‘But do you tell me,’ said Mr. Lespel, when the shouts of the gentlemen were subsiding, ‘do you tell me that young Beauchamp is going ahead?’
‘That he is. They flock to him in the street.’
‘He stands there, then, and jingles a money-bag.’
Palmet resumed his mimicry of Beauchamp: ‘Not a stiver; purity of election is the first condition of instruction to the people! Principles! Then they’ve got a capital orator: Turbot, an Irishman. I went to a meeting last night, and heard him; never heard anything finer in my life. You may laugh he whipped me off my legs; fellow spun me like a top; and while he was orationing, a donkey calls, “Turbot! ain’t you a flat fish?” and he swings round, “Not for a fool’s hook!” and out they hustled the villain for a Tory. I never saw anything like it.’
‘That repartee wouldn’t have done with a Dutchman or a Torbay trawler,’ said Stukely Culbrett. ‘But let us hear more.’
‘Is it fair?’ Miss Halkett murmured anxiously to Mrs. Lespel, who returned a flitting shrug.
‘Charming women follow Beauchamp, you know,’ Palmet proceeded, as he conceived, to confirm and heighten the tale of success. ‘There’s a Miss Denham, niece of a doctor, a Dr.... Shot—Shrapnel! a wonderfully good-looking, clever-looking girl, comes across him in half-a-dozen streets to ask how he’s getting on, and goes every night to his meetings, with a man who ‘s a writer and has a mad wife; a man named Lydia-no, that’s a woman—Lydiard. It’s rather a jumble; but you should see her when Beauchamp’s on his legs and speaking.’
‘Mr. Lydiard is in Bevisham?’ Mrs. Wardour-Devereux remarked.
‘I know the girl,’ growled Mr. Lespel. ‘She comes with that rascally doctor and a bobtail of tea-drinking men and women and their brats to Northeden Heath—my ground. There they stand and sing.’
‘Hymns?’ inquired Mr. Culbrett.
‘I don’t know what they sing. And when it rains they take the liberty to step over my bank into my plantation. Some day I shall have them stepping into my house.’
‘Yes, it’s Mr. Lydiard; I’m sure of the man’s name,’ Palmet replied to Mrs. Wardour-Devereux.
‘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…’
Now sounded Captain Baskelett’s trumpet.
Angry though he was, Beauchamp laughed. ‘Isn’t it exactly like the baron to spring a mine of this kind?’
There was decidedly humour in the plot, and it was a lusty quarterstaff blow into the bargain. Beauchamp’s head rang with it. He could not conceal the stunning effect it had on him. Gratitude and tenderness toward Cecilia for saving him, at the cost of a partial breach of faith that he quite understood, from the scandal of the public entry into Bevisham on the Tory coach-box, alternated with his interjections regarding his uncle Everard.
At eleven, Cecilia sat in her pony-carriage giving final directions to Mrs. Devereux where to look out for the Esperanza and the schooner’s boat. ‘Then I drive down alone,’ Mrs. Devereux said.
The gentlemen were all off, and every available maid with them on the coach-boxes, a brilliant sight that had been missed by Nevil and Cecilia.
‘Why, here’s Lydiard!’ said Nevil, supposing that Lydiard must be approaching him with tidings of the second Tory candidate. But Lydiard knew nothing of it. He was the bearer of a letter on foreign paper—marked urgent, in Rosamund’s hand—and similarly worded in the well-known hand which had inscribed the original address of the letter to Steynham.
Beauchamp opened it and read:
Chateau Tourdestelle
‘(Eure).
‘Come. I give you three days—no more.
‘RENEE.’
The brevity was horrible. Did it spring from childish imperiousness or tragic peril?
Beauchamp could imagine it to be this or that. In moments of excited speculation we do not dwell on the possibility that there may be a mixture of motives.
‘I fear I must cross over to France this evening,’ he said to Cecilia.
She replied, ‘It is likely to be stormy to-night. The steamboat may not run.’
‘If there’s a doubt of it, I shall find a French lugger. You are tired, from not sleeping last night.’
‘No,’ she answered, and nodded to Mrs. Devereux, beside whom Mr. Lydiard stood: ‘You will not drive down alone, you see.’
For a young lady threatened with a tempest in her heart, as disturbing to her as the one gathering in the West for ships at sea, Miss Halkett bore herself well.