The Way We Live Now Part 76

At the club, the City Conservative world,--which always lunches well,--welcomed Mr. Melmotte very warmly. The election was coming on, and there was much to be said. He played the part of the big City man to perfection, standing about the room with his hat on, and talking loudly to a dozen men at once. And he was glad to show the club that Lord Nidderdale had come there with him. The club of course knew that Lord Nidderdale was the accepted suitor of the rich man's daughter,--accepted, that is, by the rich man himself,--and the club knew also that the rich man's daughter had tried but had failed to run away with Sir Felix Carbury. There is nothing like wiping out a misfortune and having done with it. The presence of Lord Nidderdale was almost an a.s.surance to the club that the misfortune had been wiped out, and, as it were, abolished. A little before three Mr.

Melmotte returned to Abchurch Lane, intending to regain his room by the back way; while Lord Nidderdale went westward, considering within his own mind whether it was expedient that he should continue to show himself as a suitor for Miss Melmotte's hand. He had an idea that a few years ago a man could not have done such a thing--that he would be held to show a poor spirit should he attempt it; but that now it did not much matter what a man did,--if only he were successful.

"After all, it's only an affair of money," he said to himself.

Mr. Longestaffe in the meantime had progressed from weariness to impatience, from impatience to ill-humour, and from ill-humour to indignation. More than once he saw Miles Grendall, but Miles Grendall was always ready with an answer. That Canadian Deputation was determined to settle the whole business this morning, and would not take itself away. And Sir Gregory Gribe had been obstinate, beyond the ordinary obstinacy of a bank director. The rate of discount at the bank could not be settled for to-morrow without communication with Mr. Melmotte, and that was a matter on which the details were always most oppressive. At first Mr. Longestaffe was somewhat stunned by the Deputation and Sir Gregory Gribe; but as he waxed wroth the potency of those inst.i.tutions dwindled away, and as, at last, he waxed hungry, they became as nothing to him. Was he not Mr.

Longestaffe of Caversham, a Deputy-Lieutenant of his County, and accustomed to lunch punctually at two o'clock? When he had been in that waiting-room for two hours, it occurred to him that he only wanted his own, and that he would not remain there to be starved for any Mr. Melmotte in Europe. It occurred to him also that that thorn in his side, Squerc.u.m, would certainly get a finger into the pie to his infinite annoyance. Then he walked forth, and attempted to see Grendall for the fourth time. But Miles Grendall also liked his lunch, and was therefore declared by one of the junior clerks to be engaged at that moment on most important business with Mr. Melmotte.

"Then say that I can't wait any longer," said Mr. Longestaffe, stamping out of the room with angry feet.

At the very door he met Mr. Melmotte. "Ah, Mr. Longestaffe," said the great financier, seizing him by the hand, "you are the very man I am desirous of seeing."

"I have been waiting two hours up in your place," said the Squire of Caversham.

"Tut, tut, tut;--and they never told me!"

"I spoke to Mr. Grendall half a dozen times."

"Yes,--yes. And he did put a slip with your name on it on my desk. I do remember. My dear sir, I have so many things on my brain, that I hardly know how to get along with them. You are coming to the Board?

It's just the time now."

"No;"--said Mr. Longestaffe. "I can stay no longer in the City." It was cruel that a man so hungry should be asked to go to a Board by a chairman who had just lunched at his club.

"I was carried away to the Bank of England and could not help myself," said Melmotte. "And when they get me there I can never get away again."

"My son is very anxious to have the payments made about Pickering,"

said Mr. Longestaffe, absolutely holding Melmotte by the collar of his coat.

"Payments for Pickering!" said Melmotte, a.s.suming an air of unimportant doubt,--of doubt as though the thing were of no real moment. "Haven't they been made?"

"Certainly not," said Mr. Longestaffe, "unless made this morning."

"There was something about it, but I cannot just remember what. My second cashier, Mr. Smith, manages all my private affairs, and they go clean out of my head. I'm afraid he's in Grosvenor Square at this moment. Let me see;--Pickering! Wasn't there some question of a mortgage? I'm sure there was something about a mortgage."

"There was a mortgage, of course,--but that only made three payments necessary instead of two."

"But there was some unavoidable delay about the papers;--something occasioned by the mortgagee. I know there was. But you shan't be inconvenienced, Mr. Longestaffe."

"It's my son, Mr. Melmotte. He's got a lawyer of his own."

"I never knew a young man that wasn't in a hurry for his money," said Melmotte laughing. "Oh, yes;--there were three payments to be made; one to you, one to your son, and one to the mortgagee. I will speak to Mr. Smith myself to-morrow--and you may tell your son that he really need not trouble his lawyer. He will only be losing his money, for lawyers are expensive. What! you won't come to the Board? I am sorry for that." Mr. Longestaffe, having after a fashion said what he had to say, declined to go to the Board. A painful rumour had reached him the day before, which had been communicated to him in a very quiet way by a very old friend,--by a member of a private firm of bankers whom he was accustomed to regard as the wisest and most eminent man of his acquaintance,--that Pickering had been already mortgaged to its full value by its new owner. "Mind, I know nothing,"

said the banker. "The report has reached me, and if it be true, it shows that Mr. Melmotte must be much pressed for money. It does not concern you at all if you have got your price. But it seems to be rather a quick transaction. I suppose you have, or he wouldn't have the t.i.tle-deeds." Mr. Longestaffe thanked his friend, and acknowledged that there had been something remiss on his part. Therefore, as he went westward, he was low in spirits. But nevertheless he had been rea.s.sured by Melmotte's manner.

Sir Felix Carbury of course did not attend the Board; nor did Paul Montague, for reasons with which the reader has been made acquainted.

Lord Nidderdale had declined, having had enough of the City for that day, and Mr. Longestaffe had been banished by hunger. The chairman was therefore supported only by Lord Alfred and Mr. Cohenlupe. But they were such excellent colleagues that the work was got through as well as though those absentees had all attended. When the Board was over Mr. Melmotte and Mr. Cohenlupe retired together.

"I must get that money for Longestaffe," said Melmotte to his friend.

"What, eighty thousand pounds! You can't do it this week,--nor yet before this day week."

"It isn't eighty thousand pounds. I've renewed the mortgage, and that makes it only fifty. If I can manage the half of that which goes to the son, I can put the father off."

"You must raise what you can on the whole property."

"I've done that already," said Melmotte hoa.r.s.ely.

"And where's the money gone?"

"Brehgert has had 40,000. I was obliged to keep it up with them. You can manage 25,000 for me by Monday?" Mr. Cohenlupe said that he would try, but intimated his opinion that there would be considerable difficulty in the operation.

CHAPTER LIV.

THE INDIA OFFICE.

The Conservative party at this particular period was putting its shoulder to the wheel,--not to push the coach up any hill, but to prevent its being hurried along at a pace which was not only dangerous, but manifestly destructive. The Conservative party now and then does put its shoulder to the wheel, ostensibly with the great national object above named; but also actuated by a natural desire to keep its own head well above water and be generally doing something, so that other parties may not suppose that it is moribund. There are, no doubt, members of it who really think that when some object has been achieved,--when, for instance, a good old Tory has been squeezed into Parliament for the borough of Porcorum, which for the last three parliaments has been represented by a Liberal,--the coach has been really stopped. To them, in their delightful faith, there comes at these triumphant moments a conviction that after all the people as a people have not been really in earnest in their efforts to take something from the greatness of the great, and to add something to the lowliness of the lowly. The handle of the windla.s.s has been broken, the wheel is turning fast the reverse way, and the rope of Radical progress is running back. Who knows what may not be regained if the Conservative party will only put its shoulder to the wheel and take care that the handle of the windla.s.s be not mended!

Sticinthemud, which has ever been a doubtful little borough, has just been carried by a majority of fifteen! A long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether,--and the old day will come back again.

Venerable patriarchs think of Lord Liverpool and other heroes, and dream dreams of Conservative bishops, Conservative lord-lieutenants, and of a Conservative ministry that shall remain in for a generation.

Such a time was now present. Porcorum and Sticinthemud had done their duty valiantly,--with much management. But Westminster! If this special seat for Westminster could be carried, the country then could hardly any longer have a doubt on the matter. If only Mr. Melmotte could be got in for Westminster, it would be manifest that the people were sound at heart, and that all the great changes which had been effected during the last forty years,--from the first reform in Parliament down to the Ballot,--had been managed by the cunning and treachery of a few ambitious men. Not, however, that the Ballot was just now regarded by the party as an unmitigated evil, though it was the last triumph of Radical wickedness. The Ballot was on the whole popular with the party. A short time since, no doubt it was regarded by the party as being one and the same as national ruin and national disgrace. But it had answered well at Porcorum, and with due manipulation had been found to be favourable at Sticinthemud. The Ballot might perhaps help the long pull and the strong pull,--and, in spite of the ruin and disgrace, was thought by some just now to be a highly Conservative measure. It was considered that the Ballot might a.s.sist Melmotte at Westminster very materially.

Any one reading the Conservative papers of the time, and hearing the Conservative speeches in the borough,--any one at least who lived so remote as not to have learned what these things really mean,--would have thought that England's welfare depended on Melmotte's return. In the enthusiasm of the moment, the attacks made on his character were answered by eulogy as loud as the censure was bitter. The chief crime laid to his charge was connected with the ruin of some great continental a.s.surance company, as to which it was said that he had so managed it as to leave it utterly stranded, with an enormous fortune of his own. It was declared that every shilling which he had brought to England with him had consisted of plunder stolen from the shareholders in the company. Now the "Evening Pulpit," in its endeavour to make the facts of this transaction known, had placed what it called the domicile of this company in Paris, whereas it was ascertained that its official head-quarters had in truth been placed at Vienna. Was not such a blunder as this sufficient to show that no merchant of higher honour than Mr. Melmotte had ever adorned the Exchanges of modern capitals? And then two different newspapers of the time, both of them antagonistic to Melmotte, failed to be in accord on a material point. One declared that Mr. Melmotte was not in truth possessed of any wealth. The other said that he had derived his wealth from those unfortunate shareholders. Could anything betray so bad a cause as contradictions such as these? Could anything be so false, so weak, so malignant, so useless, so wicked, so self-condemned,--in fact, so "Liberal" as a course of action such as this? The belief naturally to be deduced from such statements, nay, the unavoidable conviction on the minds--of, at any rate, the Conservative newspapers--was that Mr. Melmotte had acc.u.mulated an immense fortune, and that he had never robbed any shareholder of a shilling.

The friends of Melmotte had moreover a basis of hope, and were enabled to sound premonitory notes of triumph, arising from causes quite external to their party. The "Breakfast Table" supported Melmotte, but the "Breakfast Table" was not a Conservative organ.

This support was given, not to the great man's political opinions, as to which a well-known writer in that paper suggested that the great man had probably not as yet given very much attention to the party questions which divided the country,--but to his commercial position.

It was generally acknowledged that few men living,--perhaps no man alive,--had so acute an insight into the great commercial questions of the age as Mr. Augustus Melmotte. In whatever part of the world he might have acquired his commercial experience,--for it had been said repeatedly that Melmotte was not an Englishman,--he now made London his home and Great Britain his country, and it would be for the welfare of the country that such a man should sit in the British Parliament. Such were the arguments used by the "Breakfast Table" in supporting Mr. Melmotte. This was, of course, an a.s.sistance;--and not the less so because it was a.s.serted in other papers that the country would be absolutely disgraced by his presence in Parliament. The hotter the opposition the keener will be the support. Honest good men, men who really loved their country, fine gentlemen, who had received unsullied names from great ancestors, shed their money right and left, and grew hot in personally energetic struggles to have this man returned to Parliament as the head of the great Conservative mercantile interests of Great Britain!

There was one man who thoroughly believed that the thing at the present moment most essentially necessary to England's glory was the return of Mr. Melmotte for Westminster. This man was undoubtedly a very ignorant man. He knew nothing of any one political question which had vexed England for the last half century,--nothing whatever of the political history which had made England what it was at the beginning of that half century. Of such names as Hampden, Somers, and Pitt he had hardly ever heard. He had probably never read a book in his life. He knew nothing of the working of parliament, nothing of nationality,--had no preference whatever for one form of government over another, never having given his mind a moment's trouble on the subject. He had not even reflected how a despotic monarch or a federal republic might affect himself, and possibly did not comprehend the meaning of those terms. But yet he was fully confident that England did demand and ought to demand that Mr. Melmotte should be returned for Westminster. This man was Mr. Melmotte himself.

In this conjunction of his affairs Mr. Melmotte certainly lost his head. He had audacity almost sufficient for the very dangerous game which he was playing; but, as crisis heaped itself upon crisis, he became deficient in prudence. He did not hesitate to speak of himself as the man who ought to represent Westminster, and of those who opposed him as little malignant beings who had mean interests of their own to serve. He went about in his open carriage, with Lord Alfred at his left hand, with a look on his face which seemed to imply that Westminster was not good enough for him. He even hinted to certain political friends that at the next general election he should try the City. Six months since he had been a humble man to a Lord,--but now he scolded Earls and snubbed Dukes, and yet did it in a manner which showed how proud he was of connecting himself with their social pre-eminence, and how ignorant of the manner in which such pre-eminence affects English gentlemen generally. The more arrogant he became the more vulgar he was, till even Lord Alfred would almost be tempted to rush away to impecuniosity and freedom.

Perhaps there were some with whom this conduct had a salutary effect.

No doubt arrogance will produce submission; and there are men who take other men at the price those other men put upon themselves. Such persons could not refrain from thinking Melmotte to be mighty because he swaggered; and gave their hinder parts to be kicked merely because he put up his toe. We all know men of this calibre,--and how they seem to grow in number. But the net result of his personal demeanour was injurious; and it was debated among some of the warmest of his supporters whether a hint should not be given him. "Couldn't Lord Alfred say a word to him?" said the Honourable Beauchamp Beauclerk, who, himself in Parliament, a leading man in his party, thoroughly well acquainted with the borough, wealthy and connected by blood with half the great Conservative families in the kingdom, had been moving heaven and earth on behalf of the great financial king, and working like a slave for his success.

"Alfred's more than half afraid of him," said Lionel Lupton, a young aristocrat, also in Parliament, who had been inoculated with the idea that the interests of the party demanded Melmotte in Parliament, but who would have given up his Scotch shooting rather than have undergone Melmotte's company for a day.

"Something really must be done, Mr. Beauclerk," said Mr. Jones, who was the leading member of a very wealthy firm of builders in the borough, who had become a Conservative politician, who had thoughts of the House for himself, but who never forgot his own position. "He is making a great many personal enemies."

"He's the finest old turkey c.o.c.k out," said Lionel Lupton.

Then it was decided that Mr. Beauclerk should speak a word to Lord Alfred. The rich man and the poor man were cousins, and had always been intimate. "Alfred," said the chosen mentor at the club one afternoon, "I wonder whether you couldn't say something to Melmotte about his manner." Lord Alfred turned sharp round and looked into his companion's face. "They tell me he is giving offence. Of course he doesn't mean it. Couldn't he draw it a little milder?"

Lord Alfred made his reply almost in a whisper. "If you ask me, I don't think he could. If you got him down and trampled on him, you might make him mild. I don't think there's any other way."

"You couldn't speak to him, then?"

"Not unless I did it with a horsewhip."

This, coming from Lord Alfred, who was absolutely dependent on the man, was very strong. Lord Alfred had been much afflicted that morning. He had spent some hours with his friend, either going about the borough in the open carriage, or standing just behind him at meetings, or sitting close to him in committee-rooms,--and had been nauseated with Melmotte. When spoken to about his friend he could not restrain himself. Lord Alfred had been born and bred a gentleman, and found the position in which he was now earning his bread to be almost insupportable. It had gone against the grain with him at first, when he was called Alfred; but now that he was told "just to open the door," and "just to give that message," he almost meditated revenge.

Lord Nidderdale, who was quick at observation, had seen something of this in Grosvenor Square, and declared that Lord Alfred had invested part of his recent savings in a cutting whip. Mr. Beauclerk, when he had got his answer, whistled and withdrew. But he was true to his party. Melmotte was not the first vulgar man whom the Conservatives had taken by the hand, and patted on the back, and told that he was a G.o.d.