CHAPTER V
BEFORE Louise had been an hour in the Valley she saw that the election was not going to be the “walk-over” that Pat Goard was predicting, despite the solid support which Keble was receiving at the hands of all the commercial interests. Although she could be contemptuously disregardful of public opinion, she seldom made the mistake of misreading it to her advantage, and as she moved about among groups of idlers in Main Street she intuitively discovered that there was a formidable undercurrent of opposition to her husband.
It came to her with a shock that part of the opposition was directed at herself. She knew there were people in the Valley who thought of her as a “menace”. There were women who resented what they regarded as her superior airs, her new way of talking, her habit of dashing into town in an expensive motor. She found that her frivolous treatment of the far-off Watch-Night service had not been forgotten, had even been exhumed by people who had boisterously profited by Keble’s hospitality on the night in question. She discovered that sarcastic equivocations were being circulated regarding her “sick man” and Keble’s “secretary”. Further than that, capital was being made of the fact that Keble had brought laborers from the east to work on his land. This was a particularly malicious weapon, since Keble had advertised months in advance for local workmen, and of the few who had offered their services, he had engaged all who qualified for the work in hand.
She made a rapid computation of her enemies, then a rapid computation of her friends. Luckily she had invited Mr. and Mrs. Boots to her house during the visit of her English guests. That had greatly strengthened the Eveley prestige among the faithful. Mrs. Boots recalled that she was the first to tell the Eveleys that they should go in for politics. Even the tongue of the mail carrier’s wife had wagged less carelessly since Louise had invited Amy Sweet to dinner with a lord. Pearl Beatty, who had recently become Mrs. Jack Wallace, was a tower of strength for Keble’s cause, for while the women of the Valley whispered about her, Pearl’s respectability was now unchallengeable and most of her detractors owed money to Jack for ploughs and harness bought on credit. Moreover, Pearl, as a university graduate, could make the untutored respect her opinion, and she was phenomenally successful on the stump.
The opposing party had, early in the campaign, strengthened their cause by dropping the man who had represented and neglected them for so many years, and chosen as their candidate the much more redoubtable Otis Swigger, proprietor of the Canada House, a director of the Witney bank, and the holder of many mortgages. Oat was a good “cusser”; he always had a chew of tobacco for any one amiable enough to listen to his anecdotes; he was generally conceded to be an enlightened citizen; and he was a typical product of his district. Moreover, he was popular enough to enlist the support of many Progressives, who had decided not to put up a candidate of their own.
For Louise, whose erratic ways of arriving at conclusions in no sense invalidated the accuracy of the conclusions arrived at, the factor which made Oat Swigger a dangerous opponent was that she had, for her own reasons, decided not to invite him and Minnie to what the Valley referred to as her “high-toned house-warming”. In the drug-store Minnie had tried to pass her without speaking, her chalky chin very high in the air. Louise had grasped Minnie’s shoulder, with a smile on her lips but a glint in her eye, and said, “You’re getting near-sighted Minnie. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m all right, Smarty!” Minnie had retorted, and broken away. “Never better in my life!” she flung back.
“For God’s sake touch wood!” Louise had screamed after her, with a wink for the man behind the counter. “You’re going to vote for us, I hope,” she said to him.
“Sure thing!” he agreed.
It was with these discoveries bubbling in her mind that she sought out Keble to present a hasty report before the “monster meeting” in the Valley town hall.
Keble and Miriam seemed to have taken stock of most of the points she had observed, but they had thought of nothing as good as the satirical counters which leaped to her tongue, and in the short interval before the meeting, Keble jotted down hints.
Of the three, Louise was the only one who was seized with misgivings when Pat Goard came to say that the hall was full and it was time to go on the platform. She held Keble back for a moment. “Do let me speak too,” she pleaded.
Keble laughed and she saw a glance pass between him and Miriam which seemed to say, “That incurable theatricality cropping out again!”
“I’m afraid there’s no room on the program,” he said.
“As if that made any difference!” she retorted. “It wouldn’t take me five minutes to say my piece.”
“An extempore address might spoil everything,” he remonstrated. “I’m using your suggestions; they will be the plums in my pudding.”
She gave it up, but only because the glance between Miriam and Keble had abashed her. Perhaps it was mere play-acting, she rebelliously reflected, but it would be first-rate play-acting, and she had meant every word she had said weeks ago when she had warned Keble that drama must be infused into politics if he wished to carry the mass.
She sat on the platform in her khaki riding suit and was startled by the volume of applause which greeted Keble when it came time for his speech. She was also cut by the hissing and booing which seemed to be concentrated in the back of the hall, where she recognized a number of hoodlums, probably paid.
She was also startled by the effectiveness of Keble’s speech. It sounded honest, and she thrilled to a note of authority in his voice and a strength in his manner for which she had not given him credit. Miriam seemed not at all surprised,—but Miriam had heard him speak in public before.
The audience was attentive, at times vociferously friendly. There were occasional interruptions and aggressive questions, which Keble found no difficulty in answering. At the end there was some cheering, and as the meeting broke up scores of men and a few women came to shake hands with Keble.
Louise greeted friends and used every acquaintanceship in the interest of propaganda, but secretly she was panic-stricken. She had seen the Valley in all its moods, and she knew that this evening’s hearty good will had not been fired with the enthusiasm that won Valley elections. She was afraid to meet Keble’s eyes, and was glad that in his flush of triumph at the cheers and individual assurances, he failed to see her doubt.
They reached the doctor’s house late in the evening, and went straight to bed in order to be fresh for the strenuous day at Witney. Louise did not sleep. She was haunted by the sight of earnest, slightly puzzled, friendly and unfriendly faces, and by the sound of jeers. Her brain revolved a dozen schemes, and before she fell asleep she had drawn up a private plan of campaign.
After breakfast she went to the bank and cashed a cheque. Then she made a round of the garages and stables and hired every available conveyance. While Keble was talking with groups of men in the town, she was using every minute, unknown to him, to collect influential members of the community and make them promise to travel to Witney for the final rally that evening. The cars and wagons were to leave an hour after her husband’s departure. Nothing was to be said to him about the scheme, for she was reserving it as a surprise. Her conscience told her it was what Keble would spurn as “flummery”. Well, it was a flummery world.
After dinner at the Majestic Hotel in Witney, followed by anteroom interviews, Keble and his band of supporters, to the blare of trumpets which made Miriam conceal a smile, proceeded to the Arena, a wooden edifice with a false front rising proudly above the highest telephone poles. Flags, posters, slogans, confetti, and peanut shells abounded. There were argumentative groups outside the doors, while within, every available seat was taken and already there was talk of an overflow meeting. Louise had had the satisfaction of seeing her phenomenal procession of cars, wagons, and beribboned citizens from the Valley swarm into the town, headed by the Valley band. It had taken all her skill to prevent Keble from discovering the ruse. Later on he would find out and be furious. For the moment she didn’t care what he thought. Besides, it wasn’t bribery to offer people a lift over a distance of thirty-five miles to listen to a speech. She wasn’t bribing them to vote; they could vote for or against, as their feelings should dictate after she had got through with them. Moreover, even if it was trickery, she had used her own money,—not Keble’s. She smiled at the reflection that Walter’s predictions were coming true; how it would have amused him to see her being, with a vengeance, “one decent member of society”!
The applause on Keble’s appearance was not deafening. After all, Witney was less well acquainted with Keble than the Valley, even though it had pleasant recollections of the compliments uttered by his father from the back platform of a governmental railway carriage. Keble’s address was similar to former addresses, though throughout this final day he had brought together concise counter arguments to new attacks, and had prepared a damaging criticism of his opponent’s latest rosy promises. He was more than cordially received, but again Louise felt the absence of enthusiasm which represents the margin of a majority.
When he had resumed his seat, Mr. Goard, in accordance with a secret plan, called on Mrs. Eveley, to the amazement of Miriam and Keble, and to the wonderment of the big audience, who had had three serious speeches to digest and who sensed in the new move a piquant diversion.
“Last night,” Louise began, “I asked my husband to let me speak at the Valley mass meeting, and he objected. So, ladies and gentlemen, to-night, I didn’t ask his permission at all. I asked Mr. Goard’s, and as you all know, Pat Goard could never resist a lady.”
Already she had changed the mind of a score of men who had been on the point of leaving the hall.
“I wouldn’t give my husband away by telling you he refused, unless it illustrated a point I wish to make. The point is that no matter how hard a man objects,—and the better they are the more they do object,—his wife always takes her own way in the end. Not only that, ladies and gentlemen, but the wife adds much more color to her husband’s public policies than the public realizes. You’ve heard the proverb about the hand that rocks the cradle. I don’t for a second claim that the average wife is capable of thinking out a political platform; certainly I couldn’t; but she is like the irritating fly that goads the horse into a direction that he didn’t at all know he was going to take. What it all boils down to is this: when you elect Keble Eveley at the polls to-morrow, you’ll elect me too. And if you were by any mischance to elect Oat Swigger, you’d be electing Minnie Swigger. Minnie Swigger is a jolly good girl, one of my oldest friends. But the point is, ladies and gentlemen, I can lick Minnie!”
Shouts of laughter interrupted her. Miriam and Keble had ceased being shocked. However much they might deprecate her sops to the groundlings, they were hypnotized by her control of the mass which had a few minutes earlier been heterogeneous and capricious. Her direct personal allusions had dispelled a hampering ceremoniousness that had prevailed all evening.
“Once when we were girls together at the Valley school,” Louise continued, seeing that her audience appreciated the reference to Mrs. Swigger. “I did lick her. I had more hair for her to pull, and she made the most of it. But I had a champion’s uppercut. Now gentlemen, when you go to the polls to-morrow, don’t back the wrong girl.”
She took a step nearer the row of lamps and held them by a change of mood. “A little while ago somebody said that Keble Eveley was a dude. If he were, his wife would be a dude too; and though I’ve come up against a lot of rough characters in my time, nobody has yet been mean enough to call me a dude to my face; things said behind your back don’t count. So now, man to man, is there anybody here who has the nerve to call us dudes? If there is let him say it now, or forever hold his peace.”
There was a silence, then a shuffling sound directed attention to a corner, whence a facetious voice called out, “His father’s a sure enough dude, ain’t he?”
Louise darted a glance to see who had spoken, paused a moment, smiled, and took the audience into her confidence. “It’s Matt Hardy,” she announced. “Matt’s a clever boy (Matt was fifty and weighed fifteen stone), but like many clever people he overshoots the mark. Matt says Keble Eveley’s father is a dude; and his obvious implication is that we are therefore dudes. For the sake of argument, let’s admit that Lord Eveley is a dude——”
“A damn fine dude at that,” interposed a friendly voice.
“A damn fine dude,” echoed Louise. “We’ll admit that.” She wheeled around with dramatic suddenness, facing Matt’s corner. “Now Matt Hardy’s father used to live in Utah. The obvious implication is that Matt is a Mormon with six concealed wives.”
There was a howl of enjoyment while the discomfited Matthew tried to maintain a good-humored front against the nudges with which his neighbours plagued him. The success of the sally lay in the fact that every one knew Matt for a bachelor who paid his taxes and enjoyed an immaculate reputation.
Louise’s spirits rose as she leaned forward over the lights and focused attention again by a gesture of her arms.
“It doesn’t in the least matter whether we’re dudes or not,” she said. “You’re going to elect us anyway. Bye and bye I’ll tell you why. My husband told you some of the reasons, but there are a lot of others he hadn’t time to touch on. Never mind that now. Before I get to the reasons I must sweep the ground clear of objections. That’s the quickest way. I’ve disposed of one. Are there any other objections to us as your representatives in the Legislative Assembly? Any more objections, Matt?”
Matt was still smarting. He had been harboring a desire for revenge. But his wits stood still under provocation.
“Matt’s cartridges are used up,” she announced, turning away.
“No they’re not,” he shouted, with a sudden inspiration. “You’re French.”
His voice was drowned by a chorus of jeers. Louise motioned for silence, then smiled imperturbably. “That’s what Minnie Swigger said, ladies and gentlemen. That’s what we fought about. And Minnie was half right. But only half. She overlooked the fact that me mother was Irish!”
The success of this was almost too great. It threatened to rob the session of its seriousness. After the first delight had simmered down, individuals were suddenly seized with a recollection of the wink and the brogue and burst into renewed guffaws or slapped their legs with resounding thwacks.
Louise saw the necessity of counteracting this levity, and for several minutes talked straight at the issue, pointing out the practical changes that had come about as a result of her husband’s efforts to civilize and develop his district, and the far-reaching improvements that he, of all people, was in a position to effectuate. She heard herself enunciating facts and generalizations which had never occurred to her before. Once again, as in the case of Billy Salter’s funeral, she found herself thinking in public more rapidly and concisely than she had ever thought in private. And under the surface of it all was a wonderment that she should be so passionately supporting Keble in a plan that had been distasteful to her.
Only once she relieved the tenseness by another flash of humor, when, referring to the candidature of Otis Swigger, she said that while Oat’s barber shop in the Valley had always been recognized as a public forum, Oat would be at a distinct disadvantage in Parliament, because he couldn’t lather the faces of the other members, consequently no one would be obliged to listen to him.
She brought her address to a climax with the instinct of an orator, just when the whole audience had settled down comfortably for more.
She paused a moment, exulting in the silence, then, changing from an earnest to a girlish manner, she dropped her arms and said quietly, “Well, ladies and gentlemen, you still have twelve hours to think over the truth of all I’ve said. Are you going to vote for us?”
The answer was in an affirmative that shook the rafters of the Arena and made Miriam turn pale. The air was charged with an enthusiasm which for Louise, as she sank back exhausted, spelt Majority. Keble was forced to acknowledge the prolonged acclamation, and Pat Goard quickly followed up the advantage with a few words of dismissal.
Excitement and lack of sleep, following on her long ordeal, had overtaxed Louise. She felt weak and a little frightened as she walked towards a side door in a deserted back room of the building, followed by Keble, who came running to overtake.
“I know it was cheap,” she quickly forestalled him, “but I couldn’t help it.” He seemed to have been subdued by the pandemonium she had let loose, as though suddenly aware that he had been satisfied with too little until she gave a demonstration of what pitch enthusiasm could and must be raised to. “It’s my love of acting,” she added. “I hope you weren’t annoyed.”
Keble was in the grip of a retrospective panic. “Why am I always finding things out so late!” he cried, with a profound appeal in his voice. “I’m always walking near a precipice in the fog. Why can’t I see the things you see?”
Her fatigue made her a little hysterical. “Why do you keep your eyes shut?” she retorted.
A cloud of feeling that had been growing heavier for weeks burst and deluged Keble with the sense of what his wife meant to him. He saw what a jabber all social intercourse might become should she withhold her interpretative affection from him or expend it elsewhere. He had long been restive under her continued use of the weapon of polite negativity with which he had originally defended himself against her impulsiveness. Now he longed to recapture the sources of the old impulsiveness, to defend them as his rarest possession, and his longing was redoubled by a fear that it was too late.
“Why——” he commenced, but his voice broke and he reached out his arms. It was dark. She was dazed, and seemed to ward him off.
“Then what made you do it?” he finally contrived to say. “You’ve saved the day, if it can be saved. Not that it really matters. Why? Why? Why not have let me blunder along to defeat, like the silly ass I am?”
“No woman likes to see her husband beaten,” she replied, in tired, tearful tones, “by a barber!” she added.
“Louise!” he implored, in a welter of hopes, fears, and longings that made him for once brutally incautious. He caught her into his arms, then marvelled at the limpness of her body. He turned her face to the dim light, and saw that she had fainted.