The Great House Part 22

"Well, I'm dommed!" the other answered, peering up through the darkness. "It be you, Squire, bain't it? But you're not meaning it?"

"I am," Ba.s.set replied in a low voice. "I'd not say, vote for him, Bosham. But leave it alone. You're not called upon to ruin yourself."

"But ha' you thought," the man exclaimed, "that our two votes may make the differ? That they may make you or mar you, Squire!"

"Well, I'd rather be marred than see you put out of your place," Ba.s.set answered. "Think it over, Bosham."

But Bosham repudiated even thought of it. This vote and his use of it, this defiance of a lord, was, for the time, his very life. "I'll not do it," he declared. "I couldn't do it! Nor I won't!" he repeated. "We're freemen o' Riddsley, and almost the last of the freemen that has votes as freemen! And while free we are, free we'll be, and vote as we choose, Squire! Vote as we choose! I'd not show my face in the town else! Mr. Stubbs may talk as gallus as he likes--and main ashamed of himself he looked yesterday--he may talk as gallus as never was, we'll not bend to no landlord, nor to no golden image!"

"Then there's no more to be said," Ba.s.set answered, feeling that he cut a poor figure. "I don't wish you to do anything against your conscience, Bosham, and I'm obliged to you and your brother for your staunchness. I only wanted you to know that I should understand if you stayed away."

"I'd chop my foot off first!" cried the patriot.

After which Ba.s.set had no choice but to leave him and to ride on, feeling that he was himself too soft for the business--that he was a round man in a square hole. He wondered what his committee would think of him if they knew, and what Bosham thought of him--who did know. For Bosham seemed to him at this moment a man of principle, a patriot, nay, a very Brutus: whereas, Ben was in truth no better than a small man of large conceit, whose vote was his one road to fame.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

BEN BOSHAM.

It was Tuesday, market-day at Riddsley, and farmers' wives, cackling as loudly as the poultry they carried, elbowed one another on the brick pavements or cl.u.s.tered before the windows of the low-browed shops. Farmers in white great-coats, with huge handkerchiefs about their necks, streamed from the yards of the Packhorse and the Barley Mow, and meeting a friend planted themselves in the roadway as firmly as if they stood in their own pastures. Now and again a young spark, fancying all eyes upon his four-year-old, sidled through the throng with many a "Whoa!" and "Where be'st going, lad?" While on the steps of the Market-Cross and about the long line of carts that rested on their shafts in the open street, hucksters chaffered and house-wives haggled over the rare egg or the keg of salted b.u.t.ter.

The quacking of ducks, the neighing of horses, the singsong of rustic voices filled the streets. It was common talk that the place was as full as at the March Fair. The excitement of the Election had gone abroad, the cry that the land was at stake had brought in some, others had come to see what was afoot. Many a stout tenant was here who at other times left the marketing to his womenfolk; and shrewd glances he cast at the gentry, as he edged past the justices who lounged before the Audley Arms and killed in gossip the interval between the Magistrates' Meeting, at which they had just a.s.sisted, and the Ordinary at which they were to support young Mottisfont.

The great men talked loudly and eagerly, were pa.s.sionate, were in earnest. Occasionally one of the younger of them would step aside to look at a pa.s.sing hackney, or an older man would speak to a favorite tenant whom he called by his first name. But, for the most part, they clung together, fine upstanding figures, in high-collared riding-coats and top-boots. They were keen to a man; the farmers keen also, but not so keen. For the argument that high wheat meant high rents, and that most of the benefits of protection went to the landlords had got about even in Riddsley. The squires complained that the farmers would only wake up when it was too late!

Still in such a place, and on market-day, four out of five were in the landed interest; four-fifths of the squires, four-fifths of the parsons, almost four-fifths of the tenants; for the laborers, no one asked what they thought of it--they had ten s.h.i.+llings a week and no votes. "Peel--'od rot him!" cried the majority, "might s.h.i.+ft as often as his own spinning-jenny! But not they! No Manchester man, and no Tamworth man either, should teach them their business! Who would die if there were no potatoes? It was a flam, a bite, but it wouldn't bamboozle Stafford farmers!"

Meanwhile Stubbs, moving quietly through the throng, spoke with one here and there. He had the same word for all. "Listen to me, John," he would say, his hand on the yeoman's shoulder. "Peel says he's been wrong all these years and is only right now. Then, if you believe him, he's a fool; and if you don't believe him, he's a knave. Not a very good vet., John, eh? Not the vet. for the old gray mare, eh?"

This had a great effect. John went away and repeated it to himself, and presently grasped the dilemma and chuckled over it. Ten minutes later he imparted it, with the air of a Solomon, to the "Duke," who mouthed it and liked it and rolled it off to the first he met. It went the round of the inns and about four o'clock a farmer fresh from the "tap" put it to Stubbs and convinced him; and that night men, travelling home market-peart in the charge of their wives, bore it to many a snug homestead set in orchards of hard cider apples.

Had the issue of the Election lain with the Market, indeed, it had been over. But of the hundred and ninety voters no more than fifteen were farmers, and though the main trade of the town sided with them, the two factories were in opposition; and cheap bread had its charms for the lesser fry. But the free traders were too wise to flaunt their views on market-day, and it was left for little Ben Bosham, whose vote was pretty near his all, to distinguish himself in the matter.

He, too, had been at the tap, and about noon his voice was heard issuing from a group who stood near the Audley Arms. "Be I free, or bain't I?" he bawled. "Answer me that, Mr. Bagenal!"

A knot of farmers had edged him into a corner and were disposed to bait him. A stubby figure in a velveteen coat and drab breeches, his hand on an ash-plant, he held his ground among them, tickled by the attention he excited and fired by his own importance. "Be I free, or bain't I?" he repeated.

"Free?" Bagenal answered contemptuously. "You be free to make a fool of yourself, Ben! I'm thinking you'd ha' us all lay down the ground to lazy pasture and live by milk, as you do!"

"Milk?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed a stout man of many acres, whose contempt for such traffic was above speech.

"You'll be free to go out of Bridge End," cried a third. "That's what you'll be free to do! And where'll your vote be then, Ben?"

But there Bosham was sure of himself. "That's where you be wrong, Mr. Willet," he retorted with gusto. "My vote dunno come o' my landlord, and in the Bridge End or out of the Bridge End, I've a vote while I've a breath! 'Tain't the landlord's vote, and why'd I give it to he? Free I be--not like you, begging your pardon! Freeman, old freeman, I be, of this borough! Freeman by marriage!"

"Then you be a very rare thing!" Bagenal retorted slyly. "There's a many lose their freedom that way, but you be the first I ever heard of that got it!"

"And a hard bargain, too, as I hear," said Willet.

This drew a roar of laughter. The crowd grew thicker and the little man's temper grew short, for his wife was no beauty. He began to see that they were playing with him.

"You leave me alone, Mr. Willet," he said angrily, "and I'll leave you alone!"

"Leave thee alone!" said the farmer who had turned up his nose at milk. "So I would, same as any other lump o' dirt! But yo' don't let us. Yo' set up to know more than your betters! Pity the old lord ain't alive to put his stick about your back!"

"Did it smart, Ben?" cried a lad who had poked himself in between his betters.

"You let me catch you," Ben cried, "and I'll make you smart. You be all a set of slaves! You'd set your thatch afire if squires'd tell you! Set o' slaves, set o' slaves you be!"

"And what be you, Bosham?" said a man who had just joined the group. "Head of the men, bain't you? Cheap bread and high wages, that's your line, ain't it!"

"That's his line, be it?" said the old farmer slowly. "Bit of a rascal it seems yo' be? Don't yo' let me find you in my boosey pasture talking to no men o' mine, or I'll make yo' smart a sight more than his lords.h.i.+p did!"

"Ay, that's Ben's line," said the new-comer.

"You're a liar!" Ben shrieked. "A dommed liar you be! I see you not half an hour agone coming out of Stubbs's office! I know who told you to say that, you varmint! I'll have the law of you!"

"Ben Bosham, the laborers' friend!" the man retorted.

Ben was furious, for he was frightened. There was no feud so bitter in the 'forties as the feud between farmer and laborer. The laborer had no vote, he had lost his common rights, his wood, his cow-feed; he was famished, he was crushed by the new Poor Law, and so he was often in an ugly mood, as singed barns and burning stacks went to show. Bosham knew that he might flout the squires, and at worst be turned out of his holding; but woe betide him if he got the name of the laborers' friend. Moreover, there was just so much truth in the accusation as made it dangerous. Ben and his brother eked out the profits of the dairy by occasional labor, and Ben had sometimes vapored in tap-rooms where he had better have held his tongue. He shrieked furiously, therefore, at the false witness, and even tried to reach him with his ash-plant. "Who be you?" he screamed. "You be a lawyer's pup, you be! You'd ruin me, you would! Let me get a hold of you and I'll put a mark on you! You be lying!"

"I don't know about that," said the big farmer slowly and weightily. "I'm feared yo're a bit of a rascal, Ben."

"Ay, and fine he'll look in front of Stafford Gaol some morning!" said Willet. "At the end of a rope."

On that in a happy moment for Ben, while he gaped for a retort and found none, two carriers' vans, huge wooden vehicles festooned with rabbits and market-baskets and drawn by three horses abreast, lumbered through the crowd and scattered it. In a twinkling Ben was left alone, an angry man, aware that he had cut but a poor figure!

He had been frightened, too, and he resented it. He thirsted for some chance of setting himself right, of proving to others that he was a freeman and not as other men. And in the nick of time he saw a chance--if only he had the courage to rise to it. He saw moving towards him through the press a mail-phaeton and pair. On the box, caped and gloved, the pink of fas.h.i.+on, sat no less a person than his lords.h.i.+p himself. A servant in the well-known livery, a white coat with a blue collar, sat behind him.

The vans which had freed Ben blocked the great man's way, and he was moving at a walk. All heads were bared as he pa.s.sed, and he was acknowledging the courtesy with his whip when Ben stepped before the horses and lifted his hand. In an instant a hundred eyes were on the man and he knew that he had burned his boats. Bravado was now his only chance.

"My lord," he cried, waving his hat impudently. "I want to know what you be going to do about me?"

My lord hardly caught his words and did not catch his meaning, but he saw that the man was almost under the horses' feet and he checked them. Ben stood aside then but, as the carriage pa.s.sed him, he laid his hand on the splashboard and walked beside it. He looked up at the great man and in the same impudent tone, "Be you agoing to turn me out, my lord?" he cried. "That's what I want to know."

"I don't understand you," Audley said coldly. He guessed that the man referred to the Election, and what was the use of understrappers like Stubbs if he was to be exposed to this?

"I'm Ben Bosham of the Bridge End, my lord, that's who I be," Ben replied brazenly. "I'm not ashamed of my name. I want to know whether you be agoing to turn me out, and my wife and my child! That's what I want to----"

Then a farmer seized him and dragged him back, and others laid hands on him, though he still shouted. "Dunno be a fool!" cried the farmer, deeply shocked. "Drive on, drive on, my lord! Never heed him. He've had a gla.s.s too much!"

"Packhorse beer, my lord," explained a second in stentorian tones--though he knew that Ben was fairly sober. "Ought to be ashamed of himself!" cried a third, and he shook the aggressor. Ben was in a minority of one, and those who held him were inclined to be rough.

Audley waved his whip good-humoredly. "Take care of him!" he said. "Don't hurt him!" And he drove on, outwardly unmoved though inwardly fuming. Still had it ended there little harm would have been done. But word of the brawl outran the carriage and, as it chanced, reached the door of Hatton's Works as the men came out to dinner. Ben Bosham had spoken his mind to his lords.h.i.+p! His lords.h.i.+p had driven over him! The farmers had beaten him! The news pa.s.sed from one to another like flame, and the hands stood, some two score of them, and hooted my lord loudly, shouting "Shame!" and jeering at him.

Now had Audley been the candidate he would have thought nothing of it. He would have laughed in the men's faces and taken it as part of the day's work; or had he been the old lord, he would have flung a curse at the men and cut at the nearest with his whip--and forgotten it.

But he was not the old lord, times were changed, and the thing angered him. It was in an ill-temper that he drove on along the road that rose by gentle degrees to the Great Chase.

For the matter of that, he had been in a black mood for some time, because he could not make up his mind. Night and morning ambition whispered to him to put the vessel about; to steer the course which experience told him that it behooved a man to steer who was not steeped in romance, nor too greedy for the moment's enjoyment; the course which, beyond all doubt, he would have steered were he now starting!

But he was not starting; and when he thought of s.h.i.+fting the helm he foresaw difficulties. He did not think that he was a soft-hearted man, yet he feared that when it came to the point he would flinch. Besides, he told himself that he was a man of honor; and the change was a little at odds with this. But there again, he reflected that truth was honor and in the end would cause less pain.

Eight thousand pounds was so very small a portion! And for safety, he no longer needed to play for it. John Audley was dead and the Bible was in his hands; his case was beyond cavil or question, while the political situation was such that he saw no opening, no chance of enrichment in that direction. To make Mary, handsome, good, attractive as she was--to make her the wife of a poor peer, of a discontented, dissatisfied man--this, if he could only find it in his heart to tell her the truth, would be a cruel kindness.

As he drove along the road, angry with the wretched Bosham, angry with Stubbs, angry with the fools who had hooted him, he was not sorry to feel his ill-temper increase. He might not find it so difficult to speak to her. A little effort and the thing would be done. Eight thousand pounds? The interest would barely dress her. Whereas, if she had played her cards well and been heir to her uncle's thirty thousand--the case would have been different. After all, the fault lay with her.

He roused the off-horse with a sharp cut, and a moment later discerned at the end of a long, straight piece of road, the moss-clad steps of the old Cross and standing beside them a figure he knew.

He was moved, even while, in his irritation, he was annoyed that she had come to meet him at a place that had recollections for him. It seemed to him that in doing this she was putting an undue, an unfair burden on him.

She waved her hand and he raised his hat. The day was bright and cold, and the east wind had whipped a fine color into her cheeks. Perhaps that, too, was unfair. Perhaps that too was putting an undue burden on him.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

MARY MAKES A DISCOVERY.

But his face was not one to betray his thoughts, and as he drew up beside Mary, horses fretting, polechains jingling, the silver of the harness glittering from a score of points, he made a gallant show. The most eager lover, Apollo himself in the chariot of the sun, had scarcely made a better approach to his mistress, had hardly carried it more finely over a mind open to appearances.

With a very fair show of haste he bade his man take the reins, and as the servant swung himself into the front seat the master sprang to the ground. His hand met Mary's, his curly-brimmed hat was doffed, his eyes smiled into hers. "Well, better late than never!" he said.

"Yes," she answered. But she spoke more soberly than he expected and her face was grave. "You have been a long time away."

That was their meeting. The servant was there; under his eyes it could not be warmer. Whether one or the other had foreseen this need not be asked.

He spoke to the man, who, possessed by a natural curiosity, was all ears. "Keep them moving," he said. "Drive back a mile or two and return." Then to Mary, his hat still in his hand, "A long time away? Longer than I expected, and far longer than I hoped, Mary. Shall we go up the hill a little?"

"I thought you would propose that," she said. "I am so glad that it is fine."

The man had turned the horses. Audley took her hand again and pressed it, looking in her face, telling himself that she grew more handsome every day. Why hadn't she thirty thousand pounds? Aloud he said, "So am I, very glad. Otherwise you could not have met me, and I fancied that you might not wish me to come to the house? Was that so, dear?"

"I think it was," she said. "He has been gone so very short a time. Perhaps it was foolish of me."

"Not at all!" he answered, admiring the purity of her complexion. "It was like you."

"If we had told him, it would have been different."

"On the other hand," he said deftly, as he drew her hand through his arm, "it might have troubled his last days? And now, tell me all, Mary, from the beginning. You have gone through dark days and I have not been--I could not be with you. But I want to share them."

She told the story of John Audley's disappearance, her cheeks growing pale as she described the alarm, the search, the approach of night and her anguish at the thought that her uncle might be lying in some place which they had overlooked! Then she told him of Ba.s.set's arrival, of the discovery, of the manner in which Peter had arranged everything and saved her in every way. It seemed to her that to omit this, to say nothing of him, would be as unfair to the one as uncandid to the other.

My lord's comment was cordial, yet it jarred on her. "Well done!" he said. "He was made to be of use, poor chap! If it were any one else I should be jealous of him!" And he laughed, pressing her arm to his side.

She was quivering with the memories which her story had called up, and it was only by an effort that she checked the impulse to withdraw her hand. "Had you been there----"

"I hope I should have done as much," he replied complacently. "But it was impossible."

"Yes," she said. And though she knew that her tone was cold, she could not help it. For many, many times during the last month she had pondered over his long absence and the chill of his letters. Many times she had told herself that he was treating her with scant affection, scant confidence, almost with scant respect. But then again she had reflected that she must be mistaken, that she brought him nothing but herself, and that if he did not love her he would not have sought her. And telling herself that she expected too much of love, too much of her lover, she had schooled herself to be patient, and had resolved that not a word of complaint should pa.s.s her lips.

But to a.s.sume a warmth which she did not feel was another matter. This was beyond her.

He, for his part, set down her manner to a natural depression. "Poor child!" he said, "you have had a sad time. Well, we must make up for it. As soon as we can make arrangements you must leave that gloomy house where everything reminds you of your uncle and--and we must make a fresh start. Do you know where I am taking you?"

She saw that they had turned off the road and were following a track that scrambled upwards through the scrub that clothed the slope below the Gatehouse. It slanted in the direction of the Great House. "Not to Beaudelays?" she said.

"Yes--to Beaudelays. But don't be afraid. Not to the house."

"Oh no!" she cried. "I don't think I could bear to go there to-day!"

"I know. But I want you to see the gardens. I want you to see what might have been ours, what we might have enjoyed had fortune been more kind to us! Had we been rich, Mary! It is hard to believe that you have never seen even the outside of the Great House."

"I have never been beyond the Iron Gate."

"And all these months within a mile!"

"All these months within a mile. But he did not wish it. It was one of the first things he made me understand."

"Ah! Well, there is an end of that!" And again so matter-of-fact was his tone that she had to struggle against the impulse to withdraw her arm. "Now, if there is any one who has a right to be there, it is you! And I want to be the one to take you there. I want you to see for yourself that it is only fallen grandeur that you are marrying, Mary, the thing that has been, not the thing that is. By G--d! I don't know that there is a creature in the world--certainly there is none in my world--more to be pitied than a poor peer!"

"That's nothing to me," she said. And, indeed, his words had brought him nearer to her than anything he had said. So that when, taking advantage of the undergrowth which hid them from the road below, he put his arm about her and a.s.sisted her in her climb, she yielded readily. "To think," he said, "that you have never seen this place! I wonder that after we parted you did not go the very next morning to visit it!"

"Perhaps I wished to be taken there by you."

"By Jove! Do you know that that is the most lover-like thing you have said."

"I may improve with practice," she rejoined. "Indeed, it is possible," she continued demurely, "that we both need practice!"

She had not a notion that he was in two minds; that one half of him was revelling in the hour, pleased with possession, enjoying her beauty, dwelling on the dainty curves of her figure, while the other uncertain, wavering, was asking continually, "Shall I or shall I not?" But if she did not guess thoughts to which she had no clue he was sharp enough to understand hers. "Ah! you are there, are you?" he said. "Wait! Presently, when we are out of sight of that cursed road----"

"I didn't find fault!"

On that there was a little banter between them, gallant and smiling on his part, playful and defensive on hers, which lasted until they reached a door leading into the lower garden. It was a rusty, damp-stained door, once painted green, and masked by trees somewhat higher than the underwood through which they had climbed. Ivy hung from the wall above it, rank gra.s.s grew against it, the air about it was dank, and in summer sent up the smell of wild leeks. Once under-gardeners had used it to come and go, and many a time on moonlit nights maids had stolen through it to meet their lovers in the coppice or on the road.