Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXX.

We must go back to Stephen Gimlet's cottage and the preceding night. Beauchamp and Captain Hayward stood together by the table, when their two fair visitors had left them, waiting for the return of the gamekeeper, and they both remained silent for several minutes. There are times, when great things just accomplished, of whatever kind, or character, seem to oppress the spirit and keep it down, as it were, under a heavy weight. Nor is it altogether uninteresting to inquire what is the cause of this oppression--the remote, often unseen, even indistinct cause. It is not sorrow, it is not regret; for the weight of thought seems cast upon us as often by a joyful as a sorrowful event; and I speak not at all of the effect of misfortune, but simply of that which is produced upon the mind by a great deed done--great, at least, to the person who has performed it. I am inclined to think, that the sort of load which I speak of, may be traced to the consciousness of all the vast multitude of consequences of which every act is the source. Not the slightest thing we do that does not send a thrill vibrating along the endless chains of cause and effect to the utmost limit of time through the whole grand machine of future existence. Man dies, but not one of his acts ever dies, each perpetuated and prolonged for ever by interminable results, affecting some beings in every age to come--ay, even the slightest. But that which is to follow only becomes a question with man when the deed is to his own cognizance important as affecting himself and those around him. The eye of God sees all; but it is merely when the consequences are visible to our own limited ken, that we feel the strange involution of our destiny with that of others, and, when what we have just done is in its immediate results likely to affect us and those we love profoundly, that we pause to consider all the wide extent of the future which that act implies. Then we feel as if we had plunged headlong into an ocean of endless waves, and the weight of the waters oppresses the heart and spirit. We ask, what next? and then, what will follow? And in the game of chess that we are playing against Fate, look for the next move of our great adversary, and all the consequences of that which we have ourselves just made.

Both Beauchamp and Hayward had done an important thing that night. The latter had stripped himself for a friend's benefit of the treasured resource of after-life. Never rich, he had left himself but a scanty pittance which was not likely to be increased by any means but his own personal exertions. From that moment, he felt that his course of life must be changed, that his views, his feelings, his habits, must undergo a severe scrutiny, and be subjected to a hard discipline; that the careless ease, the light-hearted indifference to the morrow was at an end; that the small cares he had never yet known, the looking to shillings and to pence, and all the sordid minutia; of difficult economy were to be his companions for life, as inseparable from his footsteps as his shadow. Honest poverty may be a very fine thing in contemplation, but let its admirers understand that it is a difficult thing in practice; for honesty and poverty are like Adam and the devil in the garden, ill-suited tenants of one house, the latter of whom is always laying out snares to reduce his companion to his own level. If such be the case where the circumstances of birth have made the evils of poverty habitual, and given its temptations no factitious advantages, how much more is it so, when a knowledge of, a taste for, and a long education in ease and comfort, have both engendered a habit of expense, and rendered the restraints of poverty privations. It is then that honesty has to struggle with a host of foes, and too often a murder and suicide are committed: honesty killing itself after an attempt to get rid of its comrade.

But Ned Hayward was a very honest man, and his first thought was how to bear his poverty rightly. He gave not one thought to the money he had just given away--for so he believed it to be--he would have performed the same act over and over again a dozen times if he had had the means and the motives to do so; and would each time have done it willingly; but that did not prevent his feeling the painful situation in which he had left himself; and he contemplated with deep thought and stern resolution all that was to issue from the deed he had done.

With Beauchamp, the feelings might be different, but the sources from which they sprang were the same. He, too, had taken a step, which was to influence the whole of his future life. He had said words to Isabella Slingsby, of which he felt all the import at the moment they were spoken--which he spoke purposely, that there might be no doubt or hesitation on her mind in regard to his sensations or purposes, and yet which, as soon as they were uttered, filled him with a vague feeling of apprehension. Yet Beauchamp was a resolute man in character; and had performed acts of persisting resolution, which few men would have had the determination to carry through. He loved Isabella too dearly; and had the whole world been subject to his choice would have selected her. He was anxious, likewise, to call her his own, for he was not without the fire of passion, and was very different from those idle triflers, in whom love is a vanity lighted up by the cold ignis fatuus of a volatile and fugitive desire. But his previous history furnished materials for doubt and alarm; and when he paused to contemplate all the innumerable consequences of the few words he had spoken, there was a mist over one part of that sea of many waves, and he asked himself, with awe, "What is beneath?" The thought, however, that he was loved in return, was consolation and courage; and though, for his part, Ned Hayward did not venture to indulge in any such sweet dream, yet the image of Mary Clifford, like that of the Virgin in the old legend, shed a light which dispelled the darkness along one bright path, through the obscure future, for him also.

The contemplations of both gentlemen, however, were speedily broken through by the return of Ste Gimlet, who, turning to Mr. Beauchamp, inquired,

"Please, Sir, what shall we do with the man locked up in the vestry?"

"Oh, have him out," cried Ned Hayward, "and hand him over to a constable."

Beauchamp did not reply so quickly; but at length he said, "There may be difficulty, Hayward, in finding a constable at this time of night; and not only difficulty, but also danger to ourselves, if we take any part in the business. Is the place where the man is confined secure?" he continued, addressing the gamekeeper.

"Pretty well, Sir, I think," answered Gimlet; "there are bars to the windows, and the door is locked tight enough. Then we can lock the church-door too."

"I locked it, Stephen," said Mrs. Lamb; "there hangs the key."

"Then let him stay there the night," rejoined Beauchamp, "I will not interfere to screen him; and Gimlet can get a constable early to-morrow morning, without our taking any part in the affair."

This proposal was agreed to by Ned Hayward, though the expression which his friend used, in regard to screening the offender, struck him as somewhat strange. It is wonderful, however, how often in life we do what is vulgarly termed, reckon without our host. The two gentlemen retired to rest in the rooms above, which had been prepared and furnished for them in haste, since the duel with young Wittingham; and Stephen Gimlet and Widow Lamb also sought repose. Early the next morning, however, the gamekeeper rose to seek a constable; but first he thought it expedient to look at the temporary prison in which he had confined Captain Moreton. The doors, both of church and vestry, were still closed and locked; but passing round, towards his own cottage again, by a little grass-grown path, that ran under the church walls Ste Gimlet was surprised and confounded to perceive that three of the bars covering the window of the vestry, had been forced out of the old mortar in which they had been socketed; and, jumping up on a tombstone to look in, he soon saw that the bird, as he expected, had taken wing from its cage.

Stephen Gimlet, notwithstanding this discovery, did not return to his cottage at once, to communicate the intelligence to those within. He paused and thought; but, to say truth, it was not of the event which he had just ascertained that he meditated. That was done and over: the man was gone, and might never be caught again; but the words which Beauchamp had spoken the night before had made a deeper impression upon his mind than they had upon Ned Hayward's, and naturally, for the young officer had never remarked or heard any thing before, which could lead his fancy to perceive any connexion between his friend and Captain Moreton. Stephen Gimlet, on the contrary, had observed much that excited his imagination, and it was one of a very active character. He remembered the interest which Beauchamp had displayed in the monuments of the Moreton family; he remembered all the inquiries he had made regarding their former property; and he did not forget either his mother-in-law's ancient connexion with one of the members of that house, or the somewhat mysterious expressions she had used in regard to Beauchamp himself. It was a tangled skein, difficult to unravel, but yet he resolved to unravel it; not exactly from curiosity, though curiosity might have some share therein, but rather because, in his wild fancy, he dreamed that the knowledge which Goody Lamb possessed of his guest's previous history, might afford him some means of serving a man he looked upon as his benefactor. He was peculiarly susceptible of kindness or unkindness, of gratitude or its reverse, resentment, and he thought that it would be a happy day for him if he could ever return to Mr. Beauchamp, even in a small degree, the kindness he had received. He pondered upon these things for full five minutes, and then returned to his cottage, where he found the old lady in the inner room, making the little boy repeat a short prayer at his bedside, after having washed and dressed him. It was a sweet and wholesome sight to the father. He contrasted it with former days, and he felt the balmy influence of honest peace pour over his heart. One of the first rewards of a return to virtue from any of man's many deviations, is an appreciation of its excellence. He stood and gazed, and listened, well satisfied, while the words of holy prayer rose up from the sweet tongue of his own child; and if the boy had prayed for his father's confirmation in his return to right, the petition could not have been more fully granted.

When it was done, Ste Gimlet kissed the child and sent him out to play in the little garden. Then, shaking hands with Widow Lamb, he said,

"I wanted to ask you a question or two, goody. Do you know who the man is that I locked into the vestry last night?"

"To be sure I do," answered the widow; "do you think, Stephen, I could forget one I have seen in such times and known in such acts as that man? No, no; I shall remember him to my dying day."

"Well, then," replied her son-in-law, "I want you to tell me, goody, what there is between him and Mr. Beauchamp; for the man has got out and is off, and I have great doubts that he is Mr. Beauchamp's friend."

"I had better hold my tongue, Stephen," said the old woman; "I had better hold my tongue, at least till I see and understand more. One thing at least I may say, and say truly, that the bitterest enemy ever Mr. Beauchamp had was that Captain Moreton."

"Do you think, Widow Lamb," asked the gamekeeper, in a low, stern tone, "that he has any cause to wish Mr. Beauchamp dead?"

The old woman started, and gazed at him, demanding,

"What makes you ask that?"

"I'll tell you, widow," replied the man. "Have you not heard of a shot fired into Sir John Slingsby's dining-room? Well, that shot went within a few inches of Mr. Beauchamp's head, and that is the man who fired it."

The old woman sank down on the stool by the bedside, and clasped her hands together, exclaiming,

"Is it come to that! Ay, I thought it would, sooner or later. He could not stop--no, no, he could not stop!"

She paused for a moment, and rocked herself backwards and forwards upon the seat, with a pained and bewildered look.

"I see how it is, goody," said Gimlet; "and now I'll tell you. That fellow shan't get off. I'll never give it up till I've caught him. I'll track him, like a hare, to his form, and he shall be punished. Mr. Beauchamp has been kind to me--one of the first that ever were; and I'll not forget kindness, though I'll try to forget unkindness."

"Take care what you are about, Stephen," answered his mother-in-law, "or you may do harm instead of good. Watch him, if you will, to prevent mischief; and above all, let me know every thing that you see and hear. I will talk with Mr. Beauchamp, as you call him, this very day. I wonder if the woman is living!"

"There was one woman with him, at all events," answered Stephen Gimlet, "when he was down here last."

"Ah! what was she like?" inquired Widow Lamb, eagerly; "what was she like?"

"I only saw her for a minute," replied the gamekeeper, "but she seemed a fine handsome lady as one could wish to see--somewhat reddish in the face; but with fine, dark eyes, and mighty gaily dressed. She was tall, too, for a woman."

"Yes, her eyes were dark enough," said Widow Lamb, "and she was always fond of fine clothes--that was her ruin; but red in the face!--that is strange; she had the finest and the fairest skin I ever saw."

"Well, the redness might come from drink," said Ste Gimlet, "for she seemed to me half drunk then. He called her Charlotte, I recollect."

"Ay, that's her name," exclaimed the widow; "and so they have come together again? It is for no good, I will answer; for two bolder or worse spirits never met to plot mischief."

"You had better tell me all about it, goody," said Stephen Gimlet; "do something to that fellow I will, and it's bad to work in the dark."

"Not till I have spoken to the gentleman upstairs," said the old woman. "Watch the man, Stephen: find out where he is, what he is doing, all about him, and about her too; but do not meddle with him yet. Hark! they are coming down. You go away, and I will talk with him this very day."

"I must tell them he has got out, before I go," answered the gamekeeper, going into the other room, and bolting the outer door, to guard against intrusion while the two lodgers were below.

No one, however, appeared but Beauchamp, whose first words were,

"I wish, Stephen, you would send some one down to Tarningham, to tell Mr. Slattery to come up. Captain Hayward is not so well this morning, and says he has not slept all night."

"I will go myself, Sir," said Gimlet; "but I just wanted to tell you that Captain Moreton has got out during the night. He has wrenched out three of the bars of the window, and is off."

Beauchamp mused.

"Well, it does not much matter," he said, at length; "but you had better inform Doctor Miles of what you saw in the church, and let him take whatever steps he may think necessary to insure that no fraud has been committed. I can have nothing to do with the affair. Bring up Mr. Slattery as soon as you can, for I am somewhat anxious about Captain Hayward's state this morning."

Gimlet did not reply. He uttered no expression of sorrow or of sympathy; but yet he felt as much grieved and alarmed as if Ned Hayward had been his brother; and his countenance showed it though his words did not.

As soon as he was gone, Mr. Beauchamp was turning to go upstairs again; but Widow Lamb at the moment came out of the inner room, and stopped him, saying,

"I wish to speak a word or two to you, Sir."

"Well, my good lady," answered Beauchamp, with a smile; "can I do any thing to serve you?"

"No, Sir," replied the old woman, "it is not that. But I see you do not recollect me--and, indeed, how should you! It is a long time since we first met."

Beauchamp gazed at her for a moment in silence, and then said,

"I think I do remember having seen you somewhere before I met you here. Your face struck me as familiar to my recollection when first I saw you; but I cannot remember where I saw it long ago. Were you ever in India?"

"Oh! no, my lord, it was not there," answered Widow Lamb; "when first I saw you, you were quite a young gentleman; the Honourable Charles St. Leger, they called you; and you had come down with Captain Moreton, your cousin, to shoot on the grounds of his great-aunt, Miss Moreton."

Beauchamp's face turned somewhat pale, and his fine broad brow contracted; but he did not speak, and the old woman continued,

"Do you not recollect, my lord, Davie Lamb the grieve, as they called him, and your coming down with a gay party to the grieve's house, one day? It was the eleventh of August, twelve years ago this summer; and the lady was with you, Miss Charlotte Hay, as they called her--"

"Hush! hush!" cried Beauchamp, almost fiercely; "do not mention her name in my hearing. You do not know--you do not know, good woman--"

"Oh yes, my lord, I do," answered Widow Lamb; "I know more than you think--more than you know, perhaps, yourself. I can tell you many things about her."

"Tell me nothing," said Beauchamp, sternly; "you can say nothing of her conduct, infamous and bad, that I do not know or do not guess. I wish never to hear her name again;" and he turned once more towards the stairs.

"Well, I beg your pardon, my lord," said Widow Lamb, with a disappointed look, "I did not mean to vex you, but if ever you should wish to hear more, I can tell you better than any one; for there is nobody now living knows so much as I do, and I think--"

The conclusion of her sentence was wanting, for some one opened the cottage door, which had not been bolted since Stephen Gimlet had gone out. The next moment, the head of Mr. Slattery appeared, and entering with an insinuating smile, the worthy surgeon saluted Beauchamp reverentially, saying,

"I met my good friend Wolf, Mr. Beauchamp, and was sorry to hear that Captain Hayward is not so well. But I have got good news for him, and you too. No more need of playing at bo-peep. I found Mr. Wittingham so much better this morning, that I have ventured publicly to pronounce him out of danger."

"Thank God for that!" said Beauchamp; "but we had better go up and see Hayward, who seems to me somewhat feverish."

"I am afraid there is a bit of the wadding, or the coat, or something still in the wound," said Mr. Slattery, following upstairs, "but there is no cause for alarm. It may produce inconvenience and some inflammation; but nature, my dear Sir, by the very same process which produces pain and irritation to the patient, often expels any extraneous substance, which, if it remained, might cause more serious results."

Mr. Slattery remained at least an hour and a half; and to say the truth, during that time he put our good friend Ned Hayward to some torture, but in the end, he succeeded in extracting from the wound which that gentleman had received, a portion of his waistcoat, which had been carried in by the ball in its passage. Some hemorrhage followed, which was stopped with difficulty; but at length the good surgeon took his leave, and descended with Beauchamp to the lower room.

Widow Lamb, however, met them at the foot of the stairs, saying, in a low tone,

"There is a servant on horseback, from the Park, Sir, just now before the door. He has got a note, which he will give to no one but you; and I did not know what to do."

"There is no necessity for any further concealment," said Beauchamp, advancing to the door; "you have got a note for me," he continued, speaking to the servant, who touched his hat, and delivered a small billet.

Beauchamp tore it open, and read, while good Mr. Slattery paused beside him, in the hope of hearing some news; for, as we have shown, he was not without a laudable portion of curiosity.

"I must go over directly," said Beauchamp, for that note placed before his eyes a very unpleasant state of affairs at Tarningham Park--a mortgage foreclosed, an execution placed in the house, and Sir John Slingsby himself arrested on a heavy bond debt, for long arrears of interest, and interest upon interest, and lawyers' costs. Isabella wrote in a tone of despair; and yet there was a something shining through all her gloomy words--a trust, a confidence in him to whom those words were written, which were very pleasing to him.

"Can I drive you over in my gig, Mr. Beauchamp?" said Mr. Slattery.

"No, I thank you," replied the other; "I dare say, my good fellow, you will not object to let me mount your horse?" he continued, addressing the servant, "I must get over to the Park as speedily as possible."

Under ordinary circumstances, perhaps, the man might have objected; but the events which had just happened at his master's house, were, by the time he set out, known from the housekeeper's room to the pigsty, and had excited amongst the servants too strong a feeling of dismay and distress, for him to hesitate when there was a chance of affording aid, or even consolation, to Sir John Slingsby and his daughter. He instantly acceded, then, and lengthened the stirrups. Beauchamp only stayed to get his hat and speak a few words to Ned Hayward, then sprang into the saddle, and the next moment was going straight across the country towards Tarningham Park.