Part 36 (1/2)
”Very well,” rejoined the sergeant; ”you can say it all before the magistrate, to-morrow.”
”And am I to be locked up all night?” said Bunce.
”I'm afraid you will,” replied the sergeant.
Bunce, who was not by nature a very talkative man, said no more; but he swore in his heart that there should be vengeance. Between eleven and twelve he was taken to the regular police-station, and from thence he was enabled to send word to his wife.
”Bunce has been taken,” said she, with something of the tragic queen, and something also of the injured wife in the tone of her voice, as soon as Phineas let himself in with the latchkey between twelve and one. And then, mingled with, and at last dominant over, those severer tones, came the voice of the loving woman whose beloved one was in trouble. ”I knew how it'd be, Mr. Finn. Didn't I? And what must we do? I don't suppose he'd had a bit to eat from the moment he went out;--and as for a drop of beer, he never thinks of it, except what I puts down for him at his meals. Them nasty police always take the best. That's why I was so afeard.”
Phineas said all that he could to comfort her, and promised to go to the police-office early in the morning and look after Bunce. No serious evil would, he thought, probably come of it; but still Bunce had been wrong to go.
”But you might have been took yourself,” argued Mrs. Bunce, ”just as well as he.” Then Phineas explained that he had gone forth in the execution of a public duty. ”You might have been took, all the same,”
said Mrs. Bunce, ”for I'm sure Bunce didn't do nothing amiss.”
CHAPTER XXVI
”The First Speech”
On the following morning, which was Sat.u.r.day, Phineas was early at the police-office at Westminster looking after the interests of his landlord; but there had been a considerable number of men taken up during the row, and our friend could hardly procure that attention for Mr. Bunce's case to which he thought the decency of his client and his own position as a member of Parliament were ent.i.tled. The men who had been taken up were taken in batches before the magistrates; but as the soldiers in the park had been maltreated, and a considerable injury had been done in the neighbourhood of Downing Street, there was a good deal of strong feeling against the mob, and the magistrates were disposed to be severe. If decent men chose to go out among such companions, and thereby get into trouble, decent men must take the consequences. During the Sat.u.r.day and Sunday a very strong feeling grew up against Mr. Turnbull. The story of the carriage was told, and he was declared to be a turbulent demagogue, only desirous of getting popularity. And together with this feeling there arose a general verdict of ”Serve them right” against all who had come into contact with the police in the great Turnbull row; and thus it came to pa.s.s that Mr. Bunce had not been liberated up to the Monday morning. On the Sunday Mrs. Bunce was in hysterics, and declared her conviction that Mr. Bunce would be imprisoned for life.
Poor Phineas had an unquiet time with her on the morning of that day.
In every ecstasy of her grief she threw herself into his arms, either metaphorically or materially, according to the excess of her agony at the moment, and expressed repeatedly an a.s.sured conviction that all her children would die of starvation, and that she herself would be picked up under the arches of one of the bridges. Phineas, who was soft-hearted, did what he could to comfort her, and allowed himself to be worked up to strong parliamentary anger against the magistrates and police. ”When they think that they have public opinion on their side, there is nothing in the way or arbitrary excess which is too great for them.” This he said to Barrington Erle, who angered him and increased the warmth of his feeling by declaring that a little close confinement would be good for the Bunces of the day. ”If we don't keep the mob down, the mob will keep us down,” said the Whig private secretary. Phineas had no opportunity of answering this, but declared to himself that Barrington Erle was no more a Liberal at heart than was Mr. Daubeny. ”He was born on that side of the question, and has been receiving Whig wages all his life. That is the history of his politics!”
On the Sunday afternoon Phineas went to Lord Brentford's in Portman Square, intending to say a word or two about Lord Chiltern, and meaning also to induce, if possible, the Cabinet Minister to take part with him against the magistrates,--having a hope also, in which he was not disappointed, that he might find Lady Laura Kennedy with her father. He had come to understand that Lady Laura was not to be visited at her own house on Sundays. So much indeed she had told him in so many words. But he had come to understand also, without any plain telling, that she rebelled in heart against this Sabbath tyranny,--and that she would escape from it when escape was possible.
She had now come to talk to her father about her brother, and had brought Violet Effingham with her. They had walked together across the park after church, and intended to walk back again. Mr. Kennedy did not like to have any carriage out on a Sunday, and to this arrangement his wife made no objection.
Phineas had received a letter from the Stamford surgeon, and was able to report favourably of Lord Chiltern. ”The man says that he had better not be moved for a month,” said Phineas. ”But that means nothing. They always say that.”
”Will it not be best for him to remain where he is?” said the Earl.
”He has not a soul to speak to,” said Phineas.
”I wish I were with him,” said his sister.
”That is, of course, out of the question,” said the Earl. ”They know him at that inn, and it really seems to me best that he should stay there. I do not think he would be so much at his ease here.”
”It must be dreadful for a man to be confined to his room without a creature near him, except the servants,” said Violet. The Earl frowned, but said nothing further. They all perceived that as soon as he had learned that there was no real danger as to his son's life, he was determined that this accident should not work him up to any show of tenderness. ”I do so hope he will come up to London,” continued Violet, who was not afraid of the Earl, and was determined not to be put down.
”You don't know what you are talking about, my dear,” said Lord Brentford.
After this Phineas found it very difficult to extract any sympathy from the Earl on behalf of the men who had been locked up. He was moody and cross, and could not be induced to talk on the great subject of the day. Violet Effingham declared that she did not care how many Bunces were locked up; nor for how long,--adding, however, a wish that Mr. Turnbull himself had been among the number of the prisoners. Lady Laura was somewhat softer than this, and consented to express pity in the case of Mr. Bunce himself; but Phineas perceived that the pity was awarded to him and not to the sufferer. The feeling against Mr. Turnbull was at the present moment so strong among all the upper cla.s.ses, that Mr. Bunce and his brethren might have been kept in durance for a week without commiseration from them.
”It is very hard certainly on a man like Mr. Bunce,” said Lady Laura.
”Why did not Mr. Bunce stay at home and mind his business?” said the Earl.
Phineas spent the remainder of that day alone, and came to a resolution that on the coming occasion he certainly would speak in the House. The debate would be resumed on the Monday, and he would rise to his legs on the very first moment that it became possible for him to do so. And he would do nothing towards preparing a speech;--nothing whatever. On this occasion he would trust entirely to such words as might come to him at the moment;--ay, and to such thoughts. He had before burdened his memory with preparations, and the very weight of the burden had been too much for his mind. He had feared to trust himself to speak, because he had felt that he was not capable of performing the double labour of saying his lesson by heart, and of facing the House for the first time. There should be nothing now for him to remember. His thoughts were full of his subject. He would support Mr. Mildmay's bill with all his eloquence, but he would implore Mr. Mildmay, and the Home Secretary, and the Government generally, to abstain from animosity against the populace of London, because they desired one special boon which Mr. Mildmay did not think that it was his duty to give them. He hoped that ideas and words would come to him. Ideas and words had been free enough with him in the old days of the Dublin debating society. If they failed him now, he must give the thing up, and go back to Mr. Low.
On the Monday morning Phineas was for two hours at the police-court in Westminster, and at about one on that day Mr. Bunce was liberated.
When he was brought up before the magistrate, Mr. Bunce spoke his mind very freely as to the usage he had received, and declared his intention of bringing an action against the sergeant who had detained him. The magistrate, of course, took the part of the police, and declared that, from the evidence of two men who were examined, Bunce had certainly used such violence in the crowd as had justified his arrest.