LORD AVONLEY
Mr. Everard Romfrey was now, by consent, Lord Avonley, mounted on his
direct heirship and riding hard at the earldom. His elevation occurred
at a period of life that would have been a season of decay with most men;
but the prolonged and lusty Autumn of the veteran took new fires from a
tangible object to live for. His brother Craven's death had slightly
stupefied, and it had grieved him: it seemed to him peculiarly pathetic;
for as he never calculated on the happening of mortal accidents to men of
sound constitution, the circumstance imparted a curious shake to his own
solidity. It was like the quaking of earth, which tries the balance of
the strongest. If he had not been raised to so splendid a survey of the
actual world, he might have been led to think of the imaginary, where
perchance a man may meet his old dogs and a few other favourites, in a
dim perpetual twilight. Thither at all events Craven had gone, and
goodnight to him! The earl was a rapidly lapsing invalid. There could
be no doubt that Everard was to be the head of his House.
Outwardly he was the same tolerant gentleman who put aside the poor fools
of the world to walk undisturbed by them in the paths he had chosen: in
this aspect he knew himself: nor was the change so great within him as to
make him cognizant of a change. It was only a secret turn in the bent of
the mind, imperceptible as the touch of the cunning artist's brush on a
finished portrait, which will alter the expression without discomposing a
feature, so that you cannot say it is another face, yet it is not the
former one. His habits were invariable, as were his meditations.
He thought less of Romfrey Castle than of his dogs and his devices for
trapping vermin; his interest in birds and beasts and herbs, 'what
ninnies call Nature in books,' to quote him, was undiminished;
imagination he had none to clap wings to his head and be off with it.
He betrayed as little as he felt that the coming Earl of Romfrey was
different from the cadet of the family.
A novel sharpness in the 'Stop that,' with which he crushed Beauchamp's
affectedly gentle and unusually roundabout opening of the vexed Shrapnel
question, rang like a shot in the room at Steynham, and breathed a
different spirit from his customary easy pugnacity that welcomed and
lured on an adversary to wild outhitting. Some sorrowful preoccupation
is, however, to be expected in the man who has lost a brother, and some
degree of irritability at the intrusion of past disputes. He chose to
repeat a similar brief forbidding of the subject before they started
together for the scene of the accident and Romfrey Castle. No notice was
taken of Beauchamp's remark, that he consented to go though his duty lay
elsewhere. Beauchamp had not the faculty of reading inside men, or he
would have apprehended that his uncle was engaged in silently heaping
aggravations to shoot forth one fine day a thundering and astonishing
counterstroke.
He should have known his uncle Everard better.
In this respect he seemed to have no memory. But who has much that has
given up his brains for a lodging to a single idea? It is at once a
devouring dragon, and an intractable steamforce; it is a tyrant that
has eaten up a senate, and a prophet with a message. Inspired of
solitariness and gigantic size, it claims divine origin. The world
can have no peace for it.
Cecilia had not pleased him; none had. He did not bear in mind that the
sight of Dr. Shrapnel sick and weak, which constantly reanimated his
feelings of pity and of wrath, was not given to the others of whom he
demanded a corresponding energy of just indignation and sympathy. The
sense that he was left unaided to the task of bending his tough uncle,
combined with his appreciation of the righteousness of the task to
embitter him and set him on a pedestal, from which he descended at every
sign of an opportunity for striking, and to which he retired continually
baffled and wrathful, in isolation.
Then ensued the dreadful division in his conception of his powers: for he
who alone saw the just and right thing to do, was incapable of compelling
it to be done. Lay on to his uncle as he would, that wrestler shook him
off. And here was one man whom he could not move! How move a nation?
There came on him a thirst for the haranguing of crowds. They agree with
you or they disagree; exciting you to activity in either case. They do
not interpose cold Tory exclusiveness and inaccessibility. You have them
in the rough; you have nature in them, and all that is hopeful in nature.
You drive at, over, and through them, for their good; you plough them.
You sow them too. Some of them perceive that it is for their good,
and what if they be a minority? Ghastly as a minority is in an Election,
in a lifelong struggle it is refreshing and encouraging. The young world
and its triumph is with the minority. Oh to be speaking! Condemned to
silence beside his uncle, Beauchamp chafed for a loosed tongue and an
audience tossing like the well-whipped ocean, or open as the smooth sea-
surface to the marks of the breeze. Let them be hostile or amicable, he
wanted an audience as hotly as the humped Richard a horse.
At Romfrey Castle he fell upon an audience that became transformed into a
swarm of chatterers, advisers, and reprovers the instant his lips were
parted. The ladies of the family declared his pursuit of the Apology to
be worse and vainer than his politics. The gentlemen said the same, but
they were not so outspoken to him personally, and indulged in asides,
with quotations of some of his uncle Everard's recent observations
concerning him: as for example, 'Politically he's a mad harlequin jumping
his tights and spangles when nobody asks him to jump; and in private life
he's a mad dentist poking his tongs at my sound tooth:' a highly
ludicrous image of the persistent fellow, and a reminder of situations in
Moliere, as it was acted by Cecil Baskelett and Lord Welshpool.
Beauchamp had to a certain extent restored himself to favour with his
uncle Everard by offering a fair suggestion on the fatal field to account
for the accident, after the latter had taken measurements and examined
the place in perplexity. His elucidation of the puzzle was referred to
by Lord Avonley at Romfrey, and finally accepted as possible and this
from a wiseacre who went quacking about the county, expecting to upset
the order of things in England! Such a mixing of sense and nonsense in a
fellow's noddle was never before met with, Lord Avonley said. Cecil took
the hint. He had been unworried by Beauchamp: Dr. Shrapnel had not been
mentioned: and it delighted Cecil to let it be known that he thought old
Nevil had some good notions, particularly as to the duties of the
aristocracy--that first war-cry of his when a midshipman. News of
another fatal accident in the hunting-field confirmed Cecil's higher
opinion of his cousin. On the day of Craven's funeral they heard at
Romfrey that Mr. Wardour-Devereux had been killed by a fall from his
horse. Two English gentlemen despatched by the same agency within a
fortnight! 'He smoked,' Lord Avonley said of the second departure, to
allay some perturbation in the bosoms of the ladies who had ceased to
ride, by accounting for this particular mishap in the most reassuring
fashion. Cecil's immediate reflection was that the unfortunate smoker
had left a rich widow. Far behind in the race for Miss Halkett, and
uncertain of a settled advantage in his other rivalry with Beauchamp, he
fixed his mind on the widow, and as Beauchamp did not stand in his way,
but on the contrary might help him--for she, like the generality of
women, admired Nevil Beauchamp in spite of her feminine good sense and
conservatism--Cecil began to regard the man he felt less opposed to with
some recognition of his merits. The two nephews accompanied Lord Avonley
to London, and slept at his town-house.
They breakfasted together the next morning on friendly terms. Half an
hour afterward there was an explosion; uncle and nephews were scattered
fragments: and if Cecil was the first to return to cohesion with his lord
and chief, it was, he protested energetically, common policy in a man in
his position to do so: all that he looked for being a decent pension and
a share in the use of the town-house. Old Nevil, he related, began
cross-examining him and entangling him with the cunning of the deuce, in
my lord's presence, and having got him to make an admission, old Nevil
flung it at the baron, and even crossed him and stood before him when he
was walking out of the room. A furious wrangle took place. Nevil and
the baron gave it to one another unmercifully. The end of it was that
all three flew apart, for Cecil confessed to having a temper, and in
contempt of him for the admission wrung out of him, Lord Avonley had
pricked it. My lord went down to Steynham, Beauchamp to Holdesbury, and
Captain Baskelett to his quarters; whence in a few days he repaired
penitently to my lord--the most placable of men when a full submission
was offered to him.
Beauchamp did nothing of the kind. He wrote a letter to Steynham in the
form of an ultimatum.
This egregious letter was handed to Rosamund for a proof of her darling's
lunacy. She in conversation with Stukely Culbrett unhesitatingly accused
Cecil of plotting his cousin's ruin.
Mr. Culbrett thought it possible that Cecil had been a little more than
humorous in the part he had played in the dispute, and spoke to him.
Then it came out that Lord Avonley had also delivered an ultimatum to
Beauchamp.
Time enough had gone by for Cecil to forget his ruffling, and relish the
baron's grandly comic spirit in appropriating that big word Apology, and
demanding it from Beauchamp on behalf of the lady ruling his household.
What could be funnier than the knocking of Beauchamp's blunderbuss out of
his hands, and pointing the muzzle at him!
Cecil dramatized the fun to amuse Mr. Culbrett. Apparently Beauchamp had
been staggered on hearing himself asked for the definite article he
claimed. He had made a point of speaking of the Apology. Lord Avonley
did likewise. And each professed to exact it for a deeply aggrieved
person: each put it on the ground that it involved the other's rightful
ownership of the title of gentleman.
"'An apology to the amiable and virtuous Mistress Culling?" says old
Nevil: "an apology? what for?"--"For unbecoming and insolent behaviour,"
says my lord.'
'I am that lady's friend,' Stukely warned Captain Baskelett. 'Don't let
us have a third apology in the field.'
'Perfectly true; you are her friend, and you know what a friend of mine
she is,' rejoined Cecil. 'I could swear "that lady" flings the whole
affair at me. I give you my word, old Nevil and I were on a capital
footing before he and the baron broke up. I praised him for tickling the
aristocracy. I backed him heartily; I do now; I'll do it in Parliament.
I know a case of a noble lord, a General in the army, and he received an
intimation that he might as well attend the Prussian cavalry manoeuvres
last Autumn on the Lower Rhine or in Silesia--no matter where. He
couldn't go: he was engaged to shoot birds! I give you my word. Now
there I see old Nevil 's right. It 's as well we should know something
about the Prussian and Austrian cavalry, and if our aristocracy won't go
abroad to study cavalry, who is to? no class in the kingdom understands
horses as they do. My opinion is, they're asleep. Nevil should have
stuck to that, instead of trying to galvanize the country and turning
against his class. But fancy old Nevil asked for the Apology! It
petrified him. "I've told her nothing but the truth," says Nevil.
"Telling the truth to women is an impertinence," says my lord. Nevil
swore he'd have a revolution in the country before he apologized.'
Mr. Culbrett smiled at the absurdity of the change of positions between
Beauchamp and his uncle Everard, which reminded him somewhat of the old
story of the highwayman innkeeper and the market farmer who had been
thoughtful enough to recharge his pistols after quitting the inn at
midnight. A practical 'tu quoque' is astonishingly laughable, and backed
by a high figure and manner it had the flavour of triumphant repartee.
Lord Avonley did not speak of it as a retort upon Nevil, though he
reiterated the word Apology amusingly. He put it as due to the lady
governing his household; and his ultimatum was, that the Apology should
be delivered in terms to satisfy him within three months of the date of
the demand for it: otherwise blank; but the shadowy index pointed to the
destitution of Nevil Beauchamp.
No stroke of retributive misfortune could have been severer to Rosamund
than to be thrust forward as the object of humiliation for the man she
loved. She saw at a glance how much more likely it was (remote as the
possibility appeared) that her lord would perform the act of penitence
than her beloved Nevil. And she had no occasion to ask herself why.
Lord Avonley had done wrong, and Nevil had not. It was inconceivable
that Nevil should apologize to her. It was horrible to picture the act
in her mind. She was a very rational woman, quite a woman of the world,
yet such was her situation between these two men that the childish tale
of a close and consecutive punishment for sins, down to our little
naughtinesses and naturalnesses, enslaved her intelligence, and amazed
her with the example made of her, as it were to prove the tale true of
our being surely hauled back like domestic animals learning the habits of
good society, to the rueful contemplation of certain of our deeds,
however wildly we appeal to nature to stand up for them.
But is it so with all of us? No, thought Rosamund, sinking dejectedly
from a recognition of the heavenliness of the justice which lashed her
and Nevil, and did not scourge Cecil Baskelett. That fine eye for
celestially directed consequences is ever haunted by shadows of unfaith
likely to obscure it completely when chastisement is not seen to fall on
the person whose wickedness is evident to us. It has been established
that we do not wax diviner by dragging down the Gods to our level.
Rosamund knew Lord Avonley too well to harass him with further petitions
and explanations. Equally vain was it to attempt to persuade Beauchamp.
He made use of the house in London, where he met his uncle occasionally,
and he called at Steynham for money, that he could have obtained upon the
one condition, which was no sooner mentioned than fiery words flew in the
room, and the two separated. The leaden look in Beauchamp, noticed by
Cecilia Halkett in their latest interview, was deepening, and was of
itself a displeasure to Lord Avonley, who liked flourishing faces, and
said: 'That fellow's getting the look of a sweating smith': presumptively
in the act of heating his poker at the furnace to stir the country.
It now became an offence to him that Beauchamp should continue doing this
in the speeches and lectures he was reported to be delivering; he stamped
his foot at the sight of his nephew's name in the daily journals; a novel
sentiment of social indignation was expressed by his crying out, at the
next request for money: 'Money to prime you to turn the country into a
rat-hole? Not a square inch of Pennsylvanian paper-bonds! What right
have you to be lecturing and orationing? You've no knowledge. All
you've got is your instincts, and that you show in your readiness to
exhibit them like a monkey. You ought to be turned inside out on your
own stage. You've lumped your brains on a point or two about Land, and
Commonland, and the Suffrage, and you pound away upon them, as if you had
the key of the difficulty. It's the Scotchman's metaphysics; you know
nothing clear, and your working-classes know nothing at all; and you blow
them with wind like an over-stuffed cow. What you're driving at is to
get hob-nail boots to dance on our heads. Stukely says you should be off
over to Ireland. There you'd swim in your element, and have speechifying
from instinct, and howling and pummelling too, enough to last you out.
I 'll hand you money for that expedition. You're one above the number
wanted here. You've a look of bad powder fit only to flash in the pan.
I saved you from the post of public donkey, by keeping you out of
Parliament. You're braying and kicking your worst for it still at these
meetings of yours. A naval officer preaching about Republicanism and
parcelling out the Land!'
Beauchamp replied quietly, 'The lectures I read are Dr. Shrapnel's. When
I speak I have his knowledge to back my deficiencies. He is too ill to
work, and I consider it my duty to do as much of his work as I can
undertake.'
'Ha! You're the old infidel's Amen clerk. It would rather astonish
orthodox congregations to see clerks in our churches getting into the
pulpit to read the sermon for sick clergymen,' said Lord Avonley. His
countenance furrowed. 'I'll pay that bill,' he added.
'Pay down half a million!' thundered Beauchamp; and dropping his voice,
'or go to him.'
'You remind me,' his uncle observed. 'I recommend you to ring that bell,
and have Mrs. Culling here.'
'If she comes she will hear what I think of her.'
'Then, out of the house!'
'Very well, sir. You decline to supply me with money?'
'I do.'
'I must have it!'
'I dare say. Money's a chain-cable for holding men to their senses.'
'I ask you, my lord, how I am to carry on Holdesbury?'
'Give it up.'
'I shall have to,' said Beauchamp, striving to be prudent.
'There isn't a doubt of it,' said his uncle, upon a series of nods
diminishing in their depth until his head assumed a droll interrogative
fixity, with an air of 'What next?'