Under One Flag

"So, I am sorry to say, I have been given to understand."

"I represent the cause of progress and advance."

"Both, I imagine, in the direction of the public-house. I am credibly informed that since your candidature there has been more drunkenness in Copstone than has ever been known before in the annals of the parish."

It was a monstrous thing to say. Yet I wished that my associates had been teetotallers, and that we could have had the use of the parish room.

"Henrietta, I will not characterise the statement which you have just now made. I content myself by taking up my position as head of this household to prohibit your pursuing any farther the dangerous pathways along which your feet have been induced to stray by the Jesuitical teachings of an insidious foe."

"Speak English, Augustus, if you please, at home. Rodomontade, if you choose, where nobody understands you, or wants to. Here say plainly what you mean."

"I forbid you to carry the farce of your candidature any farther."

"That I readily undertake to do. I promise you it shall be no farce."

"Farce or no farce, I command you to take your name from off that list." I regret to say that Henrietta snapped her fingers in the air. "Am I to understand that you snap your fingers at the expression of my wishes?"

"You have not even troubled yourself to do that. You have known all along what my wishes were, yet you have chosen to entirely ignore my most sacred aspirations."

"Henrietta, the husband is the head of the wife."

"Who says so? Your friend Tyler? It is notorious that he scoffs at the sanctity of the marriage tie."

"Don't call that man my friend."

"No? Do you authorise me to state in public that you repudiate his friendship?"

"I won't chop phrases with you. I will merely remind you that at the altar you promised me obedience."

"Suppose you were to instruct me to commit murder, would you consider it my duty to carry the promise even so far?"

"I am not instructing you to commit murder."

"You are requesting me to do something analogous, to murder all that is best and noblest in the parish of Copstone."

"That's an outrageous falsehood."

She stood up.

"Of course, if you accuse me of deliberate untruth-"

"You won't get out of it like that. I tell you, frankly, that if you are not careful I shall go straight to Crookenden and tell him with my own lips that I have forbidden you to stand."

"He knows already that you would forbid me. They all know it. It is because of that knowledge they have urged me to take up the position I have done, and to persist in it; in the hope that my action may do something to mitigate the evil example which you are setting to the parish."

"This is awful. When I stood beside you at the altar I never thought that you would speak and behave to me like this-never!"

"Nor I that I should be constrained to such a course. You may, however, easily make the situation more tolerable."

"How?"

"By withdrawing your candidature."

"Indeed! Now I see the point at which the whole thing's aimed. Crookenden has egged you on to make a public exhibition of yourself in order to drive me from the righteous stronghold which I have occupied. I see the Jesuit hand."

She shrugged her shoulders as calmly as if we were discussing the question of thick or clear soup for dinner.

"You see things which do not exist. It is a condition of a certain mental state. There is one thing I should like to say. I have been told that courtesy is the characteristic note of English politics. That men may sit on opposite sides of the House and yet be very good friends both in and out of it. I hope that may be the same with us. You have taken up the cry of 'Beer and the "Fox and Hounds,"' I that of the 'Bible and Clean Living.' Let each admit that the other may be actuated by conscientious motives. Then we shall still be good friends, though we may agree to differ."

It was no use talking to such a woman, not the slightest. We all have to bear our burdens, and I bore mine, though I never supposed that it would have taken the shape of being opposed by my own wife in an election for the School Board. As a matter of fact, it was unendurable-yet I bore it. Not only did she persist in her candidature, but she carried it on with a degree of activity which was little less than astounding. The contest afforded considerable entertainment to the parish. From the public interest point of view there might have been only two candidates-she and I. It was a subject of constant comment in the public prints. "Husband and wife oppose each other at a School-Board election. Amusing situation. Lively proceedings." That was the sort of headline which confronted me in I do not know how many papers.

Some of my colleagues actually chose to regard me as responsible for Mrs Bloxam's conduct. It is a painful moment when a man, of a naturally sensitive disposition, has to state in public that his wife is acting in direct defiance of his wishes. And the delicacy of his position is intensified when his hearers begin to criticise her conduct. It is in accordance with the fitness of things to abuse your opponent; but when your opponent is your own wife, it is an open question whether, even if you are entitled to abuse her yourself, your associates have a right to do so too. It is obviously a problem of an exceedingly complicated character, and one which, I believe, has never been properly thrashed out. I shall never forget my sensations when, at a meeting at the "Fox and Hounds," Tyler began to call Henrietta names. I had to stop him. Then he said I was a traitor. He certainly succeeded in creating a suspicion that I was in collusion with my own wife to cause him and myself to be defeated. I had to put great restraint upon myself to prevent a vulgar brawl.

One morning, as I was walking along Church Lane, I met Crookenden. I stopped him. There was no beating about the bush. I went straight to the point.

"I hope, Mr Crookenden, that you are able to reconcile it with your conscience that you have succeeded in sowing the seeds of discord between husband and wife."

"Pray how have I done that?"

"You know very well what I mean, sir. Have the goodness not to feign ignorance with me."

"You refer to your wife's action with reference to that pet scheme of yours, the School Board with which you are about to saddle the parish."

He actually laughed. That is the kind of man he is. No wonder that some say the Church of England totters to a fall! Just then Colonel Laughton came through the clapper gate. Crookenden turned to him.

"Ah, Mr Bloxam, here is the man you should assail. Laughton, Mr Bloxam wants to know who induced Mrs Bloxam to put herself forward in connection with that School Board of his."

"Why, Madge, of course." The Colonel addressed himself to me. "Mrs Laughton said to your wife, 'Here's Bloxam making an ass of himself'-"

"Sir!"

"I'm not implying that that's the exact word she used, but that's the sense of it. 'Let's do something to show that it's not always the women who are idiots. If you'll stand, I will.' But your wife wouldn't, so Madge kept on, and kept on at her, till she did; few people can hold out against Madge when she's made up her mind about a thing." Laughton put his feet apart, his stick under his arm, and his hands in his trouser pockets. "Why, you don't mean to say that you object to your wife standing. My wife is, and I don't mind."

"The cases are not identical. Mrs Laughton is not standing in opposition to you."

"No, I'm not a fool-at least, I'm not that kind. Now, look here, Bloxam, we all know what's the matter with you, and why you've gone out of your road to set the parish by the ears. Crookenden's rubbed you the wrong way, that's the beginning and the end of it. Now here is Crookenden, and I'm speaking for him when I say that he'll be delighted to shake hands with you and say 'As we were.' Then your wife'll withdraw her candidature in favour of yours, and be only too glad to get the chance of doing it."

Crookenden held out his hand.

"Whether Bloxam prefers to stand as an opposition candidate or not makes no difference to me. But I do trust that he won't allow a friendship of many years' standing to be interrupted by a little difference of opinion on the subject of education."

There was a twinkle in the rector's eyes which I did not altogether relish. But I believe I should have taken his hand if Tyler had not just then appeared in sight. I remembered what I had said to him, and in his hearing, and I refrained. I observed, with dignity, -

"I am afraid that there is more in question than a difference of opinion on the subject of education."

And I walked away.

Tyler fell in beside me as I went along the field-path, inquiring, -