all through that hot noon and down the beginning of the sun’s decline, george mulross slept heavily; he slept as in a death, in parham.
he slept in the house of carolus merry armiger, under the shield and tutelage of william bailey, eccentric, and with god’s benediction upon him. his troubles were at an end.
meanwhile in london, the young and popular prime minister had received his secretary’s report. the moon and the capon were squared.
how squared he was not busy to inquire. gold and silver he had none—for those purposes at least—that would not be in the best traditions of our public life: but they were squared: edward assured him they were squared, and there was an end of it.
there was more even than edward’s assurance, though that was as solid as marble; there were two early copies of the papers themselves which had been ordered and brought to him. the leader of the one dealt with those eternal concessions in burma,[239] and he smiled. there was not a word about repton. the leader of the other was on fiddlededee, and the prime minister experienced an immense relief.
but there was still demaine,—or rather, there was still no demaine. and there was still repton, mad—mad—mad!
between dolly and the awful unstable equilibrium of the modern world, between him and a cosmic explosion, was nothing but the four walls round repton, lady repton who bored him, and the sagacity of edward. it was a quarter to three, a time when meaner men must wend them to the house of commons. he also wended. he was the shepherd and he must look after his sheep.
that august assembly was astonished to perceive the premier positively present upon the front bench during the process of that appeal to the almighty which precedes the business of the day. but that did not get into the papers:—there is a limit!
as he knelt there he knew that a man whom he could not disobey was about to ask a question of which he had given private notice. he feared it much, he more feared those supplementary questions which are so useless to the scheme of our polity but which buzz like unnecessary midges round the cooking of the national food. and when prayers were over and questions begun, not an inquiry as to an admiralty contract, not a simple demand for information from the home secretary as to the incarceration of a beggar or the torture of some[240] insignificant pauper, but put his heart into his mouth.
mr. maloney’s long cross-examination on the matter of the postmistress at crosshaurigh gave him a little breathing space. they couldn’t bring repton or demaine in on that! but there was an ominous question about a wreck, and who should answer it? he had indeed arranged that the answer should proceed from the treasury, but the clouds were lowering.
the question came as mild as milk: it was concerned with the wreck which still banged and battered about on the sovereign shoals; it had been put down days before, and the chief legal adviser of the crown rose solemnly to reply.
“my right honourable friend has asked me to answer this question. he has no further information beyond that which he has already furnished to the honourable gentleman, but every inquiry is being made and papers will shortly be laid upon the table of the house.”
the fanatic rose, the inevitable fanatic, towering from the benches, and thundered his supplementary demand: what had been done with the gin? he was told to give notice of the question.
for three dreadful seconds the prime minister feared some consequence. his fears were well grounded. a gentleman rose and spoke from the darkness under the gallery and desired to know why the warden of the court of dowry was not present[241] to deal with matters concerning his department? he would have been reproved by the chair had not the young and popular prime minister taken it upon himself to rise and reply.
“it is the first time,” he said, “and i hope it will be the last, that i have heard the illness of a colleague made the excuse for such an interruption.”
from the benches behind him those who knew the truth applauded and those who did not applauded more loudly still.
with what genius had he not saved the situation! and the questions meandered on, and all was well, save for that last dreadful query of which he had had private notice.
it was put at the end of question-time, not, oddly enough, by the member who most coveted the apparently vacant wardenship, nor even by any relative of that member, nay, not even by a friend: a member surely innocent of all personal motives put that question. he desired to know, whether rumours appearing in the papers upon the wardenship of the court of dowry were well founded, whether the wardenship of the court of dowry were not for the moment vacant, and if so what steps were being taken to fill that vacancy.
the reply was curt and sufficient: “the honourable member must not believe everything he reads in the newspapers.”
it is not often that wit of a lightning kind falls zigzag and blasts the efforts of anarchy in the[242] national council. wit is very properly excluded from the exercise of legislative power; but when it appears—when there is good reason for its appearance—its success is overwhelming: and by the action of this one brilliant phrase, perhaps the most dangerous crisis through which the constitution has passed since the flight of james ii. was triumphantly passed.
question-time was over. the young and popular prime minister, now wholly oblivious of his left lung, answered one or two minor questions, gave assurances as to the order of business, and left the house a happier man than he had entered it. he went straight to downing street. when he got to his room edward was there awaiting him.
“they’ve got demaine,” he said.
the luck had turned!
for half a minute dolly couldn’t speak: then he gasped:
“where?”
“i don’t know,” said edward. “i don’t think anybody knows. there was a telephone message sent to the press everywhere.”
a thousand horrid thoughts! found dead? found wandering and imbecile? found——? he was faster bound than ever—and that just in the hour when he must act and decide. he said again:
“where did it come from?”
“i couldn’t find out.”
“edward,” said the premier faintly, as he sat down[243] and fell to pieces, “you know how to do these things.... puff!— ... do go like ... a good fellow—find out ... quietly ... ch ... where it came from.”
edward went into the next room and called up 009 central. he was given 1009, kept his temper and repeated his call. a being replied to him in an angry woman’s voice and begged him not to shout into the receiver.
he asked for the clerk in charge and waited ten minutes. nothing happened.
the prime minister in his room was not at ease. his mood was if anything burdened by the delivery of an express message which ran: “they’ve found dimmy. m. s.” the writing was the writing of mary smith. he asked the messenger with some indifference to find out who had sent the message and where it had come from.
meanwhile, in the absence of edward, he went into an outer room and begged them to call up mrs. smith’s house. when he returned there was a telegram from charing cross upon his table which ran:
“george found.”
there was no signature. he waited patiently for the return of edward or the messenger or of something—hang it all, something!
the little buzzer on his table buzzed gently and the telephone whispered into his ear that “mrs. demaine wished him to know that mr. demaine was[244] found.” he had already asked “where is he?” when he was cut off.
he had received so much information and no more when edward returned with the information that the news had come in from trunk seven.
“what is trunk seven?” said the prime minister.
“i don’t know,” said edward.
they sat together for a moment in silence. the premier, as befitted his office, was a man of resource. outside westminster bridge underground station men of insufficient capital but of economic ambition deal in the retail commerce of news. it occurred to the prime minister to reassure himself from their posters, and from a room that gave upon westminster bridge road, his excellent eyesight—for it was among his points that his eyesight at fifty-four was still strong—perused the placards opposite.
they were clear enough.
“lost minister found”
said the most decent.
“demaine result”
said the capon, which appeared to have forgotten its good manners.
it ought not to be difficult to get the capon without loss of dignity. he returned to his room and in about five minutes the capon was brought to him.
under the heading “stop press news,” he saw[245] “demaine result,” and then underneath, more courteously: “mr. demaine has been heard of.” it was printed in faint wobbly type in a big blank space—and there was nothing more.
edward, entering at that moment, told him that the exact point from which the message had been sent could not be discovered until brighton had cleared.
“oh!” said the prime minister.
he was going to call up mary smith, but edward assured him that nothing more than an inept half-wit maid would answer the demand—he had tried it.
dolly sat on in patience and wondered where demaine had been discovered. the matter was of some moment. without the least doubt he would have to make up his mind as to the succession of the office that very afternoon, and it was already close on five.
demaine might be discovered suffering from a loss of memory (though what he had to remember dolly couldn’t conceive); he might have been discovered in the hands of the police. he might have been discovered attempting for some unknown reason to fly the country. till the premier knew more he could not act.
for a good half-hour he persuaded himself that it was better to wait. then he went out and motored to mary’s.
and mary of course was not at home.
[246]he went on to demaine house, and found there nothing but a man making a very careful inventory of all the pictures, all the furniture and all the glass. he came back to his room, and at last the mystery was solved.
all good things come to an end, as do all delays and all vexations, and life itself. by a method less expeditious than some of those which modern civilisation has put at our disposal, the full truth was revealed to him.
george mulross demaine was at that moment (it was six o’clock) upon that afternoon of wednesday, the 3rd of june, ... drinking brandy and soda in great quantities and refusing tea, at the liverpool street hotel. a courteous message from the manager thereof was the source of the information, and edward—edward who never failed—had been the first to receive it.
the message had gone up and down london a good deal before it had got to the house of commons; at demaine house the manager had been told to try mary smith’s number, and at mary smith’s the half-wit having almost had her head blown off by edward’s repeated violence, very sensibly suggested that the manager should telephone direct to the house of commons and give a body peace.
an instant demand (said edward) that demaine should himself come to the instrument, had been followed by a very long pause, after which he was[247] told that the gentleman had gone off in a four-wheeler with a lame horse, and had left the bill unpaid.
there was nothing to do but to wait.
half-past six struck, and the quarter. their fears were renewed when, just upon seven, a figure strangely but neatly clothed was shown into the room, by a servant who displayed such an exact proportion between censure and respect as would have puzzled the most wearisome of modern dramatists to depict.[4]
it was demaine!
his clothes were indeed extraordinary. you could not say they fitted, and you could not say they did not fit. the trousers and the coat and the waistcoat were made of one cloth, a quiet yellow. the lines of the shoulders, the arms, the legs, the very stomach, were right lines: they were lines proceeding from point to point; they were lines taking the shortest route from point to point. they were straight: they were plumb straight. the creases upon the trousers were not those adumbrations of creases which the most vulgar of the smart permit to hint at the newness of their raiment: they were solid ridges resembling the roofs of new barns or the keels of racing ships. the lapels of the coat did not sit well upon it; rather they were glued to it. the waistcoat did not fit, it stuck. and above this strange accoutrement shone, with more fitness than edward[248] and dolly could have imagined, the simple face of george mulross demaine.
his hair—oh horror!—was oiled; one might have sworn that his face was oiled as well.
the colour of his skin resembled cedarwood save on the nose, where it resembled old oak. if ever a man was fit, that man was george mulross, but if ever a man was changed, george mulross was also that man.
“sit down,” said the prime minister delightedly. “oh my dear george, sit down!”
“i can’t,” said george, using that phrase perhaps for the twentieth time during the last forty-eight hours. “they’re ready-made,” he explained, blushing (as homer beautifully puts it of andromache) through his tan. “i didn’t sit down in the train and i didn’t sit down in the cab.”
“where have you been, george?” asked the prime minister.
“i’ve had an adventure,” said george modestly.
“but hang it all, where have you been?”
“i’ve been to sea,” said george.
“oh-h-h-h-h-h!” said the prime minister.
“beastly luck, isn’t it?” said george simply.
“it’s worse than that,” said edward grimly.
“why?” asked george with something like fright upon his honest if oleaginous face.
“well, never mind,” said dolly. “it must have been pretty tough. were you blown out to sea?”
george mulross demaine’s only reply was to feel[249] inside his coat for the place where pockets are often constructed for the well-to-do, but where no pocket seemed to exist. he made five or six good digs for it, but it was not there. he looked up huntedly and said: “wait a minute.” he put his hand into his waistcoat. there again there was no receptacle, but that which should have held his watch—and even the young idealism of the prime minister permitted him to wonder why no watch was there. then george did what i hope no member of the governing class has ever done before—he felt in his trousers pocket, and thence he pulled out a bit of paper.
“yes,” he said, concealing the writing from them, “you’re quite right. i was blown out to sea. i had a”—(here he peered closely at the paper and apparently could not make out a word.) “oh yes,” he said, “a terrible time.” his diction was singularly monotonous. “i-thought-i-should-never-have-survived-that-terrible-night. a-foreign-ship-passed-me-but-the-scoundrels-left-me-to-my-fate. i-was-nearly-dead-when-under-the-first-rays-of-morning-i-saw-the-british-flag-and-my-heart-leaped-within-me.”
edward, though not usually impetuous, bereft him of the document, and as he did so the prime minister saw the square firm characters.
“good lord!” shouted the premier, “it’s bill!”
and it was the writing of william bailey.
“william’s been very good to me, if you mean that,” said demaine reproachfully.
[250]the prime minister burst into the first hearty laugh he had enjoyed in fifteen years. after all, men like bailey were of some use in the world!
in spite of dimmy’s obvious choler, with the tears of laughter in his eyes, and interrupted by little screams of merriment, the prime minister completed the reading.
“‘i bit my arm, i sucked the blood, i cried “a sail! a sail!”; and in less time than it takes to read this, hearty english hands were tugging at the oars.’ (“oh edward, edward!” gasped the exhausted man, and when he had recovered his breath continued:) ‘with the tenderness almost of a woman he lifted ...’ (“who lifted you?” he asked between his shrieks and wagging his forefinger to george demaine. “oh george, who lifted you?”) ... ‘he lifted me on board the good ship lily, and when i told him of the treacherous action of the foreigners, muttered “scoundrel” between his teeth. but a man has naught to fear when the brave hearts of his countrymen are his shield. they landed me at lowestoft, pressing into my hands their petty savings, and left me with three hearty cheers that did me almost as much good as to feel my feet once more upon british soil.’”
the prime minister laid his head upon the table, wagged it gently from side to side, uttered a series of incongruous sounds, and very nearly broke down.
george mulross demaine was exceedingly angry.
[251]“it may seem very funny to you,” he began, “but——”
“don’t, george!” said the premier, going off again, “don’t!”
but george was boiling. “how would you like it——” he began shouting.... when the door opened and there was announced with extreme solemnity mr. pickle, mr. hogge, mr. gracechurch, mr. fuell, mr. nydd, sir john clegg, lord cuthbertson, and last but by no means least, mr. howll....
one would have said that nothing had happened. there were three doors to the room—as is proper to every room in which farces are played.
through one of these edward very gently led the stiff but still burning george.
through the second appeared an official gentleman commonly present at interviews of this kind.
through the third the deputation had entered; and the young and popular prime minister, all sympathy, all heart, all ears, all teeth, all intelligence, heard such an indictment of the maladministration of spitzbergen by the infamous king of bohemia as he had perhaps not listened to more than thirty-eight times during the course of the last two years.
edward took george by the arm through room after room, down a corridor, into a hall, then as though by magic an excellent motor appeared.
they got in, edward still making himself perfectly charming, dimmy in a constrained attitude[252] stretched tangentially to the edge of the seat, and the motor drove them for a very great number of miles, during which journey edward learned all the main story; the robbery, the refuge aboard-ship, the escape, and the fortunate discovery of william bailey.
george was given to understand with that method and insistence most proper to his character that that story had better be forgotten and that only what he had been given to read,—and only the gist of that,—might very well be published to his wife and to the world....
it was an understood matter. george did now and then like to row and fish; a friend had asked him to run down to port victoria—it was only an hour; the friend hadn’t turned up. george only meant to go out for a minute, put up the sprits’l like a fool, got blown right away in front of a so’wester into the swin; then the wind going round a point-o’-two got blown, begad, right over the gunfleet. high tide luckily, and the rest naturally followed.
these nautical experiences filled george with doubts.
“there wasn’t any so’wester,” he said with bovine criticism.
“you silly ass,” said edward, “who notices a thing like that in london?”
“you’d notice it at sea,” said george with profound conviction.
“anyhow, unless you want a good story against[253] you to the end of your life, you’ve got to be outside for thirty-six hours, and you’ve got to land a dam long way off from parham,—i can tell you that!” said edward firmly.
and george agreed.
they dined together at richmond, which suburban town they had reached by edward’s directions, and george, replete after so much suffering, became most genial. he betrayed in his conversation the fact that sudie might or might not know the truth; he had not dared to communicate with her. william bailey had done so after getting his new clothes, but there had been no one at home. there was only a man in, making an inventory, and the footman thought the message had something to do with him. what sudie might have heard from others he didn’t know.
“where did the telephone message come from?” asked edward who remembered the torturing anxiety of his chief upon that point which now seemed so futile.
“i don’t know,” george bleated, if i may use so disrespectful a term of a man with ￡100 a week. “i really don’t know. he hired a motor, i know that, and he drove it himself.”
“oh he did, did he? where did he drive it to?”
“to a station,” said george lucidly.
“a long way off?” asked edward.
“oh dear!” said george, “don’t ask me. right away over all sorts of places.”
[254]“now, demaine, listen,” said evans, concentrating “could you see the sea?”
“no,” said george with a shudder.
“could you see the river,—anything?”
“no,” said george. “we got there at three, and william telephoned from the station.”
“but damn it all!” cried edward, “what was the name of the station?”
“i don’t know,” said george, “i didn’t notice.”
edward tried another approach. “were there houses round it?”
“oh yes, lots,” said george, “lots—and they had laurels, and there was a lot of gas lamp-posts, and there was a tramway—oh it was a beastly place!”
then evans understood and kent, the garden of england, was in his mind: kent and one of its deeply bosomed towns, chislehurst haply or st. mary cray. “but why did you go to liverpool street when you got in at cannon street?” he said.
“how did you know i got in at cannon street?” asked george with wide-open eyes like a child who sees the secretly marked card come out of the pack.
“never mind. why did you go to liverpool street?”
“william told me to,” answered george simply.
“you’ll make a good front benchman,” said edward half to himself. “do you know why he told you to go to liverpool street?”
“no,” said george, “i don’t.... i don’t know.”
[255]“well,” said edward, as though conveying a profound secret, “if ever you happen to be at lowestoft, that’s the way you get in to london.”
“oh, is it?” said george blankly.
“where did he buy your clothes?” asked edward suddenly, “what shop?”
“oh, in parham somewhere,” said george, “i don’t know where. i put ’em on before i started of course. i couldn’t stay in a dressing-gown.”
a thought occurred to edward. he pulled back the collar of demaine’s coat, and saw marked upon a tape, “harrington brothers, parham.” without so much as asking his leave he cut the label.
“what’s on the shirt?” he asked laconically.
george opened his waistcoat and looked. “six sixty-six,” he said.
“it is the mark of the beast,” said edward.
“who do you mean?” said george, bewildered. “william bailey lent it to me.”
“if you’d told me that,” said edward, “i wouldn’t have asked you what the mark was; and what’s more, if you had told me the mark i could have told you the owner. good lord!” he muttered, “what other man in england!... had he hauled his jewish encyclopedia down there?” he suddenly turned round to ask.
“yes,” said george eagerly, “how did you know?”
“oh nothing,” said edward, “only i know he is fond of it. did you eat ham?”
[256]“yes,” said george thinking closely, “i did. yes, i remember distinctly, i did.”
the expression of edward was completely satisfied.
the time had come for their return. george, whose carelessness about money had received very distinct and very severe shocks in the last few months—nay, in the last few days—insisted upon paying, and edward, who knew more than was good for him, allowed him to pay: and further advised him to spend the morrow, thursday, in bed. “at any rate,” he concluded, “not where the sharks can get at you. wait till dolly sends, and that’ll be friday, i know.”
they drove back to demaine house, and sudie, having heard the news from half london, was left to deal with the truant as she saw fit.
as for edward, he was back late at night in downing street where bread-and-butter called him. but he found his chief with the mood of that happy afternoon long past, for, one encumbrance well discharged, the other did but the more gravely harass him, and the memory of repton, of repton doing he knew not what,—perhaps at that very moment wrecking any one of twenty political arrangements—tortured him beyond bearing.
but as the premier had justly thought that afternoon, the tide had turned; and when the tide turns in the fairway of a harbour, though it turns here and there with eddies and with doubt, at last it sets full, and so it was now with the fortunes of[257] our beloved land and of its twentyfold beloved cabinet.
repton was at that very moment restored to his right mind—his caryll’s ganglia were restored to their normal function—and would never tell the truth again.
