XXVI
THE SCENE IN THE HALL
Arthur Vaughan had been quick to see that he could not step at onceinto place and fame; that success in political life could not in thesedays be attained at a bound. But had he been less quick, the greatdebate which preceded the passage of the Bill through the Commons musthave availed to persuade him. That their last words of warning to thecountry, their solemn remonstrances, might have more effect, themanagers of the Opposition had permitted the third reading to becarried in the manner which has been described. But, that done, theyunmasked all their forces, bent on proving that if in the time to comethe peers threw out the Bill they would do so with a respectableweight, not only of argument, but of public feeling behind them; andthat, not only in the country, but in the popular House. All that thebitter invective of Croker, the mingled gibes and predictions ofWetherell, the close and weighty reasoning of Peel, the precedents ofSugden could do to warn the timid and arouse the prudent was done.That ancient Chamber, which was never again to echo the accents of adebate so great, which stood indeed already doomed, as if it could notlong survive the order of things of which it had been for centuriesthe centre, had heard, it may be, speeches more lofty, men moreeloquent--for whom had it not heard?--but never men more in earnest,or words more keenly barbed by the prejudices of the passing, or theaspirations of the coming, age. Of the one party were those who couldsee naught but glory in the bygone, naught but peril in change, of theother, those whose strenuous aim it was to make the future redress thewrongs of the past. The former were like children, viewing the Armadahangings which tapestried the neighbouring Chamber, and seeing onlythe fair front: the latter like the same children, picking with soiledfingers at the backing, coarse, dusty and cobwebbed, which for twohundred years had clung to the roughened masonry.
Vaughan sat through the three nights, brooding darkly on the featsperformed before him. If they who fought in the arena were not giants,if the House no longer held a match for Canning and Brougham, thecombatants seemed giants to him; for a man's opinion of himself isnever far from the opinion which others hold of him. And he soonperceived that a common soldier might as easily step from the ranksand set the battle in order as he, Arthur Vaughan, rise up, withoutfarther training, and lead the attack or cover the defence. He satsoured and gloomy, a mere spectator; dwelling, even while he listenedto the flowery periods of Macaulay, or the trenchant arguments ofPeel, on the wrong done to himself by the disposal of his seat.
It was so like the Whigs, he told himself. Here on the floor of theHouse who so loud as they in defence of the purity of elections, ofthe people's right to be represented, of the unbiassed vote of theelectors? But behind the scenes they were as keenly bent on jobbing aseat here, or neutralising a seat there, and as careless of thepeople's rights as they had ever been! It was atrocious, it wasshameful! If this were political life, if this were political honesty,he had had enough of it!
But alas, though he said it in his anger, there was the rub! He hadnot had, and now he was not likely to have, enough of it. Thehostility to himself, of which he had come slowly to be conscious, asa man grows slowly to perceive a frostiness in the air, had insensiblysapped his self-confidence and lowered his claims. He no longer dreamtof rising and outshining the chiefs of his party. But he stillbelieved that he had it in him to succeed--were time given him. Andall through the long hours of the three nights' debates his thoughtswere as often on his wrongs as on the momentous struggle which waspassing before his eyes, and for the issue of which the clubs ofLondon were keeping vigil.
But enthusiasm is infectious. And when the tellers for the last timewalked up to the table, at five o'clock on the morning of the 22nd ofSeptember, with the grey light of daybreak stealing in to shame thecandles and betray the jaded faces--when he and all men knew that forthem the end of the great struggle was come--Vaughan waited breathlesswith the rest and strained his ears to catch the result. And when, amoment later, peal upon peal of fierce cheering shook the old panelsin their frames, and being taken up by waiting crowds without, carriedthe news through the dawn to the very skirts of London--the news thatReform had passed the People's House, and that only the peers nowstood between the country and its desire--he shared the triumph andshouted with the rest, shook hands with exultant neighbours, and wavedhis hat, perspiring.
But in his case the feeling of exultation was short-lived; perhaps inthe case of many another, who roared himself hoarse and showed agleeful face to the daylight. Certainly it was something to have takenpart in such a scene, the memory of which must survive forgenerations. It was something to have voted in such a division. Hemight talk of it in days to come to his grandchildren. But for himpersonally it meant that all was over; that here, if the Lords passedthe Bill, was the end. A Dissolution must follow, and when the Housemet again, his place would know him no more. He would be gone, and noman would feel the blank.
Nor were less selfish doubts wanting. As he stood, caught in the pressand awaiting his turn to leave the crowded House, his eyes rested onthe pale, scowling faces which dotted the opposite benches; the facesof men who, honestly believing that here and now the old Constitutionof England had got its deathblow, could not hide their bitter chagrin,or their scorn of the foe. Nor could he, at any rate, view those menwithout sympathy; without the possibility that they were rightweighing on his spirits; without a faint apprehension that this mightindeed be the beginning of decay, the starting point of that decadencewhich every generation since Queen Anne's had foreseen. For if many onthat side represented no one but themselves, they still representedvast interests, huge incomes, immense taxation. They were those who,if England sank, had most to lose. He, in the past, had given upalmost his all that he might stand aloof from them; and that, becausehe thought them prejudiced, wrong-headed, unreasonable. But herespected them. And--what if they were right?
Meanwhile the persistent cheering of his friends began to jar on histired nerves. He seemed to see in this a beginning of disorder, oflicense, of revolution, of all those evils which the other partyforetold. And then he had little liking for the statistics of Hume:and Hume with his arm about his favourite pillar, was high among thetriumphant. Hard by him again was the tall, thin form of Orator Hunt,for whom the Bill was too moderate; and the taller, thinner form ofBurdett. They, crimson with shouting, were his partners in this; thebedfellows among whom his opinions had cast him.
Thinking such thoughts, he was among the last to leave the House,which he did by way of Westminster Hall. The scene as he descended tothe Hall was so striking that he stood an instant on the steps to viewit. The hither half of the great space was comparatively bare, but thefarther half was occupied by a throng of people held back by a line ofthe New Police, who were doing all they could to keep a passagefor the departing Members. As groups of the latter, after chattingawhile at the upper end, passed, conscious of the greatness of theoccasion, down the lane thus formed, bursts of loud cheering greetedthe better-known Reformers. Some of the more forward of those whowaited shook hands with them, or patted them on the back; while otherscried "God bless you, sir! Long life to you, sir!" On the other hand,an angry moan, or a spirit of hissing, marked the passage of a knownTory; or a voice was raised calling to these to bid the Lords beware.A few lamps, which had burned through the night, contended pallidlywith the growing daylight, and gave to the scene that touch ofobscurity, that mingling of light and shadow--under the dusky,far-receding roof--which is necessary to the picturesque.
Vaughan did not suspect that, as he paused, looking down on the Hall,he was himself watched, and by some sore enough that moment to be gladto wreak their feelings in any direction. As he set his foot on thestone pavement a group near at hand raised a cry of "Turncoat!Turncoat!" and that so loudly that he could not but hear it. Anunmistakable hiss followed; and then, "Who stole a seat?" cried one ofthe men.
"And isn't going to keep it?" cried another.
Vaughan turned short at the las
t words--he had not felt sure that thefirst were addressed to him. With a hot face, and every fibre in hisbody tingling with defiance, he stepped up to the group. "Did youspeak to me?" he said.
A man with a bullying air put himself before the others. He was aruined Irish Member, who had sat for years for a close borough, andfor whom the Bill meant duns, bailiffs, a sponging-house, in a word,the loss of all those thing's which made life tolerable. He was fullof spite and spoiling for a fight with someone, no matter with whom.
"Who are you?" he replied, confronting our friend with a sneer. "Ihave not the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir!"
Vaughan was about to answer him in kind, when he espied in the middleof the group the pale, keen face and greyish whiskers of SergeantWathen. And, "Perhaps you have not," he retorted, "but that gentlemanhas." He pointed to Wathen. "And, if what was said a moment ago," hecontinued, "was meant for me, I have the honour to ask for anexplanation."
"Explanation?" a Member in the background cried, in a jeering tone."Is there need of one?"
Vaughan was no longer red, he was white with anger. "Who spoke?" heasked, his voice ringing.
The Irishman looked over his shoulder and laughed. "Right you are,Jerry!" he said: "I'll not give you up!" And then to Vaughan, "I didnot," he said rudely. "For the rest, sir, the Hall is large enough.And we have no need of your heroics here!"
"Your pleasure, however," Vaughan replied, haughtily, "is not my law.Some one of you used words a moment ago which seemed to imply----"
"What, sir?"
"That I obtained my seat by unfair means! And the truth beingperfectly well known to that gentleman"--again he pointed to theSergeant in a way which left Wathen anything but comfortable. "I amsure that he will tell you that the statement----"
"Statement?"
"Statement or imputation, or whatever you please to call it," Vaughananswered, sticking to his point in spite of interruptions, "isabsolutely unfounded--and false. And false! And, therefore, must beretracted."
"Must, sir?"
"Yes, must!" Vaughan replied--he was no coward. "Must, if you callyourselves gentlemen. But first, Mr. Sergeant," he continued, fixingWathen with his eye, "I will ask you to tell these friends of yoursthat I did not turn my coat at Chippinge. And that there was nothingin my election which in any degree touched my honour."
The Sergeant looked flurried. He was of those who love to wound, butdo not love to fight. And at this moment he wished from the crown ofhis head to the soles of his feet, that he had held his tongue. Butunluckily, whether the cloud upon Vaughan's reputation had been hiswork or not, he had certainly said more than he liked to remember;and, worse still, had said some part of it within the last fiveminutes, in the hearing of those about him. To retract, therefore, wasto dub himself a liar; and he sought refuge, the perspiration standingon his brow, in that half-truth which is at once worse than a lie--andsafer.
"I must say, Mr. Vaughan," he said, "that the--the circumstances inwhich you used the vote given to you by your cousin, and--and the wayin which you turned against him after attending a dinner of hissupporters----"
"Openly, fairly, and after warning, I turned against him," Vaughancried, enraged at the show of justice which the accusation wore. "Andthat, sir, in pursuance of opinions which I had publicly professed.More, I allowed myself to be elected only after I had once refusedLord Lansdowne's offer of the seat! And after, only after, Sir RobertVermuyden had so treated me that all ties were broken. SergeantWathen, I appeal to you again! Was that not so?"
"I know nothing of that," Wathen answered, sullenly.
"Nothing? You know nothing of that?" Vaughan cried.
"No," the Sergeant answered, still more sullenly. "I know nothing ofwhat passed between you and your cousin. I know only that you werepresent, as I have said, at a dinner of his supporters on the eve ofthe election, and that on a sudden, at that dinner, you declaredyourself against him--with the result that you were elected by theother side!"
For a moment Vaughan stood glowering at him, struck dumb by his denialand by the unexpected plausibility, nay, the unexpected strength ofthe case against him. He was sure that Wathen knew more, he was surethat if he would he could say more! He was sure that the man wasdishonest. But he did not see how he could prove it, and----
The Irish Member laughed. "Well, sir," he said, derisively, "is theexplanation, now you've got it, to your mind?"
The taunt stung Vaughan. He took a step forward. The next moment wouldhave seen him commit himself to a foolish action, that could only haveled him to Wimbledon Common or Primrose Hill. But in the nick of timea voice stayed him.
"What's this, eh?" it asked, its tone more lugubrious than usual. AndSir Charles Wetherell, who had just descended the stairs from thelobby, turned a dull eye from one disputant to the other. "Can't youdo enough damage with your tongues?" he rumbled. "Brawl upstairs asmuch as you like! That's the way to the Woolsack! But you mustn'tbrawl here!" And the heavy-visaged man, whose humour had again andagain conciliated a House which his coarse invective had offended,once more turned from one to the other. "What is it?" he repeated."Eh?"
Vaughan hastened to appeal to him. "Sir Charles," he said, "I willabide by your decision! Though I do not know, indeed, that I ought totake any man's decision on a point which touches my honour!"
"Oh!" Wetherell said in an inimitable tone. "Court of Honour, is it?"And he cast a queer look round the circle. "That's it, is it? Well, Idare say I'm eligible. I dare swear I know as much about honour asBrougham about equity! Or the Sergeant there"--Wathen reddenedangrily--"about law! Or Captain McShane here about his belovedcountry! Yes," he continued, amid the unconcealed grins of those ofthe party whose weak points had escaped, "you may proceed, I think."
"You are a friend, Sir Charles," Vaughan said, in a voice whichquivered with anxiety, "you are a friend of Sir Robert Vermuyden's?"
"Well, I won't deny him until I know more!" Wetherell answeredquaintly. "What of it?"
"You know what occurred at Chippinge before the election?"
"None better. I was there."
"And what passed between Sir Robert Vermuyden and me?" Vaughancontinued, eagerly.
"I think I do," Wetherell answered. "In the main I do."
"Thank you, Sir Charles. Then I appeal to you. You are opposed to mein politics, but you will do me justice. These gentlemen have thoughtfit to brand me here and now as a turncoat; and, worse, as one whowas--who was elected"--he could scarcely speak for passion--"inopposition to Sir Robert's, to my relative's candidates, undercircumstances dishonourable to me!"
"Indeed? Indeed? That is serious."
"And I ask you, sir, is there a word of truth in that charge?"
Wetherell had his eyes fixed gloomily on the pavement. He appeared toweigh the matter a moment or two. Then he shook his head.
"Not a word," he said, ponderously.
"You--you bear me out, sir."
"Quite, quite," the other answered slowly, as he took out hissnuffbox. "To tell the truth, gentlemen," he continued, in the samemelancholy tone, "Mr. Vaughan was fool enough to quarrel with hisbread and butter for the sake of the most worthless, damnable andmistaken convictions any man ever held! That's the truth. He showedhimself a very perfect fool, but an honourable and an honest fool--andthat's a rare thing. I see none here."
No one laughed at the gibe, and he turned to Vaughan, who stood,relieved indeed, but stiff and uncomfortable, uncertain what to donext. "I'll take your arm," he said. "I've saved you," coolly, "fromthe ragged regiment on my side. Do you take me safe," he continued,with a look towards the lower end of the Hall, "through your raggedregiment outside, my lad!"
Vaughan understood only too well the generous motive which underlaythe invitation. But for a moment he hung back.
"I am your debtor, Sir Charles," he said, deeply moved, "as long as Ilive. But I would like to know before I go," and he raised his head,with a look worthy of Sir Robert, "whether these gentlemen aresatisfied. If not----"
"O
h, perfectly," the Sergeant cried, hurriedly. "Perfectly!" And hemuttered something about being glad--hear explanation--satisfactory.
But the Irish Member stepped up and held out his hand. "Faith," hesaid, "there's no man whose word I'd take before Sir Charles's!There's no hiatus in his honour, whatever may be said of his breeches!That's one for you," he added, addressing Wetherell. "I owed you one,my good sir!" And then he turned to Vaughan. "There's my hand, sir! Iapologise," he said. "You're a man of honour, and it's mistaken wewere!"
"I am obliged to you for your candour," Vaughan said, gratefully.
Half a dozen others raised their hats to him, or shook hands with himfrankly. The Sergeant did the same less frankly. But Vaughan saw thathe was cowed. Wetherell was Sir Robert Vermuyden's friend, and theSergeant was Sir Robert's nominee. So he pushed his triumph nofarther. With a feeling of gratitude too deep for words, he offeredhis arm to Sir Charles, and went down the Hall in his company.
By this time the crowd at the lower end had carried their joy andtheir horseplay elsewhere; and no attempt was made--Vaughan onlywished an attempt had been made--to molest Wetherell. They walkedacross the yard to Parliament Street, as the first sunshine of the dayfell on the bridge and the river. Flocks of gulls were swinging to andfro in the clear air above the water, and dumb barges were floating upwith the tide. The hub-bub in that part was past and over; at thatmoment a score of coaches were speeding through the suburbs, bearingto market-town and busy city, ay, and to village greens, where thenews was awaited eagerly, the tidings that the Bill had passed theLower House.
Sir Charles walked a short distance in silence. Then, "I thought somenotion of the kind was abroad," he said. "It's as well this happened.What are you going to do about your seat if the Bill pass, young man?"
"I am told that it is pre-empted," Vaughan answered, in a tone betweenjest and earnest.
"It is. But----"
"Yes, Sir Charles?"
"You should see your own side about it," Wetherell answered gruffly."I can't say more than that."
"I am obliged to you for that."
"You should be!" Wetherell retorted in a peculiar tone. And with anoath and a strange gesture he disengaged his arm. Halting and wheelingabout, he pointed with a shaking hand to the towers of the Abbey,which rose against the blue, beatified by the morning sunshine. "If Isaid 'batter down those walls, undig the dead, away with every hoarything of time, the present and the future are enough, and we, thegeneration that burns the mummies, which three thousand years havespared--we are wiser than all our forbears--' what would you say? Youwould call me mad. Yet what are you doing? Ay, you, you among therest! The building that our fathers built, patiently through manyhundred years, adding a little here and strengthening there, thebuilding that Hampden and Shrewsbury and Walpole, Chatham and his son,and Canning, and many others tended reverently, repairing here andthere, as time required, you, you, who think you know more than allwho have gone before you, hurry in ruin to the ground! That you maybuild your own building, built in a day, to suit the day, and toperish with the day! Oh, mad, mad, mad! Ay,
"_Hostis habet muros; ruit alta a culmine Troja. Sat patriae Priamoque datum; si Pergama linqua. Defendi possent, etiam, hoc defensa fuissent!_"
His voice quavered on the last accent, his chin sank on his breast. Heturned wearily and resumed his course. When Vaughan, who did notventure to address him again, parted from him in silence at the doorof his house, the fat man's pendulous lip quivered, and a single tearran down his cheek.