At eight o’clock the next evening, John Endor found himself in the
prime minister’s drawing room, shaking hands with the prime minister’s
lady.
The celebrated “Mrs. Wilber” was a tall, rather austere dame, with the
remains of considerable good looks; moreover, they conferred upon her
an air of intellectual distinction to which she was hardly entitled.
Mrs. Wilber, it is true, had an almost sublime power of putting her
foot in it; but this faculty in a prime minister’s lady may spring
from one of two causes: she may have too many brains, or she may have
too few. Slippery Sam’s greatest enemies had never accused his wife of
having too many.
By no means brilliant herself, Mrs. Wilber profoundly distrusted
scintillation in others. Her husband she regarded as good rather
than brilliant; indeed, in her attitude to her lord, she was almost
a latter-day equivalent of Mrs. Gladstone. She seemed to regard the
prime minister as too bright and good for human nature’s daily food;
in fact, a kind of composite of the librarian to the House of Lords
and a certain highly distinguished personage in Heaven. To those best
acquainted with the singularly complex character of the first minister
of the Crown, this obsession of Mrs. Wilber’s was a source of pure joy.
John Endor was too elemental to give overmuch thought to the Mrs.
Wilbers of life. All the same, he had humor enough to appreciate
his hostess’ sovereign faculty of “putting her foot in it.” Dinner
had hardly begun when she was openly rebuked by a clever, charming,
unconventional young daughter seated opposite Mr. Endor, for announcing
“that it gave her so much pleasure to find that gentlemen were still to
be found in politics.”
“Really, mother!” Miss Clarice reproved her with the very latest Oxford
inflection.
Mrs. Wilber shifted her ground a little, although maintaining the
general position by asking after “dear Lady Elizabeth.” She herself
claimed to be of solid Middleshire county stock; indeed, one of her
father’s properties marched with Wyndham, and she was able to remember
John’s own father being acclaimed as one of the best men to hounds of
his generation.
“And I hear you are going to be married, Mr. Endor.”
Rather a blow this, to Miss Clarice, who brought her charming nose to
the menu card before attacking a curry.
She bore up very well, in spite of the fact that she had already told
herself privately that she would have to consider the question of
marrying Mr. John Endor.
He was good to look at certainly, his low voice a delight, there was
not a hint of stiffness or formality about him, and, crowning joy, he
had a sense of humor.
“How exciting!” Only a very little curry was needed for Miss Clarice to
effect a superb, if rather stoical, recovery. “Do tell me. Who is the
lady?”
“Miss Helen Sholto of Virginia, my dear.” Mrs. Wilber had seen the
announcement in the _Morning Post_, and had known how to cherish it in
a manner becoming a prime minister’s lady. “But tell me, Mr. Endor,
what does dear Lady Elizabeth say?” In she went again, horse, foot,
and artillery. “Virginia is in the south, I believe, which is not the
_moneyed_ part of America. But all Americans, of course, have money.”
A look of blank despair settled upon Miss Clarice, who was inclined to
see her mother, not in terms of Mrs. Gladstone, but in terms of Mrs.
Dizzy.
John Endor enjoyed his dinner all the same and so did Miss Clarice.
The talk was really quite amusing. Mr. Williams himself was a model
host and no mean conversationalist. He went back a long way. Even
in Victorian times he had been in the inner circle of society and
politics. He had a fund of anecdote which no man living knew better how
to employ. He was always geniality itself, and on occasions of modest
festivity in the bosom of his family he was wholly delightful.
It was in the library, however, after dinner that John Endor
really found himself at grips with Fate. Ushered into an armchair,
strategically disposed so that the bust of Pitt should be on his right
and a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica on his left, two adjuncts
indispensable to the library of Number 10 Downing Street, and duly
furnished with an excellent cigar, the neophyte settled himself to hear
golden words.
In the delicate and judicious phrase of the prime minister, it seemed
that one Bendish, an admirable man, was living now under the threat of
Bright’s disease, and that in the opinion of Mrs. Bendish, an admirable
woman, only one place could hope to arrest the ravages of such a grave
malady. That place was the House of Lords. Whether the air of the
Gilded Chamber was more salubrious, whether its system of drainage was
more modern, the central heating more efficient, the ventilation less
inadequate, was one of those problems which the prime minister, having
no first-hand knowledge of Another Place, did not offer to solve. But
there the matter was. Mrs. Bendish, an admirable woman, was convinced
that, for Bright’s disease, the rarified atmosphere of the House of
Lords was the only remedy. Alas, that Mr. Bendish should be smitten
with so fell a malady!
The prime minister, however, was by no means averse from applying the
antidote. Drastic, no doubt, but Mrs. Bendish, a Spartan wife, was
adamant. Unhappily, Mr. Bendish would not be able to continue his
signal work for the State. The Home Office and the House of Lords
are not necessarily incompatible, but like Burgundy and port they are
a combination not quite suited to all constitutions. Such at least,
in this case, was the view of the prime minister. In the event of
Mr. Bendish really going to the House of Lords--and Mrs. Bendish was
so firm on the point that it hardly admitted of doubt--it would be
expedient for his Britannic majesty to seek a new secretary of state
for the Home Department. In a word, would Mr. Endor take that Office?
Mr. Endor was a little staggered. The bust of Pitt was on his right
hand, a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica was on his left, none the
less, the prime minister’s point-blank offer was in the nature of a
bolt from a blue sky.
“It will mean, I’m afraid, a by-election.” The honeyed voice of Mr.
Wilberforce Williams had the mellifluity that endeared him to every
journalist in the land. “And--don’t let us deceive ourselves--my dear
sir--a stiff one. To be frank--to be perfectly frank--the member for
Blackhampton will not be exactly _persona gratissima_ in Universe
Building.”
To the young Lothair, that was the amazing part of the whole matter. He
had no claim to subtlety of mind, but he was not a fool. What was in
the wind? Well he knew that for the member for Blackhampton to be given
the Home Office was tantamount to Slippery Sam throwing down the gage
of battle to the U. P.
“Take a little time for your answer, my dear sir.” Such linked
sweetness must have seemed a little excessive in any one not the
prime minister. “Take twenty-four--forty-eight--yes, forty-eight
hours--shall we say? In the meantime, may I rely--of course I may--such
a superfluous question--on your absolute discretion?”
John Endor gave that unnecessary assurance.
“You see, my dear sir, do you not?”--the smile of Slippery Sam was
deliciously vulpine. “As soon as they get wind of this in Universe
Building, the Great General Staff will be in the field with a hundred
fully mobilized army corps--before even our dear Mr. Bendish can apply
for the Chiltern Hundreds.”