Beauchamps Career, v5 - George Meredith (top novels TXT) 📗

woman

may wear. She ascribed to that fair mate of Seymour Austin's many lofty

charms of womanhood; above all, stateliness: her especial dream of an

attainable superlative beauty in women. And supposing that lady to be

accused of the fickle breaking of another love, who walked beside him,

matched with his calm heart and one with him in counsel, would the

accusation be repeated by them that beheld her husband? might it not

rather be said that she had not deviated, but had only stepped higher?

She chose no youth, no glistener, no idler: it was her soul striving

upward to air like a seed in the earth that raised her to him: and she

could say to the man once enchaining her: Friend, by the good you taught

me I was led to this!

 

Cecilia's reveries fled like columns of mist before the gale when tidings

reached her of a positive rupture between Lord Avonley and Nevil

Beauchamp, and of the mandate to him to quit possession of Holdesbury and

the London house within a certain number of days, because of his refusal

to utter an apology to Mrs. Culling. Angrily on his behalf she prepared

to humble herself to him. Louise Wardour-Devereux brought them to a

meeting, at which Cecilia, with her heart in her hand, was icy. Mr.

Lydiard, prompted by Mrs. Devereux, gave him better reasons for her

singular coldness than Cecilia could give to herself, and some time

afterward Beauchamp went to Mount Laurels, where Colonel Halkett mounted

guard over his daughter, and behaved, to her thinking, cruelly. 'Now you

have ruined yourself there's nothing ahead for you but to go to the

Admiralty and apply for a ship,' he said, sugaring the unkindness with

the remark that the country would be the gainer. He let fly a side-shot

at London men calling themselves military men who sought to repair their

fortunes by chasing wealthy widows, and complimented Beauchamp: 'You're

not one of that sort.'

 

Cecilia looked at Beauchamp stedfastly. 'Speak,' said the look.

 

But he, though not blind, was keenly wounded.

 

'Money I must have,' he said, half to the colonel, half to himself.

 

Colonel Halkett shrugged. Cecilia waited for a directness in Beauchamp's

eyes.

 

Her father was too wary to leave them.

 

Cecilia's intuition told her that by leading to a discussion of politics,

and adopting Beauchamp's views, she could kindle him. Why did she

refrain? It was that the conquered young lady was a captive, not an

ally. To touch the subject in cold blood, voluntarily to launch on those

vexed waters, as if his cause were her heart's, as much as her heart was

the man's, she felt to be impossible. He at the same time felt that the

heiress, endowing him with money to speed the good cause, should be his

match in ardour for it, otherwise he was but a common adventurer, winning

and despoiling an heiress.

 

They met in London. Beauchamp had not vacated either Holdesbury or the

town-house; he was defying his uncle Everard, and Cecilia thought with

him that it was a wise temerity. She thought with him passively

altogether. On this occasion she had not to wait for directness in his

eyes; she had to parry it. They were at a dinner-party at Lady Elsea's,

generally the last place for seeing Lord Palmet, but he was present, and

arranged things neatly for them, telling Beauchamp that he acted under

Mrs. Wardour-Devereux's orders. Never was an opportunity, more

propitious for a desperate lover. Had it been Renee next him, no petty

worldly scruples of honour would have held him back. And if Cecilia had

spoken feelingly of Dr. Shrapnel, or had she simulated a thoughtful

interest in his pursuits, his hesitations would have vanished. As it

was, he dared to look what he did not permit himself to speak. She was

nobly lovely, and the palpable envy of men around cried fool at his

delays. Beggar and heiress he said in his heart, to vitalize the three-

parts fiction of the point of honour which Cecilia's beauty was fast

submerging. When she was leaving he named a day for calling to see her.

Colonel Halkett stood by, and she answered, 'Come.'

 

Beauchamp kept the appointment. Cecilia was absent.

 

He was unaware that her father had taken her to old Mrs. Beauchamp's

death-bed. Her absence, after she had said, 'Come,' appeared a

confirmation of her glacial manner when they met at the house of Mrs.

Wardour-Devereux; and he charged her with waywardness. A wound of the

same kind that we are inflicting is about the severest we can feel.

 

Beauchamp received intelligence of his venerable great-aunt's death from

Blackburn Tuckham, and after the funeral he was informed that eighty

thousand pounds had been bequeathed to him: a goodly sum of money for a

gentleman recently beggared; yet, as the political enthusiast could not

help reckoning (apart from a fervent sentiment of gratitude toward his

benefactress), scarcely enough to do much more than start and push for

three or more years a commanding daily newspaper, devoted to Radical

interests, and to be entitled THE DAWN.

 

True, he might now conscientiously approach the heiress, take her hand

with an open countenance, and retain it.

 

Could he do so quite conscientiously? The point of honour had been

centred in his condition of beggary. Something still was in his way. A

quick spring of his blood for air, motion, excitement, holiday freedom,

sent his thoughts travelling whither they always shot away when his

redoubtable natural temper broke loose.

 

In the case of any other woman than Cecilia Halkett he would not have

been obstructed by the minor consideration as to whether he was wholly

heart-free to ask her in marriage that instant; for there was no

hindrance, and she was beautiful. She was exceedingly beautiful; and she

was an unequalled heiress. She would be able with her wealth to float

his newspaper, THE DAWN, so desired of Dr. Shrapnel!--the best

restorative that could be applied to him! Every temptation came

supplicating him to take the step which indeed he wished for: one feeling

opposed. He really respected Cecilia: it is not too much to say that he

worshipped her with the devout worship rendered to the ideal Englishwoman

by the heart of the nation. For him she was purity, charity, the keeper

of the keys of whatsoever is held precious by men; she was a midway

saint, a light between day and darkness, in whom the spirit in the flesh

shone like the growing star amid thin sanguine colour, the sweeter, the

brighter, the more translucent the longer known. And if the image will

allow it, the nearer down to him the holier she seemed.

 

How offer himself when he was not perfectly certain that he was worthy of

her?

 

Some jugglery was played by the adept male heart in these later

hesitations. Up to the extent of his knowledge of himself, the man was

fairly sincere. Passion would have sped him to Cecilia, but passion is

not invariably love; and we know what it can be.

 

The glance he cast over the water at Normandy was withdrawn. He went to

Bevisham to consult with Dr. Shrapnel about the starting of a weekly

journal, instead of a daily, and a name for it--a serious question: for

though it is oftener weekly than daily that the dawn is visible in

England, titles must not invite the public jest; and the glorious project

of the daily DAWN was prudently abandoned for by-and-by. He thought

himself rich enough to put a Radical champion weekly in the field and

this matter, excepting the title, was arranged in Bevisham. Thence he

proceeded to Holdesbury, where he heard that the house, grounds, and farm

were let to a tenant preparing to enter. Indifferent to the blow, he

kept an engagement to deliver a speech at the great manufacturing town of

Gunningham, and then went to London, visiting his uncle's town-house for

recent letters. Not one was from Renee: she had not written for six

weeks, not once for his thrice! A letter from Cecil Baskelett informed

him that 'my lord' had placed the town-house at his disposal. Returning

to dress for dinner on a thick and murky evening of February, Beauchamp

encountered his cousin on the steps. He said to Cecil, 'I sleep here to-

night: I leave the house to you tomorrow.'

 

Cecil struck out his underjaw to reply: 'Oh! good. You sleep here to-

night. You are a fortunate man. I congratulate you. I shall not

disturb you. I have just entered on my occupation of the house. I have

my key. Allow me to recommend you to go straight to the drawing-room.

And I may inform you that the Earl of Romfrey is at the point of death.

My lord is at the castle.'

 

Cecil accompanied his descent of the steps with the humming of an opera

melody: Beauchamp tripped into the hall-passage. A young maid-servant

held the door open, and she accosted him: 'If you please, there is a lady

up-stairs in the drawing-room; she speaks foreign English, sir.'

 

Beauchamp asked if the lady was alone, and not waiting for the answer,

though he listened while writing, and heard that she was heavily veiled,

he tore a strip from his notebook, and carefully traced half-a-dozen

telegraphic words to Mrs. Culling at Steynham. His rarely failing

promptness, which was like an inspiration, to conceive and execute

measures for averting peril, set him on the thought of possibly

counteracting his cousin Cecil's malignant tongue by means of a message

to Rosamund, summoning her by telegraph to come to town by the next train

that night. He despatched the old woman keeping the house, as trustier

than the young one, to the nearest office, and went up to the drawing-

room, with a quick thumping heart that was nevertheless as little

apprehensive of an especial trial and danger as if he had done nothing at

all to obviate it. Indeed he forgot that he had done anything when he

turned the handle of the drawing-room door.

 

 

 

BOOK 5. - CHAPTER XL - A TRIAL OF HIM

 

A low-burning lamp and fire cast a narrow ring on the shadows of the

dusky London room. One of the window-blinds was drawn up. Beauchamp

discerned a shape at that window, and the fear seized him that it might

be Madame d'Auffray with evil news of Renee: but it was Renee's name he

called. She rose from her chair, saying, 'I!'

 

She was trembling.

 

Beauchamp asked her whisperingly if she had come alone.

 

'Alone; without even a maid,' she murmured.

 

He pulled down the blind of the window exposing them to the square, and

led her into the light to see her face.

 

The dimness of light annoyed him, and the miserable reception of her;

this English weather, and the gloomy house! And how long had she been

waiting for him? and what was the mystery? Renee in England seemed

magical; yet it was nothing stranger than an old dream realized. He

wound up the lamp, holding her still with one hand. She was woefully

pale; scarcely able to bear the increase of light.

 

'It is I who come to you': she was half audible.

 

'This time!' said he. 'You have been suffering?'

 

'No.'

 

Her tone was brief; not reassuring.

 

'You came straight to me?'

 

'Without a deviation that I know of.'

 

'From Tourdestelle?'

 

'You have not forgotten Tourdestelle, Nevil?'

 

The memory of it quickened his rapture in reading her features. It was

his first love, his enchantress, who was here: and how? Conjectures shot

through him like lightnings in the dark.

 

Irrationally, at a moment when reason stood in awe, he fancied it must be

that her husband was dead. He forced himself to think it, and could have

smiled at the hurry of her coming, one, without even a maid: and deeper

down in him the devouring question burned which dreaded the answer.

 

But of old, in Normandy, she had pledged herself to join him with no

delay when free, if ever free!

 

So now she was free.

 

One side of him glowed in illumination; the other was black as Winter

night; but light subdues darkness; and in a situation like Beauchamp's,

the blood is livelier