Beauchamp's Career. Volume 4

Captain Baskelett said he would go. He was pleased with his cheque at the time, but hearing subsequently that Nevil was coming to Steynham to meet Colonel Halkett and his daughter, he became displeased, considering it a very silly commission. The more he thought of it the more ridiculous and unworthy it appeared. He asked himself and Lord Palmet also why he should have to go to Nevil at Holdesbury to tell him of circumstances that he would hear of two or three days later at Steynham. There was no sense in it. The only conclusion for him was that the scheming woman Culling had determined to bring down every man concerned in the Bevisham election, and particularly Mr. Romfrey, on his knees before Nevil. Holdesbury had been placed at his disposal, and the use of the house in London, which latter would have been extremely serviceable to Cecil as a place of dinners to the Parliament of Great Britain in lieu of the speech-making generally expected of Members, and not so effectively performed. One would think the baron had grown afraid of old Nevil! He had spoken as if he were.

Cecil railed unreservedly to Lord Palmet against that woman 'Mistress Culling,' as it pleased him to term her, and who could be offended by his calling her so? His fine wit revelled in bestowing titles that were at once batteries directed upon persons he hated, and entrenchments for himself.

At four o'clock on a sultry afternoon he sat at table with his Bevisham supporters, and pledged them correspondingly in English hotel champagne, sherry and claret. At seven he was rid of them, but parched and heated, as he deserved to be, he owned, for drinking the poison. It would be a good subject for Parliament if he could get it up, he reflected.

'And now,' said he to Palmet, 'we might be crossing over to the Club if I hadn't to go about that stupid business to Holdesbury to-morrow morning. We shall miss the race, or, at least, the start.'

The idea struck him: 'Ten to one old Nevil 's with Shrapnel,' and no idea could be more natural.

'We 'll call on Shrapnel,' said Palmet. 'We shall see Jenny Denham. He gives her out as his niece. Whatever she is she's a brimming little beauty. I assure you, Bask, you seldom see so pretty a girl.'

Wine, which has directed men's footsteps upon more marvellous adventures, took them to a chemist's shop for a cooling effervescent draught, and thence through the town to the address, furnished to them by the chemist, of Dr. Shrapnel on the common.

Bad wine, which is responsible for the fate of half the dismal bodies hanging from trees, weltering by rocks, grovelling and bleaching round the bedabbled mouth of the poet's Cave of Despair, had rendered Captain Baskelett's temper extremely irascible; so when he caught sight of Dr. Shrapnel walling in his garden, and perceived him of a giant's height, his eyes fastened on the writer of the abominable letter with an exultation peculiar to men having a devil inside them that kicks to be out. The sun was low, blazing among the thicker branches of the pollard forest trees, and through sprays of hawthorn. Dr. Shrapnel stopped, facing the visible master of men, at the end of his walk before he turned his back to continue the exercise and some discourse he was holding aloud either to the heavens or bands of invisible men.

'Ahem, Dr. Shrapnel!' He was accosted twice, the second time imperiously.

He saw two gentlemen outside the garden-hedge.

'I spoke, sir,' said Captain Baskelett.

'I hear you now, sir,' said the doctor, walking in a parallel line with them.

'I desired to know, sir, if you are Dr. Shrapnel?'

'I am.'

They arrived at the garden-gate.

'You have a charming garden, Dr. Shrapnel,' said Lord Palmet, very affably and loudly, with a steady observation of the cottage windows.

Dr. Shrapnel flung the gate open.

Lord Palmet raised his hat and entered, crying loudly, 'A very charming garden, upon my word!'

Captain Baskelett followed him, bowing stiffly.

'I am,' he said, 'Captain Beauchamp's cousin. I am Captain Baskelett, one of the Members for the borough.'

The doctor said, 'Ah.'

'I wish to see Captain Beauchamp, sir. He is absent?'

'I shall have him here shortly, sir.'

'Oh, you will have him!' Cecil paused.

'Admirable roses!' exclaimed Lord Palmet.

'You have him, I think,' said Cecil, 'if what we hear is correct. I wish to know, sir, whether the case you are conducting against his uncle is one you have communicated to Captain Beauchamp. I repeat, I am here to inquire if he is privy to it. You may hold family ties in contempt—Now, sir! I request you abstain from provocations with me.'

Dr. Shrapnel had raised his head, with something of the rush of a rocket, from the stooping posture to listen, and his frown of non-intelligence might be interpreted as the coming on of the fury Radicals are prone to, by a gentleman who believed in their constant disposition to explode.

Cecil made play with a pacifying hand. 'We shall arrive at no understanding unless you are good enough to be perfectly calm. I repeat, my cousin Captain Beauchamp is more or less at variance with his family, owing to these doctrines of yours, and your extraordinary Michael-Scott- the-wizard kind of spell you seem to have cast upon his common sense as a man of the world. You have him, as you say. I do not dispute it. I have no, doubt you have him fast. But here is a case demanding a certain respect for decency. Pray, if I may ask you, be still, be quiet, and hear me out if you can. I am accustomed to explain myself to the comprehension of most men who are at large, and I tell you candidly I am not to be deceived or diverted from my path by a show of ignorance.'

'What is your immediate object, sir?' said Dr. Shrapnel, chagrined by the mystification within him, and a fear that his patience was going.

'Exactly,' Cecil nodded. He was acute enough to see that he had established the happy commencement of fretfulness in the victim, which is equivalent to a hook well struck in the mouth of your fish, and with an angler's joy he prepared to play his man. 'Exactly. I have stated it. And you ask me. But I really must decline to run over the whole ground again for you. I am here to fulfil a duty to my family; a highly disagreeable one to me. I may fail, like the lady who came here previous to the Election, for the result of which I am assured I ought to thank your eminently disinterested services. I do. You recollect a lady calling on you?'

Dr. Shrapnel consulted his memory. 'I think I have a recollection of some lady calling.'

'Oh! you think you have a recollection of some lady calling.'

'Do you mean a lady connected with Captain Beauchamp?'

'A lady connected with Captain Beauchamp. You are not aware of the situation of the lady?'

'If I remember, she was a kind of confidential housekeeper, some one said, to Captain Beauchamp's uncle.'

'A kind of confidential housekeeper! She is recognized in our family as a lady, sir. I can hardly expect better treatment at your hands than she met with, but I do positively request you to keep your temper whilst I am explaining my business to you. Now, sir! what now?'

A trifling breeze will set the tall tree bending, and Dr. Shrapnel did indeed appear to display the agitation of a full-driving storm when he was but harassed and vexed.

'Will you mention your business concisely, if you Please?' he said.

'Precisely; it is my endeavour. I supposed I had done so. To be frank, I would advise you to summon a member of your household, wife, daughter, housekeeper, any one you like, to whom you may appeal, and I too, whenever your recollections are at fault.'

'I am competent,' said the doctor.

'But in justice to you,' urged Cecil considerately.

Dr. Shrapnel smoothed his chin hastily. 'Have you done?'

'Believe me, the instant I have an answer to my question, I have done.'

'Name your question.'

'Very well, sir. Now mark, I will be plain with you. There is no escape for you from this. You destroy my cousin's professional prospects—I request you to listen—you blast his career in the navy; it was considered promising. He was a gallant officer and a smart seaman. Very well. You set him up as a politician, to be knocked down, to a dead certainty. You set him against his class; you embroil him with his family . . .'

'On all those points,' interposed Dr. Shrapnel, after dashing a hand to straighten his forelock; but Cecil vehemently entreated him to control his temper.

'I say you embroil him with his family, you cause him to be in everlasting altercation with his uncle Mr. Romfrey, materially to his personal detriment; and the question of his family is one that every man of sense would apprehend on the spot; for we, you should know, have, sir, an opinion of Captain Beauchamp's talents and abilities forbidding us to think he could possibly be the total simpleton you make him appear, unless to the seductions of your political instructions, other seductions were added . . . . You apprehend me, I am sure.'

'I don't,' cried the doctor, descending from his height and swinging about forlornly.

'Oh! yes, you do; you do indeed, you cannot avoid it; you quite apprehend me; it is admitted that you take my meaning: I insist on that. I have nothing to say but what is complimentary of the young lady, whoever she may turn out to be; bewitching, no doubt; and to speak frankly, Dr. Shrapnel, I, and I am pretty certain every honest man would think with me, I take it to be ten times more creditable to my cousin Captain Beauchamp that he should be under a lady's influence than under yours. Come, sir! I ask you. You must confess that a gallant officer and great admirer of the sex does not look such a donkey if he is led in silken strings by a beautiful creature. And mark—stop! mark this, Dr. Shrapnel: I say, to the lady we can all excuse a good deal, and at the same time you are to be congratulated on first-rate diplomacy in employing so charming an agent. I wish, I really wish you did it generally, I assure you: only, mark this—I do beg you to contain yourself for a minute, if possible—I say, my cousin Captain Beauchamp is fair game to hunt, and there is no law to prevent the chase, only you must not expect us to be quiet spectators of your sport; and we have, I say, undoubtedly a right to lay the case before the lady, and induce her to be a peace-agent in the family if we can. Very well.'

'This garden is redolent of a lady's hand,' sighed Palmet, poetical in his dejection.

'Have you taken too much wine, gentlemen?' said Dr. Shrapnel.

Cecil put this impertinence aside with a graceful sweep of his fingers.

'You attempt to elude me, sir.'

'Not I! You mention some lady.'

'Exactly. A young lady.'

'What is the name of the lady?'

'Oh! You ask the name of the lady. And I too. What is it? I have heard two or three names.'

'Then you have heard villanies.'

'Denham, Jenny Denham, Miss Jenny Denham,' said Palmet, rejoiced at the opportunity of trumpeting her name so that she should not fail to hear it.

'I stake my reputation I have heard her called Shrapnel—Miss Shrapnel,' said Cecil.

The doctor glanced hastily from one to the other of his visitors. 'The young lady is my ward; I am her guardian,' he said.

Cecil pursed his mouth. 'I have heard her called your niece.'

'Niece—ward; she is a lady by birth and education, in manners, accomplishments, and character; and she is under my protection,' cried Dr. Shrapnel.

Cecil bowed. 'So you are for gentle birth? I forgot you are for morality too, and for praying; exactly; I recollect. But now let me tell you, entirely with the object of conciliation, my particular desire is to see the young lady, in your presence of course, and endeavour to persuade her, as I have very little doubt I shall do, assuming that you give me fair play, to exercise her influence, on this occasion contrary to yours, and save my cousin Captain Beauchamp from a fresh misunderstanding with his uncle Mr. Romfrey. Now, sir; now, there!'

'You will not see Miss Denham with my sanction ever,' said Dr. Shrapnel.

'Oh! Then I perceive your policy. Mark, sir, my assumption was that the young lady would, on hearing my representations, exert herself to heal the breach between Captain Beauchamp and his family. You stand in the way. You treat me as you treated the lady who came here formerly to wrest your dupe from your clutches. If I mistake not, she saw the young lady you acknowledge to be your ward.'

Dr. Shrapnel flashed back: 'I acknowledge? Mercy and justice! is there no peace with the man? You walk here to me, I can't yet guess why, from a town where I have enemies, and every scandal flies touching me and mine; and you—' He stopped short to master his anger. He subdued it so far as to cloak it in an attempt to speak reasoningly, as angry men sometimes deceive themselves in doing, despite the good maxim for the wrathful—speak not at all. 'See,' said he, 'I was never married. My dear friend dies, and leaves me his child to protect and rear; and though she bears her father's name, she is most wrongly and foully made to share the blows levelled at her guardian. Ay, have at me, all of you, as much as you will! Hold off from her. Were it true, the cowardice would be not a whit the smaller. Why, casting a stone like that, were it the size of a pebble and the weight of a glance, is to toss the whole cowardly world on an innocent young girl. And why suspect evil? You talk of that lady who paid me a visit here once, and whom I treated becomingly, I swear. I never do otherwise. She was a handsome woman; and what was she? The housekeeper of Captain Beauchamp's uncle. Hear me, if you please! To go with the world, I have as good a right to suppose the worst of an attractive lady in that situation as you regarding my ward: better warrant for scandalizing, I think; to go with the world. But now—'

Cecil checked him, ejaculating, 'Thank you, Dr. Shrapnel; I thank you most cordially,' with a shining smile. 'Stay, sir! no more. I take my leave of you. Not another word. No "buts"! I recognize that conciliation is out of the question: you are the natural protector of poachers, and you will not grant me an interview with the young lady you call your ward, that I may represent to her, as a person we presume to have a chance of moving you, how easily—I am determined you shall hear me, Dr. Shrapnel!—how easily the position of Captain Beauchamp may become precarious with his uncle Mr. Romfrey. And let me add—"but" and "but" me till Doomsday, sir!—if you were—I do hear you, sir, and you shall hear me—if you were a younger man, I say, I would hold you answerable to me for your scandalous and disgraceful insinuations.'

Dr. Shrapnel was adroitly fenced and over-shouted. He shrugged, stuttered, swayed, wagged a bulrush-head, flapped his elbows, puffed like a swimmer in the breakers, tried many times to expostulate, and finding the effort useless, for his adversary was copious and commanding, relapsed, eyeing him as an object far removed.

Cecil rounded one of his perplexingly empty sentences and turned on his heel.

'War, then!' he said.

'As you like,' retorted the doctor.

'Oh! Very good. Good evening.' Cecil slightly lifted his hat, with the short projection of the head of the stately peacock in its walk, and passed out of the garden. Lord Palmet, deeply disappointed and mystified, went after him, leaving Dr. Shrapnel to shorten his garden walk with enormous long strides.

'I'm afraid you didn't manage the old boy,' Palmet complained. 'They're people who have tea in their gardens; we might have sat down with them and talked, the best friends in the world, and come again to-morrow might have called her Jenny in a week. She didn't show her pretty nose at any of the windows.'

His companion pooh-poohed and said: 'Foh! I'm afraid I permitted myself to lose my self-command for a moment.'

Palmet sang out an amorous couplet to console himself. Captain Baskelett respected the poetic art for its magical power over woman's virtue, but he disliked hearing verses, and they were ill-suited to Palmet. He abused his friend roundly, telling him it was contemptible to be quoting verses. He was irritable still.

He declared himself nevertheless much refreshed by his visit to Dr. Shrapnel. 'We shall have to sleep tonight in this unhallowed town, but I needn't be off to Holdesbury in the morning; I've done my business. I shall write to the baron to-night, and we can cross the water to-morrow in time for operations.'

The letter to Mr. Romfrey was composed before midnight. It was a long one, and when he had finished it, Cecil remembered that the act of composition had been assisted by a cigar in his mouth, and Mr. Romfrey detested the smell of tobacco. There was nothing to be done but to write the letter over again, somewhat more briefly: it ran thus:

'Thinking to kill two birds at a blow, I went yesterday with Palmet after the dinner at this place to Shrapnel's house, where, as I heard, I stood a chance of catching friend Nevil. The young person living under the man's protection was absent, and so was the "poor dear commander," perhaps attending on his bull. Shrapnel said he was expecting him. I write to you to confess I thought myself a cleverer fellow than I am. I talked to Shrapnel and tried hard to reason with him. I hope I can keep my temper under ordinary circumstances. You will understand that it required remarkable restraint when I make you acquainted with the fact that a lady's name was introduced, which, as your representative in relation to her, I was bound to defend from a gratuitous and scoundrelly aspersion. Shrapnel's epistle to "brave Beauchamp" is Church hymnification in comparison with his conversation. He is indubitably one of the greatest ruffians of his time.

'I took the step with the best of intentions, and all I can plead is that I am not a diplomatist of sixty. His last word was that he is for war with us. As far as we men are concerned it is of small importance. I should think that the sort of society he would scandalize a lady in is not much to be feared. I have given him his warning. He tops me by about a head, and loses his temper every two minutes. I could have drawn him out deliciously if he had not rather disturbed mine. By this time my equanimity is restored. The only thing I apprehend is your displeasure with me for having gone to the man. I have done no good, and it prevents me from running over to Holdesbury to see Nevil, for if "shindy letters," as you call them, are bad, shindy meetings are worse. I should be telling him my opinion of Shrapnel, he would be firing out, I should retort, he would yell, I should snap my fingers, and he would go into convulsions. I am convinced that a cattle-breeder ought to keep himself particularly calm. So unless I have further orders from you I refrain from going.

'The dinner was enthusiastic. I sat three hours among my Commons, they on me for that length of time—fatiguing, but a duty.'

Cecil subscribed his name with the warmest affection toward his uncle.

The brevity of the second letter had not brought him nearer to the truth in rescinding the picturesque accessories of his altercation with Dr. Shrapnel, but it veraciously expressed the sentiments he felt, and that was the palpable truth for him.

He posted the letter next morning.

CHAPTER XXXI

SHOWING A CHIVALROUS GENTLEMAN SET IN MOTION

About noon the day following, on board the steam-yacht of the Countess of Menai, Cecil was very much astonished to see Mr. Romfrey descending into a boat hard by, from Grancey Lespel's hired cutter. Steam was up, and the countess was off for a cruise in the Channel, as it was not a race- day, but seeing Mr. Romfrey's hand raised, she spoke to Cecil, and immediately gave orders to wait for the boat. This lady was a fervent admirer of the knightly gentleman, and had reason to like him, for he had once been her champion. Mr. Romfrey mounted the steps, received her greeting, and beckoned to Cecil. He carried a gold-headed horsewhip under his arm. Lady Menai would gladly have persuaded him to be one of her company for the day's voyage, but he said he had business in Bevisham, and moving aside with Cecil, put the question to him abruptly: 'What were the words used by Shrapnel?'

'The identical words?' Captain Baskelett asked. He could have tripped out the words with the fluency of ancient historians relating what great kings, ambassadors, or Generals may well have uttered on State occasions, but if you want the identical words, who is to remember them the day after they have been delivered? He said:

'Well, as for the identical words, I really, and I was tolerably excited, sir, and upon my honour, the identical words are rather difficult to….' He glanced at the horsewhip, and pricked by the sight of it to proceed, thought it good to soften the matter if possible. 'I don't quite recollect . . . I wrote off to you rather hastily. I think he said— but Palmet was there.'

'Shrapnel spoke the words before Lord Palmet?' said Mr. Romfrey austerely.

Captain Baskelett summoned Palmet to come near, and inquired of him what he had heard Shrapnel say, suggesting: 'He spoke of a handsome woman for a housekeeper, and all the world knew her character?'

Mr. Romfrey cleared his throat.

'Or knew she had no character,' Cecil pursued in a fit of gratified spleen, in scorn of the woman. 'Don't you recollect his accent in pronouncing housekeeper?'

The menacing thunder sounded from Mr. Romfrey. He was patient in appearance, and waited for Cecil's witness to corroborate the evidence.

It happened (and here we are in one of the circles of small things producing great consequences, which have inspired diminutive philosophers with ironical visions of history and the littleness of man), it happened that Lord Palmet, the humanest of young aristocrats, well-disposed toward the entire world, especially to women, also to men in any way related to pretty women, had just lit a cigar, and it was a cigar that he had been recommended to try the flavour of; and though he, having his wits about him, was fully aware that shipboard is no good place for a trial of the delicacy of tobacco in the leaf, he had begun puffing and sniffing in a critical spirit, and scarcely knew for the moment what to decide as to this particular cigar. He remembered, however, Mr. Romfrey's objection to tobacco. Imagining that he saw the expression of a profound distaste in that gentleman's more than usually serious face, he hesitated between casting the cigar into the water and retaining it. He decided upon the latter course, and held the cigar behind his back, bowing to Mr. Romfrey at about a couple of yards distance, and saying to Cecil, 'Housekeeper; yes, I remember hearing housekeeper. I think so. Housekeeper? yes, oh yes.'

'And handsome housekeepers were doubtful characters,' Captain Baskelett prompted him.

Palmet laughed out a single 'Ha!' that seemed to excuse him for lounging away to the forepart of the vessel, where he tugged at his fine specimen of a cigar to rekindle it, and discharged it with a wry grimace, so delicate is the flavour of that weed, and so adversely ever is it affected by a breeze and a moist atmosphere. He could then return undivided in his mind to Mr. Romfrey and Cecil, but the subject was not resumed in his presence.

The Countess of Menai steamed into Bevisham to land Mr. Romfrey there. 'I can be out in the Channel any day; it is not every day that I see you,' she said, in support of her proposal to take him over.

They sat together conversing, apart from the rest of the company, until they sighted Bevisham, when Mr. Romfrey stood up, and a little crowd of men came round him to enjoy his famous racy talk. Captain Baskelett offered to land with him. He declined companionship. Dropping her hand in his, the countess asked him what he had to do in that town, and he replied, 'I have to demand an apology.'

Answering the direct look of his eyes, she said, 'Oh, I shall not speak of it.'

In his younger days, if the rumour was correct, he had done the same on her account.

He stepped into the boat, and presently they saw him mount the pier- steps, with the riding-whip under his arm, his head more than commonly bent, a noticeable point in a man of his tall erect figure. The ladies and some of the gentlemen thought he was looking particularly grave, even sorrowful.

Lady Menai inquired of Captain Baskelett whether he knew the nature of his uncle's business in Bevisham, the town he despised.