JEMIMA MAKES A DISCOVERY
Mr. Bradshaw had been successful in carrying his point. His member had been returned; his proud opponents mortified. So the public thought he ought to be well pleased; but the public were disappointed to see that he did not show any of the gratification they supposed him to feel. The truth was, that he met with so many small mortifications during the progress of the election, that the pleasure which he would otherwise have felt in the final success of his scheme was much diminished. He had more than tacitly sanctioned bribery; and now that the excitement was over, he regretted it: not entirely from conscientious motives, though he was uneasy from the slight sense of wrong-doing; but he was more pained, after all, to think that, in the eyes of some of his townsmen, his hitherto spotless character had received a blemish. He, who had been so stern and severe a censor on the undue influence exercised by the opposite party in all preceding elections, could not expect to be spared by their adherents now, when there were rumours that the hands of the scrupulous Dissenters were not clean. Before, it had been his beast that neither friend nor enemy could say one word against him; now, he was constantly afraid of an indictment for bribery, and of being compelled to appear before a committee to swear to his own share in the business. His uneasy, fearful consciousness made him stricter and sterner than ever;as if he would quench all wondering, slanderous talk about him in the town by a renewed austerity of uprightness: that the slack-principled Mr. Bradshaw of one month of ferment and excitement might not be confounded with the highly conscientious and deeply religious Mr. Bradshaw, who went to chapel twice a day, and gave a hundred pounds apiece to every charity in the town, as a sort of thank-offering that his end was gained. But he was secretly dissatisfied with Mr. Donne. In general, that gentleman had been rather too willing to act in accordance with any one's advice, no matter whose; as, if he had thought it too much trouble to weigh the wisdom of his friends, in which case Mr. Bradshaw's would have, doubtless, proved the most valuable. But now and then he unexpectedly, and utterly without reason, took the conduct of affairs into his own hands, as when he had been absent without leave only just before the day of nomination.
No one guessed whither he had gone; but the fact of his being gone was enough to chagrin Mr. Bradshaw, who was quite ready to have picked a quarrel on this very head if the election had not terminated favourably. As it was, he had a feeling of proprietorship in Mr. Donne which was not disagreeable.
He had given the new M.P. his seat; his resolution; his promptitude, his energy, had made Mr. Donne "our member;" and Mr. Bradshaw began to feel proud of him accordingly. But there had been no one circumstance during this period to bind Jemima and Mr. Farquhar together. They were still misunderstanding each other with all their power. The difference in the result was this Jemima loved him all the more, in spite of quarrels and coolness. He was growing utterly weary of the petulant temper of which he was never certain;of the reception which varied day after day, according to the mood she was in and the thoughts that were uppermost; and he was almost startled to find how very glad he was that the little girls and Mrs. Denbigh were coming home. His was a character to bask in peace; and lovely, quiet Ruth, with her low tones and soft replies, her delicate waving movements, appeared to him the very type of what a woman should be--a calm, serene soul, fashioning the body to angelic grace. It was, therefore, with no slight interest that Mr. Farquhar inquired daily after the health of little Leonard. He asked at the Bensons' house; and Sally answered him, with swollen and tearful eyes, that the child was very bad--very bad indeed. He asked at the doctor's; and the doctor told him, in a few short words, that "it was only a bad kind of measles and that the lad might have a struggle for it, but he thought he would get through.
Vigorous children carried their force into everything; never did things by halves; if they were ill, they were sure to be in a high fever directly;if they were well, there was no peace in the house for their rioting. For his part," continued the doctor, "he thought he was glad he had had no children; as far as he could judge, they were pretty much all plague and no profit." But as he ended his speech he sighed; and Mr. Farquhar was none the less convinced that common report was true, which represented the clever, prosperous surgeon of Eccleston as bitterly disappointed at his failure of offspring. While these various interests and feelings had their course outside the Chapel-house, within there was but one thought which possessed all the inmates. When Sally was not cooking for the little invalid, she was crying;for she had had a dream about green rushes, not three months ago, which, by some queer process of oneiromancy, she interpreted to mean the death of a child; and all Miss Benson's endeavours were directed to making her keep silence to Ruth about this dream. Sally thought that the mother ought to be told. What were dreams sent for but for warnings? But it was just like a pack of Dissenters, who would not believe anything like other folks.