Charles Repton had taken no weekends. Charles Repton had sat tight in
London.
The end of that May did not tempt him to move; he was right on to his
business, and never had his silent life been more silent or Maria, Lady
Repton, felt more alone, though she did as she was bid and remained
immovable in her London house, only seeing, when the leisure was
afforded her, her few dear friends (none conspicuous), and once or
twice presiding at a great dinner of her husband’s.
Beyond all his other concerns one chief concern was resolving itself in
Charles Repton’s head. He was wondering exactly where he stood between
commerce and politics.
These moments, not of doubt but of a necessity for decision, are the
tests of interior power. Some half-dozen such moments had marked the
career of his strict soul: one when he had determined to risk the
transition from his native town to Newcastle carefully calculating the
capital of clients and how much could be successfully lent in that
centre: another, when he had risked the expense of his first election:
a third when he had decided to take office--and there were others.
Now as May drew to its close, as the discussion on the Budget was
in full swing and as the eager public notice of Van Diemens was on
the point of filling the press, he was in some balance as to whether
the precise proportion of activity which he gave to the House of
Commons--it was a large proportion--might not be absorbing just too
much of his energy.
He calculated most exactly--as a man calculates a measurable thing, an
acreage, or a weight of metal--what the future proportions should be.
He must remain in touch with everything that passed at Westminster; on
that he was fixed. But he knew that there was a growing criticism of
his combination of high political idealism with affairs in the City.
The _Moon_ had said one exceedingly unpleasant thing about the Oil
Concession in Burmah--it was only a newspaper but he had had to settle
it. The _Capon_ was paying a little more attention than he liked to his
position in the House of Commons.
He thought hard, and under the process of his thought his mind somewhat
cleared. But he had come to no decision when, late in the night of
Sunday, the 31st of May, he marshalled the papers upon his desk,
deliberately turned his mind off the problems that had been engaging
him, and drew up a list of his next engagements.
The next day, Monday the 1st of June, after leaving his house
punctually at half-past nine, he was to give half the morning to the
Wardenship. He was to return home at noon. From noon to lunch he must
see to his accounts. It was doubly important, for it was a Monday and
it was the first of the month. He would lunch: preferably alone, for he
would be tired, and he would give Maria to understand that he must be
undisturbed.
On Tuesday, the 2nd, was the speech to the General Meeting of Van
Diemens. He glanced at his notes for that speech; they were all in
excellent sequence, and he felt, so far as men of that stern temper can
feel it, a little touch of pride when he noted the procession of the
argument. He saw in his mind’s eye first the conviction and then the
enthusiasm of the men whom he must convince: the vivid portrayal of the
Empire’s need of the railway: the ease of building it,--the delivery of
the great metaphor wherein he compared that thin new line of iron to
the electrical connection which turns potential and useless electrical
energy into actual and working force.
He re-read the phrase in which he called it “completing the circuit”;
he did not doubt at all that the meeting would follow him. Sentence
after sentence passed before his memory (for he had carefully learned
the peroration by heart); the name of Nelson shone in one of them, the
name of Rhodes in another, of Joel in a third, till the great oration
closed with a vision, brief, succinct (but how vivid!) of the Gate of
the East and of England’s hand upon it, holding
“... the keys
Of such teeming destinies”
through them: through them!
It was a great speech.
He turned more carelessly to the already typewritten stuff which he
must deliver upon the Thursday to the Wycliffite Conference. It would
do--and it was of importance for the moment. It reminded him a little
contemptuously of the High Meat Teas in the North of England and of
his youth, and of that maundering war between Church and Chapel which
was then of real moment to him, and which now he still had wearily to
wage,--at least in public.
Whether this little bout of study had been too much for a man who had
already spent a full month glued to his work, or whatever else was the
cause, he felt as midnight approached a trifle brain-sick. He leant his
head upon his hand, and it seemed to him--he hoped it was an illusion
for the sensation was yet vague--but it _did_ seem to him that the pain
behind the ears, or at least an oppression there, was beginning. He
muttered an exclamation so sharp as would have astonished those who had
never seen him under a strain. Then he went quickly upstairs to the
drawing-room and found his wife, sitting all alone with her book.
She looked up as he entered, and again she was startled by that strange
innocence in his eyes. Odd, (but what living!) flashes of thirty, of
forty years ago pierced her heart. Youth goes down every lane, and
these two, just after their marriage, just before the first loan he had
made, had been, for a month or so, young: the memory of it was a jewel
to her.
He came in at that instant loosened: he was walking ill: he made
towards her as though he were seeking a refuge, and still that
persistent innocence shone from his eyes. He sat down beside her,
breathing uncertainly, groped out and took her hand. He had made no
such movement since--what year? Since before what first hardening had
frightened her? How many years, how long a life ago?
The mood was of no long duration. She could have wished it had been
longer. He slept with a sort of deep lethargy that was not his way, and
twice in the night she rose to watch him; but with the morning all his
powers and, alas! all that difference had returned.
She was to see nothing of him while he went through every detail of his
affairs for the week and the month with his assistant; she was not even
to be allowed to see something of him at his midday meal; she watched
him as he went out of the house at the invariable hour to drive to the
office of the Court of Dowry. And as she watched him with new feelings
in her, and the breaking of dead crusts, she saw another man accost
him, the cab turned away, and the two go together, walking, towards
the Park. She knew the figure though she came so little into the life
of London, and she recognised, in the sloppy clothes and the stooping
walk, the Prime Minister.
* * * * *
If you are a member of the governing classes of this great Empire it is
not an easy thing to approach a house between the Edgware Road and Hyde
Park from the North, at half-past nine in the morning it is supremely
difficult if you are making for Westminster.
It presupposes being carted at an impossible hour to some place in the
North West, and there let loose and making a run for home. And why
should any man of position be carted to any place in the North West at
dawn? On the whole the best excuse is Paddington Station. Eton is a
good place to come from, for the liar comes in at Paddington. It was
from Eton, therefore, that the Prime Minister came that morning ...
anyhow he was N.W. of the Park before nine. He walked slowly towards
the Marble Arch. As he approached Charles Repton’s house he walked
somewhat more slowly, but he had timed himself well.
The tall straight figure came out and hailed a cab.
The Prime Minister crossed before him, turned round in amiable
surprise, and said: “My _dear_ Repton!”
And Repton greeted, with somewhat less effusion, the Prime Minister.
“I was walking from Paddington,” said the Prime Minister.
“Have you eaten?” said Sir Charles, as he paid the cabman a shilling
for nothing.
“Yes, I breakfasted before I started. I was walking down to
Westminster. Can’t you come with me?”
Sir Charles found it perfectly easy, and the two men walked through the
Park together towards Hyde Park Corner and Constitution Hill.
To most men the difficulty of the transition from daily converse to
important transactions is so difficult that they will postpone it
to the very end of an interview. The Prime Minister was not of that
kind. They had not got two hundred yards beyond that large arena near
the Marble Arch wherein every Sunday the Saxon folk thresh out and
determine for ever the antinomy of predestination and free will--not
to mention other mysteries of the Christian religion,--when the Prime
Minister had reminded Charles Repton of the absolute necessity of a new
man on the Government bench in the House of Lords.
Charles Repton heartily agreed, and for ten minutes gave his reasons.
He hoped, he said in an iron sort of way, that he was talking sense,
and that he was not meddling with things not his business. He was
warmly encouraged to go on, and he minutely described the kind of
man whom he thought was wanted. They had too many business men as it
was, and there were too many men fresh from the House of Commons. The
Government forces in the Upper House had come to be a sort of clique,
half of them very intelligent, but now and then, especially in big
debates, out of touch with their colleagues. Could not some man of real
position, a man with a long established title, wealthy and thoroughly
well known if only in a small world for some proficiency of his, be got
to take an interest in the Government programme? A man like Pulborough,
for instance? If Pulborough had had to earn his living he would have
been the best bantam breeder alive. And then, look at his talents, why,
he designed all the new work at Harberry himself, etc. And so forth.
As they were crossing by the Wellington statue, the Prime Minister, in
the uneasy intervals of dodging the petrol traffic, explained that that
was not in his mind. He must have some one who had heard everything
in the Cabinet for the last two years. “Repton,” he said ... (as they
left the refuge pavement--a taxi-cab all but killed him).... “Repton,
would you, have you thought of ....” Two gigantic motor-buses swerved
together and the politicians were separated. The Prime Minister saw the
Warden far ahead, a successful man, whole upon the further shore. The
Prime Minister leapt in front of a bicycle, caught the kerb and ended
his sentence “... a peerage yourself?”
They had come through all the perils of that space and were walking
quietly down Constitution Hill; Dolly could develop his thought more
freely, and in the most natural way in the world he put it that they
could not do without Charles Repton.
He was very careful not to force the position. Charles Repton was
absolutely essential: they must have him or they must have nobody.
An Egyptian smile, a smile of granite, could be guessed rather than
seen upon Charles Repton’s firm lips.
“Would you propose that I should be Master of the Horse?” he said.
“No,” said the Prime Minister, smiling very much more easily, “nor
Manager of the King’s Thoroughbred Stud, either. But I know that
Abenford is mortally tired of the Household; though what there is to be
tired of,” he added....
To the Prime Minister’s very great surprise, Charles Repton simply
replied: “If I went to the Lords, I should go without office.”
At this unexpected solution the Prime Minister was in duty bound to
propose a hundred reasons against it. He implored Repton to remember
his great position and the peculiar value that he had for him, the
Prime Minister. “It’s never more than three men that do the work,
Repton, whether you’re dealing with ten in committee or half a
thousand. You know that.”
But Charles Repton was firm. These solid masters of finance are glad
to think out their world; in a sense nothing comes to them that is
unexpected when it comes. Their brains may be compared to the great
new War Office in Whitehall, where a hundred minutely detailed plans
for the invasion of Germany, France, Russia, Spain, Italy and the
Baltic States, lie pigeonholed, in perfect order, ready to be put
into immediate execution at the pronouncement of the stern words
_Krieg-mobil_.
Long before the simple intrigues of the drawing-rooms had taken shape,
Charles Repton had swept the whole landscape with his inward eye. He
knew every fold of the terrain, he had measured every range. He had
determined that, upon the whole, a peerage was worth his while: now; at
the very height of his fortune.
To have a permanent place, free from office, with the prestige
of title, with committees open to him and every official source
permanently to his hand, was worth his while. It was worth his while
to go to the House of Lords had it been a matter for his free choice;
and if he went to the House of Lords he must go a free man. It would do
more to save Van Diemens than any other step, and that great Company
was worth twenty places in the Cabinet. Van Diemens was the master of
this Cabinet and the last.
He had made up his mind then that a peerage was worth his while even
if it depended entirely on his choice. Now that he could make it a
favour, it was doubly worth his while. The alternative meant useless
friction.... Yes, he would take that peerage: but there was one thing
that he must have quite clear:----
The two men walked together in silence past the Palace; they went
through the superb new entrance to St. James’s Park, crossed the
bridge, and turned towards Westminster.
It had been a shock. The relief for the Prime Minister was somewhat too
great, and the last thing that Repton had to say was awkward; but he
was accustomed to leap such hedges. He began boldly:
“Do you happen to know what I have set aside for the regular purposes
of the Party?” he asked.
The Prime Minister shook his head. If there was one thing he detested,
it was the kitchen side of politics.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Repton. “I’ve put exactly the same sum
aside every year for fifteen years, whether we’ve been in office or out
of it. Not a large sum, only five hundred pounds. Pottle will tell you.”
The Premier made such a movement with his head as showed that he did
not care.
“Only five hundred pounds but exactly five hundred pounds,” continued
Repton firmly. “Now Pottle must understand quite clearly that that
subscription will neither be increased nor diminished.” He spoke as men
speak in a shop, and in a shop of which they have the whip hand.
“That’s between you and Pottle,” said the Prime Minister in the tone of
one who doesn’t want to go on with the subject.
“Yes,” said Repton, looking straight in front of him, “it _has_ got to
be understood quite clearly. I’ve made it a standing order. Pottle’s
never pestered me, but he _can_ pester like the deuce.... And I’ve
absolutely made up my mind.”
“Of course, of course,” said the Prime Minister. “I think it’s wise,”
he went on,--“It isn’t my business, but I do think it wise to keep in
touch with the Central Office. But it’s between you and Pottle.”
There was another long silence as they went down Great George Street.
“That’s all,” said Repton, opposite the Pugin fountain. The two men
walked on. The statues of great men long dead looked down upon them;
those statues were unused to such conversations. One of the statues
must have thought Charles Repton a tactless fellow, but Charles
Repton had calculated everything, even to his chances of life and to
the number of active years that probably lay before him. And nothing
would have more offended or disturbed him than any ambiguity upon the
business side of the transaction.
They parted, one for the Court of Dowry, the other for Downing Street,
and the affair was settled.
* * * * *
That afternoon the Prime Minister asked Demaine to come and have a
cup of tea. He said he would rather it was in his own room; he took
Demaine’s arm and led him round.
“Have you anything on to-night, Dimmy?” he said.
Dimmy thought. “I don’t know,” he answered after a long examination of
possible engagements.
“Well, you’ve got to be here for the division anyhow.”
“Oh yes,” said Dimmy. His high record of divisions was the sheet anchor
of his soul: he had sat up all night sixteen times.
“Well,” said the Prime Minister hesitating, as though after all he
didn’t want to drink a cup of tea, “you might see me then ... no, come
along now.”
And as they drank their tea he told his companion that there was to be
a change in the Cabinet.
“Now,” he said, “I want to leave you perfectly free.” He seemed to be
suffering a little as he said it, but he went on tenaciously: “I want
to leave you perfectly free; ... but of course you know your name has
been put before me?”
“I don’t know,” began Demaine.
The Prime Minister stopped him with his hand. “Well, anyhow it _has_.”
He paused and thought. “I can’t tell how it would suit you, but I think
I can tell how you would suit it. Now on _that_ point I’m satisfied,
Dimmy. You know the kind of work it is?”
But Demaine didn’t know.
“Well,” said the Prime Minister, leaning back easily and joining his
hands, “it’s like all those things: you’ve got your staff ... in one
way the work’s cut and dried. It’s very varied work. No man can be
expected to grasp it all round. But,” (leaning forward) “like all these
things, it wants a sort of general point of view, you understand me?”
Dimmy did not dare to shake his head.
“It wants a sort of ...” the Prime Minister swept his hand over the
table--“a sort of what I may call a--well, a--a _common sense_,
especially about sudden things. You have to decide sometimes.... But
you’ll soon get into it,” he added in a tone of relief. “You’ll have
Sorrel with you all the first few days; he’s exceedingly easy to get on
with; he’s been there for years--that is, of course, if you take it.”
“Yes,” said Demaine in a whirl, “yes, if I take it I shall have Sorrel.”
“Then of course,” went on the Prime Minister rapidly, “it’s the kind
of place which you can make anything of. It can count enormously; it
counted enormously under Gherkin until he died. And Repton of course
has made quite a splash in it.”
Demaine shuddered slightly.
“But there’s no necessity,” continued the other quickly, “it’s really
better without a splash. It’s a plodding sort of attention that’s
wanted,” he ended wearily; then with an afterthought he added: “Why
not go to Sorrel now?”
“Couldn’t you give me a note?” asked Demaine nervously.
“Oh nonsense,” answered his cousin, upon whom the strain was beginning
to tell. “Just go up and see him in his office. He’s the mildest of
men.”
“All right,” said Demaine sighing. He finished his tea and went
out,--and as he left the Prime Minister called after him: “Don’t forget
to find me after the division to-night. Then I can tell you if anything
is settled.”
Demaine walked undeterminedly towards the Dowry Offices behind Scotland
Yard; his heart failed him; he did not go in. He stood aimlessly in
Whitehall, staring at the traffic; his knees were not quite straight
and his mouth was half open.
Past him, as he so stood, strode, full of vigour and of will, the
fixed form of Sir Charles Repton, walking towards Trafalgar Square.
The younger man followed him with his eyes and felt in his heart what
a gulf there was between them. He was by no means of those who dare,
and the thought of office appalled him. Then suddenly he remembered the
salary. His legs straightened beneath him and he forced himself up the
stairs to where he might ask to see Mr. Sorrel.