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Updated: June 14, 2025
Trevanion insisted, and Sir Sedley Beaudesert mildly put in his own claims; both boasted acquaintance with literary men whom my father would, at all events, be pleased to meet. My father doubted whether he could meet any literary men more eloquent than Cicero, or more amusing than Aristophanes; and observed that if such did exist, he would rather meet them in their books than in a drawing-room.
If you had but seen him at S House, the night before he took leave of the island, and his comical grimace when Castleton offered him a pinch of the Beaudesert mixture! No; the fact is that Castleton made it the object of his existence, the masterpiece of his art, to secure to himself a happy home and the entire possession of his wife's heart.
She turned the subject by inquiring again about her old friends. Cicely and the maids, Richard told her, were well; but old Beaudesert always howled whenever he was asked for Madge; and Lyard would stand switching his tail in the meadow, and looking wistfully at the house for the young mistress whom he must never see again. "You miss me, then, all?" said Margery, mournfully.
"Lady N and I were boy and girl together; we correspond; she has written to me suggesting that Ah! I see, an indiscreet woman. Hum! this comes of lady correspondents!" Lord Castleton had recourse to the Beaudesert mixture; and then, as if eager to change the subject, began his own explanation.
"The rank of Sir Sedley Beaudesert was a quiet and comfortable rank, he might marry a curate's daughter, or a duke's, and please his eye or grieve his heart as the caprice took him.
In winter, nothing warmer than the quilted curtains and Axminster carpets can be conceived; in summer, nothing airier and cooler than the muslin draperies and the Indian mattings. And I defy a man to know to what perfection dinner may be brought, unless he had dined with Sir Sedley Beaudesert. Certainly, if that distinguished personage had but been an egotist, he had been the happiest of men.
There is certainly something of exquisite kindness and thoughtful benevolence in that rarest of gifts, fine breeding; and when now, re-manned and resolute, I turned round and saw Sir Sedley's soft blue eye shyly, but benignantly, turned to me, while, with a grace no other snuff-taker ever had since the days of Pope, he gently proceeded to refresh himself by a pinch of the celebrated Beaudesert mixture, I felt my heart as gratefully moved towards him as if he had conferred on me some colossal obligation.
Oh, rare specimen of a race fast decaying, specimen of the true fine gentleman, ere the word "dandy" was known, and before "exquisite" became a noun substantive, let me here pause to describe thee! Sir Sedley Beaudesert was the contemporary of Trevanion and my father; but without affecting to be young, he still seemed so.
At Penkridge, a rural village of considerable antiquity, ten miles from Wolverhampton, adorned by a Gothic Church, and several picturesque houses of the Elizabethan style of domestic architecture, it will be convenient to descend, if an expedition is intended, over Cannock Chase to Beaudesert, the seat of the Marquis of Anglesey.
At the sound of that name I turned hastily, and recognized Sir Sedley Beaudesert seated in the carriage and looking out of the window with a dejected, moody expression of countenance, very different from his ordinary aspect, except when the rare sight of a gray hair or a twinge of the toothache reminded him that he was no longer twenty-five.
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