George Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical

"Pooh, my dear," said Sir Maximus, "women think so much of those minutiæ. In the present state of the country it is our duty to look at a man's position and politics. Philip and my brother are both of that opinion, and I think they know what's right, if any man does. We are bound to regard every man of our party as a public instrument, and to pull all together. The Transomes have always been a good Tory family, but it has been a cipher of late years. This young fellow coming back with a fortune to give the family a head and a position is a clear gain to the county; and with Philip he'll get into the right hands – of course he wants guiding, having been out of the country so long. All we have to ask is, whether a man's a Tory, and will make a stand for the good of the country? – that's the plain English of the matter. And I do beg of you, my dear, to set aside all these gossiping niceties, and exert yourself, like a woman of sense and spirit as you are, to bring the right people together."

Here Sir Maximus gave a deep cough, took out his snuff-box, and tapped it: he had made a serious marital speech, an exertion to which he was rarely urged by anything smaller than a matter of conscience. And this outline of the whole duty of a Tory was a matter of conscience with him; though the Duffield Watchman had pointed expressly to Sir Maximus Debarry amongst others, in branding the co-operation of the Tories as a conscious selfishness and reckless immorality, which, however, would be defeated by the co-operation of all the friends of truth and liberty, who, the Watchman trusted, would subordinate all non-political differences in order to return representatives pledged to support the present government.

"I am sure, Sir Maximus," Lady Debarry answered, "you could not have observed that anything was wanting in my manners to Mrs. Transome."

"No, no, my dear; but I say this by way of caution. Never mind what was done at Smyrna, or whether Transome likes to sit with his heels tucked up. We may surely wink at a few things for the sake of the public interest, if God Almighty does; and if He didn't, I don't know what would have become of the country – Government could never have been carried on, and many a good battle would have been lost. That's the philosophy of the matter, and common-sense too."

Good Sir Maximus gave a deep cough and tapped his box again, inwardly remarking, that if he had not been such a lazy fellow he might have made as good a figure as his son Philip.

But at this point the carriage, which was rolling by a turn toward Treby Magna, passed a well-dressed man, who raised his hat to Sir Maximus, and called to the coachman to stop.

"Excuse me, Sir Maximus," said this personage, standing uncovered at the carriage-door, "but I have just learned something of importance at Treby, which I thought you would like to know as soon as possible."

"Ah! what's that? Something about Garstin or Clement?" said Sir Maximus, seeing the other draw a poster from his pocket.

"No; rather worse, I fear you will think. A new Radical candidate. I got this by a stratagem from the printer's boy. They're not posted yet."

"A Radical!" said Sir Maximus, in a tone of incredulous disgust, as he took the folded bill. "What fool is he? – he'll have no chance."

"They say he's richer than Garstin."

"Harold Transome!" shouted Sir Maximus, as he read the name in three-inch letters. "I don't believe it – it's a trick – it's a squib: why – why – we've just been to his place – eh? do you know any more? Speak, sir – speak; don't deal out your story like a damned mountebank, who wants to keep people gaping."

"Sir Maximus, pray don't give way so," said Lady Debarry.

"I'm afraid there's no doubt about it, sir," said Christian. "After getting the bill, I met Mr. Labron's clerk, and he said he had just had the whole story from Jermyn's clerk. The Ram Inn is engaged already, and a committee is being made up. He says Jermyn goes like a steam engine, when he has a mind, although he makes such long-winded speeches."

"Jermyn be hanged for a two-faced rascal! Tell Mitchell to drive on. It's of no use to stay chattering here. Jump up on the box and go home with us. I may want you."

"You see I was right, Sir Maximus," said the baronet's wife. "I had an instinct that we should find him an unpleasant person."

"Fudge! if you had such a fine instinct, why did you let us go to Transome Court and make fools of ourselves?"

"Would you have listened to me? But of course you will not have him to dine with you?"

"Dine with me? I should think not. I'd sooner he should dine off me. I see how it is clearly enough. He has become a regular beast among those Mahometans – he's got neither religion nor morals left. He can't know any thing about English politics. He'll go and cut his own nose off as a landholder, and never know. However, he won't get in – he'll spend his money for nothing."

"I fear he is a very licentious man," said Lady Debarry. "We know now why his mother seemed so uneasy. I should think she reflects a little, poor creature."

"It's a confounded nuisance we didn't meet Christian on our way, instead of coming back; but better now than later. He's an uncommonly adroit, useful fellow, that factotum of Philip's. I wish Phil would take my man and give me Christian. I'd make him house-steward: he might reduce the accounts a little."

Perhaps Sir Maximus would not have been so sanguine as to Mr. Christian's economical virtues if he had seen that gentleman relaxing himself the same evening among the other distinguished dependents of the family and frequenters of the steward's room. But a man of Sir Maximus's rank is like those antediluvian animals whom the system of things condemned to carry such a huge bulk that they really could not inspect their bodily appurtenance, and had no conception of their own tails: their parasites doubtless had a merry time of it, and often did extremely well when the high-bred saurian himself was ill at ease. Treby Manor, measured from the front saloon to the remotest shed, was as large as a moderate-sized village, and there were certainly more lights burning in it every evening, more wine, spirits, and ale drunk, more waste and more folly, than could be found in some large villages. There was fast revelry in the steward's room, and slow revelry in the Scotch bailiff's room; short whist, costume, and flirtation in the housekeeper's room, and the same at a lower price in the servants' hall; a select Olympian feast in the private apartment of the cook, who was a much grander person than her ladyship, and wore gold and jewelry to a vast amount of suet; a gambling group in the stables, and the coachman, perhaps the most innocent member of the establishment, tippling in majestic solitude by a fire in the harness-room. For Sir Maximus, as every one said, was a gentleman of the right sort, condescended to no mean enquiries, greeted his head-servants with a "good-evening, gentlemen," when he met them in the park, and only snarled in a subdued way when he looked over the accounts, willing to endure some personal inconvenience in order to keep up the institutions of the country, to maintain his hereditary establishment, and do his duty in that station of life – the station of the long-tailed saurian – to which it had pleased Providence to call him.

The focus of brilliancy at Treby Manor that evening was in no way the dining-room, where Sir Maximus sipped his port under some mental depression, as he discussed with his brother, the Reverend Augustus, the sad fact that one of the oldest names in the county was to be on the wrong side – not in the drawing-room, where Miss Debarry and Miss Selina, quietly elegant in their dress and manners, were feeling rather dull than otherwise, having finished Mr. Bulwer's "Eugene Aram," and being thrown back on the last great prose work of Mr. Southey, while their mamma slumbered a little on the sofa. No; the centre of eager talk and enjoyment was the steward's room, where Mr. Scales, house-steward and head-butler, a man most solicitous about his boots, wristbands, the roll of his whiskers, and other attributes of a gentleman, distributed cigars, cognac, and whiskey, to various colleagues and guests who were discussing, with that freedom of conjecture which is one of our inalienable privileges as Britons, the probable amount of Harold Transome's fortune, concerning which fame had already been busy long enough to have acquired vast magnifying power.