"I say, yes. And if he has money, we shall see him going sky-high and scattering it in sparks, not merely spending; I mean living immorally, infidelizing, republicanizing, scandalizing his cla.s.s and his country."
"Oh no!" exclaimed Cecilia, rising and moving to the window to feast her eyes on driving clouds, in a strange exaltation of mind, secretly sure now that her idea of Nevil"s having gone over to France was groundless; and feeling that she had been unworthy of him who strove to be "worthier of her, as he hoped to become."
Colonel Halkett scoffed at her "Oh no," and called it woman"s logic.
She could not restrain herself. "Have you forgotten Mr. Austin, papa? It is Nevil"s perfect truthfulness that makes him appear worse to you than men who are timeservers. Too many time-servers rot the State, Mr. Austin said. Nevil is not one of them. I am not able to judge or speculate whether he has a great brain or is likely to distinguish himself out of his profession: I would rather he did not abandon it: but Mr. Austin said to me in talking of him..."
"That notion of Austin"s of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g women"s minds up to the pitch of men"s!" interjected the colonel with a despairing flap of his arm.
"He said, papa, that honestly active men in a country, who decline to practise hypocrisy, show that the blood runs, and are a sign of health."
"You misunderstood him, my dear."
"I think I thoroughly understood him. He did not call them wise. He said they might be dangerous if they were not met in debate. But he said, and I presume to think truly, that the reason why they are decried is, that it is too great a trouble for a lazy world to meet them. And, he said, the reason why the honest factions agitate is because they encounter sneers until they appear in force. If they were met earlier, and fairly--I am only quoting him--they would not, I think he said, or would hardly, or would not generally, fall into professional agitation."
"Austin"s a speculative Tory, I know; and that"s his weakness," observed the colonel. "But I"m certain you misunderstood him. He never would have called us a lazy people."
"Not in matters of business: in matters of thought."
"My dear Cecilia! You"ve got hold of a language!... a way of speaking!
.... Who set you thinking on these things?"
"That I owe to Nevil Beauchamp!
Colonel Halkett indulged in a turn or two up and down the room. He threw open a window, sniffed the moist air, and went to his daughter to speak to her resolutely.
"Between a Radical and a Tory, I don"t know where your head has been whirled to, my dear. Your heart seems to be gone: more sorrow for us!
And for Nevil Beauchamp to be pretending to love you while carrying on with this Frenchwoman!"
"He has never said that he loved me."
The splendour of her beauty in humility flashed on her father, and he cried out: "You are too good for any man on earth! We won"t talk in the dark, my darling. You tell me he has never, as they say, made love to you?"
"Never, papa."
"Well, that proves the French story. At any rate, he "s a man of honour.
But you love him?"
"The French story is untrue, papa."
Cecilia stood in a blush like the burning cloud of the sunset."
"Tell me frankly: I"m your father, your old dada, your friend, my dear girl! do you think the man cares for you, loves you?"
She replied: "I know, papa, the French story is untrue."
"But when I tell you, silly woman, he confessed it to me out of his own mouth!"
"It is not true now."
"It"s not going on, you mean? How do you know?"
"I know."
"Has he been swearing it?"
"He has not spoken of it to me."
"Here I am in a woman"s web!" cried the colonel. "Is it your instinct tells you it"s not true? or what? what? You have not denied that you love the man."
"I know he is not immoral."
"There you shoot again! Haven"t you a yes or a no for your father?"
Cecilia cast her arms round his neck, and sobbed.
She could not bring it to her lips to say (she would have shunned the hearing) that her defence of Beauchamp, which was a shadowed avowal of the state of her heart, was based on his desire to read to her the conclusion of Dr. Shrapnel"s letter touching a pa.s.sion to be overcome; necessarily therefore a pa.s.sion that was vanquished, and the fullest and bravest explanation of his shifting treatment of her: nor would she condescend to urge that her lover would have said he loved her when they were at Steynham, but for the misery and despair of a soul too n.o.ble to be diverted from his grief and sense of duty, and, as she believed, unwilling to speak to win her while his material fortune was in jeopardy.
The colonel cherished her on his breast, with one hand regularly patting her shoulder: a form of consolation that cures the disposition to sob as quickly as would the drip of water.
Cecilia looked up into his eyes, and said, "We will not be parted, papa, ever."
The colonel said absently: "No"; and, surprised at himself, added: "No, certainly not. How can we be parted? You won"t run away from me? No, you know too well I can"t resist you. I appeal to your judgement, and I must accept what you decide. But he is immoral. I repeat that. He has no roots. We shall discover it before it"s too late, I hope."
Cecilia gazed away, breathing through tremulous dilating nostrils.
"One night after dinner at Steynham," pursued the colonel, "Nevil was rattling against the Press, with Stukely Culbrett to prime him: and he said editors of papers were growing to be like priests, and as timid as priests, and arrogant: and for one thing, it was because they supposed themselves to be guardians of the national morality. I forget exactly what the matter was: but he sneered at priests and morality."
A smile wove round Cecilia"s lips, and in her towering superiority to one who talked nonsense, she slipped out of maiden shame and said: "Attack Nevil for his political heresies and his wrath with the Press for not printing him. The rest concerns his honour, where he is quite safe, and all are who trust him."
"If you find out you"re wrong?"
She shook her head.
"But if you find out you"re wrong about him," her father reiterated piteously, "you won"t tear me to strips to have him in spite of it?"
"No, papa, not I. I will not."
"Well, that"s something for me to hold fast to," said Colonel Halkett, sighing.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII. 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 l.u.s.ty 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 const.i.tution, the circ.u.mstance 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.