Chapter 15

A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE.

Nomination day came, and I was duly entered by my proprietors for the Election Stakes, though I was painfully aware that my selection as Candidate was not universally popular.

However, as Cash remarked, "It is canvassing from door to door that does the trick, and there you have the bulge on Stridge. He's not a bad old buffer himself, but they hate his wife like poison. She drives up to their doors in a silver-plated brougham with a double-breasted coachman, and tells 'em to vote for Stridge, not because he used to live in a one-roomed house himself--which he did, and her too--but because he's a local god-on-wheels. Of course they won't stick that."

I also continued to address meetings, receive deputations, and generally solicit patronage in a way that would have made a cab-tout blush for shame. As a recreation I kicked off at football matches and laid foundation-stones. The most important function in which I took part was the opening of the new wing of the Municipal Library. The ceremony, which was by way of being a non-party affair, took place on a blustering February afternoon. The _élite_ of Stoneleigh were picturesquely grouped upon the steps of the main entrance of the Library, from the topmost of which the Mayor, the Dean, and the Candidates addressed a shivering and apathetic audience below.

Fortunately, the company were too exclusively occupied in holding on their hats and blowing their blue noses to pay much attention to the improving harangues of Mr Stridge and myself; which was perhaps just as well, for men who have three or four highly critical and possibly hostile meetings to address later in the day are not likely to waste good things upon an assembly who probably cannot hear them, and will only say "Hear, hear!" in sepulchral tones if they do.

The actual opening of the wing was accomplished quite informally (and I may say unexpectedly) by Kitty and Mrs Stridge--a fearsome matron, who looked like a sort of Nonconformist Boadicea--who were huddling together for warmth in the recess of the doorway. On a pedestal before them lay two small gold keys, with which they were presently to unlock the door itself, what time I, in trumpet tones, declared the Library open. Whether through natural modesty or a desire to escape the assaults of the wind, the two ladies shrank back so closely into the door that that accommodating portal, evidently deeming it ungallant to wait even for a golden key under such circumstances, incontinently flew open, and Mesdames Inglethwaite and Stridge subsided gracefully into the arms of a spectacled and embarrassed Librarian, who was formally waiting inside to receive the company at the proper moment.

After that, the proceedings, which so far had been almost as bleak as the weather, went with a roar to the finish.

But events like these were mere oases in a desert of ceaseless drudgery. The fight grew sterner and stiffer, and, as always happens on these occasions, the neutral and the apathetic began to bestir themselves and take sides. A week before the election there was not an impartial or unbiassed person left in Stoneleigh. Collisions between supporters of either party became frequent and serious. On the first occasion, when a Conservative sought to punctuate an argument by discharging a small gin-and-ginger into the face of his Liberal opponent, and the Liberal retaliated by felling the Conservative to the earth with a pint-pot, Stridge and I wrote quite effusively to one another apologising for the exuberance of our friends. A week later, when certain upholders of my cause bombarded Stridge's emporium with an assortment of Stridge's own eggs, hitting one of Mr Stridge's white-jacketed assistants in the eye, and severely damaging the frontage of Mr Stridge's Italian warehouse--whereupon local and immediate supporters of the cause of Stridge squared matters by putting three bombardiers into a horse-trough--Mr Stridge and I expressed no sort of regret to one another whatsoever, but referred scathingly, amid rapturous cheers, at our next meetings to the blackguardly policy of intimidation and hooliganism by which the other side found it necessary to bolster up a barren cause and hopeless future; all of which shows that things were tuning up to concert pitch.

Results of other elections were coming in every day, and they were not by any means favourable to our side. Still, we kept on smiling, and talked largely about the swing of the pendulum--almost as useful a phrase as "Mesopotamia" of blessed memory--and other phenomena of reaction, and hoped for the best. Champion, who had been returned for his constituency by a thumping majority, had promised to come down and speak for me at a great meeting two nights before the election; and Dubberley, who had lost his seat, threatened to come and help me to lose mine.

With the exception of Robin, who appeared to be made of some material _ære perennius_, we were all getting the least bit "tucked up," from my humble self down to Phillis, who appeared at breakfast one morning looking flushed and rather too bright-eyed.

"Electioneering seems to be telling on you, old lady," I remarked. "Feeling quite well--eh?"

"Just a _teeny_ headache, daddy. But"--hastily--"I can come with you to the meeting in the theatre to-morrow night, can't I? it will be such fun!"

"Meeting? My little girl, it does not begin till an hour after your bed-time."

"That's why I want to go," said my daughter frankly. "Besides, I do _love_ pantomimes--especially the clowns!" She wriggled ecstatically.

Even the revelation of the plain truth--that the pantomime would be called by another name and the clowns would appear in mufti--failed to assuage Phillis's thirst for the dramatic sensation promised by a meeting in a theatre. I was, as usual, wax in her small hands; and, man-like, I threw the _onus negandi_ upon Eve's shoulders.

"Ask your mother," I said; and flew to my day's work.

Thank goodness, it was almost the last. To-morrow would be the eve of the poll, and at night we were to hold our monster meeting. Three thousand people would be present; a local magnate, Sir Thomas Wurzel (of Heycocks), would occupy the chair; what one of our local reporters insisted on calling "the _élite_ of the _bon ton_" would be ranged upon the platform; and the meeting would be addressed by John Champion, Robin,--they always wanted him now,--and the much-enduring Candidate. The audience would, further, be made the recipients of a few remarks from the Chair and (unless something providential happened) from Dubberley, who was to second a vote of thanks to somebody--a performance which might take anything up to fifty minutes. Altogether a feast of oratory, and a further proof, if any were needed, that the English are a hardy race.

Phillis was decidedly unwell next morning, and Kitty prescribed bed. I am inclined to be an anxious parent, but there was little time for the exercise of any natural instincts on this occasion. Hounded on by the relentless Cash, I spent the day in a final house-to-house canvass, being fortunate enough to find at home several gentlemen who had been out on previous occasions, and who now graciously permitted Kitty to present them with a resplendent portrait of what at first sight appeared to be a hairdresser's assistant in gala costume, but which an obtrusive inscription below proclaimed to be "Inglethwaite! The Man You Know, and Who Knows You!"

After a hasty round of the Committee Rooms I returned to our hostelry, the Cathedral Arms, where, after disposing of two reporters who wanted an advance copy of my evening's speech, and having effusively thanked a pompous individual for a sheaf of statistics on a subject which I cannot recall, but in which no one outside an asylum could have reasonably been expected to take any interest whatever, and which I was at liberty to quote (with due acknowledgments) to any extent I pleased, I sat down with Champion and Robin, faint yet pursuing, to fortify myself with roast-beef and whisky for the labours of the evening.

Presently Kitty entered, with Dolly.

"_Who_ do you think has just arrived?" she said.

"I don't know. Not a deputation, I hope!"

"No. Gerald--from school."

"Great Scott! Expelled?"

"Oh no. It's his half-term _exeat_. I had forgotten all about it. As it just falls in with the Election, he has come to see you through, he says."

"Right! Give him some food and a bed, and we'll send him round with one of the brakes to-morrow, to bring people up to the poll. He has a gentle compelling way about him that should be useful to us. Has he brought his inarticulate friend?"

"Yes."

"Well, tell them to ask at the office for bedrooms."

"They have done that already," said Dolly. "They are down in the kitchen now, ordering dinner. They don't propose to go to the meeting. 'Better fun outside,' they say."

"Lucky little devils!" remarked the Candidate, with feeling.

"And, Adrian," said Kitty, "I don't think I'll come either. I'm rather bothered about Philly."

I laid down my knife and fork.

"What do you mean? Is she really ill?"

"N-no. I don't think so, but she is very feverish and wretched, poor kiddy. I tried to get hold of Dr Martin this afternoon, but he was miles away on an urgent case, and won't be back till to-morrow. But I got Dr Farquharson----"

"Roaring Radical!" said I in horror-struck tones.

--"Yes, dear, but such a nice old thing; and Scotch too, Robin----"

"Aberdonian," said Robin dubiously.

"Well," continued my wife, "he said she would need care, and must stay in bed. He was in a tearing hurry, as he had to go on to one of Stridge's meetings--horrid creature!--but he promised to come again on his way home. Do you think it very important that I should come with you?"

I turned to my secretary.

"What's your opinion, Robin?"

"I think Mrs Inglethwaite should come. They like to see her on the platform, I know."

"If the Candidate's wife does not appear, people say she is too grand for them," put in Champion.

"I'll stay with Philly, Kit," said Dolly.

"Will you? You dear! But I know you want to come yourself."

"Never mind. It doesn't matter."

And so it was arranged.

We found the theatre packed to suffocation. A heated band of musicians (whose degrees must have been conferred _honoris causa_) had just concluded a set of airs whose sole excuse for existence was their patriotic character, and Sir Thomas Wurzel (of Heycocks) was rising to his feet, when our party appeared on the platform. Election fever was running high by this time; the critical spirit was almost entirely obliterated by a truly human desire to cut the preliminaries and hit somebody in the eye; and we were greeted with deafening cheers.

Presently Champion was introduced and called upon to speak. He was personally unknown to the crowd before him, although his name was familiar to them. But in five minutes he had the entire audience in his grip. He made them laugh, and he made them cheer; he made them breathe hard, and he made them chuckle. There were moments when the vast throng sat in death-like silence, while Champion, with his voice dropped almost to a whisper, cajoled them as a woman cajoles a man. Then suddenly he would blare out another battle-call, and provoke a great storm of cheering. He made little use of gesture--occasionally he punctuated a remark with an impressive forefinger, but he had the most wonderful voice I have ever heard. I sat and watched him with whole-hearted admiration. It is true that he was not doing our cause any particular good. He had forgotten that he was there to make a party speech, to decry his opponents, and crack up his friends. He was soaring away into other regions, and--most wonderful of all--he was taking his audience with him. He besought them to be men, to play the game, to think straight, to awaken to a sense of responsibility, and to remember the magnitude and responsibility of their task as controllers of an Empire. He breathed into them for a moment a portion of his own great spirit; and many a small tradesman and dull-souled artisan realised that night, for the first (and possibly the last) time, that the summit of the Universe is not composed of hides and tallow, and that there are higher things than the loaves and fishes of party politics and the petty triumphs of a contested election.

From a strictly tactical point of view all this was useless, and therefore dangerous. But for a brief twenty minutes we were gods, Utopians, Olympians, joyously planning out a scheme of things as they should be, to the entire oblivion of things as they are. That is always worth something.

Then he sat down, and we came to earth again with a bump, recollecting guiltily the cause for which we were assembled and met together--namely, the overwhelming of an Italian warehouseman and the retention of a parliamentary seat in an unimportant provincial district.

Once only have I heard that speech bettered, and that was in the House of Commons on a night in June fifteen years later, when a Prime Minister started up from the Treasury Bench to defend a colleague whose Bill--since recognised as one of the most statesmanlike measures of our generation--was being submitted to the narrowest and meanest canons of party criticism. It was another appeal for fair-play, unbiassed judgment, and breadth of view, and it took a hostile and captious House, Government and Opposition alike, by storm. The name of the Prime Minister on that occasion was John Champion, and the colleague whom he defended was Robert Chalmers Fordyce.

After Champion had sat down--nominally his speech was a vote of confidence in my unworthy self--Robin rose to second the motion. I did not envy him his task. It is an ungrateful business at the best, firing off squibs directly after a shower of meteors. Even a second shower of meteors would be rather a failure under the circumstances. Robin realised this. He put something into his pocket and told his audience a couple of stories--dry, pawky, Scottish yarns--which he admitted were not new, not true, and not particularly relevant. The first was a scurrilous anecdote concerning a man from Paisley,--which illustrious township, by the way, appears to be the target of practically all Scottish humour,--and the other treated of a Highland minister who was delivering to a long-suffering congregation a discourse upon the Minor Prophets. Robin told us how the preacher worked through Obadiah, Ezekiel, Nahum, Malachi, "and many others whose names are doubtless equally familiar to you, gentlemen," he added amid chuckles, "placing them in a kind of ecclesiastical order of merit as he proceeded; and finally he came to Habakkuk.

"'What place, my friends, what place will we assign to Habakkuk?' he roared.

"That, gentlemen," said Robin, "proved to be the last straw. A man rose up under the gallery.

"'Ye can pit him doon here in my seat,' he roared. 'I'm awa' hame!'

"Gentlemen," added Robin, as the shout of laughter subsided, "I fear that one of you will be for offering _his_ seat to Habakkuk if I go on any longer, so I will just second the motion and sit down."

After that I rose to my weary feet and offered my contribution. I have no intention of giving a _précis_ of my speech here. It was exactly the same as all the speeches ever delivered on such occasions. Thucydides could have written it down word for word without ever having heard me deliver it. It was not in the least a good speech, but it was the sort of speech they expected, and, better still, it was the sort of speech they wanted. Everybody was too excited to be critical, and I sat down, perspiring and thankful, amid enthusiasm.

Then came the most trying ordeal of all--questions.

I am no hand at repartee; but practice had sharpened my faculties in this direction, and I had, moreover, become fairly conversant with the type of query to which the seeker after knowledge on these occasions usually confines himself. The great secret is to bear in mind the fact that what people want in one's reply is not accurate information--unless, of course, you are standing for a Scottish constituency, and then Heaven help you!--but something smart. If you can answer the question, do so; but in any case answer it in such a way as to make the questioner feel small. Then you will have your audience with you.

To prevent unseemly shouting (and, _entre nous_, to give the Candidate a little more time to polish up his impromptus), the questions were handed up on slips of paper and read aloud, and answered _seriatim_. They were sorted and arranged for me by Robin, and I not infrequently found, among the various slips, a question usually coming directly after a regular poser, in Robin's handwriting, with a brilliant and telling reply thoughtfully appended.

This evening as usual Robin collected the slips from the stewards, and ultimately laid them on the table before me. I rose, and started on the heap. The first was a typewritten document which had been handed up by a thoughtful-looking gentleman in the front row. It contained a single line--

_Are you a Liberal or a Conservative?_

This was a trifle hard, I thought, coming directly after my speech; but fortunately the audience considered it merely funny, and roared when I remarked pathetically, "This gentleman is evidently deaf."

Then came the question--

_Are you in favour of Woman's Suffrage?_

This was no novelty, and was fortunately regarded by the gallant electors present as a form of comic relief. I adopted my usual plan under the circumstances, and said--

"I am in favour, sir, of giving a woman whatever she wants. It is always well to make a virtue of necessity."

This homely and non-committal gibe satisfied most of the audience, and I was about to proceed to the next question when my interlocutor, a litigious-looking man with blue spectacles, rose in the circle and cried--

"You are evading the question, sir! Give me an answer. Are you in favour of Woman's Suffrage or not?"

"That's fair! Give him his answer!" came the cry from the fickle audience.

I was quite prepared for this. I went through an oft-rehearsed and not uneffective piece of pantomime with Kitty, and replied--

"Well, sir, I have just inquired of my wife, who is by my side----"

I paused expectantly. I was not disappointed. There were loud cheers, during which I seized the opportunity to glance through the next few questions. Then, as I was not quite ready--

"--As she has _always_ been, all through this arduous campaign----"

_Terrific enthusiasm, while Kitty blushes and bows very prettily; after which the conversation proceeds on the following lines:_--

_Myself_. And she tells me that she does not want any Suffrage of any kind whatsoever!

_"Hear, hear!" But some cries of disapproval._

_Myself_. I therefore recommend you, sir, to go home and follow my example----

_(Perfect tornado of laughter. Apparently I have made a home-thrust.)_

--And after that, if you will come back to me and report the result of your--er--investigations--(_yells_)--I shall be happy to go into the matter with you more fully.

_Triumphant cheers, and the blue-spectacled man collapses._

The unfortunate espouser of the cause of the fair having thus been derided out of court, I took up the next question. It concerned a long-standing dispute as to the rights of the clergy of various denominations to enter the local Board Schools,--this was in the days far preceding the present educational deadlock,--and I felt that I must walk warily. I talked at large about liberty of conscience and religious toleration, but realised as I rambled on that my moderate views and want of bigotry in one direction or the other were pleasing no one. John Bull is a curious creature. You may get drunk and beat your wife, and he will tolerate you; you may run amok through most of the Decalogue, and he will still be your friend; but venture to worship your Maker in a fashion which differs one tittle from his own, and he will put down his pint-pot or desist from sanding the sugar and fell you to the earth. I was glad to get away from this subject, leaving the audience far from satisfied, and turn to the next question. It said--

_Is the Candidate aware that the important township of Spratling is entirely without a pier or jetty of any description?_

"Certainly I am aware of it," I replied, trying hard to remember where the place was. The audience began to titter, and I felt uneasy.

My questioner, a saturnine gentleman in the pit, rose to his feet and continued--

"And if returned to Parliament, will you exert your influence to see that a jetty is constructed there at the earliest opportunity?"

"Cer----" There was a very slight movement beside me. Robin was leaning back unconcernedly in his chair, but on the table under my nose lay a sheet of paper bearing these words in large printed capitals--

SPRATLING IS TEN MILES FROM THE SEA!

It had been a near thing.

"Certainly," I continued. "On one condition only," I added at the top of my voice, above the rising tide of mocking laughter,--"on condition that you, sir, will personally guarantee a continuous and efficient service of fast steamers between Spratling and--the sea-coast!"

It was not a brilliant effort. I think I could have made more of it if I had had more time. But it served. How they laughed!

But there were breakers ahead. The next question asked if I was in favour of compulsory land purchase and small holdings. Of course I was not; but if I said so I knew I should rouse a dangerous storm, for the community were much bitten at the time with the "Vine and Fig-tree Fetish," as some one had happily described it. If, on the other hand, I said Yes, I should, besides telling a lie,--though, as Cash once remarked to me, "You can't strain at gnats on polling-day,"--be committing myself to a scheme, which I knew Stridge had been strongly urging, for dividing up some of the estate of the Lord of the Manor, the Earl of Carbolton (whom I knew personally for one of the wisest and most considerate landlords in the country) into allotments for the benefit of an industrial population who probably thought that turnips grew on trees. It would have been easy to make some easily broken promise, but I have my poor pride, and I never offer the most academic blessing to a measure that I am not prepared to go into a Lobby for. I wanted time to think. Perhaps Robin would slip something on to the table. I accordingly played my usual card, and said--

"Now this, gentleman, is an important question, and I am very glad it has been asked." (Oh, Adrian, my _boy_!) "And when I am faced with such a question, I always ask myself, 'What, under the circumstances, would be the course of action of--our great leader?'"

The device succeeded, and the theatre resounded with frenzied cheers. I turned to Robin. He was not there.

I swung round in Kitty's direction. She had left her chair, and was hurriedly making her way through the group of important nobodies behind me in the direction of the wings. Robin was there already, in earnest conversation with a girl.

It was Dolly.

Phillis?