Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  And from that time until the poll was declared open — in dumb show — not a word was audible.

  Then at last the shouting of the rival bands sank to a confused babel of jeers, abuse, and laughter. Exhausted men mopped their faces, voiceless men loosened their neck-cloths, the farthest from the hustings went off to drink, and there was a lull until the sound of a drum and fife announced a new event, and forth from the Heart and Hand advanced a procession of five led by the accursed Dyas.

  They were the Whig voters and they marched proudly to the front of the polling-booth, the mob falling back on either side to give them place.

  Dyas flung his hat into the booth. “Wrench and Vaughan!” he cried in a voice which could be heard in the White Lion. “And I care not who knows it!”

  They put to him the bribery oath. “I can take it,” he answered. “Swallow it yourselves, if you can!”

  “You should know the taste, Jack,” cried a sly friend: and for a moment the laugh was against him.

  One by one — the process was slow in those days — they voted. “Five for Wrench and Vaughan.” Wrench rose and bowed to each as he retired. Arthur Vaughan took no notice.

  Sir Robert’s voters looked at one another uneasily. They had the day before them, but — and then he saw the look, and, putting White and his remonstrances on one side, he joined them, bade them follow him, and descended before them. He would ask no man to do what he would not do himself.

  But the moment his action was understood, the moment the men were seen behind him, there was a yell so fierce and a movement so threatening, that on the lowest step of the hustings he stood bareheaded, raised his hand for silence and for a wonder was obeyed. In a clear, loud voice:

  “Do you expect to terrify me,” he cried, “either by threats or violence? Let any man look in my face and see if it change colour? Let him come and lay his hand on my heart and feel if it beats the quicker. Keep my voters from the poll and you stultify your own, for there will be no election. Make way then, and let them pass to their duty!”

  And the crowd made way; and Arthur Vaughan felt a reluctant pang of admiration. The five were polled; the result so far, five for each of the candidates.

  There remained to poll only Arthur Vaughan and Pillinger of the Blue Duck, if he could be brought up by the Tories. If neither of these voted the Returning Officer would certainly give the casting vote for Sir Robert’s candidates — if he dared.

  Isaac White believed that he would not dare, and for some time past the agent had been in covert talk with Pybus at the back of the hustings, two or three of the friends of each masking the conference. Now he drew aside his employer who had returned in safety to his place; and he conferred with him. But for a time it was clear that Sir Robert would not listen to what he had to say. He looked pale and angry, and returned but curt answers. But White persisted, holding him by the sleeve.

  “Mr. Vaughan — bah, what a noise they make — does not wish to vote,” he explained. “But in the end he will, sir, it is my opinion, and that will give it to them unless we can bring up Pillinger — which I doubt, sir. Even if we do, it is a tie — —”

  “Well? Well?” Sir Robert struck in, eyeing him sternly. “What more do we want? The Returning Officer — —”

  “He will not dare,” White whispered, “and if he does, sir, it is my belief he will be murdered. More, if we win they will rush the booth and destroy the books. They have as good as told me they will stick at nothing. Believe me, sir,” he continued earnestly, “better than one and one we can’t look for now. And better one than none!”

  But it was long before Sir Robert would be persuaded. No, defeat or victory, he would fight to the last! He would be beholden to the other side for nothing! White, however, was an honest man and less afraid of his master than usual: and he held to it. And at length the reflection that the bargain would at least shut out his kinsman prevailed with Sir Robert, and he consented.

  He was too chivalrous to return on his own side the man whose success would fill his pockets. He elected for Wathen and never doubted that the Bowood interest would return their first love, Wrench. But when the landlord of the Blue Duck was brought up by agreement to vote for a candidate on either side, Pillinger voted by order for Wathen and Vaughan.

  “There’s some d —— d mistake!” shrieked the Squire, as the words reached his ears.

  But there was no mistake, and to the silent disgust of the Tories and amid the frantic cheering of the Whigs, the return was made in favour of Sergeant John Wathen, and Arthur Vermuyden Vaughan, esquire. Loud and long was the cheering: the air was black with caps. But when the crowd sought for the two to chair them according to immemorial custom, only the Sergeant could be found, and he with great prudence declined the honour.

  XIX

  THE FRUITS OF VICTORY

  Arthur Vaughan could write himself Member of Parliament. The plaudits of the Academic and the mimic contests of the Debating Club were no longer for him. Fortune had placed within his grasp the prize of which he had often dreamt; and henceforth all lay open to him. But, as a contemporary in a letter written on a like occasion says, he had gone through innumerable horrors to reach the goal. And the moment the result was known and certain he slipped away from his place, and from the oppressive good-wishes of his new and uncongenial friends — the Williamses and the Blackfords; and shutting himself up in his rooms at the White Lion, where his entrance was regarded askance, he set himself to look the future in the face.

  He could not blame himself for the past, for he had done nothing of which he was ashamed. He had been put by circumstances in a false position, but he had freed himself frankly and boldly; and every candid man must acknowledge that he could not have done otherwise than he had. Yet he was aware that his conduct was open to misconstruction. Some, even on his own side, would say that he had gone to Chippinge prepared to support his kinsman; and that then, tempted by the opportunity of gaining the seat for himself, he had faced about. Few would believe the truth — that twenty-four hours before the election he had declined to stand. Still fewer would believe that in withdrawing his “No,” he had been wholly moved by the offer which Sir Robert had made to him and the unworthy manner in which he had treated him.

  Yet that was the truth; and so entirely the truth, that but for that offer he would have resigned the seat even now. For he had no mind to enter the House under a cloud. He knew that to do so was to endanger the boat in which his fortunes were embarked. But in face of that offer he could not withdraw. Sir Robert, Wetherell, White, all would believe that he had resigned, not on the point of honour, but for a bribe, and because the bribe, refused at first, grew larger the longer he eyed it.

  So, for good or evil, his mind was made up. And for a few minutes, while the roar of the mob applauding him rose to his windows, he was happy. He was a member of the Commons’ House. He stood on that threshold on which Harley and St. John, Walpole the wise, and the inspired Cornet, Pitt and Fox, spoiled children of fortune, Castlereagh the illogical, and Canning

  Born with an ancient name of little worth,

  And disinherited before hit birth,

  and many another had stood; knowing no more than he knew what fortune had in womb for them, what of hushed silence would one day mark their rising, what homage of loyal hearts and thundering feet would hang upon their words. As their fortunes his might be; to sway to tears or laughter, to a nation’s weal or woe, the men who ruled; to know his words were fateful, and yet to speak with no uncertain voice; to give the thing he did not deign to wear, and make the man whom he must follow after, ay,

  To fall as Walpole and to fail at Pitt!

  this, all this might be his, if he were worthy! If the dust of that arena knew no better man!

  His heart rose on the wave of thought and he felt himself fit for all, equipped for all. He owned no task too hard, no enterprise too high. Nor did he fall from the clouds until he remembered the change in his fortunes, and bethought him that henceforth h
e must depend upon himself. The story would be sifted, of course, and its truth or falsehood be made clear. But whatever use Sir Robert might have deigned to make of it, Vaughan did not believe that he would have stooped to invent it. And if it were true, then all the importance which had attached to himself as the heir to a great property, all the privileges, all the sanctity of coming wealth, were gone.

  But with them the responsibilities of that position were gone also. The change might well depress his head and cloud his heart. He had lost much which he could hardly hope to win for himself. Yet — yet there were compensations.

  He had passed through much in the last twenty-four hours; and, perhaps for that reason, he was peculiarly open to emotion. In the thought that henceforth he might seek a companion where he pleased, in the remembrance that he had no longer any tastes to consult but his own, any prejudices to respect save those which he chose to adopt, he found a comfort at which he clutched eagerly and thankfully. The world which shook him off — he would no longer be guided by its dictates! The race, strenuous and to the swift, ay, to the draining of heart and brain, he would not run it alone, uncheered, unsolaced — merely because while things were different he had walked by a certain standard of conduct! If he was now a poor man he was at least free! Free to take the one he loved into the boat in which his fortunes floated, nor ask too closely who were her forbears. Free to pursue his ambition hand in hand with one who would sweeten failure and share success, and who in that life of scant enjoyment and high emprise to which he must give himself, would be a guardian angel, saving him from the spells of folly and pleasure!

  He might please himself now, and he would. Flixton might laugh, the men of the 14th might laugh. And in Bury Street he might have winced. But in Mecklenburgh Square, where he and she would set up their modest tent, he would not care.

  He could not go to Bristol until the morrow, for he had to see Pybus, but he would write and tell her of his fortunes and ask her to share them. The step was no sooner conceived than attempted. He sat down and took pen and paper, and with a glow at his heart, in a state of generous agitation, he prepared to write.

  But he had never written to her, he had never called her by her name. And the difficulty of addressing her overwhelmed him. In the end, after sitting appalled by the bold and shameless look of “Dear Mary,” “Dearest Mary,” and of addresses warmer than these, he solved the difficulty, after a tame and proper fashion by writing to Miss Sibson. And this is what he wrote:

  “Dear Madame,

  “At the interview which I had with you on Saturday last, you were good enough to intimate that if I were prepared to give an affirmative answer to a question which you did not put into words, you would permit me to see Miss Smith. I am now in a position to give the assurance as to my intentions which you desired, and trust that I may see Miss Smith on my arrival in Bristol to-morrow.

  “Believe me to remain, Madame,

  “Truly yours,

  “Arthur V. Vaughan.”

  And all his life, he told himself, he would remember the use to which he had put his first frank!

  That night the toasting and singing, drunkenness and revelry of which the borough was the scene, kept him long waking. But eleven o’clock on the following morning saw him alighting from a chaise at Bristol, and before noon he was in Queen’s Square.

  For the time at least he had put the world behind him. And it was in pure exultation and the joyous anticipation of what was to come that he approached the house. He came, a victor from the fight; nor, he reflected, was it every suitor who had it in his power to lay such offerings at the feet of his mistress. In the eye of the world, indeed, he was no longer what he had been; for the matchmaking mother he had lost his value. But he had still so much to give which Mary had not, he could still so alter the tenor of her life, he could still so lift her in the social scale, those hopes which she was to share still flew on pinions so ambitious — ay, to the very scattering of garters and red-ribbons — that his heart was full of the joy of giving. He must not be blamed if he felt as King Cophetua when he stooped to the beggar-maiden, or as the Lord of Burleigh when he woo’d the farmer’s daughter. After all, he did but rejoice that she had so little and he had so much; that he could give and she could grace.

  When he came to the house he paused a moment in wonder that when all things were altered, his prospects, views, plans, its face rose unchanged. Then he knocked boldly; the time for hesitation was past. He asked for Miss Smith — thinking it likely that he would have to wait until the school rose at noon. The maid, however, received him as if she expected him, and ushered him at once into a room on the left of the entrance. He stood, holding his hat, waiting, listening; but not for long. The door had scarcely closed on the girl before it opened again, and Mary Smith came in. She met his eyes, and started, blushed a divine rosy-red and stood wide-eyed and uncertain, with her hand on the door.

  “Did you not expect me?” he said, taken aback on his side. For this was not the Mary Smith with whom he travelled on the coach; nor the Mary Smith with whom he had talked in the Square. This was a Mary Smith, no less beautiful, but gay and fresh as the morning, in dainty white with a broad blue sash, with something new, something of a franker bearing in her air. “Did you not expect me?” he repeated gently, advancing a step towards her.

  “No,” she murmured, and she stood blushing before him, blushing more deeply with every second. For his eyes were beginning to talk, and to tell the old tale.

  “Did not Miss Sibson get my letter?” he asked gently.

  “I think not,” she murmured.

  “Then I have all — to do,” he said nervously. It was — it was certainly a harder thing to do than he had expected. “Will you not sit down, please,” he pleaded. “I want you to listen to me.”

  For a moment she looked as if she would flee instead. Then she let him lead her to a seat.

  He sat down within reach of her. “And you did not know that it was I?” he said, feeling the difficulty increase with every second.

  “No.”

  “I hope,” he said, hesitating, “that you are glad that it is?”

  “I am glad to see you again — to thank you,” she murmured. But while her blushes and her downcast eyes seemed propitious to his suit, there was something — was it, could it be a covert smile hiding at the corners of her little mouth? — some change in her which oppressed him, and which he did not understand. One thing he did understand, however: that she was more beautiful, more desirable, more intoxicating than he had pictured her. And his apprehensions grew upon him, as he paused tongue-tied, worshipping her with his eyes. If, after all, she would not? What if she said, “No”? For what, now he came to measure them beside her, were those things he brought her, those things he came to offer, that career which he was going to ask her to share? What were they beside her adorable beauty and her modesty, the candour of her maiden eyes, the perfection of her form? He saw their worthlessness; and the bold phrase with which he had meant to open his suit, the confident, “Mary, I am come for you,” which he had repeated so often to the rhythm of the chaise-wheels, that he was sure he would never forget it, died on his lips.

  At last, “You speak of thanks — it is to gain your thanks I am come,” he said nervously. “But I don’t ask for words. I want you to think as — as highly as you can of what I did for you — if you please! I want you to believe that I saved your life on the coach. I want you to think that I did it at great risk to myself. I want you,” he continued hurriedly, “to exaggerate a hundredfold — everything I did for you. And then I want you to think that you owe all to a miser, who will be content with nothing short of — of immense interest, of an extortionate return.”

  “I don’t think that I understand,” she answered in a low tone, her cheeks glowing. But beyond that, he could not tell aught of her feelings; she kept her eyes lowered so that he could not read them, and there were, even in the midst of her shyness, an ease and an aloofness in her bearing, which were
new to him and which frightened him. He remembered how quickly she had on other occasions put him in his place; how coldly she had asserted herself. Perhaps, she had no feeling for him. Perhaps, apart from the incident in the coach, she even disliked him!

  “You do not understand,” he said unsteadily, “what is the return I want?”

  “No-o,” she faltered.

  He stood up abruptly, and took a pace or two from her. “And I hardly dare tell you,” he said. “I hardly dare tell you. I came to you, I came here as brave as a lion. And now, I don’t know why, I am frightened.”

  She — astonishing thing! — leapt the gulf for him. Possibly the greater distance at which he stood gave her courage. “Are you afraid,” she murmured, moving her fingers restlessly, and watching them, “that you may change your mind again?”

  “Change my mind?” he ejaculated, not for the moment understanding her. So much had happened since his collision with Flixton in the Square.

  “As that gentleman — said you were in the habit of doing.”

  “Ah!”

  “It was not true?”

  “True?” he exclaimed hotly. “True that I — that I — —”

  “Changed your mind?” she said with her face averted. “And not — not only that, sir?”

  “What else?” he asked bitterly.

  “Talked of me — among your friends?”

  “A lie! A miserable lie!” he cried on impulse, finding his tongue again. “But I will tell you all. He saw you — that first morning, you remember, and never having seen anyone so lovely, he intended to make you the object of — of attentions that were unworthy of you. And to protect you I told him that I was going — to make you my wife.”

  “Is that what you mean to-day?” she asked faintly.