Sweet and Twenty Read online

  “Manners enough that I shan’t flirt with Mr. Fellows. Unless he should prove to be handsome, of course.”

  Martha gave up and decided that if worse came to worst, Lillian should marry Fellows and be put in charge of finding Sara a different husband.

  The four ladies called on Mr. Fellows early the next morning. Martha was busy pointing out the advantages of his estate as they went along: stonework in good repair, at least twenty bedrooms in that house if she knew anything, and the shrubberies neatly trimmed. She was similarly pleased with the interior of her niece’s future home. Good taste was displayed in the fine old furnishings and, of far more importance in her view, there was no dust or dirt in evidence, but a pleasing smell of beeswax and turpentine hanging on the air, indicating the work of a well-ordered staff.

  Martha was, of course, interested to see the groom above all, and to determine that he didn’t wear high shirt-points or use a scent. His plain blue jacket proved acceptable, and his faun trousers and Hessians received an approving nod, on account of their not being buckskins and topboots in which to receive a visit from ladies. Her hypercritical eyes scarcely saw that he was a well-set-up gentleman with a passing handsome face. He was either too polite or lacking in interest to inquire the reason for the visit, but accepted it as though it were a commonplace.

  For ten minutes the five sat conversing about the weather and straightening out the relationship in which the four visitors stood to each other. Lillian found it odd that the gentleman’s eyes should not more often stray to Sara, she was so exquisitely beautiful; and as she had not yet said more than good day, he could not know she was a fool. But he paid neither young girl any special heed.

  It became clear that his mind was greatly occupied with some other matter than his callers, and Mr. Fellows, at last allowed his preoccupation to come out. “I have been asked to stand for Parliament,” he said.

  “Fancy that!” Lady Monteith rhapsodized.

  “What party?” Martha rapped out suspiciously.

  “Oh, for the Whigs,” he said, on the defense. Sir Gerald had been a Tory, a cause of enmity between them when he himself had switched a few years ago. Martha too had once been a Tory, but she never liked to agree with her family on anything, and for that and other reasons had become a Whig within the recent past. She smiled in satisfaction at his answer, not that it was a matter of great importance one way or the other.

  Mr. Fellows then launched into a political monologue, secure that he was among friends. “After looking into the matter, I concluded the country’s only hope of salvation lies with the Whigs. As Lord Allingham was saying the other night, till we drive those reactionary Tories from the seats of power, there is no hope for England. It was Lord Allingham who convinced me it was my duty to run. A man has a duty beyond his own back yard. He and Basingstoke between them talked me into it, that is to say, for certainly Mr. Basingstoke is a very well-educated gentleman, even though he hasn’t a title.”

  “Being educated surely is part and parcel of being a gentleman,” Martha pointed out. Even a prospective groom was subject to her little moralizings.

  “Yes,” Mr. Fellows agreed, very briefly for him, and he looked uncomfortable.

  “It is not time for a general election, is it?” Lillian asked. She did not happen to be keenly interested in politics, but could not believe a general election had been called without her having heard of it.

  “No, it is only a by-election. Our incumbent, a Tory, died; the Rt. Honorable James Farrington passed away a fortnight ago. You would have heard of it, Lady Monteith.” He turned to his neighbor.

  “I don’t believe I did,” she answered, and wondered that he didn’t offer them a glass of wine or a cup of tea. However, this lapse on the host’s part was soon remedied, and with a plateful of biscuits and a glass of wine before her, Lady Monteith retired from the conversation.

  “So you will be busy politicking the next month or so?” Martha questioned, wondering if this would interfere with his wooing of Sara, at whom he had scarcely bothered to glance the past while.

  “Lord Allingham is giving me a hand with my campaign. A Mr. Hudson is being sent down from London to manage it. He is very influential in the party, though not actually an elected member. He is a sort of party manager—a whip, Allingham called. him. Basingstoke was saying he got our man in in some little borough or other—I forget the name—that was always Tory before. They always send a Tory here from Crockett too, but Hudson will whip me in. There is a wind of change in the country, I think, after the war, with the veterans coming back and being treated like dogs. The next general election may see a changeover from the repressive party that has been riding roughshod over this country the last years.”

  “Back to the days of Fox, eh, Mr. Fellows?” Martha said with a rare polite interest. “That’s the spirit.”

  “Aye, Lord Allingham was mentioning something about Fox the other evening. What an orator the man was! He could talk for hours and sway the entire Parliament. I daresay he was a well-educated gentleman.”

  “What are the issues on which you will fight the campaign?” Martha asked. She would have preferred to speak of balls and drives and pleasure outings, but Mr. Fellows seemed to be bent on business.

  He looked a little startled. “Why, against the repressive and reactionary measures of the Tories,” he said.

  “Yes, but what measures?”

  “Oh, you ladies are not interested in politics, I daresay,” he told her with condescension. “Basingstoke said something about getting some road or other surfaced, and a bridge over the Severn River. It is very awkward not having a bridge to Chepstow, the town just north of us across the river. There is only that blasted barge now, or driving ten miles to take the Lydney Bridge. It is certainly a disgrace that we have no bridge at Crockett.”

  “Would it not be the Tory member, the member of the party in power, who could deliver that?” Lillian inquired.

  She was not surprised at his answer, for she had been beginning to suspect it was the repressive Tories who had been depriving them of it all these years. "The Tories, you know, always repress any liberal policy that will help the common people,” she was told. “Much they care in London that we have to trust our nags to Jed Harper’s old barge to get to Chepstow, or ride the ten miles to Lydney. If elected, I will certainly do all within my power to get a bridge for the town of Crockett.”

  “If the Tory member who just died couldn’t: get it, Mr. Fellows, how would you go about it?” Martha asked.

  “I would do all in my power to get it. Basingstoke says he will speak to Hudson and see if something can’t be done about it. Well, it seems to me you ladies are more interested in politics than most females, and as you are all Whigs, I hope you will put in a good word for me, if the opportunity should arise.”

  Lillian found herself waiting to hear Lord Allingham’s views on women and politics, but they were not offered. Martha, no slouch in summing up the host, decided he was not yet in love with Sara, and to hasten the affair along, she said, “We will be happy to do what we can to help you, Mr. Fellows. Be sure to give us a call if you need us. Writing letters or doing any little jobs of a routine sort that might eat up your valuable time will be a pleasure for us. We are all interested in seeing the Whigs win.”

  Lady Monteith, whose husband hated the Whigs nearly as much as he hated the French, nodded her head in approval. She found the whole conversation incomprehensible, as did her beautiful daughter.

  “What is a Whig?” Sara asked.

  “He is a man who is liberal-minded,” Mr. Fellows told her, which did nothing to enlighten her. She wanted to inquire what was liberal-minded, and what was an election, but her aunt was frowning at her, so she desisted. It sounded interesting if it meant a bridge to Chepstow, for the shops there were much larger and better than at Crockett.

  “I’m glad you didn’t ask me what is a Tory!” Mr. Fellows proclaimed—meaning, of course, why don’t you?

  “Wh
at is your definition of a Tory?” Lillian asked, curious to hear Lord Allingham’s view.

  “A Tory is a Conservative. He would conserve power and money to himself, principles to the Whigs, and hard work and poverty to the people,” he said with a satisfied smile.

  “Very good, Mr. Fellows,” Martha congratulated him.

  “Mr. Basingstoke goes on to suggest that a Tory is a man who has not yet seen the light and become a Whig, but Allingham tells me not to say so, for though Fox came to us from the Tory camp, Castlereagh went the other way, from Whig to Tory. Indeed, they all switch about a good deal. My father was a Tory and so was I myself before I saw the light, but I never ran as a Tory. Basingstoke says that is in my favor—not to have shown my colors before. He is long-headed as may be, Basingstoke. He went to Oxford and took a degree.”

  There seemed little hope of romance from a gentleman whose head was so obviously full of politics and his patrons, so the ladies took their leave, urging him half a dozen times to call on them at New Moon.

  “I will certainly avail myself of your kind offer, ladies,” he said, and escorted them to the door. Already a politician, he had a smile for them all, and at the end a special glance in recognition of Sara’s beauty. He blinked at her and then looked in admiration for a full thirty seconds. It was odd it had taken him so long to recognize her as an Incomparable, but certain among the ladies already doubted he was a needle-witted man, and thought that with a nudge he might find himself in love with Sara.

  They drove home to consider further plans to entrap him. It was the elder Miss Monteith who hit on the idea of taking an active part in the campaign. They would hold a tea party to help him along, and invite all the local ladies whose husbands, sons or brothers had a vote and any of the gentlemen who were free to attend. Mr. Fellows would be present to tell them about the repression of the Tories, and to give them a definition of just what a Whig was anyway.

  Martha declared that his being a bachelor was bound to bring out every mother with a daughter to dispose of, and that his engagement to Sara must not be announced till after he was elected. Lillian did not feel this would present any pressing problem, but like a dutiful niece she kept her opinion to herself and let on she had found him “conversable,” which was the strange epithet Martha came up with to describe his speeches.

  Chapter 3

  The household at New Moon was delighted to receive an invitation to dinner at St. Christopher’s Abbey the very next day. It was accepted eagerly, the party to meet at six. To sustain themselves for what promised to be a late dinner, they had tea late and set out shortly after 5:30.

  They assumed it was to be a regular dinner party, and Martha and Lillian were looking forward to meeting Lord Allingham and Mr. Basingstoke among the required extra gentlemen. Certainty Lady Monteith hadn’t an idea who might be on visiting terms with her next-door neighbor. But when they were shown into his saloon, there was only one other gentleman present, and he was a stranger to them all.

  Mr. Hudson was first taken to be an elderly gentleman, for he had gray wings at the temples of his dark hair, but upon closer inspection he was seen to be neither lined nor hagged, and his age was set as being no more than in the early thirties. It was clear at a glance he was no country squire. The sleek barbering of his hair, the lines of his black jacket and his easy manners proclaimed a metropolitan gentleman of fashion.

  The elder Miss Monteith quickly pegged him as a “smart” or “swell,” while Miss Watters noted with interest that there was present on his countenance a quick change of expression, a sensitiveness, an intelligence that made her hope the conversation under Mr. Fellows’s roof might be improved from her last visit. Sara thought he looked divinely handsome but was quite likely of that breed that asked hard questions.

  They were all made acquainted, and Sara didn’t know whether she was gratified or terrified when Mr. Hudson appeared at some little pains to gain a seat beside her. His first question did not prove impossible of replying to with dignity. She knew very well she lived at New Moon, and how far away it was. She was able to verify such details as her father’s death a year previously and her aunt and cousin visiting them from Yorkshire without wrinkling her brow.

  She was less easy when he inquired what she felt Mr. Fellows’s chances to be in the election, but she said at least that she hoped he would win, for she did want to see a bridge between Crockett and Chepstow, and the Tories wouldn’t let them have one. She was truly at a loss when he asked whether all the girls at Crockett were as pretty as herself, but she knew it for a compliment, and colored up so prettily that Mr. Hudson accepted a second glass of sherry and leaned back in his chair with satisfaction to pass the time till dinner in her company.

  This left Mr. Fellows to entertain the three other ladies, and he did so by telling them that Mr. Hudson was going to be an excellent whipper-in. “He is very strict, mind you,” he told them. “We want to run a good, clean campaign. No smear tactics. It will be fought on principles and issues.”

  Indeed, Mr. Hudson’s appearance gave no reason to doubt this. With his dignified gray hair, his face of a noble cast, and his serious expression, he looked a perfect judge. How should they know that he was teasing the life out of Sara, and telling her that when she walked through the door he had thought she was an angel come to earth to guide Fellows to victory? They took her squirming embarrassment to be the result of hard questions—those of them who paid any attention at all to her.

  But Mr. Fellows was still Martha’s first priority, and she turned to speak to him. “It may begin that way,” she said, “but it has been my experience in the past that sooner or later you will both end up sinking into argumentum ad hominem tactics. It happened in the West Riding at the last election. They accused our Whig of being an atheist.”

  Mr. Fellows looked aghast. He had never expected such a low trick from a female as spouting Latin at him. His gentlemen acquaintances he knew to be sadly addicted to this vice, especially those who had been to university. He never had himself. He had twice applied to Oxford and been twice rejected as inadequately prepared, despite years of tutoring and study. He felt this deficiency of formal education in his background very strongly. It was his ardent desire to be taken for an Oxford man, and to this end he introduced every break-teeth word he knew

  into his discourse, and even had a dozen Latin quotations ready to use, but argumentum ad hominem was not one of them. He was lost.

  “Do you think so?” he asked, hoping for enlightenment.

  “It always happens,” Miss Monteith replied unhelpfully.

  He looked nervously across the room to his manager. There was a fellow who would know exactly what she was talking about. “What do you have to say to this, Mr. Hudson?” he asked.

  Mr. Hudson looked up and asked for the question again. He had spent a wearying afternoon with his new acquaintance, and after having mentioned that money was a sine qua non to winning, and having had to explain this, he deduced the problem as soon as he heard the question.

  “I hope you may be wrong, Miss Monteith,” he said. “I hope it does not come down to an ad hominem campaign—our two candidates making charges of a personal and abusive nature against each other. We hope to keep the tone higher than that, but should that be the case, I don’t think we need fear. Mr. Fellows has nothing to hide. He has never done anything. Anything wrong I mean,” he added quickly, seeing what had accidentally slipped out. It was in fact a pity Mr. Fellows had never done anything right either—never done a single thing for the community at large. Never headed a single committee or set up a petition or even put his signature to one. He feared that despite Mr. Fellows’s being one of the best-off people in the neighborhood, he had kept very much to himself and did not have a large circle of friends and supporters to fall back on. It seemed hard that the party had saddled him with such an unpopular man in this difficult riding.

  He foresaw many difficulties in putting this handsome dummy up for election, but overcoming difficul
ties was his job, so he was not despondent about pulling the thing off. He had hoped to get down to business tonight with Basingstoke and Allingham and give Fellows a good briefing—of which he clearly stood is need—and so had welcomed the idea of a dinner party where he could meet some local worthies and feel them out on the issues.

  Instead, the party consisted of themselves and four females. Not one vote in the party, except for Fellows himself. He didn’t know what Fellows was about to waste a whole evening, but once he was fairly caught in the toils, it was too late to do anything, and Hudson hoped to pass the time with a little flirtation with the fair charmer on his left. She was a stunning-looking creature, but seemed stunned as well, alas. One could admire a pretty doll for only so long, and he had about had his fill of looking.

  “We certainly need not fear an ad hominem campaign,” Mr. Fellows assured them all, storing up the phrase eagerly to add to his list. “If Alistair sinks to that, people are bound to hear about his prison record.”

  Mr. Hudson started from his seat in surprise and delight. For hours together that afternoon he had been trying to discover something about Alistair, the Conservative candidate, and had gained nothing but that he was a bruising rider to hounds and kept a good cellar. He had been heartily wishing it were Alistair he had been running. And now, out of the blue, to hear the man had a prison record. It was manna from heaven.

  “You told me nothing about that, Mr. Fellows! What is his record?”

  “Why, it was young Alistair who was on the committee to look into conditions at Dartmoor, that prison they set up at Prince Town for the French captives from the war, and he made a botch of it. They said—Allingham mentioned it—that it took them so long to look into it the war was over before they sent their report, and then there was nothing in it.”

  Hudson stared at him. “You mean he worked on a commission to look into prison conditions? That is his prison record?”