Part 41 (1/2)
”For the sake of argument, I agree.”
”Well--there are two kinds of donkeys. One kind is meek and mild and will go wherever it is driven. The other, in order to get along, must always have a bunch of carrots dangling before its eyes. That's you.”
”But confound it all!” he cried, ”I've lost my carrots--can't you see?
I'll never have any carrots again. That's the whole d.a.m.ned tragedy.”
For the first time she smiled--the smile of the woman wiser in certain subtle things than the man. ”My dear,” she said, ”carrots are cheap.”
She paused for an instant and added, ”Thank G.o.d!”
Paul squeezed her arms affectionately and they moved apart. He sighed.
”They're the most precious things in the world,” said he.
”The most precious things in the world are those which you can get for nothing,” said Jane.
”You're a dear,” said he, ”and a comfort.”
Presently he left her and returned to his weary round of the const.i.tuency, feeling of stouter heart, with a greater faith in the decent ordering of mundane things. A world containing such women as Jane and Ursula Winwood possessed elements of sanity. Outside one of the polling stations he found Barney Bill holding forth excitedly to a knot of working-men. He ceased as the car drove up, and cast back a broad proud smile at the candidate's warm greeting.
”I got up the old 'bus so nice and proper, with all your colours and posters, and it would have been a spectacular Diorama for these 'ere poor people; but you know for why I didn't bring it out to-day, don't you, sonny?”
”I know, dear old friend,” said Paul.
”I 'adn't the 'cart to.”
”What were you speechifying about when I turned up?”
Barney Bill jerked a backward thumb. ”I was telling this pack of cowardly Radicals that though I've been a Tory born and bred for sixty odd years, and though I've voted for you, Silas Finn, for all he was in prison while most of them were sucking wickedness and Radicalism out of Nature's founts, is just as good a man as what you are. They was saying, yer see, they was Radicals, but on account of Silas being blown upon, they was going to vote for you. So I tells 'em, I says, 'Mr.
Savelli would scorn your dirty votes. If yer feel low and Radical, vote Radical. Mr. Savelli wants to play fair. I know both of 'em,' I says, 'both of 'em intimately.' And they begins to laugh, as if I was talking through my hat. Anyway, they see now I know you, sonny.”
Paul laughed and clapped the loyal old man on the shoulder. Then he turned to the silent but interested group. ”Gentlemen,” said he, ”I don't want to inquire on which side you are; but you can take it from me that whatever my old friend Mr. Simmons says about Mr. Finn and myself is the absolute truth. If you're on Mr. Finn's side in politics, in G.o.d's name vote for him. He's a n.o.ble, high-souled man and I'm proud of his private friends.h.i.+p.”
He drew Barney Bill apart. ”You're the only Tory in the place who can try to persuade people not to vote for me. I wish you would keep on doing it.”
”I've been a-doing of it ever since the polls opened this morning,”
said Barney Bill. Then he c.o.c.ked his head on one side and his little eyes twinkled: ”It's an upside-down way of fighting an election to persuade people not to vote for you, isn't it?”
”Everything is topsy-turvy with me, these days,” Paul replied: ”so we've just got to stand on our heads and make the best of it.”
And he drove off in the gathering dusk.
Night found him in the great chamber of the Town Hall, with his agent and members of his committee. Present too were the Liberal Agent and the members of the Liberal Committee. At one end of the room sat the Mayor of the Borough in robe and chain of office, presiding over the proceedings. The Returning Officer and his staff sat behind long tables, on which were deposited the sealed ballot boxes brought in from the various polling stations; and these were emptied and the votes were counted, the voting papers for each candidate being done up in bundles of fifty. Knots of committee-men of both parties stood chatting in low voices. In an ordinary election both candidates would have chatted together, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred about golf, and would have made an engagement to meet again in milder conflict that day week.
But here Paul was the only candidate to appear, and he sat in a cane-bottomed chair apart from the lounging politicians, feeling curiously an interloper in this vast, solemn and scantily-filled hall.
He was very tired, too tired in body, mind and soul to join in the small-talk of Wilson and his bodyguard. Besides, they all wore the air of antic.i.p.ated victory, and for that he held them in detestation. He had detested them the whole day long. The faces that yesterday had been long and anxious to-day had been wreathed in smirks. Wherever he had gone he had found promise of victory in his father's disgrace.
Pa.s.sionately the young man, fronting vital issues, longed for his own defeat.
But for the ironical interposition of the high G.o.ds, it might have been so different. Any other candidate against him, he himself buoyed up with his own old glorious faith, his Princess, dazzling meteor illuminating the murky streets--dear G.o.d! what would not have been the joy of battle during the past week, what would not have been the intense thrill, the living of a thousand lives in these few hours of suspense now so dull with dreariness and pain! He sat apart, his legs crossed, a hand over his eyes. Wilson and his men, puzzled by his apparent apathy, left him alone. It is not much use addressing a mute and wooden idol, no matter how physically prepossessing.