III
MATTERS OF ELECTION
The country showed the periodic symptoms the moment Parliament was dissolved; the market-place of Farlingbridge hummed with rumour. Farmers in gigs pulled up to discuss the affairs of the nation with farmers on horseback, with hedgers, ditchers, tinkers, anybody. Class flowed over class, and The Reverend Stephen Burgess, Vicar of the town, exchanged evening papers with Reverend Samuel Rock, Congregational minister. Blue and red were in the air; Mr. Germain had long sittings with young Mr. Wilbraham. Presently a deputation attended, by leave, at Southover and was received in the library. The seat was to be contested, it seemed; the Honourable Leopold Levitt intended to fight. Now would Mr. Germain fight him? In a weighed speech of twenty minutes Mr. Germain declared his loins to be girded. “Pompous old boy,” said Mr. Tom Blyth, the Liberal harness-maker, to Mr. Peake, the Liberal agent; “but he’s good enough for the Honourable Levitt.” Mr. Peake thought he was just good enough. It was to be a narrow thing, a close-run thing. The addresses of the candidates showed as much. “Those great institutions to which this country of ours—” cried the Honourable Mr. Levitt in ink. “Those institutions to which this great country of ours—” was the peroration of Mr. Germain. There was to be very little in it. Mr. Peake, the agent, said that the ladies would do the trick. The Honourable Mrs. Levitt was stout, and twenty years older than her Leopold.
The writs were out in August, the election was to be in October. Mary, who had begun to lose colour during the summer heats, grew animated again at the prospect of the bustle. She had been getting introspective, too, had been sometimes fretful, sometimes glum. She thought more than was good for her about things which could not be helped. But for a flying Sunday visit, she had not seen her own people since her wedding day; for Mr. Germain had given up Misperton once more, and seemed to dislike the notion of her leaving him at such a time as this. Here, then, was a chance for her to be useful. She told her husband that she felt sure of Farlingbridge, and when he shook his head despondent she told him why. “They like me there, you know,” she said, blushing and laughing. “I know they do; besides Mrs. Blyth told me so. Oh, and Colonel Dermott stopped me yesterday and said that you might be easy. He’ll speak for you wherever you want him.” Colonel Dermott was an introduction of hers to the penetralia of Southover; a fiery Irishman with a turn for sarcasm. What he had really said to her was that he’d go to the stake for her, but that it wouldn’t be necessary. He admired her unaffectedly.
As the campaign progressed on its roaring way Mr. Germain became conscious that greater efforts than his own were necessary. The Honourable Mr. Levitt was untiring. He drove his own drag, and seemed to have a speech on the tip of his tongue for every village green. To Mr. Germain speeches were matters of enormous preparation, literary and economic. He balanced his periods as carefully as his convictions; he polished them, gave them form; but he could not fire them, because he had no fire. “We must give it ’em hot, Mr. Germain, we must indeed,” said Peake, the agent. Mr. Germain knew very well that he gave it them cold. The charming spectacle of his young wife, in red cloth, driving her ponies in red harness, a red bow on her whip and red roses in her bosom, far from kindling him, whitened the ashes of his hearth. She was pretty, she was gay, she went again and again to the attack, and coaxed for votes as a child for sweets. One great sensation was when Guy Chaveney ratted, and wore red; another when Levitt publicly alluded to her as his “fair enemy,” and was drowned in the cheers of his own party. Colonel Dermott swept her into debate with his hand. “Here’s the lady we follow and serve, gentlemen,” and he turned to her where she sat glowing on the platform. “By the powers, gentlemen, I’d run her up to Westminster by myself,” he went on; “but we’ll share in the enterprise, if you please.” A little more of that and we were in, said Mr. Peake.
Help from on high was promised, of an exciting kind. The Right Honourable Constantine Jess, President once of the Board of Trade, now Secretary of State apparent, offered to come down and help his old friend. He offered, I assume, in such a way that he could not be refused; for his approach was announced to Mary one morning over the breakfast table, and received by her with the calmness proper to county ladies. But there had been more. “He brings Tristram, his private secretary. You remember Tristram Duplessis, Mary?”
She managed it. “Yes,” she said. “I remember him very well.”
Mrs. Hartley—Mrs. Leonard Hartley, I mean—said that she had heard him speak. He reminded her of Mirabeau. Sir James Plash had asked, “Which Mirabeau?” and driven Mrs. Leonard into a corner.
“Oh, Carlyle’s, of course!” she answered—and the talk flowed over Tristram Duplessis.
But behind her fortification of silver urns and coffee-cups, she did remember him. Her eyes wide, sombre, and brooding, made no sign. It is the prerogative of county eyes to be still, and of married eyes to be indifferent. She did not smile at her thoughts, nor betray that they were not of a smiling kind. But she felt her heart quicken its beat, knew that she was to be put to the proof, and that her husband had chosen it to be so. To the racing rhythm in her head ran the refrain, “I knew he must come. He never forgets.”
Notes must be written and answers received. His was very short:—