Rachel Ray Part 46

"I don't believe a word bad of him, except that he oughtn't to take huff in that way at one word that a girl says to him. He ought to have known that you couldn't write just what letter you liked, as he could."

"We won't say anything more about that. But as long as you don't think him bad--"

"I don't think him bad. I don't think him bad at all. I think him very good. I'd give all I have in the world to bring him back again.

So I would."

"Dear mamma!"

And now Rachel moved away from her chair and came up to her mother.

"And I know it's been all my fault. Oh, my child, I am so unhappy!

I don't get half an hour's sleep at night thinking of what I have done;--I, that would have given the very blood out of my veins to make you happy."

"No, mamma; it wasn't you."

"Yes, it was. I'd no business going away to other people after I had told him he might come here. You, who had always been so good too!"

"You mustn't say again that you wish he hadn't come here."

"Oh! but I do wish it, because then he would have been nothing to you. I do wish he hadn't ever come, but now I'd do anything to bring him back again. I believe I'll go to him and tell him that it was my doing."

"No, mamma, you won't do that."

"Why should I not? I don't care what people say. Isn't your happiness everything to me?"

"But I shouldn't take him if he came in that way. What! beg him to come and have compa.s.sion on me, as if I couldn't live without him! No, mother; that wouldn't do. I do love him. I do love him. I sometimes think I cannot live without his love. I sometimes feel as though stories about broken hearts might be true. But I wouldn't have him in that way. How could he love me afterwards, when I was his wife? But, mamma, we'll be friends again;--shall we not? I've been so unhappy that you should have thought ill of him!"

That night the mother and daughter shared the same bed together, and Mrs. Ray was able to sleep. She would not confess to herself that her sorrow had been lightened, because nothing had been said or done to lessen that of her daughter; but on the morrow Rachel came and hovered round her again, and the bitterness of Mrs. Ray's grief was removed.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ELECTION AT BASLEHURST.

Towards the end of September the day of the election arrived, and with it arrived Luke Rowan at Baslehurst. The vacancy had been occasioned by the acceptance of the then sitting member of that situation under the crown which is called the stewardship of the manor of Helpholme. In other words an old gentleman who had done his life's work retired and made room for some one more young and active.

The old member had kept his seat till the end of the session, just leaving time for the moving for a new writ, and now the election was about to be held, almost at the earliest day possible. It had been thought that a little reflection would induce the Baslehurst people to reject the smiles of the Jew tailor from London, and therefore as little time for reflection was given to them as possible. The wealth, the liberal politics, the generosity, and the successes of Mr. Hart were dinned into their ears by a succession of speeches, and by an overpowering flight of enormous posters; and then the Jewish hero, the tailor himself, came among them, and astonished their minds by the ease and volubility of his speeches. He did not p.r.o.nounce his words with any of those soft slushy Judaic utterances by which they had been taught to believe he would disgrace himself. His nose was not hookey, with any especial hook, nor was it thicker at the bridge than was becoming. He was a dapper little man, with bright eyes, quick motion, ready tongue, and a very new hat. It seemed that he knew well how to canva.s.s. He had a smile and a good word for all,--enemies as well as friends. The task of abusing the Cornbury party he left to his committee and backers. He spent a great deal of money,--throwing it away in every direction in which he could do so, without laying himself open to the watchful suspicion of the other side. He ate and drank like a Christian, and only laughed aloud when some true defender of the Protestant faith attempted to scare him away out of the streets by carrying a gammon of bacon up on high.

Perhaps his strength as a popular candidate was best shown by his drinking a pint of Tappitt's beer in the little parlour behind the bar at the Dragon.

"He beats me there," said Butler Cornbury, when he heard of that feat.

But the action was a wise one. The question as to Tappitt's brewery and Tappitt's beer was running high at Baslehurst, and in no stronger way could Mr. Hart have bound to him the Tappitt faction than by swallowing in public that pint of beer. "Let me have a small gla.s.s of brandy at once," said Mr. Hart to his servant, having retired to his room immediately after the performance of the feat. His const.i.tution was good, and I may as well at once declare that before half an hour had pa.s.sed over his head he was again himself, and at his work.

The question of Tappitt's beer and Tappitt's brewery was running high in Baslehurst, and had gotten itself involved in the mouths of the people of Baslehurst, not only with the loves and sorrows of poor Rachel Ray, but with the affairs of this election. We know how Tappitt had been driven to declare himself a stanch supporter of the Jew. He had become very stanch,--stanch beyond the promising of his own vote,--stanch even to a final sitting on the Jew's committee, and an active canva.s.ser on the Jew's behalf. His wife, whose pa.s.sions were less strong than his own and her prudence greater, had remonstrated with him on the matter. "You can vote against Cornbury, if you please," she had said, "but do it quietly. Keep your toe in your pump and say nothing. Just as we stand at present about the business of Rowan's, it would almost be better that you shouldn't vote at all." But Tappitt was an angry man, at this moment uncontrollable by the laws of prudence, and he went into these election matters heart and soul, to his wife's great grief. Butler Cornbury, or Mrs. Butler Cornbury,--it was all the same to him which,--had openly taken up Rowan's part in the brewery controversy.

A rumour had reached Tappitt that the inmates of Cornbury Grange had loudly expressed a desire for good beer! Under such circ.u.mstances it was not possible for him not to rush to the fight. He did rush into the thick of it, and boasted among his friends that the Jew was safe.

I think he was right,--right at any rate as regarded his own peace of mind. Nothing gives a man such spirit for a fight, as the act of fighting. During these election days he was almost regardless of Rowan. He was to second the nomination of the Jew, and so keen was he as to the speech that he would make, and as to the success of what he was doing against Mr. Cornbury, that he was able to talk down his wife, and browbeat Honyman in his own office. Honyman was about to vote for Butler Cornbury, was employed in the Cornbury interest, and knew well on which side his bread was b.u.t.tered. Sharpit and Longfite were local attorneys for the Jew, and in this way Tappitt was thrown into close intercourse with that eminent firm. "Of course we wouldn't interfere," said Sharpit confidently to the brewer. "We never do interfere with the clients of another firm. We never did such a thing yet, and don't mean to begin. We find people drop into us quick enough without that. But in a friendly way, Mr. Tappitt, let me caution you, not to let your fine business be injured by that young sharper."

Mr. Tappitt found this to be very kind,--and very sensible too. He gave no authority to Sharpit on that occasion to act for him; but he thought of it, resolving that he would set his shoulders firmly to that wheel as soon as he had carried through this business of the election.

But even in the matter of the election everything did not go well with Tappitt. He had appertaining to his establishment a certain foreman of the name of Worts, a heavy, respectable, useful man, educated on the establishment by Bungall and bequeathed by Bungall to Tappitt,--a man by no means ambitious of good beer, but very ambitious of profits to the firm, a servant indeed almost invaluable in such a business. But Tappitt had ever found him deficient in this,--that he had a certain objectionable pride in having been Bungall's servant, and that as such he thought himself absolved from the necessity of subserviency to his latter master. Once a day indeed he did touch his cap, but when that was done he seemed to fancy that he was almost equal to Mr. Tappitt upon the premises. He never shook in his shoes if Tappitt were angry, nor affected to hasten his steps if Tappitt were in a hurry, nor would he even laugh at Tappitt's jokes, if,--as was too usual,--such jokes were not mirth-moving in their intrinsic nature. Clearly he was not at all points a good servant, and Tappitt in some hours of his prosperity had ventured to think that the brewery could go on without him. Now, since the day in which Rowan's treachery had first loomed upon Tappitt, he had felt much inclined to fraternize on easier terms with his foreman.

Worts when he touched his cap had been received with a smile, and his advice had been asked in a flattering tone,--not demanded as belonging to the establishment by right. Then Tappitt began to talk of Rowan to his man, and to speak evil things of him, as was natural, expecting a reciprocity of malignity from Worts. But Worts on such occasions had been ominously silent. "H--m, I bean't so zure o'

that," Worts had once said, thus differing from his master on some fundamental point of Tappitt strategy as opposed to Rowan strategy.

"Ain't you?" said Tappitt, showing his teeth. "You'd better go now and look after those men at the carts." Worts had looked after the men at the carts, but he had done so with an idea in his head that perhaps he would not long look after Tappitt's men or Tappitt's carts. He had not himself been ambitious of good beer, but the idea had almost startled him into acquiescence by its brilliancy.

Now Worts had a vote in the borough, and it came to Tappitt's ears that his servant intended to give that vote to Mr. Cornbury. "Worts,"

said he, a day or two before the election, "of course you intend to vote for Mr. Hart?"

Worts touched his cap, for it was the commencement of the day.

"I don't jest know," said he. "I was thinking of woting for the young squoire. I've know'd him ever since he was born, and I ain't never know'd the Jew gentleman;--never at all."

"Look here, Worts; if you intend to remain in this establishment I shall expect you to support the liberal interest, as I support it myself. The liberal interest has always been supported in Baslehurst by Bungall and Tappitt ever since Bungall and Tappitt have existed."

"The old maister, he wouldn't a woted for ere a Jew in Christendom,--not agin the squoire. The old maister was allays for the Protestant religion."

"Very well, Worts; there can't be two ways of thinking here, that's all; especially not at such a time as this, when there's more reason than ever why those connected with the brewery should all stand shoulder to shoulder. You've had your bread out of this establishment, Worts, for a great many years."

"And I've 'arned it hard;--no man can't say otherwise. The sweat o' my body belongs to the brewery, but I didn't ever sell 'em my wote;--and I don't mean." Saying which words, with an emphasis that was by no means servile, Worts went out from the presence of his master.

"That man's turning against me," said Tappitt to his wife at breakfast time, in almost mute despair.

"What! Worts?" said Mrs. Tappitt.

"Yes;--the ungrateful hound. He's been about the place almost ever since he could speak, for more than forty years. He's had two pound a week for the last ten years;--and now he's turning against me."

"Is he going over to Rowan?"

"I don't know where the d---- he's going. He's going to vote for Butler Cornbury, and that's enough for me."

"Oh, T., I wouldn't mind that; especially not just now. Only think what a help he'll be to that man!"

"I tell you he shall walk out of the brewery the week after this, if he votes for Cornbury. There isn't room for two opinions here, and I won't have it."

For a moment or two Mrs. Tappitt sat mute, almost in despair. Then she took courage and spoke out.

"T.," said she, "it won't do."

"What won't do?"

"All this won't do. We shall be ruined and left without a home. I don't mind myself; I never did; but think of the girls! What would they do if we was turned out of this?"

"Who's to turn you out?"

"I know. I see it. I am beginning to understand. T., that man would not go against you and the brewery if he didn't know which way the wind is blowing. Worts is wide awake,--quite wide; he always was. T., you must take the offer Rowan has made of a regular income and live retired. If you don't do it,--I shall!" And Mrs. Tappitt, as she spoke the audacious words, rose up from her chair, and stood with her arms leaning upon the table.

"What!" said Tappitt, sitting aghast with his mouth open.