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The Candidate: A Political Romance, a novel by Joseph A. Altsheler |
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Chapter 12. Churchill Strikes |
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_ CHAPTER XII. CHURCHILL STRIKES The conversion and adoption of Mr. Heathcote, as Hobart called it, was a pleasant incident in several senses, bringing much quiet gratification to them all, and particularly and obviously to the candidate. A hostile element, one intended by others to be hostile and interfering, had become friendly, which, of itself, was a great gain. Moreover, the smoothness of social intercourse was increased, and there, too, was a new type, adding to the variety and interest of the group. The only one not pleased was Churchill, who had expected much from Mr. Heathcote, and who now, as he considered it, saw the committeeman turn traitor. It was not a matter that he could handle fully in his despatches to the _Monitor_, being too intangible to allow of bald assertion, and he was reduced to indirect statement. This not satisfying him at all, he wrote a long letter to Mr. Goodnight, both for the sake of the cause and for the sake of his own feelings, which had been much lacerated. Its production cost him a great deal of thought and labor; but he had his reward, as its perusal after completion proved to him that it was a masterpiece. Churchill showed quite clearly to Mr. Goodnight the steady decay of the candidate's character and the lower levels to which his campaign was falling. In the security of a private letter it was not necessary for him to spare words, and Churchill spoke his mind forcibly about the manner in which Jimmy Grayson was pandering to the "common people," the "ignorant mob," the "million-footed." Churchill himself, although not old, had taken long ago the measure of these foolish common people, and he despised them, his contempt giving him a very pleasant conviction of his own superiority. He also poured a few vials of wrath upon the head of Mr. Heathcote, whom he characterized as a coward, not able to stand up against petty persecution, and from the committeeman he passed on to others of Mr. Grayson's immediate following, taking "King" Plummer next. Mr. Plummer, in his opinion, was an excellent type of democracy run to riot. He was one of the "boys" in every sense. He was wofully wanting in personal dignity, speaking to everybody in the most familiar manner, and encouraging the same form of address towards himself; he failed utterly to recognize the superiority of some other men, and he was grossly ignorant, knowing nothing whatever of Europe and the vast work that had been done there for civilization and order. Moreover, he could not be induced, even by the well-informed, to take any interest in the Old World, and once had had the rudeness to say to Churchill himself, "What in the devil is Europe to us?" Churchill thus subjected the views of "King" Plummer to the process of elaboration because they had made a vivid impression upon him. He and the "King" had never been able to get on together, the mountaineer treating him with rough indifference, and Churchill returning it with a hauteur which he considered very effective. To Churchill men of "King" Plummer's type seemed the greatest danger the country could have. Their lack of respect for diplomacy, their want of form and ceremony, their brutal habit of calling things by their names, were in his opinion revolutionary. He did not see how dealings with foreign nations, which always loomed very large to him, could be conducted by such men. Always in his mind was the question, What would they say in London and Vienna and Berlin? and the _Monitor_, which he served faithfully, confirmed him through its tone in this mental state. Still drawing his inspiration from the _Monitor_, he regarded a sneer as invariably the best weapon; if you were opposed to anything, the proper way to attack it was by sneering at it; then, not having used argument, you never put yourself in a position to have your arguments refuted. From "King" Plummer, Churchill passed to some of his associates--like the _Monitor_, he never hesitated to befoul his own nest--and he told Mr. Goodnight how the candidate was using them, how they had wholly fallen under the spell of his undeniable charm of manner, and how they wrote to please him rather than to tell the truth. As he sealed his long letter, Churchill felt the conscious glow of right-doing and stern self-sacrifice. He had written thus for the good of the party and the good of the country, and he was strengthened, too, by the feeling that he could not possibly be wrong. The _Monitor_ cultivated the sense of omniscience, which it communicated in turn to all the members of its staff. He passed Sylvia Morgan on his way from the hotel reading-room to the lobby to mail his letter, and when he met her he quickly turned down the address on the envelope, in order that she might not see it. It was done by impulse, and Churchill, for the first time, had a feeling of guilt that made him angry. "That must be a love letter, Mr. Churchill," said Sylvia, teasing him with the easy freedom of the West. "Do you write her twenty-four pages, or only twenty?" "I have no love except my work, Miss Morgan," replied Churchill, assuming his most grandiose air. "Is that a permanent affection, or a passing fancy?" Her face expressed the most eager interest, as if she could not possibly be happy until she had Churchill's answer. The words were frivolous, but her manner was most deferential, and Churchill concluded that she was expressing respect in as far as what he considered her shallow nature could do so. "It is, I hope, a permanent passion, Miss Morgan," he replied, gravely. "There is a pleasure in doing one's duty, particularly under disagreeable circumstances, which I am happy to say I have felt more than once, and custom usually strengthens one who walks in the right path." Still in this mood of contemplation, he regarded her, and he thought he saw a slight look of awe appear in her eyes. His opinion of her rose at once. While not able to show merit of the highest degree, she could perceive it in others, and this differentiated her from the rest of the group. Churchill allowed himself to see that she had a fine face and a slender, beautiful figure, and he felt it a pity that she should be thrown away on a crude, rough old mountaineer like Plummer. "I often think, Miss Morgan," he said, "that if you had lived in the East awhile you could have been quite a match for any woman whom I have ever known." "Thank you," she replied, humbly. "Oh, if I could only have lived in the East just a little while!" "But I assure you, Miss Morgan, I have met some very remarkable women." "I do not doubt it, and they have had an equal good-fortune." Churchill looked suspiciously at her, but there was the same touch of deference in her manner, and he still honored her with his conversation. He permitted himself to discourse a little upon the affairs which he had embodied--"embodied" he felt was the word--in his letter, and she, with all a woman's intuition, and much of masculine reasoning power, guessed what the letter contained, although she did not know to whom it was going. Nor did she feel it wrong to be very attentive, as Churchill talked, because he was doing it of his own free will, and she had the fate of her uncle deeply at heart. Churchill spoke of the campaign, venturing upon polite criticisms of certain features that seemed objectionable to him, and, listening to him, she confirmed her opinion that he was the personal representative with Mr. Grayson of the chief elements within the party that could cause trouble. And she felt sure, too, that the letter he held in his hand would add fuel to the fire already burning. She happened also to be present several days later when a messenger-boy handed him a telegram, and, when he opened it, he made an involuntary motion to hide it, just as he had done with the letter. She pretended not to see, and walked away, but she knew as well as if he had told her that the telegram was the reply to the letter. Mr. Goodnight himself sent the despatch, and he thanked Churchill warmly for the very important information told so luminously in his letter. The solid and respectable portion of the party had hoped much from the presence of Mr. Heathcote, but as he had yielded to the influence of another, instead of exerting his own, it would be necessary to take additional action later. Meanwhile he requested Mr. Churchill to keep him accurately and promptly informed of everything, and Churchill at once telegraphed: "Despatch received. Will be glad to comply with your request." Then he congratulated himself, and felt good, his complacent demeanor forming a contrast to that of several others in the party. The latter were "King" Plummer, Sylvia Morgan, and John Harley, all of whom were unhappy. Harley was troubled by his conscience, and he could not do anything to keep it from sticking those little pins into him. Sylvia Morgan, despite herself, drew him on, not the less because his first feeling towards her had been one of hostility. She had a piquant touch, a manner full of unconscious allurement--the radiation of a pure soul, though it was--that he had never seen in any other woman, and the harder he fought against it, the more surely it conquered him. He took from his valise a copy of that old Chicago newspaper, with her picture on the front page, and wondered how he could have intimated that she was the cause of its being there. As he knew her better, he knew that she could not have done it, and he knew, too, that she would have scornfully resented any insinuation of having done so by refusing to deny it. The "King" was unhappy, too, in his way, and that was very bad indeed for him. He had tried an effusive gallantry, and it did not seem to succeed any better than obedience to his own impulses--on the whole, rather worse; and now, not knowing what else to do, he sulked. It was not any sly sulking, but genuine, open sulking in his large, Western way, thus leaving it apparent to all that the great "King" Plummer was sad. And that meant much to the party, because in a sense it was now personally conducted by him. In his joyous mood, which was his usual mood until the present, he had a large and pervasive personality that was a wonderful help to travel and social intercourse. They missed his timely, if now and then a trifle rough, jests, his vast knowledge of the mountains, which had some good story of every town to which they came, and his infinite zest and humor, which also communicated more zest and humor to every one with him. It was a grievous day for them all when "King" Plummer began to mourn. More than one guessed the cause, but wisely they refrained from any attempt to remove it. They could do nothing but endure the gloom in silence, until the clouds passed, as they hoped they would pass. The candidate, too, was troubled, and sought the privacy of the special car's drawing-room more than usual. Sylvia Morgan had given him a hint that attacks upon him from a certain source were likely to be renewed, and, moreover, would increase in virulence. He soon found that she was right, as the copies of the _Monitor_ that they now obtained were frankly cynical and unbelieving. All of its despatches from the West, Churchill's as well as others, were depreciatory. The candidate was invariably made to appear in a bad light--which is an easy matter to do, in any case, without sacrifice of the truth--that is, verbally, only the spirit being changed--and the editor reinforced them with strong criticisms, in which quotations from English writers and a French phrase now and then were freely employed. The whole burden of it was, "We support this candidate; but, oh, how hard it is for us to do it, how badly we feel about it, and how much easier it would be for us to support any other man!" It also printed many contributions from readers, in all of which the contributors spoke of themselves as belonging by nature and cultivation to the select few, "the saving remnant," who really knew what was good for the country. Here much latitude of expression was allowed, as the paper was not directly responsible for what these gentlemen said. They wrote of the way in which the dignity of a great party had been destroyed by the uncouth and talkative Westerner who had been lucky enough to secure the nomination. They felt that they had been shamed in the face of the world, and more than once asked the burning and painful question, "What will Europe say?" They asked, also, if it were yet too late to amend the error, and they threw forth the suggestion that the intelligent and cultured minority within the party might refrain from voting, when election day came, or, in a pinch, might vote for the other man. These communications were signed, sometimes, with Latin names, and sometimes with names in modern English, but always they indicated a certain sense of superiority and of detachment from the crowd on the part of the signers. The annoyance of the candidate increased as he read copies of the _Monitor_, which were sent to him in numbers. He knew that the paper was the chief spokesman of an influential minority within the party, and the divergence between the majority and the minority was already manifest. It was evident, too, that it was bound to become greater, and that was why the candidate was troubled. He wished to become President; it was his great desire, and he did not seek to conceal it; he considered it a legitimate, a noble ambition, one that any American had a right to have, and he was in the first flush of his great powers, when such a position would appeal most to a strong man. Now, even when the fight, with a united party, was desperate at best, he foresaw a defection, and hot wrath rose up in his veins against Goodnight, the _Monitor_, and all their following. But the worst of the whole position to a man of Grayson's open and direct temperament was the necessity to keep silent, even to dissemble, or, at least, to do that which seemed to him very near to dissembling. Although he was under so fierce a fire, he would not allow any one to find fault with Churchill for his despatches; and this was not always easy to do, because many of the local politicians, who were on the train from time to time, would grow hot at sight of the criticisms, and want to attack the writer. But Jimmy Grayson always interfered, and reminded them that it was the right of the press to speak so if it wished. Churchill still wondered, why he was not a martyr, and wasted his regrets. Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia maintained an eloquent silence. Meanwhile, an event destined to give Churchill and the _Monitor_ a yet greater shock was approaching. _ |
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