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CHAPTER XIV
LEICESTER'S FAREWELL TO TAVITON

Even when this had taken place, the meeting scarcely realised the true condition of affairs. It is true that those belonging to the opposing side laughed derisively, but a number of Leicester's friends attributed his condition to the grief he felt for Miss Castlemaine's illness. Amidst the uproar and confusion of the meeting, a number of men on the platform lifted him up and carried him into an ante-room, where he lay back in an armchair and looked around him with drunken gravity. In the excitement of the moment, not only his friends, but his foes, came into the room. A local reporter for the opposition paper entered, and the editor, eager for spicy copy, followed him. They nudged each other with meaning glances, while whispers concerning the capital that must be made out of the event passed between them.

"We must send for a doctor," said Mr. Smith, his election agent, who saw as plainly as any one the true condition of affairs.

"Doctor!" laughed the local editor, "he doesn't want a doctor. He'll sleep it off all right. He's only drunk."

"Drunk!" said Leicester solemnly, "I'm sober as a judge. Word of honour, gentlemen. Overcome with 'motion, tha's whass marr w'me."

Both the reporter and the editor laughed ironically.

"We must get him back to the hotel," said Mr. Smith, "and we must have the doctor immediately."

"Yes, put him to bed at once," said the opposition editor. "He'll be all right in the morning, except for a bad headache."

"Bed," said Leicester, struggling with himself, "bed, who dare talk to me 'bout bed? I mus' do duty. Two thousand faithful s'porters are waitin' for word from thr leader. Hic! I must s'port my party also. 'Scuse me, gentlemen, I – I must return to th' platform. I want to warn my countrymen 'gainst the ter'ble evil 'v drink! No, nod ev'n sorr-ow shall keep me fr-rom duty. Has ses poet, 'Whr duty calls or danger, O ner be wantin' there.'"

He tried to rise; but in vain. Again he fell back with a drunken giggle, while the editor and his reporter laughed gleefully.

"I hope you'll not take an unfair advantage of Mr. Leicester's illness, gentlemen," said Mr. Smith.

"I assure you we'll only report faithfully what we have seen," was the reply. "But, really, I don't think there is any need for newspaper reports, the people have seen for themselves."

With all speed Leicester was taken back to the hotel, protesting all the while that he wished to address his faithful followers, and warn them against the evils of drink. Presently, when he reached his room, he rang the bell.

"Boll whisky, James," he said. "Gen'l'men, le's drink 'elth party – sobriety 'n' freedom."

"No, Mr. Leicester," said the chairman of the political organisation which had accepted him as their candidate, "you have drunk too much whisky already. You have not only disgraced yourself, but you've disgraced your party. You've ruined our chances of winning this election, you have made us the byword of our opponents, and of the country."

"Qui' m'stak'n, gen'l'men; sob'r's judge. Wha'! Rafford Lester drunk? I cu'nn be drunk if I tried. Whisky cu'nn do it. Le's 'ave a drink!"

A doctor entered the room, and came to his side.

"They say I'm drunk, doctor. Tell 'em wha' fools they are. Tell 'em I'm avocate ov temp'rance."

"Get him to bed," said the doctor. He had been a supporter of Leicester's, and was disgusted at what had taken place. "Here, take this," he said, pouring some liquid into a glass.

"Is it whisky, docker? No, thank you. I'm ple'ged t'totlerr. I never tush cursed stuff."

"Drink!" said the doctor sternly.

"Anything 'blige you, doctor," he said, as he swallowed the draught. A few minutes later he was in bed asleep, while the whole town was talking eagerly about what had taken place that night. Many there were, in spite of what they had seen, who maintained that his mind had been unhinged by grief, and that instead of turning their backs upon him, they must support him all the more loyally; but in the main it was believed that the opposition editor's dictum was correct, and that he had insulted them by appearing on the platform in a state of intoxication. As the night went on, reports were afloat to the effect that Miss Castlemaine was not ill at all, but that it was a report which originated with Leicester himself, the real truth being that Miss Castlemaine, having at the last moment discovered him to be a drunkard, had ordered him from her home. Before the town had gone to sleep, Leicester was declared to be guilty of every sin in the calendar, and that they must be very thankful that they had found out his real character. Mr. Smith and his staff were in despair, while the agent of the other candidate was jubilant. Their success was now assured, they felt.

Hour after hour Leicester slept. The doctor's potion, together with the whisky fumes, had to be slept off, and he lay like a log, breathing heavily. More than once the proprietor of the hotel came and looked at him. As he looked, he wondered. Even in his drunken sleep there was something noble about him. The face, all discoloured as it was, suggested a strong, masterful man. It seemed impossible that the self-restrained man who came to his house a few hours before, and had ordered nothing but soda-water from the waiter, could have fallen on the platform in drunken helplessness. Nevertheless, there could be no doubt about it. As he listened to his maudlin mutterings there could be but one opinion about his condition.

When Leicester woke daylight had come, but although he felt that something terrible had happened, he did not fully realise what had taken place. His mouth was dry and parched, and his head throbbed terribly. He had a vague remembrance of having acted strangely, but he could not piece together the scattered thoughts which floated through his brain.

"What is it?" he asked, after vainly thinking. "Am I still asleep? Is it all a nightmare?"

He looked around the room, and saw the sun's rays streaming through the windows. No, he was not asleep, he was in the bedroom of his hotel. But why was he there? Why was his heart so heavy? Why did his head throb so terribly?

Slowly memory began to work: he remembered dimly the swaying crowds, the shouts of enthusiastic supporters. But it was all very vague, and it seemed a long way off. His tongue was dry and parched, it would hardly move in his mouth. He felt an all-devouring thirst.

"Whisky," he said, "I must have whisky!"

He moved to get out of bed; but as he did so, all the events of the past three days came to him as if in a flood. The wedding-day, the scorn of Olive Castlemaine, the black terror of hopeless darkness, the return to whisky, the dissolution of Parliament, the telegram summoning him to his constituency.

It all came to him with such a shock that for a moment his thirst left him. The scenes of the previous evening filled him with horror. Yes, he had been drinking hard all the day, and the whisky had proved too much for him. He had walked to the Public Hall all right; but the hot, fetid atmosphere, the sight of Olive Castlemaine's face thrown on the canvas had completely overmastered him. Had he not given up drinking whisky it would have been all right. He would have made his speech, and no one would have suspected that he had been drinking; but as it was he had become a maudlin fool, he had fallen down in drunken helplessness.

The thought stung him to madness. This, then, was his boasted strength; this was what Radford Leicester had come to. The warnings of the pious friends whom he had sneered at had come true. Whisky had made him as drunk as a navvy who had spent his week-end in debauchery on receiving his week's wage. Cynic as he had always been, even in his best hours, he had also been always a proud man. He had professed contempt for the men who had not been able to conquer the vices which disgraced them in the eyes of the world. This pride had checked him from the vulgar indulgence in sin, before he had met Olive Castlemaine. He had always acted and spoken as a gentleman, even when he had drunk enough whisky to make other men hopelessly incapable. However debauched he might have been by the habit which chained him, he had always dressed with scrupulous care, and he had never associated with those whom he regarded as low and debased.

But now all had come to an end. Directly after his dismissal by Olive Castlemaine he had cast all good resolutions to the winds, and as a consequence he was at that moment a laughing-stock to the town, to-morrow he would be an object of ridicule for the whole country. And Olive Castlemaine would know of it. Bridget Osborne would send the local newspaper to her, and she would read that —

What a thin veneer his so-called reformation was, and what a broken reed he was, in spite of all his boasted strength! He had been a poor thing whose moral elevation had depended on the smile of a woman, and when that smile was withdrawn, he had returned like a swine to its wallow!

But worse than all, there was the disgrace of it! Never before had he sacrificed his pride, never before had he given any one the opportunity of saying that he did not retain a full possession of his faculties. He who had boasted that he had nerves of steel, and that no whisky ever distilled could make him drunk!

He leaped out of bed, and with trembling hands opened his portmanteau. Ah! there it was – a bottle of whisky. He pulled out the cork, and then hesitated. Was he so weak, then, as to return to the poison that had made him the byword of clodhoppers? The thought staggered him, and possibly he might have put it from him, had not the smell of the whisky reached him. This was like a match to a powder magazine. He took a deep drink, and he felt better.

"If I had only been careful it would never have happened," he reflected. "I wonder now if – "

He heard a knock at the door.

"Yes."

"A gentleman to see you, sir."

"His name?"

"Mr. Grayburn, sir."

"Very well, tell him I'll be with him in a few minutes. Ask him to take a seat, will you, James?"

He spoke in his old voice. After all, the event of the previous evening was only an episode. He was not really altered; perhaps he would be able to put all things right even yet.

He determined that nothing should be left undone, on his part, to atone for the miserable past. He went to the bathroom, which adjoined his room, and plunged into cold water; after this he shaved himself, and then dressed with great care. When he appeared before Mr. Grayburn there were no traces of the events of the previous night. His nerves stood him in good stead again. He was never more quiet and composed in his life. Yet he felt like a man who had signed his own death warrant.

"Ah! good-morning, Mr. Grayburn."

"Good-morning, Mr. Leicester."

"Have you breakfasted? I see the man has set the table for one only, but that can soon be rectified."

"Thank you, I have breakfasted."

Mr. Grayburn spoke very quietly, but he was evidently ill at ease. Had Leicester appeared before him haggard and trembling, his work would have been easier. It seemed impossible to take the superior attitude towards Leicester as he appeared at that moment.

"I have come, Mr. Leicester, at the request of the Executive Committee of our Political Association. As chairman of that committee, they thought I was the proper person. You will, of course, guess why."

Leicester was silent.

"The events of last night will, of course, make it impossible for you to again appear in the Division as a candidate."

"Excuse me," said Leicester; "but surely my illness of last night will not – "

"Illness!" interrupted Mr. Grayburn.

"Well, call it what you like. Say I was intoxicated. Is that enough to nullify all the work I have done in the constituency for the last three years?"

"The member for this Division must be a gentleman whose personal character is stainless," said Mr. Grayburn. "It is true that many would excuse last night in view of your recent disappointment, but only a few. And even they would turn against you as soon as certain facts came to light."

"What facts?"

"Facts which Mr. Osborne could reveal if he would. At present he simply characterises them as disgraceful."

Leicester still fought on grimly. Why, he hardly knew.

"I take it that even a political organisation will not be so mean as to believe a vague and unproved charge," he said.

"When it comes from a man like Mr. Osborne, yes."

Leicester laughed bitterly – his old cynical laugh.

"Oh! I see," he said, "the hero of one day is the criminal of the next. Of course, three years' service and hundreds of pounds spent go for nothing. Well, I might have expected it."

"One of the chief planks of our political platform is temperance reform," said Mr. Grayburn. "How can the people believe in your sincerity?"

Again Leicester laughed.

"If I were a brewer, and made a huge income out of the drink, I should be believed in," he said.

"Possibly, if you did not appear in – "

"Exactly. My great sin is, not that I drink whisky, but that I happened to drink it at the wrong time. Why, my dear fellow, I have seen you in this very room hilarious by the whisky you have drunk at my expense. I have heard you sing comic songs in most melodious tones, and I have had to send for a cab to take you home."

"But never in public," said Mr. Grayburn uneasily.

"Just so. I see my failing. Mr. Grayburn, allow me to congratulate you on your high moral standard. Drink as much as you like, only don't let any one know it."

"Look here, Mr. Leicester," said the other. "I am as sorry for this as any man, and if I only considered myself – well, things would be different. But I'm only one. There are these teetotalers to think of, and they are a strong party here. I tell you the people are mad with you; if you appeared outside the hotel now, you'd be hooted. If you appeared at a meeting you'd be hissed off the platform; nay, more, I don't believe you'd be safe to go into the streets. You'd be pelted with rotten eggs, and the refuse of the town."

He had stung Leicester at last. All the cheap veneer of cynicism was gone now, and he did not know what to say.

"Just look at this," went on Mr. Grayburn. "This is an account of last night's meeting, brought out by the editor of the opposition paper. It seems that he and the reporter got into the ante-room, and the reporter is a clever caricaturist in his way. Here you are in various attitudes: First, Mr. Leicester rising to address the meeting. Second, Mr. Leicester endeavouring to proceed. Third, Mr. Leicester finishing his speech. Fourth, Mr. Leicester in the ante-room. How could we stand by you in face of pictures like these?"

As Leicester looked at the sheet which Mr. Grayburn exhibited, he realised the meaning of the other's words. Each picture showed him in a state of drunken helplessness, and under each picture was a quotation from what he had said, so spelt as to bear out the fact of his intoxication.

"Did I say this?" he stammered.

"You did, Mr. Leicester; that, and more."

He was silent for a moment, and then through the open windows of the room he heard shouting in the street.

"Wha'! Rafford Lester drunk! Cood'n be drunk. Sober 's judge. Friend o' temperance. Hooray for pardy sbriety!"

A shout of laughter followed, brutal, derisive, laughter, and he, Leicester, was the cause of it. He walked to the window and saw a crowd of people outside the hotel; they were looking towards him. No sooner did they see him than they began to shout and laugh derisively.

"You wish me to resign," he said quietly.

"My committee, which met this morning, asked me to wait on you for that purpose."

"Very well," he said. He seized a pen and wrote with a steady hand. "There," he said presently, "will that do?"

"Yes, that'll do perfectly. And believe me, Mr. Leicester, I am as sorry as any man. And you'll forgive me, but my advice to you is, get out of the town as quickly as you can. But don't leave by the Taviton Station. There'll be a crowd there to watch every train, and that crowd means to mob you."

"I'll see about that," said Leicester, his eyes flashing.

"Don't go to Taviton Station, Mr. Leicester. No doubt you could have the law on them afterwards; but it's no use fighting the rabble. They think you've lost them the election. My advice is, get a cab up quietly, and drive to West Billington, a little wayside station five miles away. From there you can get to London without coming through Taviton at all. I am awfully sorry, Mr. Leicester, but I am sure you understand my position."

Leicester wanted to shout in his anger – he longed to pour curses upon his visitor, upon the town, the election, upon every one. But he controlled himself.

"Good-morning," he said.

Mr. Grayburn held out his hand, but Leicester would not see it. When he had gone, he closed the door behind him, and sat down to think. His breakfast was untouched, a number of letters which lay on the table before him were unopened. What should he do? He did not notice the waiter who came to remove the breakfast which he had not eaten; he sat with closed eyes, thinking and brooding.

Presently he picked up a Bradshaw, and began to study it. Now and again he would lift his eyes and stare into vacancy, then he would turn eagerly to the time-table again, not to study the trains so much as the map of the various railway lines.

About midday he rang for some sandwiches, and asked the waiter to send the proprietor to him.

"I'm sorry for what has taken place, Mr. Leicester," that gentleman said when he came.

"Very creditable of you, Jenkins," he said; "meanwhile you can get me a carriage, and send me my bill."

"Yes, sir. Of course Mr. Grayburn told you I should have to get you out of the town on the sly. This I must say, though, since you sent in your resignation they are talking more kindly about you."

"How considerate of them! But that does not alter my plans. I wish to be driven to West Billington."

"Yes, sir. From there you return to London?"

"I don't know. I presume, moreover, that where I go is remarkably like my own business."

"Exactly, sir. I was only thinking about your letters."

"You can burn them. I don't care. I want no letters. You send the carriage."

"If anybody inquires about you?"

"I believe you profess to be a very religious man, Jenkins, in spite of your calling. The teetotalers say your calling is to send people to hell. Well, I'll not be so explicit. Tell inquirers that I am gone to a region where fires are supposed to be very good."

"But, sir – "

"As I told you before, this seems remarkably like my own business; yours being to send my bill, and get a carriage."

"Yes, sir."

"And, by the way, Jenkins," added Leicester, with a joyless laugh, "excuse me for meddling. I suppose I can tell those whom you have sent to that place where I'm bound for, that you'll be on presently?"

Half an hour later he left the hotel in a close carriage, and drove to West Billington. It seemed to him that his career had ended now. He had left the town in disgrace. He had left by a backway, like a thief. Arrived at West Billington, he took a ticket for a station twenty miles away, among the Devonshire meadows. But he did not stop there. He did not alight from the train until it had arrived at a little lonely station among the wild moors. There he got out, and looked around. He was the only passenger who alighted, and the porter eyed him wonderingly.

"Want to git anywhere speshul, zur?" he asked.

"Yes. I want to find some old dame who has a room to spare in her cottage," he said.

"Early fer fishin,' and laate fer shettin,' zur, be'ant 'ee? All th' zame, I d' knaw a plaace."

"Where?"

"My a'nt, zur, d' live two miles fr'm 'ere, ovver the moors. Purty lill plaace shee've got, ef you doan't mind et bein' quiet. Ef you'll wait ten minnits I'll go ovver weth 'ee. I shaan't be wanted fer a 'our or zo."

An hour later Leicester was sitting in a cottage parlour among the lonely Devonshire moors. The old lady had provided him with a simple meal, and the quietness of the place made him feel better. The day was now drawing to a close, and the evening shadows were falling.

"Will 'ee 'ave a lamp then, zur?" asked the old lady.

"Not yet," said Leicester; "I'm going out for a walk."

For an hour he tramped, until the day had gone.

"I must make up my mind," he said: "the old life is impossible now. What shall I do? Pull down the shutters, or shall I – ?"

He entered the cottage again, and was met by the kindly presence of the old lady of the house.