AN ELECTION STORY.
“Where doth the black fiend, Ambition,
reside?” inquires somebody in one of Shakespeare’s
plays — not that Shakespeare wrote the line, it is
the elegant work of one of his improvers. Had the
demand been made, the other day, to any person
who was really in the confidence and secret soul
of Maurice Halgover, Esq., gentleman, aged thirty-
six, no occupation, living on his rather handsome
means, married, the reply would have been, “At
No. 73, Mandeville Crescent North, Hyde Park
Gardens.” And this would have been a much
more practical answer than that given in the
play, namely, “With the mischievous devil of
Pride,” as if every body knew his address.
Listen to a brief story of an election. It is not
one of those fifty-six stories just now promised to
committees, showing the way in which, when my
gracious Sovereign is pleased to ask the Opinion
of the People, divers of the said people proceed to
condense the opinion into Members of Parliament.
Hear a tale of woman’s love and man’s treachery.
They were happy enough, the Halgovers; and
why should they not have been happy? Nice
house, enough money, good health, not so stupid
as to bore other people, not so clever to be bored
by other people, high principles, chimneys that
didn’t smoke, street-keeper remorseless to street-
organists — what more could a couple of reasonable
people want? In truth, they enjoyed life very
much.
Arabella, possessing both good looks and certain
moneys, had had divers offers, and made her
free choice in wedding Maurice Halgover — a fine,
large, handsome fellow, who looked Somebody.
That he did look so was chiefly due to the magnificent effect of his head, which was big, and
covered with masses of superb, clustering, dark
hair, which he did not pat and plaster down and
keep short and close, after the fashion of pick-pockets and swells, but lifted it up and out, like
Jupiter, giving unto himself a kind of glorious
mane. Also he had a very fine, soft long beard,
of a highly strokable character, and very good
moustaches, which matched his beard and hair,
and had not fallen into the cire, and yellow leaf.
Halgover was not careless about all these advantages, and did not let them run wild, as do
certain gifted and dirty artists whom I have
had the happiness to know. He cultivated the
exterior of his head, and had great ivory-backed
brushes, and small ivory-backed brushes, and all
kinds of combs and silver tongs, and delicate
hair-oils, and the rest of the toilette-apparatus
which the late Sir Charles Napier of India did
not conceive an absolute necessity of life, though
any valet could have told him better. It was this
hair— or rather the head and its noble appearance
— that fascinated Arabella Kinglington, and eventually turned her into Arabella Halgover. She
got into her own head a notion that Maurice was a
great creature. He was really only a big creature,
but lady language is like the new Government
rifles, any lock fits to any stock, and any stock
fits to any barrel, and lady adjectives are especially famous for easily sticking.
Arabella married him, and still preserved her
romance of his greatness. They loved, and lived
together, or whatever the song says, for ever so
many years, four or five, and Arabella continued
to reverence her great creature. She would
actually sit and look admiringly at him, in evenings, an unheard-of matrimonial feat, and what
she spent in having him painted, and photographed, and sketched, and busted, nobody knows.
Maurice was stuck up in every corner of the house,
besides being hung over the fire-places, and shut
up in cases on the tables, and perched on a pedestal
in the conservatory, and profiled in medallion in
the library. Every mode in which the head which
looked like Somebody could be perpetuated, was
tried by the faithful Arabella. She certainly rather
bored her friends with her superfluous laudation of
Maurice’s attractions, but it was a very pleasant sight to see her admiration and fondness, and
nobody but he who grew spiteful at the happiness
of Eden, or one of his children, would have wished
to disturb so harmless and, I may say, virtuous a
state of things.
Nevertheless, such a demon there was.
Mind, this is not a tale of seduction, or anything of that sort; and, so, if this explanation
makes the story too flat for the readers of the
novels of the day, they had best go on to the next
article.
“I cannot stand it,” said Osprey Hawke, on the
steps of the Reform Club, Pall Mall (he is not a
member, you need not get the list “to see whom
that’s a shy at,” Major), “and something must be
done, Fred. I am — word escaped our reporter —
if, after dinner, she didn’t ask me to step into the
little drawing-room with her, and then, pointing
out her husband’s great head as he leaned over the
back of a chair, chattering rubbish, she didn’t say,
‘Isn’t it statuesque?’ ”
“You had an exceedingly good dinner, and
you are an ungrateful party,” said Fred (who is
a member), going into the club with a disgust
that did him honour.
“I don’t care,” said Hawke, talking to himself.
They say that when you talk to yourself, evil
spirits listen and answer. I don’t know anything about this, but Hawke had hardly spoken
and lit a cigar, preparatory to walking off, when a
gentleman came out of the club, and they got
into conversation. The gentleman gave him a bit
of news.
“Well, he might have told me,” said Hawke,
“considering that I was dining there to-day.”
And having received this deadly injury, he
became more resolved upon his plan, which involved revenge.
The general election was close at hand.
Four days later, Mr. Maurice Halgover and Mr.
Osprey Hawke were together in a private room at
the Blue hotel at Stackleborough.
I alluded in my first line to the black fiend
Ambition. Spare me the necessity of any long
story. Halgover’s ambition, greatly stirred and
fanned by his wife’s admiration, had set him on
entering the House of Commons. The great
creature was sure to make a glorious success.
Mrs. Arabella Halgover had a private conviction
that when the senate beheld that magnificent
head, there would be a general shout to the great
creature to take the reins of Government. She
did not exactly say this, but looked forward to
see a leading article in the Times, beginning,
“Mr. Halgover’s splendid speech last night has
made the man, and saved the state.” It may
come yet — who knows? The Emperor of the
French is thought to have turned out a first-class
General.
The gentleman at the club had arranged the
business (I repeat that there is no petition, so you
need not look so very wise, Major), and Mr. Halgover had placarded Stackleborough, and was now
down to see his intended constituents.
“I am so glad to find you here, old fellow,” said Halgover, greeting Hawke. “Very kind of you to come. How long have you been down?” “Come in, come in,” said Osprey Hawke, rather hastily, drawing his friend into the room and closing the door, which he locked.
“What’s wrong?” said Halgover, startled.
“All’s wrong,” said Hawke. “I have seen some of the leading people here—your men-and I’ve got a telegraph from Lasher.”
“Why,” said Halgover, in trepidation, “he assured me it was all right. I paid”
“Hush! confound you!—and perhaps a Yellow ear at the keyhole. You’ll lose the election.”
“I’d sooner pay”
“Will you be quiet. Listen. There’s only one thing to do to save it, and that of course you won’t do.”
“Go in for the ballot and universal suffrage? Well, you know, I don’t like it; I don’t think it right; but I shouldn’t like to lose, and Arabella would be”
“That’s it, of course. It would break Mrs. Halgover’s heart to see you return crestfallen and humiliated before the world. But then I tell you fairly, the sacrifice is something.”
“Tell me at once.”
“Well, I have this from all your chief friends. The man who stood here last time bilked the electors; did ’em out of their dues, as they think them. His name is poison.”
“But mine’s Halgover.”
“Unfortunately, you are very like him in appearance—luxurious hair, splendid beard and moustache. A rumour has got about that you are the same man, but have come into money and changed your name. The Yellows have some photographs of him, with Halgover alias Swindleton printed under them. If you are seen you are lost. A deputation is coming to urge upon you— and Lasher telegraphs that you are to do it at any price—but you won’t.”
“Won’t—won’t—”
“Shave. Get a bald head, take away beard and moustaches, and suddenly appear in the town, defying Yellow malice. A pair of high shirt collars, instead of the all-rounder, for they are men of business here, and high collars are somehow connected with respectability, and it’s done. If not, you are lost, the impression once made.”
“But I shall be such a Guy,” stammered the wretched Halgover.
“But you will be member for Stackleborough,” returned the artful Hawke.
Imagine the mental conflict: imagine the yielding: imagine the Blue Barber, and his fatal work.
Mr. Halgover was triumphantly returned. Mr. Lasher had minded his business, and taken care that other people minded theirs. Halgover telegraphed himself to Arabella as at the top of the poll of Stackleborough, but said nothing about the top of his own poll.
“Go in and break it to her,” he said to Osprey Hawke, as they reached Mandeville Crescent, North.
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