Rachel Ray Part 47

"Yes, T.; if you don't think of your family I must. What I'm saying Mr. Honyman has said before; and indeed all Baslehurst is saying the same thing. There's an offer made to you that will put your family on a footing quite genteel,--no gentlefolks in the county more so; and you, too, that are getting past your work!"

"I ain't getting past my work."

"I shouldn't say so, T., if it weren't for your own good,--and if I'm not to know about that, who is? It's all very well going about electioneering; and indeed it's just what gentlefolks is fit for when they're past their regular work; And I'm sure I shan't begrudge it so long as it don't cost anything; but that's not work you know, T."

"Ain't I in the brewery every day for seven or eight hours, and often more?"

"Yes, T., you are; and what's like to come of it if you go on so?

What would be my feelings if I saw you brought into the house struck down with apoplepsy and paralepsy because I let you go on in that way when you wasn't fit? No, T.; I know my duty and I mean to do it. You know Dr. Haustus said only last month that you were that bilious--"

"Pshaw! bilious! it's enough to make any man bilious!"

"Or any dog," he would have added, had he thought of it. Thereupon Tappitt rushed away from his wife, back into his little office, and from that soon made his way to the Jew's committee-room at the Dragon, at which he was detained till nearly eleven o'clock at night.

"It's a kind of work in which one has to do as much after dinner as before," he said to his wife when he got back.

"For the matter of that," said she, "I think the after-dinner work is the chief part of it."

On the day of the election Luke Rowan was to be seen standing in the High Street talking to Butler Cornbury the candidate. Rowan was not an elector, for the cottages had not been in his possession long enough to admit of his obtaining from them a qualification to vote; but he was a declared friend of the Cornbury party. Mrs. Butler Cornbury had sent a message to him saying that she hoped to see him soon after the election should be over: on the following day or on the next, and Butler Cornbury himself had come to him in the town.

Though absent from Baslehurst Rowan had managed to declare his opinions before that time, and was suspected by many to have written those articles in the "Baslehurst Gazette" which advocated the right of any const.i.tuency to send a Jew to Parliament if it pleased, but which proved at the same time that any const.i.tuency must be wrong to send any Jew to Parliament, and that the const.i.tuency of Baslehurst would in the present instance be specially wrong to send Mr. Hart to Parliament. "We have always advocated," said one of these articles, "the right of absolute freedom of choice for every borough and every county in the land; but we trust that the day is far distant in which the electors of England shall cease to look to their nearest neighbours as their best representatives." There wasn't much in the argument, but it suited the occasion, and added strength to Rowan's own cause in the borough. All the stanch Protestants began to feel a want of good beer. Questions very ill-natured as toward Tappitt were asked in the newspapers. "Who owns The Spotted Dog at Busby-porcorum; and who compels the landlord to buy his liquor at Tappitt's brewery?"

There were scores of questions of the same nature, all of which Tappitt attributed, wrongly, to Luke Rowan. Luke had written that article about freedom of election, but he had not condescended to notice the beer at the Spotted Dog.

And there was another quarrel taking place in Baslehurst, on the score of that election, between persons with whom we are connected in this story. Mr. p.r.o.ng had a vote in the borough, and was disposed to make use of it; and Mrs. Prime, regarding her own position as Mr.

p.r.o.ng's affianced bride, considered herself at liberty to question Mr. p.r.o.ng as to the use which he proposed to make of that vote.

To Mrs. Prime it appeared that anything done in any direction for the benefit of a Jew was a sin not to be forgiven. To Mr. p.r.o.ng it seemed to be as great a sin not to do anything in his power for the hindrance and vexation of those with whom Dr. Harford and Mr.

Comfort were connected by ties of friendship. Mrs. Prime, who, of the two, was the more logical, would not disjoin her personal and her scriptural hatreds. She also hated Dr. Harford; but she hated the Jews more. She was not disposed to support a Jew in Baslehurst because Mr. Comfort, in his doctrines, had fallen away from the purity of his early promise. Her idea was that a just man and a good Christian could not vote for either of the Baslehurst candidates under the present unhappy local circ.u.mstances;--but that under no circ.u.mstances should a Christian vote for a Jew. All this she said, in a voice not so soft as should be the voice of woman to her betrothed.

"Dorothea," said Mr. p.r.o.ng very solemnly;--they were sitting at the time in his own little front parlour, as to the due arrangement of the furniture in which Mrs. Prime had already ventured to make some slight alterations which had not been received favourably by Mr.

p.r.o.ng,--"Dorothea, in this matter you must allow me to be the best judge. Voting for Members of Parliament is a thing which ladies naturally are not called upon to understand."

"Ladies can understand as well as gentlemen," said Mrs. Prime, "that a curse has gone out from the Lord against that people; and gentlemen have no more right than ladies to go against the will of the Lord."

It was in vain that Mr. p.r.o.ng endeavoured to explain to her that the curse attached to the people as a nation, and did not necessarily follow units of that people who had adopted other nationalities.

"Let the units become Christians before they go into Parliament,"

said Mrs. Prime.

"I wish they would," said Mr. p.r.o.ng. "I heartily wish they would: and Mr. Hart, if he be returned, shall have my prayers."

But this did not at all suffice for Mrs. Prime, who, perhaps, in the matter of argument had the best of it. She told her betrothed to his face that he was going to commit a great sin, and that he was tempted to this sin by grievous worldly pa.s.sions. When so informed Mr. p.r.o.ng closed his eyes, crossed his hands meekly on his breast, and shook his head.

"Not from thee, Dorothea," said he, "not from thee should this have come."

"Who is to speak out to you if I am not?" said she.

But Mr. p.r.o.ng sat in silence, and with closed eyes again shook his head.

"Perhaps we had better part," said Mrs. Prime, after an interval of five minutes. "Perhaps it will be better for both of us."

Mr. p.r.o.ng, however, still shook his head in silence; and it was difficult for a lady in Mrs. Prime's position to read accurately the meaning of such shakings under such circ.u.mstances. But Mrs. Prime was a woman sufficiently versed in the world's business to be able to resolve that she would have an answer to her question when she required an answer.

"Mr. p.r.o.ng," she said, "I remarked just now that perhaps we had better part."

"I heard the words," said Mr. p.r.o.ng,--"I heard the cruel words." But even then he did not open his eyes, or remove his hands from his breast. "I heard the words, and I heard those other words, still more cruel. You had better leave me now that I may humble myself in prayer."

"That's all very well, Mr. p.r.o.ng, and I'm sure I hope you will; but situated as we are, of course I should choose to have an answer. It seems to me that you dislike that kind of interference which I regard as a wife's best privilege and sweetest duty. If this be so, it will be better for us to part,--as friends of course."

"You have accused me of a great sin," he said; "of a great sin;--of a great sin!"

"And so in my mind it would be."

"Judge not, lest ye be judged, Dorothea; remember that."

"That doesn't mean, Mr. p.r.o.ng, that we are not to have our opinions, and that we are not to warn those that are near us when we see them walking in the wrong path. I might as well say the same to you, when you--"

"No, Dorothea; it is my bounden duty. It is my work. It is that to which I am appointed as a minister. If you cannot see the difference I have much mistaken your character,--have much mistaken your character."

"Do you mean to say that n.o.body but a clergyman is to know what's right and what's wrong? That must be nonsense, Mr. p.r.o.ng. I'm sorry to say anything to grieve you,--" Mr. p.r.o.ng was now shaking his head again, with his eyes most pertinaciously closed,--"but there are some things which really one can't bear."

But he only shook his head. His inward feelings were too many for him, so that he could not at the present moment bring himself to give a reply to the momentous proposition which his betrothed had made him. Nor, indeed, had he at this moment fixed his mind as to the step which Duty and Wisdom combined would call upon him to take in this matter. The temper of the lady was not certainly all that he had desired. As an admiring member of his flock she had taken all his ghostly counsels as infallible; but now it seemed to him as though most of his words and many of his thoughts and actions were made subject by her to a bitter criticism. But in this matter he was inclined to rely much upon his own strength. Should he marry the lady, as he was still minded to do for many reasons, he would be to her a loving, careful husband; but he would also be her lord and master,--as was intended when marriage was made a holy ordinance. In this respect he did not doubt himself or his own powers. Hard words he could bear, and, as he thought, after a time control. So thinking, he was not disposed to allow the lady to recede from her troth to him, simply because in her anger she expressed a wish to do so.

Therefore he had wisely been silent, and had shaken his head in reproach. But unfortunately the terms of their compact had not been finally settled with reference to another heading. Mrs. Prime had promised to be his wife, but she had burdened her promise with certain pecuniary conditions which were distasteful to him,--which were much opposed to that absolute headship and perfect mastery, which, as he thought, should belong to the husband as husband. His views on this subject were very strong, and he was by no means inclined to abate one jot of his demand. Better remain single in his work than accept the name of husband without its privileges!

But he had hoped that by mingled firmness and gentle words he might bring his Dorothea round to a more womanly way of thinking. He had flattered himself that there was a power of eloquence in him which would have prevailed over her. Once or twice he thought that he was on the brink of success. He knew well that there were many points in his favour. A woman who has spoken of herself, and been spoken of, as being on the point of marriage, does not like to recede; and his Dorothea, though not specially womanly among women, was still a woman. Moreover he had the law on his side,--the old law as coming from the Scriptures. He could say that such a pecuniary arrangement as that proposed by his Dorothea was sinful. He had said so,--as he had then thought not without effect; but now she retaliated upon him with accusation of another sin! It was manifestly in her power to break away from him on that money detail. It seemed now to be her wish to break away from him; but she preferred doing so on that other matter. He began to fear that he must lose his wife, seeing that he was resolved never to yield on the money question; but he did not choose to be entrapped into an instant resignation of his engagement by Dorothea's indignation on a point of abstruse Scripturo-political morality. His Dorothea had a.s.sumed her indignation as a cloak for her pecuniary obstinacy. It might be that he must yield; but he would not surrender thus at the sound of a false summons. So he closed his eyes very pertinaciously and shook his head.

"I think upon the whole," said she again, "that we had better make up our minds to part." Then she stood up, feeling that she should thus employ a greater power in forcing an answer from him. He must have seen her motion through some cranny of his pertinaciously closed eyes, for he noticed it by rising from his own chair, with both his hands firmly fixed upon the table; but still he did not open his eyes,--unless it might be to the extent of that small cranny.

"Good-bye, Mr. p.r.o.ng," said she.

Then he altered the form of his hands, and taking them from the table he dashed them together before his face. "G.o.d bless you, Dorothea!"

said he. "G.o.d bless you! G.o.d bless you!" And he put out his hands as though blessing her in his darkness. She, perceiving the inutility of endeavouring to shake hands with a man who wouldn't open his eyes, moved away from her chair towards the door, purposely raising a sound of motion with her dress, so that he might know that she was going.

In that I think she took an unnecessary precaution, for the cranny at the corner of his eye was still at his disposal.

"Good-bye, Mr. p.r.o.ng," she said again, as she opened the door for herself.

"G.o.d bless you, Dorothea!" said he. "May G.o.d bless you!"

Then, without a.s.sistance at the front door she made her way out into the street, and as she stepped along the pavement, she formed a resolve,--which no eloquence from Mr. p.r.o.ng could ever overcome,--that she would remain a widow for the rest of her days.

At twelve o'clock on the morning of the election Mr. Hart was declared by his own committee to be nine ahead, and was admitted to be six ahead by Mr. Cornbury's committee. But the Cornbury folk a.s.serted confidently that in this they saw certain signs of success.

Their supporters were not men who could be whipped up to the poll early in the day, whereas Hart's voters were all, more or less, under control, and had been driven up hurriedly to the hustings so as to make this early show of numbers. Mr. Hart was about everywhere speaking, and so was Butler Cornbury; but in the matter of oratory I am bound to acknowledge that the Jew had by much the mastery over the Christian. There are a cla.s.s of men,--or rather more than a cla.s.s, a section of mankind,--to whom a power of easy expression by means of spoken words comes naturally. English country gentlemen, highly educated as they are, undaunted as they usually are, self-confident as they in truth are at the bottom, are clearly not in this section. Perhaps they are further removed from it, considering the advantages they have for such speaking, than any other cla.s.s of men in England,--or I might almost say elsewhere. The fact, for it is a fact, that some of the greatest orators whom the world has known have been found in this cla.s.s, does not in any degree affect the truth of my proposition. The best grapes in the world are perhaps grown in England, though England is not a land of grapes. And for the same reason. The value of the thing depends upon its rarity, and its value instigates the efforts for excellence. The power of vocal expression which seems naturally to belong to an American is to an ordinary Englishman very marvellous; but in America the talking man is but little esteemed. "Very wonderful power of delivery,--that of Mr.

So-and-So," says the Englishman, speaking of an American.

"Guess we don't think much of that kind of thing here," says the Yankee. "There's a deal too much of that coin in circulation."

English country gentlemen are not to be cla.s.sed among that section of mankind which speaks easily in public, but Jews, I think, may be so cla.s.sed. The men who speak thus easily and with natural fluency, are also they who learn languages easily. They are men who observe rather than think, who remember rather than create, who may not have great mental powers, but are ever ready with what they have, whose best word is at their command at a moment, and is then serviceable though perhaps incapable of more enduring service.

At any rate, as regarded oratory in Baslehurst the dark little man with the bright new hat from London was very much stronger than his opponent,--so much stronger that poor Butler Cornbury began to sicken of elections and to wish himself comfortably at home at Cornbury Grange. He knew that he was talking himself down while the Israelitish clothier was talking himself up. "It don't matter,"

Honyman said to him comfortably. "It's only done for the show of the thing and to fill up the day. If Gladstone were here he wouldn't talk a vote out of them one way or the other;--nor yet the devil himself."

This consoled Butler Cornbury, but nevertheless he longed that the day might be over.