_ CHAPTER XII. A HIGHLY CORRECT ATTITUDE
Up to the present time all had gone most smoothly at Moors End, the Mildmays' old manor-house, eight miles from Henstead, and Lady Mildmay had confided many quiet self-congratulations to Mrs. Baxter's ear. For it had seemed possible that the election might prove a cause of perturbation. Lady Mildmay was still in love with her handsome well-preserved husband, and had every confidence in him, but to a chosen friend she would sometimes admit that he was "difficult"; she called him not proud and obstinate, but sensitive and a little touchy; she hinted that he could not bear unpleasant looks, and yet was not very ready to make concessions to friendship. No doubt he needed some management, and Lady Mildmay, like many wives, found one of her chief functions to consist in acting as a buffer between her husband and a world which did not always approach him with enough gentleness and consideration. Hence her joy at the prosperous passage of a critical time, at the enthusiasm of their supporters, and at the gratification and urbanity of Sir Winterton. Satisfaction begat charity, and Lady Mildmay had laughingly dismissed some portentous hints which Mrs. Baxter let fall about the certain character and the probable tactics of Mr. Quisante.
"His wife looks so nice, he can't be very bad," said kind Lady Mildmay, using an argument of most uncritical charity.
Although the Dean, if pressed, must have ranked himself among his host's political opponents, he was so little of a party man and had so many points of sympathy with Sir Winterton (especially on Church matters) that he very contentedly witnessed the contest from Moors End and no longer troubled himself to conceal his hopes of a Moors End triumph. Nevertheless he was judiciously reticent about Quisante, generously eulogistic of May. Sir Winterton looked forward to making the acquaintance of both, but thought that the occasion had better be postponed till they had ceased to be opponents.
"But I hope you and your wife'll go over as often as you like," he said to the Dean very cordially. But the Dean and Mrs. Baxter did not go, perhaps preferring not to divide their sympathies, perhaps fearing that they might seem like spies and be suspected of carrying back information to the rival camp. "I dare say you're wise," said Sir Winterton, rather relieved; he had made the suggestion because it was the handsome thing to do, but was not eager that it should be accepted. To do the handsome thing and to meet with pleasant looks were the two requisites most essential to Sir Winterton's happiness; given these he was at his best and his best was a fine specimen of the class to which he belonged. There was, however, a weak side to these two desires of his, as the history of the Sinnett affair to some extent indicated.
The first shock to Sir Winterton's good temper had been the matter of No. 77; until then he had been lavish of the usual polite compliments to his opponent's personal character. After No 77's prodigal reappearance and Quisante's rhetorical effort in defence of it these assurances were no more on his lips, and for a time he bore himself with strict reserve when Quisante was mentioned. He had been right in the dispute, and he had been beaten; silence was the utmost that could be expected of his tolerance or his self-control; his refusal to speak on the subject showed his opinion well enough, and he must not be blamed too severely if he listened without protest and perhaps with pleasure to Mrs. Baxter's pungent criticisms. Of course she had been reminded of something--of the strictures which a certain Provincial Editor had passed on the household arrangements of a certain Minor Canon; a libel action had ensued, and the jury had been beguiled into finding for the defendant on a bare literal construction of words which to anybody acquainted with local circumstances bore another and much blacker meaning. This Mrs. Baxter called a pettifogging trick, and she pursued her parallel till the same terms were obviously indicated as appropriate to Quisante's conduct.
"My dear!" said the Dean in mild protest; but Sir Winterton laughed as though he had enjoyed the story. He was at once favoured with the further parallel of the Girdlestones' coachman and, as the conversation drifted to May, of the Nonconformist Minister's daughter and the Circus Proprietor. All Mrs. Baxter's armoury of reminiscence was heartily at his service.
But No. 77 did not after all touch Sir Winterton very closely. His temper had begun to recover and he had nearly forgiven Quisante when suddenly Japhet Williams produced a far more severe and deadly shock. His action was a bomb, and a bomb thrown from a hand which Moors End had been fain to think was or might be friendly. Was not Japhet a neighbour, only two miles off along the Henstead Road, and did not Lady Mildmay and Mrs. Williams, religious differences notwithstanding, work together every year on the Committee of the Cottage Gardens and Window-Boxes Show? Had not Japhet himself been understood to be reconsidering his political opinions? There was even more. The Sinnett affair was the one subject utterly forbidden, most rigidly tabooed, at Moors End. All Sir Winterton's relatives, friends, acquaintances, and dependents knew that well. Sir Winterton's honour and temper had never been so wounded as over that affair. By Japhet's hand it was dragged into light again; the odious thing became once more the gossip of Henstead, once more a disgusting topic which it was impossible wholly to ignore at Moors End. This was plain enough since, on the morning after Japhet's question had been put, Lady Mildmay was discussing the position with Mrs. Baxter in the morning-room, while the Dean and Sir Winterton walked round and round the lawn in gloomy conversation punctuated by gloomier silences.
What the actual history was Lady Mildmay's narrative showed pretty accurately. Sir Winterton's predominant desires, to do the handsome thing and to meet with pleasant looks, evidently had played a large part. Lady Mildmay blushed a little and smiled as she began by observing that Sir Winterton had distinguished the girl by some kind notice; he liked her, he always liked nice-spoken nice-looking girls; for her sake and her mother's (a very decent woman), he had forgiven Tom many irregularities. At last his patience gave out and Tom was prosecuted; when arrested, Tom had tried blackmail; Sir Winterton was not to be bullied, and Tom's speech from the dock was no more than an outburst of defeated malice.
Then came on the scene Sir Winterton's kind heart and his predominant desires. He had made the girl a present to facilitate her marriage and had got the husband work away from the town, where no gossip would have reached. This seemed enough, and so Doctor Tillman, an old and wise friend, urged. But as the time of Tom's release approached and his wife made preparations for receiving him in a cottage just on the edge of Sir Winterton's estate, it became odious to think of the black looks and scowls which would embitter every ride in that direction. "I want to forget the whole thing, to get rid of it, to blot it all out," said Sir Winterton fretfully. Prison had induced reason in Tom Sinnett; he made his submission and accepted the liberal help which carried him and his wife, his daughter and her husband, to a new life across the seas. Then Sir Winterton had peace in his heart and abroad; he had behaved most handsomely, and there were no scowling faces to remind him of the hateful episode. He had met the gossip boldly and defiantly; it had died away and had seemed utterly forgotten and extinct; the low grumbles and not very seemly jokes which still lingered among the men at the various works in Henstead, where Tom had been a _persona grata_, never reached the ears of the great folk at Moors End; it is perhaps only at election times that such things become audible in such quarters.
The poor lady ended with a careworn smile; she had suffered much during the episode, and perhaps the more because her faith in her husband had never wavered.
"I did so hope it was all over," she said.
"That's a good deal to hope about anything," observed Mrs. Baxter rather grimly.
"It does annoy Winterton so terribly. I'm afraid it'll quite upset him."
Mrs. Baxter had her own opinion about Sir Winterton; amid much that was favourable, she had no doubt that he was far too ready to get on the high horse.
"Well, my dear," she said, "Sir Winterton'll have to do what many people have; he must swallow his pride and tell the truth about it."
"I don't think he will," sighed Lady Mildmay, looking out at her husband's tall imposing figure, and marking the angry energy with which he was impressing his views on the Dean.
In this case at least Mrs. Baxter was right. Sir Winterton had got on the very highest of horses; he had mounted at the meeting, flinging back his "No, I won't," as he sprang to the saddle; he was firmly seated; having got up, he declared that he could not think of coming down. There, for good or evil, he sat. The Dean looked vexed and puzzled.
"This Mr. Williams is an honest man, I suppose?" he asked.
"Oh, honest as the day, too honest. But he's an infernal little ass," said Sir Winterton. "Somebody's got hold of him and is using him, or he's heard some gossip and caught it up. I won't say a word." And he went on to ask if he were to degrade himself by making explanations and excuses for his personal conduct to all the rowdies and loafers of Henstead. "If I have to do that to get in, why, I'll stay out, and be hanged to them." His face suggested that his language would have been still more vigorous but for a respect due to the Dean's cloth.
Later in the day they all had a turn at him, his wife pleading tenderly, Mrs. Baxter exhorting trenchantly (he came nearer to being told he was a fool than had ever happened to him before), the Dean suggesting possible diplomacies, Dr. Tillman, whom they sent for as a reinforcement, declaring that a few simple words, authorised by Sir Winterton, would put the whole matter right. He was obstinate; he had taken up his position and meant to stand by it; his conscience was clear and his honour safe in his own keeping; he would not speak himself and explicitly forbade any statement to be made on his behalf. Surely some power fought for Alexander Quisante in giving him an opponent of this temper!
"If any statement is to be made in reference to the matter," said Sir Winterton, rather red in the face again by now, "I confess to thinking that it would come best from Mr. Quisante. In fact I think that a few words would come very gracefully from Mr. Quisante."
Lady Mildmay caught at the hope. "If it was suggested to him, I'm sure----"
"Suggested!" cried Sir Winterton. "Is it likely I should suggest it or permit any of my friends to do so? I was merely speculating on what might not unnaturally suggest itself to a gentleman in Mr. Quisante's position."
Mrs. Baxter's smile was very eloquent of her opinion on this particular point. The Dean frowned perplexedly.
"There are exigencies to be considered," he stammered. "The views of his supporters----"
"In a matter like this?" asked Sir Winterton in a tone of lofty surprise. The Dean felt that he had rather committed himself, and did not venture to remind his sensitive host that after all Quisante had no knowledge of the truth or falsehood of the story, and could say nothing beyond that he had none. Mrs. Baxter, however, spoke plainly.
"Let me tell you," she said, "that if you expect anything of the sort from Alexander Quisante, you'll find yourself mistaken."
"I don't know that I agree with you there, my dear," said the Dean, entering his usual _caveat_. "I think very likely Mr. Quisante would be willing to do the proper thing if it were pointed out to him."
"Pointed out!" murmured Sir Winterton, raising his brows. Did gentlemen need to have the proper thing pointed out to them? Did they not see it for themselves and do it? Nay, one might look for more than the mere naked proper thing; from a gentleman the handsome thing was to be expected, and that of his own motion. There could, in Sir Winterton's view, be no doubt of what was in this case the handsome thing.
Unhappily, there is no subject on which greater divergence of opinion exists than that of the proper thing to be done under given circumstances. Here was Sir Winterton holding one view; Japhet Williams held another, and it is to be feared that a section of the inhabitants of Henstead adopted a third. Sir Winterton's cry was honour, Japhet's was duty; the inhabitants would have differed rather even among themselves as to how to describe their motive; party spirit, curiosity, the zest of a personal question, interest in a promising quarrel, mere mischief, all had a hand in producing the applause which greeted Japhet when he rose the next evening and with absolute imperturbability repeated the same question as nearly as possible in the same words. Sir Winterton's answer was not in the same words, but entirely to the same effect. "I've answered that question once, and I won't answer it again," he said. Then came the tumult, and after that a dull unenthusiastic ending, and the drive off through a grinning crowd, which enjoyed Sir Winterton's fury and added to it by a few hateful cries of "Where's Susy Sinnett?" From the outskirts of the town till his own gates were reached Sir Winterton did not speak to his wife. Then he turned to her and said very courteously but most decisively,
"Marion dear, you will oblige me by not accompanying me to any more meetings at present and by not visiting the town just now. I don't choose to expose you to any more such scenes. I can't teach these fellows to respect a lady's presence, but I can protect my wife by ensuring her absence." He looked very chivalrous and very handsome as he made this little speech. But his wife's heart sank; such an attitude could mean nothing but defeat.
"Can't you help us?" she implored of the Dean, when she had got him alone and told him of this new development of her husband's pride or temper. It was evident that Japhet Williams meant, as he had said, to go on putting his plain question till he got a plain answer, and so long as he put his question, Lady Mildmay was not to be present. How soon would Henstead understand that the gentleman who sought to be its member openly declared that he did not consider it a fit place for his wife to enter?
"Something must really be done," said the Dean nervously. "At all hazards." They both knew that "at all hazards" meant in spite of the prohibition and in face of the wrath of Sir Winterton.
Indeed this impulsive gentleman, seated on his high horse, was in urgent need of being saved from himself. Hitherto Japhet's importunity and the attacks of less conscientious opponents had had the natural effect of rousing his supporters to greater enthusiasm and greater zeal. When his fresh step began to be understood, when Lady Mildmay came with him no more, and it dawned upon Henstead that Sir Winterton would not bring her, the very supporters felt themselves offended. Were a few ribald cries and the folly of a wrong-headed old Japhet Williams to outweigh all their loyalty and devotion? Was the town to be judged by its rowdies? They could not but remember that Lady May Quisante sat smiling through the hottest meetings, and one evening had at the last moment saved her husband's platform from being stormed by sitting, composed and immovable, in the very middle of it till the rioters came to a stand a foot from her, and then retreated cowed before her laughter. That was the sort of thing Henstead liked; to be told that it was unworthy of Lady Mildmay's presence was not what it liked. A strong deputation came out to Sir Winterton; he replied from his high horse; the deputation averred that they could not answer for the consequences; Sir Winterton said he did not care a rush about the consequences; the deputation ventured timidly to hint that an excessive care to shield Lady Mildmay's ears from any mention of the Sinnett affair might be misunderstood; Sir Winterton said that he had nothing to do with that; his first duty was to his wife, his second to himself. The deputation retired downcast and annoyed.
"If you're going to do anything, Dan, you'd better do it at once," said Mrs. Baxter.
The Dean, resolved to risk Sir Winterton's anger in Sir Winterton's interest, did something; he wrote covertly to Jimmy Benyon at the Bull, begging him to be riding on the Henstead road at ten o'clock the next morning; the Dean would take a walk and the pair would meet, as it was to seem, accidentally; nothing had been said to Sir Winterton, nothing was to be said at present to Mr. Quisante. The Dean was, in fact, most carefully unofficial, and in no small fright besides; yet he was also curious to know how this new phase of the fight was regarded at the Quisante headquarters.
Jimmy came punctually, greeted the Dean most heartily, and listened to all that he said. The Dean could not quite make out his mood; he seemed uncomfortable and vexed, but he was not embarrassed, and was able to state what the Dean took to be the Quisante position with so much clearness that the Dean could not help wondering whether he had received instructions.
"Quisante's line has been to take absolutely no notice of the whole thing," said Jimmy. "He knows nothing about it, and has had nothing to do with its being brought forward; he's never mentioned it, and he won't. But on the other hand he doesn't feel called upon to fight Mildmay's battle, or to offend his own supporters by defending a man who won't defend himself. As for this business about Lady Mildmay, if Mildmay likes to make such an ass of himself he must take the consequences."
The Dean felt that the Quisante case even put thus bluntly by Jimmy was very strong; Quisante's deft tongue and skilful brain could make it appear irresistible. Strategically retiring from the ground of strict justice, he made an appeal to the feelings.
"Surely neither Mr. Quisante himself nor any of you would wish to win through such an occurrence as this? That would be no satisfaction to you."
"Of course we'd rather win without it," said Jimmy irritably. "It's not our fault. Go to Japhet Williams, or, best of all, persuade Mildmay not to be a fool. Why won't he answer?"
"Have you had any talk with Quisante about it?"
"Very little. He thinks pretty much what I've said."
"Or with Lady May?" asked the Dean with a direct glance.
"She's never mentioned it to me."
"The whole affair is deplorable."
"I don't see what we can do." Jimmy's tone was rather defiant.
The Dean fell into thought and, as the result thereof, made a proposition; it was very much that suggestion to Quisante on which Sir Winterton had frowned so scornfully.
"If," said he, "I could persuade Sir Winterton to give Mr. Quisante a private assurance that the scandal is entirely baseless, would Mr. Quisante state publicly that he was convinced of its falsity and did not wish it to influence the electors in any way?"
"Perhaps he would," said Jimmy.
"I think it would be only the proper thing for him to do," said the Dean rather warmly.
"I don't know about that. Why can't Mildmay say it for himself? But I'll ask Quisante, if you like."
The Dean was only too conscious of the weakness of his cause; he became humble again in thanking Jimmy for this small promise. "And Mr. Quisante'll be glad to have done it, I know, whatever the issue of the fight may be," he ended. The remark received for answer no more than a smile from Jimmy. Jimmy was not sure that among the stress of emotions filling Quisante's heart in case of defeat there would be room for any consoling consciousness of moral rectitude. Perhaps Jimmy himself would not care much about such a solatium. He wanted to win and he wanted Quisante to win; such was the effect of being much with Quisante; and in this matter at least, so far as Jimmy's knowledge went, his champion had acted with perfect correctness. At other times Jimmy might have been, like Sir Winterton, apt to exact something a little beyond correctness, but now the spirit of the fight was on him.
The Dean returned with the rather scanty results of his mission, and after luncheon took his courage in both hands and told Sir Winterton what he had done. But for his years and his station, Sir Winterton would, at the first blush, have called him impertinent; the Dean divined the suppressed epithet and defended himself with skill, but, alas, not without verging on the confines of truth. To say that he had happened to meet Jimmy Benyon was to give less than its due credit to his own ingenuity; to say that Jimmy and he had agreed on the proper thing was rather to interpret than to record Jimmy's brief and not very sanguine utterances. However the Dean's motive was very good, and before the meal ended Sir Winterton forgave him, while still sternly negativing the course which his diplomacy suggested. In fact Sir Winterton was very hard to manage; the Dean understood the Quisante position better and better; Mrs. Baxter gave up her efforts; she had an almost exaggerated belief in the inutility of braying fools in a mortar; she was content to show them the mortar, and if that were not enough to leave them alone. Only the wife persevered, for she thought neither of herself nor of what was right, but only of what might serve her husband. To the meetings he would not speak, to Quisante he might be got to speak; she would not let him alone while there was a chance of it. And at last she prevailed, not by convincing his reason (which indeed was little involved in the matter either way), not by taming his pride, and not by pointing to his interest, but by the old illogical, perhaps in the strictest view immoral, appeal--"For my sake, because I ask you for your love of me!" For his love of her Sir Winterton consented to write a private note to Alexander Quisante, stating for his own satisfaction and for his opponent's information the outline of the true facts of the Sinnett affair. Sir Winterton disliked his task very much but, having to do it, he did it as he did everything, as a gentleman would, frankly, simply, cordially, with an obvious trust in Quisante's chivalry, good faith, and reluctance to fight with any weapons that were not stainless.
"Now we've put it straight," said the Dean gleefully. "He's bound to mention your note and to accept your account, and if he accepts it, his supporters can't help themselves, they must do the same." Sir Winterton agreed that, distasteful as this quasi-appeal to his opponent had been, it could not fail to have the beneficial results which the Dean forecast. There was more cheerfulness at Moors End that evening than had been seen since Japhet Williams rose from the body of the hall, a small but determined Accusing Angel.
It is not so easy to put straight what has once gone crooked, nor so safe to undertake to advise other folks, however much the task may by habit seem to lose half its seriousness. In his heart the Dean was thinking that he had "cornered" Quisante, and Sir Winterton was hoping that he had combined the advantages of pliancy with the privilege of pride. The note that Quisante wrote in answer did nothing to disturb this comfortable state of feeling--unless indeed any danger were foreshadowed in the last line or two; "While, as I have said, most ready to accept your assurance, and desirous, as I have always been, of keeping all purely personal questions in the background, I do not feel myself called upon to express any opinion on the course which you have, doubtless after full consideration, adopted in regard to the requests for a public explanation which have been addressed to you by duly qualified electors of the borough." The Dean felt a little uneasy when that sentence was read out to him; was it possible that he had underrated Quisante's resources and not perceived quite how many ways of escaping from a corner that talented gentleman might discover? Yet there was nothing to quarrel with in the sentence; at the outside it was a courteous intimation of a difference of opinion and of the view (held by every man in the place except Sir Winterton himself) that a simple explanation on a public occasion would have done Sir Winterton's honour no harm and his cause a great deal of good.
Such was the private answer; the public reference was no less neat. First came a ready and ample acceptance of the explanation which Sir Winterton had given. "I accept it unreservedly, I do not repeat it only because it was given to me privately." Then followed an expression of gratitude for the manly and straightforward way in which the speaker felt himself to have been treated by his opponent; then there was an expression of hope that these personal matters might disappear from the contest. "Had I been sensitive, I in my turn might have found matter for complaint, but I was content to place myself in your hands, trusting to your good sense and fairness." (Sir Winterton had not been so content.) "I trust that the episode may be regarded as at an end." Then a pause and--"It is not for me, as I have already observed to my honourable opponent, to express any judgment on the course which he has seen fit to adopt. I have only to accept his word, which I do unhesitatingly, and it is no part of my duty to ask why he preferred to make his explanation to one who is trying to prevent him from sitting in Parliament rather than to those whom he seeks to represent in that high assembly."
This was said gravely and was much cheered. As the cheering went on, a smile gradually bent the speaker's broad expressive mouth; the crowded benches became silent, waiting the fulfilment of the smile's promise. A roguish look came into Quisante's face, he glanced at his audience, then at his friends on the platform, lastly at his wife who sat on the other side of the chairman's table. He spoke lower than was his wont, colloquially, almost carelessly, with an amused intonation. "At any rate," he said, "I trust that Henstead may once more be thought worthy of the presence of----" He paused, spread out his hands, and sank his voice in mock humility--"of other ladies besides--my wife."
It was well done. May's ready laugh was but the first of a chorus, and Quisante, sitting down, knew that his shaft had sped home when somebody cried, "Three cheers for Lady May Quisante!" and they gave them again and again, all standing on their feet. Alas for the Dean! For some men there are many ways out of a corner. _