“So Mr Pringle is on the other side,” said Mary Percival. “Perhaps it is
just as well, considering all things.”
“Why should it be just as well?” said Violet, with a spark of fire
lighting up her soft eyes. “Is unkindness, and opposition among people
who ought to be friends, ever ‘just as well’? You are not like yourself
when you say so;” and a colour which was almost angry rose upon Vi’s
delicate cheek.
“My dear, I have never concealed from you that I want to keep you and
Val apart from each other,” said Miss Percival, with an injudicious
frankness which I have never been able to understand in so sensible a
woman; but the most sensible persons are often foolish on one special
point, and this was Mary’s particular weakness.
“Why should we be kept apart?” said Violet, with lofty youthful
indignation. “Nobody can keep us apart--neither papa’s politics nor
anything else outside of ourselves.”
“Vi! Vi! I don’t think that is how a girl should speak of a young man.”
“Oh, I cannot bear you when you go on about girls and young men!” cried
Violet, stamping her small foot in the vehemence of her indignation. “Is
it my fault that I am a girl and Val a boy? Must I not be friends with
him because of that, a thing we neither of us can help, though I have
known him all my life? But we are fast friends,” cried Vi, with
magnificent loftiness, her pretty nostrils dilating, her bright eyes
flashing upon her companion. “Neither of us thinks for a moment of any
such nonsense. We were friends when we were seven years old, and I would
not give up my friend, not if he were twenty young men!”
“You are a foolish little girl, and I am sorry for you, Vi,” said Mary,
shaking her head. “At any rate, because you are fond of Val, that is no
reason for being uncivil to me.”
At these words, as was natural, Violet, with tears in her eyes, flew to
her friend and kissed her, and begged pardon with abject penitence. “But
I wish I had nothing more on my mind than being friends with Val,” the
girl said, sighing, “or the difference of people’s politics. Of course
people must differ in politics, as they do in everything else. I am a
Liberal myself. I think that to resist everything that is new, and cling
to everything that is old, whether they are bad, or whether they are
good, is very wrong. To choose what is best, whether old or new, is
surely the right way.”
“Oh, you are a Liberal yourself?” said Mary, amused; “but I don’t doubt
Val could easily turn you into a Conservative, Vi.”
“Val could not do anything of the kind,” said Violet, with some
solemnity. “Of course I can’t have lived to be twenty without thinking
on such subjects. But I wish I had nothing more on my mind than that.
Both Liberals and Conservatives may be fond of their country, and do
their best for it. I don’t like a man less for being a Tory, though I am
a Liberal myself.”
“That is very satisfactory for us Tories, my dear,” said Mary, “and I am
obliged to you for your magnanimity; but what is it then, my pretty Vi,
that you have upon your mind?”
The girl paused and let fall a few sudden tears. “Mary,” she said (for
there was a Scotch tie of kinship between them also which made this
familiarity admissible), “I am so frightened--and I don’t know what I
am frightened at. I feel sure papa means to do something more than any
one knows of, against Val.”
“Against Val! He means to oppose his election, no doubt, and give Lord
Eskside and our side all the trouble possible: we know that,” cried
Mary, who was a politician of the old school. “These are always the
tactics of the party--to give as much trouble, and sow as many
heart-burnings as possible; though they know they have not a chance of
success.”
“I suppose it is just what the Tories would do if they were in the same
position,” said Violet, naturally on the defensive. “But all that is
nothing to me,” she cried; “if people like to fight, let them: I don’t
mind it myself--the excitement is pleasant. But, of course, you know
better than I do--are you sure there is nothing more than fair fighting
that papa could do to Val?”
“I am sure your papa is not a man to do anything inconsistent with fair
fighting,” said Mary, evasively, her curiosity strongly roused.
This stopped Violet once more. She gave a heavy sigh. “I hear them say
that everything is fair in an election contest, as everything is fair in
war.”
“Or love.”
“I don’t understand such an opinion,” said Violet, rising to her feet
and striking her pretty hands together in impatience. “If a thing is
wrong once, it is wrong always. Love! they call that love which can be
pushed on by tricks and lies; and people like you, Mary--people who
ought to know better--say so too. Of course, one knows you cannot
_think_ it,” the girl cried, with a quick-drawn breath, half sob, half
sigh.
“Well, dear, I suppose we all give in to the saying of things which we
don’t think,” said Miss Percival, deprecatingly; “but, Vi, you have made
me curious. What is it your father means to do?”
“I wanted to ask you that; what can he do? Can he do anything?” said
Violet. Mary looked at the impulsive girl, not knowing what to answer.
Vi was true as truth itself in her generous young indignation against
all unworthy strategy--and she was “fond of” and “friends with” Val,
according to the childish phraseology which, in this respect at least,
she chose to retain. But still, even Violet’s innocence was a reason
for not trusting her with any admission that Valentine was open to
special attack. She might assail her father with injudicious
partisanship, entreating him to withhold from assaults which he had
never thought of making; so that, on the whole, Mary judged it was
judicious to say nothing as to any special flaw in the young candidate’s
armour. She shook her head.
“I cannot think of anything that could be done against Valentine,” she
said. “He has been a good boy, so far as we know; and when a boy is not
a good boy it is always found out. Sir John is to propose him, and Mr
Lynton of the Linn to second,--he could not have a better start; and
dear old Lord Eskside to stand by him, to get his heart’s desire,” said
Mary, with a little glimmer of moisture in her eyes. “You young things
don’t think of the old people. It goes to my heart, after all their
disappointments, to think they will have their wish at last.”
Violet did not make any reply. Though she was a Liberal herself, and
looked upon politics generally from such an impartial elevation of good
sense, it was no small trouble to poor Vi to know that she could not
even pretend to be on Valentine’s side at this great crisis of his
life;--could not go with Lady Eskside’s triumphant party to see him done
honour to in the sight of all men; could not even wear a bit of ribbon,
poor child, for his sake, but must put on the colours of snuffy Mr
Seisin, and go with her mother to the opposition window, and pretend to
look delighted at all the jokes that might be made, and all the assaults
upon her friends. Violet would not allow how deeply she felt this, the
merely superficial and necessary part of the situation; and, in reality,
it was as nothing to her in comparison with the dread in her heart of
something more, she knew not what--some masked battery which her
father’s hand was arranging. She took Mary out to show her the
improvements which were being made at the Hewan, the new rooms which
were almost finished, and which would make of the poor little cottage a
rustic villa. Jean Moffatt, whose nest had not been interfered with,
though Mr Pringle had bought the place, came out as she heard the voices
of the ladies, to take her share in the talk. Jean had now the
privileged position of an old servant among the Pringles, and still
acted as duenna and protectress to Violet on many a summer day when that
little maiden escaped alone with her maid from Moray Place. Mr Pringle
had been getting on in his profession during those years; not in its
honours, the tide of which he had allowed to go past him, but in its
more substantial rewards. He was better off, and able to afford himself
the indulgence of a whim; so the Hewan had been bought, half in love,
half in hatred. In love, because the children, and Violet especially,
were fond of the little place; and in hatred, because it commanded the
always coveted domain of Eskside.
“You are a Liberal too, I understand, Jean,” said Mary; “you are all Mr
Ross’s enemies up here.”
“I wish he might never have waur enemies,” said old Jean, “and that’s no
an ill wish; but I’ll never disown my principles. I’ve aye been a
Leeberal from the time of the Reform Bill, which made an awfu’ noise in
the country. There’s nane o’ your contests worth speaking o’ in
comparison with that. But I’m real distressed that there’s this
opposition now. We’ll no get our man in, and we’ll make a great deal o’
dispeace; and two folk so muckle thought of in the county as my lord and
my lady might have gotten their way for once. I canna bide the notion of
going again’ Mr Valentine; but he’s a kindly lad, and will see that,
whatever you are, ye maun gang with your pairty. Lord bless the callant!
if it was for naething but yon chicken-pie, he’s a hantle mair to me
than ony Edinburgh advocate that was ever born. But you see yoursel,
Miss Percival, how we’re placed; we maun side with our ain pairty, right
or wrong.”
“Yes, I see the difficulty of the position,” said Mary, laughing, “and I
shall make a point of explaining it to Val.”
“Do that, mem,” said Jean, seriously. She did not see any joke in the
matter, any more than Vi did, whose mind was in a very disturbed state.
“And I suppose your son will be of your mind?” said Mary, not indisposed
to a little gentle canvassing on her own part.
“I couldna undertake to answer for John,” said the old woman; “nor I
wouldna tamper with him,” she added, “for it’s a great responsibility,
and he ought to judge for himself. There’s one thing with men, they tak
a bias easy, and John was never a Leeberal on conviction, as ye may say,
like his faither and me; and he has a’ the cobbling from the House, and
a’ the servants’ work, and my lord’s shooting-boots, and so forth, and
noo and then something to do for my lady hersel; so I wouldna say but he
might have a bias. It’s a grand thing to have nae vote,” said Jean,
meditatively, “and then ye can have the satisfaction of keeping to your
pairty without harming your friends on the other side.”
Jean expressed thus the sentiments of a great many people in Eskside on
the occasion of this election. Even some of the great tenant-farmers who
were Liberals, instead of delighting in the contest, as perhaps they
ought to have done, grumbled at the choice set before them, and
regretted the necessity of vexing the Eskside family, old neighbours, by
keeping to their own party. For Val Ross, as they all felt, was on the
whole a much more appropriate representative than “a snuffy old
Edinburgh lawyer,” said one of the malcontents, “with about as much
knowledge of the county as I have of the Parliament House.” “But he
knows how to bring you into the Parliament House, and squeeze the siller
out of your pouch and mine,” said another. The Parliament House in
question, gentle Southern reader, meant not the House of Commons, but
the Westminster Hall of Edinburgh, into which, or its purlieus, it was
quite easy to get with Mr Seisin’s help, but not so easy to get out
again. I am afraid, indeed, that as the Liberal party was weak in the
county, and there had been no contest for some time, and no active party
organisation existed, there would have been no attempt to oppose
Valentine at all but for the determination of Mr Pringle, who, without
bringing himself very prominently forward, had kept his party sharply up
to the mark, and insisted upon their action. That they had no chance of
success, or so little that it was not worth calculating upon, they all
acknowledged; but allowed themselves to be pushed on, notwithstanding,
by the ardour of one fierce personal animosity, undisclosed and
unsuspected. Mr Pringle had been gradually winding himself up to this
act of vengeance through many years. I think if other people had
recollected the strange way in which his young supplanter had made his
first appearance at Eskside, or if any sort of stigma had remained upon
Val, the feelings of the heir-presumptive would have been less
exaggerated; but to find that everybody had forgotten these suspicious
circumstances--that even his insinuations as to the lad’s love of low
company, though sufficiently relished for the moment, had produced no
permanent impression--and that the world in general accepted Valentine
with cheerful satisfaction as Richard Ross’s son and Lord Eskside’s
heir, without a doubt or question on the subject,--all this exasperated
Mr Pringle beyond bearing. No passionate resentment and sense of injury
like this can remain and rankle so long in a mind without somehow
obscuring the moral perceptions; and the man had become so possessed by
this consciousness of a wrong to set right and an injury to avenge, that
it got the better both of natural feeling and morality. He did not even
feel that the thing he meditated was beyond the range of ordinary
electioneering attack; that it strained every law even of warfare, and
exceeded the revenges permitted to civilised and political men. All this
he would have seen in a moment had the case not been his own. He would
have condemned any other man without hesitation; would have solemnly
pointed out to him the deliberate cruelty of the project, and the
impossibility of throwing any gloss, even of pretended justice, over it.
For no virtuous impulse to punish a criminal, no philanthropic purpose
of hindering the accomplishment of a crime, could be alleged for what he
meant to do. The parties assailed were guiltless, and there was no
chance that his assault, however virulent, could shake poor Val’s real
position, however much it might impair his comfort. He could scarcely,
even to himself, allege any reason except revenge.
Meanwhile Val had been summoned home. He had spent Christmas with his
father, and since then had travelled farther afield, visiting, though
with perhaps not much more profit than attended his tour in Italy, the
classic islands of Greece. It was early spring when the summons reached
him to return without delay, everything in the political horizon being
ominous of change. Val got back in March, when the whole country was
excited by the preliminaries of a general election. He had been so
doubtful of the advantage of the abundant English society he had enjoyed
abroad, that he was comforted to find himself in English society at
home, where it was undeniably the right thing, and natural to the soil.
When he arrived at Eskside there was a great gathering to meet him. His
address was to be seen at full length on every bit of wall in Lasswade
and the adjoining villages, and even in the outskirts of Edinburgh; and
the day of nomination was so nearly approaching that he had scarcely
time to shake himself free from the dust and fatigue of his journey, and
to think of the speech which it would be necessary to deliver in answer
to all the pretty compliments which no doubt would be showered upon him.
Val, I am afraid, was a great deal more concerned about making a good
appearance on this occasion, and conducting himself with proper manly
coolness and composure--as if being nominated for a seat in Parliament
was a thing which had already happened to him several times at least in
his career--than about the real entry into public life itself, the
responsibility of an honourable member, or any other legitimate subject
of serious consideration. When he asked after everybody on his return,
the dignified seriousness with which he was told of the presence of the
Pringles at the Hewan did not affect the young man much. “Ah, you never
liked poor Mr Pringle, grandma,” he said, lightly. “I have little
occasion to like him,” said Lady Eskside; “and now that he is the getter
up of all this opposition, the only real enemy you have, my own boy----”
“Oh, enemy! come, grandma, that is too strong,” said Val. “If I never
have any worse enemy than old Pringle, I shall do. But I am sorry they
are on the other side,” he added, with a boyish thought that his blue
colours would have looked prettier than ever near Violet’s bright locks.
He paused a moment, and then burst out with a laugh. “I wonder if they
will put her into old Seisin’s yellow ribbons,” he cried, quite unaware
how dreadfully he was betraying himself. “Poor Vi!”
Lady Eskside and Mary looked at each other--the one with a little
triumph, the other with horror and dismay. It was my lady whose face
expressed the latter sentiments. She had constantly refused to believe
that Val had ever “thought twice” of Sandy Pringle’s daughter. Even now
she assailed Mary indignantly, as soon as Valentine’s back was turned.
“What did you mean by giving me such a look? Do you mean that a boy like
that cannot think of a girl he has known all his life without being in
love with her? My dear Mary, that is not like you. I was laughing
myself, I confess,” said the old lady, who looked extremely unlike
laughter, “at the idea of their yellow ribbons on Vi’s yellow hair. The
little monkey! setting herself up, forsooth, as a Liberal; I’m glad the
colours are unbecoming,” Lady Eskside concluded, with the poorest
possible attempt at a laugh.
Mary made no reply--but she was much more prepossessed in favour of Val
than she had ever been. Women like a man, or even a boy for that matter,
who betrays himself--who has not so much command of his personal
sentiments but that now and then a stray gleam of them breaking forth
shows whereabouts he is. Mary--who had taken Violet under her
protection, determined that not if she could help it should that little
girl fall a victim, as she herself had done--was entirely disarmed by
the boyish ingenuousness of his self-disclosure. She thought with a half
sigh, half smile, once more, as she had thought that summer day by the
linn, that this boy might have been her son had things gone as they
should--that he ought indeed to have been her son. Sometimes this was an
exasperating, sometimes a softening thought; but it came to Mary on this
occasion in the mollifying way.
“Don’t ask me anything about Vi,” she said to Valentine the same
evening. “You know I never approved of too much friendship between you;
she is your enemy’s daughter.”
“What do you call too much friendship?” said Val, indignantly. “If you
think I am going to give her up because her old father is an old fool,
and goes against us, you are very much mistaken. Why, Vi! I have known
her since I was _that_ high--better than Sandy or any of them.”
“Her father is not so dreadfully old,” said Mary, laughing; “and
besides, Val, I don’t put any faith in him; his opposition is a great
deal more serious than you think.”
“Well, I suppose he must stick to his party,” said Val, employing in the
lightness of his heart old Jean’s words; “but I know very well,” he
added, with youthful confidence, “that though he may be forced for the
sake of his party to show himself against me, he wishes me well in his
heart.”
“You are convinced of that?”
“Quite convinced,” said Val, with magnificent calm. Indeed I rather
think the boy was of opinion that this was the case in the world
generally, and that however outward circumstances might compel an
individual here and there to appear to oppose him, by way of keeping up
his party or otherwise, yet in their hearts the whole human race wished
him well.