Audley Egerton

“ Nevertheless if, after all, our friend were to lose his election, and Levy were then to seize on his effects, and proclaim his ruin, it would seriously damage, perhaps altogether destroy, Audley's political career."
"So I conclude," said Harley. "A Charles Fox might be a gamester, and a William Pitt be a pauper. But Audley Egerton is not of their giant stature; he stands so high because he stands upon heaps of respectable gold. ”

“ Therefore Randal Leslie may well be excused if he stammered and boggled, if he was appalled by a cheer when he said a word in vindication of Egerton, and looked cringing and pitiful when he sneaked out a counter civility to Dick. The Blues were sadly disappointed, damped; the Yellows smirked and took heart. Audley Egerton’s brows darkened. Harley, who was on the platform, half seen behind the front row, a quiet listener, bent over and whispered dryly to Audley, “You should have given a lesson beforehand to your clever young friend. His affection for you overpowers him!” ”

“ But all the town knows that Audley Egerton and Richard Avenel are the members for Lausmere. And flags stream, and drums beat, and men shake each other by the hand heartily; and there is talk of the chairing to-morrow; and the public-houses are crowded; and there is an indistinct hubbub in street and alley, with sudden bursts of uproarious shouting; and the clouds to the west look red and lurid round the sun, which has gone down behind the church tower,—behind the yew-trees that overshadow the quiet grave of Nora Avenel. ”

“ Egerton, as usual, buttoned up, seated in his chair, in the erect posture of a man who scorns "inglorious ease." Harley, as usual, thrown at length on a sofa, his long hair in careless curls, his neckcloth loose, his habiliments flowing—simplex munditiis, indeed—his grace all his own; seemingly negligent, never slovenly; at ease every where and with every one, even with Mr. Audley Egerton, who chilled or awed the ease out of most people.
"Nay, my dear Audley, forgive me. But your eminent men are all men of one idea, and that not a diverting one—politics! politics! politics! ”

“ You will recognize the nobility which Nature only can create—you will own that Nora is worthy a rank more lofty than mine; and my mother so believes in your wisdom, that if you plead in my cause, you will convince even her."
Audley listened to both with his intelligent, half-incredulous smile; and wholly of the same advice as Lady Lansmere, and sincerely anxious to save Harley from an indiscretion that his own notions led him to regard as fatal, he resolved to examine this boasted pearl, and to find out its flaws. Audley Egerton was then in the prime of his earnest, resolute, ambitious youth. ”

“ His determined courage, his energetic will, his almost regal liberality, contrasting a simplicity in personal tastes and habits that was almost austere—his rare and seemingly unconscious power of charming even the women most wearied of homage, and persuading even the men most obdurate to counsel—all served to invest the practical man with those spells which are usually confined to the ideal one. But indeed, Audley Egerton was an Ideal—the ideal of the Practical. ”

“ But, though you may help me, how can I help you?”
“You have helped me already to Frank Hazeldean—and the Casino estate. All clever men can help me. Come then, we are friends; and what I say is secret. You ask me why I think there will be a general election so soon? I will answer you frankly. Of all the public men I ever met with, there is no one who has so clear a vision of things immediately before him as Audley Egerton.” ”

“ Baron Levy hailed Audley Egerton as "my dear fellow"! And Audley Egerton, perhaps, saw nothing strange in the words, though his lip curled.
"I shall not want to go on thus much longer," answered Egerton, as the curl on his lip changed to a gloomy smile. "The estate must, meanwhile, bear L5,000 more."
"A hard pull on it. You had really better sell."
"I cannot afford to sell at present. I cannot afford men to say, 'Audley
Egerton is done up,—his property is for sale.'"
"It is very sad when one thinks what a rich man you have been—and may be yet!" ”

“ Not the mere vulgar, plodding, red-tape machine of petty business, but the man of strong sense, inspired by inflexible energy, and guided to definite earthly objects. In a dissolute and corrupt form of government, under a decrepit monarchy, or a vitiated republic, Audley Egerton might have been a most dangerous citizen; for his ambition was so resolute, and his sight to its ends was so clear. But there is something in public life in England which compels the really ambitious man to honor, unless his eyes are jaundiced and oblique like Randal Leslie's. ”

“ Audley, on the contrary, is inclined to be spare; and his figure, though the muscles are as firm as iron, has enough of the slender to satisfy metropolitan ideas of elegance. His dress, his look, his tout ensemble, are those of the London man. In the first, there is more attention to fashion than is usual amongst the busy members of the House of Commons; but then Audley Egerton has always been something more than a mere busy member of the House of Commons. He has always been a person of mark in the best society ”

“ His very son shall avenge the mother, and be led to his father’s breast as victor, with Randal Leslie, in the contest that deprives sire and benefactor of all that makes life dear to ambitious egotism. And if, in the breast of Audley Egerton, there can yet lurk one memory of what I was to him and to truth, not his least punishment will be the sense that his own perfidy has so changed the man whose very scorn of falsehood has taught him to find in fraud itself the power of retribution. ”

“ Egerton had always been lavish and magnificent in money spatters. A rich man in public life has many claims on his fortune, and no one yielded to those claims with in air so regal as Audley Egerton. But amongst his many liberal actions, there was none which seemed more worthy of panegyric than the generous favour he extended to the son of his wife’s poor and distant kinsfolk, the Leslies of Rood Hall.
Some four generations back, there had lived a certain Squire Leslie, a man of large acres and active mind. ”

“ Two souls that resemble each other will give their likeness to the looks from which they beam. On the other hand, the person with whom Harley most familiarly associated, in his rare intervals of leisure, was Helen Digby. One day, Audley Egerton, standing mournfully by the window of the sitting-room appropriated to his private use, saw the two, whom he believed still betrothed, take their way across the park, side by side. "Pray Heaven, that she may atone to him for all!" murmured Audley. "But ah, that it had been Violante! ”

“ He suddenly remembered, too, that Egerton was half-brother to the Squire. Vague notions of some appeal to this eminent person, not for charity, but employ to his mind, gleamed across him—inexperienced boy that he yet was! And while thus meditating, the door of the House opened, and out came Audley Egerton himself. A partial cheering, followed by a general murmur, apprised Leonard of the presence of the popular statesman. Egerton was caught hold of by some five or six persons in succession ”

“ And no man in town knew better that he should lose them all if he were once known to be in want of their money. Mortified, harassed, tortured—shunning Harley—yet ever sought by him—fearful of each knock at his door, Audley Egerton escaped to the mortgaged remnant of his paternal estate, on which there was a gloomy manor-house long uninhabited, and there applied a mind, afterward renowned for its quick comprehension of business, to the investigation of his affairs, with a view to save some wreck from the flood that swelled momently around him. ”

“ Audley Egerton has been intensely occupied with affairs, only seen once by Harley. Harley then was about to deliver himself of his sentiments respecting Randal Leslie, and to communicate the story of Burley and the pamphlet. Egerton stopped him short.
"My dear Harley, don't try to set me against this young man. I wish to hear nothing in his disfavour. In the first place, it would not alter the line of conduct I mean to adopt with regard to him. He is my wife's kinsman; I charged myself with his career, as a wish of hers, and therefore as a duty to myself. ”

“ You cannot be wild and wicked enough to meditate what your brow seems to threaten. You cannot dream of revenge,—risk Audley's life or your own?"
"Tut, tut, tut! What cause here for duels? Single combats are out of date; civilized men do not slay each other with sword and pistol. Tut! revenge! Does it look like revenge, that one object which brings me hither is to request my father's permission to charge myself with the care of Audley Egerton's election? What he values most in the world is his political position ”

“ People who were commonly called heartless, were never weary of doing kind things to the Egertons. When the time came for Audley to leave the preparatory school, at which his infancy budded forth among the stateliest of the little lilies of the field, and go to Eton, half the fifth and sixth forms had been canvassed to be exceedingly civil to young Egerton. The boy soon showed that he inherited his father's talent for acquiring popularity, and that to this talent he added those which put popularity to use. ”

“ In every institution which attests the humanity of England, was a record of the princely bounty of the public man. In those objects of party, for which the proverbial sinews of war are necessary—in those rewards for service, which private liberality can confer—the hand of Egerton had been opened as with the heart of a king. Many a rising member of Parliament, in those days when talent was brought forward through the aid of wealth and rank, owed his career to the seat which Audley Egerton's large subscription had secured to him ”

“ Rejoice that we have both to exchange forgiveness, and in that exchange we are equal still, Audley, brothers still. Look up! look up! think that we are boys now as we were once,—boys who have had their wild quarrel, and who, the moment it is over, feel dearer to each other than before.”
“Oh, Harley, this is revenge! It strikes home,” murmured Egerton, and tears gushed fast from eyes that could have gazed unwinking on the rack. ”

“ Could Audley then have said, “She you seek is another’s; your love is razed out of your life; and, for consolation, learn that your friend has betrayed you”? Could Audley say this? He did not dare. Which of the two suffered the most?
And these two friends, of characters so different, were so singularly attached to each other,—inseparable at school, thrown together in the world, with a wealth of frank confidences between them, accumulated since childhood. And now, in the midst of all his own anxious sorrow, Harley still thought and planned for Egerton. ”

“ Audley's haughty countenance darkened; as the dog, in his bravest mood, turns dismayed from the stone plucked from the mire, so, when Ambition rears itself to defy mankind, whisper "disgrace and a jail," and, lo, crest-fallen, it slinks away! That evening Levy called on Nora, and ingratiating himself into her favor by praise of Egerton, with indirect humble apologetic allusions to his own former presumption, he prepared the way to renewed visits; she was so lonely, and she so loved to see one who was fresh from seeing Audley—one who would talk to her of him! ”

“ Avenel wishes his nephew to contest the borough of Lansmere, has urged me to obtain the young man’s consent. True, that he may thus endanger the seat of Mr. Audley Egerton. What then? Mr. Audley Egerton is a great man, and may find another seat; that should not stand in the way. Let Leonard obey his uncle. If he win the election, why, he ‘ll be a more equal match, in the world’s eye, for Miss Digby, that is, should she prefer him to myself; and if she do not, still, in public life, there is a cure for all private sorrow. That is a maxim of Mr. Audley Egerton’s ”

“ Randal sat stupified. At length the latter muttered, "But if Egerton is really not rich—if he lose office, and without the hope of return to it——"
"If so, he is ruined!" said Levy coldly; "and, therefore, from regard to you, and feeling interest in your future fate, I say—Rest no hopes of fortune or career upon Audley Egerton. Keep your place for the present, but be prepared at the next election to [Pg 405] stand upon popular principles. Avenel shall return you to parliament; and the rest is with luck and energy. And now, I'll not detain you longer," said Levy, rising and ringing the bell. ”

“ He wrote two or three books, very clever, but not at all to the popular taste—abstract and learned, full of whims that were caviare to the multitude, and larded with Greek. Nevertheless, they obtained for him a little money, and among literary men some reputation.
Now Audley Egerton came into power, and got him, though with great difficulty—for there were many prejudices against this scampish harum-scarum son of the Muses—a place in a public office. He kept it about a month, and then voluntarily resigned it. "My crust of bread and liberty!" quoth John Burley, and he vanished into a garret. ”

“ He was thus constantly at hand to instil into the mind of the ambitious man a regret for the imprudence of hasty passion, or to embitter the remorse which Audley felt for his treachery to L’Estrange. Thus ever bringing before the mind of the harassed debtor images at war with love, and with the poetry of life, he disattuned it (so to speak) for the reception of Nora’s letters, all musical as they were with such thoughts as the most delicate fancy inspires to the most earnest love. Egerton was one of those men who never confide their affairs frankly to women. ”