William Makepeace Thackeray

“ Scully. But que voulez-vous? Such is the world's way. Scully could not help loving you—who that knows you can? I am a plain man, and say what I think. He loves you still. Why make an enemy of him, who would at a word be at your feet? Dearest Lady Gorgon, listen to me. Sir George Gorgon and Mr. Scully have already met—their meeting was our contrivance. It is for our interest, for yours, that they should be friends. If there were two Ministerial Members for Oldborough, do you think your husband's peerage would be less secure? ”

“ But these cursed politics prevent it, my dear fellow. Why WILL you be a Radical?” And Scully cursed politics too. “Hang the low-bred rogue,” added Sir George, when William Pitt Scully left the house: “he will do everything but promise.”
“My dear General,” said Lady Gorgon, sidling up to him and patting him on his old yellow cheek—“My dear Georgy, tell me one thing,—are you jealous?” ”

“ In other words, Scully, after partaking of soup and fish (he, during their discussion, had been thinking over all the former love-and-hate passages between himself and Lady Gorgon) , turned very red, and began talking to her.
“Were you not at the opera on Tuesday?” began he, assuming at once the airs of a man of fashion. “I thought I caught a glimpse of you in the Duchess of Diddlebury's box.”
“Opera, Mr. Scully?” (pronouncing the word “Scully” with the utmost softness) . “Ah, no! we seldom go, and yet too often. For serious persons the enchantments of that place are too dangerous. ”

“ If I, however, cannot allow my name to appear among your list of stewards, ONE at least of the representatives of Oldborough has no such scruples. Sir George Gorgon is among you: and though I differ from that honourable Baronet on more than ONE VITAL POINT, I am glad to think that he is with you. A gentleman, a soldier, a man of property in the county, how can he be better employed than in forwarding the county's amusements, and in forwarding the happiness of all? ”

“ Could anything resist a man like this? John Perkins, who had come down as one of Scully's aides-de-camp, in a fit of generous enthusiasm, leaped on a whist-table, flung up a pocket-handkerchief, and shrieked—“SCULLY FOR EVER!”
Heeltap, who was generally drunk, fairly burst into tears, and the grave tradesmen and Whig gentry, who had dined with the Member at his inn, and accompanied him thence to the “Gorgon Arms,” lifted their deep voices and shouted “Hear!” “Good!” “Bravo!” “Noble!” “Scully for ever!” “God bless him!” ”

“ It was, in fact, a speech in favour of Mr. Macabaw.
“Hush,” said Scully, rather surlily; for he was thinking how disagreeable it was to support Macabaw; and besides, there were clerks in the room, whom the thoughtless Perkins had not at first perceived. As soon as that gentleman saw them, “You are busy, I see,” continued he in a lower tone. “I came to say that I must be off duty to-day, for I am engaged to take a walk with some ladies of my acquaintance.”
So saying, the light-hearted young man placed his hat unceremoniously on his head, and went off through his own door, humming a song. ”

“ Crampton in the same tender way, this important interview closed, and Lady Gorgon, folding her shawl round her, threaded certain mysterious passages and found her way to her carriage in Whitehall.
“I hope you have not been listening, you rogue?” said Mr. Crampton to his nephew, who blushed most absurdly by way of answer. “You would have heard great State secrets, if you had dared to do so. That woman is perpetually here, and if peerages are to be had for the asking, she ought to have been a duchess by this time. ”

“ But tell me, you who are all in all with Lord Bagwig, are we never to have our peerage? His Majesty, I know, is not averse; the services of dear Sir George to a member of His Majesty's august family, I know, have been appreciated in the highest quarter. Ever since the peace we have had a promise. Four hundred pounds has Sir George spent at the Heralds' Office (I myself am of one of the most ancient families in the kingdom, Mr. Crampton) , and the poor dear man's health is really ruined by the anxious sickening feeling of hope so long delayed. ”

“ The fact is, that Sir George had such a transcendent notion of his own dignity and station, that it never for a moment entered his head that his niece, or anybody else connected with him, should take a single step in life without previously receiving his orders; and Mr. Fitch, a baronet's son, having expressed an admiration of Lucy, Sir George had determined that his suit should be accepted, and really considered Lucy's preference of another as downright treason.
John Perkins determined on the death of Fitch as the very least reparation that should satisfy him ”

“ Scully is the most honourable man breathing.”
“Mr. Scully is a gentleman in a very fair way to make a fortune,” answered Mr. Crampton. “Look you, John—it is just as well for your sake that I should give you the news a few weeks before the papers, for I don't want you to be ruined, if I can help it, as I don't wish to have you on my hands. We know all the particulars of Scully's history. He was a Tory attorney at Oldborough; he was jilted by the present Lady Gorgon, turned Radical, and fought Sir George in his own borough. ”

“ Scully, of the house of Scully and Perkins, was a dangerous enemy. In five years from that marriage, which snatched from the jilted solicitor his heart's young affections, Sir George Gorgon found that he must actually spend seven hundred pounds to keep his two seats. At the next election, a Liberal was set up against his man, and actually ran him hard; and finally, at the end of eighteen years, the rejected Scully—the mean attorney—was actually the FIRST Member for Oldborough, Sir George Grimsby Gorgon, Baronet, being only the second! ”

“ Crampton, jingling his watch-seals very complacently, “I am letting you into fearful secrets. The great common end of party is to buy your opponents—the great statesman buys them for nothing.”
Here the attendant genius of Mr. Crampton made his appearance, and whispered something, to which the little gentleman said, “Show her Ladyship in,”—when the attendant disappeared.
“John,” said Mr. Crampton, with a very queer smile, “you can't stay in this room while Lady Gorgon is with me; but there is a little clerk's room behind the screen there, where you can wait until I call you.” ”

“ Fitch, call my people.—Henrietta, bring Miss Lucy from that linendraper with whom she is dancing. I will not stay, General, once for all.”
Henrietta ran—she hated her cousin: Cornet Fitch was departing. “Stop, Fitch,” said Sir George, seizing him by the arm. “You are a fool, Lady Gorgon,” said he, “and I repeat it—a —— fool! This fellow Scully is carrying all before him: he has talked with everybody, laughed with everybody—and you, with your infernal airs—a brewer's daughter, by ——, must sit like a queen and not speak to a soul! ”

“ And now that the Tories are out and the Whigs are in, strange to say a Liberal does fill his place. This Liberal is no other than Sir George Gorgon himself, who is still longing to be a lord, and his lady is still devout and intriguing. So that the Members for Oldborough have changed sides, and taunt each other with apostasy, and hate each other cordially. Mr. Crampton still chuckles over the manner in which he tricked them both, and talks of those five minutes during which he stood on the landing-place, and hatched and executed his “Bedford-Row Conspiracy.” ”

“ Perkins was off on the wings of love, to see Miss Lucy; and she and Aunt Biggs and Uncle Crampton had promised this very day to come and look at the apartments which Mrs. John Perkins was to occupy with her happy husband.
“Poor devil,” so continued Mr. Scully's meditations, “it is almost too bad to do him out of his place; but my Bob wants it, and John's girl has, I hear, seven thousand pounds. His uncle will get him another place before all that money is spent.” And herewith Mr. Scully began conning the speech which Perkins had made for him. ”

“ But these are such times, Mr. Crampton: the spirit of revolution is abroad, and the great families of England are menaced by democratic insolence.”
This was Sir George Gorgon's speech always after dinner, and was delivered by his lady with a great deal of stateliness. Somewhat, perhaps, to her annoyance, Mr. Crampton only smiled, shook his head, and said—
“Nonsense, my dear Lady Gorgon—pardon the phrase, but I am a plain old man, and call things by their names. Now, will you let me whisper in your ear one word of truth? ”

“ We know your situation in the borough. Mr. Scully's whole history, and, pardon me for saying so (but we men in office know everything) , yours—”
Lady Gorgon's ears and cheeks now assumed the hottest hue of crimson. She thought of her former passages with Scully, and of the days when—but never mind when: for she suffered her veil to fall, and buried her head in the folds of her handkerchief. Vain folds! The wily little Mr. Crampton could see all that passed behind the cambric, and continued—
“Yes, madam, we know the absurd hopes that were formed by a certain attorney twenty years since. ”

“ Scully in her heart, and beginning to play a rapid tattoo with her feet, “that miscreant, that traitor, that—that attorney has been our ruin.”
“Horrid man, if you please, but give me leave to tell you that the horrid man is not the sole cause of your ruin—if ruin you will call it. I am sorry to say that I do candidly think Ministers believe that Sir George Gorgon has lost his influence in Oldborough as much through his own fault as through Mr. Scully's cleverness.” ”

“ We know how, up to this moment, he boasts of certain walks—”
“With the governess—we were always with the governess!” shrieked out Lady Gorgon, clasping her hands. “She was not the wisest of women.”
“With the governess, of course,” said Mr. Crampton, firmly. “Do you suppose that any man dare breathe a syllable against your spotless reputation? ”

“ We are obliged to be particular in describing these apartments, for extraordinary events occurred therein.
To say the truth, until the present period Mr. Crampton had taken no great interest in his nephew's marriage, or, indeed, in the young man himself. The old gentleman was of a saturnine turn, and inclined to undervalue the qualities of Mr. Perkins, which were idleness, simplicity, enthusiasm, and easy good-nature.
“Such fellows never do anything in the world,” he would say, and for such he had accordingly the most profound contempt. ”

“ Of course, he nearly killed himself with running, and ran so quick, that he was just in time to see the two ladies step out of Lady Gorgon's carriage at her own house, and to hear Jerningham's fellow-footman roar to the Gorgonian coachman, “Half-past seven!” at which hour we are, to this day, convinced that Lady Gorgon was going out to dine. Mr. Jerningham's associate having banged to the door, with an insolent look towards Perkins, who was prying in with the most suspicious and indecent curiosity, retired, exclaiming, “That chap has a hi to our great-coats, I reckon!” ”

“ With such qualities you may fancy that he was generally admired in society and by his country. So he was: and I never knew a man so endowed whose way through life was not safe—who had fewer pangs of conscience—more positive enjoyments—more respect shown to him—more favours granted to him, than such a one as my friend the General.
Her Ladyship was just suited to him, and they did in reality admire each other hugely. Previously to her marriage with the baronet, many love-passages had passed between her and William Pitt Scully, Esquire, the attorney ”

“ John Perkins—who I presume had been drinking pretty freely, so as to have forgotten his ordinary bashfulness—looked at the three Gorgons in blue, then at the pretty smiling one in white, and stepping up to her, without the smallest hesitation, asked her if she would dance with him.
The young lady smilingly agreed. The great example of Scully and Lady Gorgon was followed by all dancing men and women. Political enmities were forgotten. Whig voters invited Tory voters' wives to the dance. The daughters of Reform accepted the hands of the sons of Conservatism. ”

“ Heigho! what a happy man is Sir George!”
Here there was another pause, and if Mr. Perkins could have seen what was taking place behind the screen, he would have beheld little Mr. Crampton looking into Lady Gorgon's face, with as love-sick a Romeo-gaze as he could possibly counterfeit; while her Ladyship, blushing somewhat and turning her own grey gogglers up to heaven, received all his words for gospel, and sat fancying herself to be the best, most meritorious, and most beautiful creature in the three kingdoms.
“You men are terrible flatterers,” continued she ”