by Grant Allen
Hubert Harrison read the note not without a certain secret sense of satisfaction. ‘If she feels like that,’ he said to himself, ‘she’s coming round at last. She’s recovering from the blow. If I can win this election, and ask her again as a new M.P., perhaps she’ll pocket her pride after all, dear girl, and consent to marry me — without the fortune. What pluck she’s got! I declare, I wouldn’t like her half so well if she didn’t lead me such a dance with that indomitable will of hers.’
So he turned all the more heartily to court the shy and many-headed nymph of South Hampstead.
The election was hurried, as elections under such circumstances usually are. During the course of it Hubert saw nothing of Sabine in any way. Once or twice she wrote to him — as usual on the Gordon League paper — to explain why she was unable to help him in his contest, as Arthur still needed constant watching; but she never said a word about her own danger or the anxiety with which she waited for signs of that terrible disease to develop itself. How terrible it was, she thoroughly understood now, after having seen Arthur through it; and no one who had once known the full horrors of such an attack could await, without apprehension, the results of such an experiment. However, Sabine was determined not to hamper Hubert in his canvassing by fears for her safety. She would let him go on, and win or lose as fate might will, without being handicapped in any way by a knowledge of her danger.
A London election in one of our great overgrown popular constituencies is always hard work and always exciting. Hubert worked so hard through those few crowded days that he scarcely had time in between for eating, drinking, or sleeping. He had an uphill fight, too, to wage, as he said at the outset; for his party (which was, of course, the reader’s) was weak in the borough, and needed all the strength a fresh young candidate and his friends could give it. Day after day and night after night, accordingly, Hubert rushed about from hall to hall, speaking, canvassing, answering questions, giving or avoiding pledges, satisfying this man’s scruples, or renouncing that man’s fads, till he hardly knew what he thought himself about anything on earth, so carefully had he been compelled to hedge and to qualify, to draw distinctions here, and make concessions there, and reconcile conflicting claims in the other place. Before the end he had delivered himself succinctly on local option, and female suffrage, and anti-vaccination, and the contagious diseases of cattle; he had been heckled about vivisection, and bullied about the importance of foreign Jews; he had explained at some length his varying views on socialism, tithes, the Eight Hours Bill, the London County Council, the incidence of the income tax, the teaching of religion in denominational schools, Civil Service trading, the costermongers’ carts, and the rights of the public in the Grove Road footpath. Such a changeful phantasmagoria almost turned his head. But at last the polling day itself arrived, and the ballot began. Yellow and blue pervaded the borough. Carriages of all hues brought voters up in endless shoals from unknown lanes and alleys. The public-houses did a roaring trade in beer. It rained Boomerangs towards the close. Rival organizers counted each vote separately. One side was as confident of victory as the other. All the day through Hubert rushed wildly from point to point, on foot or by cab, encouraging his supporters with unceasing vigour, till he began to feel that the Premiership itself would be but a poor return for so much arduous expenditure of animal energy.
In the evening the votes were counted, and the candidates and their friends waited, breathless and anxious, in front of the building whence the result was to be declared.
Oh, how long they took over their counting, those cool official enumerators! With what slow deliberation they must have examined each individual paper! With what needless care they must have checked and scrutinized each individual total!
But after long vigil a fat little man, with a stentorian voice (understood to be the returning officer) appeared all at once in front of the hall, and holding up his plump round hand for silence, which fell instantly in a deep hush on all that expectant crowd, proceeded to read out the result of the election:
‘Harrison, 3,280; Cholmondely-Jones, 2,973 — majority for Harrison, 307.’
There was a moment’s lull, then a roar of satisfaction went up from Hubert’s supporters, followed by a loud growl of defeat from his opponent’s party; after which three ringing cheers for the successful candidate surged towards heaven wildly, and Hubert knew he was in very fact member of Parliament for the metropolitan borough of South Hampstead.
The rest that ensued, he scarcely understood. He was vaguely aware that somebody called upon him to speak, and that he spoke accordingly in a very loud voice, though with profound trepidation, and declared this to be a Glorious Victory; and that he was very polite to the candidate on the other side; and that he rejoiced in having had so honourable an opponent; but that he saw in his return a triumphant vindication of the policy of the Government. At which the crowd cheered, and the opposition and the vivisectionists hooted. And then he sat down, with his brain whirling.
After which, it seemed to him in a vague sort of way that a shadowy form, representing to some extent the defeated candidate, rose and said in a hollow voice this was hardly a defeat at all, but a Moral Victory; and that their majority had only been converted into a minority by anti-vaccination and other extraneous circumstances, quite alien to the politics of the hour or of this kingdom, and that they would have won had it not been for local option and the Grove Road footpath; and that the costermongers had done their duty like Englishmen; and that the tactics of the foreign Jews were simply disgraceful; and that, in fact, he had hardly been beaten at all, except from a merely numerical point of view, whatever that might mean; and that he wasn’t in the very least degree cast down by his licking, which was no licking in any way, if rightly regarded; but that he confidently anticipated being returned next time, in spite of the Grove Road faction, by a thundering majority. Whereupon, both parties cheered their own men lustily, and both seemed almost equally satisfied with the result of the poll — but especially the side that had got in their member.
And when all was over, and the crowd had slowly melted away, the member himself got limply into a hansom, with his brother Douglas, and drove off, amid cheers, to Mr. Venables’ town residence.
He was determined to be the first himself to announce his victory to his future wife — for so he considered her now. He rang the bell hard. A strange servant answered it. Could he see Miss Venables?
The strange servant stared at him, the stony British stare of the silk-stockinged footman. Oh dear no. Miss Venables could see nobody. But if the gentleman liked he could see her father.
Wondering what it could all mean, the newly-made member, with brain reeling even now from that orgie of congratulations and wild shaking of hands, mounted the stairs to the drawing-room, with Douglas still by his side, and found himself in the presence of Old Affability.
Hubert had never quite hit it off with Sabine’s father. The owner of the Venables millions had always looked somewhat askance upon the penniless journalist who filled, as he well knew, so large a place in Sabine’s consideration, to the exclusion of other and more suitable claimants for his daughter’s affections. But this time, to Hubert’s immense surprise, Old Affability advanced to greet him with unwonted cordiality, though with a very anxious look upon his benign features.
‘We’ve been expecting you before, Mr. Harrison,’ he said politely and with obvious kindliness. ‘Sabine’s been asking every minute to see you.’
‘Then you’ve heard of my success already?’ Hubert asked, somewhat crestfallen, for he had wanted to be the bearer of the good news himself. ‘You’ve heard that I’m elected?’
Mr. Venables gazed at him with a blank stare.
‘Elected to what?’ he asked stonily. ‘Your success where? I’m behind the times, perhaps. I’ve only just returned to-day from Paris, where I’ve been floating Amberleys, and know nothing about what’s been passing meanwhile in London.’
‘Why, I’m member of Parliament for S
outh Hampstead, that’s all,’ Hubert answered modestly; ‘and I’ve come round to tell Sab —— Miss Venables — of my success in person.’
‘Then you haven’t heard,’ Mr. Venables answered in return, in a very grave voice. ‘I should have thought she would have written to you — that is to say, I imagined my daughter corresponded with you occasionally about the Gordon League. She’s secretary to your ladies’ branch, I fancy. You’ve not heard about Miss Venables?’
He said it so seriously that Hubert’s face fell and his brain reeled once more. It was clear the voice portended evil tidings. Could Sabine have accepted Somebody Else, and was that why Old Affability was so particularly affable to him?
‘No, I’ve heard nothing from her for the last two days,’ Hubert blurted out, taken unawares, and unwittingly admitting the fact that so long a silence was a phenomenon calling for special comment. ‘There’s nothing the matter, I hope. My visit isn’t unpleasant to her?’
‘On the contrary,’ Mr. Venables said, with a very grave smile, ‘I was expecting you hourly, and so was Sabine. To tell you the truth, she’s dangerously ill; in fact, she’s caught it. It was a heroic thing to do, though I say it myself of my own daughter; a most heroic self-sacrifice, and we only fear the consequences this moment of her devotion to Arthur.’
‘Ill!’ Hubert ejaculated in surprise. ‘Not diphtheria, surely! You don’t mean to say she’s caught it from her brother?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Mr. Venables answered, unable to conceal his mingled pride and concern. ‘But what else would you expect? With such conduct as hers, she could hardly hope to be spared the consequences of her noble self-sacrifice.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ Hubert cried, bewildered. ‘You’re talking of something I know nothing about. Is Sabine ill? Is her life in danger?’
‘What! You haven’t read about it?’ Mr. Venables exclaimed, with a little annoyance in his tone. ‘Why, it was in half the public prints this morning. All London’s ringing with it. Such is fame! It’s the most heroic act I ever remember. See, here’s the report. I wonder you haven’t seen it.’
‘I’ve read nothing for the last week but the election news,’ Hubert answered apologetically, taking the paper from his hand, and skimming the paragraph in haste. ‘I’ve been so awfully busy.’ Then he laid it down with a sudden outburst of emotion. ‘Just like her!’ he cried, surprised. ‘She’s a brave, brave girl! But she shouldn’t have risked her own life — her precious life — for that child’s, all the same, Mr. Venables.’
The father answered nothing. ’Twas not for him to decide.
‘Will you go up and see her?’ he asked. ‘She’s been waiting and wondering that you didn’t come to her.’
‘Yes, at once,’ Hubert answered, moving hastily to the door. ‘My poor, poor Sabine! To think she was suffering in silence like this, while I was speechifying over there at the hall in South Hampstead!’
They went upstairs and entered the room together, Mr. Venables and Hubert. The father led the way to the sofa where Sabine was lying in a dainty dressing-gown. She was dangerously ill. She could hardly speak. The fingers of the disease were gripping hard at her throat. But, as Hubert entered, she half raised herself as she lay, with a flash of joy in her eye, and held out her arms to him in a wild outburst of welcome. Never before had she embraced him so. Hubert yielded at once, without a second’s hesitation, to the impulse of the moment, and flung himself into her arms. Mr. Venables, standing by, stickler for delicacy as he had always been, made no attempt to prevent him. For some minutes Hubert sat there, clasping her hand to his bosom, with the tears in his eyes. Then he gazed into her face, and cried out in a wild access of mingled emotions:
‘Sabine, for my sake, you must live — you must recover.’
Sabine raised her head, and looked at him with a look of unwonted tenderness. The proud girl had thoroughly melted now.
‘What news from South Hampstead?’ she gasped out with difficulty.
‘Elected!’ Hubert answered. ‘But don’t let’s talk about that, Sabine; you must get well. If I do as you did yourself, I must save you — I must save you.’
Sabine shook her head, and trembled violently.
‘No use, Hubert,’ she answered. ‘I feel it’s no use. Nothing will save me now. It’s got too firm a grip of me. It’s choking at my throat like a hand strangling one. But if you have put your foot on the first rung of the ladder that leads to success, I don’t care for anything. I love you, Hubert. I shall die happy.’
CHAPTER XXVII.
A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING.
We don’t always die, somehow, when we’re most certain of dying. It was a short and sharp attack; but nevertheless, contrary to her own expectation, Sabine outlived it. On the whole, to say the truth, she was glad of this; for while she was ill, it began to strike her she would rather like to live — to marry Hubert Harrison.
Nature and instinct are too strong in the long-run for the proudest soul. Sabine had almost had enough by this time of nursing her pride; and now, since she had given public proof, as it were, that she bore no ill-will to poor little Arthur for depriving her of her birthright, she began to feel she might fairly indulge her own taste in life by accepting the lover who had so long been faithful to her.
Besides, as things stood, the step would be open to less misapprehension. There was a great difference now (since this last election) in Hubert’s position. It was one thing to have people say she had declined from the pursuit of a Duke’s brother to a penniless journalist, who edited the Boomerang, and quite another thing to have them say she had accepted after mature consideration a rising M.P., with all the world before him where to choose, and the hopes of his party bound up in his future. Not that Sabine herself really thought much of all these things just then. While she lay ill in her room and all but dying, with her doctor by her side, and her maids around her, it somehow occurred to her that to wreck your own happiness in life and the happiness of the man you love best in the world, for fear of what other people will say or think about you, is a proof, not of pride or self-confidence at all, but of weakness and self-depreciation. The more she thought of it, the clearer it loomed forth. She rose from that illness armed with a new resolve. In future she would mould her life to suit her own convenience. She would be bold enough to act as she thought best in her own soul, and let the rest of the world say or think what it liked about her. In short, she would have the courage of her opinions, and marry Hubert.
Strange to say, too, when once she had arrived at that very sensible and natural conclusion, she could not imagine to herself how she had so long escaped it. It seemed so obvious, when one came to look the matter fairly and squarely in the face, that the right thing to do, if one wished to keep one’s own self-respect, was to follow the promptings of one’s own heart, without regard to the irresponsible babble of all or sundry. After all, she was prouder ten thousand times of Hubert Harrison than she could ever have been of the Duke of Powysland, even if she had loved him; and why should she be afraid to proclaim that faith aloud to the world for fear people should say she had only married Hubert after she had failed to secure a ducal coronet? She herself knew better; Hubert knew better; and what mattered to them two all the shrugs and hints of all the scheming mammas in Belgravia and all the cynical bachelors of Pall Mall and St. James’s?
So, thus resolved, a day or two after her recovery, Sabine made up her mind, not without sundry misgivings of that brave little heart of hers, to go down of her own accord to her father’s study, and make a clean breast of her intentions, without even consulting Hubert beforehand, to that ambitious financier.
It was a difficult thing to do, of course; brave as she was, Sabine fairly shrank from it. She knew her father had long ago set his heart on her ‘marrying well,’ as he himself would have phrased it — that is to say, on her marrying a man with a handle to his name and a position in society. Old Affability wished to say before he died, ‘My son-in-law the Duke,’ or ‘My daugh
ter the Marchioness.’ Ever since the days when he gave up all hopes of Bertie Montgomery, and the first rank in the land, he had constantly been playing at her some new courtesy lord or some Irish viscount, and had been disappointed each time at her obvious inability to see in any of these young gentlemen the virtues and excellencies which he himself invariably detected in all whose names are written in the Book of the Peerage. All this Sabine knew very well in her own mind; and, as she was a dutiful daughter, and, in spite of occasional annoyances at his superficial view of men and things, really loved Old Affability with all her heart, it grieved her not a little to think she must, with one mad blow, so sadly destroy his whole hopes for her future.
She did not know, however, that Old Affability himself had long begun to perceive the drift of Hubert Harrison’s frequent letters, and to suspect that they bore at times upon other things than that Gordon League which formed their ostensible object. Being a man of the world, he shrewdly guessed his daughter’s heart was too deeply engaged now for even the most eligible of dukes to shake its fidelity. Still less did Sabine know that the first person who had directed the Premier’s attention to Hubert Harrison’s brilliant articles in the Daily Telephone, and to the probability of his making a good Parliamentary debater on the Government side, was Old Affability himself. For the typical British Philistine was a shrewd man of business in his own way, and being accustomed always to hedge against contingencies and make all sure behind him, he determined that if Hubert Harrison must at last be openly recognised as the favoured suitor for his daughter’s heart, he should at least have some respectable qualifications beforehand for so high an honour, and not put wholly to the blush the ten-year-old traditions of the house of Venables.
