Now Cecilia wished for Mr. Austin"s opinion of Dr. Shrapnel; and as the delicate state of her inclinations made her conscious that to give him the letter covertly would be to betray them to him, who had once, not knowing it, moved her to think of a possible great change in her life, she mustered courage to say, "Captain Beauchamp at my request lent me the letter to read; I have it, and others written by Dr. Shrapnel."
Her father hummed to himself, and immediately begged Seymour Austin not to waste his time on the stuff, though he had no idea that a perusal of it could awaken other than the gravest reprehension in so rational a Tory gentleman.
Mr. Austin read the letter through. He asked to see the other letters mentioned by Cecilia, and read them calmly, without a frown or an interjection. She sat sketching, her father devouring newspaper columns.
"It"s the writing of a man who means well," Mr. Austin delivered his opinion.
"Why, the man"s an infidel!" Colonel Halkett exclaimed.
"There are numbers."
"They have the grace not to confess, then."
"It"s as well to know what the world"s made of, colonel. The clergy shut their eyes. There"s no treating a disease without reading it; and if we are to acknowledge a "vice," as Dr. Shrapnel would say of the so-called middle-cla.s.s, it is the smirking over what they think, or their not caring to think at all. Too many time-servers rot the State. I can understand the effect of such writing on a mind like Captain Beauchamp"s. It would do no harm to our young men to have those letters read publicly and lectured on-by competent persons. Half the thinking world may think pretty much the same on some points as Dr. Shrapnel; they are too wise or too indolent to say it: and of the other half, about a dozen members would be competent to reply to him. He is the earnest man, and flies at politics as uneasy young brains fly to literature, fancying they can write because they can write with a pen.
He perceives a bad adjustment of things: which is correct. He is honest, and takes his honesty for a virtue: and that ent.i.tles him to believe in himself: and that belief causes him to see in all opposition to him the wrong he has perceived in existing circ.u.mstances: and so in a dream of power he invokes the people: and as they do not stir, he takes to prophecy. This is the round of the politics of impatience. The study of politics should be guided by some light of statesmanship, otherwise it comes to this wild preaching.
These men are theory-tailors, not politicians. They are the men who make the "strait-waistcoat for humanity." They would fix us to first principles like tethered sheep or hobbled horses. I should enjoy replying to him, if I had time. The whole letter is composed of variations upon one idea. Still I must say the man interests me; I should like to talk to him."
Mr. Austin paid no heed to the colonel"s "Dear me! dear me!" of amazement. He said of the style of the letters, that it was the puffing of a giant: a strong wind rather than speech: and begged Cecilia to note that men who labour to force their dreams on mankind and turn vapour into fact, usually adopt such a style. Hearing that this private letter had been deliberately read through by Mr. Romfrey, and handed by him to Captain Baskelett, who had read it out in various places, Mr. Austin said:
"A strange couple!" He appeared perplexed by his old friend"s approval of them. "There we decidedly differ," said he, when the case of Dr.
Shrapnel was related by the colonel, with a refusal to condemn Mr.
Romfrey. He p.r.o.nounced Mr. Romfrey"s charges against Dr. Shrapnel, taken in conjunction with his conduct, to be baseless, childish, and wanton.
The colonel would not see the case in that light; but Cecilia did. It was a justification of Beauchamp; and how could she ever have been blind to it?--scarcely blind, she remembered, but sensitively blinking her eyelids to distract her sight in contemplating it, and to preserve her repose. As to Beauchamp"s demand of the apology, Mr. Austin considered that it might be an instance of his want of knowledge of men, yet could not be called silly, and to call it insane was the rhetoric of an adversary.
"I do call it insane," said the colonel.
He separated himself from his daughter by a sharp division.
Had Beauchamp appeared at Mount Laurels, Cecilia would have been ready to support and encourage him, boldly. Backed by Mr. Austin, she saw some good in Dr. Shrapnel"s writing, much in Beauchamp"s devotedness.
He shone clear to her reason, at last: partly because her father in his opposition to him did not, but was on the contrary unreasonable, cased in mail, mentally clouded. She sat with Mr. Austin and her father, trying repeatedly, in obedience to Beauchamp"s commands, to bring the latter to a just contemplation of the unhappy case; behaviour on her part which rendered the colonel inveterate.
Beauchamp at this moment was occupied in doing secretary"s work for Dr. Shrapnel. So Cecilia learnt from Mr. Lydiard, who came to pay his respects to Mrs. Wardour-Devereux at Mount Laurels. The pursuit of the apology was continued in letters to his uncle and occasional interviews with him, which were by no means instigated by the doctor, Mr. Lydiard informed the ladies. He described Beauchamp as acting in the spirit of a man who has sworn an oath to abandon every pleasure in life, that he may, as far as it lies in his power, indemnify his friend for the wrong done to him.
"Such men are too terrible for me," said Mrs. Devereux.
Cecilia thought the reverse: Not for me! But she felt a strain upon her nature, and she was miserable in her alienation from her father.
Kissing him one night, she laid her head on his breast, and begged his forgiveness. He embraced her tenderly. "Wait, only wait; you will see I am right," he said, and prudently said no more, and did not ask her to speak.
She was glad that she had sought the reconciliation from her heart"s natural warmth, on hearing some time later that M. de Croisnel was dead, and that Beauchamp meditated starting for France to console his Renee.
Her continual agitations made her doubtful of her human feelings: she clung to that instance of her filial stedfastness.
The day before Cecilia and her father left Mount Laurels for their season in Wales, Mr. Tuckham and Beauchamp came together to the house, and were closeted an hour with her father. Cecilia sat in the drawing-room, thinking that she did indeed wait, and had great patience.
Beauchamp entered the room alone. He looked worn and thin, of a leaden colour, like the cloud that bears the bolt. News had reached him of the death of Lord Avonley in the hunting-field, and he was going on to Steynham to persuade his uncle to accompany him to Bevisham and wash the guilt of his wrong-doing off him before applying for the t.i.tle. "You would advise me not to go?" he said. "I must. I should be dishonoured myself if I let a chance pa.s.s. I run the risk of being a beggar: I"m all but one now."
Cecilia faltered: "Do you see a chance?"
"Hardly more than an excuse for trying it," he replied.
She gave him back Dr. Shrapnel"s letters. "I have read them," was all she said. For he might have just returned from France, with the breath of Renee about him, and her pride would not suffer her to melt him in rivalry by saying what she had been led to think of the letters.
Hearing nothing from her, he silently put them in his pocket. The struggle with his uncle seemed to be souring him or deadening him.
They were not alone for long. Mr. Tuckham presented himself to take his leave of her. Old Mrs. Beauchamp was dying, and he had only come to Mount Laurels on special business. Beauchamp was just as anxious to hurry away.
Her father found her sitting in the solitude of a drawing-room at midday, pale-faced, with unoccupied fingers, not even a book in her lap.
He walked up and down the room until Cecilia, to say something, said: "Mr. Tuckham could not stay."
"No," said her father; "he could not. He has to be back as quick as he can to cut his legacy in halves!"
Cecilia looked perplexed.
"I"ll speak plainly," said the colonel. "He sees that Nevil has ruined himself with his uncle. The old lady won"t allow Nevil to visit her; in her condition it would be an excitement beyond her strength to bear. She sent Blackburn to bring Nevil here, and give him the option of stating before me whether those reports about his misconduct in France were true or not. He demurred at first: however, he says they are not true. He would have run away with the Frenchwoman, and he would have fought the duel: but he did neither. Her brother ran ahead of him and fought for him: so he declares and she wouldn"t run. So the reports are false. We shall know what Blackburn makes of the story when we hear of the legacy.
I have been obliged to write word to Mrs. Beauchamp that I believe Nevil to have made a true statement of the facts. But I distinctly say, and so I told Blackburn, I don"t think money will do Nevil Beauchamp a farthing"s worth of good. Blackburn follows his own counsel. He induced the old lady to send him; so I suppose he intends to let her share the money between them. I thought better of him; I thought him a wiser man."
Grat.i.tude to Mr. Tuckham on Beauchamp"s behalf caused Cecilia to praise him, in the tone of compliments. The difficulty of seriously admiring two gentlemen at once is a feminine dilemma, with the maidenly among women.
"He has disappointed me," said Colonel Halkett.
"Would you have had him allow a falsehood to enrich him and ruin Nevil, papa?"
"My dear child, I"m sick to death of romantic fellows. I took Blackburn for one of our solid young men. Why should he share his aunt"s fortune?"
"You mean, why should Nevil have money?"
"Well, I do mean that. Besides, the story was not false as far as his intentions went: he confessed it, and I ought to have put it in a postscript. If Nevil wants money, let him learn to behave himself like a gentleman at Steynham."
"He has not failed."
"I"ll say, then, behave himself, simply. He considers it a point of honour to get his uncle Everard to go down on his knees to Shrapnel. But he has no moral sense where I should like to see it: none: he confessed it."
"What were his words, papa?"
"I don"t remember words. He runs over to France, whenever it suits him, to carry on there..." The colonel ended in a hum and buzz.
"Has he been to France lately?" asked Cecilia.
Her breath hung for the answer, sedately though she sat.
"The woman"s father is dead, I hear," Colonel Halkett remarked.
"But he has not been there?"
"How can I tell? He"s anywhere, wherever his pa.s.sions whisk him."
"No!"