Thread: A Victorian Tale... Innocence Corrupted (Silvamoon and ThomasWaller)

The Beauchamp estates were expansive and charming. Smithers stopped at the gatehouse and appraised the manse with its surrounding woods and ponds. He could not remember his mother's litany of relations but knew only that their families were somehow connected. She had implored Wesley to go to them, offer assistance and advice. Their once noble name is in peril, Wesley, and you are so clever with these things. I fear they will lose mansion, property, reputation and all. It is enough to make one weep for pity. Wesley cared not a fig for their reputation, nor for their impending penury. He did however remember David Beauchamp. He was a striking lad who had grown into a fine figure of a man. When the Beauchamps visited his mother, Wesley was always taken with the boy's beauty. David had been finished in Cambridge and was now of an age to take a wife and settle into the life expected of a country gentleman. Wesley's mother expressed the hope that a lucrative marriage might be arranged and prove the saving of the household. This expectation proved identical to Lady Beauchamp's, who saw David as the family's last and only hope. Wesley had entirely different hopes for the boy. In London Smithers made exorbitant sums of cash by procuring attractive young men and women to serve the prurient needs of London's idle and fetid upper crust. It was Smither's fast intent to deepen rather than alleviate the family's woes and poverty. He would, then take David with him to London and use his parents dire situation to force the young man to bend to Wesley's perverted will. He could foresee a time when David was one of the star attractions to his stable. The recently overheard ramblings. concerning a local upstarts beautiful daughter had Smithers weaving a web that may procure him two earners. The pair of mothers, one aching for title and the other desperate for money, would easily be seduced as accomplices in their own children's demise. It was the dastardly aspect of the deed that appealed to him as much as the profit. Confidently, Smithers goaded his horse to approach the manse. It will be good sport to bring about the corruption of two country innocents. A wicked smile played across his lips. The entire Beauchamp family awaited Wesley with his sage advice, expecting a saviour in lieu of a man. David Beauchamp remembered the long and lanky spider of a man who sat now in their drawing room with mother devouring his words like manna from heaven. David was all in for selling the mansion and its properties, buying a local farm and working the acreage himself. He had a longing for the bucolic life, encouraged by the poets of the age to seek an honest and simple agricultural occupation. His mother would of course have none of it and longed to bring the name back to its former glory. She had ruined his father's mind with her constant demands for enterprise and investment. But, as the man had no training or knack for it, he was the dupe of every charlatan in the empire. Had they tended the farm and raised their livestock, they would not have found themselves in so miserable a situation. Still Lady Beauchamp, Duchess of Grandgate refused to spit out the bit and find recourse in honest work. And do you know, Lady Beauchamp, who now owns the village and profits from its commerce? The stick of a man inquired. No, I have no idea Wesley. David's mother replied. It is the Barlowe family, who have risen on the aquisition of all that you have lost. Henry Barlowe owns the mills, the stockyards and the warehouse, controlling all monies that pass through the town. Barlowe?... Barlowe?... The name means nothing to me. She of course meant that it could be found nowhere on the social registers. He grew up a peasant within your very town madam and are more likely to find his name among your list of former serfs than among the London elite. Why the effrontery of the man. How dare he. What is it all coming to Wesley? What indeed? How do you come to know the man? By doing what you and yours should have done... knowing the affairs of your village... keeping your finger on the pulse, so to speak. In two short days I have come to realize that the man could buy and support this manse without causing a minor dint in his storehouse. And... he has a daughter... a comely, gentle creature his sole heir. Does your mind begin to turn with mine Lady Beauchamp? The girl's mother is besotted with social climbing. The same solution is rife among the London gentry... no shame, no shame at all. The pair of schemers put their heads together and began to whisper occupying themselves completely with their plans. David, excused himself and went out into the gardens to sit with his addled father who was shelling peas. The air was filled with heavenly breezes and bracing movement. David relaxed into it, until his mother appeared at the door with the scarecrow at her elbow. Get dressed David. We are off to St. Luke's Upon the Hill. We still possess baronial rights to our seats unless God has left his perch. David hated the idea of parading before the locals. He was never seen in Grandgate. But, he knew his mother's will and reluctantly rose to dress. The service was interminable and when it was done he fell in behind mother and the stick man, glad that mother would be in as much a hurry as he to escape into their carriage. She hated rubbing elbows with the peasants. To his surprise, the shadow man was pumping the hand of a local merchant and making his introductions. To his shock, his mother accompanied him and allowed herself to be approached, questioned and greeted. There was a fawning, obsequious woman who accompanied the merchant, if she could have licked mother's shoes, she would have. David leaned against the stonework of the ancient church and waited. A muttering crowd clustered about the strange apparition of mother chatting with the peasants. Then, David noticed another, as willingly removed as himself from the melee as disgruntled as he by the delay. She was a fresh and alarming beauty. David was instantly smitten. He was that taken by her that he could do aught but stare. Finally, he proffered a hand to the maiden. David, David Beauchamp. How pleased I am to meet you. I wonder I have never seen you before. Yet even as he said that, he half remembered a young playmate, a lass encountered in Barley Wood. Something of the eyes, the tendril of unruly curling hair carried him back through the years.