AS George Mulross Demaine drifted down river in his cell that Tuesday afternoon the 2nd of June, Dolly sat blankly in Downing Street with the waters of despair at his lips. Evil breeds evil.
As he considered the gloomy prospect, new aspects of it rose before him. Not only was he privately between these two fires, the sudden madness of the outgoing Warden, the disappearance of his successor, but the retirement of Charles Repton had been publicly announced and Dimmy’s nomination had appeared alongside with it in the morning papers. The double news was all over England.
Yet another torturing thought suggested itself. How and when should he fill the vacancy? What was he to do?
Repton was impossible. His disaster was not in the papers, thank God, and could not be, under the decent rules which govern our press. But it was already the chief tittle-tattle of every house that counted in London. There could be no interregnum with Repton still nominally filling the place. He[170] might wait as long as he dared, give it to a third man, and then have Demaine turn up smiling and hungry: and if that happened the Prime Minister would earn what he dreaded most on earth, the enmity of those who had been his friends; perhaps a breach with Mary Smith herself.
He was not fit to do more than survey the misfortune of the moment: he was still in his perplexity, when he heard the bell ringing in the next room, and was told that he himself was personally and urgently wanted upon the telephone.
He put up his hand but the secretary would take no denial; it was something absolutely personal. Who was it from? It was from Lady Repton.
If it can be said of any wealthy and powerful man that he ever betrays in his features or gait a purely mental anxiety, then that might be said in some degree of the unfortunate Prime Minister at that moment. He suffered so acutely that his left lung, the sense of which never wholly left him, seemed to oppress him with actual physical pain.
He took the telephone, dreading what he might hear.
It was a trifle less of a blow than he had expected. All he heard was the agitated voice of Lady Repton assuring him that she had waited as long as possible before troubling him, but that she was now really anxious, because Charles had not come home. Had he gone in a taxi or a hansom, or how? It was more[171] than half an hour since the Prime Minister had telephoned her, and Charles was always so regular.
It was perhaps weariness or perhaps a sense that he could do nothing which made the Prime Minister merely answer that he was sure to come in a moment.
“Repton has been very busy to-day,” he said, “and has had a great deal on his mind. He has become a little unhinged: that is the whole truth, Lady Repton: nothing more. But I think he should be carefully nursed. Pray do not be anxious.”
The words faltered a little, for he himself was more than anxious. Heaven only knew what Repton might not be capable of, until they had got him safe behind the four walls of his home.... And after that the doctors.
He stopped the conversation a little rudely, by taking advantage of a long pause to ring off. While he was in the act of doing so a servant asked him in the most natural manner in the world whether he would not see Sir Charles Repton who was waiting below.
I grieve to record that the young and popular Prime Minister gave vent to the exclamation “Good God!” For a moment he thought of refusing to see him; then he heard coming up through the distances of the official house a cheery voice saying:
“Yes, it’s all very well for you, you’re a butler with a regular place; when the Government goes out you[172] don’t. You’re a sort of permanent official. But we...!”
“Show him up,” said the Prime Minister in a qualm, “show him up at once. At once!” he repeated, losing all dignity in his haste, and tempted to push the solemn form of the domestic who stalked upon his mission of doom as majestically as though he were about to announce a foreign Ambassador, or to give notice.
In a moment Charles Repton had entered.
He had bought, during his brief odyssey, a gigantic Easter Lily in a Bond Street shop which sells such ornaments. This blossom flourished in the lapel of his coat and pervaded the whole room with its perfume.
“My dear fellow,” he shouted, running up to the horrified Prime Minister and taking him by both hands, “My dear fellow! Come, no pride; you know as well as I do it’s all bunkum. Why, I could buy and sell you any day of the week. It’s true,” he mused, “there’s birth of course, but it’s a fair bargain. Birth gives you your place and brains give me mine. Do you mind smoking?”
“Yes,” said the Prime Minister, after which he said, “No,—I don’t know ... I don’t care. Why didn’t you go home?”
“I didn’t go home,” said Sir Charles solemnly, and thinking what the reason was ... “didn’t ... go ... home, because—Oh, I know, because I wanted to talk to you about that peerage.”
[173]“For God’s sake don’t talk so loud,” said Dolly with real venom in his voice.
“All right then I won’t,” shouted Sir Charles, “though I really don’t see what there is to be ashamed of. You’re going to give me a peerage and I’m going to take one. You know as well as I do that you didn’t think I’d take one and I wasn’t quite sure myself. Mind you, it’s free,” he added coarsely, “gratis, and for nothing.”
“My dear fellow,” said the unhappy Premier,—
“Oh yes, I know, that’s the double-ruff dodge. You won’t ask for anything, but old Pottle will. And then when I come to you and complain you will say you know nothing about it. Of course I shan’t pay! It’ll be no good asking me; but what I want is not to be pestered.”
The Prime Minister almost forced him down into the chair from which he had risen, and said again:
“Do talk lower, Repton. Do remember for a moment where you are. No, certainly you shan’t be bothered.”
“What else was there?” continued Sir Charles genially, interrogating the ceiling and twiddling his thumbs. “There was something, I know,” he continued, looking sideways at the carpet.
He got up, walking slowly towards the door, and still murmuring: “There was something else, I know.” He touched his forehead with his hand, stood still a moment as if attempting to remember, then shook his head and said: “No, it’s no use. It[174] was something to do with some concession or other, but I’m not fit for business to-day.”
“Repton,” said Dolly in a tone which he rarely used and had never found ineffectual, “don’t say anything as you go out, don’t say anything to anybody. Do get into a cab and go straight home. You promised me you would.”
“I’ll keep my promise,” said Sir Charles with fine candour, “I always do. See if I don’t. Look here, to please you I’ll make him drive across the Parade here under your windows. There!”
And he was true to his word. He did indeed dig the servant in the ribs as that functionary handed him his hat, his malacca cane and his gloves, he also wished to see if the butler could wrestle, and he winked a great wink at one of the footmen, but he said no word. He jumped into the cab that was waiting for him, and told the driver to go round by Delahaye Street onto the Parade.
The Prime Minister was cautiously watching from a window to make sure that the new incubus upon his life was on its way to incarceration, when he found himself only too effectually assured: for he saw, leaning out of a hansom which was going at a great pace towards the Mall, a distant figure waving its hat wildly and calling in tones that could be heard over the whole space of the Parade:
“I’m keeping my word, Dolly, I’m keeping my word!”
So went Sir Charles Repton homeward, and a[175] settled darkness gathered and fell upon the Premier’s heart.
Sir Charles did keep his word.
He drove straight to his house, enlivening the way by occasional whoops and shouting bits of secret information very valuable to investors, to sundry acquaintances whom he recognised upon the way. At one point (it was during a block at the top of St. James’s Street) he insisted on getting out for a moment, seizing by the hand the dignified Lord String who had advised the highest personages in matters of finance, and telling him with a comical grin that if he had bought Meccas that day on behalf of the Great he had been most imprudent, for there was an Arab rising and the big viaduct was cut—the first misfortune that hitherto prosperous line had suffered.
Near the Marble Arch a change came over him. He felt a sudden and violent pain behind the ears, and clapped his hands to the place. He did more: when the spasm was over he put up the little door and told the cabby; he made him a confidant; he told him the pain had been very severe.
The driver, who was not sympathetic, replied in an unsuitable manner, and they were in the midst of a violent quarrel when two or three minutes later the cabman, who was handicapped by having to conduct his vehicle through heavy traffic, drove up to the house.
Lady Repton was waiting near the door; she sent[176] out no servant, she came out to the cab herself, silenced the rising vocabulary of the driver with a most unexpected piece of gold, and tripped up again into the house.
Sir Charles was philosophising aloud upon the gold band round his umbrella, letting his domestics thoroughly understand the precise advantages and disadvantages of such an ornament, when she took him by the arm quite gently and began leading him upstairs.
Meanwhile in Downing Street an indispensable secretary of the name of Edward was hearing what he had to do.
Edward had been at King’s, for his father had sent him there. From the Treasury which he adorned he had been assumed by the Prime Minister, his father’s chief college friend, and given the position of private secretary; admirably did he fill its functions.
He was a silent Welshman, descended from a short line of small squires, and he comprehended, in a manner not wholly natural to a man under thirty, the frailties of the human heart. The instructions he received from his chief, however, were of the simplest possible type, and called for the moment upon none of his exceptional powers.
There was to be no writing and no telephoning: he was to call upon Bowker, because Bowker had the largest specialist experience of nervous diseases in London, and therefore in the world.
[177]He was to come as from the Reptons, and to give an appointment at Repton’s house, telling the doctor that he should there find Sir Anthony Poole. He was to go at once to Sir Anthony Poole, whose general reputation stood higher than any other medical man’s, to approach him as from the Reptons, to give him a similar appointment and to inform him that he would meet there Dr. Bowker. He was to tell them the whole sad truth, and beg for a certificate. The unfortunate gentleman could then be given the advantages of a complete rest cure.
He was next to go to Lady Repton’s at once, and ask her leave to call upon Dr. Bowker and Sir Anthony Poole. She would give it: the Prime Minister had no doubt of that. He was to suggest to her the hour he had already named to those eminent men. That very evening Sir Charles would be certified a lunatic, and one load at least would be off the Premier’s mind; and a load off his mind, remember, was a load off his lung, and consequently an extension of lease granted to a life invaluable to the State.
Within three-quarters of an hour Edward Evans had done all these things. He had even cut matters so fine that the physicians were to call at seven, and Lady Repton would telephone the result—she dared trust no other agency.
So far as a man in acute anxiety can be satisfied, the young and popular Prime Minister was satisfied, but his left lung was at least one-half of his being as he went back again on his weary round to the House[178] of Commons, and the other half of his being was fixed upon a contemplation of his fifty-fifth year.
At the door of Sir Charles Repton’s house was drawn up an exceedingly neat brougham, and Dr. Bowker had entered.
A few moments later there walked up to it the tall strong frame of a man a trifle over-dressed but redeeming such extravagances by a splendidly strong old face, and he was Sir Anthony Poole.
Two things dominated the conceptions of Sir Anthony: the first the antiquity of his family, which was considerable; the second a healthy contempt for the vagaries of the modern physical science.
He was himself as learned in his profession as any man would care to be, but his common sense, he flattered himself, was far superior to his learning,—and he flattered himself with justice. He was a devout Christian of some Anglican persuasion; his family numbered thirteen sons and one daughter. His income was enormous. I should add that a knowledge of the world had taught him what real value lay behind men like Sir Charles Repton, who had stood the strain of public life and had found it possible to do such great service to their country.
The mind of Dr. Bowker was dominated also by two considerations: the first a permanent irritation against the survival of those social forms which permitted men an advantage purely hereditary; the second a conviction, or rather a certitude, drawn[179] from clear thinking, that organisation and method could deal with the cloudy blunders of mere general knowledge as a machine can deal with dead matter, or as an army can deal with civilians.
Dr. Bowker’s birth was reputable and sound; his father had been a doctor before him in a country town, and an earnest preacher in the local chapel; his grandfather a sturdy miner, his great-grandfather a turnkey in Nottingham Gaol.
He was therefore of the middle rank of society; but after all, his social gospel such as it was weighed upon him less than his scientific creed. He did not think: he knew. What he did not know he did not pretend to know. For the rest he was always a little nervous and awkward in society, and preferred the communion of his books and an occasional spin upon a bicycle to the conversation of the rich.
I should add that he revered Sir Charles Repton not only as all men of the world must revere a great statesman who has found it possible for many years of the strain of public life to be of service to his country, but also as a man of inestimable value in proving that the solid Nonconformist stock could do in administration, when it chose to enter that sphere, what it had so triumphantly shown it could do in commerce.
The two men were shown into an enormous room on the ground floor where it was the custom of Sir Charles (in happier days!) to receive those whom he[180] feared or would inveigle. Lady Repton at once joined them.
She was agitated; it was even distressing to watch her agitation. She described to them the violent pain which her husband had suffered twice, first the yesterday evening just before dinner, next at this moment on driving up to his house in a cab. She described as best she could the situation of these spasms of suffering, and she more than hinted that she connected with them a novel and very astonishing demeanour on her husband’s part which (here she almost broke down) she hoped would justify them in ordering him if necessary with their fullest authority, to take a rest cure. She warned them that she had told him nothing; she had always heard it was wise in such cases. He thought they had come merely as advisers upon the pains he had felt behind the ear, but a few words of his conversation would be enough to convince them of that much graver matter.
She left them for a moment together, and went to prepare her husband. She was a woman of heroic endurance. Her father had been in his time a God-fearing man, and had accumulated a small competence in the jute line.
Dr. Bowker, let it be remembered, was a specialist in nervous diseases. Sir Anthony Poole, let it also be remembered, was not, but he was something infinitely better in his own estimation: he was a man[181] who had attended more distinguished people and with greater success than any other physician in London. Dr. Bowker’s word as a specialist could not be doubted. Sir Anthony Poole had only to express an opinion upon a man’s health in any particular and that opinion became positive gospel to all who heard it.
The medical judgment of no two men given concurrently could carry greater weight. By an accident not infrequent in all professions, these two great men, though their rivalry was not strictly in the same field, each undervalued the scientific aptitude of the other. Each would have gone to the stake for the corporate value of that small ring to which both belonged, but neither would admit the claim of the other to a special if undefined precedence.
On the rare occasions when they met, however, they observed all the courtesies of life, and on this occasion in the large ground-floor room of Sir Charles Repton’s house, they sat, when Lady Repton had gone out, exchanging platitudes of a very attenuated, refined sort, in a tone worthy of their correct grooming and distinguished appearance. By a singular inadvertence they were summoned together.
“Sir Anthony,” said Dr. Bowker, bowing, smiling and making a motion with his hand towards the door.
“Dr. Bowker,” said Sir Anthony, copying the courteous inclination, and thus it was that Sir[182] Anthony Poole had precedence, and first interrogated Sir Charles Repton alone.
The conversation was brief. When Sir Charles had answered the first questions very simply, that he had two or three times in the last twenty-four hours felt shooting pains behind the ear, he began to speak in an animated way upon a number of things, and described a humorous incident he had recently witnessed in the Strand with a vigour highly suspicious to so experienced a physician as Sir Anthony Poole.
Sir Anthony asked him what he ate and drank, received very commonplace answers, and was twice assured by the Baronet, whose wife had used that simple method to deceive him, that he had not for weeks felt any return of his old complaint, and that he only regretted that Lady Repton should have put Sir Anthony to the trouble of calling. He understood also that Dr. Bowker had been sent for.
“Yes,” said Sir Anthony a little uneasily. “I really imagined that the matter would be rather worse than it seems to be. You know it is our custom sometimes to call in another....”
“Yes I know,” said Repton, with a slight smile, “it’s a pity you called in old Bowker. I know he’s very good at nerves or aches or something, but he’s such an intolerable old stick. The fact is, Sir Anthony,” he said, fixing that eminent scientist with a keen look and slightly lowering his voice, “the fact is, Dr. Bowker isn’t quite a gentleman.”
[183]“You’re a little severe,” said Sir Anthony, smiling, “you’re a little severe, Sir Charles!”
“Mind you,” added Repton, “I don’t say anything against him in his professional capacity.”
“Certainly not,” said Sir Anthony.
“But there are cases when a man’s manners do make a difference,—especially in your profession.”
Sir Anthony beamed. “Well, Sir Charles,” he said, “I’m very glad to hear it’s no worse,”—and as Sir Anthony went out he muttered to himself: “No more mad than I am; but he mustn’t go talking like that about other people.” And the physician chuckled heartily.
Dr. Bowker’s introduction to, and private stay with, the patient was briefer even than had been Sir Anthony’s. He chose for his gambit the remark: “Sir Anthony Poole has just seen you I believe, Sir Charles?”
“Yes he has,” answered Charles Repton in a pleasant and genial tone, “yes he has, Dr. Bowker, though why,” he added, with a happy laugh, “I can’t conceive. After all, if I wanted a doctor for any reason I should naturally send to a specialist.”
When Sir Charles had answered the next few questions very simply, that he had two or three times in the last twenty-four hours felt shooting pains behind the ear, he then reverted to his praise of the specialist.
“If I had any nervous trouble, for instance, Dr. Bowker, I should send for you. If I had trouble with my tibia, I should send for Felton.”
[184]Dr. Bowker nodded the most vigorous approval. It was evident that Sir Charles Repton’s considerable if superficial learning was standing him in good stead.
“If I had trouble with my aural ducts I should send for Durand, or,” he continued, in the tone of one who continues to illustrate a little pompously, “if my greater lymphatics were giving me trouble, Pigge is the fir............