Sweet and Twenty (8 page)

“If I hear of a number of corpses littering the streets of Crockett, I shall know where to look for the murderer.”

“Only if they’re Tory corpses. Come along, Tony, back to work. No rest for the wicked.”

“He’s only funning, you know,”
Tony assured the ladies. “It’s the Tories who are wicked, but we’ll show them. And when I go up to London to represent Crockett I will say that Crockett has the prettiest girls in England too, as well as the best craftsmen, right, Hudson?”

“Right, Tony.”
He smiled to see that Sara did not object to having her staggering beauty debased to the level of perfection of Mr. Saunders’s hat. But the other sharp-eyed little filly was laughing behind her prim lips. He winked at her and watched in amusement as she let on not to see it, glancing away quickly and then back at him with a questioning frown.

Aunt Martha’s pursuit of Mr. Fellows as a husband for Sara was by no means abated upon her discovering that he was a fool. In fact, his mentality was exactly suited to Sara’s own. She couldn’t think of anyone else who could tolerate either of them. She could seldom dislodge Lady Monteith from the house in the pursuit, but the girls were always happy to go into town, and Crockett was becoming a very interesting place these days. With all the merchants having so much extra money in their pockets, spirits were lively all over, and any day it was four pence to a groat that one or the other or even both of the candidates would be seen there in the midst of a group, laughing, talking, and shaking hands—usually at some point in the day strolling into the Cat’s Paw for a meal or to stand a round of drinks.

Both candidates and their whippers-in considered themselves on fine terms with the ladies from New Moon, and would stop to chat with them if it was possible, but two days passed without Hudson and Fellows again calling at the house. In the interim, a Tory meeting took place at the Veterans’
Hall, and one of the pieces of news heard in the town later was that the meeting had become rather rough. Mr. Alistair had been pelted with rotten apples, presumably not by Tories. But of course no one had so low opinion of either Tony or Hudson as to feel they were involved in it. It was some local people of the lower classes, and it was disgraceful.

Between visits to Crockett and the surrounding countryside, Hudson and Fellows worked together in an effort to make Fellows conversant with the principles of his party. Having had a Tory father all his life, he had an unfortunate tendency to spout off Tory ideas. Mr. Hudson was worried about the large public meeting to be held at the Town Hall. On the day of the meeting, they stopped at New Moon and were of course asked how the campaign was going.

“We’ve got them on the run,”
Fellows said happily. “You heard about the rout at the Tory meeting? Alistair was
rompéed
entirely. He’ll not get a vote come November first, depend on it. If he was boo’d at a Tory meeting of corn-growers, you may imagine what his chances are tonight, when
my
supporters are out in force.”

“Mr. Alistair said it was the Whigs who threw the apples, Mr. Fellows,”
Sara told him. “I think if your supporters are to be there tonight, you had better both be careful, for it was the Whigs who threw the rotten apples.”

“Nonsense!”
he said indignantly. “It was a
Tory
meeting. What would
my
men have been doing there?”

“The Whigs threw apples at Mr. Alistair, and it was not very nice,”
she insisted, pouting.

“But why should his own men pelt him with apples?”
Lillian asked, with a suspicious eye in Mr. Hudson’s direction. There was a sparkle in his gray eyes as he lifted a brow at her that she did not quite trust.

“Why, the Tories are so stupid they don’t know the difference,”
was Tony’s explanation of the affair.

“It looks as if it might be a rough meeting tonight,”
Lillian said, turning to Mr. Hudson, who had seated himself beside her upon entering, a mark of distinction both noticed and felt by her.

“I look forward to a lively débacle,”
he said with a conspiratorial smile, and then, speaking in a low voice, presumably to spare Tony, “Rotten eggs, cat-calls—the whole cat, in fact, flung in his face.”

“There were dead cats thrown in the West Riding. Disgusting! Will it be likely to happen here?”

“I consider it almost inevitable. Keep a sharp eye on your domestic brindle or she’ll end up on Alistair’s—or Fellows’s—shoulders.”

“Mr. Fellows won’t stick it, Mr. Hudson. He
stands too high on his dignity for such rough treatment.”

“He
looks forward to
the honor. I have prepared him.”

“No, not even you could accomplish that.”

“You have a low opinion of my powers of persuasion, ma’am. Listen to him; he’s giving your aunt my lecture now. Please allow for its mangling at his hands.”

They both looked toward Mr. Fellows, who was holding forth in his resonant voice. “It will be rough going tonight, but politics is for men, not boys. You can always expect to come in for abuse when you stand up for something. The bishop of London, Lord Castlereagh and all the outstanding men of the times were abused and vilified during the Corn Riots. Their windows were broken and mud and stones were flung at them in the streets. Even the Prince of Wales knows well enough how it is—he dare not go in the streets for fear of being pelted with garbage. I will be in good company. But I will take it all with dignity.”

Lillian turned to Hudson with a sapient eye. “What is the
dignified
way to take a dead cat being thrown at you?”
she asked.

“It involves a deal of ducking and dodging.”

“It sounds monstrously dignified. Your Mr. Fellows is not noticeably light-footed. You may have talked him into accepting it mentally, but what will happen when he is faced with the reality of it? He’ll cry craven and bolt on you, Mr. Hudson. Depend on it.”

“I’ll reinforce him with another bout of lectures before we go and circulate some fellows amongst the audience to lift any suspicious brown bags they see. I have half a dozen flash culls from the east side of London arrived today.”

"What on earth are flash culls?”
she demanded.

“Petty criminals,”
he answered, unmoved. “Excellent for this sort of work, and it keeps them out of real mischief. Mind you, there’s one in the bunch is on the ken lay—ah—a housebreaker, in genteel parlance. Have an eye to your silver and jewelry for the next few days.”

“You employ common criminals in your work?”
she gasped.

“Shh!”
he said with a nervous glance at the rest of the group. “Let them recover from my corruption before they hear of this. They are not really bad fellows at all, I assure you. I find them totally reliable. There was a list of names I absolutely had to get hold of at the last general election, and my own best efforts at burgling the gent’s room came to nought, so in desperation I hired a gallows-bird . . . oh dear, I’ve lost you again. I hired a pickpocket to filch it from the man’s pocket for me. He put me in touch with a few other flash culls and I find their skills very useful.”

“Upon my word, you are shameless!”
she said, but in a low voice, to help him conceal his conduct.

“You wrong me. I am very much ashamed of myself,”
he answered her with mock humility.

“You said it would be a clean campaign!”

“And so it will be. Throwing dead cats, you must admit, is not a gentlemanly thing to do.”

“I suppose you had nothing to do with the rotten apples that littered the stage of the Veterans’
Hall after last night.”

“I heard something about that ...”

“Yes, before it happened, I haven’t a doubt.”

“I did happen to hear Farmer Squibb had a barrel of windfalls that were going bad on him. I hate to see good food wasted, don’t you?”

“Especially at election time! There is another hundred pounds from the Whig coffers down the drain.”

“No, on the platform at the Veterans’
Hall. And he let me have them for twenty-five pounds. But we couldn’t—didn’t—catch any cats.”

She stared at him open-mouthed.

He laughed aloud. “I only said it to shock you. I never have dead cats thrown, for my mama was used to be fond of them. Rats occasionally, but…”

“Oh, that’s worse than cats!”

“Killing them is not worse. Everyone hates rats, and it is usually considered a benevolent act to dispose of them. Don’t tell me you like them?”

“Of course I don’t like them! Nobody does, but that’s no reason . . . Oh, you should be in chains and fetters, Mr. Hudson.”

“I have an excellent picklock in my retinue, if that contingency should arise.”

“As you never at
point non plus?”

“I must confess I very nearly was yesterday. You’ll never guess what little trick Tony played on me.”

“What?”
she asked, smiling in anticipation.

“Do you happen to recall our mentioning the other day a certain Sir John Sinclair, who is bankrolling the Tory campaign almost singlehanded?”

“Yes, the one who is going to build the bridge.”

“Oh no, he isn’t! But that is the one I mean all right. I was driving in all my naive innocence to strut Tony before a few scattered houses in the countryside, and he tells me he has a good friend at Ashley Hall—a fine old place, and the dame apparently on terms with him, so we stopped off to make ourselves agreeable, and who should live there but Sir John Sinclair! I thought he’d pull a gun from the wall and shoot us off the premises. He was livid, and who shall blame him! Can you see Alistair and Reising blundering into Allingham’s place? But I blame myself entirely. I ought to have questioned him more closely as to the identity of the mysterious Lady Marie. Her being an earl’s daughter and not using the title Lady Sinclair led me astray. She was once a flirt of Tony’s, if I have the story straight. And what a woman she is—fat and ugly. I
was
at
point non plus.
You would have enjoyed to see me.”

“What on earth did you say?”

“I asked for directions to the next farm, Wetterings. I let on we had lost our way, but old Sinclair didn’t know what to make of it and thought we were up to something devious. With Tony simpering at Lady Marie and generally making an ass of himself, I believe he thought we went there bent on flirtation. I heard him lighting into her before we were out the door. Lord, what a day! Well, you learn something new in each campaign.”

“What have you learned in this one?”
she asked, laughing in glee at his having been discomposed for once.

“That lovemaking and campaigning are a poor mix.”

“You’ll have to shorten Fellows’s rein.”

“Yes, I’ll have to keep an eye on him, too.”

She looked startled at his last words, but refused to dwell on them. “So you received your comeuppance for once. I am glad to hear it.”

“Yes, but if I succeed in getting Tony a set of letters after his name I’ll be so set up in my own conceit there will be no bearing me.”

“You are just about intolerable now.”

“I know it well, and I want to tell you I appreciate your forbearance. I am not always so shamefully employed as you find me at the present moment. I am also a sometime estate manager, and I take very good care of my tenants and other dependents.”

Lillian listened to this with interest, and was eager to hear what new attributes Mr. Hudson would acquire when her Aunt Martha was apprised of it. “I won’t inquire how you go about it,”
she said.

“You would be amazed to hear how well they take to my overbearing ways. I haven’t an enemy amongst the lot of them.”

“They wouldn’t last long if they were enemies. You’d whip them into line.”

“I
am
the party whip, as well as Tony’s whipper-in. His own particular brand of appellation, I might add. I don’t think he quite understands the difference between my being a whip and a campaign manager on the side.”

“You’re a devil, is what you are. Utterly incorrigible.”

“Possibly, but don’t stop trying to correct me. I enjoy your lectures tremendously.

“I waste my breath, and I know it.”

“Every golden syllable is heard.”

“But not heeded.”

“Remember the repressive Tories and the Luddite riots. And remember too to say a prayer for us tonight. We’ll need it.”

“I wish I could be at that meeting myself. A pity I hadn’t that beard and trousers you spoke of the other day. But then election promises are writ on water.”

“I wish I could take you. It will be too late to stop in afterward and describe it to you. We go on to the Cat’s Paw to throw a shindig.”

“More bribery—buying drinks for everyone.”

“We’ll stop by the next morning if you are really curious to hear how it goes.”

“I am,”
she assured him. “I mean, we all are. Have you written Mr. Fellows’s speech for him?”
The pretense at collaboration was over.

“I’m in a dilemma. If I make him memorize a speech, he puts everyone to sleep with his dull way of rattling it off, with no pauses or emphasis or anything. He could put you to sleep reciting the most intriguing pornography. Well, I dozed off last night in the middle of
Les Crimes de l’Amour,
which he was reading to me . . .”

“Mr. Hudson! That is not a proper book for either of you to be reading.”

“How do you know, Miss Watters, if you have not been dipping into the Marquis de Sade yourself?”

“I have not! But you said it was pornography!”

“It’s
serious
pornography,”
he assured her, with a grave face and a mischievous eye. “But about my dilemma. Memorizing the speech is no good, and I have good reason to know that questions from the floor are fatal; Fellows turns Tory on me in mid-sentence. I’ve made up sheets of points to be made under various headings and I fervently hope that does the trick. Have you anything to suggest?”

She looked at Fellows, who was expatiating at length on the meal he had eaten at the Cat’s Paw. “A wonderful saddle of mutton we had—tough as white leather, and the potatoes boiled to a pulp. I had heartburn all evening long.”

“Only think if he had had a
good
meal!”
Lillian said to Hudson.