Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXIII.

If you fix your eyes upon a distant hill in the month of April, in some countries, or May in others, there are a thousand chances to one, unless the goddess of the spring be very much out of humour, that you see first a golden gleam warm, as the looks of love, and next a deep blue shadow, calm and grand as the thoughts of high intellect when passion has passed away with youth. Perhaps the case may be reversed; the shadow come first and the gleam succeed just as you happen to time your look; but at all events, you will require no one to tell you--you will not even need to raise your face to the sky to perceive at once that the cause of this beautiful variation of hues is the alternate sunshine and cloud of the spring heavens.

Over the mind and over the face of man, however, what clouds, what sunshine, what gleams, what shadows, will not come without any eye but an all-seeing one being able to trace the causes of the change. Thrice in one morning was the whole demeanour of Mr. Beauchamp totally altered. He descended to breakfast grave and thoughtful; an hour after he was gayer than he had been for years. By the side of Isabella Slingsby he remained cheerful; but before luncheon was over he had plunged again into a fit of deep and gloomy thought, and as soon as Ned Hayward, having taken some food and wine started up to mount his horse which was at the door, Beauchamp rose also, saying, "I want one word with you, Hayward, before you go."

"Directly, directly," answered Ned Hayward. "Goodbye, Sir John, good bye, Miss Slingsby."

"Mind--day after to-morrow at the latest, Ned," cried the baronet.

"Upon my honour," replied Hayward. "Farewell, Mrs. Clifford, I trust I shall find you here on my return."

"I fear not, Captain Hayward," replied the lady, "but you have promised, you know, to come over and--"

"Nay, dear mamma, I think you will be here," said Mary Clifford, "I think for once I shall attempt to coax you."

Mrs. Clifford seemed somewhat surprised at her daughter's eagerness to stay; but Sir John exclaimed joyously, "There's a good girl--there's a capital girl, Mary; you are the best little girl in the world; she'll stay, she'll stay. We'll get up a conspiracy against her. There, be off, Ned. No long leave-takings. You'll find us all here when you come back, just as you left us: me, as solemn and severe as usual, my sister as gay and jovial, Isabella as pensorous, and Mary as merry and madcap as ever."

Ned Hayward, however, did not fail to bid Miss Clifford adieu before he went, and be it remarked, he did it in a somewhat lower tone than usual, and added a few words more than he had spoken to the rest. Beauchamp accompanied him to the door, and then pausing near the horse, inquired in a low tone, "Are you quite certain the man with whom you had the struggle this morning is the same who fired the shot last night?"

"Perfectly," answered Ned Hayward, "for I saw his face quite well in the sand-pit; and I never forget a face. I wish to Heaven you could catch him."

"Have you any idea of his name?" asked Beauchamp.

"None in the world," replied Ned Hayward; "but there are two people here who must know, I think. One is young Wittingham, and the other is Ste Gimlet, otherwise Wolf. I have a strong notion this fellow was one of those attacking the carriage the other night. But that puts me in mind, Beauchamp, that I intended to go up and talk to Gimlet, but I have not time now. I wish you would; and just tell him from me, I will pay his boy's schooling if he will send him to learn something better than making bird-traps. You can perhaps find out at the same time who this fellow is, so it may be worth a walk."

"I will, I will," answered Beauchamp, "but you said the young ladies here had something to tell me. What is it?"

"I thought they had done it," replied Ned Hayward, "that is stupid! But I have not time now, you must ask them; good bye;" and touching his horse lightly with his heel, he was soon on his way to Tarningham.

Beauchamp paused for a moment on the steps in deep meditation, and then turned into the house, saying to himself, "This must be inquired into instantly." He found Sir John Slingsby in the luncheon-room, reading the newspaper, but nobody else, for the ladies had returned to the drawing-room, and two of them, at least, where looking somewhat anxiously for his coming. It very rarely happens that any one who is looked anxiously for ever does come; and of course, in the present instance, Beauchamp took the natural course and disappointed the two ladies.

"I have a message to deliver from Captain Hayward to your new keeper, Sir John," he said, "and therefore I will walk over to his cottage, and see him. An hour I dare say will accomplish it."

"It depends upon legs, my dear Sir," answered the baronet, looking up. "It would cost my two an hour and a half to go and come; so if I might advise, you would take four. You will find plenty of hoofs in the stables, and a groom to show you the way. Thus you will be back the sooner, and the women will have something to talk to; for I must be busy--very busy--devilish busy, indeed. I have not done any business for ten years, the lawyer tells me, so I must work hard to-day. I'll read the papers, first, however, if Wharton himself stood at the door; and he is a great deal worse than Satan. I like to hear all the lies that are going about in the world; and as newspapers were certainly invented for the propagation of falsehood, one is sure to find all there. Take a horse, take a horse, Beauchamp. Life is too short to walk three miles and back to speak with a gamekeeper."

"Well, Sir John, I will, with many thanks," answered his guest, and in about a quarter of an hour he was trotting away towards the new cottage of Stephen Gimlet, with a groom to show him the way. That way was a very picturesque one, cutting off an angle of the moor and then winding through wild lanes rich with all sorts of flowers and shrubs, till at length a small old gray church appeared in view at the side of a little green. The stone, where the thick ivy hid it not, was incrusted in many places with yellow, white, and brown lichens, giving that peculiar rich hue with which nature is so fond of investing old buildings. There was but one other edifice of any kind in the neighbourhood, and that was a small cottage of two stories, built close against one side of the church. Probably it had originally been the abode of the sexton, and the ivy spreading from the neighbouring buttress twined round the chimneys, meeting several lower shoots of the same creeping plant, and enveloped one whole side in a green mantle. The sunshine was streaming from behind the church, between it and the cottage, and that ray made the whole scene look cheerful enough; but yet Beauchamp could not help thinking, "This place, with its solitary house and lonely church, its little green, and small fields behind, with their close hedgerows, must look somewhat desolate in dull weather. Still the house seems a comfortable one, and there has been care bestowed upon the garden, with its flowers and herbs. I hope this is Gimlet's cottage; for the very fact of finding such things in preparation may waken in him different states from those to which he has been habituated."

"Here's the place, Sir," said the groom, riding up and touching his hat, and at the same moment the sound of the horses' feet brought the rosy, curly-headed urchin of the ci-devant poacher trotting to the door.

Beauchamp dismounted and went in; and instantly a loud, yelping bark was heard from the other side of the front room, where a terrier dog was tied to the post of a sort of dresser. By the side of the dog was the figure of the newly-constructed gamekeeper himself, stooping down and arranging sundry boxes and cages on the ground.

Now the learned critic has paused on the words "newly-constructed gamekeeper"--let him not deny it--and has cavilled thereat and declared them incorrect. But I will defend them: they are neither there by, and on account of, careless writing or careless printing; but, well-considered, just, and appropriate, there they stand on the author's responsibility. I contend he was a newly-constructed gamekeeper, and out of very curious materials was he constructed, too.

As soon as he heard Beauchamp's step, Ste Gimlet, raised himself, and recognising his visitor at once, a well-pleased smile spread over his face, which the gentleman thought gave great promise for the future. It is something, as this world goes, to be glad to see one from whom we have received a benefit. The opposite emotion is more general unless we expect new favours; a fact of which Beauchamp had been made aware by some sad experience, and as the man's pleased look was instantaneous, without a touch of affectation in it, he augured well for some of the feelings of his heart.

"Well, Gimlet," said the visitor, "I am happy to see that some of your stock has been saved, even if all your furniture has perished."

"Thank you, Sir," replied the other, "my furniture was not worth a groat. I made most of it myself; but I lost a good many things it won't be easy to get again. All the dogs that were in the house, but this one, were burned or choked. He broke his cord and got away. All my ferrets too, went, but three that were in the shed; and the tame badger, poor fellow, I found a bit of his skin this morning. I thank you very much, Sir, for what you gave me, and if you wait five minutes you'll see what I've done with it. I think it will give you pleasure, Sir; for I've contrived to get quite enough to set the place out comfortably, and have something over in case any thing is forgotten."

Beauchamp liked the man's way of expressing his gratitude by showing that he appreciated the feelings in which the benefit was conferred. It was worth a thousand hyperboles.

"I shall stay some little time, Gimlet," he said, "for I have one or two things to talk to you about, if you can spare a minute."

"Certainly, Sir," answered the man in a respectful tone, "but I can't ask you to sit down, because you see there is no chair."

"Never mind that," replied Beauchamp, "but what I wished principally to say is this: my friend, Captain Hayward, takes a good deal of interest in you and in your boy; and, as he was going to London to-day he asked me to see you and tell you, that if you like to let the poor little fellow attend any good school in the neighbourhood he will pay the expenses. He wished me to point out to you what an advantage it will be to him to have a good education, and also how much better and more safe it is for him to be at school while you are absent on your duty than shut up alone in your house."

"Whatever that gentleman wishes, Sir, I will do," Gimlet replied, "I never knew one like him before--I wish I had--but, however, I am bound to do what he tells me; and even if I did not see and know that what he says in this matter is good and right, I would do it all the same. But as for paying, Sir, I hope he won't ask me to let him do that, for I have now got quite enough and to spare; and although I feel it a pleasure to be grateful to such a gentleman, yet he can do good elsewhere with the money."

"You can settle that with him afterwards, Gimlet," replied Mr. Beauchamp, "for he is coming back in a day or two; but I now want to ask you a question which you must answer or not as you think fit. You were with Captain Hayward, it seems, when he came up with the man who fired into the window of the hall, and you saw his face, I think?"

Gimlet nodded his head, saying, "I did Sir."

"Do you know the man?" asked Beauchamp, fixing his eyes upon him.

"Yes, Sir," replied the other at once, with the colour coming up into his face, "but before you go on, just let me say a word. That person and I were in some sort companions together once, in a matter we had better have let alone, and I should not like to 'peach."

"In regard to the attack upon the carriage--to which I know you allude--I am not about to inquire," replied Beauchamp, "but I will ask you only one other question, and I promise you, upon my honour, not to use any thing you tell me against the person. Was his name Moreton?"

"I won't tell you a lie, Sir," answered Gimlet. "It was, though how you have found it out I can't guess, for he has been away from this part of the country for many a year."

"It matters not," answered Beauchamp, "how I found it out; I know he has been absent many a year. Can you tell me how long he has returned?"

"That I can't say, I'm sure, Sir," replied the man; "but I did hear that he and the lady have been lodging at Buxton's inn for a day or two, but not more. It's a great pity to see how he has gone on, and to sell that fine old place that has been theirs for so many hundred years! I should think, that if one had any thing worth having that had been one's father's, one's grandfather's, and one's great grandfather's, for such a long while, it would keep one straight. It's mostly when a man has nothing to pride himself upon that he goes wrong."

"Not always," answered Beauchamp, "unbridled passion, my good friend, youth, inexperience, sometimes accident, lead a man to commit a false step, and that is very difficult to retrieve in his life."

"Aye, aye, I know that, I know that, Sir," answered Gimlet, "but I hope not impossible;" and he looked up in Beauchamp's face, with an expression of doubt and inquiry.

"By no means impossible," replied the gentleman, "and the man who has the courage and strength of mind to retrieve a false step, gives a better assurance to society for his future conduct than perhaps a man who has never committed one can do."

Gimlet looked down and meditated for one minute or two, and, though he did not distinctly express the subject of his contemplation, his reverie ended with the words, "Well I will try." The next moment he added, "I don't think, however, that this Captain Moreton will ever make much of it; for he has been going on now a long while in the same way, from a boy to a lad, and from a lad to a man. He broke his father's heart, they say, after having ruined him to pay his debts; but the worst of it all is, he was always trying to make others as bad as himself. He did me no good; for when I was a boy and used to go out and carry his game-bag, he put me up to all manner of things, and that was the beginning of my liking to what people call poaching. Then, too, he had a great hand in ruining this young Harry Wittingham. He taught him to gamble and drink, and a great deal more, when he was a mere child, I may say."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Beauchamp, "then the young man is to be pitied more than blamed."

"I don't know, Sir, I don't know," answered the gamekeeper; "he's a bad-hearted fellow. He set fire to my cottage, that's clear enough, and he knew the boy was in it too; but this business of firing in at the window I can't make out at all; I should have thought it had been an accident if he had not afterwards taken a shot at Captain Hayward."

"I wish to Heaven I could think it was an accident," answered Beauchamp; "but that is out of the question. They say there are thoughts of pulling down the old house, if the place is not sold again very soon. How far is it?"

"Oh, not three-quarters of a mile from this," replied the gamekeeper. "Have you never seen it, Sir? It is a fine old place."

"Yes, I have seen it in former years," said Beauchamp. "Is it in this parish, then?"

"Oh yes, Sir, this is the parish church here. They all lie buried in a vault here, and their monuments are in the aisle; would you like to see them? The key is always left in this cottage. There they lie, more than twenty of them--the Moretons, I mean--for you know the man's father was not a Moreton; he was a brother of the Lord Viscount Lenham; but, when he married the heiress he took the name of Moreton, according to her father's will. His tomb is in there, and I think it runs, 'The Honourable Henry John St. Leger Moreton.' It is a plain enough tomb for such a fine gentleman as he was; but those of the Moretons are very handsome, with great figures cut in stone as big as life."

"I should like to see them," said Beauchamp, rousing himself from a reverie.

"That's easily done," answered the gamekeeper, taking a large key from a nail driven into the wall, and leading the way to a small side-door of the church.

"You tell me he was down here with the lady," said Beauchamp, as the man was opening the door. "Do you know if he is married?"

"That I can't say, Sir," answered the man. "He had a lady with him, and a strange-looking lady, too, with all manner of colours in her clothes. I saw her three days ago. She must have been a handsome-looking woman, too, when she was young; but she looks, I don't know how now."

Beauchamp tried to make him explain himself; but the man could give no better description; and, walking on into the church, they passed along from monument to monument, pausing to read the different inscriptions, the greater part of which were more intelligible to Beauchamp than his companion, as many were written in Latin. At length they came to a small and very plain tablet of modern erection, which bore the name of the last possessor of the Moreton property; and Beauchamp paused and gazed at it long, with a very sad and gloomy air.

There is always something melancholy in contemplating the final resting-place of the last of a long line. The mind naturally sums up the hopes gone by, the cherished expectations frustrated, the grandeur and the brightness passed away; the picture of many generations in infancy, manhood, decrepitude, with a long train of sports and joys, and pangs and sufferings, rises like a moving pageant to the eye of imagination; and the heart draws its own homily from the fate and history of others. But there seemed something more than this in the young gentleman's breast. His countenance was stern, as well as sad; it expressed a bitter gloom, rather than melancholy; and, folding his arms upon his chest, with a knitted brow, and teeth hard set together, he gazed upon the tablet in deep silence, till a step in the aisle behind him startled him; and, turning round, he beheld good Doctor Miles slowly pacing up the aisle towards him.

Stephen Gimlet bowed low to the rector, and took a step back; but Beauchamp did not change his place, though he welcomed his reverend friend with a smile.

"I want to speak with you, Stephen," said Doctor Miles, as he approached; and then, turning towards Beauchamp, he added, "How are you, my dear Sir? There are some fine monuments here."

Beauchamp laid his hand upon the clergyman's arm, and, pointing to the tablet before him, murmured in a low voice; "I have something to say to you about that, my good friend; I will walk back with you; for I have long intended to talk to you on several subjects which had better not be delayed any longer;--I will leave you to speak with this good man here, if you will join me before the cottage."

"Oh, you need not go, you need not go," said Doctor Miles, "I have nothing to say you may not hear.--I wanted to tell you, Stephen," he continued, turning to the ci-devant poacher, "that I have been down to-day to Tarningham, and have seen old Mrs. Lamb and her son William."

"He's a dear good boy, Sir," said Stephen Gimlet, gazing in the rector's face, "and he was kind to me, and used to come up and see his poor sister Mary when nobody else would come near her. That poor little fellow, all crooked and deformed as he is, has more heart and soul in him than the whole town of Tarningham."

"There are more good people in Tarningham and in the world, Stephen, than you know," answered Doctor Miles, with a sharp look; "you have to learn, my good friend, that there are natural consequences attached to every particular line of conduct; and, as you turn a key in a door, one way to open it, and another way to shut it; so, if your conduct be good, you open men's hearts towards you; if your conduct be bad, you close them."

Stephen Gimlet rubbed his finger on his temple, and answered in a somewhat bitter, but by no means insolent tone: "It's a very hard lock, Sir, that of men's hearts; and when once it's shut, the bolt gets mighty rusty--at least, so I've found it."

"Stephen! Stephen!"--exclaimed the worthy clergyman, raising his finger with a monitory and reproachful gesture, "can you say so.--especially to-day?"

"No, Sir; no, Sir;" cried Stephen Gimlet, eagerly, "I am wrong; I am very wrong; butj ust then there came across me the recollection of all the hard usage I have had for twelve long years, and how it had driven me from bad to worse--ay! and killed my poor Mary, too; for her father was very hard; and though he said her marrying me broke his heart, I am sure he broke hers."

"You must not brood upon such things, Gimlet," said Doctor Miles. "It is better, wiser, and more christian, for every man to think of the share which his own faults have had in shaping his own fate; and, if he do so coolly and dispassionately, he will find much less blame to be attributed to others than he is inclined to believe. But do not let us waste time upon such considerations. I went down to talk to Mrs. Lamb about you and your boy; I told her what Sir John had done for you; and the imminent peril of death which the poor child had fallen into, from being left totally alone, when you are absent. The good old woman--and pray remark, Stephen, I don't call people good, as the world generally does, without thinking them so,--was very much affected and wept a good deal, and in the end she said she was quite ready to come up and keep house for you, and take care of the child while you are away."

The man seemed troubled; for the offer was one which, in many respects, was pleasant and convenient to him; but there was a bitter remnant of resentment at the opposition which his unfortunate wife's parents had shown to her marriage with himself, and at the obstinacy with which her father had refused all reconciliation, that struggled against better feelings, and checked any reply upon his lips. Doctor Miles, however, was an experienced reader of the human heart; and, when he saw such ulcerations, he generally knew the remedy, and how to apply it. In this instance he put all evil spirits to flight in a moment by awakening a better one, in whose presence they could not stand.

"The only difficulty with poor Mrs. Lamb seemed to be," he said, after watching the man's countenance during a momentary pause, "that she is so poor. She said that you would have enough to do with your money, and that the little she has, which does not amount to four shillings a week, would not pay her part of your housekeeping.

"Oh, if that's all, doctor," cried Stephen Gimlet, "don't let that stand in the way. My poor Mary's mother shall never want a meal when I can work for it. I'd find her one any how, if I had to go without myself. Besides, you know, I am rich now, and I'll take care to keep all straight, so as not to get poor again. There could not be a greater pleasure to me, I can assure you, Sir, than to share whatever I've got with poor Mary's mother, and that dear good boy Bill. Thanks to this kind gentleman, I've got together a nice little lot of furniture; and, if the old woman will but bring her bed, we shall do very well, I'll warrant; and the boy will be taken care of, and go to the school; and we'll all lead a different sort of life and be quite happy, I dare say--No, not quite happy! I can never be quite happy any more, since my poor girl left me; but she is happy, I am sure; and that's one comfort."

"The greatest," said Doctor Miles, whose spirit of philanthropy in a peculiar way was very easily roused, "the greatest, Stephen; and, as it is by no means impossible, nor, I will say, improbable, both from the light of natural reason and many passages of Scripture, that the spirits of the dead are permitted to see the conduct and actions of those they loved on earth, after the long separation has occurred, think what a satisfaction it will be to your poor wife, if she can behold you acting as a son to her mother,--mind, I don't say that such a thing is by any means certain; I only hint that it is not impossible, nor altogether improbable, that such a power may exist in disembodied spirits."

"I am quite sure it does," said Stephen Gimlet, with calm earnestness; "I have seen her many a time sitting by the side of the water under the willow trees, and watching me when I was putting in my night-lines."

"I think you are mistaken, Stephen," said Doctor Miles, shaking his head; "but, at all events, if such a thing be possible, she will now watch you with more satisfaction, when you are supplying her place in affection to her mother."

"I will do my best, Sir," said Stephen Gimlet, "if it be only on that account."

"I am sure you will, Stephen," answered the worthy clergyman; "and so, the first spare moment you have, you had better go down and talk with Mrs. Lamb.--Now, Mr. Beauchamp, I am ready."