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.