Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Unfortunately, when he ventured to change his posture, and to put on his hat, which he discovered he had been holding in his hand, he encountered Sergeant Wathen’s eyes; and he read in them a look of amusement, which wounded his pride more than the open ridicule of a crowd. That was the finishing stroke. He walked out soon afterwards, bearing himself as indifferently as he could. But no man ever carried out of the House a lower heart or a sense of more utter failure. He had mistaken his talents, he had no aptitude for debate. Success as a speaker was not within his reach.

  He thought something better of it next day, but not much. Nor could he put off a sneaking, hang-dog air as he entered the lobby. A number of members were gathered inside the double doors, where the stairs from the cloisters came up by a third door; and one or two whom he knew spoke to him — but not of his attempt. He fancied that he read in their looks a knowledge that he had failed, that he was no longer a man to be reckoned with. He imagined that they used a different tone to him. And at last one of them spoke of it.

  “Well, Vaughan,” he said pleasantly, “you got through yesterday. But if you’ll take my advice you’ll wait a bit. It’s only one here and there can make much of it to begin.”

  “I certainly cannot,” Vaughan said, smiling frankly, the better to hide his mortification.

  “Ah, well, you’re not alone,” the other answered, shrugging his shoulders. “You’ll pick it up by and by, I dare say.” And he turned to speak to another member.

  Vaughan turned on his side to the paper for the day winch hung against each of the four pillars of the lobby; and he pretended to be absorbed in it. The employment helped him to keep his countenance. But he was sore wounded. He had held his head so high in imagination, he had given so loose a rein to his ambition; he had dreamt of making such an impression on the House as Mr. Macaulay, though new to it, had made in his speech on the second reading of the former Bill, and had deepened by his speech at the like stage of the present Bill. Now he was told that he was no worse than the common run of country members, who twice in three sessions rose and blundered through half a dozen sentences! He was consoled with the reflection that only “one here and there” succeeded! Only one here and there! When to him it was everything to succeed, and to succeed quickly. When it was all he had left.

  The stream of members, entering the House, was large; for the motion to commit the Bill was down for that afternoon, and if carried, would virtually put an end to opposition in the Commons. Out of the corner of his eye Vaughan scanned them, as they passed, and envied them. Peel, cold, proud and unapproachable, went by on the arm of Goulburn. Croker, pale and saturnine, casting frowning glances here and there, went in alone. The handsome, portly form of Sir James Graham passed, in talk with the Rupert of Debate. After these a rush of members; and at the tail of all slouched in the unwieldy, slovenly form of Sir Charles Wetherell, followed by a couple of his satellites.

  Vaughan, glancing on one side of the paper which he appeared to be studying, caught Sir Charles’s eye, and reddened. Seated on opposite sides of the House — and no man on either side was more bitter, virulent, and pugnacious than the late Attorney-General — the two had not encountered one another since that evening at Stapylton, when the existence of Sir Robert’s daughter had been disclosed to Vaughan. They had not spoken, much less had there been any friendly passage between them. But now Sir Charles paused, and held out his hand.

  “How do you do, Mr. Vaughan?” he said, in his deep bass voice. “Your maiden essay yesterday, eh?”

  Vaughan winced. “Yes,” he said stiffly, fancying that he read amusement in the other’s moist eye.

  To his surprise, “You’ll do,” Sir Charles rejoined, looking at the floor and speaking in a despondent tone. “The House would rather you began in that way, than like some d —— d peacock on a lady’s terrace. Take the opportunity of saying three or four sentences some fine day, and repeat it a week later. And I’ll wager you’ll do.”

  “But little, I am afraid,” Vaughan said. None the less was his heart full of gratitude to the fat, ungainly man.

  “All, may be,” Wetherell answered. “I shouldn’t wonder. I’ve been told, by one who heard him, that Canning hesitated in his first speech, very much as you did. It was on the Sardinian Subsidy. The men who don’t feel the House never know the House. They dazzle it, Mr. Vaughan, but they don’t guide it. And that’s what we’ve got to do.”

  He passed on then, with a melancholy nod and averted eyes, but Vaughan could have blest him for that “we.” “There’s one man at least believes in me,” he told himself. And when a few hours later, in the midst of a scene as turbulent as any which the House of Commons had ever witnessed — nine times without a pause it divided on the motion that “this House do now adjourn” — he watched the man who had commended him, riding the storm and directing the whirlwind, now lashing the Whigs to fury by his sarcasm, and now, carrying the whole House away in a hurricane of laughter, if he did not approve — and with his views he could not approve — he learnt, and learnt much. He saw that the fat, slovenly man, with the heavy face and that hiatus between his breeches and his waistcoat which had made him famous, was allowed to do things, and to say things, and to look things, for which a less honest man had been hurried long ago to the Clock Tower. And this, because the House believed in him; because it knew that he was fighting for a principle really dear to him; because it knew that he honestly put faith in those predictions of woe, which he scattered so freely, and in that ruin of the Constitution, with which he twitted his opponents.

  A week later Vaughan acted upon his advice. He seized an opportunity and, catching the Chairman’s eye — the Bill was in Committee — delivered himself of a dozen sentences, with so much spirit and propriety, that Sir Robert Peel, speaking an hour later, referred to the “plausible defence raised by the Honourable Member for Chippinge.” The reference drew all eyes to Vaughan: and though nothing was said to him and he took care to bear himself as if he had done no better than before, he left the House with a lighter step and a comfortable warmth about the heart. He was more at ease that evening, if not more happy, than he had been for weeks past. Love, pleasure, and the rest were gone; and faith in woman. But if he could be sure of gaining a seat in the next Parliament, the way might be longer than he had hoped, it might be more toilsome and more dusty: but in the end he would arrive at the Treasury Bench.

  He little thought, alas, that the effort on which he hugged himself was to prove a source of misfortunes. But so it was. His maiden speech had attracted neither notice nor envy. But those few sentences, short and simple as they were, by drawing an answer from the leader of the Opposition, had gained both for him. Within five minutes a score of members had asked “Who is he?” and another score had detailed the circumstances of his election for Chippinge. He had gone down to vote for his cousin, in his cousin’s borough, family vote and the rest; so the story ran. Then, finding on the morning of the polling that if he threw over his cousin, he might gain the seat for himself, he had turned his coat in a — well, in a very dubious manner, snatched the seat, and — here he was!

  In a word, it was the version of the facts which he had once dreaded, and about which he had afterwards ceased to trouble himself.

  There were, perhaps, half a dozen persons in the House who knew the facts, and knew that the young man had professed from the first the opinions which he was now supporting. But there was just so much truth in the version, garbled as it was, just so much vraisemblance in the tale that even those who knew the facts, could not wholly contradict it. The story did not come to Wetherell’s ears; or he, for certain, would have gainsaid it. But it did come to Wathen’s. Now the Sergeant was capable of spite, and he had not forgotten the manner after which Vaughan had flouted him at Chippinge; his defence — if a defence it could be called — was accompanied by so many nods and shrugs, that persons less prejudiced than Tories, embittered by defeat, and wounded by personalities, might have been forgiven, if they went from
the Sergeant with a lower opinion of our friend than before.

  From that day Vaughan, though he knew nothing of it, and though no one spoke to him of it, was a marked man in the eyes of the opposite party. They regarded him as a renegade; while his own side were not overanxious to make his cause their own. The May elections had been contested with more spirit and less scruple than any elections within living memory; and many things had been done and many said, of which honourable men were not proud. Still it was acknowledged that such things must be done — here and there — and even that the doers must not be repudiated. But it was felt that the party was not required to grapple the latter to its breast with hooks of steel. Rumour had it that Lord Lansdowne felt himself to blame; and that the offender had been disinherited by his cousin was asserted. The man would be of no great importance, therefore, in the future; and if he did not make a second appearance in Parliament, the loss in the end would be small. Not a few summed up the matter in that way.

  If Vaughan had been intimate with anyone in the House he would have learned what was afoot; and he might have taken steps to set himself right. But he had lived little of his life in London, he had but made his bow to Society; of late, also, he had been too sore to make new friends. Of course he had acquaintances, every man has acquaintances. But no one in political circles knew him well enough to think it worth while to put him on his guard.

  Unluckily, the next occasion which brought him to his feet, was of a kind to give point to the feeling against him. On a certain Thursday, Sergeant Wathen moved that the Borough of Chippinge be removed from Schedule A, to Schedule B — his object being that it might retain one member; and Vaughan, thinking the opening favourable, rose, intending to make a few remarks in a strain to which the House, proverbially fond of a personal explanation, is prone to listen with indulgence. For the motion itself, he had not much hope that it would be carried: in a dozen other cases, a similar motion had failed.

  “It can only be,” he began — and this time the sound of his voice did not perturb him— “from a strict sense of duty, Mr. Bernal, it cannot be without pain that any Member — and I say this not on my account only, but on behalf of many Honourable Members of this House — —”

  “No! No! Leave us out.”

  The words were uttered so loudly and so rudely that they silenced him; and he looked in the direction whence they came. At once cries of “No, no! Divide! No! No!” poured on him from all parts of the House, accompanied by a dropping fire of catcalls and cockcrows. He lost the thread of his remarks, and for a moment stood abashed and confounded. The Chairman did not interfere and for an instant it looked as if the young speaker would be compelled to sit down.

  But he recovered himself, gaining courage from the very vigour with which he was attacked; and which seemed out of proportion to his importance. The moment a lull in the fire of interruption occurred, he spoke in a louder voice.

  “I say, sir,” he proceeded, looking about him courageously, “that it is only with pain, only under the force majeure of a love of their country, that any Member can support the deletion from the Borough Roll of this House, of that Constituency which has honoured him with its confidence.”

  “Divide! Divide!” roared many on both sides of the House. For the Tories were uncertain on which side he was speaking. “Cock-a-doodle-doo-doo-doo!”

  But this fresh burst of disapproval found him better prepared. Firmly, though the beads of perspiration stood on his brow, he persisted. “And if,” he continued, “in the case which appeals so nearly to himself an Honourable Member sees that the standard which justifies the survival of a representative can be reached, with what gratification, sir, whether he sits on this side of the House or on that — —”

  “No! No! Leave us out!” in a roar of sound. And “Divide! Divide!”

  “Or on that,” he repeated.

  “Divide! Divide!”

  “Must he not press its claims and support its interests?” he persisted gallantly. “Ay, sir, welcome in the event of success a decision at once just, and of so much advantage, I will not say to himself — —”

  “It never will be to you!” shrieked a voice from the darker corner under the opposite gallery.

  The shaft went home. He faltered. A roar of laughter drowned his last words, and he sat down with a burning face; in some confusion, but in greater perplexity. Had he transgressed, he wondered ruefully, some unwritten law of the House! Had he offended in ignorance, and persisted in his offence? Should he not, though Wathen had spoken, have spoken in his own case? In a matter so nearly touching himself?

  He spoke to the Member who chanced to sit next him. “What was it?” he asked humbly. “Did I do something wrong?”

  The man glanced at him coldly. “Oh, no,” he said. And he shrugged his shoulders.

  “But — —”

  “On the contrary, I fancy you’ve to congratulate yourself,” with a sneer so faint that Vaughan did not perceive it. “I understand that we’re to do as we like on this — and they know it on the other side. Eh? Yes, there’s the division. I think,” he added with the same faint sneer, “you’ll save your seat.”

  “By Jove!” Vaughan exclaimed. “You don’t say so!”

  He could hardly believe it. But so it turned out. And so great was the boon — the greater as no other borough was transferred in Committee — that it swept away for the time the memory of what had happened. His eyes sparkled. The seat saved, it was odd if with the wider electorate created by the Bill, he was not sure of return! Still more odd, if he was not sure of beating Wathen — he, who had opened the borough and been returned by the Whig interest even while it was closed! No longer need he feel so anxious and despondent when the Dissolution, which must follow the passage of the Bill, rose to his mind. No longer need he be in so great a hurry to make his mark, so envious of Mr. Macaulay, so jealous of Mr. Sadler.

  Certainly as far as his political career was in question the horizon was clearing. If only other things had been as favourable! If only there had been someone, were it in a cottage at Hammersmith or in a dull street off Bloomsbury Square, to whom he might take home this piece of news; certain that other eyes would sparkle more brightly than his, and another heart beat quick with joy!

  That could not be. There was an end of that. And his face settled back into its gloom. Still he was less unhappy. The certainty of a seat in the next Parliament was a great point gained! A great point to the good!

  XXIV

  A RIGHT AND LEFT

  If anything was certain in a political world so changed, it was certain that if the Reform Bill passed the Lords — in the teeth of those plaguy Bishops of whose opposition so much was heard — a Dissolution would immediately follow. To not a few of the members this contingency was a spectre, ever present, seated at bed and board, and able to defy the rules even of Almack’s and Crockford’s. For how could a gentleman, who had just given five thousand pounds for his seat, contemplate with equanimity a notice to quit, so rude and so premature? And worse, a notice to quit which meant extrusion into a world in which seats at five thousand for a Parliament would be few and far between; and fair agreements to pay a thousand a year while the privilege lasted, would be unknown!

  Many a member asked loudly and querulously, “What will happen to the country if the Bill pass?” But more asked themselves in their hearts, and more often and more querulously, “What will happen to me if the Bill pass? How shall I fare at the hands of these new constituencies, which, unwelcome as a gipsy’s brats, I am forced to bring into the world?”

  Hitherto few on his own side of the House, and not many on the Tory side, had regarded a Dissolution with more misgiving than Arthur Vaughan. The borough for which he sat lay under doom; and he saw no opening elsewhere. He had no longer the germs of influence nor great prospects: nor yet such a fortune as justified him in an appeal to one of the new and populous boroughs. It was a pleasant thing to go in and out by the door of the privileged, to take his chop at Bellamy’s
, to lounge in the dignified seclusion of the library, or to air his new honours in Westminster Hall; pleasant also to have that sensation of living at the hub of things, to receive whips, to give franks, to feel that the ladder of ambition was open to him. But he knew that an experience of the House counted by months did no man good; and the prospect of losing his plumes and going forth again a common biped, was the more painful to him because his all was embarked in the venture. He might, indeed, fall back on the bar; but with half a heart and the reputation of a man who had tried to fly before he could walk.

  His relief, therefore, when Chippinge, alone of all the Boroughs in Schedule A, was removed in Committee to Schedule B, may be imagined. The road before him was once more open, while the exceptional nature of his luck almost persuaded him that he was reserved for greatness. True, Sergeant Wathen might pride himself on the same fact; but at the thought Vaughan smiled. The Sergeant and Sir Robert would find it a trifle harder, he thought, to deal with the hundred-and-odd voters whom the Act enfranchised, than with the old Cripples! And very, very ungrateful would those hundred-and-odd be, if they did not vote for the man who had made their cause his own!

  A load, indeed, was lifted from his mind, and for some days his relief could be read in the lightness of his step, and the returning gaiety of his eyes. He knew nothing of the things which were being whispered about him. And though he had cause to fancy that he was not persona grata on his own benches, he thought sufficiently well of himself to set this down to jealousy. There is a stage in the life of a rising man when many hands are against him; and those most cruelly which will presently applaud him most loudly. He flattered himself that he had set a foot on the ladder: and while he waited for an opportunity to raise himself another step, he came as near to a kind of feverish happiness as thoughts of Mary, ever recurring when he was alone, would permit. For the time the loss of his prospects ceased to trouble him seriously. He lived less in his rooms, more among men. He was less crabbed, less moody. And so the weeks wore away in Committee, and a day or two after the Coronation, the Bill came on for the third reading.