But to Isaac White all this was nought. He had seen the house in every aspect; and to-day his mind was filled with other things-with votes and voters, with some anxiety on his own account and more on his patron's. What would Sir Robert say if aught went wrong at Chippinge? True, the loss of the borough seemed barely possible; it had been held securely for many years. But the times were so stormy, public feeling ran so high, the mob was so rough, that nothing seemed impossible, in view of the stress to which the soundest candidates were exposed. If Mr. Bankes stood to fail in Dorset, if Mr. Duncombe had small chance in Yorkshire, if Sir Edward Knatchbull was a lost man in Kent, if Mr. Hart Davies was no better in Bristol, if no man but an out-and-out Reformer could count on success, who was safe?
White's grandfather, his father, he himself had lived and thriven by the system which he saw tottering to its fall. He belonged to it, he was part of it; did he not mark his allegiance to it by wearing top-boots in the daytime and shorts in full dress? And he was prepared-were it only out of gratitude to the ladder by which he had risen-to stand by it and by his patron to the last. But, strange anomaly, White was at heart a Cobbett man. His sneaking sympathies were, in his own despite, with the class from which he sprang. He saw commons filched from the poor, while the labourers fell on the rates. He saw large taxes wrung from the country to be spent in the town. He saw the severity of the laws, and especially the game laws. He saw absentee rectors and starving curates. He saw the dumb impotence of nine-tenths of the people; and he felt that the system under which these things had grown up was wrong. But wrong or right, he was part of it, he was pledged to it; and all the theories in the world, and all the "Political Registers" which he digested of an evening, would not induce him to betray it.
Notwithstanding, he feared that in the matter of the borough he had not been quite so wide-awake as became him; or Pybus, the Bowood man, would not have stolen a march upon him. His misgivings grew as he came in sight of the door, and saw Sir Robert on the flight of steps which led to it. Apparently the baronet had seen him, for as White drove up a servant appeared to lead the mare to the stables.
Sir Robert looked her over as she was led away. "The grey looks well, White," he said. She was of his breeding.
"Yes, Sir Robert. Give me a good horse and they may have the new-fangled railroads that like them. But I am afraid, sir-"
"One moment!" The servant was out of hearing, and the baronet's tone, as he caught White up, betrayed agitation. "Who is that looking over the Lower Wicket, White?" he continued. "She has been there a quarter of an hour, and-and I can't make her out."
His tone surprised White, who looked and saw at a distance of a hundred paces the figure of a woman leaning on the wicket-gate nearest the stables. She was motionless, and he had not looked many seconds before he caught the thought in Sir Robert's mind. "He's heard," he reflected, "that her ladyship is in the neighbourhood, and it has alarmed him."
"I cannot see at this distance, sir," he answered prudently, "who it is."
"Then go and ask her her business," Sir Robert said, as indifferently as he could. "She has been there a long time."
White went, a little excited himself; but half-way to the woman, who continued to gaze at the house as if unconscious of his approach, he discovered that, whoever she was, she was not Lady Sybil. She was stout, middle-aged, plain; and he took a curt tone with her when he came within earshot. "What are you doing here?" he said. "That's the way to the servants' hall."
The woman looked at him. "You don't know me, Mr. White?" she said.
He looked hard in return. "No," he answered bluntly, "I don't."
"Ah, well, I know you," she replied. "More by token-"
He cut her short. "Have you any message?" he asked.
"If I have, I'll give it myself," she retorted drily. "Truth is, I'm in two minds about it. What you have, you have, d'you see, Mr. White; but what you've given ain't yours any more. Anyway-"
"Anyway," impatiently, "you can't stay here!"
"Very good," she replied, "very good. As you are so kind, I'll take a day to think of it." And with a cool nod she turned her back on the puzzled White, and went off down the park towards the town.
He went back to Sir Robert. "She's a stranger, sir," he said; "and, I think, a bit gone in the head. I could make nothing of her."
Sir Robert drew a deep breath. "You're sure she was a stranger?" he said.
"She's no one I know, sir. After one of the men, perhaps."
Sir Robert straightened himself. He had spent a bad ten minutes gazing at the distant figure. "Just so," he said. "Very likely. And now what is it, White?"
"I've bad news, sir, I'm afraid," the agent said, in an altered tone.
"What is it?"
"It's that d-d Pybus, sir! I'm afraid that, after all-"
"They're going to fight?"
"I'm afraid, Sir Robert, they are."
The old gentleman's eyes gleamed. "Afraid, sir, afraid?" he cried. "On the contrary, so much the better. It will cost me some money, but I can spare it; and it will cost them more, and nothing for it. Afraid? I don't understand you."
The agent, standing on the step below him, coughed dubiously. "Well, sir," he said, "what you say is reasonable. But-"
"But! But what?"
"There is so much excitement in the country at this time-"
"So much greediness in the country," Sir Robert retorted, striking his stick upon the stone steps. "So much unscrupulousness, sir; so many liars promising, and so many fools listening; so much to get, and so many who would like it! There's all that, if you please; but for excitement, I don't know" – with a severe look-"what you mean, or what it has to do with us."
"I am afraid, sir, there is bad news from Devon, where it is said our candidate is retiring."
"A good man, but weak; neither one side nor the other."
"And from Dorset, sir, where they say Mr. Bankes will be beaten."
"I'll not believe it," Sir Robert answered positively. "I'll never believe it. Mr. Bankes beaten in Dorset! Absurd! Why do you listen to such tales? Why do you listen? By G-d, White, what is the matter with you? Or how does it touch us if Mr. Bankes is beaten? Nine votes to four! Nine will still be nine, and four four, if he be beaten. When you can make four to be more than nine you may come whining to me!"
White coughed. "Dyas, the butcher-"
"What of him?"
"Well, Sir Robert, I am afraid he has been getting some queer notions."
"Notions?" the baronet echoed in astonishment.
"He has been listening to someone, and-and thinks he has views on the Bill."
Sir Robert exploded. "Views!" he cried. "Views! The butcher with views! Why, damme, White, you must be mad! Mad! Since when have butchers taken to politics, or had views?"
"I don't know anything about that, sir," White mumbled.
Sir Robert struck his stick fiercely on a step. "But I do! I do! And I know this,"