Part 8

But it took me three cold, wet, weary, underfed weeks in October to discover all this. Reginald took his election very seriously; so did his rival. Millport was shaken by the warfare of other excellent gentlemen in different parts of the town, and they were all serious. So far as one can see, it is only bad men who go into politics or administration with a light heart. Playful minds are so easily led astray. Reginald made all his canvassers take it seriously too. He put the fear of John Bull into them. Our faces grew long or wide with the timid earnestness of the perfect lady, convinced of the honesty of her commander. So did the faces of the Liberal candidate’s assistants, only they were of a rather different build from ours--very nice, but bonier than ours as a rule; and when we met them on the opposite side of the street, sometimes actually on the same door-step, they looked to me the sort of women who can carve a duck for eight people.

“Will you take these cards, please, Mrs. Molyneux?” said a fat, cheery man at the committee rooms when I presented myself there for the first time. The room seemed full of men, strangely shaped like fancy breads; some of them writing at a bare table; all of them as active as dry leaves at that time of year.

“You will,” continued the agent, shuffling the cards with the help of a moistened thumb, “do these houses not marked with a tick. The rest have been done, but these were either not at home when our canvasser called, or there was some other reason why they have to be done again.”

Reginald came in then, looking as if the fate of continents were secreted under his hat, and Polly arrived at the same moment. “Ah, Martha,” Reginald said, with the smile of a clever actor playing a crisis in the Foreign Office, “that’s good of you. You’d better take Polly and go round together. How are we getting on, Hoppes?” He leaned over the table in an absorbed attitude, so I left with my cards and Polly.

Christabel Street was a quiet little neighbourhood of yellow brick fronts, red stone steps, and brown doors, at the back of the main line of frowsy shops which ran across Reginald’s ward. I found number 102, next door to an inquisitive young person with a pail of dirty water and a cold in the head. We knocked at the door. The name on the card was Eliza Wickham. It will probably save explanation if I add a picture of Eliza Wickham and Polly (I kept in the background to learn experience), and record the conversation exactly as it took place.

ELIZA: “Is’t for the votin’? Well, ’oo is he?”

POLLY: “Oh such a good man! I expect you know all about him.” (I asked her afterwards why she did not explain that he was her husband, and she said she had done so in a great many cases, but found that it sometimes prejudiced them. They drew personal comparisons between her and the Liberal candidate’s wife, who ran clubs and concerts in that district.) “You know Canon Black? Well, Mr. Ashfield knows him _very_ well, and he has had so much experience on the School Board--Oh no, that is the Liberal candidate that you mean--No, he has had no experience at all. He couldn’t reduce the rates by a penny because, you see, he doesn’t know how to do it. Now, I am sure you will get your husband to vote for him; a good-looking woman like you can always get round her husband, and we can call for him at any hour. Good-bye, and you’ll say I called, won’t you?”

“What shall we mark her?” she asked, as we turned away.

“She didn’t give us much clue, did she?” I answered. “She hardly said anything. But she had a very firm eye. Suppose we say ‘doubtful.’”

We came upon Mrs. Henry at the bottom of Christabel Street, and Polly took her away, sending me alone to Llewellyn Street, and promising to join me at the other end.

“But surely John Hughes won’t be in at this time,” I protested, hoping for respite.

“He may be a sailor or a policeman,” said Polly; “you find them at all sorts of queer times. But mind: if he is in bed you must rout him out all the same; he has been visited a great many times.”

John Hughes, to my surprise and alarm, was on his door-step, smoking a pipe. I gathered together in my head all the directions that Reginald had given me, and we conversed as follows:

JOHN HUGHES: “Don’t know anything about him. What’s his views on this ’ere Irish business?”

ME (Aside: “Dash it! Reginald never told me that!”) “Oh, you had better ask him yourself. That is just the sort of question he delights in. Do you know Canon Black?”

JOHN HUGHES: “Never heard of ’im.”

ME: “Oh, well, I will send Mr. Ashfield to you. You are Conservative, aren’t you?”

JOHN HUGHES: “I’m not particular. I vote for the best man.”

ME (eagerly): “Oh, he’s _far_ the best. You see, he has done so much work before. But he will call on you, and then you will be able to hear everything he says.”

JOHN HUGHES: “You needn’t trouble. They all talk alike. I’ll make inquiries, and if I find he’s the best man I’ll vote for him.... No, I don’t want no fetchin’; I can walk. And I’ll vote one way or the other. We ’ave the benefit of the ballot, you see.”

“There is only one way to mark John Hughes,” I said to myself, as I retraced my steps, “and that is ‘WON’T SAY!’” I wrote it very distinctly and felt that I had done my duty.

I looked at my card and found a dozen names in Confucius Street, of which the only one unticked was that of Robert Taylor. But on Mr. Taylor’s door-step another of our canvassers was already waiting for admittance. I thought, at first, that she belonged to the opposite camp, but a second glance at her face and figure reassured me. “Church school teacher,” I said to myself, and waited patiently to go to her assistance if Mr. Taylor became restive, and, in any case, to enter the result of the interview on my card. Mr. Taylor was not at home, and my brave young lady did her best to gain the sympathy of his wife, who was a little chilly and preoccupied, I thought. The conversation, though delightfully friendly, was almost one-sided.

“You know Canon Black, don’t you? (“Ah,” I thought, “she has got our trump card too, has she?”) Mr. Ashfield knows him _very_ well. He thinks so much of him.... Yes, I quite agree with you, there’s a great deal too much of it, and Mr. Ashfield is just the sort of man you want to put it down. He gives so much time to the work, too. (“I must remember always to put that in,” I said to myself.) You have no idea the trouble he takes with it.... No, I don’t think the other gentleman does; you see, he has hardly the time for it. That is why we are trying to get Mr. Ashfield in; just because of that. He is such a sound man and can give the time to it. Thank you very much.... Oh, we shall certainly get him in if they all help us as much as you!”

“What do you think?” I said to her, card in hand, “doubtful?”

“No,” she replied brightly, her inextinguishable optimism shining through her glasses. “I think it will be better to say, ‘Not at home, but probably Conservative.’”

One of the greatest blows to my pride was Clarissa Scholefield. I wound up with her before lunch, and it had to be a good lunch! No amount of buns could have repaired my body after the humiliating loss of stamina--what I call “sawdust”--caused by that astonishingly powerful Clarissa with the butterfly in her cap. It had come on to rain, too, and, altogether, I cut a sorry figure in her well-ordered apartment with the mats and the shells.

“No, I don’t hold with the votin’,” she pronounced, grasping my offering of a shiny card, decorated with Reginald’s portrait, the names of his supporters, and seven reasons for preferring him before all other candidates. “No, I don’t hold with the votin’, and, what’s more, if I did vote I must see first what he’s goin’ to do when he is in. I always was and have been Conservative, but I haven’t voted for forty years and I don’t care to undertake it. Besides, I’m not at all sure he’s the right man. There’s a great deal of mischief goes on in public-houses, and the question is ‘who’s goin’ to stop it?’ I was sayin’ to a gentleman as was in here the other day that I hoped they was going to send men on to the Council as _would_ put a stop to it.... Yes, it’s very wet: I dare say you find it tirin’.”

I wrote, “Mr. Ashfield call,” with a very sharp pencil, against Clarissa’s name, and thought with pleasure, as I ordered a fried sole and chop to follow, of Reginald pommelling her silly old head with masterly repartee. After lunch I thought, with a more refined and indulgent glee, of dear Reginald’s silken head writhing under the podgy grasp of Clarissa’s hand--metaphorically, of course.

After lunch I went with Reginald’s sister Kate, who had just come back from college, to call on the Rev. Owen Griffiths ap Davis. I left her with him (which I would not have done had I known that a reverend gentleman could be so vicious) and went myself to recommend Reginald next door. Miss Kate told me afterwards exactly what happened, and having caught sight of Mr. ap Davis in the hall as he came out to see what all the talking was about, I could picture the scene exactly. Miss Kate curled up and looking very severe, the Reverend Davis opposite her, spitting out his remarks with absurd venom.

“Well, I don’t mind telling you frankly that you are canvassing for quite the wrong man altogether, and you will allow me to say that I hope very sincerely he won’t get in. I don’t know what he thinks about this Disestablishment Bill, but until that is passed I shall record my vote for whoever I think likely to put it in force. You say he’s your brother? Well, I think, if you will excuse my putting it plainly, that the fewer men of the stamp of your brother that there are in this town the better.... Oh, no trouble I assure you. Nasty damp day. Good morning.”

I had not met with much more success next door; in fact, I never got farther than the step. When Miss Amelia Carraway, dressmaker (I found this out by looking at her brass-plate), saw me from the window of her front room, where she was engaged behind the lace curtains with her mouth full of pins, she shot out at the door and at once gathered from my apologetic smile and the tell-tale cards in my hand what I had come about. I have drawn her in her room because she looks best there, although, in fact, I did not get so far until another day when I returned on legitimate business. She is like that “animal of merit, and perfect honesty, the ferret,” who, we are told, “bites holes in leaves, ties knots in string, or practically anything,” in the matter of clothes. But to return to that afternoon.

“It’s my sister that’s got the vote,” she said in a rapid, dry patter. “No, thank you, she doesn’t vote. She’s not the time. No, she doesn’t care for it, thank you. No, you can’t see her; she’s busy.... No, it’s no use, thank you. She’s not interested. No, she won’t come.... Oh, it’s all right. It’s no trouble. There’s been two ladies before.... Allow me. [Picking up my scattered cards.] Thank you. Good afternoon.”

“That’s a first-rate canvasser, I believe,” said Miss Kate as we passed down Elysium Street, where a cheery little lady in warm clothes was standing in front of an open door. On the step, beside a steaming pail of water, the lady of the house was reluctantly wiping her hands on her apron in order to meet the persistent cordiality of her canvasser. As we passed I heard the cheerful little lady say, hopefully:

“Well, good-bye, and you’ll say I called, won’t you?”

THE LADY OF THE HOUSE: “Oh, yes, I’ll tell ’im. He don’t take much interest in the votin’; he’s at sea now. Of course if it were me it ’ud be the Liberals I’d be for. My father ’e always voted Liberal.”

CHEERFUL CANVASSER: “Thank you. However, you’ll tell him?”

“Then does she write ‘at sea,’ on her card?” I asked.

“More likely, ‘carriage on day of election,’” replied Miss Kate bitterly. “At one election Polly was sent to fetch ninety people who were all at sea--except those who were dead!”

We were passing an oil-shop at the moment, and Miss Kate suddenly began to laugh. “If you can look through that door without attracting attention,” she said, “just take a good squint at Mr. Albert Vickers, and I’ll tell you what happened there this morning.”

Mr. Albert Vickers, who had a pale face and the eye of a cod--a cod, moreover, of whom its parents always boastfully foretold that it would “do something yet”--was leaning against his counter in his shirt-sleeves and a hat, negligently worn. His trousers were not well braced and he wore thin, brown boots.

“What happened?” I asked as we went along.

“Mrs. Henry went in quite airily,” said Miss Kate, “and began--‘Oh, I was just canvassing for the Conservative member,’ etc. Albert said, ‘Well, I don’t think I shall give me vote at all this year. I’m inclined to think we’d do better to be without ’em altogether and let the town manage itself a bit.’ ‘Oh, but we can’t do that, you know!’ said Mrs. Henry, ‘I dare say there are faults on both sides; but the Conservatives as a body----’ Albert went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘There’s none of ’em straight to the working man. Now, ’ow d’you make this out? I’m told there’s sixty-two councillors as sits down to champagne and shilling cigars four days out of the week----’ ‘But Mr. Ashfield never _touches_ champagne,’ burst out Mrs. Henry, ‘and he’s very particular about _all_ those things.’ ‘I don’t say he isn’t,’ grumbled Albert. ‘I don’t know ’im. But from what I can ’ear I think it very likely that I shan’t vote at all.’”

“And what do you suppose she put him down as?” I asked.

“Oh, Liberal, of course,” said Miss Kate, with innocent surprise.

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, with a sudden glance at my card, “this is where my next house is, and it is this cellar apparently. I must fish out some eyeglasses to go down these steps or I shall break my neck.”

“It is Eliza Thomas’s own vote,” said Miss Kate, examining my card. “I will wait up here for you.”

Eliza Thomas had, very likely, been celebrating her first centenary that afternoon in a glass of port. She was far and away deafer than the deafest person I have ever met. My throat becomes dry as I think about her.

“’Oo is it?” she asked, with her hand behind her ear. “There’s been a lady round and give me this card [fetching from the mantelpiece the portrait of our hated rival], and I said I’d give me vote, so it’ll be all right, my dear.”

ME (very loudly and distinctly): “No, no. You are a CONSERVATIVE, you know. You mustn’t vote for THAT one--THIS is the one.”

ELIZA (with a reassuring dribble): “Oh yes, I said I’d vote. It’ll be all right, my dear.”

ME (bawling): “YES--but you mustn’t vote for THIS one. You’re a CONSERVATIVE!”

ELIZA: “They told me it was to be for this one, but I don’t know. Is’t for the Parliament?”

ME: “Oh no, the City Council. Do you know Canon Black?”

ELIZA: “Know ’oo?”

ME: “Canon Black. The low Churchman. Never mind; you have promised me the vote, and I’ll call for you.”

“Pouff!” I said, as I came up the steps. “That’s hot work! Take my card, would you, please, dear, and write down ‘carriage as early as possible.’ It is just a question of which gets there first, Esau or Jacob.”

“I have got one or two in this street,” said Miss Kate. “I forgot about them, or I would have gone while you were cracking your tonsils down there. If you will go on slowly I will catch you up, and you can be resting your voice.”

I walked down the street and turned back. I walked up the street and turned back. “In another minute,” I thought, “I shall be arrested for loitering with intent. I wish Miss Kate would hurry up.” I was just passing a little house with dingy green curtains half-way up the windows when, to my surprise, the door burst open and Miss Kate shot out like an arrow aimed with temper.

“Run!” she breathed. “Run--don’t let him get us.”

We ran like sandpipers for a mile, and then Miss Kate stopped and looked behind her. “It’s all right,” she said, “I don’t think he has followed us. He was an anti-vivisectionist--just fancy! I would have sent one of the men from the committee rooms if I had known.”

“But you say he is an ‘anti,’” I remonstrated, a little peevish and out of breath. “If he is an ‘anti’ he wouldn’t have cut you up. What’s the fuss?”

“They _talk_,” said Miss Kate, with a long breath. There was a pause; I still didn’t understand.

“They _talk_!” she repeated. “He’s anti-vaccination too!”

“Well, he sounds most peaceable,” I said. “I can’t understand your behaving like that at all.”

“All right,” she retorted, “go back and talk to him.”

“It’s no good doing that,” I replied, “he has probably stopped by now.”

“Not he!” said Miss Kate with a shudder. “He’s only just begun.”

“What are his politics?” I asked.

“No one knows,” she replied, “not even his wife. She made me a sign from the door.”

“Well, what have you written?” I persisted, for I had seen her scribble something as we ran. With a weak gesture she handed me her card, and against the name of William Evans I read, “_When you get home at bedtime mark, HELL!_”

“Come, come,” I remonstrated, “that will never do. You can’t send in that sort of remark to the committee rooms. It’s quite one thing for Mr. Bernard Shaw and another for a young girl.”

“All right. Put him down as a cubist if you like,” she said defiantly. “I don’t care.”

“No,” I said, “I’ll tell you what--” and I wrote down, “Mrs. Ashfield call.” “Polly is inclined to be self-opinionated and this trial may soften her.”

I went alone to Solomon Levy, while Miss Kate finished her appointed round and went home for a cup of tea.

“I shall vote,” Mr. Levy assured me, leaning over his newspaper with the remote look of a sage; “but I’m not going to tell you who it’s for.--No, I shan’t say. I’ve never said who I’ve voted for. I can tell you it will be for the man who brings the rates down, but I’m not going to say who that is.... What’s that you say? No, I’m not a Churchman, and I don’t know the gentleman. I’ve my own views, and if we all do our duty that’s enough, isn’t it? What? Yes, I think so. It’s enough for me anyway, and, what’s more, I’d sooner vote for a man who had no religious opinions; he’s more likely to be fair to all. No, I shan’t say. Good day!”

* * * * *

“She’s away, next door,” said helpful Mrs. Murphy, with her large smile and the voice of a dove. I felt a sudden friendship towards her, as the thought struck me that any emotions she might ever feel would be as untouched by human shame as are changes in the weather.

She was very dirty, but it was the dirt of a potato-field and a pigsty, which I find less revolting than “tapestry curtains, art table-covers, fancy and silk blouses, soiled evening dresses,” and other horrors which, if we may believe the dry cleaners’ advertisements, form so large a part of every refined home.

“She’s away, next door,” I heard the dove-like gurgle, when I had knocked in vain for some minutes at No. 47. “I think it’ll be the Liberals she’s for, but you’ll do well to call again. We’ve not the vote, else we’d be pleased to oblige you, for we’re both Conservative. There’s been six ladies before, but you can leave another picture and welcome.... Oh, it’s all right--Get back, now, Flora, and leave the lady alone. Have y’ tried Mr. Hanny, now, on the other side? It’s likely he might vote if y’ asked him.”

“One more,” I said to myself, “and then Polly shall give me tea, or be answerable for my loss.” Stanmore Road was on my way home, and I proposed to have a word with Mr. James Groat. That would leave me only three to do after tea. I knocked at the door. It was opened, after some delay and shouting, by a minx--M-I-N-X--minx. Editors, I notice, always alter this name to “maiden,” or “débutante,” or something that does not mean quite the same thing. A minx, therefore, standing with reluctant feet where the door and door-step meet. I asked if Mr. Groat were at home, and she replied that she would “just see”; I could wait if I liked. She came back in a few minutes, leaving the parlour door open.

“Father says, ken’t you send a message; he’s busy,” she clipped. (You will, perhaps, observe “Father” in the picture.) I said “No,” out of sheer contrariness, and added that I only wanted to ask him one question.

She returned again to the parlour, where a short conversation of whispers and snorts took place.

“He says he doesn’t mind the voting, and you can leave it,” was the next message. “He’ll see about it.... No, you needn’t put him down anything at all; he ken’t attend to you now.”

I found Polly sitting with her feet up on the sofa, trying to pour out tea. “It’s all right,” she said, in answer to my criticism of her manners. “I have just been arguing with a gentleman of the name of Potts, who kept his feet up the whole time I was talking to him. I never got a word in. He just lay and smoked, and talked me down, so I thought I would come home and revenge myself on his memory.”

“I wish you would hurry up and give me some tea,” I said.

“Mr. Potts was just about to enjoy his when I called,” Polly continued, aggravatingly suspending the teapot. “‘’E’s just come ’ome to ’is tea, Miss,’ his silly wife, with a black eye, informed me--as if that were any excuse for lying on the sofa when a lady called.”

“Quite so,” I replied. “Please get up and pass me the cake.”

“All right,” said Polly. “Well, as I was saying, I said to Mr. Potts, ‘Oh, Mr. Potts, I was just canvassing for my,’ etc. etc. Mr. Potts shifted his pipe and spat, and then bellowed at me, ‘Well, I’m a ----’--now what was it he said he was? How stupid! I can’t remember.”

“An ill-mannered ape, perhaps,” I suggested.

“No, no. I mean that he held principles of some sort,” Polly continued, taxing her brain. “Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. ‘And I’m going,’ he assured me, ‘to vote for them as’ll be true to [whatever-principle-it-was-he-held] principles on the Council.’ ‘Oh, but,’ I chipped in, ‘my husband is _very_ strong on that point.’ (I wish I could remember what it was, and ask Reginald.) ‘I know,’ he replied; ‘they all say that, but they don’t DEW it. They want more men like’ (I forget whether it was Keir Hardie or Cunninghame Graham he said) ‘to make ’em DEW it. There’s not a member of that there Watch Committee as is fit to be on it.’ (What is the Watch Committee--do you know?) ‘It’s time something was done, and we’re going to elect men as will DEW it, and not be afraid to speak out on the Council. I’ve not thought about it yet,’ he added (just fancy the cheek!), ‘but I’ll see when the time comes.’”

“What did you put on your card?” I asked. “It is such a help to me to know the sort of way to classify these people.”

“Oh, I didn’t attempt to classify him,” said Polly. “I just wrote, ‘Some one else call,’ and then I came home and put my own feet up and smoked.”

“I shan’t do much more to-day,” I said, when we had finished tea.

“Don’t do any more at all, unless you like,” Polly remarked generously. “I am not going to. I can’t risk two Mr. Pottses in one day.”

“I have got three more on my card,” I said, “and I would like to finish them if I can, but not if it’s going to rain again; it’s too depressing.”