Beauchamps Career, v3

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'We met him in Spain the year before last,' she observed to Cecilia.

The 'we' reminded Palmet that her husband was present.

'Ah, Devereux, I didn't see you,' he nodded obliquely down the table.
'By the way, what's the grand procession? I hear my man Davis has come
all right, and I caught sight of the top of your coach-box in the
stableyard as I came in. What are we up to?'

'Baskelett writes, it's to be for to-morrow morning at ten-the start.'
Mr. Wardour-Devereux addressed the table generally. He was a fair, huge,
bush-bearded man, with a voice of unvarying bass: a squire in his county,
and energetic in his pursuit of the pleasures of hunting, driving,
travelling, and tobacco.

'Old Bask's the captain of us? Very well, but where do we drive the
teams? How many are we? What's in hand?'

Cecilia threw a hurried glance at her hostess.

Luckily some witling said, 'Fours-in-hand!' and so dryly that it passed
for humour, and gave Mrs. Lespel time to interpose. 'You are not to know
till to-morrow, Ernest.'

Palmet had traced the authorship of the sally to Mr. Algy Borolick, and
crowned him with praise for it. He asked, 'Why not know till to-morrow?'
A word in a murmur from Mr. Culbrett, 'Don't frighten the women,'
satisfied him, though why it should he could not have imagined.

Mrs. Lespel quitted the breakfast-table before the setting in of the
dangerous five minutes of conversation over its ruins, and spoke to her
husband, who contested the necessity for secresy, but yielded to her
judgement when it was backed by Stukely Culbrett. Soon after Lord Palmet
found himself encountered by evasions and witticisms, in spite of the
absence of the ladies, upon every attempt he made to get some light
regarding the destination of the four-in-hands next day.

'What are you going to do?' he said to Mr. Devereux, thinking him the
likeliest one to grow confidential in private.

'Smoke,' resounded from the depths of that gentleman.

Palmet recollected the ground of division between the beautiful brunette
and her lord--his addiction to the pipe in perpetuity, and deemed it
sweeter to be with the lady.

She and Miss Halkett were walking in the garden.

Miss Halkett said to him: 'How wrong of you to betray the secrets of your
friend! Is he really making way?'

'Beauchamp will head the poll to a certainty,' Palmet replied.

'Still,' said Miss Halkett, 'you should not forget that you are not in
the house of a Liberal. Did you canvass in the town or the suburbs?'

'Everywhere. I assure you, Miss Halkett, there's a feeling for
Beauchamp--they're in love with him!'

'He promises them everything, I suppose?'

'Not he. And the odd thing is, it isn't the Radicals he catches. He
won't go against the game laws for them, and he won't cut down army and
navy. So the Radicals yell at him. One confessed he had sold his vote
for five pounds last election: "you shall have it for the same," says he,
"for you're all humbugs." Beauchamp took him by the throat and shook
him--metaphorically, you know. But as for the tradesmen, he's their
hero; bakers especially.'

'Mr. Austin may be right, then!' Cecilia reflected aloud.

She went to Mrs. Lespel to repeat what she had extracted from Palmet,
after warning the latter not, in common loyalty, to converse about his
canvass with Beauchamp.

'Did you speak of Mr. Lydiard as Captain Beauchamp's friend?' Mrs.
Devereux inquired of him.

'Lydiard? why, he was the man who made off with that pretty Miss
Denham,' said Palmet. 'I have the greatest trouble to remember them all;
but it was not a day wasted. Now I know politics. Shall we ride or
walk? You will let me have the happiness? I'm so unlucky; I rarely meet
you!'

'You will bring Captain Beauchamp to me the moment he comes?'

'I'll bring him. Bring him? Nevil Beauchamp won't want bringing.'

Mrs. Devereux smiled with some pleasure.

Grancey Lespel, followed at some distance by Mr. Ferbrass, the Tory
lawyer, stepped quickly up to Palmet, and asked whether Beauchamp had
seen Dollikins, the brewer.

Palmet could recollect the name of one Tomlinson, and also the calling at
a brewery. Moreover, Beauchamp had uttered contempt of the brewer's
business, and of the social rule to accept rich brewers for gentlemen.
The man's name might be Dollikins and not Tomlinson, and if so, it was
Dollikins who would not see Beauchamp. To preserve his political
importance, Palmet said, 'Dollikins! to be sure, that was the man.'

'Treats him as he does you,' Mr. Lespel turned to Ferbrass. 'I've sent
to Dollikins to come to me this morning, if he's not driving into the
town. I'll have him before Beauchamp sees him. I've asked half-a-dozen
of these country gentlemen-tradesmen to lunch at my table to-day.'

'Then, sir,' observed Ferbrass, 'if they are men to be persuaded, they
had better not see me.'

'True; they're my old supporters, and mightn't like your Tory face,' Mr.
Lespel assented.

Mr. Ferbrass congratulated him on the heartiness of his espousal of the
Tory cause.

Mr. Lespel winced a little, and told him not to put his trust in that.

'Turned Tory?' said Palmet.

Mr. Lespel declined to answer.

Palmet said to Mrs. Devereux, 'He thinks I'm not worth speaking to upon
politics. Now I'll give him some Beauchamp; I learned lots yesterday.'

'Then let it be in Captain Beauchamp's manner,' said
she softly.

Palmet obeyed her commands with the liveliest exhibition of his peculiar
faculty: Cecilia, rejoining them, seemed to hear Nevil himself in his
emphatic political mood. 'Because the Whigs are defunct! They had no
root in the people! Whig is the name of a tribe that was! You have
Tory, Liberal, and Radical. There is no place for Whig. He is played
out.'

'Who has been putting that nonsense into your head?' Mr. Lespel
retorted. 'Go shooting, go shooting!'

Shots were heard in the woods. Palmet pricked up his ears; but he was
taken out riding to act cavalier to Mrs. Devereux and Miss Halkett.

Cecilia corrected his enthusiasm with the situation. 'No flatteries
to-day. There are hours when women feel their insignificance and
helplessness. I begin to fear for Mr. Austin; and I find I can do
nothing to aid him. My hands are tied. And yet I know I could win
voters if only it were permissible for me to go and speak to them.'

'Win them!' cried Palmet, imagining the alacrity of men's votes to be
won by her. He recommended a gallop for the chasing away of melancholy,
and as they were on the Bevisham high road, which was bordered by strips
of turf and heath, a few good stretches brought them on the fir-heights,
commanding views of the town and broad water.

'No, I cannot enjoy it,' Cecilia said to Mrs. Devereux; 'I don't mind the
grey light; cloud and water, and halftones of colour, are homely English
and pleasant, and that opal where the sun should be has a suggestiveness
richer than sunlight. I'm quite northern enough to understand it; but
with me it must be either peace or strife, and that Election down there
destroys my chance of peace. I never could mix reverie with excitement;
the battle must be over first, and the dead buried. Can you?'

Mrs. Devereux answered: 'Excitement? I am not sure that I know what it
is. An Election does not excite me.'

'There's Nevil Beauchamp himself!' Palmet sang out, and the ladies
discerned Beauchamp under a fir-tree, down by the road, not alone. A
man, increasing in length like a telescope gradually reaching its end for
observation, and coming to the height of a landmark, as if raised by
ropes, was rising from the ground beside him. 'Shall we trot on, Miss
Halkett?'

Cecilia said, 'No.'

'Now I see a third fellow,' said Palmet. 'It's the other fellow, the
Denham-Shrapnel-Radical meeting . . . Lydiard's his name: writes
books.!

'We may as well ride on,' Mrs. Devereux remarked, and her horse fretted
singularly.

Beauchamp perceived them, and lifted his hat. Palmet made demonstrations
for the ladies. Still neither party moved nearer.

After some waiting, Cecilia proposed to turn back.

Mrs. Devereux looked into her eyes. 'I'll take the lead,' she said, and
started forward, pursued by Palmet. Cecilia followed at a sullen canter.

Before they came up to Beauchamp, the long-shanked man had stalked away
townward. Lydiard held Beauchamp by the hand. Some last words, after
the manner of instructions, passed between them, and then Lydiard also
turned away.

'I say, Beauchamp, Mrs. Devereux wants to hear who that man is,' Palmet
said, drawing up.

'That man is Dr. Shrapnel,' said Beauchamp, convinced that Cecilia had
checked her horse at the sight of the doctor.

'Dr. Shrapnel,' Palmet informed Mrs. Devereux.

She looked at him to seek his wits, and returning Beauchamp's admiring
salutation with a little bow and smile, said, 'I fancied it was a
gentleman we met in Spain.'

'He writes books,' observed Palmet, to jog a slow intelligence.

'Pamphlets, you mean.'

'I think he is not a pamphleteer', Mrs. Devereux said.

'Mr. Lydiard, then, of course; how silly I am! How can you pardon me!'
Beauchamp was contrite; he could not explain that a long guess he had
made at Miss Halkett's reluctance to come up to him when Dr. Shrapnel was
with him had preoccupied his mind. He sent off Palmet the bearer of a
pretext for bringing Lydiard back, and then said to Cecilia, 'You
recognized Dr. Shrapnel?'

'I thought it might be Dr. Shrapnel', she was candid enough to reply.
'I could not well recognize him, not knowing him.'

'Here comes Mr. Lydiard; and let me assure you, if I may take the liberty
of introducing him, he is no true Radical. He is a philosopher--one of
the flirts, the butterflies of politics, as Dr. Shrapnel calls them.'

Beauchamp hummed over some improvized trifles to Lydiard, then introduced
him cursorily, and all walked in the direction of Itchincope. It was
really the Mr. Lydiard Mrs. Devereux had met in Spain, so they were left
in the rear to discuss their travels. Much conversation did not go on in
front. Cecilia was very reserved. By-and-by she said, 'I am glad you
have come into the country early to-day.'

He spoke rapturously of the fresh air, and not too mildly of his pleasure
in meeting her. Quite off her guard, she began to hope he was getting to
be one of them again, until she heard him tell Lord Palmet that he had
come early out of Bevisham for the walk with Dr. Shrapnel, and to call on
certain rich tradesmen living near Itchincope. He mentioned the name of
Dollikins.

'Dollikins?' Palmet consulted a perturbed recollection. Among the
entangled list of new names he had gathered recently from the study of
politics, Dollikins rang in his head. He shouted, 'Yes, Dollikins! to
be sure. Lespel has him to lunch to-day;--calls him a gentleman-
tradesman; odd fish! and told a fellow called--where is it now?--a name
like brass or copper . . . Copperstone? Brasspot? . . . told him
he'd do well to keep his Tory cheek out of sight. It 's the names of
those fellows bother one so! All the rest's easy.'

'You are evidently in a state of confusion, Lord Palmet,' said Cecilia.

The tone of rebuke and admonishment was unperceived. 'Not about the
facts,' he rejoined. 'I 'm for fair play all round; no trickery. I tell
Beauchamp all I know, just as I told you this morning, Miss Halkett.
What I don't like is Lespel turning Tory.'

Cecilia put a stop to his indiscretions by halting for Mrs. Devereux, and
saying to Beauchamp, 'If your friend would return to Bevisham by rail,
this is the nearest point to the station.'

Palmet, best-natured of men, though generally prompted by some of his
peculiar motives, dismounted from his horse, leaving him to Beauchamp,
that he might conduct Mr. Lydiard to the station, and perhaps hear a word
of Miss Denham: at any rate be able to form a guess as to the secret of
that art of his, which had in the space of an hour restored a happy and
luminous vivacity to the languid Mrs. Wardour-Devereux.

CHAPTER XXI

THE QUESTION AS TO THE EXAMINATION OF THE WHIGS, AND THE FINE BLOW STRUCK
BY MR. EVERARD ROMFREY

Itchincope was famous for its hospitality. Yet Beauchamp, when in the
presence of his hostess, could see that he was both unexpected and
unwelcome. Mrs. Lespel was unable to conceal it; she looked meaningly at
Cecilia, talked of the house being very full, and her husband engaged
till late in the afternoon. And Captain Baskelett had arrived on a
sudden, she said. And the luncheon-table in the dining-room could not
possibly hold more.

'We three will sit in the library, anywhere,' said Cecilia.

So they sat and lunched in the library, where Mrs. Devereux served
unconsciously for an excellent ally to Cecilia in chatting to Beauchamp,
principally of the writings of Mr. Lydiard.

Had the blinds of the windows been drawn down and candles lighted,
Beauchamp would have been well contented to remain with these two ladies,
and forget the outer world; sweeter society could not have been offered
him: but glancing carelessly on to the lawn, he exclaimed in some
wonderment that the man he particularly wished to see was there. 'It
must be Dollikins, the brewer. I've had him pointed out to me in
Bevisham, and I never can light on him at his brewery.'

No excuse for detaining the impetuous candidate struck Cecilia. She
betook herself to Mrs. Lespel, to give and receive counsel in the
emergency, while Beauchamp struck across the lawn to Mr. Dollikins,
who had the squire of Itchincope on the other side of him.

Late in the afternoon a report reached the ladies of a furious contest
going on over Dollikins. Mr. Algy Borolick was the first to give them
intelligence of it, and he declared that Beauchamp had wrested Dollikins
from Grancey Lespel. This was contradicted subsequently by Mr. Stukely
Culbrett. 'But there's heavy pulling between them,' he said.

'It will do all the good in the world to Grancey,' said Mrs. Lespel.

She sat in her little blue-room, with gentlemen congregating at the open
window.

Presently Grancey Lespel rounded a projection of the house where the
drawing-room stood out: 'The maddest folly ever talked!' he delivered
himself in wrath. 'The Whigs dead? You may as well say I'm dead.'

It was Beauchamp answering: 'Politically, you're dead, if you call
yourself a Whig. You couldn't be a live one, for the party's in pieces,
blown to the winds. The country was once a chess-board for Whig and
Tory: but that game's at an end. There's no doubt on earth that the
Whigs are dead.'

'But if there's no doubt about it, how is it I have a doubt about it?'

'You know you're a Tory. You tried to get that man Dollikins from me in
the Tory interest.'

'I mean to keep him out of Radical clutches. Now that 's the truth.'

They came up to the group by the open window, still conversing hotly,
indifferent to listeners.

'You won't keep him from me; I have him,' said Beauchamp.

'You delude yourself; I have his promise, his pledged word,' said Grancey
Lespel.

'The man himself told you his opinion of renegade Whigs.'

'Renegade!'

'Renegade Whig is an actionable phrase,' Mr. Culbrett observed.

He was unnoticed.

'If you don't like "renegade," take "dead,"' said Beauchamp. 'Dead Whig
resurgent in the Tory. You are dead.'

'It's the stupid conceit of your party thinks that.'

'Dead, my dear Mr. Lespel. I'll say for the Whigs, they would not be
seen touting for Tories if they were not ghosts of Whigs. You are dead.
There is no doubt of it.'

'But,' Grancey Lespel repeated, 'if there's no doubt about it, how is it
I have a doubt about it?'

'The Whigs preached finality in Reform. It was their own funeral
sermon.'

'Nonsensical talk!'

'I don't dispute your liberty of action to go over to the Tories, but you
have no right to attempt to take an honest Liberal with you. And that
I've stopped.'

'Aha! Beauchamp; the man's mine. Come, you'll own he swore he wouldn't
vote for a Shrapnelite.'

'Don't you remember?--that's how the Tories used to fight you; they stuck
an epithet to you, and hooted to set the mob an example; you hit them off
to the life,' said Beauchamp, brightening with the fine ire of strife,
and affecting a sadder indignation. 'You traded on the ignorance of a
man prejudiced by lying reports of one of the noblest of human
creatures.'

'Shrapnel? There! I've had enough.' Grancey Lespel bounced away with
both hands outspread on the level of his ears.

'Dead!' Beauchamp sent the ghastly accusation after him.

Grancey faced round and said, 'Bo!' which was applauded for a smart
retort. And let none of us be so exalted above the wit of daily life as
to sneer at it. Mrs. Lespel remarked to Mr. Culbrett, 'Do you not see
how much he is refreshed by the interest he takes in this election? He
is ten years younger.'

Beauchamp bent to her, saying mock-dolefully, 'I'm sorry to tell you that
if ever he was a sincere Whig, he has years of remorse before him.'

'Promise me, Captain Beauchamp,' she answered, 'promise you will give us
no more politics to-day.'

'If none provoke me.'

'None shall.'

'And as to Bevisham,' said Mr. Culbrett, 'it's the identical borough for
a Radical candidate, for every voter there demands a division of his
property, and he should be the last to complain of an adoption of his
principles.'

'Clever,' rejoined Beauchamp; 'but I am under government'; and he swept a
bow to Mrs. Lespel.

As they were breaking up the group, Captain Baskelett appeared.

'Ah! Nevil,' said he, passed him, saluted Miss Halkett through the
window, then cordially squeezed his cousin's hand. 'Having a holiday out
of Bevisham? The baron expects to meet you at Mount Laurels to-morrow.
He particularly wishes me to ask you whether you think all is fair in
war.'

'I don't,' said Nevil.

'Not? The canvass goes on swimmingly.'

'Ask Palmet!

'Palmet gives you two-thirds of the borough. The poor old Tory tortoise
is nowhere. They've been writing about you, Nevil.'

'They have. And if there 's a man of honour in the party I shall hold
him responsible for it.'

'I allude to an article in the Bevisham Liberal paper; a magnificent
eulogy, upon my honour. I give you my word, I have rarely read an
article so eloquent. And what is the Conservative misdemeanour which the
man of honour in the party is to pay for?'

'I'll talk to you about it by-and-by,' said Nevil.

He seemed to Cecilia too trusting, too simple, considering his cousin's
undisguised tone of banter. Yet she could not put him on his guard.
She would have had Mr. Culbrett do so. She walked on the terrace with
him near upon sunset, and said, 'The position Captain Beauchamp is in
here is most unfair to him.'

'There's nothing unfair in the lion's den,' said Stukely Culbrett;
adding, 'Now, observe, Miss Halkett; he talks for effect. He discovers
that Lespel is a Torified Whig; but that does not make him a bit more
alert. It's to say smart things. He speaks, but won't act, as if he
were among enemies. He's getting too fond of his bow-wow. Here he is,
and he knows the den, and he chooses to act the innocent. You see how
ridiculous? That trick of the ingenu, or peculiarly heavenly messenger,
who pretends that he ought never to have any harm done to him, though he
carries the lighted match, is the way of young Radicals. Otherwise
Beauchamp would be a dear boy. We shall see how he takes his thrashing.'

'You feel sure he will be beaten?'

'He has too strong a dose of fool's honesty to succeed--stands for the
game laws with Radicals, for example. He's loaded with scruples and
crotchets, and thinks more of them than of his winds and his tides. No
public man is to be made out of that. His idea of the Whigs being dead
shows a head that can't read the country. He means himself for mankind,
and is preparing to be the benefactor of a country parish.'

'But as a naval officer?'

'Excellent.'

Cecilia was convinced that Mr. Culbrett underestimated Beauchamp.
Nevertheless the confidence expressed in Beauchamp's defeat reassured and
pleased her. At midnight she was dancing with him in the midst of great
matronly country vessels that raised a wind when they launched on the
waltz, and exacted an anxious pilotage on the part of gentlemen careful
of their partners; and why I cannot say, but contrasts produce quaint
ideas in excited spirits, and a dancing politician appeared to her so
absurd that at one moment she had to bite her lips not to laugh. It will
hardly be credited that the waltz with Nevil was delightful to Cecilia
all the while, and dancing with others a penance. He danced with none
other. He led her to a three o'clock morning supper: one of those
triumphant subversions of the laws and customs of earth which have the
charm of a form of present deification for all young people; and she,
while noting how the poor man's advocate dealt with costly pasties and
sparkling wines, was overjoyed at his hearty comrade's manner with the
gentlemen, and a leadership in fun that he seemed to have established.
Cecil Baskelett acknowledged it, and complimented him on it. 'I give you
my word, Nevil, I never heard you in finer trim. Here's to our drive
into Bevisham to-morrow! Do you drink it? I beg; I entreat.'

'Oh, certainly,' said Nevil.

'Will you take a whip down there?'

'If you're all insured.'

'On my honour, old Nevil, driving a four-in-hand is easier than governing
the country.'

'I'll accept your authority for what you know best,' said Nevil.

The toast of the Drive into Bevisham was drunk.

Cecilia left the supper-table, mortified, and feeling disgraced by her
participation in a secret that was being wantonly abused to humiliate
Nevil, as she was made to think by her sensitiveness. All the gentlemen
were against him, excepting perhaps that chattering pie Lord Palmet, who
did him more mischief than his enemies. She could not sleep. She walked
out on the terrace with Mrs. Wardour-Devereux, in a dream, hearing that
lady breathe remarks hardly less than sentimental, and an unwearied
succession of shouts from the smoking-room.

'They are not going to bed to-night,' said Mrs. Devereux.

'They are mystifying Captain Beauchamp,' said Cecilia.

'My husband tells me they are going to drive him into the town to-
morrow.'

Cecilia flushed: she could scarcely get her breath.

'Is that their plot?' she murmured.

Sleep was rejected by her, bed itself. The drive into Bevisham had been
fixed for nine A.M. She wrote two lines on note-paper in her room: but
found them overfervid and mysterious. Besides, how were they to be
conveyed to Nevil's chamber

She walked in the passage for half an hour, thinking it possible she
might meet him; not the most lady-like of proceedings, but her head was
bewildered. An arm-chair in her room invited her to rest and think--the
mask of a natural desire for sleep. At eight in the morning she was
awakened by her maid, and at a touch exclaimed, 'Have they gone?' and
her heart still throbbed after hearing that most of the gentlemen were in
and about the stables. Cecilia was down-stairs at a quarter to nine.
The breakfast-room was empty of all but Lord Palmet and Mr. Wardour-
Devereux; one selecting a cigar to light out of doors, the other debating
between two pipes. She beckoned to Palmet, and commissioned him to
inform Beauchamp that she wished him to drive her down to Bevisham in her
pony-carriage. Palmet brought back word from Beauchamp that he had an
appointment at ten o'clock in the town. 'I want to see him,' she said;
so Palmet ran out with the order. Cecilia met Beauchamp in the entrance-
hall.

'You must not go,' she said bluntly.

'I can't break an appointment,' said he--'for the sake of my own
pleasure,' was implied.

'Will you not listen to me, Nevil, when I say you cannot go?'

A coachman's trumpet blew.

'I shall be late. That's Colonel Millington's team. He starts first,
then Wardour-Devereux, then Cecil, and I mount beside him; Palmet's at
our heels.'

'But can't you even imagine a purpose for their driving into Bevisham so
pompously?'

'Well, men with drags haven't commonly much purpose,' he said.

'But on this occasion! At an Election time! Surely, Nevil, you can
guess at a reason.'

A second trumpet blew very martially. Footmen came in search of Captain
Beauchamp. The alternative of breaking her pledged word to her father,
or of letting Nevil be burlesqued in the sight of the town, could no
longer be dallied with.

Cecilia said, 'Well, Nevil, then you shall hear it.'

Hereupon Captain Baskelett's groom informed Captain Beauchamp that he was
off.

'Yes,' Nevil said to Cecilia, 'tell me on board the yacht.'

'Nevil, you will be driving into the town with the second Tory candidate
of the borough.'

'Which? who?' Nevil 'asked.

'Your cousin Cecil.'

'Tell Captain Baskelett that I don't drive down till an hour later,'
Nevil said to the groom. 'Cecilia, you're my friend; I wish you were
more. I wish we didn't differ. I shall hope to change you--make you
come half-way out of that citadel of yours. This is my uncle Everard!
I might have made sure there'd be a blow from him! And Cecil! of all
men for a politician! Cecilia, think of it! Cecil Baskelett! I beg
Seymour Austin's pardon for having suspected him . . .'

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