The Changeling (52 page)

“Oh, Lucie! It’s only a little mission … half a dozen members going out on a fact-finding expedition. There’s nothing glorious about it.”

“You’ll come back on the way to becoming Prime Minister in the next twenty or thirty years. Prime Ministers are usually rather ancient, aren’t they? We’ll announce it then. That will be great fun. I know my father will be enormously pleased.”

“I hope he will.”

“You
know
he will. You’re his protégé. He likes to watch your progress. I believe he thinks that if he can’t be Prime Minister he’ll make you one in his place. He’ll surely do it for his daughter’s husband, so you had better make sure that you marry me.”

“I’m always hoping that I come up to his expectations.”

“In future there will be only one person whose expectations have to concern you … and I am to be that one. All the same, I know how you feel about my father. He is a wonderful man and although he and I are the greatest friends, I often feel I don’t fully understand him. That makes him exciting.”

“I think he is a wonderful man too,” said Joel.

We walked home rather soberly.

We were engaged. Our marriage was predestined. It would undoubtedly have the approval of the families.

Events were moving along in a very comfortable manner.

There was news from Australia. Leah wrote to Celeste and Belinda to me. The letters arrived at breakfast as usual and Celeste showed me what Leah had written.

It was a very sad letter. She believed she was dying. There was nothing that could be done for her. She was very frail and weak now, too much so to be able to undertake a long voyage.

Celeste’s letter had given her great comfort and she had made all the arrangements. She was greatly relieved to know that when she had gone there would be a home for Belinda in England, and she was glad that God had given her a little time to arrange this and had not struck her down too suddenly.

The last years of her life had been the happiest she had ever known. Tom had been good to her and to Belinda, and they had had a wonderful life together. Although he had lost the bulk of his fortune he had been able to leave them a little money. That would go to Belinda, so she would not be penniless.

“It is just that I want her to have a home,” she wrote. “And I am happy now that I know she can come back to that of her childhood. Life has been strange for me. I suppose it is, when one does unconventional things. But now that I know she can come I feel at peace.”

There were tears in Celeste’s eyes when she read this letter.

“I am so pleased that Benedict agreed to her coming,” she said. “Poor Leah. She was always such a good soul. What a pity she could not have gone on being happy for longer.”

Belinda’s letter brought memories of her back to me.

“Dear Lucie,” she wrote,

I know my mother has written to you and that she is very ill. In time I am to come to England. I remember so much of my life there … and particularly you. Do you remember me?

Oh yes, Belinda, I thought, I shall never forget you.

The terrible things I used to do! I wonder you didn’t hate me. I believe you did sometimes … but not really, Lucie. We were like sisters in a way, weren’t we? I remember so much. The time I dressed up in your mother’s clothes and pretended I’d come back from the grave. I really frightened you as well as Celeste. But don’t hold it against me. I may be not entirely a reformed character now, but at least I am now old enough not to do such senseless things.

I’m very sad about my mother. It was awful when Tom died. It was so sudden. He was well and then he had this stroke. It was hard to believe … and then he wasn’t there anymore.

That was when everything changed here and my mother became ill. She is really very ill. I feel a little scared. I’m here in this country and somehow I feel I don’t belong here … not without Tom and my mother. I really feel I belong at Manorleigh and in London … with you, Lucie. I wonder if I shall see you soon. I know it is what I want more than anything … if I lose my mother.

With my love and memories,

Belinda

Memories indeed. I could see her in my mother’s clothes which she had taken from the locked room, sitting on the haunted seat in the garden where ghosts had been said to gather long ago. I saw her, too, swearing that Pedrek Cartwright had attempted to molest her when she did not want him to marry Rebecca. I could see her when we were very young, dancing round me with a lighted candle in her hand, which suddenly sent the flames running up my dress. I could see Jenny Stubbs, who had loved me better than her own life, dashing to me, smothering the flames with her own body … giving her life that mine might be preserved.

Yes, Belinda, I thought, you have brought back memories to me.

I talked of Belinda to Celeste and to my father.

“Poor, poor Leah,” said Celeste. “I wonder if there is any hope of her recovering. She does not say what is wrong.”

“No. But she is too ill to travel. I am sure that if she were well enough she would bring Belinda to us.”

“All we can do,” said my father, “is to wait and see what happens. In any case we have offered her a home here. It is all we can do.”

So it was left at that.

Soon after that, there was talk of an election and that, as usual, dominated everything else.

The mission to Buganda would naturally have to be postponed until after we knew what government would be in power.

“I have to make sure that I hold my seat before it is decided whether I shall be a member of the mission,” said Joel.

“Of course you’ll hold your seat,” I replied. “It’s a tradition that a Greenham shall represent Marchlands.”

“One can never be entirely sure.”

The excitement was growing. It was nearly six years since the last election. I was an adult now with a keen interest and some understanding of what was going on.

We studied the papers every day. Gladstone’s age was often referred to. The man was undoubtedly grand but was he too old? He seemed vigorous enough in mind if he was rather bent and walked with a stick.

“And it’s the mind that counts,” said my father.

The Queen’s comment to her secretary was reported. “The idea of a deluded, excited man of eighty-two trying to govern England and my vast Empire, with miserable democrats under him, is quite ridiculous. It is like a bad joke.”

“Unfortunate,” said my father. “First that she said it, and secondly that it was allowed to leak out.”

“But it is the people who choose the government … not the Queen,” I added.

“For which we have to be thankful,” he added wryly.

Soon the action started. The Greenhams went down to Marchlands and we to Manorleigh. The campaign had begun in earnest.

Celeste and I sat on platforms with my father. It created a pleasant family atmosphere which the people liked their member to have. We played our small parts, riding round the country in our dogcart—for Manorleigh was a straggling constituency and contained many outlying villages—and telling people why they should vote for Benedict Lansdon.

My father was a dynamic speaker. He could hold an audience, in vast assembly rooms or village halls, absolutely spellbound. Listening to him one realized the power of words and the gift of using them which was surely essential to a man who wanted to rise in politics. My father had many assets, but with them went that rashness which had tripped him up once or twice and which was the reason why people were not looking to him to follow Gladstone.

He did spare time from his busy campaign to go down to Marchlands to speak for Joel.

I was surprised really, because although he was certain that he would retain his own seat, he had always said that no prospective candidate should relax even for a short time.

But he had a special feeling for Joel; and I believed I knew why. It was because of me. He had made up his mind that I was going to marry Joel and I had a fancy that he wanted to mold Joel into his alter ego. Joel was going to catch all the plums which had failed to fall into his own hands, and he was going to enjoy the act of putting them there. He wanted to see Joel as his creation. It was a passing thought but men such as my father must have power. Perhaps he saw that certain events in his life had prevented him from snatching the top prize and that irked him.

I was nearer to him than any living person and I believed he was planning to marry me to a man made in his image. I had heard stories of his grandfather—Uncle Peter, as everyone in the family called him. He had made his daughter’s husband into a politician because he himself had failed to achieve his ambition—through scandal again. I had heard it said that Benedict was very like his grandfather.

When I heard my father speaking and holding an audience, I felt contented and happy. He would always be there to look after us—Joel and me. Joel already admired him almost to idolatry, and he was my beloved father.

So we went to Marchlands and stayed one night only before we went back to Manorleigh. I always enjoyed being at Marchlands, and since my conversation with Joel it had become even more exciting to me, for when I married Joel this would be my home.

It was a wonderful old house with a battlemented tower which gave it the appearance of a castle. Its gray stone and the fact that it was built on a slight incline gave it a proud and dominating look. The countryside around it was beautiful—wooded hills and meadows and a delightful little village close by with a Norman church and a pond on a green.

It had been the Greenham home for centuries.

We sat in the village hall and listened to my father using all his persuasive and dynamic powers. They seemed overwhelming in such a setting and the applause was vociferous. Joel spoke well—less flamboyantly than my father but he had a quiet confidence which was convincing.

It was a successful evening and walking back to the house I thought how romantic it looked by starlight.

I felt very happy and contented.

When the election was over it was almost certain that Joel would go to Buganda … perhaps for a few months; and when he came back we should announce our engagement.

Afterward I often remembered that night and I never ceased to marvel how speedily—in the space of a few seconds—change could come:

I remember sitting in the cozy little room which led off from the great hall and how delicious the hot soup and sandwiches, which had been prepared for us, tasted.

“This reminds me of Lucie’s little suppers,” said my father. “Do you know, this daughter of mine waits up for me with a delicious supper when I’m late at the House.”

“Shades of that excellent lady, Mrs. Disraeli,” said Sir John. “You’re a lucky fellow, Benedict.”

“I know.” He was smiling at Joel. “Lucie knows how to treat a jaded politician. One never wants to go straight to bed after an exciting debate. One wants to talk. So … I talk to Lucie.”

“Lucie is wonderful,” said Joel.

Our elders exchanged conspiratorial smiles which betrayed the fact that they were making plans together for us.

“Buganda is almost certain,” said Sir John.

“If I get in,” added Joel.

“My dear boy,” said my father, “you don’t think you are going to break the tradition, do you? There’s been a Greenham in Parliament for the last hundred years.”

“Well, it doesn’t do to count one’s chickens before they’re hatched.”

“No need to worry about those chickens, son,” said Sir John.

“I think we’re safe enough,” put in my father. “Of course, there’s a feeling for change in the air. A lot of foolish people talk of change. They like it for its own sake … never mind if that change is for the better. It’s just a matter of change for the sake of change.”

“Well, we shall have to wait and see,” said Lady Greenham. “Some people might want a change but I cannot believe our tenants and the people here would be so foolish.”

Nor could any of us visualize Joel’s not holding his seat.

There came the thrill of Election Day. We were all gathered in the town hall at Manorleigh to hear the result. It was as we had expected—a decisive victory for my father.

That night a messenger came over from Manorleigh with the news that Joel had sailed safely through, his majority intact.

Alas, the party did not fare so well. Gladstone had his majority but it was a small one and that meant that the future did not look so promising.

He went down to Osborne in the Isle of Wight to kiss me Queen’s hand, at which she showed no great pleasure. So there was the Grand Old Man ready to take office once more, and if his health was feeble, his convictions were as strong as ever. So the Liberals were in power in spite of an election victory with such a slender majority which meant that the reforms they wanted to get through would stand a good chance of being thrown out by the Opposition. It boded ill for the length of the Parliament. It was a Pyrrhic victory.

The government staggered along and, perhaps because of its difficulties, almost a year elapsed before the question of the mission to Buganda was raised.

It was late August which was a year since Mr. Gladstone had gone to Osborne to kiss the Queen’s hand when the mission was ready to depart, and Joel was one of the chosen six.

Two days before his departure, my father gave a dinner party so that all his friends and well-wishers could say goodbye to Joel.

It was a wonderful evening, although there was some depression among members of the government, for they were wondering how long they could totter on; but it was a triumph for Joel, as one of the younger members of the House, to have been selected for this important mission.

After the men had left their port and joined the ladies in the drawing room, Joel and I sat together.

“Everything is going well,” he said. “I don’t know how long I shall be away. Not more than two months, I imagine, and then …”

“I don’t think they will be very surprised,” I said.

“Isn’t it comforting that we shall be doing what they all want?”

“Oh yes. It is nice to please people.”

“Though,” added Joel, “I want you to know, Lucie, that if we had had to face opposition … even from your father … it would have made no difference.”