Nevil Beauchamp

“ But Nevil Beauchamp had compelled her to quit her lofty station, pulled her low as the littlest of women that throb and flush at one man's footstep: and being well able to read the nature and aspirations of Captain Baskelett, it was with the knowledge of her having been proposed to as heiress of a great fortune that she chanced to hear of Nevil's resolve to have money. If he did say it! And was anything likelier? was anything unlikelier? His foreign love denied to him, why, now he devoted himself to money: money—the last consideration of a man so single-mindedly generous as he! ”

“ Nevil Beauchamp dozed for an hour. He was awakened by light on his eyelids, and starting up beheld the many pinnacles of grey and red rocks and shadowy high white regions at the head of the gulf waiting for the sun; and the sun struck them. One by one they came out in crimson flame, till the vivid host appeared to have stepped forward. The shadows on the snow-fields deepened to purple below an irradiation of rose and pink and dazzling silver. There of all the world you might imagine Gods to sit. ”

“ Colonel Halkett was one of the guests at Steynham who knew and respected her, and he paid her a visit and alluded to Nevil’s candidature, apparently not thinking much the worse of him. “We can’t allow him to succeed,” he said, and looked for a smiling approval of such natural opposition, which Rosamund gave him readily after he had expressed the hope that Nevil Beauchamp would take advantage of his proximity to Mount Laurels during the contest to try the hospitality of the house. “He won’t mind meeting his uncle?” ”

“ Friend Nevil,' he spoke lower, 'do you know, you have something of the prophet in you? I remember: much has come true. An old spoiler of women is worse than one spoiled by them! Ah, well: and Madame Culling? and your seven-feet high uncle? And have you a fleet to satisfy Nevil Beauchamp yet? You shall see a trial of our new field-guns at Rouen.'
They were separated with difficulty.
Renee wished her brother to come in the boat; and he would have done so, but for his objection to have his Arab bestridden by a man unknown to him. ”

“ Colonel Halkett half laughed at the quaint fellow. “I wish the other great-nephew of hers were in England, for us to run him against Nevil Beauchamp. He’s touring the world. I’m told he’s orthodox, and a tough debater. We have to take what we can get.”
“My best wishes for your success, and you and I will not talk of politics any more, papa. I hope Nevil will come often, for his own good; he will meet his own set of people here. And if he should dogmatize so much as to rouse our apathy to denounce his principles, we will remember that we are British, and can be sweet-blooded in opposition. ”

“ Austin to assume that 'her Radical friend' had been prompting her. However, she thanked him in her heart for the calm he had given her. To be able to imagine Nevil Beauchamp intellectually erratic was a tonic satisfaction to the proud young lady, ashamed of a bondage that the bracing and pointing of her critical powers helped her to forget. She had always preferred the society of men of Mr. Austin's age. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Austin’s as unhappy as I am.”
“At what, my dear papa, at what?” cried Cecilia.
“I ride over to Steynham this morning, and I shall bring you proofs, my poor child, proofs. That foreign tangle of his...”
“You speak of Nevil, papa?”
“It’s a common scandal over London. That Frenchwoman was found at Lord Romfrey’s house; Lady Romfrey cloaked it. I believe the woman would swear black’s white to make Nevil Beauchamp appear an angel; and he’s a desperately cunning hand with women. You doubt that.” ”

“ I assure you, a perfect model of male fidelity! She is married. He is on her track. He knows his time will come; he has only to be handy. You see, old Nevil believes in Providence, is perfectly sure he will one day hear it cry out, "Where's Beauchamp?"—"Here I am!"—"And here's your marquise!"—"I knew I should have her at last," says Nevil, calm as Mont Blanc on a reduced scale.'
The secret of Captain Baskelett's art would seem to be to show the automatic human creature at loggerheads with a necessity that winks at remarkable pretensions, while condemning it perpetually to doll-like action. ”

“ She had merely been very angry on Nevil Beauchamp’s behalf, and had dimly seen that a woman can feel insurgent, almost revolutionary, for a personal cause, Tory though her instinct of safety and love of smoothness make her. ”

“ The fun between Cecil Baskelett and Mr. Romfrey over the doll Nevil threatened an intimacy and community of sentiment that alarmed Rosamund on behalf of her darling's material prospects. She wrote to him, entreating him to come to Steynham. Nevil Beauchamp replied to her both frankly and shrewdly: 'I shall not pretend that I forgive my uncle Everard, and therefore it is best for me to keep away. Have no fear. The baron likes a man of his own tastes: they may laugh together, if it suits them ”

“ 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. ”

“ I haven’t a word against Nevil except on the score of his politics. I like him. All I have to say is, I don’t approve of a republican and a sceptic for my son-in-law. I yield to you, and my daughter, if she...!”
“I think she does, colonel. Marriage’ll cure the fellow. Nevil will slough his craze. Off! old coat. Cissy will drive him in strings. ‘My wife!’ I hear him.” Mr. Romfrey laughed quietly. “It’s all ‘my country,’ now. The dog’ll be uxorious. He wants fixing; nothing worse.”
“How he goes on about Shrapnel!” ”

“ Miss Halkett said, relying upon intonation and manner to convey a great deal more, and not without a minor touch of resentment for his having dragged her into the discussion of politics, which she considered as a slime wherein men hustled and tussled, no doubt worthily enough, and as became them; not however to impose the strife upon the elect ladies of earth. What gentleman ever did talk to a young lady upon the dreary topic seriously? Least of all should Nevil Beauchamp have done it. ”

“ Nevil had once called her beautiful; his praise had given her beauty. But what is beauty when it is outshone! Ask the owners of gems. You think them rich; they are pining.
Then, too, this Renée, who looked electrical in repose, might really love Nevil with a love that sent her heart out to him in his enterprises, justifying and adoring him, piercing to the hero in his very thoughts. Would she not see that his championship of the unfortunate man Dr. Shrapnel was heroic?
Cecilia surrendered the card to Rosamund, and it was out of sight when Beauchamp stepped in the drawing-room. ”

“ From the consequences of delirium rather than from love—surely delirium, founded on delusion; love had not existed. She had said to Count Henri, “You speak to me of love. I was beloved when I was a girl, before my marriage, and for years I have not seen or corresponded with the man who loved me, and I have only to lift my finger now and he will come to me, and not once will he speak to me of love.” Those were the words originating the wager of the glove. But what of her, if Nevil Beauchamp had not come? ”

“ Rosamund said to Nevil—a volume of insular criticism in a sentence.
“You do not know her, ma’am,” said Nevil. “You think her older than she is, and that is the error I fell into. She is a child.”
“A serpent in the egg is none the less a serpent, Nevil. Forgive me; but when she tells you the case is hopeless!”
“No case is hopeless till a man consents to think it is; and I shall stay.”
“But then again, Nevil, you have not consulted your uncle.” ”

“ Taking Nevil for a man who could smell the perfume of a ripe affirmative on the sweetest of lips, he was pretty well sure of him likewise. And then a truce to all that Radical rageing and hot-pokering of the country! and lie in peace, old Shrapnel! and get on your legs when you can, and offend no more; especially be mindful not to let fly one word against a woman! With Cecilia for wife, and a year of marriage devoted to a son and heir, Nevil might be expected to resume his duties as a naval officer, and win an honourable name for the inheritance of the young one he kissed. ”

“ Colonel Halkett ejaculated.
That word too was in the heart of the heiress.
Nevil must have money! Could he have said it? Ordinary men might say or think it inoffensively; Captain Baskelett, for instance: but not Nevil Beauchamp. ”

“ The conversation had been originated by Renee for the enlightenment of Nevil and as a future protection to herself. Now that it had disclosed its burden she could look at him no more, and when her father addressed her significantly: 'Marquise, you did me the honour to consent to accompany me to the Church of the Frari this afternoon?' she felt her self-accusation of coquettry biting under her bosom like a thing alive.
Roland explained the situation to Nevil.
'It is the mania with us, my dear Nevil, to marry our girls young to established men. ”

“ If he can doctor the minds of women he's got a profession worth something.'
Rosamund smothered an outcry. 'You mean that Nevil is past hope!'
'Not if he's got a fair half of our blood in him. And Richard Beauchamp gave the fellow good stock. He has about the best blood in England. That's not saying much when they've taken to breed as they build—stuff to keep the plasterers at work; devil a thought of posterity!'
'There I see you and Nevil one, my dear lord,' said Rosamund. 'You think of those that are to follow us. Talk to me of him. Do not say, "the fellow." Say "Nevil." ”

“ The value he put upon speaking, urging his views, was really fanatical. It appeared that he canvassed the borough from early morning till near midnight, and nothing would persuade him that his chance was poor; nothing that an entrenched Tory like her father, was not to be won even by an assault of all the reserve forces of Radical pathos, prognostication, and statistics.
Only conceive Nevil Beauchamp knocking at doors late at night, the sturdy beggar of a vote! ”

“ Romfrey and Nevil for their not taking hands to denounce the plotter, Cecil Baskelett. They seemed a pair of victims to him, nearly as much so as the wretched man Shrapnel. It was their senselessness which made her guilty! And simply because she had uttered two or three exclamations of dislike of a revolutionary and infidel she was compelled to groan under her present oppression! Is there anything to be hoped of men? Rosamund thought bitterly of Nevil's idea of their progress. Heaven help them! But the unhappy creatures have ceased to look to a heaven for help. ”

“ There’s Nevil dragged by a woman into one of their reeking hovels—so that Miss Denham at Shrapnel’s writes to Lady Romfrey—because the woman’s drunken husband voted for him at the Election, and was kicked out of employment, and fell upon the gin-bottle, and the brats of the den died starving, and the man sickened of a fever; and Nevil goes in and sits with him! Out of that tangle of folly is my house to be struck down? It looks as if the fellow with his infernal ‘humanity,’ were the bad genius of an old nurse’s tale. He’s a good fellow, colonel, he means well. ”

“ It happens in war as in wit, that all the birds of wonder fly to a flaring reputation. He that has done one wild thing must necessarily have done the other; so Nevil found himself standing in the thick of a fame that blew rank eulogies on him for acts he had not performed. The Earl of Romfrey forwarded hampers and a letter of praise. ”

“ She was invited to dine; she refused. She was exceedingly glad to find herself on the high-road again, with a prospect of reaching Steynham that night; for it was important that she should not have to confess a visit to Bevisham now when she had so little of favourable to tell Mr. Everard Romfrey of his chosen nephew. Whether she had acted quite wisely in not remaining to see Nevil, was an agitating question that had to be silenced by an appeal to her instincts of repulsion, and a further appeal for justification of them to her imaginary sisterhood of gossips. ”

“ Before rejoining his ship, Nevil paid his customary short visit of ceremony to his great-aunt Beauchamp—a venerable lady past eighty, hitherto divided from him in sympathy by her dislike of his uncle Everard, who had once been his living hero. That was when he was in frocks, and still the tenacious fellow could not bear to hear his uncle spoken ill of.
'All the men of that family are heartless, and he is a man of wood, my dear, and a bad man,' the old lady said. 'He should have kept you at school, and sent you to college. You want reading and teaching and talking to. ”