Eustace Marchmont: A friend of the people

by Evelyn Everett-Green

Still Sir Roland was by no means out of heart as to the result. He had a very large following of men of moderate opinions, and the support of the Duke, who was greatly respected by the upper classes in the neighbourhood, was the best guarantee he could possess that he was not going to pursue a destructive and outrageous policy. Men who had wavered at first and had heard with enthusiasm the news that Viscount Lanherne was coming forward, began to think better of the matter after reading some of Sir Roland’s manifestoes and hearing some of his speeches. The young Viscount, though eager for the excitement of the coming contest, and all on fire for the cause on which he had embarked, was neither a man of experience nor knowledge, and he betrayed his lack of many of the needful requirements of a politician whenever he addressed a meeting or harangued a crowd. People began to take up the name of “painted popinjay,” which had been freely flung at him by the Radicals. It seemed somehow to fit the young spark, who was always dressed in the tiptop of fashion, and whose face was as brightly tinted as that of a girl.

Sir Roland had won for himself the name of “trimmer,” and found it difficult to know what to call himself, since the name Tory was now absorbed by the Viscount’s party, whilst the other opponent had taken upon himself the name and office of the Whig representative. At last, following the example of the great trimmer, Lord Halifax, he, with a mixture of tact and good-humour which did him credit and proved a strategic success, himself adopted the name thrust upon him, and in his speeches and printed addresses openly advocated the policy of “trimming,” when it had become a certainty that neither of the two advocated extremes could any longer govern the country. Of course there was an immense power in the style of argument adopted from the great peer of two centuries back, who had often found himself in a parallel dilemma; and his arguments, dressed up in a fresh garb, were freely used by Sir Roland, and that with no small effect. Eustace read up the subject of compromise for him, and furnished him with most telling precedents to quote to his audiences. The Duke spoke to those friends who came to remonstrate with, or consult him, in a fashion that was not without effect. Men began to say to one another that if the Duke of Penarvon had reached the conclusion that it was hopeless to try and stem the tide, and that the wisest and best course now was to seek to place in authority men of known experience, probity, and moderation to guide the bark of the country through the troubled waters of reform, why then they had better follow the same tactics. He would certainly have advocated a fighting policy if there was any reasonable hope of maintaining the struggle with success; but if he despaired of this, it showed, indeed, that the time for compromise had come, and every one who knew anything of human nature or the history of nations, must be aware that to insist on fighting a hopeless battle was only to stir up an infinity of bitterness and party feeling, and render the winning side tenfold more violent and destructive.

And so the days fled swiftly by; Eustace, though secure of his own seat, working as hard in the cause of Sir Roland as though it had been his own, striving to live down the distrust and ill-feeling he found prevailing against him in Pentreath and its neighbourhood, and gaining an experience and insight into human nature which he had never obtained before. He found himself sometimes in a rather awkward corner, it is true; for his own views were far more in accordance with those of the Radical candidate, Mr. Morval, than with those of Sir Roland, and it was by no means always easy to avoid being landed again and again on the horns of a dilemma. But since Sir Roland and he were of one mind upon the great question upon which the appeal to the country was made, Eustace felt that side issues and other matters of policy could be left to take care of themselves. It would have been impossible to remain a guest at Penarvon and to have flung himself into the arms of the Radical or even the Whig party (it was all one, called at the castle Radical, and in the town Whig, for the name Radical was still unpopular amongst those who were voters, though beginning to be caught up by the people). Eustace had no strong temptation to do this, having from the first taken a liking for Sir Roland, and feeling grateful towards his kinsman the Duke, who had been liberal enough to promise him the coveted seat, even whilst regretting the nature of the great measure his kinsman was pledged to support. Eustace would have sacrificed more to win his goodwill and approval, or to keep in touch and in sympathy with Bride. She was awaking to a keener interest in the coming struggle than he had ever looked to see in her. He could not tell exactly what she thought about it all, or what view she took of the question of Reform; but there was something in her method of receiving his accounts of their doings that inspired him with a keen wish to retain her sympathies; and those he had found he could never have unless his own doings were perfectly upright and honourable. Many and many a time he was restrained from employing some common trick or some unworthy inducement by the remembrance of the look in Bride’s eyes when Sir Roland had laughingly boasted of a like bit of sharp practice. In point of fact, he was growing to rule his life by a new standard since knowing more of Bride and her ideals. He hardly recognised this himself as yet; but, had he paused to look back, he would have known that there were innumerable little ways in which he had changed. Things which in old days would have appeared absolutely legitimate, if not actually advisable, were now avoided by him with a scrupulousness which often exposed him to a laugh. He began to ask himself instinctively how Bride would regard any course of action about which he was uncertain, and again and again that question had arrested him from taking a slightly doubtful course, and kept him upon the road of strict probity and honesty.

Nor could Bade be altogether unconscious of this herself, and it began to form a silent bond between them, which was, perhaps, almost dangerously sweet. Eustace was the most conscious of this, and it often made his heart thrill with pleasure; neither was it without its effect upon her—one of these being an increased interest in everything concerning this contest, and the keenest sympathy with Eustace’s strenuous endeavours that it should be conducted on lines of the strictest equity, and that nothing should be said or done to disgrace the cause or give a handle for calumny or reproach. Bride was scarcely more sorrowful than he when it was found that the agent was conniving at time-honoured abuses, and setting on foot the ordinary methods for vote-catching. Things that were looked upon as a matter of course by Sir Roland, and received with a laugh and a shrug, Eustace heard with a sense of repulsion which he certainly would not have experienced a year before; and he worked might and main to impose purer and more equitable methods upon his subordinates, till it really began to be said in Pentreath that Sir Roland deserved the seat if it was only for his probity and upright dealing.

Eustace had hoped to have Saul working with and for him in these stirring days; but, to his disappointment, and rather to his surprise, he utterly failed in bringing his disciple into the arena of his own efforts. Saul was working in his own fashion with a fierce resolution and single-heartedness; but no argument or persuasion on Eustace’s part would induce him to cast in his lot with the candidate of the Castle party. It was in vain to say that he was on the side of the great reform, that he was fighting the battle of the bill; Saul would reply that Mr. Morval was also doing that, and that he was a man pledged to the cause of the people through thick and thin, whilst everybody knew that Sir Roland was only advocating the bill because he knew it was hopeless to oppose it, and that at heart he was a Tory and an aristocrat. It was quite enough for Saul that the Castle was supporting him. No gentle words from Lady Bride, no good offices from the Duke, had had the smallest effect in overcoming the bitter hostility of this man towards the house of Penarvon. Eustace sometimes doubted whether he should ever retain Saul’s confidence if he were to succeed to the dukedom one day, as was probable. As it was, Saul seemed able to dissever the man from his name and race; but how long this might be the case was an open question.

At any rate, Saul would not work with Eustace, and he worked on lines absolutely independent, if not openly hostile. There was a section in the town which was quite disposed to make an idol of the young fellow, who had undergone a term of imprisonment and suffered so much in the cause of justice and liberty.

This section was not one which commanded many votes; but the voice of numbers always makes itself felt, and Saul was possessed of a rude eloquence which commanded attention; and publicans began to find that, if Saul was going to address a meeting in the evening, it was sure to be largely attended by a class of customers who brought grist to the mill. The operatives from the mills—now finding that the hated machinery was a friend rather than a foe to them, and almost all of them working again there—rallied round Saul to a man. They liked to have as their spokesman and champion a man of his grand physique and of a power of expression so much in advance of their own. They always came to hear him speak, and he was gradually becoming something of a power in the place. It is true that his addresses were of so inflammatory a character that they were often followed by a demonstration or a small riot which was alarming to the more orderly inhabitants; but, at election times, people made up their mind to disturbances, and tried to regard them philosophically as the natural concomitants of the crisis.

The scenes presented by the hustings as the election day drew on were increasingly lively and animated. Eustace came home one day with his coat half torn off his back, having adventured himself rather unwisely down a side alley where some considerable body of rabid socialists had gathered to listen to one of their own number denouncing anything and everything in the past systems of government with a beautiful impartiality. He often returned soiled and draggled, sometimes with a cut on the face or hands. Sir Roland did not escape some of these amenities either, and declared with good-humoured amusement that it promised to be the most lively election he could remember.

The excitement became so acute as the day drew on, that even Bride caught the infection of it, and was more aroused from her dreamy life of silent meditation and prayer than she had ever been before. Not that she ceased to pray constantly and earnestly for the victory of the righteous cause—whichever that should be; but she spent less time in silent musing and meditation, and more in the study of those papers and journals which told her of the questions of the day, and the aim and ultimate object of this hot party strife.

When the polling day really came, and her father settled to drive in in the coach, taking Eustace with him—Sir Roland had his rooms at the hotel in Pentreath, and had ceased to make headquarters at the castle—Bride suddenly asked to accompany the party, a request so foreign to her ordinary habits that both the men looked at her in surprise.