Beauchamp; or, The Error.

by G. P. R. James

For my own part I do not see what business men have to think at all. If it be of the past, can they recall it? If it be of the future, can they govern it? No, no, and the present is for action, not for meditation. It was very foolish of Mr. Beauchamp to think, but yet he did so, and profoundly. But of what were his thoughts? I cannot tell. Some I know, some I do not know; or rather like an intercepted letter, the actual course of his meditation was plain enough, written in clear and forcible lines, but the wide world of circumstances to which it referred, its relations with his fate, with his past history, with his present condition, with his future prospects, were all in darkness.

"It is in vain," he said to himself, "all in vain! Peace, happiness, tranquillity--where do they dwell? Are they the mere phantasms of man's ever-building imaginations? creations of fancy to satisfy the craving need of the soul? And yet some men can obtain them. This very Captain Hayward, he seems at least as well contented, as well satisfied with himself, the world, and all the world gives, as it is possible to conceive. But it is not so--it cannot be so. There is a black spot somewhere, I am sure--some bitter memory, some disappointed hope, some aspiration ever desired. He owned he dared not venture to love--is not that to be in a continued chain, to bear a fetter about one? and yet he seemed contented with such a fate. It is the regulation of our desires that makes us happy, the bounding them to our means--ay, with those who have no already existing cause for sorrow, but the cup of our fate is ever open for each passing hand to drop a poison into it, and once there, it pervades the whole--the whole? by every drop down to the very dregs, turning the sweetness and the spirit of the wine of life to bitterness and death. What is it that I want that can make existence pleasant? Wealth, health, a mind carefully trained and furnished with the keys to every door of mental enjoyment--with love for my fellow-creatures, good will to all men, I have all--surely all; but, alas! I have memory too, and like the pillar of the cloud, it sometimes follows me, darkening the past, sometimes goes before me, obscuring the future. Yet this is very weak. An effort of the mind--the mind I have vainly thought so strong--should surely suffice to cast off the load. I have tried occupation, calm enjoyments, fair scenes, tranquil pleasures, peaceful amusements. Perhaps in a more fiery and eager course, in active, energetic pursuits in passions that absorb all the feelings, and wrap the soul in their own mantle, I may find forgetfulness. In all that I have hitherto done--there have been long intervals--open gates for bitter memory to enter, and the very nature of my chosen objects has invited her. Oh, yes, there must be such a thing as happiness: that girl's fair joyous face, her smile teeming with radiance, told me so. But I will not think of her. She is too bright, and fair, and happy to be made a partner in so hazardous a speculation as mine. I will go away from this place: it has given my mind some little repose, and I could have made a friend of that light, good-humoured Hayward if he would have let me--but he has left me too--all things leave me, I think. Well, he is gone, and I will go too--'tis not worth while lingering longer."

At this point of his meditations some horses passed the window, and shadows darkened the room; but Beauchamp took no notice, till he heard a voice which had become somewhat familiar to him during the last eighteen hours, exclaiming, "Ostler, ostler!" and in a moment after Ned Hayward was in the room again, but not alone. He was followed by the portly figure of Sir John Slingsby, dressed in riding costume, and though somewhat dusty, and certainly very round and heavy, yet bearing that undefinable and almost ineffaceable look of a gentleman which not even oddities and excesses had been able to wipe out.

Ned Hayward's words were few and soon spoken: "Mr. Beauchamp, Sir John Slingsby; Sir John, Mr. Beauchamp," were all he said, but the old baronet soon took up the conversation, shaking his new acquaintance warmly by the hand.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Beauchamp, very glad to see you. I find my family are under a great obligation to you--that is to say, my sister Harriet, Mrs. Clifford. Devilish impudent thing, by Jove, for those fellows to attack a carriage at that time of the evening, and very lucky you happened to be there, for my friend Ned Hayward here--though he has a notion of tactics, haven't you, Ned?--and is a stout fellow--could hardly have managed three of them."

"I look upon myself as very fortunate, Sir John," replied Mr. Beauchamp, "in having taken my evening walk in that direction; but at the same time, it is but fair to acknowledge that my share in the rescue of your sister and her daughter was but small. I only kept one man in play, while Captain Hayward had to contend with two."

"All the same! all the same, my dear Sir," said the baronet; "the reserve shares all the glory of a battle even if it does not pull a trigger. The ladies, however, are exceedingly obliged to you--very good girls both of them--not that they have commissioned me to express their thanks, far from it, for they are particularly anxious to do so themselves if you will give them the opportunity; and therefore they have begged me to ask if you would favour us by your company at dinner to-day, and to say that they will be devilish sorry if any previous engagement should prevent you, though they calculate upon to-morrow, if not to-day."

"I am quite an anchorite here, Sir John," answered Mr. Beauchamp, with a grave smile; but before he could finish his sentence, the old baronet, thinking it was the commencement of an excuse, hastened to stop it, saying,

"Quite a quiet dinner, I assure you--all as grave and proper as possible; no drinking, no laughing, no fun--all upon our good behaviour. There will be nobody but you, Ned Hayward, I, and the doctor there; Harriet, Mary, and my girl--who, by the way, says she knows you--has seen you twice at the good doctor's--Doctor Miles's."

"I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Slingsby," said Beauchamp. "I was only about to answer you just now, Sir John, that I am quite an anchorite here, and therefore not likely to have many invitations to dinner. As I have not much cultivated the people of the place, they have not much cultivated me; and I believe they look upon me as a somewhat suspicious character, especially our friend Mr. Wittingham, who I find has been very curious in his inquiries as to whether I pay my bills, and where I go to when I walk out."