A Change in the Cabinet

by Hilaire Belloc

Theocritus C. Benson had seen young Demaine and was contented; he was also naturally anxious to come across old Lord Grinstead if possible, that he might estimate for himself how long his daughter might have to wait for her title. Indeed he would not allow the marriage to take place until the old man had been pointed out to him, shrivelled almost to nothingness and pulled with extreme caution and deliberation in a bath-chair through the private gardens of Bayton House.

Had he known that the figure thus exhibited to him so far from being that of the aged peer was but the carcase of a ruined dependant it would perhaps have done little to alter his decision, for though Lord Grinstead was of gigantic stature, with purple face and thunderous voice, yet his habit of gross and excessive drinking gave him a tenure of life at least as precarious as that of the enfeebled figure upon which the financier had gazed; and what is more, Lord Grinstead, though an execrable horseman, had suddenly begun to hunt upon hired mounts with a recklessness and tenacity which, if from that cause alone, should speedily ensure a violent death.

When all was happily settled, when Demaine had been given away by his principal creditor, and Sudie by her upright and handsome old father, when the last of the wedding gifts had been exchanged at the usual discount and the young couple had gone off to Honiton Castle which had been lent them for £2000 during the honeymoon, another aspect of life had to be considered.

A point upon which Mary Smith had done her best and failed was the settlements—£1500 a year to stand between his child and starvation or worse, Theocritus was willing to determine. It was the sum he had himself named before the first negotiations were begun; but as they proceeded he refused to change it by one penny, and at last the discussion was abandoned in despair. All the young people might need they should have—she was his only child, they could trust him to be more than generous. Capital sums when they were required for anything but direct investment, should be always at their disposal, and the half or more than the half of his enormous income should be ready to their call; but he resolutely retained to himself the right to control the management of all save the infinitesimal sum which was to stand between Sudie and her husband’s tyranny, or the world’s harshness.

Mary Smith’s veiled threats and open flattery were alike useless. She capitulated, told the young woman to earmark her tiny allowance for journeys, and gained from Theocritus Chepstow only this:—that he would buy a freehold for them, build and furnish it. Theocritus was on like a bird; and the lovely little lodge which London now knows as Demaine House, with its curious formal gardens, odd Dutch stables and Grecian weathercock on the site of the old mews in what is now Benson Street, is the proof that he kept his promise.

For a year Ole Man Benson had not only kept his promise in the way of building and furnishing for the young people: he had done more. He had floated them upon London with all the revenue that could be reserved from the new venture upon which he designed to double the colossal sums which directly or indirectly stood to his name, and every penny that he could spare from his first early purchases of Popocatapetls went into the status and future social position of his daughter. Now, after two years, Popocatapetl Dam was finished and yet greater things lay before them.

Demaine was put into Parliament by a majority comparable only to the financial advantages which had secured it. His birth, her voice and its timbre, gathered into Demaine House all that so small a Great House could hold.

So things had stood to within a week of the March day upon which we saw that very different man, Charles Repton, walking into the City of London....

But from the name of Charles Repton let me rapidly slew off to the sombre pyramid of that peak in the neighbourhood of Darien and recall the caprice of Popocatapetl upon which so much was to depend.

It was a Wednesday in that March of 1915 that the Statesman was to speak in Washington at ten: (for two years Demaine House had thriven, it slept that Tuesday night unconscious of its fate). It was for the Wednesday at 3.30 that the order to sell stood in Ole Man Benson’s name.... Well ...