A Spectacle Of Corruption Part 25

I knew that my presence would be a hardship for Miriam, but if I wished to solidify my bond with Melbury, I could hardly be seen to stammer excuses when generous offers were made. I must appear to be the most likable person in the world to him, so that when I happened to mention that I was not quite honest about one or two things-my name, my religion, my political inclinations, my money-he would not react with much displeasure. So I told him I was honored and would arrive most punctually.

"Very good. I think you'll like the company. Some very good Tories, you know. Men of the Church and their supporters. Old-money men, who feel the pinch of the stockjobbers and corrupt politicians. I promise you, they will have much to say about the latest developments."

"Some of which I find most perplexing," I ventured. I had told myself a hundred times I would not broach this subject, that it was foolish, even mad, to do so, but here in the darkness of the coach, where he could not even see my face, I took a false comfort in my sense of anonymity. With the easiest, most casual voice I could muster (and because of all this mustering, it must have sounded as false as gold-painted lead), I said, "What do you feel about the mob's a.s.sociation of you with this Weaver fellow?"

Melbury let out a barking laugh. Not a moment of hesitation. Nothing to suggest that he knew who I was and only waited for the right time to make his revelation. I could, for the moment, believe that Miriam had not betrayed my confidence.

"Weaver," he repeated. "It is a strange thing to what the mob will attach itself. The Whigs are to blame, of course, for embarra.s.sing themselves at his trial, and the Tory papers cannot help but press the advantage when it dangles so temptingly in front of them."

"So you do not feel any kinship or affinity with this fellow."

"Let us be blunt, Evans. If I can take some advantage from the mob linking me with a renegade Jew, if I can strengthen the Church and push back the corrupt stockjobbers and foreigners, then I shall do so, but I should never break bread with the fellow. If he were to cross my path, I'd call the constable and take my hundred and fifty like any other man."

"Even if he is innocent, as the mob believes?"

"Innocent or guilty, I'd feel no disquiet to see him hang. You are new enough to London that you do not always know how things work. I can tell you that these thieftakers are all scoundrels, sir. They will happily send an innocent to hang that they might get a small bounty for the conviction. Jonathan Wild is only the most respectable of them, and Weaver would have the world believe that he is honorable, but that business with the murder reveals the truth."

This conversation should serve as a fine reminder, I told myself, when I forgot who I was and believed myself Matthew Evans. I could not become him, and Melbury was not my friend. He was merely someone from whom I wanted something.

"It is all a game, you know," he continued. "You make the mob believe that you think as they think. You get their votes and then you forget about them for seven years, that you may do some good. We did not make these rules that promote corruption. The Whigs did that. But we must live with them or die by them, and if I can use Whig trickery to run off the Whigs themselves, I shall not hesitate to do so."

"That's rather a sour view, is it not?"

"You saw the election procession, I presume."

I told him I had.

"That is our system, Mr. Evans. We haven't the Jamaican luxury of dropping our votes in a coconut brought from hut to hut by some naked African beauty. In London, it is King Mob who rules, and we must give his majesty a good show or he will have all our heads off."

"You told me once you thought the election but a spectacle of corruption. I believed you only said it because you were disordered."

He laughed. "No, I said it because it cheers to me to think of it as such. Spectacle can be orchestrated, chaos cannot. Take this Jew, Weaver, as an example. He believes he runs wild and dodges the law and the government, but we all use him-Whigs, Tories, all. He is but our puppet, and which party pulls the strings the hardest shall have its way with him."

I looked out the fist-sized window of the carriage for a moment. "For the nonce," I said, in an effort to change the subject, "I wonder about our current business?"

"Our current business is a delicate one. I should have sent my agent to order it, but he is not the most lionhearted man upon the earth, and we are now dealing with a group that requires some resolve. It is a voting club, sir, and they are not to be shown a sign of weakness. I aim to have this club, and I shall. Visiting them myself might keep the wheels effectively greased, and I thought having you by my side might keep my spirits up. I trust this is all amenable to you."

I a.s.sured him it was, and so we traveled in silence once more until we reached a coffeehouse on Gravel Lane. Here we decamped, entered the structure, and found ourselves in a disorderly place of business. The term coffeehouse coffeehouse is often used somewhat loosely, but here was one in which I doubted the eponymous beverage had ever been seen. It was full of rugged fellows of the lower middling orders, wh.o.r.es, and a band of fiddlers. The room smelled strongly of old beer and freshly boiled beef, heaps of which, covered with turnips and parsley, were upon every plate at every table. is often used somewhat loosely, but here was one in which I doubted the eponymous beverage had ever been seen. It was full of rugged fellows of the lower middling orders, wh.o.r.es, and a band of fiddlers. The room smelled strongly of old beer and freshly boiled beef, heaps of which, covered with turnips and parsley, were upon every plate at every table.

We had hardly been inside an instant when a fellow rose to approach us with a most serious look on his face. He was dressed plainly, but for an abundance of lace and bright silver b.u.t.tons. He had a long nose that pointed downward, a long chin that pointed upward, and eyes that were like two raisins.

"Ah, Mr. Melbury. I recognized you the instant you walked through the door, sir, the very instant, for I have seen you speak more than once. I am Job Highwall, sir, as you may have guessed, and I am most eager to talk business with you."

Melbury introduced me to Highwall, mentioning me as the man who had saved him from Whiggish ruffians and beaten the Whig butcher at the hustings. There could be no doubt that he had asked me along to lend an air of menace, but if Highwall felt himself endangered, he showed no sign of it.

We took a seat in a quiet corner of the coffeehouse. Highwall called for strong beer-the very thing for business, he said-and urged us to waste no time, for time was a most precious thing.

"Allow me to repeat what you already know, sir, and I shall thank you for your kindness. I represent the Red Fox Voting Club, Mr. Melbury, a most respectable voting club. You may look to elections past and you will always hear one thing again and again: The Red Fox delivers what it promises. I have heard that other clubs will promise the same to all parties in an election and deliver nothing to any. Not the Red Fox, sir. We have offered our services in every election since the days of the second Charles, and never once have we given a Westminster candidate cause to regret trusting us."

"Your reputation is unimpeachable," Melbury said.

"I should hope it is, Mr. Melbury, for the Red Fox does what it promises. I make you a pledge, sir, on behalf of the Red Fox, you may depend upon it. We are more regular and more dependable than the mail coach, sir."

"I have not come to question your reputation," Melbury said.

"There is no reason you should, sir. No reason at all."

"You and I are in agreement on that head. It is merely the numbers that we must discuss."

"Ah," said Mr. Highwall. "The numbers are the thing, sir. You may talk of this and talk of that, but it shall always be that the numbers are the very thing. Can you deny it?"

"I cannot," Melbury said. "I should like to hear these numbers."

"For that I cannot blame you. And so I shall tell you the numbers. Here are things as they stand, sir. We have three hundred and fifty men in this club, and they are three hundred and fifty men you may depend upon to do as I promise. They will deliver, sir, to a man. We are not a club that promises three hundred and fifty and delivers two hundred and fifty. No, we offer three hundred and fifty, and you will have it, sir, providing the numbers are agreeable."

"And what are the numbers, Mr. Highwall?"

"You must understand that to a man, sir, to a man, these three hundred and fifty I promise are Tories. They are Tories in their hearts and in the privacy of their innermost minds. I cannot tell you how many have said to me that if they could choose, they would choose to provide their service to Mr. Griffin Melbury, but you know as well as any man that business is the thing, and they will take their business to Mr. Hertcomb-who has made us an offer, you know-with a heavy heart if need be."

"I understand," said Melbury, not a little frustrated now. "I should like to know the cost of these three hundred and fifty Tories."

"You may depend upon the loyalty of these men, sir, these three hundred and fifty men, for the compensation of a mere one hundred pounds."

Melbury set down his strong beer. "That is rather a lot, don't you think?"

"I don't think so at all, Mr. Melbury, indeed I don't. Only consider what you are getting. Should you like to pay twenty or thirty pounds for the same number but, when the dust clears, as they say, receive only fifty votes for your money?"

"You ask more than five shillings a man. It is rather a lot."

"It is a lot, but you pay for reputation, you know. Reputation. I cannot say what Mr. Hertcomb's man offered, but I promise you I cannot go back to these men with less than one hundred pounds and look them in the eye. They will say, How could you take this offer when Mr. Hertcomb's man has offered so much more? What answer might I give them?"

"You might tell them that they are Tories to a man and should like to see me elected."

"Well, if this were preference, you would have a point, sir. But this is business, you know."

"I will offer you sixty pounds."

"Sixty pounds!" Highwall screamed as though Melbury had drawn a blade. "Sixty pounds! You shock me, Mr. Melbury. Indeed you do. I believe I must postpone this conversation, for you have so disordered me with your offer that I must be bled and purged before I can continue. Sixty pounds is the insultingest offer in the world. I cannot go to the boys with sixty pounds. Nor a penny less than ninety, for that matter."

"I propose seventy," Melbury said.

"The Red Fox Voting Club is worth far more than seventy pounds, but I honor you, sir, so I will accept eighty pounds in the interests of supporting your run for the House." And the two men shook hands. In this way, in the course of a few minutes, Mr. Melbury secured nearly a tenth of the votes he needed to win his seat.

Having concluded his business with Mr. Highwall, Melbury had enjoyed as much time in the company of the Red Fox Voting Club leader as he cared to, and he suggested that we retire to a far more fitting location. He chose Rosethorn's Coffeehouse on Lowman's Pond Row, a place known for its congregation of Tories of the better sort. Indeed, when we walked through the door, Melbury was fairly thronged by a company of well-wishers, but unlike men of the lower orders, these knew well enough to leave off after a time and let the fellow be. Once he had made his rounds and introduced me to far more men than I could possibly have recalled, we took our seats.

He promised me that their claret was of the highest quality, so I drank as he suggested, and we ordered a cold fowl to wrest our appet.i.tes down.

"Does the business with the voting club shock you?" he asked.

"Should it?"

"Well, you are from the West Indies, after all, and I suppose life is much simpler there. You are probably unaccustomed to ordering things in quite so circuitous a manner there."

"I a.s.sure you," I said, without malice, "that bribery has found its way to the West Indies."

"Oh, such an ugly word, bribery. I hate to call it so. I think of it as a mere transaction, and there is nothing wrong with a transaction, surely. I only sting over the cost. You know, in the last election, I believe I could have secured the same votes for ten pounds, but these clubs know what they're about. Even at so dear a price, it is far cheaper than canva.s.sing three hundred and fifty men all the way to the hustings."

"Are there other, equally delicate, methods of securing votes?" I asked.

Melbury only winked. "The election is young yet," he said. "We shall see what develops. But think only of what is in the balance: honor, integrity, the future of the kingdom."

"May I impose on you to ask a question?" I ventured. All night I had struggled with myself as to how I would raise the issue. I could find no natural or organic way to bring it into our conversation, and at last I settled for being abrupt. I was, after all, new to the nation, and if Mr. Melbury believed I was an ignorant West Indian, I might comfortably avail myself of his beliefs.

He seemed only too eager to play professor at the university of modern politics. "I shall endeavor to answer any questions you might have," he a.s.sured me.

"To what extent do you depend upon those who are Jacobitically inclined for your votes?"

The eager smile was gone in an instant. Melbury stared as though I had dropped a t.u.r.d on his dinner plate. Though the light was poor in the coffeehouse, I believe he paled. "Please," he said. "If you must speak that word in public and in my company, do so in the most quiet of whispers. You will make no friends here by even mentioning that such people as you alluded to exist in the world."

"Is it as dangerous as that to even mention them?"

"It is. You know, Hertcomb and Dogmill need but the slightest excuse to paint us all as a gang of traitors in service to the false king. We must do all in our power to keep that weapon from their hands." He took a sip from his goblet. "Why do you ask, sir?"

"I am merely curious."

He leaned forward and spoke in the most hushed of voices. "Allow me to be blunt, Mr. Evans. I like you, sir. You have my grat.i.tude for your service the other day, and you will always have my esteem. But if you are, yourself, a man who supports the political camp you have mentioned, I must beg you to never speak to me again, appear by my side, or attend any event at which I am present. I do not mean to be severe, but I will not have the taint of those reckless mutineers trouble my reputation or my political aims."

"I thank you for your honesty," I said, "but I can promise you most earnestly that I am not myself of that persuasion. I ask because these people are spoken of so frequently as being in league with the Tories. I wished to know if they were a group to be courted or not."

"Not openly, of course. If they wish to cast their votes for me, I shall be silently grateful, but I shall never speak a word to encourage them or to make them believe that I should ever support their monarch against my own. Do not mistake me-I believe His Majesty has made some grievous errors, particularly in regard to his ministry and his support of the Whiggish party-but I should rather a Protestant fool than a canny Papist."

I saw I could ask no more on this matter, and I should have changed the subject at once had Melbury not taken that task upon himself. "We have had a trying experience with Mr. Highwall," he said, with some levity. "Let us unburden ourselves with some recreation."

Perhaps because of my own proclivities, I thought that Melbury was suggesting that we should find for ourselves a pair of willing women, and I admit I rejoiced at the notion-not because I was thus inclined myself but because I wished to see proof that this man was a poor husband to Miriam. I saw proof of this soon enough, but not how I imagined, for the vice of Melbury's choice was not whoring but gaming. He led us to the back of the tavern, where several tables were set up and gentlemen played at whist, a game I confess I have never been able to fathom. Elias once swore to me that he could teach me the game in less than a week's time, but as cards are meant to serve as amus.e.m.e.nt, this seemed to me a most foreboding promise.

Nevertheless, there was more to be mastered here than my enjoyment, and if I wished to keep Melbury as warm to me as he had become, I had no choice but to be a good sport in his diversion. I therefore sat by his side as he took up an empty chair at a table. He introduced me to his companions, all of whom seemed to have mastered the acrobatic task of managing simultaneously a pot of drink, a box of snuff, and a handful of cards.

Melbury began at once to involve himself in his game, seeming to forget I was in the room with him. Indeed, the experience was rather mortifying, for in the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes I went from being his particular confidant to nothing more than an attendant. He made quips with his fellow cardplayers, he threw bits of money around, he drank with great enthusiasm. Once or twice he would turn to me and make some sort of quip but then, in an instant, forget about me again. I could hardly blame him. Though he had haggled with Highwall over a matter of twenty pounds, now, in less than an hour, he lost more than three hundred. During one hand, he thought he should win a mighty pile of money, but one of his opponents won unexpectedly. I could see the loss. .h.i.t Melbury hard, but he turned over the money with what looked for all the world like indifference and thought nothing of throwing more coins into the fire for the next hand.

After nearly an hour of this treatment, watching Melbury surrender far more in losses than I should dream of having earned in two years combined, I thought it most prudent I take myself elsewhere, before Melbury began to see me not as a valued companion but nothing more than another toadeater.

As I attempted to devise the most effective way to make known my decision, a man I had never seen before came and leaned in between Melbury and myself. He was of middle years, and even in the light of the coffeehouse I observed that the stubble of his beard grew in gray. He was a thin man with sunken eyes and sharp cheeks and as many teeth missing as present. He wore an old suit, clean but threadbare, and he carried himself with a strangely artificial dignity.

"Ah, Mr. Melbury," he said, as he thrust his way between us. "How good to see you, sir. I had hoped to find you here, and here you are."

Melbury's face darkened. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said to the cardplayers. He then grabbed this man by the coat sleeve and pulled him across the room.

I knew not the best way to respond, but I certainly did not want to sit like a mute blockhead with the whist players, so I rose to follow Melbury. He now sat at a table with his new companion, and as I approached, I heard him speak in hushed tones.

"How dare you come to me here?" he said. "You may be certain that I shall instruct Mr. Rosethorn to deny you entrance in future." He turned to me. "Ah, Evans. I may ask you to do for me now what you did in Covent Garden the other day."

Certainly my presumption had not done me harm.

"That is not very good-natured of you, sir," the fellow said to Melbury. "You have already denied me entrance to your home, and a man must do his business where he can; indeed he must. And you and I have business, Mr. Melbury. You cannot deny it."

"What business we might have is not for a public place such as this," he said. "Nor can it interfere with me when I am meeting with gentlemen."

"I should like to do our business privately, indeed I would, but you have not made it possible to do so. And as to your meeting, it appeared to me to involve your casting to the wind that which might be better applied elsewhere."

"How I spend my time is not your concern," he hissed.

"No, indeed. Your time is nothing to me, and you may use it as you like. It is your money: That is my concern. It is very unkind of you, sir, to spend it so recklessly when there are those who await an already tardy repayment."

"I must ask you to leave," Melbury said.

The fellow shook his head. "That is not so good-natured of you, sir. Indeed, it is not. You know I might be far more insistent than I have been, but I have been both kind and patient in light of your status. But I may not be kind and patient in a permanent way, if you catch my meaning." Here he paused and looked over at me. "t.i.tus Miller at your service, sir. May I inquire your name?"

"Have you no manners?" Melbury nearly shouted.

"I believe I have quite good manners, Mr. Melbury, for I was taught them by my grandmother. I am polite and deferential, and I pay what I owe. I see no harm in wishing to know a gentleman's name, and unless there be some reason why I cannot know, I shall think you very ill-natured for not telling me."

I could see that Melbury would not yield his ground and speak my name, and I did not wish that it should become so contested an issue, so I resolved to end the matter myself. "I am Matthew Evans," I said bluntly.

"Well, Mr. Evans, do you count yourself a friend to Mr. Melbury?"

"I have not known him long, but I believe I may aspire to that station."

"If you are a friend to him, you might wish to a.s.sist him with his embarra.s.sments. Indeed you might."

I could see why Melbury had such little patience with this fellow. "I believe Mr. Melbury's affairs are his to speak of, and if he wishes my a.s.sistance in any matter, he may speak to me without your permission."

"I fail to see why a man should not be good-natured if he can be," Miller said, "and you are choosing to be ill-natured, which is a thing I do not love. I shall not speak to you of the precise nature of Mr. Melbury's embarra.s.sments, as you do not seem to want to hear them. I only say that if you are his friend, you will offer him some a.s.sistance. As I best recollect, his other friends have done so in the past, but they are perhaps not available to do so now."

"Miller, I shall have you removed if you do not leave of your own accord."

He rose. "I am displeased it has come to that, but I suppose there is no helping it. I shall go then, sir, but I think you may find that our business together has taken a turn in an altogether new direction. I do not love to be ill-natured, but a man must do his business as best he can."

The next night I had one of my appointed meetings with Elias. Before I could even begin to speak, he met me with a broad grin. "I see that you may wear all the disguises you like, but you cannot contain your nature."

"What do you mean?" I asked, as I took a seat.

He slid a Tory newspaper toward me. In it was the story of the great hero Matthew Evans, who had recently saved Mr. Melbury from an attacking Whig ruffian. Now he had stepped forward to save the life of an unnamed Whig wh.o.r.e who had set about selling her virtue for votes. When one customer determined that his vote was worth more than the lady would acknowledge, Mr. Evans presented himself and, without regard for party affiliation, sent the villain running.

I returned the paper to Elias. "I had no idea these events had become so widely known."