Two o'clock--two o'clock in the morning.
The bells had just chimed the hour. Big Ben had boomed forth its deep
and solemn note over sleeping London. The patient constable on
point-duty at the foot of Westminster Bridge had stamped his feet for
the last time, and had been relieved by his colleague, who gave him the
usual pass-word, "All right." The tumultuous roar of traffic, surging,
beating, pulsating, had long ago ceased, but the crowd of smart
broughams and private hansoms still stood in New Palace Yard, while from
the summit of St. Stephen's tower the long ray of electricity streamed
westward, showing that the House of Commons was still sitting.
The giant Metropolis, the throbbing heart of the greatest empire the
world has known, was silent. London, the city of varying moods, as
easily pleased, as easily offended as a petted child; London, the dear,
smoke-blackened old city, which every Englishman loves and every
foreigner admires; London, that complex centre of the universe, humdrum
and prosaic, yet ever mysterious, poetic and wonderful, the city full of
the heart's secrets and of life's tragedies, slept calmly and in peace
while her legislators discussed and decided the policy of the Empire.
The long rows of light on the deserted terrace and along the opposite
shore in front of St. Thomas's Hospital threw their shimmering
reflection upon the black waters of the Thames; the cold wind swept
roughly up the river, causing the gas-jets to flicker, so that the few
shivering outcasts who had taken refuge on the steps of the closed
doorway of Westminster Station, murmured as they pulled their rags more
tightly round them. Only the low rumbling of a country waggon bearing
vegetables to Covent Garden, or the sharp clip-clap of a cab-horse's
feet upon the asphalt, broke the quiet. Except for these occasional
disturbances all else was as silent on that dark and cloudy night in
late October as if the world were dead.
Over in the far corner of New Palace Yard horses were champing their
bits, and coachmen and police were waiting patiently, knowing that with
the Twelve o'clock Rule suspended the length of the sitting was quite
uncertain. Wearied journalists from the Press Gallery, having finished
their "turns," came out singly or in pairs from their own little side
door in the opposite corner of the yard, wished a cheery "good-night" to
the portly sergeant and the two idling detectives who acted as janitors,
and then hurried on through the chill night over the bridge towards
their homes in Brixton or Clapham. An autumn session is a weary one,
and weighs quite as heavily upon the Parliamentary journalist as upon
the Leader of the House himself.
On the floor of the House honourable members might stretch themselves
and doze; they might wander about St. Stephen's Hall with prominent
constituents who sought admission to the Strangers' Gallery, entertain
them in the dining-room, or take their ease across the way at St.
Stephen's Club, ready to return by the underground passage on the
ringing of the division-bell; but that gallery above the Speaker, the
eye and ear of the world, was never anything else but a hive of industry
from the moment after prayers until the House rose. Ever watchful, ever
scribbling its hieroglyphics and deciphering them; ever covering ream
upon ream of paper with the verbose and vapid utterances of ambitious
but unimportant members, its telegraphs clicked on incessantly hour
after hour, transmitting reports of the business accomplished to the
farthermost recesses of the King's Empire. Truly, a strange life is
that of both legislator and journalist within those sombre walls at
Westminster.
On this night a full House was occupied with serious business. Within
St. Stephen's men collected in groups, talked anxiously, and awaited the
doom of the Government; for the political horizon was black, and the
storm, long threatened, was now to burst. Contrary to the usual course
of things, the small band of Irish obstructionists, fluent orators,
whose heckling of Ministers caused so many scenes, were silent, for a
matter of foreign policy of the most vital importance had been debated
ever since the dinner-hour. Member after member had risen from the
Opposition Benches and beneath the soft glow of the electric light
shining through the glass roof had, before a crowded and excited House,
supported the vote of censure, denouncing the Government for its apathy,
its neglect of warnings, and the failure of its diplomacy abroad. The
scene would have been an ordinary one were it not for the fact that a
five-line whip had been sent out. An important division was hourly
expected, and as the defeat of the Government was believed to be close
at hand, the excitement had risen to fever heat.
The calmest man in the whole of that versatile House was, perhaps, he
who was at that moment replying from the Treasury Bench.
"Strangers" in the gallery were struck by his youthful appearance, for
he did not seem to be much over thirty. Tall, dark-haired, with
slightly aquiline features and a small black moustache, his face was
refined, studious, and full of keen intelligence. Standing beside the
clerk's table, upon the very spot where the late Mr. Gladstone had so
often stood when delivering his masterpieces of oratory, he leaned
easily upon his right hand while he addressed the House calmly and
clearly in defence of Her Majesty's Government.
All the world knew that the Right Honourable Dudley Waldegrave Chisholm,
member for the Albury Division of Surrey and Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was a coming man. Five
years ago, when he was still private secretary to the Marquess of
Stockbridge, Her Majesty's Foreign Minister, the political
paragraphists, as well as those journalists known as "lobbyists," had
predicted for him a brilliant future; and he certainly had shown himself
worthy the position he now held--a very high one for so young a man.
Standing there, a well-groomed figure in evening-dress, the smart fencer
with supplementary questions spoke fluently, without dramatic gesture or
any straining after effect, his sweeping and polished eloquence
annihilating the opponents against whom it had been set in motion.
Deliberately he rebuked the Opposition for their unfounded allegations,
and gave the lie direct to many of the statements that had been made in
the course of the debate. The speech, a most brilliant and telling
defence of the policy of the Government, recalled the greatness of
Castlereagh.
"And now," he said, in the same calm tone, slightly altering his
position as he continued, and knitting his brows, "the Honourable Member
for North Monmouthshire has hinted at the overthrow of Her Majesty's
Government, and even at a Dissolution. Upon such a threat let all the
voters in these islands reflect. The enfranchised public is really
living in an unpractical paradise. It stands for nothing better than a
puppet Czar. When the five millions of voters have with infinite pains
been enabled to record their sovereign will and pleasure, and have
succeeded in returning a majority on one side or another, they are apt
to consider that they have returned a Liberal or a Conservative
majority; but, to quote Hosea Biglow, they have done little else than
change the holders of offices. The new Parliament meets, and the
electors wait to see the results of their exertions. There is a new
Ministry, no doubt, and, so far, that is to the good; but when the new
Ministry gets to work, it finds itself in a very different position from
that of a Minister charged with a Ukase from a real Czar. If the
election has taken place upon one specific point, and the response of
the electors has been decisive and overwhelming, then it is possible
that a Bill embodying the views of the voters may pass into law; but
that is only when the will of the electors has been unmistakably made
known, not for the first time, but for the second, or even for the
third."
An enthusiastic chorus of "He-ah! He-ah!" arose from the crowded
benches behind the speaker, but without a pause he went on fearlessly:
"The Opposition may threaten Her Majesty's Government with overthrow and
ignominy if it choose, but it cannot hoodwink the constituencies.
Experience has taught the electors that they are mocked with a semblance
of power, the real sceptre being held in permanence by the House of
Lords, whose four hundred members appeal to no constituency, but sit by
virtue of hereditary privilege and right of birth, with a perpetual
mandate to veto any and every scheme submitted by this House which they
do not like and which is not literally forced upon them by overwhelming
popular pressure. The voting public, therefore, while it can make a
statesman a prime minister, and can pass one bill, if it is very angry
and has expressed its opinion with emphasis when appeal was made to it
upon that specific question, has no more power than this."
At these outspoken words, expressions of amazement arose from both sides
of the House; but the Under-Secretary, heedless of all in the warmth of
his defence, continued, reverting to the main question at issue--namely,
the alleged Russian encroachments in the Far East, a subject upon which,
owing to his own extensive journeys in Central Asia, Afghanistan and the
Pamirs, he was a recognised authority.
"It is excessively rare to find, even among educated Englishmen," he
declared, "a perception of the simple fact that the landward expansion
of Russia has been as natural, gradual and legitimate as the spread of
British sea-power, and that the former process has been infinitely the
less aggressive and violent of the two. Russophobia in this country
rests upon the assumption that the devouring advance of the Muscovite
has been exclusively dictated by a melodramatic and iniquitous design
upon our dominion in India. There never was a stranger fallacy
springing from jealous hallucinations. If our Indian Empire had never
existed, if the continent-peninsula had disappeared at a remote
geological epoch beneath the waves, and if the Indian Ocean had washed
the base of the Himalayas for ages, Russian expansion would still have
followed precisely the same course it has taken under existing
circumstances at exactly the same rate."
And so he continued, arguing, criticising, ridiculing and
substantiating, thrusting the truth upon the Opposition; in his eyes a
swift light which swept the House like an eagle's glance; on his lips
the thin smile which his opponents dreaded, until he resumed his seat
amid the wild outburst of cheers from the Government benches. He had
thrilled the House. The victory of his party was virtually won.
"The best speech Chisholm has ever delivered," declared one of Her
Majesty's Ministers, a grey-haired old gentleman in black broadcloth, to
his colleague, the Home Secretary, at his side. "Marvellous!
magnificent!"
"Yes," declared the other enthusiastically. "He has turned the tide.
It was really excellent."
Everywhere this verdict was accepted, even by the Opposition. Public
opinion was certainly not wrong: Chisholm was a coming man--a man of the
near future.
But he sat entirely unmoved by the wild outburst of applause. He had
taken some papers from the pocket of his dining-jacket and was busy
examining them in a manner quite unconcerned. His dark face was
serious. He never played "to the gallery," as he termed the Irish
Nationalists opposite, and although he had chosen a public career, he
was at heart a rather melancholy man, who regretted that on account of
his travels and his official position he had become notable. The one
thing he detested was the plaudits of the public; cheap advertisement he
abominated.
For that very reason he addressed his constituents down at Albury as
rarely as possible. His enthusiastic electors were in the habit of
cheering him to the echo, for by reason of his travels he was a popular
hero. After a meeting the crowd would usually unharness the horses from
his carriage and drag him triumphantly back to his hotel. From that
sort of thing his retiring and studious nature shrank. Such enthusiasm
might flatter the vanity of the brewer or cotton-spinner, who wished to
get into the Carlton, or of the mushroom financier from the Stock
Exchange, striving to thrust his way into the fringe of society and to
be mentioned in the "social diaries" of the half-penny newspapers.
There were men in the House, whom he could name, ready to descend to any
ruse to obtain a little cheap notoriety; who would readily black the
boots of the editor of the _Times_ in exchange for a twenty-line report
of their speeches. But Dudley Chisholm was not one of the hungry mob of
place-hunters. Heir to the Barony of Lynchmere, he was also a wealthy
man by reason of the huge fortune left him by his uncle, the eccentric
old Duke of Lincoln, together with Wroxeter Castle, the historic seat of
the Chisholms up in Shropshire. Since his entry into political life he
had not been idle. He had been sworn a Privy Councillor a year ago, was
Deputy-Lieutenant and a Justice of the Peace for Shropshire, and upon
him the Royal Geographical Society had conferred its highest award, the
gold medal for his famous journey through the almost unknown territory
of Bhutan.
All these honours had been thrust upon him. He had sought none of them,
for at no time had he been a political "log-roller." When he came down
from Oxford, to find himself possessor of an almost princely income, he
resolved to take up something with which to occupy his time. He had no
inclination for the life of a sybarite about town; the drawingrooms of
Mayfair and Belgravia had no attraction for him; the Sunday strutting in
the park bored him. He therefore allowed himself to be nominated for
the Guildford Division, and after a valiant fight was returned,
subsequently being appointed by the Marquess of Stockbridge one of his
private secretaries.
Eight years had gone by since then. Twelve months after delivering his
maiden speech in the House he had set forth to make himself personally
acquainted with England's oversea possessions, for he declared that no
legislator was competent to criticise a country he had never seen. To
Australia, to China, and to India he proceeded in turn, and at last he
made his remarkable journey through Central Asia, in order to ascertain
the truth of the Russian advance towards India alleged by certain
sensational journals. After this came the daring journey across Bhutan.
Then, on his return to England on the eve of a general election, he was
amazed to find himself famous--the man of the hour, as had been long ago
predicted. Later changes in the Cabinet brought him his well-earned
reward in the position he now held of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs.
He sat there unmoved by the applause which greeted his speech, and when
it had ceased he rose. The tellers were being named, and as he passed
out into the lobby a few minutes later his name was on every tongue.
Men saluted him, but he only bowed slightly on either side in
acknowledgment with haughty courtesy; he held to the imperious,
patrician code of his Norman race, and the plaudits of his fellows were
almost as indifferent to him, almost as much disdained by him, as their
censure.
Dudley Chisholm had much of the despot, but nothing of the demagogue, in
his character. He had come to the front quickly. Certainly no man was
more surprised at his own success in the world of politics than he
himself; and certainly no man in London was considered by mothers more
eligible as a husband.
Perhaps it is fortunate for Members of the House that their female
friends are discreetly hidden away behind that heavy iron grille over
the Press Gallery, so that they are invisible save for a neatly gloved
hand which sometimes shows upon the ironwork, or a flash of bright
colour in the deep shadow, caused by bobbing millinery. Many a husband
or lover addressing the House would waver beneath the critical eyes of
his womenkind. Indeed, on the night in question, Dudley Chisholm would
certainly not have delivered his telling words so calmly had he been
aware of the presence of certain persons hidden away behind that
Byzantine grating.
The Ladies' Gallery was crowded by Members' wives and daughters,
enthusiastic Primrose League workers, dowagers, and a few of the smarter
set. Among the latter, at the extreme end of the gallery, sat a
well-preserved, elderly woman of rather aristocratic bearing,
accompanied by a blue-eyed girl in lavender, wearing a costly opera
cloak trimmed with sable, a girl with a countenance so charming that she
would cause a sensation anywhere. The black toilette of the elder woman
and the lavender "creation" worn by her daughter, spoke mutely to the
other women near them of an _atelier_ in the Rue de la Paix, but as to
their names, these were unknown to every person in the gallery.
When Chisholm had risen to address the House the elder had bent to the
younger and whispered something in her ear. Then both women had pressed
their faces eagerly to the grille, and, sitting bent forward, listened
to every word that fell so deliberately from the speaker's lips.
Again the aristocratic-looking woman with the white hair whispered to
the girl beside her, so low that no one overheard:
"There, Muriel! That is the man. I have not exaggerated his qualities,
have I? You must marry him, my dear--you must marry him!"