“He must have become a Whig!”
she said at once. “He
is no longer keeping all the money for himself.”
It was noticed by Martha and Lillian that Mr. Hudson’s lips were unsteady when Tony said to him, “Told you she was a deuced clever girl,”
but till he was out the door he did not allow himself to lose control.
After they had left, Lady Monteith poured herself a glass of ratafia and said, “That’s taken care of. Mr. Fellows will do something.”
“You’re a goose, Melanie. It is Mr. Hudson who will do something,”
Martha informed her. “Fellows may be the candidate, but it becomes clear it is Mr. Hudson who is running the show.”
Lillian thought it had been clear for some time. She listened with amusement while Martha continued, “At least Mr. Hudson is a proper sort of a gentleman. Not well off, but I daresay he may be from a good family for all that—a younger son, you know. He means to take steps to see the corruption is stopped. I wonder what he will do.”
The Rubicon was passed. Authority was in Mr. Hudson’s hands; he was somebody. She didn’t yet know precisely who, but his carriage was allowed to be his own from that moment on, and the watch, likely a gift from his family who possessed a crest and the right to have it emblazoned on a watch for a younger son if they chose.
* * * *
Never one to shilly-shally, Martha had set a date for the tea party, and the next morning she had the three females gathered around her to make up a list and address cards. It proved a more difficult chore than she had imagined, for Sara and Melanie between them couldn’t remember a dozen names offhand. They had to be taken for a mental drive down each street and lane to aid their memory. “Who lives in that fine old half-timbered place on the corner?”
Martha asked Sara.
“The McLaughlins. They will want to come, to be sure. We must ask them or they will be vexed.”
Then, as the envelope was being addressed, she added, “Only of course she is Mr. Alistair’s sister, and might not want to come to a Whig party.”
She felt dashing indeed to be giving a political party, with such deep and cunning matters as this to consider.
“Peagoose!”
Martha declared bluntly, crumpling the envelope. “What about your churchman here? What is his name and should we ask him?”
“We must certainly ask Dr. Everett. He would be shocked if we did not. He loves a tea party.”
“Is
he
any kin of the Alistairs?”
Martha asked ironically.
“No indeed, he does not care for Mr. Alistair in the least since he wouldn’t give a penny for the fuel fund to cover the cost of the coal last year. And his mama would not even go out and canvass.”
“Mr. Hudson will want to hear of this!”
Mr. Everett’s card was set aside to be delivered in person. A minister of the church might be a powerful ally, if he were popular.
In this fashion the morning passed away, and by lunch they had a respectable stack of envelopes addressed. Sara was talked out of addressing a card to Mr. Alistair, and it seemed a great shame to her that a tea given at her house should be for the opposition when she herself had suddenly become a Tory. Seventeen years of Papa’s talk had had no effect, but after Mr. Alistair had smiled at her she had become a secret Tory, with her pamphlet kept under her pillow, quite as dog-eared as
Peter Pepper’s Perfect Day,
though less thoroughly understood.
In the afternoon several of the cards were delivered in person by the ladies, who did a little discreet campaigning of their own consisting mainly of compliments for Mr. Fellows’s appearance, manners, morals, and abbey, along with the rider that Mr. Hudson seemed a very nice gentleman too.
By 4:30 the ladies were home from delivering cards and had pretty well given up hope of any more excitement for the day when Mr. Fellows and his friend were announced. They came in carrying new hats in their hands. “Mr. Hudson, have you taken care of that Tory corrupter?”
Martha demanded.
“I think we’ve spiked his guns, and thank you for the tip, ma’am. How do you like our new
chapeaux,
ladies? Dashing, don’t you think?”
He put his hat on, as did Fellows. They looked not only inferior hats, but ill-fitting as well—Hudson’s a little on the small side, so that it sat on the side of his head at a cocky angle, and Fellows’s nestling more closely about the ears than a hat should.
“They’re very nice,”
Sara said dutifully.
“I don’t like it so well as your other, Mr. Hudson. I think I like your own hat better,”
Martha said, regarding the new hat judiciously. She reached out a hand for it and turned it upside down to examine the workmanship. “Why, the band is loose, and it has only a half-inch gros-grain around the brim. Not satisfactory at all! I hope you didn’t pay much for it.”
“I haven’t paid anything yet. The price must depend on the outcome of the election.”
Lillian narrowed her eyes suspiciously. When she glanced at Mr. Hudson, she saw he was smiling at her. “What is to be
the price if Mr. Fellows gets in?”
she asked.
“Fifty pounds.”
“Fifty pounds!”
Martha gasped. “Mr. Hudson, you must be mad,”
“Oh no. If it, and Mr. Fellows’s hat, prove such winning
chapeaux
that we are successful, I consider it a fair price.”
“But that is bribery too!”
Lillian charged.
“No, no, it is business. If the hat proves ineffectual, the cost is only a crown. Now that, you must own, is a perfectly appropriate price for a hat.”
“And if you are willing to pay your crown for a hat, I suppose your soul is the price of Mr. Saunders’s boots during an election campaign,”
Lillian said, sadly shocked that the august Mr. Hudson was not only a tyrant (she didn’t really mind that too much) but a corrupter as well.
“No, the price for all raiments is the same—a hundred pounds for a pair of all we bought—boots, jackets, shirts. Fortunately we shan’t be required to wear anything but the hats. They hadn’t boots or jackets in stock to fit us.”
“They didn’t have hats either!”
Lillian pointed out.
“No, but I feel Tony really ought to have at least a token of local produce about him, and the hats were not so uncomfortable as boots that pinched, or a jacket that pulled across the shoulders. It is the thought that counts.”
“This sounds highly irregular, Mr. Hudson,”
Martha said, feeling almost faint as she realized what she was being told in the most brass-faced manner in the world. “It seems you are but another corrupter. You politicians are all alike.”
“It is the regular custom, I assure you, ma’am, to grease the wheels a little during a campaign.”
“But you were shocked that Mr. Alistair did it!”
Sara objected.
“I was surprised that Reising was doling out only twenty-five pounds. I hadn’t realized he was on such a tight budget. The word I had was that Sir John Sinclair had come down pretty heavily, to insure getting Alistair in. He looks to make a good profit from the bridge, if it is ever built, and the improvements on the roads too, as he owns the construction company that would get the contracts.”
Martha had always known that the world of men was an evil place. Mr. Thorstein had spoken more than once to her in an oblique and incomprehensible manner of such things, but now she felt herself to be at the very center of them. This, then, was how they managed affairs. It was deplorable, of course, but it was the way of menfolk, and like their gambling and debauchery it was a thing a lady must turn a blind eye to and accept. It rather thrilled her after all to know her party was just as sharp as the other.
The amount of the bribes and the unconcerned manner of the disclosure led her to believe that Mr. Hudson dealt in higher figures than she had thought. (Corruption and bribery on such a scale she could not help
admiring.) “How much has it cost you in round figures, Mr. Hudson?”
she inquired in a worldly tone.
“Three hundred each,”
he said blandly.
“I see the election is a very good thing for the merchants,”
Lillian said. “They win, whoever gets in.”
“Yes, they would be happy to see an election every year, no doubt, but the hats, I trust, will last us till the next general election.”
“I’m sure they will. I doubt they will see much wear once the campaign is over,”
Lillian replied, eying Mr. Hudson’s hat askance.
“But they will—all the things will serve as bribes to some unfashionable gents at the next by-election,”
Hudson told her, a glint of mischief in his eyes.
“You are just as bad as Reising and the Tories!”
“We call it good in politics, and either way we mean effective. There is no point trying to keep your hands entirely clean when you’re in this business. This is going to be a very difficult election, and the Whigs sent their wiliest schemer—me.”
“You sound proud of it.”
“I’m not ashamed of it. The end justifies the means.”
“A theory of Signor Machiavelli, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Among other effectual gentlemen, yes. You call yourself a Whig—why do you dislike what I am doing? You know the Tories’
record on the Luddite riots. If
Paris vaut bien une messe,
as one of the old kings said when he turned Catholic to gain France, then Crockett
vaut bien un chapeau un peu cher.”
“Très cher, et des bottes aussi.
But in French or English, it is bribery. You are corrupting innocent people.”
This foray into French completely bewildered Fellows and Sara, who began to examine his hat with keen interest and to discover loose threads. “A stitch in time saves nine, what?”
he remarked cleverly.
Hudson rose and went to join Lillian. Martha observed him as he seated himself at her side and turned to Melanie, her mind seething with conjecture and none of it political.
“Have I shocked you, Miss Watters? We are only continuing a long-established practice, and the merchants would be sore as boils if we didn’t corrupt ‘em a little. Little thanks they’d give you for standing up for their virtue in this idealistic fashion. Ask them.”
“Where are you getting all this money?”
“Various places.”
“Tell me one. The man who pays the piper calls the tune, if I may borrow a cliché
from your pupil.”
“He’ll never miss it. He has a hundred of them. And he is providing some of the blunt himself, so you see how wrong you are about calling tunes. Myself for another—and you know by now what a shy, retiring fellow
I
am in the matter of calling tunes. But of course the majority of it comes from the party coffers. The Whig aristocracy is wealthy—they can well afford to buy me and Tony a hat and a pair of boots.”
“Yes, and no doubt they will be well-reimbursed for it by some sort of under-handedness if your party ever gets in.”
“You have all the makings of a fine politician, ma’am. I’m tempted to stick a beard and a pair of trousers, on you and run you in the next by-election.”
Lillian was a little surprised at the blunt, bordering on the crude, speech. She had thought from his rather stiff appearance he would be more formal, especially with a lady.
“I could use the new wardrobe. I daresay I’d have a closetful of gowns before it was over.”
“No, no—trousers! But I have the notion that’s what you’ll be wearing after you’re married—or trying to,”
he said, quizzing her.
“You find me a managing female?”
“I find you delightful as always, Miss Watters. A regular ray of sunshine.”
To hear the high-principled Mr. Hudson flash from informality to outright flirtation after his descent into corruption was too much for Miss Watters to assimilate. She sat stunned, while he ran on nonchalantly. “And as usual, I can take only a brief exposure to your salutary rays, but I feel the goodness of them all day long. A man in the corrupt line of business that I am in needs to be reminded there are still innocent souls in the world.”
He smiled warmly, casting a golden glow of his own.
“I expect it is nearly your dinner time,”
he said. “We only came to show off our new hats. Did I shock your aunt, do you think? I know I shocked you. I ought not, perhaps, to have said anything, but if you are to continue helping us, it is better to drop you the hint we are not so immaculate as she thought us—you all thought us.”
“I was surprised my aunt’s objections were not more strenuous. But she is violently anti-Tory and must consider no trick too low if it will beat them.”
“And you? Do
you
feel it was an awful thing to do? It is done all the time, by all parties.”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right, or a dozen or a hundred wrongs either.”
“No, but they might get the right candidate elected. Will you continue to support us?”
She wondered whether it was a request or only a question. “I suppose, as Mr. Reising started it, you hadn’t much choice.”
“If
he
hadn’t started it, I would have. He is spending very lightly—he must think he’s got this seat sewed up. Twenty-five pounds is an insult.”
“Perhaps he paid another twenty-five for the polish for the boots?”
He smiled rather lazily. “I have to try to pour a whole lifetime’s education into Mr. Fellows in the few days before that meeting. We really must go. I look forward to seeing you again soon.”
There was something in his voice or expression that made her feel she was being singled out for special attention. As he turned to Fellows and Sara, Lillian’s eyes followed him.
“Really a pretty fine hat,”
Mr. Fellows was saying, holding it up and regarding it with admiration. “I daresay it might be taken for a Baxter, but I’ll be sure to tell them at Whitehall it was made by Saunders of Crockett.”
Hudson glanced at Lillian, who could scarcely control her laughter. “I didn’t expect him to bother quoting me in this house, where my first lecture was overheard,”
he said.
“You put him up to that!”
“Only to please Saunders. He is more likely to send Fellows to London if he thinks he will be a walking advertisement, you know.”
“I know this campaign is not going to be as lily-pure as you let on. Already we have been subjected to bribery and outright lies.”
“And I’ve only been here three days! What might I not be up to in the next three weeks?”