CHAPTER 24.
The Premier’s health had been sadly broken by the War. This pandemic scourge had come into being while Canada was still in her nonage, and what she needed most in leadership throughout the conflict, was what he had most to give, namely, a fine obstinacy of purpose. Possessing this, the lack of dramatic picturesqueness was forgiven him by a spectacle-loving people.
But inflexibility is always a target and a challenge for assault, and when not engaged in repelling his foes on Mr. Speaker’s Left, Sir Robert was called upon to reckon with the mutiny of his colleagues whose sense of honour was not inconveniently high. Throughout the actual ordeal of battle, the edge of the weapons of menace found him adamant. But towards the end of the four years’ darkness, the strain became too heavy, and several months before the world settled to enjoy the hostility of peace, rumours of his impending resignation drifted along the currents of the House.
The break came later—after he had gone to France to sign the Treaty of Versailles on our behalf—a glorious mission, truly, and significant of Canada’s entry into the Council of the Nations. It was then that the burden of his great labour and achievement levied a heavier toll than he could pay. Atropos threatened him with her shears. He sank into the relaxation of a profound collapse, and offered his resignation as Prime Minister. Holding the Rudder of the Ship of State with a world in arms, had broken him, as it broke the great Commoner, Pitt. That the parallel was not completed by his death, was a matter of national rejoicing, and he lived to know that his purity of conduct, his strength of purpose and his courage in the supreme crisis of civilisation, marked him as one of the real forces in history.
And so it happened that in Canada there was no man like Lloyd George who held his position unchallenged throughout the duration of the War. Political and military scandals had their ugly day. Heroes were exalted and overthrown almost within the same hour.
Dilling offered the closest analogy, perhaps, to the great British statesman. He retained not only his own portfolio, but undertook the directing of several others, while an interregnum occurred and there had been discovered no incumbent to fill the office. He had “acted” as Prime Minister on more than one occasion, and when these resignation rumours began to float about, his name was mentioned as a possible successor.
Public Works were paralyzed. The gargantuan ambitions of Eastlake and Donahue hung in abeyance. They dared not intrude their demands for further subsidies while war taxes bled the country white. Dilling turned his eyes from the elevators, and saw only the Empire’s present need. Grain moved heavily eastward, but the great driving power of the West was crippled. The hand that rocked her cradle was engaged in destroying the very manhood she had suckled at her prairie breast. Capable of producing food for more than half the world, she was starving for sustenance to keep herself alive.
Never had the Hon. Member for Morroway been so deeply engrossed in the business of politics. Never had he applied himself so sedulously to the successful culmination of his vast schemes and secret projects, or neglected for so lengthy a period the gentler pursuits that so intrigued him. It was rumoured in some quarters that he had reformed. The rumour was not received with universal satisfaction, for the penitent has only the applause of the devotee who reclaims him.
Howarth and Turner watched him with mingled concern and respect, and wondered as to the nature of his game. After the entry of the United States into the War, and when the outcome was a foregone conclusion, these two gentlemen became somewhat apprehensive as to the future of the Party (and incidentally their own place in the political sun). The rumours of Sir Robert’s resignation moved them profoundly.
“Of course,” said Turner, as the three sat in Mr. Sullivan’s cheerful office, “Sir Adrian Grant will be a candidate, but I don’t believe he has the ghost of a chance. It looks to me like a walk-over for Dilling. He’ll march to the seat of honour, terrible as an army with banners.”
“Yes,” agreed Howarth. “I don’t know who’s going to stop him. That damned silly boost of yours, Sullivan, has done us in the eye, if you ask me.”
Mr. Sullivan examined the contents of his glass against the pale spring twilight, and remarked that he was always glad to hear the opinions of his friends, even though he had not asked for them. In the present instance, however, he seemed to detect some thing monstrous and repetitive.
“Sure, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again,” announced Howarth, warmly. “What’s going to keep him from stepping into the P. M.’s shoes, if we have to go to the country? Hasn’t he made good! Don’t the people think he’s a little tin god? Hasn’t he got a lot of useful experience out of the last few years?”
“All because of this Minister business,” supplemented Turner. “Except for that, we could have kept him down. He wouldn’t have had a chance.”
“But now, as matters stand, he’ll walk in, put over the Elevator project, and . . .”
“. . . the E. D. Company will flourish like a green bay tree, and where will our little plans come in?” demanded Turner, bitterly. “If you want to eat honey in peace, say the Russians, you must first kill all the bees.”
Mr. Sullivan nodded, but preserved an inscrutable silence.
“Have you got something up your sleeve, old man?” asked Howarth, in a foolish, coaxing tone. “There’s no denying you’re a pretty shrewd lad in your own way, Rufus, and you don’t often make mistakes. Personally, I rely absolutely upon your judgment, and am ready to follow—oh, absolutely,” he insisted, conscious of a slight twitching at the corners of Mr. Sullivan’s full lips. “At the same time, there are occasions recorded in history, when the most astute persons have been misled, when the best-laid schemes have taken a most unprecedented and disastrous twist. If you have a plan, why not take us into your confidence, Rufus? Why not discuss your ideas . . . three heads, you know . . .”
“Reminiscent of Cerberus”, cut in Turner. “Pretty good watch dog, eh?”
“Sure,” assented Howarth. “Three heads . . . as I say. And besides, I’m just restless in my desire to help.”
But it was Marjorie who was the Hon. Member’s first confidante. She neither realised the importance of this, nor appreciated the honour that he did her.
He had begged for an uninterrupted moment—a moment clipped from her over-full days, when appointment followed appointment in a continuous, dizzying succession—and, because he had said it was urgent, she agreed to receive him one night at ten o’clock. An earlier release was impossible from the pandemonium advertised as a Patriotic Bazaar.
“The dear little woman looks tired,” he said, taking her hand. “Isn’t she trying to push a great heavy Mercedes up a very steep hill, with a Ford engine? Aren’t you doing far too much of this hysterical War Work, little Marjorie?”
“Wednesday is my worst day,” she told him, and tried to withdraw her hand . . . “not the actual work, but going to things. You see,” she explained, “it makes such a difference . . . I can’t understand it, really . . . If we go to these patriotic things . . . the Ministers’ wives, I mean. We don’t do anything but walk around, and have people introduced to us, and it’s so useless and tiring!”
“My dear . . . my dear!” murmured the sympathetic Member.
“I don’t mind the work, a bit,” Marjorie continued, trying to force a note of weariness out of her voice. “The sewing and sorting of donations and that kind of thing. I feel as though—as though, well, I feel that I am really doing something for our boys over there, whereas walking around these bazaars and sitting idle at Executive meetings—” she shook her head and left the sentence unfinished. “But you wanted to see me about something in particular, you said.”
The Hon. Member for Morroway assumed his most charmingly avuncular air. Little by little, he overcame Marjorie’s instinctive resistance. She was always so eager to like people, to believe in them and find them good. He asked if she could keep a secret—even from her husband, and gaining a somewhat hesitant answer, whispered,
“How would you like to see him Prime Minister, my dear?”
Marjorie’s tired brain reeled. She couldn’t grasp the thought, at all. Prime Minister . . . Raymond . . . so soon to see the fulfilment of his heart’s desire? No, no! She shrunk away from the idea. There must be some mistake. They were so young, so inexperienced. They were not properly prepared, not sufficiently worthy. She felt an overwhelming pity for all those women whose lives were broken, and whose hearts were torn by the War. It shadowed the satisfaction, the joyousness she might have taken for herself. Prime Minister!
Sullivan sat quiet, watching her, and the changing expressions that sped across her haggard face. He read them as easily as though they had been printed there, and he waited.
“Do you want Raymond to be Prime Minister?” Marjorie finally whispered. “Do you think he ought to be?”
“There is little doubt on either score.” Mr. Sullivan was soothing, reassuring. “As you know, I am only an inconspicuous cog in the political machine, but even the smallest cog can control the working of the whole. Just as it can obstruct,” he added, lightly. “Without meaning to boast, I believe that my influence is sufficient to secure him the Premiership—just as I was somewhat instrumental in putting him into the Cabinet.”
“Oh, Mr. Sullivan—Uncle Rufus, do you really mean to help?”
“With all my heart, little woman,” he replied, “and so must you.”
“I?” Her confused mind translated the assistance he suggested into a need for increasing “stiffness”.
“Of course! Why not?”
“What must I do?”
Mr. Sullivan became affectionately confidential. The most important thing, he assured her, was persuading Dilling how ardently she wanted him to accept the position.
“But he won’t refuse . . . will he?”
“There is just that little possibility . . . yes, it is conceivable that he might. I mustn’t tire you with an exposition of the complicated question,” he went on, “but to secure the support he needs, would require a slight change of policy . . . not quite superficially, either. I might go so far as to say ab imo pectore, if you know what I mean.”
He watched the strained bewilderment in her eyes with something akin to brutal pleasure.
“Raymond is a strong man, determined almost to stubbornness, may I say? He is guided—er misguided, many of the older parliamentarians think—by an idée fixe. If I know him as I think I do, it will be hard to convince him that relinquishing it will be a sign not of weakness, but of strength.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand all of this . . .”
“Don’t bother your lovely head with it! I did not come here to worry you with tedious politics, but I do want you to understand me . . . so that we can work together in this most momentous matter. Raymond must be made to see that all previous measures now require adjustment to the changed times. The end of War is in sight, thank God, but we can’t delude ourselves with the thought that the world will find immediate peace, that it will pick up its burdens and its pleasures where it left them off, and that the policies we followed prior to 1914 are those to take us forward to-day. He must change. Can’t you persuade him?”
“I never interfere,” said Marjorie, in a low voice. “He would think I was crazy to suggest anything about politics. I’m so stupid, you know.”
“But you can plead your own cause—convince him of the happiness this promotion would mean to you . . . and,” he hurried on, “you realise what it would mean for him, for the children, for the country! Why, he would be the youngest, the most brilliant Prime Minister in the world! Think of it, little Marjorie . . . our own splendid Raymond, of Pinto Plains!”
He rose to take his leave. Marjorie got rather dizzily to her feet. The room heaved in gentle waves, and the harsh lights suddenly went dim. An awful sickness attacked her, and out of the curious amethyst fog, the face of Mr. Sullivan advanced upon her, huge, satyric, terrible.
“What is it?” she whispered. “Oh, dear, what is the matter?”
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?” he asked, in a voice that scorched her.
“Oh . . . please . . .”
Marjorie escaped from the hand that came towards her. She slipped behind the table. Mr. Sullivan followed. She ran to the Morris chair and took refuge on the other side of it, for a moment. Her knees would scarcely support her. This cloud threatened to blind her. The room was filled with a noise as of some one’s heavy breathing. It occurred to her that Althea must be sobbing, upstairs.
“Come on, child! Don’t be silly!” The voice of the Hon. Member sounded husky, but very loud. It thumped against her consciousness. “Aren’t you going to give me one little kiss in return for the help I’m giving Raymond?”
“No, no! Please . . .” She circled unsteadily around the table, again.
“Well, by God, you will, then!” cried Mr. Sullivan. “I’ve had just about enough of this catch-as-catch-can. You come here!”
“No . . . oh, no . . .”
Marjorie crumpled in a heap on the floor, and burst into wild sobbing. She was beside herself with terror. Never again in his gentlest moments, would the Hon. Member deceive her with his avuncular air. Always, she would see him as a beast of prey, his eyes flaming, his hands searching for her.
Quite unconsciously, she began to pray.
“Oh, God, please . . . Dear God . . .”
Mr. Sullivan paused in his advance. He looked at the disordered heap on the floor. A revulsion of feeling came over him, and he turned away.
“Bah!” he said, angrily. “Women!” and, seizing his hat, he left the house.