Sweet and Twenty (20 page)

“Looks like we’ll have to wait,”
he said, frowning in frustration. “I think you know, in any case, what I want to say to you.”

Lillian was in much of a mind to hear it, and thought the noise provided enough privacy even for a proposal of marriage. “No. What
did
you want to say?”

“It was more something I wanted to do, actually,”
he replied, focusing his eyes on her lips for a noticeable minute. She almost thought he was going to do it, right in the middle of the crowded town. But he looked up and smiled instead, then looked around again. “The party’s beginning to get rough.”

“It is all those brown bags Reising is dispensing in the back alleys.”

“The ones Hudson is dispensing are probably even more to blame. I didn’t cut mine with water, as I think Reising did. I had a swig from one of his and I’m pretty sure he had diluted it.”

“The cheapskate!”

“Keeping all the good stuff for himself. What can you expect of a Tory? Well, from whatever source, the liquor has been flowing pretty freely, and it’s time Miss Monteith—notice I am not presuming to call her Aunt Martha yet—takes you two buds home. By this evening it will be bedlam. I hope you don’t mean to return then.”

“Not when we are being hinted away so very broadly. I suppose you will be here?”

“I must keep a sharp eye on the counting. Reising is up to every dirty trick in the book.”

“I have a feeling poor Mr. Reising has been sadly traduced throughout this whole affair.”

“He’s not a bad sort, but I mean to keep on my guard till after the counting. I’ll be here till all hours. I won’t see you till tomorrow. I seem to be always saying that, don’t I? You’ll think me a poor wooer, never spending an evening with you, but if wishes were horses, as our friend says, your saloon would be a veritable stable. I suppose Aunt Martha might not like that.”

“I daresay
Miss Monteith
might take exception to it.”

“I don’t think Sara would mind,”
he answered, unrepentant.

“How soon will Mr. Fellows go to London, if he wins?”
Lillian inquired, acknowledging herself bested in the matter of names.

“In a day or two. I thought I’d get stuck to take him all the way—I daren’t let him go alone. God knows what hobble he’d fall into along the way—but Henderson, one of our M.P.’s, is to meet us at Devizes, just east of Bath, and take him off my hands. I’ll pass the bullwhip over to him, along with dire warnings regarding the degree of watching he requires. With his new romantic role to live up to, he’d go trailing into Whitehall with a lightskirt on either wing. I shouldn’t be gone longer than two days.”

“Two days,”
she repeated. It seemed an eternity, and she sincerely hoped he would find a moment’s privacy to put the question to her before he left.

Taking her arm, he walked her toward Martha, and Allingham too pointed out the number of men already weaving and becoming unruly. Martha took the hint, and shepherded her two charges to the carriage, under the aegis of Lord Allingham and Cecilford’s heir. The only thing lacking was Mr. Fellows for Sara, but she was beginning to give up on him; he had been ogling Miss Ratchett so obviously the last few days that Sara’s real beau was beginning to be acknowledged, and forgiven for being a Tory.

Affairs in the village took a rapid turn for the wilder not long after the ladies left, but despite that, the counting of the votes was a sober, serious affair, and no considerable quantity of drink was allowed to those involved.

Hudson drank three cups of coffee, but nothing stronger till the votes were counted, and Fellows assured of a victory too wide to be subject to recounting, after which he added yet another crime to his career, and became quite pleasantly foxed, but not so foxed that he failed to get Fellows booked into a room at the Cat’s Paw first. It was too late, and they were all too tired to go to the abbey. There was some little difficulty keeping a certain lady of the night out of Tony’s room, for he seemed as eager for her company as was she for his. Hudson slipped her a folded bill and a wink, mentioning a room number at random. When she found it to be occupied by the only respectable couple honouring the inn with their presence that evening, she was not too sorry to have got her pay without performing her duties. They lost Basingstoke along the way to the muslin company, but the Honorable Member was saved from disgrace, and castigated his rescuers as cupboard Tories for their trouble, saving all the goodies for themselves.

Early in the morning, after Allingham, Basingstoke, Fellows and Alistair were all abed, the whippers-in met in Hudson’s room to share a bottle of undiluted brandy. Their duties done to the best of their respective abilities, they got their heads together for a very pleasant rehashing of the campaign.

“They stuck us with a pair of rare boys this time, old friend,”
Reising said. “Here’s to ‘em.”
They lifted their glasses and drank.

“Mine was a fool, you know,”
Reising confessed.

“Mine made him appear a wizard,”
Hudson replied, glad to be able to say it aloud at last.

“Aye, there was little enough to choose between
them
.
Yours was an old fool and mine a young one. He’s done nothing but moon about since the pretty young lady took a shine to him. Did you put her up to it then?”

“No. I’d have preferred she wait till the election was over.”

“I didn’t know whether to encourage him in it or hold him back, not knowing what you were up to. I doubted she could really be as dumb as she seemed and feared you had some card up your sleeve. And then once Telford came I lost my boy entirely. He jawed my ear off with talk of cantilevers and suspension cables and clearances till I began to think he was running for county engineer instead of M.P.”

“1 still think you had the best of it. Mine doesn’t know yet whether he’s a Whig or a Tory.”

“Whatever he is, he’s rich at least. Alistair ain’t, and we had to depend on old Sinclair.”

“Mine ain’t much poorer than when he started. I’ve seen rocks bleed freer.”

They congratulated and consoled each other and ran down their candidates for an hour, parting the best of friends.

“Will I be seeing you in Burridge in two months’
time for the next by-election?”
Reising asked. “Our member there is on the point of sticking his fork in the wall. We figure two months till the election.”

“As it’s another Tory stronghold, you’ll be seeing me there,”
Hudson replied.

“It’s au revoir then,”
Reising said, and walked from the room with a fairly steady step.

A public meeting was to take place the next day on the village green, where a dais had been erected. The candidates were to meet and publicly shake hands and declare each other fine fellows. The star of the show was Anthony Fellows Esq., M.P. for Crockett. Hudson had written him a modest victory speech and practiced him up on it before herding him to the green. For this occasion he was allowed to exchange his politicking hat for his own, more becoming, Baxter. The occasion was dignified by formal clothing for those to sit on the dais. Everyone—including the ladies from New Moon—was present at the meeting.

It was remarkable to see foolish Tony Fellows looking so dignified and intelligent. A well-cut black suit did wonders for him. He
spoke the words of his mentor without a hitch or a flaw, thanked everyone for every imaginable thing, and even thanked those who had voted against him for adhering to their principles.

It had taken quite a few rehearsals to prevent his describing those principles as repressive and reactionary, but at last Hudson had succeeded. Mr. Alistair too made a speech, almost as fine as Tony’s but of less interest to everyone except Sara as he was in no position to do anyone any favors. It was the general opinion that they need not be ashamed to send Mr. Fellows to London to represent them. A very fine, sensible man he had always been, they all agreed, as they didn’t really know him well at all.

Miss Ratchett measured him through narrowed eyes and decided he would have to do. His abbey lent

him a certain
éclat
in the town, and in the city an Honorable Member must surely move in the first circles. In any case, she could not be choosy. There were few gentlemen in Crockett, and Papa refused to take her to London to choose from a wider field.

Mr. Hudson stayed very much in the background, very dignified himself with his black coat and black hair, ennobled at the temples with the wings of gray. Lillian, always felt she was looking at a judge when she regarded him, and smiled to herself to think of that noble-looking gentleman pulling the barn door off its hinges, scrambling around to bribe Leaky Peg, and bringing in his flash culls to perform any deeds beyond his own considerable powers of criminality.

There was first a spate of merrymaking on the green, with free food and beverages—the last of the bribes served to everyone—while the band played away in the background. After this general celebration, certain chosen persons were invited to the abbey for a more refined party. Mr. Fellows was vehemently against feeding Tories in his own home, but gentle insistence from all his mentors eventually succeeded in his allowing at least Mr. Alistair and Reising to come. Without Fellows’s knowledge, an invitation was also extended to Sir John and Lady Marie by Allingham, who counted on Sir John’s sense of propriety to stay away, as indeed he did.

Miss Ratchett succeeded pretty well in monopolizing Mr. Fellows’s attention, for no one else really wanted it. Sara followed Alistair around like a puppy, and Miss Watters was lucky to get a look at Mr. Hudson; he was so busy attending to all the upcoming business for the riding that Mr. Fellows should have been seeing to. He hardly looked at Lillian, and she began to wonder if she had imagined all those intimate glances he had been casting her way, and all the suggestive remarks he had made. She knew he was leaving the next day, yet despite that he disappeared into a study with Allingham several hours. When he came out, he was pulled right into the middle of a group petitioning for federal moneys to set up a hospital.

It was nearly time for them to leave before she had a minute with him, and Fellows chose that very moment to accost his whipper-in and thank him for lending a hand with the campaign.

“You did a dashed good job, Matt, and I won’t hesitate to acknowledge to anyone who asks me that without your help I wouldn’t have had such a whopping majority.”

He had squeaked in with a whopping majority of fifty votes, but in a small riding fifty votes was not subject to recount, and so it was a nominal whopping victory. “I won’t insult my constituents to suggest they wouldn’t have had the sense to elect a Whig, for they would and we all know it, but the fact of the matter is I give you credit for the size of my majority. You are a dashed knowing one; Basingstoke I think will agree with me on that, and if you ever come a cropper, I’ll find a spot for you on my staff. I have young Armstrong, an orphan you know and not fit for real work, to rattle off my letters for me, but there’s always a place for good men like yourself in the party. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend you to anyone to give him a hand with his campaign.”

“Thank you, Tony. I appreciate the recommendation.”

“No more than the simple truth. I hope I ain’t too proud to allow you was a little help to me. In fact, I’ll drop a word in Brougham’s ear when I get to London, and have him look out for a soft spot for you in the City. At your age you must be fagged to death being an errand boy for us members.”

“I do begin to find it wearing,”
Hudson admitted, and was assured again that Fellows would put in a word for him in the right quarters.

Lillian had some hopes Mr. Hudson would find time to look for a quiet spot before she left—and in an abbey with fifty rooms. It seemed possible he might succeed. But when it was time for her to go, all she could do was congratulate him on the miracle he had performed.

“Getting him elected, you mean?”

“No, not wringing his neck for giving you so little credit.”

Although he shook her hand with a hard squeeze and said he’d see her tomorrow, her hopes plunged. She had to make do with reading into that single grip of the hand all the tender words she had been anticipating. Never was a handshake considered in such minute detail, and seldom must one have given so little pleasure.

She didn’t get much more of his company when he and Tony stopped at New Moon the next morning on their way to Devizes. The full quorum of ladies was present—Aunt Martha, Lady Monteith, Sara and Lillian. One day’s congratulations to the incumbent as not enough; he had to be congratulated again and again by them all. He never tired of hearing himself mentioned as the Honorable Member, and to his elation, the ladies repeated it to his heart’s content. Nor did he take it as an offense when Sara, in an excess of reverence, called him Sir Anthony. A milord or a your grace would also have gone down very well, but he could wait till he was knighted for those promotions.

Much as he enjoyed strutting before the ladies, he could hardly wait to get to London, where he fancied the House must be on tiptoe to meet him, and e’er long he was urging Hudson out the door, calling him “my good man,”
and not Matt, now that he was raised to his new office. Matthew expected to be reduced to “Hudson”
by the time he got rid of him at Devizes.

“We must be off,”
Fellows said at last. “I have a dozen matters to bring to Brougham’s attention. Can’t waste a minute. Waste not, want not, you know.”

Hudson looked at Lillian and smiled. “I’ll be returning soon,”
he said, her only hint that there was unfinished business between them.

“Soon? No such thing,”
Fellows objected. “Can’t be
poking back here every two days. The House is in session.”

“I will be returning,”
Hudson said.

“What the deuce for? I’ll get you a spot, my good man. I told you I’d speak to Brougham.”

“I really don’t think that will be necessary, Tony, but in any case I’m not going all the way to London just now.”

“Oh—I see how it is,”
Fellows declared in loud, significant tones.
“Amor omnia vincit,
eh?”