VOX POPULI
James Andersen’s mental state did not fall away from the restored
equilibrium into which the unexpected intervention of Ninsy Lintot
had magnetized and medicined him. He went about his work as usual,
gloomier and more taciturn, perhaps, than before, but otherwise with no
deviation from his normal condition.
Luke noticed that he avoided all mention of Lacrima, and, as far as the
younger brother knew, made no effort to see her. Luke himself received,
two days after the incident in the Methodist cemetery, a somewhat
enigmatic letter from Mr. Taxater. This letter bore a London post-mark
and informed the stone-carver that after a careful consideration of the
whole matter, and an interview with Lacrima, the writer had come to the
conclusion that no good purpose would be served by carrying their plan
into execution. Mr. Taxater had, accordingly, so the missive declared,
destroyed the incriminating document which he had induced Luke to sign,
and had relinquished all thought of an interview with Mr. Dangelis.
The letter concluded by congratulating Luke on his brother’s
recovery--of which, it appeared, the diplomatist had been informed by
the omniscient Mrs. Wotnot--and assuring him that if ever, in any way,
he, the writer, could be of service to either of the two brothers,
they could count on his unfailing regard. An obscure post-script,
added in pencil in a very minute and delicate hand, indicated that the
interview with Lacrima, referred to above, had confirmed the theologian
in a suspicion that hitherto he had scrupulously concealed, namely,
that their concern with regard to the Italian’s position was less
called for than appearances had led them to suppose.
After reading and weighing this last intimation, before he tore up the
letter into small fragments, the cynical Luke came to the conclusion
that the devoted champion of the papacy had found out that his
co-religionist had fallen from grace; in other words, that Lacrima
Traffio was no longer a Catholic. It could hardly be expected, the
astute youth argued, that Mr. Taxater should throw himself into a
difficult and troublesome intrigue in order that an apostate from the
inviolable Faith, once for all delivered to the Saints, should escape
what might reasonably be regarded as a punishment for her apostacy.
The theologian’s post-script appeared to hint that the girl was not,
after all, so very unwilling, in this matter of her approaching
marriage. Luke, in so far as he gave such an aspect of the affair any
particular thought, discounted this plausible suggestion as a mere
conscience-quieting salve, introduced by the writer to smooth over the
true cause of his reaction.
For his own part it had been always of James and not of Lacrima he had
thought, and since James had now been restored to his normal state, the
question of the Italian’s moods and feelings affected him very little.
He was still prepared to discuss with his brother any new chance of
intervention that might offer itself at the last moment. He desired
James’ peace of mind before everything else, but in his heart of hearts
he had considerable doubt whether the mood of self-effacing magnanimity
which had led his brother to contemplate Lacrima’s elopement with Mr.
Quincunx, would long survive the return of his more normal temper. Were
he in James’ position, he told himself grimly, he should have much
preferred that the girl should marry a man she hated rather than one
she loved, as in such a case the field would be left more open for any
future “rapprochement.”
Thus it came about that the luckless Pariah, by the simple accident of
her inability to hold fast to her religion, lost at the critical moment
in her life the support of the one friendly power, that seemed capable,
in that confusion of opposed forces, of bringing to her aid temporal as
well as spiritual, pressure. She was indeed a prisoner by the waters
of Babylon, but her forgetfulness of Sion had cut her off from the
assistance of the armies of the Lord.
The days passed on rapidly now, over the heads of the various persons
involved in our narrative. For James and Lacrima, and in a measure
for Mr. Quincunx, too,--since it must be confessed that the shock of
Ninsy’s collapse had not resulted in any permanent tightening of the
recluse’s moral fibre,--they passed with that treacherous and oblivious
smoothness which dangerous waters are only too apt to wear, when on the
very verge of the cataract.
In the stir and excitement of the great political struggle which
now swept furiously from one end of the country to the other, the
personal fortunes of a group of tragically involved individuals, in a
small Somersetshire village, seemed to lose, for all except those most
immediately concerned, every sort of emphasis and interest.
The polling day at last arrived, and a considerable proportion of the
inhabitants of Nevilton, both men and women, found themselves, as the
end of the fatal hours approached, wedged and hustled, in a state of
distressing and exhausted suspense, in the densely crowded High Street
in front of the Yeoborough Town Hall.
Mr. Clavering himself was there, and in no very amiable temper.
Perverse destiny had caused him to be helplessly surrounded by a noisy
high-spirited crew of Yeoborough factory-girls, to whom the event in
progress was chiefly interesting, in so far as it afforded them an
opportunity to indulge in uproarious chaff and to throw insulting or
amorous challenges to various dandified youths of their acquaintance,
whom they caught sight of in the confusion. Mr. Clavering’s ill-temper
reached its climax when he became aware that a good deal of the free
and indiscreet badinage of his companions was addressed to none other
than his troublesome parishioner, Luke Andersen, whose curly head,
surmounted by an aggressively new straw hat, made itself visible not
far off.
The mood of the vicar of Nevilton during the last few weeks had been
one of accumulative annoyance. Everything had gone wrong with him, and
it was only by an immense effort of his will that he had succeeded in
getting through his ordinary pastoral labour, without betraying the
unsettled state of his mind and soul.
He could not, do what he might, get Gladys out of his thoughts for one
single hour of the day. She had been especially soft and caressing, of
late, in her manner towards him. More submissive than of old to his
spiritual admonitions, she had dropped her light and teasing ways,
and had assumed, in her recent lessons with him, an air of pliable
wistfulness, composed of long, timidly interrupted glances from her
languid blue eyes, and little low-voiced murmurs of assent from her
sweetly-parted lips.
It was in vain that the poor priest struggled against this obsession.
The girl was as merciless as she was subtle in the devices she employed
to make sure of her hold upon him. She would lead him on, by hesitating
and innocent questions, to expound some difficult matter of faith; and
then, just as he was launched out upon a high, pure stream of mystical
interpretation, she would bring his thoughts back to herself and her
deadly beauty, by some irresistible feminine trick, which reduced all
his noble speculations to so much empty air.
Ever since that night when he had trembled so helplessly under the
touch of her soft fingers beneath the cedars of the South Drive, she
had sought opportunities for evoking similar situations. She would
prolong the clasp of her hand when they bade one another good night,
knowing well how this apparently natural and unconscious act would
recur in throbs of adder’s poison through the priest’s veins, long
after the sun had set behind St. Catharine’s tower.
She loved sometimes to tantalize and trouble him by relating incidents
which brought herself and her American fiancé into close association
in his mind. She would wistfully confide to him, for example, how
sometimes she grew weary of love-making, begging him to tell her
whether, after all, she were wise in risking the adventure of marriage.
By these arts, and others that it were tedious to enumerate, the girl
gradually reduced the unfortunate clergyman to a condition of abject
slavery. The worst of it was that, though his release from her constant
presence was rapidly approaching--with the near date of the ceremonies
for which he was preparing her--instead of being able to rejoice in
this, he found himself dreading it with every nerve of his harassed
senses.
Clavering had felt himself compelled, on more than one occasion, to
allude to the project of Lacrima’s marriage, but his knowledge of the
Italian’s character was so slight that Gladys had little difficulty in
making him believe, or at least persuade himself he believed, that no
undue pressure was being put upon her.
It was of Lacrima that he suddenly found himself thinking as, hustled
and squeezed between two obstreperous factory-girls, he watched the
serene and self-possessed Luke enjoying with detached amusement the
vivid confusion round him. The fantastic idea came into his head,
that in some sort of way Luke was responsible for those sinister
rumours regarding the Italian’s position in Nevilton, which had thrust
themselves upon his ears as he moved to and fro among the villagers.
He had learnt of the elder Andersen’s recovery from Mrs. Fringe, but
even that wise lady had not been able to associate this event with the
serious illness of Ninsy Lintot, to whose bed-side the young clergyman
had been summoned more than once during the last week.
Clavering felt an impulse of unmitigated hatred for the equable
stone-carver as he watched him bandying jests with this or the other
person in the crowd, and yet so obviously holding himself apart from
it all, and regarding the whole scene as if it only existed for his
amusement.
A sudden rush of some extreme partisans of the popular cause, making
a furious attempt to over-power the persistent taunts of a group of
young farmers who stood above them on a raised portion of the pavement,
drove a wedge of struggling humanity into the midst of the crowd who
surrounded the irritable priest. Clavering was pushed, in spite of his
efforts to extricate himself, nearer and nearer to his detested rival,
and at last, in the most grotesque and annoying manner possible, he
found himself driven point-blank into the stone-carver’s very arms.
Luke smiled, with what seemed to the heated and flustered priest the
last limit of deliberate impertinence.
But there was no help for it. Clavering was forced to accept his
proffered hand, and return, with a measure of courtesy, his nonchalant
greeting. Squeezed close together--for the crowd had concentrated
itself now into an immoveable mass--the fortunate and the unfortunate
lover of Gladys Romer listened, side by side, to the deafening shouts,
which, first from one party and then from the other, heralded the
appearance of the opposing candidates upon the balcony above.
“I really hardly know,” said Luke, in a loud whisper, “which side
you are on. I suppose on the Conservative? These radicals are all
Nonconformists, and only waiting for a chance of pulling the Church
down.”
“Thank you,” retorted the priest raising his voice so as to contend
against the hubbub about them. “I happen to be a radical myself. My own
hope is that the Church _will_ be pulled down. The Church I believe in
cannot be touched. Its foundations are too deep.”
“Three cheers for Romer and the Empire!” roared a voice behind them.
“Wone and the People! Wone and the working-man!” vociferated another.
“You’ll be holding your confirmation soon, I understand,” murmured Luke
in his companion’s ear, as a swaying movement in the crowd squeezed
them even more closely together.
Hugh Clavering realized for the first time in his life what murderers
feel the second before they strike their blow. He could have willingly
planted his heel at that moment upon the stone-carver’s face. Surely
the man was intentionally provoking him. He must know--he could not
help knowing--the agitation in his nerves.
“Romer and Order! Romer and Sound Finance!” roared one portion of the
mob.
“Wone and Liberty! Wone and Justice!” yelled the opposing section.
“I love a scene like this,” whispered Luke. “Doesn’t it make you
beautifully aware of the contemptible littleness of the human race?”
“I am not only a radical,” retorted Clavering, “but I happen also to be
a human being, and one who can’t take so airy a view of an occasion of
this kind. The enthusiasm of these people doesn’t at all amuse me. I
sympathize with it.”
The stone-carver was not abashed by this rebuke. “A matter of taste,”
he said, “a matter of taste.” Then, freeing his arm which had got
uncomfortably wedged against his side, and pushing back his hat, “I
love to associate these outbursts of popular feeling with the movements
of the planets. Tonight, you know, one ought to be able to see--”
Clavering could no longer contain himself. “Damn your planets!” he
cried, in a tone so loud, that an old lady in their neighbourhood
ejaculated, “Hush! hush!” and looked round indignantly.
“I beg your pardon,” muttered the priest, a little ashamed. “What I
mean is, I am most seriously concerned about this contest. I pray
devoutly Wone will win. It’ll be a genuine triumph for the working
classes if he does.”
“Romer and the Empire!” interpolated the thunderous voice behind them.
“I don’t care much for the man himself,” he went on, “but this thing
goes beyond personalities.”
“I’m all for Romer myself,” said Luke. “I have the best of reasons for
being grateful to him, though he is my employer.”
“What do you mean? What reasons?” cried Clavering sharply, once more
beginning to feel the most unchristian hatred for this urbane youth.
“Oh, I’m sure I needn’t tell you that, sir,” responded Luke; “I’m sure
you know well enough how much I admire our Nevilton beauty.”
Gladys’ unhappy lover choked with rage. He had never in his life
loathed anything so much as he loathed the way Luke’s yellow curls grew
on his forehead. His fingers clutched convulsively the palms of his
hands. He would like to have seized that crop of hair and beaten the
man’s head against the pavement.
“I think it’s abominable,” he cried, “this forcing of Miss Traffio to
marry Goring. For a very little, I’d write to the bishop about it and
refuse to marry them.”
The causes that led to this unexpected and irrelevant outburst
were of profound subtlety. Clavering forgot, in his desire to make
his rival responsible for every tragedy in the place, that he had
himself resolved to discount, as mere village gossip, all the dark
rumours he had heard. The blind anger which plunged him into this
particular outcry, sprang, in reality, from the bitterness of his own
conscience-stricken misgivings.
“I don’t think you will,” remarked Luke, lowering his voice to a
whisper, though the uproar about them rendered such a precaution quite
unnecessary. “It is not as a rule a good thing to interfere in these
matters. Miss Gladys has told me herself that the whole thing is an
invention of Romer’s enemies, probably of this fellow Wone.”
“She’s told me the same story,” burst out the priest, “but how am I to
believe her?”
A person unacquainted with the labyrinthine convolutions of the human
mind would have been staggered at hearing the infatuated slave thus
betray his suspicion of his enchantress, and to his own rival; but the
man’s long-troubled conscience, driven by blind anger, rendered him
almost beside himself.
“To tell you the truth,” said Luke, “I think neither you nor I have
anything to do with this affair. You might as well agitate yourself
about Miss Romer’s marriage with Dangelis! Girls must manage these
little problems for themselves. After all, it doesn’t really matter
much, one way or the other. What they want, is to be married. The
person they choose is quite a secondary thing. We have to learn to
regard all these little incidents as of but small importance, my good
sir, as our world sweeps round the sun!”
“The sun--the sun!” cried Clavering, with difficulty restraining
himself. “What has the sun to do with it? You are too fond of bringing
in your suns and your planets, Andersen. This trick of yours of
shelving the difficulties of life, by pretending you’re somehow
superior to them all, is a habit I advise you to give up! It’s cheap.
It’s vulgar. It grows tiresome after a time.”
Luke’s only reply to this was a sweet smile; and the two were wedged so
closely together that the priest was compelled to notice the abnormal
whiteness and regularity of the young man’s teeth.
“I confess to you,” continued Luke, with an air of unruffled
detachment, as if they had been discussing the tint of a flower or
the marks upon a butterfly’s wing, “I have often wondered what the
relations really are between Mr. Romer and Miss Traffio; but that is
the sort of question which, as Sir Thomas Browne would say, lends
itself to a wide solution.”
“Romer and Prosperity!” “Wone and Justice!” yelled the opposing
factions.
“Our pretty Gladys’ dear parent,” continued the incorrigible youth,
completely disregarding the fact that his companion, speechless with
indignation, was desperately endeavouring to extricate himself from
the press, “seems born under a particularly lucky star. I notice that
every attempt which people make to thwart him comes to nothing. That’s
what I admire about him: he seems to move forward to his end like an
inexorable fate.”
“Rubbish!” ejaculated the priest, turning his angry face once more
towards his provoking rival. “Fiddlesticks and rubbish! The man is a
man, like the rest of us. I only pray Heaven he’s going to lose this
election!”
“Under a lucky star,” reiterated the stone-carver. “I wish I knew,” he
added pensively, “what his star is. Probably Jupiter!”
“Wone and Liberty!” “Wone and the Rights of the People!” roared the
crowd.
“Wone and God’s Vengeance!” answered, in an indescribably bitter tone,
a new and different voice. Luke pressed his companion’s arm.
“Did you hear that?” he whispered eagerly. “That’s Philip. Who would
have thought he’d have been here? He’s an anarchist, you know.”
Clavering, who was taller than his companion, caught sight of the
candidate’s son. Philip’s countenance was livid with excitement, and
his arms were raised as if actually invoking the Heavens.
“Silly fool!” muttered Luke. “He talks of God as glibly as any of his
father’s idiotic friends. But perhaps he was mocking! I thought I
detected a tang of irony in his tone.”
“Most of you unbelievers cry upon God when the real crisis comes,”
remarked the priest. “But I like Philip Wone. I respect him. He, at
least, takes his convictions seriously.”
“I believe you fancy in your heart that some miracle is going to be
worked, to punish my worthy employer,” observed Luke. “But I assure
you, you’re mistaken. In this world the only way our Mr. Romers are
brought low is by being out-matched on their own ground. He has a lucky
star; but other people”--this was added in a low, significant tone--
“other people may possibly have stars still more lucky.”
At this moment the cheering and shouting became deafening. Some new and
important event had evidently occurred. Both men turned and glanced up
at the stucco-fronted edifice that served Yeoborough as a city-hall.
The balcony had become so crowded that it was difficult to distinguish
individual figures; but there was a general movement there, and people
were talking and gesticulating eagerly. Presently all these excited
persons fell simultaneously into silence, and an attitude of intense
expectation. The crowd below caught the thrill of their expectancy,
and with upturned faces and eager eyes, waited the event. There was a
most formidable hush over the whole sea of human heads; and even the
detached Luke felt his heart beating in tune to the general tension.
In the midst of this impressive silence the burly figure of the sheriff
of the parliamentary district made his way slowly to the front of the
balcony. With him came the two candidates, each accompanied by a lady,
and grouped themselves on either side of him. The sheriff standing
erect, with a sheet of paper in his hand, saluted the assembled people,
and proceeded to announce, in simple stentorian words, the result of
the poll.
Clavering had been stricken dumb with amazement to observe that the
lady by Mr. Romer’s side was not Mrs. Romer, as he had thoughtlessly
assumed it would be, but Gladys herself, exquisitely dressed, and
looking, in her high spirits and excitement, more lovely than he had
ever seen her.
Her fair hair, drawn back from her head beneath a shady Gainsborough
hat, shone like gold in the sunshine. Her cheeks were flushed, and
their delicate rose-bloom threw into beautiful relief the pallor of
her brow and neck. Her tall girlish figure looked soft and arresting
amid the black-coated politicians who surrounded her. Her eyes were
brilliant.
Contrasted with this splendid apparition at Mr. Romer’s side, the faded
primness of the good spouse of the Christian Candidate seemed pathetic
and grotesque. Mrs. Wone, in her stiff black dress and old-fashioned
hat, looked as though she were attending a funeral. Nor was the
appearance of her husband much more impressive or imposing.
Mr. Romer, with his beautiful daughter’s hand upon his arm, looked as
noble a specimen of sage authority and massive triumph, as any of that
assembled crowd were likely to see in a life-time. A spasmodic burst of
cheering was interrupted by vigorous hisses and cries of “Hush! hush!
Let the gentleman speak!”
Lifting his hand with an appropriate air of grave solemnity,
the sheriff proceeded to read: “Result of the Election in this
Parliamentary Division--Mr. George Wone, seven thousand one hundred
and fifty nine! Mr. Mortimer Romer, nine thousand eight hundred and
sixty-one! I therefore declare Mr. Mortimer Romer duly elected.”
A burst of incredible cheering followed this proclamation, in the midst
of which the groans and hisses of the defeated section were completely
drowned. The cheering was so tremendous and the noisy reaction after
the hours of expectancy so immense, that it was difficult to catch a
word of what either the successful or the unsuccessful candidate said,
as they made their accustomed valedictory speeches.
Clavering and Luke were swept far apart from one another in the mad
confusion; and it was well for them both, perhaps, that they were;
for before the speeches were over, or the persons on the balcony had
disappeared into the building, a very strange and disconcerting event
took place.
The unfortunate young Philip, who had received the announcement of
his father’s defeat as a man might receive a death-sentence, burst
into a piercing and resounding cry, which was clearly audible, not
only to those immediately about him, but to every one of the ladies
and gentlemen assembled on the balcony. There is no need to repeat in
this place the words which the unhappy young man hurled at Mr. Romer
and his daughter. Suffice it to say that they were astounding in their
brutality and grossness.
As soon as he had uttered them, Philip sank down upon the ground, in
the miserable convulsions of some species of epileptic fit. The tragic
anxiety of poor Mrs. Wone, who had not only heard his words, but seen
his collapse, broke up the balcony party in disorder.
Such is human nature, that though not one of the aristocratic
personages there assembled, believed for a moment that Philip was
anything but a madman; still, the mere weight of such ominous words,
though flung at random and by one out of his senses, had an appreciable
effect upon them. It was noticed that one after another they drew
away from the two persons thus challenged; and this, combined with
the movement about the agitated Mrs. Wone, soon left the father and
daughter, the girl clinging to her parent’s arm, completely isolated.
Before he led Gladys away, however, Mr. Romer turned a calm and
apparently unruffled face upon the scene below. Luke, who, it may
be well believed, had missed nothing of the subtler aspects of the
situation, was so moved by the man’s imperturbable serenity that he
caught himself on the point of raising an admiring and congratulatory
shout. He stopped himself in time, however; and in place of acclaiming
the father, did all he could to catch the eye of the daughter.
In this he was unsuccessful; for the attention of Gladys, during the
brief moment in which she followed Mr. Romer’s glance over the heads
of the people, was fixed upon the group of persons who surrounded
the prostrate Philip. Among these persons Luke now recognized, and
doubtless the girl had recognized too, the figure of the vicar of
Nevilton.
Luke apostrophized his rival with an ejaculation of mild contempt. “A
good man, that poor priest,” he muttered, “but a most unmitigated
fool! As to Romer, I commend him! But I think I’ve put a spoke in
the wheel of his good fortune, all the same, in spite of the planet
Jupiter!”