Chippinge Borough

XXVI

THE SCENE IN THE HALL

Arthur Vaughan had been quick to see that he could not step at once into place and fame; that success in political life could not in these days be attained at a bound. But had he been less quick, the great debate which preceded the passage of the Bill through the Commons must have availed to persuade him. That their last words of warning to the country, their solemn remonstrances, might have more effect, the managers of the Opposition had permitted the third reading to be carried in the manner which has been described. But, that done, they unmasked all their forces, bent on proving that if in the time to come the peers threw out the Bill they would do so with a respectable weight, not only of argument, but of public feeling behind them; and that, not only in the country, but in the popular House. All that the bitter invective of Croker, the mingled gibes and predictions of Wetherell, the close and weighty reasoning of Peel, the precedents of Sugden could do to warn the timid and arouse the prudent was done. That ancient Chamber, which was never again to echo the accents of a debate so great, which stood indeed already doomed, as if it could not long survive the order of things of which it had been for centuries the centre, had heard, it may be, speeches more lofty, men more eloquent-for whom had it not heard? – but never men more in earnest, or words more keenly barbed by the prejudices of the passing, or the aspirations of the coming, age. Of the one party were those who could see naught but glory in the bygone, naught but peril in change, of the other, those whose strenuous aim it was to make the future redress the wrongs of the past. The former were like children, viewing the Armada hangings which tapestried the neighbouring Chamber, and seeing only the fair front: the latter like the same children, picking with soiled fingers at the backing, coarse, dusty and cobwebbed, which for two hundred years had clung to the roughened masonry.

Vaughan sat through the three nights, brooding darkly on the feats performed before him. If they who fought in the arena were not giants, if the House no longer held a match for Canning and Brougham, the combatants seemed giants to him; for a man's opinion of himself is never far from the opinion which others hold of him. And he soon perceived that a common soldier might as easily step from the ranks and set the battle in order as he, Arthur Vaughan, rise up, without farther training, and lead the attack or cover the defence. He sat soured and gloomy, a mere spectator; dwelling, even while he listened to the flowery periods of Macaulay, or the trenchant arguments of Peel, on the wrong done to himself by the disposal of his seat.

It was so like the Whigs, he told himself. Here on the floor of the House who so loud as they in defence of the purity of elections, of the people's right to be represented, of the unbiassed vote of the electors? But behind the scenes they were as keenly bent on jobbing a seat here, or neutralising a seat there, and as careless of the people's rights as they had ever been! It was atrocious, it was shameful! If this were political life, if this were political honesty, he had had enough of it!

But alas, though he said it in his anger, there was the rub! He had not had, and now he was not likely to have, enough of it. The hostility to himself, of which he had come slowly to be conscious, as a man grows slowly to perceive a frostiness in the air, had insensibly sapped his self-confidence and lowered his claims. He no longer dreamt of rising and outshining the chiefs of his party. But he still believed that he had it in him to succeed-were time given him. And all through the long hours of the three nights' debates his thoughts were as often on his wrongs as on the momentous struggle which was passing before his eyes, and for the issue of which the clubs of London were keeping vigil.

But enthusiasm is infectious. And when the tellers for the last time walked up to the table, at five o'clock on the morning of the 22nd of September, with the grey light of daybreak stealing in to shame the candles and betray the jaded faces-when he and all men knew that for them the end of the great struggle was come-Vaughan waited breathless with the rest and strained his ears to catch the result. And when, a moment later, peal upon peal of fierce cheering shook the old panels in their frames, and being taken up by waiting crowds without, carried the news through the dawn to the very skirts of London-the news that Reform had passed the People's House, and that only the peers now stood between the country and its desire-he shared the triumph and shouted with the rest, shook hands with exultant neighbours, and waved his hat, perspiring.

But in his case the feeling of exultation was short-lived; perhaps in the case of many another, who roared himself hoarse and showed a gleeful face to the daylight. Certainly it was something to have taken part in such a scene, the memory of which must survive for generations. It was something to have voted in such a division. He might talk of it in days to come to his grandchildren. But for him personally it meant that all was over; that here, if the Lords passed the Bill, was the end. A Dissolution must follow, and when the House met again, his place would know him no more. He would be gone, and no man would feel the blank.

Nor were less selfish doubts wanting. As he stood, caught in the press and awaiting his turn to leave the crowded House, his eyes rested on the pale, scowling faces which dotted the opposite benches; the faces of men who, honestly believing that here and now the old Constitution of England had got its deathblow, could not hide their bitter chagrin, or their scorn of the foe. Nor could he, at any rate, view those men without sympathy; without the possibility that they were right weighing on his spirits; without a faint apprehension that this might indeed be the beginning of decay, the starting point of that decadence which every generation since Queen Anne's had foreseen. For if many on that side represented no one but themselves, they still represented vast interests, huge incomes, immense taxation. They were those who, if England sank, had most to lose. He, in the past, had given up almost his all that he might stand aloof from them; and that, because he thought them prejudiced, wrong-headed, unreasonable. But he respected them. And-what if they were right?

Meanwhile the persistent cheering of his friends began to jar on his tired nerves. He seemed to see in this a beginning of disorder, of license, of revolution, of all those evils which the other party foretold. And then he had little liking for the statistics of Hume: and Hume with his arm about his favourite pillar, was high among the triumphant. Hard by him again was the tall, thin form of Orator Hunt, for whom the Bill was too moderate; and the taller, thinner form of Burdett. They, crimson with shouting, were his partners in this; the bedfellows among whom his opinions had cast him.

Thinking such thoughts, he was among the last to leave the House, which he did by way of Westminster Hall. The scene as he descended to the Hall was so striking that he stood an instant on the steps to view it. The hither half of the great space was comparatively bare, but the farther half was occupied by a throng of people held back by a line of the New Police, who were doing all they could to keep a passage for the departing Members. As groups of the latter, after chatting awhile at the upper end, passed, conscious of the greatness of the occasion, down the lane thus formed, bursts of loud cheering greeted the better-known Reformers. Some of the more forward of those who waited shook hands with them, or patted them on the back; while others cried "God bless you, sir! Long life to you, sir!" On the other hand, an angry moan, or a spirit of hissing, marked the passage of a known Tory; or a voice was raised calling to these to bid the Lords beware. A few lamps, which had burned through the night, contended pallidly with the growing daylight, and gave to the scene that touch of obscurity, that mingling of light and shadow-under the dusky, far-receding roof-which is necessary to the picturesque.

Vaughan did not suspect that, as he paused, looking down on the Hall, he was himself watched, and by some sore enough that moment to be glad to wreak their feelings in any direction. As he set his foot on the stone pavement a group near at hand raised a cry of "Turncoat! Turncoat!" and that so loudly that he could not but hear it. An unmistakable hiss followed; and then, "Who stole a seat?" cried one of the men.

"And isn't going to keep it?" cried another.

Vaughan turned short at the last words-he had not felt sure that the first were addressed to him. With a hot face, and every fibre in his body tingling with defiance, he stepped up to the group. "Did you speak to me?" he said.

A man with a bullying air put himself before the others. He was a ruined Irish Member, who had sat for years for a close borough, and for whom the Bill meant duns, bailiffs, a sponging-house, in a word, the loss of all those thing's which made life tolerable. He was full of spite and spoiling for a fight with someone, no matter with whom.

"Who are you?" he replied, confronting our friend with a sneer. "I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir!"

Vaughan was about to answer him in kind, when he espied in the middle of the group the pale, keen face and greyish whiskers of Sergeant Wathen. And, "Perhaps you have not," he retorted, "but that gentleman has." He pointed to Wathen. "And, if what was said a moment ago," he continued, "was meant for me, I have the honour to ask for an explanation."

"Explanation?" a Member in the background cried, in a jeering tone. "Is there need of one?"

Vaughan was no longer red, he was white with anger. "Who spoke?" he asked, his voice ringing.

The Irishman looked over his shoulder and laughed. "Right you are, Jerry!" he said: "I'll not give you up!" And then to Vaughan, "I did not," he said rudely. "For the rest, sir, the Hall is large enough. And we have no need of your heroics here!"

"Your pleasure, however," Vaughan replied, haughtily, "is not my law. Some one of you used words a moment ago which seemed to imply-"

"What, sir?"

"That I obtained my seat by unfair means! And the truth being perfectly well known to that gentleman" – again he pointed to the Sergeant in a way which left Wathen anything but comfortable. "I am sure that he will tell you that the statement-"

"Statement?"

"Statement or imputation, or whatever you please to call it," Vaughan answered, sticking to his point in spite of interruptions, "is absolutely unfounded-and false. And false! And, therefore, must be retracted."

"Must, sir?"

"Yes, must!" Vaughan replied-he was no coward. "Must, if you call yourselves gentlemen. But first, Mr. Sergeant," he continued, fixing Wathen with his eye, "I will ask you to tell these friends of yours that I did not turn my coat at Chippinge. And that there was nothing in my election which in any degree touched my honour."

The Sergeant looked flurried. He was of those who love to wound, but do not love to fight. And at this moment he wished from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, that he had held his tongue. But unluckily, whether the cloud upon Vaughan's reputation had been his work or not, he had certainly said more than he liked to remember; and, worse still, had said some part of it within the last five minutes, in the hearing of those about him. To retract, therefore, was to dub himself a liar; and he sought refuge, the perspiration standing on his brow, in that half-truth which is at once worse than a lie-and safer.

"I must say, Mr. Vaughan," he said, "that the-the circumstances in which you used the vote given to you by your cousin, and-and the way in which you turned against him after attending a dinner of his supporters-"

"Openly, fairly, and after warning, I turned against him," Vaughan cried, enraged at the show of justice which the accusation wore. "And that, sir, in pursuance of opinions which I had publicly professed. More, I allowed myself to be elected only after I had once refused Lord Lansdowne's offer of the seat! And after, only after, Sir Robert Vermuyden had so treated me that all ties were broken. Sergeant Wathen, I appeal to you again! Was that not so?"

"I know nothing of that," Wathen answered, sullenly.

"Nothing? You know nothing of that?" Vaughan cried.

"No," the Sergeant answered, still more sullenly. "I know nothing of what passed between you and your cousin. I know only that you were present, as I have said, at a dinner of his supporters on the eve of the election, and that on a sudden, at that dinner, you declared yourself against him-with the result that you were elected by the other side!"

For a moment Vaughan stood glowering at him, struck dumb by his denial and by the unexpected plausibility, nay, the unexpected strength of the case against him. He was sure that Wathen knew more, he was sure that if he would he could say more! He was sure that the man was dishonest. But he did not see how he could prove it, and-

The Irish Member laughed. "Well, sir," he said, derisively, "is the explanation, now you've got it, to your mind?"

The taunt stung Vaughan. He took a step forward. The next moment would have seen him commit himself to a foolish action, that could only have led him to Wimbledon Common or Primrose Hill. But in the nick of time a voice stayed him.

"What's this, eh?" it asked, its tone more lugubrious than usual. And Sir Charles Wetherell, who had just descended the stairs from the lobby, turned a dull eye from one disputant to the other. "Can't you do enough damage with your tongues?" he rumbled. "Brawl upstairs as much as you like! That's the way to the Woolsack! But you mustn't brawl here!" And the heavy-visaged man, whose humour had again and again conciliated a House which his coarse invective had offended, once more turned from one to the other. "What is it?" he repeated. "Eh?"

Vaughan hastened to appeal to him. "Sir Charles," he said, "I will abide by your decision! Though I do not know, indeed, that I ought to take any man's decision on a point which touches my honour!"

"Oh!" Wetherell said in an inimitable tone. "Court of Honour, is it?" And he cast a queer look round the circle. "That's it, is it? Well, I dare say I'm eligible. I dare swear I know as much about honour as Brougham about equity! Or the Sergeant there" – Wathen reddened angrily-"about law! Or Captain McShane here about his beloved country! Yes," he continued, amid the unconcealed grins of those of the party whose weak points had escaped, "you may proceed, I think."

"You are a friend, Sir Charles," Vaughan said, in a voice which quivered with anxiety, "you are a friend of Sir Robert Vermuyden's?"

"Well, I won't deny him until I know more!" Wetherell answered quaintly. "What of it?"

"You know what occurred at Chippinge before the election?"

"None better. I was there."

"And what passed between Sir Robert Vermuyden and me?" Vaughan continued, eagerly.

"I think I do," Wetherell answered. "In the main I do."

"Thank you, Sir Charles. Then I appeal to you. You are opposed to me in politics, but you will do me justice. These gentlemen have thought fit to brand me here and now as a turncoat; and, worse, as one who was-who was elected" – he could scarcely speak for passion-"in opposition to Sir Robert's, to my relative's candidates, under circumstances dishonourable to me!"

"Indeed? Indeed? That is serious."

"And I ask you, sir, is there a word of truth in that charge?"

Wetherell had his eyes fixed gloomily on the pavement. He appeared to weigh the matter a moment or two. Then he shook his head.

"Not a word," he said, ponderously.

"You-you bear me out, sir."

"Quite, quite," the other answered slowly, as he took out his snuffbox. "To tell the truth, gentlemen," he continued, in the same melancholy tone, "Mr. Vaughan was fool enough to quarrel with his bread and butter for the sake of the most worthless, damnable and mistaken convictions any man ever held! That's the truth. He showed himself a very perfect fool, but an honourable and an honest fool-and that's a rare thing. I see none here."

No one laughed at the gibe, and he turned to Vaughan, who stood, relieved indeed, but stiff and uncomfortable, uncertain what to do next. "I'll take your arm," he said. "I've saved you," coolly, "from the ragged regiment on my side. Do you take me safe," he continued, with a look towards the lower end of the Hall, "through your ragged regiment outside, my lad!"

Vaughan understood only too well the generous motive which underlay the invitation. But for a moment he hung back.

"I am your debtor, Sir Charles," he said, deeply moved, "as long as I live. But I would like to know before I go," and he raised his head, with a look worthy of Sir Robert, "whether these gentlemen are satisfied. If not-"

"Oh, perfectly," the Sergeant cried, hurriedly. "Perfectly!" And he muttered something about being glad-hear explanation-satisfactory.

But the Irish Member stepped up and held out his hand. "Faith," he said, "there's no man whose word I'd take before Sir Charles's! There's no hiatus in his honour, whatever may be said of his breeches! That's one for you," he added, addressing Wetherell. "I owed you one, my good sir!" And then he turned to Vaughan. "There's my hand, sir! I apologise," he said. "You're a man of honour, and it's mistaken we were!"

"I am obliged to you for your candour," Vaughan said, gratefully.

Half a dozen others raised their hats to him, or shook hands with him frankly. The Sergeant did the same less frankly. But Vaughan saw that he was cowed. Wetherell was Sir Robert Vermuyden's friend, and the Sergeant was Sir Robert's nominee. So he pushed his triumph no farther. With a feeling of gratitude too deep for words, he offered his arm to Sir Charles, and went down the Hall in his company.

By this time the crowd at the lower end had carried their joy and their horseplay elsewhere; and no attempt was made-Vaughan only wished an attempt had been made-to molest Wetherell. They walked across the yard to Parliament Street, as the first sunshine of the day fell on the bridge and the river. Flocks of gulls were swinging to and fro in the clear air above the water, and dumb barges were floating up with the tide. The hub-bub in that part was past and over; at that moment a score of coaches were speeding through the suburbs, bearing to market-town and busy city, ay, and to village greens, where the news was awaited eagerly, the tidings that the Bill had passed the Lower House.

Sir Charles walked a short distance in silence. Then, "I thought some notion of the kind was abroad," he said. "It's as well this happened. What are you going to do about your seat if the Bill pass, young man?"

"I am told that it is pre-empted," Vaughan answered, in a tone between jest and earnest.

"It is. But-"

"Yes, Sir Charles?"

"You should see your own side about it," Wetherell answered gruffly. "I can't say more than that."

"I am obliged to you for that."

"You should be!" Wetherell retorted in a peculiar tone. And with an oath and a strange gesture he disengaged his arm. Halting and wheeling about, he pointed with a shaking hand to the towers of the Abbey, which rose against the blue, beatified by the morning sunshine. "If I said 'batter down those walls, undig the dead, away with every hoary thing of time, the present and the future are enough, and we, the generation that burns the mummies, which three thousand years have spared-we are wiser than all our forbears-' what would you say? You would call me mad. Yet what are you doing? Ay, you, you among the rest! The building that our fathers built, patiently through many hundred years, adding a little here and strengthening there, the building that Hampden and Shrewsbury and Walpole, Chatham and his son, and Canning, and many others tended reverently, repairing here and there, as time required, you, you, who think you know more than all who have gone before you, hurry in ruin to the ground! That you may build your own building, built in a day, to suit the day, and to perish with the day! Oh, mad, mad, mad! Ay,

His voice quavered on the last accent, his chin sank on his breast. He turned wearily and resumed his course. When Vaughan, who did not venture to address him again, parted from him in silence at the door of his house, the fat man's pendulous lip quivered, and a single tear ran down his cheek.

XXVII

WICKED SHIFTS

It was with a lighter heart that Vaughan walked on to Bury Street. There were still, it seemed, faith and honour in the world, and some men who could be trusted. But if he expected much to come of this, if he expected to be received with an ovation on his next appearance at Westminster, he was doomed to disappointment. Wetherell's defence convinced those who heard it; and in time, no doubt, passing from mouth to mouth, would improve the young Member's relations, not only on the floor of the House, but in the lobbies and at Bellamy's. But the English are not dramatic. They have no love for scenes. And no one of those whose silence or whose catcalls had wronged him thought fit to take his hand in cold blood and ask his pardon; nor did any Don Quixote cast down his glove in Westminster Hall and offer to do battle with his traducers. The manner of one man became a shade more cordial; another spoke where he would have nodded. And if Vaughan had risen at this time to speak on any question which he understood he would have been heard upon his merits.

But the change, slow though genial, like the breaking up of an English frost, came too late to do him much service. With the transfer of the Bill to the House of Lords public interest deserted the Commons. They sat, indeed, through the month of September, to the horror of many a country gentleman, who saw in this the herald of evil days; and they debated after a fashion. But the attendance was sparse, and the thoughts and hopes of all men were in another place. Vaughan saw that for all the reputation he could now make the Dissolution might be come already. And with this, and the emptiness of his heart, from which he could no more put the craving for Mary Vermuyden than he could dismiss her image from the retina of his mind, he was very miserable. The void left by love, indeed, was rendered worse by the void left unsatisfied by ambition. Mary's haunting face was with him at his rising, went with him to his pillow, her little hand was often on his sleeve, her eyes often pleaded to his. In his lonely rooms he would pace the floor feverishly, savagely, pestering himself with what might have been; kicking the furniture from his path and-and hating her! For the idea of marriage, once closely presented to man or woman, leaves neither unchanged, leaves neither as it found them, however quickly it be put aside.

Still it was not possible for one who sprang from the governing classes, and was gifted with political instincts, to witness the excitement which moved the whole country during those weeks of September and the early days of October, without feeling his own blood stirred; without sharing to some extent the exhilaration with which the adventurous view the approach of adventures. What would the peers do? All England was asking that question. At Crockford's, in the little supper-room, or at the French Hazard table itself, men turned to put it and to hear the answer. At White's and Boodle's, in the hall of the Athenæum, as they walked before Apsley House, or under the gas-lamps of Pall Mall, men asked that question again and again. It shared with Pasta and the slow-coming cholera-which none the less was coming-the chit-chat of drawing-rooms; and with the next prize fight or with ridicule of the New Police, the wrangling debates of every tavern and posthouse. Would the peers throw out the Bill? Would they-would those doting old Bishops in particular-dare to thwart the People's will? Would they dare to withhold the franchise from Birmingham and Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield? On this husbands took one side, wives the other, families quarrelled. What Croker thought, what Lord Grey threatened, what the Duke had let drop, what Brougham had boasted, how Lady Lyndhurst had sneered, or her husband retorted, what the Queen wished-scraps such as these were tossed from mouth to mouth, greedily received, carried far into the country, and eventually, changed beyond recognition, were repeated in awestruck ears, in county ballrooms and at Sessions.