A Spectacle of Corruption (33 page)

“In the most general sense, certainly,” I said, with a weak smile. “But I wonder precisely how much this erasure of scandal will cost.”

“Oh”—he waved a hand in the air—“it is nothing. Nothing. The amount is so small, I hesitate even to mention it to you. I am sure a gentleman like you must spend twice as much in a year on nothing so important as hunting. I trust you like to shoot, by the way. This year, after the season, you must join me at my house in Devonshire. There is excellent shooting there, and I flatter myself that many a man of consequence in our party will be there to enjoy the sport.”

“I thank you for your offer,” I said, “but I must beg to know the amount you require of me.”

“Look how grave you have become. One might think I was to ask you to mortgage your estate. I promise you, it is nothing so severe as that. It is a trifle, a mere trifle.”

“Mr. Melbury, be so kind as to name the amount.”

“Of course, of course. The bill is for two hundred and fifty pounds, no more than that—excepting, of course, a few odd pounds for my stay here. There have been a few bottles of port, you know, and some meals. The paper and pen are a bit expensive too, which I find outrageous. But I should think two hundred and sixty pounds will more than answer our needs.”

I could hardly believe that he would speak of these sums so freely. Two hundred and sixty pounds surely signified, even to a man such as Matthew Evans. Why, it would be more than a quarter of his fictitious income. For Benjamin Weaver, however, it would mean the loss of the bulk of the money I had taken from the house of Judge Rowley. I did not know how I could afford to pay out such an amount, though I knew excusing myself should prove a mighty setback.

“If I may be so bold, Mr. Melbury, I have been made to understand that your wife is possessed of a large fortune.”

“Do you mean that she is a Jewess, sir?” he asked me pointedly. “Is that your meaning? That I have married a Jewess, so I must not want for money?”

“I do not mean that at all. I say only that I have been told she came to your union possessed of a large fortune.”

“All the world thinks that because she is a Jewess she must have money. My life, I should have you know, is not a production of
The Jew of Venice
upon the stage; all my wife must do is rob her father of his moneybags, and all will be well. I am sorry to tell you, sir, that there is a great rift between the truth and the stage.”

“I have said nothing of rich fathers or moneybags.”

“Very good,” he said, taking my hand. “I am sorry I grew warm with you. I know you meant nothing. You are a good man, Evans, a monstrous good man. And I have no doubt that you understand that a man cannot run to his wife’s petticoats every time he faces a danger. What sort of life is that?”

Was I to conclude then that I must surrender nearly every penny I had in the world so this man might not trouble himself to ask for money from his own wife? The very idea enraged me. Of course, I could also find no pleasure in the idea that he would squander Miriam’s small fortune on his debts while he gambled without remorse.

“I should think the bonds of matrimony would reduce a man’s squeamishness.”

“Spoken like a bachelor.” He laughed. “Someday you will take the vows yourself, and you will see that it is a bit more complicated than you now flatter yourself. But as for now, what say you, Evans? Are you able to help defeat the Whigs here or no?”

What could I say? “Certainly.”

“Splendid. Now let’s find Miller and kick him through this world.”

As we had been locked inside the chamber, we found Miller by pounding upon the door. Melbury then gleefully told him that I would sign for the money, and that once the election was over he would return to make Miller answer for his rudeness.

“As to what you call rudeness, I can say nothing,” Miller told him. “It is not a rudeness to demand what is yours. I think it ill-natured to refuse to give what you owe, but I will say no more of that. As to the signing of notes, I fear that it is a ticklish matter. You see that the note that led Mr. Melbury here today was signed freely, and yet there was to be no money behind it. I should like something more than airy notes for my trouble, Mr. Evans. As this kingdom has learned from the South Sea Company, it is one thing to put your promises to paper but quite another to honor those promises.”

“The South Sea men are a pack of Whigs who know nothing about honoring promises,” Melbury mumbled, clearly out of sorts at having been likened to the Company directors.

“Whigs and Tories are all one to me,” Miller said. “If a man is not good-natured enough to keep his word, I care nothing for his party. And for the moment, I care only for knowing how I shall receive my money from Mr. Evans.”

I confess I could not blame the fellow for his concern, for I had no desire to hand over a note to this rascal. As I was not, in any honest manner of speaking, such a person as Matthew Evans, my signing a note in his name would constitute a forgery—a crime with which I might be asked to pay with my life. I had every hope of being able to vindicate myself in the matter of Yate’s death; as to the injury done to Mr. Rowley, surely the world would forgive it as the hasty action of a man more sinned against than sinning. But if I were to begin generating money with false notes, that was another problem altogether, and it was a risk I was unwilling to take in the service of the man who had married the woman I love.

I cleared my throat and addressed Miller. “You can hardly expect me to have so large a sum on my person.”

“I might hope that you would. I might ardently wish for it. But as to expectations, you are surely right. It is the unusual man who carries with him so much ready cash for no particular reason. I hope, therefore, that you will allow me to call upon you at your home—let us say in five days’ time—and there I will ask you for the sum we have here mentioned.”

“Splendid idea,” said Melbury.

I nodded my agreement. I had grown to depend so much on Melbury’s success in this election that I would risk almost anything on his behalf.

“I hope it is a splendid idea,” said Miller. “I hope so most fervently, for if Mr. Evans fails to be able to make his payment as promised, I shall be forced to begin with you anew, Mr. Melbury. Under the circumstances, you may not hide in your home or leave town. You must be in the metropolis, visible and, so, vulnerable. I hope you will not play any ill-natured games with my patience.”

“I should like to play a game with your head, Miller. I should like to play a game with your head and a large stick, but as to your patience, you may be certain I shall leave it be.”

“That is all I ask of you. That and to refrain from being quite so ill-natured.”

C
onducting himself in the fashion of a man leaping with vigor from a favorite bagnio, rather than one released from a sponging house by someone little more than an acquaintance, Melbury called for a hackney and ushered me inside.

“I trust you have no pressing plans. You have some time just now?”

“I suppose I do,” I said, thinking only of the impending visit by Titus Miller and what that might mean for my finances.

“Very good,” he said, “for there is a place I’ve a mind to visit.”

The place, it turned out, was a tavern called the Fig Tree far to the west in Marylebone. I had now had my ear to the political ground for some weeks, but even if I had not, I still would have recognized the place as a notorious gathering spot for Whigs of the most ardent nature.

“What should lead us to such a place?”

“Dennis Dogmill,” he said.

“Do you think it wise to confront the man in the heart of his own stronghold?”

“I am beginning to care less and less for
wise
and with greater fervor for
bold
. Is it mere coincidence that a pack of thugs descend on the polling place, meant to terrify every liberty-loving elector away—at the precise moment that blockhead Miller descends on me with a new vengeance? I tell you, Dogmill and Hertcomb have smelled the scent of their own defeat, and it is not pleasing to their nostrils. Now they wish to throw our fat upon the fire to appease their Whiggish gods, but I shall not tolerate it, and I mean to tell them myself—in public and before as many of their supporters as choose to listen.”

“That is all very good,” I said, “but I must ask again if you think it wise.”

“How can it not be wise when I have my most stalwart friend by my side? The Whigs have learned once, and in the most painful fashion, that it does not pay to apply violence to Matthew Evans. I think they may learn the same lesson tonight.”

It would seem, then, that in Melbury’s mind I had become both his banker and his henchman, and like a hired Swiss I was to put myself in the way of whatever danger he chose for no other reason but that he chose it. I hardly relished my new role, but neither did I bid him to stop the coach or attempt to persuade him to alter his course of action.

We drew up outside the tavern in question, where a large crowd was now congregated. The men were not of the rough sort who had begun to plague the polls—these were respectable men of the middling order: shopkeepers and clerks and lawyers of unremarkable success—and they were hardly the kind to erupt into violence, so I let out a sigh of relief. I let out another when I saw that this throng awaited entry into the tavern. Melbury, I presumed, would be too impatient in his wrath to wait for a period of time—which might stretch to hours—in order to speak a few cross words to men who would pay him no mind. I soon discovered, however, that I had underestimated his resolve. He approached the crowd and announced in a booming voice that we would pass through, and the authority in his tone did the business. The men—bemused and irritated—stepped aside. They grumbled as we passed, but we passed all the same.

Inside, the scene was nothing short of riotous. A great sheep roasted on a spit over an open fire, and with each turn a new piece was cut off and placed on a plate, a prize for which a hundred hands rose up in greedy anticipation. The air smelled of charred meat and strong tobacco and of the spilled wine that formed sticky puddles on the floor. In the center of the tavern, tables had been cleared away to make a great space, and those men who did not clamor for mutton like starving prisoners had gathered in a circle here, some cheering, some moaning and clutching at their heads in horror.

Melbury nudged me. “That’s where we’ll find him,” he said, pointing to the circle. He led us around to a spot he reckoned would be the most propitious for our point of entry and began to make a path through the crowd, easily five or six men deep. We had burrowed about halfway into the depth when I saw the spectacle that so entranced the onlookers. A pair of mighty cocks—one black with white streaks, the other white with bits of red and brown—circled each other with unmistakable menace. The black one moved slowly, and I could see that its feathers were heavy and wet, but because of his color and the poorness of the light, it took a moment for me to recognize that it was his own blood that dampened him.

The black bird reared up and leaped at the white, but it was obvious that its strength had been tapped. The stronger bird, unencumbered with injury, easily dodged the attack and, with the wounded aggressor off balance, spun around and leaped in turn upon the poor creature. It was only then that I saw that their claws had been affixed with small blades, which augmented the damage of their natural weapons most terribly. The white bird gave his opponent what was surely a finishing blow, and the black cock turned upon his side and fought no more.

A mighty noise rose up from the crowd, and money at once began to change hands. After half a moment, enough quiet had descended that someone began to speak. Because it was hard to hear, it took a moment for me to recognize that it was Dennis Dogmill’s voice I now heard.

“We shall present another match for your entertainment in an hour’s time,” he announced. “For now, those of you who find yourselves having chosen the wrong bird in this contest may take some comfort in knowing that the losing beast was a member of the Tory party, and it is said in the vicinity of the henhouse that he was of a Jacobitical bent. And there are other reasons to rejoice. We dominate our opposition at the polls, and we may soon rejoice in the victory of Whig liberties over Tory absolutism.”

The crowd answered this proclamation with far more laughter than it deserved, but then the men began to dissipate, some toward the mutton, which continued to rotate agreeably and yield meat, others to the barrels of wine that sprung cheap drink lavishly and freely. There could be no mystery, however, as to where Griffin Melbury received his sustenance. He strode boldly up to Dennis Dogmill and Albert Hertcomb.

“Has your blood sport sufficiently satisfied your portion of the electorate, or will you continue to depend upon roughs to make a mockery of British liberties?”

“It can hardly be a mockery to permit the unenfranchised to express their opinions as best they can,” Hertcomb proposed. “I suppose some men are inclined to the French way of doing things—using soldiers to beat down any man who might say something not to his liking.”

“I’ll not listen to these lies,” Melbury said. “You must know that if your roughs do not disappear, the election must be contested by the House.”

“Perhaps so,” Dogmill agreed, “but as all signs indicate that the Whig majority will be as strong, if not stronger, than ever, I need hardly doubt what conclusion that august body will reach.”

The calmness of the words, the ease with which they were spoken, the confidence of victory to which they testified—despite the Tory candidate’s still possessing the lead—only served to inflame Melbury further. “Damn you for a rascal, Dogmill! Do you think Westminster is a pocket borough to be assigned to whomever you please because you spread your money around? I think you will soon learn that British liberty is a beast not easily managed, once uncaged.”

“I beg your pardon,” Dogmill said, “but I will not have you or
any
man address me in such terms.”

“I am available for redress if you think yourself wronged.”