Part 11
“China might make a live issue to take to the country in the good old-fashioned way. A general election must come within three months. I’ve had the nous, thank God, to keep the old party machine in being. It needs overhauling and bringing up-to-date, but there is a certain amount of money in the party chest, and if I can get the right people in charge--alas, honest men are very shy of me!--it is just possible--don’t let us put it higher--that W. W. may catch the Colossus napping.”
Much beguiled was this venerable-looking, white-haired and ineffably cunning gentleman with the idea that was slowly coming to birth in his mind. No sooner had the member for Blackhampton sat down, which he did amid murmurs of ironical applause, after boring the House of Commons for a full hour, although posterity may be inclined to take a more lenient view of the performance, than the prime minister retired to his room. In that seclusion, he amused himself with a little quiet study of Whitaker. This young man, at the Stunt Election of 19--, although not taking quite so kindly to the Coupon as he might have done, had yet been returned for Blackhampton by a solid majority of four thousand odd.
“Well,” ruminated the prime minister, “Blackhampton is the metropolis of the midland counties and in those parts they are a shrewd, hard-headed folk. They have a knack of going pretty straight to the root of most matters. And they appear to have a good opinion of John Endor. It might do no harm to have a little preliminary try-out at Blackhampton, to learn the thickness of the ice and to gauge the temperature of the country.”
So grateful was the idea to the mind of Mr. Williams that as he went into the lobby in search of John Endor he smiled pleasantly at his thoughts. By a happy chance, almost the first man he met was the member for Blackhampton.
“My dear Mr. Endor,”--in the humane art of patting on the shoulder the younger generation Slippery Sam had no peer--“permit me, if I may--without impertinence--to congratulate you--to congratulate you most sincerely on a fine--a really fine--effort.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the member for Blackhampton. “It is very good of you.” Naïf young man, he could not withhold a little blush of pleasure! There was such a genuine ring in this voice of fatherly benevolence. Besides, to John Endor, anachronism as he was, the prime minister of England still meant something.
“Don’t let me be fulsome”--the well modulated voice of Mr. Williams could achieve real charm on these occasions--“but do you know whom you brought back to the mind of an old man? Mr. Gladstone. As I sat listening to you, my dear sir, I thought of the long ago--alas, how long ago it seemed!--when Mr. Gladstone brought in his Bill for Ireland. But, as I say, don’t let me be fulsome.”
John Endor was dumb before these praises.
“Your grandfather the Duke,” the prime minister flowed smoothly on, “was a little before my day. But he was a great man. His speeches in Another Place on the People’s Charter live in history. For a man of his time and class he was most enlightened. I am so glad for his sake that there is still among us one of his kin to bear the torch.”
John Endor was still dumb, but now he glowed with happiness.
“I wonder, Mr. Endor, if you can dine with us to-morrow at Number 10, just my wife and me? Nobody else, except perhaps, my daughter. But quite informal--just _en famille_. Afterwards over a cigar, we’ll have a little talk. Your fine speech ... it’s ... well, to-morrow evening, at eight.”
XXXI
At eight o’clock the next evening, John Endor found himself in the prime minister’s drawing room, shaking hands with the prime minister’s lady.
The celebrated “Mrs. Wilber” was a tall, rather austere dame, with the remains of considerable good looks; moreover, they conferred upon her an air of intellectual distinction to which she was hardly entitled. Mrs. Wilber, it is true, had an almost sublime power of putting her foot in it; but this faculty in a prime minister’s lady may spring from one of two causes: she may have too many brains, or she may have too few. Slippery Sam’s greatest enemies had never accused his wife of having too many.
By no means brilliant herself, Mrs. Wilber profoundly distrusted scintillation in others. Her husband she regarded as good rather than brilliant; indeed, in her attitude to her lord, she was almost a latter-day equivalent of Mrs. Gladstone. She seemed to regard the prime minister as too bright and good for human nature’s daily food; in fact, a kind of composite of the librarian to the House of Lords and a certain highly distinguished personage in Heaven. To those best acquainted with the singularly complex character of the first minister of the Crown, this obsession of Mrs. Wilber’s was a source of pure joy.
John Endor was too elemental to give overmuch thought to the Mrs. Wilbers of life. All the same, he had humor enough to appreciate his hostess’ sovereign faculty of “putting her foot in it.” Dinner had hardly begun when she was openly rebuked by a clever, charming, unconventional young daughter seated opposite Mr. Endor, for announcing “that it gave her so much pleasure to find that gentlemen were still to be found in politics.”
“Really, mother!” Miss Clarice reproved her with the very latest Oxford inflection.
Mrs. Wilber shifted her ground a little, although maintaining the general position by asking after “dear Lady Elizabeth.” She herself claimed to be of solid Middleshire county stock; indeed, one of her father’s properties marched with Wyndham, and she was able to remember John’s own father being acclaimed as one of the best men to hounds of his generation.
“And I hear you are going to be married, Mr. Endor.”
Rather a blow this, to Miss Clarice, who brought her charming nose to the menu card before attacking a curry.
She bore up very well, in spite of the fact that she had already told herself privately that she would have to consider the question of marrying Mr. John Endor.
He was good to look at certainly, his low voice a delight, there was not a hint of stiffness or formality about him, and, crowning joy, he had a sense of humor.
“How exciting!” Only a very little curry was needed for Miss Clarice to effect a superb, if rather stoical, recovery. “Do tell me. Who is the lady?”
“Miss Helen Sholto of Virginia, my dear.” Mrs. Wilber had seen the announcement in the _Morning Post_, and had known how to cherish it in a manner becoming a prime minister’s lady. “But tell me, Mr. Endor, what does dear Lady Elizabeth say?” In she went again, horse, foot, and artillery. “Virginia is in the south, I believe, which is not the _moneyed_ part of America. But all Americans, of course, have money.”
A look of blank despair settled upon Miss Clarice, who was inclined to see her mother, not in terms of Mrs. Gladstone, but in terms of Mrs. Dizzy.
John Endor enjoyed his dinner all the same and so did Miss Clarice. The talk was really quite amusing. Mr. Williams himself was a model host and no mean conversationalist. He went back a long way. Even in Victorian times he had been in the inner circle of society and politics. He had a fund of anecdote which no man living knew better how to employ. He was always geniality itself, and on occasions of modest festivity in the bosom of his family he was wholly delightful.
It was in the library, however, after dinner that John Endor really found himself at grips with Fate. Ushered into an armchair, strategically disposed so that the bust of Pitt should be on his right and a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica on his left, two adjuncts indispensable to the library of Number 10 Downing Street, and duly furnished with an excellent cigar, the neophyte settled himself to hear golden words.
In the delicate and judicious phrase of the prime minister, it seemed that one Bendish, an admirable man, was living now under the threat of Bright’s disease, and that in the opinion of Mrs. Bendish, an admirable woman, only one place could hope to arrest the ravages of such a grave malady. That place was the House of Lords. Whether the air of the Gilded Chamber was more salubrious, whether its system of drainage was more modern, the central heating more efficient, the ventilation less inadequate, was one of those problems which the prime minister, having no first-hand knowledge of Another Place, did not offer to solve. But there the matter was. Mrs. Bendish, an admirable woman, was convinced that, for Bright’s disease, the rarified atmosphere of the House of Lords was the only remedy. Alas, that Mr. Bendish should be smitten with so fell a malady!
The prime minister, however, was by no means averse from applying the antidote. Drastic, no doubt, but Mrs. Bendish, a Spartan wife, was adamant. Unhappily, Mr. Bendish would not be able to continue his signal work for the State. The Home Office and the House of Lords are not necessarily incompatible, but like Burgundy and port they are a combination not quite suited to all constitutions. Such at least, in this case, was the view of the prime minister. In the event of Mr. Bendish really going to the House of Lords--and Mrs. Bendish was so firm on the point that it hardly admitted of doubt--it would be expedient for his Britannic majesty to seek a new secretary of state for the Home Department. In a word, would Mr. Endor take that Office?
Mr. Endor was a little staggered. The bust of Pitt was on his right hand, a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica was on his left, none the less, the prime minister’s point-blank offer was in the nature of a bolt from a blue sky.
“It will mean, I’m afraid, a by-election.” The honeyed voice of Mr. Wilberforce Williams had the mellifluity that endeared him to every journalist in the land. “And--don’t let us deceive ourselves--my dear sir--a stiff one. To be frank--to be perfectly frank--the member for Blackhampton will not be exactly _persona gratissima_ in Universe Building.”
To the young Lothair, that was the amazing part of the whole matter. He had no claim to subtlety of mind, but he was not a fool. What was in the wind? Well he knew that for the member for Blackhampton to be given the Home Office was tantamount to Slippery Sam throwing down the gage of battle to the U. P.
“Take a little time for your answer, my dear sir.” Such linked sweetness must have seemed a little excessive in any one not the prime minister. “Take twenty-four--forty-eight--yes, forty-eight hours--shall we say? In the meantime, may I rely--of course I may--such a superfluous question--on your absolute discretion?”
John Endor gave that unnecessary assurance.
“You see, my dear sir, do you not?”--the smile of Slippery Sam was deliciously vulpine. “As soon as they get wind of this in Universe Building, the Great General Staff will be in the field with a hundred fully mobilized army corps--before even our dear Mr. Bendish can apply for the Chiltern Hundreds.”
XXXII
Forty-eight hours were indeed necessary for John Endor to make up his mind. A big decision confronted him. Even if he were given the Home Office on his own terms, and he had promptly decided that he would take it on no other, it was certain that, with the full weight of the U. P. against him, he would have a terrific fight to hold his seat. Moreover, if he managed to retain it, and faced with “the machine,” the chances were that he would not, within a few months a general election was due, and he would have to fight again.
Brief study of the tactical position, combined with a little analysis of Slippery Sam’s fair-seeming offer soon brought him perilously near the truth. A by-election in such a constituency as East Blackhampton would be a _ballon d’essai_, a try-out, a testing of the ice. The astute personage who dangled this lure of office would risk little. If a tyro, a comparative free lance, new to high places, failed to win East Blackhampton, he would be dropped like a hot coal. The rebuff would be accepted gracefully and an orthodox coupon-swallower, a “safe” man put up in his stead. Things would go on as they were; and the noble company of time-servers would trim their sails for the coming dissolution in the old happy way. But as Endor clearly saw, failure for him in such circumstances was likely to mean the end of his political career.
Was he justified in taking such a tremendous risk? He put the case squarely to Helen; it was but fair and right that he should do so. And she, at least, did not hesitate. Her faith in him was complete. Let him follow his star. The chance of his life had come. Let him show himself worthy of it.
His own instincts were knightly, but he could not rid his mind of a secret fear of Slippery Sam. How far would it be possible for John Endor to serve under the official banner of the most accomplished trimmer in the land? Finally, before deciding the matter one way or the other, he determined to see what terms he could make with this illustrious chieftain.
In effect his answer, when duly delivered to the prime minister was that he would accept the Office and run the gauntlet if, in the event of success, Mr. Williams would himself frame a bill to deal with the Newspaper Trust. Such a measure must be the first plank in the Government platform when he appealed to the country six months hence.
Somewhat to Mr. Endor’s surprise, the prime minister agreed to this course. Great parliamentarian as Slippery Sam undoubtedly was, with an insight almost uncanny into the workings of the minds of his chosen instruments, he had anticipated the need for some such compact, before making the offer. Indeed, John Endor’s demand came to him as a subtle reminder of his own prescience.
Mr. Williams was the last man in the world to take a leap in the dark. His plans were laid pretty deep. This picturesque young visionary, with his ancient name, his family tradition, his virile enthusiasm, was the one man in that House or out of it to sweep the whole country if the cause that nerved him were great enough.
In the considered opinion of Mr. Williams the cry _Break the Newspaper Trust and Bring Down the Price of Everything_ was the only possible counter to the massed and entrenched forces of the enemy. At least it would rally the cruelly overburdened upper and middle classes; and conceivably it might woo sufficient of the “workers” from the spells of the U. P. to rout the Colossus with all his stunts and all his wiles.
At all events, Mr. Williams had now reached the conclusion that the yoke of Saul Hartz was intolerable. The question of China was the final straw that had broken the back of the camel. In his own good time he would try a fall with the U. P. Sooner or later it would have to be. His chains had grown unbearable. If he failed, rather than endure the ignominy of serving such a tyrant, he would retire from politics. If he succeeded, politics once again might offer a career for reasonably honest men.
In any event, nothing could have shown a more statesmanlike grasp of the amazingly complex conditions of the time than his choice of John Endor as the prophet of the new gospel--_Down with the U. P._
XXXIII
Before plunging into the fray at Blackhampton, Endor did a bold thing. He got married. A fortnight’s grace was allowed him by the Government, before the issuing of the writs; and more than one consideration urged him to turn that precious interregnum to high account.
Wyndham itself was hardly more than ten miles from Blackhampton and this he made his headquarters for the fight. Having due regard to the circumstances of the case, John felt it would be wise to get through the business of being married with the least possible delay. Moreover, an impetuous nature urged him to this course. The opposition of his mother, conceal it as she might, he knew to be strong. It would be kinder to her, therefore, to rush the matrimonial fence. And he hoped that the old lady’s mind would be distracted by the shock of events from dwelling too much on the affront to her wishes, the death of her hopes.
Again there was policy in this dispatch. Helen was going to be a great ally in the fight. An accomplished speaker, she thoroughly understood her own sex, and on the platform and in the press she had a way with her in her dealings with them. As the blushing bride of John Endor, an old and tried friend, now with his back to the wall, fighting for his political life, she would be in a position to steal a little of the enemy’s thunder. “Aunt Mittie,” “Lovely Lily Langrish,” and their like, who had proved so formidable at other Stunt elections up and down the land, must look to their laurels. Romance of a more genuine kind might invest John Endor and his new and singularly attractive American wife. And if only “they could get the real goods over” with half the skill of the U. P. the fire of several big enemy batteries was likely to be dominated.
The wedding at the tiny church of the ancestral village was the simplest and quietest affair. No more than a handful of indispensables were there; just a few friends and relations who were bound to be present. George Hierons gave Helen away. This remarkable man was becoming very much the friend of both. He heartily approved Helen’s severance from the _Planet_ and Saul Hartz; moreover, he ventured upon the prophecy that Endor with such a wife would go far.
Lady Elizabeth, of course, was scandalized by the whole affair. Such a “nose-dive” into the holy state, such an absence of all trumpets and shawms, was worthy indeed of “Comrade” Endor. This undignified haste was nothing short of indecent; Lady Elizabeth had fully counted on “an engagement of at least two years.” She felt, in fact, that she had every right to insist upon it. Still the old Die-hard supposed she must look at the bright side of the picture: this Miss Sholto, although an American, was not a person of color. She had no money, therefore John’s infatuation for her was extremely reprehensible; at the same time, she seemed a shrewd, sensible, practical girl, and had the makings no doubt of an excellent wife. But if she was only a quarter as extravagant as the other American wives Lady Elizabeth had heard of, it would be quite impossible for them to keep up Wyndham. In the meantime, the old lady was a little appeased by John’s announcement that they proposed to live in London in a very modest fashion, strictly in accordance with their own present income, and she would be left to carry on at Wyndham in the way she had always done.
The Blackhampton by-election might be an odd kind of honeymoon, yet John and Helen considered it to be an affair vastly more exhilarating than the regulation visit to an empty country house which ended invariably in boredom. At any rate, to John and Helen, there was nothing in the least boring about the Blackhampton election.
To begin with, they recognized from the outset how much was at stake. Then, too, Blackhampton itself, a live place, with three hundred thousand particularly live people in it, was by no means addicted to boredom. For these the world was far too full of a number of things interesting for that form of poison to be allowed to enter.
The member for _Blackhampton East_ was to find moreover, when in person he came to open the campaign, that he had not entered the lists a moment too soon. The enemy was in the field already. It was never the way of the U. P.--for the sake of clearness and brevity, the foe may be incorporated in that comprehensive title--to let the grass grow beneath its feet. As Mr. Wilberforce Williams had himself predicted, within twenty-four hours of the Government showing its hand, the Great General Staff of Cosmos Alley and Universe Lane was ready to the last gaiter button.
East Blackhampton itself had for some little time past been on a war basis. Several months ago had come the order “from above” that at the next election ENDOR MUST GO. Everything was in review order for “the day.” So declared the U. P. agent-in-chief, at any rate. For many moons the constituency had been sedulously nursed by one of the regulation Colonial “bagmen,” Sir Stuyvescent Milgrim K. B. E. by name, a distinguished member of a famous army which had won the war without going near it.
When Mr. Endor at last came on to the scene, a little belatedly as it seemed to his own election agent, Mr. Ambrose Furley, he was received by that gentleman at the Central Committee Rooms. These were situated in Market Square, almost under the shadow of the noble statue of John Bright, by G. F. Watts.
XXXIV
The Home Secretary-elect found his chief supporters heavily cast down.
“They’ve got a long start of us, already, Mr. Endor, and let me tell you, sir, they are out for blood.” Such was the greeting of Mr. Ambrose Furley, a tall, thin gentleman, not by nature an optimist, who wore, as became the fine flower of Blackhampton’s intelligentsia the black cord of his gold-rimmed eyeglasses round a red left ear. “And if I may be so bold as to offer an opinion, there’s only one thing can save us from getting it fairly in the neck.”
The member for East Blackhampton was not unused to the somber half-tones of his agent’s mind, but he did not look for such out-and-out pessimism, even in Mr. Ambrose Furley.
“You see, sir,” continued Mr. Furley, “from what I hear, the U. P. has made up its mind to do you in, no matter what it costs them.”
John Endor, unshaken, smiled the smile of the happy warrior.
The pessimism of Mr. Ambrose Furley grew a shade less defiant. “However, you may have a dog’s chance, Mr. Endor, and that’s about all. But take it from me, sir, even that chance depends, as you might say, on one contingency.”
“So you think we may still venture to hope?” There was a light in the eye of John Endor.
“I don’t put it as high as a hope, sir.” In his use of the English language Mr. Furley liked to be precise. “A shadow of a hope is more like it. And as I have already said even that depends upon one contingency.”
With the urbanity that all the Member’s supporters so greatly admired, Mr. Endor waited patiently while Mr. Ambrose Furley in his own good time proceeded to show what “the contingency” was. “It’s like this, do you see, sir? We mustn’t be blind to the fact that we are up against a ticklish situation. The voting in this election is going to be very cross. Now that you’ve come out so strong, much too strong most of us think here, against the U. P. there’s bound to be a big turnover of votes, unless we can get one man to come down on the right side of the fence. It’s just on the cards, if the gentleman in question does that, that we may not be beaten to a frazzle. But I don’t say he will. At the moment he’s seated on it. By nature he’s a blue, a regular blue--but there’s just a chance that, by a bit of management, he may come over to us. And if he does--well, sir, as I say, the voting at this election will be very cross.”
At this point the Member ventured tactfully to ask the name of the unknown power.
“Sir Josiah Munt,” said Mr. Furley, impressively. “Blackhampton’s Big Noise. In fact, sir,” Mr. Furley became almost lyrical, “Blackhampton’s Grand Old Man.”
“You think there’s a chance of Sir Josiah coming over?” The Member, for all his air of detachment, knew far more about local politics than appeared on the surface. “By Jove, that would be one up to us.”
“You bet it would, Mr. Endor. Sir Josiah is not everybody’s pretty boy, but he carries weight in this city. He’s a very honest man and he’s dead against ‘graft.’ It seems to me, sir, strictly between ourselves”--Mr. Ambrose Furley had all the shrewd penetration of a true Blackhamptonian--“that the U. P. is playing things up so high that there’s a poss-i-bil-ity, so far as Sir Munt is concerned, that it may overreach itself if it doesn’t watch it.”
“Good news if it is so. Can you suggest a means, Mr. Furley, of taking advantage of the fact?”