“I don’t know,” Mr. Cornelius answered gruffly.
“No?” the Chancellor said, not a whit put out. “He never knows anything!” And then, throwing one knee over the other, he regarded Vaughan with closer attention. “Mr. Vaughan,” he said, “have you ever thought of entering Parliament?”
Vaughan’s heart bounded, and his face betrayed his emotions. Good heavens, was the Chancellor about to offer him a Government seat? He scarcely knew what to expect or what to say. The prospect, suddenly opened, blinded him. He muttered that he had not as yet thought of it.
“You have no connection,” Brougham continued, “who could help you to a seat? For if so, now is the time. Presently there will be a Reformed Parliament and a crowd of new men, and the road will be blocked by the throng of aspirants. You are not too young. Palmerston was not so old when Perceval offered him a seat in the Cabinet.”
The words, the tone, the assumption that such things were for him—that he had but to hold out his hand and they would fall into it—dropped like balm into the young man’s soul. Yet he was not sure that the other was serious, and he made a tremendous effort to hide the emotion he felt. “I am afraid,” he said, with a forced smile, “that I, my lord, am not Lord Palmerston.”
“No?” Brougham answered with a faint sneer. “But not much the worse for that, perhaps. So that if you have any connection who commands a seat, now is the time.”
Vaughan shook his head. “I have none,” he said, “except my cousin, Sir Robert Vermuyden.”
“Vermuyden of Chippinge?” the Chancellor exclaimed, in a voice of surprise.
“Good G—d!” Brougham cried. It was not a mealy-mouthed age. And he leant back and stared at the young man. “You don’t mean to say that he is your cousin?”
The Chancellor laughed grimly. “Oh, dear, dear!” he said. “I am afraid that he won’t help us much. I remember him in the House—an old high and dry Tory. I am afraid that, with your opinions, you’ve not much to expect of him. Still—Mr. Cornelius,” to the gentleman at the table, “oblige me with Oldfield’s ‘House of Commons,’ the Wiltshire volume, and the private Borough List. Thank you. Let me see—ah, here it is!”
He proceeded to read in a low tone, skipping from heading to heading: “Chippinge, in the county of Wilts, has returned two members since the twenty-third of Edward III. Right of election in the Alderman and the twelve capital burgesses, who hold their places for life. Number of voters, thirteen. Patron, Sir Robert Vermuyden, Bart., of Stapylton House.