Читать книгу The Land of Afternoon - Madge Macbeth - Страница 10

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The Hon. Member for Morroway did not wait for the adjournment of the afternoon Session. With a gesture that the thirsty never fail to recognise, he signalled two colleagues who occupied adjacent benches, and led the way from the Green Chamber.

The Hon. Member was more than a little piqued at Marjorie Dilling’s insensibility to his persistent Gallery-gazing. It was almost unprecedented in his experience that a young woman should find the sparsely-covered crown of her husband’s head more magnetic an objective than his own luxuriant growth of silver hair. Looked at from above, the leonine mane of Mr. Rufus Sullivan was in the midst of such hirsute barrenness, as conspicuous as a spot of moonlight on a drab, gray wall.

The Hon. Member for Morroway disliked many things: work, religion, temperance, ugly women, clever men, home cooking, cotton stockings, and male stenographers, to mention only a few. But more than any of these, he disliked being ignored by a girl upon whom he had focussed his attention. Such occasions (happily rare!) always induced extreme warmth that was like a scorching rash upon Mr. Sullivan’s sensitive soul, and this, in turn, promoted an intense dryness of the throat. Mr. Sullivan disliked being dry.

So, with admirable directness of movement, he led the way to his room, unlocked a drawer marked “Unfinished Business,” and set a bottle upon the desk at the same time waving hospitality towards his two companions.

For a space the silence was broken only by the ring of glass upon glass and the cooling hiss of a syphon. Then, three voices pronounced, “Here’s how!” and there followed an appreciative click of the tongue and a slight gurgling.

“Ah ...” breathed the trio.

The Hon. Member for Morroway closed one limpid brown eye and examined his glass against the light. Although an incomparable picture stood framed in the small Gothic window of his room, it did not occur to Mr. Sullivan to look at the distant Laurentians slipping into the purple haze of evening, to feast his soul upon the glory of soft river tones and forest shades; to note the slender spire of silver that glowed like a long-drawn-out star on a back-drop of pastel sky.

Mr. Sullivan was concerned only with the amber fluid in his glass, where tiny bubbles climbed hurriedly to the surface and clung to the sides of the tumbler. If he looked out of the window at all, it was to investigate the possible charms of unattached maidens who strolled towards Nepean Point ostentatiously enjoying the view. Sometimes, Mr. Sullivan found the outlook enchanting, himself. This was when he was stimulated by the enthusiasm of a pretty girl who invariably remarked that it was a sin “to spoil the river shore with those hideous mills, and poison good air with the reek of sulphite.”

Mr. Sullivan vehemently agreed, for he called himself an ardent Nature-lover, unwilling to admit that Nature, for him, was always feminine and young.

“Not much doubt as to the direction the wind blows from Pinto Plains,” he observed, still intent upon his glass.

“Not a shadow,” agreed Howarth, sombrely. “Eastlake and Donahue have certainly got that lad buffaloed to a standstill.”

“Railroaded, you mean,” amended Turner, essaying a wan jest. “I wonder what his price was.” He drained his glass, set it on the table with a thud, and cried, “I never saw their equal—that pair! Time after time, we’ve thought they were down and out. Their subsidies were discounted, banks closed down on ’em, credit was exhausted—you remember the contractors we’ve fixed so that they wouldn’t operate?—even their own supporters got weak in the knees ... and they manage to find some inspired spell-binder, who pours the floods of his forensic eloquence on the sterile territory, so that first thing we know, a stream of currency begins to trickle from the banks, subsidies are renewed ... God! how do they pull it off, boys? In a case like this, where do they get the cash to pay Dilling, and what do they promise him? What’s his price, I’m asking you, eh?”

Rufus Sullivan, feeling that two pairs of eyes were upon him, spoke.

“Do you know,” he said, slowly, “it wouldn’t surprise me much to learn that young Dilling hasn’t been bought at all, that he gave himself to the cause, and that all of that grandiose bunk he talked was truth to him?”

“Good God!” breathed Howarth, and gulped loudly.

“ ’S a fact! I listened hard all the time he talked, and I watched him some, and it struck me he wasn’t speaking a part he had learned at the Company’s dictation, nor for a price ...”

“—which means,” interrupted Turner, “that he’s another of those damned nuisances with principles, and ideas about making politics clean and uplifting for the man in the street.”

“Worse than that,” corrected Howarth. “It means that he’ll be a damsite harder to handle, and more expensive to buy than a fellow who has no definite convictions and finds mere money acceptable.”

“That’s right!” Sullivan set down his empty glass and spread his elbows on the desk, facing them. “I don’t anticipate that Dilling will be any bargain, but,” he thundered, “we’ve got to have him. Fortunately, we can rely upon the incontrovertible fact that like every other man, he has a price. It’s up to us to find out what it is!”

“But, damn it all, Sullivan,” cried Howarth, “I’m sick of paying prices! Surely we can find some means of muzzling this altruistic western stripling.”

“Nothing simpler,” returned the older man, with heavy sarcasm. “We’ve only got to go to the country, defeat the Government, assassinate Eastlake and Donahue, deport Gough as an undesirable ... Godfrey happens to be backing Dilling in his constituency don’t you forget ...”

“What?” asked Turner.

“What for?” from Howarth.

Sullivan spread out his large, fat hands. “For some dark purpose of his own that is yet to be revealed ... and then, we must squash the vested interests. Suppose you take on this trifling job, Bill. I’m going to be busy this evening.”

“Just the same,” cut in Turner, “I think Billy’s right. He ought to be intimidated—Dilling, of course, I mean—not bought. These Young Lochinvars ought not to be allowed to think they can run the country.”

“Buying or intimidating, it’s much the same thing in the end,” said Sullivan. “You’ve got to find a price or a weapon.” He corked the bottle, locked it away and strolled across the office to examine his features in a heavy gilt mirror that hung on the wall. “Did either of you remark Mrs. Dilling?” he enquired, attacking his mass of hair with a small pocket comb.

“Mrs. Dilling?” echoed the others.

“Why not? She sat in the Gallery all afternoon.”

“How did you know her?” demanded Howarth.

“Why, I saw her come in, and noting that she was a stranger—”

“—and extremely pretty,” suggested Turner, “you took the trouble to find out.”

“Well, she is pretty,” said the Member for Morroway, reflectively. “A fair, childish face, like a wild, unplucked prairie flower.”

“Humph,” observed Turner, exchanging a significant look with Howarth behind his host’s back.

“Beauty is an amazingly compelling force,” Sullivan continued, sententiously. “I have a theory—shared by very few people, it is true, but convincing to me, nevertheless—that Beauty wields a more powerful influence than Fear. What do you think?”

“Never thought about it at all,” confessed Howarth, bluntly. “But what has all this to do with Dilling’s price?”

“Oh, nothing, my dear fellow,” said Sullivan, airily, “nothing at all! I was merely indulging in a moment’s reflection, inspired, as it were, by Mrs. Dilling’s loveliness. You must meet her ... We must see to it that Ottawa treats her with cordiality and friendliness.”

“Do you know her, yourself ... already?” asked Turner.

“Er—no. I have not been through the formality of an introduction, but I know her sufficiently well to wager that she is the sort of little woman who responds to the sympathetic word; who is lonely, and searching for warmth rather than grandeur in her associations and who can be relied upon to work for her husband’s advancement ... when that good time comes.”

A new light gleamed in the eyes of his two listeners. They gave up trying to think of ways in which the new Member might be intimidated—discredited with his constituents or sponsors; and waited for the master mind to reveal itself. But Rufus Sullivan, M.P., was not the man to discuss half-formulated plans. He changed the subject adroitly, jotted down the Dilling’s address and excused himself on the plea that he was dining with the Pratts for the purpose of laying the foundations for a successful campaign.

“There’s an interesting type,” he declared. “Useful—most useful!”

“Pratt?” cried Turner. “Why, he’s a jolly old ass, in my opinion!”

“I mean Mrs. Pratt, of course,” was Sullivan’s mild reproof. “Don’t you realise, my dear chap, that the women of our day are the chief factors in our Government? We are harking back to the piping times of the ‘Merry Monarch’.”

“Oh, rot!” contradicted Howarth, who was a married man.

“Régime du cotillon ... petticoat Government, eh?” Turner laughed. Both he and Sullivan had evaded the snares of feminine hunters. “I don’t know the lady, but take it that she, also, is easy on the eye.”

Sullivan shook his great white head. Mrs. Pratt, he explained, had not been born to adorn life, but to emphasise it. Nature, in her wisdom, had given to some women determination, and the callousness that must accompany it.

“Purposeful,” said Mr. Sullivan, “grimly purposeful, with about as much sensitiveness as you would find in a piece of rock crystal. She’s got her mind set on having Gus in Parliament, and if Queen Victoria and her attendant lion got off the pedestal outside there, they wouldn’t be able to prevent her. She would repeal the B.N.A. Act if it stood in her way. A very useful woman,” he repeated, and insinuated himself into his overcoat.

“What’s he up to?” Howarth asked his companion as they bent their steps towards the restaurant and dinner.

“God knows!” answered Turner. “But there’s a load taken off my mind by the knowledge that he’s got something up his sleeve. And it won’t be all laughter either, if I know him.”

Howarth paused in the corridor. His dulled conscience was trying to shake off its political opiate and prompt him to play the man in this thing, but its small voice was speedily hushed by the animated scene about him. Pages were scurrying around; Members, released from the tension of debate, were greeting each other noisily; the omnium gatherum of the Galleries was debouching upon the Main lobby, so that the very air he breathed was vibrant with a scherzo of human voices.

“I say,” he cried, “let’s ask Dilling to feed with us. Under the intoxication of triumph, he may loosen up a bit—become loquacious. You get a table. I’ll get him!”