“So he was; but she has made a man of him.”
“She has made a member of Parliament of him,” said Jack’s opponent; and whatever enthusiasm he may have felt at the thought, he managed to prevent it from being noticed in his voice.
He spoke the truth. Mrs. Wingfield’s husband was returned as the Parliamentary representative of the Nuttingford division of Nethershire by a majority of eleven hundred and sixty-one votes.
When the enthusiastic electors and non-electors—the latter are invariably the more enthusiastic—blocked the street in front of the hotel and shouted for Mrs. Wingfield, that lady appeared on the balcony, but after a long interval.
Everyone saw that she was smiling, but only those people who were close to her saw that her smile was that of a woman who has wept and is still weeping.
CHAPTER XXV
The Wingfields as a topic were becoming too much for Framsby. No sooner had the curiosities of Mr. Wingfield’s engagement to the daughter of Farmer Wadhurst been discussed than the news came of that hole-and-corner marriage of the pair. Agriculture was looking up, some people said, while others asserted that it was manorialism that was coming down. There was a feeling of indignation at being cheated out of the marriage; the offence was in their eyes on a level with the promise of a presentation of a stained-glass window to the church and then sending one done on “Glacier” transparent paper. The act, if not absolutely fraudulent, was certainly in very bad taste, a good many people said; but there were others who announced that they were not surprised at that young woman’s desire to avoid publicity being obtained for such an act as her marriage to a second husband before her first had been dead more than two months. These were the people who had invariably referred to Priscilla as Mrs. Blaydon, and pretended not to understand who was meant when anyone spoke of Miss Wadhurst.
The right set agreed that the whole affair, from the engagement to the marriage, was disgraceful, and hastened to leave a second relay of cards upon Mrs. Wingfield the elder, and to enquire with a most interesting expression on their faces, if they were fortunate enough to get a word with that lady, when the young couple would be at the Manor, so that they might leave cards upon them as well.