Sweet and Twenty

by Joan Smith

  After all this was talked over, Hudson was taken up to see Mr. Armstrong. He descended after ten minutes looking grave, and she didn’t bother with the farce of mentioning a recovery. The back-slapping, joking politician was not in evidence today. Mrs. Armstrong showed them to the door. “Isaac will be in Crockett tomorrow, ma’am?” Hudson queried just before leaving.

  “Yes, he goes every second day to help out at the newspaper office. He’s only twenty-two, but very clever. He does a bit of writing up for them. Very excited he is about the bridge, Mr. Hudson. He says it will be a fine thing for the town.”

  This was as close to politicking as they came. “He’s right. Will you tell him I’ll drop in at the office and see him then?”

  “He’ll be pleased to meet you,” she said, smiling on top of her cares. It was a pitiful sight. A strained silence sat in the curricle with its occupants on the way back to New Moon. “Mr. Armstrong is too ill to get out and vote, I presume?” Lillian asked, as that was the only reason she knew of for the call.

  Hudson looked surprised at her question. “He’ll be dead before the week’s out,” he answered with conviction.

  “Poor woman, and she with three young girls to raise, two of them with their hair not up yet. How will she manage?”

  “She’ll manage if she has to work her fingers to the bone to do it. That was a lady you just met, Lillian. Don’t let the cotton gown and the apron fool you. I take my hat off to her. It does a ruined soul like myself good to bump into a person like that once in a while. She asks nothing from life but half a chance to take care of herself and her family. If this Isaac is as clever as she thinks, they’ll manage. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, why such a catastrophe should befall them, while the Sinclairs and Fellows and Hudsons of the world go merrily on their way without a hitch?”

  The trip home was not lively, but it was not argumentative, at least, and when they reached New Moon, Hudson accepted an invitation to lunch. Tony was there; he and Sara had returned more than an hour ago, but it did not occur to him, apparently, to go out and do anything on his own hook, for which all concerned had reason to be grateful. He was holding Sara’s wools while she wound them into balls, under the Argus eyes of Martha. Hudson outlined the morning he and Lillian had spent.

  “Told you it was a waste of time,” Tony reproached him. “Armstrong will never make it to the polls. At least it won’t be a vote for the Tories.”

  Hudson ignored this solecism and began to discuss the heavy load of work Tony would be saddled with once he was elected. His election was now spoken of as quite a certain thing. “And when you’re in London, you will want someone here in your riding to keep an eye on things. Someone to keep you informed.”

  Tony glanced at Sara, of all unlikely people. “Mr. Alistair is always well-informed on everything,” she suggested.

  “I meant someone in your employ, to handle your correspondence for you,” Hudson enlarged.

  “Peagoose!” Martha muttered in the direction of her younger niece, but after an hour in the company of this pair of wise ones, she was not surprised.

  “A secretary is what I need,” Tony decided, elated to be a man of so much consequence.

  “Yes, that’s what I meant. Some sharp young fellow to act as a right-hand man for you.”

  “How about that Corporal Winton—oh, but he’s got no right arm. I don’t want a left-hand man. Pity I couldn’t give it to a decapitated veteran.”

  “It would be preferable, I think, if he had his head about him,” Hudson said grimly.

  “Oh, if it’s head you want, Basingstoke is our man. As longheaded as may be,” Tony said.

  “He lives too far away, and Corporal Winton is to be the toll collector on the Fellows Bridge.”

  “So he is. I forgot we’d managed to find a job for the poor soul that he can handle with his one wing.”

  “We were fortunate enough to get Winton to take the post,” Hudson corrected, without much hope that the words would be remembered.

  “We were fortunate! Why, everyone and his mother has been pestering me for the post. He’s the lucky one to get any sort of a job—mutilated and unable to do a real day’s work. It’s the Whigs that did it for him, eh, Matt?”

  “That’s right, Tony. About a secretary for you. I hear the young Armstrong fellow is bright. Does a bit of writing for the local paper.”

  “Writes such stuff as Miss Jones is gone to Bath to visit her aunt, and Mrs. Purdy is in bed with the gout. He ain’t a real writer.”

  “He wrote a pretty fine piece about the Fellows Bridge last week. I mean to ask the paper to send it to London for printing in the Gazette.”

  “Dash it, Matt, you said everything we give away must bring in a vote. We don’t have to get him a job; his father ain’t voting at all.”

  “His father isn’t voting because he is dying, and the family is in great difficulty. But that is nothing to the point,” he added quickly, to prevent the offer being put to Armstrong in this light. “He is a local chap, young and alert. If he will take the job, he is the very one to help you. His working for the local paper is a good circumstance too. I’d let him keep that up as well; he only works there every second day. He would be the perfect answer to your problem.”

  “I’ll think it over,” Fellows stated importantly.

  “You should interview him. He’ll be at the newspaper office tomorrow,” Hudson mentioned.

  Conducting an interview sounded a pleasant and consequential pastime, and Fellows agreed to it with no difficulty. When the two of them were alone, Hudson continued to pound into his head the need for a secretary and the advantage of having a secretary in a position to insert complimentary pieces in the local paper. By the time the call was paid, Fellows was eager to engage Mr. Armstrong and didn’t say much in the way of unwitting insult, except that he was glad to be able to give him a hand, even if he wasn’t a veteran, and how did it come he’d shied away from the war anyway—he a strapping young man of one hundred and ten pounds, wearing thick glasses.

  It was the very day after they hired Isaac Armstrong that his father died, but this fact was overborne by a much worse one for the Whigs. Hudson’s first inkling of it occurred in the village. He was with Mr. Fellows, again visiting the open market stalls, when Reising and Alistair were seen across the way, in more cheerful humor than they had been in since the coming to Crockett of the bridge and Colonel Dorking.

  “What have that pair got to grin about?” Hudson asked uneasily.

  “They are putting a good face on their defeat,” Tony told him, this having been drummed into his head as a necessary thing when it seemed he would be the defeated candidate. It seemed the likely reason, for the cheering mob that used to trail at Alistair’s heels was now at Tony’s. He was already being treated as the member for the riding, with citizens beginning to come to him with their problems for advice and help.

  Hudson had been through many campaigns with Reising, and he thought the gloating face of his old rival denoted more than acquiescence to defeat. Reising was a notably poor loser. Hudson had been waiting for reprisals ever since the coming of Telford, had even been a little uneasy at the lack of them, for he knew Reising was a sly old fox who would stick at nothing. He began to edge his way toward the Tory pair, a thing Reising would normally have welcomed, as it brought the mob into a position where they might be taken to be huddling around Alistair. But on this occasion Reising kept moving away.

  “There’s something amiss,” Hudson fretted. “Tony, did anything happen yesterday when you took Sara down to the bridge?”

  “Yes, by Jove. Alistair was there making up to Sara something awful.” This had been a bit of a problem from the beginning, for the attraction between them was no secret to anyone. But still Hudson could not see why this should set Reising to gloating, and if anything notable had happened, he believed he would have heard of it before now.

  “What exactly went on?”

  “They was both putting down my bridg
e, Sara saying it wasn’t safe and Alistair griping about the tolls, and he as rich as a nabob. He can walk across if he don’t want to pay the toll, and I won’t charge him a penny, and so I told him too.”

  Neither of these complaints was new or likely to be the cause of the glee in the enemy camp, for it was becoming clearer by the minute that Reising was in alt about something.

  “What did yon say to them?”

  “Just what you told me, Matt. Said it was safe as a church, and had never killed a soul or fallen or a thing in America. I said the tolls was only for carriages, and I’d let the poor go on foot for free.”

  “That’s good, Tony. Remember those two points. Was there anything else?”

  “Well, it came out that that sneak of a Sara was giving out pamphlets for Alistair, but that was early on, the day she and her mama went around to the shops for us to send all them wilted turnips and what-not to the orphanage and poorhouse.”

  “Was she, by God! And none of them mentioning a word of it to us. She must have known.”

  “Course she knew! She had them hid in her reticule. I’ve been telling you all along she’s a clever puss.”

  “I meant Miss Watters, but it can’t be that they’re smirking about. That was weeks ago. You should have told me though. Always tell me everything, Tony. You haven’t gone and pitched yourself into a duel or anything of that sort, have you?”

  “What, with Alistair? I ain’t such a flat as that. He’s a devil with his pops. Could hit a bull’s-eye across a field. No sir, I don’t hold with dueling.”

  “You have no idea what’s going on then?”

  “They’re putting a good face on their defeat. It’s the only course open to them now that they’ve lost.”

  Matt found it impossible to be certain yet that they had lost, and when Reising and Alistair turned to leave the market, he was after them, risking leaving Fellows alone with his admirers for five minutes. Reising turned to see Hudson and waited for him. “How’s your lover-boy today?” he asked in a tone of heavy sarcasm.

  Matthew breathed a sigh of relief, thinking it was only some nonsense to do with Sara. “In high gig, as you must have seen for yourself just now.”

  “He won’t be in such high gig when it gets out what he’s been up to.”

  “People take a lenient view of bachelors’ making up to the ladies. Alistair has been doing a spot of wooing of his own, I hear.”

  “Ha ha—but Mr. Alistair is more discreet. He restricts himself to single ladies, and to the spoken word, too. You might warn your man of the danger of billets doux to married ladies. I’m surprised you haven’t done so.”

  Admitting ignorance was something never done by either whipper-in, and Hudson swallowed the lump in his throat, preparatory to trying to discover what that ass of a Tony had been up to behind his back.

  “You have managed to get a copy of the letter, I assume?” he asked, hoping to get a look at what was being spoken of, to see just how damning it was and of course to whom it was addressed.

  “No, Hudson, I have the originals.” Reising smiled and pulled out three pieces of paper. Hudson recognized Tony’s round writing at a glance. He reached out a hand for them, but Reising drew them back.

  “You’ll have to wait and read them in a special pamphlet we are having prepared,” he said. “We mean to distribute it the day before the election—tomorrow, that is. I expect young Miss Monteith will help us circulate them.” A gratuitous blow, but hardly important. It was imperative to see just how damaging the letters were.

  “May I have a look?” Hudson asked, showing no more than mild curiosity.

  “Let him, Reising,” Alistair said, laughing. “Mr. Hudson may decide to withdraw his candidate and save us the expense, and Lady Marie, the embarrassment, of distributing them.”

  Lady Marie! Good God, that fat yellow-haired Tory wife of Sir John Sinclair! But it was Basingstoke who was spoken of as her hopeful lover. Hudson, with the cool nerve of an assassin, reached out an unshaking hand for the letters. He read through them quickly, pretending to do no more than glance at them, but many phrases were indelibly printed on his mind. It was drivel of the worst sort, extremely damning drivel, couched in ardent schoolboy’s prose. He wondered how Reising had got hold of them and that Lady Marie should let them out of her own hands for a minute.

  “Sir John won’t appreciate having this bruited about,” he said, this being the only possible response he could think of on the spur of the moment. “A backhanded trick to serve your heaviest supporter. I have heard a thousand pounds mentioned as his contribution.” Hudson knew it was seven hundred and fifty pounds to a penny Sir John had kicked in, but the managers always feigned a little more ignorance than they possessed as a basic tactic.

  “Oh, he’s a good sport. He don’t take it amiss that his wife is a handsome woman. No secret Basingstoke takes to her, and while it won’t add to her reputation to have attached such a gudgeon as Fellows, it is pretty clear from the tone of the letters that there was no reciprocation of feeling. The last one, you will notice, is all to do with her not bestowing so much as a glance or a smile on him. It appears to have been a one-sided affair, which says a good deal for the lady’s common sense.”

  “Publishing them says little for her discretion.”

  “A case of the pot calling the kettle black, Mr. Hudson. Your allowing Fellows to go calling on his amour in the middle of a campaign is a piece of indiscretion on your part that quite baffles me. I don’t know what you thought to gain by it, but whatever it was, it backfired. It was the very thing that made Sir John suspicious and then angry enough to allow the letters to be published.”

  Hudson would as soon have cut off his arm as admit he had bungled, so he only smiled as if he were concealing some devious trick,

  “In a small community like ours, carrying-on of this sort will be taken very ill,” Alistair pointed out. “Well, what do you say, Mr. Hudson? Do you wish to withdraw Fellows?”

  Hudson had been considering this in the half-minute allowed him for planning, but was not ready to capitulate so easily. By pretending to, though, he might delay publication till it was too late to circulate the letters. “Let me think about it,” he said carelessly.

  “Go ahead. You have till tomorrow,” Alistair told him.

  “Meanwhile we’ve had the copies printed up,” Reising added, “in case you’re thinking to stall us off.”

  It flashed into Hudson’s head that he must break into the newspaper printing office and purloin the letters, and the next moment he was juggling Isaac Armstrong against his own flash culls for the job. The city crooks had been kept in town in case of just such an emergency as this. But Reising was no Johnnie Raw, and knew precisely what was in his mind.

  “They’re not being done in Crockett, of course,” Reising informed him with a grin. “The story would be around by now if we’d done that, and we hope to keep it for a bit of a surprise. They’ll be on the streets tomorrow morning.”

  “Had them printed in London, did you?” Hudson asked nonchalantly.

  “No, I didn’t, Hudson, and there’s no point trying to find out where they were printed, for I don’t have a mind to have them snatched by your fellows before they get on the streets. We may have them all printed up and secured, or we may have them coming to us from any direction, and not even you, old friend, can canvass so many possibilities in less than twenty-four hours. You’ve got yourself saddled with a rare boy this time. You nearly pulled it off—I take my hat off to you about the bridge and the dinner—but not even you could have foreseen this turn. You know where you can reach us if you decide to pull Fellows out. We ain’t anxious to drag Lady Marie into it, but we have her permission, and Sir John is eager to see the riding in Tory hands, so there’s no hope they’ll go denying the authenticity of the letters.”

  “I didn’t think you’d stoop to blackmail, Reising,” Hudson said in a severe tone.

  Alistair, really still a novice at this game, felt cheap to be
looked down on by Mr. Hudson, who seemed every inch the fine gentleman, with his gray-tinged hair, his pending title, and his noble countenance.

  “Ha ha, not much you didn’t!” Reising laughed merrily, having a much more accurate knowledge of his opponent. “You’d have done the same thing yourself if you’d had the chance or the necessity. I don’t suppose you forget the night you barged into the George at Reading to catch Macintosh, my boy, with that young trollop he’d picked up in the tavern. And it was you set her on to him too, if I know anything—and then brought half the voters in the county with you to catch him.”

  “I didn’t set her on to him. That is one trick of yours I refuse to use. But when a clergyman runs on the strength of his moral principles, it is only fair that his constituents know how closely he follows his own advice.”

  “I didn’t blame you. It was a cute trick, but I’ve got you this time. I owe you one for Macintosh, and by God it gives me pleasure to repay you.”

  “You haven’t repaid me yet, Reising. I’ll be in touch,” Hudson said, and left with a wry smile that turned to a desperate grimace as he turned his back on them and went to the market to collect Tony.

  He found him in the middle of a crowd, expounding his views on the Tories. “Blackguards, every one of them. I wouldn’t trust them with a penny, or with my sister either, if I had one.”

  Hudson groaned at the irony of it and managed to get his candidate away by implying there was weighty business to discuss. As soon as they were in their carriage, away from the crowd, Hudson put it to him.

  “You wrote love letters to Lady Marie Sinclair?” he asked, though he had no doubts at all regarding those disastrous scribbles.

  Fellows blushed and looked a little sheepish. “Lord, how did you tumble to that? It was six months ago. Me and Basingstoke was both after her, but she seemed to favor Basingstoke’s suit. Of course he was living closer to her and could go in person to butter her up. I had to rely on letters, and nothing came of it. Writing letters ain’t my strong suit, to tell the truth.”