"You ask me to define a Liberal?" Henry called. "All right, I will; someone who is liberal with other people's money. As a matter of fact, there are no such things as Liberals now. There are only Constitutionalists and Revolutionists."
This caused a storm, of course, and Fanny, glancing uneasily over her shoulder, wondered how difficult it would be to reach the door if trouble broke out.
"Hoot twice as loud as that: I shall be delighted to hear you," Henry was saying. "There is nothing like excitement and difference of opinion to add zest to life. Why, if we had no differences of opinion we should all be in love with the same woman."
Another shout of laughter greeted this sally, and Tom Callaghan, pulling his beard, shook his head sagely and caught Bill Eyre's eye. This was all very good fun, no doubt, but not the way to win an election. Henry must have seen the glance, however, because before three minutes had passed he was deeply involved in the great question of the day.
"I am convinced," he said, "that institutions which have become venerable with time, and which are fixed firmly in the hearts and minds of the people, should not be ignored. The fact is that ignorance of what is really involved lies at the root of all these evils. The British Constitution is based on two pillars, the Church and the State. Those who would separate the Church from the State, and cause it to seek an asylum amongst the sects, would destroy the very essence of the constitution. Change merely for the sake of change is never desirable. Change and decay are invariably linked together."
How true, thought Aunt Eliza, change and decay; it put her in mind of her father and those last long, dreary years of his during his retirement at Lletharrog, alone with that dreadful housekeeper who had got hold of him. Eliza was sure he had left her more money in his will than was fair, and it was monstrous the way in which the silver tea-service had disappeared. It should have been hers by right as the only surviving daughter; change and decay, how clever Henry was! '
"The improvement of the working classes must be founded upon religion," said Henry.
Tom Callaghan sat up in his seat. Ah, this was some of Katherine's doctrine. Henry would never have thought of it for himself.
"Education based upon any other foundation will be of no avail; but education based upon religion will raise the lower classes to their proper position in society. I hope and expect," Henry continued, "to see a great revival in the Church before long, if the clergy don't mistake the forms and ceremonies of an objective religion for the inner forms of Christianity."
Herbert blinked. Was this a sly hit at him?
He had gone through an Anglican phase at Oxford, but that was over long ago. How very odd to hear old Henry talking in such a solemn way. Did he really mean what he was saying, or was it just to try the temper of his audience?
"We-the Conservative party-have enfranchised the masses," Henry was saying, "and it is now our duty, it is the duty of every man, to spread the blessings of education amongst the enfranchised masses.
I am a firm advocate of compulsory education.
No man, in my opinion, has a right to bring up his children as he would his pig or his beast."
How amusing, thought his mother Fanny-Rosa, to see Henry so serious and talking such nonsense. It seemed only yesterday that he was running up the staircase at Clonmere stark naked, his hands clapped on his small behind, while she ran after him with a slipper, which she had no intention of using. Such a lovely afternoon! The children had taken all their clothes off and played on the grass in front of the castle.
Barbara had looked down from her room and had been so shocked, and begged her to get them indoors before their grandfather returned. No doubt Henry and the others had all been brought up like pigs; it had been so much easier to let them run wild… And suddenly she saw Johnnie, with the Indian feathers in his black hair, peering at her from the rhododendron bushes, his bow and arrow lifted, and John saying to her, in his low, quiet voice, "I can't beat him, whatever he does. We made him, you and I; he belongs too much to both of us." But all that was finished, none of that must ever be thought about, it was dead and gone, and so were they; this was reality, sitting now in this crowded, uncomfortable hall, listening to Henry.
"You know that I come from across the water," Henry said. "Well, it is no disgrace to belong to the land of Burke, of Palmerston, of Wellington, but I may say I am the third generation of my family to be adopted by your countrymen. My grandfather and my father lived here, and I lived here as a child, where my brother lives today. The bones of my grandfather lie in this country. Perhaps one day I may do the same."
And then it was all over, and there was clapping and hissing and singing and shouting, and the Chairman holding his hand for silence and proposing a vote of thanks, and the whole party breaking up and making for the door, with no eggshells thrown and no wild applause either.
The family all drove to the Queen's Arms for dinner, and Henry was congratulated and smitten on the back by dozens of people he did not know and dozens more he did, and everyone told him he had the seat for certain.
"So very reminiscent of my brother Harry, your uncle," said Eliza. "I can recollect him making points in just the same way. And your father lounging in a chair, with a puppy on his knee, taking not the slightest notice. I was so glad you insisted that there must always be a ruling class. Really, the people I come across sometimes in Saunby are quite dreadful.
No one would have called upon them in the old days."
"You ought to live in Nice," said Fanny-Rosa. "Nothing under a Count there, they're as common as ditch-water. I liked your speech, Henry, though I don't know why you want to close public-houses on Sunday; it will only make men drink harder on Saturday night. As for your remarks about the R. cdds across the water, you might have added the old saying that "St. Patrick was a gentleman, and born of dacent people." Are we going to get anything to eat in this hotel?"
"You must excuse my mother," laughed Henry to Tom Callaghan. "Living in France has made her a gourmet, and she expects omelettes and salads every quarter of an hour. Waiter, will you please serve dinner as soon as possible?"
"I've never in my life been surrounded by so many parsons," said Fanny-Rosa, "except the time that the Bishop of Slane came to Castle Andriff to spend the night, and brought with him a chaplain and a couple of curates. My sister Tilly and I were brats of children at the time, and we stole into their rooms when they were all at dinner and threw their night-shirts out of the window, and their reverences slept as nature made them… Don't look so shocked, Bill. You are a married man and must have slept without your night-shirt before now."
"You know, Mrs. Brodrick," said Tom Callaghan, "Henry is much more like you than anybody realises. I've been told so often that he is the spit of his uncle Henry, and a chip off his grandfather's block, but I know now who gave him his quick tongue."
"Oh, we Flowers always had the gift of the gab," said Fanny-Rosa; "it enables us to slide through many difficulties.
No, Herbert there is most like me of all my children, and he was so afraid at what he might become that he sought sanctuary behind a dog-collar. As for Henry, people are right to compare him with his grandfather and his uncle. He has the shrewdness of the one, coupled with the charm of the other. Which will gain the upper hand remains to be seen. '
The brothers winked at one another. Their mother was in rollicking form. Katherine was wrong for once in her judgment, thought Henry, as Fanny-Rosa raised her glass and pledged his future as a Cabinet Minister. She was probably happier than she had ever been in her life, and Johnnie was entirely forgotten. What a stunning picture she made too, with that crown of white hair, and the green eyes, and the emeralds, as long as you did not look under the table and see the dragging hem. What age was she now?