EVE THE SIXTH.

Alfred Curran.

EVE THE SIXTH.

REMARKS OF CHARLES TURRILL, ESQ., M. P., RELATIVE TO AN EPISODE IN THE HOUSE.

By JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY.

Charles Turrill, Esq., M. P.

I HAVE found, in the course of a pretty long acquaintance with men and things, that the House of Commons is one of the few places of which one is never weary.

I am speaking for myself, of course. I know there are other men, who think differently from me, who regard the House ofCommons with disdain, if not with positive dislike, and the men, I have at this moment in my mind, are not men who affect a contempt for the unattainable thing, but men who have been in the House of Commons and who could be there again, if they wished.

But, for my own part, I candidly confess that I am unable to understand their state of mind on the matter.

To me the House of Commons is always a delightful place. I offer it the uncompromising admiration that young poets lay at the feet of their mistresses; I feel for it the affection that a friend feels for a friend. But I do not wish it to be supposed, because I say all this, that I am convinced that I have in me the makings of a great statesman, or, indeed, that my presence at Westminster is in any serious degree indispensable to the safety of the commonweal.

I like, of course, to think that, when Ihave given a vote, I have given it as an honest man for the side which I think to be in the right.

I like, of course, to think that, when I make my little speech—and I confess that I address the House not infrequently, and the House is good enough to hear me with patience—that I am doing what lies in me to advance the general good. But my interest in the House of Commons does not come in the first instance from philanthropy or a zeal for the Constitution.

I like the House of Commons as other men like a theatre, as other men like to travel. I like the theatre, too, and I like to travel; but I would rather have the House of Commons, than any theatre that ever was built, and would rather walk through the lobbies, than wander over Europe.

What play was ever so keenly exciting as a heavy debate at Westminster; what travelsbring one more into touch with all varieties of men than long experience of the ways of Westminster? None, none, none.

The House of Commons is like theEau de Jouvence; it makes old men young again, and revives, in the hearts of respectable elderly gentlemen, the feverish pulses of youth.

The excitement, which leads a noble lord to leap upon the benches and halloo for joy over a Ministerial defeat, is as keen as any which moves the pulses of boyhood in the cricket field or the pulses of manhood in battle or exploration. So the House of Commons is to me as the great theatre of life, and I find unending pleasures in its acts and its actors.

I have seen some pretty stirring scenes, too, in my time. I have been in the House of Commons now for nearly twenty years, and, in that time, I have been present at almost every event of any note, that hasanimated its precincts and inspired its orators.

I have had my share of all-night sittings; have seen men stand at the bar of the House; have watched the rise and ruin of reputations; have seen Ministry after Ministry reel to its fall.

But I honestly think that I have never seen a more remarkable scene, than the one to which you have referred, and about which you have asked me, as an eye-witness, to give you some few particulars.

I saw Mr. John Drury on the day when he entered the House of Commons, and I remember very well how struck I was by his commanding presence and singularly beautiful face.

I use the word “beautiful” advisedly. It is a word we reserve mostly nowadays for the faces of women; but John Drury’s face impressed me immediately with a sense of its beauty—its strong, calm, honourable beauty.

All I knew of him was, that he came from the colonies; that he was reputed to be wealthy, even very wealthy; and that he had come into the House of Commons at a by-election, as the advocate of views, which he had championed with great success in the columns of the London daily paper,The Planet, which he himself owned and had founded.

That was all I knew then. There was, however, much more to know, and I learned it later in a sufficiently remarkable manner.

It was a winter session, I remember. Fond as I am of the House of Commons I have no great passion for winter sessions.

My affection for the House is a legitimate, not an abnormal affection, and I like it to pursue its orderly course.

London is not pleasant in winter, while Cairo is; and, as a general rule, I would rather spend my Christmas on the Nile than by the Thames. But I would not have missedseeing the event, which I am about to tell you, even to have been at Luxor a few weeks earlier, for I got off to Egypt immediately after the House rose, thank goodness!

That winter session was unavoidable. There were things to do, which ought to have been done before, and which had to be done then, on the “better late than never” principle. We were really not very far off from Christmas Eve, when the event took place, which compensated me at least for the grey city and the weary winter days and the belated Commons.

Mr. Drury had proved himself to be a force in English public life, before he entered the House of Commons.

His newspaper,The Planet, had made itself the outspoken mouthpiece of all the interests of the labouring classes and of the poor, and he himself had earned a very considerable reputation, as a public speakerat more than one platform in the mining and agricultural regions of England.

Naturally, when a man attains to any degree of eminence in England, his fellow citizens want to know all about him. Demand creates a supply, and the Society papers afforded the world at large the opportunity of learning a number of facts about the past life of Mr. Drury.

It was soon well known that he had made his fortune at the gold-fields.

It was well known, also, that when he went to the gold-fields he went as a pardoned felon, as a convict, who had been set at liberty on account of his gallant conduct in saving a warder’s life, during a mutiny of his fellow prisoners on board the transport ship.

It would be idle to deny that at first the stories which got into circulation raised a kind of prejudice against Mr. Drury.

Of course the wrong version of any storyalways gets the greatest hearing, and, as the particular line which Mr. Drury took up in politics was not calculated to make him extremely popular with the easy-going and with the well-to-do, the wrong story obtained a very considerable amount of credence.

But it was an entirely wrong story, and its wrongfulness was made plain soon enough, even to the most obstinate intelligence. For Mr. Drury took the bull by the horns at once.

He published inThe Planetthe whole of the proceedings connected with his trial; he repeated with the most admirable firmness and coolness his own denial of the crime, and he concluded his defence very triumphantly by producing the written confession of the real thief—a man named Rummles, I believe—who died in a drunken brawl at Eungella Diggings, a confession duly attested by the police magistrate, the clergyman, and Mr. Alfred Curran, who has since becomeconspicuous in Colonial politics as the editor of Mr. Drury’s Australian paper,The Southern Cross.

Of course, this confession silenced everybody, or nearly everybody.

Unhappily, there is a class of politician, a small class I am glad to believe, who will stick at nothing to harm an antagonist, and this small class, like all other classes, does occasionally find its representative in the House of Commons.

Mr. Drury had not been long in the House of Commons before he began to make a name there, as he had already made a name in journalism. It does not take long nowadays for a man to make his mark at St. Stephen’s.

In old days, before my time, and even in my time, it was a slow business for a man to take his right place in the House. It was a kind of unwritten law that a man should not speak at all till he had been in the House for at least a session, and veryscrupulous or very old-fashioned persons carried the period of probation to a further degree still. But we have changed all that, asSganarellesays in Molière’s play.

I have heard a new member make his maiden speech on the very night, on which he entered the House for the first time, and within a few hours of the ceremony of taking the oath.

Mr. Drury was not like that, indeed; but neither did he belong to the old-fashioned school of politicians. He waited a decorous week before speaking, and when he spoke for the first time, he spoke exceedingly well, with a modest dignity which pleased all his hearers—or almost all his hearers—and which won him at once a promising place amongst the “young men.”

I shall not forget that night, less because of Drury’s first speech, good though it was, and glad though I always am to hear agood speech, than for another reason. If I remember rightly, it is Goethe who says somewhere, that one should never pass a day without reading a beautiful poem or looking upon the face of a beautiful woman.

Certainly the day in which one does look upon a beautiful woman, is better than days less blessed, and I am always glad and grateful for the privilege of seeing a beautiful woman. And I saw a very beautiful woman that night.

I had gone up into the Ladies’ Gallery to look after the wife and daughter of a constituent, whom I had been lucky enough to get places for, when I saw in the gallery a woman’s face, such a glorious face. In its divine, dark beauty it conquered my attention, my admiration. I forgot manners, and stared—simply stared.

In the Ladies’ Gallery.

I don’t think she noticed me at all. She seemed to be entirely occupied by looking steadfastly at someone who was seated in theChamber below. Whoever he was, I envied him to have earned the homage of those glorious, midnight eyes.

As I was leaving the gallery, I asked Wilson, the doorkeeper, who the lady was, the dark, handsome lady in the front row of the gallery. Wilson glanced in the direction I indicated, and answered me directly.

“That, sir,” he said, “is Mrs. John Drury.”

As I went down the stairs, to get to the corridor which leads to the Chamber, I could not help reflecting upon the generous way in which destiny seemed to have made amends to John Drury. Still young, very rich, a famous journalist, a rising politician, and, above all, blessed with a wife of such extraordinary beauty.

“John Drury,” I said to myself, “you are a lucky man, and I hope and believe that you deserve it.”

But the event, which I know you want particularlyto hear about, took place some little time after that—a couple of weeks later if I remember rightly.

There were some friends dining with me that night; there were ladies in the party, and I had got one of the pleasantest tables in the ladies’ dining-room for my little group.

It chanced that John Drury and his wife were dining at the next table, and if I had thought her beautiful before in the dim light of the Ladies’ Gallery, I thought her still more radiantly fair in the bright light of the dining-room.

I guessed from her presence that Drury was about to speak; it was an important debate on some question of the hours of labour, and by this time everyone “in the know” was not willing to miss a chance of hearing John Drury.

So, when our dinner was over, I bundled my little party upstairs, saw the ladies into their gallery, succeeded in wedging the menin “Under the Clock,” and got back to my own seat, as soon as I could.

It was very lucky I did so, for I heard a fine speech, which I had expected and hoped for, and witnessed a scene which I had neither expected nor hoped for.

John Drury made his speech, and a very able speech it was, spoken with a Saxon simplicity and straightforwardness, which reminded me a little of Bright, but enriched with an amount of illustration, which showed a far wider reading than Bright’s.

In its way I don’t think I ever heard a better speech. I daresay I didn’t agree with all his arguments—that didn’t matter at all; it was a real pleasure to listen to such a speech. Its very defect, in being too eloquent for the modern conversational standard debate in the House of Commons, gave it a freshness and a charm of its own.

Drury, too, had one great secret—he neverwearied his audience. He never uttered a sentence, never uttered a syllable too much. He said all that he wanted to say, fully and finely, and then he sat down, as he always sat down, amidst rapturous applause.

On this particular evening he spoke at his best; and when he sat down the applause, on his side, was loud and long. While it lasted, I glanced up at the gilded bars, which hide the occupants of the Ladies’ Gallery, and thought of that dark, beautiful face which watched its lover’s triumph, of the glorious dark eyes that widened with delight at their lover’s success.

By the time that I had sighed the little sigh of envy, which one pays as a tribute to the happy possessor of youth and beauty, the applause, which had rung out for Drury’s eloquent championship of the poor, had died away, and I noticed that a pert young member of the Government had jumped to his feet to answer him.

“On this particular evening he spoke at his best.” (Page222)

As an answer it was ridiculous enough, about as valuable a contribution, to the question in hand, as the suggestion of the luckless queen, that, if the poor people had no bread to eat, they might eat cakes instead. But it had one significant passage.

The young fellow, flushed and excited by his own pertness, lost his head and with it his manners.

“The honourable gentleman,” he said, pointing offensively in the direction, where John Drury sat quietly listening to him; “the honourable gentleman has made an eloquent appeal for the idle, for the improvident, for all who go to make up what are rightly called the dangerous classes. Well, Sir, in this House we go in for the representation of minorities, and though I am thankful to think that the dangerous classes are in the minority in this country, it is, no doubt, according to the latest political lights,fit and proper that they, too, should find their representative in this House.”

The speaker had got thus far, when several of the men on our side of the House began to interrupt with cries of “Oh, oh,” which were somewhat hotly responded to, by cheers from some of the men in the immediate vicinity of the speaker. Goaded by the hostility and the applause, the speaker flung out one last defiant, insolent sentence.

“Yes, Sir, the dangerous classes must have their representative in this House, and where could they, by any possibility, find a better representative than a convicted felon——”

He was not allowed to finish the sentence. The hubbub that arose of angry groans and defiant cheers—for I am sorry to say that the foolish young gentleman had his backers—drowned the rest of his sentence, and he sat down amidst a display of the stormiest excitement on both sides of the House.

The noble Lord.

I have seen bad and bitter scenes in St. Stephen’s, but never a worse, never a bitterer scene than on that night. Men who, I know, in their hearts did not associate the name of John Drury with any stain, took sides with his assailant and cheered vociferously for the savage attack that had just been made upon him.

Drury’s speech had been a severe arraignment of the Government, and the Ministerialists were sore and angry, and they took their revenge unchivalrously, as even civilized men will still occasionally do.

I dare not say how many seconds the groaning and the cheering lasted, groaning and cheering through which, at intervals, the Speaker’s stern voice was heard calling persistently for order.

But at last it did die down, and when it had died down, half a dozen men on each side were found standing on their legs, eagerto catch the Speaker’s eye. But when it was found that John Drury had risen with the rest, the others sat down, and he remained standing, very pale, very quiet, very determined, facing his antagonists, who greeted him with cries of “Spoke, spoke, spoke.”

“I wish, Mr. Speaker,” said John Drury, “to make a personal explanation,” and as he uttered those words all of us, who sat near him, caught up the phrase, and shouted “personal explanation” as loudly and as long as we could.

Amidst the tumult the Speaker rose from his chair, and John Drury immediately sat down. The tumult subsided, as it always does when the Speaker asserts his authority.

“Does the honourable member,” the Speaker asked, glancing in the direction where John Drury sat, “wish to make a personal explanation to the House?”

John Drury raised his hat, the Speakersat down, gathering the folds of his black robe about him, and John Drury rose to his feet, this time in perfect silence. I glanced up to the Gallery, and saw, or thought I saw, a pale, lovely face, and two enchanting eyes.

“I rise, Sir,” said John Drury, speaking very calmly and slowly, “to utter, with your permission, and with the permission of this House, which is always generous to an attacked man, a few, a very few, words of personal explanation.”

Here almost everyone, even on the Ministerial side, applauded, for, to do the House justice, it is generally willing to give a man a chance to defend himself.

“The right honourable gentleman, who has just sat down,” John Drury went on, “has accused me of being a convicted felon.”

Here a few cheers came from the neighbourhood of the Drury assailant, but theywere not convincing cheers, and they were hushed down by a storm of disapproval on our side.

“I am in my right,” Drury went on, “in immediately taking notice of that accusation. Mr. Speaker, the right honourable gentleman is unjust, when he makes that accusation. I can only hope, for the sake of his own honour, that he is not wilfully unjust. When he calls me a convicted felon, he utters, and he knows he utters, words which are false words, words which frame a lie.”

Here the storm broke out afresh, but it was silenced by the Speaker’s stern call for order, and Drury went on composedly with his defence.

“I was, it is true, convicted; I never was a felon. I was convicted, as anyone may learn who cares to take the trouble to read what I have published concerning this matter, on false evidence; I was betrayed by thetreachery of a friend, of a man who on his death-bed confessed to the crime of which he had been guilty, a confession duly attested by unimpeachable witnesses.

“I stand here to-night with a conscience as clean as that of any member of this House, a conscience, I may venture to say, that is cleaner than that of the man who has wantonly, if not maliciously, accused me of what he may know, or ought to know, is not true. And, Sir, if I cannot within the scope of a life filled with many hardships, many temptations, and few successes, hope to fulfil the motto, ‘Vivit post funera Virtus,’ which, as I only too well remember, was the motto on the watch, which I was supposed to have stolen, and for the theft of which I was sentenced to transportation, still, Sir, I can cast back denial in the teeth of the right honourable member, from whose lips the charge has come, and to him I say in thepresence of this honourable assembly that I can claim to stand amongst you, shoulder to shoulder, as an honest man.”

Drury sat down amidst renewed excitement; the cheers on our side were simply deafening, and I am glad to say that they were accompanied by hearty cheers from the other side.

Before they were quite silenced Drury’s assailant had the grace to get up and express his regret for what he had, in the heat of an unguarded moment, allowed himself to say.

So in the phrase familiar to the reports of foreign assemblies, “the incident then closed,” as far as the outer public was concerned. What I have told you, you will find in Hansard, if you choose to look for it.

What happened immediately afterwards, you will not find in Hansard.

After Drury’s antagonist had apologized, Drury rose and left the House. As he didso, one of the occupants of the Treasury Bench, my excellent friend Barkston, who was a member of the Cabinet, followed his example. A few minutes later I left the House myself, with my thoughts turned in the direction of the Ladies’ Gallery. In the long corridor, that runs parallel with the Library, I found two men in deep colloquy. They were John Drury and Samuel Barkston.

What Barkston told me himself a little later—we were old friends, Barkston and I—would seem incredible if it were not actually true.

In John Drury, Barkston had actually discovered his long-lost son. Perhaps I ought not to use the phrase “long-lost,” for Barkston only learned that night, that he ever had a son. But that John Drury was his son there was no doubt whatever. And the curious thing was, that Barkston was led to make this extraordinary discovery entirelythrough John Drury’s speech of that evening.

For when John Drury, in his concluding sentences, quoted the Latin words upon the watch, that he had been accused of stealing, Mr. Barkston started as if he had been struck.

For the motto on the watch was his own motto, the motto which, as he remembered, had been engraved upon the watch, that he had lost.

This it was that led him, as I say, to follow John Drury from the Chamber, and to begin that conversation with him, which I had witnessed in the Library Lobby.

In this conversation, bit by bit, Mr. Barkston learned enough to convince him—and subsequent inquiries absolutely confirmed the conviction—that John Drury, the brilliant journalist, one of the most conspicuous of the coming men, was in very fact his own child.

When Barkston was a young man, he fell in love with a beautiful actress in a burlesquetheatre, and, being a rash young man, he married her privately.

The woman was light-hearted and light-headed to an astonishing degree, and at a time, when it seemed probable that she was likely to become a mother, she actually left Barkston in the company of an actor, in the company to which she belonged.

Barkston tried without success to trace her, but it seemed, after long inquiries, he ascertained that she gave birth to a boy, that her lover objected to the encumbrance of the child, and that the unhappy mother abandoned it. She was herself afterwards abandoned by her lover, and died, it would seem, wretchedly.

It is a sad little story, my dear friend, and has in it, perhaps, the pith of a sermon against vice, which some better fellow than I might preach with advantage to his hearers.

I am not a preacher, I am only a humblelooker-on at the grim game of life, with its joys and its sorrow, its dances and its dirges, and if I find a lot that is sad in it, I find a lot that is bright and brave as well.

Anyhow, I think old Barkston is to be envied. It is pleasant to be rich and to be a Cabinet Minister, but it is more pleasant to be the father of a man like John Drury.

Let me add that I think it is still more pleasant to be the father-in-law of a woman like John Drury’s wife.

I have often had the pleasure of meeting her since, and I can honestly say, that I think she is as clever as she is beautiful, and as good as she is clever. From which you will gather that so far as a man may be happy in this world, John Drury—for he kept to the name by which he had won his way to success—is a happy man.

Charles Turrill.

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