Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (235 page)

‘Well, what are the prospects about the election?’ said Harold, as the breakfast was advancing. ‘There are two Whigs and one Conservative likely to be in the field, I know. What is your opinion of the chances?’

Mr Jermyn had a copious supply of words, which often led him into periphrase, but he cultivated a hesitating stammer, which, with a handsome impassiveness of face, except when he was smiling at a woman, or when the latent savageness of his nature was thoroughly roused, he had found useful in many relations, especially in business. No one could have found out that he was not at his ease. ‘My opinion,’ he replied, ‘is in a state of balance at present. This division of the county, you are aware, contains one manufacturing town of the first magnitude, and several smaller ones. The manufacturing interest is widely dispersed. So far - a - there is a presumption - a - in favour of the two Liberal candidates. Still with a careful canvass of the agricultural districts, such as those we have round us at Treby Magna, I think - a - the auguries - a - would not be unfavourable to the return of a Conservative. A fourth candidate of good position, who should coalesce with Mr Debarry. - a -’

Here Mr Jermyn hesitated for the third time, and Harold broke in.

‘That will not be my line of action, so we need not discuss it. If I put up it will be as a Radical; and I fancy, in any county that would return Whigs there would be plenty of voters to be combed off by a Radical who offered himself with good pretensions.’

There was the slightest possible quiver discernible across Jermyn’s face. Otherwise he sat as he had done before, with his eyes fixed abstractedly on the frill of a ham before him, and his hand trifling with his fork. He did not answer immediately, but when he did, he looked round steadily at Harold.

‘I’m delighted to perceive that you have kept yourself so thoroughly acquainted with English politics.’

‘O, of course,’ said Harold, impatiently. ‘I’m aware how things have been going on in England. I always meant to come back ultimately. I suppose I know the state of Europe as well as if I’d been stationary at Little Treby for the last fifteen years. If a man goes to the East, people seem to think he gets turned into something like the one-eyed calender in the Arabian Nights.”

‘Yet I should think there are some things which people who have been stationary at Little Treby could tell you, Harold,’ said Mrs Transome. ‘It did not signify about your holding Radical opinions at Smyma; but you seem not to imagine how your putting up as a Radical will affect your position here, and the position of your family. No one will visit you. And then - the sort of people who will support you ! You really have no idea what an impression it conveys when you say you are a Radical. There are none of our equals who will not feel that you have disgraced yourself. ‘Pooh!’ said Harold, rising and walking along the room.

But Mrs Transome went on with growing anger in her voice - ‘It seems to me that a man owes something to his birth and station, and has no right to take up this notion or the other, just as it suits his fancy; still less to work at the overthrow of his class. That was what everyone said of Lord Grey, and my family at least is as good as Lord Grey’s. You have wealth now, and might distinguish yourself in the county; and if you had been true to your colours as a gentleman, you would have had all the greater opportunity because the times are so bad. The Debarrys and Lord Wyvem would have set all the more store by you. For my part, I can’t conceive what good you propose to yourself. I only entreat you to think again before you take any decided step.’

‘Mother,’ said Harold, not angrily or with any raising of his voice, but in a quick, impatient manner, as if the scene must be got through as quickly as possible; ‘it is natural that you should think in this way. Women, very properly, don’t change their views, but keep to the notions in which they have been brought up. It doesn’t signify what they think - they are not called upon to judge or to act. You must really leave me to take my own course in these matters, which properly belong to men. Beyond that, I will gratify any wish you choose to mention. You shall have a new carriage and a pair of bays all to yourself; you shall have the house done up in first-rate style, and I am not thinking of marrying. But let us understand that there shall be no further collision between us on subjects in which I must be master of my own actions.’

‘And you will put the crown to the mortifications of my life, Harold. I don’t know who would be a mother if she could foresee what a slight thing she will be to her son when she is old.’

Mrs Transome here walked out of the room by the nearest way - the glass door open towards the terrace. Mr Jermyn had risen too, and his hands were on the back of his chair. He looked quite impassive: it was not the first time he had seen Mrs Transome angry; but now, for the first time, he thought the outburst of her temper would be useful for him. She, poor woman, knew quite well that she had been unwise, and that she had been making herself disagreeable to Harold to no purpose. But half the sorrows of women would be averted if they could repress the speech they know to be useless; nay, the speech they have resolved not to utter. Harold continued his walking a moment longer, and then said to Jermyn --

‘You smoke?’

‘No, I always defer to the ladies. Mrs Jermyn is peculiarly sensitive on such matters, and doesn’t like tobacco.’

Harold, who, underneath all the tendencies which had made him a Liberal, had intense personal pride, thought, ‘Confound the fellow - with his Mrs Jermyn! Does he think we are on a footing for me to know anytlung about his wife?’

‘Well, I took my hookah before breakfast,’ he said aloud; ‘so, if you like, we’ll go into the library. My father never gets up till mid-day, I find.’

‘Sit down, sit down,’ said Harold, as they entered the handsome, spacious library. But he himself continued to stand before a map of the county which he had opened from a series of rollers occupying a compartment among the bookshelves. ‘The first question, Mr Jermyn, now you know my intentions, is, whether you will undertake to be my agent in this election, and help me through? There’s no time to be lost, and I don’t want to lose my chance, as I may not have another for seven years. I understand,’ he went on, flashing a look straight at Jermyn, ‘that you have not taken any conspicuous course in politics; and I know that Labron is agent for the Debarrys.’

‘O - a - my dear sir - a man necessarily has his political convictions, but of what use is it for a professional man - a - of some education, to talk of them in a little country town? There really is no comprehension of public questions in such places. Party feeling, indeed, was quite asleep here before the agitation about the Catholic Relief Bill. It is true that I concurred with our incumbent in getting up a petition against the Reform Bill, but I did not state my reasons. The weak points in that Bill are - a - too palpable, and I fancy you and I should not differ much on that head. The fact is, when I knew that you were to come back to us, I kept myself in reserve, though I was much pressed by the friends of Sir James Clement, the Ministerial candidate, who is --’

‘However, you will act for me - that’s settled?’ said Harold.

‘Certainly,’ said Jermyn, inwardly irritated by Harold’s rapid manner of cutting him short.

‘Which of the Liberal candidates, as they call themselves, has the better chance, eh?’

‘I was going to observe that Sir James Clement has not so good a chance as Mr Garstin, supposing that a third Liberal candidate presents himself. There are two senses in which a politician can be liberal’ - here Mr Jermyn smiled - ‘Sir James Clement is a poor baronet, hoping for an appointment, and can’t be expected to be liberal in that wider sense which commands majorities.’

‘I wish this man were not so much of a talker,’ thought Harold; ‘he’ll bore me. We shall see,’ he said aloud, ‘what can be done in the way of combination. I’ll come down to your office after one o’clock, if it will suit you?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘Ah, and you’ll have all the lists and papers and necessary information ready for me there. I must get up a dinner for the tenants, and we can invite whom we like besides the tenants. Just now, I’m going over one of the farms on hand with the bailiff. By the way, that’s a desperately bad business, having three farms unlet - how comes that about, eh?’

‘That is precisely what I wanted to say a few words about to you. You have observed already how strongly Mrs Transome takes certain things to heart. You can imagine that she has been severely tried in many ways. Mr Transome’s want of health; Mr Durfey’s habits - a -’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘She is a woman for whom I naturally entertain the highest respect, and she has had hardly any gratification for many years, except the sense of having affairs to a certain extent in her own hands. She objects to changes; she will not have a new style of tenants; she likes the old stock of farmers who milk their own cows, and send their younger daughters out to service: all this makes it difficult to do the best with the estate. I am aware things are not as they ought to be, for, in point of fact, an improved agricultural management is a matter in which I take considerable interest, and the farm which I myself hold on the estate you will see, I think, to be in a superior condition. But Mrs Transome is a woman of strong feeling, and I would urge you, my dear sir, to make the changes which you have, but which I had not, the right to insist on, as little painful to her as possible.’

‘I shall know what to do, sir, never fear,’ said Harold, much offended.

‘You will pardon, I hope, a perhaps undue freedom of suggestion from a man of my age, who has been so long in a close connection with the family affairs - a - I have never considered that connection simply in the light of a business - a -’

‘Damn him, I’ll soon let him know that I do,’ thought Harold. But in proportion as he found Jermyn’s manners annoying, he felt the necessity of controlling himself. He despised all persons who defeated their own projects by the indulgence of momentary impulses.

‘I understand, I understand,’ he said aloud. ‘You’ve had more awkward business on your hands than usually falls to the share of the family lawyer. We shall set everything right by degrees. But now as to the canvassing. I’ve made arrangements with a first-rate man in London, who understands these matters thoroughly - a solicitor of course - he has carried no end of men into parliament. I’ll engage him to meet us at Duffield - say when?’

The conversation after this was driven carefully clear of all angles, and ended with determined amicableness. When Harold, in his ride an hour or two afterwards, encountered his uncle shouldering a gun, and followed by one black and one liver-spotted pointer, his muscular person with its red eagle face set off by a velveteen jacket and leather leggings, Mr Lingon’s first question was -

‘Well, lad, how have you got on with Jermyn?’

‘O, I don’t think I shall like the fellow. He’s a sort of amateur gentleman. But I must make use of him. I expect whatever I get out of him will only be something short of fair pay for what he has got out of us. But I shall see.’

‘Ay, ay, use his gun to bring down your game, and after that beat the thief with the butt-end. That’s wisdom and justice and pleasure all in one - talking between ourselves, as uncle and nephew. But I say, Harold, I was going to tell you, now I come to think of it, this is rather a nasty business, your calling yourself a Radical. I’ve been turning it over in after-dinner speeches, but it looks awkward - it’s not what people are used to - it wants a good deal of Latin to make it go down. I shall be worried about it at the sessions, and I can think of nothing neat enough to carry about in my pocket by way of answer.’

‘Nonsense, uncle; I remember what a good speechifier you always were: you’ll never be at a loss. You only want a few more evenings to think of it.’

‘But you’ll not be attacking the church and the institutions of the country - you’ll not be going to those lengths; you’ll keep up the bulwarks, and so on, eh?’

‘No, I shan’t attack the church - only the incomes of the bishops, perhaps, to make them eke out the incomes of the poor clergy.’

‘Well, well, I have no objection to that. Nobody likes our bishop: he’s all Greek and greediness; too proud to dine with his own father. You may pepper the bishops a little. But you’ll respect the constitution handed down, etc. - and you’ll rally round the throne - and the king, God bless him, and the usual toasts, eh?’

‘Of course, of course. I am a Radical only in rooting out abuses.’

‘That’s the word I wanted, my lad!’ said the vicar, slapping Harold’s knee. ‘That’s a spool to wind a speech on. Abuses is the very word; and if anybody shows himself offended, he’ll put the cap on for himself.’