Chippinge Borough Read online

  II

  THE SPIRIT OF THE STORM

  The Court of Chancery, the preserve for nearly a quarter of acentury of Eldon and Delay, was the farthest from the entrance on theright-hand side of the Hall--a situation which enabled the Chancellorto pass easily to that other seat of his labours, the Woolsack. Twosteps raised the Tribunals of the Common Law above the level of theHall. But as if to indicate that this court was not the seat ofanything so common as law, but was the shrine of that more augustconception, Patronage, and the altar to which countless divines of theChurch of England looked with unwinking devotion, a flight of six oreight steps led up to the door.

  The privacy thus secured had been much to the taste of Lord Eldon.Doubt and delay flourish best in a close and dusty atmosphere; and ifever there was a man to whom that which was was right, it was "OldBags." Nor had Lord Lyndhurst, his immediate successor, quarrelledwith an arrangement which left him at liberty to devote his time tosociety and his beautiful wife. But the man who now sat in the marblechair was of another kind from either of these. His worst enemy couldnot lay dulness to his charge; nor could he who lectured theWhitbreads on brewing, who explained their art to opticians, who viedwith Talleyrand in the knowledge of French literature, who wroteeighty articles for the first twenty numbers of the "EdinburghReview," be called a sluggard. Confident of his powers, Brougham lovedto display them; and the wider the arena the better he was pleased.His first sitting had been graced by the presence of three royaldukes, a whole Cabinet, and a score of peers in full dress. Havingbegun thus auspiciously, he was not the man to vegetate in the gloomof a dry-as-dust court, or to be content with an audience of suitors,whom equity, blessed word, had long stripped of their votes.

  Again and again during the last six months, by brilliant declamationsor by astounding statement, he had filled his court to the last inch.The lions in the Tower, the tombs in the Abbey, the New Police--allwere deserted; and countryfolk flocked to Westminster, not to hear thejudgments of the highest legal authority in the land, but to see withtheir own eyes the fugleman of reform--the great orator, whose voice,raised at the Yorkshire election, had found an echo that stillthundered in the ears and the hearts of England.

  "I am for Reform!" he had said in the castle yard of York; and thepeople of England had answered: "So are we; and we will have it,or----"

  The lacuna they had filled, not with words, but with facts strongerthan words--with the flames of Kentish farmhouses and Wiltshirefactories; with political unions counting their numbers by scores ofthousands; with midnight drillings and vague and sullen murmurings;above all, with the mysterious terror of some great change which wasto come--a terror that shook the most thoughtless and affected eventhe Duke, as men called the Duke of Wellington in that day. For wasnot every crown on the Continent toppling?

  Vaughan did not suppose that, in view of the startling event of theday, he would be admitted. But the usher, who occupied a high stooloutside the great man's door, no sooner read his card than he slid tothe ground. "I think his lordship will see you, sir," he murmuredblandly; and he disappeared.

  He was back on the instant, and, beckoning to Vaughan to follow him,he proceeded some paces along a murky corridor, which the venerableform of Eldon seemed still to haunt. Opening a door, he stood aside.

  The room which Vaughan saw before him was stately and spacious, andfurnished with quiet richness. A deep silence, intensified by the factthat the room had no windows, but was lighted from above, reigned init--and a smell of law-calf. Here and there on a bookcase or apedestal stood a marble bust of Bacon, of Selden, of Blackstone. Andfor a moment Vaughan fancied that these were its only occupants. Onadvancing further, however, he discovered two persons, who werewriting busily at separate side-tables; and one of them looked up andspoke.

  "Your pardon, Mr. Vaughan!" he said. "One moment, if you please!"

  He was almost as good as his word, for less than a minute later hethrew down the pen, and rose--a gaunt figure in a black frockcoat, andwith a black stock about his scraggy neck--and came to meet hisvisitor.

  "I fear that I have come at an untimely moment, my lord," Vaughansaid, a little awed in spite of himself by what he knew of the man.

  But the other's frank address put him at once at his ease. "Politicspass, Mr. Vaughan," the Chancellor answered lightly, "but scienceremains." He did not explain, as he pointed to a seat, that he loved,above all things, to produce startling effects; to dazzle by the easewith which he flung off one part and assumed another.

  Henry Brougham--so, for some time after his elevation to the peerage,he persisted in signing himself--was at this time at the zenith of hislife, as of his fame. Tall, but lean and ungainly, with a long neckand sloping shoulders, he had one of the strangest faces which geniushas ever worn. His clownish features, his high cheek-bones, and queerbulbous nose are familiar to us; for, something exaggerated by thecaricaturist, they form week by week the trailing mask which mars thecover of "Punch." Yet was the face, with all its ugliness, singularlymobile; and the eyes, the windows of that restless and insatiablesoul, shone, sparkled, laughed, wept, with incredible brilliance. Thatwhich he did not know, that which his mind could not perform--save sitstill and be discreet--no man had ever discovered. And it was theknowledge of this, the sense of the strange and almost uncannyversatility of the man, which for a moment overpowered Vaughan.

  The Chancellor seated himself opposite his visitor, and placed a handon each of his wide-spread knees. He smiled.

  "My friend," he said, "I envy you."

  Vaughan coloured shyly. "Your lordship has little cause," he answered.

  "Great cause," was the reply, "great cause! For as you are Iwas--and," he chuckled, as he rocked himself to and fro, "I have notfound life very empty or very unpleasant. But it was not to tell youthis that I asked you to wait on me, Mr. Vaughan, as you may suppose.Light! It is a singular thing that you at the outset of yourcareer--even as I thirty years ago at the same point of mine--shouldtake up such a parergon, and alight upon the same discovery."

  "I do not think I understand."

  "In your article on the possibility of the permanence ofreflection--to which I referred in my letter, I think?"

  "Yes, my lord, you did."

  "You have restated a fact which I maintained for the first time morethan thirty years ago! In my paper on colours, read before the RoyalSociety in--I think it was '96."

  Vaughan stared. His colour rose slowly. "Indeed?" he said, in a tonefrom which he vainly strove to banish incredulity.

  "You have perhaps read the paper?"

  "Yes, I have."

  The Chancellor chuckled. "And found nothing of the kind in it?" hesaid.

  Vaughan coloured still more deeply. He felt that the position wasunpleasant. "Frankly, my lord, if you ask me, no."

  "And you think yourself," with a grin, "the first discoverer?"

  "I did."

  Brougham sprang like a boy to his feet, and whisked his long, lankbody to a distant bookshelf. Thence he took down a much-rubbedmanuscript book. As he returned he opened this at a place alreadymarked, and, laying it on the table, beckoned to the young man toapproach. "Read that," he said waggishly, "and confess, young sir,that there were chiefs before Agamemnon."

  Vaughan stooped over the book, and having read looked up inperplexity. "But this passage," he said, "was not in the paper readbefore the Royal Society in '96?"

  "In the paper read? No. Nor yet in the paper printed? There, too, youare right. And why? Because a sapient dunder-head who was in authorityrequested me to omit this passage. He did not believe that lightpassing through a small hole in the window-shutter of a darkened roomimpresses a view of external objects on white paper; nor that, as Isuggested, the view might be made permanent if cast instead on ivoryrubbed with nitrate of silver!"

  Vaughan was dumbfounded, and perhaps a little chagrined. "It is mostsingular!" he said.

  "Do you wonder now that I could not refrai
n from sending for you?"

  "I do not, indeed."

  The Chancellor patted him kindly on the shoulder, and by a gesturemade him resume his seat. "No, I could not refrain," he continued;"the coincidence was too remarkable. If you come to sit where I sit,the chance will be still more singular."

  Vaughan coloured with pleasure. "Alas!" he said, smiling, "oneswallow, my lord, does not made a summer."

  "Ah, my friend," with a benevolent look. "But I know more of you thanyou think. You were in the service, I hear, and left it. _Cedant armatogae_, eh?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, I, too, after a fashion. Thirty years ago I served a gun withProfessor Playfair in the Volunteer Artillery of Edinburgh. Godknows," he continued complacently, "if I had gone on with it, where Ishould have landed! Where the Duke is, perhaps! More surprising thingshave happened."

  Vaughan did not know whether to take this, which was gravely and evensentimentally spoken, for jest or earnest. He did not speak. AndBrougham, seated in his favourite posture, with a hand on either knee,his lean body upright, and the skirts of his black coat falling to thefloor on either side of him, resumed. "I hear, too, that you have donewell at the Academic," he said, "and on the right side, Mr. Vaughan.Light? Ay, always light, my friend, always light! Let that be ourmotto. For myself," he continued earnestly, "I have taken it in handthat this poor country shall never lack light again; and by God's helpand Johnny Russell's Bill I'll bring it about! And not thephosphorescent light of rotten boroughs and corrupt corporations, Mr.Vaughan. No, nor the blaze of burning stacks, kindled by wretched,starving, ignorant--ay, above all, Mr. Vaughan, ignorant men! But thelight of education, the light of a free Press, the light of goodgovernment and honest representation; so that, whatever they lack,henceforth they shall have voices and means and ways to make theirwants known. You agree with me? But I know you do, for I hear how wellyou have spoken on that side. Mr. Cornelius," turning and addressingthe gentleman who still continued to write at his table, "who was ittold us of Mr. Vaughan's speech at the Academic?"

  "I don't know," Mr. Cornelius answered gruffly.

  "No?" the Chancellor said, not a whit put out. "He never knowsanything!" And then, throwing one knee over the other, he regardedVaughan with closer attention. "Mr. Vaughan," he said, "have you everthought of entering Parliament?"

  Vaughan's heart bounded, and his face betrayed his emotions. Goodheavens, was the Chancellor about to offer him a Government seat? Hescarcely knew what to expect or what to say. The prospect, suddenlyopened, blinded him. He muttered that he had not as yet thought of it.

  "You have no connection," Brougham continued, "who could help you to aseat? For if so, now is the time. Presently there will be a ReformedParliament and a crowd of new men, and the road will be blocked by thethrong of aspirants. You are not too young. Palmerston was not so oldwhen Perceval offered him a seat in the Cabinet."

  The words, the tone, the assumption that such things were forhim--that he had but to hold out his hand and they would fall intoit--dropped like balm into the young man's soul. Yet he was not surethat the other was serious, and he made a tremendous effort to hidethe emotion he felt. "I am afraid," he said, with a forced smile,"that I, my lord, am not Lord Palmerston."

  "No?" Brougham answered with a faint sneer. "But not much the worsefor that, perhaps. So that if you have any connection who commands aseat, now is the time."

  Vaughan shook his head. "I have none," he said, "except my cousin, SirRobert Vermuyden."

  "Vermuyden of Chippinge?" the Chancellor exclaimed, in a voice ofsurprise.

  "The same, my lord."

  "Good G--d!" Brougham cried. It was not a mealy-mouthed age. And heleant back and stared at the young man. "You don't mean to say that heis your cousin?"

  "Yes."

  The Chancellor laughed grimly. "Oh, dear, dear!" he said. "I am afraidthat he won't help us much. I remember him in the House--an old highand dry Tory. I am afraid that, with your opinions, you've not much toexpect of him. Still--Mr. Cornelius," to the gentleman at the table,"oblige me with Oldfield's 'House of Commons,' the Wiltshire volume,and the private Borough List. Thank you. Let me see--ah, here it is!"

  He proceeded to read in a low tone, skipping from heading to heading:"Chippinge, in the county of Wilts, has returned two members since thetwenty-third of Edward III. Right of election in the Alderman and thetwelve capital burgesses, who hold their places for life. Number ofvoters, thirteen. Patron, Sir Robert Vermuyden, Bart., of StapyltonHouse.

  "Umph, as I thought," he continued, laying down the book. "Now whatdoes the list say?" And, taking it in turn from his knee, he read:

  "In Schedule A for total disfranchisement, the population under 2000.Present members, Sergeant Wathen and Mr. Cooke, on nomination of SirRobert Vermuyden; the former to oblige Lord Eldon, the latter bypurchase. Both opponents of Bill; nothing to be hoped from them. TheBowood interest divides the corporation in the proportion of four tonine, but has not succeeded in returning a member since the electionof 1741--on petition. The heir to the Vermuyden interest is----" Hebroke off sharply, but continued to study the page. Presently helooked over it.

  "Are you the Mr. Vaughan who inherits?" he asked gravely.

  "The greater part of the estates--yes."

  Brougham laid down the book and rubbed his chin. "Under thosecircumstances," he said, after musing a while, "don't you think thatyour cousin could be persuaded to return you as an independentmember?"

  Vaughan shook his head with decision.

  "The matter is important," the Chancellor continued slowly, and as ifhe weighed his words. "I cannot precisely make a promise, Mr. Vaughan;but if your cousin could see the question of the Bill in anotherlight, I have little doubt that any object in reason could be securedfor him. If, for instance, it should be necessary in passing the Billthrough the Upper House to create new--eh?"

  He paused, looking at Vaughan, who laughed outright. "Sir Robert wouldnot cross the park to save my life, my lord," he said. "And I am surehe would rather hang outside the White Lion in Chippinge marketplacethan resign his opinions or his borough!"

  "He'll lose the latter, whether or no," Brougham answered, with atouch of irritation. "Was there not some trouble about his wife? Ithink I remember something."

  "They were separated many years ago."

  "She is alive, is she not?"

  "Yes."

  Brougham saw, perhaps, that the subject was not palatable, and heabandoned it. With an abrupt change of manner he flung the books fromhim with the recklessness of a boy, and raised his sombre figure toits height. "Well, well," he said, "I hoped for better things; but Ifear, as Tommy Moore sings--

  "_He's pledged himself, though sore bereft Of ways and means of ruling ill, To make the most of what are left And stick to all that's rotten still!_

  And by the Lord, I don't say that I don't respect him. I respect everyman who votes honestly as he thinks." And grandly, with appropriategestures, he spouted:

  "_Who spurns the expedient for the right Scorns money's all-attractive charms, And through mean crowds that clogged his flight Has nobly cleared his conquering arms_.

  That's the Attorney-General's. He turns old Horace well, doesn't he?"

  Vaughan coloured. Young and candid, he could not bear the thought oftaking credit where he did not deserve it. "I fear," he saidawkwardly, "that would bear rather hardly on me if we had a contest atChippinge, my lord. Fortunately it is unlikely."

  "How would it bear hardly on you?" Brougham asked, with interest.

  "I have a vote."

  "You are one of the twelve burgesses?" in a tone of surprise.

  "Yes, by favour of Sir Robert."

  The Chancellor, smiling gaily, shook his head. "No," he said, "no; Ido not believe you. You do yourself an injustice. Leave that sort ofthing to older men, to Lyndhurst, if you will, d----d Jacobin as heis, preening himself in Tory feathers, and determined whoever's inhe'll not be out; o
r to Peel. Leave it! And believe me you'll notrepent it. I," he continued loftily, "have seen fifty years of life,Mr. Vaughan, and lived every year of them and every day of them, and Itell you that the thing is too dearly bought at that price."

  Vaughan felt himself rebuked; but he made a fight. "And yet," he said,"are there no circumstances, my lord, in which such a vote may bejustified?"

  "A vote against your conscience--to oblige someone?"

  "Well, yes."

  "A Jesuit might justify it. There is nothing which a Jesuit could notjustify, I suppose. But though no man was stronger for the CatholicClaims than I was, I do not hold a Jesuit to be a man of honour. Andthat is where the difference lies. There! But," he continued, with anabrupt change from the lofty to the confidential, "let me tell you afact, Mr. Vaughan. In '29--was it in April or May of '29, Mr.Cornelius?"

  "I don't know to what you refer," Mr. Cornelius grunted.

  "To be sure you don't," the Chancellor replied, without any loss ofgood-humour; "but in April or May of '29, Mr. Vaughan, the Dukeoffered me the Rolls, which is L7000 a year clear for life, andcompatible with a seat in the Commons. It would have suited me betterin every way than the Seals and the House of Lords. It was the prize,to be frank with you, at which I was aiming; and as at that time theDuke was making his right-about-face on the Catholic question, and wasbeing supported by our side, I might have accepted it with anappearance of honour and consistency. But I did not accept it. I didnot, though my refusal injured myself, and did no one any good. Butthere, I am chattering." He broke off, with a smile, and held out hishand. "However,

  "_Est et fideli tuta silentio Merces!_

  You won't forget that, I am certain. And you may be sure I shallremember you. I am pleased to have made your acquaintance, Mr.Vaughan. Decide on the direction, politics or the law, in which youmean to push, and some day let me know. In the meantime follow thelight! Light, more light! Don't let them lure you back into old GiantDespair's cave, or choke you with all the dead bones and rottennessand foulness they keep there, and that, by God's help, I'll sweep outof the world before it's a year older!"

  And still talking, he saw Vaughan, who was murmuring hisacknowledgments, to the door.

  When that had closed on the young man Brougham came back, and,throwing wide his arms, yawned prodigiously. "Now," he said, "ifLansdowne doesn't effect something in that borough, I am mistaken."

  "Why," Cornelius muttered curtly, "do you trouble about the borough?Why don't you leave those things to the managers?"

  "Why? Why, first because the Duke did that last year, and you see theresult--he's out and we're in. Secondly, Corny, because I am like theelephant's trunk, that can tear down a tree or pick up a pin."

  "But in picking up a pin," the other grunted, "it picks up a deal ofsomething else."

  "Of what?"

  "Dirt!"

  "Old Pharisee!" the Chancellor cried.

  Mr. Cornelius threw down his pen, and, turning in his seat, openedfire on his companion. "Dirt!" he reiterated sternly. "And for what?What will be the end of it when you have done all for them, clean anddirty? They'll not keep you. They use you now, but you're a new man.What, you--_you_ think to deal on equal terms with the Devonshires andthe Hollands, the Lansdownes and the Russells! Who used Burke, andwhen they had squeezed him tossed him aside? Who used Tierney tillthey wore him and his fortune out? Who would have used Canning, but hedid not trust them, and so they worried him--though they were all dumbdogs before him--to his death. Ay, and presently, when you have servedtheir turn, they will cast you aside."

  "They will not dare!" Brougham cried.

  "Pshaw! You are Samson, but you are shorn of your strength. They havebeen too clever for you. While you were in the Commons they did notdare. Harry Brougham was their master. So they lured you, poor fool,into the trap, into the Lords, where you may spout, and spout, andspout, and it will have as much effect as the beating of a bird'swings against the bars of its cage!"

  "They will not dare!" Brougham reiterated.

  "You will see. They will throw you aside."

  Brougham walked up and down the room, his eyes glittering, his quaint,misshapen features working passionately.

  "They will throw you aside," Mr. Cornelius repeated, watching himkeenly. "You are a man of the people. You are in earnest. You arehonestly in favour of retrenchment, of education, of reform. But tothese Whigs--save and except to Althorp, who is that _lusus naturae_,an honest man, and to Johnny Russell, who is a fanatic--these arebut catchwords, stalking-horses, the means by which, after thedull old fashion of their fathers and their grandfathers and theirgreat-grandfathers, they think to creep into power. Reform, if reformmeans the representation of the people by the people, the rule of thepeople by the people, or by any but the old landed families--why, thevery thought would make them sick!"

  Brougham stopped in his pacing to and fro. "You are right," he saidsombrely.

  "You acknowledge it?"

  "I have known it--here!" And, drawing himself to his full height, heclapped his hand to his breast. "I have known it here for months. Ay,and though I have sworn to myself that they would not dare to treat meas they treated Burke, and Sheridan, and Tierney, and as they wouldhave treated Canning, I knew it was a lie, my lad; I knew they would.My mother--ay, my old mother, sitting by the chimneyside, out of theworld there, knew it, and warned me."

  "Then why did you go into the Lords?" Cornelius asked. "Why be luredinto the gilded cage, where you are helpless?"

  "Because, mark you," Brougham replied sternly, "if I had not, they hadnot brought in this Bill. And we had waited, and the people hadwaited, another twenty years, maybe!"

  "And so you went into the prison-house shorn of your strength?"

  Brougham looked at him with a gleam of ferocity in his brilliant eyes."Ay," he said, "I did. And by that act," he continued, stretching hislong arms to their farthest extent, "mark you, mark you, never forgetit, I avenged all--not only all I may suffer at their hands, but allthat every slave who ever ground in their mill has suffered, theslights, the grudged meticulous office, the one finger lent toshake--all, all! I went into the prison-house, but when I did so Ilaid my hands upon the pillars. And their house falls, falls. Ihear it--I hear it falling even now about their ears. They maythrow me aside. But the house is falling, and the great Whigfamilies--pouf!--they are not in the heaven above, or in the earthbeneath, or in the water that is under the earth. You call Reformtheir stalking-horse? Ay, but it is into their own Troy that theyhave dragged it; and the clatter of strife which you hear is thedeath-knell of their power. They have let in the waves of the sea, anddream fondly that they can say where they shall stop and what theyshall not touch. They may as well speak to the tide when it flows;they may as well command the North Sea in its rage; they may as wellbid Hume be silent, or Wetherell be sane. You say I am spent,Cornelius; and so I am, it may be. I know not. But this I know. Neveragain will the families say 'Go!' and he goeth, and 'Do!' and hedoeth, as in the old world that is passing--passing even at thisminute, passing with the Bill. No," he continued, flinging out hisarms with passion; "for when they thought to fool me, and to shut medumb among dumb things behind the gilded wires, I knew--I knew that Iwas dragging down their house upon their heads."

  Mr. Cornelius stared at him. "By G--d!" he said, "I believe you areright. I believe that you are a cleverer man than I thought you were."