Read Ebook: Beauchamp; or The Error. by James G P R George Payne Rainsford

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 2124 lines and 174577 words, and 43 pages

"I should like to look at his ledger," said Mr. Wittingham to himself at length, as he opened his gate and went in; but there was a book open for Mr. Wittingham in his own house, which was not likely to show a very favourable account.

Although the door of Mr. Wittingham's house, which was a glass door, stood confidingly unlocked as long as the sun was above the horizon, yet Mr. Wittingham had always a pass-key in his pocket, and when the first marble step leading from the gravel walk up to the entrance was found, the worthy magistrate's hand was always applied to an aperture in his upper garment just upon the haunch, from which the key was sure to issue forth, whether the door was open or not.

The door, however, was now shut, and the pass-key proved serviceable; but no sooner did Mr. Wittingham stand in the passage of his own mansion than he stopped short in breathless and powerless astonishment; for there before him stood two figures in close confabulation, which he certainly did not expect to see in that place, at that time, in such near proximity.

The one was that of a woman, perhaps fifty-five years of age, but who looked still older from the fact of being dressed in the mode of thirty years before. Her garments might be those of an upper servant, and indeed they were so; for the personage was neither more nor less than the housekeeper; but to all appearance she was a resuscitated housekeeper of a former age; for the gown padded in a long roll just under the blade-bones, the straight cut bodice, the tall but flat-crowned and wide-spreading cap, were not of the day in which she lived, and her face too was as dry as the outer shell of a cocoa-nut. The other figure had the back turned to the door, and was evidently speaking earnestly to Mrs. Billiter; but it was that of a man, tall, and though stiffly made, yet sinewy and strong.

Mr. Wittingham's breath came thick and short, but the noise of his suddenly opening the door, and his step in the hall, made the housekeeper utter a low cry of surprise, and her male companion turn quickly round. Then Mr. Wittingham's worst apprehensions were realised, for the face he saw before him was that of his own son, though somewhat disfigured by an eye swollen and discoloured, and a deep long cut just over it on the brow.

The young man seemed surprised and confounded by the unexpected apparition of his father, but it was too late to shirk the encounter, though he well knew it would not be a pleasant one. He was accustomed, too, to scenes of altercation with his parent, for Mr. Wittingham had not proceeded wisely with his son, who was a mere boy when he himself retired from business. He had not only alternately indulged him and thwarted him; encouraged him to spend money largely, and to dazzle the eyes of the neighbours by expense, at the same time limiting his means and exacting a rigid account of his payments; but as the young man had grown up he had continued sometimes to treat him as a boy, sometimes as a man; and while he more than connived at his emulating the great in those pleasures which approach vices, he denied him the sums by which such a course could alone be carried out.

Thus a disposition, naturally vehement and passionate, had been rendered irritable and reckless, and a character self-willed and perverse had become obstinate and disobedient. Dispute after dispute arose between father and son after the spoilt boy became the daring and violent youth, till at length Mr. Wittingham, for the threefold purpose of putting him under some sort of discipline, of removing him from bad associates, and giving him the tone of a gentleman, had sent him to Oxford. One year had passed over well enough, but at the commencement of the second year, Mr. Wittingham found that his notions of proper economy were very different from his son's, and that Oxford was not likely to reconcile the difference. He heard of him horse-racing, driving stagecoaches, betting on pugilists, gambling, drinking, getting deeper and deeper in debt; and his letters of remonstrance were either not answered at all, or answered with contempt.

A time had come, however, when the absolute necessity of recruiting his finances from his father's purse had reduced the youth to promises of amendment and a feigned repentance; and just at the time our tale opens, the worthy magistrate was rocking himself in the cradle of delusive expectations, and laying out many a plan for the future life of his reformed son, when suddenly as we have seen, he found him standing talking to the housekeeper in his own hall with the marks of a recent scuffle very visible on his face.

The consternation of Mr. Wittingham was terrible; for though by no means a man of ready combinations in any other matter than pounds, shillings and pence, his fancy was not so slow a beast as to fail in joining together the description which Ned Hayward had given of the marks he had set upon one of the worthy gentlemen who had been found attacking Mrs. Clifford's carriage, and the cuts and bruises upon the fair face of his gentle offspring. He had also various private reasons of his own for supposing that such an enterprise as that which had been interrupted in Tarningham-lane, as the place was called, might very well come within the sphere of his son's energies, and for a moment he gave himself up to a sort of apathetic despair, seeing all his fond hopes of rustic rule and provincial importance dashed to the ground by the conduct of his own child.

It was reserved for that child to rouse him from his stupor, however; for, though undoubtedly the apparition of his father was any thing but pleasant to Henry Wittingham, at that particular moment, when he was arranging with the housekeeper that he was to have secret board and lodging in the house for a couple of days, without his parent's knowledge, yet his was a bold spirit, not easily cowed, and much accustomed to outface circumstances however disagreeable they might be. Marching straight up to his father then, without a blush, as soon as he had recovered from the first surprise, he said, "So, you see I have come back, Sir, for a day or two to worship my household gods, as we say at Oxford, and to get a little more money; for you did not send me enough. However, it may be as well, for various reasons, not to let people know that I am here. Our old dons do not like us to be absent without leave, and may think that I ought to have notified to them my intention of giving you such an agreeable surprise."

Such overpowering impudence was too much for Mr. Wittingham's patience, the stock of which was somewhat restricted; and he first swore a loud and very unmagisterial oath; then, however, recollecting himself, without abating one particle of his wrath, he said in a stern tone, and with a frowning brow, "Be so good as to walk into that room for five minutes, Sir."

"Lord, Sir, don't be angry," exclaimed the housekeeper, who did not at all like the look of her master's face, "it is only a frolic, Sir."

"Hold your tongue, Billiter! you are a fool," thundered Mr. Wittingham. "Walk in there, Sir, and you shall soon hear my mind as to your frolics."

"Oh, certainly, I will walk in," replied his son, not appearing in the least alarmed, though there was something in the expression of his father's countenance that did frighten him a little, because he had never seen that something before--something difficult to describe--a struggle as it were with himself, which showed the anger he felt to be more profound than he thought it right to show all at once. "I certainly will walk in and take a cup of tea if you will give me one," and as he spoke he passed the door into the library.

"You will neither eat nor drink in this house more, till your conduct is wholly changed, Sir," said Mr. Wittingham, shutting the door behind him, "the books are closed, Sir--there is a large balance against you, and that must be liquidated before they can be opened again. What brought you here?"

"What I have said," answered the young man, beginning to feel that his situation was not a very good one, but still keeping up his affected composure, "the yearnings of filial affection and a lack of pocket-money."

"So, you can lie too, to your father," said Mr. Wittingham, bitterly. "You will find that I can tell the truth however, and to begin, I will inform you of what brought you hither--but no, it would take too much time to do that; for the sooner you are gone the better for yourself and all concerned--you must go, Sir, I tell you--you must go directly."

A hesitation had come upon Mr. Wittingham while he spoke; his voice shook, his lip quivered, his tall frame was terribly agitated; and his son attributed all these external signs of emotion to a very different cause from the real one. He thought he saw in them the symptoms of a relenting parent, or at least of an irresolute one, and he prepared to act accordingly; while his father thought of nothing but the danger of having him found in his house, after the commission of such an outrage as that which he had perpetrated that night; but the very thought made him tremble in every limb--not so much for his son indeed, as for himself.

"I beg pardon, my dear Sir," replied the young man, recovering all his own impudence at the sight of his father's agitation; "but it would not be quite convenient for me to go to-night. It is late, I am tired; my purse is very empty."

"Pray how did you get that cut upon your head?" demanded the magistrate, abruptly.

"Oh, a little accident," replied his son; "it is a mere scratch--nothing at all."

"It looks very much like a blow from the butt-end of a heavy horsewhip," said his father, sternly; "just such as a man who had stopped two ladies in a carriage, might receive from a strong arm come to their rescue. You do not propose to go then? Well, if that be the case, I must send for the constable and give you into his hands, for there is an information laid against you for felony, and witnesses ready to swear to your person. Shall I ring the bell, or do you go?"

The young man's face had turned deadly pale, and he crushed the two sides of his hat together between his hands. He uttered but one word, however, and that was, "Money."

"Not a penny," answered Mr. Wittingham, turning his shoulder, "not one penny, you have had too much already--you would make me bankrupt and yourself too." The next moment, however, he continued, "Stay; on one condition, I will give you twenty pounds."

"What is it?" asked the son, eagerly, but somewhat fiercely too, for he suspected that the condition would be hard.

"It is that you instantly go back to Oxford, and swear by all you hold sacred--if you hold any thing sacred at all--not to quit it for twelve months, or till Mary Clifford is married."

"You ask what I cannot do," said the son, in a tone of deep and bitter despondency, contrasting strangely with that which he had previously used; "I cannot go back to Oxford. You must know all in time, and may as well know it now--I am expelled from Oxford; and you had your share in it, for had you sent me what I asked, I should not have been driven to do what I have done. I cannot go back; and as to abandoning my pursuit of Mary Clifford, I will not do that either. I love her, and she shall be mine, sooner or later, let who will say no."

"I go," answered his son, "but one day you will repent of this, and wish me back, when perhaps you will not be able to find me."

"No fear of that," answered Mr. Wittingham, "if you do not return till I seek you, the house will be long free from your presence. Away with you at once, and no more words."

Without reply, Henry Wittingham quitted the room, and hurried up to the bed-chamber, which he inhabited when he was at home, opened several drawers, and took out various articles of dress, and some valuable trinkets--a gold chain, a diamond brooch, two or three jewelled pins and rings. He lingered a little, perhaps fancying that his father might relent, perhaps calculating what his own conduct should be when he was summoned back to the library. But when he had been about five minutes in his chamber, there was a tap at the door; and the housekeeper came in.

"It is no use, Billiter," said the young man, "I am going. My father has treated me shamefully."

"It is no use indeed, Master Harry," replied the good woman, "he is as hard as stone. I have said every thing he would let me say, but he drove me out of the room like a wild beast. But don't give it up, Master Harry. Go away for a day or two to Burton's Inn, by Chandleigh--he'll come round in time, and you can very well spend a week or so there, and be very comfortable."

"But money, Billiter, money!" exclaimed the young man, whose heart had sunk again to find that all his expectations of his father's resolution giving way were vain. "What shall I do for money?"

"That I won't, Billiter," answered Henry Wittingham, pocketing the money without remorse of conscience, "and I will repay you when I can--some day or another I shall certainly be able, for the houses at Exmouth are settled upon me;" and packing up all that he thought fit to take in a large silk-handkerchief, he opened the door again, and began to descend the stairs. A chilly sensation crept over him ere he reached the bottom, as memory brought back happy days, and he thought that he was going forth from the home of his youth, perhaps for ever, that he was an exile from his father's dwelling, from his love, an outcast, a wanderer, with nothing but his own wayward spirit for his guide--nought but his own pride for his support. He was not yet sufficiently hardened to bear the shadow of his exile lightly, to look upon it as a relief from restraint, a mere joyous adventure which would have its interest during its progress, and would soon be over. But, nevertheless, his pride was strong, and as yet unchecked; and when the thought of going back to his father, asking his forgiveness, and promising all that he required, crossed his mind, he cast it from him with disdain, saying, "Never! never! He shall ask me humbly first." And, with this very lowly determination, he walked out of the house.

"I shall be able to hear of you at Burton's, by Chandleigh," said the housekeeper, as he stood on the top step.

"Yes, yes, you will hear of me there," he replied, and descending the steps, he was soon wandering in darkness amongst parterres, every step of the way being as familiar to him as his father's library.

After a few words of common observation upon Mr. Wittingham and his proceedings when that excellent gentleman had left the room at the little inn of Tarningham, Ned Hayward fell into a very unusual fit of thought.

I do not mean in the least to say that it was unusual for Ned Hayward to think, for probably he thought as much as other men, but there are various ways of thinking. There are pondering, meditating, brown studying, day dreaming, revolving, considering, contemplating, and though many of these terms may at first sight seem synonymous, yet upon close examination it will be found that there are shades of difference between the meanings. Besides these ways or modes of thinking, there are various other mental processes, such as investigating, examining, disentangling, inquiring, but with these I will not meddle, as my business is merely with the various operations of the mind which require various degrees of rapidity. Now though Ned Hayward, as I have said, probably thought as much as other men, his sort of thought was generally of a very quick and active habit. He was not fond of meditating, his mind's slowest pace was a canter, and when he found an obstacle of any kind, hedge, gate, fence, or stone wall, he took up his stirrups and went over it. Now, however, for once in his life, he paused and pondered for full five minutes, and then thinking perhaps it might seem a little rude if he treated his new-found friend to nothing but meditation, he began to talk of other things, still meditating over the former subject of his contemplations all the while.

It must not be supposed, however, that he did not think of what he was saying. Such a supposition might indeed be founded upon the old axiom that men cannot do two things at once. But the axiom is false: there never was a falser. We are always doing many things at once. There would be very little use of our having hands and feet, tongues and eyes, ears and nose, unless each of our organs with a little practice could go on quite quietly in its little workshop, without disturbing the others. Indeed it is very serviceable sometimes to give our more volatile members something light to do, when we are employing others upon more serious business, just to keep them out of the way, as we do with noisy children. So also is it with the mind and its faculties, and it is not only quite possible, depend upon it, dear reader, to think of two subjects at once, but very common also.

Totally unacquainted with Mr. Beauchamp's habits and character, or what topics he could converse upon, and what not, Ned Hayward naturally chose one which seemed perfectly indifferent and perfectly easy; but it led them soon to deeper considerations, as a very small key will often open a very large door. It led to some political discussions too; but let it be remarked, this is not a political novel, that most wearisome and useless of all the illegitimate offsprings of literature, and therefore if I give a few sentences of their conversation, it is not to insinuate sneakingly my own opinions, but merely to display my characters more fully.

"This seems a very pretty little town," said Ned Hayward, choosing the first free subject at hand; "quite rural, and with all the tranquillity of the country about it."

"It is indeed," answered Mr. Beauchamp; "but I should almost have supposed that a gayer place would have pleased you more. Were you never here before?"

"Never in my life," replied his companion; "but you are quite mistaken about my tastes. London, indeed, is a very pleasant place for three months or so; but one soon gets tired of it. It gets slow, devilish slow after a while. One cannot go to the theatre every night. There is little use of going to balls and parties, and risking falling in love if one has not got money enough to marry. One gets weary of the faces and the houses in St. James's-street. Morning visits are the greatest bores in the world. Epsom and Ascot are good enough things in their way, but they are soon over for one who does not bet and runs no horses. The newspapers tire me to death--romances I abominate; and though a good opera comes in twice a-week to lighten the load a little, it gets desperate heavy on one's shoulders before the first of July. Antiquaries, connoisseurs, lawyers, physicians, fiddlers, and portrait-painters, with merchants, and all the bees of the hive, may find London a very pleasant and profitable place. I am nothing but a drone, and so I fly away in the country. Of all towns after the second month, I hate London the most--except a manufacturing town indeed, and that is always horrible, even to change horses in."

"And yet perhaps," answered Beauchamp, "a manufacturing town offers subjects of deeper interest than any other spot of the earth--especially at the present moment."

"Not in themselves, surely," said Ned Hayward; "the abstract idea of broad cloth is to me very flat, cotton-spinning not particularly exciting, iron ware is far too hard for me to handle, and as for the production of soda and pearlash, I have no genius that way. But I suppose," he continued, "you mean that the manufacturing towns are interesting from their bearing upon the prosperity of the country; but in that case it is your speculations regarding them that interest you, not the places themselves."

"So it is with everything," answered Mr. Beauchamp; "no single image or impression gives us great pleasure. It is in their combination that our engagement dwells. Single ideas are but straight lines, blank plains, monotonous patches of colour. Associate them with other shapes and hues, and you produce beauty and pleasure. Thus with the manufacturing towns; if I only went to see a steam-engine work, a shuttle play, or a spindle turn, I should soon be tired enough; but when in all that I see there, I perceive a new development of man's mind, a fresh course opened for his energies when old ones are exhausted, when I behold the commencement of a great social change, which shall convert the pursuits of tribes and nations from agricultural to manufacturing--we rather shall throw the great mass of human industry, for which its former sphere was too small, into another and almost interminable channel, I feel that I am a spectator of a great social phenomenon, as awful and as grand as the lightning that rends the pine, or the earthquake that overthrows the mountain. It is magnificent, yet terrible; beautiful, but still sad."

"Why sad?" demanded Ned Hayward. "I have considered the matter in the same light a little, and have talked with various grave manufacturers about it; but they all seem to see nothing in it but what is very fine and pleasant. They have no apprehension for the result, or doubts about its doing a great deal of good to every body in the end."

"The end!" said Beauchamp, "where is the end? What will the end be? They see nothing but good; they augur nothing but good, because they are actively employed in that one particular course, and buoyed up with those sanguine expectations which active exertion always produces. Neither do I doubt that the end will be good; but still ere that end be reached, how much misery, how much strife, how much evil, must be encountered. One needs but to set one's foot in a factory, ay, or in a manufacturing town, to see that the evil not only will be, but is; that we are wading into a dark stream which we must pass over, and are already knee deep. I speak not of the evils inseparable from the working of any great change in the relations of society or in its objects. As we can never climb a hill without some fatigue, so we can never reach a higher point in social advance without some suffering, but that inevitable evil I look upon as light, compared with many other things before us. I doubt not that in God's good providence new resources will be ever opened before mankind for the employment of human industry; but when I see even a temporary superfluity of labour, I tremble to think of what vast power of grinding and oppressing that very circumstance places in the hands of the employer. Combine that power with the state of men's minds at present, and all the tendencies of the age; remember that to accumulate wealth, to rival others in luxury and display, to acquire at any price and by any means, is a part not of the manufacturer's spirit, but of the spirit of the age, and especially of this country, and then see to what purposes must and will be applied that vast authority or command, which the existing superabundance of labour, brought about by mechanical inventions and the natural increase of population entrusts to those who have already the power of wealth. Were it not for this spirit acting through this power, should we see in our manufactories such squalid misery, such enfeebled frames, such overtasked exertions, such want of moral and religious culture, such recklessness, such vice, such infamy, such famine?"

"Perhaps not," answered Ned Hayward, "but yet something is to be said for the manufacturers too. You see, my good Sir, they have to compete with all Europe. They are, as it were, running a race, and they must win it, even if they break their horses' wind."

"If they do that, they will lose it," replied Beauchamp; "but yet I do not blame them. I believe the spirit of the times we live in. They only share it with other men; many of them are humane, kind, generous, just, who do as much good and as little evil as the iron band of circumstances will permit; and were all to strive in the same manner, and to the same degree, that iron band would be broken, and all would be wiser, happier, better--ay, even wealthier than they are; but, alas! the example of the good have little influence on the rest on the same level with themselves, and the example of the bad, immense influence on every grade beneath them. The cupidity of the great mill-owner is imitated and exceeded by those below him. He robs the poor artizan of his labour, by allowing him as little out of the wealth his exertions earn as the superfluity of industry compels the artizan to take, and justifies himself with the cold axiom, that he is not bound to pay more than other men; those below him rob the same defenceless being of a great part of those poor wages themselves by a more direct kind of plunder, and have their axiom too. One of the great problems of the day is this: what proportion of the profits accruing from the joint-operation of capital and labour is to be assigned to each of those two elements? And the day will come ere long, depend upon it, when that great problem must be solved--I trust not in bloody characters. At present, there is no check to secure a fair division; and so long as there is none, wealth will always take advantage of poverty, and the competition for mere food will induce necessity to submit to avarice, till the burden becomes intolerable--and then--"

"What then?" asked Ned Hayward.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet