CHAPTER XI.

THE ELECTION AT PEASMARSH.

Goaded as Lady Bell was, and with the summer sunshine on the wane, and the autumn gloom approaching, she was ready to welcome any change. She heard with satisfaction, one afternoon, a surly announcement from her husband that she was to accompany him to Peasmarsh, and that she had better make preparations for remaining several weeks in the county town.

Lady Bell took such slight notice of what was passing around her, and had so little knowledge of the world, that she did not connect the announcement with the circumstance that there had been a great deal of whipping and spurring of gentlemen lately to Trevor Court, where they were shut up with the Squire of a morning, or drinking with him after dinner. They were visitors to whom Lady Bell was indifferent, in addition to the Squire’s not caring for her having intercourse with them.

Lady Bell had no idea what the family were going into Peasmarsh for, till Sally Walsh insulted her by the incredulous demand—

“You don’t mean to say, Lady Bell, that you don’t know the elections are coming on, and that the Squire is to stand as member? My ears, what do you hear? Father and mother and I, knew this a fortnight ago.”

The Squire, who doted on Trevor Court and hated town, who was for his day a lukewarm politician—seeing that politics concerned more men than Dick Trevor, and more places than Trevor Court—what should he do in Parliament? But Lady Bell hardly stopped to ask, and to put two and two together, to argue that there must be an opponent in the field, for the Squire, like a mad bull, would run blindly at an opponent.

Here was deliverance, here was a lightening of her load. With the giddiness by no means rooted out of her, and without considering that she had made the same reflection not greatly to her profit once before now, she reflected, it is an ill wind which blows nobody good.

To escape from Trevor Court, to leave the Walshes behind her, even for a season, to have a chance of being restored to her beloved town and the countenance of her old friends, for such a gain it was almost worth while to have married Squire Trevor.

The occasion of Lady Bell’s leaving was the first time that she had contemplated her world with complacence since she came to Trevor Court. Sitting in the travelling chariot by her husband’s side, Lady Bell was faintly conscious that the fine old place, which he leant out to regard so fondly, deserved the love and honour which had not been hers to give. The clustering stacks of chimneys, with their hospitable spirals of blue smoke, the yew terrace, with its deep shade and broad light, were very fair to see.

Lady Bell actually looked round her with interest on the road, as the travellers, at nine miles distance from home, approached the first straggling buildings of Peasmarsh. These were humble enough, but the market-place presented an imposing array of country gentry’s winter houses, an old square-towered Norman church, and a curious town-hall and steeple. There were also, dropped down within its bounds, a thatch-roofed tavern, a dark, cavernous shop, having its gable to the street, with a hanging sign, and a door divided in the middle, a row of coopers’, cobblers’—and booksellers’ stalls, and the jail, with its pair of stocks, yawning for rascally limbs, fixed into the wall.

The market-place of Peasmarsh was gay to the young student of human nature, after Trevor Court in the company of Squire Trevor.

To Lady Bell’s juvenile satisfaction, the Trevors’ lodging was in the market-place, so that she could hope to see all that was going on, and hear constantly the social patter of clogs and pattens on the flags beneath her windows.

Lady Bell was so full of the novelty of the expected gaiety, that as soon as she had thrown off her travelling equipments, and swallowed her two o’clock dinner, she sat down at the window to lose nothing of the sight. She even began to convey the impressions which she received to Mr. Trevor, in a freedom of intercourse which had hardly existed between them before, in the course of their three months’ wedlock. In the meantime he sat swallowing his wine and smoking his pipe, in an interval of repose, ere he sallied forth to meet his supporters.

“They are posting up bills at the corner; a gentleman from the tavern is taking care of the operation. I see in at the open door—there is the company sitting round the table, covered with glasses. Now I am sure they are drinking a toast—one of them has leapt on the table before the door is shut. What a trade they are driving in blue ribands in that shop! Do all the women in Peasmarsh wear knots of blue ribands? Here comes a chair. I vow the lady is going to be set down at the tavern door; no, she has only made one of her chairmen beckon to a person within, and a billet is flung to her from the window. Why, Mr. Trevor, the street lads must know that one of the candidates is arrived in the town, for they are beginning to gather materials for a bonfire.”

“You are easily tickled, my lady, for one who has seen so many fine sights; the town air, even of a hole like Peasmarsh, seems to agree mightily with you, when it sets your tongue a-wagging,” sneered the Squire; yet the man, in the middle of his grudging spite, was not unamused with the girl’s amusement, and was not unwilling that his young wife should be a little happier than she had been; only she had despised him and Trevor Court, and she should not immediately cease to suffer for it.

Lady Bell drew back into her shell, stiffened not stung; she did not care enough for the man who had made himself her husband to be stung by him.

Lady Bell had nothing to do in what followed with the innumerable meetings of influential gentlemen, the speeches, including the bawling of speakers till they were hoarse, the rows, extending to the raising of walking canes and unsheathing of rapiers. All this was echoed by the clamour, the fisticuffing, the brickbatting, the cutlass-wielding of the populace. And the whole was but a small by-play preceding the close canvassing, the show on the hustings, the polling, the proclaiming, and the chairing.

But Lady Bell had her own part to play. She was ordered to drive out all day, and every day, in the streets and lanes of Peasmarsh. At first when she did so, her relish for the town was impaired. Excited tradesmen, and their apprentices, mechanics, drawers from the tavern taps, street-criers, came round her, cheering or hooting. They cried the party cries which were then rending the nation, “Down with Wilkes,” or “Wilkes for ever,” according as they were tory or whig (Squire Trevor was a tory), as if she were Wilkes, or Wilkes’s wife at least.

The mob pressed up to the chariot, and would either have had out the horses and harnessed themselves instead, dragging their future member’s wife with wild jolts and wilder hurrahs, or would have pelted “the machine which held Trevor’s wife” with mingled opprobrium and filth, and Lady Bell quailed before the ordeal.

But Lady Bell’s courage merely wanted steeling—she belonged to a class of rulers. Soon she could smile—a pale, handsome, child-like young woman as she was—and look around her unmoved, save by the necessity of graciously acknowledging greetings, whether she were applauded or abused, bowed before or bemired. It came naturally to her, and stimulated her to sit aloft there in her born element of leadership amidst historic feuds.

Then Lady Bell was commanded to go into every shop in the town to make abundant purchases, of the most diverse description, from satin to moleskin, from buttons to carriage-wheels, from sheep’s tar to _eau-de-luce_. She was next directed to go into every householder’s dwelling, with her “fellows” bearing after her, from the stuffed and piled carriage, any article that was portable, that Lady Bell might give gifts and bestow largesses, like an eastern princess on her progress.

“And see that you show none of your confounded insolence, Lady Bell,” was roared after her by her husband, as she departed on her mission, for between bating and fuddling, in the extreme exigencies of an election, Squire Trevor was fast being driven beside himself.

It was a misconception and an untruth that Lady Bell’s airs took the form of insolence to her inferiors in rank, when they did not trespass against her notions of decorum and the respect which she believed was due to her. On the contrary, she was gracious and affable in these circumstances.

Lady Bell loved to confer favours; she was in a state of crass ignorance in many respects, knew nothing whatever of the merits of political questions, and had little to say when the people were strangers to her. But her simple smile, her youth and its charms, her rank, went a far way to insure her popularity and promote her cause. It was hers, she was eager for it, she had worked herself up into eagerness even apart from the selfish consideration that Mr. Trevor’s being returned member for Peasmarsh, was the sole chance of Lady Bell’s being restored to her Elysian fields.

There had been a little mystery about the candidate on the whig side, some uncertain bringing forward and withdrawal of suitable men, and Lady Bell had been ten days at Peasmarsh before she was aware of who was her husband’s opponent.

The enlightenment broke upon Lady Bell suddenly, and with a little shock. Her course in driving one day was interrupted by the rival course of another chariot, with a similar train of friends and foes. In the chariot sat the handsome young lady whom Lady Bell had first seen in church, but the lady’s young husband had not left her to brave a street mob alone, he was seated beside her.

Mrs. Sundon’s fine face was pointed keenly for contest. Mr. Sundon looked almost animated and alive—as people seldom saw him look—not beside the real prize of his life, the beautiful, witty, wealthy woman who had elected him, against all hostile representations, her husband, but only in a tavern over the last bottle, when brawls were impending and blood was ready to flow, over cards and dice, in a dog-fight or a cock-pit, on a race-ground.

One need not condemn that man alone—there were hundreds and thousands of men like him, desperately jaded, mind and body, with the springs of life poisoned early, who might have been capable of higher and better things.

The couple were swift to recognise Lady Bell’s position, as she recognised theirs, and to show her what had become the courtesy of foes. It touched her all the more when she recalled it, after she had happened to see from her window Mr. Trevor’s encounter with Mr. Sundon in the market-place. In return for the grace of Mr. Sundon’s punctilious bow, Squire Trevor had vouchsafed only a savage scowl.

Into the house of one of the voters Lady Bell walked on the heels of Mrs. Sundon, going her rounds on a similar errand, so that the two ladies had nearly jostled each other in the doorway.

But the elder lady gave way to the younger, before Lady Bell, in her agitation, could think of what she ought to do. “The place is yours, Lady Bell Trevor,” said a sweet, sonorous voice, with a shade of emphasis on the Lady Bell. Then, as if regretting even that slightly ungracious inference, Mrs. Sundon added, “I am happy to yield it to you; ladies need not quarrel though gentlemen contest seats in Parliament;” finally, she remarked with a still franker, more winning cordiality, “I think that you and I should not quarrel, Lady Bell.”

“I think not, madam,” sighed Lady Bell, in a troubled fashion, conscious, with no ignoble envy, that Mrs. Sundon was her superior in manners as well as in years.

“If I don’t have a care,” reflected Lady Bell in alarm, and with the crude unmincing expression of opinion which belonged to her years and her generation, “I’ll soon be as great a brute as Trevor.”

The heat of the election grew intense and consuming, overthrowing all barriers, swallowing up all scruples, till it was not without call that the sheriff, and the company of soldiers were looked for, at the last moment, to keep the tottering peace.

Lady Bell’s room in the Trevor’s lodgings had come to be invaded with the Squire’s supporters, agents, and whippers-in, as they sought privacy in which to make up their lists, yell the sum total, wrangle, start new and more audacious schemes, and openly discuss infamous and scoundrelly plans.

In spite of the weight of Mr. Trevor’s character and stake in the county, there arose a horrible suspicion that the whig interest had gained ground in Peasmarsh, and that the tories might be defeated.

Forbid it, all ye powers of moral orthodox landowners, since Gregory Sundon, of Chevely, in addition to having been a gamester of the first water, a hard drinker, a frequenter of riotous company, after the pattern of his worthy master in statesmanship, was also a renegade to Charles James Fox’s revolutionary American creed. Let all the powers of torydom be fitly called in to circumvent such vile traitors!

“Egad! I would rather call Greg. Sundon out, and wing him before the nomination day,” suggested a fire-eater.

“Sooner be winged yourself, Ted,” said a listener, mockingly. “Sundon is the best shot and swordsman between this and London.”

“Had large practice, you see,” a third took up the tale briskly, “has us at a shameful disadvantage. Why not steal a march upon him—not wing him, but deal him a stray blow with a cudgel, or the flight of a stone, to crack his conceited pate or smash a limb? That would keep him out of our way for a week or two; teach him better manners,—be for his good in the long-run;” the speaker looked round triumphantly.

Squire Trevor was sitting, leaning back, in an arm-chair, a member of his tumultuous council, but preserving a grim silence. At the proposal his florid face darkened to purple, his red-brown eyes glared, he smote the table with his fist, and swore, with a ghastly grin, that he should like to be there to see when the barbarous stroke was dealt to his rival.

No one looking on the squire’s inflamed, distorted face could doubt that if he took vengeance into his own hand, there might be grievous danger of the rattening—the word might not exist then, but the thing was there, and in higher walks of life—passing swiftly into murder.

“Gentlemen, let me warn you,” interposed an anxious attorney, “that kidnapping on the occasion of an election is set down as a grave crime in the calendar, and is punished accordingly.”

“Who talked of kidnapping, Torney, unless it were your long-nosed, pettifogging self?” the nervous hint was angrily put down.

“Said and done, Bennet, what you wot of. But Sundon parades the town, backed by a ragged regiment of democratic dogs.”

“Not always,” was rejoined significantly. “He goes privately every time the London mail comes in to meet and receive his duns’ letters, _billet-doux_, and what not, into his own hands, rather than his fellow of a servant should bring them to him before his stuck-up madam of a wife. I warrant there are plenty of scores to settle unknown to her. I can see him myself walking up and down, wearing a muffler, which don’t disguise him from me, for as good as half-an-hour sometimes, in front of the inn-yard, before the coach comes in.”

“Is the mail extraordinary true to its hour?” investigated one of the conclave, curiously.

“Lord! no; how should it be, when it has to run the risk of being stopped by highwaymen at any one of the half-dozen lone bits between this and London?” replied the last speaker, in some surprise.

“Suppose it to be stopped on Toosday,” insinuated the satisfied inquirer, with an accent of the utmost cheerfulness, as he lolled against the wainscot, and kept his hands in his pockets, “when there may be more than Master Sundon on the out-look, a score of our fellows, armed with a hazel twig or two, in case their neighbour townsmen be up also, and a little too warm; hey, Mister Torney?”

“Excuse me, Sir John,” stammered the man of law and peace, “I cannot be a party to any sort of outrage, however provoked, or pardonable, or mitigated.”

“Nobody’s asking you, man,” was the contemptuous dismissal; “hold your tongue and shut your ears, that’s all, or worse may come of it.”

There was another pair of ears inquisitive, bewildered, appalled, which, whatever came of it, were not shut, though sometimes they had grown weary within the last few days of the incessant, harsh gabble.

Farmer Huggins was down with rheumatism, and must be wrapped in blankets and brought to the booth in a chair, at the peril of his life.

Butcher Green was trimming, the low rogue, standing out on a presentation to the grammar school for his clever son. What business had butchers with clever sons? or having them, couldn’t the butchers keep their lads to the slaughter-house and the scales, as a better trade, after all, than the beggarly professions without patrons?

Dame Mellish had all the odd voters at her finger ends, in return for her vintner’s custom, bought up in the first place, to be lavished gratis in the second.

Lady Bell had little to do with these unattractive details. Her part in the business of the election was well past, till Mr. Trevor was member, if he should be member. She was overlooked by the gentlemen, because they had no time to spend upon her, and because they had found out for themselves that it did not chime in with Squire Trevor’s humour to have his aristocratic young wife noticed, and it was not for them to thwart the Squire at the present moment.

But there was a fascination to Lady Bell in the very name of Sundon, conjuring up, as it did, the beautiful young woman of the rank and fashion to which Lady Bell was born and bred, more fortunate than Lady Bell, inasmuch as Mrs. Sundon’s sun had not been eclipsed before noon. She had not been sentenced to be the desolate young wife of an old bear of a country Squire, who would tie her down to his bear-garden, and bait her with his cousins—parsons’ wives and daughters. Mrs. Sundon had hope and heart in her youth and beauty as she shared and enjoyed life with her comely and elegant young husband, whose listlessness and haggardness even had a charm, by force of contrast, in Lady Bell’s eyes.

Lady Bell sat with her knotting in the far window, her hand with its shuttle arrested, her scared eyes and ears watching furtively and greedily the club of men by whom her presence was forgotten.

In the absorbing, horrified speculation on the broken words and dark hints which reached her, Lady Bell forgot the market-place and the country-town sights which had occupied her when she had arrived at Peasmarsh, and on which the declining September sun was now brooding peacefully.

With her woman’s faculty of leaping at a conclusion, and anticipating every result—painting it in extreme and exaggerated colours—Lady Bell saw the couple whom she had wistfully admired and envied in a new light.

She saw the slim, refined gentleman suddenly set upon in the dusk, by a band of hired and armed ruffians, and brutally mauled and beaten.

She saw his battered, disfigured body carried home to his wife.

She saw the high-spirited, dignified woman flinging herself down, in the abandonment of grief, by the wreck, apostrophizing it under fond names, lifting the unconscious head on her knees, wiping the blood-stains from the face, to leave it white and blank, tearing her hair at the shame and anguish of the sight.