Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 2.pdf/36

 accompanying me into Brocksopp, Mr. Benthall; but I shall be obliged if you will give me five minutes' conversation—I will not detain you longer—in the library."

Mr. Benthall, muttering that he should be delighted, rose from his chair and opened the door for his hostess to pass out; before he followed her he turned round to glance at the girls, and again Gertrude's fresh rosy lips pressed themselves together and then opened for the silent expression of the word "Row," but he took no notice of this cabalistic sign beyond nodding his head in a reassuring manner, and then followed Mrs. Creswell to the library.

"Pray be seated, Mr. Benthall," said Marian, dropping into a chair at the writing-table, and commencing to sketch vaguely on the blotting-book with a dry pen; "the news you told me just now has come upon me quite unexpectedly. I had no idea—looking at your intimacy in this house—intimacy which, as far as I know, has continued uninterruptedly to the present moment—no idea that you could have been going to act against us at so serious a crisis as the present."

Mr. Benthall did not like Mrs. Creswell, but he was a man of the world, and he could not avoid admiring the delicious insolence of the tone of voice which lent additional relish to the insolence of the statement, that he had continued to avail himself of their hospitality, while intending to requite it with opposition. He merely said, however, "The fault is not mine, Mrs. Creswell, as I have before said; immediately on the announcement of the contest, and of Mr. Creswell's coming forward as the Conservative candidate, I went straight to him and told him I was not a free agent in the matter. I labour under the misfortune—and it is one for which I know I shall receive no sympathy in this part of the country, for people, however good-hearted they may be, cannot pity where they cannot understand—I labour under the misfortune of coming of an old family, having had people before me who for years and years have held to Liberal opinions in fair weather and foul weather, now profiting by it, now losing most confoundedly, but never veering a hair's breadth for an instant. In those opinions I was brought up, and in those opinions I shall die; they may be wrong, I don't say they are not; I've not much time, or opportunity, or inclination, for the matter or that, for going very deeply into the question. I've taken it for granted, on the strength of the recommendation of wiser heads than mine; more than all, on the fact of their being the family opinions, held by the family time out of mind. I'm excessively sorry that in this instance those opinions clash with those held by a gentleman who is so thoroughly deserving of all respect as Mr. Creswell, and from whom I have received so many proofs of friendship and kindness. Just now it is especially provoking for me to be thrown into antagonism to him in any way, because—however, that's neither here nor there. I dare say I shall have to run counter to several of my friends hereabouts, but there is no one the opposition to whom will concern me so much as Mr. Creswell. However, as I've said before, it is a question of sticking to the family principles, and in one sense to the family honour, and—so there's nothing else to be done."

Marian sat quietly for a minute, before she said, "Not having had the honour of belonging to an old family so extensively stocked with traditions, not even having married into one, I am perhaps scarcely able to understand your position, Mr. Benthall. But it occurs to me that 'progress' is a word which I have heard not unfrequently mentioned in connexion with the principles for the support of which you seem prepared to go to the stake, and it seems to me an impossible word to be used by those who maintain a set of political opinions simply because they received them from their ancestors."

"Oh, of course it is not merely that! Of course I myself hold and believe in them!"

"Sufficiently to let that belief influence your actions at a rather important period of your life? See here, Mr. Benthall; it happens to be my wish, my very strong wish, that my husband should be returned for Brocksopp at this election. I do not hide from myself that his return is by no means certain, that it is necessary that every vote should be secured. Now, there are certain farmers, holding land in oonnexion with the charity under which the school was founded—there is no intended harm in my use of the word, for my father was paid out of it as well as you, remember—farmers who, holding the charity land, look to the master of the school, with an odd kind of loyalty, as their head, and, in such matters as an election, would, I imagine, come to him for advice how to act. Am I right?"

"Perfectly right."

"You know this by experience? They have been to you?"