In High Places (55 page)

But there would be opposition, and a bitter fight. It had begun already.

Early this morning he had interviewed separately the eight cabinet dissidents who were supporting Adrian Nesbitson. By strong persuasion and a personal appeal he had won back three, but five were adamant. Together with General Nesbitson they would resign and resist the Act of Union as an independent opposition group. Undoubtedly a few MPs, at least, would follow them, to form a rump within the House.

It was a serious blow, though not entirely unpredictable. He could have been more confident of surviving it, however, if the Government's popularity had not decreased in recent weeks. If only there had been no stowaway incident ... Resolutely, to avoid rekindling his inner, burning anger, Howden switched his thoughts away. He had noticed, though, that Harvey War-render was not yet in the House. Nor was Bonar Deitz, the Leader of the Opposition.

A hand touched his shoulder. Turning, he saw the shock of black curls and bristling moustache of Lucien Perrault. Jauntily, as he managed to do everything, the French Canadian bowed to the Speaker and dropped into the empty seat of Stuart Cawston, who had briefly left the floor.

Perrault leaned over, whispering, 'It is true, I hear, that we have a fight before us.'

'I'm afraid so,' Howden murmured. He added warmly, 'I can't tell you how much your support has meant to me.'

Perrault gave a Gallic shrug, his eyes humorous. 'Well, we shall stand together, and if we fall there will be a thunderous sound.' After a moment, smiling, he moved away to his own seat.

A page boy laid an envelope upon the Prime Minister's desk. Ripping it open, Howden read in Milly Freedeman's handwriting, 'The President is preparing to leave the White House for the Capitol.' In the Prime Minister's office, a minute or two away, Milly was monitoring an open line to Washington. It was for last minute contingencies. So far there had been none.

On the other side of the House, the Opposition Leader came in. Bonar Deitz looked paler than usual and preoccupied, Howden thought. He went straight to his front row desk and snapped his fingers for a page boy. As the boy waited, Deitz scribbled a note, then folded it. To Howden's surprise the note was delivered to himself. It read: 'Essential we discuss urgent, personal matter re you and Harvey Warrender. Please meet me immediately, Room 16 - B.D.'

Alarmed and startled, Howden looked up. But the Opposition Leader had already gone.

Chapter 2
At the same moment that Bonar Deitz had entered the House of Commons, Brian Richardson strode into the outer office of the Prime Minister's suite where Milly Freedeman waited. The party director's face was set grimly. In his hand was a sheet torn from a teletype. Without preliminary he told Milly, 'Wherever the chief is, I need him - fast.'

Milly gestured to the telephone she was holding. She mouthed silently the one word 'Washington'. Her eyes went up to the clock upon the wall.

'There's time,' Richardson said shortly. 'If he's in the House, get him out.' He laid the teletype on the desk in front of her. 'This is Vancouver. Right now it comes first.'

Milly read quickly, then, putting the telephone down on its side, wrote a hasty note. Folding the note and teletype sheet together she sealed them in an envelope and pressed a buzzer. Almost at once a page boy knocked and entered. Milly instructed, 'Please take this quickly and come straight back.' When the boy had gone, she picked up the telephone again and listened.

After a moment, covering the mouthpiece, Milly asked, 'It's pretty bad, isn't it - the way things came out in court?'

Richardson answered bitterly, 'If there's another way of making the Government look stupid, vicious, and fumbling all at once, I haven't thought of it.'

'Is there anything can be done - anything at all?'

'With luck - if the chief will agree to what I want - we can salvage about two per cent of what we've lost.' The party director dropped into a chair. He added glumly, 'The way things are, even two per cent is worth saving.'

Milly was listening to the telephone. 'Yes,' she said. 'I have that.' With her free hand she wrote another note. Covering the mouthpiece again, she told Richardson, 'The President has left the White House and is driving to the Capitol.'

He answered sourly, 'Hooray for him. I hope he knows the way.'

Milly noted the time: 3.30.

Brian Richardson got up and came close beside her. 'Milly,' he said, 'the hell with everything. Let's get married.' He paused, then added, 'I've started my divorce. Eloise is helping.'

'Oh, Brian!' Suddenly her eyes were moist. 'You pick the strangest times.' Her hand still cupped the telephone.

'There is no time - no right time ever.' He said roughly, 'We have to take what we can get.'

'I wish I were as sure as you,' she told him. 'I've thought about it; thought so much.'

'Look,' he urged, 'there's going to be a war - everybody says so; and anything can happen. Let's grab whatever's left and make the most of it.'

'If only it were that simple.' Milly sighed.

He said defiantly, 'We can make it that simple.'

Unhappily she answered, 'Brian darling, I don't know. Honestly, I don't know.'

Or do I know? she thought. Is it that I want too much: independence and marriage - the best of both, surrendering neither one? It couldn't be done, she knew. Perhaps independence had been something she had had too long.

He said awkwardly, 'I love you Milly. I guess I told you, and it hasn't changed.' He wished he could express the deeper things he felt. For some things it was hard to find the words.

Milly pleaded: 'Can't we, just for a while, go on as we are?'

Just for a while. That was the way, he thought, that it always was and would be. Just for a while, and sooner or later one of them would decide the time had come to end.

'I guess so,' he said. He had a sense of losing something he had never really possessed.

Chapter 3
In Room 16-the big luxurious sanctum adjoining the Speaker's chambers, which all parties shared - the Prime Minister faced Bonar Deitz. Except for the two of them, the room was empty.

Deitz said quietly, 'Thank you for coming promptly.'

Howden nodded. The apprehension he had felt before persisted. He asked uncertainly, 'What is it you have to tell me about Harvey Warrender?'

Instead of answering, Deitz said obliquely, 'You know that we're neighbours in Rockliffe?'

'Yes.' The Warrenders and Deitzes, Howden knew, had facing properties.

'This morning Harvey's wife called me to their house.' The Opposition Leader added, 'Harvey's wife and mine are quite good friends.'

Howden said impatiently, 'Go on.'

The other hesitated, his gaunt scholarly face troubled. Then he said, 'Harvey had locked himself in his study. He wouldn't come out. When we called to him he threatened to kill himself.'

Shocked, Howden said, 'Did he...' 'No.' Deitz shook his head. 'People who threaten usually don't; at least, that's what I'm told.' 'Then what...' 'Eventually we broke in. They have a manservant. We forced the door together.'

The slowness was infuriating. Howden snapped. What then?'

'It was like a nightmare. Harvey went berserk. We tried to subdue him. He was raving, foaming...'

As if they were speaking of something abstract, Howden said, 'I used to think that sort of thing was fictional...'

'It isn't. Believe me, it isn't.' Deitz took off his rimless glasses; he passed a hand across his face. 'I hope I never see anything like it again.'

There was an air of unreality. Howden asked, 'What happened then?' His eyes took in the other man's frail figure - the figure which a cruel cartoonist had once compared to a string bean.

'Oh, God!' Deitz closed his eyes, then opened them. With an effort he composed himself. 'Fortunately their man is strong. He held Harvey. We tied him to a chair. And all the while ... struggling, raving...'

It was unbelievable, grotesque. 'I can't believe it,' Howden said. He found his hands were trembling. 'I simply can't believe it.'

'You will,' Bonar Deitz said grimly. 'You will, if you see

Harvey.'

'Where is he now?' 'In Eastview Hospital. Under restraint, I think they call it.

After it happened, Harvey's wife knew whom to call.'

The Prime Minister said sharply, 'How did she know?'

'Apparently this isn't wholly a surprise,' Deitz answered. 'Harvey's been having treatment - psychiatric treatment - for a long time. Did you know?'

Aghast, Howden said, 'I had no idea.'

'Nor had anyone, I suppose. His wife told me afterwards; also that there's a history of insanity - on Harvey's side. I gather she found out after they were married. And there was some sort of trouble while he was teaching, but it was hushed up.'

'My God!' Howden breathed. 'My God!'

They had been standing. With a sense of weakness he lowered himself into a chair. Deitz sat down beside him.

The Opposition Leader said softly, 'It's strange, isn't it, how little we know about one another until something like this?'

James Howden's mind was in turmoil. It was difficult to know what to think first. He and Harvey Warrender had never been close friends, but for years they had been colleagues...

He asked, 'How has Harvey's wife taken it?'

Bonar Deitz had cleaned his glasses with a tissue. Now he replaced them. He answered, 'Now that it's over she's surprisingly calm. In a way she almost seems relieved. I imagine it wasn't an easy situation to be living with.'

'No,' he answered slowly, 'I don't suppose it was.' Harvey Warrender had not been easy on anyone. He remembered Margaret's words: 'I've sometimes thought Harvey is a little mad.' At the time he had agreed, but never dreamed...

Bonar Deitz said quietly, 'There isn't much doubt, I imagine, that Harvey will be certified insane. They don't rush these things, but in this case it seems mostly a formality.'

Howden nodded dully. Out of habit his fingers caressed the curve of his nose.

Deitz went on, 'Whatever is necessary, we'll make it easy for you in the House. I'll pass the word to my people and there need be very little said. The newspapers won't report it, of course.'

No, Howden thought; there were certain decencies the newspapers observed.

A thought occurred to him. He moistened his lips with his tongue.

'When Harvey was ... raving ... was there anything, especially, he said?'

The Opposition Leader shook his head. 'Mostly it was incoherent : jumbled words; some bits of Latin. I couldn't make them out.'

'And ... nothing else?'

'If you're thinking of this,' Bonar Deitz said quietly, 'perhaps you should take it now.' From an inside pocket he produced an envelope. It was addressed Rt Hon James M. How-den. The handwriting, though sprawling and uneven, was recognizable as Harvey Warrender's.

As Howden took the envelope and opened it, his hands were shaking.

There were two enclosures. One was a single sheet of stationery, the writing upon it in the same disordered hand ... as if in stress - Harvey Warrender's resignation from the Government. The other was a faded convention programme, on the back the fateful scribbled agreement of nine years earlier.

Bonar Deitz was watching Howden's face. 'The envelope was open on Harvey's desk,' he said. 'I decided to seal it. It seemed better that way.'

Slowly Howden's eyes came up. The muscles of his face were working. There was trembling through his body, like an ague he could not control. He whispered, 'You ... saw ... what was there?'

Bonar Deitz answered, 'I'd like to say no, but it wouldn't be true.' He hesitated, then continued. 'Yes, I looked. It isn't something I'm proud of, but curiosity, I'm afraid, proved strong.'

Fear, icy fear, struck Howden's heart. Then resignation took its place.

So, in the end, a scrap of paper had destroyed him. He had been brought down by his own ambition, recklessness ... a moment of ill-judgement long ago. Giving him the original document was a trick, of course; Bonar Deitz had made a copy; it would be produced and published, as exposes affecting others had been ... bribes, indiscreet cheques, furtive agreements ... The Press would trumpet; opponents would wallow in self-righteousness; politically he could not survive. With a strange detachment he wondered what came next.

He asked, 'What are you going to do?'

'Nothing.'

Somewhere behind, a door opened and closed. Footsteps came towards them. Bonar Deitz said sharply, 'The Prime Minister and I would like to be alone.' The footsteps retreated; again the door closed.

'Nothing?' Howden said. His voice held unbelief. 'Nothing at all?'

The Opposition Leader said carefully, 'I've done a good deal of thinking since this morning. I suppose I should use the evidence that Harvey left. If some of my own people knew I'd withheld it, they would never forgive me.'

Yes, Howden thought; there were plenty who would rejoice to destroy him, and never mind the means. In his mind a gleam of hope nickered; was there to be a reprieve after all -on Deitz's terms?

Deitz said softly, 'Somehow, though, I can't see myself doing it. I'm not partial to stirring mud; too much of it rubs off.'

But I would have done it to you
, Howden thought.
Without Hesitation I would have done it to you.

'I might have, though, if it hadn't been for something else. You see, I can beat you in another way.' There was a pause, then, with quiet confidence, Deitz said, 'Parliament and the country will never pass the Act of Union. You will go down to defeat and I shall win.'

'You know?'

'I've known for several days.' For the first time the other smiled. 'Your friend in the White House has his opposition too. There've been some leaks down there. Two senators and a congressman flew up to see me and they represented others who don't like the concept or its terms. The briefing, I may say, was fairly thorough.'

Howden said seriously, 'If we don't unite, it's national suicide for Canada - annihilation.'

'It seems to me it's national suicide if we do.' Calmly Deitz said, 'We've come through wars before. I'd sooner do it again - as an independent nation - and take our chances.'