Yes and no, Volume 1 (of 2)

It was a few days after the foregoing interview between Lady Latimer and her mother, that Lord Latimer, beckoning Fitzalbert aside after breakfast, communicated to him the unsuccessful result of the request he had made to Oakley to open a negociation on the subject of the exchange of the moors about Peatburn Lodge.

“I never in my life,” said his lordship, “saw such a cross-grained curmudgeon; his only answer was, that he felt it his duty to preserve his uncle’s property such as he had left it to him.”—“But, my dear fellow,” said I, “this is quite unconnected with all the rest of your property—a useless waste without a house on it. I shall be always most happy to receive you at Peatburn Lodge whenever you like to pay me a visit; but as to shooting on that ground from your own house, you can no more do it from thence than could your honoured uncle himself from wherever he now is. I own I was wrong to say that, Fitz, but I could not help it, though I felt it at the time. Well, the look it produced from him was one of which I have not seen the like since I got out of the lower school at Eton; and saying that the reasons of my request were so trivial, that he would not willingly be compelled to take any thing seriously in the treatment of such a subject, therefore he would only reply that I had his answer——he left the room.”

“A most statesman-like full stop, indeed,” said Fitzalbert. “He fancies he has already got into the House; or perhaps this was only his conciliating manner of asking for your vote and interest.”

“How do you mean?” inquired Lord Latimer; “has he any intention of coming forward in the place of Mr. Medium?”

“I have no doubt on the subject,” replied Fitzalbert. “You know, being no politician myself, I sometimes am, unheeded, allowed to overhear half-expressed confidences on the subject; such as the necessity yesterday enforced by Lady Boreton, of his sitting next the squinting red-haired Miss Martin, (the only daughter of Martin and Co.’s manufactory,) whom they had brought back with them, after driving over in the morning to see his new steam-mill—rather a suspicious expedition itself—which will end in something more than smoke, depend upon it.”

“But I will never give my support to such an unlicked cub—let him mark down all the votes he’ll get from me among the barren bogs he is so anxious to keep. A red-hot radical too, I’m told!”

“Yes, and a moderate man like you will find his opinions equally well represented by such a factious firebrand as Oakley, and such a furious bigot as Mr. Stedman, the old member. Well, as I said, I am no politician, but I can’t help thinking it but befits a gentleman to move methodically forward with the main body of the age in its regular march of mind, neither seeking foolish forlorn-hopes in advance like Oakley, nor lagging disgracefully in the rear like old Stedman and those who think with him. I care for none of them. To me the sans culottes of the jacobin, and the orthodox leathers of the old school, are alike unseemly. You, who are stuck up as a pillar of the state, ought to think more seriously of these things than I, who am but a bit of useless cornice overhanging the surface of society.”

“Begging your pardon, Fitz, I think the most valuable privilege of ‘a well-deserving pillar’ of the ‘order’ to which I belong, is that which exempts me from thinking any more than if I were stone indeed. The drudges of the lower house are obliged, if not to hear before they decide, at least to wake before they can vote. Many a time has ‘my voice potential, double as the duke’s,’ carried a question, not after a debate in Parliament, but after a rubber at Newmarket.”

“But I don’t want you to take any further trouble than just to enter your proxy in the other House too. ’Tis a luxury that belongs to your rank and fortune, as much as a second carriage.”

“Well,” answered Latimer, “I should have no objection to that, only a county member is an article of rather expensive manufacture; and that unlucky filly having won the St. Leger makes it a little inconvenient.”

“To be sure it’s no business of mine,” said Fitzalbert, “but I’ll tell you a plan that has occurred to me, which you may think on at your leisure. What do you say to Germain? he has a very good, though not a first-rate property in the county, and plenty of ready money from his long minority; brought forward on your interest he might succeed without costing you any thing. I don’t know much of his political opinions, but I should think they were malleable enough to satisfy you.”

This proposal had many recommendations to Lord Latimer; he was in a state of mind very much to enjoy any thing that had a tendency to thwart Oakley; but like most gentlemen who love their ease, he had a great horror of being brought into constant collision with disagreeable people; and it was only the having to do with a person so much to his mind as Germain, that could reconcile him to embarking in such an undertaking. But when he sounded Germain on the subject, under a strict injunction of secrecy, the latter rejected it at once, with more decision than he had previously shown on any occasion; saying that he was himself utterly unfit for it, and that if it was to oppose Oakley, of whose intention of coming forward he had however not been informed, that would be an additional objection.

And thus matters rested for some time. Lord Latimer was satisfied with himself at having made an effort to overcome his usual inaction in such matters, and went to Newmarket, leaving Lady Latimer to be taken up on his return homewards. This was not an arrangement Lady Boreton had anticipated, though she had herself originated the proposal; in fact, it rather embarrassed her political schemes by keeping up the mixed character of the party; but, on the other hand, it had its advantages; it prevented any suspicion of the existence of an electioneering cabal, and whilst Lady Latimer and Germain were allowed to enjoy each other’s society, they were not very likely to interfere with any of the Simpkinses or Jenkinses, who, in the character either of busy agents or officious partisans, were constantly coming to consult Lady Boreton and Oakley.

But the best kept secret will sometimes, as it were, escape under ground, and ooze out at a distance; and that which had remained a mystery carefully concealed from Lord Latimer whilst under Lady Boreton’s roof, he found perfectly well known at Newmarket, where Jack Stedman, a relation of the old member, and one of the staunch squirearchy who were determined to defend his seat, took hold of Lord Latimer’s button at the moment he was most impatient to hedge some indifferent bets, and let him into the determination of his party in the county, by no means to acquiesce in the nomination of Oakley. Rather than allow him to come in without a contest, they intended to start another of their own friends, to split votes with Mr. Stedman; but as they were not anxious to make the attempt to monopolize the two seats, they were ready to give their second votes to any one who might come forward on Lord Latimer’s interest; for though they did not acknowledge him as quite true blue, there was no comparison between the incipient symptoms of scepticism with which he was afflicted, and the inveterate heresy of such a man as Oakley.

Lord Latimer having paid dearly for these arguments of Jack Stedman, as they prevented his seizing the opportunity to get out of an awkward betting scrape, he thought it as well to make the most of them, and therefore brought them back with him to Boreton Hall, and made use of them in persuading Germain to revise his determination not to come forward himself for the county, telling him that as far as he might have any scruples in opposing Oakley, the present state of affairs ought to remove those, for that it was now obvious that he would not come in without opposition, and if two of the Stedman party united, the run would of course be entirely against him; whereas he, Lord Latimer, had refused to make any stipulation of mutual support with either party, and provided his own friend succeeded, it was a matter of indifference to him which of the other two came in.

Germain had been from the first rather more positive in declining the proposal, than decided in his dislike to it; and even had this feeling been originally stronger, it was not in his nature to resist repeated solicitation, particularly when many of the collateral circumstances, which would necessarily arise from his acquiescence, were every way so agreeable to him; amongst these, not the least of the advantages which he anticipated, was the confirmed intimacy it must produce with the Latimers.

When, therefore, Lady Latimer’s persuasive tones were joined with those of her lord’s, in attempting to convince him, he found it impossible any longer to resist; not that her arguments were very elaborate on the subject, but she not only chose the colours for him, but wore them herself that evening; and her bright eyes shone brighter, and her dark hair looked darker from the bows of the feu d’enfer ribbons, which she had chosen as becoming to herself, and wore as complimentary to him.

The compunction which Germain might otherwise have experienced at finding himself almost committed in opposition to Oakley, was not a little relieved by the suggestion which he derived from Fitzalbert—whom he consulted on the subject—that if there was any breach of friendship between them, the blame must rest with Oakley himself; the reserve and closeness of whose disposition had prevented his ever communicating his long-formed intentions to his friend and relation, who was living under the same roof with him, and whose property was so situated that his support, if asked, might be of the greatest service to him. “Under these circumstances,” added Fitzalbert, “I think you perfectly at liberty either to affect ignorance of his project or not, as may best suit your purpose.”

But that was not at all Oakley’s view of the proceeding, when it accidentally came to his knowledge. He had long necessarily delayed a public declaration of his own intention, principally from a dislike to entering upon the duties of canvassing, which he felt must necessarily follow, and which he looked forward to as the most irksome part of the whole business. Perhaps, too, he had more reasons than he owned to himself for preferring, at present, a protracted stay with the society at Boreton Hall, to riding about, making the agreeable to all the disagreeable people in the county.

The morning after Germain had yielded to the desire of his friends, that he should start as a candidate for the county, Oakley had retired to the writing corner of the library; he had at last made up his mind to put forth his public advertisement; somehow or other he had not made any very rapid progress in this production; what the peculiar nature might be of those reveries which had so long kept his pen stationary, need no further be defined, than by owning that the sudden appearance of Helen Mordaunt produced an abrupt transition in his turn of thought.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Oakley,” said she, stopping suddenly, “but I thought it had been Lord Latimer, and I came to ask him to frank this letter to my mother.”

“Your mother! you write frequently to her,” enquired Oakley, forgetting that Helen was ignorant of that communication between himself and Mrs. Mordaunt, which could alone explain so strange a question from him.

“Every day since I have been separated from her,” replied Miss Mordaunt. “When we are together we are all the world to each other; therefore it would be hard now not to enliven her solitude with a little of my social superfluity, even at the risk of tiring her with my voluminous gossip.”

“Valuable, indeed, must be the power to preserve a record of the first impressions made by all she sees upon such a mind as Miss Mordaunt’s,” said Oakley; “the interest of the source from which your communications are derived, must soften the painful feelings which must otherwise be excited in your mother’s mind, to find the world still what she left it—with a ready hand for the buoyant, a heavy heel for the fallen. But,” added he, recovering himself as he became aware that he was hinting his knowledge of Mrs. Mordaunt’s actual situation, “I am sorry that I cannot assist you with a frank.”

“Perhaps before long you may. I don’t know whether I should say I hope so—you know I cannot be against Lady Latimer, and Mr. Germain himself is so good-humoured, that it is impossible not to wish him success in any thing he attempts.”

“Mr. Germain!” said Oakley, starting up. “Can it be possible that he is to be my opponent?”

“Perhaps I have said what I ought not,” interrupted Miss Mordaunt, alarmed at his vehemence. “I heard it mentioned without any injunction of secrecy, yet I dare say I have done wrong to repeat it. My own utter ignorance of all such subjects must be my excuse. I can now understand the horror my mother has always expressed at the very name of politics, since an allusion to them from one so innocent of offence as I am, can be capable of producing such an effect.”

“Oh, Miss Mordaunt, you are yet so young in years, younger still in the knowledge of the world! your gentle nature could not suspect that baseness of which you have unwittingly communicated the most convincing proof. There was but one person I believed incapable of such duplicity, and him I find conspiring to blast the just expectations of his friend.”

“Nay, now, Mr. Oakley, surely this is not fair; ignorant as I am of the subject, I can at least distinguish that what you are contending for is no man’s right, but a free object of ambition, open to any one; and I am sure you will recall your imputation of unfairness, when you reflect that what you did not think fit to communicate to Mr. Germain, he could not be obliged to communicate to you.”

“And is it possible Miss Mordaunt should be the apologist of such conduct? I had a right to keep my counsel. I could not guess at an intention which he had not then formed; but he having wormed out my secret, has been working in the dark to counteract my plans.”

How far Helen Mordaunt’s strong sense of justice would have overcome her dislike to an argument, and have enabled her gentle nature to contend against Oakley’s unmeasured vehemence of accusation, whether she would have succeeded in convincing him, for the first time in his life, that he was in the wrong, it is impossible to say, for their interview abruptly terminated by Lady Flamborough’s entrance.

“Oh, I beg pardon,” said she, “if I interrupt any body. Only to put back this portfolio—very prettily copied, is it not, Mr. Oakley? Miss Mordaunt, my dear, Lady Latimer has been enquiring for you, and she will not guess where to find you, for my girls never come into the library in a morning. You will learn all that in time. And just tell White to send me down my parasol, and take this other portfolio up to my Caroline, that’s a good child.”

The disgust with which Oakley listened to this attempt, as he thought it, to treat Miss Mordaunt as a menial dependent, and to employ her as a matter of course in convenient offices, had at once the effect of removing any little feeling of exasperation which his irritable nature might otherwise have preserved after their recent dispute. He advanced hastily towards the door, and opening it just in time for the well laden messenger, the smile with which he greeted her in passing was assurance enough that he retained no unkind recollection of what had occurred between them.

Lady Flamborough, it has been remarked, was not very fond of Oakley; she was also not a little afraid of him, but as she passed him at the door she could not avoid saying: “The ladies will expect your services after luncheon, Mr. Oakley; they are now but badly off for any gentleman to ride with them; Mr. Germain’s sudden departure this morning has left you undisputed master of the field.”

“It is neither my wish, nor my ambition, to imitate Mr. Germain, or to interfere with him in any respect,” replied Oakley; and that in a tone which made Lady Flamborough repeat to herself, as she shut the door, “Certainly, the most disagreeable young man I ever knew: and yet, that he should have forty thousand a-year, and Mr. Germain at most only eight—what a pity!”

“Left the house already,” thought Oakley; “can it be possible that he has actually declared himself?” The doubt which this reflection implied was soon removed by a servant putting into his hand a letter from Germain, which ought to have been given sooner, as it was left by him when he quitted the house at six o’clock that morning. It was as follows:—

Dear Oakley,

I write this in haste to communicate to you my intention of immediately offering myself as a candidate for the county, at the vacancy which will occur at the approaching general election. I should have preferred announcing it to you in person, but as it was only finally decided last night, and you had disappeared before supper, and Lord Latimer’s friends were unanimous in thinking it of the utmost importance, that I should not lose the opportunity of showing myself this morning, being market-day at ——, I could only leave you these few lines. One of the reasons why I should have been glad to explain myself more fully with you first, was, that it has been rumoured you had some intention of standing yourself; but as this has been some time said, and you have never mentioned it to me, I conclude that the report is unfounded. At any rate, should I be unhappily opposing myself to you, I have the consolation of knowing that you would otherwise have found a more ‘stony-hearted adversary;’ and I trust I need not assure you, that, consistent with the principles of the party upon whose interest I come forward, you may always depend upon any assistance from

Your faithful friend,

Charles Germain.

“Faithful friend indeed! a puppet in the hands of any who please to play upon him,” said Oakley.

He read the letter over again, and it enraged him the more; and that not a little, perhaps, from his being unable exactly to find out what just cause of complaint it opened to him. When our intentions have never been expressed, any interference with them, however injurious, is hardly offensive, and therefore can scarcely be considered criminal by any code of friendship. And though he could not help entertaining a vague suspicion that Germain was really perfectly well aware of his project, as was indeed the case, yet not only had he no proof of this, but even if he had, as he never, by communicating it himself, had established a trust, there was no breach of confidence.

He now bitterly repented that he had not taken Lady Boreton’s advice, upon no account to delay declaring himself beyond this identical market-day. He had originally declined doing so from two causes, neither of which he liked to acknowledge: one was, his unwillingness to separate himself from all whom he had met at Boreton Hall; the other, a jealous dislike whilst he remained there, to be paraded in public, as “Lady Boreton’s new man.” He was very ready to avail himself of that lady’s invaluable exertions in his behalf, but he was very anxious that the distinction should be well understood, that she was engaged in his service, not he in hers.

But whatever relative weight these two reasons might have had in producing this unfortunate delay on his part, they could neither now conceal from him the immense advantage that the start would be to Germain, not only with the freeholders, but with that large portion of the world who would judge between them without knowing much of the merits of the case, and with that larger portion still, who without judging at all, personally preferred Germain to him. It gave him the appearance of being the aggressor, and of coming in at the eleventh hour, to crush his former friend with the weight of his purse,——“and will not even Helen Mordaunt think so too?” was one of his bitterest reflections.

But if it had been an effort to Helen Mordaunt to attempt to prove him in the wrong to his face, she was sure to think him in the right when left to herself. She then found out ample excuses for his vehemence in the indignation excited in a noble mind by the very idea of duplicity, and all that she could not quite justify in his deportment, was effaced by the recollection of the sweetness of the smile with which he had parted from her. Her natural readiness to oblige, had prevented her from being offended at Lady Flamborough’s air of protection, in sending her as an errand-girl all over the house; and as Lady Latimer’s manner to her was always the perfection of considerate kindness, she had never been made aware of her dependent situation in society.

Admiring Oakley as a sort of superior being, she could not but be gratified at the daily consciousness that his manner to her was different from that he maintained with the rest of the world. She had not yet asked herself the cause of this welcome distinction. Sometimes his indistinct allusions and abrupt questions about her mother bewildered her; for that there could be no personal acquaintance between them, she felt assured from her having herself, till within the last few weeks, remained entirely with her. Could she attribute all that she did not understand in his conduct to the interest with which she had herself inspired him?

She opened her letter to her mother, determined to add—she knew not what. Facts she had none to communicate; and of fancies, what would one sheet contain? So she closed it again, sealed, and sent it.