CHAPTER XXIII.

The Election.

They fought all day with might and main; And when the sun was set The victors longed to fight again-- The vanquished, to forget.

Paul Seaton was one of the men who possess the useful knack of knowing when the tide of their affairs is at the flood; so when Mr. Ford asked him to come down and fight the Liberal battle at Chayford in Edgar's stead, Paul consented without an hour's delay.

At the beginning of the campaign Joanna came home, completely restored to health, bringing Isabel with her; and the inhabitants of the Cottage gave themselves up body and soul to the election, and talked and thought and dreamed of nothing else. Great was the excitement all over England, and Chayford was no exception to the rule. For three weeks Paul made several speeches per day, and was treated as if he were a combination of Juggernaut and a popular preacher, with a flavour of Royalty thrown in.

Everybody in the town, including even the babies and the cats, wore colours, if it were nothing better than a scrap of tea paper; and there was all that delicious love of fighting in the air which makes an election like a glorious war with no death or danger in it.

"Isn't it fun?" exclaimed Isabel one day. "I adore every minute of it. It makes you hate the other side with such an exquisite frenzy of hatred, which has neither malice nor uncharitableness in it and yet which is so charmingly violent while it lasts."

"I know," agreed Joanna, "it is that nice sort of hatred which would never let you really injure people, but which makes you want their chimneys to smoke and their hats to blow off."

Isabel laughed. "And your love for your own side is equally enjoyable. I assure you I feel the most fervent glow of affection for all the Liberals in Chayford--just as if they were relations and it was Christmas Day."

"Yet all the time you know that these feelings will completely die out within a week of the declaration of the poll!" added Joanna.

"Of course you do; that is why they are so delightful. Feelings that last, take a good deal out of you I have discovered; the really delicious sort are those that you think will last for ever and that you know won't," said Isabel.

"I am afraid, my dear girl, that you are becoming an epicure in emotions," remarked Paul, who had just come in.

"I know I am; an election, supervening on a love-affair, is enough to intoxicate any woman, especially when the beloved object and the candidate are one. You can't think what glorious thrills I have all down my back when the crowds applaud you. Liberalism and love combined so overwhelm my soul that I feel you are the only man in the whole world, and the English nation rolled into one; and I am as tearful as if people were singing 'God Save the Queen' and 'Auld Robin Gray' at the same time. Oh! it is a delicious feeling, and I am eternally grateful to you for giving it to me."

Paul beamed with delight, but, being a man, did not say pretty things before a third person; Isabel, being a woman, did.

"I adore elections," she continued, waltzing round the room, "they are simply heavenly!"

"A general election and my idea of heaven are by no means synonymous," replied her lover quietly.

"My idea of heaven is pretty much the same as Beatrice's," Isabel said; "I shall go 'where the bachelors sit, and there live as merry as the day is long'. I shall say, 'Please reserve the place next to Mr. Paul Seaton for me'; and if I find it already occupied, there will be unpleasantness, and I shall contest the seat."

"You are very brilliant to-day." And Paul looked at her proudly. She was worth looking at just then, as she had dressed herself entirely in blue, the Liberal colour in Chayford; and a woman always looks her best when her gown is of the same shade as her eyes.

"It is this lovely election! It has got into my head."

"Well, don't let it tire you; I would rather lose the seat than that you should knock yourself up in helping me to win it."

"I am glad you have warned her," said Joanna, "I am sure she works too hard, but she won't listen to me. She has too much spirit for her strength."

An anxious expression came over Paul's face. "You do look a bit tired, Isabel," he said.

"Rubbish!" she replied; then she looked at herself in the glass. "Should you call me a brilliant woman or a sweet woman?" she asked thoughtfully.

"Brilliant," replied Joanna.

"Both," replied Paul.

"That is absurd! I can't be both; nobody could."

"But you are."

Isabel carefully arranged her fringe: "That is just like your interesting but incomprehensible sex, my good sir. If you happen to care for a woman, you at once endow her with every possible virtue, totally irrespective of the fact that some of the virtues won't go together."

"Oh! that's what we do, is it?"

"Now we women behave differently. If we love a man, we don't plaster him over with all the good qualities; but we merely say that the virtues he doesn't possess are not virtues at all, and that no decent man would be seen with such things. But though the _modus operandi_ in each case is different, the result is the same; that is to say, the beloved object in both instances has the monopoly of human excellencies."

"Well, I must be off," said Joanna rising; "I have some work to do."

After his sister had left the room, Paul made up his deficiency in the saying of pretty things.

"Where is Isabel?" asked Mrs. Seaton of her daughter, as the latter was going out.

"With Paul in the drawing-room."

Mrs. Seaton drew a sigh of perfect contentment. "That is all right."

"What they have to say to each other that they are always wanting to be alone together, I cannot imagine," continued Joanna. "I never said anything in my life to anybody that a third person was not welcome to hear."

Her mother smiled. "You have not said all that there is to be said yet, then."

"Evidently not. There are still some things in heaven and earth undreamed of in my philosophy, and what those two good people talk to each other about is one of them. If I were Isabel I could say all I wanted to say before us all, I am certain."

"But you couldn't if you were Paul, my dear."

Joanna rolled up her umbrella. "Well, mother, I don't pretend to understand it; I could never exchange confidences with anybody for all those hours on end, least of all with a man. I should be 'gravelled for lack of matter' in no time; but those dear, silly people go on for sixty minutes at a stretch, and then, if I happen to disturb them, look at me as reproachfully as if they had only had five seconds together, instead of 'a long hour by Shrewsbury clock'."

Among the most enthusiastic of Paul's political supporters was the faithful Martha. Whenever she was able, she attended his meetings, and regarded them almost as means of grace.

"I don't believe that the Pope of Rome or the President of the Conference could make finer speeches than Master Paul does," she said one day, as she was dusting the drawing-room, and Joanna was arranging the flowers.

Joanna laughed. "He is certainly a born orator, Martha; he plays upon his audience as if he were playing upon an organ."

"He does indeed, miss; and never seems at a loss for a word. I'm bound to say I didn't think Master Paul had it in him to speak like that. When you listen to him, you wonder how the folks that think differently have managed to keep themselves out of the lunatic asylums; and that is the sort of speaking, and the sort of preaching, that does real good, to my thinking."

"Still, I suppose, one ought to hear both sides of a question," argued the wise Joanna.

"Certainly not, miss; there is nothing so unsettling. Besides, where's the good? Only one side can be right, that is plain; and what is the use of wasting the time in listening to the side that is wrong?"

"But, Martha, how can you tell which side is right without hearing both?"

Martha dusted so fiercely that the ornaments fairly danced. "Bless your dear heart, if you are a woman, you know who is right and who is wrong before you've heard a single word; and if you are a man, you don't know who is right and who is wrong after you've heard all there is to be said. But Mr. Paul's speeches are very convincing, all the same; especially to folks as think the same as he does to begin with."

"Oratory is a great power," remarked Joanna, half to herself; "it must be lovely to see hundreds of people hanging upon every word you utter, and to know that you can sway them for the time being as it pleases you!"

"It must indeed, my dear--in fact, it seems almost too great a power to be put into the hands of a man, even though the man be dear Master Paul himself. But it is a wonder to me that men get on in the world as well as they do, considering that they know nothing and can't bear to be taught. They say Providence takes special care of children and naturals, so I suppose Providence looks after men in the same sort of way. If it wasn't so, goodness knows what would become of them--the unmarried ones in particular!"

"You used to be such a strong Conservative," Joanna suggested, as she filled a vase with daffodils.

"So I was, miss; at one time the Conservatives seemed to me to do the least mischief of the two parties, because they were better able to mind their own business and leave the country to look after itself. As I have often passed the remark, interference is the one thing that I can't stand. I have no objection to speaking a word in season or out of season, whenever I think it is needed; but I know my own business, and I won't stand being taught it by anybody. And, I take it, the country is the same as me, miss; and doesn't want Governments to come poking their noses into things that don't concern them."

"So now I suppose you are a Liberal, Martha?"

"Well, I don't know that I'd go as far as that," replied Martha cautiously, "my father was a Liberal, and the love of reform got into his blood till he couldn't eat a bit of bacon without telling us how much better it might have been cooked if he'd had the doing of it himself. I've noticed, miss, that when the master of a house is a reformer, there's often trouble in the kitchen; so I set my face against reforms of any kind, as it were." And the good woman shook her duster to and fro, as if the whole Liberal party were wrapped up in it.

"Still some changes are improvements," persisted Joanna.

"I never came across them, miss; it seems to me that a new way of governing the country is like a new way of frying potatoes--the potatoes are no better than they were before, and the grease always smells. Still, my dear, I am no longer a Conservative. Take my word for that."

"What made you change your politics?" Joanna asked.

"Why, the way the Conservatives have turned against our Paul. As long as they kept themselves to themselves, and acted according to their lights, I had no objections to them; though I confess they sometimes made mistakes, like their betters. But when they turned against Master Paul, it was a different thing, and then I washed my hands once for all of the whole boiling of them."

Joanna smiled, as she disposed of her last daffodil. Martha's politics were so essentially feminine. As long as a political party contents itself with revolutionizing States and annexing continents and disestablishing Churches, and other trifling pastimes such as these, no right-minded woman troubles her head about it; these things amuse it and do not hurt her. But when the political party takes advantage of this patience and forbearance on her part, and goes to the length of actually contesting the seat in Parliament of some particular man, the sleeping tigress wakes up and shows all the claws wherewith provident Nature has endowed her. Which conduct is, after all, only natural; and the offending faction has no one but itself to blame.

But it is the same with parties as with individuals; if one gives them an inch they take an ell.

At last the day of the Chayford election dawned; and--as is the way of election days--it was so long, that it seemed as if the sun had stood still to watch the battle, as it did in the time of Joshua. But it came to an end at last; and the little party at the Cottage sat up till midnight awaiting Paul and the result. At first everybody said it would be a walk-over; but anybody who knows anything about electioneering will be aware that, however certain a seat may be, and however enormous the majority last time, fears come with fighting, whilst agonizing doubts foreshadow the declaration of the poll.

Paul's little home-circle felt very anxious; and the more they doubted the result, the more they kept repeating that there was no room for doubt at all. The Liberal majority at Chayford at the last election had been nine hundred; and they continually assured each other (and themselves) that a majority of that size could no more melt away than an Alp could.

"You see," said Mr. Seaton, "though of course it might have diminished, a majority of that size could not possibly have transformed itself into a minority in three years." He was thinking to himself that if only four hundred and fifty voters had gone over to the other side, Paul would be beaten.

"Of course not," replied Joanna, "the result really is a foregone conclusion; it is only a question as to the size of the majority. She felt sure that the Conservative papers could not write as they did, if they had not grounds for their hope of which she knew nothing.

"It is really absurd to think that a mere boy like Lord Gailey should beat a brilliant politician like Paul; the idea is simply ludicrous!" exclaimed Isabel; but she wished to goodness that Paul had not had an aristocrat for his opponent, as there is an underlying respect for titles at the bottom of every British heart.

"It is no use our expecting Paul for a couple of hours yet," remarked Paul's mother; "it would be impossible for him to be here before then." She was feeling that something dreadful must have happened--either that the mob had killed Paul or else had not elected him--otherwise he would have been at home an hour ago.

And so they went on telling little comforting fibs to each other, and inwardly wondering how much longer this suspense could be endured.

Suddenly they heard the sound of wheels, and the stamping and shouting of a multitude.

"Here he is," said Mr. Seaton gently; and he went very white and took his wife's hand.

Joanna and Isabel were past speaking; so they tried to laugh--and failed.

The noise grew louder. The crowd had taken the horses out of Paul's carriage, and were drawing it along with deafening cheers. At last they pulled up at the Cottage gate, and Paul sprang out and thanked them, and rushed inside.

"It is all right!" he cried, "I am in with a majority of twelve hundred."

Then he went straight up to Isabel and kissed her before them all.

"I am very glad I have won," he said simply, "because it gives me something to give to you, who have given me so much."

So it came to pass that the old wastes and the former desolations were built up and repaired in the life of Paul Seaton: and the name of the builder and repairer was Love.

A few days after the election--while Paul was helping a brother candidate and Joanna was working in her district--Isabel made her confession to Paul's father and mother. She told them the whole story: how she had written _Shams and Shadows_ in a fit of temper--how Paul had saved her from the consequences of her mad act--how she had selfishly let him bear the blame--how his love for her had at last conquered the weakness and worldliness of her nature, and taught her that it is not in the power of outside things to make a woman happy--and how she had promised to keep the secret all her life, after she had once told the truth to his own people.

"I could not rest till I had your forgiveness," she said in conclusion, "but if you will only say you forgive me, I have promised I will never mention the subject again."

"I forgive you utterly, my child," replied the minister; "the deed shall be blotted out as though it had never been; and I thank my son for having taught me how divine a thing sometimes is human love."

"And you?" whispered Isabel to Mrs. Seaton.

Paul's mother took Isabel in her arms. "Of course I forgive you, my dear one, because Paul has forgiven you, and because you have loved much; and I thank you for having given my son back to me again."

"I understand," said Isabel softly, "the Paul that you know, never could have written that horrid book, so you felt that there were two Pauls."

"That was just it," Mrs. Seaton replied, "and I could not make the two Pauls agree with one another in my mind. But now you have not only given the old Paul back to me; you have shown me that he is not merely as good as I believed he was, but infinitely nobler and better than I had dreamed. I did not think that my son could ever have written _Shams and Shadows_; but, on the other, hand, I did not think that he could ever have performed so noble an act of self-sacrifice as this. So you have restored him to me fourfold."

"I can never forgive myself," sobbed Isabel.

Mrs. Seaton drew the weeping girl close to her. "My dear, you must, for Paul's sake. Remember he loves you so much, that he could not forgive anybody for not forgiving you."

"And we must not forget," added the minister, "that it is love for you which has made Paul into the man he is; so you have had much to do with the making of Paul, and therefore his mother and I love you for it."

"I did not do it. It was God who made Paul what he is, and I was just the instrument."

Mr. Seaton smiled. "Exactly, my dear; but there is nothing remarkable in that. The man who does the most, is nothing more than God's instrument for fulfilling His purposes; and the man who does the least, is no less than that. But we love best the instruments whereby the most good is wrought; and so also, I think, does God."

Paul and his mother were left together for a few minutes that evening.

"My dear," she said, "Isabel has told me everything."

Paul's face fell. "I am sorry she told you, mother; but she would do it."

"Don't be sorry, Paul; it is the greatest joy to me to find that I have nothing for which to blame my dear son; but that he has been all that I believed and hoped, and far more."

"Still, I had rather that you blamed me than that you blamed her; that is the one thing that I could not bear even from you, mother."

"I do not blame her as I blamed you; the two cases are so different. Don't you know that when a woman is angry she says far more than she means, but that a man--however angry--never says as much? So one can hardly pass the same judgment on the utterances of both."

Paul looked relieved. "You think then that she was--but no; I may find fault with what she writes, but never with what she is; and no one else shall find fault with her at all. You will remember that this confidence is sacred, mother; and that no one but my father and Joanna must ever share it with you."

"Certainly; you may trust us, Paul."

"And you will love Isabel always?"

"Always, dear; both for your sake and her own."