A Spectacle of Corruption

by David Liss

  There was something of a coolness in his manner that I had noticed at first. His winsome smile and handsome face masked well a hint of reserve that I rejoiced in, for upon it I could place some measure of dislike and resentment. But my role was not to find fault with Melbury nor to delight in exposing a hidden stiffness in his manner—a stiffness not uncommon in members of old families. I was there to make him like me, to make him my ally, and to use his support when he won his election.

  “My father was a Tory, and my grandfather fought in the war for the king.” Nothing wrong, I thought, in suggesting some Royalist blood. Just the sort of thing to make him take a liking to me. “As I have been in Jamaica most of my life, I have not, until now, had much opportunity to participate in politics.”

  He smiled, though I knew a false smile when I saw one. “When did you arrive in England?”

  “Only last month.”

  “Then I must welcome you here with all my heart. And what was your business in Jamaica, Mr. Evans?”

  “My father established a plantation there, and I had been involved in running it ever since I was a boy, but as it has become prosperous I have turned the matter over to a trustworthy nephew. Now I am determined to reap the rewards of many years’ labor by returning to the land of my ancestors. Though I can hardly recall a time I did not live there, the West Indies offer a most unwholesome climate, and I have discovered that I am, by nature, more inclined to British temperateness.”

  “Quite understandable. There is something remarkably British about you, if I may say so. The West Indian, I’m sure you know, has the reputation of being without social graces, as he has not had the advantage of our public schools and society. I am delighted to see you explode that myth.”

  I bowed in response. Here I was, trading pleasant chatter with the man who had taken from me the woman I loved: he with his banalities, me with my falseness.

  “I am afraid I must make my way to another appointment just now,” he told me, “but I am pleased to meet you, sir, and I hope our paths will cross once more.” With that, he stepped out of the tavern into the light of day.

  I followed him closely. “If I might have one more moment of your time, sir. Perhaps a private moment.”

  “I beg you to excuse me for now,” he said, as he and his agent quickened their pace. I could only imagine that he must have found himself perpetually hounded by such men as me, and he had clearly grown skillful at dodging their advances.

  However, his own advances were suddenly halted by a trio of very rough-looking fellows in undyed clothes and caps pulled down along their faces. One of them carried a blue-and-orange banner.

  “Vote for Hertcomb or be damned!” the tallest of them shouted in Melbury’s face.

  The Tory rose up to his full height and puffed out his chest. “I fear I cannot do that,” he said, “for I am Griffin Melbury.”

  I understood his pride well enough, but this was hardly the most efficacious of all available approaches. Better for his own safety to have agreed to vote for Hertcomb, but Melbury would not swallow medicine so bitter, not for an instant. I admired him for it—a begrudging and resentful sort of admiration, you understand—foolish though it was.

  “My arse you’re Melbury,” another of the ruffians said. “Melbury is a Jacobite devil, and I know a Jacobite devil when I see one.”

  “I am Melbury, and neither a Jacobite nor a devil, which leads me to question your ability to recognize either on sight. What you ought to recognize, however, is that you have been listening to Whig lies, my friend, and you have been hardly used by men who do not wish you well.”

  “You’re the liar,” the large fellow said, “and what you’ll be listening to is my fist against your ear.”

  I suppose I cannot blame Melbury or curse him for a coward because he cringed and held up his arms for protection. Here, after all, were three uncouth ruffians who appeared for all the world to have lost their minds to the fervor of an election not yet commenced and in which they were surely too poor to participate. How could he have defended himself? On the other hand, he might have drawn his hanger and put the blade to the tallest man’s throat.

  I certainly found that such a course did my business very well. My blade flashed in the sun as I drew it out and pressed it against his flesh, using just enough pressure to keep the skin from breaking. There would be no blood drawn, I was determined.

  The lead ruffian remained motionless, his faced pointed upward, the skin of his throat taut. The others took a step back.

  “You three don’t look like electors to me,” I said, “though I honor your desire to participate in this election despite your lacking the franchise. But I must tell you that beating up on one of the candidates will make a poor showing for your cause.” I pulled back the blade an inch. “Flee,” I said.

  They were most obliging. They fled.

  Melbury stood nearly motionless, his eyes unfocused, his limp hands trembling. I suggested he might wish to return to the tavern and take a drink before continuing to his next appointment. Melbury nodded his agreement. He sent his agent ahead to his next appointment, and I opened the door to usher the candidate inside. We took a dark table in the tavern, and I approached the barman and insisted that he send over a bottle of strong port without delay.

  Once I rejoined him, I knew that the result of the preceding events would be revealed. Melbury might resent me for having shown my mettle while he had shown none, or he might bear me the friendship I deserved for having saved him from harm. To my great relief, he opted for the latter.

  “Mr. Evans, I am grateful your business was urgent enough that you chose to follow.” He rubbed his hand along the rough surface of the table. “I should have been most vulnerable without your help.”

  In the thrill of my success I found my resentment of the man, if not quite melting away, then at least receding as excitement of conquest took its place. I had acted boldly, and boldness had been rewarded. That I had been a man of valor while he had cringed was but an added pleasure. “I suspect those fellows were more of the chattering than the pummeling kind, but I am delighted to have been able to serve you in any way, no matter how trivial.”

  Our bottle arrived, and I filled his glass to the brim.

  “I shall certainly do you the kindness of listening to whatever you wished to say before, Mr. Evans.” Melbury lifted his glass with a shaking hand.

  “I shall be direct with you, then, for I know you have many demands on your time,” I began. “We have an enemy in common, and his name is Dennis Dogmill. As Hertcomb’s agent, and the mastermind of Hertcomb’s efforts to maintain his seat, Dogmill would stand between you and a seat in the House. As a near monopolist in London’s tobacco trade, he would stand between me and my business.”

  “I can only imagine how difficult it must be to conduct your business in a city where a villain like Dogmill reigns supreme as he does,” Melbury said. “Have you something to propose that might rectify this situation? I cannot abide the man, and I should love to help you take him down a peg.”

  I sensed that there was more to Melbury’s feelings about Dogmill than he told me. “I propose only that he is a criminal of the worst sort. I am made to understand that he bribes the Customs freely—nay, that the Customs attend more to his business than they do to the Crown’s. Inspectors report to him, and the Riding Officers are little more than his personal guard.”

  “What you are made to understand is well known,” said Melbury. “The world is aware of that brute Mr. Dogmill and the Customs, and it knows that Hertcomb has done all in his power in the House to keep the Customs in Dogmill’s pocket.”

  “But can nothing be done about this?” I asked. “Surely the Tory papers could make known this criminal behavior. If the electors of Westminster knew—”

  “The electors of Westminster know and don’t care,” Melbury said, with a note of exasperation. “You saw those men who threatened me. Why would they do such a thing? Is it because they are Whigs in their
hearts? I don’t think it so. They could probably not tell you the difference between a Whig or a Tory to save their lives—or for a pot of ale, whichever they value more. For them—even for most electors—it is all a kind of elaborate theater, a spectacle. Who has more villains? Whose villains are stronger? Who has prettier girls to kiss the voters? This election is but a spectacle of corruption, and you cannot be surprised that men like Hertcomb are willing to turn the Parliament into yet another stage. Meanwhile, politics becomes a sordid game, the Church and the Crown are made the butt of jokes, and the kingdom becomes more wretched for it.”

  “Yes, the kingdom becomes more wretched,” I agreed, knowing this to be the heart of the Tory concern, “and ought we not to stop that? There is a great difference between hiring pretty girls to kiss voters and Hertcomb’s coddling of the South Sea directors. Nothing enrages the public more than the fact that their purses are empty because the South Sea scheme brought a crash to the market, and the Whigs were the ones who protected the men responsible. Is it not incumbent upon prominent Tories to expose how Hertcomb continues to favor these corrupt men—men like Dogmill, who would turn the Customs, the very body meant to regulate his excesses—into his private army?”

  Melbury took a breath. “Here’s the thing of it, Evans. There’s more than one Tory man in the House who looks to be returned there and who has a friendship, shall we say, with importers in London or Liverpool or Bristol. You see, the Whigs may not, precisely, be the only ones who have an arrangement with the Customs, and if a man begins making enemies in one place, he might soon find he has made enemies in another.”

  “You claim to fight corruption, and yet you countenance it!” I cried, with a vehemence that surprised even me.

  I feared I might have angered Melbury, but the candidate took no offense. He only patted me on the shoulder and smiled. “I shall never condone it, and in private I must condemn it, but I may not condemn it too heartily in public and still maintain the friends I need to win this seat. Take heart, my friend. Our cause will prevail, and we shall kick the Dennis Dogmills of the world soundly, very soundly. But this is not the field on which to begin the battle. We have much to do, we Tories. If we win this election, if we can retake the House, I see no reason why we cannot restore the position of the Church in this country. Think only of all the crimes that were once tried in Church courts, that are now tried in civil courts, if they are tried at all.”

  “It is repulsive,” I said, with a creditable amount of feeling.

  “These filthy Whigs with their new money and their nonconformists and Jews—they wish to buy and sell this bit of the kingdom or that for whoever has the fattest purse. That Dutchman wants to buy; give him the treasury. There’s an Irishman who’s amassed some wealth in ‘Change Alley; let him buy our laws. All this must stop. We must take power away from sordid greedy men and return it to the Crown, where it belongs.”

  “I agree entirely, sir. Which is why I wish to see Dogmill restrained. Without him, Hertcomb cannot win.”

  “He will be restrained, I promise you, he and his corrupting Whig friends. I am grateful that you brought this matter to me, and if you learn anything else of our enemy, I hope you will come see me again. Perhaps the next thing you find will be something we can declare publicly.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Melbury,” I said, rising from my seat.

  “It is I who must thank you, Evans,” he said to me. “I like you, sir. I like you tremendous, and you may depend that I will not forget the service you have rendered me today. You will discover that it is a fine thing to be my friend.”

  I bowed in response.

  “However,” he added, “to be my friend may mean incurring the anger of Dogmill. You must ask yourself if that is a price you are willing to pay.”

  “You may be sure I shall not shrink from him,” I said.

  An hour later, I met with the three ruffians as I had done earlier that morning in a filthy Smithfield inn. Mr. Mendes had proved as good as his word and had found these fellows for me—petty thieves and footpads in Wild’s service.

  “As promised,” I said to the leader, “here is the second shilling for your labors.”

  “You never spoke of blades to me throat,” he complained. “You just said you would step in and prevent me from doing harm to that Melbury spark. You never said aught about blades. I thought you was like one of these highborn sparks you hear of who likes to have fun with the likes of us, and you would cut me for certain. I nearly pissed meself.”

  I knew a plea for more money when I heard one, and though I thought his claims poorly justified, I also knew it never hurts to show generosity. “Here is an extra half shilling then,” I said, reaching into my purse. “Had you truly pissed yourself, that would have been worth far more.”

  He pocketed the coin. “I wish to Christ I’d knowed that. I’d have swallowed a pot before doing the business.”

  CHAPTER 13

  WHEN I NEXT MET with Elias, I told him of my adventures with Dogmill. He shook his head and drank wine with equal verve.

  “You must be mad,” he said. “I still think it pure destruction to antagonize a man of his stripe.”

  “He antagonized me first,” I observed.

  “And now what will you do, set his house on fire?”

  “If I thought it would advance my cause, I would not hesitate. But as it might not resolve my problems, I believe I will hold off on that course for the moment. Instead, I think it is time to let Mr. Dogmill know that Matthew Evans will tolerate no ill treatment.”

  While Elias did not much care for my visiting Dogmill in his home, he would have heartily objected to what I planned next, but I could not defeat my enemy by gentle means. I had already learned enough of Dogmill to know he was not a gentle man, and he brooked disagreement and challenge poorly. It seemed to me most obvious, then, that if I wished to provoke him I would have to challenge him, and I could think of no better place to do so than in public.

  I had begun to make it a habit to review the newspapers most frequently, and in one of the Whig organs I noted that Mr. Hertcomb was to host a goose pull at St. James’s Park. I did not doubt that Mr. Dogmill would be in attendance and saw this event as a fine opportunity for me to further develop our antipathy.

  I regretted that I would have to pay my visit in the same set of clothes that I wore to his house, but as they were not particularly conspicuous in their design, I could only hope he would not notice that I had not changed my suit. I checked my appearance in the mirror and soon convinced myself that I was every bit the English gentleman. I therefore hired a coach to the park and soon found myself milling about with a few dozen Whiggish electors.

  Despite an unseasonably warm afternoon with a welcome respite from the rain, only a very few of them were engaged in the advertised event. Most, like myself, had not come dressed for riding, but there were a few men who made eager sport. I must admit that I have never had much of a taste for the kind of cruel games the English play with animals, and a goose pull was among the most base of these diversions. A plump goose was tied by its foot from a high branch of a tree, its neck well greased. Each participant had to ride at top speed under the goose and grab it by its neck. The fellow who could successfully hold on to the bird and wrench it free—or as was often the case, pull its very head off—came home with the prize.

  As I approached the crowd, I saw that there were a few ladies in their number who cheered as a fellow rode hard under the goose and made a hearty grab for it. Alas, his might was no equal to the grease of the creature’s neck, and though it cried out most pitiably, it would yet receive no mercy.

  As another fellow prepared to take his turn, I saw that both Dogmill and Hertcomb were among the men not riding, though Dogmill looked over most wistfully from time to time, as though hungrily gazing at a steaming pie set out to cool.

  It was, however, Hertcomb who saw me first and, recognizing me from Dogmill’s house, he must have thought me a great friend of his election agent
. “Why, it is Mr. Evans, I believe,” he said, shaking my hand eagerly. “Very good to see you again, sir, very good, indeed. I hear you are something of a tobacco man, like our Mr. Dogmill.”

  “Jamaica tobacco, to be sure. And I hear you are a friend to the tobacco man in Parliament.”

  He blushed, as though I had called him handsome or brave. “Oh, I have done a little of value to the tobacco men. I fought quite hard, I assure you, against that wretched bill that would have forbidden the inclusion of wood and dirt and suchlike into the weed. Imagine the increase in cost if merchants such as yourself had to ensure that every pound of tobacco was nothing but the thing itself.”

  “Terrible,” I said.

  “And when they wished to classify tobacco as a luxury item and so subject to taxation, I fought that like a wild cur, I promise you. Tobacco is not a luxury but a necessity, I cried, for do not men spend their silver on weed before bread—and sometimes even before beer? And as it has the qualities of keeping our workingmen healthy and stout, it would be a horrible drug on the nation if these men could no longer afford it in quantity.”

  “You have quite convinced me, I promise you.”

  He laughed warmly. “I thank you, sir. I flatter myself I have a certain something with words in the chamber.” He looked around the field. “Are you enjoying the pull, sir?”

  “If I may be bold, Mr. Hertcomb, I never love sports so cruel to nature’s creatures.”

  He laughed. “Oh, it is only a goose, you know, good only for eating, not petting like a lapdog.”

  “But does that mean it must be tied from a tree and tormented?”

  “I had never thought of it,” he admitted. “I don’t suppose it means that it must or mustn’t. But surely a goose is made for man’s pleasure, not the other way around. I should hate to live in a world in which we do things because they are convenient for geese.”

  “Surely,” I proposed good-naturedly, “there is a space between conducting ourselves for the benefit of fowl and conducting ourselves in a way that revels in cruelty.”