Rashdell was one of those men who, on a small private income, amuse themselves by publishing absurd little weekly sheets which nobody reads or buys, and which are of less effect upon opinion than the lightest word from anyone in an established position. Week after week would Rashdell’s Oriflamme (idiotic title!) come out with all manner of innuendo, spite and wild concoctions directed against the greatest of our public servants. It was a marvel that he did not attack Mrs. Boulger herself. It had always been thought better to pay no attention to him, except upon one occasion, now many years past, when he had had the crass ineptitude to bring in the honoured name of the Lord Chancellor—accusing him of getting into a disgraceful row at a cocktail bar on the Continent.
He had served his term in the Second Division after a sentence which no one heeded and on which there was no public comment in any reputable paper. This experience, which should have warned him against pursuing his course, had only glorified him in his own eyes, and, alas! in the eyes of a man who, petty as he might be, was worth more than he—Reginald Butler.
What Butler was about to do was the more inexplicable as he would never have had that seat in the House, which he had kept since the beginning of the present Parliament, but for the kindness and patronage of Mr. Boulger, who had recommended Reginald’s name to his great wife. She in her turn had approved of that name when she saw it in the list of possible candidates, and then suggested that he should be allow to contest Mossborough, where he had a fair chance. He had come in on the regular quadrennial arrangement between the leaders, like dozens of other insignificants, though most of them carried heavier metal than himself. He had been known at once for a crank. As the House of Commons loves cranks for the fun they provide, it had been indulgent to his confused questions and excited tirades. But gratitude, common sense, everything which sane men and decent men may be expected to possess, were lost to Reginald Butler in such a moment as this—Joan Papworthy’s eyes had done it.
He wrote the letter. He wrote it at his Club, drafting it half a dozen times over, and carefully putting the fragments away in his pocket, to burn them when he should get home. When at last it was constructed to his satisfaction, he went, greatly daring, round to the dirty little two rooms in a sort of slum off Fetter Lane where the Oriflamme managed to get itself printed by a petty firm which had nothing to lose and would take almost any stuff for you.
The letter was too long, and infinitely too violent; but even had it been short and its terms deliberately chosen, the matter of it would never have passed even from a sort of chartered lunatic, such as Butler was called by the great world when he fell into these moods.
The letter accused, in set terms and by name, Wilfrid Halterton of having taken a specific sum—the sum was mentioned—fifty thousand pounds; it accused the brother of the Attorney-General, James McAuley, of having offered the bribe and of having thereby acquired the contract for Durrant’s. It accused the Attorney-General of having given vast sums—which were also specified—twenty thousand in one case, fifteen thousand in the other—to that dignified and honourable man, Sir Charles Claverhouse, perhaps the best Chancellor of the Exchequer we have ever had, and young Lord Cayton, Biston’s son, the Chief Whip, a man not only deservedly popular but a man of real weight, destined, as we all know, for very high office later on.
It was a mad letter. How even the wretched printers of that wretched sheet could have been got to take the risk, I cannot imagine. Rashdell, of course, was beyond redemption. He would print anything and believe anything. The pity is that such men are not taken more seriously, and that instead of a short sentence in the Second Division he had not been crushed long ago by a long term of penal servitude. If that young idiot Reginald Butler had had even just so much elementary usage of affairs as to look at the tape, he would have seen that Billies were toppling all over the place, he would have known that his accusations were absurd, from that indication alone. But the idiot had not even so much sense. He went his idiot way, and as fortune would have it—for fortune gets tired of such men—he had gone over the edge.
The letter was just in time to be set up. It would appear on the usual day of publication of the tuppenny-halfpenny Oriflamme. (The actual price, of course, was a shilling. At twopence-halfpenny it would have been beyond the means of the fool Rashdell—and would that it had ruined him long ago!)
Fleet Street had hold of it in that forenoon. Desportes had telephoned to one or two friends in the high political world and had heard their emphatic declaration that the thing should not be allowed to pass unnoticed. The letter was alluded to, of course, although its terms were not given in all the early editions of Desportes’ evening papers on that day, Monday, March the 9th, the day when Halterton had gone back to his office so early, and McAuley had stayed on to luncheon at Sandlings with Lady Caroline; the Monday when Lady Caroline had entered the House so late, to feast once more upon Halterton’s woe-begone face.
If Billies had hitherto been tumbling, Billies now avalanched. They were back at their old 23s. before ever those evening papers came out. And by the time the Stock Exchange closed they were at 18s.—16s. offered, and difficult to sell.
Chapter XII
Those who live in the country, and are far enough from a road to be able to hear the noise of living things, may be familiar with the multiplied murmur produced by the disturbance of a wasp’s nest. It is as different from the chattering of apes in the tropics, as from the peculiar miauling of skunks in the climates which breed those imperial animals. It is an energetic, anxious, myriad sound, full of foreboding. That is why, as the oriental proverb has it, “A wasp’s nest should be stirred with a long stick.”
Upon the afternoon of Wednesday, March the 11th, 1960, after question time, the Inner Lobby of the House of Commons recalled, to such few of its members as were still country folk, this peculiar noise, and through that Lobby Honest Jack Williams came striding with his heartening smile, enough to reassure the most alarmed.
For two full days and the better half of a third the rumours had had time to grow. Reginald Butler’s now famous letter had sprouted like those quick-motion vegetables in the cinema films designed for the instruction of youth. It was Lord Desportes’ papers the day before yesterday, the Monday, that had done the trick. But later orders had gone out on that same Monday which forbade one word of further allusion in any of the morning papers the next day. The Television Contract, the Postmaster-General, James McAuley, the whole bag of tricks, might have disappeared into nothingness for all the English people at large were allowed to hear of them. But under the free political conditions which we alone of all nations enjoy you cannot prevent people talking. All the people in the know were talking, and Billies were nominally at 14s., but now quite unsaleable.
Among things exaggerated or merely absurd (and there was a vast group of these, involving every name in London) lurked here and there hard little lumps of fact, like the dear little pebbles that nestle in any pound of currants you may buy. And as these dear little pebbles announce themselves unmistakably to the teeth, especially the teeth of the aged, so did the bits of solid fact announce themselves for truth to those in the know, and especially to the older and more experienced of the same. One of these undoubted truths was that there would be a public statement made now, immediately after questions; another undoubted truth was that the authorities had determined to prosecute, not the wretched editor of the wretched Oriflamme, nor the wretched printer, but that ill-famed, self-appointed censor of public morals, the now highly unpopular Reginald Butler.
Some said it was the Postmaster-General himself who had written to the Prime Minister urging this course upon Mrs. Boulger as a public duty, others that it was a disinterested action on the part of the Rt. Honourable John Williams, Secretary of State for Home Affairs—and the latter were right.
It was Honest Jack Williams who had taken the initiative. He had pointed out to his Chief that if things like this were to be allowed to pass without due penalty, the whole charac
ter of English public life would be gone. It would sink to such a level as had been reached by the contemptible Parliaments of foreigners. That Great Lady, who, like her colleagues, appreciated the wisdom of the Home Secretary, had followed his advice. After all, the Home Office is not unconnected with public prosecutions.
But before anything was published of this intention there would be a solemn statement which would clear the moral air of these pestilent lies which folly and fanaticism—or something worse—had so widely spread.
A few moments after questions the tall figure of Wilfrid Halterton rose, not too securely, to its feet, and addressed the House. It began by assuring the House that the task before its owner was not an easy one. He went on by saying that he would be brief. He was encouraged by the murmurs of sympathy and approval which greeted him from all sides—even from the little Nihilist gang in the dark corner under the gallery. For when the honour of the House is concerned, all party differences disappear. Not only do the main groups of Anarchists and Socialists rightly feel as one man upon such matters, but even that tiny group of Independents, Nihilists, and no one among them was more staunch than the inflexible critic Jeremiah Gulpher, who was almost the father of the House, having sat for the Marsh division a full twenty-eight years, and boasted to have had high tea with every farmer in the Fens. He had begun as the Independent Nihilist protestor for Agriculture, and had since become an institution, representing Independence pure and simple. But I wander—I must return to my pack.
Wilfrid Halterton, then, was on his feet, and had made his two opening points: (a) That his task was difficult, and secondly (b) that he would be brief. He next advanced, with the originality that is never lacking in our greater statesmen, a third proposition, (c) that it was distasteful and even painful for a man to have to speak of himself on such occasions; to which he added a fourth, (d) that his motive was not in any way that of clearing himself, but rather of refuting with indignation falsehood that affected the character of all that august assembly. The fifth point (e) was even more true, for he said that he hardly knew how to begin. And the sixth point (f) was truth itself, for he said that he wished from the bottom of his heart that he had not to undertake it. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more ungrateful position than that in which this great public man found himself, compelled to affirm that he had not received monies which in sober truth he had not received. The case is rare indeed.
All these six points came out duly ticked with their numbers attached to them on the tapes in the clubs, and were there received by eager watchers with the same sympathy as by the senators at Westminster. Wilfrid Halterton proceeded to the final matter with an emphasis which included several blows delivered with uncertain fist upon the empty polished wooden box which stands on the table in the House of Commons, especially strengthened with brass bands to withstand such assaults of oratory. He assured the House, and his beloved Country, and the universe at large, that the whole thing was a lie. If his personal assurance were further required, he would give it there and then. He had not received one penny from anyone interested in the Television Contract. That contract would be assigned in due course, when the long and careful deliberations which were now drawing to their conclusion should have reached a satisfactory end. As yet (and he struck the box again—unfortunately catching the brass edges of it, which was painful), as yet, he repeated (restraining a temptation to suck the injured knuckle) not a word had been written which might give to any of those who were tendering for the contract the least encouragement.
At this point he pulled out a piece of paper and read words which had been carefully drafted for him by the approved officer in the little room where such things are drafted.
“Nothing, I say here and now, can of course prejudice the decision which must at last be taken, and that soon. I hope, however, that in the matter of the vile rumours which have passed from one foul lip to another, I have cleared my own honour and that of this House.”
With that he sat down, vibrating in all his ganglions. In tones gloriously resonant, the Speaker called upon the Leader of the Opposition, who associated himself enthusiastically with all that had been said opposite. He also struck an original note when he affirmed that however much they might differ in that House upon matters of policy, they were all as one man in the defence of its high principles and traditions.
All this having been now settled and a sort of contented murmur having arisen to emphasize that settlement, things would usually have ended there and the public business might have begun. But on so special an occasion there was one more word to be said, and it was said, of course, by Honest Jack Williams, who rose to tell them that his own complete disassociation from the department concerned, the very fact that he stood apart with no knowledge of the negotiations which any Television Contract would necessarily involve, the fact that he was, as it were, no more than a member of the general public in the affair, gave him—he thought—an opportunity to be of service. He begged to be regarded as the spokesman of Englishmen at large (hear, hear! twice from due north-west, and eight or nine times singly from other quarters of the compass). Merely as the man in the street he wished to congratulate his colleague the Postmaster-General, and also (if he might say so) the leader of the Opposition, on the good work they had done that day. There was one point, however, on which he could speak with more certain knowledge than the man in the street, whom otherwise he represented in this affair. He could assure them (and his respectful voice took on a greater solemnity) no colleague of his on the front bench—and of that he had personal knowledge—had any interest or share in any of these companies.
And I may add that of no one was this truer than of Jack Williams himself, for, as my readers may remember, he had sold every one of his Billies five days ago.
Before the end of the week two things had happened. Reginald Butler was under arrest for criminal libel, and a strong committee had been appointed to sit as soon as may be and investigate the charges that had been made.
As for the trial of Reginald Butler, I will turn to that in due time. The strict impartiality of the law demands a certain delay in these matters—and it is useful, for it gives me time to add a line or two about what that strong Committee did as it sat day after day between the date of its appointment and the Easter Recess. First of all, let me tell you why I have called that Committee strong.
Those experienced in Parliaments apply to a committee the word “strong” to mean that its members are characters respected, permanent, of approved capacity in affairs, and at the same time, the most of them at least, personally particularly acquainted with the matter in hand, while a minority are men remarkable for their total ignorance of it. Judged by this standard, no committee could have been stronger than the Television Contract Enquiry Committee which sat in Committee Room No. 10—the walls of which are no longer bare, but have recently been adorned with frescoes representing either the signing of Magna Charta or the Great Plague—I forget which.
The Chairman was Sir William Wagge, octogenarian biscuit manufacturer, and among his colleagues were Lady Caroline Balcombe, Watson the former partner and still intimate friend of James McAuley, Henry Boulter, sometimes called the Potted Meat King, Raeburn, the Q.C. (a life-long friend and confidant of the Attorney-General), Pickwell, the highly-respected young Trades Unionist, for many years Secretary to Honest Jack Williams, and by him advanced to a seat in Parliament, Lady Sellingham, Miller, Bergmann, and Thomas Roby, and Mr. Boulger himself. Whingate, who as Postmaster-General in the last administration, had dealt with the earlier stages of the television business, was also one of them—a personal friend of McAuley’s, as was that other colleague of his, Watson.
The Committee examined five hundred and seventeen witnesses, all on oath, and of the most varied experience and interests. Some of them could only have been remotely connected with the affair, others not at all. There was a minority and a majority report. The majority report concluded that the whole crop of rumours, which they specified one by
one, were without foundation, but added no more, leaving it to be understood that in the judgement of the signatories the matter might well be allowed to come to a natural end and be forgotten. The minority report, which was signed by only three members, none of them in close touch with the accused parties, or knowing anything of the contracts in question, was more emphatic, demanded further prosecution, and demanded a strengthening of the law against irresponsible libellers.
. . . . . . .
Let us go back to the unfortunate Reginald Butler as he existed in those days when the Committee first began to sit, and as the contempt of his monstrous action now exposed to the public contumely, even before the crushing weight of evidence before the Committee had begun to accumulate and the solemn declarations which were made in Parliament, had destroyed every shred of respect men might have had for him as a mere misguided enthusiast.
On the day after the declarations were made he could not bear to open his newspaper. He dared not trust any man. Even the landlady of his lodgings looked at him with such reproach that he thought to see in her the majestic figure of Britannia reproving an erring son. There was but one heart in the world to which he could turn. And in his misery, knowing well what public ordeal must be before him, he sought that private solace which only one other heart can give to the human soul in its moments of despair.
He would not write, he would not even telephone. He walked, slowly, disconsolately, but still with the prospect of close communion before him, towards Lord Papworthy’s house in Repton Square.
It was only his nerves, of course, but he thought that even the liveried man at the door looked at him as he knew well the world was looking. He went in, still miserable enough, was announced, and entered the familiar room. She was there.
She was indeed! His face had just appeared in the doorway, his two hands were but just outstretched, when he was met by that which may be compared, as you will, to a jet of boiling water, a machine-gun nest, or a railway accident. With her strong lissom body taut, just leaning forward, her arms straight and at attention, her fists clenched, each slightly behind the line of her body, with all the energy of well-moulded limbs about to spring, Joan Papworthy gave tongue. “Gave teeth” would be a better phrase; and her gambit struck the unmistakable note of what was to follow.
The Postmaster General Page 13