"QUI PERD, GAGNE."
Once more I was back in the thick of it all, and till the closing of the poll at eight o'clock I strove, in company with Cash, Robin, and others, to direct the inclinations of my constituents into the proper channels.
The tumult increased as the evening advanced. More snow had fallen during the afternoon, and outlying electors were being conveyed to the scene of action with the utmost difficulty. People were voting at seven o'clock who had intended to get it done and be home by six; and as time wore on it was seen that there would be a desperate rush of business right up till closing time.
Every one was in high spirits. That potent factor in British politics, the electioneering egg, had been entirely superseded by the snowball, and the youth of Stoneleigh, massed in the public square outside the Town Hall, were engaged, with a lofty indifference to party distinctions that would have been sublime if it had not been so painful, in an untrammelled bombardment of all who crossed their path.
At length the Cathedral chimed out the hour of eight, and the poll closed. Cash hurried up to me.
"It's going to be a desperately close thing," he said. "The counting will begin at once, in the Mayor's room on the first floor of the Town Hall. The outlying boxes should be in by half-past nine at the latest, and the result should be out by about eleven. You'll come and watch the counting, I suppose."
But there are limits to human endurance.
"Mr Cash," I said, buttoning my overcoat up to my ears as a preliminary to an encounter with the budding statesmen outside, "I think I have got to the end of my day's work. Nothing can affect the result now, and I'm going home—that's flat. Good-night!"
"Surely you're coming to hear the result announced," wailed Cash. "There's the vote of thanks to the Returning Officer. You'll have to propose that—or second it," he added grimly.
"Well, I'll see. But I think, now that the poll is closed, that my duty lies elsewhere," I said. "If I am really wanted, send word by Mr Fordyce."
Five minutes later, and I was once more at the Cathedral Arms. The ground floor of that hostelry hummed like a hive, and the bar and smoking-room were filled to overflowing with supporters of both sides, who were prudently avoiding all risk of disappointment by celebrating the result of the election in advance.
I pushed my way through a group of enthusiastic patriots—many of them in that condition once described to me by a sporting curate as "holding two or three firkins apiece"—who crowded round me, fired with a desire to drink success to the British Constitution—a rash shibboleth, by the way, for gentlemen in their situation to attempt to enunciate at all—at my expense, and hastened upstairs to our wing.
In the passage I met the nurse. She greeted me with a little smile; but I was mistrustful of professional cheerfulness that night.
"Will you tell Mrs Inglethwaite or Miss Rubislaw that I have come in, please?" I said, and turned into the sitting-room.
The sight of a snug room or a bright fire or a colossal arm-chair is always comforting to a weary man, even though his thoughts admit of little rest. I sank down amid these comforts, and closed my eyes. Now that my long day's play-acting was over, and nothing mattered any more, I began to realise how great the strain had been. I was utterly done. I had no clear recollection of having tasted food since breakfast, but I was not hungry. All I wanted was to be left in peace. Even the sickening anxiety about Phillis had died down to a sort of dull ache. In a few minutes a too-wakeful mind struggled with an exhausted body. I wondered dimly when somebody would come and tell me how Philly was. Perhaps——
I fell asleep.
I was awakened by the consciousness of a second presence in my arm-chair, which was a roomy one of the saddle-bag variety. It was Kitty. Presently I became aware that she was crying, softly, as women usually do,—men gulp noisily, because they have lost control of themselves, and children wail, chiefly to attract attention,—but so softly on this occasion that I knew she was trying to avoid disturbing me.
It had happened, then.
Well, obviously, this was one of the rare occasions upon which a husband can be of some use to his wife. I sat up, and made a clumsy effort at a caress.
"We've still got each other," I said, rather brokenly.
Kitty positively laughed.
"Adrian, you don't understand. Philly roused up for a few minutes about eight o'clock,—very piano, poor mite, but almost herself,—and then dropped off into a beautiful sleep, bless her! The doctor has gone home and left the nurse in charge. He says things should be all right now. Oh, Adrian, Adrian!"
And my wife sobbed afresh.
"Then what the—what on earth are you crying for?" I demanded.
"I don't know, dear," said Kitty, without making any attempt to stop. "I'm so happy!"
Really, women are the most extraordinary creatures. Here was I, after the labour and anxiety of the last twenty-four hours, ready to shout for joy. I was no longer tired: I felt as if my day's work had never been. I wanted to sing—to dance—to give three cheers in a whisper. And my wife, after giving me a very bad fright, was sitting celebrating our victory by a flood of tears and other phenomena usually attributed by the masculine mind to unfathomable woe. It was all very perplexing, and I felt a trifle ill-used; but I suppose it was one of the things that mark the difference between a man and a woman.
After that we sat long and comfortably. Our conversation need not be set down here, for it has no bearing on this chronicle.
Finally we looked at the clock, and then at each other.
"We must have been sitting here a long time," I said. "I wonder where the others are."
"By the way," said Kitty, "Dilly and Dicky have arrived. Robin and Dolly wired for them this morning. They may be upstairs any moment. They were having supper in the coffee-room when last I saw them." She patted her hair. "Do I look an awful fright?"
I turned in the restricted space at my command and surveyed her.
"Do my eyes look wet?" she inquired, feeling in my pocket for my handkerchief.
Kitty has large grey eyes. Once, during the most desperate period of our courtship, I referred to them as "twin lakes"—an indiscretion which their owner, in her less generous moments, still casts up to me. But to-night the territory surrounding them presented a distinct appearance of inundation. I continued to gaze. I thought of last night's ceaseless vigil and to-day's long-drawn battle. My wife had borne the brunt of all, and I had grudged her a few tears! My heart smote me.
"Kit!" I said suddenly; "poor Kit!"...
We were interrupted by the opening of the door and the entrance of what I at first took to be a chimney-sweep's apprentice, but which proved to be my brother-in-law, with evidence of electoral strenuousness written thick upon him.
"Hallo, you two!" he remarked genially. Then, noticing our unconventional economy of sitting-space—"Sorry! I didn't know. I thought you'd given up that sort of thing years ago!"
I rose and shook myself.
"Come in, my son," I said.
"Righto!" replied Gerald. Then he addressed himself to a figure which, with true delicacy of feeling, had shrunk back into the passage outside.
"Come in, Moke, old man. I've got them separated now!"
The discreet Master Donkin sidled respectfully in at the door, and Gerald continued.
"Moke and I would like to say how pleased we are to hear about Phillis," he said, rather awkwardly for him. "We have just got to hear how really bad she's been."
The resolution was seconded by a confirmatory mumble from Master Donkin.
"We met the nurse just now," continued Gerald, "and she told us about the operation, and all that. It must have been a pretty thick day for you, Adrian. And you're looking pretty rotten, too, Kitty," he added with brotherly directness. "But do you people know what time it is? Half-past eleven, nearly. The result should be out any minute. Aren't you coming to the Town Hall? They'll want you to make a speech, or get egged, or something."
I looked at my watch.
"Well, there's no particular reason why I shouldn't go—now," I said. "What do you say, Kitty? Hark! What's that?"
"That's the result, I expect," said my brother-in-law.
We drew up the blind and opened the window. The moon was shining brightly, and threw the monstrous shadow of the Cathedral very blackly upon the untrodden snow of the peaceful Close. Through the clear night air came the sound of frenzied cheering.
"That's it, right enough," said Gerald. "I wonder if you've got the chuck, my bonny boy."
"Ugh! It is cold! Come in," said Kitty.
We shut the window, drew down the blind, returned to the fire, and waited. Dolly joined us now, and Kitty vanished to sit by Phillis. We waited on. Somehow it never occurred to us to send downstairs for news. I suppose there are times when the human craving for sensation is sated. We sat and waited.
At last the door opened, and, as I expected, Robin entered. He looked like a man who has not been to bed for a week. He shut the door softly behind him—evidently he feared he might be entering a house of mourning—and surveyed us for a moment without speaking. I knew what was in his mind. Then he said—
"We have lost."
I stood up.
"On the contrary," I replied, "we have won."
In a bound Robin was on the hearth-rug, gripping my hand with his. (His other had somehow got hold of one of Dolly's, and I remember wondering if he was hurting her as much as me.)
"You mean it?" he roared.
"I do. She is sleeping like a lamb."
"Oh, man, I'm just glad! What does anything matter after that?"
Then we sat down and smiled upon each other largely and vacuously. We were all a little unstrung that night, I think. After all, it seems rather unreasonable to lavish one's time, labour, and money on an electoral contest, and then laugh when you lose, and say it doesn't matter, just because a child isn't going to die. Oh, I am glad Mr Cash was not there!
"But I must tell you what happened when the result was read out," said Robin. "It was a near thing—a majority of twenty-seven. (I don't think it is worth while to ask for a recount: everything was done very carefully.) When the figures went up there was the usual hullabaloo——"
"We heard it, thanks," said Gerald.
"And presently Stridge stepped out on to the balcony and bowed his acknowledgments. There was a lot more yelling and horn-blowing, and then they began to cry out for Inglethwaite."
"Naturally. Yes?"
"They were quiet at last, and Stridge got his speech in. He talked the usual blethers about having struck a blow that night that would ring through England,—just what you would have had to say if you had got in, in fact,—and then he went on, the old sumph, to say that for reasons best known to himself his honourable opponent had seen fit to withhold his presence from them that night, and he begged leave to add that he considered that a man, even though he knew he was going to be beaten, ought to have the pluck to come and face the music."
"Mangy bounder!" remarked my brother-in-law dispassionately.
"Oh, I was just raging!" continued Robin. "The people of course yelled themselves hoarse; and Stridge was going on to rub it into you, when I stepped on to the balcony beside him—I had been standing just inside the window—and I put my hand on Stridge's fat shoulder and I pulled him back a wee thing, and I roared—
"'Gentlemen, will you not let me say a word for Mr Inglethwaite?'"
Dolly's eyes began to blaze, and I saw her lips part in anticipation.
"There was a tremendous uproar then," Robin went on with relish. "The folk howled to Stridge to put me over the balcony——"
"I wish he had tried!" said Gerald with simple fervour.
"And other folk cried to me to go on. They knew there must be some explanation of your absence. I just stood there and let them roar. Inside the room there was a fine commotion; and with the tail of my eye I could see Cash hurrying round explaining to them what I wanted to say. (He has his points, Cash!) Then at last, as the noise got worse and worse, I put my mouth to Stridge's ear and bellowed that he would regret it all his life if he didn't let me say what I had to say, and that he would be grateful to me afterwards, and all that. He is a decent old buffer, really, and he was evidently impressed with what I said——"
"I should like to know exactly what you did say, Robin," I interpolated.
"Never mind just now. Anyhow, he turned and clambered back into the room, and left me with the crowd. They were soon quiet, and I just told them."
Robin leaned back in his chair.
"Told them what?" came from all parts of the room.
But Robin had become suddenly and maddeningly Caledonian again.
"I just told them about Philly," he said. "What else could I do? It wasn't like telling them during the election. That would have been an appeal to the gallery for votes. This was just common justice to you. Anyhow, they quite quietened down after that."
And that was all the report that its author ever gave us of a speech which, in the space of four minutes, turned a half-maddened election mob into a silent, a sympathetic, and (I heard afterwards) a deeply moved body of sober human beings.
"What happened next?" asked Kitty, who had rejoined us. (Phillis was still sleeping sweetly, she said.)
"After that I hauled old Stridge on to the balcony again and gave him a congratulatory hand-shake, coram populo, on your behalf. Then I retired and slipped out by a back way and came here. Stridge was in full eruption again when I left——"
Dolly held up her hand.
"What is that curious noise?" she said.
"It's outside," said Kitty.
Gerald went to the window and lifted the blind. Then he turned to us.
"I say," he said in an unusual voice, "come here a minute."
We drew up the blind and surveyed the scene before us.
Two minutes before the moon had shone upon an untrodden expanse of snow. Now the Close was black with people. There must have been two or three thousand. They stood there in the gleaming moonlight, silent, motionless, like an army of phantoms. At their head and forefront—I could see the moonlight glitter on his watch-chain, which lay in a most favourable position for lunar reflection—stood the newly elected Member for Stoneleigh, Mr Alderman Stridge.
Simultaneously there was a knock at the door, and the hall-porter of the hotel appeared.
"Mr Stridge's compliments, sir, and he would like to have a word with you."
"Go down quickly, Adrian," said Kitty anxiously. "They'll wake Philly!"
I descended without a word, and passed out into the Close from a French window on the ground floor.
I glanced up in the direction of our rooms and noticed that my party were standing on the balcony outside the sitting-room. I could see Kitty's anxious face. But she need have had no fear.
Mr Stridge advanced towards me, silk hat in hand. Behind him stood a variety of Stoneleigh worthies, and I had time to notice that the group was composed of an indiscriminate mixture of friends and foes.
"Mr Inglethwaite, sir," said Stridge, "I should like to shake you by the hand."
He did so, as did a few of those immediately around us, in perfect silence. I wondered what was coming.
"That is all, sir," said Stridge simply, and not without a certain dignity. "We shall move off now. We did you a wrong to-night, and we all of us"—he indicated the motionless multitude with a sweep of his hand—"agreed to come here in silence, just for a moment, as an indication of our sympathy and—respect."
I was unable to speak, which was not altogether surprising. There was something overwhelming about the dumb kindness of it all,—three thousand excited folk holding themselves in for fear of disturbing a sick child,—and I merely shook Stridge's hand again.
However, I found my voice at last.
"Mr Stridge," I said, "there is only one thing I will say in response to your kindness, but I think it is the one thing most calculated to reward you all for it. To-night my little girl's illness took a favourable turn. She is now fast asleep, and practically out of danger."
I saw a great ripple pass over the crowd, like a breeze over a cornfield, as the news sped from mouth to mouth. Both Stridge's great hands were on my shoulders.
"Good lad!" he said. "Good lad!"
He patted my shoulders again, and then, as if struck by a sudden idea, he turned and whispered a direction to his lieutenants. I overheard the words "Market Square," and "A good half mile away." Once more the wave passed over the cornfield, and without a sound the great concourse turned to the left and streamed away over the trampled snow, leaving me standing bareheaded on the steps of the French window, almost directly below the spot where the unconscious little object of all this consideration lay fast asleep.
I returned to the group on the balcony. They had heard most of the conversation, and Kitty was unaffectedly dabbing her eyes.
"Well, let us get in out of the cold," I said, suddenly cheerful and brisk. "I want my supper."
"Wait a moment," said Robin, "I don't think everything is quite over yet. What is that? Listen!"
From the direction of the Market Square came the shouts of a great multitude. Cheer upon cheer floated up to the starry heavens. The roars that had greeted the declaration of the poll were nothing to these. There was a united ring about them that had been lacking in the others. It was like one whole-hearted many-headed giant letting off steam.
"A-a-h!" said Kitty.