THE PRIME MINISTER (46 page)

‘Mother,’ John Fletcher had said, ‘you
would break Arthur’s heart if he heard you speak in that way, and I am sure you would drive him from Longbarns. Keep it to yourself.’ The old woman had shaken her head angrily, but she had endeavoured to do as she had been bid.

‘Isn’t your brother riding that horse a little rashly?’ Reginald Cotgrave said to John Fletcher in the hunting field one day.

‘I didn’t observe,’ said John; ‘but whatever
horse he’s on he always rides rashly.’ Arthur was mounted on a long, raking thorough-bred black animal, which he had bought himself about a month ago, and which, having been run at steeplechases, rushed at every fence as though he were going to swallow it His brother had begged him to put some rough-rider up till the horse could be got to go quietly, but Arthur had persevered. And during the
whole of this day the squire had been in a tremor, lest there should be some accident.

‘He used to have a little more judgment, I think,’ said Cotgrave. ‘He went at that double just now as hard as the brute could tear. If the horse hadn’t done it all, where would he have been?’

‘In the further ditch, I suppose. But you see the horse did do it all.’

This was all very well as an answer to Reginald
Cotgrave, – to whom it was not necessary that Fletcher should explain the circumstances. But the squire had known as well as Cotgrave that his brother had been riding rashly, and he had understood the reason why. ‘I don’t think a man ought to break his neck,’ he said, ‘because he can’t get everything that he wishes.’ The two brothers were standing then together before the fire in the squire’s
own room, having just come in from hunting.

‘Who is going to break his neck?’

‘They tell me that you tried to to-day.’

‘Because I was riding a pulling horse. I’ll back him to be the biggest leaper and the quickest horse in Herefordshire.’

‘I dare say, – though for the matter of that the chances are very much against it But a man shouldn’t ride so as to have those things said of him.’

‘What
is a fellow to do if he can’t hold a horse?’

‘Get off him.’

‘That’s nonsense, John!’

‘No, it’s not. You know what I mean very well. If I were to lose
half my property tomorrow, don’t you think it would cut me up a good deal?’

‘It would me, I know.’

‘But what would you think of me if I howled about it?’

‘Do I howl?’ asked Arthur angrily.

‘Every man howls who is driven out of his ordinary
course by any trouble. A man howls if he goes about frowning always.’

‘Do I frown?’

‘Or laughing.’

‘Do I laugh?’

‘Or galloping over the country like a mad devil who wants to get rid of his debts by breaking his neck.
Æquam memento
¹⁶
– You remember all that, don’t you?’

‘I remember it; but it isn’t so easy to do it?’

‘Try. There are other things to be done in life except getting married.
You are going into Parliament’

‘I don’t know that.’

‘Gresham tells me there isn’t a doubt about it. Think of that. Fix your mind upon it. Don’t take it only as an accident, but as the thing you’re to live for. If you’ll do that, – if you’ll so manage that there shall be something to be done in Parliament which only you can do, you won’t ride a runaway horse as you did that brute to-day.’ Arthur
looked up into his brother’s face almost weeping. ‘We expect much of you, you know. I’m not a man to do anything except be a good steward for the family property, and keep the old house from falling down. You’re a clever fellow, – so that between us, if we both do our duty, the Fletchers may still thrive in the land. My house shall be your house, and my wife your wife, and my children your children.
And then the honour you win shall be my honour. Hold up your head, – and sell that beast.’ Arthur Fletcher squeezed his brother’s hand and went away to dress.

About a month after this affair with the runaway horse Arthur Fletcher went to Greshambury, preparatory to his final sojurn at Silverbridge for the week previous to his election. Greshambury, the seat of Francis Gresham, Esq., who was a great man in these parts, was about twenty miles from Silverbridge, and the tedious work of canvassing the electors could
not therefore be done from thence; – but he spent a couple of pleasant days with his old friend, and learned what was being said and what was being done in and about the borough. Mr Gresham was a man, not as yet quite forty years of age, very popular, with a large family, of great wealth, and master of the county hounds. His father had been an embarrassed man, with a large estate; but this Gresham
had married a lady with immense wealth, and had prospered in the world. He was not an active politician. He did not himself care for Parliament, or for the good things which political power can give; and was on this account averse to the Coalition. He thought that Sir Orlando Drought and the others were touching pitch and had defiled themselves. But he was conscious that in so thinking he was one
of but a small minority; and, bad as the world around him certainly was, terrible as had been the fall of the glory of old England, he was nevertheless content to live without loud grumbling as long as the farmers paid him their rent, and the labourers in his part of the country did not strike for wages, and the land when sold would fetch thirty years’ purchase. He had not therefore been careful
to ascertain that Arthur Fletcher would pledge himself to oppose the Coalition before he proffered his assistance in this matter of the borough. It would not be easy to find such a candidate, or perhaps possible to bring him in when found. The Fletchers had always been good Conservatives, and were proper people to be in Parliament. A Conservative in Parliament is, of course, obliged to promote a great
many things which he does not really approve. Mr Gresham quite understood that. You can’t have tests and qualifications, rotten boroughs and the divine right of
kings, back again. But as the glorious institutions of the country are made to perish, one after the other, it is better that they should receive the coup de grace tenderly from loving hands than be roughly throttled by Radicals. Mr Gresham
would thank his stars that he could still preserve foxes down in his own country, instead of doing any of this dirty work, – for let the best be made of such work, still it was dirty, – and was willing, now as always, to give his assistance, and if necessary to spend a little money, to put a Fletcher into Parliament and to keep a Lopez out.

There was to be a third candidate. That was the first
news that Fletcher heard. ‘It will do us all the good in the world,’ said Mr Gresham. ‘The rads in the borough are not satisfied with Mr Lopez. They say they don’t know him. As long as a certain set could make it be believed that he was the Duke’s nominee they were content to accept him; – even though he was not proposed directly by the Duke’s people in the usual way. But the Duke has made himself
understood at last. You have seen the Duke’s letter?’ Arthur had not seen the Duke’s letter, which had only been published in the
Silverbridge Gazette
of that week, and he now read it, sitting in Mr Gresham’s magistrate’s-room, as a certain chamber in the house had been called since the days of the present squire’s great-grandfather.

The Duke’s letter was addressed to his recognized man of business
in those parts, and was as follows:

Carl ton Terrace,—March, 187—.

MY DEAR MR MORETON

(Mr Moreton was the successor of one Mr Fothergill, who had reigned supreme in those parts under the old Duke.)

I am afraid that my wishes with regard to the borough and the forthcoming election there of a member of Parliament are not yet clearly understood, although I endeavoured to declare them when I was
at Gatherum Casde. I trust that no elector will vote for this or that gentleman with an idea that the return of any special candidate will please me. The ballot will of course prevent me or any other man from knowing how an elector may vote;
¹⁷
– but I beg to assure the electors generally that should they think fit to return a member pledged to oppose the Government of which I form a part, it would
not in any way change my cordial feelings towards the town. I may perhaps be allowed to add that, in my opinion, no elector can do his duty except by voting for the candidate whom he thinks best qualified to serve the country. In regard to the gentlemen who are now before the constituency, I have no feeling for one rather than for the other, and had I any such feeling I should not wish it to actuate
the vote of a single elector. I should be glad if this letter could be published so as to be brought under the eyes of the electors generally.

Yours faithfully,

OMNIUM.

When the Duke said that he feared that his wishes were not understood, and spoke of the inefficacy of his former declaration, he was alluding of course to the Duchess and to Mr Spnigeon. Mr Sprugeon guessed that it might be
so, and, still wishing to have the Duchess for his good friend, was at once assiduous in explaining to his friends in the borough that even this letter did not mean anything. A Prime Minister was bound to say that kind of thing! But the borough, if it wished to please the Duke, must return Lopez in spite of the Duke’s letter. Such was Mr Sprugeon’s doctrine. But he did not carry Mr Sprout with him.
Mr Sprout at once saw his opportunity, and suggested to Mr Du Boung, the local brewer, that he should come forward. Du Boung was a man rapidly growing into provincial eminence, and jumped at the offer. Consequently there were three candidates. Du Boung came forward as a Conservative prepared to give a cautious, but very cautious, support to the Coalition.
¹⁸
Mr Du Boung in his printed address said
very sweet things of the Duke generally. The borough was blessed by the vicinity of the Duke. But, looking at the present perhaps unprecedented crisis in affairs, Mr Du Boung was prepared to give no more than a very cautious support to the Duke’s Government. Arthur Fletcher read Mr Du Boung’s address immediately after the Duke’s letter.

‘The more the merrier,’ said Arthur.

Just so. Du Boung
will not rob you of a vote, but he will cut the ground altogether from under the other man’s feet. You see that as far as actual political programme goes there isn’t much to choose between any of you. You are all Government men.’

‘With a difference.’

‘One man in these days is so like another,’ continued Gresham sarcastically, ‘that it requires good eyes to see the shades of the colours.’

‘Then
you’d better support Du Boung,’ said Arthur.

‘I think you’ve just a turn in your favour. Besides, I couldn’t really carry a vote myself. As for Du Boung, I’d sooner have him than a foreign cad like Lopez.’ Then Arthur Fletcher frowned and Mr Gresham became confused, remembering the catastrophe about the young lady whose story he had heard. ‘Du Boung used to be plain English as Bung before he
got rich and made his name beautiful,’ continued Gresham, ‘but I suppose Mr Lopez does come of foreign extraction.’

‘I don’t know what he comes from,’ said Arthur moodily. ‘They tell me he’s a gentleman. However, as we are to have a contest, I hope he mayn’t win.’

‘Of course you do. And he shan’t win. Nor shall the great Du Boung. You shall win, and become Prime Minister, and make me a peer.
Would you like papa to be Lord Greshambury?’ he said to a little girl, who then rushed into the room.

‘No, I wouldn’t. I’d like papa to give me the pony which the man wants to sell out in the yard.’

‘She’s quite right, Fletcher,’ said the squire. ‘I’m much more likely to be able to buy them ponies as simple Frank Gresham than I should be if I had a lord’s coronet to pay for.’

This was on a
Saturday, and on the following Monday Mr Gresham drove the candidate over to Silverbridge and started him on his work of canvassing. Mr Du Boung had been busy ever since Mr Sprout’s brilliant suggestion had been made, and Lopez had been in the field even before him. Each one of the candidates called at the house of every elector in the borough, – and every man in the borough was an elector. When they
had been at work for four or five days each candidate assured the borough that he had already received promises of votes sufficient to insure his success, and each candidate was as anxious as ever, – nay was more rabidly anxious than ever, – to secure the promise of a single vote. Hints were made by honest citizens of the pleasure they would have in supporting this or that gentleman, – for the
honest citizens assured one gentleman after the other of the satisfaction they had in seeing so all-sufficient a candidate
in the borough, – if the smallest pecuniary help were given them, even a day’s pay, so that their poor children might not be injured by their going to the poll. But the candidates and their agents were stern in their replies to such temptations. ‘That’s a dodge of that rascal
Sprout,’ said Sprugeon to Mr Lopez. ‘That’s one of Sprout’s men. If he could get half-a-crown from you it would be all up with us.’ But though Sprugeon called Sprout a rascal, he laid the same bait both for Du Boung and for Fletcher, – but laid it in vain. Everybody said that it was a very clean election. ‘A brewer standing, and devil a glass of beer!’ said one old elector who had remembered better
things when the borough never heard of a contest.

On the third day of his canvass Arthur Fletcher with his gang of agents and followers behind him met Lopez with his gang in the street. It was probable that they would so meet, and Fletcher had resolved what he would do when such a meeting took place. He walked up to Lopez, and with a kindly smile offered his hand. The two men, though they had
never been intimate, had known each other, and Fletcher was determined to show that he would not quarrel with a man because that man had been his favoured rival. In comparison with that other matter this affair of the candidature was of course trivial. But Lopez who had, as the reader may remember, made some threat about a horsewhip, had come to a resolution of a very different nature. He put his
arms akimbo, resting his hands on his hips, and altogether declined the proffered civility. ‘You had better walk on,’ he said, and then stood, scowling, on the spot till the other should pass by. Fletcher looked at him for a moment, then bowed and passed on. At least a dozen men saw what had taken place, and were aware that Mr Lopez had expressed his determination to quarrel personally with Mr Fletcher,
in opposition to Mr Fletcher’s expressed wish for amity. And before they had gone to bed that night all the dozen knew the reason why. Of course there was someone then at Silverbridge clever enough to find out that Arthur Fletcher had been in love with Miss Wharton, but that Miss Wharton had lately been married to Mr Lopez. No doubt the incident added a pleasurable emotion to the excitement
caused by the election at Silverbridge generally. A personal quarrel is attractive everywhere. The expectation of such an occurrence will bring
together the whole House of Commons. And of course this quarrel was very attractive in Silverbridge. There were some Fletcherites and Lopezites in the quarrel; as there were able Du Boungites, who maintained that when gentlemen could not canvass without
quarrelling in the streets they were manifestly unfit to represent such a borough as Silverbridge in Parliament; – and that therefore Mr Du Boung should be returned.