Rosamund begged that she might hear what Nevil had first said on his arrival.
Cecilia related that they had seen him walking swiftly across the park, and that Mr. Romfrey had hailed him, and held his hand out; and that Captain Beauchamp had overlooked it, saying he feared Mr. Romfrey"s work was complete. He had taken her father"s hand and hers and his touch was like ice.
"His worship of that Dr. Shrapnel is extraordinary," quoth Rosamund.
"And how did Mr. Romfrey behave to him?"
"My father thinks, very forbearingly."
Rosamund sighed and made a semblance of wringing her hands. "It seems to me that I antic.i.p.ated ever since I heard of the man... or at least ever since I saw him and heard him, he would be the evil genius of us all: if I dare include myself. But I am not permitted to escape! And, Miss Halkett, can you tell me how it was that my name--that I became involved? I cannot imagine the circ.u.mstances which would bring me forward in this unhappy affair."
Cecilia replied: "The occasion was, that Captain Beauchamp so scornfully contrasted the sort of injury done by Dr. Shrapnel"s defence of a poacher on his uncle"s estate, with the severe chastis.e.m.e.nt inflicted by Mr. Romfrey in revenge for it. He would not leave the subject."
"I see him--see his eyes!" cried Rosamund, her bosom heaving and sinking deep, as her conscience quavered within her. "At last Mr. Romfrey mentioned me?"
"He stood up and said you had been personally insulted by Dr. Shrapnel."
Rosamund meditated in a distressing doubt of her conscientious truthfulness.
"Captain Beauchamp will be coming to me; and how can I answer him?
Heaven knows I would have shielded the poor man, if possible--poor wretch! Wicked though he is, one has only to hear of him suffering! But what can I answer? I do recollect now that Mr. Romfrey compelled me from question to question to confess that the man had vexed me. Insulted, I never said. At the worst, I said vexed. I would not have said insulted, or even offended, because Mr. Romfrey... ah! we know him. What I did say, I forget. I have no guide to what I said but my present feelings, and they are pity for the unfortunate man much more than dislike.--Well, I must go through the scene with Nevil!" Rosamund concluded her outcry of ostensible exculpation.
She asked in a cooler moment how it was that Captain Beauchamp had so far forgotten himself as to burst out on his uncle before the guests of the house. It appeared that he had wished his uncle to withdraw with him, and Mr. Romfrey had bidden him postpone private communications.
Rosamund gathered from one or two words of Cecilia"s that Mr. Romfrey, until finally stung by Nevil, had indulged in his best-humoured banter.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV. THE FACE OF RENEE
Shortly before the ringing of the dinner-bell Rosamund knocked at Beauchamp"s dressing-room door, the bearer of a telegram from Bevisham.
He read it in one swift run of the eyes, and said: "Come in, ma"am, I have something for you. Madame de Rouaillout sends you this."
Rosamund saw her name written in a French hand on the back of the card.
"You stay with us, Nevil?"
"To-night and to-morrow, perhaps. The danger seems to be over."
"Has Dr. Shrapnel been in danger?"
"He has. If it"s quite over now!"
"I declare to you, Nevil..."
"Listen to me, ma"am; I"m in the dark about this murderous business:--an old man, defenceless, harmless as a child!--but I know this, that you are somewhere in it."
"Nevil, do you not guess at some one else?"
"He! yes, he! But Cecil Baskelett led no blind man to Dr. Shrapnel"s gate."
"Nevil, as I live, I knew nothing of it!"
"No, but you set fire to the train. You hated the old man, and you taught Mr. Romfrey to think that you had been insulted. I see it all.
Now you must have the courage to tell him of your error. There"s no other course for you. I mean to take Mr. Romfrey to Dr. Shrapnel, to save the honour of our family, as far as it can be saved."
"What? Nevil!" exclaimed Rosamund, gaping.
"It seems little enough, ma"am. But he must go. I will have the apology spoken, and man to man."
"But you would never tell your uncle that?"
He laughed in his uncle"s manner.
"But, Nevil, my dearest, forgive me, I think of you--why are the Halketts here? It is not entirely with Colonel Halkett"s consent. It is your uncle"s influence with him that gives you your chance. Do you not care to avail yourself of it? Ever since he heard Dr. Shrapnel"s letter to you, Colonel Halkett has, I am sure, been tempted to confound you with him in his mind: ah! Nevil, but recollect that it is only Mr.
Romfrey who can help to give you your Cecilia. There is no dispensing with him. Postpone your attempt to humiliate--I mean, that is, Oh!
Nevil, whatever you intend to do to overcome your uncle, trust to time, be friends with him; be a little worldly! for her sake! to ensure her happiness!"
Beauchamp obtained the information that his cousin Cecil had read out the letter of Dr. Shrapnel at Mount Laurels.
The bell rang.
"Do you imagine I should sit at my uncle"s table if I did not intend to force him to repair the wrong he has done to himself and to us?" he said.
"Oh! Nevil, do you not see Captain Baskelett at work here?"
"What amends can Cecil Baskelett make? My uncle is a man of honour: it is in his power. There, I leave you to speak to him; you will do it to-night, after we break up in the drawing-room."
Rosamund groaned: "An apology to Dr. Shrapnel from Mr. Romfrey! It is an impossibility, Nevil! utter!"
"So you say to sit idle: but do as I tell you."
He went downstairs.
He had barely reproached her. She wondered at that; and then remembered his alien sad half-smile in quitting the room.
Rosamund would not present herself at her lord"s dinner-table when there were any guests at Steynham. She prepared to receive Miss Halkett in the drawing-room, as the guests of the house this evening chanced to be her friends.
Madame de Rouaillout"s present to her was a photograph of M. de Croisnel, his daughter and son in a group. Rosamund could not bear to look at the face of Renee, and she put it out of sight. But she had looked. She was reduced to look again.
Roland stood beside his father"s chair; Renee sat at his feet, clasping his right hand. M. de Croisnel"s fallen eyelids and unshorn white chin told the story of the family reunion. He was dying: his two children were nursing him to the end.
Decidedly Cecilia was a more beautiful woman than Renee: but on which does the eye linger longest--which draws the heart? a radiant landscape, where the tall ripe wheat flashes between shadow and shine in the stately march of Summer, or the peep into dewy woodland on to dark water?
Dark-eyed Renee was not beauty but attraction; she touched the double chords within us which are we know not whether harmony or discord, but a divine discord if an uncertified harmony, memorable beyond plain sweetness or majesty. There are touches of bliss in anguish that superhumanize bliss, touches of mystery in simplicity, of the eternal in the variable. These two chords of poignant antiphony she struck throughout the range of the hearts of men, and strangely intervolved them in vibrating unison. Only to look at her face, without hearing her voice, without the charm of her speech, was to feel it. On Cecilia"s entering the drawing-room sofa, while the gentlemen drank claret, Rosamund handed her the card of the photographic artist of Tours, mentioning no names.
"I should say the portrait is correct. A want of spirituality," Rosamund said critically, using one of the insular commonplaces, after that manner of fastening upon what there is not in a piece of Art or nature.
Cecilia"s avidity to see and study the face preserved her at a higher mark.