper, and was presently communing with
its eloquent large type, quite unable to perceive where the comicality or
the impropriety of it lay, for it would have struck her that never were
truer things of Nevil Beauchamp better said in the tone befitting them.
This perhaps was because she never heard fervid praises of him, or of
anybody, delivered from the mouth, and it is not common to hear
Englishmen phrasing great eulogies of one another. Still, as a rule,
they do not object to have it performed in that region of our national
eloquence, the Press, by an Irishman or a Scotchman. And what could
there be to warrant Captain Baskelett's malicious derision, and Mr.
Romfrey's nodding assent to it, in an article where all was truth?

The truth was mounted on an unusually high wind. It was indeed a leading
article of a banner-like bravery, and the unrolling of it was designed to
stir emotions. Beauchamp was the theme. Nevil had it under his eyes
earlier than Cecil. The paper was brought into his room with the beams
of day, damp from the presses of the Bevisham Gazette, exactly opposite
to him in the White Hart Hotel, and a glance at the paragraphs gave him a
lively ardour to spring to his feet. What writing! He was uplifted as
'The heroical Commander Beauchamp, of the Royal Navy,' and 'Commander
Beauchamp, R.N., a gentleman of the highest connections': he was 'that
illustrious Commander Beauchamp, of our matchless, navy, who proved on
every field of the last glorious war of this country that the traditional
valour of the noble and indomitable blood transmitted to his veins had
lost none of its edge and weight since the battle-axes of the Lords de
Romfrey, ever to the fore, clove the skulls of our national enemy on the
wide and fertile campaigns of France.' This was pageantry.

There was more of it. Then the serious afflatus of the article
condescended, as it were, to blow a shrill and well-known whistle:--the
study of the science of navigation made by Commander Beauchamp, R.N., was
cited for a jocose warranty of a seaman's aptness to assist in steering
the Vessel of the State. After thus heeling over, to tip a familiar wink
to the multitude, the leader tone resumed its fit deportment. Commander
Beauchamp, in responding to the invitation of the great and united
Liberal party of the borough of Bevisham, obeyed the inspirations of
genius, the dictates of humanity, and what he rightly considered the
paramount duty, as it is the proudest ambition, of the citizen of a free
country.

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