IN HARNESS.
It was the autumn of the year, in the spring of which Walter Joyce had
returned to London from Westhope. Six months had elapsed since he had
read what he had almost imagined to be his death-warrant in Marian's
reply to his letter containing the Berlin proposal. It was not his
death-warrant; he had survived the shock, and, indeed, had borne the
disappointment in a way that he did not think possible when the blow
first fell upon him. Under the blessed, soothing influence of time,
under the perhaps more effectual influence of active employment, his
mind had been weaned from dwelling on that dread blank which, as he at
first imagined, was to have been his sole outlook for the future. He
was young, and strong, and impressionable; he returned to London
inclined to be misanthropical and morose, disposed to believe in the
breaking of hearts and the crushing of hopes, and the rather pleasant
sensations of despair. But after a very short sojourn in the
metropolis, he was compelled to avow to himself the wisdom of Lady
Caroline Mansergh's prognostications concerning him, and the absolute
truth of everything she had said. A life of moping, of indulgence in
preposterous cynicism and self-compassion, was not for him; he was
meant for far better things--action in the present, distinction in the
future--those were to be his aims, and after a fortnight's indolence
and moodiness, he had flung himself into the work that was awaiting
him, and begun to labour at it with all his energy and all his
brain-power.
Some little time afterwards, when Joyce thought over his mental
condition in those first days of his return to London, the cheap
cynicism, the pettishness, and the languor which he had suffered to
possess him, he wondered why old Jack Byrne, with whom he had taken up
his quarters, had not rebuked him for it, and one day, with some
considerable confusion, he asked the old man the reason.
"Why didn't I speak to you about it, and pitch into you for it, my
boy?" said the old man, with his peculiar soft laugh. "Because it's
best to let some things have their run, and come to a stop of their
own accord. I saw plainly enough what would be the result of that love
business, long ago, when you first told me of it. Why didn't I say so
then? Why, you don't imagine I should have attempted to influence you
in such a matter, when I had never even seen the lady, and had only
general experience to take as my guide? I did give you as many hints
as I thought prudent or decent in a letter which I wrote to you, my
lad; but you didn't seem to profit by them much, or, indeed, to take
any heed of them. You went sailing away straight and smoothly enough
until that squall came down upon you and carried away your masts and
your rigging, and left you a helpless log tossing on the waters. It
was so nice to be a helpless log, wasn't it?--so nice that you thought
you would never be anything else. But, God bless you, I knew
differently; I'd seen the same case a hundred times before, and I knew
if you were left alone you would come all right in time. And now you
have come all right, and you're doing your work well, and they think
highly of you at the _Comet_ office."
"I'm glad of that; that's the best news you could give me. Do they
think well of me? Do they think I do my work well, and----"
"Good Lord, what a swallow the lad has for flummery!" grumbled old
Byrne. "He'd like me to repeat every word of praise to him. It's
wonderful to see how he glows under it--no, not wonderful, when one
recollects how young he is. Ah, youth, youth! Do they? Yes, of course
they do; you know that well enough. It's deuced lucky you gave up that
notion of going to Berlin, Walter, boy."
"Yes," said Joyce, with a sigh, as he remembered all about the
proposal; "I'm better here."
"Better here, I should think you were, indeed! A correspondent can't
do much in the way of making his mark. He can be serious and well
informed, or chatty and nonsensical; he can elect between describing
the councils of cabinets or the circumference of crinolines; but in
either case his scope is limited, and he can never get much fame for
himself. Now in your present position as an essayist and leader-writer
of remarkable ability--oh, you needn't pretend to blush, you know I
shouldn't say what I didn't think--there is possibly a very bright
future in store for you! And to think that years ago you possessed a
distaste for politics!"
"It does seem ridiculous," said Walter, smiling. "I am always amused
when I remember my very wilful ignorance on such matters. However, the
credit of the conversion, if credit there be, is entirely owing to you
and O'Connor."
"Not entirely, I'm thinking," said the old man. "I recollect your
telling me of a conversation you had with Lady Caroline Mansergh, in
which certain hopes were expressed and certain suggestions made,
which, I should say, had their effect in influencing your conduct. Am
I right, Walter?" And Mr. Byrne looked hard and keenly from under his
bushy eyebrows at his young friend.
"Perfectly right!" said Walter, meeting his glance. "I think that the
remembrance of Lady Caroline's advice, and the knowledge that she
thought I had within me the power of distinguishing myself, were the
first inducements to me to shake off that horrible lethargic state
into which I had fallen!"
"Well, we must take care that you fulfil all her ladyship's
expectations, Walter! What you are doing now must merely be a
stepping-stone to something much better. I don't intend to die until I
have seen you a leader in the people's cause, my boy! Oh yes, I allow
you're soundly with them now, and fight their battles well and
effectively with the pen; but I want to live to see you in Parliament,
to hear you riddling the plutocrats with your banter, and overwhelming
the aristocrats with your scorn!"
"My dear old friend, I fear you pitch the note a little too high,"
said Joyce, with a laugh. "I don't think you will ever see me among
the senators."
"And why not?" asked old Byrne, in a very excited manner--"and why
not, pray? Is there any one speaks better at the Club? Is there any
one more popular among the leaders of the cause, or with them? If
those miserable Tories had not swallowed the leek fifty times in
succession, as they have just done, and thereby succeeded in clinging
to office for yet a few months, the chiefs of the party, or at least
of one section of it--the 'ultras,' as they are good enough to call
us--would have relied greatly on your advice and assistance, and when
the election comes, as come it must within a very short time, you will
see how you will be in requisition. And about your position, Walter? I
think we should look to that at once. I think you should lose no time
in entering yourself at some Inn of Court, and commence reading for
the bar!"
"Don't ask me to make any change in my life at present, old friend!"
said Walter. "No!" as he saw the old man with an impatient gesture
about to speak--"no, I was not going to plead the want of the money;
for, in the first place, I know you would lend it to me, and in the
second I am myself making, as you know, an excellent income. But I
don't want to undertake anything more just now than what I am actually
engaged in. I am quite sufficiently occupied--and I am very happy."
Old Byrne was compelled to be satisfied with this declaration, but he
grumbled out that it should only be temporary, and that he intended to
see Walter in a very different position before he died.
Walter Joyce said nothing more than the truth when he said that he was
very happy. He had fallen into exactly the kind of life which suited
him, the pursuance of a congenial occupation amongst companions of
similar tastes. There are, I take it, but few of us professional
plyers of the pen who do not look back with regret and with something
akin to wonder to that halcyon time when we first entered upon
authorship; when the mere act of writing was in itself pleasant, when
the sight of a proof-sheet was calculated to fill one with infinite
delight, when one glowed with delight at praise, or writhed in agony
under attack. In after life, when the novelty has entirely worn off,
when the Pegasus which ambled, and kicked, and pranced, has settled
down into the serviceable hack of ordinary use, often obliged, like
other hacks, to go through his work and to put forth his paces at
inopportune times and seasons, it seems impossible to believe that
this freshness of feeling, this extraordinary enthusiasm, can ever
have existed; unless, perchance, you see the reflex of yourself in
some one else who is beginning to pursue the sunny verdant end of that
path which with you at present has worn down into a very commonplace
beaten track, and then you perceive that the illusion was not
specially your own, but is common to all who are in that happy
glorious season of youth.
Walter Joyce was thoroughly happy. He had pleasant rooms in Staples
Inn--a quiet, quaint, old-world place, where the houses with their
overhanging eaves and gabled roofs and mullioned windows recall
memories of Continental cities and college "quads," and yet are only
just shut off from the never-ceasing bustle and riot of Holborn. The
furniture of these rooms was not very new, and there was not very much
of it; but the sitting-room boasted not merely of two big easy-chairs,
but of several rows of bookshelves, which had been well filled, by
Jack Byrne's generosity, with books which the old man had himself
selected; and in the bedroom there was a bed and a bath, which, in
Joyce's opinion, satisfied all reasonable expectations. Here, in the
morning, he read or wrote; for he was extending his connection with
literature, and found a ready market for his writings in several of
the more thoughtful periodicals of the day. In the afternoon he would
go down to the _Comet_ office, and take part in the daily conference
of the principal members of the staff. There present would be Mr.
Warren, the proprietor of the paper, who did not understand much about
journalism, as, indeed, could scarcely be expected of him, seeing that
the whole of his previous life had been taken up in attending to the
export provision trade, in which he had made his fortune, but who was
a capital man of business, looked after the financial affairs of the
concern, and limited his interference with the conduct of the paper in
listening to what others had to say. There would be Mr. Saltwell, who
devoted himself to foreign politics, who was a wonderful linguist, and
a skilful theological controversialist, and who, in his tight drab
trousers, cut-away coat, and bird's-eye cravat, looked like a racing
trainer or a tout; Mr. Gowan, a Scotchman, a veteran journalist of
enormous experience, who, as he used to say, had had scores of papers
"killed under him;" Mr. Forrest, a slashing writer, but always in
extremes, and who was always put on to any subject which it was
required should be highly lauded or shamefully abused--it did not
matter much to Mr. Forrest, who was a man of the world; and Mr.
Ledingham, a man of great learning but very ponderous in style and
recondite in subject, whose articles were described by Mr. Shimmer as
being "like roast pig, very nice occasionally, but not to be indulged
in often with impunity," were also usual attendants at the conference,
which was presided over by the recognised editor of the _Comet_,
Terence O'Connor.
Mr. O'Connor was the type of a class of journalists which yet exists,
indeed, but is not nearly so numerous as it was a few years ago. Your
newspaper editor of to-day dines with the duke and looks in at the
countess's reception; his own reporter includes him amongst the
distinguished company which he, the reporter, "observes" at select
reunions; he rides in the Park, and drives down to his office from the
House of Commons, where he has been the centre of an admiring circle
of members, in his brougham. Shades of the great men of bygone
days--of White and Berry, of Kew and Captain Shandon--think of that
Terence O'Connor was of the old school. He had made journalism his
profession since he left Trinity, and had only won his position by
hard labour and untiring perseverance, had written in and edited
various provincial newspapers, had served his time as sub and hack on
the London press, and had eventually risen to the editorial chair
which he filled so admirably. A man of vast learning, with the
simplicity of a child, of keen common sense tempered with great
amicability, an admirable writer, an ardent politician, wielding great
power with never-failing impartiality, Terence O'Connor passed his
life in a world in which he was exceptionally influential, and to
which he was comparatively unknown. His neighbours at Clapham had
no idea that the slim gray-haired gentleman whom they saw pottering
about in his garden on summer afternoons, or lying on the grass
under the shade of a big tree playing with his children, was the
lightning-compeller and the thunder-creator of the _Comet_. Though
most earnest while engaged in his work, it was his greatest delight to
leave every trace of it behind him at his office, and to be entirely
free from its influence when at home with his wife and children.
Occasionally, of course, the few old friends who dined with him would
start a political or literary discussion, in which he would bear his
part; but he was never happy until the conversation found its way back
into the ordinary social channels, or until a demand was made for
music, of which he was passionately fond. It was a lucky thing for
Walter Joyce to make the acquaintance and to win the regard of such a
man as Terence O'Connor, who had a wonderfully quick eye for
character, and who, having noticed Walter's readiness of appreciation
and bright incisive style in the few articles which he wrote on the
occasion of his first introduction by Mr. Byrne, suggested that the
post at Berlin should be offered to him. The more they were thrown
together the better they liked each other. Walter had the greatest
admiration for O'Connor's talent and power of work; while the elder
man looked kindly on his young friend's eagerness and enthusiasm, his
desire for distinction, and his delight at laudation, perhaps as
somewhat reflecting his own feelings before he had become settled down
to the mill-horse grind--ah, how many years ago!
After the conference had broken up, Joyce, to whom, perhaps, a subject
had been given to treat, would go back to his chambers and work at it
for two or three hours, or he would remain at the office discussing
the matter in detail with Terence O'Connor, and taking his friend's
advice as to the manner of treatment. Or, if he were free, he would
lounge in the Park, and stare at the equipages, and the toilettes, and
the London panorama of luxury there constantly going by, all new to
the country-bred young man, to whom, until he went to Lord
Hetherington's, the old rumbling chariot of Sir Thomas Churchill, with
its worsted-epauletted coachman and footman, was a miracle of comfort
and a triumph of taste. Or he would ramble out with Shimmer, or
Forrest, or some other of his colleagues, to the suburbs, over the
breezy heights of Hampstead, or through the green Willesden lanes, and
get the city dust and smoke blown out of them. When he was not on duty
at the office at night, Walter would sometimes take the newspaper
admission and visit the theatre; but he had little taste for the
drama, or rather, perhaps, for such dramatic representations as were
then in vogue, and it pleased him much more to attend the meetings of
the Forum, a club constituted for the purpose of discussing the
principal political and social questions of the day, and composed
of young barristers and newspaper writers, with a sprinkling of
public-office men, who met in the large room of a tavern situated in
one of the quiet streets leading from Fleet Street to the river. The
leaders of the different political parties, and others whose deeds or
works had given them celebrity or notoriety, were happy in their
ignorance of the existence of the Forum, or they must have been
rendered uncomfortable by finding themselves the objects of so much
wild denunciation. The members of the Forum were not in the habit of
concealing their opinions, or of moderating the language in which
those opinions were expressed; and the debate in which the then
holders of office were not denounced as effete and useless
nincompoops, bound by degrading ties of subserviency to a policy
which, while originally dangerous, was now degrading, or in which the
leaders of the Opposition were not stigmatised as base-bred ruffians,
linked together by the common bond of ignorance with the common hope
of rapine--was considered dull and spiritless indeed. As Mr. Byrne had
intimated, Walter Joyce was one of the most prominent members of this
debating club; he had a clear resonant voice, capable of excellent
modulation, and spoke with fluency. His speeches, which were tinged
with a far more pronounced radicalism--the effect of the teaching of
Jack Byrne--than had previously been promulgated at the meetings of
the Forum, soon became widely talked of among the members and their
friends, and Walter's rising was eagerly looked forward to, and warmly
hailed, not merely for the novelty of his doctrine, but for the
boldness and the humour with which he sought to inculcate it. His
success was so great that the heads of the Tory party in the club
became alarmed, and thought it necessary to send off for Alister
Portcullis, who was formerly the great speaker on their side, but who
had recently become editor of a provincial paper, to return to town,
and oppose Joyce on one or two special subjects of discussion.
Portcullis came up to London, and the encounter took place before
a room crowded to the ceiling (it was rumoured--and believed by
some--that the Premier and the leader of the Opposition were present,
with wigs drawn over their eyes and comforters over their noses), and
re-echoing to the cheers of the partisans. Walter was understood to
have held his own, and, indeed, to have had the best of it; but
Portcullis made a very good speech, covering his opponent with sarcasm
and invective, and declaiming against the cause which he represented
with a whirlwind of fury which greatly incensed old Jack Byrne, who
happened to be sitting immediately beneath him.
Political feeling ran very high just at that time, and the result of
the forthcoming election was looked forward to with the greatest
confidence by the Radicals. The organisation of the party was very
complete. A central committee, of which Mr. Byrne and Terence O'Connor
were members, had its sittings in London, and was in daily
communication with the various local committees of the principal
provincial towns, and most of the intending candidates had been
despatched to make a tour of the neighbourhood which they proposed to
represent, with the view of ascertaining the feelings of the electors,
and ingratiating themselves with them.
Among these touring candidates was young Mr. Bokenham, who aspired to
represent the constituency of Brocksopp. Young Bokenham had been
selected by the central committee principally because his father was a
very influential manufacturer, and because he himself, though not
specially clever or deeply versed in politics, was recommended as
fluent, of good appearance, and eminently docile and lead able. The
reports which during and after his visit came up from the local to the
central committee by no means bore out the recommendation. The fact
was that young Mr. Bokenham, who had at a very early age been sent to
Eton, who had been a gentleman commoner of Christchurch, and who had
always had his own way and the command of large sums of money to
enable him to do as he pleased, had become, as is very often the case
under the influence of such surroundings, a perfect type of the
parvenu and the plutocrat, and had, if anything, rather an antipathy
for that cause of which he was about to offer himself as one of the
representatives. To announce this would, however, he was aware, be
simply to renounce the very large fortune which would accrue to him at
his father's death, and which the old man, who had been a staunch
Radical from his earliest days, and who gloried in being a self-made
man, would certainly have dispersed through a thousand charitable
channels rather than allow one penny of it to be touched by his
politically renegade son. Moreover, young Bokenham pined for the
distinction of parliament membership, which he knew, for the present
at least, was only to be obtained by holding to his father's political
principles; and so ho professed to be in earnest in the matter, and
went down to Brocksopp and called on the principal people of the
place, and convened a few meetings and delivered a few speeches. But
the Brocksopp folk were very badly impressed. They utterly failed to
recognise young Tommy Bokenham, as they had always spoken of him among
themselves during all the years of his absence, in the bearded,
natty-booted, delicately gloved gentleman, who minced his words and
used a perfumed handkerchief, and talked about the chah-tah of our
lib-ah-ties. His manner was unpleasant and offensive, and his matter
was not half sufficiently peppered to suit the tastes of the Brocksopp
Radicals, who could not be too frequently reminded that they were the
salt of the earth, and that the horny hand of labour was what their
intending representative was always wishing to clasp. Young Mr.
Bokenham, no longer Tommy after he had once been seen, objected to the
horny hand of labour, disliked the smell of factories, and the manner
and appearance of the working-classes altogether. He could not drink
much at the public-houses, and the smell of the strong shag tobacco
made him ill, and in fact his first tour for canvassing was a woful
and egregious failure, and was so reported to the central committee in
London by their Brocksopp agents.
On this report the committee met, and had a long and earnest
consultation. Brocksopp was an important place, and one which it was
most desirable to secure. No other candidate possessing such wealth or
such local influence as young Bokenham could be found, and it was
therefore imperative that he should be carried through. It was,
however, necessary that his mistakes should be pointed out to him, and
he should be thoroughly well schooled and advised as to his future
proceedings. He was accordingly invited to attend the next meeting of
the committee, which he did, and received a three-hours' drilling with
great composure. He promised to adopt all the suggestions which were
made, and to carry out all the plans which were proposed. Walter
Joyce, who happened to be present, was much amused at Mr. Bokenham's
great amiability and power of acquiescence, and was about saying so to
Mr. Byrne, who was seated next him, when he was startled by hearing
the candidate say, in answer to a question from one of the committee
as to whether any one was in the field on the Tory side--
"Oh yes; an old gentleman named Creswell, a retired manufacturer of
great wealth and position in those parts."
"Is he likely to make a strong fight?"
"Well, ya-as!" drawled young Bokenham. "Old boy's not supposed to care
particularly about it himself, don't you know; but he's lately married
a young wife--doosid pretty woman, and all that kind of thing--and
they say she's set her heart on becoming the memberess."
"Do you hear that?" whispered Byrne to Joyce.
"I do," replied Walter. "This man is a fool; but he must be got in,
and Mr. Creswell must be kept out, at all hazards."
And Jack Byrne grinned.