A Spectacle of Corruption (18 page)

I sensed that there was more to Melbury’s feelings about Dogmill than he told me. “I propose only that he is a criminal of the worst sort. I am made to understand that he bribes the Customs freely—nay, that the Customs attend more to his business than they do to the Crown’s. Inspectors report to him, and the Riding Officers are little more than his personal guard.”

“What you are made to understand is well known,” said Melbury. “The world is aware of that brute Mr. Dogmill and the Customs, and it knows that Hertcomb has done all in his power in the House to keep the Customs in Dogmill’s pocket.”

“But can nothing be done about this?” I asked. “Surely the Tory papers could make known this criminal behavior. If the electors of Westminster knew—”

“The electors of Westminster know and don’t care,” Melbury said, with a note of exasperation. “You saw those men who threatened me. Why would they do such a thing? Is it because they are Whigs in their hearts? I don’t think it so. They could probably not tell you the difference between a Whig or a Tory to save their lives—or for a pot of ale, whichever they value more. For them—even for most electors—it is all a kind of elaborate theater, a spectacle. Who has more villains? Whose villains are stronger? Who has prettier girls to kiss the voters? This election is but a spectacle of corruption, and you cannot be surprised that men like Hertcomb are willing to turn the Parliament into yet another stage. Meanwhile, politics becomes a sordid game, the Church and the Crown are made the butt of jokes, and the kingdom becomes more wretched for it.”

“Yes, the kingdom becomes more wretched,” I agreed, knowing this to be the heart of the Tory concern, “and ought we not to stop that? There is a great difference between hiring pretty girls to kiss voters and Hertcomb’s coddling of the South Sea directors. Nothing enrages the public more than the fact that their purses are empty because the South Sea scheme brought a crash to the market, and the Whigs were the ones who protected the men responsible. Is it not incumbent upon prominent Tories to expose how Hertcomb continues to favor these corrupt men—men like Dogmill, who would turn the Customs, the very body meant to regulate his excesses—into his private army?”

Melbury took a breath. “Here’s the thing of it, Evans. There’s more than one Tory man in the House who looks to be returned there and who has a friendship, shall we say, with importers in London or Liverpool or Bristol. You see, the Whigs may not, precisely, be the only ones who have an arrangement with the Customs, and if a man begins making enemies in one place, he might soon find he has made enemies in another.”

“You claim to fight corruption, and yet you countenance it!” I cried, with a vehemence that surprised even me.

I feared I might have angered Melbury, but the candidate took no offense. He only patted me on the shoulder and smiled. “I shall never condone it, and in private I must condemn it, but I may not condemn it too heartily in public and still maintain the friends I need to win this seat. Take heart, my friend. Our cause will prevail, and we shall kick the Dennis Dogmills of the world soundly, very soundly. But this is not the field on which to begin the battle. We have much to do, we Tories. If we win this election, if we can retake the House, I see no reason why we cannot restore the position of the Church in this country. Think only of all the crimes that were once tried in Church courts, that are now tried in civil courts, if they are tried at all.”

“It is repulsive,” I said, with a creditable amount of feeling.

“These filthy Whigs with their new money and their nonconformists and Jews—they wish to buy and sell this bit of the kingdom or that for whoever has the fattest purse. That Dutchman wants to buy; give him the treasury. There’s an Irishman who’s amassed some wealth in ‘Change Alley; let him buy our laws. All this must stop. We must take power away from sordid greedy men and return it to the Crown, where it belongs.”

“I agree entirely, sir. Which is why I wish to see Dogmill restrained. Without him, Hertcomb cannot win.”

“He will be restrained, I promise you, he and his corrupting Whig friends. I am grateful that you brought this matter to me, and if you learn anything else of our enemy, I hope you will come see me again. Perhaps the next thing you find will be something we can declare publicly.”

“Thank you, Mr. Melbury,” I said, rising from my seat.

“It is I who must thank you, Evans,” he said to me. “I like you, sir. I like you tremendous, and you may depend that I will not forget the service you have rendered me today. You will discover that it is a fine thing to be my friend.”

I bowed in response.

“However,” he added, “to be my friend may mean incurring the anger of Dogmill. You must ask yourself if that is a price you are willing to pay.”

“You may be sure I shall not shrink from him,” I said.

A
n hour later, I met with the three ruffians as I had done earlier that morning in a filthy Smithfield inn. Mr. Mendes had proved as good as his word and had found these fellows for me—petty thieves and footpads in Wild’s service.

“As promised,” I said to the leader, “here is the second shilling for your labors.”

“You never spoke of blades to me throat,” he complained. “You just said you would step in and prevent me from doing harm to that Melbury spark. You never said aught about blades. I thought you was like one of these highborn sparks you hear of who likes to have fun with the likes of us, and you would cut me for certain. I nearly pissed meself.”

I knew a plea for more money when I heard one, and though I thought his claims poorly justified, I also knew it never hurts to show generosity. “Here is an extra half shilling then,” I said, reaching into my purse. “Had you truly pissed yourself, that would have been worth far more.”

He pocketed the coin. “I wish to Christ I’d knowed that. I’d have swallowed a pot before doing the business.”

CHAPTER 13

W
HEN I NEXT MET
with Elias, I told him of my adventures with Dogmill. He shook his head and drank wine with equal verve.

“You must be mad,” he said. “I still think it pure destruction to antagonize a man of his stripe.”

“He antagonized me first,” I observed.

“And now what will you do, set his house on fire?”

“If I thought it would advance my cause, I would not hesitate. But as it might not resolve my problems, I believe I will hold off on that course for the moment. Instead, I think it is time to let Mr. Dogmill know that Matthew Evans will tolerate no ill treatment.”

W
hile Elias did not much care for my visiting Dogmill in his home, he would have heartily objected to what I planned next, but I could not defeat my enemy by gentle means. I had already learned enough of Dogmill to know he was not a gentle man, and he brooked disagreement and challenge poorly. It seemed to me most obvious, then, that if I wished to provoke him I would have to challenge him, and I could think of no better place to do so than in public.

I had begun to make it a habit to review the newspapers most frequently, and in one of the Whig organs I noted that Mr. Hertcomb was to host a goose pull at St. James’s Park. I did not doubt that Mr. Dogmill would be in attendance and saw this event as a fine opportunity for me to further develop our antipathy.

I regretted that I would have to pay my visit in the same set of clothes that I wore to his house, but as they were not particularly conspicuous in their design, I could only hope he would not notice that I had not changed my suit. I checked my appearance in the mirror and soon convinced myself that I was every bit the English gentleman. I therefore hired a coach to the park and soon found myself milling about with a few dozen Whiggish electors.

Despite an unseasonably warm afternoon with a welcome respite from the rain, only a very few of them were engaged in the advertised event. Most, like myself, had not come dressed for riding, but there were a few men who made eager sport. I must admit that I have never had much of a taste for the kind of cruel games the English play with animals, and a goose pull was among the most base of these diversions. A plump goose was tied by its foot from a high branch of a tree, its neck well greased. Each participant had to ride at top speed under the goose and grab it by its neck. The fellow who could successfully hold on to the bird and wrench it free—or as was often the case, pull its very head off—came home with the prize.

As I approached the crowd, I saw that there were a few ladies in their number who cheered as a fellow rode hard under the goose and made a hearty grab for it. Alas, his might was no equal to the grease of the creature’s neck, and though it cried out most pitiably, it would yet receive no mercy.

As another fellow prepared to take his turn, I saw that both Dogmill and Hertcomb were among the men not riding, though Dogmill looked over most wistfully from time to time, as though hungrily gazing at a steaming pie set out to cool.

It was, however, Hertcomb who saw me first and, recognizing me from Dogmill’s house, he must have thought me a great friend of his election agent. “Why, it is Mr. Evans, I believe,” he said, shaking my hand eagerly. “Very good to see you again, sir, very good, indeed. I hear you are something of a tobacco man, like our Mr. Dogmill.”

“Jamaica tobacco, to be sure. And I hear you are a friend to the tobacco man in Parliament.”

He blushed, as though I had called him handsome or brave. “Oh, I have done a little of value to the tobacco men. I fought quite hard, I assure you, against that wretched bill that would have forbidden the inclusion of wood and dirt and suchlike into the weed. Imagine the increase in cost if merchants such as yourself had to ensure that every pound of tobacco was nothing but the thing itself.”

“Terrible,” I said.

“And when they wished to classify tobacco as a luxury item and so subject to taxation, I fought that like a wild cur, I promise you. Tobacco is not a luxury but a necessity, I cried, for do not men spend their silver on weed before bread—and sometimes even before beer? And as it has the qualities of keeping our workingmen healthy and stout, it would be a horrible drug on the nation if these men could no longer afford it in quantity.”

“You have quite convinced me, I promise you.”

He laughed warmly. “I thank you, sir. I flatter myself I have a certain something with words in the chamber.” He looked around the field. “Are you enjoying the pull, sir?”

“If I may be bold, Mr. Hertcomb, I never love sports so cruel to nature’s creatures.”

He laughed. “Oh, it is only a goose, you know, good only for eating, not petting like a lapdog.”

“But does that mean it must be tied from a tree and tormented?”

“I had never thought of it,” he admitted. “I don’t suppose it means that it must or mustn’t. But surely a goose is made for man’s pleasure, not the other way around. I should hate to live in a world in which we do things because they are convenient for geese.”

“Surely,” I proposed good-naturedly, “there is a space between conducting ourselves for the benefit of fowl and conducting ourselves in a way that revels in cruelty.”

“Well, I’ll be deuced if I know it.” He laughed. “I think you would rather vote a goose into Parliament than me, sir.”

“I think he would as well,” said Mr. Dogmill, who now approached us, jostling aside any man who got in his way. “I have heard that Mr. Evans is a Tory. His being so makes his appearance at my home inexplicable, but not nearly so much as his appearance here.”

“I read in the papers, Mr. Dogmill, that all were invited to attend this event.”

“Nevertheless, it is generally understood that these events are for electors, and electors who intend to support the party. That is how business is conducted in His Majesty’s civilized domains. In short, sir, your presence is not required.”

“Faith!” Hertcomb said. “I rather like Mr. Evans. I would hate to see him run off so unkindly.”

Dogmill muttered something under his breath but did not trouble himself to address the candidate. Instead he turned to me. “Again, sir, I cannot think what it is you do here, unless you visit in the capacity of a spy.”

“An event that shall be written of in the papers hardly requires a spy,” I said. “I had heard of these cruel games with animals, but I have never witnessed one for myself and only wished to gaze with my own eyes upon the depths to which an idle mind will sink.”

“I suppose you have no blood sport in the West Indies.”

I neither knew nor cared if there was blood sport in the West Indies, but such matters were hardly my concern. “Life there is troublesome enough. We require no added brutality for our amusement.”

“I suspect a little amusement would help you to ease the brutality. There is nothing quite so pleasing as watching two beasts have at it. And I value my pleasure as a man over the beast’s suffering.”

“It seems to me,” I said, “a rather sad thing to brutalize a creature simply because one can and to call it sport.”

“If you Tories had your way,” Dogmill said, “the Church courts would be invited to condemn us for our amusements.”

“If amusements be condemned,” I answered, rather pleased with the quickness of my wit, “it matters little if the court be religious or civil. I see nothing wrong with immoral behavior being judged by the very institution that helps us to remain moral.”

“Only a fool or a Tory would condemn amusement as immorality.”

“It depends upon the amusement,” I said. “It seems to me that the foolishness is to condone any behavior, no matter how much anguish it causes, because someone, somewhere, finds it pleasurable.”

I suppose Dogmill might have answered my criticism with little more than his contempt had not a lady with pretty gold ringlets and a wide hat full of feathers not overheard our conversation. She studied me for a moment and then my rival and then fanned herself as she raised expectations as to what comment she might have for us.

“I own,” she said to Dogmill, “that I must agree with this gentleman. I find these sorts of gatherings monstrous inhumane. The poor creature, to be teased so before its death!”

Dogmill’s face flushed red, and he appeared to feel the greatest confusion. I could not but doubt that a man of his strength and his temperament should find this sort of verbal confrontation unbearable, particularly since his role as election agent precluded taking a more physical stance against me. It was for that reason that I meant to press on.

“You are clearly a lady of great sense,” I said with a bow, “to recognize the lowness of this entertainment. I hope you share my horror.”

She smiled at me. “Indeed I do, sir.”

“I beg you consider that Mr. Griffin Melbury also shares my horror,” I added, strongly suspecting that my words would further inflame Dogmill.

They did. “Sir,” he said to me. “Walk over this way with me for a moment.”

The gentlemanly thing would have been to comply, but the provoking thing was to refuse. Accordingly, I refused. “I think I should prefer to speak of these matters here,” I said. “I cannot imagine that there is anything in the treatment of geese that cannot be discussed openly. It is hardly a matter of love or money that requires privacy.”

Dogmill could hardly have been more astonished. I do not know that anyone had ever teased him so much in his life. “Sir, I wish to speak with you in private.”

“And I wish to speak with you in public. It is a terrible puzzle, for I hardly know how our different designs can be reconciled. Perhaps a state of semi-privacy shall answer our needs.”

The lady with the golden hair let out a shrill titter, and the noise was to Dogmill like a blade in his back. Had she been a man, I believe he would have set aside the demands of his public role and struck her in the face without a moment’s hesitation.

“Mr. Evans,” he said at last, “this is a gathering for supporters of Mr. Hertcomb. As you are not among that number, and as you have done the rudeness of canvassing for a Tory, I must beg you to vacate.”

“I am no supporter of the Whigs, but I like Mr. Hertcomb tremendously and support him with all my heart in his other endeavors. And as for speaking kindly of the Tory candidate, I hardly think it so offensive. I would not hesitate to attend one of Mr. Melbury’s events and mention how amiable I find Mr. Hertcomb.”

Hertcomb smiled and nearly bowed at me, but he thought better of it. He had seen enough to know that he could offer no more public support of me.

“I have heard,” I continued, “that you are a man of a violent temperament. And I have seen you behave barbarously toward your servant. You are reputed to be unkind to the indigent and the needy. I see now that you are also unkind to brute creatures, and that may be, for all I know, even worse, for they have not the power to choose their paths. One might look at a beggar and wonder to what degree he elected to eschew a life that would have been more productive, but what choice did that bird ever make to end in such terror?”

“No one,” Dogmill said in a coarse whisper, “has ever spoke to me thus.”

“I cannot account for what others have done or not done,” I said calmly. “I can only account for myself, and I should be ashamed to call myself a Tory and an Englishman if I were to hold my tongue in the sight of this behavior.”

Dogmill’s face now found heretofore-never-known shades of red. He clenched his fists and kicked at the ground. A crowd had gathered around us as though we fought a boxing match, and I fairly believed that such an outcome was perhaps likely.

“Who called you here?” he demanded at last. “By whose invitation did you come here to disturb our recreation? Has anyone asked for your opinion on the treatment of livestock? I have never before encountered such rudeness, and I can only believe that it is your rusticated ignorance that leads you to speak thus. If any man dared to speak to me in this manner while I was not an election agent in an important campaign, I would not hesitate to treat him as he deserves, but I see what you are about, sir. You have come to provoke me so that the Tory papers will have something to say. They will have no such satisfaction from me.”

I glanced at Mr. Dogmill and then to the crowd and back once more at Dogmill. “You have grown marvelous hot,” I said calmly. “I had thought we were only having a conversation, and now I see that you insult me in the rudest manner. It is easy for a man to speak of what he would do if he could, but it is perhaps less easy for him to speak of what he will do just now. You say you would call me out if you could, and I say you would call me out if you were a man. If you wish to apologize to me, sir, you may send for me at my lodgings at Vine Street. Until then, I wish you good day, and I hope you may find yourself some superior manners.”

I did not look back to witness his perturbation, but I can only imagine it manifested itself in some extreme fashion, for I heard the woman with the golden hair gasp in astonishment, or perhaps terror.

H
aving had the pleasure of advancing my interests as Mr. Evans, I thought it high time that Benjamin Weaver involve himself in the affair of his own ruin. Elias’s idea that I make myself conspicuous in the less seemly parts of town had struck me, in the relative safety of a tavern, as a fine idea. Once trudging through the streets of Wapping, however, I wondered if I had been a fool to attempt so dangerous an endeavor. Any group of eager villains could set upon me in an instant and drag me off to the nearest magistrate, but to do so they would have to know my face and recognize it when they saw it. I hoped the darkness of the streets and a hat pulled low would protect me well enough, at least until I was ready to be seen.

Besides, what choice did I have? There were tasks to be performed, and they could not be performed by a man of Matthew Evans’s stripe. So I strode boldly to the house I needed to visit, knocked upon the door, and asked for Mrs. Yate. I kept my eyes cast downward when I spoke to the landlady, but this withered creature, with hardly the strength to turn the doorknob, barely noticed. She inquired of me no name or that I state my business, but only sent me upstairs when I asked for the woman. I could not but suspect that she had some experience in sending men to those rooms. Perhaps, in the absence of her husband’s earnings, Mrs. Yate had been forced to turn whore. I wondered, too, how she would react to seeing me come for her. If I could but ask her my questions and leave, I had no doubt that the story of my visit would circulate widely, and so Elias’s plan would be executed without my risking my life.