VOTE FOR TOMMY!
It was indeed high time for me to be stirring, if I meant to be returned
for Larkmount; about which I cared supremely little, except as a
stepping-stone, towards my true love, and ambition. For, although the
influence of the Towers should have been paramount in the borough, as a
matter of right and long usage, the times were become so perverted that
a brisk opposition was got up; and some Liberal orators had been brought
down, who had nothing whatever to do with the place, and cared not a
farthing for its interests. My competitor was the owner of a paper-mill,
out of which he had made a good lump of money; and he announced his
intention to spend it freely, for the national good--as he presumed to
say. As yet, I had only paid a single visit to the enlightened electors,
and their wives; whereas Mr. Squelch had been working hard for months,
with his agents, committees, and "organisation" of every kind, in full
activity. But Sir Roland was as confident, as ever he could be, and made
light of the enemy's start in advance.
"They don't understand human nature," he said; "all their promises will
have got stale, and insipid, and all their bolts of clap-trap will have
been shot. In fact they will have bored the poor electors so, that we
shall be a welcome novelty. We shall have all the ladies on our side, of
course; and in these days of ballot, that is everything. An elector may
promise as much as he pleases; but he dare not tell a lie about his
vote, to his wife."
Also concerning my infinitely higher, and a thousandfold dearer
ambition, it was high time for me to be doing my best; and I grew hot
and cold, when I thought of it. Hot, when I heard from Sir Roland--who
took the pleasure of a cannibal in telling me, while I could only reply,
"Oh yes," "To be sure," "Very nice," and such like inanities, because of
the compact between us,--how my Lord This, and Sir Somebody That, had
been staying at the Towers, and were most agreeable, and had shot very
fairly, and had admired the neighbourhood, (discharging far too well, I
feared, that duty towards their neighbour) and had promised most readily
to come again, for the hunting, and the woodcocks, in November.
And cold I became, (quite as cold as a boy, who wants to have his bed
warmed, and a treacle-posset, and his head wrapped up in a blanket)
whenever I fell back upon my own poor chances, and knew that I must put
them to the trial very soon.
This was quite certain to require all my skill, as well as a great deal
of good luck at the moment. And one piece of fortune befriended me; to
wit, that none of those owners of the earth were there, at the time of
my arrival. Two were to come, in about ten days' time; but I hoped to
get on a good bit before that, and talk of them as strangers, by the
time they came. For ladies in the country, who have not been spoiled in
London, like the faces they are accustomed to.
But in spite of all that, my hopes were low; not only because of my
commercial birth, and want of high style, and of dashing disdain, and a
dozen other lofty attributes; but also because of my natural deficiency
in crass weight, and stolid material.
Somebody might say to the most perfect of all created beings, somebody
perhaps, with a foot like a duck, and a back like the bole of a
Churchyard yew,--"Well, if I did have a husband at all, I should like
one to make a mark, when the ground is wet; I should like one, who could
come round a corner safely, without looking for a church-tower, to see
what way the wind is. Ah, I see how he manages so well down
here--because you've got such a lot of weathercocks! Miss Twentifold,
what would you say to yourself, for slighting good solid Englishmen, if
your bridegroom made it a honey-moon indeed, by soaring to the moon, and
leaving you to weigh the honey?"
Truly, there are people who would say all that; however far beyond their
own business it might be. But would they have the chance of saying it?
If so, they would be welcome; for the right word would be mine--the word
that was worth all the world, and its works.
While I was entering into these thoughts, on the road from the Station
to Twentifold Towers, Sir Roland was preparing a little device; in my
opinion neither friendly, nor brotherly, nor even seemly. Having
returned the day before, he sent a groom with a dog-cart, to bring me
and my luggage from the Railway, according to the train agreed upon;
and a pleasant drive it would have been, except for the troubles
invading my heart. But just as we came to a little gate, opening into
the grounds, about half a mile from the house, the man said to me,
"If you please, sir, would you mind taking the short cut here to the
front? I have got a little job to do at the blacksmith's; and Sir Roland
said, I had better not keep you waiting I shall be home with your traps,
about a quarter of an hour after you."
I was rather glad to stretch my legs with a pleasant walk, on such a
lovely afternoon; so I took my bit of oak, with which I had gone to
encounter Professor Brachipod, and cheerfully entered on the footpath
way. But when I had walked about a hundred yards, swinging my stick in
defiance of dull care, and indulging in a song (which is a favourite of
mine, because I have steered so many crews to triumph with it)--
"The flag that braves a thousand years,
The battle, and the breeze!"
Suddenly in a bosky dell, I stood face to face with Sir Roland, and his
sister. Laura was amazed; and so was I. And Sir Roland maliciously kept
his eyes intent upon his sister's face.
"Why, Tommy, what a nightingale you are!" he said. "We took a little
stroll, for the chance of this meeting. Well done, old fellow! I am very
glad to see you. I forgot to tell you, Laura, what a treat we might
expect. Why, you don't seem at all glad to see friend Tommy!"
"Mr. Upmore knows that I am always glad to see him;" the sweet voice,
which always made me tremble, replied; as she put her hand in mine, and
faced the sun, with a lovelier blush than he can kindle in the west;
"but I did not in the least expect to see him; and in these lonely
places, one is taken by surprise."
"I should think so indeed!" I exclaimed, with a glance of great
indignation at her brother, who was smiling, as calmly as if he had done
nothing; "but Sir Roland thought, doubtless, that it was not worth
while, to speak of a visitor so insignificant."
"I am sure it was not that," she answered softly; "but he is now so full
of politics, that we must excuse him everything. For an hour, I have had
to listen to nothing but a lecture upon the Constitution. Oh, I do think
the trees are so much more glorious, than the poor little men who cut
them down!"
This was uncommonly clever on her part; for it set her brother off upon
his favourite tirade, which he never missed a chance of delivering. And
so we walked into the avenue, pretending to listen with the deepest
interest; while I only knew that at my side was Laura; and she, to make
up for the slight put upon me, gave many kind glances, and one or two
delicious smiles.
"To-morrow, remember, no waste of time, to-morrow!" her brother said
firmly, as soon as he had got to the bottom of the very deep vials of
his wrath, by which time we were at the door almost; "no spooning about
trees, or the beauties of nature, or any other beauties,--but good solid
work. We shall breakfast early, and have a long day at it. I shall drive
you to the "_True-Blue Hotel_" myself, and take with me a fellow, who
has a brother at the paper-mills, I have a grand trick against old
Squelch, in the bottom of my turbid heart, as some ancient writer calls
it."
"You seem to be getting very fond of tricks;" cried his sister, as she
ran away, to dress for dinner; "perhaps some will be played upon you,
before long."
Such was my state now of mind, heart, and soul--as well as of body,
which had long been in training for a great constitutional effort--that
the paper-mill-man might have passed through his mill, as waste paper,
the promises made him. Sir Roland had eight or nine carriages sent from
the Towers, of three generations, including some now in use for
cock-lofts; and we took all the children of Larkmount, in batches, for a
drive, with their pinnies full of sugar-plums. There was nothing in the
Bribery Acts as yet, to make such a proceeding penal; though now, if a
candidate takes a fly out of the eye of a child, he is bound to ask
firmly--"My dear, is your father an elector? Oh, then, I must put that
fly back into your eye; or else my election will be null and void."
But the way these children enjoyed their drives, in a carriage with two
horses--for none of them had less--and a big coat of arms, and a hand
sticking up; and the way they drummed their feet, and holloaed--"Vote
for Tommy! Down with Squelch!
"Down with the paper-man, brown and old!
Up with young Tommy, all curls and gold!"
--it was indeed a day to make one proud of the British Constitution.
"We'll do it again. We'll do it three times; if you are all good
true-blue children;" Sir Roland said to the biggest-voiced ones, when
the horses had made a good day of it; "blue jackets for the boys, and
for the pretty girls blue bonnets, or hats, if they stand to their
principles. But no yellow, mind you; touch no dirty yellow. Yellow
fever, and jaundice for you, if you do. You shall all have the Gee-gees,
to go and vote for Tommy."
"Vote for Tommy! All curls and gold!"
We heard the clear voices from the hill in chorus, for half a mile, or
more, of our homeward road.
Elated as I was, by this triumph of pure principles, and display of
unselfish innocence, all I kept asking myself was this--"Will a body,
worth the Constituency piled on the top of the Constitution, and the
Kingdom on the top of the Continent, ever be persuaded to 'vote for
Tommy?' I must know my fate. I can't go on, like this. To-night I shall
have to carry on again, as if all I cared about was piano and
back-gammon; and tobacco and billiards, afterwards. Roly is full of
resources; but I seem somehow to have lost the very simplest move of
tactics! Where are all my wits gone? I am only fit to be in the
Government."
But if my wits stood me in no stead, Luck (which is a very far higher
power, coming immediate from Heaven), she--for beyond any doubt she is
female, like the Angels--down she came, and stood at my right hand, and
ordered me to listen, while she did my work for me.
"Roly," Lady Twentifold said, when I had sung my song about the flag,
which was now become a plague; "he has done a very hard day's work
to-day, and he is not made of iron as you are. To-morrow, he shall have
a whole holiday, with me and Laura, at Crowton and Sunny Bay. You have
got business at Ipswich, I know, and will not be back till dinner-time.
But if Tommy will not find it dull to come with us, and the day is as
fine as to-day has been, we will go and see Sunny Bay--such a pretty
place!--and look for shells, and sharks' teeth, and carnelians. Unless
you would rather go practising, Tommy, with the keeper, before they come
shooting again? There are plenty of pheasants, in some places, still."
"No; he had better go with you;" Sir Roland answered for me, as he loved
to do. "The fates have been against Tommy's shooting so far. He has only
been out with me twice at the rabbits, back in the summer; but I find
thee apt; and duller should'st thou be than the fat cigar, Tommy--none
shall teach thy young idea how to shoot, but I. Go thou with the mother,
and play at periwinkles, and sand-hoppers, and cowries; an thou wilt."