Felix Holt
Page 26
‘Your energetic protest is needless here, sir,’ said Harold, offended at what sounded like a threat, and was certainly premature enough to be in bad taste. In fact, this error of behaviour in Felix proceeded from a repulsion which was mutual. It was a constant source of irritation to him that the public men on his side were, on the whole, not conspicuously better than the public men on the other side; that the spirit of innovation, which with him was a part of religion, was in many of its mouthpieces no more of a religion than the faith in rotten boroughs;8 and he was thus predisposed to distrust Harold Transome. Harold, in his turn, disliked impracticable notions of loftiness and purity – disliked all enthusiasm; and he thought he saw a very troublesome, vigorous incorporation of that nonsense in Felix. But it would be foolish to exasperate him in any way.
‘If you choose to accompany me to Jermyn’s office,’ he went on, ‘the matter shall be inquired into in your presence. I think you will agree with me, Mr Lyon, that this will be the most satisfactory course?’
‘Doubtless,’ said the minister, who liked the candidate very well, and believed that he would be amenable to argument; ‘and I would caution my young friend against a too great hastiness of words and action. David’s cause against Saul was a righteous one; nevertheless not all who clave unto David were righteous men.’9
‘The more was the pity, sir,’ said Felix. ‘Especially if he winked at their malpractices.’
Mr Lyon smiled, shook his head, and stroked his favourite’s arm deprecatingly.
‘It is rather too much for any man to keep the consciences of all his party,’ said Harold. ‘If you had lived in the East, as I have, you would be more tolerant. More tolerant, for example, of an active industrious selfishness, such as we have here, though it may not always be quite scrupulous: you would see how much better it is than an idle selfishness. I have heard it said, a bridge is a good thing – worth helping to make, though half the men who worked at it were rogues.’
‘O yes!’ said Felix, scornfully, ‘give me a handful of generalities and analogies, and I’ll undertake to justify Burke and Hare, and prove them benefactors of their species.10 I’ll tolerate no nuisances but such as I can’t help; and the question now is, not whether we can do away with all the nuisances in the world, but with a particular nuisance under our noses.’
‘Then we had better cut the matter short, as I propose, by going at once to Jermyn’s,’ said Harold. ‘In that case, I must bid you good-morning, Mr Lyon.’
‘I would fain,’ said the minister, looking uneasy – ‘I would fain have had a further opportunity of considering that question of the ballot with you. The reasons against it need not be urged lengthily; they only require complete enumeration to prevent any seeming hiatus, where an opposing fallacy might thrust itself in.’
‘Never fear, sir,’ said Harold, shaking Mr Lyon’s hand cordially, ‘there will be opportunities. Shall I not see you in the committee-room to-morrow?’
‘I think not,’ said Mr Lyon, rubbing his brow, with a sad remembrance of his personal anxieties. ‘But I will send you, if you will permit me, a brief writing, on which you can meditate at your leisure.’
‘I shall be delighted. Good-bye.’
Harold and Felix went out together; and the minister, going up to his dull study, asked himself whether, under the pressure of conflicting experience, he had faithfully discharged the duties of the past interview?
If a cynical sprite were present, riding on one of the motes in that dusty room, he may have made himself merry at the illusions of the little minister who brought so much conscience to bear on the production of so slight an effect. I confess to smiling myself, being sceptical as to the effect of ardent appeals and nice distinctions on gentlemen who are got up, both inside and out, as candidates in the style of the period; but I never smiled at Mr Lyon’s trustful energy without falling to penitence and veneration immediately after. For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities – a willing movement of a man’s soul with the larger sweep of the world’s forces – a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life. We see human heroism broken into units and say, this unit did little – might as well not have been. But in this way we might break up a great army into units; in this way we might break the sunlight into fragments, and think that this and the other might be cheaply parted with. Let us rather raise a monument to the soldiers whose brave hearts only kept the ranks unbroken, and met death – a monument to the faithful who were not famous, and who are precious as the continuity of the sunbeams is precious, though some of them fall unseen and on barrenness.
At present, looking back on that day at Treby, it seems to me that the sadder illusion lay with Harold Transome, who was trusting in his own skill to shape the success of his own morrows, ignorant of what many yesterdays had determined for him beforehand.
CHAPTER XVII
It is a good and soothfast saw;
Half-roasted never will be raw;
No dough is dried once more to meal,
No crock new-shapen by the wheel;
You can’t turn curds to milk again,
Nor Now, by wishing, back to Then;
And having tasted stolen honey,
You can’t buy innocence for money.
Jermyn was not particularly pleased that some chance had apparently hindered Harold Transome from making other canvassing visits immediately after leaving Mr Lyon, and so had sent him back to the office earlier than he had been expected to come. The inconvenient chance he guessed at once to be represented by Felix Holt, whom he knew very well by Trebian report to be a young man with so little of the ordinary Christian motives as to making an appearance and getting on in the world, that he presented no handle to any judicious and respectable person who might be willing to make use of him.
Harold Transome, on his side, was a good deal annoyed at being worried by Felix into an inquiry about electioneering details. The real dignity and honesty there was in him made him shrink from this necessity of satisfying a man with a troublesome tongue; it was as if he were to show indignation at the discovery of one barrel with a false bottom, when he had invested his money in a manufactory where a larger or smaller number of such barrels had always been made. A practical man must seek a good end by the only possible means; that is to say, if he is to get into Parliament he must not be too particular. It was not disgraceful to be neither a Quixote nor a theorist, aiming to correct the moral rules of the world; but whatever actually was, or might prove to be, disgraceful, Harold held in detestation. In this mood he pushed on unceremoniously to the inner office without waiting to ask questions; and when he perceived that Jermyn was not alone, he said, with haughty quickness,
‘A question about the electioneering at Sproxton. Can you give your attention to it at once? Here is Mr Holt, who has come to me about the business.’
‘A – yes – a – certainly,’ said Jermyn, who, as usual, was the more cool and deliberate because he was vexed. He was standing, and, as he turned round, his broad figure concealed the person who was seated writing at the bureau. ‘Mr Holt – a – will doubtless – a – make a point of saving a busy man’s time. You can speak at once. This gentleman’ – here Jermyn made a slight backward movement of the head – ‘is one of ourselves; he is a true-blue.’
‘I have simply to complain,’ said Felix, ‘that one of your agents has been sent on a bribing expedition to Sproxton – with what purpose you, sir, may know better than I do. Mr Transome, it appears, was ignorant of the affair, and does not approve it.’
Jermyn, looking gravely and steadily at Felix while he was speaking, at the same time drew forth a small sheaf of papers from his side-pocket, and then, as he turned his eyes slowly on Harold, felt in his waistcoat-pocket for his pencil-case.
‘I don’t approve it at all,’ said Harold, who hated Jermyn’s calculated slowness and conceit in his own impenetrability. ‘Be good enough to put a stop to it, will you?’
‘I know very little about holding ribbons,’ said Felix; ‘but I saw clearly enough at once that more mischief had been done than could be well mended. Though I believe, if it were heartily tried, the treating might be reduced, and something might be done to hinder the men from turning out in a body to make a noise, which might end in worse.’
‘They might be hindered from making a noise on our side,’ said Jermyn, smiling. ‘That is perfectly true. But if they made a noise on the other – would your purpose be answered better, sir?’
Harold was moving about in an irritated manner while Felix and Jermyn were speaking. He preferred leaving the talk to the attorney, of whose talk he himself liked to keep as clear as possible.
‘I can only say,’ answered Felix, ‘that if you make use of those heavy fellows when the drink is in them, I shouldn’t like your responsibility. You might as well drive bulls to roar on our side as bribe a set of colliers and navvies to shout and groan.’
‘A lawyer may well envy your command of language, Mr Holt,’ said Jermyn, pocketing his bills again, and shutting up his pencil; ‘but he would not be satisfied with the accuracy – a – of your terms. You must permit me to check your use of the word “bribery”. The essence of bribery is, that it should be legally proved; there is not such a thing – a – in rerum natura1 – a – as unproved bribery. There has been no such thing as bribery at Sproxton, I’ll answer for it. The presence of a body of stalwart fellows on – a – the Liberal side will tend to preserve order; for we know that the benefit clubs from the Pitchley district will show for Debarry. Indeed, the gentleman who has conducted the canvass at Sproxton is experienced in Parliamentary affairs, and would not exceed – a – the necessary measures that a rational judgment would dictate.’
‘What! you mean the man who calls himself Johnson?’ said Felix, in a tone of disgust.
Before Jermyn chose to answer, Harold broke in, saying, quickly and peremptorily, ‘The long and the short of it is this, Mr Holt: I shall desire and insist that whatever can be done by way of remedy shall be done. Will that satisfy you? You see now some of a candidate’s difficulties?’ said Harold, breaking into his most agreeable smile. ‘I hope you will have some pity for me.’
‘I suppose I must be content,’ said Felix, not thoroughly propitiated. ‘I bid you good-morning, gentlemen.’
When he was gone out, and had closed the door behind him, Harold, turning round and flashing, in spite of himself, an angry look at Jermyn, said,
‘And who is Johnson? an alias, I suppose. It seems you are fond of the name.’
Jermyn turned perceptibly paler, but disagreeables of this sort between himself and Harold had been too much in his anticipations of late for him to be taken by surprise. He turned quietly round and just touched the shoulder of the person seated at the bureau, who now rose.
‘On the contrary,’ Jermyn answered, ‘the Johnson in question is this gentleman, whom I have the pleasure of introducing to you as one of my most active helpmates in electioneering business – Mr Johnson, of Bedford Row, London. I am comparatively a novice – a – in these matters. But he was engaged with James Putty in two hardly-contested elections, and there could scarcely be a better initiation. Putty is one of the first men of the country as an agent – a – on the Liberal side – a – eh, Johnson? I think Makepiece is – a – not altogether a match for him, not quite of the same calibre – a – haud consimili ingenio2 – a – in tactics – a – and in experience?’
‘Makepiece is a wonderful man, and so is Putty,’ said the glib Johnson, too vain not to be pleased with an opportunity of speaking, even when the situation was rather awkward. ‘Makepiece for scheming, but Putty for management. Putty knows men, sir,’ he went on, turning to Harold; ‘it’s a thousand pities that you have not had his talents employed in your service. He’s beyond any man for saving a candidate’s money – does half the work with his tongue. He’ll talk of anything, from the Areopagus,3 and that sort of thing, down to the joke about “Where are you going, Paddy?” – you know what I mean, sir! “Back again, says Paddy” – an excellent electioneering joke. Putty understands these things. He has said to me, “Johnson, bear in mind there are two ways of speaking an audience will always like: one is, to tell them what they don’t understand; and the other is, to tell them what they’re used to.” I shall never be the man to deny that I owe a great deal to Putty. I always say it was a most providential thing in the Mugham election last year that Putty was not on the Tory side. He managed the women; and, if you’ll believe me, sir, one fourth of the men would never have voted if their wives hadn’t driven them to it for the good of their families. And as for speaking – it’s currently reported in our London circles that Putty writes regularly for the “Times”. He has that kind of language; and I needn’t tell you, Mr Transome, that it’s the apex, which, I take it, means the tiptop – and nobody can get higher than that, I think. I’ve belonged to a political debating society myself; I’ve heard a little language in my time; but when Mr Jermyn first spoke to me about having the honour to assist in your canvass of North Loamshire’ – here Johnson played with his watch-seals and balanced himself a moment on his toes – ‘the very first thing I said was, “And there’s Garstin has got Putty! No Whig could stand against a Whig,” I said, “who had Putty on his side: I hope Mr Transome goes in for something of a deeper colour.” I don’t say that, as a general rule, opinions go for much in a return, Mr Transome; it depends on who are in the field before you, and on the skill of your agents. But as a Radical, and a moneyed Radical, you are in a fine position, sir; and with care and judgment – with care and judgment –’
It had been impossible to interrupt Johnson before, without the most impolitic rudeness. Jermyn was not sorry that he should talk, even if he made a fool of himself; for in that solid shape, exhibiting the average amount of human foibles, he seemed less of the alias which Harold had insinuated him to be, and had all the additional plausibility of a lie with a circumstance.
Harold had thrown himself with contemptuous resignation into a chair, had drawn off one of his buff gloves, and was looking at his hand. But when Johnson gave his iteration with a slightly slackened pace, Harold looked up at him and broke in,
‘Well then, Mr Johnson, I shall be glad if you will use your care and judgment in putting an end as well as you can to this Sproxton affair; else it may turn out an ugly business.’
‘Excuse me, sir, I must beg you to look at the matter a little more closely. You will see that it is impossible to take a single step backward at Sproxton. It was a matter of necessity to get the Sproxton men; else I know to a certainty the other side would have laid hold of them first, and now I’ve undermined Garstin’s people. They’ll use their authority, and give a little shabby treating, but I’ve taken all the wind out of their sails. But if, by your orders, I or Mr Jermyn here were to break promise with the honest fellows, and offend Chubb the publican, what would come of it? Chubb would leave no stone unturned against you, sir; he would egg on his customers against you; the colliers and navvies would be at the nomination and at the election all the same, or rather not all the same, for they would be there against us; and instead of hustling people good-humouredly by way of a joke, and counterbalancing Debarry’s cheers, they’d help to kick the cheering and the voting out of our men, and instead of being, let us say, half-a-dozen ahead of Garstin, you’d be half-a-dozen behind him, that’s all. I speak plain English to you, Mr
Transome, though I’ve the highest respect for you as a gentleman of first-rate talents and position. But, sir, to judge of these things a man must know the English voter and the English publican; and it would be a poor tale indeed’ – here Mr Johnson’s mouth took an expression at once bitter and pathetic – ‘that a gentleman like you, to say nothing of the good of the country, should have gone to the expense and trouble of a canvass for nothing but to find himself out of Parliament at the end of it. I’ve seen it again and again; it looks bad in the cleverest man to have to sing small.’
Mr Johnson’s argument was not the less stringent because his idioms were vulgar. It requires a conviction and resolution amounting to heroism not to wince at phrases that class our foreshadowed endurance among those common and ignominious troubles which the world is more likely to sneer at than to pity. Harold remained a few moments in angry silence looking at the floor, with one hand on his knee, and the other on his hat, as if he were preparing to start up.
‘As to undoing anything that’s been done down there,’ said Johnson, throwing in this observation as something into the bargain, ‘I must wash my hands of it, sir. I couldn’t work knowingly against your interest. And that young man who is just gone out, – you don’t believe that he need be listened to, I hope? Chubb, the publican, hates him. Chubb would guess he was at the bottom of your having the treating stopped, and he’d set half-a-dozen of the colliers to duck him in the canal, or break his head by mistake. I’m an experienced man, sir. I hope I’ve put it clear enough.’