The Imperialist

CHAPTER XXX

The Milburns’ doorbell rang very early the morning of the election. The family and Alfred Hesketh were just sitting down to breakfast. Mr Hesketh was again the guest of the house. He had taken a run out to Vancouver with Mr Milburn’s partner, who had gone to settle a point or two in connection with the establishment of a branch there. The points had been settled and Hesketh, having learned more than ever, had returned to Elgin.

The maid came back into the room with a conscious air, and said something in a low voice to Dora, who flushed and frowned a little, and asked to be excused. As she left the room a glance of intelligence passed between her and her mother. While Miss Milburn was generally thought to be “most like” her father both in appearance and disposition, there were points upon which she could count on an excellent understanding with her other parent.

“Oh, Lorne,” she said, having carefully closed the drawing-room door, “what in the world have you come here for? Today of all days! Did anybody see you?”

The young man, standing tall and broad-shouldered before the mantelpiece, had yet a look of expecting reproach.

“I don’t know,” he said humbly.

“I don’t think Father would like it,” Dora told him, “if he knew you were here. Why, we’re having an early breakfast on purpose to let him get out and work for Winter. I never saw him so excited over an election. To think of your coming today!”

He made a step toward her. “I came because it is today,” he said. “Only for a minute, dear. It’s a great day for me, you know—whether we win or lose. I wanted you to be in it. I wanted you to wish me good luck.”

“But you know I always do,” she objected.

“Yes, I know. But a fellow likes to hear it, Dora—on the day, you know. And I’ve seen so little of you lately.”

She looked at him measuringly. “You’re looking awfully thin,” she exclaimed, with sudden compunction. “I wish you had never gone into this horrid campaign. I wish they had nominated somebody else.”

Lorne smiled half-bitterly. “I shouldn’t wonder if a few other people wished the same thing,” he said. “But I’m afraid they’ll have to make the best of it now.”

Dora had not sanctioned his visit by sitting down; and as he came nearer to her she drew a step away, moving by instinct from the capture of the lover. But he had made little of that, and almost as he spoke was at her side. She had to yield her hands to him.

“Well, you’ll win it for them if anybody could,” she assured him.

“Say ‘win it for us,’ dear.”

She shook her head. “I’m not a Liberal—yet,” she said, laughing.

“It’s only a question of time.”

“I’ll never be converted to Grit politics.”

“No, but you’ll be converted to me,” he told her, and drew her nearer. “I’m going now, Dora. I dare say I shouldn’t have come. Every minute counts today. Good-bye.”

She could not withhold her face from his asking lips, and he had bent to take his privilege when a step in the hall threatened and divided them.

“It’s only Mr Hesketh going upstairs,” said Dora, with relief. “I thought it was Father. Oh, Lorne—fly!”

“Hesketh!” Young Murchison’s face clouded. “Is he working for Winter, too?”

“Lorne! What a thing to ask when you know he believes in your ideas. But he’s a Conservative at home, you see, so he says he’s in an awkward position, and he has been taking perfectly neutral ground lately. He hasn’t a vote, anyway.”

“No,” said Lorne. “He’s of no consequence.”

The familiar easy step in the house of his beloved, the house he was being entreated to leave with all speed, struck upon his heart and his nerves. She, with her dull surface to the more delicate vibrations of things, failed to perceive this, or perhaps she would have thought it worth while to find some word to bring back his peace. She disliked seeing people unhappy. When she was five years old and her kitten broke its leg, she had given it to a servant to drown.

He took his hat, making no further attempt to caress her, and opened the door. “I hope you WILL win, Lorne,” she said, half-resentfully, and he, with forced cheerfulness, replied, “Oh, we’ll have a shot at it.” Then with a little silent nod at her which, notwithstanding her provocations, conveyed his love and trust, he went out into the struggle of the day.

In spite of Squire Ormiston’s confident prediction, it was known that the fight would be hottest, among the townships, in Moneida Reservation. Elgin itself, of course, would lead the van for excitement, would be the real theatre for the arts of practical politics; but things would be pretty warm in Moneida, too. It was for that reason that Bingham and the rest strongly advised Lorne not to spend too much of the day in the town, but to get out to Moneida early, and drive around with Ormiston—stick to him like a fly to poison-paper.

“You leave Elgin to your friends,” said Bingham. “Just show your face here and there wearing a smile of triumph, to encourage the crowd; but don’t worry about the details—we’ll attend to them.”

“We can’t have him upsettin’ his own election by any interference with the boys,” said Bingham to Horace Williams. “He’s got too long a nose for all kinds of things to be comfortable in town today. He’ll do a great deal less harm trotting round the Reserve braced up against old Ormiston.”

So Elgin was left to the capable hands of the boys, for the furtherance of the Liberal interest and the sacred cause of imperialism. Mr Farquharson, whose experience was longer and whose nose presumably shorter than the candidate’s, never abandoned the Town Ward. Bingham skirmished between the polling-booths and the committee room. Horace Williams was out all day—Rawlins edited the paper. The returns wouldn’t be ready in time for anything but an extra anyhow, and the “Stand to Arms, South Fox,” leader had been written two days ago. The rest was millinery, or might be for all anybody would read of it. The other side had a better idea of the value of their candidate than to send him into the country. Walter Winter remained where he was most effective and most at home. He had a neat little livery outfit, and he seemed to spend the whole day in it accompanied by intimate personal friends who had never spoken to him, much less driven with him, before. Two or three strangers arrived the previous night at the leading hotels. Their business was various, but they had one point in common: they were very solicitous about their personal luggage. I should be sorry to assign their politics, and none of them seemed to know much about the merits of the candidates, so they are not perhaps very pertinent, except for the curiosity shown by the public at the spectacle of gentlemen carrying their own bags when there were porters to do it.

It was a day long remembered and long quoted. The weather was spring-like, sun after a week’s thaw; it was pleasant to be abroad in the relaxed air and the drying streets, that here and there sent up threads of steam after the winter house-cleaning of their wooden sidewalks. Voting was a privilege never unappreciated in Elgin; and today the weather brought out every soul to the polls; the ladies of his family waiting, in many instances, on the verandah, with shawls over their heads, to hear the report of how the fight was going. Abby saw Dr Harry back in his consulting room, and Dr Henry safely off to vote, and then took the two children and went over to her father’s house because she simply could not endure the suspense anywhere else. The adventurous Stella picketed herself at a corner near the empty grocery which served as a polling-booth for Subdivision Eleven, one of the most doubtful, but was forced to retire at the sight of the first carryall full of men from the Milburn Boiler Company flaunting a banner inscribed “We are Solid for W.W.” Met in the hall by her sister, she protested that she hadn’t cried till she got inside the gate, anyhow. Abby lectured her soundly on her want of proper pride: she was much too big a girl to be “seen around” on a day when her brother was “running,” if it were only for school trustee. The other ladies of the family, having acquired proper pride kept in the back of the house so as not to be tempted to look out of the front windows. Mrs Murchison assumed a stoical demeanour and made a pudding; though there was no reason to help Eliza, who was sufficiently lacking in proper pride to ask the milkman whether Mr Lorne wasn’t sure to be elected down there now. The milkman said he guessed the best man ‘ud get in, but in a manner which roused general suspicion as to which he had himself favoured.

“We’ll finish the month,” said Mrs Murchison, “and then not another quart do we take from HIM—a gentleman that’s so uncertain when he’s asked a simple question.”

The butcher came, and brought a jovial report without being asked for it; said he was the first man to hand in a paper at his place, but they were piling up there in great shape for Mr Murchison when he left.

“If he gets in, he gets in,” said Mrs Murchison. “And if he doesn’t it won’t be because of not deserving to. Those were real nice cutlets yesterday, Mr Price, and you had better send us a sirloin for tomorrow, about six pounds; but it doesn’t matter to an ounce. And you can save us sweetbreads for Sunday; I like yours better than Luff’s.”

John Murchison, Alec, and Oliver came shortly up to dinner, bringing stirring tales from the field. There was the personator in Subdivision Six of a dead man—a dead Grit—wanted by the bloodhounds of the other side and tracked to the Reform committee room, where he was ostensibly and publicly taking refuge.

“Why did he go there?” asked Stella, breathlessly.

“Why, to make it look like a put-up job of ours, of course, “said her brother. “And it was a put-up job, a good old Tory fake. But they didn’t calculate on Bingham and Bingham’s memory. Bingham happened to be in the committee room, and he recognized this fellow for a regular political tough from up Muskoka way, where they get six for a bottle of Canadian and ten if it’s Scotch. ‘Why, good morning,’ says Bingham, ‘thought you were in jail,’ and just then he catches sight of a couple of trailers from the window. Well, Bingham isn’t just lightning smart, but then he isn’t SLOW, you know. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘you can’t stop here,’ and in another second he was throwing the fellow out. Threw him out pretty hard, too. I guess; right down the stairs, and Bingham on top. Met Winter’s men at the door. ‘The next time you want information from the headquarters of this association, gentlemen,’ Bingham said, ‘send somebody respectable.’ Bingham thought the man was just any kind of low spy at first, but when they claimed him for personation, Bingham just laughed. ‘Don’t be so hard on your friends; he said. I don’t think we’ll hear much more about that little racket.”

“Can’t anything be done to any of them?” asked Stella. “Not today, of course, but when there’s time.”

“We’ll have to see about it, Stella,” said Alec. “When there’s time.”

“Talking about Bingham,” Oliver told them; “you know Bingham’s story about Jim Whelan keeping sober for two weeks, for the first time in twenty years, to vote for Winter? Wouldn’t touch a thing—no, he was going to do it this time, if he died for it; it was disagreeable to refuse drinks, but it was going to be worth his while. Been boasting about the post-office janitorship Winter was to give him if he got in. Well, in he came to Number Eleven this morning all dressed up, with a clean collar, looking thirstier than any man you ever saw, and gets his paper. Young Charlie Bingham is deputy returning officer at Number Eleven. In a second back comes Whelan. ‘This ballot’s marked; he says; ‘you don’t fool me.’ ‘Is it?’ says Charlie, taking it out of his hand. ‘That’s very wrong, Jim; you shouldn’t have marked it,’ and drops it into the ballot-box. Oh, Jim was wild! The paper had gone in blank, you see, and he’d lost all those good drunks and his vote too! He was going to have Charlie’s blood right away. But there it was—done. He’d handed in his ballot—he couldn’t have another.”

They all laughed, I fear, at the unfortunate plight of the too suspicious Whelan. “Why did he think the ballot was marked?” asked Advena.

“Oh, there was a little smudge on it—a fly-spot or something, Charlie says. But you couldn’t fool Whelan.”

“I hope,” said Stella meditatively, “that Lorne will get in by more than one. He wouldn’t like to owe his election to a low-down trick like that”

“Don’t you be at all alarmed, you little girlish thing,” replied her brother. “Lorne will get in by five hundred.”

John Murchison had listened to their excited talk, mostly in silence, going on with his dinner as if that and nothing else were the important matter of the moment. Mrs Murchison had had this idiosyncrasy of his “to put up with” for over thirty years. She bore it now as long as she could.

“FATHER!” she exploded at last. “Do you think Lorne will get in by five hundred?”

Mr Murchison shook his head, and bestowed his whole attention upon the paring of an apple. If he kept his hopes to himself, he also kept his doubts. “That remains to be seen,” he said.

“Well, considering it’s your own son, I think you might show a little more confidence,” said Mrs Murchison. “No thank you; no dessert for me. With a member of the family being elected—or not—for a seat in Parliament, I’m not the one to want dessert.”

Between Mr Murchison and the milkman that morning, Mrs Murchison felt almost too much tried by the superior capacity for reticence.

It was seven in the evening before the ballot-boxes were all in the hands of the sheriff, and nine before that officer found it necessary to let the town know that it had piled up a majority of three hundred for Walter Winter. He was not a supporter of Walter Winter, and he preferred to wait until the returns began to come in from Clayfield and the townships, in the hope that they would make the serious difference that was required of them. The results were flashed one after the other to the total from the windows of the Express and the Mercury upon the cheering crowd that gathered in Market Square. There were moments of wild elation, moments of deep suspense upon both sides, but when the final addition and subtraction was made the enthusiastic voters of South Fox, including Jim Whelan, who had neglected no further opportunity, read, with yells and groans, hurrahs and catcalls, that they had elected Mr Lorne Murchison to the Dominion House of Commons by a majority of seventy.

Then the band began to play and all the tin whistles to rejoice. Young and Windle had the grace to blow their sirens, and across the excited darkness of the town came the long familiar boom of the Murchison Stove Works. Every Liberal in Elgin who had any means of making a noise made it. From the window of the Association committee room their young fellow-townsman thanked them for the honour they had done him, while his mother sat in the cab he had brought her down in and applauded vigorously between tears, and his father took congratulations from a hundred friendly hands. They all went home in a torchlight procession, the band always playing, the tin whistles always performing; and it was two in the morning before the occasion could in any sense be said to be over.

Lights burned quite as late, however, in the Conservative committee room, where matters were being arranged to bark threateningly at the heels of victory next day. Victory looked like something that might be made to turn and parley. A majority of seventy was too small for finality. Her attention was called without twenty-four hours’ delay to a paragraph in the Elgin Mercury, plainly authoritative, to the effect that the election of Mr Murchison would be immediately challenged, on the ground of the infringement in the electoral district of Moneida of certain provisions of the Ontario Elections Act with the knowledge and consent of the candidate, whose claim to the contested seat, it was confidently expected, would be rendered within a very short time null and void.