Mr. Hogarth's Will

by Catherine Helen Spence

If she had been the only woman in the world, or the only woman likely to suit Francis, and to make him happy, she would have felt very differently; but surely he could have no difficulty in finding, among the hundreds of thousands of marriageable women in Great Britain, some one as likely (she even thought, more likely), to satisfy his heart than herself. It was only because circumstances had made him know her so well, and because he had been so intimately connected with no one else, that he believed he loved her. He was a man whom any woman might easily learn to love; and if she steadily held out to him that she was only his dear sister—his faithful friend, and that she could never be anything else, he would ere long form a tenderer tie. But she hoped and wished that his lot might be cast with a good woman, who would not grudge her the secondary place that she felt she could not give up. She tried to convince herself that it could be only friendship really on his part; but he had been so unused to affectionate friendships, especially with one of the other sex, that he was very likely to mistake his feelings.

The state of her own heart she did not like to look into very closely; she knew that Francis was inexpressibly dear to her, but the absolute absence of all jealousy made her doubt if it were really what is called love. She could look forward without pain to another person becoming more to him than herself. My readers will think that if it had been really love, it would have forced itself upon her, and burst through all the barriers that were laid across its course. But love in a strong nature is a very different thing from the same amount of love in a feeble nature. If it had been her own property and career that had to be given up for his sake, her love would have probably conquered all private ambition; but the very high estimation in which she held her cousin, fought against her instinctive wish to make him happy. And if the irrevocable step were taken, what security would she have that he might not regret it?

She dwelt in her own mind on the disparities between them, which, but for the peculiar circumstances in which they had been placed by her uncle's will, must have prevented the formation even of the friendship, now so close and so precious. She was perhaps scarcely aware that such contrasts are more favourable to the growth and the continuance of love than too near resemblance in character and temperament. She was so different in many ways from him—he was literary—she was practical; he was poetical and artistic, and by no means scientific—she was destitute of taste, and saw more romance in the wonders of science than in much of the poetry he admired so much; he was aristocratic by temperament, and only forced by her influence at the turning-point of his life into her democratic views—she could not rest from the over-activity of her nature, while he liked repose, meditative, literary, and DILETTANTI. The strong sense of duty, which certainly was the guiding principle of his nature, led him to exertion; while Jane worked because she could not help it. With Jane's temperament Francis never would have stayed for fifteen years clerk in the Bank of Scotland, while there were new countries to conquer, or new fields to work in. He found pleasure in beautiful things; all disorder or disorganization was positively painful to him. To begin again a life of comparative poverty, burdened with the care of Elsie, would be far more trying to him than to her; for though she had been brought up in greater affluence, she cared less for the elegances of life. She loved him far too well to allow him to sacrifice a great deal more than she thought she was worth for such a doubtful good, and she entered heart and soul into the prospects of this election, as the thing which would decide Francis' fate, and would give him still nobler work to do, to keep him from regretting what it was better he should not obtain.

The spiritual communication on the subject of Francis' hopes, to the effect that after a time he should succeed in the object dearest to his heart, had made far less impression on her mind than on his. She had not heard the unearthly taps; she had not been startled by the appropriate answers; she had not herself had her hand arrested at the letters which spelled out the unknown names. Her curiosity led her to attend a seance with Francis at the same place, but everything on that occasion was a failure. The spirits had not got rightly EN RAPPORT with her; her dead relations were misnamed; their messages were uncharacteristic; and the spirit of Mr. Hogarth never could be summoned up again. She therefore determined to dismiss the whole subject from her thoughts, and advised Francis to do the same. Mr. Dempster, however, was not willing to relinquish his half-made proselyte; and certainly, the less Jane was inclined to believe in these manifestations the more she became attached to the simple-minded pious visionary who rested so completely in them.

Jane's own life was particularly full of work and of worry at this time; for, as Miss Phillips might have taken part of the blame to herself, if she had conceived it possible that she could do wrong; for it was on her account that the housemaid had given warning—she said that two missusses, that was, Mrs. Phillips and Miss Melville, was enough for her, and she could not submit to a third, and she couldn't abear Miss Phillips's interference. The nursemaid took umbrage at Elsie sitting so much in the nursery with the children, though it was what Mr. Phillips liked, and what the children delighted in; and besides there was no other convenient place for her except her own bedroom, which was too cold for comfort and too dark for fine work. Elsie's position in the house was rather anomalous, and certainly added to Jane's difficulties.

While Francis was busily engaged with his canvass, Mr. and Mrs. Phillips took a short tour on the Continent. Harriett would have liked to accompany them, and threw out hints to show that she expected an invitation; but her sister-in-law thought they had done quite enough for her, having her all that time in London, and taking her about everywhere. Jane was to be left in charge of the children, and Elsie was to go with her mistress. Now that Mrs. Phillips had a lady's-maid, she could not possibly travel without one; and as neither her husband nor herself knew any modern language but their own, Elsie might be useful besides as an interpreter, as she understood French very tolerably, and had learned a good deal of Italian. There might be advantage by and by from being able to advertise French and Italian acquired off the Continent, for perhaps a school might suit the Melvilles better than going into business; so Jane was very glad indeed that her sister, who would profit most by it, should take the trip rather than herself. Miss Phillips returned to Derbyshire, as she had no desire to stay even with such a congenial companion as Miss Melville, with the drawback of a houseful of children.

In the meantime Francis' canvass went on briskly; Mr. Sinclair constituted himself his most active agent, and certainly took more trouble and fatigue about it than any paid agent; but he sometimes seemed to do his cause more harm than good by his constant recurrence to first principles, which alarmed the jog-trot old Whigs, and occasionally even the out-and-out Radicals.

The five burghs, whose representation Mr. Hogarth was about to contest, were grouped together because they lay in adjoining counties, and not because they had any identity of interests. In the good old times, before the passing of the Reform Bill, each burgh sent one delegate to vote for the member. The delegate was elected by the majority of the town council, and as that body invariably elected their successors, the representation of the citizens, either municipal or parliamentary, by such means, was the most glorious fiction that has ever been devised by the wisdom of our ancestors. The double election in this case had no good tendency. The Reform Bill was, on the whole, a very good thing, more because it was a great change in the representation, which was carried out without endangering the constitution, and was an earnest of still greater reforms being made in the future, than because there is any very great improvement either in the character of the electors or their representatives; but to Scotland it was a greater boon than to England; for the semblance of representative institutions without the reality was a mockery to a free people, and a very mischievous mockery. In 185—the burghs had each their registered voters on the roll, who each voted for his favourite candidate, so that the votes of five hundred men in one burgh could not be neutralized by those of eighty men in another.

The stronghold of the Conservative party lay in Swinton, the genteel, and Freeburgh, the county town. The Liberals mustered very strong in Ladykirk, which had taken to the woollen manu factory within the last quarter of a century, and had increased very much in extent and population, so that it had far more voters paying 10 pounds rent than any of the other towns. In Auldbiggin and Plainstanes parties were so equal that no majority on either side could be reckoned on, but the Whig majority in Ladykirk was expected to overtop the Tory majority in the two first towns by as much as would secure Hogarth's return. The Honourable Mr. Fortescue was again to be put up for the Tory interest, for though he had not distinguished himself last parliament, he was a perfectly safe party man, and connected by marriage, not with the duke, but with a Tory marquis, next in consideration in the district, who had great influence in the county returns.

Mr. Fortescue found he had a different man to fight with in Francis Hogarth from his opponent last election, Mr. Turnbull; so he felt he needed more backing, and brought with him a Mr. Toutwell, a great gun with his party, who went his rounds both with and without him, and acted as his mouthpiece.