Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон
Pelham — Complete
CHAPTER XXXIV
An old worshipful gentleman, that had a great estate,
And kept a brave old house at a hospitable rate.
—Old Song.
I think I may, without much loss to the reader, pass in silence over my voyage, the next day, to Dover. (Horrible reminiscence!) I may also spare him an exact detail of all the inns and impositions between that sea-port and London; nor will it be absolutely necessary to the plot of this history, to linger over every mile-stone between the metropolis and Glenmorris Castle, where my uncle and my mother were impatiently awaiting the arrival of the candidate to be.
It was a fine bright evening when my carriage entered the park. I had not seen the place for years; and I felt my heart swell with something like family pride, as I gazed on the magnificent extent of hill and plain that opened upon me, as I passed the ancient and ivy-covered lodge. Large groups of trees, scattered on either side, seemed, in their own antiquity, the witness of that of the family which had given them existence. The sun set on the waters which lay gathered in a lake at the foot of the hill, breaking the waves into unnumbered sapphires, and tinging the dark firs that overspread the margin, with a rich and golden light, that put me excessively in mind of the Duke of—‘s livery.
When I descended at the gate, the servants, who stood arranged in an order so long that it almost startled me, received me with a visible gladness and animation, which shewed me, at one glance, the old fashioned tastes of their master. Who, in these days, ever inspires his servants with a single sentiment of regard or interest for himself or his whole race? That tribe one never, indeed, considers as possessing a life separate from their services to us: beyond that purpose of existence, we know not even if they exist. As Providence made the stars for the benefit of earth, so it made servants for the use of gentlemen; and, as neither stars nor servants appear except when we want them, so I suppose they are in a sort of suspense from being, except at those important and happy moments.
To return—for if I have any fault, it is too great a love for abstruse speculation and reflection—I was formally ushered through a great hall, hung round with huge antlers and rusty armour, through a lesser one, supported by large stone columns, and without any other adornment than the arms of the family; then through an anti-room, covered with tapestry, representing the gallantries of King Solomon to the Queen of Sheba; and lastly, into the apartment honoured by the august presence of Lord Glenmorris. That personage was dividing the sofa with three spaniels and a setter; he rose hastily when I was announced, and then checking the first impulse which hurried him, perhaps, into an unseemly warmth of salutation, held out his hand with a pompous air of kindly protection, and while he pressed mine, surveyed me from head to foot to see how far my appearance justified his condescension.
Having, at last, satisfied himself, he proceeded to inquire after the state of my appetite. He smiled benignantly when I confessed that I was excessively well prepared to testify its capacities (the first idea of all kind-hearted, old-fashioned people, is to stuff you), and, silently motioning to the grey-headed servant who stood in attendance, till receiving the expected sign, he withdrew, Lord Glenmorris informed me that dinner was over for every one but myself, that for me it would be prepared in an instant, that Mr. Toolington had expired four days since, that my mother was, at that moment, canvassing for me, and that my own electioneering qualities were to open their exhibition with the following day.
After this communication there was a short pause. “What a beautiful place this is!” said I, with great enthusiasm. Lord Glenmorris was pleased with the compliment, simple as it was.
“Yes,” said he, “it is, and I have made it still more so than you have yet been able to perceive.”
“You have been planting, probably, on the other side of the park?”
“No,” said my uncle, smiling; “Nature had done every thing for this spot when I came to it, but one, and the addition of that one ornament is the only real triumph which art ever can achieve.”
“What is it?” asked I; “oh, I know—water.”
“You are mistaken,” answered Lord Glenmorris; “it is the ornament of—happy faces.”
I looked up to my uncle’s countenance in sudden surprise. I cannot explain how I was struck with the expression which it wore: so calmly bright and open!—it was as if the very daylight had settled there.
“You don’t understand this at present, Henry,” said he, after a moment’s silence; “but you will find it, of all rules for the improvement of property, the easiest to learn. Enough of this now. Were you not au desespoir at leaving Paris?”
“I should have been, some months ago; but when I received my mother’s summons, I found the temptations of the continent very light in comparison with those held out to me here.”
“What, have you already arrived at that great epoch, when vanity casts off its first skin, and ambition succeeds to pleasure? Why—but thank Heaven that you have lost my moral—your dinner is announced.”
Most devoutly did I thank Heaven, and most earnestly did I betake myself to do honour to my uncle’s hospitality.
I had just finished my repast, when my mother entered. She was, as you might well expect from her maternal affection, quite overpowered with joy, first, at finding my hair grown so much darker, and, secondly, at my looking so well. We spent the whole evening in discussing the great business for which I had been summoned. Lord Glenmorris promised me money, and my mother advice; and I, in my turn, enchanted them, by promising to make the best use of both.
CHAPTER XXXV
Cor. Your good voice, Sir—what say you?
2nd Cit. You shall have it, worthy Sir.
—Coriolanus.
The borough of Buyemall had long been in undisputed possession of the lords of Glenmorris, till a rich banker, of the name of Lufton, had bought a large estate in the immediate neighbourhood of Glenmorris Castle. This event, which was the precursor of a mighty revolution in the borough of Buyemall, took place in the first year of my uncle’s accession to his property. A few months afterwards, a vacancy in the borough occurring, my uncle procured the nomination of one of his own political party. To the great astonishment of Lord Glenmorris, and the great gratification of the burghers of Buyemall, Mr. Lufton offered himself in opposition to the Glenmorris candidate. In this age of enlightenment, innovation has no respect for the most sacred institutions of antiquity. The burghers, for the only time since their creation as a body, were cast first into doubt, and secondly into rebellion. The Lufton faction, horresco referens, were triumphant, and the rival candidate was returned. From that hour the Borough of Buyemall was open to all the world.
My uncle, who was a good easy man, and had some strange notions of free representation, and liberty of election, professed to care very little for this event. He contented himself henceforward, with exerting his interest for one of the members, and left the other seat entirely at the disposal of the line of Lufton, which, from the time of the first competition, continued peaceably to monopolize it.
During the last two years, my uncle’s candidate, the late Mr. Toolington, had been gradually dying of a dropsy, and the Luftons had been so particularly attentive to the honest burghers, that it was shrewdly suspected a bold push was to be made for the other seat. During the last month these doubts were changed into certainty. Mr. Augustus Leopold Lufton, eldest son to Benjamin Lufton, Esq., had publicly declared his intention of starting at the decease of Mr. Toolington; against this personage, behold myself armed and arrayed.
Such is, in brief, the history of the borough, up to the time in which I was to take a prominent share in its interests and events.
On the second day after my arrival at the castle, the following advertisement appeared at Buyemall:—
“To the Independent Electors of the Borough of Buyemall.
“Gentlemen,
“In presenting myself to your notice, I advance a claim not altogether new and unfounded. My family have for centuries been residing amongst you, and exercising that interest which reciprocal confidence, and good offices may fairly create. Should it be my good fortune to be chosen your representative, you may rely upon my utmost endeavours to deserve that honour. One word upon the principles I espouse: they are those which have found their advocates among the wisest and the best; they are those which, hostile alike to the encroachments of the crown, and the licentiousness of the people, would support the real interest of both. Upon these grounds, gentlemen, I have the honour to solicit your votes; and it is with the sincerest respect for your ancient and honourable body, that I subscribe myself your very obedient servant,
“Henry Pelham.”
“Glenmorris Castle,”
Such was the first public signification of my intentions; it was drawn up by Mr. Sharpon, our lawyer, and considered by our friends as a masterpiece: for, as my mother sagely observed, it did not commit me in a single instance—espoused no principle, and yet professed what all parties would allow was the best.
At the first house where I called, the proprietor was a clergyman of good family, who had married a lady from Baker-street: of course the Reverend Combermere St. Quintin and his wife valued themselves upon being “genteel.” I arrived at an unlucky moment; on entering the hall, a dirty footboy was carrying a yellow-ware dish of potatoes into the back room. Another Ganymede (a sort of footboy major), who opened the door, and who was still settling himself into his coat, which he had slipped on at my tintinnabulary summons, ushered me with a mouth full of bread and cheese into this said back room. I gave up every thing as lost, when I entered, and saw the lady helping her youngest child to some ineffable trash, which I have since heard is called “blackberry pudding.” Another of the tribe was bawling out, with a loud, hungry tone—“A tatoe, pa!” The father himself was carving for the little group, with a napkin stuffed into the top button-hole of his waistcoat, and the mother, with a long bib, plentifully bespattered with congealing gravy, and the nectarean liquor of the “blackberry pudding,” was sitting, with a sort of presiding complacency, on a high stool, like Jupiter on Olympus, enjoying rather than stilling the confused hubbub of the little domestic deities, who eat, clattered, spattered, and squabbled around her.
Amidst all this din and confusion, the candidate for the borough of Buyemall was ushered into the household privacy of the genteel Mr. and Mrs. St. Quintin. Up started the lady at the sound of my name. The Reverend Combermere St. Quintin seemed frozen into stone. The plate between the youngest child and the blackberry-pudding, stood as still as the sun in Ajalon. The morsel between the mouth of the elder boy and his fork had a respite from mastication. The Seven Sleepers could not have been spell-bound more suddenly and completely.
“Ah!” cried I, advancing eagerly, with an air of serious and yet abrupt gladness; “how deuced lucky that I should find you all at luncheon. I was up and had finished breakfast so early this morning, that I am half famished. Only think how fortunate, Hardy (turning round to one of the members of my committee, who accompanied me); I was just saying what would I not give to find Mr. St. Quintin at luncheon. Will you allow me, Madam, to make one of your party?”
Mrs. St. Quintin coloured, and faltered, and muttered out something which I was fully resolved not to hear. I took a chair, looked round the table, not too attentively, and said—“Cold veal; ah! ah! nothing I like so much. May I trouble you, Mr. St. Quintin?—Hollo, my little man, let’s see if you can’t give me a potatoe. There’s a brave fellow. How old are you, my young hero?—to look at your mother, I should say two; to look at you, six.”
“He is four next May,” said his mother, colouring, and this time not painfully.
“Indeed!” said I, surveying him earnestly; and then, in a graver tone, I turned to the Reverend Combermere with—“I think you have a branch of your family still settled in France. I met Monsieur St. Quintin, the Due de Poictiers, abroad.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Combermere, “yes, the name is still in Normandy, but I was not aware of the title.”
“No!” said I, with surprise; “and yet (with another look at the boy), it is astonishing how long family likenesses last. I was a great favourite with all the Duc’s children. Do you know, I must trouble you for some more veal, it is so very good, and I am so very hungry.”
“How long have you been abroad?” said Mrs. St. Quintin, who had slipped off her bib, and smoothed her ringlets; for which purposes I had been most adroitly looking in an opposite direction the last three minutes.
“About seven or eight months. The fact is, that the continent only does for us English people to see—not to inhabit; and yet, there are some advantages there, Mr. St. Quintin!—Among others, that of the due respect ancient birth is held in. Here, you know, ‘money makes the man,’ as the vulgar proverb has it.”
“Yes,” said Mr. St. Quintin, with a sigh, “it is really dreadful to see those upstarts rising around us, and throwing every thing that is respectable and ancient into the back ground. Dangerous times these, Mr. Pelham—dangerous times; nothing but innovation upon the most sacred institutions. I am sure, Mr. Pelham, that your principles must be decidedly against these new-fashioned doctrines, which lead to nothing but anarchy and confusion—absolutely nothing.”
“I’m delighted to find you so much of my opinion!” said I. “I cannot endure any thing that leads to anarchy and confusion.”
Here Mr. Combermere glanced at his wife—who rose, called to the children, and, accompanied by them, gracefully withdrew.
“Now then,” said Mr. Combermere, drawing his chair nearer to me,—“now, Mr. Pelham, we can discuss these matters. Women are no politicians,”—and at this sage aphorism, the Rev. Combermere laughed a low solemn laugh, which could have come from no other lips. After I had joined in this grave merriment for a second or two—I hemmed thrice, and with a countenance suited to the subject and the hosts, plunged at once in medias res.
“Mr. St. Quintin,” said I, “you are already aware, I think, of my intention of offering myself as a candidate for the borough of Buyemall. I could not think of such a measure, without calling upon you, the very first person, to solicit the honour of your vote.” Mr. Combermere looked pleased, and prepared to reply. “You are the very first person I called upon,” repeated I.
Mr. Combermere smiled. “Well, Mr. Pelham,” said he, “our families have long been on the most intimate footing.”
“Ever since” cried I, “ever since Henry the Seventh’s time have the houses of St. Quintin and Glenmorris been allied. Your ancestors, you know, were settled in the county before our’s, and my mother assures me that she has read in some old book or another, a long account of your forefather’s kind reception of mine at the castle of St. Quintin. I do trust, Sir, that we have done nothing to forfeit a support so long afforded us.”
Mr. St. Quintin bowed in speechless gratification; at length he found voice. “But your principles, Mr. Pelham?”
“Quite your’s, my dear Sir: quite against anarchy and confusion.”
“But the catholic question, Mr. Pelham?”
“Oh! the catholic question,” repeated I, “is a question of great importance; it won’t be carried—no, Mr. St. Quintin, no, it won’t be carried; how did you think, my dear Sir, that I could, in so great a question, act against my conscience?”
I said this with warmth, and Mr. St. Quintin was either too convinced or too timid to pursue so dangerous a topic any further. I blessed my stars when he paused, and not giving him time to think of another piece of debateable ground, continued, “Yes, Mr. St. Quintin, I called upon you the very first person. Your rank in the county, your ancient birth, to be sure, demanded it; but I only considered the long, long time the St. Quintins and Pelhams had been connected.”
“Well,” said the Rev. Combermere, “well, Mr. Pelham, you shall have my support; and I wish, from my very heart, all success to a young gentleman of such excellent principles.”
CHAPTER XXXVI
More voices!
Sic. How now, my masters, have you chosen him?
Cit. He has our voices, Sir!
—Coriolanus.
From Mr. Combermere St. Quintin’s, we went to a bluff, hearty, radical wine-merchant, whom I had very little probability of gaining; but my success with the clerical Armado had inspirited me, and I did not suffer myself to fear, though I could scarcely persuade myself to hope. How exceedingly impossible it is, in governing men, to lay down positive rules, even where we know the temper of the individual to be gained. “You must be very stiff and formal with the St. Quintins,” said my mother. She was right in the general admonition, and had I found them all seated in the best drawing-room, Mrs. St. Quintin in her best attire, and the children on their best behaviour, I should have been as stately as Don Quixote in a brocade dressing-gown; but finding them in such dishabille, I could not affect too great a plainness and almost coarseness of bearing, as if I had never been accustomed to any thing more refined than I found there; nor might I, by any appearance of pride in myself, put them in mind of the wound their own pride had received. The difficulty was to blend with this familiarity a certain respect, just the same as a French ambassador might have testified towards the august person of George the Third, had he found his Majesty at dinner at one o’clock, over mutton and turnips.
In overcoming this difficulty, I congratulated myself with as much zeal and fervour as if I had performed the most important victory; for, whether it be innocent or sanguinary, in war or at an election, there is no triumph so gratifying to the viciousness of human nature, as the conquest of our fellow beings.
But I must return to my wine-merchant, Mr. Briggs. His house was at the entrance of the town of Buyemall; it stood inclosed in a small garden, flaming with crocuses and sunflowers, and exhibiting an arbour to the right, where, in the summer evenings, the respectable owner might be seen, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, in order to give that just and rational liberty to the subordinate parts of the human commonwealth which the increase of their consequence after the hour of dinner, naturally demands. Nor, in those moments of dignified ease, was the worthy burgher without the divine inspirations of complacent contemplation which the weed of Virginia bestoweth. There as he smoked and puffed, and looked out upon the bright crocuses, and meditated over the dim recollections of the hesternal journal, did Mr. Briggs revolve in his mind the vast importance of the borough of Buyemall to the British empire, and the vast importance of John Briggs to the borough of Buyemall.
When I knocked at the door a prettyish maidservant opened it with a smile, and a glance which the vender of wine might probably have taught her himself after too large potations of his own spirituous manufactories. I was ushered into a small parlour—where sat, sipping brandy and water, a short, stout, monosyllabic sort of figure, corresponding in outward shape to the name of Briggs—even unto a very nicety.
“Mr. Pelham,” said this gentleman, who was dressed in a brown coat, white waistcoat, buff-coloured inexpressibles, with long strings, and gaiters of the same hue and substance as the breeches—“Mr. Pelham, pray be seated—excuse my rising, I’m like the bishop in the story, Mr. Pelham, too old to rise;” and Mr. Briggs grunted out a short, quick, querulous, “he—he—he,” to which, of course, I replied to the best of my cachinnatory powers.
No sooner, however, did I begin to laugh, than Mr. Briggs stopped short—eyed me with a sharp, suspicious glance—shook his head, and pushed back his chair at least four feet from the spot it had hitherto occupied. Ominous signs, thought I—I must sound this gentleman a little further, before I venture to treat him as the rest of his species.
“You have a nice situation here, Mr. Briggs,” said I.
“Ah, Mr. Pelham, and a nice vote too, which is somewhat more to your purpose, I believe.”
‘Oh!’ thought I, ‘I see through you now, Mr. Briggs!’—you must not be too civil to one who suspects you are going to be civil, in order to take him in.
“Why,” said I, “Mr. Briggs, to be frank with you, I do call upon you for the purpose of requesting your vote; give it me, or not, just as you please. You may be sure I shall not make use of the vulgar electioneering arts to coax gentlemen out of their votes. I ask you for your’s as one freeman solicits another: if you think my opponent a fitter person to represent your borough, give your support to him in God’s name: if not, and you place confidence in me, I will, at least, endeavour not to betray it.”
“Well done, Mr. Pelham,” exclaimed Mr. Briggs: “I love candour—you speak just after my own heart; but you must be aware that one does not like to be bamboozled out of one’s right of election, by a smooth-tongued fellow, who sends one to the devil the moment the election is over—or still worse, to be frightened out of it by some stiff-necked proud coxcomb, with his pedigree in his hand, and his acres in his face, thinking he does you a marvellous honour to ask you at all. Sad times these for this free country, Mr. Pelham, when a parcel of conceited paupers, like Parson Quinny (as I call that reverend fool, Mr. Combermere St. Quintin), imagine they have a right to dictate to warm, honest men, who can buy their whole family out and out. I tell you what, Mr. Pelham, we shall never do anything for this country till we get rid of those landed aristocrats, with their ancestry and humbug. I hope you’re of my mind, Mr. Pelham.”
“Why,” answered I, “there is certainly nothing so respectable in Great Britain as our commercial interest. A man who makes himself is worth a thousand men made by their forefathers.”
“Very true, Mr. Pelham,” said the wine-merchant, advancing his chair to me, and then laying a short, thickset finger upon my arm—he looked up in my face with an investigating air, and said:—“Parliamentary Reform—what do you say to that? you’re not an advocate for ancient abuses, and modern corruption, I hope, Mr. Pelham?”
“By no means,” cried I, with an honest air of indignation—“I have a conscience, Mr. Briggs, I have a conscience as a public man, no less than as a private one!”
“Admirable!” cried my host.
“No,” I continued, glowing as I proceeded, “no, Mr. Briggs; I disdain to talk too much about my principles before they are tried; the proper time to proclaim them is when they have effected some good by being put into action. I won’t supplicate your vote, Mr. Briggs, as my opponent may do; there must be a mutual confidence between my supporters and myself. When I appear before you a second time, you will have a right to see how far I have wronged that trust reposed in me as your representative. Mr. Briggs, I dare say it may seem rude and impolitic to address you in this manner; but I am a plain, blunt man, and I disdain the vulgar arts of electioneering, Mr. Briggs.”
“Give us your fist, old boy,” cried the wine merchant, in a transport; “give us your fist; I promise you my support, and I am delighted to vote for a young gentleman of such excellent principles.”
So much, dear reader, for Mr. Briggs, who became from that interview my staunchest supporter. I will not linger longer upon this part of my career; the above conversations may serve as a sufficient sample of my electioneering qualifications: and so I shall merely add, that after the due quantum of dining, drinking, spouting, lying, equivocating, bribing, rioting, head-breaking, promise-breaking, and—thank the god Mercury, who presides over elections—chairing of successful candidateship, I found myself fairly chosen member for the borough of Buyemall.
