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.’
‘Canvass 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 Goddess, 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 ship’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 guardship, 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 Circassian 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.
‘They’re not pearls of price,’ he said.
‘I do not wear them to fascinate the jewellers,’ rejoined Miss Halkett. ‘So you are a candidate at an Election. You still have a tinge of Africa, do you know? But you have not abandoned the navy?’
‘—Not altogether.’
‘Oh! no, no: I hope not. I have heard of you,… but who has not? We cannot spare officers like you. Papa was delighted to hear of your promotion. Parliament!’
The exclamation was contemptuous.
‘It’s the highest we can aim at,’ Beauchamp observed meekly.
‘I think I recollect you used to talk politics when you were a midshipman,’ she said. ‘You headed the aristocracy, did you not?’
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