Beauchamp's Career Part 17

'There'd be a second edition,' said Timothy, 'and you might buy up that.

But there'll be a third, and you may buy up that; but there'll be a fourth and a fifth, and so on ad infinitum, with the advertis.e.m.e.nt of the sale of the foregoing creating a demand like a rageing thirst in a s.h.i.+pwreck, in Bligh's boat, in the tropics. I'm afraid, Com--Captain Beauchamp, sir, there's no stopping the Press while the people have an appet.i.te for it--and a Company's at the back of it.'

'Pooh, don't talk to me in that way; all I complain of is the figure you have made of me,' said Beauchamp, fetching him smartly out of his nonsense; 'and all I ask of you is not to be at it again. Who would suppose from reading an article like that, that I am a candidate with a single political idea!'

'An article like that,' said Timothy, winking, and a little surer of his man now that he suggested his possession of ideas, 'an article like that is the best cloak you can put on a candidate with too many of 'em, Captain Beauchamp. I'll tell you, sir; I came, I heard of your candidature, I had your sketch, the pattern of ye, before me, and I was told that Dr. Shrapnel fathered you politically. There was my brief! I had to persuade our const.i.tuents that you, Commander Beauchamp of the Royal Navy, and the great family of the Earls of Romfrey, one of the heroes of the war, and the recipient of a Royal Humane Society's medal for saving life in Bevisham waters, were something more than the Radical doctor's political son; and, sir, it was to this end, aim, and object, that I wrote the article I am not ashamed to avow as mine, and I do so, sir, because of the solitary merit it has of serving your political interests as the liberal candidate for Bevisham by counteracting the unpopularity of Dr. Shrapnel's name, on the one part, and of reviving the credit due to your valour and high bearing on the field of battle in defence of your country, on the other, so that Bevisham may apprehend, in spite of party distinctions, that it has the option, and had better seize upon the honour, of making a M.P. of a hero.'

Beauchamp interposed hastily: 'Thank you, thank you for the best of intentions. But let me tell you I am prepared to stand or fall with Dr.

Shrapnel, and be hanged to all that humbug.'

Timothy rubbed his hands with an abstracted air of was.h.i.+ng. 'Well, commander, well, sir, they say a candidate's to be humoured in his infancy, for he has to do all the humouring before he's many weeks old at it; only there's the fact!--he soon finds out he has to pay for his first fling, like the son of a family sowing his oats to reap his Jews. Credit me, sir, I thought it prudent to counteract a bit of an apothecary's shop odour in the junior Liberal candidate's address. I found the town sniffing, they scented Shrapnel in the composition.'

'Every line of it was mine,' said Beauchamp.

'Of course it was, and the address was admirably worded, sir, I make bold to say it to your face; but most indubitably it threatened powerful drugs for weak stomachs, and it blew cold on votes, which are sensitive plants like nothing else in botany.'

'If they are only to be got by abandoning principles, and by anything but honesty in stating them, they may go,' said Beauchamp.

'I repeat, my dear sir, I repeat, the infant candidate delights in his honesty, like the babe in its nakedness, the beautiful virgin in her innocence. So he does; but he discovers it's time for him to wear clothes in a contested election. And what's that but to preserve the outlines pretty correctly, whilst he doesn't shock and horrify the optics? A dash of conventionalism makes the whole civilized world kin, ye know. That's the truth. You must appear to be one of them, for them to choose you. After all, there's no harm in a dyer's hand; and, sir, a candidate looking at his own, when he has won the Election...'

'Ah, well,' said Beauchamp, swinging on his heel, 'and now I'll take my leave of you, and I apologize for bringing you down here so early.

Please attend to what I have said; it's peremptory. You will give me great pleasure by dining with me to-night, at the hotel opposite.

Will you? I don't know what kind of wine I shall be able to offer you.

Perhaps you know the cellar, and may help me in that.'

Timothy grasped his hand, 'With pleasure, Commander Beauchamp. They have a bucellas over there that 's old, and a tolerable claret, and a Port to be inquired for under the breath, in a mysteriously intimate tone of voice, as one says, "I know of your treasure, and the corner under ground where it lies." Avoid the champagne: 'tis the banqueting wine.

Ditto the sherry. One can drink them, one can drink them.'

'At a quarter to eight this evening, then,' said Nevil.

'I'll be there at the stroke of the clock, sure as the date of a bill,'

said Timothy.

And it's early to guess whether you'll catch Bevisham or you won't, he reflected, as he gazed at the young gentleman crossing the road; but female Bevisham's with you, if that counts for much. Timothy confessed, that without the employment of any weapon save arrogance and a look of candour, the commander had gone some way toward catching the feminine side of himself.

CHAPTER XV. CECILIA HALKETT

Beauchamp walked down to the pier, where he took a boat for H.M.S. Isis, to see Jack Wilmore, whom he had not met since his return from his last cruise, and first he tried the efficacy of a dive in salt water, as a specific for irritation. It gave the edge to a fine appet.i.te that he continued to satisfy while Wilmore talked of those famous dogs to which the navy has ever been going.

'We want another panic, Beauchamp,' said Lieutenant Wilmore. 'No one knows better than you what a naval man has to complain of, so I hope you'll get your Election, if only that we may reckon on a good look-out for the interests of the service. A regular Board with a permanent Lord High Admiral, and a regular vote of money to keep it up to the mark.

Stick to that. Hardist has a vote in Bevisham. I think I can get one or two more. Why aren't you a Tory? No Whigs nor Liberals look after us half so well as the Tories. It's enough to break a man's heart to see the troops of dockyard workmen marching out as soon as ever a Liberal Government marches in. Then it's one of our infernal panics again, and patch here, patch there; every inch of it make-believe! I'll prove to you from examples that the humbug of Government causes exactly the same humbugging workmans.h.i.+p. It seems as if it were a game of "rascals all." Let them sink us! but, by heaven! one can't help feeling for the country. And I do say it's the doing of those Liberals. Skilled workmen, mind you, not to be netted again so easily. America reaps the benefit of our folly .... That was a lucky run of yours up the Niger; the admiral was friendly, but you deserved your luck. For G.o.d's sake, don't forget the state of our service when you're one of our cherubs up aloft, Beauchamp. This I'll say, I've never heard a man talk about it as you used to in old mids.h.i.+pmite days, whole watches through--don't you remember? on the North American station, and in the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean. And that girl at Malta! I wonder what has become of her? What a beauty she was! I dare say she wasn't so fine a girl as the Armenian you unearthed on the Bosphorus, but she had something about her a fellow can't forget. That was a lovely creature coming down the hills over Granada on her mule. Ay, we've seen handsome women, Nevil Beauchamp. But you always were lucky, invariably, and I should bet on you for the Election.'

'Canva.s.s for me, Jack,' said Beauchamp, smiling at his friend's unconscious double-skeining of subjects. 'If I turn out as good a politician as you are a seaman, I shall do. Pounce on Hardist's vote without losing a day. I would go to him, but I've missed the Halketts twice. They 're on the Otley river, at a place called Mount Laurels, and I particularly want to see the colonel. Can you give me a boat there, and come?'

'Certainly,' said Wilmore. 'I've danced there with the lady, the handsomest girl, English style, of her time. And come, come, our English style's the best. It wears best, it looks best. Foreign women... they're capital to flirt with. But a girl like Cecilia Halkett--one can't call her a girl, and it won't do to say G.o.ddess, and queen and charmer are out of the question, though she's both, and angel into the bargain; but, by George! what a woman to call wife, you say; and a man attached to a woman like that never can let himself look small. No such luck for me; only I swear if I stood between a good and a bad action, the thought of that girl would keep me straight, and I've only danced with her once!'

Not long after sketching this rough presentation of the lady, with a masculine hand, Wilmore was able to point to her in person on the deck of her father's yacht, the Esperanza, standing out of Otley river. There was a gallant splendour in the vessel that threw a touch of glory on its mistress in the minds of the two young naval officers, as they pulled for her in the s.h.i.+p's gig.

Wilmore sang out, 'Give way, men!'

The sailors bent to their oars, and presently the schooner's head was put to the wind.

'She sees we're giving chase,' Wilmore said. 'She can't be expecting me, so it must be you. No, the colonel doesn't race her. They've only been back from Italy six months: I mean the schooner. I remember she talked of you when I had her for a partner. Yes, now I mean Miss Halkett. Blest if I think she talked of anything else. She sees us. I'll tell you what she likes: she likes yachting, she likes Italy, she likes painting, likes things old English, awfully fond of heroes. I told her a tale of one of our men saving life. "Oh!" said she, "didn't your friend Nevil Beauchamp save a man from drowning, off the guards.h.i.+p, in exactly the same place?" And next day she sent me a cheque for three pounds for the fellow. Steady, men! I keep her letter.'

The boat went smoothly alongside the schooner. Miss Halkett had come to the side. The oars swung fore and aft, and Beauchamp sprang on deck.

Wilmore had to decline Miss Halkett's invitation to him as well as his friend, and returned in his boat. He left the pair with a ruffling breeze, and a sky all sail, prepared, it seemed to him, to enjoy the most delicious you-and-I on salt water that a sailor could dream of; and placidly envying, devoid of jealousy, there was just enough of fancy quickened in Lieutenant Wilmore to give him pictures of them without disturbance of his feelings--one of the conditions of the singular visitation we call happiness, if he could have known it.

For a time his visionary eye followed them pretty correctly. So long since they had parted last! such changes in the interval! and great animation in Beauchamp's gaze, and a blush on Miss Halkett's cheeks.

She said once, 'Captain Beauchamp.' He retorted with a solemn formality.

They smiled, and immediately took footing on their previous intimacy.

'How good it was of you to come twice to Mount Laurels,' said she. 'I have not missed you to-day. No address was on your card. Where are you staying in the neighbourhood? At Mr. Lespel's?'

'I'm staying at a Bevisham hotel,' said Beauchamp.

'You have not been to Steynham yet? Papa comes home from Steynham to-night.'

'Does he? Well, the Ariadne is only just paid off, and I can't well go to Steynham yet. I--' Beauchamp was astonished at the hesitation he found in himself to name it: 'I have business in Bevisham.'

'Naval business?' she remarked.

'No,' said he.

The sensitive prescience we have of a critical distaste of our proceedings is, the world is aware, keener than our intuition of contrary opinions; and for the sake of preserving the sweet outward forms of friendliness, Beauchamp was anxious not to speak of the business in Bevisham just then, but she looked and he had hesitated, so he said flatly, 'I am one of the candidates for the borough.'

'Indeed!'

'And I want the colonel to give me his vote.'

The young lady breathed a melodious 'Oh!' not condemnatory or reproachful--a sound to fill a pause. But she was beginning to reflect.

'Italy and our English Channel are my two Poles,' she said. 'I am constantly swaying between them. I have told papa we will not lay up the yacht while the weather holds fair. Except for the absence of deep colour and bright colour, what can be more beautiful than these green waves and that dark forest's edge, and the garden of an island! The yachting-water here is an unrivalled lake; and if I miss colour, which I love, I remind myself that we have temperate air here, not a sun that fiends you under cover. We can have our fruits too, you see.' One of the yachtsmen was handing her a basket of hot-house grapes, reclining beside crisp home-made loaflets. 'This is my luncheon. Will you share it, Nevil?'

His Christian name was pleasant to hear from her lips. She held out a bunch to him.

'Grapes take one back to the South,' said he. 'How do you bear compliments? You have been in Italy some years, and it must be the South that has worked the miracle.'

'In my growth?' said Cecilia, smiling. 'I have grown out of my Circa.s.sian dress, Nevil.'

'You received it, then?'

'I wrote you a letter of thanks--and abuse, for your not coming to Steynham. You may recognize these pearls.'

The pearls were round her right wrist. He looked at the blue veins.