Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  “No doubt, sir, no doubt! I think,” White added, forgetting his study of Cobbett, “the nation has gone mad.”

  After that Vaughan’s other neighbour, Squire Rowley, who met him annually at Stapylton, claimed his ear. The old fellow, hearty and good-natured, but a bigoted Tory, who would have given Orator Hunt four dozen and thought Lord Grey’s proper reward a block on Tower Hill, was the last person whom Vaughan would have chosen for a confidant; since only to hear of a Vermuyden turned Whig would have gone near to giving him a fit. Perforce, nevertheless, Vaughan had to listen to him and answer him; he could not without rudeness cut him short. But all the time as they talked, Vaughan’s uneasiness increased. With every minute his eyes wandered more longingly to the door. Improved in temper by the fare and by the politeness of his neighbours, he began to see that he had been foolish to thrust himself among people with whom he did not agree. Still he was there; and he must see the dinner to an end. After all a little more or a little less would not add to Sir Robert’s anger. He could explain that he thought it more delicate to avoid an open scandal.

  Meanwhile the collision with the crowd had loosened the guests’ tongues and never had a Vermuyden dinner gone more freely. Even the “Cripples,” whose wont it was to begin the evening with odious obsequiousness and close it with a freedom as unpleasant, found speech early, and were loudest in denunciation of a Bill which threatened to deprive them of their annuities. By the time huge joints had taken the place of the tureens, and bowls of potatoes and mounds of asparagus dotted the table, the noise was incessant. There was claret for those who cared for it, and strong ale for all. And while some discussed the effect which a Bill that disfranchised Chippinge would have on their pockets and interests, others driving their arguments home with blows on the table recalled, almost with tears, the sacred name of Pitt — the pilot who weathered the storm; or held up to execration a cabinet of Whigs dead to every Whig principle, and alive only to the chance of power which a revolution might afford.

  “But what was to be expected? What was to be expected?” old Rowley insisted. “We’ve only ourselves to thank! When Peel and the Duke took up the Catholic Claims they stepped into the Whigs’ shoes — and devilishly may they pinch them! The Whigs had to find another pair, you see, sir, and stepped into the Radicals’! And the only people left at a loss are the honest part of us; who are likely to end not only barefoot but barebacked! Ay, by G — d, we are!”

  And so on, and so on; even White, who was vastly relieved by Vaughan’s arrival, which made his majority safe, talked freely, and gave Dyas and Pillinger of the Blue Duck the rough side of his tongue. While Vaughan, used to a freer atmosphere, listened to their one-sided arguments, their trite prophecies, their incredible prejudices — such they seemed to him — and now turned up his nose, now pitied them, as an effete, a doomed, a dying race.

  While he thought of this the dinner wore on, the joints vanished, and huge steaming puddings made their appearance on the board; those who cared not for plum puddings could have marrow-puddings. Then cheese and spring onions, and some special old ale, light coloured, heady, and served in tall, spare glasses, went round. At length the rector, a trifle flushed, rose to say grace, and Vaughan saw that the cloth was about to be removed. Bottles of strong port and tawny Madeira were at hand. Some called already for their favourite punch, or for hot grog.

  “Now,” he thought, “I can escape with a good grace. And I will!”

  But as he made a movement to rise, the Sergeant rose opposite him, lifted his glass, and fixed him with his eye. And Vaughan felt that he could not leave at that moment without rudeness. “Gentlemen, on your feet, if you please,” he cried blandly. “The King! The King, God bless him! The King, gentlemen, and may he never suffer for the faults of his servants! May the Grey mare never run away with him. May William the Good ne’er be ruined by a — bad Bill! Gentlemen, the King, God bless him, and deliver him from the Whigs!”

  They drank the toast amid a roar of laughter and applause. And once more as they sat down Vaughan thought that he would escape. Again he was hindered. This time the interruption came from behind.

  “Hallo, Vaughan!” someone muttered in his ear. “You’re the last person I expected to see here!”

  He turned and disgust filled him. The speaker, who had just entered, was the son of a clergyman in the neighbourhood and had gone to the bar. He was a shifty, flattering fellow, at once a toady and a backbiter; who had wormed himself into society too good for him, and in London was Vaughan’s bête noir. But had that been all! Alas, he was also a member of the Academic. He had been present at Vaughan’s triumph ten days before, and had heard him proclaim himself a Reformer of the Reformers.

  For a moment Vaughan could find not a word. He could only mutter “Oh!” in a tone of dismay. He feared that his face betrayed the chagrin he felt.

  “I thought you were quite the other way?” Mowatt said. And he grinned. He was a weedy, pale young man, with thin lips and a false smile.

  Vaughan hesitated. “So I am!” he said curtly.

  “But — but I thought — —”

  “Order! Order!” cried the Alderman, a trifle uplifted by wine and his position. “Silence, if you please, gentlemen, for the Senior Candidate! And charge your glasses!”

  Vaughan turned to the table, a frown on his brow. Wathen was on his feet, holding his wine glass before his breast with one hand, while the other rested on the table. His attitude was that of a man confident of his powers and pleased to exert them. Nevertheless, as he prepared to speak, he lowered his eyes to the table as if he thought that a little mock-modesty became him.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “it is my privilege to propose a toast, that at this time and in this place — this time, gentlemen, when to an extent unknown within living memory, all is at stake, and this place which has so much to lose — it is my privilege, I say, to propose a toast that must go straight to the heart of every man in this room, nay, of every true-born Englishman, and every lover of his country! It is Our Ancient Constitution, our Chartered Rights, our Vested Interests! [Loud and continued applause.] Yes, gentlemen, our ancient Constitution, the security of every man, woman, and child in this realm! And coupled with it our Chartered Rights, our Vested Interests, which, unassailed for generations, are to-day called in question by the weakness of many, by the madness of some, by the wicked ambition of a few. [Loud cheering]. Gentlemen, to one Cromwell this town owes the destruction of your famous Abbey, once the pride of this county! To another Cromwell it owes the destruction of the walls that in troublous times secured the hearths of your forefathers! It lies with us — but we must be instant and diligent — it lies with us, I say, to see that those civil bulwarks which protect us and ours in the enjoyment of all we have and all we hope for — —”

  “In this world!” the Rector murmured in a deep bass voice.

  “In this world,” the Sergeant continued, accepting the amendment with a complimentary bow, “are not laid low by a third Cromwell! I care not whether he mask himself under the name of Grey, or of Russell, or of Brougham, or of Lansdowne!”

  He paused amid such a roar of applause as shook the room.

  “For think not” — the Sergeant resumed when it died down— “think not, gentlemen, whatever the easily led vulgar may think, that sacrilegious hands can be laid on the Ark of the Constitution without injury to many other interests; without the shock being felt through all the various members of the State down to the lowest: without endangering all those multiform rights and privileges for which the Constitution is our guarantee! Let the advocates of this pernicious, this revolutionary Bill say what they will, they cannot deny that its effect will be to deprive you in Chippinge who, for nearly five centuries, have enjoyed the privilege of returning members to Parliament — of that privilege, with all” — here he glanced at the rich array of bottles that covered the board— “the amenities which it brings with it! And for whose benefit? For that of men no better qualified — nay, by pr
actice and heredity less qualified — than yourselves. But, gentlemen, mark me, that is not all! That is but the beginning, and it may be the least part. That loss they cannot hide from you. That loss they do not attempt to hide from you. But they do hide from you,” he continued in his deepest and most tragic tone, “a fact to which the whole course of history is witness — that a policy of robbery once begun is rarely stayed, if it be stayed, until the victim is bare! Bare, gentlemen! Gentlemen, the freemen of this borough have of ancient right, conferred by an ancient sovereign — —”

  “God bless him!” from Annibal, now somewhat drunk. “God bless him! Here’s his health!”

  The Sergeant paused an instant and looked round the table. Then more slowly, “Ay, God bless him!” he said. “God bless King Canute! But what — what if those grants of land — I care not whether you call them chartered rights or vested interests — which you freemen enjoy of him — what if they do not enure? You have them,” with a penetrating glance from face to face, “but for how long, gentlemen, if this Bill pass? You are too clear-sighted to be blind to the peril! Too shrewd to think that you can part with one right, as old, as well vested, as perfectly secured — and keep the others undiminished? Gentlemen, if you are so blind, take warning! For wherever this anarchical, this dangerous, this revolutionary Bill — —”

  “Hear! Hear! Hear!” from Vaughan’s neighbour, the Squire.

  “Wherever, I say, this Bill finds supporters — and I can well believe that in Birmingham and Sheffield, where they have all to gain and nothing to lose, it will find supporters, it should find none in Chippinge! Where we have all to lose and nothing to gain, and where no man but a fool or a rogue can in reason support it! Gentlemen, you are neither fools nor rogues — —”

  “No! No! No! No!”

  “No, gentlemen, and therefore, though a few silly fellows may shout for the Bill in the streets, I am sure that I shall have the whole of this influential company with me when I give you the toast of ‘Our Ancient Constitution, Our Chartered Rights, Our Vested Interests!’ May the Bill that assails them be defeated by the good sense of a sober and united people! May those who urge it and those who support it — rogues where they are not fools, and fools where they are not rogues — meet with the fate they deserve! And may we be there to see! Gentlemen,” he continued, raising his hand for silence, “in the absence upon pressing business of our beloved High Steward, the model of an English gentleman and the pattern of an English landlord, I beg to couple this toast” — here the Sergeant’s sharp black eyes fixed themselves suddenly on his opposite neighbour— “with the name of his kinsman, Mr. Arthur Vaughan!”

  “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” The room shook with the volume of applause, the tables trembled. And through it all Arthur Vaughan’s heart beat hard, and he swallowed nervously. He was caught. Whether the Sergeant knew it or not, he was trapped. From the beginning of the speech he had had his misgivings. He had listened anxiously; and though he had lost nothing, though one half of his mind had followed the speaker’s thread, the other half had scanned the prospect feverishly, weighed the chances of escape, and grown chill with the fear of what was coming. If he had only withdrawn in time! If he had only ——

  “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” They were pounding the table with fist and glass, and looking towards him — two long rows of flushed, excited, tipsy faces. Some were drinking to him. Others were scanning him curiously. All were waiting.

  He leant forward. “I don’t wish to speak,” he said, addressing the Sergeant in a troubled voice. “Call on some one else, if you please.”

  But “Impossible, sir!” White, surprised by his evident nervousness, answered. He had thought Vaughan anything but a shy person. “Impossible, sir!”

  “Get up! Get up!” cried the Squire, his neighbour, laying a jocund hand on him and trying to lift him to his feet.

  But Vaughan resisted; his throat was so dry that he could hardly frame his words. “I don’t wish to speak,” he muttered. “I don’t agree — —”

  “Say what you like, my dear sir!” the Sergeant rejoined blandly, but with a gleam of amusement in his eyes. He had had his doubts of Master Vaughan ever since he had caught him on his way to the Chancellor: now he thought that he had him pinned. He did not suppose that the young man would dare to revolt openly.

  “Yes, sir, you must get up,” said White, who had no suspicion that his hesitation arose from any cause but shyness. “Anything will do.”

  Vaughan rose — slowly, and with a beating heart. He rose perforce. For a moment he stood, deafened by his reception. For the smaller men saw in him one of the old family, the future landlord of two-thirds of them, the sometime owner of the very roof under which they were gathered. And he, while they greeted his rising and he stood waiting with an unhappy face for silence, wondered, even at this last moment, what he would say. And Heaven knows what he would have said — so hard was it to disappoint those cheering men, all looking at him with worship in their eyes — so painful was it to break old ties — if he had not caught behind him Mowatt’s whisper, “Eat his words! He’ll have to unsay — —”

  No more than that, a fragment, but enough; enough to show him that he had better, far better seem false to these men, to his blood, to the past, than be false to himself. He straightened his shoulders, and lifted his head.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, and now his voice though low was steady, “I rise unwillingly — unwillingly, because I feel too late that I ought not to be here. That I have no right to be here. [No! No!] No right to be here, for this reason,” he continued, raising his hand for silence, “for this reason, that in much of what Sergeant Wathen has said, I cannot go with him.”

  There, it was out! But no more than a stare of perplexity passed from the more intelligent faces about him to the duller faces lower down the table. They did not understand; it was only clear that he could not mean what he seemed to mean. But he was going on in a silence so complete that a pin falling to the floor might have been heard!

  “I rise unwillingly, I say again, gentlemen,” he continued, “and I beg you to remember this, and that I did not come here of set purpose to flaunt my opinions before you. For I, too” — here he betrayed his secret agitation— “thus far I do go with Sergeant Wathen, — I, too, am for Our Ancient Constitution, I give place to no man in love of it. And I, too, am against revolution, I will stand second to none in abhorrence of it.”

  “Hear! Hear!” cried the Rector in a tone of unmistakable relief. “Hear, hear!”

  “Ay, go on,” chimed in the Squire. “Go on, lad, go on! That’s all right!” And half aside in his neighbour’s ear, “Gad! he frightened me!” he muttered.

  “But — but to be plain,” Vaughan resumed, pronouncing every word clearly, “I do not regard the Bill which the Sergeant has mentioned, the Bill which is in all your minds, as assailing the one, or as being tantamount to the other! On the contrary, I believe that it restores the ancient balance of the Constitution, and will avert, as nothing else will avert, a Revolution!”

  As he paused on that word, the Squire, who was of a free habit, tried to rise and speak, but choked. The Rector gasped. Only Mr. Cooke found his voice. He sprang to his feet, purple in the face. “By G — d!” he roared, “are we going to listen to this?”

  Vaughan sat down, pale but composed. But he found all eyes on him, and he rose again.

  “It was against my will I said what I have said,” he resumed. “I did not wish to speak. I do not wish you to listen. I rose only because I was forced to rise. But being up, I owed it to myself to say enough to clear myself of — of the appearance of duplicity. That is all.”

  The Sergeant did not speak, but gazed darkly at him, his mind busy with the effect which this would have on the election. White, too, did not speak — he sat stricken dumb. The Squire swore, and five or six of the more intelligent hissed. But again it was Cooke who found words.

  “That all? But that is not all!” he shouted. “That is not all! What are
you, sir?” For still, in common with most of those at the table, he could not believe that he heard aright. He fancied that this was some trope, some nice distinction, which he had not followed. “You may be Sir Robert Vermuyden’s cousin ten times over,” he continued, vehemently, “but we’ll have it clear what we have to expect. Speak like a man, sir! Say what you mean!”

  Vaughan had taken his seat, but he rose again, a gleam of anger in his eyes. “Have I not spoken plainly?” he said. “I thought I had. If you have still any doubt, sir, I am for the Constitution, but I think that it has suffered by the wear and tear of time and needs repair. I think that the shifting of population during the last two centuries, the decay of one place and the rise of another, call for some change in the representation! I hold that the spread of education and the creation of a large and wealthy class unconnected with the land, render that change more urgent if we would avoid a revolution! I believe that the more we enlarge the base upon which our institutions rest, the more safely, the more steadily, and the longer will they last!”

  They knew now, they understood, and the storm broke. The smaller men, or such of them as were sober, stared. But the greater number burst into a roar of dissent, of reprobation, of anger, led by the Squire.

  “A Whig, by Heaven!” he cried violently. And he thrust his chair as far as possible from his neighbour. “A Whig, by Heaven! And here!” While others cried, “Renegade!” “Radical!” and “What are you doing here?” and hissed him. But above all, in some degree stilling all, rose Cooke’s crucial question, “Are you for the Bill? Answer me that!” And he extended his hand for silence. “Are you for the Bill?”

  “I am,” Vaughan answered. The storm steadied him.

  “You are?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fool or rogue, then! which are you?” shrieked a voice from the lower end of the table. “Fool or rogue? Which are you?”

  Vaughan turned sharply in the direction of the voice. “That reminds me,” he said with a vigour which seemed after a few seconds to gain him a hearing — for the noise died down— “that reminds me, Sergeant Wathen is against the Bill. But he has addressed himself solely and only to your prejudices, gentlemen! I am for the Bill — I am for the Bill,” he repeated, seeing that their attention was wandering, “I — —”