He seemed to be about growing into a philosophical politician, that is, a politician useful at times to each party and abhorred by both.
In feeling and tastes John Hanbury was an aristocrat. Although his father had been in business he had never sunk to the level of a City man, whose past and present was all of the City. William Hanbury had been known before his migration into the regions of commerce, and William Hanbury's wife was a baronet's daughter, and no baronet of yesterday either, and John Hanbury had had two grandfathers who did not work, and furthermore the money which William Hanbury put into business had not, as far as could be traced, come out of business.
It was about a year after John Hanbury made his first platform speech that he became very friendly with the Ashtons. He had known Dora's father for a little while as a member of a non-political West End club. When Mr. Ashton saw that the young man had been haranguing from a platform he took him in hand one day at luncheon at the club and pointed out that meddling in politics meant suicide to happiness. "Both my wife and my daughter are violent politicians; but I will encourage no politics while I am at home. A man's house is to cover and shield him from the storms of the elements, and the storms of parties, and I will have no wrangle under the house tree. I don't want to say anything against politicians, but I don't want to have anything to do with them."
"And what side do Mrs. Ashton and Miss Ashton hold with?"
"The wrong side, of course, sir; they are women. Let us say no more of them. I do not know what their side is called by the charlatans and jugglers of to-day. I hear a jargon going on often when it is fancied I am not attending to what is being said. With everything I hear I adopt a good and completely impartial plan. I alter all the epithets before the nouns to their direct opposite. This, sir, creates as great a turmoil and confusion in my own head as though I were an active politician; but, sir, I save my feelings and retain my self-respect by giving no heed, taking no interest, saying no word. When a man adopts politics he takes a shrew, an infernal shrew, sir, for a wife."
The Honourable Mrs. Ashton (she was daughter of Lord Byngfield) saw the summarised report of Hanbury's speech and immediately took an intense interest in the young man. From the printed reports and the verbal accounts she got of him she conceived a high expectation of the future before him, if he were taken in hand at once, for, alas! was he not on the wrong path?
Accordingly she made up her mind to lie in wait for him and catch him and convert him or rather divert him, for as yet he was not fully committed to any party. She met him in the drawing-room of a friend. She invited him to her small old house in Curzon Street, and when he came set about the important work of conversion or diversion.
Mrs. Ashton was a tall, thin woman of forty-five with very great vitality and energy. How so frail and slender a body sufficed to restrain so fiery and irrepressible a spirit was a puzzle. It seemed as though the working of the spirit would shake the poor body to pieces. It was impossible to be long near her without catching some of her enthusiasm, and at first John Hanbury, being a young man and quite unused to female propagandists, was almost carried away. But in time he recovered his breath and found himself firm on his feet and at leisure to look around him.
Then he saw Miss Ashton, Dora Ashton, and she was another affair altogether, and affected him differently. He fell in love with Dora. She certainly was the loveliest and most sprightly girl whose hand his hand had ever touched. Notwithstanding the fiery earnestness of her mother, and the statement of her father that his wife and daughter were politicians, she was no politician in a party sense. She was an advocate of progress and the poor, subjects which all parties profess to have at heart, but prominence to which justly or unjustly gives a decidedly Liberal if not Radical tinge to the banner carried by their advocates.
In time Dora began to show no objection to the company of John Hanbury and later the two became informally engaged. They were both opposed to affording the world food for gossip and they agreed to say nothing of their engagement until a very short time before their marriage. They understood one another. That was enough for them. It was certain neither family would object. No question of money was likely to arise. In fact true love would run as smooth as the Serpentine. A little savour of romance and difficulty was imported by a wholly unnecessary secrecy.