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 Renée, 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.