The fascination15 of this kind of life, which began to dawn on young Mr. Bokenham almost concurrently16 with the idea of his standing17 for the borough of Brocksopp, soon proved to be incompatible18 with the proper discharge of the duties required of him as candidate. He found the necessity for frequent visits to his intended constituents19 becoming more and more of a nuisance to him, and entirely declined a suggestion which was made to the effect that now, as the time of the election was so near at hand, it would be advisable for him to take up his residence at his father's house, and give his undivided attention to his canvassing20. It was pointed21 out to him that his opponent, Mr. Creswell, was always on the spot, and, quite unexpectedly, had recently shown the greatest interest in the forthcoming struggle, and was availing himself of every means in his power to insure his success; but Tommy Bokenham refused to "bury himself at Brocksopp," as he phrased it, until it was absolutely necessary. "It is positively22 cruel," wrote Mr. Harrington, a clever young clerk, who had been despatched by his principals, Messrs. Potter and Fyfe, the great parliamentary agents, to report how matters were progressing in the borough, "to see how Mr. B. is cutting out the running for the other side! I've had a talk with South, the attorney, who is acting23 for us down here, a shrewd, sensible fellow, and he says there is every hope of our pulling through, even as we are, but that if we had only brought another kind of man to the post, our success would be a moral." Old Mr. Potter, a very rigid24 old gentleman residing at Clapham, and deacon of a chapel25 there, growled26 very much, both over the matter and the manner of this communication.
"What does this young man mean," he asked, peering over the paper at his partner through his double glasses, "by using this turf slang? Bring a man to the 'post!' and a 'moral' indeed!--a word I should not have expected to find in this gentleman's vocabulary." But Mr. Fyfe, who had a sneaking27 liking28 for sport, appeased29 the old gentleman, and pointed out that the letter, though oddly worded, was really full of good and reliable information, and that young Harrington had executed his commission cleverly. Both partners shook their heads over this further account of their candidate's shortcomings, and decided30 that some immediate31 steps must be taken to retrieve32 their position. The time of election was imminent33; their opponent was resident, indefatigable34, and popular; and though the report from Harrington spoke35 of ultimate success with almost certainty, it would not do to run the smallest risk in a borough which they had pledged their credit to wrest36 from Tory domination.
Messrs. Potter and Fyfe were not likely men to ventilate in public any opinions which they may have held regarding the business matters on which they were employed, but the inattention of Mr. Bokenham to his duties, and the manner in which he was throwing away his chances began to be talked of at the Comet office, and the news of it even penetrated37 to Jack38 Byrne's little club. It was on the day after he had first heard of it that the old man walked up to Joyce's chambers39, and on entering found his friend at home, and glad to see him. After a little desultory40 conversation, old Byrne began to talk of the subject with which he was filled.
"Have you heard anything lately of that man who was going to contest your old quarters, or thereabouts, for us, Walter? What's his name? Bokenham! that's it," he said.
"Oh yes," answered Joyce, "oddly enough, they were talking of him last night at the office. I went into O'Connor's room just as Forrest, who had come down with some not very clearly defined story from the Reform, was suggesting a slashing41 article with the view of what he called 'rousing to action' this very young man. O'Connor pooh-poohed the notion and put Forrest off; but from what he said to me afterwards, I imagine Mr. Bokenham is scarcely the man for the emergency--a good deal too lukewarm and dilettante42. They won't stand that sort of thing in Brocksopp, and it's a point with our party, and especially with me, that Brocksopp should be won."
"Especially with you," repeated the old man; "ay, ay, I mind you saying that before! That's strong reaction from the old feeling, Walter!"
"Strong but not unnatural43, I think. You, to whom I told the story when I first knew you, will remember what my feelings were towards--towards that lady. You will remember how entirely I imagined my life bound up in hers, my happiness centred on all she might say or do. You saw what happened--how she flung me aside at the very first opportunity, with scant44 ceremony and shallow excuses, careless what effect her treachery might have had upon me."
"It was all for the best, lad, as it turned out."
"As it turned out, yes! But how did she know that, when she did it? Had she known that it would have turned out for the worst, for the very worst, would she have stayed her hand and altered her purpose? Not she."
"I don't like to see you vindictive45, boy; recollect46 she's a woman, and that once you were fond of her."
"I am not vindictive, as I take it; and when I think of her treatment of me, the recollection that I was fond of her is not very likely to have a softening47 effect. See here, old friend: in cold blood, and with due deliberation, Marian Ashurst extinguished what was then the one light in my sufficiently48 dreary49 life. Fortune has given me the chance, I think, of returning the compliment, and I intend to do it."
Jack Byrne turned uneasily in his chair; it was evident that his sentiments were not in accord with those of his friend. After a minute's pause he said, "Even supposing that the old eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth retribution were allowable--which I am by no means disposed to grant, especially where women are concerned--are you quite sure that in adopting it you are getting at what you wish to attain50? You have never said so, but it must be as obvious to you as it is to me that Mrs. Creswell does not care for her husband. Do you think, then, she will be particularly influenced by a matter in which his personal vanity is alone involved?"
Joyce smiled somewhat grimly. "My dear old friend, it was Mrs. Creswell's ambition that dealt me what might have been my coup51 de grâce.My anxiety about this contest at grimly springs from my desire to wound Mrs. Creswell's ambition. My knowledge of that lady is sufficient to prove to me, as clearly as though I were in her most sacred confidence, that she is most desirous that her husband should be returned to Parliament. The few words that were dropped by that idiot Bokenham the other day pointed to this, but I should have been sure of it if I had not heard them. After all, it is the natural result, and what might have been expected. During her poverty her prayer was for money. Money acquired, another want takes its place, and so it will be to the end of the chapter."
As Joyce ceased speaking there was a knock at the door, and Jack Byrne opening it, admitted young Mr. Harrington, the confidential52 clerk of Messrs. Potter and Fyfe. Young Mr. Harrington was festively53 attired54 in a garb55 of sporting cut, and wore his curved-rimmed hat on the top of his right ear; but there was an unusual, anxious look in his face, and he showed signs of great mental perturbation, not having, as he afterwards allowed to his intimate friends, "been so thoroughly56 knocked out of time since Magsman went a mucker for the Two Thou'." This perturbation was at once noticed by Mr. Byrne.
"Ah, Mr. Harrington," said he; "glad to see you, sir. Not looking quite so fresh as usual," he added, with a cynical57 grin. "What's the matter--nothing wrong in the great turf world, I trust? Sister to Saucebox has not turned out a roarer, or Billy Billingsgate broken down badly?"
"Thank you very much for your kind inquiries58, Mr. Byrne," said Mr. Harrington, eyeing the old man steadily59, without changing a muscle of his face. "I'll not forget to score up one to you, sir, and I'll take care to repay you that little funniment on the first convenient opportunity. Just now I've got something else in hand. Look here, let's stow this gaff! Mr. Joyce, my business is with you. The fact is, there is an awful smash-up at Brocksopp, and my governors want to see you at once."
"At Brocksopp?" said Joyce, with a start. "A smash at Brocksopp?"
"Yes," said Mr. Harrington. "The man that we were all depending on, young Mr. Bokenham, has come to grief."
"Dead?" exclaimed old Byrne.
"Oh no, not at all; political rather than social grief, I should have said. The fact is, so far as we can make out, Lord and Lady Steppe--you know Lady Steppe, Mr. Joyce, or, at all events, your friend Shimmer60 of the Comet could tell you all about her: she was Miss Tentose in the ballet at the Lane--have persuaded our sucking senator to go to Egypt with them for the winter. Lady S.'s influence is great in that quarter, I understand--so great that he pitches up Brocksopp, and let's us all slide!"
"Given up Brocksopp?" said old Byrne.
"Chucked up his cards, sir," said Harrington, "when the game was in his hand. My governors' people are regularly up a tree, cornered, and all that; so they want to see you, Mr. Joyce, at once, and have sent me to fetch you."
"To fetch him! Potter and Fyfe, of Abingdon Street, have sent you to fetch him" cried old Byrne, in great excitement. "Walter, do you think--do you recollect what I said to you some time ago? Can it be that it's coming on now?"
Joyce made no verbal reply, but he grasped his old friend's hand warmly, and immediately afterwards started off with Mr. Harrington in the hansom cab which that gentleman had waiting at the door.
The idea that had flashed through old Jack Byrne's mind, preposterously61 exaggerated as it had at first seemed to him, was nevertheless correct. When Joyce arrived at Messrs. Potter and Fyfe's office, he found there not merely those gentlemen, but with them several of the leading members of the party, and a deputation of two or three Liberals from Brocksopp, with whom Joyce was acquainted. Mr. Moule and Mr. Spalding, nervously62 excited, stepped forwards and shook hands with the young man in a jerky kind of manner. Immediately afterwards, backing again towards their chairs, on the extremest edge of which they propped63 themselves, they hid their hands in their coat-sleeves, and looked round in a furtive64 manner.
After a few formal speeches, Mr. Potter proceeded at once to business. Addressing Joyce, he said it was probably known to him that the gentleman on whom they had hitherto depended as a candidate for Brocksopp had thrown them over, and at the eleventh hour had left them to seek for another representative. In a few well-chosen and diplomatically rounded sentences, Mr. Potter pointed out that the task that Mr. Bokenham had imposed upon them was by no means so difficult a one as might have been imagined. Mr. Potter would not, he said, indulge in any lengthened65 speech. His business was simply to explain the wishes of those for whom he and his partner had the honour to act--here he looked towards the leaders of the party, who did not attempt to disguise the fact that they were growing rather bored by the Potterian eloquence--and those wishes were, in so many words, that Mr. Joyce should step into the place which Mr. Bokenham had left vacant.
One of the leaders of the party here manifesting an intention of having something to say, and wishing to say it, Mr. Fyfe promptly66 interposed with the remark that he should be able to controvert67 an assertion, which he saw his young friend Mr. Joyce about to make, to the effect that he would be unable to carry on the contest for want of means. He, Mr. Fyfe, was empowered to assert that old Mr. Bokenham was so enraged68 at his son's defalcation69, which he believed to have been mainly brought about by Tory agency, Lord Steppe's father, the Earl of Stair, being a notoriously bigoted70 Blue, that he was prepared to guarantee the expenses of any candidate approved of by the party and by the town. Mr. Fyfe here pausing to take breath, the leader, who had been previously71 baulked, cut in with a neat expression of the party's approval of Mr. Joyce, and Mr. Spalding murmured a few incoherent words to the effect that during a life-long acquaintance with his young friend the people of Brocksopp had been in entire ignorance that he had anything in him, politically or otherwise, beyond book-learning, and that was the main reason for their wishing him to represent them in Parliament.
Although a faint dawning of the truth had come across him when Mr. Harrington announced young Bokenham's defection, Walter Joyce had no definite idea of the honour in store for him. Very modestly, and in very few words, he accepted the candidature, promising72 to use every exertion73 for the attainment74 of success. He was too much excited and overcome to enter into any elaborate discussion at that time. All he could do was to thank the leading members of the party for their confidence, to inform the parliamentary-agent firm that he would wait upon them the next day, and to assure Messrs. Spalding and Moule that the Liberals of Brocksopp would find him among them immediately. Did Walter Joyce falter75 for one instant in the scheme of retribution which he had foreshadowed, now that he was to be its exponent76, now that the vengeance77 which he had anticipated was to be worked out by himself? No! On the contrary, he was more satisfied in being able to assure himself of the edge of the weapon, and of the strength of the arm by which the blow should be dealt.
"We calculated too soon upon the effect of young Bokenham's escapade, darling," said Mr. Creswell to his wife, on his return after a day in Brocksopp. "The field is by no means to be left clear to us. The walls of the town are blazing with the placards of a new candidate in the Liberal interest--a clever man, I believe--who is to have all the elder Bokenham's backing, and who, from previous connection, may probably have certain local interests of his own."
"Previous connection--local interest? Who can it be?" asked Marian.
"An old acquaintance of yours, I should imagine; at least, the name is familiar to me in connection with your father and the old days of Helmingham school. The signature to the address is 'Walter Joyce.'"
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1
borough
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| n.享有自治权的市镇；(英)自治市镇 | |
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aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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amenable
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| adj.经得起检验的；顺从的；对负有义务的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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raffish
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| adj.名誉不好的，无赖的，卑鄙的，艳俗的 | |
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ridicule
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| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
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bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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consorted
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| v.结伴( consort的过去式和过去分词 )；交往；相称；调和 | |
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renounced
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| v.声明放弃( renounce的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布放弃；宣布与…决裂；宣布摒弃 | |
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scions
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| n.接穗，幼枝( scion的名词复数 )；（尤指富家）子孙 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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concurrently
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| adv.同时地 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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constituents
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| n.选民( constituent的名词复数 )；成分；构成部分；要素 | |
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canvassing
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| v.（在政治方面）游说( canvass的现在分词 )；调查（如选举前选民的）意见；为讨论而提出（意见等）；详细检查 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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sneaking
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| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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appeased
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| 安抚，抚慰( appease的过去式和过去分词 )； 绥靖（满足另一国的要求以避免战争） | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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retrieve
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| vt.重新得到，收回；挽回，补救；检索 | |
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imminent
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| adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的 | |
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indefatigable
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| adj.不知疲倦的，不屈不挠的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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wrest
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| n.扭，拧，猛夺；v.夺取，猛扭，歪曲 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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desultory
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| adj.散漫的，无方法的 | |
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41
slashing
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| adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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dilettante
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| n.半瓶醋，业余爱好者 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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scant
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| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
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vindictive
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| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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47
softening
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| 变软，软化 | |
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48
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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49
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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50
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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51
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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52
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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53
festively
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| adv.节日地，适合于节日地 | |
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54
attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55
garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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56
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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57
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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59
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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60
shimmer
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| v./n.发微光，发闪光；微光 | |
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61
preposterously
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| adv.反常地；荒谬地；荒谬可笑地；不合理地 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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63
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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lengthened
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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controvert
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| v.否定；否认 | |
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68
enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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69
defalcation
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| n.盗用公款，挪用公款，贪污 | |
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bigoted
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| adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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72
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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73
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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74
attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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75
falter
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| vi.(嗓音)颤抖，结巴地说；犹豫；蹒跚 | |
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76
exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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77
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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