However, Ladislaw's coaching was forthwith to be put to the test, for before the day of nomination Mr. Brooke was to explain himself to the worthy electors of Middlemarch from the balcony of the White Hart, which looked out advantageously at an angle of the market-place, commanding a large area in front and two converging streets.
It was a fine May morning, and everything seemed hopeful:
there was some prospect of an understanding between Bagster's committee and Brooke's, to which Mr. Bulstrode, Mr. Standish as a Liberal lawyer, and such manufacturers as Mr. Plymdale and Mr. Vincy, gave a solidity which almost counterbalanced Mr. Hawley and his associates who sat for Pinkerton at the Green Dragon.
Mr. Brooke, conscious of having weakened the blasts of the "Trumpet"against him, by his reforms as a landlord in the last half year, and hearing himself cheered a little as he drove into the town, felt his heart tolerably light under his buff-colored waistcoat.
But with regard to critical occasions, it often happens that all moments seem comfortably remote until the last.
"This looks well, eh?" said Mr. Brooke as the crowd gathered.
"I shall have a good audience, at any rate. I like this, now--this kind of public made up of one's own neighbors, you know."The weavers and tanners of Middlemarch, unlike Mr. Mawmsey, had never thought of Mr. Brooke as a neighbor, and were not more attached to him than if he had been sent in a box from London. But they listened without much disturbance to the speakers who introduced the candidate, one of them--a political personage from Brassing, who came to tell Middlemarch its duty--spoke so fully, that it was alarming to think what the candidate could find to say after him.
Meanwhile the crowd became denser, and as the political personage neared the end of his speech, Mr. Brooke felt a remarkable change in his sensations while he still handled his eye-glass, trifled with documents before him, and exchanged remarks with his committee, as a man to whom the moment of summons was indifferent.
"I'll take another glass of sherry, Ladislaw," he said, with an easy air, to Will, who was close behind him, and presently handed him the supposed fortifier. It was ill-chosen; for Mr. Brooke was an abstemious man, and to drink a second glass of sherry quickly at no great interval from the first was a surprise to his system which tended to scatter his energies instead of collecting them Pray pity him: so many English gentlemen make themselves miserable by speechifying on entirely private grounds!
whereas Mr. Brooke wished to serve his country by standing for Parliament--which, indeed, may also be done on private grounds, but being once undertaken does absolutely demand some speechifying.
It was not about the beginning of his speech that Mr. Brooke was at all anxious; this, he felt sure, would be all right; he should have it quite pat, cut out as neatly as a set of couplets from Pope.
Embarking would be easy, but the vision of open sea that might come after was alarming. "And questions, now," hinted the demon just waking up in his stomach, "somebody may put questions about the schedules.--Ladislaw," he continued, aloud, "just hand me the memorandum of the schedules."When Mr. Brooke presented himself on the balcony, the cheers were quite loud enough to counterbalance the yells, groans, brayings, and other expressions of adverse theory, which were so moderate that Mr. Standish (decidedly an old bird) observed in the ear next to him, "This looks dangerous, by God! Hawley has got some deeper plan than this." Still, the cheers were exhilarating, and no candidate could look more amiable than Mr. Brooke, with the memorandum in his breast-pocket, his left hand on the rail of the balcony, and his right trifling with his eye-glass. The striking points in his appearance were his buff waistcoat, short-clipped blond hair, and neutral physiognomy. He began with some confidence.
"Gentlemen--Electors of Middlemarch!"
This was so much the right thing that a little pause after it seemed natural.
"I'm uncommonly glad to be here--I was never so proud and happy in my life--never so happy, you know."This was a bold figure of speech, but not exactly the right thing;for, unhappily, the pat opening had slipped away--even couplets from Pope may be but "fallings from us, vanishings," when fear clutches us, and a glass of sherry is hurrying like smoke among our ideas. Ladislaw, who stood at the window behind the speaker, thought, "it's all up now. The only chance is that, since the best thing won't always do, floundering may answer for once." Mr. Brooke, meanwhile, having lost other clews, fell back on himself and his qualifications--always an appropriate graceful subject for a candidate.
"I am a close neighbor of yours, my good friends--you've known me on the bench a good while--I've always gone a good deal into public questions--machinery, now, and machine-breaking--you're many of you concerned with machinery, and I've been going into that lately.
It won't do, you know, breaking machines: everything must go on--trade, manufactures, commerce, interchange of staples--that kind of thing--since Adam Smith, that must go on. We must look all over the globe:--`Observation with extensive view,' must look everywhere, `from China to Peru,' as somebody says--Johnson, I think, `The Rambler,'
you know. That is what I have done up to a certain point--not as far as Peru; but I've not always stayed at home--I saw it wouldn't do.