第21章

Then Cargill and Vennard came in together.Both looking uncommonly fit, younger, trimmer, cleaner.Vennard, instead of his sloppy clothes and shaggy hair, was groomed like a Guardsman;had a large pearl-and-diamond solitaire in his shirt, and a white waistcoat with jewelled buttons.He had lost all his self-consciousness, grinned cheerfully at the others, warmed his hands at the fire, and cursed the weather.Cargill, too, had lost his sanctimonious look.There was a bloom of rustic health on his cheek, and a sparkle in his eye, so that he had the appearance of some rosy Scotch laird of Raeburn's painting.Both men wore an air of purpose and contentment.

Vennard turned at once on the Prime Minister."Did you get my letter?" he asked."No? Well, you'll find it waiting when you get home.We're all friends here, so I can tell you its contents.We must get rid of this ridiculous Radical 'tail.'

They think they have the whip-hand of us; well, we have got to prove that we can do very well without them.They are a collection of confounded, treacherous, complacent prigs, but they have no grit in them, and will come to heel if we tackle them firmly.I respect an honest fanatic, but I do not respect those sentiment-mongers.They have the impudence to say that the country is with them.I tell you it is rank nonsense.If you take a strong hand with them, you'll double your popularity, and we'll come back next year with an increased majority.Cargill agrees with me."The Prime Minister looked grave."I am not prepared to discuss any policy of ostracism.What you call our 'tail' is a vital section of our party.Their creed may be one-sided, but it is none the less part of our mandate from the people.""I want a leader who governs as well as reigns," said Vennard."Ibelieve in discipline, and you know as well as I do that the Rump is infernally out of hand.""They are not the only members who fail in discipline."Vennard grinned."I suppose you mean Cargill and myself.But we are following the central lines of British policy.We are on your side, and we want to make your task easier."Cargill suddenly began to laugh."I don't want any ostracism.

Leave them alone, and Vennard and I will undertake to give them such a time in the House that they will wish they had never been born.We'll make them resign in batches."Dinner was announced, and, laughing uproariously, the two rebels went arm-in-arm into the dining-room.

Cargill was in tremendous form.He began to tell Scotch stories, memories of his old Parliament House days.He told them admirably, with a raciness of idiom which I had thought beyond him.They were long tales, and some were as broad as they were long, but Mr.Cargill disarmed criticism.His audience, rather scandalised at the start, were soon captured, and political troubles were forgotten in old-fashioned laughter.Even the Prime Minister's anxious face relaxed.

This lasted till the entree, the famous Caerlaverock curry.

As I have said, I was not in the secret, and did not detect the transition.As I partook of the dish I remember feeling a sudden giddiness and a slight nausea.The antidote, to those who had not taken the drug, must have been, I suppose, in the nature of a mild emetic.A mist seemed to obscure the faces of my fellow-guests, and slowly the tide of conversation ebbed away.

First Vennard, then Cargill, became silent.I was feeling rather sick, and I noticed with some satisfaction that all our faces were a little green.I wondered casually if I had been poisoned.

The sensation passed, but the party had changed.More especially I was soon conscious that something had happened to the three Ministers.I noticed Mulross particularly, for he was my neighbour.The look of keenness and vitality had died out of him, and suddenly he seemed a rather old, rather tired man, very weary about the eyes.

I asked him if he felt seedy.

"No, not specially," he replied, "but that accident gave me a nasty shock.""You should go off for a change," I said.

"I almost thimk I will," was the answer."I had not meant to leave town till just before the Twelth but I think I had better get away to Marienbad for a fortnight.There is nothing doing in the House, and work at the Office is at a standstill.Yes, Ifancy I'll go abroad before the end of the week."I caught the Prime Minister's eye and saw that he had forgotten the purpose of the dinner, being dimly conscious that that purpose was now idle.Cargill and Vennard had ceased to talk like rebels.The Home Secretary had subsided into his old, suave, phrasing self.The humour had gone out of his eye, and the looseness had returned to his lips.He was an older and more commonplace man, but harmless, quite harmless.Vennard, too, wore a new air, or rather had recaptured his old one.He was saying little, but his voice had lost its crispness and recovered its half-plaintive unction; his shoulders had a droop in them;once more he bristled with self-consciousness.

We others were still shaky from that detestable curry, and were so puzzled as to be acutely uncomfortable.Relief would come later, no doubt; for the present we were uneasy at this weird transformation.I saw the Prime Minister examining the two faces intently, and the result seemed to satisfy him.He sighed and looked at Caerlaverock, who smiled and nodded.

"What about that Bill of yours, Vennard?" he asked."There have been a lot of stupid rumours.""Bill?" Vennard said."I know of no Bill.Now that my departmental work is over, I can give my whole soul to Cargill's Small Holdings.Do you mean that?""Yes, of course.There was some confusion in the popular mind, but the old arrangement holds.You and Cargill will put it through between you."They began to talk about those weariful small holdings, and Iceased to listen.We left the dining-room and drifted to the lihrary, where a fire tried to dispel the gloom of the weather.