Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXXII.

"You said just now, doctor," observed Beauchamp as they strolled through the park, "that Ned Hayward particularly interested you. I am glad of it, for he did so with me from the first, without my well knowing why; and we are always glad to find a prepossession which savours perhaps a little of weakness, kept in countenance by others for whom we have a respect."

"You mistake altogether, young gentleman," replied the doctor, with the dry spirit upon him. "In my case it is no prepossession; neither did he interest me from the first. I generally can give a reason for what I feel. I am no being of impulses. Indeed," he continued, more discursively, "I was any thing but prepossessed in Captain Hayward's favour. I knew he had been brought up in the army, under the judicious auspices of Sir John Slingsby. That dear girl, Isabella, told me that, from what she could remember of him, he was a gay, lively, rattling fellow. Sir John called him the best fellow that ever lived, and I know tolerably well what that means. The reason, then, why he interested me very soon, was because he disappointed me. For half an hour after I first saw him, I thought he was just what I expected--a man constitutionally lively, gay from want of thought, good-humoured from want of feeling; having some talents, but no judgment; acting right occasionally by impulse, but not by principle."

"You did him great injustice," said Beauchamp, warmly.

"I know I did," replied the clergyman, "but not long. A thousand little traits showed me that, under the shining and rippling surface of the lake, there were deep, still waters. The singular delicacy and judgment with which he treated that business of the scandalous attack upon Mrs. Clifford's carriage; the kindly skill with which he led Sir John away from the subject, when he found that it distressed poor Mary; his conduct towards the poacher and his boy; his moderation and his gentleness in some cases, and his vigour and resolution in others, soon set all preconceived opinions to rights. He has one fault, however, which is both a very great and a very common one--he conceals his good qualities from the eyes of others. This is a great wrong to society. If all good and honest men would but show themselves as they really are, they would stare vice out of countenance; and if even those who are not altogether what we wish, would show the good that is in them, and conceal the bad, they would put vice and folly out of fashion; for I do believe that there are far more good men, and even a greater amount of good qualities amongst those who are partly bad, than the world knows any thing about. So you see I am not a misanthrope."

"I never suspected you of being so, my dear doctor," said Beauchamp; "if I had I should not have attempted to create an interest for myself in you."

"Ay! then, you had an interested motive in coming up every other day to my little rectory, just at the time that Isabella Slingsby visited her poor and her schools!" cried Dr. Miles, laughing; "but I understand it--I understand it all, my noble lord--there is not such a thing as a purely disinterested man upon earth: the difference is simply the sort of interest men seek to serve--some are filthy interests, such as avarice, ambition, ostentation, even gluttony--how I have seen men fawn upon the givers of good dinners! Then there are maudlin interests, such as love and its et ceteras; and then, again, there are the generous interests; but I am afraid I must class those you sought to serve in such friendly visitations amongst the maudlin ones--is it not so?"

"Not exactly," answered Beauchamp; "for if you remember, my good friend, you will find that I came up to your house at the same hour, and as often, before I saw Miss Slingsby there, as afterwards. Moreover, during the whole time I did so come before I was introduced to her father, I never had a thought of offering her my hand, how much soever I might admire and esteem her."

Dr. Miles turned round, and looked at his companion, steadily, for a moment or two.

"I do not know what to make of you," he said, at length.

"I will tell you," replied Beauchamp, with a sad smile, "for I do not believe any one could divine the causes which have led me to act a somewhat unusual, if not eccentric, part, without knowing events which took place many years ago. I told you once that I wished to make you my father confessor. I had not time then to finish all I had to say; but my intention has been still the same, and it is now necessary, for Miss Slingsby's sake, that I should execute it: we shall have time in going over, and I will make my story short. You are probably aware that I was an only son, my father having never married after my mother's death, my mother having survived my birth only a few hours. My father was a man of very keen sensibilities, proud of his name, his station, and his family--proud of their having been all honourable, and not one spot of reproach having ever rested on his lineage. He was too partially fond of me, too, as the only pledge of love left him by one for whom he sorrowed with a grief that unnerved his mind, and impaired his corporeal health. I was brought up at home, under a careful tutor, for my father had great objections, partly just, partly I believe unjust, towards schools. At home I was a good deal spoiled, and had too frequently my own way, till I was sent to college, where I first learned something of the world, but, alas! not much, and I have had harder lessons since. The first of these was the most severe. My cousin, Captain Moreton, was ten years older than myself; but he had not yet shown his character fully. My father and myself knew nothing of it; for though he paid us an annual visit for a week or two, the greater part of his time was spent either here or in Scotland, where he had a grand-aunt who doted upon him. One year, when I was just twenty, while he was on a shooting-party at our house in October, he asked me to go down with him in the following summer, to shoot grouse at old Miss Moreton's. I acceded readily; and my father as willingly gave his consent. We set out on the twenty-fifth of July, and I was received with all sorts of Scotch hospitality at Miss Moreton's house. There were many persons there at dinner, and amongst the rest a Miss Charlotte Hay--"

"Why do you stop?" asked Dr. Miles.

"A Miss Charlotte Hay," continued Beauchamp, with an evident effort, "a very beautiful person, and highly accomplished. She was some four or five years older than myself, I believe, affecting a romantic style of thought, feeling, and language. She was beautiful, I have said; but hers was not the style of beauty I admired, and at first I took but little notice of her. She sang well, however, and before the first evening was over, we had talked a good deal--the more, perhaps, as I found that most of the ladies present, though of no very high station, nor particularly refined manners, did not seem to love her conversation. It appeared to me that she was superior to them; and when I found that, though of good family, her fortune was extremely limited, and that she had resided with old Miss Moreton for some time, as something between a friend and a companion, I fancied I understood the coldness I observed on the part of more wealthy people. Many days passed over, during which she certainly endeavoured to attract and captivate me. I was in general somewhat on my guard; but I was then young, inexperienced, vain, romantic; and though I never dreamed of making her my wife, yet I trifled away many an hour by her side, feeling passion growing upon me--mark, I say passion, not love; for there was much that prevented me from respecting her enough to love her--a display of her person, a carelessness of proprieties, an occasional gleam of perverted principle, that no art could hide. Once or twice, too, I caught a smile passing between her and my cousin Moreton, which I did not like, and whenever that occurred it recalled me to myself; but, with weak facility, I fell back again till the day of my departure approached. Two or three days before the time appointed--on the eleventh of August, which was my twenty-first birth-day--Miss Moreton declared she would have a party of her neighbours to celebrate the event. None of the higher and more respectable gentry were invited, or, if they were, they did not come. There were a good many deep-drinking lairds, and some of their wives and daughters, somewhat stiff in their graver, and hoydenish in their merrier, moments. It is one of those days that the heart longs for years to blot out for ever. I gave way to the high spirits which were then habitual to me. I drank deep--deeper than I had ever before done. I suffered my brain to be troubled--I know not that there were not unfair means used to effect it--but at all events, I was not myself. I recollect personally little that passed; but I have since heard that I was called upon to choose a wife for the afternoon. I was told it was the custom of the country, on such occasions, so to do in sport; and that I fixed, at once, upon this artful girl--in the presence of many witnesses, I called her wife and she called me husband. The evening passed over; I drank more wine at supper, and the next morning I found myself married--for the infamous fraud they called a marriage. In horror and dismay, I burst away from the wretched woman who had lent herself to such a base transaction. I sent off my servant at once for horses to my carriage--I cast Moreton from me, who attempted to stop and reason with me, as he called it, representing that what had taken place was a full and sufficient marriage, according to the code of Scotland, for that public consent was all that was required by their law."

"Or by the law of God either," replied Dr. Miles, "but it must be free and intelligent consent."

"I travelled night and day," continued Beauchamp, rapidly, "till I had reached my father's house and thrown myself at his feet. I told him all--I extenuated, concealed nothing; and I shall never forget either his kindness or his distress of mind. Instant steps were taken to ascertain the exact position in which I stood; and the result was fatal to my hopes of happiness and peace; for not only did he find that I was entangled past recall, but that the character of the woman herself was such as might be expected from her having been a party to so disgraceful a scheme. She had been blighted by scandal before she took up her residence in the house where I found her. Miss Moreton in her dotage, yielded herself blindly to my cousin's guidance; and there was more than a suspicion that he had made his aunt's protection a veil to screen his own paramour."

"What did you do? what did you do?" asked Dr. Miles, with more eagerness than he usually displayed; "it was a hard case, indeed."

"I went abroad immediately," replied Beauchamp, "for my father exacted from me a solemn promise, never to live with or to see if it could be avoided, the woman who had thus become my wife. He used strong and bitter, but just terms in speaking of her. 'He could not survive the thought,' he said, 'that the children of a prostitute should succeed to the title of a family without stain.' My promise was given willingly, for I will confess that hate and indignation and disgust rendered her very idea odious to me. My father remained in England for some months, promising to make such arrangements regarding money--the base object of the whole conspiracy--that I should never be troubled any more. He added tenderly, and sadly, though gravely and firmly, that farther he could do nothing; for that I must bear the consequences of one great error in a solitary and companionless life. In consideration of a promise on the woman's part never to molest me, nor to take my name, he settled upon her the sum of a thousand per annum. During my father's life I heard no more of her; but when he himself joined me in Italy, I could see but too plainly how grief and bitter disappointment had undermined a constitution already shaken. He did not long survive, and all that I have myself undergone has been little, compared with the thought, that the consequences of my own folly served to shorten the days of my kind good parent."

"But what became of the woman?" demanded Dr. Miles. "You surely have had tidings of her since."

"Within a month after my father's death," replied Beauchamp, "I received from her one of the most artful letters that woman ever wrote, claiming to be received as my wife. But I will not trouble you with the details. Threats succeeded to blandishments, and I treated these with contempt as I had the others with coldness. Then commenced a new system of persecution; she followed me, attempted to fix herself upon me. Once she arrived at an inn in the Tyrol as I was getting into my carriage, and declared before the people round that she was my abandoned wife. I answered not a word, but ordered the door to be closed, and the postillions to drive on. Then came applications for an increased annuity, but I would not yield one step, knowing that it would but lead to others, and in the end to free myself from every day annoyance I took the name of Beauchamp, hurried on to the East, directed my agent to conceal my address from every one, and for several years wandered far and wide. At length the tidings reached me that the annuity which had at first been punctually demanded, had not been applied for. A report, too, reached my lawyer's ears that she had died in Paris. Still I would not return to claim my rank lest there should be some deep scheme at work, and I continued in India and Syria for two years longer. The annuity remained unclaimed. I knew that she had expensive habits and no means, and I ventured back. I passed a few months in London without resuming my own name; but the noise and bustle of the great city wearied me, and I came hither. Inquiries in the mean time had been made, somewhat languidly, perhaps, to ascertain the fate of this unhappy woman; but here I saw Isabella Slingsby, and those inquiries have been since pursued rapidly and strictly. Every answer tended to one result, and four days ago I received a letter from my solicitor, informing me that there can be no doubt of her demise. I will show it to you hereafter, but therein he says that her effects in Paris had been publicly sold, as those of a person deceased, to pay the claims of her maid, who had brought forward sufficient proofs to satisfy the police that her mistress had died in Italy. The girl herself could not be found, but the lawyers consider this fact, coupled with the total cessation of claims for the annuity, as proving the death of Charlotte Hay, and removing all doubt that this bitter bond is cancelled for ever."

"That is clear, that is clear," said Dr. Miles, who at this moment was pausing with his companion at a stile, "and now, I suppose, it is hand and heart for Isabella Slingsby."

"Assuredly," said Beauchamp, "but she must be informed of all this; and it is not a tale for me to tell."

"Will you have the kindness, Sir," said a voice from the other side of the hedge, as Beauchamp put his foot upon the first step of the stile, "to keep on that side and go out by the gate at the corner."

"Oh, is that you in the ditch, Stephen?" said Beauchamp, "very well, my good man; one way is as good as the other."

"I am watching something here, Sir," said the gamekeeper, In a low voice, "and if you come over, you'll disturb the thing."

Beauchamp nodded, and went on in the way he directed; and Doctor Miles, who had been meditating, replied to what he had said just before the interruption of the gamekeeper.

"But who else can do it? Sir John is unfit. Me, you would have? Humph! It is not a pleasant story for even an old gentleman to tell to a young lady."

"Yet she must know it," answered Beauchamp; "I will--I can have no concealment from her."

"Assuredly, there you are right," replied Doctor Miles, "and I am sure the dear girl will value your sincerity properly."

"She can but say that I committed a great error," answered Beauchamp, "and for that error I have been punished by long years of bitterness."

"Well, well, I will do my best," answered the rector; "but make your proposal first, and refer her to me for the story of your life. I will deal in generals--I will not go into details. That you can do hereafter if you like."

Thus conversing they walked on, and soon after reached the cottage of Stephen Gimlet, where they found Ned Hayward beginning to feel relief from the operation which the surgeon had performed in the morning. Beauchamp returned to him the sum which he had received from Miss Slingsby in the morning, saying, that he had found no necessity for using it, and Doctor Miles sat down by him, and talked with cheerful kindness for about a quarter of an hour. Was it tact and a clear perception of people's hearts that led the worthy clergyman to select Mary Clifford for one of the subjects of his discourse, and to enlarge upon her high qualities? At all events he succeeded in raising Captain Hayward's spirits ere he set out again upon his way homeward.

When he descended he found Gimlet, the gamekeeper, seated with Widow Lamb, and the man, as he opened the door, apologised for having stopped the rector and Mr. Beauchamp at the stile, but did not state in what he had been so busily engaged. As soon, however, as Doctor Miles was gone, Ste Gimlet resumed his conversation with Mrs. Lamb, and it was a low-toned and eager one. From time to time the old lady bowed her head, saying, "Yes;" but she added nothing to the monosyllable for some time. At length, however, in answer to something that her son-in-law said, she exclaimed,

"No, Stephen, do not speak with him about it. I tried it this morning, and it had a terrible effect upon him. It seemed to change him altogether, and made him, so kind and gentle as he is, quite fierce and sharp. Speak with his friend, Captain Hayward; for neither you nor I can know what all this may mean. But above all, watch well, for it is clear they are about no good, and tell me always what you hear and see, for I cannot help thinking that I know more of these matters than the young lord does himself--a bitter bond, did he call it? Well, it may be a bond for the annuity you heard him talk of; but then why does she not claim it? There must be some object, Stephen."

The good old lady's consideration of the subject was prevented at that moment from proceeding further by the entrance of her son Billy Lamb, who came up and kissed her affectionately. The lad was somewhat pale, and there was an air of fatigue in his small pinched, but intelligent countenance, which made his mother hold him to her heart with a feeling of painful anxiety. Oh! how the affections of a parent twine themselves round a suffering child! Every care, every labour, every painful apprehension that he causes us seems but a new bond to bind our love the more strongly to him. The attachment that is dewed with tears and hardened with the cold air of sorrow and fear, is ever the more hardy plant.

"Sit down, Bill," said Stephen Gimlet, kindly, "you look tired, my lad. I will get you a draught of beer."

"I cannot wait, Ste," answered the pot-boy, "for I must be back as quick as I can; but I can look in to see mother for a minute every day now. The gentleman who has got the little lone cottage on the edge of Chandliegh Heath, gives me half-a-crown a week to bring up his letters and newspapers, and I take the time when all the folks are at dinner in our house."

"And get no dinner yourself, poor Bill," said Stephen Gimlet; "cut him a slice of the cold bacon, mother, and a hunch of bread. He can eat it as he goes. I'll run and draw him a draught of beer. It won't keep you a minute, Bill, and help you on too."

He waited for no reply, but ran with a jug in his hand to the outhouse where his beer-barrel stood. When he came back the boy drank eagerly, kissed the old lady again, and then set out with the bread and bacon in his hand; but Stephen Gimlet walked out with him, and after they had taken a few steps, he asked,

"Who is it, Bill, has got the cottage?"

"I don't know," answered the lad. "A tall, strong man he is, with large whiskers all the way under his chin, a little grayish. He met me last night when I took up a parcel from Mr. ---- to Burton's inn, and asked if I came that way every day. I said I did not, but could come if he wanted any thing."

"But you must know his name if you get his letters, Bill?" said Gimlet.

"No, I do not, but I soon can," answered the deformed youth. "He took me into the cottage, and made the lady give him some paper and a pen and ink, and wrote a note to the postmaster, and gave me a half-crown, and said I should have the same every week. The postmaster wrapped up the letters and things in a bit of paper, and I did not think to look in; but I can soon find out if you want to know."

"No," answered Stephen Gimlet, drily, "I know already. Well, Bill, good bye, I must go about my work," and so they parted.