CHAPTER XXII

THE DRIVE INTO BEVISHAM

Beauchamp was requested by Cecilia to hold the reins. His fair companion

in the pony-carriage preferred to lean back musing, and he had leisure to

think over the blow dealt him by his uncle Everard with so sure an aim so

ringingly on the head. And in the first place he made no attempt to

disdain it because it was nothing but artful and heavy-handed, after the

mediaeval pattern. Of old he himself had delighted in artfulness as well

as boldness and the unmistakeable hit. Highly to prize generalship was in

his blood, though latterly the very forces propelling him to his

political warfare had forbidden the use of it to him. He saw the patient

veteran laying his gun for a long shot--to give as good as he had

received; and in realizing Everard Romfrey's perfectly placid bearing

under provocation, such as he certainly would have maintained while

preparing his reply to it, the raw fighting humour of the plot touched

the sense of justice in Beauchamp enough to make him own that he had been

the first to offend.

He could reflect also on the likelihood that other offended men of his

uncle's age and position would have sulked or stormed, threatening the

Parthian shot of the vindictive testator. If there was godlessness in

turning to politics for a weapon to strike a domestic blow, manfulness in

some degree signalized it. Beauchamp could fancy his uncle crying out,

Who set the example? and he was not at that instant inclined to dwell on

the occult virtues of the example he had set. To be honest, this

elevation of a political puppet like Cecil Baskelett, and the starting

him, out of the same family which Turbot, the journalist, had magnified,

into Bevisham with such pomp and flourish in opposition to the serious

young champion of popular rights and the Puritan style, was ludicrously

effective. Conscienceless of course. But that was the way of the Old

School.

Beauchamp broke the silence by thanking Cecilia once more for saving him

from the absurd exhibition of the Radical candidate on the Tory

coach-box, and laughing at the grimmish slyness of his uncle Everard's

conspiracy a something in it that was half-smile half-sneer; not exactly

malignant, and by no means innocent; something made up of the simplicity

of a lighted match, and its proximity to powder, yet neither deadly, in

spite of a wicked twinkle, nor at all pretending to be harmless: in

short, a specimen of old English practical humour.

He laboured to express these or corresponding views of it, with tolerably

natural laughter, and Cecilia rallied her spirits at his pleasant manner

of taking his blow.

'I shall compliment the baron when I meet him tonight,' he said. 'What

can we compare him to?'

She suggested the Commander of the Faithful, the Lord Haroun, who

likewise had a turn for buffooneries to serve a purpose, and could direct

them loftily and sovereignty.

'No: Everard Romfrey's a Northerner from the feet up,' said Beauchamp.

Cecilia compliantly offered him a sketch of the Scandinavian Troll: much

nearer the mark, he thought, and exclaimed: 'Baron Troll! I'm afraid,

Cecilia, you have robbed him of the best part of his fun. And you will

owe it entirely to him if you should be represented in Parliament by my

cousin Basketett.'

'Promise me, Nevit, that you will, when you meet Captain Baskelett, not

forget I did you some service, and that I wish, I shall be so glad if you

do not resent certain things . . . .Very objectionable, we all think.'

He released her from the embarrassing petition: 'Oh! now I know my man,

you may be sure I won't waste a word on him. The fact is, he would not

understand a word, and would require more--and that I don't do. When I

fancied Mr. Austin was the responsible person, I meant to speak to him.'

Cecilia smiled gratefully.

The sweetness of a love-speech would not have been sweeter to her than

this proof of civilized chivalry in Nevil.

They came to the fir-heights overlooking Bevisham. Here the breezy

beginning of a South-western autumnal gale tossed the ponies' manes and

made threads of Cecilia's shorter locks of beautiful auburn by the

temples and the neck, blustering the curls that streamed in a thick

involution from the silken band gathering them off her uncovered

clear-swept ears.

Beauchamp took an impression of her side face. It seemed to offer him

everything the world could offer of cultivated purity, intelligent beauty

and attractiveness; and 'Wilt thou?' said the winged minute. Peace, a

good repute in the mouths of men, home, and a trustworthy woman for mate,

an ideal English lady, the rarest growth of our country, and friends and

fair esteem, were offered. Last night he had waltzed with her, and the

manner of this tall graceful girl in submitting to the union of the

measure and reserving her individual distinction, had exquisitely

flattered his taste, giving him an auspicious image of her in

partnership, through the uses of life.

He looked ahead at the low dead-blue cloud swinging from across channel.

What could be the riddle of Renee's letter! It chained him completely.

'At all events, I shall not be away longer than three days,' he said;

paused, eyed Cecilia's profile, and added, 'Do we differ so much?'

'It may not be so much as we think,' said she.

'But if we do!'

'Then, Nevil, there is a difference between us.'

'But if we keep our lips closed?'

'We should have to shut our eyes as well!'

A lovely melting image of her stole over him; all the warmer for her

unwittingness in producing it: and it awakened a tenderness toward the

simple speaker.

Cecilia's delicate breeding saved her from running on figuratively. She

continued: 'Intellectual differences do not cause wounds, except when

very unintellectual sentiments are behind them:--my conceit, or your

impatience, Nevil? "Noi veggiam come quei, che ha mala luce." . . . I can

confess my sight to be imperfect: but will you ever do so?'

Her musical voice in Italian charmed his hearing.

'What poet was that you quoted?'

'The wisest: Dante.'

'Dr. Shrapnel's favourite! I must try to read him.'

'He reads Dante?' Cecilia threw a stress on the august name; and it was

manifest that she cared not for the answer.

Contemptuous exclusiveness could not go farther.

'He is a man of cultivation,' Beauchamp said cursorily, trying to avoid

dissension, but in vain. 'I wish I were half as well instructed, and the

world half as charitable as he!--You ask me if I shall admit my sight to

be imperfect. Yes; when you prove to me that priests and landlords are

willing to do their duty by the people in preference to their churches

and their property: but will you ever shake off prejudice?'

Here was opposition sounding again. Cecilia mentally reproached Dr.

Shrapnel for it.

'Indeed, Nevil, really, must not--may I not ask you this?--must not every

one feel the evil spell of some associations? And Dante and Dr.

Shrapnel!'

'You don't know him, Cecilia.'

'I saw him yesterday.'

'You thought him too tall?'

'I thought of his character.'

'How angry I should be with you if you were not so beautiful!'

'I am immensely indebted to my unconscious advocate.'

'You are clad in steel; you flash back; you won't answer me out of the

heart. I 'm convinced it is pure wilfulness that makes you oppose me.'

'I fancy you must be convinced because you cannot imagine women to have

any share of public spirit, Nevil.'

A grain of truth in that remark set Nevil reflecting.

'I want them to have it,' he remarked, and glanced at a Tory placard,

probably the puppet's fresh-printed address to the electors, on one of

the wayside fir-trees. 'Bevisham looks well from here. We might make a

North-western Venice of it, if we liked.'

'Papa told you it would be money sunk in mud.'

'Did I mention it to him?--Thoroughly Conservative!--So he would leave

the mud as it is. They insist on our not venturing anything--those

Tories! exactly as though we had gained the best of human conditions,

instead of counting crops of rogues, malefactors, egoists, noxious and

lumbersome creatures that deaden the country. Your town down there is one

of the ugliest and dirtiest in the kingdom: it might be the fairest.'

'I have often thought that of Bevisham, Nevil.'

He drew a visionary sketch of quays, embankments, bridged islands, public

buildings, magical emanations of patriotic architecture, with a practical

air, an absence of that enthusiasm which struck her with suspicion when

it was not applied to landscape or the Arts; and she accepted it, and

warmed, and even allowed herself to appear hesitating when he returned to

the similarity of the state of mud-begirt Bevisham and our great sluggish

England.

Was he not perhaps to be pitied in his bondage to the Frenchwoman, who

could have no ideas in common with him?

The rare circumstance that she and Nevil Beauchamp had found a subject of

agreement, partially overcame the sentiment Cecilia entertained for the

foreign lady; and having now one idea in common with him, she conceived

the possibility that there might be more. There must be many, for he

loved England, and she no less. She clung, however, to the topic of

Bevisham, preferring to dream of the many more, rather than run risks.

Undoubtedly the town was of an ignoble aspect; and it was declining in

prosperity; and it was consequently over-populated. And undoubtedly (so

she was induced to coincide for the moment) a Government, acting to any

extent like a supervising head, should aid and direct the energies of

towns and ports and trades, and not leave everything everywhere to

chance: schools for the people, public morality, should be the charge of

Government. Cecilia had surrendered the lead to him, and was forced to

subscribe to an equivalent of 'undoubtedly' the Tories just as little as

the Liberals had done these good offices. Party against party, neither of

them had a forethoughtful head for the land at large. They waited for the

Press to spur a great imperial country to be but defensively armed, and

they accepted the so-called volunteers, with a nominal one-month's drill

per annum, as a guarantee of defence!

Beauchamp startled her, actually kindled her mind to an activity of

wonder and regret, with the statement of how much Government, acting with

some degree of farsightedness, might have won to pay the public debt and

remit taxation, by originally retaining the lines of railway, and

fastening on the valuable land adjoining stations. Hundreds of millions

of pounds!

She dropped a sigh at the prodigious amount, but inquired, 'Who has

calculated it?'

For though perfectly aware that this kind of conversation was a special

compliment paid to her by her friend Nevil, and dimly perceiving that it

implied something beyond a compliment-in fact, that it was his manner of

probing her for sympathy, as other men would have conducted the process

preliminary to deadly flattery or to wooing, her wits fenced her heart

about; the exercise of shrewdness was an instinct of self-preservation.

She had nothing but her poor wits, daily growing fainter, to resist him

with. And he seemed to know it, and therefore assailed them, never trying

at the heart.

That vast army of figures might be but a phantom army conjured out of the

Radical mists, might it not? she hinted. And besides, we cannot surely

require a Government to speculate in the future, can we?

Possibly not, as Governments go, Beauchamp said.

But what think you of a Government of landowners decreeing the enclosure

of millions of acres of common land amongst themselves; taking the

property of the people to add to their own! Say, is not that plunder?

Public property, observe; decreed to them by their own law-making, under

the pretence that it was being reclaimed for cultivation, when in reality

it has been but an addition to their pleasure-grounds: a flat robbery of

pasture from the poor man's cow and goose, and his right of cutting furze

for firing. Consider that! Beauchamp's eyes flashed democratic in

reciting this injury to the objects of his warm solicitude--the man, the

cow, and the goose. But so must he have looked when fronting England's

enemies, and his aspect of fervour subdued Cecilia. She confessed her

inability to form an estimate of such conduct.

'Are they doing it still?' she asked.

'We owe it to Dr. Shrapnel foremost that there is now a watch over them

to stop them. But for him, Grancey Lespel would have enclosed half of

Northeden Heath. As it is, he has filched bits here and there, and he

will have to put back his palings.'

However, now let Cecilia understand that we English, calling ourselves

free, are under morally lawless rule. Government is what we require, and

our means of getting it must be through universal suffrage. At present we

have no Government; only shifting Party Ministries, which are the tools

of divers interests, wealthy factions, to the sacrifice of the

Commonwealth.

She listened, like Rosamund Culling overborne by Dr. Shrapnel, inwardly

praying that she might discover a man to reply to him.

'A Despotism, Nevil?'

He hoped not, declined the despot, was English enough to stand against

the best of men in that character; but he cast it on Tory, Whig, and

Liberal, otherwise the Constitutionalists, if we were to come upon the

despot.

'They see we are close on universal suffrage; they've been bidding each

in turn for "the people," and that has brought them to it, and now

they're alarmed, and accuse one another of treason to the Constitution,

and they don't accept the situation: and there's a fear, that to carry on

their present system, they will be thwarting the people or corrupting

them: and in that case we shall have our despot in some shape or other,

and we shall suffer.'

'Nevil,' said Cecilia, 'I am out of my depth.'

'I'll support you; I can swim for two,' said he.

'You are very self-confident, but I find I am not fit for battle; at

least not in the front ranks.'

'Nerve me, then: will you? Try to comprehend once for all what the battle

is.'

'I am afraid I am too indifferent; I am too luxurious. That reminds me:

you want to meet your uncle Everard and if you will sleep at Mount

Laurels to-night, the Esperanza shall take you to France to-morrow

morning, and can wait to bring you back.'

As she spoke she perceived a flush mounting over Nevil's face. Soon it

was communicated to hers.

The strange secret of the blood electrified them both, and revealed the

burning undercurrent running between them from the hearts of each. The

light that showed how near they were to one another was kindled at the

barrier dividing them. It remained as good as a secret, unchallenged

until they had separated, and after midnight Cecilia looked through her.

chamber windows at the driving moon of a hurricane scud, and read clearly

his honourable reluctance to be wafted over to his French love by her

assistance; and Beauchamp on board the tossing steamboat perceived in her

sympathetic reddening that she had divined him.

This auroral light eclipsed the other events of the day. He drove into a

town royally decorated, and still humming with the ravishment of the Tory

entrance. He sailed in the schooner to Mount Laurels, in the society of

Captain Baskelett and his friends, who, finding him tamer than they

expected, bantered him in the cheerfullest fashion. He waited for his

uncle Everard several hours at Mount Laurels, perused the junior Tory's

address to the Electors, throughout which there was not an idea--safest

of addresses to canvass upon! perused likewise, at Captain Baskelett's

request, a broad sheet of an article introducing the new candidate to

Bevisham with the battle-axe Romfreys to back him, in high burlesque of

Timothy Turbot upon Beauchamp: and Cecil hoped his cousin would not

object to his borrowing a Romfrey or two for so pressing an occasion. All

very funny, and no doubt the presence of Mr. Everard Romfrey would have

heightened the fun from the fountain-head; but he happened to be delayed,

and Beauchamp had to leave directions behind him in the town, besides the

discussion of a whole plan of conduct with Dr. Shrapnel, so he was under

the necessity of departing without seeing his uncle, really to his

regret. He left word to that effect.

Taking leave of Cecilia, he talked of his return 'home' within three or

four days as a certainty.

She said: 'Canvassing should not be neglected now.'

Her hostility was confused by what she had done to save him from

annoyance, while his behaviour to his cousin Cecil increased her respect

for him. She detected a pathetic meaning in his mention of the word home;

she mused on his having called her beautiful: whither was she hurrying?

Forgetful of her horror of his revolutionary ideas, forgetful of the

elevation of her own, she thrilled secretly on hearing it stated by the

jubilant young Tories at Mount Laurels, as a characteristic of Beauchamp,

that he was clever in parrying political thrusts, and slipping from the

theme; he who with her gave out unguardedly the thoughts deepest in him.

And the thoughts!--were they not of generous origin? Where so true a

helpmate for him as the one to whom his mind appealed? It could not be so

with the Frenchwoman. Cecilia divined a generous nature by generosity,

and set herself to believe that in honour he had not yet dared to speak

to her from the heart, not being at heart quite free. She was at the same

time in her remains of pride cool enough to examine and rebuke the

weakness she succumbed to in now clinging to him by that which yesterday

she hardly less than loathed, still deeply disliked.