"The maid's name?" Vaughan asked.
"Herapath-Martha Herapath. But to proceed. By and by Lady Vermuyden returned to England, and settled at Brighton, and the maid left her and married, but continued to draw a pension from her. Lady Vermuyden persisted here-in the company of Lady Conyng-but I need name no names-in the same course of giddiness, if no worse, which she had pursued abroad; and gave little if any heed to the child. But this woman Herapath never forgot that the pension she enjoyed was dependent on her power to prove the truth: and when a short time back the girl, now well-grown, was withdrawn from her knowledge, she grew restive. She sought Lady Vermuyden, always a creature of impulse, and when her ladyship, foolish in this as in all things, refused to meet her views she-she came to us," he continued, lifting his head abruptly and looking at Vaughan, "and told us the story."
"It will have to be proved," Vaughan said stubbornly.
"No doubt, strictly proved," Wetherell replied. "In the meantime if you would like to peruse the facts in greater detail, they are here, as taken down from the woman's mouth." He drew from his capacious breast-pocket a manuscript consisting of several sheets which he unfolded and flattened on his knee. He handed it to Vaughan.
The young man took it, without looking at Sir Robert: and with his thoughts in a whirl-and underlying them a sick feeling of impending misfortune-he proceeded to read it, line after line, without taking in a single word. For all the time his brain was at work measuring the change. His modest competence would be left to him. He would have enough to live as he was now living, and to pursue his career; or, in the alternative, he might settle down as a small squire in his paternal home in South Wales. But the great inheritance which had loomed large in the background of his life and had been more to him than he had admitted, the future dignity which he had undervalued while he thought it his own, the position more enviable than many a peer's, and higher by its traditions than any to which he could attain by his own exertions, though he reached the Woolsack-these were gone if Wetherell's tale was true. Gone in a moment, at a word! And though he might have lost more, though many a man had lost his all by such a stroke and smiled, he was no hero, and he could not on the instant smile. He could not in a moment oust all bitterness. He knew that he was taking the news unworthily; that he was playing a poor part. But he could not force himself to play a better-on the instant. When he had read with unseeing eyes to the bottom of the first page and had turned it mechanically, he let the papers fall upon his knee.
"You do not wish me," he said slowly, "to express an opinion now, I suppose?"
"No," Wetherell answered. "Certainly not. But I have not quite done. I have not quite done," he repeated ponderously. "I should tell you that for opening the matter to you now-we have two reasons, Mr. Vaughan. Two reasons. First, we think it due to you-as one of the family. And secondly, Vermuyden desires that from the beginning, his intentions shall be clear and-be understood."
"I thoroughly understand them," Vaughan answered drily. No one was more conscious than he that he was behaving ill.
"That is just what you do not!" Wetherell retorted stolidly. "You spill words, young man, and by and by you will wish to pick them up again. You cannot anticipate, at any rate, you have no right to anticipate, Sir Robert's intentions, of which he has asked me to be the mouthpiece. The estate, of course, and the settled funds must go to his daughter. But there is, it appears, a large sum arising from the economical management of the property, which is at his disposal. He feels," Wetherell continued sombrely, an elbow on each knee and his eyes on the floor, "that some injustice has been done to you, and he desires to compensate you for that injustice. He proposes, therefore, to secure to you the succession to two-thirds of this sum; which amounts-which amounts, in the whole I believe" – here he looked at White-"to little short of eighty thousand pounds."
Vaughan, who had been more than once on the point of interrupting him, did so at last. "I could not accept it!" he exclaimed impulsively. And he rose, with a hot face, from his seat. "I could not accept it."
"As a legacy?" Wetherell, who was fond of money, said with a queer look. "As a legacy, eh? Why not?" While Sir Robert, with compressed lips, almost repented of his generosity. He had looked for some show of good-feeling, some word of sympathy, some felicitation from the young man, who, after all, was his blood relation. But if this was to be his return, if his advances were to be met with suspicion, his benevolence with churlishness, then all, all in this young man was of a piece-and detestable!
And certainly Vaughan was not showing himself in the best light. He was conscious that he had taken the news ill; but he could not change his attitude in a moment. Under no circumstances is it an easy thing to take a gift with grace: to take one with grace under these circumstances-and when he had already misbehaved-was beyond him, as it would have been beyond most men.
For a moment drawn this way by his temper, that way by his better feelings, he did not know how to answer Wetherell's last words. At last and lamely, "May I ask," he said, "why Sir Robert makes me this offer while the matter lies open?"
"Sir Robert will prove his case," Wetherell answered gruffly, "if that is what you mean."
"I mean-"
"He does not ask you to surrender anything."
"I am bound to say, then, that the offer is very generous," Vaughan replied, melting, and speaking with some warmth. "Most generous. But-"
"He asks you to surrender nothing," Wetherell repeated stolidly, his face between his knees.
"But I still think it is premature," Vaughan persisted doggedly. "And handsome as it is, more than handsome as it is, I think that it would have come with greater force, were my position first made clear!"
"Maybe," Wetherell said, his face still hidden. "I don't deny that."
"As it is," with a deep breath, "I am taken by surprise. I do not know what to say. I find it hard to say anything in the first flush of the matter." And Vaughan looked from one to the other. "So, for the present, with Sir Robert's permission," he continued, "and without any slight to his generosity, I will take leave. If he is good enough, to repeat on some future occasion, this very handsome-this uncalled for and generous offer, which he has now outlined, I shall know, I hope, what is due to him, without forgetting what is due also to myself. In the meantime I have only to thank him and-"
But the belated congratulation which was on his lips and which might have altered many things, was not to be uttered.
"One moment!" Sir Robert struck in. "One moment!" He spoke with a hardness born of long suppressed irritation. "You have taken your stand, Mr. Vaughan, strictly on the defensive, I see-"
"But I think you understand-"
"Strictly on the defensive," the baronet repeated, requiring silence by a gesture. "You must not be surprised therefore, if I-nay, let me speak! – if I also say a word on a point which touches me."
"I wouldn't!" Wetherell growled in his deep voice; and for an instant he raised his huge face, and looked stolidly at the wall before him.
But Sir Robert was not to be bidden. "I think otherwise," he said. "Mr. Vaughan, the election to-morrow touches me very nearly-in more ways than one. The vote you have, you received at my hands and hold only as my heir. I take it for granted, therefore, that under the present circumstances, you will use it as I desire."
"Oh!" Vaughan said. And drawing himself up to his full height he passed his eyes slowly from one to the other with a singular smile. "Oh!" he repeated-and there was a world of meaning in his tone. "Am I to understand then-"
"I have made myself quite clear," Sir Robert cried, his manner betraying his agitation.
"Am I to understand," Vaughan persisted, "that the offer which you made me a few minutes back, the generous and handsome offer," he continued with a faint note of irony in his voice, "was dependent on my conduct to-morrow? Am I to understand that?"
"If you please to put it so," Sir Robert replied, his voice quivering with the resentment he had long and patiently suppressed. "And if your own sense of honour does not dictate to you how to act."
"But do you put it so?"
"Do you mean-"
"I mean," Vaughan said, "does the offer depend on the use I make of my vote to-morrow? That is the point, Sir Robert!"
"No," Wetherell muttered indistinctly.
But again Sir Robert would not be bidden. "I will be frank," he said haughtily. "And my answer is, yes! yes! For I do not conceive, Mr. Vaughan, that a gentleman would take so great a benefit, and refuse so slight a service! A service, too, which, quite apart from this offer, most men-"
"Thank you," Vaughan replied, interrupting him. "That is clear enough." And he looked from one to the other with a smile of amusement; the smile of a man suddenly reinstated in his own opinion-and once more master of his company. "Now I understand," he continued. "I see now why the offer which a few minutes ago seemed so premature, so strangely premature, was made this evening. To-morrow it had been made too late! My vote had been cast and I could no longer be-bribed!"
"Bribed, sir?" cried Sir Robert, red with anger.
"Yes, bribed, sir. But let me tell you," Vaughan went on, allowing the bitterness which he had been feeling to appear, "let me tell you, Sir Robert, that if not only my future, but my present, if my all, were at stake-I should resent such an offer as an insult!"
Sir Robert took a step towards the bell and stopped.
"An insult!" Vaughan repeated firmly. "As great an insult as I should inflict upon you, if I were unwise enough to do the errand I was asked to do a week ago-by a cabinet minister. And offered you, Sir Robert, here in your own house, a peerage conditional on your support of the Bill!"
"A peerage?" Sir Robert's eyes seemed to be starting from his head. "A peerage! Conditional on my-"
"Yes, sir, conditional on your renunciation of those opinions which you honestly hold as I honestly hold mine!" Vaughan repeated coolly. "I will make the offer if you wish it."
Wetherell rose ponderously. "See here!" he said. "Listen to me, will you, you two! You, Vermuyden, as well as the young man. You will both be sorry for what you are saying now! Listen to me! Listen to me, man!"
But the baronet was already tugging at the bell-rope. He was no longer red; he was white with anger. And not without reason. This whipper-snapper, this pettifogging lad, just out of his teens, to talk to him of peerages, to patronise him, to offer him-to-to-
For a moment he stammered and could not speak. At last, "Enough! Enough, sir; leave my house!" he cried, shaking from head to foot with passion, and losing for the first time in many years his self-control. "Leave my house," he repeated furiously, "and never set foot in it again! Not a pound, and not a penny will you have of mine! Never! Never! Never!"
Vaughan smiled, "Very good, sir," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Your fortune is your own. But-"
"Begone, sir! Not another word, but go!"
Vaughan raised his eyebrows, bowed in a ceremonious fashion to Wetherell, and nodded to White, who stood petrified and gaping. Then he walked slowly through that room and the next, and with one backward smile-vanished.
And this time, as he passed through the hall, narrowly missing Flixton who was leaving the dining-room, there could be no doubt that the breach was complete, that the small cordiality which had existed between the two men was at an end. The Bill, which had played so many mischievous tricks, severed so many old friends, broken the ties of so many years, had dealt no one a more spiteful blow than it had dealt Arthur Vaughan.
XVII
THE CHIPPINGE ELECTION
The great day on which the Borough of Chippinge was to give its vote, Aye or No, Reform or No Reform, the Rule of the Few or the Rule of the Many, was come; and in the large room on the first floor of the White Lion were assembled a score of persons deeply interested in the issue. Those who had places at the three windows were gazing on what was going forward in the space below; and it was noticeable that while the two or three who remained in the background talked and joked, these were silent; possibly because the uproar without made hearing difficult. The hour was early, the business of the day was to come, but already the hub-bub was indescribable. Nor was that all; every minute some missile, a much enduring cabbage-stalk, or a dead cat in Tory colours, rose to a level with the windows, hovered, and sank-amid a storm of groans or cheers. For the most part, indeed, these missiles fell harmless. But that the places of honour at the windows were not altogether places of safety was proved by a couple of shattered panes, as well as by the sickly hue of some among the spectators.
Nearly all who had attended the Vermuyden dinner were in the room. But, for certain, things which had worn one aspect across the mahogany, wore another now. At the table old and young had made light of the shoving and mauling and drubbing through which they had forced their way to the good things before them; they had even made a jest of the bit of a rub they were likely to have on the polling day. Now, the sight of the noisy crowd which filled the open space, from the head of the High Street to the wall of the Abbey, and from the Vineyard east of it, almost to the West Port-made their bones ache. They looked, even the boldest, at one another. The heart of Dewell, the barber, was in his boots; the rector stared aghast; and Mowatt, the barrister, Arthur Vaughan's ill-found friend, wished for once that he was on the vulgar side.
True, the doors of the White Lion were guarded by a sturdy phalanx of Vermuyden lads; mustered with what difficulty and kept together by what arguments, White best knew. But what were two or three score, however faithful, and however strong, against the hundreds and thousands who swayed and cheered and groaned before the Inn? Who swarmed upon the old town-cross until they hid every inch of the crumbling stonework; who clung to every niche and buttress of the Abbey; and from whose mass as from a sea the solitary church spire rose like some lighthouse cut off by breakers? Who, here, forgetful of their Wiltshire birth cheered the Birmingham tub-thumper to the echo, and there, roared stern assent to the wildest statements of the Political Union?
True, a dozen banners and thrice as many flags gave something of a festive air to the scene. But the timid who tried to draw solace from these retreated appalled by the daring "Death or Freedom!" inscribed on one banner: or the scarcely less bold "The Sovereign People," which bellied above the clothiers. The majority of the placards bore nothing worse than the watchword of the party: "The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill!" or "Retrenchment and Reform!" or-in reference to the King-"God bless the two Bills!" But for all that, Dewell, the barber-and some more who would not have confessed it-wished the day well over and no bones broken! A great day for Chippinge, but a day on which many an old score was like to be paid, many a justice to hear the commonalty's opinion of him, many a man who had thriven under the old rule, to read the writing on the wall!
Certainly nothing like the spectacle visible from the White Lion windows had been seen in Chippinge within living memory. The Abbey, indeed, which had seen the last of the mitred Abbots pass out-shorn of his strength, and with weeping townsfolk about him in lieu of belted knights-that pile, stately in its ruin, which had witnessed a revolution greater even than this which impended, and more tragic, might have viewed its pair, might have seen its precincts seethe as they seethed now. But no living man. Nor did those who scanned the crowd from the White Lion find aught to lessen its terrors. There were, indeed, plenty of decent, respectable people in the crowd, who, though they were set on gaining their rights, had no notion of violence. But wood burns when it is kindled: and here at the corner of the Heart and Hand, the Whig headquarters, was a spark like to light the fire-Boston, the bruiser, and a dozen of his fellows; men who were, one and all, the idols of the yokels who stood about them and stared. Pybus, who had brought them hither, was not to be seen; he was weaving his spells in the Heart and Hand. But Mr. Williams, White-Hat Williams, the richest man in Chippinge, who, voteless, had only lived of late to see this day-he was here at the head of his clothmen, and as fierce as the poorest. And half-a-dozen lesser men there were of the same kind; sallow Blackford, the Methodist, the fugleman of every dissenter within ten miles; and two or three small lawyers whom the landlords did not employ, and two or three apothecaries who were in the same case. With these were one or two famished curates, with Sydney Smith for their warranty, and his saying about Dame Partington's Mop and the Atlantic on their lips; and a sprinkling of spouters from the big towns-men who had the glories of Orator Hunt and William Cobbett before their eyes. And everywhere, working in the mass like yeast, moved a score of bitter malcontents-whom the old system had bruised under foot-poachers whom Sir Robert had jailed, or the lovers of maids as frail as fair, or labourers whom the Poor Laws had crushed-a score of malcontents whose grievances long muttered in pothouses now flared to light and cried for vengeance. In a word, there were the elements of mischief in the crowd: and under the surface an ugly spirit. Even the most peaceable were grim, knowing it was now or never. So that the faces at the White Lion windows grew longer as their owners gazed and listened.
"I don't know what's come to the people!" the Rector bawled, turning about to make himself heard by his neighbour. "Eh, what?"
"I'd like to see Lord Grey hung!" answered Squire Rowley, his face purple. "And Lord Lansdowne with him! What do you say, sir?" to Sergeant Wathen.
"Fortunate a show of hands don't carry it!" the Sergeant cried, shrugging his shoulders with an assumption of easiness.
"Carry it? Of course we'll carry it!" the Squire replied wrathfully. "I suppose two and two still make four!"
Isaac White, who was whispering with a man in a corner of the room, wished that he was sure of that; or, rather, that three and two made six. But the Squire was continuing. "Bah!" he cried in disgust. "Give these people votes? Look at 'em! Look at 'em, sir! Votes indeed! Votes indeed! Give 'em oakum, I say!"
He forgot that nine-tenths of those below were as good as the voters at his elbow, who were presently to return two members for Chippinge. Or rather, it did not occur to him, good old Tory as he was, and convinced, that Dewell's vote was Dewell's, or Annibal's Annibal's.
'Twas the Jacobins brought every mischief about,Meanwhile, "I wish we were safe at the hustings!" young Mowatt shouted in the ear of the man who stood in front of him.
The man chanced to be Cooke, the other candidate. He turned. "At the hustings?" he said irascibly. "Do you mean, sir, that we are expected to fight our way through that rabble?"
"I am afraid we must," Mowatt answered.
"Then it-has been d-d badly arranged!" retorted the outraged Cooke, who never forgot that as he paid well for his seat it ought to be a soft one. "Go through this mob, and have our heads broken?"
The faces of those who could hear him grew longer. "And it wants only five minutes of ten," complained a third. "We ought to be going now."
"D-n me, but suppose they don't let us go!" cried Cooke. "Badly arranged! I should think it is, sir! D-d badly arranged! The hustings should have been on this side."
But hitherto the hustings had been at Chippinge a matter of form, and it had not occurred to anyone to alter their position-cheek by jowl with the Whig headquarters, but divided by seventy yards of seething mob from the White Lion. However, White, on an appeal being made to him, put a better face on the matter. "It's all right, gentlemen," he said, "it's all right! If they have the hustings, we have the returning officer, and they can do nothing without us. I've seen Mr. Pybus, and I have his safe conduct for our party to go to the hustings."
But it is hard to satisfy everybody, and at this there was a fresh outcry. "A safe conduct?" cried the Squire, redder about the gills than before. "For shame, sir! Are we to be indebted to the other side for a safe conduct! I never heard of such a thing!"
"I quite agree with you," cried the Rector. "Quite! I protest, Mr. White, against anything of the kind."
But White was unmoved. "We've got to get our voters there," he said. "Sir Robert will be displeased, I know, but-"
"Never was such a thing heard of!"
"No, sir, but never was such an election," White answered with spirit.
"Where is Sir Robert?"
"He'll be here presently," White replied. "He'll be here presently. Anyway, gentlemen," he continued, "we had better be going down to the hall. In a body, gentlemen, if you please, and voters in the middle. And keep together, if you please. A little shouting," he added cheerfully, "breaks no bones. We can shout too!"
The thing was unsatisfactory, and without precedent; nay, humiliating. But there seemed to be nothing else for it. As White said, this election was not as other elections; Bath was lost, and Bristol, too, it was whispered; the country was gone mad. And so, frowning and ill-content, the magnates trooped out, and led by White began to descend the stairs. There was much confusion, one asking if the Alderman was there, another demanding to see Sir Robert, here a man grumbling about White's arrangements, there a man silent over the discovery, made perhaps for the first time, that here was like to be an end of old Toryism and the loaves and the fishes it had dispensed.
In the hall where the party was reinforced by a crowd of their smaller supporters a man plucked White's sleeve and drew him aside. "She's out now!" he whispered. "Pybus has left two with him and they won't leave him for me. But if you went and ordered them out there's a chance they'd go, and-"
"The doctor's not there?"
"No, and Pillinger's well enough to come, if you put it strong. He's afraid of his wife and they've got him body and soul, but-"
White cast a despairing eye on the confusion about him. "How can I come?" he muttered. "I must get these to the poll first."
"Then you'll never do it!" the man retorted. "There'll be no coming and going, to-day, Mr. White, you take it from me. Now's the time while they're waiting for you in front. You can slip out at the back and bring him in and take him with you. It's the only way, so help me! They're in that temper we'll be lucky if we're all alive to-morrow!"
The man was right; and White knew it, yet he hesitated. If he had had an aide fit for the task, the thing might be done. But to go himself-he on whom everything fell! He reflected. Possibly Arthur Vaughan might not vote for the enemy after all. But if he did, Sir Robert would poll only five to six, and be beaten! Unless he polled Pillinger, when the returning officer's vote, of which he was sure, would give him the election. Pillinger's vote, therefore, was vital; everything turned upon it. And he determined to go. His absence would only cause a little delay, and he must risk that. He slipped away.
He was missed at once, and the discovery redoubled the confusion. One asked where he was, and another where Sir Robert was; while Cooke in tones louder and more irritable than was prudent found fresh fault, and wished to heaven that he had never seen the place. Long accustomed to one-sided contests of which both parties knew the issue, the Tory managers were helpless; they were aware that the hour had struck, and that they were expected, but without White they were uncertain how to act. Some cried that White had gone on, and that they should follow; some that Sir Robert was to meet them at the hustings, others that they might as well be home as waiting there! While the babel without deafened and distracted them. At last, without order given, they found themselves moving out.
