The Great House

by Stanley John Weyman

That was a terrible difficulty, and his lordship did not see how he was to get over it. To the Peelites who could pay, cash down, in honors and places, he could not sell. Nor to the Liberals under little Lord John, though to their promises some prospect of office gave value. So that at times he almost despaired. For he had only this to look to now; if he failed in this he would have love and he would have Mary, and he would have safety, but very little besides. If his word had not been given to Mary, he might almost have reconsidered the matter.

The die was cast, however. Yet many a man has believed this, and then one fine morning he has begun to wonder if it is so—the cast was such an unlucky, if not an unfair one! And presently he has seen that at the cost of a little pride, or a little consistency, or what not, he might call the game drawn. That is, he might—if he were not the soul of honor that he is!

By and by under the stress of circumstances his lordship began to consider that point. He did not draw back, he did not propose to draw back; but he thought that he would keep the door behind him ajar. To begin with, he did not overwhelm Mary with letters—his public engagements were so many; and when he wrote he wrote on ordinary matters. His pen ran more glibly on party gossip than on their joint future; he wrote as he might have written to a cousin rather than to his sweetheart. But he told himself that Mary was not versed in love letters, nor very passionate. She would expect no more.

Then one fine morning he had a letter from Stubbs, which told him that there was to be a real contest in Riddsley, that the Horn and Corn platform was to be challenged, and that the assailant was Peter Basset. Stubbs added that the Working Men’s Institute was beside itself with joy, that Hatton’s and Banfield’s hands were solid for repeal, and that the fight would be real, but that the issue was a foregone conclusion.

The news was not altogether unwelcome. The contest gave value to the seat, and increased my lord’s claim; on that party, unfortunately, they could only pay in promises. It also tickled my lord’s vanity. His rival, unhorsed in the lists of love, had betaken himself, it seemed, to other lists, in which he would as surely be beaten.

“Poor beggar!” Audley thought. “He was always a day late! Always came in second! I don’t know that I ever knew anything more like him than this! From the day I first saw him, standing behind John Audley’s counsel at the suit, right to this day, he has always been a loser!”

And he smiled as he recalled the poor figure Basset had cut as a squire of dames.

A week later Stubbs wrote again, and this time his news was startling. John Audley was dead. Stubbs wrote in the first alarm of the discovery, word of which had just been brought into the town. He knew no particulars, but thought that his lordship should be among the first to learn the fact. He added a hasty postscript, in which he said that Mr. Basset was proving himself a stronger candidate than either side had expected, and that not only were the brass-workers with him but a few of the smaller fry of tradesmen, caught by his cry of cheap bread. Stubbs closed, however, with the assurance that the landed interest would carry it by a solid majority.

“D—n their impudence!” Lord Audley exclaimed. And after that he gave no further heed to the postscript. As long as the issue was certain, the election was Mottisfont’s and Stubbs’s affair. As for Basset, the more money he chose to waste the better.

But John Audley’s death was news—it was great news! So he was gone at last—the man whom he had always regarded as a menace! Whom he had feared, whose very name had rung mischief in his ears, by whom, during many a sleepless night, he had seen himself ousted from all that he had gained from title, income, lands, position! He was gone at last; and gone with him were the menace, the danger, the night alarms, the whole pile of gloomy fancies which apprehension had built up!