David Liss - A Spectacle Of Corruption

“I cannot,” Melbury said. “I should like to hear these numbers.”

“For that I cannot blame you. And so I shall tell you the numbers. Here are things as they stand, sir. We have three hundred and fifty men in this club, and they are three hundred and fifty men you may depend upon to do as I promise. They will deliver, sir, to a man. We are not a club that promises three hundred and fifty and delivers two hundred and fifty. No, we offer three hundred and fifty, and you will have it, sir, providing the numbers are agreeable.”

“And what are the numbers, Mr. Highwall?”

“You must understand that to a man, sir, to a man, these three hundred and fifty I promise are Tories. They are Tories in their hearts and in the privacy of their innermost minds. I cannot tell you how many have said to me that if they could choose, they would choose to provide their service to Mr. Griffin Melbury, but you know as well as any man that business is the thing, and they will take their business to Mr. Hertcomb- who has made us an offer, you know- with a heavy heart if need be.”

“I understand,” said Melbury, not a little frustrated now. “I should like to know the cost of these three hundred and fifty Tories.”

“You may depend upon the loyalty of these men, sir, these three hundred and fifty men, for the compensation of a mere one hundred pounds.”

Melbury set down his strong beer. “That is rather a lot, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think so at all, Mr. Melbury, indeed I don’t. Only consider what you are getting. Should you like to pay twenty or thirty pounds for the same number but, when the dust clears, as they say, receive only fifty votes for your money?”

“You ask more than five shillings a man. It is rather a lot.”

“It is a lot, but you pay for reputation, you know. Reputation. I cannot say what Mr. Hertcomb’s man offered, but I promise you I cannot go back to these men with less than one hundred pounds and look them in the eye. They will say, How could you take this offer when Mr. Hertcomb’s man has offered so much more? What answer might I give them?”

“You might tell them that they are Tories to a man and should like to see me elected.”

“Well, if this were preference, you would have a point, sir. But this is business, you know.”

“I will offer you sixty pounds.”

“Sixty pounds!” Highwall screamed as though Melbury had drawn a blade. “Sixty pounds! You shock me, Mr. Melbury. Indeed you do. I believe I must postpone this conversation, for you have so disordered me with your offer that I must be bled and purged before I can continue. Sixty pounds is the insultingest offer in the world. I cannot go to the boys with sixty pounds. Nor a penny less than ninety, for that matter.”

“I propose seventy,” Melbury said.

“The Red Fox Voting Club is worth far more than seventy pounds, but I honor you, sir, so I will accept eighty pounds in the interests of supporting your run for the House.” And the two men shook hands. In this way, in the course of a few minutes, Mr. Melbury secured nearly a tenth of the votes he needed to win his seat.

Having concluded his business with Mr. Highwall, Melbury had enjoyed as much time in the company of the Red Fox Voting Club leader as he cared to, and he suggested that we retire to a far more fitting location. He chose Rosethorn’s Coffeehouse on Lowman’s Pond Row, a place known for its congregation of Tories of the better sort. Indeed, when we walked through the door, Melbury was fairly thronged by a company of well-wishers, but unlike men of the lower orders, these knew well enough to leave off after a time and let the fellow be. Once he had made his rounds and introduced me to far more men than I could possibly have recalled, we took our seats.

He promised me that their claret was of the highest quality, so I drank as he suggested, and we ordered a cold fowl to wrest our appetites down.

“Does the business with the voting club shock you?” he asked.

“Should it?”

“Well, you are from the West Indies, after all, and I suppose life is much simpler there. You are probably unaccustomed to ordering things in quite so circuitous a manner there.”

“I assure you,” I said, without malice, “that bribery has found its way to the West Indies.”

“Oh, such an ugly word, bribery. I hate to call it so. I think of it as a mere transaction, and there is nothing wrong with a transaction, surely. I only sting over the cost. You know, in the last election, I believe I could have secured the same votes for ten pounds, but these clubs know what they’re about. Even at so dear a price, it is far cheaper than canvassing three hundred and fifty men all the way to the hustings.”

“Are there other, equally delicate, methods of securing votes?” I asked.

Melbury only winked. “The election is young yet,” he said. “We shall see what develops. But think only of what is in the balance: honor, integrity, the future of the kingdom.”

“May I impose on you to ask a question?” I ventured. All night I had struggled with myself as to how I would raise the issue. I could find no natural or organic way to bring it into our conversation, and at last I settled for being abrupt. I was, after all, new to the nation, and if Mr. Melbury believed I was an ignorant West Indian, I might comfortably avail myself of his beliefs.

He seemed only too eager to play professor at the university of modern politics. “I shall endeavor to answer any questions you might have,” he assured me.

“To what extent do you depend upon those who are Jacobitically inclined for your votes?”

The eager smile was gone in an instant. Melbury stared as though I had dropped a turd on his dinner plate. Though the light was poor in the coffeehouse, I believe he paled. “Please,” he said. “If you must speak that word in public and in my company, do so in the most quiet of whispers. You will make no friends here by even mentioning that such people as you alluded to exist in the world.”

“Is it as dangerous as that to even mention them?”

“It is. You know, Hertcomb and Dogmill need but the slightest excuse to paint us all as a gang of traitors in service to the false king. We must do all in our power to keep that weapon from their hands.” He took a sip from his goblet. “Why do you ask, sir?”

“I am merely curious.”

He leaned forward and spoke in the most hushed of voices. “Allow me to be blunt, Mr. Evans. I like you, sir. You have my gratitude for your service the other day, and you will always have my esteem. But if you are, yourself, a man who supports the political camp you have mentioned, I must beg you to never speak to me again, appear by my side, or attend any event at which I am present. I do not mean to be severe, but I will not have the taint of those reckless mutineers trouble my reputation or my political aims.”

“I thank you for your honesty,” I said, “but I can promise you most earnestly that I am not myself of that persuasion. I ask because these people are spoken of so frequently as being in league with the Tories. I wished to know if they were a group to be courted or not.”

“Not openly, of course. If they wish to cast their votes for me, I shall be silently grateful, but I shall never speak a word to encourage them or to make them believe that I should ever support their monarch against my own. Do not mistake me- I believe His Majesty has made some grievous errors, particularly in regard to his ministry and his support of the Whiggish party- but I should rather a Protestant fool than a canny Papist.”

I saw I could ask no more on this matter, and I should have changed the subject at once had Melbury not taken that task upon himself. “We have had a trying experience with Mr. Highwall,” he said, with some levity. “Let us unburden ourselves with some recreation.”