The Black Swan

THE COUNTRY VERSUS THE LORDS.

“The Old Man doesn’t realize that the country is heartily tired of the subject. He thinks everyone is as engrossed in the Irish question as he is.”

“And how is he feeling about you?” I asked.

“Oh ...he’s bitterly disappointed in me. Hurt, too. I wish I could make him understand.

He really is looking very old and tired these days.”

“What are you going to do”

He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. It was one of the few times I had seen him uncertain.

Then he said, “For now... carry on. Disagreeing with the PM doesn’t mean I’m not still member for Manorleigh.”

“Shall you give up politics in time?”

“Indeed not! Accept defeat? Certainly not, and I shall not hesitate to voice my opinions.”

“Well, isn’t that what all members should do?”

“They should, but sometimes one’s views do not always coincide with those of the party. Then one has to make a choice.”

“As you have done.”

I felt I wanted to be with him at this time... always ready if he wanted to talk to me; and he did talk to me, more freely than ever at this time. It was not only politics that we were discussing.

So we came to that particular evening when I was waiting for him to return from the House.

As usual I had prepared the supper in his study. I had the soup waiting to be heated up on the little stove, some cold chicken and homemade crusty bread. The time was getting on. It was almost ten o’clock. I wondered what was happening in the House. I fancied some of his fellow members were not very pleased with him. But he had done right, I assured myself. People must act according to what they believed even if by doing so they go against the policy of the party. Parliament was the place for discussion. That must be understood.

I tried to settle down to read. I started to think about Joel and wondered what he would be doing at this moment. How long would the mission take? At least six weeks after he arrived. It would be some time before he came home. The time passed slowly. It was nearly eleven o’clock. Sometimes the House would go on sitting into the early hours of the morning. If he did not come by eleven thirty I would go to bed. It was the rule. If he were as late as that he would stay at the Greenhams, according to the custom. But there was still a little time to go. I went to the window and looked out. There was a high wind which had taken most of the leaves off the trees; some lay on the pavement on the opposite side of the road. They came from the trees in the garden which was for the use of residents in the square.

I noticed a man standing by the railings of the gardens. He was dressed in a cape and an opera hat. He took a few paces to the right, then he turned and walked a few more in the opposite direction. Afterward he stopped and stood still, looking along the road.

I could see him quite clearly for there was a street lamp close by. And as I stood there I heard a cab coming along the road.

This must be my father, I thought. I looked down, expecting it to slow down and my father alight; but it went straight past the house.

Disappointed, I stood there; then I noticed that the man had come to the edge of the pavement, his hand in his pocket; he was staring after the cab, and oddly enough I seemed to sense an exasperated frustration-which suggested that he, too, might have been disappointed that the cab had gone by. While I was thinking how strange it was and wondering what he could be waiting for, there was a gust of wind which lifted his hat and sent it rolling along the pavement under the street lamp.

For a few seconds I looked straight into his face. I noticed at once that his dark hair grew rather low on his forehead into what I had heard called a widow’s peak; and there was a white mark on his left cheek which looked like a scar. Then he was running along the pavement to retrieve his hat. This he did and slammed it back on his head.

I had become quite interested in him by this time and was wondering whether he intended to wait there the whole night. He must be waiting for someone. I wondered who. I went back to my book and attempted to read for just a little longer. I was soon yawning. My father would not come now. Obviously he had gone to the Greenhams. It must have been a very late sitting.

I went back to my bedroom, but before retiring for the night I went to the window to look out on the square.

The man had gone.

At about eleven o’clock the next morning my father came home. “It was a very late night sitting,” I said. “Yes, it went on until one.”

“How are the Greenhams?”

“Delighted about Joel. They can’t talk of anything else.”

“Can you guess how long it will be before he comes home?”