Priscilla and Charybdis: A Story of Alternatives

by Frank Frankfort Moore

It might reasonably have been expected, Framsby thought, that the Wingfields had absorbed enough of the conversation of the community up to this point; but it seemed as if the Wingfields had set themselves up as a perpetual topic; for while the buzz about the marriage was still in the air, there came the news, announced in ridiculously large type under the heading of “The Nuttingford Vacancy,” that the Wingfields were in this business as well. “The Candidature of Mr. Wingfield” soon became the most conspicuous line in every newspaper; and the way even the most respectable London organs lent themselves to this new scheme for pandering to that young woman’s insatiable desire for publicity showed, in the estimation of Mrs. Gifford and her friends, with deplorable emphasis, how depraved was the taste of the readers for whom the newspapers catered.

The same censors were, however, just enough to affirm that the woman was at the bottom of it all. They rehearsed the various items in her progress of publicity; and the result was certainly a formidable total. The first was, of course, the sensation of the arrest of Marcus Blaydon at the church door; and then came his trial, and the pathetic appeal made by the prisoner’s counsel to the judge and jury on behalf of the young wife, every line of which appeared in the papers. But this was apparently not enough for that young woman, and her name must be dragged into the published account of the death of her husband. Two months later she had married Mr. Wingfield in a way that was eminently open for discussion, and now here she was urging her poor husband—the poor rich man whom she had inveigled into marrying her, to make a fool of himself by coming forward as a candidate for the representation of an important division of an important county.

They marked off the items on their fingers after the convenient method of Lord Lovat in Hogarth’s picture, and then enquired where it was all going to end. When were those newspapers who gave four or five snapshots every morning of Mrs. Wingfield engaged in canvassing for her husband, and now and again a cabinet portrait of herself, coming to reason? When were they going to cease lending themselves to the ambitious schemes of the farmer’s daughter? Everybody knew, and several newspapers asserted, that Mr. Wingfield had no chance whatsoever of being returned to Parliament for Nutting-ford, so what on earth was the sense of pushing that young woman before the eyes of the public? That was what the censors were anxious to know.

But when the butter-making scenes came, and the papers were strewn with snapshots of this transaction—when the great London organs gave column reports of it, with occasional leading articles, and when finally the news came that Mr. Wingfield was returned by an enormous majority—the members of the best set hurried out to the Manor with a fresh relay of cards. Surely the new member and his wife, out of gratitude for the distinction conferred upon them by the electors of Nuttingford, would provide the people of Framsby with a series of fêtes on a scale unparalleled by any remembered in the neighbourhood.

Now there was in Framsby a population of some 9,000 who belonged to none of the recognized sets, and who had never so much as heard of the existence of these sets; these are the people who matter in every community, not the retired civil servants, not the retired undistinguished officers of Sappers or the A.S.C.; and these were the people who felt that something should be done to show how proud Framsby was of having given Nuttingford a member and of having given that member a wife who had her portrait looking the whole world in the face out of the pages of the illustrated papers. These are not the people who hire halls and elect a chairman and pass resolutions to the accompaniment of long, commonplace speeches. But they get there all the same, and they got there when they felt that they should do something to show their admiration for Mr. Wingfield and his wife.

What they perceived they could do in this way was to meet the train by which the pair whom they desired to honour would arrive at Framsby, and, removing the horses from their carriage (they had found that the motor was not to be used), harness themselves to the vehicle and drag it through the streets and along the road to the Manor. From the steps of the porch the new member of Parliament would address them, and possibly his wife would follow him; they would all cheer and sing that about the jolly good fellow, and then the final and most important act of appreciation would take place: the health of the young couple would be drunk by the crowd at the young couple’s expense. Moreover, a little reflection was sufficient to convince the good people that the occasion represented what was known as a double event: the celebration was not only of the home-coming of Mr. and Mrs. Wingfield, after their honeymoon; it was also the celebration of the splendid and successful election contest in which they had both been so actively engaged.

The good people pulled themselves together. They felt that it could be done. They felt themselves quite equal to doing the honours of the double event, and no one who knew them would have ventured to suggest that the confidence which they had in their own powers was misplaced.

There was very little organization in the matter—very little was required. Half-a-dozen house painters prepared as many lengths of canvas containing the simple manly English words “Welcome Home,” and half-a-dozen young gentlemen in the drapery line got together some slices of bunting which they shaped and glued on to rollers, so that they became bannerets in a moment. For the necessary bouquets they knew that they could depend upon the Manor gardeners; so the arrangements for the demonstration did not occupy much time or thought. The musical accompaniments were suggested by the Town Band, and then it was that Mr. Mozart Tutt, Mr. Morley Quorn, and the other members of the Framsby Glee and Madrigal Meistersingers had a chance of putting into practical form their recognition of what Mrs. Wingfield had done for them upon one occasion, for they prepared some choice serenade music with which to greet the lady and her husband in the course of the night.

Someone suggested that they should practise a chorus beginning “See, the Conquering Hero Comes” for the railway station; but Mr. Tutt was too wise to enter into any contract that would involve competition with the band and the cheers of the public.

And on this scale the home-coming of Mr. and Mrs. Wingfield was arranged for; and as neither of them had been informed of the intention of Framsby, they were rather surprised when, late in the evening, their train steamed into the station, and slowed down into an atmosphere of yells. Beyond the barrier there was a sea of faces whose waves were caps with an occasional straw hat, and here and there a bowler—all were in the air undulating fitfully, and lapping the base of a headland bearing the inscription “Welcome Home.”