by George Eliot
CHAPTER II.
A jolly parson of the good old stock, By birth a gentleman, yet homely too, Suiting his phrase to Hodge and Margery Whom he once christened, and has married since, A little lax in doctrine and in life. Not thinking God was captious in such things As what a man might drink on holidays, But holding true religion was to do As you'd be done by--which could never mean That he should preach three sermons in a week.
Harold Transome did not choose to spend the whole evening with hismother. It was his habit to compress a great deal of effectiveconversation into a short space of time, asking rapidly all thequestions he wanted to get answered, and diluting no subject withirrelevancies, paraphrase, or repetitions. He volunteered no informationabout himself and his past life at Smyrna, but answered pleasantlyenough, though briefly, whenever his mother asked for any detail. He wasevidently ill-satisfied as to his palate, trying red pepper toeverything, then asking if there were any relishing sauces in the house,and when Hickes brought various home-filled bottles, trying several,finding them failures, and finally falling back from his plate indespair. Yet he remained good-humored, saying something to his fathernow and then for the sake of being kind, and looking on with a pityingshrug as he saw him watch Hickes cutting his food. Mrs. Transome thoughtwith some bitterness that Harold showed more feeling for her feeblehusband who had never cared in the least about him, than for her, whohad given him more than the usual share of mother's love. An hour afterdinner, Harold, who had already been turning over the leaves of hismother's account-books, said--
"I shall just cross the park to the parsonage to see my uncle Lingon."
"Very well. He can answer more questions for you."
"Yes," said Harold, quite deaf to the innuendo, and accepting the wordsas a simple statement of the fact. "I want to hear all about the gameand the North Loamshire hunt. I'm fond of sport; we had a great deal ofit at Smyrna, and it keeps down my fat."
The Reverend John Lingon became very talkative over his second bottle ofport, which was opened on his nephew's arrival. He was not curious aboutthe manners of Smyrna, or about Harold's experience, but he unbosomedhimself very freely as to what he himself liked and disliked, which ofthe farmers he suspected of killing the foxes, what game he had baggedthat very morning, what spot he would recommend as a new cover, and thecomparative flatness of all existing sport compared with cock-fighting,under which Old England had been prosperous and glorious, while, so faras he could see, it had gained little by the abolition of a practicewhich sharpened the faculties of men, gratified the instincts of thefowl, and carried out the designs of heaven in its admirable device ofspurs. From these main topics, which made his points of departure andreturn, he rambled easily enough at any new suggestion or query; so thatwhen Harold got home at a late hour, he was conscious of having gatheredfrom amidst the pompous full-toned triviality of his uncle's chat someimpressions, which were of practical importance. Among the rector'sdislikes, it appeared, was Mr. Matthew Jermyn.
"A fat-handed, glib-tongued fellow, with a scented cambric handkerchief;one of your educated low-bred fellows; a foundling who got his Latin fornothing at Christ's Hospital; one of your middle-class upstarts who wantto rank with gentlemen, and think they'll do it with kid gloves and newfurniture."
But since Harold meant to stand for the county, Mr. Lingon was equallyemphatic as to the necessity of his not quarrelling with Jermyn till theelection was over. Jermyn must be his agent; Harold must wink hard tillhe found himself safely returned; and even then it might be well to letJermyn drop gently and raise no scandal. He himself had no quarrel withthe fellow: a clergyman should have no quarrels, and he made it a pointto be able to take wine with any man he met at table. And as to theestate, and his sister's going too much by Jermyn's advice, he nevermeddled with business: it was not his duty as a clergyman. That, heconsidered, was the meaning of Melchisedec and the tithe, a subject,into which he had gone to some depth thirty years ago, when he preachedthe Visitation sermon.
The discovery that Harold meant to stand on the Liberal side--nay, thathe boldly declared himself a Radical--was rather startling; but to hisuncle's good-humor, beatified by the sipping of port-wine, nothing couldseem highly objectionable, provided it did not disturb that operation.In the course of half an hour he had brought himself to see thatanything really worthy to be called British Toryism had been entirelyextinct since the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel had passed theCatholic Emancipation Bill; that Whiggery, with its rights of manstopping short at ten-pound householders, and its policy of pacifying awild beast with a bite, was a ridiculous monstrosity; that therefore,since an honest man could not call himself a Tory, which it was, infact, as impossible to be now as to fight for the old Pretender, andcould still less become that execrable monstrosity a Whig, thereremained but one course open to him. "Why, lad, if the world was turnedinto a swamp, I suppose we should leave off shoes and stockings, andwalk about like cranes"--whence it followed plainly enough that, inthese hopeless times, nothing was left to men of sense and good familybut to retard the national ruin by declaring themselves Radicals, andtake the inevitable process of changing everything out of the hands ofbeggarly demagogues and purse-proud tradesmen. It is true the rector washelped to this chain of reasoning by Harold's remarks; but he soonbecame quite ardent in asserting the conclusion.
"If the mob can't be turned back, a man of family must try and head themob, and save a few homes and hearths, and keep the country up on itslast legs as long as he can. And you're a man of family, my lad--dashit! You're a Lingon, whatever else you may be, and I'll stand by you.I've no great interest; I'm a poor parson. I've been forced to give uphunting; my pointers and a glass of good wine are the only decenciesbecoming my station that I can allow myself. But I'll give you mycountenance--I'll stick to you as my nephew. There's no need for me tochange sides exactly. I was born a Tory, and I shall never be a bishop.But if anybody says you're in the wrong, I shall say, 'My nephew is inthe right; he has turned Radical to save his country. If William Pitthad been living now he'd have done the same; for what did he say when hewas dying? Not 'Oh, save my party!' but 'Oh, save my country, heaven!'That was what they dinned in our ears about Peel and the Duke; and nowI'll turn it round upon them. They shall be hoist with their own petard.Yes, yes, I'll stand by you."
Harold did not feel sure that his uncle would thoroughly retain thissatisfactory thread of argument in the uninspired hours of the morning;but the old gentleman was sure to take the facts easily in the end, andthere was no fear of family coolness or quarrelling on this side. Haroldwas glad of it. He was not to be turned aside from any course he hadchosen; but he disliked all quarrelling as an unpleasant expenditure ofenergy that could have no good practical result. He was at once activeand luxurious; fond of mastery, and good-natured enough to wish thatevery one about him should like his mastery; not caring greatly to knowother people's thoughts, and ready to despise them as blockheads iftheir thoughts differed from his, and yet solicitous that they shouldhave no colorable reason for slight thoughts about _him_. The blockheadsmust be forced to respect him. Hence, in proportion as he foresaw hisequals in the neighborhood would be indignant with him for his politicalchoice, he cared keenly about making a good figure before them in everyother way. His conduct as a landholder was to be judicious, hisestablishment was to be kept up generously, his imbecile father treatedwith careful regard, his family relations entirely without scandal. Heknew that affairs had been unpleasant in his youth--that there had beenugly lawsuits--and that his scapegrace brother Durfey had helped tolower still farther the depressed condition of the family. All this mustbe retrieved, now that events had made Harold the head of the Transomename.
Jermyn must be used for the election, and after that if he must be gotrid of, it would be well to shake him loose quietly; his uncle wasprobably right on both these points. But Harold's expectation that heshould want to get rid of Jermyn was founded on other reasons than hisscented handkerchief and his cha
rity-school Latin.
If the lawyer had been presuming on Mrs. Transome's ignorance as awoman, and on the stupid rakishness of the original heir, the new heirwould prove to him that he had calculated rashly. Otherwise, Harold hadno prejudice against him. In his boyhood and youth he had seen Jermynfrequenting Transome Court, but had regarded him with that totalindifference with which youngsters are apt to view those who neitherdeny them pleasure nor give them any. Jermyn used to smile at him, andspeak to him affably; but Harold, half proud, half shy, got away fromsuch patronage as soon as possible; he knew Jermyn was a man ofbusiness; his father, his uncle, and Sir Maximus Debarry did not regardhim as a gentleman and their equal. He had known no evil of the man; buthe saw now that if he were really a covetous upstart, there had been atemptation for him in the management of the Transome affairs; and it wasclear that the estate was in a bad condition.
When Mr. Jermyn was ushered into the breakfast-room the next morning,Harold found him surprisingly little altered by the fifteen years. Hewas gray, but still remarkably handsome; fat, but tall enough to bearthat trial to man's dignity. There was as strong a suggestion oftoilette about him as if he had been five-and-twenty instead of nearlysixty. He chose always to dress in black, and was especially addicted toblack satin waistcoats, which carried out the general sleekness of hisappearance; and this, together with his white, fat, butbeautifully-shaped hands, which he was in the habit of rubbing gently onhis entrance into a room, gave him very much the air of a lady'sphysician. Harold remembered with some amusement his uncle's dislike ofthose conspicuous hands; but as his own were soft and dimpled, and as hetoo was given to the innocent practice of rubbing those members, hissuspicions were not yet deepened.
"I congratulate you, Mrs. Transome," said Jermyn, with a soft anddeferential smile, "all the more," he added, turning toward Harold, "nowI have the pleasure of actually seeing your son. I am glad to perceivethat an Eastern climate has not been unfavorable to him."
"No," said Harold, shaking Jermyn's hand carelessly, and speaking withmore than his usual brusqueness, "the question is, whether the Englishclimate will agree with me. It's deuced shifting and damp; and as forthe food, it would be the finest thing in the world for this country ifthe southern cooks would change their religion, get persecuted, and flyto England, as the old silk-weavers did."
"There are plenty of foreign cooks for those who are rich enough to payfor them, I suppose," said Mrs. Transome, "but they are unpleasantpeople to have about one's house."
"Gad! I don't think so," said Harold.
"The old servants are sure to quarrel with them."
"That's no concern of mine. The old servants will have to put up with myman Dominic, who will show them how to cook and do everything else in away that will rather astonish them."
"Old people are not so easily taught to change all their ways, Harold."
"Well, they can give up and watch the young ones," said Harold, thinkingonly at that moment of old Mrs. Hickes and Dominic. But his mother wasnot thinking of them only.
"You have a valuable servant, it seems," said Jermyn, who understoodMrs. Transome better than her son did, and wished to smoothen thecurrent of their dialogue.
"Oh, one of those wonderful southern fellows that make one's life easy.He's of no country in particular. I don't know whether he's most of aJew, a Greek, an Italian, or a Spaniard. He speaks five or sixlanguages, one as well as another. He's cook, valet, major-domo, andsecretary all in one; and what's more, he's an affectionate fellow--Ican trust to his attachment. That's a sort of human specimen thatdoesn't grow here in England, I fancy. I should have been badly off if Icould not have brought Dominic."
They sat down to breakfast with such slight talk as this going on. Eachof the party was preoccupied and uneasy. Harold's mind was busyconstructing probabilities about what he should discover of Jermyn'smismanagement or dubious application of funds, and the sort ofself-command he must in the worst case exercise in order to use the manas long as he wanted him. Jermyn was closely observing Harold with anunpleasant sense that there was an expression of acuteness anddetermination about him which would make him formidable. He wouldcertainly have preferred at that moment that there had been no secondheir of the Transome name to come back upon him from the East. Mrs.Transome was not observing the two men; rather, her hands were cold, andher whole person shaken by their presence; she seemed to hear and seewhat they said and did with preternatural acuteness, and yet she wasalso seeing and hearing what had been said and done many years before,and feeling a dim terror about the future. There were piteoussensibilities in this faded woman, who thirty-four years ago, in thesplendor of her bloom, had been imperious to one of these men, and hadrapturously pressed the other as an infant to her bosom, and now knewthat she was of little consequence to either of them.
"Well, what are the prospects about election?" said Harold, as thebreakfast was advancing. "There are two Whigs and one Conservativelikely to be in the field, I know. What is your opinion of the chances?"
Mr. Jermyn had a copious supply of words which often led him intoperiphrase, but he cultivated a hesitating stammer, which, with ahandsome impassiveness of face, except when he was smiling at a woman,or when the latent savageness of his nature was thoroughly roused, hehad found useful in many relations, especially in business. No one couldhave found out that he was not at his ease. "My opinion," he replied,"is in a state of balance at present. This division of the county, youare aware, contains one manufacturing town of the first magnitude, andseveral smaller ones. The manufacturing interest is widely dispersed. Sofar--a--there is a presumption--a--in favor of the two Liberalcandidates. Still, with a careful canvass of the agricultural districts,such as those we have round us at Treby Magna, I think--a--theauguries--a--would not be unfavorable to the return of a Conservative. Afourth candidate of good position, who should coalesce with Mr.Debarry--a----"
Here Mr. Jermyn hesitated for the third time, and Harold broke in.
"That will not be my line of action, so we need not discuss it. If I putup it will be as a Radical; and I fancy, in any county that would returnWhigs there would be plenty of voters to be combed off by a Radical whooffered himself with good pretensions."
There was the slightest possible quiver discernible across Jermyn'sface. Otherwise he sat as he had done before, with his eyes fixedabstractedly on the frill of a ham before him, and his hand triflingwith his fork. He did not answer immediately, but, when he did, helooked round steadily at Harold.
"I'm delighted to perceive that you have kept yourself so thoroughlyacquainted with English politics."
"Oh, of course," said Harold, impatiently. "I'm aware how things havebeen going on in England. I always meant to come back ultimately. Isuppose I know the state of Europe as well as if I'd been stationary atLittle Treby for the last fifteen years. If a man goes to the East,people seem to think he gets turned into something like the one-eyedcalender in the 'Arabian Nights!'"
"Yet I should think there are some things which people who have beenstationary at Little Treby could tell you, Harold," said Mrs. Transome."It did not signify about your holding Radical opinions at Smyrna; butyou seem not to imagine how your putting up as a Radical will affectyour position here, and the position of your family. No one will visityou. And then--the sort of people who will support you! You really haveno idea what an impression it conveys when you say you are a Radical.There are none of our equals who will not feel that you have disgracedyourself."
"Pooh!" said Harold, rising and walking along the room.
But Mrs. Transome went on with growing anger in her voice--"It seems tome that a man owes something to his birth and station, and has no rightto take up this notion or other, just as it suits his fancy; still lessto work at the overthrow of his class. That was what every one said ofLord Grey, and my family at least is as good as Lord Grey's. You havewealth now, and might distinguish yourself in the county; and if you hadbeen true to your colors as a gentleman, you would have had all thegreater opportunit
y, because the times are so bad. The Debarrys and LordWyvern would have set all the more store by you. For my part, I can'tconceive what good you propose to yourself. I only entreat you to thinkagain before you take any decided step."
"Mother," said Harold, not angrily or with any raising of his voice, butin a quick, impatient manner, as if the scene must be got through asquickly as possible; "it is natural that you should think in this way.Women, very properly, don't change their views, but keep to the notionsin which they have been brought up. It doesn't signify what theythink--they are not called upon to judge or to act. You must leave me totake my own course in these matters, which properly belong to men.Beyond that, I will gratify any wish you may choose to mention. Youshall have a new carriage and a pair of bays all to yourself; you shallhave the house done up in first-rate style, and I am not thinking ofmarrying. But let us understand that there shall be no further collisionbetween us on subjects on which I must be master of my own actions."
"And you will put the crown to the mortifications of my life, Harold. Idon't know who would be a mother if she could foresee what a slightthing she will be to her son when she is old."
Mrs. Transome here walked out of the room by the nearest way--the glassdoor open toward the terrace. Mr. Jermyn had risen too, and his handswere on the back of his chair. He looked quite impassive: it was not thefirst time he had seen Mrs. Transome angry; but now, for the first time,he thought the outburst of her temper would be useful to him. She, poorwoman, knew quite well that she had been unwise, and that she had beenmaking herself disagreeable to Harold to no purpose. But half thesorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech theyknow to be useless--nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter.Harold continued his walking a moment longer, and then said to Jermyn--
"You smoke?"
"No, I always defer to the ladies. Mrs. Jermyn is peculiarly sensitivein such matters, and doesn't like tobacco."
Harold, who, underneath all the tendencies which had made him a Liberal,had intense personal pride, thought, "Confound the fellow--with his Mrs.Jermyn! Does he think we are on a footing for me to know anything abouthis wife?"
"Well, I took my hookah before breakfast," he said aloud, "so, if youlike, we'll go into the library. My father never gets up till midday, Ifind."
"Sit down, sit down," said Harold, as they entered the handsome,spacious library. But he himself continued to stand before a map of thecounty which he had opened from a series of rollers occupying acompartment among the bookshelves. "The first question, Mr. Jermyn, nowyou know my intentions, is, whether you will undertake to be my agent inthis election, and help me through? There's no time to be lost, and Idon't want to lose my chance, as I may not have another for seven years.I understand," he went on, flashing a look straight at Jermyn, "that youhave not taken any conspicuous course in politics, and I know thatLabron is agent for the Debarrys."
"Oh--a--my dear sir--a man necessarily has his political convictions,but of what use is it for a professional man--a--of some education, totalk of them in a little country town? There really is no comprehensionof public questions in such places. Party feeling, indeed, was quiteasleep here before the agitation about the Catholic Relief Bill. It istrue that I concurred with our incumbent in getting up a petitionagainst the Reform Bill, but I did not state my reasons. The weak pointsin that Bill are--a--too palpable, and I fancy you and I should notdiffer much on that head. The fact is, when I knew that you were to comeback to us, I kept myself in reserve, though I was much pressed by thefriends of Sir James Clement, the Ministerial candidate, who is----"
"However, you will act for me--that's settled?" said Harold.
"Certainly," said Jermyn, inwardly irritated by Harold's rapid manner ofcutting him short.
"Which of the Liberal candidates, as they call themselves, has thebetter chance, eh?"
"I was going to observe that Sir James Clement has not so good achance as Mr. Garstin, supposing that a third Liberal candidatepresents himself. There are two senses in which a politician can beliberal"--here Mr. Jermyn smiled--"Sir James Clement is a poor baronet,hoping for an appointment, and can't be expected to be liberal in thatwider sense which commands majorities."
"I wish this man were not so much of a talker," thought Harold, "he'llbore me. We shall see," he said aloud, "what can be done in the way ofcombination. I'll come down to your office after one o'clock if it willsuit you?"
"Perfectly."
"Ah, and you'll have all the lists and papers and necessary informationready for me there. I must get up a dinner for the tenants, and we caninvite whom we like besides the tenants. Just now, I'm going over one ofthe farms on hand with the bailiff. By the way, that's a desperately badbusiness, having three farms unlet--how comes that about, eh?"
"That is precisely what I wanted to say a few words about to you. Youhave observed already how strongly Mrs. Transome takes certain things toheart. You can imagine that she has been severely tried in many ways.Mr. Transome's want of health; Mr. Durfey's habits--a----"
"Yes, yes."
"She is a woman for whom I naturally entertain the highest respect, andshe has had hardly any gratification for many years, except the sense ofhaving affairs to a certain extent in her own hands. She objects tochanges; she will not have a new style of tenants; she likes the oldstock of farmers who milk their own cows, and send their youngerdaughters out to service: all this makes it difficult to do the bestwith the estate. I am aware things are not as they ought to be, for, inpoint of fact, improved agricultural management is a matter in which Itake considerable interest, and the farm which I myself hold on theestate you will see, I think, to be in a superior condition. But Mrs.Transome is a woman of strong feeling, and I would urge you, my dearsir, to make the changes which you have, but which I had not the rightto insist on, as little painful to her as possible."
"I shall know what to do, sir, never fear," said Harold, much offended.
"You will pardon, I hope, a perhaps undue freedom of suggestion from aman of my age, who has been so long in a close connection with thefamily affairs--a--I have never considered that connection simply in alight of business--a----"
"Damn him, I'll soon let him know that _I_ do," thought Harold. But inproportion as he found Jermyn's manners annoying, he felt the necessityof controlling himself. He despised all persons who defeated their ownprojects by the indulgence of momentary impulses.
"I understand, I understand," he said aloud. "You've had more awkwardbusiness on your hands than usually falls to the share of a familylawyer. We shall set everything right by degrees. But now as to thecanvassing. I've made arrangements with a first-rate man in London, whounderstands these matters thoroughly--a solicitor, of course--he hascarried no end of men into Parliament. I'll engage him to meet us atDuffield--say when?"
The conversation after this was driven carefully clear of all angles,and ended with determined amicableness. When Harold, in his ride an houror two afterward, encountered his uncle shouldering a gun, and followedby one black and one liver-spotted pointer, his muscular person with itsred eagle face set off by a velveteen jacket and leather leggings, Mr.Lingon's first question was--
"Well, lad, how have you got on with Jermyn?"
"Oh, I don't think I shall like the fellow. He's a sort of amateurgentleman. But I must make use of him. I expect whatever I get out ofhim will only be something short of fair pay for what he has got out ofus. But I shall see."
"Ay, ay, use his gun to bring down your game, and after that, beat thethief with the butt end. That's wisdom and justice and pleasure all inone--talking between ourselves as uncle and nephew. But I say, Harold, Iwas going to tell you, now I come to think of it, this is rather anasty business, your calling yourself a Radical. I've been turning itover in after-dinner speeches, but it looks awkward--it's not whatpeople are used to--it wants a good deal of Latin to make it go down. Ishall be worried about it at the sessions, and I can think of nothingneat enough to carry about in my pocket by way of answer.
"
"Nonsense, uncle! I remember what a good speechifier you always were;you'll never be at a loss. You only want a few more evenings to think ofit."
"But you'll not be attacking the Church and the institutions of thecountry--you'll not be going those lengths; you'll keep up the bulwarks,and so on, eh?"
"No, I shan't attack the Church, only the incomes of the bishops,perhaps, to make them eke out the incomes of the poor clergy."
"Well, well, I have no objection to that. Nobody likes our bishop: he'sall Greek and greediness; too proud to dine with his own father. You maypepper the bishops a little. But you'll respect the constitution handeddown, etc.--and you'll rally round the throne--and the King, God blesshim, and the usual toasts, eh?"
"Of course, of course. I am a Radical only in rooting out abuses."
"That's the word I wanted, my lad!" said the vicar, slapping Harold'sknee. "That's a spool to wind a speech on. Abuses is the very word; andif anybody shows himself offended, he'll put the cap on for himself."
"I remove the rotten timbers," said Harold, inwardly amused, "andsubstitute fresh oak, that's all."
"Well done, my boy! By George, you'll be a speaker! But I say, Harold, Ihope you've got a little Latin left. This young Debarry is a tremendousfellow at the classics, and walks on stilts to any length. He's one ofthe new Conservatives. Old Sir Maximus doesn't understand him at all."
"That won't do at the hustings," said Harold. "He'll get knocked off hisstilts pretty quickly there."
"Bless me! it's astonishing how well you're up in the affairs of thecountry, my boy. But rub up a few quotations--'_Quod turpe bonis decebatCrispinum_'--and that sort of thing--just to show Debarry what you coulddo if you liked. But you want to ride on?"
"Yes; I have an appointment at Treby. Good-bye."
"He's a cleverish chap," muttered the vicar, as Harold rode away. "Whenhe's had plenty of English exercise, and brought out his knuckle a bit,he'll be a Lingon again as he used to be. I must go and see how Arabellatakes his being a Radical. It's a little awkward; but a clergyman mustkeep peace in a family. Confound it! I'm not bound to love Toryismbetter than my own flesh and blood, and the manor I shoot over. That's aheathenish, Brutus-like sort of thing, as if Providence couldn't takecare of the country without my quarrelling with my own sister's son!"