His principal ally in a struggle which seemed to disturb him so little was his wife. Lady Henfield, a woman of the most captivating vitality, called at every house in the constituency, smiled, flattered, and joked into friendship the hearts of all the women, and fearlessly bestowed upon either sex indifferently the marks of a warm appreciation which, from such a woman, are never thrown away. Many a household could tell, long before the contest was engaged, of deeds of kindness which her genuine sympathy with the populace forbade her to noise abroad, and her known influence upon the Board of Pleeson's Charity, a social work of immense importance in the neighbourhood, lent her a high and most legitimate influence in all that she did in Mickleton. She had had the sense to take a house for her husband in the locality, and though they but rarely slept in this distant quarter of the metropolis, the excellent way in which it was served and furnished naturally impressed her neighbours of every degree.
All this counteracted, to no slight extent, Lord Henfield's insufficient performances upon the platform, and no one acquainted with electoral campaigning will deny that the enthusiasm or disapproval of popular audiences counts little as compared with the domestic effect of private visits and of good deeds coming from the heart. To all this wasadded on the Wednesday, a false step on the part of Mr. Clutterbuck, which for the first time, and that so near the poll, was a serious setback to the tide in his favour. A gentleman of considerable means, a printer and dyer of the name of Stephens, who had frequently appeared upon Mr. Clutterbuck's platform and had seemed, even to the keen eye of Charlie Fitzgerald, to be an inoffensive plutocrat, insisted upon receiving the candidate and his wife as his guests at Bongers End during the last days of the struggle.
"It will save your husband," he said to Mrs. Clutterbuck, "those long night journeys to Croydon which a man at his age cannot afford to despise, and will give Mrs. Stephens and myself and my two sons and my daughter Clara and Miss Curle the very greatest pride and pleasure."
This apparently innocuous proposal, which Mrs. Clutterbuck eagerly accepted for her husband, was a threefold error. A long-standing rivalry, or rather enmity, existed between their new host and a Mr. Clay, whose engineering works were perhaps the most important industry in Mickleton, and who as a Tory Home Ruler of some years' standing, was now naturally the head of the National Party since the establishment of a Parliament in Dublin and the framing of the new tariff had called that party into existence. He bitterly resented the honour shownto his rival, and it needed all the tact of Fitzgerald to prevent his influence being thrown into the wrong scale. But that tact was well exercised. Fitzgerald called upon Mr. Clay late at night, described Mr. Clutterbuck's intense desire to have been the guest of Mr. Clay, his hesitation to invite himself, the brutal forwardness of his rival, while the whole story was cemented by a description of blood relationship between Mrs. Clutterbuck and Mrs. Stephens, which, in later days, Fitzgerald himself did not hesitate to deny.
To lead the close of the campaign from Mr. Stephen's mansion at Bongers End was still more dangerous, from the fact that a quarrel had arisen between that gentleman and one of his workmen, whom indeed he had almost dismissed: had the tragedy actually occurred, the situation would have been not very different from the famous cause of the strike at Podger's Wharf, and the parallel was often drawn between the one case and the other in the humbler homes of Mickleton. Finally, Mr. Clutterbuck had not calculated, when he yielded to the warm pressure of his host, that his famous declaration upon total abstinence would there be taken in its literal sense. The principles of the National Party—which had now for two years advocated voluntary abstinence as an alternative to predatory legislation against the trade—forbade Mr. Clutterbuck to touch wine or spirits when he was actually present in the constituency, and he knew very well that if he were returned to the House of Commons it would be necessary for him to take his meals in the new rooms set apart for those who not only denied themselves the use of such beverages, but had the stalwart manhood to forego so much as the sight of others who were causing Israel to sin. But he would never have been able to support the fatigues of those wild days had he not carried in his pocket a flask of B.Q. cognac, and had he not been able from time to time to escape from a midday meal to his club, or better still, to some restaurant where he was unknown. He had, further, on returning to Surrey every night, freely restored his energies by vigorous draughts of port, a wine to which he had grown accustomed and whose use he could ill spare.
It was, therefore, no small handicap to find continual allusion made under Mr. Stephens's roof to his valiant and thorough-going principles, nor did it help the situation to see round him every member of the household, including Mrs. Clutterbuck and his secretary, served with the most generous vintages, while he was compelled to choose milk (which he had never yet been able to digest), water, against which he had been often warned, or those aerated substitutes which hisdoctor had repeatedly insisted to be, in his particular case, no better than windy poisons.
His vigour declined; his voice grew worse and worse; he hesitated in the midst of his speeches; he contradicted himself more than once. The first serious opposition, upon the Wednesday night, threw him into a fever of anxiety from which he had not recovered the next day. He appeared unpunctually before an impatient audience and actually forgot to appear at all at a smaller meeting later in the evening: a piece of folly that cost him fifty votes.
Meanwhile the renewed energies of his opponents rendered his position less and less enviable as the day of the poll approached, although the Opposition suffered in this election, as in every other, from the very grave drawback that it had no fixed name.
Since 1910 a heterogeneous body, in which the old theoretical Free-Traders, of whose exalted principle and vivid intellectual power theSpectatorwas the voice, the wide sporting interests whose principal organ was theWinning Post, the new Socialist group and the remnants of Unionist and Orange following had coalesced; and though no leader of the first rank appeared, an able secretary, Mr. Ephraim, managed to control the old party chest, but upon a name they could not agree, and in almost every separate by-election their candidate appeared undera different label. Their hold upon the electorate depended upon a promise of future reforms which it would take many years to carry out and in which the populace but half believed, coupled with somewhat academic criticism upon the mistakes of the party in office. But this last weapon, the most powerful weapon of any opposition, they could not use with effect against the administration of a young and popular Prime Minister, of little more than forty years of age, whose enormous wealth and well-known delicacy of lung alike endeared him to the reasonable heart of the people.
Moreover, the Opposition lacked an effective party cry: for the editor of theSpectator'sadmirable epigram, "No fleet, no meat," had offended the powerful vegetarian group, and Mr. Tylee's quatrain in theBanner of Israelwas above the heads of the vulgar.
Such was the strength and the weakness of either side when upon Friday, the day before the poll, the last meetings were held, the last placards posted, and the affairs of the opposing parties finally put in order.
To Mr. Clutterbuck's extreme surprise—for the details of our political life were still new to him—a bag of sovereigns was distributed among the stout hearts who had worked so hard in the Cause, and Mr. Stephens, humorously calling himself forthe occasion "the Bogey Man"—a pseudonym received with grateful laughter—saw that the hundred good fellows who had toiled from door to door should receive refreshment as well as honest wage. It was distributed in the garage attached to his magnificent villa, and the day wound up finding all, with the exception of the candidate himself, well satisfied.
There was no doubt that Mr. Clutterbuck was pitiably overwrought. Had he dared he would have broken through the convention of so many arduous days and have drunk freely from some revivifying spring. But his conscience and his common sense alike forbade him.
He looked forward in despair to the night as his only chance of solace and relief, and prayed for such repose as might fit him to meet the terrible strain of the morrow; but that night Mr. Clutterbuck, for all his exhaustion, slept ill.
He rose frequently in the small hours to swallow one of the Hornsby lozenges or, when these palled upon him, one of the Glarges. At times he gargled, and at others, filling his chest to the fullest extent and retaining his breath to the utmost of his capacity, he murmured the syllables which he had been assured would strengthen the vocal chords. He could not, in a stranger's house and at such an hour, permit himself the loud roar which the VoiceProducer had insisted upon: it would have been discourteous and, what was worse, it might have impaired his now assured reputation for consistency and sober judgment. It was doubtless, however, owing to this unfortunate but necessary omission that he owed, next day, his complete inability to speak above a whisper.
He rose tired out at seven, dressed wearily, and came down upon that fatal day, November 19, 1911. He saw with increased depression that it was raining. He was, I am sorry to say, so distressed during the heartfelt and simple family prayers of the household as to overset the chair at which he knelt; and at breakfast his nervousness was so intense as to be positively painful to his kind host and hostess, who pressed upon him with assiduous hospitality, kidneys, eggs, bacon, haddock seethed in milk, sausages, cold pheasant, Virginia peach-fed ham, and kedgeree. He was indifferent to all these things.
During the few moments after breakfast which our great English merchants devote to glancing at the daily Press, he could not bring himself to look at the papers which lay upon the table. He so dreaded the insults of the one, he dreaded so much more in another the condensed reports of what he might have said, that he found himself longing, in a sort of dazed way, for some news sheet in which theworld might be presented to him empty of his own famous name. As it was, I repeat, he dared not open one of them.
Luckily for him his cheery host did not leave him long in this misery. He found him standing listless in the hall, slapped him on the back and said in a loud and hearty voice:
"You've got to come with me! The motor's ready and the Missus'll be coming down at once." Then he whispered as the suggestion required: "Brandy? All's Mum!"
Mr. Clutterbuck refused it, and in a few moments his host had returned with a decanter of the inspiring beverage. Mr. Clutterbuck gulped a great mouthful fearfully, choked, and suffered, but he was grateful, and the more grateful for the rapidity with which Mr. Stephens suddenly rapt the dangerous friend away.
They went out together to the car. Within a quarter of an hour his hostess and Mrs. Clutterbuck had joined them. There was a little byplay as to who should sit in the front seats—a byplay in which Mr. Clutterbuck himself was too dispirited to join—but it was soon decided by the ladies themselves that the hero of the occasion should appear next to the driver, nor did the physical danger to which such a position exposed him enter the minds of these loyal friends.
They proceeded upon the round of the constituency. The streets were empty and the rain continued to fall. At the corner of Mafeking Avenue and Paradise Row, a group of young people upon their way to school cheered loudly upon seeing the National colours, while with childish thoughtlessness some of their number threw petty missiles after the retreating car. As they passed down the smaller streets they were gratified to see Mr. Clutterbuck's portrait, reposing upon a British lion of formidable aspect and draped as to the hinder quarters in a Union Jack, prominent in the windows even of the public-houses.
At the police station Mr. Clutterbuck felt his first movement of emotion at the sight of a policeman who was coming in mackintoshes out of the door, and who saluted with promptitude and respect.
The first polling booth to which they came contained none but the officials, but it was Mr. Clutterbuck's duty to enter, to look cheerful and to shake them by the hand.
"Nothing doing here?" he wheezed with an uneasy smile.
"There've been a few," said the chief with an indifference that did not betray his own politics. "They're not coming very fast. The weather's against 'em."
As he said this, a very short man with a sly, rapidglance and a jerky manner, darted in, carefully huddled himself round his voting paper, dropped it into the ballot box, darted a look of violent animosity at Mr. Clutterbuck, and was out again in a flash.
He was followed by a publican who shook hands heartily with the candidate, said merrily, "Well, which way 'm I going to vote, I wonder?" and disappeared into the hutch puffing and blowing, came out again, shook hands again, renewed his witticism in a somewhat different form: "Well, which way did I vote, I wonder?"—and waddled out.
Mr. Clutterbuck could bear no more. He climbed again into the motor-car after nodding as genially as he could to the officials at the table, and was asked by his host where he should go next.
He suggested Kipling Crescent.
The school in Kipling Crescent, by one of those contrasts which are symbolic of our enduring sense of equality, though standing in the chief residential street of Mickleton, was sure to receive the largest artisan vote, for it was behind the Crescent that the densest and poorest population of the borough lay. Here there was more animation. A steady if thin stream of workmen came in to record their votes. Few of them expressed any strong interest in the presence of their candidate; one or two touched their caps to the man who was to restoreto them the rights of human beings; others smiled somewhat foolishly as they passed him: the greater part did not recognise him at all. One man, to whom manual labour had never appealed, and whose pathetic, intelligent eyes betrayed a world of suffering and of want, approached him and murmured a few words. Mr. Clutterbuck caught them indifferently, but they were quite enough. He remembered the fatal half sovereign, and he leapt for the car.
So the morning passed in visiting one booth after another. The rain ceased; there was a trifle more life round certain booths; the coming and going of vehicles bearing the colours of either candidate was continuous. These, as they passed each other, would sometimes indulge in playful sarcasm. Now and then an honest fight arose, but no serious injuries were received, and it was not until the afternoon that the streets began to fill.
Thence onward the scene changed. Many who had come from other parts of London were now free to satisfy their curiosity; the relaxation from labour and the lengthy discussions which already enlivened the public-houses were beginning to bear their fruit. There was a sort of murmur throughout the whole area of the borough, a murmur which in places rose to a roar.
It had been arranged by the agents of the twoparties that the car of Mr. Clutterbuck's host should accidentally meet that of Lord Henfield in front of the Cap and Bells. There was some little delay, and it was at first feared that the light would not be strong enough for the photographer who was waiting concealed at an adjoining window. Luckily, before it was too late, and when Mr. Stephens's car had waited less than ten minutes, Lord Henfield's appeared at the opposite end of the street, the two candidates recognised each other after the first moment of surprise, descended and shook hands warmly amid the enthusiastic cheers of the considerable assemblage; it was apparent to all no petty personal quarrel would lessen the majesty of that day's verdict.
As darkness came on the polling began to grow noticeably heavier. Oddly enough the female or lady electors, who had during daylight remained concealed, came out with the fall of evening. The middle classes, to which this class of voter chiefly belongs, have an ample leisure to record their opinion, but even those most thickly veiled preferred a late hour in which to register their votes which, so far as could be judged, were cast mainly in the National interest. In deference to the strong feeling which the sex entertains upon this matter, the returning officer had permitted the presence of pet dogs in the polling booths. It was upon thesethat the Party favours were most conspicuously displayed, and it must be admitted that in the greater number of cases they were of the popular magenta hue.
Lady Henfield recorded her vote as a lodger in her husband's house a little before seven, and came out full of frisk and smile, having doubtless given her voice in favour of the name she bore.
Mrs. Clutterbuck could claim no such privilege, nor was it the least of Mr. Clutterbuck's many chagrins upon this eventful day to consider the natural mortification which his wife must have suffered, and would very probably express when occasion served, to see Lady Henfield enjoy that Englishwoman's right of which she had herself been deprived.
During the last hour before eight o'clock, there clustered an amazing throng at every booth, and the intoxication produced by the state of public feeling and the domestic habits of the neighbourhood—which were never indulged to a higher degree than upon this occasion—communicated to the best balanced and the most indifferent a certain degree of enthusiasm. Mr. Clutterbuck had snatched a hasty sandwich and a glass of lime juice at the refreshment bar in the Town Hall when the booths were declared closed and he was admitted to the counting-room.
There were few present. He and Lord Henfield were supported by perhaps half a dozen helpers and friends. The Mayor and his young nephew sat in chairs at a table at the end of the long room, to which the bundles of votes were brought as the sorters counted them. They were laid in two long lines, one for each candidate, upon this table, and the lines had all the appearance of two snakes rapidly increasing in length and running a race as to which should be longest when their growth should cease.
During all the early part of the counting the issue seemed doubtful enough. Lord Henfield, spruce, anxious, alert, walked up and down the sorting benches, turned up continually to glance at the increasing pile of votes, and as continually strolled back with an intimate companion to interest himself in the business of the sorting, a sight with which he was unfamiliar.
As for Mr. Clutterbuck, he was numb to every sensation. The day had been too much for him, and he had become quite careless as to whether he lived or died. He stood, well groomed but with leaden eyes, moving very little from his place near the mayor's table, when he chanced to gaze at the two lines of paper bundles and saw that his own was leading. It did not appear to his unpractised eye to be any considerable lead; the oneline was now perhaps a yard long, the other possibly forty inches. But to the trained observation of those who had seen half a dozen contests in the borough, it was decisive.
Mr. Maple whispered hoarsely:
"You're in!"
And Mr. Clutterbuck answered without a voice:
"Am I?"
There were but few more bundles to come. The most of them perhaps were added to Lord Henfield's column, but they did not redress the balance.
Lord Henfield's companion, looking as pleasant as he could, pulled out a £5 note which that nobleman pocketed with evident satisfaction. The mayor jotted down figures upon a bit of paper; when he announced the result, Mr. Clutterbuck was elected by the overwhelming majority of 1028 on the heaviest poll the constituency had known. Something like 92 per cent. had voted upon a register not precisely new, and over 19,000—to be accurate, 19,123—votes had been recorded.
The mayor congratulated Mr. Clutterbuck upon the sweeping success, he shook hands with him and repeated the figures. He congratulated Lord Henfield upon the plucky fight he had made; he congratulated the sorters upon their accuracy, the counters upon their zeal, and the borough upon itsself-control at a time when feeling had run high. He congratulated the police upon their conduct throughout a very difficult and trying day; and he was in the act of congratulating the borough council in the same connection, when a wild roar outside the building showed that the result had been betrayed or guessed.
They adjourned hurriedly to the great hall over the portico. The window was open, and so far as the glare from within the room would permit them, they perceived an enormous mob, filling the whole square and stretching far into the streets which converged upon it. The deafening noises which had startled them in the inner recesses of the counting room were as nothing to the hurricane of shouts, cheers, and good-natured blasphemy which swirled about them when they appeared at the balcony. In vain did the mayor, with a pleasant smile upon his face which the darkness alone concealed, raise his hands a dozen times to impose silence. The swaying of the crowd, the cries of those who suffered pressure against the walls upon its exterior parts, nay, the occasional crash of broken glass, seemed only to add to the frenzy.
An individual who, I am glad to say, turned out to be a youth of irresponsible demeanour, caused a moment's panic by firing a pistol. The mayor,with admirable promptitude, took the opportunity of the silence that followed to read out the figures. They were not heeded, but the renewed bellowing which followed their announcement was more eloquent than any mere statement of the majority could have been. The populace were wild with joy at their victory, and that portion of them who as bitterly mourned defeat would have been roughly handled had they not numbered quite half this vast assembly of human beings.
When some measure of silence had been achieved, Mr. Clutterbuck and Lord Henfield shook hands for the second time that day in a public manner, to the supreme delight of both friend and foe.
Mr. Clutterbuck recited in an inaudible croak the few courteous and manly words which he had prepared for the occasion, and Lord Henfield, a little before Mr. Clutterbuck had completed his last sentence, delivered, in much louder but equally inaudible tones, his apology for defeat, and his prophecy that he would be more successful upon the next occasion.
Before Mr. Clutterbuck could be allowed to go back to the hospitable roof at Bongers End, he was required to visit his Committee Rooms and to address the workers. His mind was still a blank, but he bowed to them civilly enough and emittedsome few hoarse whispers thanking them for their unfailing courage, tact, loyalty, gentlemanly feeling, tireless industry, exhaustive labours and British pluck. For a moment, and only for a moment, the memory of the bag of sovereigns swept over his mind. He was too tired to heed even that memory, and he almost fell into his chair when he had concluded.
It must be confessed that the workers were a trifle disappointed; their honest faces, upon many of which the growth of a three-days' beard denoted their unremitting attention to the duties before them, looked anxiously above their thick neckcloths as though they had expected something more from the man upon whom the eyes of all England were turned, and whose conspicuous position they had largely helped him to attain. The situation was solved by Mr. Maple, who, in a voice worthy of that occasion or of any other, addressed the workers as his fellows and his equals—for had he not himself begun life as a working man?—and reiterated with manly enthusiasm, not only the legitimate praise accorded them by the exhausted Mr. Clutterbuck, but his own frequently expressed admiration of their self-denial, zeal, sincerity, conviction, spontaneous, unflagging hope and indomitable courage.
"Gentlemen," he concluded, and gentlemen was surely the term for these loyal-hearted men, "wethank you from the bottom of our hearts, not because you have returned Mr. Clutterbuck—don't think that! What is a man in such mighty moments as these? No, but because you have saved the great principle that...."
The remaining three words of his peroration were lost in a frenzy of applause. The platform rose and bowed, and as refreshments could not be given (under the "Corrupt Practices Act") within the precincts of the building, the proceedings terminated with a hearty handshake all round and the immediate dispersion of the audience to another place.
When they reached home, Mr. Clutterbuck's kind host, though himself an abstainer, opened a bottle of champagne, not indeed for Mr. Clutterbuck, whose principles he well knew, but for Mrs. Clutterbuck, his wife, to whom was given the toast of honour, for Mr. Maple, for Mr. Maple's nephew and his two sons, and a Mr. and Mrs. Charles, who between them did honour to the bottle, and very soon despatched it; then, in the midst of hearty thanks and renewed congratulations, each party left for its home.
And that night at last, after so many nights, Mr. Clutterbuck was permitted to sleep, and slept.
He was a Member of Parliament.
CHAPTER VIII
TheMickleton election was a blow that sounded through England. The hardy mountaineers of Wales, to whom our discussions, save where they regard religion, so rarely appeal, knew that the manhood of the slate quarries was free; sailors, newly landed from distant climes, though singularly apathetic as a class to the glories of our party system, found themselves expected to lift one of their many glasses to the Mickleton election; and in the bowels of the earth the brawny miners of Durham alluded to Mr. Clutterbuck and his success in the simplest and most poignant of terms.
The thoughtful who direct the development of English Socialism had seen, long before, the capital nature of the crisis, and naturally deplored an expression of public opinion which by forbidding forced labour set so powerful an obstacle in the path of the ideal state; the strict party organs of the Opposition were also bound to deplore the result, but every sheet of independent position was agreed as to the significance of the election andfew judges indeed since Jeffries have incurred the epithets, whether grave or severe, which had so long been withheld, and now, on the morrow of the election, fell from all sides upon the honest but narrow and pointed head of Mr. Justice Hunnybubble—for Welch (concurring) was by now quite ignored, and the stronger man was the target of renown.
The wide field of suburban, colonial, American and Indian thought commanded by theSpectatormight indeed have murmured at the new privilege which the working classes threatened to acquire, had not that review with singular manliness and courage stood out at the critical moment with a strong declaration in favour of the spirit which Mickleton had shown.
"England," the editor did not hesitate to pen, "is not tied to a formula or a syllogism, but to freedom slowly broadening down from precedent to precedent,"[5]and he went so far as to contemplate with unflinching courage—nay, to command—the release of Fishmonger and Another, for whom the principal Halls had already begun an active competition.
The very different world which is so largely influenced by theWinning Postwas equally sound, and the weekly character, "In a Glass House," of that powerful instrument of national opinion was Mr. Clutterbuck himself, characterised as a sportsman, excused for his personal sobriety, portrayed in a top hat, frock coat, trousers, spats, buttoned boots, and perhaps thirty years less than his actual age.
TheSporting Timeshad two good jokes heartily sympathetic with the judgment of Mickleton.Punchpublished upon the great verdict a set of beautiful verses which will long be remembered in our English parsonages; and theDaily Mailheaded their leader "The Burial of Harmanism."
England was awake; the great principle of unilateral compulsion had taken firm root, and never more would the detestable miasma of Continental pedantry threaten the free life of our land.
For the Government the position was not easy, though it was evidently one to be faced. No Administration can afford to treat the Bench lightly. Buffle might be in trouble any day. They had, moreover, at least three great measures in hand, commanding no considerable popular support; one which the electorate had not heard of and another quite odious to it. This sudden and spontaneous demonstration by a London borough against a judicial decision which had nothing to do with party or policy was a factor of grave disturbance in that routine of the House of Commons which is as regular in its way as the breathing of a profound sleep. The Cabinet was dispersed inMonte Carlo, Devonshire, Palermo and New York, a decision could not be come to upon so grave a matter for many days to come, and yet an early opening of the session in January was plainly imperative. The intensity of feeling against the judgment which Mr. Clutterbuck's election had condemned, grew with every day, and the young head of the National party, who suffered somewhat from the right lung and filled the Premiership so brilliantly and so well, had indeed a heavy problem to resolve.
The first act of Mr. Clutterbuck when he returned, the morning after his triumph, to his beautiful Surrey home, was to sign a cheque for yet another thousand pounds, and to enclose it with a letter of heartfelt emotion to the funds of the Party. He expressed in this letter his indifference to the particular object for which, in the Party's judgment, it might be used, and assured Mr. Delacourt that it was but a slight acknowledgement on his part of what was the duty of every man in support of those principles which have made England great. Charlie Fitzgerald thoroughly approved of his action, and was free to point out that its spontaneous character would render it of double effect. To this action there succeeded an interval of repose.
For several weeks a round of social recreationdispelled the strain to which Mr. Clutterbuck had been subjected during the course of his campaign; his house was filled with a perpetually changing attendance of friends to enjoy a few days of his company, and to congratulate him upon the honour of which he had proved worthy. Nor did many of them forget to hint—some of them deliberately declared—that it was but the gate to further and greater honours: though it must be admitted that the now ageing politician neither desired nor expected promotion to Cabinet rank.
As the procession of City men, Croydon acquaintances and earlier friends who had now rallied to Mr. Clutterbuck in his declining years filled "the Plâs," Charlie Fitzgerald very honourably took the holiday he had heartily earned. He went down, at Mary Smith's pressing invitation, to her quiet but historic Habberton upon the borders of Exmoor, found there the society of his boyhood, and was the life of that little party, with his amusing imitations of social customs in the suburbs, his frank pleasure in the champagne which he had chosen for his cousin, his madcap bouts upon the little Devon ponies which were incapable of throwing so large a rider, and his jests which never exceeded the limits imposed by the presence of women, several of whom were devout adherents of the Christian faith.
With all this a certain new glory surrounded Charlie, a glory reflected from the result of the Mickleton election. The people among whom he was for the moment a companion at quiet but historic Habberton were not of a kind to exaggerate the influence of a by-election upon the general scheme of English government; but they did appreciate that here was one of themselves who could weigh the temper of a great constituency and could understand very different classes of men; for Charlie was not slow to let them understand the part he had played in the business.
During any mention of that campaign his cousin Nobby looked so thoroughly miserable that it went to Charlie's soft Irish heart.
Nobby had had plenty of money once. He had stood for Parliament when he was barely of age, more as a freak and to please his mother than with serious intentions of political life; but a defeat by over 3000 votes coupled with the gradual dissipation of his fortune had rendered him more sensitive than was perhaps healthy. A place had been found for him in the Heralds' College, but the salary was miserably small, and apart from the prestige of such a position, he would almost have been willing to throw up the perpetual application it demanded and to go and live quietly hunting and shooting at his mother's place in Derbyshire: for though thewidow had herself but a small dower, she could afford to receive her spendthrift son.
It was a good thing that he had not yet completed that intention; for Charlie, as he watched him in those days at Habberton, found a piece of work for him which might well lead to greater things. He took his cousin out one morning to see the stags fed in the new Bethlehem, warned Mary Smith that they wanted to be alone, and as they crossed the park he proposed to Nobby a visit to The Plâs.
Nobby could see nothing in it at all; nay, he met the proposition with horror, until it dawned upon him that perhaps some definite and tangible action was in the wind, and he asked in the most natural manner whether he could look forward to any of the Ready?
Charlie was impatient.
"My good Nobby," he said, "don't you know how things are done in this world? They're bound to give him a handle!"
"That," said Nobby in a refined manner, "makes my dream come true, but really, if you think it affects me——"
"Good God!" said Charlie, "don't you see where you come in?"
"I could go and pump him," said Nobby wearily, "but, oh lord, Charlie, if you only knew! I musthave pumped fifty of 'em this year. The worst are the Johnnies that want Supporters. We'll give them Mullets and even a Fesse Argent or two, but we're very rigid about Supporters," he said solemnly. "You don't get Supporters over the counter, I can tell you."
"Nobby," said Charlie, waving all this trash aside, "to put it plainly, you got to go and tell the old boy how it's done ... I mean ... you got to let him know how it's done. Don't make a fool of yourself," he added, looking doubtfully at his young cousin, and wondering whether this piece of generosity were wise or not, "I'm not going to be butchered to make a Roman holiday."
"I'll go, Charlie," said Nobby humbly, "I understand. But can't anyone see to something of the Ready? After all, I've got to get there, and I shall have to give something to the servants."
"I'll ask Mary," said Charlie nobly.
"No you don't," shouted Nobby, "she turned me down this morning. Damnably!"
"Oh, but this is work," said Charlie reproachfully.
Nobby looked grim. "It's spondulicks, anyway," he said. And Charlie very reluctantly pulled out four pounds and a few shillings.
Nobby pocketed it without much gratitude.
"You know, Nobby," said Charlie, watching hisexpression, "if you pull it off sensibly, he won't forget you!"
"Oh, I know all about that," said Nobby wearily. "They're awfully grateful, but one never gets one's fingers on the flimsies. I'll make a last shot, anyhow."
Charlie Fitzgerald did not stand on ceremony; he knew the kind hearts of the Clutterbucks too well; he wrote a longish letter to Mrs. Clutterbuck about his cousin Robert in the Heralds' College, introduced a word or two about his late father and grandfather, the Lord Storrington of the famine, said the lad would be stopping in their neighbourhood and would really like to come over, enclosed a stamped envelope, "The Hon. Robert Parham, Habberton Park, Barnstaple," and within forty-eight hours Nobby, carefully primed as to where he had been stopping in the neighbourhood of Croydon, and whom exactly he would see and meet, was off to pass a week-end at The Plâs.
His ironical temper and obvious poverty seemed at first ill-suited to the merchant's table, but Mrs. Clutterbuck herself forgave him when she discovered, as she immediately did, the warm heart which lay beneath these external disabilities: by the Sunday night his conversation was already absorbing; she begged him to return, and he did.
The second visit was far prolonged. They couldnot bear to let the merry boy go, and his frank anecdotes upon the leading men of the day, intimate acquaintance with most of whom he could proudly claim, afforded them not only amusement, but the deeper pleasure of a profound interest, and it was in connection with these that he took such frequent occasion to deride the too facile conference of titles which, as he perpetually affirmed, was the jest of the world in which he moved.
He quoted more than one case in which without any subscription to objects of public utility, wealthy men, merely because they were wealthy, had been granted a baronetcy; he joked about his work in the Heralds' College, contrasting such gewgaws as parvenus descend to buy, with the honest old yeoman crest upon the silver of his host, and was especially severe upon the establishment of fixed prices for public honours; a practice which he declared almost worse than the granting of titles to the unworthy.
Of the guests who listened to him with the respect due to an expert, few ventured to contradict or even to criticise, but it must be admitted that Sir Julius Mosher, who had been knighted years ago on the occasion of Cornelius Hertz's reception at the Guildhall, was inclined one evening at Mr. Clutterbuck's table to be a trifle interrogatory.
"I never gave a penny," he said, "and I think Imay say that for most men in the City," he added, looking round the table and meeting with a murmur of approval.
"I would never dream of saying such a thing," said Nobby warmly. He blushed a little, but looked at the same time so kindly and so sincere that his embarrassment did but enhance the good opinion all had formed of the young man.
"Thank God there are still some honours left thatarehonours! Now, I suppose nearly all the new peers ... take the new peers ... nobody minds; and then most baronets ... sincethisGovernment came in.... Still theydidpay. And I do say what I most hate in the whole affair is regular prices fixed. It isn't cricket."
"But, after all," said a Mr. Hutchinson, a doctor of considerable means, and of a solid, quiet judgment. "What do you mean by 'fixed'?" He put up his hand to dissuade interruption, and to Nobby's horror opened in the intonation of a set speech: "Remember the importance of what you are saying. Chrm! You are in the Heralds' College, and you hear a great many things. Chrm! No one denies for a moment that large subscriptions to some public object are often rewarded by some public honour.... I may be a little easy-going, but I really don't see any harm in it. Everybody knows it is—er—done; the recipients are worthy men and they are just thekind of men who have always been made knights and baronets, and even peers when they were important enough."
The brief discourse was well and clearly delivered; it earned the gratitude of all those older men around the table in whom the art of living had bred common sense and to whom short speeches at dinner were familiar; to do justice to Nobby, he was the first to let his sense of justice return.
"You mustn't take me too seriously," he said in his decent smiling way. "One talks in shorthand. I don't mean a real tariff, nobody could mean that, but I think that in the past, 'specially about ten years ago, turn of the century and with all the fuss of the war on, theydidhand things about.... Oh, there were orders as well, you know."
Mrs. Clutterbuck smiled at him from the head of the table. "No one blames you, I'm sure," she said. "But Mr. Parham there was not too much recognition of the people who stood by their country then." She looked meaningly at her husband. "I'm sure if you made a list of those pro-Boers who've been...."
"Half time, Mrs. Clutterbuck, half time," said Sir Julius Mosher kindly. He had been among the most prominent opponents of our Colonial policy at that moment, and he felt bound to protest against the word Pro-Boer, but his protest was singularlysweet and winning and did not for a moment disturb the harmony of the evening.
The ladies retired, not to the Persian room which was rarely inhabited in winter, but to the snuggery. Nobby held the door for them as they went out, and added to his laurels by the perfect apology he made for tearing Lady Mosher's train.
The conversation between the men drifted on to other subjects, foxhunting, lithia water, the Territorial army, and all the rest upon which men of this stamp are particularly engaged; while Dr. Hutchinson, who feared he might have offended the enthusiastic young fellow, took a chair by his side, and upon Nobby's mentioning the name of his grandfather, Lord Storrington, furnished the most interesting and voluminous details upon that nobleman's last illness, operation, and death.
Much later, when all the rest had said good-night, Nobby, who loved a farewell glass, followed his host to the old smoking-room, preserving his balance in the dark corridor by a hand upon either wall. They sat together exchanging the common-places that will pass between newly found friends when they are at last alone, until Mr. Clutterbuck, who had spent a few moments with his wife arranging matters for the following day, turned to a subject he could not wholly ignore, and said with perfect tact:
"I beg your pardon, but now that we're alone, tell me, how much really is there in what you were saying? I know there's more in it than those gentlemen say, and you think there's more in it, don't you?" For Mr. Clutterbuck, like many men newly introduced to the necessary compromises and halftones of our manifold political life, was still ready to receive secrets that seemed to him dramatic and to criticise from close at hand methods which during the most of his life he had only known as vague rumours.
Nobby very thoughtfully chose from the silver box beside him a gigantic cigar, and said, holding the matchbox in his hand ready to strike:
"Tell you the truth, there's precious little," and having said that he laughed with the laugh of a boy, and suddenly subsided into his chair.
"Well, but," said Mr. Clutterbuck, without insistence, "there must be this much in it, that a man who sacrifices more than a certain amount and is known to be a hearty supporter of the tariff, for instance, or of the evacuation of Egypt, or ... or let's say what the Government did last June in Burmah would be noticed, I suppose?"
"Oh yes," said Nobby, speaking as of a common-place. "But that's true of course of anything. If a man's known to 've done somethingreallyhandsome, silly not to recognise him. 'Sides which,it'sdone, always done. What I was complainin' of was the people who really haven't got any claim at all. F'r instance," he said, lowering his voice and looking over his shoulder for a moment, "Johnnie Higgins...."
"Sir John Higgins?" said Mr. Clutterbuck, startled at the name of that prominent country gentleman.
"Yes," went on Nobby simply, "JohnnieHigginswouldn't 've had anything in the course of nature. Of course hewantedit, and he hasn't got a son, an' one way an' another.... But still, therewasthe regulation price of five thousand."
"Well, five thousand," said Mr. Clutterbuck, his head bent well backwards, his eyes regarding the ceiling, and his tone expressing the enormity of the sum——
"No, but," continued Nobby, up on his feet again,—"Idoobject, and so would you if you were where I am; five thousand means different things to different men; now just because a man is in parliament and weighs in with five thousand...."
Here he was silent. He had some regard for truth and he felt that his temperament was running away with him. How many men he could call to mind who had given first and last twenty, thirty, forty thousand pounds to some great cause and had remained the plain commoners they were born. Itwould have been well for him and for his host if he had spoken aloud as the confession passed through his thought, but Nobby was as weak as he was good-natured and that thought remained unexpressed.
Mr. Clutterbuck continued his theme. Financial success had bred in him a dependence upon fact and figure. Five thousand pounds was a very large sum, but it was tangible; it was precise; one could write it down.
"I know men," he said slowly, "to whom that would be a capital: believe me, a considerable capital. Why, there's Doctor Hutchinson," he said, lowering his voice, and bending forward, "if you will believe me" (in still lower tones) "that man hasn't got five thousand now. He's not worth it." He pressed his lips together as men do after a final statement, and said by way of conclusion: "They're all like that, that call themselves 'professional men.' Here to-day and gone to-morrow, except they take out a patent or something, or really go in for business, and precious few can do that."
"You're quite right," said Nobby, who was bored and who had been thinking anxiously about the hour of next morning's breakfast. "I never had any myself," he added genially, and Mr. Clutterbuck smiled at the jest of the grandson of the Earl ofthe Creation of the year of the Act of the Union of England and of Ireland.
Nobby yawned and sloshed soda water into his glass. "Well, it's a lot of rot, isn't it?" he said, and clinched the conversation down.
They went up to bed that night, Mr. Clutterbuck, after apologising, as husbands will, for the lateness of the hour, turned many of his remarks to his wife upon this corrupt practice, weighing its probabilities and its exaggerations, until that lady first passed judgment and then imposed silence.
Charlie Fitzgerald should have been home upon the Wednesday next. A chance whim had taken him to Monte Carlo, from whence he telegraphed that he could hardly be back before Saturday. In the interval Mr. Clutterbuck, sauntering into town upon one of those clear December days which often prolong autumn into the heart of winter, happened to call at Delacourt's house, but he was at the office at Peter Street. Mr. Clutterbuck immediately sought him in that place and was received with something more cordial than courtesy, and many a merry laugh was exchanged between himself and the young organiser before the chief business of his visit was mentioned.
Even when the time came for that, Mr. Clutterbuck showed unaccountable nervousness, but hehad taken full counsel; he knew his wife's opinion; his own mind was made up; he had not even waited for Charlie Fitzgerald. When, therefore, he had said good-bye and was just stepping out of the door he suddenly, as though by an afterthought, pulled an envelope from his pocket and said sunnily:
"Oh, Mr. Delacourt, I'd almost forgotten this. I could have posted it—but it's just as well to give it you now I have it. Read it at your leisure. Read it absolutely at your leisure."
He nodded twice and was gone.
Mr. Delacourt opened the envelope, fully expecting some little protest or other. To his wild astonishment there came out a note of not more than four lines, and a cheque for £3000.
Bozzy Delacourt had seen a good deal of life; he had pawned many articles before his father's death, and had mortgaged not a little land between that event and his marriage. He had seen many cheques signed by many men for many purposes; but the like of this he had never seen.
"What the devil!" he said, looking at the cheque as one would at a strange and unexpected beast. "What the devil——" He went over to the window, leant against it and murmured to himself: "If he's mad something ought to be done. He might make a scene in the House. By God!" he added to himself with a sudden change of expression, "it wouldbe Maraschino and Ice to see him passing the stuff on to one of those journalists during a division, or endowing the p'licemen, or something.... Wish I'd known men like that in '92! I'd have pulled old Sam Lewis's leg." The thought set his eyes adream and afire. "I'd have played him," he added with sudden vicious earnestness, "I'd have played him like a bloody fish!"
And having thus relieved his mind, he prepared the cheque for passing it in, then thought he'd better show it to his chiefs, locked it into a particular drawer, and went out.