Volume I Part 8 (1/2)
It was towards the end of my first week, as I was one day dressing for dinner, Lord Collyton came hastily into my room, exclaiming, ”By Jove, Templeton! Mr. Kitely has done the thing at last, as he would say himself, entirely.”
”How do you mean? what has he done?” ”You know my father is excessively vain of his landscape-gardening, and the prodigious improvements which he has made in this same demesne around us. Well, compa.s.sionating some one whom Kitely was mangling, 'more suo' in an argument, he took that gentleman out for a walk, and, with a conscious pride in his own achievements, led him towards the Swiss cottage beside the waterfall.
”Kitely was pleased with every thing; the timber is really well grown, and he praised it; the view is fine, and he said so. Even of the _chalet_ he condescended a few words of approval, as a feature in the scene. The waterfall, however, he would not praise; it might foam, and splash, and whirl as it would; in vain it threw its tiny spray aloft, and hissed beneath the rocks below; he never wasted even a word upon it.
”You'd scarce fancy, Mr. Kitely,” said my father, whose patience was sorely tried; ”you'd scarce fancy that river you see there was only a mill-stream.”
”I'd scarcely think of calling that mill-stream a river, my lord,” was the reply.
”Hence the borough of Collyton is still open, and I have come, by his grace's request, to say that if you desire to enter Parliament it is very much at your service.”
This was my introduction to the House.
My parliamentary life was, as I have said, a brief one, but not without its triumphs. I was long enough a member to have excited the ardent hopes of my friends, and make my name a thing quoted in the lists of party.
Had I remained, I was to have spoken second to the address on the opening of the new session. There was, I own, a most intoxicating sense of pleasure in the first success. The moment in which, fatigued and almost overpowered, I sank into a chair at Bellamy's, with some twenty around me, congratulating, praising, flattering, and foretelling, was worth living for; and yet, perhaps, in that same instant of triumph were sown the seeds of my malady. I was greatly heated; I had excited myself beyond my strength, and spoken for two hours--to myself it seemed scarce twenty minutes; and then, with open cravat and vest, I sat in the current of air between a door and window, drinking in delicious draughts of iced water and flattery. I went home with a slight cough, and something strange, like an obstruction to full breathing, in my chest.
Brodie, who saw me next day, I suppose, guessed the whole mischief; for these men look far a-head, and, like sailors, they see storm and hurricane in the cloud not bigger than a man's hand.
I often regret--I shall continue to do, perhaps, still oftener--that I did not die in the harness. To quit the field for sake of life, and not secure it after all, was paltry policy. But what could I do? a severe and contested election would have killed me, and for Collyton it was impossible I could continue to sit.
Irish politics would seem the rock a-head of every man in the House.
On these unhappy questions all are s.h.i.+pwrecked: the Premier loses party--Party loses confidence--members displease const.i.tuents, and _proteges_ offend their patrons. Such was my own case: the Duke who owned the borough of Collyton, resolved on making a great stand and show of his influence in both Houses. All his followers, myself among the number, were summoned to a conference, when the tactic of attack should be adopted, and each a.s.signed his fitting part. To me was allotted the office of replying to the first speaker of the Treasury Bench--a post of honour and of danger, and only distasteful because impossible: the fact was, that my own opinions were completely with the Government on the subject in dispute, and consequently at open variance with those of my own friends. This I declared at once, endeavouring to shew why my judgment had so inclined, and what arguments I believed to be unanswerable.
Instead of replying to my reasons, or convincing me of their inefficiency, my colleagues only ap-pealed to the ”necessity of union”--the imperative call of party--and ”the impossibility,” as they termed it, ”of betraying the Duke.”
I immediately resolved to resign my seat, and accept the Chiltern Hundreds. To this there was a unanimous cry of dissent, one and all p.r.o.nouncing that such a step would damage them more even than my fiercest opposition. The Duke sat still and said nothing. Somewhat offended at this, I made a personal appeal to him resolving by the tone of his reply to guide my future conduct. He was too old a politician to give me any clue to his sentiments, shrouding his meaning in vague phrases of compliment to my talents, and his perfect confidence that, however my judgment inclined, I should be able to shew sufficient reasons for my opinion. I went home baffled, worried, and ill. I sent for Brodie. ”You cannot speak on the coming question,” said he; ”there is a great threat of haemorrhage from the lungs--you must have rest and quiet. Keep beyond the reach of excitement for a few weeks--don't even read the newspapers. Go over to Spa--there you can be quite alone.”
I took the advice, and without one word of adieu to any one--without even leaving any clue to my hiding-place, I left London. Spa was as quiet and retired as Brodie described it. A little valley shut in among hills, that a c.o.c.kney would have called mountains; a clear little trout-stream, and some shady alleys to stroll among, being all I wanted.
Would that I could have brought there the tranquil spirit to enjoy them!
But my mind was far from at ease. The conflict between a sense of duty and a direct obligation, raged continually within me. What I owed to my own conscience, and what I owed to my patron, were at variance, and never did the st.u.r.diest Radical detest the system of Nomination Boroughs as I did at this moment. Each day, too, I regretted that I had not done this or that--taken some line different from what I adopted, and at least openly braved the criticism that I felt I had fled from.
To deny me all access to newspapers was a measure but ill calculated to allay the fever of my mind. Expectation and imagination were at work, speculating on every possible turn of events, and every likely and unlikely version of my own conduct. The first two days over, all my impatience returned, and I would have given life itself to be once again back ”in my place,” to a.s.sert my opinions, and stand or fall by my own defence of my motives.
About a week after my arrival I was sitting under the shade of some trees, at the end of the long avenue that forms the approach to the town, when I became suddenly aware that, at a short distance off, an Englishman was reading aloud to his friend the report of the last debate on the ”Irish Question.” My attention was fettered at once; spell bound, I sat listening to the words of one of the speakers on the ministerial side, using the very arguments I had myself discovered, and calling down the cheers of the House as he proceeded. A sarcastic allusion to my own absence, and a hackneyed quotation from Horace as to my desertion, were interrupted by loud laughter, and the reader laying down the newspaper, said,--
”Can this be the Duke of Wrexington's Templeton that is here alluded to?”
”Yes. He wrote a paper on this subject in the last 'Quarterly,' but the Duke would not permit of his taking the same side in the House, and so he affected illness they say, and came abroad.”
”The usual fortune of your _protege_ members--they have the pleasant alternative of inconsistency or ingrat.i.tude. Why didn't he resign his seat?”
”It is mere coquetry with Peel. They told me at Brookes's that he wanted a mission abroad, and would 'throw over' the Duke at the first opportunity. Now Peel gives nothing for nothing. For open apostasy he will pay, and pay liberally; but for mere defalcation, he'll give nothing.”
”Templeton has outwitted himself, then; besides that, he has no standing in the House to play the game alone.”
”A smart fellow, too, but no guidance. If he had been deep, he must have seen that old Wrexington only gave him the borough till Collyton was of age to come in. It was meant for Kitely, but he refused the conditions.
'I cannot be a tenant-at-will, my lord,' said he; and so they took Templeton.”