The Changeling (53 page)

“I’m glad of that,” I replied. “Yes … I am so glad.”

My father came over to us.

“You sound very vehement,” he said. “May I ask what you are so glad about?”

I hesitated.

“Secrets?” he asked.

I looked at Joel and I knew he understood what I was asking. Tacit agreement passed between us.

I said, “When Joel comes back from Buganda we … we thought about becoming engaged.”

My father’s pleasure was apparent.

“That,” he said, “seems to me an excellent idea.”

“We had already fixed it and were saying how pleased we were because we knew it was what you all wanted.”

“So that is what you were so firmly glad about. How right you are. It was what we have always had in mind for you both.”

“It’s a secret at the moment,” I said. “Among just the three of us. We want to wait until Joel comes back from Buganda.”

“Wonderful timing!” He was beaming at us. I had rarely seen him so pleased.

I was glad afterward that we had told him that night.

My father, Celeste and I went to Southampton to see Joel off on the P & O liner. There was quite a celebration. The press was present to report the departure of the Members of Parliament and to give their views on the Buganda project with some enthusiasm.

My father said a few words to them and we went on board and drank champagne before the vessel sailed.

“This will be the making of Joel,” he said as we traveled back to London. “He is very young and to be chosen for such a mission is an honor. I do wish our hold on the government was a bit more firm. Salisbury is determined to get us out and with our tiny majority how can we stop him? We’re powerless to do so.”

It was very shortly afterward when Mr. Gladstone introduced his Home Rule Bill for Ireland. My father was very preoccupied. He told me during one of our sessions that he was convinced the Irish question would destroy Gladstone and put the party out of office.

He was becoming increasingly aware that he was in something of a dilemma, which was unusual for him. Generally he was so certain that he was right. He at length admitted to me that he was not at all sure that Gladstone’s solution was the right one.

He was torn with doubts. He felt the government was going in the wrong direction and could not last much longer. His own hopes of Cabinet rank were slipping farther and farther away from him. He was a man who, once he had determined to achieve something, could not lightly give up.

I began to realize that during that time he was trying to come to a decision.

He admitted to me on one occasion that he shared the view of the Opposition on the Bill. What if he went against his leader? What would his hopes for further advancement in the party be then? Did he owe his loyalty to his leader or to his conscience?

Could he give his support to something he did not believe in? On the other hand, could he be disloyal to the party?

We talked about it endlessly. His opinion swayed. He was, after all, a very ambitious man; and he was no longer young. He could not change sides now. There was something suspect about a man who changed sides. People usually said it was done to gain advantages.

But he did feel strongly about the Irish question.

“You see,” he said to me, “the PM is growing old … many say too old. He had great flair in his heyday. I’d say he was one of the greatest politicians this country has ever known; but he gets obsessions. After all, there were those years when he embarked on his crusade to save the women of the streets.”

I knew of this. I had heard it discussed how Mr. Gladstone would go out late at night and stroll about round Piccadilly and Soho, those areas which were the stamping grounds of the prostitute population. When he was accosted—as any man who showed an inclination to loiter would be—he would question the young woman, making sure not to adopt a moral tone, offer sympathy and invite her to his house. The women who went with him must have been amazed to find a genteel Mrs. Gladstone waiting to offer supper and good advice, joining with her husband in the attempt to set them on the road to a more virtuous way of life.

This he had done over forty years—whenever possible dedicating one night a week to his self-appointed task.

“Of course, he has always been different from other men,” said my father. “He is way above most. He has an idea and he clings to it. It never occurs to him that he may be doing harm to himself. He must follow what he believes to be right. And just as he had his crusade to rescue women of the streets, now he is determined to give Ireland Home Rule. Trafficking with fallen women might easily have ruined his career. In fact certain rumors regarding his intentions were inevitable, but he shrugged all that aside. He had a mission and he was determined to carry it out. You see, in some ways, he is far from being a normal man.”

“He believes firmly in Home Rule for Ireland,” I said, “just as you are beginning to feel it is not the answer. His obsession with it could bring him down. Yet he will not hesitate.”

“I fear there may be civil war. He forgets that there are many in Northern Ireland particularly who did not want Home Rule. He will destroy himself if he continues.”

I said, “He is something of a saint. He must do what he feels right, whatever the consequences to himself.”

My father was increasingly becoming aware that he could not go along with Gladstone this time; at length he came to his decision—and it was to prove fatal to him.

His conscience won.

His first step was to speak at a meeting declaring his opposition to the Bill. It was reported in all the papers, as his speeches usually were. He had always been a powerful and witty speaker; he had great charisma; he was the kind of man who drew attention to himself. There was his somewhat shady past and the fact that he had missed a brilliant opportunity because of it that made him a focus of attention; and, moreover, he was always eminently quotable.

The morning after he had made his speech, his name was well to the fore.

LANSDON OPPOSES BILL. GLADSTONE’S HENCHMAN MAKES A RIGHT TURN. CONSERVATIVES JUBILANT.

I went to his study where he was reading the papers.

“So, you have done it,” I said.

“I believe it was right to do it,” he said. He seemed relieved.

It was a tense and exciting time. We followed the progress of the Bill through the House. It passed in all its stages—though, my father pointed out to me, with minute majorities.

Then … it was rejected by the Lords.

The thick black headlines stared at us from all the papers.

They were all about the Bill and Gladstone’s defeat. In several columns the view was stressed that it was my father’s outspoken opposition to it which had done a great deal to bring it to defeat.

The tension increased. My father admitted to me that he had lost all chances of Cabinet rank.

Gladstone was bitter. He wanted to call an election and go to the polls on a slogan:
THE COUNTRY VERSUS THE LORDS
.

“The Old Man doesn’t realize that the country is heartily tired of the subject. He thinks everyone is as engrossed in the Irish question as he is.”

“And how is he feeling about you?” I asked.

“Oh … he’s bitterly disappointed in me. Hurt, too. I wish I could make him understand. He really is looking very old and tired these days.”

“What are you going to do?”

He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. It was one of the few times I had seen him uncertain.

Then he said, “For now … carry on. Disagreeing with the PM doesn’t mean I’m not still member for Manorleigh.”

“Shall you give up politics in time?”

“Indeed not! Accept defeat? Certainly not, and I shall not hesitate to voice my opinions.”

“Well, isn’t that what all members should do?”

“They should, but sometimes one’s views do not always coincide with those of the party. Then one has to make a choice.”

“As you have done.”

I felt I wanted to be with him at this time … always ready if he wanted to talk to me; and he did talk to me, more freely than ever at this time. It was not only politics that we were discussing.

So we came to that particular evening when I was waiting for him to return from the House.

As usual I had prepared the supper in his study. I had the soup waiting to be heated up on the little stove, some cold chicken and homemade crusty bread.

The time was getting on. It was almost ten o’clock. I wondered what was happening in the House. I fancied some of his fellow members were not very pleased with him. But he had done right, I assured myself. People must act according to what they believed even if by doing so they go against the policy of the party. Parliament was the place for discussion. That must be understood.

I tried to settle down to read. I started to think about Joel and wondered what he would be doing at this moment. How long would the mission take? At least six weeks after he arrived. It would be some time before he came home.

The time passed slowly. It was nearly eleven o’clock. Sometimes the House would go on sitting into the early hours of the morning. If he did not come by eleven thirty I would go to bed. It was the rule. If he were as late as that he would stay at the Greenham’s, according to the custom. But there was still a little time to go.

I went to the window and looked out. There was a high wind which had taken most of the leaves off the trees; some lay on the pavement on the opposite side of the road. They came from the trees in the garden which was for the use of residents in the square.

I noticed a man standing by the railings of the gardens. He was dressed in a cape and an opera hat. He took a few paces to the right, then he turned and walked a few more in the opposite direction. Afterward he stopped and stood still, looking along the road.

I could see him quite clearly for there was a street lamp close by. And as I stood there I heard a cab coming along the road.

This must be my father, I thought. I looked down, expecting it to slow down and my father alight; but it went straight past the house.

Disappointed, I stood there; then I noticed that the man had come to the edge of the pavement, his hand in his pocket; he was staring after the cab, and oddly enough I seemed to sense an exasperated frustration—which suggested that he, too, might have been disappointed that the cab had gone by.

While I was thinking how strange it was and wondering what he could be waiting for, there was a gust of wind which lifted his hat and sent it rolling along the pavement under the street lamp.

For a few seconds I looked straight into his face. I noticed at once that his dark hair grew rather low on his forehead into what I had heard called a widow’s peak; and there was a white mark on his left cheek which looked like a scar.

Then he was running along the pavement to retrieve his hat. This he did and slammed it back on his head.

I had become quite interested in him by this time and was wondering whether he intended to wait there the whole night. He must be waiting for someone. I wondered who.

I went back to my book and attempted to read for just a little longer. I was soon yawning. My father would not come now. Obviously he had gone to the Greenham’s. It must have been a very late sitting.

I went back to my bedroom, but before retiring for the night I went to the window to look out on the square.

The man had gone.

At about eleven o’clock the next morning my father came home.

“It was a very late night sitting,” I said.

“Yes, it went on until one.”

“How are the Greenhams?”

“Delighted about Joel. They can’t talk of anything else.”

“Can you guess how long it will be before he comes home?”

“I imagine it will be quite six weeks out there and then of course there is the journey to and from. I must say it is very convenient to have their hospitality. Their place is only a five-minute walk from the House, and there’s always someone to let me in and the room is kept ready. I think Sir John likes to hear all that went on the previous night. He’s always wanting a good chat in the morning.”

“I suppose Bates could bring you home.”

Bates was the coachman who drove him to the House but he always came home by cab because of the uncertainty of the time.

“It would be impossible,” he said now. “He might be there all night. No. This is an excellent arrangement. I’m lucky to have friends so near. It’s become a custom. I think they’d be hurt if I didn’t make us of it.”

“Will you be going to the House this afternoon?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Another late sitting?”

“Who knows? But I expect everyone will be a little weary after last night. There’s a great deal going on, though. I don’t think the government can last. Salisbury is eagerly waiting in the wings, and this defeat from the Lords over the Bill …”

I said nothing. I did not want to stress his part in the defeat.

He was ready to leave in mid-afternoon.

“I can’t believe it will be another late night,” he said, “but have my supper waiting just in case.”

“I will,” I promised.

In the hall I helped him into his coat and put the white silk scarf about his neck.

“You need that,” I said. “This horrible wind cuts right through you.”

He smiled indulgently at me, pretending to laugh at my coddling; but I knew he liked it.

Bates, the coachman, had brought the carriage round from the mews and was waiting for him; the horse was pawing the ground impatiently.

I went down the four steps with him to the carriage door; he turned to me to smile as he prepared to get in. Then it happened. I heard the loud explosion. I saw the look of surprise on my father’s face. The blood was spurting over his coat, staining the white silk scarf which I had just a few moments before put round his neck.

Then I saw the man standing there … the gun in his hand.

My father swayed toward me. I put out my hands and held him as slowly he slipped to the ground.

I knelt beside him and looked about me helplessly. I was stunned.

Briefly I saw the man, then I knew that although he was dressed differently, he was the one I had seen last night waiting on the other side of the road. He had changed his opera cloak and hat for a cloth cap which was pulled down over his eyes. For a second we looked fully at each other. I could not see the widow’s peak, but I did recognize the scar on his left cheek; and instinctively I knew that he was the man who had stood on the other side of the road, and that last night he had been waiting for my father so that he might do then what he had done today.