Alethia Debchance sat in a corner of an otherwise empty railway carriage,
more or less at ease as regarded body, but in some trepidation as to
mind. She had embarked on a social adventure of no little magnitude as
compared with the accustomed seclusion and stagnation of her past life.
At the age of twenty-eight she could look back on nothing more eventful
than the daily round of her existence in her aunt’s house at
Webblehinton, a hamlet four and a half miles distant from a country town
and about a quarter of a century removed from modern times. Their
neighbours had been elderly and few, not much given to social
intercourse, but helpful or politely sympathetic in times of illness.
Newspapers of the ordinary kind were a rarity; those that Alethia saw
regularly were devoted exclusively either to religion or to poultry, and
the world of politics was to her an unheeded unexplored region. Her
ideas on life in general had been acquired through the medium of popular
respectable novel-writers, and modified or emphasised by such knowledge
as her aunt, the vicar, and her aunt’s housekeeper had put at her
disposal. And now, in her twenty-ninth year, her aunt’s death had left
her, well provided for as regards income, but somewhat isolated in the
matter of kith and kin and human companionship. She had some cousins who
were on terms of friendly, though infrequent, correspondence with her,
but as they lived permanently in Ceylon, a locality about which she knew
little, beyond the assurance contained in the missionary hymn that the
human element there was vile, they were not of much immediate use to her.
Other cousins she also possessed, more distant as regards relationship,
but not quite so geographically remote, seeing that they lived somewhere
in the Midlands. She could hardly remember ever having met them, but
once or twice in the course of the last three or four years they had
expressed a polite wish that she should pay them a visit; they had
probably not been unduly depressed by the fact that her aunt’s failing
health had prevented her from accepting their invitation. The note of
condolence that had arrived on the occasion of her aunt’s death had
included a vague hope that Alethia would find time in the near future to
spend a few days with her cousins, and after much deliberation and many
hesitations she had written to propose herself as a guest for a definite
date some weeks ahead. The family, she reflected with relief, was not a
large one; the two daughters were married and away, there was only old
Mrs. Bludward and her son Robert at home. Mrs. Bludward was something of
an invalid, and Robert was a young man who had been at Oxford and was
going into Parliament. Further than that Alethia’s information did not
go; her imagination, founded on her extensive knowledge of the people one
met in novels, had to supply the gaps. The mother was not difficult to
place; she would either be an ultra-amiable old lady, bearing her feeble
health with uncomplaining fortitude, and having a kind word for the
gardener’s boy and a sunny smile for the chance visitor, or else she
would be cold and peevish, with eyes that pierced you like a gimlet, and
an unreasoning idolatry of her son. Alethia’s imagination rather
inclined her to the latter view. Robert was more of a problem. There
were three dominant types of manhood to be taken into consideration in
working out his classification; there was Hugo, who was strong, good, and
beautiful, a rare type and not very often met with; there was Sir Jasper,
who was utterly vile and absolutely unscrupulous, and there was Nevil,
who was not really bad at heart, but had a weak mouth and usually
required the life-work of two good women to keep him from ultimate
disaster. It was probable, Alethia considered, that Robert came into the
last category, in which case she was certain to enjoy the companionship
of one or two excellent women, and might possibly catch glimpses of
undesirable adventuresses or come face to face with reckless
admiration-seeking married women. It was altogether an exciting
prospect, this sudden venture into an unexplored world of unknown human
beings, and Alethia rather wished that she could have taken the vicar
with her; she was not, however, rich or important enough to travel with a
chaplain, as the Marquis of Moystoncleugh always did in the novel she had
just been reading, so she recognised that such a proceeding was out of
the question.
The train which carried Alethia towards her destination was a local one,
with the wayside station habit strongly developed. At most of the
stations no one seemed to want to get into the train or to leave it, but
at one there were several market folk on the platform, and two men, of
the farmer or small cattle-dealer class, entered Alethia’s carriage.
Apparently they had just foregathered, after a day’s business, and their
conversation consisted of a rapid exchange of short friendly inquiries as
to health, family, stock, and so forth, and some grumbling remarks on the
weather. Suddenly, however, their talk took a dramatically interesting
turn, and Alethia listened with wide-eyed attention.
“What do you think of Mister Robert Bludward, eh?”
There was a certain scornful ring in his question.
“Robert Bludward? An out-an’-out rotter, that’s what he is. Ought to be
ashamed to look any decent man in the face. Send him to Parliament to
represent us—not much! He’d rob a poor man of his last shilling, he
would.”
“Ah, that he would. Tells a pack of lies to get our votes, that’s all
that he’s after, damn him. Did you see the way the _Argus_ showed him up
this week? Properly exposed him, hip and thigh, I tell you.”
And so on they ran, in their withering indictment. There could be no
doubt that it was Alethia’s cousin and prospective host to whom they were
referring; the allusion to a Parliamentary candidature settled that.
What could Robert Bludward have done, what manner of man could he be,
that people should speak of him with such obvious reprobation?
“He was hissed down at Shoalford yesterday,” said one of the speakers.
Hissed! Had it come to that? There was something dramatically biblical
in the idea of Robert Bludward’s neighbours and acquaintances hissing him
for very scorn. Lord Hereward Stranglath had been hissed, now Alethia
came to think of it, in the eighth chapter of _Matterby Towers_, while in
the act of opening a Wesleyan bazaar, because he was suspected (unjustly
as it turned out afterwards) of having beaten the German governess to
death. And in _Tainted Guineas_ Roper Squenderby had been deservedly
hissed, on the steps of the Jockey Club, for having handed a rival owner
a forged telegram, containing false news of his mother’s death, just
before the start for an important race, thereby ensuring the withdrawal
of his rival’s horse. In placid Saxon-blooded England people did not
demonstrate their feelings lightly and without some strong compelling
cause. What manner of evildoer was Robert Bludward?
The train stopped at another small station, and the two men got out. One
of them left behind him a copy of the _Argus_, the local paper to which
he had made reference. Alethia pounced on it, in the expectation of
finding a cultured literary endorsement of the censure which these rough
farming men had expressed in their homely, honest way. She had not far
to look; “Mr. Robert Bludward, Swanker,” was the title of one of the
principal articles in the paper. She did not exactly know what a swanker
was, probably it referred to some unspeakable form of cruelty, but she
read enough in the first few sentences of the article to discover that
her cousin Robert, the man at whose house she was about to stay, was an
unscrupulous, unprincipled character, of a low order of intelligence, yet
cunning withal, and that he and his associates were responsible for most
of the misery, disease, poverty, and ignorance with which the country was
afflicted; never, except in one or two of the denunciatory Psalms, which
she had always supposed to have be written in a spirit of exaggerated
Oriental imagery, had she read such an indictment of a human being. And
this monster was going to meet her at Derrelton Station in a few short
minutes. She would know him at once; he would have the dark beetling
brows, the quick, furtive glance, the sneering, unsavoury smile that
always characterised the Sir Jaspers of this world. It was too late to
escape; she must force herself to meet him with outward calm.
It was a considerable shock to her to find that Robert was fair, with a
snub nose, merry eye, and rather a schoolboy manner. “A serpent in
duckling’s plumage,” was her private comment; merciful chance had
revealed him to her in his true colours.
As they drove away from the station a dissipated-looking man of the
labouring class waved his hat in friendly salute. “Good luck to you, Mr.
Bludward,” he shouted; “you’ll come out on top! We’ll break old
Chobham’s neck for him.”
“Who was that man?” asked Alethia quickly.
“Oh, one of my supporters,” laughed Robert; “a bit of a poacher and a bit
of a pub-loafer, but he’s on the right side.”
So these were the sort of associates that Robert Bludward consorted with,
thought Alethia.
“Who is the person he referred to as old Chobham?” she asked.
“Sir John Chobham, the man who is opposing me,” answered Robert; “that is
his house away there among the trees on the right.”
So there was an upright man, possibly a very Hugo in character, who was
thwarting and defying the evildoer in his nefarious career, and there was
a dastardly plot afoot to break his neck! Possibly the attempt would be
made within the next few hours. He must certainly be warned. Alethia
remembered how Lady Sylvia Broomgate, in _Nightshade Court_, had
pretended to be bolted with by her horse up to the front door of a
threatened county magnate, and had whispered a warning in his ear which
saved him from being the victim of foul murder. She wondered if there
was a quiet pony in the stables on which she would be allowed to ride out
alone. The chances were that she would be watched. Robert would come
spurring after her and seize her bridle just as she was turning in at Sir
John’s gates.
A group of men that they passed in a village street gave them no very
friendly looks, and Alethia thought she heard a furtive hiss; a moment
later they came upon an errand boy riding a bicycle. He had the frank
open countenance, neatly brushed hair and tidy clothes that betoken a
clear conscience and a good mother. He stared straight at the occupants
of the car, and, after he had passed them, sang in his clear, boyish
voice:
“We’ll hang Bobby Bludward on the sour apple tree.”
Robert merely laughed. That was how he took the scorn and condemnation
of his fellow-men. He had goaded them to desperation with his shameless
depravity till they spoke openly of putting him to a violent death, and
he laughed.
Mrs. Bludward proved to be of the type that Alethia had suspected,
thin-lipped, cold-eyed, and obviously devoted to her worthless son. From
her no help was to be expected. Alethia locked her door that night, and
placed such ramparts of furniture against it that the maid had great
difficulty in breaking in with the early tea in the morning.
After breakfast Alethia, on the pretext of going to look at an outlying
rose-garden, slipped away to the village through which they had passed on
the previous evening. She remembered that Robert had pointed out to her
a public reading-room, and here she considered it possible that she might
meet Sir John Chobham, or some one who knew him well and would carry a
message to him. The room was empty when she entered it; a _Graphic_
twelve days old, a yet older copy of _Punch_, and one or two local papers
lay upon the central table; the other tables were stacked for the most
part with chess and draughts-boards, and wooden boxes of chessmen and
dominoes. Listlessly she picked up one of the papers, the _Sentinel_,
and glanced at its contents. Suddenly she started, and began to read
with breathless attention a prominently printed article, headed “A Little
Limelight on Sir John Chobham.” The colour ebbed away from her face, a
look of frightened despair crept into her eyes. Never, in any novel that
she had read, had a defenceless young woman been confronted with a
situation like this. Sir John, the Hugo of her imagination, was, if
anything, rather more depraved and despicable than Robert Bludward. He
was mean, evasive, callously indifferent to his country’s interests, a
cheat, a man who habitually broke his word, and who was responsible, with
his associates, for most of the poverty, misery, crime, and national
degradation with which the country was afflicted. He was also a
candidate for Parliament, it seemed, and as there was only one seat in
this particular locality, it was obvious that the success of either
Robert or Sir John would mean a check to the ambitions of the other,
hence, no doubt, the rivalry and enmity between these otherwise kindred
souls. One was seeking to have his enemy done to death, the other was
apparently trying to stir up his supporters to an act of “Lynch law”.
All this in order that there might be an unopposed election, that one or
other of the candidates might go into Parliament with honeyed eloquence
on his lips and blood on his heart. Were men really so vile?
“I must go back to Webblehinton at once,” Alethia informed her astonished
hostess at lunch time; “I have had a telegram. A friend is very
seriously ill and I have been sent for.”
It was dreadful to have to concoct lies, but it would be more dreadful to
have to spend another night under that roof.
Alethia reads novels now with even greater appreciation than before. She
has been herself in the world outside Webblehinton, the world where the
great dramas of sin and villainy are played unceasingly. She had come
unscathed through it, but what might have happened if she had gone
unsuspectingly to visit Sir John Chobham and warn him of his danger?
What indeed! She had been saved by the fearless outspokenness of the
local Press.