CHAPTER II.
ELECTIONEERING.
And now, in these days,—the days immediately following the departure of Luke Rowan from Baslehurst,—the Tappitt family were constrained to work very hard at the task of defaming the young man who had lately been living with them in their house. They were constrained to do this by the necessities of their position; and in doing so by no means showed themselves to be such monsters of iniquity as the readers of the story will feel themselves inclined to call them. As for Tappitt himself, he certainly believed that Rowan was so base a scoundrel that no evil words against him could be considered as malicious or even unnecessary. Is it not good to denounce a scoundrel? And if the rascality of any rascal be specially directed against oneself and one's own wife and children, is it not a duty to denounce that rascal, so that his rascality may be known and thus made of no effect? When Tappitt declared in the reading-room at the Dragon, and afterwards in the little room inside the bar at the King's Head, and again to a circle of respectable farmers and tradesmen in the Corn Market, that young Rowan had come down to the brewery and made his way into the brewery-house with a ready prepared plan for ruining him—him, the head of the firm,—he thought that he was telling the truth. And again, when he spoke with horror of Rowan's intention of setting up an opposition brewery, his horror was conscientious. He believed that it would be very wicked in a man to oppose the Bungall establishment with money left by Bungall,—that it would be a wickedness than which no commercial rascality could be more iniquitous. His very soul was struck with awe at the idea. That anything was due in the matter to the consumer of beer, never occurred to him. And it may also be said in Tappitt's favour that his opinion,—as a general opinion,—was backed by those around him. His neighbours could not be made to hate Rowan as he hated him. They would not declare the young man to be the very Mischief, as he did. But that idea of a rival brewery was distasteful to them all. Most of them knew that the beer was almost too bad to be swallowed; but they thought that Tappitt had a vested interest in the manufacture of bad beer;—that as a manufacturer of bad beer he was a fairly honest and useful man;—and they looked upon any change as the work, or rather the suggestion, of a charlatan.
"This isn't Staffordshire," they said. "If you want beer like that you can buy it in bottles at Griggs'."
"He'll soon find where he'll be if he tries to undersell me," said young Griggs. "All the same, I hope he'll come back, because he has left a little bill at our place."
And then to other evil reports was added that special evil report,—that Rowan had gone away without paying his debts. I am inclined to think that Mr. Tappitt can be almost justified in his evil thoughts and his evil words.
I cannot make out quite so good a case for Mrs. Tappitt and her two elder daughters;—for even Martha, Martha the just, shook her head in these days when Rowan's name was mentioned;—but something may be said even for them. It must not be supposed that Mrs. Tappitt's single grievance was her disappointment as regarded Augusta. Had there been no Augusta on whose behalf a hope had been possible, the predilection of the young moneyed stranger for such a girl as Rachel Ray would have been a grievance to such a woman as Mrs. Tappitt. Had she not been looking down on Rachel Ray and despising her for the last ten years? Had she not been wondering among her friends, with charitable volubility, as to what that poor woman at Bragg's End was to do with her daughter? Had she not been regretting that the young girl should be growing up so big, and promising to look so coarse? Was it not natural that she should be miserable when she saw her taken in hand by Mrs. Butler Cornbury, and made the heroine at her own party, to the detriment of her own daughters, by the fashionable lady in catching whom she had displayed so much unfortunate ingenuity? Under such circumstances how could she do other than hate Luke Rowan,—than believe him to be the very Mischief,—than prophesying all manner of bad things for Rachel,—and assist her husband tooth and nail in his animosity against the sinner?
Augusta was less strong in her feelings than her parents, but of course she disliked the man who could admire Rachel Ray. As regards Martha, her dislike to him,—or rather, her judicial disapproval,—was founded on his social and commercial improprieties. She understood that he had threatened her father about the business,—and she had been scandalized in that matter of the champagne. Cherry was very brave, and still stood up for him before her mother and sisters;—but even Cherry did not dare to say a word in his favour before her father. Mr. Tappitt had been driven to forget himself, and to take a poker in his hand as a weapon of violence! After that let no one speak a word on the offender's behalf in Tappitt's house and within Tappitt's hearing!
In that affair of the champagne Rowan was most bitterly injured. He had ordered it, if not at the request, at least at the instigation of Mrs. Tappitt;—and he had paid for it. When he left Baslehurst he owed no shilling to any man in it; and, indeed, he was a man by no means given to owing money to any one. He was of a spirit masterful, self-confident, and perhaps self-glorious;—but he was at the same time honest and independent. That wine had been ordered in some unusual way,—not at the regular counter, and in the same way the bill for it had been paid. Griggs, when he made his assertion in the bar-room at the King's Head, had stated what he believed to be the truth. The next morning he chanced to hear that the account had been settled, but not, at the moment, duly marked off the books. As far as Griggs went that was the end of it. He did not again say that Rowan owed money to him; but he never contradicted his former assertion, and allowed the general report to go on,—that report which had been founded on his own first statement. Thus before Rowan had been a week out of the place it was believed all over the town that he had left unpaid bills behind him.