Ralph the Heir Part 50

"You'll disfranchise the borough," said Mr. Spicer.

"You'll not be able to keep your seat," said Mr. Trigger.

"And there'll be all the money to pay," said Mr. Spicer.

"Sir Thomas don't mind that," said Mr. Griffenbottom.

"As for paying the money, I do mind it very much," said Sir Thomas.

"As for disfranchising the borough, I cannot say that I regard it in the least. As to your seat, Mr. Griffenbottom--"

"My seat is quite safe," said the senior member.

"As to your seat, which I am well aware must be jeopardised if mine be in jeopardy, it would have been matter of more regret to me, had I experienced from you any similar sympathy for myself. As it is, it seems that each of us is to do the best he can for himself, and I shall do the best I can for myself. Good morning."

"What then do you mean to do?" said Mr. Trigger.

"On that matter I shall prefer to converse with my friends."

"You mean," said Mr. Trigger, "that you will put it into other hands."

"You have made a proposition to me, Mr. Trigger, and I have given you my answer. I have nothing else to say. What steps I may take I do not even know at present."

"You will let us hear from you," said Mr. Trigger.

"I cannot say that I will."

"This comes of bringing a gentleman learned in the law down into the borough," said Mr. Griffenbottom.

"Gentlemen, I must ask you to leave me," said Sir Thomas, rising from his chair and ringing the bell.

"Look here, Sir Thomas Underwood," said Mr. Griffenbottom. "This to me is a very important matter."

"And to me also," said Sir Thomas.

"I do not know anything about that. Like a good many others, you may like to have a seat in Parliament, and may like to get it without any trouble and without any money. I have sat for Percycross for many years, and have spent a treasure, and have worked myself off my legs.

I don't know that I care much for anything except for keeping my place in the House. The House is everything to me,--meat and drink; employment and recreation; and I can tell you I'm not going to lose my seat if I can help it. You came in for the second chance, Sir Thomas; and a very good second chance it was if you'd just have allowed others who knew what they were about to manage matters for you. That chance is over now, and according to all rules that ever I heard of in such matters, you ought to surrender. Isn't that so, Mr.

Trigger?"

"Certainly, Mr. Griffenbottom, according to my ideas," said Mr.

Trigger.

"That's about it," said Mr. Spicer.

Sir Thomas was still standing. Indeed they were all standing now.

"Mr. Griffenbottom," he said, "I have nothing further that I can say at the present moment. To the offer made to me by Mr. Trigger I at present positively decline to accede. I look upon that offer as unfriendly, and can therefore only wish you a good morning."

"Unfriendly," said Mr. Griffenbottom with a sneer.

"Good-bye, Sir Thomas," said Mr. Pile, putting out his hand. Sir Thomas shook hands with Mr. Pile cordially. "It's my opinion that he's right," said Mr. Pile. "I don't like his notions, but I do like his pluck. Good-bye, Sir Thomas." Then Mr. Pile led the way out of the room, and the others followed him.

"Oh!" said Stemm, as soon as he had shut the door behind their backs.

"That's a deputation from Percycross, is it, Sir Thomas? You were saying as how you didn't quite approve of the Percycrossians." To this, however, Sir Thomas vouchsafed no reply.

CHAPTER XL.

WHAT SIR THOMAS THOUGHT ABOUT IT.

Sir Thomas Underwood had been engaged upon a very great piece of work ever since he had been called to the Bar in the twenty-fifth year of his life. He had then devoted himself to the writing of a life of Lord Verulam, and had been at it ever since. But as yet he had not written a word. In early life, that is, up to his fortieth year, he had talked freely enough about his opus magnum to those of his compeers with whom he had been intimate; but of late Bacon's name had never been on his lips. Patience, at home, was aware of the name and nature of her father's occupation, but Clarissa had not yet learned to know that he who had been the great philosopher and little Lord Chancellor was not to be lightly mentioned. To Stemm the matter had become so serious, that in speaking of books, papers, and doc.u.ments he would have recourse to any periphrasis rather than mention in his master's hearing the name of the fallen angel. And yet Sir Thomas was always talking to himself about Sir Francis Bacon, and was always writing his life.

There are men who never dream of great work, who never realise to themselves the need of work so great as to demand a lifetime, but who themselves never fail in accomplis.h.i.+ng those second-cla.s.s tasks with which they satisfy their own energies. Men these are who to the world are very useful. Some few there are, who seeing the beauty of a great work and believing in its accomplishment within the years allotted to man, are contented to struggle for success, and struggling, fail.

Here and there comes one who struggles and succeeds. But the men are many who see the beauty, who adopt the task, who promise themselves the triumph, and then never struggle at all. The task is never abandoned; but days go by and weeks; and then months and years,--and nothing is done. The dream of youth becomes the doubt of middle life, and then the despair of age. In building a summer-house it is so easy to plant the first stick, but one does not know where to touch the sod when one begins to erect a castle. So it had been with Sir Thomas Underwood and his life of Bacon. It would not suffice to him to sc.r.a.pe together a few facts, to indulge in some fiction, to tell a few anecdotes, and then to call his book a biography. Here was a man who had risen higher and was reported to have fallen lower,--perhaps than any other son of Adam. With the finest intellect ever given to a man, with the purest philanthropy and the most enduring energy, he had become a by-word for greed and injustice. Sir Thomas had resolved that he would tell the tale as it had never yet been told, that he would unravel facts that had never seen the light, that he would let the world know of what nature really had been this man,--and that he would write a book that should live. He had never abandoned his purpose; and now at sixty years of age, his purpose remained with him, but not one line of his book was written.

And yet the task had divorced him in a measure from the world. He had not been an unsuccessful man in life. He had made money, and had risen nearly to the top of his profession. He had been in Parliament, and was even now a member. But yet he had been divorced from the world, and Bacon had done it. By Bacon he had justified to himself,--or rather had failed to justify to himself,--a seclusion from his family and from the world which had been intended for strenuous work, but had been devoted to dilettante idleness. And he had fallen into those mistakes which such habits and such pursuits are sure to engender. He thought much, but he thought nothing out, and was consequently at sixty still in doubt about almost everything.

Whether Christ did or did not die to save sinners was a question with him so painfully obscure that he had been driven to obtain what comfort he might from not thinking of it. The a.s.surance of belief certainly was not his to enjoy;--nor yet that absence from fear which may come from a.s.sured unbelief. And yet none who knew him could say that he was a bad man. He robbed no one. He never lied. He was not self-indulgent. He was affectionate. But he had spent his life in an intention to write the life of Lord Verulam, and not having done it, had missed the comfort of self-respect. He had intended to settle for himself a belief on subjects which are, of all, to all men the most important; and, having still postponed the work of inquiry, had never attained the security of a faith. He was for ever doubting, for ever intending, and for ever despising himself for his doubts and unaccomplished intentions. Now, at the age of sixty, he had thought to lessen these inward disturbances by returning to public life, and his most unsatisfactory alliance with Mr. Griffenbottom had been the result.

They who know the agonies of an ambitious, indolent, doubting, self-accusing man,--of a man who has a skeleton in his cupboard as to which he can ask for sympathy from no one,--will understand what feelings were at work within the bosom of Sir Thomas when his Percycross friends left him alone in his chamber. The moment that he knew that he was alone he turned the lock of the door, and took from out a standing desk a whole heap of loose papers. These were the latest of his notes on the great Bacon subject. For though no line of the book had ever been written,--nor had his work even yet taken such form as to enable him to write a line,--nevertheless, he always had by him a large a.s.semblage of doc.u.ments, notes, queries, extracts innumerable, and references which in the course of years had become almost unintelligible to himself, upon which from time to time he would set himself to work. Whenever he was most wretched he would fly at his papers. When the qualms of his conscience became very severe, he would copy some pa.s.sage from a dusty book, hardly in the belief that it might prove to be useful, but with half a hope that he might cheat himself into so believing. Now, in his misery, he declared that he would bind himself to his work and never leave it. There, if anywhere, might consolation be found.

With rapid hands he moved about the papers, and tried to fix his eyes upon the words. But how was he to fix his thoughts? He could not even begin not to think of those scoundrels who had so misused him. It was not a week since they had taken 50 from him for the poor of Percycross, and now they came to him with a simple statement that he was absolutely to be thrown over! He had already paid 900 for his election, and was well aware that the account was not closed. And he was a man who could not bear to speak about money, or to make any complaint as to money. Even though he was being so abominably misused, still he must pay any further claim that might be made on him in respect of the election that was past. Yes;--he must pay for those very purchased votes, for that bribery, as to which he had so loudly expressed his abhorrence, and by reason of which he was now to lose his seat with ignominy.

But the money was not the worst of it. There was a heavier sorrow than that arising from the loss of his money. He alone had been just throughout the contest at Percycross; he alone had been truthful, and he alone straightforward! And yet he alone must suffer! He began to believe that Griffenbottom would keep his seat. That he would certainly lose his own, he was quite convinced. He might lose it by undergoing an adverse pet.i.tion, and paying ever so much more money,--or he might lose it in the manner that Mr. Trigger had so kindly suggested. In either way there would be disgrace, and contumely, and hours of the agony of self-reproach in store for him!

What excuse had he for placing himself in contact with such filth? Of what childishness had he not been the victim when he allowed himself to dream that he, a pure and scrupulous man, could go among such impurity as he had found at Percycross, and come out, still clean and yet triumphant? Then he thought of Griffenbottom as a member of Parliament, and of that Legislation and that Const.i.tution to which Griffenbottoms were thought to be essentially necessary. That there are always many such men in the House he had always known. He had sat there and had seen them. He had stood shoulder to shoulder with them through many a division, and had thought about them,--acknowledging their use. But now that he was brought into personal contact with such an one, his very soul was aghast. The Griffenbottoms never do anything in politics. They are men of whom in the lump it may be surmised that they take up this or that side in politics, not from any instructed conviction, not from faith in measures or even in men, nor from adherence either through reason or prejudice to this or that set of political theories,--but simply because on this side or on that there is an opening. That gradually they do grow into some shape of conviction from the moulds in which they are made to live, must be believed of them; but these convictions are convictions as to divisions, convictions as to patronage, convictions as to success, convictions as to Parliamentary management; but not convictions as to the political needs of the people. So said Sir Thomas to himself as he sat thinking of the Griffenbottoms. In former days he had told himself that a pudding cannot be made without suet or dough, and that Griffenbottoms were necessary if only for the due adherence of the plums. Whatever most health-bestowing drug the patient may take would bestow anything but health were it taken undiluted. It was thus in former days Sir Thomas had apologised to himself for the Griffenbottoms in the House;--but no such apology satisfied him now.

This log of a man, this lump of suet, this diluting quant.i.ty of most impure water,--'twas thus that Mr. Griffenbottom was spoken of by Sir Thomas to himself as he sat there with all the Bacon doc.u.ments before him,--this politician, whose only real political feeling consisted in a positive love of corruption for itself, had not only absolutely got the better of him, who regarded himself at any rate as a man of mind and thought, but had used him as a puppet, and had compelled him to do dirty work. Oh,--that he should have been so lost to his own self-respect as to have allowed himself to be dragged through the dirt of Percycross!

But he must do something;--he must take some step. Mr. Griffenbottom had declared that he would put himself to no expense in defending the seat. Of course he, Sir Thomas, could do the same. He believed that it might be practicable for him to acknowledge the justice of the pet.i.tion, to declare his belief that his own agents had betrayed him, and to acknowledge that his seat was indefensible. But, as he thought of it, he found that he was actually ignorant of the law in the matter. That he would make no such bargain as that suggested to him by Mr. Trigger,--of so much he thought that he was sure.

At any rate he would do nothing that he himself knew to be dishonourable. He must consult his own attorney. That was the end of his self-deliberation,--that, and a conviction that under no circ.u.mstances could he retain his seat.

Then he struggled hard for an hour to keep his mind fixed on the subject of his great work. He had found an unknown memoir respecting Bacon, written by a German pen in the Latin language, published at Leipzig shortly after the date of Bacon's fall. He could translate that. It is always easiest for the mind to work in such emergencies, on some matter as to which no creative struggles are demanded from it.

CHAPTER XLI.

A BROKEN HEART.

It was very bad with Clarissa when Ralph Newton was closeted with Mary at Popham Villa. She had suspected what was about to take place, when Sir Thomas and Ralph went together into the room; but at that moment she said nothing. She endeavoured to seem to be cheerful, and attempted to joke with Mary. The three girls were sitting at the table on which lunch was spread,--a meal which no one was destined to eat at Popham Villa on that day,--and thus they remained till Sir Thomas joined them. "Mary," he had said, "Ralph Newton wishes to speak to you. You had better go to him."

"To me, uncle?"

"Yes, to you. You had better go to him."

"But I had rather not."