A FATAL SECESSION.
The sudden departure of Dick Derosne was, according to Kilshaw's view of
it, a notable triumph for him over his adversary; but he was not a man
to rest content with one victory. He had hardly achieved this success
when a chance word from Captain Heseltine started him in a new
enterprise, and a hint from Sir John Oakapple confirmed him in his
course. He made up his mind not to wait for the slow growth of
disaffection in Coxon's mind, but to accelerate the separation of that
gentleman from his colleagues. The Captain had been pleased to be much
amused at the cessation of Coxon's visits to Government House: Eleanor
Scaife's contempt for her supposed admirer was so strong that, when
playfully taxed with hardness of heart, she repelled the charge with a
vigour that pointed the Captain straight to the real fact. Having
apprehended it, he thought himself in no way bound to observe an
over-strict reticence as to Coxon's "cheek" and his deserved rebuff.
"In fact," he concluded, "love's at a discount. With Coxon and Dick
before one's eyes, it really isn't good enough. All a fellow gets is a
dashed good snubbing or his marching orders." And he added, as if
addressing an imaginary waiter, "Thank you, I'm not taking it to-day."
His words fell on attentive ears, and the next time Kilshaw had a chance
of conversing with Coxon at the Club, he did not forget what he had
learnt from Captain Heseltine.
"How d'you do, Coxon?" said he. "Haven't seen you for a long time. Come
and sit here. You weren't at the Governor's party the other night?"
Coxon, gratified at this cordial greeting, joined Mr. Kilshaw. They were
alone in the Club luncheon-room, and Coxon was always anxious to hear
anything that Sir Robert or his friends had to say. There was always a
possibility that it might be very well worth his while to listen.
"I wasn't there," he said. "I don't go when I can help it."
"You used to be so regular," remarked Kilshaw in surprise, or seeming
surprise.
Coxon gave a laugh of embarrassed vexation.
"I think I go as often as I'm wanted," he said. "To tell you the truth,
Kilshaw, I find my lady a little high and mighty."
"Women can never separate politics and persons," observed Kilshaw, with
a tolerant smile. "It's no secret, I suppose, that she's not devoted to
your chief."
Coxon looked up quickly. His wounded vanity had long sought for an
explanation of the cruel rebuff he had endured.
"Well, I never put it down to that," he said.
"It can't be anything in yourself, can it?" asked Kilshaw, in bland
innocence. "No, no; Lady Eynesford's one of us, and there's an end of
it--though of course I wouldn't say it openly. Look at the different way
she treats the Puttocks since they left you!"
"It's highly improper," observed Coxon.
"I grant it; but she's fond of Perry, and sees through his glasses. And
then you must allow for her natural prejudices. Is Medland the sort of
man who would suit her? Candidly now?"
"She needn't identify us all with Medland?"
"Come and have a cigar. Ah, there's Sir John! How are you, Chief
Justice? Looks a bit shaky, doesn't he? Come along, Coxon."
So saying, Kilshaw led the way to the smoking-room, and, when the pair
were comfortably settled, he recurred to his topic.
"I remember her asking me--in confidence of course, and, all the same,
perhaps not very discreetly--what in the world made you go over, and
what made you stay over."
"And you said----?"
"I didn't know what to say. I never did understand, and I understand
less than ever now."
"Haven't I explained in the House?"
"Oh, in the House! I tell you what it is, Coxon,--and you must stop me
if you don't like to hear it--I shall always consider Medland got your
support on false pretences."
Coxon did not stop him. He sat and bit his finger-nail while Kilshaw
pointed out the discrepancies between what Medland had foreshadowed and
what he was doing. He did not consciously exaggerate, but he made as
good a case as he could; and he talked to an ear inclined to listen.
"He caught you and Puttock on false pretences--utterly false pretences,"
Kilshaw ended. "Puttock saw it pretty soon."
"I was too stupid, I suppose?"
"Well, if you like," said Kilshaw, with a laugh. "I suppose when one
doesn't appreciate a man's game, one calls him stupid."
"I have no game," said Coxon stiffly.
"My dear fellow, I didn't mean it offensively. I'm sure you haven't, for
if ever a man was sacrificing his position and his future on the altar
of his convictions, you are."
Mr. Coxon looked noble, and felt uncomfortable.
"In a month or two," continued Kilshaw, laying his hand on his
neighbour's arm and speaking impressively, "Medland will be not only out
of office, but a discredited man."
"Why?" asked the other uneasily, for Kilshaw's words implied some hidden
knowledge: without that he could not have ventured on such a prophecy to
a colleague of the Premier's.
"Never mind why. You know you can't last, and time will show the rest.
He'll go--and all who stick to him. Well, I've said too much. Have you
heard the news? But of course you have, Ministers hear everything."
"What news?"
"The Chief Justice thinks of resigning: he told me himself that he had
spoken to Medland about it, and Medland had asked him to wait a little."
"What for?"
"Oh, Medland wants to get hold of a good man from England, I understood.
He thinks nobody here equal to it."
"Complimentary to my profession out here."
"I know. I wonder at Medland: he's generally so strong on 'Lindsey for
the Lindseians,' as he once said. In this matter he and Perry seem to
have changed places."
"Really? Then Sir Robert----?"
"Yes, he's quite anxious to have one of ourselves. I must say I heartily
agree, and of course it could easily be managed, if Medland liked. Perry
would do it in a minute. I really don't see why the best berth in the
colony is to be handed over to some hungry failure from London. But no
doubt you'll agree with Medland."
"Oh, I don't know," said Coxon. "It seems to me rather a point where the
Bar here ought to assert itself."
"I know, if we were in and had a fit man, we should hear nothing more of
an importation. The best man in the colony would be glad to have it: of
course there's not the power a Minister has, or the interest of active
political life, but it's well paid, very dignified, and, above all,
permanent."
Now neither Kilshaw nor Coxon were dull men, and by this time they very
well understood one another. They knew what they meant just as well as
though they had been indecent enough to say it. "Help us to turn out
Medland, and you shall be Chief Justice," said Kilshaw, in the name of
Sir Robert Perry,--"Chief Justice, and once more a _persona grata_ at
Government House." Chief Justice! Soon, perhaps, Sir Alfred! Would not
that soften the Eynesford heart? Mr. Coxon honestly thought it would.
The subtleties of English rank are not to be apprehended by a mere four
years' visit to our shores.
"We expect Sir John to go on for a couple of months or so," Kilshaw
continued. "I don't think he'll stay longer."
"Perhaps we shall be out by then."
"Not as things stand, I'm afraid," and Kilshaw shook his head. "Now if
we could get you, Medland would be out in three weeks."
"I must do what I think right."
"My dear Coxon! Of course!"
Mr. Kilshaw returned to his office well pleased. A careful computation
showed that Medland was supported now by a steady majority of not more
than eight: Coxon's defection could not fail to leave him in a minority;
for, although Coxon was a young man, and, as yet, of no great
independent weight in politics, he had acquired a factitious
importance, partly from the prestige of a successful University career
in England, still more from the fact that he was the only remaining
member of the Ministry to whom moderate men and vested interests could
look with any confidence. Shorn of him, as it had been shorn of Puttock,
the Government would stand revealed as the organ and expression of the
Labour Party and nothing else, and Perry and Kilshaw doubted not that
six or eight members of the House would be found to enter the "cave," if
Coxon showed them the way. Then,--"Why then," said Mr. Kilshaw to his
conscience, "we need not use that brute Benham at all! There's a nice
sop! Lie down like a good dog, and stop barking!"
Indeed, had it been quite certain that Benham's aid would not still
prove needful, Kilshaw would have been very glad to be rid of him.
Complete leisure and full pockets appeared not to be, in his case, a
favourable soil for the growth of virtue. No doubt Mr. Benham's position
was in some respects a hard one. All men who have money in plenty and
nothing to do claim from the wise a lenient judgment, and, besides these
disadvantages, Benham laboured under the possession of a secret--a
secret of mighty power. What wonder if he spent much of his day in
eating-houses and drinking-houses, obscurely hinting to admiring boon
companions of the thing he could do an he would? Then, having drunk his
fill, he would swagger, sometimes not over-steadily, out to the Park,
and amuse himself by scowling at the Premier, or smiling a smile of
hidden meaning at Daisy Medland, as they drove by. Also, he occasionally
got into trouble: one zealous partisan of the Premier's rewarded an
insinuation with a black eye, and Mr. Kilshaw's own servant, finding his
master's pensioner besieging the house in a state of drink-begotten
noisiness, kicked him down the street--an excess of zeal that cost Mr.
Kilshaw a cheque next day. The danger was, however, of a worse thing
than these. Kilshaw, suffering only what he doubtless deserved to
suffer, went on thorns of fear lest some day Benham should not only
explode his bomb prematurely, but publish to the world at whose charges
and under whose auspices the engineer was carrying out his task. And
when Mr. Kilshaw contemplated this possibility, he found it hopeless to
deny that there was pitch on his fingers. Publicity makes such a
difference in men's judgments of themselves.
In this way things hung on for a week or so, and then, one afternoon,
the Chief Justice rushed into the Club in a state of some excitement.
Spying Perry and Kilshaw, he hastened to them.
"You have heard?" he cried.
"What?" asked Sir Robert, wiping his glasses and smiling quietly.
"No? I believe I'm the first. Coxon told me himself: he came into my
room when I rose to-day. He's asked Medland to accept his resignation."
Kilshaw sprang to his feet.
"What on?" asked Sir Robert.
"The Accident-Liability Clause in the Factory Act."
"A very good ground," commented the ex-Premier. "Very cleverly chosen."
"What does Medland say?" asked Kilshaw eagerly. "Will he give way, or
will he let him go?"
"I think the man's mad," said the Chief Justice. "He won't budge an
inch. So Coxon goes--and he says a dozen will go with him."
Then Mr. Kilshaw's feelings overcame him.
"Hurrah!" he cried. "By heaven, we've got him now! We shall beat him on
the Clause! Perry, you'll be back in a week!"
"It looks like it," said Sir Robert, "but one never knows."
"Puttock's solid, and now Coxon! Perry, we shall beat him by anything
from six to ten! I shan't die a pauper yet!"
Sir John bustled on, anxious to anticipate in other quarters the coming
newsvendor, and Sir Robert turned to his lieutenant.
"I suppose he must have his price," he remarked, with deep regret
evident in his tone.
"I can't look him in the face if he doesn't," answered Kilshaw. "By
Jove, Perry, he's earned it."
"Oh yes, so did Iscariot," said Sir Robert. "But it wasn't a Judgeship."
"You won't go back on it, Perry?"
Sir Robert spread out his thin white hands before him, and shook his
head sorrowfully.
"A bargain's a bargain, I suppose," said he, "even if it happens to be
rather an iniquitous one," and having enunciated this principle, on
which he had often insisted in public, he took up a volume of poetry.
Not so Mr. Kilshaw. He flitted from friend to friend, telling the good
news and exchanging congratulations. The evening papers announced the
resignation and its impending acceptance, and further stated that the
rumour was that the Premier had convened a meeting of his remaining
followers to consider their position.
"They may consider all night," said Mr. Kilshaw, "but they can't change
a minority into a majority," and he hailed a cab to take him home.
Suddenly he was touched on the shoulder. Turning, he found Benham beside
him.
"Good news, eh?" said that worthy. "Shake hands on it, Mr. Kilshaw."
Kilshaw swallowed his first-formed words, and, after a moment's
hesitation, put out his hand. Benham shook it warmly, saying,
"I guess we'll blow him up between us. There's my fist on it. See you
soon," and, with a lurching step and a leer over his shoulder, he walked
on.
Kilshaw looked at his hand.
"Thank God I had my glove on," he said, and got into his cab.
Certainly there is no rose without a thorn.
When the Governor announced to his household that he had accepted
Coxon's resignation, and that it was understood that the retiring
Minister would henceforward act with Sir Robert Perry, the news was
variously received. Captain Heseltine's observation was brief, but
comprehensive.
"Rats!" said he.
Alicia nodded to him with a smile. Eleanor Scaife began to argue the
pros and cons of the Accident-Liability Clause, as to which, she
considered, there might fairly be a difference of opinion. Lady
Eynesford cut across the inchoate disquisition by remarking,
"I have never disliked Mr. Coxon, but he doesn't quite know his place,"
and nothing that anybody could say made her see any absurdity in this
remark.