It was in this happy spirit that they approached Mr. Franklin Forrester
the next day, Jack having had a chat with him through the telephone.
Mr. Forrester was delighted--at his own sagacity in playing his hand
so as to win Mrs. Wingfield to his side. He took care to make his
principals aware of his sagacity in this particular, and they also were
delighted. They smiled, of course, at the suggestion that the seat might
be taken by his friend Wingfield, but he would come forward and contest
it in their interest, and that was something. People, especially those
of the opposition, must not get it into their heads that The Party could
not put a man into the field to oppose Lawford, who would, of course,
win the seat, but not so easily as he expected--not so easily as to
reflect seriously upon the resources of The Party who were running
Wingfield.
That was the way the leaders of the organization to which Forrester
belonged looked at the candidature of Wingfield. And the way Forrester
himself looked at it was that the fact of his being able to bring
Wingfield up to the scratch--that was his metaphor in referring to his
success--would raise him to the extent of another rung in the political
ladder which he had set himself to climb some years before, and up which
he had already made a creditable ascent.
One thing he saw clearly, and that was that his candidate’s having
married the daughter of a farmer--not a gentleman farmer nor an amateur
farmer, but a farmer, and a farmer, too, who was well known to make his
business pay--was a distinct point in his favour. It would assuredly be
accounted to him for righteousness by a constituency like Nuttingford,
which was so largely agricultural.
He mentioned this to Jack, who, he found, was fully alive to the
importance of making every legitimate use of this claim upon the
electorate. So far as he could make out, it was the solitary claim
which he had to their attention, and this made him value it all the
more highly. He delighted Mr. Forrester by the ease with which he showed
himself ready to adapt himself to circumstances and circumstances to his
candidature. Most high class men, Mr. Forrester’s experience had shown
him, had been at first inclined to take a very high tone on approaching
a constituency, striking the attitude of a patriot or a philanthropist
and assuring him that if they could not be returned solely on their own
merits without such adventitious aids as family interests or business
interests or the interest which attaches to an interesting wife, they
would much prefer not to be returned at all. Such high-toned men very
soon got such nonsense knocked out of them. One of them, who was the
father of two little girls with lovely eyes, had the mortification
of seeing his antagonist romp in ahead of him solely because he had
appeared every morning on the balcony of the hotel carrying on his
shoulder a flaxen-curled little boy in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit,
though he had only borrowed the child for the election.
“What did the crowds outside the hotel care whether the boy was his or
not?” cried Mr. Forrester. “They gave him their votes; and there was
the other man thrown out, though he might have played off his two lovely
little girls against the borrowed brat with every chance of success. Oh,
children are simply thrown away upon superior men like that!”
But Wingfield showed himself superior to such ridiculous affectations of
superiority and high-tonedness. He knew enough about practical politics
to be aware of the affinity of the cult to the pastry industry of the
roadside. To attain success in the making of mud pies one must not be
over-careful of one’s hands. There is no making mud pies without mud,
and there is no dabbling in politics if you mean to devote your best
energies to the culture of lilies--not the speckled variety nor even the
golden, but the pure saint of flowerland, the snow-white sort.
Of this fact Jack Wingfield was well aware, so he did not
resent--certainly not openly--Mr. Forrester’s advice: “You must run your
wife’s connection with farming for all that it’s worth.”
“And it’s worth a good deal,” assented the candidate. “Yes, we’ll rub it
in, never fear.”
And Priscilla also showed herself to be quite alive to the value of this
connection.
“I’ll give a practical lesson daily on ‘How to make farming pay,’” she
cried. “I’ll take care that he has not a monopoly of the farm in his
speeches.”
“Oh! those speeches are what I dread,” groaned Jack. “Psha! you’ve no
idea how simple this part of it is,” said Mr. Forrester. “All you’ve got
to do is to get well grounded on about half a dozen topics and speak all
you know of all of them at every meeting. Don’t on any account commit
anything to memory, for so long as you don’t make use of the same words
no one will recognize any sameness or repetition in what you say. I’ll
take care that you have a proper number of repartees made out for you
upon every occasion. These will be typewritten on slips of paper,
and placed in order on the table in front of you, so that when the
conscientious objectors, for whom we will arrange, ask you their
questions from the body of the hall or the gallery, you will have
nothing to do but glance at the repartee before you and repeat it with
whatever inflection you may think necessary. Only you mustn’t forget
to turn down each repartee when you have delivered it, or you’ll find
yourself at sea.”
“I can easily believe that,” said the candidate.
“And then we shall have to arrange for an effective interruption now and
again. But your appeal for the man to be allowed to remain and your joke
on the matter will also be typewritten in front of you. Some men prefer
to commit the joke to memory, but it’s never safe to do this. Oh, you’ll
have no trouble when once you get into the stride of the thing.”
“I’ll do my best to accommodate my faltering steps to its majestic
swing,” said Jack. “This is a nice business I’m learning, Priscilla,” he
added, turning to his wife.
“It’s the most interesting game ever invented--so much is clear to me,”
said she. “It’s the game of musical chairs on a heroic scale. You face
the music, and the moment it stops you make a struggle for a seat, and
if you don’t mind a little rough-and-tumble business you’ll get your
seat, Jack--I see that clearly.”
This coaching took place during the first day or two after Jack’s
announcement of his decision. And then he went off with Priscilla to the
town of Nuttingford to make the acquaintance of the local organization
of The Party, and to be grounded on all local questions, so that the
soundness of his views on these points might never be open to suspicion.
Then at the right moment the member for the division, Sir Christopher
Cotton, applied for the appointment of Steward and Bailiff of the Three
Hundreds of Chiltern, and this being an office of emolument, his
seat automatically became vacant, but he did not offer himself for
re-election.
His valedictory address appeared in all the papers, and it contained a
very handsome recognition of the abilities of the gentleman who had,
he said, come forward at considerable personal sacrifice to solicit the
suffrages of his friends in his place. He could not doubt, he added,
that the electorate would view with a friendly eye the candidature
of Mr. John Wingfield, who, though not personally connected with the
division, had many interests in common with the electors and was sound
on all matters of Imperial bearing.
Beneath this graceful tribute to the worth of a gentleman of whom he
knew absolutely nothing, appeared the address of that gentleman himself.
It was of the simple, straightforward, manly type--and its burden was
the shameful way in which the agricultural industry--the most important
industry in the country--had been neglected not by one Government only,
but by all. He frankly admitted that the one aim of his life was the
placing of agriculture on a sound basis, and whether he was returned to
Parliament or not, his opinion would remain unaltered, that prosperity
to the country meant prosperity to the agricultural interests of the
country. At that point in the address the candidate’s frankness became
even more apparent.
“I am prepared to hear it alleged,” his address went on, “that my
views on this matter are not wholly disinterested, that in fact my
own interests are largely bound up with the agricultural industry.
Gentlemen, I own that it would be futile for me to make an attempt
to deny this accusation. My own interests are identical with those of
agriculture. It is for you to say if this fact disqualifies me from
being regarded as a fitting representative of such a constituency as
yours.”
Now, considering that Jack Wingfield and Priscilla his wife had
composed this address without the least aid from Franklin Forrester, the
encomiums which it received from that critic were accepted by them with
pride--of a certain sort. But when it is known that Jack, after reading
over the address in the newspaper out loud, appealed to Priscilla to say
if it contained a single false statement, and that she replied that it
really did not contain a paragraph that was absolutely untrue, it may
be gathered that their pride in its composition was tempered by some
misgivings. When two people find it necessary to assure each other from
time to time of the purity of their motives, one may perhaps go so far
as to assume that neither of them is absolutely convinced on this point.
It is understood that during an election certain ethical indulgence is
allowed to the candidates and their immediate supporters, just as, at
certain times of fasting, the representatives of the most rigid form of
Church government grant exemption to some persons from obedience to the
strict letter of the law, and just as ingenious Jews have in all ages
contrived to effect a compromise with their conscience in the acceptance
of the Mosaic injunctions in regard to the observance of the Sabbath
(though the Jew has always paid in something on account, so to speak).
But whether or not such an explanation of the ethics of the easy-going
may be considered satisfactory by the Judge Flynns--the “high-toneder”
people of the world, Jack Wingfield and Priscilla his wife soon found
themselves too busy to subject themselves to any tests of the searching
character of those that Farmer Wadhurst’s daughter had instituted in his
dairy. The use of a spiritual lactometer would be extremely inconvenient
during a contested election, and the contest at Nuttingford promised to
be an unusually brisk one.
They both plunged into it. They had got the start of the other
candidate--a solicitor by profession, who had made a former appeal to
the same constituency--and they meant to keep ahead of him.
From the first it was seen that the sagacity of Mr. Forrester had not
misled him when he had suggested that Mrs. Wingfield’s presence would
tell largely in favour of the candidate of The Party. Priscilla stood by
her husband at all times; but she refused to say to anyone:
“I want you to give your vote to my husband.”
“It’s entirely a matter between yourselves and him,” she would say with
a smile and a wave of her hand. “If you think him the man for you, as
I know him to be the man for me, you can’t do better than send him into
Parliament as your representative; but if you don’t, well, there’s no
harm done--I’ll have the more of him to myself.”
Moreover, she never made a suggestion to him as to what the character
of any of his speeches should be. It was only when he talked over some
question with her and asked her advice that she put forward an opinion.
She saw as clearly as did Mr. Forrester that Jack’s form of oratory was
the sort that must tell at an election meeting. It was not classical;
it was far better: it was colloquial. He told stories by the score, and
everyone of them bearing upon his own experience in many countries--just
the sort of stories that people like--about lions and tigers and killing
things--about niggers (with a sly word or two about the scantiness of
their attire)--about a cricket match in the South Seas which had lasted
three weeks with a hundred and twenty on each side, and a free fight at
the close--about a football match in Africa, where the football was a
cocoanut in its original husk, and how they kicked it to pieces with,
their bare feet, and how the referee was treated almost as badly as he
is upon occasions in the Midlands. “But the great pull that those chaps
have over us is of course that a black eye is never noticed.” This
commentary was received with laughter and cheers; and under the cover of
this demonstration Priscilla scribbled a few words on a piece of paper,
and pushed it before him. When the yells had passed away, he resumed:
“I suppose you think that that about the black eyes has nothing to do
with us at this election. Well, you’re wrong. I was about to say when
you interrupted me--there really was nothing to laugh at. Do you think a
black eye is something to laugh at? (Great laughter.) Well, you’re wrong
again! (More laughter.) I should know, for I’ve had many a one myself.
(Renewed laughter.) In fact, at one time of my life I had so many black
eyes that my friends used to call me not blackeyed Susan, but black-eyed
Jack. (Great laughter.) My mother said, ‘This can’t be my own beautiful
boy, for my son had lovely dreamy blue eyes, and this boy’s are--’
(The remainder of the sentence was inaudible owing to the laughter and
cheers.) But to come to the point. I was about to say that my opponent’s
disclaimer with regard to the labourers’ cottages resembled that
nigger’s black eyes. He declares that the opinions which I said were
his were not his opinions at all. Ladies and gentlemen, if you had asked
that nigger if he had a pair of black eyes he would have denied it.
My opponent holds those opinions without knowing it, and we accept his
disclaimer, feeling sure that he made it in good faith--as good faith
as the nigger’s who denied his lovely black eyes, and so we part good
friends.” (Loud cheers.)
That was his style of oratory, and it did very well. But of course, he
was not always so successful as he was upon this occasion in dragging in
a connection between one of his stories and an election topic. Priscilla
was not always at hand to give him a hint of the possibility of
turning a story to good account. But his audience cared no more for the
appropriateness of a story to an election issue than children care for
the moral of a fable. They wanted to be entertained and he entertained
them, and they found him a jolly good fellow, and affirmed their belief
in varying keys the moment he got upon his legs and the moment he sat
down.
Mr. Forrester began to feel that there was more than a likelihood
that the Wingfields would win. He took care to arrange with the local
organization to have a sufficient number of sound dull speakers
to precede Jack’s efforts and to follow them up. The difficulty
of providing such speakers is never insuperable in an agricultural
constituency, or for that matter, in any other constituency.
But the _coup de theatre_ of Jack’s campaign was due to the happy
accident of a conscientious objector--not one of those who had been
provided by the management--being present in the gallery one night, when
Mr. Wingfield had been affirming (for the fiftieth time) that he was
heart and soul an agriculturist.
“Look here, mister,” this person sang out. “Look here, we’ve heard a
deal about you and the lady (cheers and cries of ‘Turn him out!’) No,
nobody will turn me out.”
“You’re right there, my lad,” cried Jack. “We don’t want anybody turned
out. We want somebody turned in--into Parliament, and I’ve the authority
of that person for saying that he doesn’t want to be turned in by
turning other people out. Go on, my friend. It’s a free country.”
“So I was hoping, sir. Well, what I want to know is this. Did ever you
or your lady do a real day’s work yourselves? That’s what I want to
know.”
There was some laughter and some confusion at the back of the hall, for
it seemed that there were conscientious ejectors present as well as the
conscientious objector. While order was being restored, Priscilla said
something in Jack’s ear, and at once he held up his hand for silence.
“Our friend has thrown us down a challenge, and we’re only too glad to
take it up,” he cried. “Has either of us ever done a real day’s work? he
asks. Well, here’s my wife’s answer. Here we are in this hall to-night.
Now, to-morrow morning at 10 o’clock my wife will show all who honour
her with a visit in this place whether anyone in this neighbourhood can
tell her something she doesn’t know in dairy work. She’ll do a day’s
butter making with her own hands, and you’ll be able to judge for
yourselves whether or not I have been over or under the mark in my claim
that we understand what we’re talking about. If my speeches here haven’t
contained much butter it’s not because we don’t know what the real thing
is or that one of us at least can’t make it with it the best in the
land. There’s no duchess in this country or any other that can beat Mrs.
Wingfield at butter making (laughter), but it’s not for me to talk to
you of it; you come here, any of you that know what butter is, and you
can judge for yourselves to-morrow and maybe the day after. One friend
up there talked of a single day’s real work. Well, we accept his
challenge and double the task--two days--three--four--if he insists.
Now, mind you, this is no joke. You’ll find that it’s no joke if any of
you hope to beat the butter that will be made here to-morrow and as much
longer as you please.”
He sat down “amid a scene of indescribable enthusiasm,” as the local
newspapers had it, only they said that “he resumed his seat.” The
man who had asked that question from the gallery was the driver of a
traction engine, and he had long been suspected of harbouring unworthy
socialistic theories. He thought it prudent to leave the hall before the
close of the meeting.
“How will you get out of it?” asked Mr. Forrester of Priscilla. “That
husband of yours has either made himself or marred himself by his
attempt to get the better of that man in the gallery. How does he mean
you to get out of the business?”
“He doesn’t,” replied Priscilla. “It was I who told him to take up the
challenge. Oh, Mr. Forrester, we’re all sick to death of this vulgar
talk, talk, talk day after day and night after night. Thank goodness
that I have now a chance of turning from that unwholesome stuff to a
good clean worthy job of butter making. I’ll win this election for my
husband in the legitimate way of work as opposed to words.”
And she did win it for him.
By eleven o’clock the next morning she had turned the hall into a dairy,
and in the daintiest dairymaid’s costume that had ever been seen, with
her white arms bare to the elbow, she churned her milk and turned out
pat after pat of the finest butter that had ever been seen in that
neighbourhood. By the evening she had produced sufficient to stock a
shop for a day, and she had leisure to make all the farmers’ daughters
acquainted with the scientific tests by whose aid alone could the best
results be obtained.
The only trouble that there was in carrying out her scheme was in regard
to the regulation of the crowds of people who flocked from every quarter
to see Mrs. Wingfield respond to the challenge that her husband had
accepted on her behalf. The local police were quite unequal to the
duty of marshalling the crowd. Volunteer stewards had to assist them to
prevent the hall being rushed. But in spite of all their exertions the
doors had to be closed several times during the afternoon. At the
dinner hour of the working population the whole street was packed with
interested young women and still more interested young men, and the
sound of their cheering was as continuous as the firing of a battery of
machine guns.
“What chance have I against that kind of thing, Forrester?” enquired
Jack’s opponent of the manager of Mr. Wingfield’s party. “I suppose this
is another of your clever tricks” he added, “I should be proud to be
able to father it, but I am not,” said Mr. Forrester.
“You mean to say that you did not arrange for that challenge?”
“I do indeed. It was sprung on us--the whole thing was sprung on us. I
give you my word for it. The fellow sang out some rot from the gallery,
and while they were calling to put him out, Mrs. Wingfield saw her
chance. She put Wingfield up to it, and he only did what she told him. I
didn’t know where I was standing when I heard him accept the challenge;
but in a minute or two I saw what could be made of it.”
“Butter! I don’t know what we are coming to in England when the grave
issues of an election contest are decided in this way--I really don’t.”
“I’m not sure that that young woman hasn’t inaugurated, a new state of
things. Speech-making is played out as an election force.”
“And butter-making is to take its place! Why not have a milking match
between the candidates to decide which of them should be returned? Mrs.
Wingfield is a clever young woman, and her husband’s a lucky man. We all
thought him a bit of a juggins.”
“So he was; but she has made a man of him.”
“She has made a member of Parliament of him,” said Jack’s opponent;
and whatever enthusiasm he may have felt at the thought, he managed to
prevent it from being noticed in his voice.
He spoke the truth. Mrs. Wingfield’s husband was returned as the
Parliamentary representative of the Nuttingford division of Nethershire
by a majority of eleven hundred and sixty-one votes.
When the enthusiastic electors and non-electors--the latter are
invariably the more enthusiastic--blocked the street in front of the
hotel and shouted for Mrs. Wingfield, that lady appeared on the balcony,
but after a long interval.
Everyone saw that she was smiling, but only those people who were close
to her saw that her smile was that of a woman who has wept and is still
weeping.