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

seconding Captain Beauchamp's invitation.

 

He turned on her witheringly. 'The telegraph will do that. You're in

London; cooks can be had by dozens. Madame de Rouaillout is alone here;

she has come to see a little of England, and you will do the honours of

the house.'

 

'M. le marquis is not in London?' said Rosamund, disregarding the dumb

imprecation she saw on Beauchamp's features.

 

'No, madame, my husband is not in London,' Renee rejoined collectedly.

 

'See to the necessary comforts of the house instantly,' said Beauchamp,

and telling Renee, without listening to her, that he had to issue orders,

he led Rosamund, who was out of breath at the effrontery of the pair,

toward the door. 'Are you blind, ma'am? Have you gone foolish? What

should I have sent for you for, but to protect her? I see your mind;

and off with the prude, pray! Madame will have my room; clear away every

sign of me there. I sleep out; I can find a bed anywhere. And bolt and

chain the house-door to-night against Cecil Baskelett; he informs me that

he has taken possession.'

 

Rosamund's countenance had become less austere.

 

'Captain Baskelett!' she exclaimed, leaning to Beauchamp's views on the

side of her animosity to Cecil; 'he has been promised by his uncle the

use of a set of rooms during the year, when the mistress of the house is

not in occupation. I stipulated expressly that he was to see you and

suit himself to your convenience, and to let me hear that you and he had

agreed to an arrangement, before he entered the house. He has no right

to be here, and I shall have no hesitation in locking him out.'

 

Beauchamp bade her go, and not be away more than five minutes; and then

he would drive to the hotel for the luggage.

 

She scanned him for a look of ingenuousness that might be trusted, and

laughed in her heart at her credulity for expecting it of a man in such a

case. She saw Renee sitting stonily, too proudly self-respecting to put

on a mask of flippant ease. These lovers might be accomplices in

deceiving her; they were not happy ones, and that appeared to her to be

some assurance that she did well in obeying him.

 

Beauchamp closed the door on her. He walked back to Renee with a

thoughtful air that was consciously acted; his only thought being--now

she knows me!

 

Renee looked up at him once. Her eyes were unaccusing, unquestioning.

 

With the violation of the secresy of her flight she had lost her

initiative and her intrepidity. The world of human eyes glared on her

through the windows of the two she had been exposed to, paralyzing her

brain and caging her spirit of revolt. That keen wakefulness of her

self-defensive social instinct helped her to an understanding of her

lover's plan to preserve her reputation, or rather to give her a corner

of retreat in shielding the worthless thing--twice detested as her cloak

of slavery coming from him! She comprehended no more. She was a house

of nerves crowding in against her soul like fiery thorns, and had no

space within her torture for a sensation of gratitude or suspicion; but

feeling herself hurried along at lightning speed to some dreadful shock,

her witless imagination apprehended it in his voice: not what he might

say, only the sound. She feared to hear him speak, as the shrinking ear

fears a thunder at the cavity; yet suspense was worse than the downward-

driving silence.

 

The pang struck her when he uttered some words about Mrs. Culling, and

protection, and Roland.

 

She thanked him.

 

So have common executioners been thanked by queenly ladies baring their

necks to the axe.

 

He called up the pain he suffered to vindicate him; and it was really an

agony of a man torn to pieces.

 

'I have done the best.'

 

This dogged and stupid piece of speech was pitiable to hear from Nevil

Beauchamp.

 

'You think so?' said she; and her glass-like voice rang a tremour in its

mildness that swelled through him on the plain submissive note, which was

more assent than question.

 

'I am sure of it. I believe it. I see it. At least I hope so.'

 

'We are chiefly led by hope,' said Renee.

 

'At least, if not!' Beauchamp cried. 'And it's not too late. I have no

right--I do what I can. I am at your mercy. Judge me later. If I am

ever to know what happiness is, it will be with you. It's not too late

either way. There is Roland--my brother as much as if you were my wife!'

 

He begged her to let him have Roland's exact address.

 

She named the regiment, the corps d'armee, the postal town, and the

department.

 

'Roland will come at a signal,' he pursued; 'we are not bound to consult

others.'

 

Renee formed the French word of 'we' on her tongue.

 

He talked of Roland and Roland, his affection for him as a brother and as

a friend, and Roland's love of them both.

 

'It is true,' said Renee.

 

'We owe him this; he represents your father.'

 

'All that you say is true, my friend.'

 

'Thus, you have come on a visit to madame, your old friend here--oh!

your hand. What have I done?'

 

Renee motioned her hand as if it were free to be taken, and smiled

faintly to make light of it, but did not give it.

 

'If you had been widowed!' he broke down to the lover again.

 

'That man is attached to the remnant of his life: I could not wish him

dispossessed of it,' said Rende.

 

'Parted! who parts us? It's for a night. Tomorrow!'

 

She breathed: 'To-morrow.'

 

To his hearing it craved an answer. He had none. To talk like a lover,

or like a man of honour, was to lie. Falsehood hemmed him in to the

narrowest ring that ever statue stood on, if he meant to be stone.

 

'That woman will be returning,' he muttered, frowning at the vacant door.

'I could lay out my whole life before your eyes, and show you I am

unchanged in my love of you since the night when Roland and I walked on

the Piazzetta . . .'

 

'Do not remind me; let those days lie black!' A sympathetic vision of

her maiden's tears on the night of wonderful moonlight when, as it seemed

to her now, San Giorgio stood like a dark prophet of her present

abasement and chastisement, sprang tears of a different character, and

weak as she was with her soul's fever and for want of food, she was

piteously shaken. She said with some calmness: 'It is useless to look

back. I have no reproaches but for myself. Explain nothing to me.

Things that are not comprehended by one like me are riddles I must put

aside. I know where I am: I scarcely know more. Here is madame.'

 

The door had not opened, and it did not open immediately.

 

Beauchamp had time to say, 'Believe in me.' Even that was false to his

own hearing, and in a struggle with the painful impression of insincerity

which was denied and scorned by his impulse to fling his arms round her

and have her his for ever, he found himself deferentially accepting her

brief directions concerning her boxes at the hotel, with Rosamund Culling

to witness.

 

She gave him her hand.

 

He bowed over the fingers. 'Until to-morrow, madame.'

 

'Adieu!' said Renee.

 

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Publication Date: 05-04-2015

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