"And its own reward!" he retorted. They had passed the Cross, they were by this time high on the hill, with one accord they came to a stand. "However, I will think it over," he continued. "I will think it over, and what a cousin may, a cousin shall."
"A cousin may much when he is Lord Audley."
"A poor man in a fine coat! A butterfly in an east wind." He removed his curly-brimmed hat and stood gazing over the prospect, over the wide valley that far and near gleamed with many a sheet of flood-water. "Have you ever thought, Mary, what that means?" he continued with feeling. "To be the shadow of a name! A ghost of the past! To have for home a ruin, and for lands a few poor farms-in place of all that we can see from here! For all this was once ours. To live a poor man among the rich! To have nothing but-"
"Opportunities!" she answered, her voice betraying how deeply she was moved-for she too was an Audley. "For, with all said and done, you start where others end. You have no need to wait for a hearing. Doors stand open to you that others must open. Your name is a passport-is there a Stafford man who does not thrill to it? Surely these things are something. Surely they are much?"
"You would make me think so!" he exclaimed.
"Believe me, they are."
"They would be if I had your enthusiasm!" he answered, moved by her words. "And, by Jove," gazing with admiration at her glowing face, "if I had you by me to spur me on there's no knowing, Mary, what I might not try! And what I might not do!"
Womanlike, she would evade the crisis which she had provoked. "Or fail to do!" she replied. "Perhaps the most worthy would be left undone. But I must go now," she continued. "I have to give my uncle his medicine. I fear I am late already."
"When shall I see you again?" he asked, trying to detain her.
"Some day, I have no doubt. But good-bye now! And don't forget Mr. Colet! Good-bye!"
He stood awhile looking after her, then he turned and went down the hill. By the time he was at the place where he had met her he was glad that she had broken off the interview.
"I might have said too much," he reflected. "She's handsome enough to turn any man's head! And not so cold as she looks. And she spells safety. But there's no hurry-and she's inclined to be kind, or I am mistaken! That clown, Basset, too, has got his dismissal, I fancy, and there's no one else!"
Presently his thoughts took another turn. "What maggots women get into their heads!" he muttered. "That pestilent Colet-I'm glad the rector acted on my hint. But there it is; when a woman meddles with politics she's game for the first spouter she comes across! Fine eyes, too, and the Audley blood! With a little drilling she would hold her own anywhere."
Altogether, he found the walk to the place where he had left his carriage pleasant enough and his thoughts satisfactory. With Mary and safety on one side, and Lady Adela and a plum on the other-it would be odd if he did not bring his wares to a tolerable market.
CHAPTER XIX
THE CORN LAW CRISIS
He had been right in his forecast when he told Mary that a political crisis was at hand. That which had been long whispered, was beginning to be stated openly in club and market-place. The Corn Laws, the support of the country, the mainstay, as so many thought, of the Constitution, were in danger; and behind closed doors, while England listened without, the doctors were met to decide their fate.
Potatoes! The word flew from mouth to mouth that wet autumn, from town to country, from village to village. Potatoes! The thing seemed incredible. That the lordly Corn Laws, the bulwark of the landed interest, the prop of agriculture, that had withstood all attacks for two generations, and maintained themselves alike against high prices and the Corn Law League-that these should go down because a vulgar root like the potato had failed in Ireland-it was a thing passing belief. It couldn't be. With the Conservatives in power, it seemed impossible.
Yet it was certain that the position was grave, if not hopeless. Never since the Reform Bill had there been such meetings of the Cabinet, so frequent, so secret. And strange things were said. Some who had supported Peel yet did not trust him, maintained that this was the natural sequel of his measures, the point to which he had been moving through all the years of his Ministry. Potatoes-bah! Others who still supported him, yet did not trust him, brooded nervously over his action twenty years before, when he had first resisted and then accepted the Catholic claims. Tories and Conservatives alike, wondered what they were there to conserve, if such things were in the wind; they protested, but with growing misgiving, that the thing could not be. While those among them who had seats to save and majorities to guard, met one another with gloomy looks, whispered together in corners and privately asked themselves what they would do-if he did. Happy in these circumstances were those who like Mottisfont, the father, were ready to retire; and still happier those who like Mottisfont, the son, knew the wishes of their constituents and could sing "John Barleycorn, my Joe, John," with no fear of being jilted.
Their anxieties-they were politicians-were mainly personal-and selfish. But there were some, simple people like Mr. Stubbs at Riddsley, who really believed, when these rumors reached them, that the foundations of things were breaking up, and that the world in which they had lived was sinking under their feet. Already in fancy they saw the glare of furnaces fall across the peaceful fields. Already they heard the tall mill jar and quiver where the cosey homestead and the full stackyard sprawled. They saw a weakly race, slaves to the factory bell, overrun the land where the ploughman still whistled at his work and his wife suckled healthy babes. To these men, if the rumors they heard were true, if Peel had indeed sold the pass, it meant the loss of all. It meant the victory of coal and cotton, the ruling of all after the Manchester pattern, the reign of Cash, the Lord, and ten per cent. his profit. It meant the end of the old England they had loved.
Not that Stubbs said this at Riddsley, or anything like it. He smiled and kept silence, as became a man who knew much and was set above common rumor. The landlord of the Audley Arms, the corndealer, the brewer, the saddler went away from him with their fears allayed merely by the way in which he shrugged his shoulders. At the farmers' ordinary he had never been more cheerful. He gave the toast of "Horn and Corn, gentlemen! And when potatoes take their place you may come and tell me!" And he gave it so heartily that the farmers went home, market-peart and rejoicing, laughed at their doubting neighbors, and quoted a hundred things that Lawyer Stubbs had not said.
But a day or two later the lawyer sustained an unpleasant shock. He had been little moved by Lord John's manifesto-the declaration in which the little Whig Leader, seeing that the Government hesitated, had plumped for total repeal. That was in the common course of things. It had heartened him, if anything. It was natural. It would bring the Tories into line and put an end to trimming. But this-this which confronted him one morning when he opened his London paper was different. He read it, he held his breath, he stood aghast a long minute, he swore. After a few minutes he took his hat and the newspaper, and went round to the house in which Lord Audley lived when he was at Riddsley.
It was a handsome Georgian house, built of brick with stone facings, and partly covered with ivy. A wide smooth lawn divided it from the road. The occupant was a curate's widow who lived there with her two sisters and eked out their joint means by letting the first floor to her landlord. For "The Butterflies" was Audley property, and the clergyman's widow was held to derogate in no way by an arrangement which differed widely from a common letting of lodgings. Mrs. Jenkinson was stout, short, and fussy, her sisters were thin, short, and precise, but all three overflowed with words as kindly as their deeds. Good Mrs. Jenkinson, in fact, who never spoke of his lordship behind his back but with distant respect, sometimes forgot in his presence that he was anything but a "dear young man," and when he had a cold, would prescribe a posset or a warming-pan with an insistence which at times amused and more often bored him.
Stubbs found his lordship just risen from a late lunch, and in his excitement, the lawyer forgot his manners. "By G-d, my lord!" he cried, "he's resigned."
Audley looked at him with displeasure. "Who's resigned?" he asked coldly.
"Peel!"
Against that news the young man was not proof. He caught the infection. "Impossible!" he said, rising to his feet.
"It's true! It's in the Morning Post, my lord! He saw the Queen yesterday. She's sending for Lord John. It's black treachery! It's the blackest of treachery! With a majority in the House, with the peers in his pocket, the country quiet, trade improving, everything in his favor, he's sold us-sold us to Cobden on some d-d pretext of famine in Ireland!"
Audley did not answer at once. He stood deep in thought, his eyes on the floor, his hands in his pockets. At length, "I don't follow it," he said. "How is Russell, who is in a minority, to carry repeal?"
"Peel's promised his support!" Stubbs cried. Like most honest men, he was nothing if not thorough. "You may depend upon it, my lord, he has! He won't deceive me again. I know him through and through, now. He'll take with him Graham and Gladstone and Herbert, his old tail, Radicals at heart every man of them, and he's the biggest!"
"Well," Audley said slowly, "he might have done one thing worse. He might have stayed in and passed repeal himself!"
"Good G-d!" the lawyer cried, "Judas wouldn't have done that! All he could do, he has done. He has let in corn from Canada, cattle from Heaven knows where, he has let in wool. All that he has done. But even he has a limit, my lord! Even he! The man who was returned to support the Corn Laws-to repeal them. Impossible!"
"Well?" Audley said. "There'll be an election, I suppose?"
"The sooner the better," Stubbs answered vengefully. "And we shall see what the country thinks of this. In Riddsley we've been ready for weeks-as you know, my lord. But a General Election? Gad! I only hope they will put up some one here, and we will give them such a beating as they've never had!"
Audley pondered. "I suppose Riddsley is safe," he said.
"As safe as Burton Bridge, my lord!"
The other rattled the money in his pocket. "As long as you give them a lead, Stubbs, I suppose? But if you went over? What then?"
Stubbs opened his eyes. "Went over?" he ejaculated.
"Oh, I don't mean," my lord said airily, "that you're not as staunch as Burton Bridge. But supposing you took the other side-it would make a difference, I suppose?"
"Not a jot!" the lawyer answered sturdily.
"Not even if the two Mottisfonts sided with Peel?"
"If they did the old gentleman would never see Westminster again," Stubbs cried, "nor the young one go there!"
"Or," Audley continued, setting his shoulders against the mantel-shelf, and smiling, "suppose I did? If the Beaudelays interest were cast for repeal? What then?"
"What then?" Stubbs answered. "You'll pardon me, my lord, if I am frank. Then the Beaudelays influence, that has held the borough time out of mind, that returned two members before '32, and has returned one since-there'd be an end of it! It would snap like a rotten stick. The truth is we hold the borough while we go with the stream. In fair weather when it is a question of twenty votes one way or the other, we carry it. And you've the credit, my lord."
Audley moved his shoulders restlessly. "It's all I get by it," he said. "If I could turn the credit into a snug place of two thousand a year, Stubbs-it would be another thing. Do you know," he continued, "I've often wondered why you feel so strongly on the corn-taxes?"
"You asked me that once before, my lord," the agent answered slowly. "All that I can say is that more things than one go to it. Perhaps the best answer I can make is that, like your lordship's influence in the borough, it's part sentiment and part tradition. I have a picture in my mind-it's a picture of an old homestead that my grandfather lived in and died in, and that I visited when I was a boy. That would be about the middle nineties; the French war going, corn high, cattle high, a good horse in the gig and old ale for all comers. There was comfort inside and plenty without; comfort in the great kitchen, with its floor as clean as a pink, and greened in squares with bay leaves, its dresser bright with pewter, its mantel with Toby jugs! There was wealth in the stackyard, with the poultry strutting and scratching, and more in the byres knee-deep in straw, and the big barn where they flailed the wheat! And there were men and maids more than on two farms to-day, some in the house, some in thatched cottages with a run on the common and wood for the getting. I remember, as if they were yesterday, hot summer afternoons when there'd be a stillness on the farm and all drowsed together, the bees, and the calves, and the old sheep-dog, and the only sounds that broke the silence were the cluck of a hen, or the clank of pattens on the dairy-floor, while the sun fell hot on the orchard, where a little boy hunted for damsons! That's what I often see, my lord," Stubbs continued stoutly. "And may Peel protect me, if I ever raise a finger to set mill and furnace, devil's dust and slave-grown cotton, in place of that!"
My lord concealed a yawn. "Very interesting, Stubbs," he said. "Quite a picture! Peace and plenty and old ale! And little Jack Horner sitting in a corner! No, don't go yet, man. I want you." He made a sign to Stubbs to sit down, and settling his shoulders more firmly against the mantel-shelf, he thrust his hands deeper into his trouser-pockets. "I'm not easy in my mind about John Audley," he said. "I'm not sure that he has not found something."
Stubbs stared. "There's nothing to find," he said. "Nothing, my lord! You may be sure of it."
"He goes there."
"It's a craze."
"It's a confoundedly unpleasant one!"
"But harmless, my lord. Really harmless."
The younger man's impatience darkened his face, but he controlled it-a sure sign that he was in earnest. "Tell me this," he said. "What evidence would upset us? You told me once that the claim could be reopened on fresh evidence. On what evidence?"
"I regard the case as closed," Stubbs answered stubbornly. "But if you put the question-" he seemed to reflect-"the point at issue, on which the whole turned, was the legitimacy of your great-grandfather, my lord, Peter Paravicini Audley's son. Mr. John's great-grandfather was Peter Paravicini's younger brother. The other side alleged, but could not produce, a family agreement admitting that the son was illegitimate. Such an agreement, if Peter Paravicini was a party to it, if it was proved, and came from the proper custody, would be an awkward document and might let in the next brother's descendants-that's Mr. John. But in my opinion, its existence is a fairy story, and in its absence, the entry in the register stands good."
"But such a document would be fatal?"
"If it fulfilled the conditions it would be serious," the lawyer admitted. "But it does not exist," he added confidently.
"And yet-I'm not comfortable, Stubbs," Audley rejoined. "I can't get John Audley's face out of my mind. If ever man looked as if he had his enemy by the throat, he looked it; a d-d disinheriting face I thought it! I don't mind telling you," the speaker continued, some disorder in his own looks, "that I awoke at three o'clock this morning, and I saw him as clearly as I see you now, and at that moment I wouldn't have given a thousand pounds for my chance of being Lord Audley this time two years!"
"Liver!" said Stubbs, unmoved. "Liver, my lord, asking your pardon! Nothing else-and the small hours. I've felt like that myself. Still, if you are really uneasy there is always a way out, though it may be impertinent of me to mention it."
"The old way?"
"You might marry Miss Audley. A handsome young lady, if I may presume to say so, of your own blood and name, and no disparagement except in fortune. After Mr. John, she is the next heir, and the match once made would checkmate any action on his part."
"I am afraid I could not afford such a marriage," Audley said coldly. "But I am to you. As for this news-" he flicked the newspaper that lay on the table-"it may be true or it may not. If it is true, it will alter many things. We shall see. If you hear anything fresh let me know."
Stubbs said that he would and took his leave, wondering a little, but having weightier things on his mind. He sought his home by back ways, for he did not wish to meet Dr. Pepper or Bagenal the brewer, or even the saddler, until he had considered what face he would put on Peel's latest move. He felt that his reputation for knowledge and sagacity was at stake.
Meanwhile his employer, left alone, fell to considering, not what face he should put upon the matter, but how he might at this crisis turn the matter and the borough to the best account. Certainly Stubbs was discouraging, but Stubbs was a fool. It was all very well for him; he drew his wages either way. But a man of the world did not cling to the credit of owning a borough for the mere name of the thing. If he were sensible he looked to get something more from it than that. And it was upon occasions such as this that the something more was to be had by those who knew how to go about the business.
Here, in fact, was the moment, if he was the man.
CHAPTER XX
PETER'S RETURN
Not a word or hint of John Audley's illness had come to Basset's ears. At the time of the alarm he had been in London, and it was not until some days later that he took his seat in the morning train to return to Stafford. On his way to town, and for some days after his arrival, he had been buoyed up by plans, nebulous indeed, but sufficient. He came back low in his mind and in poor spirits. The hopes, if not the aspirations, which Colet's enthusiasm had generated in him had died down, and the visit to Francis Place had done nothing to revive them.
Some greatness in the man, a largeness of ideas, an echo of the revolutionary days when the sanest saw visions, Basset was forced to own. But the two stood too far apart, the inspired tailor and the country squire, for sympathy. They were divided by too wide a gulf of breeding and prejudice to come together. Basset was not even a Radical, and his desire to improve things, and to better the world, fell very far short of the passion of humanity which possessed the aged Republican-the man who for half a century had been so forward in all their movements that his fellows had christened him the "Old Postilion."
Nothing but disappointment, therefore, had come of the meeting. The two had parted with a little contempt on the one side, a sense of failure on the other. If a man could serve his neighbors only in fellowship with such, if the cause which for a few hours had promised to fill the void left by an unhappy love, could be supported only by men who held such opinions, then Basset felt that the thing was not for him. For six or seven days he went up and down London at odds with himself and his kind, and ever striving to solve a puzzle, the answer to which evaded him. Was the hope that he might find a mission and found a purpose on Colet's lines, was it just the desire to set the world right that seized on young men fresh from college? And if this were so, if this were all, what was he to do? Whither was he to turn? How was he going to piece together the life which Mary had broken? How was he going to arrange his future so that some thread of purpose might run through it, so that something of effort might still link together the long bede-roll of years?
He found no answer to the riddle. And it was in a gloomy, unsettled mood, ill-content with himself and the world, that he took his seat in the train. Alas, he could not refrain from recalling the May morning on which he had taken his seat in the same train with Mary. How ill had he then appreciated her company, how little had he understood, how little had he prized his good fortune! He who was then free to listen to her voice, to meet her eyes, to follow the changes of her mood from grave to gay! To be to her-all that he could! And that for hours, for days, for weeks!
He swore under his breath and sat back in the shadow of the corner. And a man who entered late, and saw that he kept his eyes shut, fancied that he was ill; and when he muttered a word under his breath, asked him if he spoke.
"No," Basset replied rather curtly. And that he might be alone with his thoughts he took up a newspaper and held it before him. But not a word did he read. After a long interval he looked over the journal and met the other's eyes.
"Surprising news this," the stranger said. He had the look of a soldier, and the bronzed face of one who had lived under warm skies.
Basset murmured that it was.
"The Whigs have a fine opportunity," the other pursued. "But I am not sure that they will use it."
"You are a Whig, perhaps?"
The stranger smiled. "No," he replied. "I am not. I have lived so long abroad that I belong to no party. I am an Englishman."
"Ah?" Basset rejoined, curiosity beginning to stir in him. "That's rather a fine idea."
"Apparently it's a novel one. But it seems natural to me. I have lived for fifteen years in India and I have lost touch with the cant of parties. Out there, we do honestly try to rule for the good of the people; their prosperity is our interest. Here, during the few weeks I have spent in England I see things done, not because they are good, but because they suit a party, or provide a cry, or put the other side in a quandary."
"There's a good deal of that, I suppose."
"Still," the stranger continued, "I know a great man, and I know a fine thing when I see them. And I fancy that I see them here!" He tapped his paper.
"Has Lord John formed his ministry, then?"
"No, I am not sure that he will. I am not thinking of him, I am thinking of Peel."
"Oh! Of Peel?"
"He has done a fine thing! As every man does who puts what is right before what is easy. May I tell you a story of myself?" the Indian continued. "Some years ago in the Afghan war I was unlucky enough to command a small frontier post. My garrison consisted of two companies and six or seven European officers. The day came when I had to choose between two courses. I must either hold my ground until our people advanced, or I must evacuate the post, which had a certain importance-and fall back into safety. The men never dreamed of retiring. The officers were confident that we could hold out. But we were barely supplied for forty days, and in my judgment no reinforcement was possible under seventy. I made my choice, breached the place, and retired. But I tell you, sir, that the days of that retreat, with sullen faces about me, and hardly a man in my company who did not think me a poltroon, were the bitterest of my life. I knew that if the big-wigs agreed with them I was a ruined man, and after ten years service I should go home disgraced. Fortunately the General saw it as I saw it, and all was well. But-" he looked at Basset with a wry smile-"it was a march of ten days to the base, and to-day the sullen looks of those men come back to me in my dreams."
"And you think," Basset said-the other's story had won his respect-"that Peel has found himself in such a position?"
"To compare great issues with small, I do. I suspect that he has gone through an agony-that is hardly too strong a word-such as I went through. My impression is that when he came into office he was in advance of his party. He saw that the distress in the country called for measures which his followers would accept from no one else. He believed that he could carry them with him. Perhaps, even then, he held a repeal of the Corn Laws possible in some remote future; perhaps he did not, I don't know. For suddenly there came on him the fear of this Irish famine-and forced his hand."
"But don't you think," Basset asked, "that the alarm is premature?" A dozen times he had heard the famine called a flam, a sham, a bite, anything but a reality.
"You have never seen a famine?" the other replied gravely. "You have never had to face the impossibility of creating food where it does not exist, or of bringing it from a distance when there are no roads. I have had that experience. I have seen people die of starvation by hundreds, women, children, babes, when I could do nothing because steps had not been taken in time. God forbid that that should happen in Ireland! If the fear does not outrun the dearth, God help the poor! Now I am told that Peel witnessed a famine in Ireland about '17 or '18, and knows what it is."
"You have had interesting experiences?"
"The experience of every Indian officer. But the burden which rests on us makes us alive to the difficulties of a statesman's position. I see Peel forced-forced suddenly, perhaps, to make a choice; to decide whether he shall do what is right or what is consistent. He must betray his friends, or he must betray his country. And the agony of the decision is the greater if he has it burnt in on his memory that he did this thing once before, that once before he turned his back on his party-and that all the world knows!"
"I see."
"If a man in that position puts self, consistency, reputation all behind him-believe me, he is doing a fine thing."
Basset assented. "But you speak," he added, "as if Sir Robert were going to do the thing himself-instead of merely standing aside for others to do it."
"A distinction without much difference," the other rejoined. "Possibly it will turn out that he is the only man who can do it. If so, he will have a hard row to hoe. He will need the help of every moderate man in the country, if he is not to be beaten. For whether he succeeds or fails, depends not upon the fanatics, but upon the moderate men. I don't know what your opinions are?"
"Well," Basset said frankly, "I am not much of a party-man myself. I am inclined to agree with you, so far."
"Then if you have any influence, use it. Unfortunately, I am out of it for family reasons."
Basset looked at the stranger. "You are not by any chance Colonel Mottisfont?" he said.
"I am. You know my brother? He is member for Riddsley."
"Yes. My name is Basset."
"Of Blore? Indeed. I knew your father. Well, I have not cast my seed on stony ground. Though you are stony enough about Wootton under Weaver."
"True, worse luck. Your brother is retiring, I hear?"
"Yes, he has just horse sense, has Jack. He won't vote against Peel. His lad has less and will take his place and vote old Tory. But there, I mustn't abuse the family."
They had still half an hour to spend together before Basset got out at Stafford. He had time to discover that the soldier was faced by a problem not unlike his own. His service over, he had to consider what he would do. "All I know," the Colonel said breezily, "is that I won't do nothing. Some take to preaching, others to Bath, but neither will suit me. But I'll not drift. I kept from brandy pawnee out there, and I am going to keep from drift here. For you, you're a young man, Basset, and a hundred things are open to you. I am over the top of the hill. But I'll do something."
"You have done something to-day," Basset said. "You have done me good."
Later he had time to think it over during the long journey from Stafford to Blore. He drove by twisting country roads, under the gray walls of Chartley, by Uttoxeter and Rocester. Thence he toiled uphill to the sterile Derbyshire border, the retreat of old families and old houses. He began to think that he had gained some ideas with which he could sympathize, ideas which were at one with Mary Audley's burning desire to help, while they did not clash with old prejudices. If he threw himself into Peel's cause, he would indeed be seen askance by many. He would have to put himself forward after a fashion that gave him the goose-flesh when he thought of it. A landowner, he would have to go against the land. But he would not feel, in his darker moods, that he was the dupe of cranks and fanatics. He saw Peel as Mottisfont had pictured him, as a man putting all behind him except the right; and his heart warmed to the picture. Many would fall away, few would be staunch. From this ship, as from every sinking ship, the rats would flee. But so much the stronger was the call.
The result was that the Peter Basset who descended at the porch of the old gabled house, that sat low and faced east in the valley under Weaver, was a more hopeful man than he who had entered the train at Euston. A purpose, a plan-he had gained these, and the hope that springs from them.
He had barely doffed his driving-coat, however, before his thoughts were swept in another direction. On the hall table lay two letters. He took up one. It was from Colet and written in deep dejection. "The barber was a Tory and had given him short notice. Feeling ran high in the town, and other lodgings were not to be had. The Bishop had supported the rector's action, and he saw no immediate prospect of further work." He did not ask for shelter, but it was plain that he was at his wit's end, and more than a little surprised by the storm which he had raised.
Basset threw down the letter. "He shall come here," he thought. "What is it to me whom he marries?" Many solitary hours spent in the streets of London had gone some way towards widening Peter's outlook.
He took up the second letter. It was from John Audley, and before he had read three lines, he rang the bell and ordered that the post-chaise which had brought him from Stafford should be kept: he would want it in the morning. John Audley wrote that he had been very ill-he was still in bed. He must see Basset. The matter was urgent, he had something to tell him. He hinted that if he did not come quickly it might be too late.