Cry the man mercy; love him, take his offer.
SHAKSPEARE.
Germain in the mean time proceeded prosperously with his canvass; to
go through all the various duties of this busy time was to him much
less of an effort than to Oakley. Some amused him, others gratified
his vanity, and as they all were the source of active occupation and
excitement, he never felt happier than whilst engaged in them, which
feeling enabled him to perform them not only more easily, but more
effectually than if he had considered them as a drudgery.
He evidently rather liked riding about with a concourse of followers,
and being a great man wherever he went; and even the cry of “Germain
for ever!” with which little blackguard boys strained their tiny
throats as he rode through the village, was not altogether an
unpleasant sound to him. He was moreover an excellent listener, a
first-rate qualification in a candidate; and during the allotted period
of each visit, he could sit with a face of intense interest whilst
the topics that had been got up for his reception were regularly gone
through. It was the same to him whether the subject matter was foreign
or domestic--there he sat in silent acquiescence.
He had moreover a ready eye for any thing purposely put up to be
admired, whether of furniture or family; and no one had ever the
mortification of reflecting after he went away, that any thing done to
attract his attention had failed in its object.
He was an amazing favourite with all the young ladies--they hardly knew
why. Mr. Oakley was at least as handsome, but it was Mr. Germain who
looked as if he thought them handsome.
One of his most active coadjutors in the business of canvassing,
was Mr. Macdeed, the celebrated solicitor of ----, who it will be
recollected was excessively offended with the reception Oakley
gave him after Lord Rockington’s death. His zeal therefore had the
double incitement of dislike to the rival candidate, and desire to
establish himself in the good graces of Lord Latimer, by whom he had
been recently employed, in consequence of the talent he had formerly
displayed on the other side, in the famous cause of Rockington _v._
Latimer.
The course of their circuit had brought Germain and Mr. Macdeed to a
part of the county which the former full well remembered, when Mr.
Macdeed addressed him thus: “I suppose we may as well just call there,
though I am afraid it will be to very little purpose; I have him down
in my list--‘Rev. Mr. Dormer, supposed plumper for Stedman.’”
“I have no doubt you are wrong there,” said Germain; “Mr. Dormer is an
old and very particular friend of mine.”
“Well, we’ll try,” replied the other, “but I know he has a most
particular horror of ‘the damnable doctrine.’ It is a pity, Mr.
Germain, that you and Lord Latimer could not have made up your mind
to some sort of vague ‘no popery phrases’ in your address; you would
have been quite safe then, and I would have undertaken to have so
worded it that it need not hereafter have been inconvenient under other
circumstances.”
“It is just as well as it is,” was all that Germain replied, his
prudence inducing him to repress the indignation he really felt at the
proposal. As they approached Rosedale Rectory, though its general
view from a distance was still the same, the details disappointed him.
Could that be the stile looking into the lane over which he used to
lean with Fanny, and that the green path which led to it, all ending
in a muddy puddle? The rector’s plantation too was much thinner, and
more transparent--why, he was sure one never used to see the pig-stye
through it. As they rode up to the door, they passed his study-window
and the little garden beneath where he used to see Fanny day after day
watering the roses--they had been succeeded by cabbages. This rather
touched him--perhaps she had never sought the spot since his departure.
“Poor Fanny!” thought he, “how glad she will be to see me again!”
They were ushered in. Mr. Dormer had walked out into the village,
yet Fanny was not alone. They found with her, in what was commonly
called the parlour, a short thick-set man, about forty, with rather a
bilious tinge, and a bald head and immense whiskers; it would have been
impossible to guess at his profession from his dress, for while a new
bright-green single-breasted jacket with brass buttons looked rural, a
stiff black stock seemed military, while sundry spots of ink upon pale
shrunk nankeen trowsers indicated connexion with the counter.
Fanny’s cheeks once more rivalled in brilliancy those less congenial
spots which in colour had lately eclipsed them, as she advanced to meet
Germain, and introduced him to Captain Wilcox, saying at the same time
that her father would soon return.
“Won’t you please to be seated? Pray take a chair, gentlemen,” said the
captain.
Germain bowed assent, saying to himself, “And who, I wonder, are you?
I should think I might make myself at home here without asking your
leave.”
He recalled the whole line of cousins he had ever heard either Mr. or
Miss Dormer lay claim to, and though it had been a topic of rather
frequent recurrence, he could not recollect the name of Wilcox amongst
the number.
“Seasonable weather,” said Fanny to Mr. Macdeed, on one side of the
table.
“Unseasonable weather,” said Captain Wilcox to Mr. Germain on the
other; and they had only both just assented to these contradictory
propositions, when Mr. Dormer himself returned, and after shaking hands
cordially with Germain, thus addressed Mr. Macdeed: “Mr. Macdeed, I
presume; busy time, Mr. Macdeed.”
A whisper then passed between him and Fanny, accompanied by the
consignment of a key, which led to an immediate jingling of glasses in
a corner cupboard in the next room, and to more ostensible effects in
a later period of the visit.
Mr. Dormer then drew his chair towards Germain’s, and after hemming to
clear his voice began: “Mr. Germain, as you are a candidate on your
canvass, perhaps it is not too much to presume that it is the object of
your visit to request my vote?”
Germain having assented in a few words about the gratifying support
of an old friend, and Mr. Macdeed having contrived to edge in “the
important point in their favour that it would be,” Mr. Dormer resumed:--
“It is my maxim--I may be wrong--that a conscientious man should always
act according to his conscience.”
After allowing a pause for contradiction he continued:--
“A public trust can hardly be said to mean private advantage.”
Another pause, producing acquiescence.
“Those who are most attached to our invaluable constitution, would not
wish to destroy it.”
“Certainly,” said Germain.
“Undoubtedly,” added Mr. Macdeed.
“Of all our establishments those which partake of a holy character,
ought to be the most sacred.”
Still there seemed to Germain to be no room for dispute, though he
remembered enough of the illogical nature of his good friend’s mind, to
know that he disdained the regular steps of reasoning, and that after
piling up these disjointed scraps of truism till he had sufficiently
exalted himself, he would jump at once to his conclusion, however far
he might appear from it. And so it turned out; for after stringing
together a few more such sentences--without allowing Germain the
opportunity he wished for, of protesting that he yielded to no man
in attachment to the Church of England, and that he thought he best
supported its interests, and maintained its integrity, by removing from
it the stigma of intolerance--he announced his intended support of
Stedman as the Protestant champion.
“But,” added he, “I should only half discharge my duty if I did not
recollect that I have another vote.”
“To be sure you would,” said Germain.
“That’s the point at issue, my good friend,” said Mr. Macdeed.
“And I am happy to say, Mr. Germain, that my public duties, and my
personal feelings here coincide in inducing me to give the preference
to you over your competitor.”
Germain expressed himself properly on the subject, but somehow he did
not feel as grateful as he ought. It was not only that he would have
preferred Oakley to Stedman, and therefore was not quite satisfied, but
somehow he had calculated upon being the first object with Mr. Dormer.
He could not help thinking, that his old friend used not to be quite so
great a twaddler.
“Mr. Dormer has spoken my sentiments too, to a T,” said Captain Wilcox.
“And what right,” thought Germain, “can you have to any sentiments on
the subject?”
“You are put up, I believe, by Lord Latimer, sir,” continued the
captain; “I should be very happy to oblige his lordship, he spoke so
handsomely of our Indian army, in seconding the address in the House of
Lords a few years ago. I remember the circumstance, because a friend of
mine, at the mess, objected to an expression of his lordship’s, that
that army _ran_ second to none on the field of glory. ‘Ran,’ said my
friend, ‘is an odd compliment,’ but I explained that it was a metaphor
borrowed from his lordship’s sporting pursuits, and accompanied by many
other favourable expressions.”
Though the offensive and unconstitutional phrase, “put up by Lord
Latimer,” was somewhat explained by the long residence in India
afterwards admitted, which might account for ignorance on such a
subject, yet Germain felt inclined to be angry at his talking at all
about it, when Mr. Macdeed skilfully whispered to him: “Just bought a
property in the county, (I remember now,) commanding twenty votes.”
Germain immediately replied, that he should be happy to take an
opportunity of introducing him personally to Lord Latimer, to whose
merits he did no more than justice.
Still he felt puzzled to account for the relation in which he stood to
Mr. Dormer. For upon the entry of a tray, with wine and cakes, he it
was who undertook to do the honours of Mr. Dormer’s old port, to which
Mr. Macdeed seemed inclined to do even more justice than canvassing
civility required; Mr. Dormer, helping himself to a glass, said:
“Church and King, Mr. Macdeed; I am sure you would not wish to separate
them.”
“Only inasmuch as I should prefer two glasses of your port to one,”
replied Mr. Macdeed, chuckling at his own smartness.
In the meantime Fanny, addressing Germain, said: “Perhaps, Mr. Germain,
you think that we know nothing here of your electioneering bustle, but
a friend of mine sent me one of the hand-bills about you all yesterday,
in which I hope that the omen of your success may be more true than the
idea of your character is just.”
It was as pointless, and at the same time, as personal as political
squibs upon such occasions usually are. It was called, “Effervescent
Draught for the County.” Oakley was described as the acid, Stedman as
the alkali, and Germain the froth which the collision of the other two
would make to float at the top.
But if it had been a much more poignant production, the contents of
that paper would have then had no effect upon Germain, for the envelope
that had just been given to him by Fanny was directed to “Mrs. Captain
Wilcox!”
Mrs. Captain Wilcox! was it possible that Fanny Dormer, whose taste
had once been so refined, whose young heart had once shown a proper
sensibility to his merits, should ever have consented to become Mrs.
Captain Wilcox? It was not for himself he cared. It was evident last
time they met, that he had completely outgrown any remains of his
former weakness, but he could not bear that one who had once shown
a discriminating preference for better things, should have been so
perverted.
But Germain was wrong. Captain Wilcox was essentially a vulgar man;
but that which offended Germain at the first glance, appeared to Mr.
Dormer and his daughter, the manner of a man who had lived in the
world, and his vulgarity once overlooked, he had many redeeming points;
he was indeed, as Mr. Dormer always confided to every body soon after
introducing him, “a most worthy man, the captain.” He had realized a
fair fortune by his prudence in the East, without suffering either in
liver or character, and was now prepared to spend his money comfortably
in his own county.
As a useful assistant in such a scheme, he had made up to Fanny Dormer,
whom he met among the sea-bathers at ----, soon after Germain had left
that watering-place. The courtship was concise but effectual. They
had been married soon after their return to Rosedale, an event that
had escaped Germain’s notice during his agreeable sojourn at Boreton
Hall. They were likely, till the captain’s new house was built, to
continue their residence at the rectory; and the afternoon flow of
the rector’s old port was not a little helped by his own somewhat
soporific anecdotes of the trout-fishing in his own stream, being now
interspersed with the captain’s tales of tiger-hunting on the banks of
the Ganges.
Mr. Dormer accompanying Germain to the outer door, took that
opportunity of saying: “You have not yet congratulated me upon your old
friend Fanny’s happiness--a most worthy man, the captain.”
“So he seems,” said Germain, without exactly reflecting how a man seems
“most worthy” in a short morning visit. Any other equally sincere
expressions on the subject, were prevented by Fanny herself following
them to the door; and there she stood on the same threshold where, in
former times, she had bounded forward to meet his return, while springy
seventeen gave elasticity to her already well-rounded form, and the
coming breeze which played among her careless locks disclosed the whole
contour of her fine open countenance, and the glad smile of welcome
just parted her ruby lips enough to show the dazzling whiteness of her
teeth. Now, as Germain took a parting glance in riding from the door,
he only thought “What a figure she will have by the time she is the
mother of half-a-dozen little Wilcoxes!”