THE OPPORTUNITY.
Mr. Bokenham did not improve in the estimation either of the
constituency of Brocksopp, or of those in London who had the guidance
of electioneering matters in the borough in the Liberal interest. The
aspiring candidate was tolerably amenable at first, went down as often
as the policy of such a course was suggested to him, and visited all
the people whose names were on the list with which he was supplied;
though his objectionable manner, and his evident lack of real interest
in the place and its inhabitants, militated very much against his
success. But after a little time he neglected even these slight means
for cultivating popularity. A young man, with an excellent income, and
with the prospect of a very large fortune on his father's death, has
very little trouble in getting into such society as would be most
congenial to him, more especially when that society is such as is most
affected by the classes which he apes. Young Mr. Bokenham, whose chief
desire in life was, as his sharp-seeing, keen-witted old father said
of him, to "sink the shop," laid himself out especially for the
company of men of birth and position, and he succeeded in hooking
himself on to one of the fastest and most raffish sets in London. The
fact that he was a _novus homo_, and that his father was "in trade,"
which had caused him to be held up to ridicule at Eton, and had
rendered men shy of knowing him at Christchurch, had, he was delighted
to perceive, no such effect in the great city. He began with a few
acquaintances picked up in public, but, he speedily enlarged and
improved his connection. The majors, with the billiard-table brevet,
the captains, and the shabby old bucks of St. Alban's Place, with whom
Tommy Bokenham at first consorted, were soon renounced for men of a
widely different stamp, so far as birth and breeding were concerned,
but with much the same tastes, and more means and opportunities of
gratifying them. It is probable that Mr. Bokenham owed his
introduction among these scions of the upper circles to a notion,
prevalent among a certain section of them, that he might be induced to
plunge into the mysteries of the turf, and to bet largely, even if he
did not undertake a racing establishment. But they were entirely
wrong. Young Tommy had not sufficient physical go and pluck in him for
anything that required energy; he commanded his position in the set in
which, to his great delight, at length he found himself, by giving
elaborate dinners and occasionally lending money in moderate amounts,
in return for which he was allowed to show himself in public in the
company of his noble acquaintances, and was introduced by them to
certain of their male and female friends, the latter of whom were
especially frank and demonstrative in their reception and welcome of
him.
The fascination of this kind of life, which began to dawn on young Mr.
Bokenham almost concurrently with the idea of his standing for the
borough of Brocksopp, soon proved to be incompatible with the proper
discharge of the duties required of him as candidate. He found the
necessity for frequent visits to his intended constituents becoming
more and more of a nuisance to him, and entirely declined a suggestion
which was made to the effect that now, as the time of the election was
so near at hand, it would be advisable for him to take up his
residence at his father's house, and give his undivided attention to
his canvassing. It was pointed out to him that his opponent, Mr.
Creswell, was always on the spot, and, quite unexpectedly, had
recently shown the greatest interest in the forthcoming struggle, and
was availing himself of every means in his power to insure his
success; but Tommy Bokenham refused to "bury himself at Brocksopp," as
he phrased it, until it was absolutely necessary. "It is positively
cruel," wrote Mr. Harrington, a clever young clerk, who had been
despatched by his principals, Messrs. Potter and Fyfe, the great
parliamentary agents, to report how matters were progressing in the
borough, "to see how Mr. B. is cutting out the running for the other
side! I've had a talk with South, the attorney, who is acting for us
down here, a shrewd, sensible fellow, and he says there is every hope
of our pulling through, even as we are, but that if we had only
brought another kind of man to the post, our success would be a
moral." Old Mr. Potter, a very rigid old gentleman residing at
Clapham, and deacon of a chapel there, growled very much, both over
the matter and the manner of this communication.
"What does this young man mean," he asked, peering over the paper at
his partner through his double glasses, "by using this turf slang?
Bring a man to the 'post!' and a 'moral' indeed!--a word I should not
have expected to find in this gentleman's vocabulary." But Mr. Fyfe,
who had a sneaking liking for sport, appeased the old gentleman, and
pointed out that the letter, though oddly worded, was really full of
good and reliable information, and that young Harrington had executed
his commission cleverly. Both partners shook their heads over this
further account of their candidate's shortcomings, and decided that
some immediate steps must be taken to retrieve their position. The
time of election was imminent; their opponent was resident,
indefatigable, and popular; and though the report from Harrington
spoke of ultimate success with almost certainty, it would not do to
run the smallest risk in a borough which they had pledged their credit
to wrest from Tory domination.
Messrs. Potter and Fyfe were not likely men to ventilate in public any
opinions which they may have held regarding the business matters on
which they were employed, but the inattention of Mr. Bokenham to his
duties, and the manner in which he was throwing away his chances began
to be talked of at the _Comet_ office, and the news of it even
penetrated to Jack Byrne's little club. It was on the day after he had
first heard of it that the old man walked up to Joyce's chambers, and
on entering found his friend at home, and glad to see him. After a
little desultory conversation, old Byrne began to talk of the subject
with which he was filled.
"Have you heard anything lately of that man who was going to contest
your old quarters, or thereabouts, for us, Walter? What's his name?
Bokenham! that's it," he said.
"Oh yes," answered Joyce, "oddly enough, they were talking of him last
night at the office. I went into O'Connor's room just as Forrest, who
had come down with some not very clearly defined story from the
Reform, was suggesting a slashing article with the view of what he
called 'rousing to action' this very young man. O'Connor pooh-poohed
the notion and put Forrest off; but from what he said to me
afterwards, I imagine Mr. Bokenham is scarcely the man for the
emergency--a good deal too lukewarm and dilettante. They won't stand
that sort of thing in Brocksopp, and it's a point with our party, and
especially with me, that Brocksopp should be won."
"Especially with you," repeated the old man; "ay, ay, I mind you
saying that before! That's strong reaction from the old feeling,
Walter!"
"Strong but not unnatural, I think. You, to whom I told the story when
I first knew you, will remember what my feelings were towards--towards
that lady. You will remember how entirely I imagined my life bound up
in hers, my happiness centred on all she might say or do. You saw what
happened--how she flung me aside at the very first opportunity, with
scant ceremony and shallow excuses, careless what effect her treachery
might have had upon me."
"It was all for the best, lad, as it turned out."
"As it turned out, yes! But how did she know that, when she did it?
Had she known that it would have turned out for the worst, for the
very worst, would she have stayed her hand and altered her purpose?
Not she."
"I don't like to see you vindictive, boy; recollect she's a woman, and
that once you were fond of her."
"I am not vindictive, as I take it; and when I think of her treatment
of me, the recollection that I was fond of her is not very likely to
have a softening effect. See here, old friend: in cold blood, and with
due deliberation, Marian Ashurst extinguished what was then the one
light in my sufficiently dreary life. Fortune has given me the chance,
I think, of returning the compliment, and I intend to do it."
Jack Byrne turned uneasily in his chair; it was evident that his
sentiments were not in accord with those of his friend. After a
minute's pause he said, "Even supposing that the old eye-for-eye and
tooth-for-tooth retribution were allowable--which I am by no means
disposed to grant, especially where women are concerned--are you quite
sure that in adopting it you are getting at what you wish to attain?
You have never said so, but it must be as obvious to you as it is to
me that Mrs. Creswell does not care for her husband. Do you think,
then, she will be particularly influenced by a matter in which his
personal vanity is alone involved?"
Joyce smiled somewhat grimly. "My dear old friend, it was Mrs.
Creswell's ambition that dealt me what might have been my _coup de
grâce_. My anxiety about this contest at grimly springs from my desire
to wound Mrs. Creswell's ambition. My knowledge of that lady is
sufficient to prove to me, as clearly as though I were in her most
sacred confidence, that she is most desirous that her husband should
be returned to Parliament. The few words that were dropped by that
idiot Bokenham the other day pointed to this, but I should have been
sure of it if I had not heard them. After all, it is the natural
result, and what might have been expected. During her poverty her
prayer was for money. Money acquired, another want takes its place,
and so it will be to the end of the chapter."
As Joyce ceased speaking there was a knock at the door, and Jack Byrne
opening it, admitted young Mr. Harrington, the confidential clerk of
Messrs. Potter and Fyfe. Young Mr. Harrington was festively attired in
a garb of sporting cut, and wore his curved-rimmed hat on the top of
his right ear; but there was an unusual, anxious look in his face, and
he showed signs of great mental perturbation, not having, as he
afterwards allowed to his intimate friends, "been so thoroughly
knocked out of time since Magsman went a mucker for the Two Thou'."
This perturbation was at once noticed by Mr. Byrne.
"Ah, Mr. Harrington," said he; "glad to see you, sir. Not looking
quite so fresh as usual," he added, with a cynical grin. "What's the
matter--nothing wrong in the great turf world, I trust? Sister to
Saucebox has not turned out a roarer, or Billy Billingsgate broken
down badly?"
"Thank you very much for your kind inquiries, Mr. Byrne," said Mr.
Harrington, eyeing the old man steadily, without changing a muscle of
his face. "I'll not forget to score up one to you, sir, and I'll take
care to repay you that little funniment on the first convenient
opportunity. Just now I've got something else in hand. Look here,
let's stow this gaff! Mr. Joyce, my business is with you. The fact is,
there is an awful smash-up at Brocksopp, and my governors want to see
you at once."
"At Brocksopp?" said Joyce, with a start. "A smash at Brocksopp?"
"Yes," said Mr. Harrington. "The man that we were all depending on,
young Mr. Bokenham, has come to grief."
"Dead?" exclaimed old Byrne.
"Oh no, not at all; political rather than social grief, I should
have said. The fact is, so far as we can make out, Lord and Lady
Steppe--you know Lady Steppe, Mr. Joyce, or, at all events, your
friend Shimmer of the _Comet_ could tell you all about her: she was
Miss Tentose in the ballet at the Lane--have persuaded our sucking
senator to go to Egypt with them for the winter. Lady S.'s influence
is great in that quarter, I understand--so great that he pitches up
Brocksopp, and let's us all slide!"
"Given up Brocksopp?" said old Byrne.
"Chucked up his cards, sir," said Harrington, "when the game was in
his hand. My governors' people are regularly up a tree, cornered, and
all that; so they want to see you, Mr. Joyce, at once, and have sent
me to fetch you."
"To fetch him! Potter and Fyfe, of Abingdon Street, have sent you to
fetch him" cried old Byrne, in great excitement. "Walter, do you
think--do you recollect what I said to you some time ago? Can it be
that it's coming on now?"
Joyce made no verbal reply, but he grasped his old friend's hand
warmly, and immediately afterwards started off with Mr. Harrington in
the hansom cab which that gentleman had waiting at the door.
The idea that had flashed through old Jack Byrne's mind,
preposterously exaggerated as it had at first seemed to him, was
nevertheless correct. When Joyce arrived at Messrs. Potter and Fyfe's
office, he found there not merely those gentlemen, but with them
several of the leading members of the party, and a deputation of two
or three Liberals from Brocksopp, with whom Joyce was acquainted. Mr.
Moule and Mr. Spalding, nervously excited, stepped forwards and shook
hands with the young man in a jerky kind of manner. Immediately
afterwards, backing again towards their chairs, on the extremest
edge of which they propped themselves, they hid their hands in their
coat-sleeves, and looked round in a furtive manner.
After a few formal speeches, Mr. Potter proceeded at once to business.
Addressing Joyce, he said it was probably known to him that the
gentleman on whom they had hitherto depended as a candidate for
Brocksopp had thrown them over, and at the eleventh hour had left them
to seek for another representative. In a few well-chosen and
diplomatically rounded sentences, Mr. Potter pointed out that the task
that Mr. Bokenham had imposed upon them was by no means so difficult a
one as might have been imagined. Mr. Potter would not, he said,
indulge in any lengthened speech. His business was simply to explain
the wishes of those for whom he and his partner had the honour to
act--here he looked towards the leaders of the party, who did not
attempt to disguise the fact that they were growing rather bored by
the Potterian eloquence--and those wishes were, in so many words, that
Mr. Joyce should step into the place which Mr. Bokenham had left
vacant.
One of the leaders of the party here manifesting an intention of
having something to say, and wishing to say it, Mr. Fyfe promptly
interposed with the remark that he should be able to controvert an
assertion, which he saw his young friend Mr. Joyce about to make, to
the effect that he would be unable to carry on the contest for want of
means. He, Mr. Fyfe, was empowered to assert that old Mr. Bokenham was
so enraged at his son's defalcation, which he believed to have been
mainly brought about by Tory agency, Lord Steppe's father, the Earl of
Stair, being a notoriously bigoted Blue, that he was prepared to
guarantee the expenses of any candidate approved of by the party and
by the town. Mr. Fyfe here pausing to take breath, the leader, who had
been previously baulked, cut in with a neat expression of the party's
approval of Mr. Joyce, and Mr. Spalding murmured a few incoherent
words to the effect that during a life-long acquaintance with his
young friend the people of Brocksopp had been in entire ignorance
that he had anything in him, politically or otherwise, beyond
book-learning, and that was the main reason for their wishing him to
represent them in Parliament.
Although a faint dawning of the truth had come across him when Mr.
Harrington announced young Bokenham's defection, Walter Joyce had no
definite idea of the honour in store for him. Very modestly, and in
very few words, he accepted the candidature, promising to use every
exertion for the attainment of success. He was too much excited and
overcome to enter into any elaborate discussion at that time. All he
could do was to thank the leading members of the party for their
confidence, to inform the parliamentary-agent firm that he would wait
upon them the next day, and to assure Messrs. Spalding and Moule that
the Liberals of Brocksopp would find him among them immediately. Did
Walter Joyce falter for one instant in the scheme of retribution which
he had foreshadowed, now that he was to be its exponent, now that the
vengeance which he had anticipated was to be worked out by himself?
No! On the contrary, he was more satisfied in being able to assure
himself of the edge of the weapon, and of the strength of the arm by
which the blow should be dealt.
"We calculated too soon upon the effect of young Bokenham's escapade,
darling," said Mr. Creswell to his wife, on his return after a day in
Brocksopp. "The field is by no means to be left clear to us. The walls
of the town are blazing with the placards of a new candidate in the
Liberal interest--a clever man, I believe--who is to have all the
elder Bokenham's backing, and who, from previous connection, may
probably have certain local interests of his own."
"Previous connection--local interest? Who can it be?" asked Marian.
"An old acquaintance of yours, I should imagine; at least, the name is
familiar to me in connection with your father and the old days of
Helmingham school. The signature to the address is 'Walter Joyce.'"