BEFORE plunging into the fray at Blackhampton, Endor did a bold thing. He got married. A fortnight’s grace was allowed him by the Government, before the issuing of the writs; and more than one consideration urged him to turn that precious interregnum to high account.
Wyndham itself was hardly more than ten miles from Blackhampton and this he made his headquarters for the fight. Having due regard to the circumstances of the case, John felt it would be wise to get through the business of being married with the least possible delay. Moreover, an impetuous nature urged him to this course. The opposition of his mother, conceal it as she might, he knew to be strong. It would be kinder to her, therefore, to rush the matrimonial fence. And he hoped that the old lady’s mind would be distracted by the shock of events from dwelling too much on the affront to her wishes, the death of her hopes.
Again there was policy in this dispatch. Helen was going to be a great ally in the fight. An accomplished speaker, she thoroughly understood her own sex, and on the platform and in the press she had a way with her in her dealings with them. As the blushing bride of John Endor, an old and tried friend, now with his back to the wall, fighting for his political life, she would be in a position to steal a little of the enemy’s thunder. “Aunt Mittie,” “Lovely Lily Langrish,” and their like, who had proved so formidable at other Stunt elections up and down the land, must look to their laurels. Romance of a more genuine kind might invest John Endor and his new and singularly attractive American wife. And if only “they could get the real goods over” with half the skill of the U. P. the fire of several big enemy batteries was likely to be dominated.
The wedding at the tiny church of the ancestral village was the simplest and quietest affair. No more than a handful of indispensables were there; just a few friends and relations who were bound to be present. George Hierons gave Helen away. This remarkable man was becoming very much the friend of both. He heartily approved Helen’s severance from the Planet and Saul Hartz; moreover, he ventured upon the prophecy that Endor with such a wife would go far.
Lady Elizabeth, of course, was scandalized by the whole affair. Such a “nose-dive” into the holy state, such an absence of all trumpets and shawms, was worthy indeed of “Comrade” Endor. This undignified haste was nothing short of indecent; Lady Elizabeth had fully counted on “an engagement of at least two years.” She felt, in fact, that she had every right to insist upon it. Still the old Die-hard supposed she must look at the bright side of the picture: this Miss Sholto, although an American, was not a person of color. She had no money, therefore John’s infatuation for her was extremely reprehensible; at the same time, she seemed a shrewd, sensible, practical girl, and had the makings no doubt of an excellent wife. But if she was only a quarter as extravagant as the other American wives Lady Elizabeth had heard of, it would be quite impossible for them to keep up Wyndham. In the meantime, the old lady was a little appeased by John’s announcement that they proposed to live in London in a very modest fashion, strictly in accordance with their own present income, and she would be left to carry on at Wyndham in the way she had always done.
The Blackhampton by-election might be an odd kind of honeymoon, yet John and Helen considered it to be an affair vastly more exhilarating than the regulation visit to an empty country house which ended invariably in boredom. At any rate, to John and Helen, there was nothing in the least boring about the Blackhampton election.
To begin with, they recognized from the outset how much was at stake. Then, too, Blackhampton itself, a live place, with three hundred thousand particularly live people in it, was by no means addicted to boredom. For these the world was far too full of a number of things interesting for that form of poison to be allowed to enter.
The member for Blackhampton East was to find moreover, when in person he came to open the campaign, that he had not entered the lists a moment too soon. The enemy was in the field already. It was never the way of the U. P.—for the sake of clearness and brevity, the foe may be incorporated in that comprehensive title—to let the grass grow beneath its feet. As Mr. Wilberforce Williams had himself predicted, within twenty-four hours of the Government showing its hand, the Great General Staff of Cosmos Alley and Universe Lane was ready to the last gaiter button.
East Blackhampton itself had for some little time past been on a war basis. Several months ago had come the order “from above” that at the next election ENDOR MUST GO. Everything was in review order for “the day.” So declared the U. P. agent-in-chief, at any rate. For many moons the constituency had been sedulously nursed by one of the regulation Colonial “bagmen,” Sir Stuyvescent Milgrim K. B. E. by name, a distinguished member of a famous army which had won the war without going near it.
When Mr. Endor at last came on to the scene, a little belatedly as it seemed to his own election agent, Mr. Ambrose Furley, he was received by that gentleman at the Central Committee Rooms. These were situated in Market Square, almost under the shadow of the noble statue of John Bright, by G. F. Watts.