The Semi-attached Couple/Chapter 36
CHAPTER XXXVI
Lord Teviot had been absent nearly five weeks, which had passed smoothly and pleasantly away at Eskdale Castle, when a sudden change of affairs took place; not only there, but all over England, to say nothing of Scotland and Ireland. The hapless individual who filled the office of Prime Minister under the gracious King of the above-named countries, having borne the fatigues of the situation for five years, long enough to have become unpopular with the people, wearisome to the King, and odious to all his own private friends, took one decided step to regain all he had lost with others, and to obtain a little rest for himself—he took to his bed and died.
His Cabinet was broken up. It had been, after the usage of all Cabinets, divided into two factions, opposed on all important points to each other, but forming what is by courtesy called a united Cabinet, under the gentle sway of the worn-out nonentity at their head. He was gone. Six or seven newspapers, with broad black borders, announced the death of one of the greatest men of the age,—recommended Westminster Abbey,—a subscription for a monument,—and one of his colleagues for a successor. An equal number of papers, after professing, with becoming candour and humanity, that they warred not with the dead, raked up all the old scandal they could collect against the deceased, denied him any talent whatever, and explained away all his virtues; they prophesied the utter annihilation of the ministerial party, and announced that in twenty-four hours they should be able to give a correct list of the new Cabinet about to be formed by the powerful leader of the Opposition. All the idle men in London rushed to their clubs, and such high betting had not been known since the last Epsom races.
After three days of wonderment, the King decided the bets by sending for Mr. G. The clubs were more thronged and more agitated than ever. One-half of St. James's Street said that England was lost, that the real crisis had come at last (there is generally a false crisis every Easter, in which England is all but lost, but she is found again towards Whitsuntide), and that Church and State, King and kingdom, Lords and Commons, were all to be knocked on the head at once. The club on the opposition side of the street was in ecstasies; its members shook each other by the hand till their arms ached; they declared the King to be the wisest monarch that had ever reigned, and Mr. G. the greatest statesman that had ever governed; that the country was saved, and revolution arrested. They met but to rejoice over the public good, and parted but to make private offers of their services to Mr. G.
And Fisherwick! how felt he? Never was there so happy a man; the world was not large enough to contain him, nothing was but the great room in Downing Street, which to him was greater than the world itself He wrote faster than ever, and his adoration of his chief was yet more fervent; and when the list of the new ministry was drawn up by his own hand for the favoured evening paper, and when he had added thereto a paragraph announcing that Samuel Obadiah Fisherwick, Esq., had been appointed private secretary to the new premier, he felt that life had nothing greater to give. He had reached the summit of his Mont Blanc.
Mr. G.'s first measure was a dissolution of parliament. The roads swarmed with carriages, and the papers with addresses, the dying hatreds of former contests were roused into fresh life, and country houses became merely election committee rooms. Lord Teviot's name had been one of the first on Mr. G.'s list of his Cabinet, and a messenger had been despatched to recall him from Portugal. This appointment of his son-in-law gave additional energy to Lord Eskdale's ministerial politics. His son had been member for the neighbouring town of Boroughford in the last parliament; and if by any degree of exertion or expense—a gentlemanlike term for bribery—he could return his nephew for the second seat, it would be in many respects a clever stroke of policy. He should bring another vote in aid of the great G. cause; he should have the honour and glory of possessing, to all appearance, a borough of his own; and he should inflict a mortal blow on the Duke of Broughton, the lord-lieutenant of the county, with whose family he had invariably been on terms of polite rivalry and civil hatred, and who at the last election had contrived to insinuate one of his own nephews, Captain Luttridge, into the borough.
The only great difficulty Lord Eskdale anticipated was with Colonel Beaufort himself, whose habits of indolence would be much opposed to the work of canvassing. But in this he was mistaken. There is no stage of inertness and don't-carishness from which an Englishman may not be roused by the stimulus of politics; and a contested election is perhaps one of the finest remedies that can be applied to a confirmed languor, either of mind or body. Ernest caught eagerly at his uncle's proposal, travelled all night from town, and started on his canvass with his cousin an hour after his arrival, passed eleven hours on visits to the electors, and ended the day by making a speech at the Eskdale Arms to two hundred and fifty dirty-looking men, all smoking bad tobacco, and drinking worse beer; and most of whom were sufficiently drunk to insist on shaking hands with him four or five times in the course of the evening. And yet when he and Lord Beaufort returned home at night, thirsty, tired, and smoke-dried, they declared they had had a "glorious day," and never saw a finer set of fellows than the electors of Boroughford.
"We shall beat the duke out of the field," said Lord Beaufort to his father. "Luttridge was going sneaking about the town with only half the number of supporters he had last time; and I cannot hear of a second candidate on their side. Besides, we have gained a valuable friend; Tom Rogerson is heart and soul with us."
"That is indeed a great coup," said Lord Eskdale.
"He has cut the pinks dead, and is on our committee."
"What a clever speech he made at the Magpie and Stump!" said Ernest. "Eh, Beaufort, did it not strike you as something out of the common way?"
"Yes, excellent; but in election matters Tom Rogerson has not his equal on earth."
"Who is he, my dear?" said Lady Eskdale. "Where does he live?"
"Don't you know him?" said Ernest. "Well, I am astonished. I should have thought you must have known Mr. Rogerson, a neighbour; a man of talent, and a voter."
"No, my dear, I never heard of him till this moment; but I will ask him to dinner forthwith."
"Oh! pray do, there's a dear; he will be delighted to come: perhaps your hours are later than he is used to; but for once he might put up with that."
"Or we might dine earlier. I should not mind dining at seven to oblige a friend of yours; but where is he to be found?"
"I can give him your card when I see him to-morrow; he is very little at home now, but his ordinary abode is the front attic of No. 4, Hopscotch Alley, near the old market. I am not quite sure of the number, though I know Hopscotch Alley is the place."
"Now, my dear Beaufort, what does he mean?"
"Do not mind what he says, dear; he is only trying to mystify you; the real truth being, that Tom Rogerson is a valuable ally, solely from his intimacy with all the rogues and knaves in the borough. He once kept an ale-house, and is now a very idle cobbler; but he is one of those odd shrewd characters who in all times of popular excitement make the fortunes of the party to which they attach themselves. We expect Rogerson will bring us in at least forty votes."
"Oh! here is his name in my polling-book," said Helen, who was turning over the leaves of a small pamphlet.
"My dear Helen," cried Ernest, "what is that you say? your polling-book?"
"Yes, we have each got a polling-book, a list of voters, or whatever you call it, and have been studying them all day to see if there are any of our tradespeople or old friends in the village whom we could persuade to vote for you."
"No, have you really? what treasures you all are! If I were not so tired and smoky I should be tempted to make a complete tour of the room, just to kiss all your little hands. And there are several cases in which you may be of use to us. We want you to order a bonnet, which you need not wear, at Mrs. Vere's. Vere pretends to have opinions about Church reform."
"Yes, and Giles the ironmonger would not give us any promise to-day."
"Impossible, my dear Beaufort," said Lady Eskdale; "he has just finished all the ornamental wire-work for my new garden; he ought to be devoted to us."
"He ought, but he is not; for the duke has been speaking to him about iron flues for his hothouses."
"That is actual bribery," said Lady Eskdale, rising into real election energy; "but, if it comes to that, your father is going to have iron hurdles all round the pleasure-ground, and I may as well speak to Giles about them to-morrow."
"Then could you not call on Mrs. Birkett, and say something a little civil to her to-morrow? "
"Why, you do not mean to say," said Lady Walden, laughing, "that Mr. Birkett presumes to have any political opinions of his own, after having attended me so lately, and with the hope of vaccinating baby still before his eyes?"
"I do not exactly make him out; he said he should not like to disoblige the family, but that he would rather not pledge himself; that the duchess had asked Mrs. Birkett to her last ball, and that this was a great political crisis, and so on. I do not know what plot is hatching, but I fully expect the duke's agent will start a second candidate, and that people are hanging back till they see who he is. Mr. Douglas was rather stiff, I thought, to-day."
"Impossible, Beaufort; the Douglases must be with us," said Lady Walden. "Mrs. Douglas hates the duchess."
"Yes; but that is no great distinction likely to tell in our favour. Mrs. Douglas hates so many people."
"And Mr. Douglas was on your committee last time, and he is such an excellent man."
"Very true, so far as his excellence goes; but he has declined being on our committee now."
"Yes, there is a screw loose with the clan of Douglas evidently," said Ernest, "and if I had but time I should like to ride over and pay a few delicate attentions to my little Miss Douglas."
"We will all drive over there to-morrow," said Lady Eskdale, "and take Mrs. Birkett in our way: indeed, I believe Mary Forrester was at Thornbank yesterday; were not you, my dear?"
"Yes, I was, but I think with Colonel Beaufort, though not exactly in his words, that there is a screw loose. Mrs. Douglas was very cold about the election, and Eliza seemed out of spirits."
"We must try what we can do to-morrow and bring Eliza back with us; so now to bed."
"It is time to go to bed," said Lord Beaufort, lighting his candle, "for we must be in Boroughford by nine. Are you equal to that exertion, Ernest?"
"By nine, my dear fellow! that is full late. I should have said eight; but then I hate anything like indolence."