Chapter XXXVIII
C'est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les
actions humaines; tot ou tard il devient efficace. — GUIZOT.
Sir James Chettam could not look with any satisfaction
on Mr. Brooke's new courses; but it was easier to object
than to hinder. Sir James accounted for his having come in
alone one day to lunch with the Cadwalladers by saying —
"I can't talk to you as I want, before Celia: it might
hurt her. Indeed, it would not be right."
"I know what you mean — the `Pioneer' at the Grange!"
darted in Mrs. Cadwallader, almost before the last word was
off her friend's tongue. "It is frightful — this taking to
buying whistles and blowing them in everybody's hearing.
Lying in bed all day and playing at dominoes, like poor Lord
Plessy, would be more private and bearable."
"I see they are beginning to attack our friend Brooke in
the 'Trumpet,"' said the Rector, lounging back and smiling
easily, as he would have done if he had been attacked
himself. " There are tremendous sarcasms against a landlord
not a hundred miles from Middlemarch, who receives his own
rents, and makes no returns."
"I do wish Brooke would leave that off," said Sir James,
with his little frown of annoyance.
"Is he really going to be put in nomination, though?"
said Mr. Cadwallader. " I saw Farebrother yesterday — he's
Whiggish himself, hoists Brougham and Useful Knowledge;
that's the worst I know of him; — and he says that Brooke is
getting up a pretty strong party. Bulstrode, the banker, is
his foremost man. But he thinks Brooke would come off badly
at a nomination."
"Exactly," said Sir James, with earnestness. " I have
been inquiring into the thing, for I've never known anything
about Middlemarch polities before — the county being my
business.
What Brooke trusts to, is that they are
going to turn out Oliver because he is a Peelite. But
Hawley tells me that if they send up a Whig at all it is
sure to be Bagster, one of those candidates who come from
heaven knows where, but dead against Ministers, and an
experienced Parliamentary man. Hawley's rather rough: he
forgot that he was speaking to me. He said if Brooke wanted
a pelting, he could get it cheaper than by going to the
hustings."
"I warned you all of it," said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving
her hands outward. "I said to Humphrey long ago, Mr. Brooke
is going to make a splash in the mud. And now he has done
it."
"Well, he might have taken it into his head to marry,"
said the Rector. "That would have been a graver mess than a
little flirtation with politics."
"He may do that afterwards," said Mrs.
Cadwallader — "when he has come out on the other side of the
mud with an ague."
"What I care for most is his own dignity," said Sir
James. " Of course I care the more because of the family.
But he's getting on in life now, and I don't like to think
of his exposing himself. They will be raking up everything
against him."
"I suppose it's no use trying any persuasion," said the
Rector. "There's such an odd mixture of obstinacy and
changeableness in Brooke. Have you tried him on the
subject?"
"Well, no," said Sir James; " I feel a delicacy in
appearing to dictate. But I have been talking to this young
Ladislaw that Brooke is making a factotum of. Ladislaw
seems clever enough for anything. I thought it as well to
hear what he had to say; and he is against Brooke's standing
this time. I think he'll turn him round: I think the
nomination may be staved off."
"I know," said Mrs. Cadwallader, nodding. "The
independent member hasn't got his speeches well enough by
heart."
"But this Ladislaw — there again is a vexatious
business," said Sir James. " We have had him two or three
times to dine at the Hall (you have met him, by the bye) as
Brooke's guest and a relation of Casaubon's, thinking he was
only on a
flying visit. And now I find he's in
everybody's mouth in Middlemarch as the editor of the '
Pioneer.' There are stories going about him as a
quill-driving alien, a foreign emissary, and what not."
"Casaubon won't like that," said the Rector.
"There is some foreign blood in Ladislaw," returned
Sir James. " I hope he won't go into extreme opinions and
carry Brooke on."
"Oh, he's a dangerous young sprig, that Mr. Ladislaw,"
said Mrs. Cadwallader, " with his opera songs and his ready
tongue. A sort of Byronic hero — an amorous conspirator, it
strikes me. And Thomas Aquinas is not fond of him. I could
see that, the day the picture was brought."
"I don't like to begin on the subject with Casaubon,"
said Sir James. "He has more right to interfere than I.
But it's a disagreeable affair all round. What a character
for anybody with decent connections to show himself in! — one
of those newspaper fellows! You have only to look at Keck,
who manages the ' Trumpet.' I saw him the other day with
Hawley. His writing is sound enough, I believe, but he's
such a low fellow, that I wished he had been on the wrong
side."
"What can you expect with these peddling Middlemarch
papers?" said the Rector. "I don't suppose you could get a
high style of man anywhere to be writing up interests he
doesn't really care about, and for pay that hardly keeps him
in at elbows."
"Exactly: that makes it so annoying that Brooke should
have put a man who has a sort of connection with the family
in a position of that kind. For my part, I think Ladislaw
is rather a fool for accepting."
"It is Aquinas's fault," said Mrs. Cadwallader. " Why
didn't he use his interest to get Ladislaw made an
attache or sent to India? That is how families get rid
of troublesome sprigs."
"There is no knowing to what lengths the mischief may
go," said Sir James, anxiously. "But if Casaubon says
nothing, what can I do?"
"Oh my dear Sir James," said the Rector, "don't let us
make too much of all this. It is likely enough to end in
mere smoke. After a month or two Brooke and this Master
Ladislaw will get tired of each other; Ladislaw will take
wing; Brooke will sell the `Pioneer,' and everything will
settle down again as usual."
"There is one good chance — that he will not like to feel
his money oozing away," said Mrs. Cadwallader. " If I knew
the items of election expenses I could scare him. It's no
use plying him with wide words like Expenditure: I wouldn't
talk of phlebotomy, I would empty a pot of leeches upon him.
What we good stingy people don't like, is having our six.
pences sucked away from us."
"And he will not like having things raked up against
him," said Sir James. " There is the management of his
estate. they have begun upon that already. And it really
is painful for me to see. It is a nuisance under one's very
nose. I do think one is bound to do the best for one's land
and tenants, especially in these hard times."
"Perhaps the ' Trumpet ' may rouse him to make a change,
and some good may come of it all," said the Rector. " I
know I should be glad. I should hear less grumbling when my
tithe is paid. I don't know what I should do if there were
not a modus in Tipton."
"I want him to have a proper man to look after things — I
want him to take on Garth again," said Sir James. " He got
rid of Garth twelve years ago, and everything has been going
wrong since. I think of getting Garth to-manage for me — he
has made such a capital plan for my buildings; and Love.
good is hardly up to the mark. But Garth would not
undertake the Tipton estate again unless Brooke left it
entirely to him."
"In the right of it too," said the Rector. "Garth is an
independent fellow: an original, simple-minded fellow. One
day, when he was doing some valuation for me, he told me
point-blank that clergymen seldom understood anything about
business, and did mischief when they meddled; but he said it
as quietly and respectfully as if he had been talking to me
about sailors. He would make a different parish of
Tipton, if Brooke would let him manage. I wish, by the help
of the `Trumpet,' you could bring that round."
"If Dorothea had kept near her uncle, there would have
been some chance," said Sir James. "She might have got some
power over him in time, and she was always uneasy about the
estate. She had wonderfully good notions about such things.
But now Casaubon takes her up entirely. Celia complains a
good deal. We can hardly get her to dine with us, since he
had that fit." Sir James ended with a look of pitying
disgust, and Mrs. Cadwallader shrugged her shoulders as much
as to say that she was not likely to see anything new in
that direction.
"Poor Casaubon!" the Rector said. "That was a nasty
attack. I thought he looked shattered the other day at the
Archdeacon's."
"In point of fact," resumed Sir James, not choosing to
dwell on " fits," " Brooke doesn't mean badly by his tenants
or any one else, but he has got that way of paring and
clipping at expenses."
"Come, that's a blessing," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "
That helps him to find himself in a morning. He may not
know his own opinions, but he does know his own pocket."
"I don't believe a man is in pocket by stinginess on his
land," said Sir James.
"Oh, stinginess may be abused like other virtues: it
will not do to keep one's own pigs lean," said Mrs.
Cadwallader, who had risen to look out of the window. "But
talk of an independent politician and he will appear."
"What! Brooke?" said her husband.
"Yes. Now, you ply him with the 'Trumpet,' Humphrey;
and I will put the leeches on him. What will you do, Sir
James?"
"The fact is, I don't like to begin about it with
Brooke, in our mutual position; the whole thing is so
unpleasant. I do wish people would behave like gentlemen,''
said the good baronet, feeling that this was a simple and
comprehensive programme for social well-being.
"Here you all are, eh?" said Mr. Brooke, shuffling round
and shaking hands. "I was going up to the Hall by-and-by,
Chettam. But it's pleasant to find everybody, you know.
Well, what do you think of things? — going on a little fast!
It was true enough, what Lafitte said — ' Since yesterday, a
century has passed away: ' — they're in the next century, you
know, on the other side of the water. Going on faster than
we are."
"Why, yes," said the Rector, taking up the newspaper. "
Here is the ' Trumpet ' accusing you of lagging behind — did
you see?"
"Eh? no," said Mr. Brooke, dropping his gloves into his
hat and hastily adjusting his eye-glass. But Mr.
Cadwallader kept the paper in his hand, saying, with a smile
in his eyes —
"Look here! all this is about a landlord not a hundred
miles from Middlemarch, who receives his own rents. They
say he is the most retrogressive man in the county. I think
you must have taught them that word in the 'Pioneer."'
"Oh, that is Keek — an illiterate fellow, you know.
Retrogressive, now! Come, that's capital. He thinks it
means destructive: they want to make me out a destructive,
you know," said Mr. Brooke, with that cheerfulness which is
usually sustained by an adversary's ignorance.
"I think he knows the meaning of the word. Here is a
sharp stroke or two. If we had to describe a man who is
retrogressive in the most evil sense of the word — we should
say, he is one who would dub himself a reformer of our
constitution, while every interest for which he is
immediately responsible is going to decay: a philanthropist
who cannot bear one rogue to be hanged, but does not mind
five honest tenants being half-starved: a man who shrieks at
corruption, and keeps his farms at rack-rent: who roars
himself red at rotten boroughs, and does not mind if every
field on his farms has a rotten gate: a man very
open-hearted to Leeds and Manchester, no doubt; he would
give any number of representatives who will pay for their
seats out of their own pockets: what he objects to giving,
is a little return on rent-days to help a tenant to buy
stock, or an outlay on repairs to keep the weather out at a
tenant's barn-door or make
his house look a little less
like an Irish cottier's. But we all know the wag's
definition of a philanthropist: a man whose charity
increases directly as the square of the distance. And so
on. All the rest is to show what sort of legislator a
philanthropist is likely to make," ended the Rector,
throwing down the paper, and clasping his hands at the back
of his head, while he looked at Mr. Brooke with an air of
amused neutrality.
"Come, that's rather good, you know," said Mr. Brooke,
taking up the paper and trying to bear the attack as easily
as his neighbor did, but coloring and smiling rather
nervously; " that about roaring himself red at rotten
boroughs — I never made a speech about rotten boroughs in my
life. And as to roaring myself red and that kind of
thing — these men never understand what is good satire.
Satire, you know, should be true up to a certain point. I
recollect they said that in `The Edinburgh' somewhere — it
must be true up to a certain point."
"Well, that is really a hit about the gates," said Sir
James, anxious to tread carefully. "Dagley complained to me
the other day that he hadn't got a decent gate on his farm.
Garth has invented a new pattern of gate — I wish you would
try it. One ought to use some of one's timber in that way."
"You go in for fancy farming, you know, Chettam," said
Mr. Brooke, appearing to glance over the columns of the
"Trumpet." "That's your hobby, and you don't mind the
expense."
"I thought the most expensive hobby in the world was
standing for Parliament," said Mrs. Cadwallader. " They
said the last unsuccessful candidate at Middlemarch — Giles,
wasn't his name? — spent ten thousand pounds and failed
because he did not bribe enough. What a bitter reflection
for a man!"
"Somebody was saying," said the Rector, laughingly,
"that East Retford was nothing to Middlemarch, for bribery."
"Nothing of the kind," said Mr. Brooke. " The Tories
bribe, you know: Hawley and his set bribe with treating, hot
codlings, and that sort of thing; and they bring the voters
drunk to the poll. But they are not going to have it
their own way in future — not in future, you know.
Middlemarch is a little backward, I admit — the freemen are a
little backward. But we shall educate them — we shall bring
them on, you know. The best people there are on our side."
"Hawley says you have men on your side who will do you
harm," remarked Sir James. "He says Bulstrode the banker
will do you harm."
"And that if you got pelted," interposed Mrs.
Cadwallader, " half the rotten eggs would mean hatred of
your committee-man. Good heavens! Think what it must be
to be pelted for wrong opinions. And I seem to remember a
story of a man they pretended to chair and let him fall into
a dust-heap on purpose!"
"Pelting is nothing to their finding holes in one's
coat," said the Rector. "I confess that's what I should be
afraid of, if we parsons had to stand at the hustings for
preferment. I should be afraid of their reckoning up all my
fishing days. Upon my word, I think the truth is the
hardest missile one can be pelted with."
"The fact is," said Sir James, "if a man goes into
public life he must be prepared for the consequences. He
must make himself proof against calumny."
"My dear Chettam, that is all very fine, you know," said
Mr. Brooke. " But how will you make yourself proof against
calumny? You should read history — look at ostracism,
persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always
happen to the best men, you know. But what is that in
Horace? — fiat justitia, ruat . . . something or other."
"Exactly," said Sir James, with a little more heat than
usual. "What I mean by being proof against calumny is being
able to point to the fact as a contradiction."
"And it is not martyrdom to pay bills that one has run
into one's self," said Mrs. Cadwallader.
But it was Sir James's evident annoyance that most
stirred Mr. Brooke. "Well, you know, Chettam," he said,
rising, taking up his hat and leaning on his stick, "you and
I have a different system. You are all for outlay with your
farms.
I don't want to make out that my system is good
under all circumstances — under all circumstances, you know."
"There ought to be a new valuation made from time to
time," said Sir James. "Returns are very well occasionally,
but I like a fair valuation. What do you say, Cadwallader?"
"I agree with you. If I were Brooke, I would choke the
`Trumpet' at once by getting Garth to make a new valuation
of the farms, and giving him carte blanche about gates
and repairs: that's my view of the political situation,"
said the Rector, broadening himself by sticking his thumbs
in his armholes, and laughing towards Mr. Brooke.
"That's a showy sort of thing to do, you know," said Mr.
Brooke. "But I should like you to tell me of another
landlord who has distressed his tenants for arrears as
little as I have. I let the old tenants stay on. I'm
uncommonly easy, let me tell you, uncommonly easy. I have
my own ideas, and I take my stand on them, you know. A man
who does that is always charged with eccentricity,
inconsistency, and that kind of thing. When I change my
line of action, I shall follow my own ideas."
After that, Mr. Brooke remembered that there was a
packet which he had omitted to send off from the Grange, and
he bade everybody hurriedly good-by.
"I didn't want to take a liberty with Brooke," said Sir
James; "I see he is nettled. But as to what he says about
old tenants, in point of fact no new tenant would take the
farms on the present terms."
"I have a notion that he will be brought round in time,"
said the Rector. "But you were pulling one way, Elinor, and
we were pulling another. You wanted to frighten him away
from expense, and we want to frighten him into it. Better
let him try to be popular and see that his character as a
landlord stands in his way. I don't think it signifies two
straws about the 'Pioneer,' or Ladislaw, or Brooke's
speechifying to the Middlemarchers. But it does signify
about the parishioners in Tipton being comfortable."
"Excuse me, it is you two who are on the wrong tack,"
said Mrs. Cadwallader. "You should have proved to him
that he loses money by bad management, and then we
should all have pulled together. If you put him a-horsebaek
on polities, I warn you of the consequences. It was all
very well to ride on sticks at home and call them ideas."