Beauchamp's Career. Volume 3

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.'