A great deal has been written about Lord Randolph Churchill by those like Sir Henry Lucy, who met everyone and knew no one. And Randolph Churchill was not easy to know. The mere outward facts about him and his career have been set forth by his son in two stout volumes, an admirable official Victorian biography distinguished by the remarkable fairness used to explain every incident in his political career, a politician writing of a politician. But of the man himself, his powers, his failing and his quiddities, hardly a soul-revealing word; yet Winston might, nay, probably would have written a real life, had not Randolph been his father, and had he not had his own political career to consider. However, it must be confessed that the sympathy between father and son was very slight. Winston told me once that time and again when he tried to talk seriously on politics, or indeed on anything else, his father snubbed him pitilessly. "He wouldn't listen to me or consider anything I said. There was no companionship with him possible to me and I tried so hard and so often. He was so self-centred no one else existed for him. My mother was everything to me."
So remarkable a personality was Lord Randolph Churchill and such a whispering gallery and sounding board at the same time is London society that it would be almost possible to paint him in his habit as he lived by a series of true anecdotes. Winston enlivened his pages with a couple.
Everyone will remember how as a mere youth Randolph "scored" off Tom Duffield, the Master of the Old Berkshire hounds. In the winter of 1868, when Randolph was not yet twenty years old, he had the ill luck one day to ride very close to the hounds and got himself violently scolded by the irascible old Master: he went off the field at once without replying. But at a hunt dinner shortly afterwards, when he was made chairman by his mother, who was always putting him forward, he was called on to propose the toast of fox hunting, and Mr. Duffield was to respond. Randolph began by declaring himself an enthusiast for all forms of sport. "Fox hunting first, but I've often had good sport after hares. So keen am I that if I can't get fox hunting or hare hunting, I'll go with terriers after rats in a barn; and if I can't get that," he added, pausing, "why, rather than dawdle about indoors, I'd go out with Tom Duffield and the Old Berkshire." A pause of consternation while everybody wondered what would happen; but it was Tom Duffield himself who burst into a peal of good-natured laughter and made of the story a classic.
For years and years, indeed from his entrance into the House till 1886, it was Randolph's courage chiefly that commended him to the House of Commons.
It may have been mainly aristocratic morgue, but Englishmen liked it none the less on that account.
It is usual for the extremists in a reform party to criticize their more conventional leaders, but this procedure is very unusual among Conservatives. From the beginning Lord Randolph showed this audacity, with a contempt, too, for titular authority that would have been marked, even in a Radical. In 1878 he attacked a Minister, ponderous Sclater-Booth, in a way that rejoiced the House.
"I don't object," he said, "to the Head of the Local Government Board dealing with such grave questions as the salaries of inspectors of nuisances. But I have the strongest possible objection to his coming down here with all the appearance of a great lawgiver to repair, according to his small ideas and in his little way, breaches in the British Constitution." And then the witty sneer that set the House roaring: "Strange," he went on, as if speaking to himself,
"strange, how often we find mediocrity dowered with a double-barreled name!"
Sclater-Booth's harmless little bill introduced the elective principle timidly into County Government. Randolph attacked it as of "brummagem-make," a "most Radical measure, a crowning desertion of Tory principles, a supreme violation of political honesty." Everyone went out of the House comparing this with Disraeli's famous attacks on Peel.
A little later Randolph spoke on Irish education in the most liberal and pro- Irish spirit. Thanks to the years he had passed in Dublin when his father was Viceroy, he knew Ireland and Irish matters better than almost any English politician and so established his reputation for brains as well as audacity. The House always filled to hear him, even more than for any Minister. In spite of the fact that he was still a bad speaker, now too loud, now too low, always dependent on his notes and frequently at a standstill, confused by their volume, he was the greatest attraction in the Chamber; and in the beginning of the Parliament of 1880 the Bradlaugh incident gave him his first real opportunity. He changed his seat to the corner seat below the gangway and at once made himself the head of the new group composed of Drummond Wolff, Gorst and Arthur Balfour, which he himself christened the "Fourth Party," as Winston relates. For the next seven years Randolph Churchill was incontestably the most sensational figure in the House of Commons, and long before the defeat of Gladstone's government he was recognized as the ablest Conservative in the Chamber. The House of Commons has a very strong schoolboy element in it, and Gladstone's defeat was symbolized to everyone by the fact that hardly were the division figures given to the Opposition Whip, when Randolph jumped up on his corner seat and started all the cheering!
Naturally, he became Leader of the House and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Conservative Ministry of Lord Salisbury, and here another trait showed itself, his gratitude. Randolph took care that all supporters should be rewarded: Wolff was made a privy counsellor and Gorst an un-der-secretary of state: honor to the Jew and a salary to the needy.
I remember, after I had got to know and like Lord Randolph, lunching on Sunday at Mrs. Jeune's when he was at the same table. Almost before lunch was finished, Lord Randolph got up and excused himself with "urgent business" and left the room, followed closely by the Conservative Whip. In a few moments, to our astonishment, this gentleman, Winn, if my memory serves me truly, returned, pale as a ghost and evidently too angry to choose his words. When Mrs. Jeune pleasantly asked him, "Has anything happened," he replied, "A piece of brutal rudeness entirely unprovoked. Yesterday Randolph came to me and said he wanted half an hour's talk. I had to tell him I was too busy then. He asked me to meet him here today, said he'd leave early, begged me to follow his example and we might have half an hour's quiet talk. A little against my habit, I consented; you saw how I followed him; in the hall I asked him, 'Where shall we go for our talk?' He cried, 'Can one never get rid of you and your talks!' and flung out of the house. I was never so insulted in my life!" The poor gentleman seemed almost unable to get over the shock to his dignity; we all commiserated with him while secretly diverted by Randolph's rudeness.
But no one who wishes to win in English political life, not even a Duke's son, can afford to be habitually rude, and especially not to a Whip of his own party. When a day or two later I mentioned the fact to Lord Randolph, he merely grinned. "I had forgotten," he said, "that I asked him to follow me, but he's rather a fool." Still, men intent on gaining and keeping power should learn "to suffer fools gladly," as St. Paul knew.
Another story here that should have found a place before his triumph. He dined with me one night-if I remember rightly, at the short-lived Amphitryon Club-and afterwards he took me with him to a meeting at Paddington, where he was 'billed' to speak. The dinner had been excellent and the Perrier-Jouet of 1875 was, I think, about the best champagne I ever drank. We had a magnum, and for the first and last time in my knowledge of him, Randolph showed himself a little excited, or perhaps I should say, reckless. At any rate, I had never heard him speak so well: in his own constituency, with none but friends and admirers about him, he spoke without notes. Usually he wrote out his speeches and learned them by heart and even then depended on notes for the sequence of subjects and special phrases. This night he talked extemporaneously, and to my astonishment adapted without knowing it a thought in the second part of Goethe's Faust to the condition of English politics at that moment. He began by predicting that a general election was at hand, and "which party will win in it, is the question of questions. The Liberals and Mr. Gladstone are very confident; they know that the working classes hold the balance of power; and the Liberal bourgeoisie think they are nearer the workmen than the aristocratic Conservatives can possibly be. But my feeling is that this earl or that marquis is much more in sympathy with the working man than the greedy nonconformist butcher or baker or candlestick maker. I want you to seize my point because it explains what I have always meant when I spoke of myself as a Tory-democrat. The best class and the lowest class in England come together naturally: they like and esteem each other; they are not greasy hypocrites talking of morality and frequenting the Sunday school while sanding the sugar; they are united in England in the bonds of a frank immorality."
Naturally I led the cheering, which, however, was curiously feeble and soon died away into half-hearted laughter and much shamefaced grinning. In the pause that followed I looked over the side of the platform to the reporters' table: everyone had dropped his pen or pencil and was waiting for the rest of the speech. Randolph spoke for some time longer and, I thought, with effort, as if to efface the impression of his great and true word.
When we were driving away, he asked me whether he had said anything very dreadful. I sought to reassure him. "The best thing I ever heard or ever expect to hear on an English platform," I said, and I told him what he had said.
At once he took fright. "It's all that d… d champagne," he cried, "but we must see that the phrase doesn't get into The Times so that it can be dexterously contradicted or perhaps smothered. You'll help me, won't you?"
Of course I consented, but assured him that the reporters hadn't taken down the phrase. He laughed, but insisted on making assurance doubly sure, so we drove first to The Times office; and as good luck would have it, I found Arthur Walter there, who, after hearing everything, sent to the composing room for a "pull" of the report, and to my amusement, the great phrase had been carefully omitted. Next morning I went through all the newspapers: not a single one had thought the truth worth recording. This phrase is still to me the high-water mark of Randolph Churchill's intelligence.
Either a little before or a short time after this occurrence, I was dreadfully disappointed in him. The channel-tunnel scheme had been set on foot and at once I took fire for the idea. A little earlier I had been astonished by the extraordinarily rapid growth both of Antwerp and Hamburg as ports, and I had found out that this was due partly to the fact that freights brought to any British port had to "break cargo" and be transhipped again because there was no channel tunnel which would have allowed trains to run right through to the continent. I made a special study of the question and came to the conclusion that if a tunnel were running, the port of London would soon be once more the first in the world. I couldn't but believe that English common sense would insist on the enterprise being carried out with the briefest possible delay. And there was big money in the gamble. Accordingly, I went to work with pen and word of mouth to convince the English public of its plain self-interest. In ten minutes' talking I persuaded Lord Randolph Churchill, and encouraged by my warm praise of him as a "pioneer," he declared that he would not only vote for the project, but speak for it to boot.
On hearing this I felt sure of victory. To cut a long story short, when the debate came on, a new thought entered Randolph Churchill's brain. With a great deal of humor he pictured an English official, the secretary of state for home affairs, hearing that five thousand French troops had seized the tunnel and were coming through to Dover. Ought he or ought he not to blow them all up?
"For one," summed up Lord Randolph, "I prefer security to the doubt." The whole picture was idiotic. As I had pointed out to Randolph, no French troops would take such a desperate risk; both ends of the tunnel could be raised above water level, so that they could be easily blown to pieces by a mere gunboat. No general would send troops through such a defile, and if he did, ten to one they'd all have to surrender the next day. But the parliamentary triumph was all Randolph cared for and the whole thing gave me the measure of his insularity. But why, after all, should I blame him, when now, forty years later, the channel tunnel scheme has just been vetoed again by five prime ministers considering the whole question in cold blood, now that airplanes have dropped bombs in London and played havoc with the protection given to England by the sea. At the very moment of writing this, too, I find Winston Churchill defending the construction of a channel tunnel with the very arguments I had used to persuade his father a generation ago.
At the moment I was wretchedly disappointed, for I had been fool enough to say that Randolph Churchill would defend the scheme, whereas it was he who damned it altogether. He had made a fool of me and merely grinned when I told him how I had come to grief through believing in his word: from that time on my faith in him was shaken.
He knew more about Ireland, as I have said, than any English member or minister I had come across, and when over the Home Rule Bill of Gladstone he started the slogan, "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right," I was paralyzed with horror, for I understand the demoniac cleverness of the vile appeal and realized some of the evil consequences. I could not but remonstrate with him. "You are fighting for today," I said, "but tomorrow, with or without Gladstone, Irish Home Rule will come into being and you'll look like Mrs. Partington."
"Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof" was his cynical answer. He was always the fighting politician out to win personal victories, careless of the evil seed he flung broadcast, with absolutely no vision of an ideal future. I was forced to see that my hopes of him were ill-founded.
We were both at Wadhurst once, the Murietta's place in Sussex, where Madame de Sainturce dispensed a most gracious hospitality. Sir William Gordon Gumming, I remember, was one of the party, the Sir William who at that time was supposed to be a bosom friend of Prince Edward and gave himself considerable airs because of the royal support. The second day Randolph asked me to come with him to a private room for a talk: he knew that I knew Parnell and Mrs. O'Shea, and he wanted to find out whether it was true that Parnell disguised himself to visit Kitty, and whether that was the explanation of his astonishing changes in appearance. Sometimes Parnell would appear in the House of Commons with a full beard; a week later it was shaved off; now he wore his hair down on his shoulders; next week it was cropped close; and again the top of his head was clean-shaven, as if he had been playing priest.
"What did it all mean?" Randolph wanted to know. I told him the truth as I saw it, that Parnell was one of the strangest human beings I had ever met. He was constantly visiting Mrs. O'Shea in disguise, whether to escape notice or merely because he was superstitious I could never quite determine; thirteen terrified him; he counted the paving stones, and if nine brought him with his right foot to the threshold, he walked in happily; I have known him to walk around for half an hour till a lucky number freed him from fear. To my astonishment, Randolph nodded his head, "I can understand that." I could only stare at him in blank wonder.
While we were talking the door opened and Lady Randolph appeared.
Naturally, I got up as she called out, "Randolph," but he sat still. In spite of his ominous silence, she came across to him, "Randolph, I want to talk to you!"
"Don't you see," he retorted, "that I've come here to be undisturbed?"
"But I want you," she repeated tactlessly.
He sprang to his feet. "Can't I have a moment's peace from you anywhere?" he barked. "Get out and leave me alone!" At once she turned and walked out of the room.
"You ought not to have done that, for my sake," I said.
"Why not?" he cried. "What has it to do with you?"
"Your wife will always hate me," I replied, "for having been the witness of her humiliation. You, she may forgive; me, never."
He laughed like a schoolboy. "Those are the astonishing things in you," he said. "You have an uncanny flair for character and life; but never mind: I'll say you were angry with me for my rudeness and that will make it all right!"
"Say nothing," I retorted. "Let us hope that she may forget the incident, though that's not likely. Ever afterwards Lady Randolph missed no opportunity of showing me that she disliked me cordially. I remember some years later how she got into the express train for the south in Paris and coolly annexed an old man's seat. I spent ten minutes explaining who she was and pacifying the old Frenchman, but she scarcely took the trouble to thank me.
She showed her worst side to me almost always and was either imperious or indifferent.
When Lord Randolph became Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer, his real greatness came to view at once. The most irresponsible and daring of critics, the type of opposition leader whose metier and raison d'etre was constant attack, frivolous or weighty, took on in one day a new character, a strange unexpected dignity. The metempsychosis astonished everyone: he was not only fair-minded but kind; he would listen to and answer the bore or the fool with dignified courtesy! For the first and only time in the history of the House of Commons, he used his cabinet ministers and party leaders as pawns in a game and treated every debate as a new campaign.
Formerly, ministers used to give their names to the Whips and rise to speak when they chose, without reference to the result as they do today. Randolph Churchill altered all that: in the middle of the debate he thought nothing of asking a cabinet minister to speak later or not to speak at all that night, according to the speeches of the opponents. And it was soon clear that Randolph was a most consummate tactician, using all his lieutenants with uncanny understanding. For instance, there was among the Conservatives a large and voluble Jew named Baron de Worms, who delighted in spouting shop-soiled commonplaces. At one moment in a debate Randolph sent Baron de Worms a flattering note, telling him he reckoned on him to reply to the Liberal who was then speaking. De Worms nodded, smiling happily, and when his turn came took the floor with pompous fluency. At once Gladstone began to take notes. Shortly after, Randolph whispered to de Worms to stop: he had given himself away sufficiently and might easily go too far; but de Worms went on till Randolph pulled his coattail violently with a "Sit down, you fool!"
Gladstone got up and made de Worms appear ridiculous. As soon as the Great Debater finished his speech, Randolph rose and deplored the fact that the most eloquent man of the day so often kept the debate on a low level because he loved to expose platitudes. And then he went on to develop new arguments and lift the whole controversy to a higher level. When he sat down everyone in the House admitted that Gladstone had been sharply countered, and not only out-generalled, but put in a secondary place. Till I questioned Randolph afterwards, I had no idea that he had planned the whole attack like a born captain and used poor de Worms as a bait to "draw"
Gladstone.
In all the essential qualities of leadership he surprised everyone capable of judging. Gladstone was reported to have said that Lord Randolph was the courtliest man he had ever met and the greatest Conservative since Pitt. In the six weeks after the adjournment, he won golden opinions from all sorts and conditions of men. The best judges, even men as clear slighted as Hartington and Dilke, did not perceive all his qualities till later. After the Bradlaugh debate Hartington said that Randolph knew the House of Commons better than the House knew itself, but Dilke, I think, was the first to see his unique qualities as a director of debate and captain of word warfare.
Time and again I quoted Bacon's great word that might have been written expressly about him: "Great men, like the heavenly bodies, move violently to their places and calmly in then: places."
But now and then a spice of the old Randolph delighted the House. A specious motion was made, hiding a cunning trap: Randolph rose. "Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird," he began and the House howled its appreciation. "Randolph can't be caught napping; he had two eyes"-a score of differently worded eulogies! Everyone in the House seemed lifted to a higher level through his ability. The exact contrary of this took place a few years later when Arthur Balfour became Leader of the House. He persisted in treating members as if they had all come from Connemara and he was still Irish Secretary, and the House resented his insolent impertinences.
When the House met again Lord Randolph's power had grown: he had deposed Gladstone, had won a greater position in the House than Gladstone himself. True, very soon there were rumors of disputes in the Cabinet. "They object to Randolph's budget," we heard, the "they" being Lord George Hamilton for the Navy and W. H. Smith for the Army; but everyone felt that "they" must give in. Then a golden day when one heard that Lord George Hamilton cut down his estimate; there would be peace.
What would Randolph's budget be like? He told me on two or three occasions that he meant to bring in a democratic budget; Gladstone's cry of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform" seemed to have got into his blood. In vain I tried to persuade him that the times had changed, that the days of the old ten pound householder who paid all the taxes and therefore loved economy as the chief of virtues had passed away for ever. "The majority of the presentday voters," I asserted, "pay nothing and Englishmen usually prefer freehandedness to economy." He would not even consider it. One evening he told me that "Smith's holding out and won't reduce his estimates and he's backed by Salisbury! Think of the pair," he cried, "old tradesmen both! And both hate me. I'll resign and see what they'll do in front of Gladstone."
"Don't be mad," I cried. "Don't resign, stick to the wheel." Suddenly he told me at dinner that he was going down to Windsor, and when out of ignorance I saw nothing to wonder at in that invitation, he explained to me that in his elder brother's divorce case ten years or so before, he had taken up the cudgels for Blandford against the Queen and had been boycotted by the Court ever since. He was immensely pleased with the Queen's invitation.
When he returned from Windsor, the news of his resignation had preceded him and created an extraordinary sensation: it was whispered with bated breath that he had used the Queen's letter paper to write his resignation to Lord Salisbury, as if Randolph could ever have thought that anyone would imagine he would steal dignity from an invitation to Windsor. Lord George Hamilton went down in the train with him to Windsor and tells us that even then Randolph had made up his mind to resign. In gratitude for some earlier support from The Times, Randolph had given that paper the first news and editor Buckle chastized him very courteously in two whole columns. The same morning I got a line asking me to come to see him; I went up to Connaught Place with heavy heart about eleven o'clock. The rows of carriages about the house startled me and the house itself was crammed with Tory members of Parliament. I caught Randolph between two rooms. "What d'ye think of it?" he cried, joyously bubbling over. "More than two hundred and fifty Tory members come to attest their allegiance to me: I've won; the 'old gang' will have to give in." But he had reckoned without Salisbury's obstinacy and dislike.
Nothing happened for days and I got another note. Again I went to Connaught Place, empty now, the rooms, and deserted. Randolph came to me.
"The rats desert the sinking ship," he began gloomily. "Salisbury has cabled Harrington to return from the continent and in a week he'll arrive."
"Will Hartington help him?" I asked. "He had a great opinion of you, I know," and I told him how Hartington had praised his leadership of the House to me and how convincing the praise was, because those who praised most highly were the best judges. At first Randolph seemed dejected, but in the course of talk he told me how he had won the Queen at dinner and how she told him she regarded him as a true statesman. "A great woman," he added, "one of the wisest and best of women."
A few days later Hartington arrived; Randolph met him at the railway station and was profoundly impressed. "A noble man," he said afterwards, gravely. "He assured me that he regarded me as a born Conservative leader and would do nothing to embarrass me." A couple of days later he told me in wonderment that Salisbury had offered to serve with or under Hartington and that Hartington had refused: "I must win now; that's Salisbury's last card."
But it wasn't. A couple of days later I called upon him; he met me with the exclamation: "I'm dished. Goschen will be Chancellor; I had forgotten Goschen." He went on to tell me that Mrs. Jeune had suggested it to him. "As soon as she mentioned the name," he said, "I felt struck through the heart. I knew it was all over." And it was. "Old Morality," W. H. Smith, undertook to lead the House and Goschen made himself responsible for the finances and Randolph was out in the cold.
I tried to persuade him that nothing was really lost. "The corner seat below the gangway," I cried, "and your most stinging criticism and in six months 'Old Morality' will be glad to get back to his bookshop, and…"
He shook his head to my utter wonder. "I can't," he said. "I am a Conservative;
I can't. Ah! If it were Gladstone in power, I'd get to work at once. I can't fight my own side." But he had fought his own side on the Brad-laugh business six years before; why had he changed?
"Why on earth then did you resign?" rose to my lips, but I said nothing.
The tragedy was complete without comment.
One more incident, for the fallen lion was to get more than one kick. Strange it was that from 1880 to his resignation in 1886 everything seemed to favor and help him. After his resignation everything went against him.
Astonishingly good luck in a series and then astonishingly bad luck. Yet just at first everything seemed to go well; all through the session of 1887 there were rumors of reconciliation. People were so under the spell of Randolph's consummate leadership and masterful personality that they felt sure he would break out in some new way; he must have something up his sleeve.
Then came tidings of a pact with Chamberlain and the mirage of a Center party. As leader of the House, "Old Morality" Smith, without an "h" to his name, was almost absurd. The rumor grew; then Bright died and Central Birmingham was vacant. At once I heard through Louis Jennings, Randolph's best friend and also a good friend of mine, that Randolph, sick of Paddington and villadom, was going to stand for Bright's old seat and make Torydemocracy a reality. But Chamberlain would not hear of such a rival near his throne; he told Hicks-Beach that if Randolph stood for Central Birmingham, the unwritten compact between the Liberal Unionists and the Conservatives would be broken and he would consider himself free to act as he pleased.
Hicks-Beach at first fought for Randolph: he had always the highest opinion of Randolph's genius. When Gladstone fell in 1886, Lord Salisbury called Hicks-Beach with Randolph to determine who should lead the Lower House.
Hicks-Beach's claim was older and many would have said better founded; he was a man of high character, great experience and real ability, but he wouldn't hear of any comparison. Randolph, he declared, was the first choice in every way: he must be the Leader and he, Hicks-Beach, would take a place under him. Now he hated to wound Randolph but Chamberlain was inexorable. As Hicks-Beach hesitated, Chamberlain set Lord Harrington to work and Harrington's intervention settled the matter: Randolph must give up the idea of representing Central Birmingham or destroy the coalition.
Randolph left the decision to Hicks-Beach and Hicks-Beach told him he must save the party and withdraw. Randolph felt the blow intensely. The news had got out, and to be beaten by Chamberlain, he felt, was humiliating.
Randolph went racing, began to bet heavily and at first made money. People smiled as at the aberrations of a boy.
A year or so later came another blow. The government announced its intention to appoint a Royal Commission to enquire into the accusations of Parnell by The Times. Randolph, well informed as always on Irish matters, saw the danger and out of sheer greatness of soul sent to W. H. Smith a protest pointing out the peril, more than hinting, indeed, his opinion that Parnell would be whitewashed. His old colleagues were too stupid to pay any attention to his warning. When the report came before the House early in 1890, Randolph drafted an amendment with Jennings, blaming The Times while ignoring the action of the government. Jennings was to introduce the amendment which Randolph promised to support in a speech. The House was thronged: Jennings was in his place waiting to be called on by the Speaker
when Randolph got up and began attacking the government in the bitterest words he could find. When he sat down he saw that Jennings was angry and wrote him several little notes, but Jennings was seriously offended and would never speak to Randolph again. The truth is, as his son has said, Randolph was too much of an aristocrat, too self-centered, too imperious and impatiently irritable to be a good friend. He quarreled with almost everyone, notably with Gorst and Matthews, who owed him much — with everyone, indeed, except Hicks-Beach, Ernest Beckett, afterwards Lord Grimthorpe, his brother-in-law Lord Curzon, and Wolff, whom he seldom saw.
After the Chamberlain business I saw less of him, but I met him a little later in Monte Carlo and dined with him and had him to dinner more than once, as I shall tell later.
While he played lieutenant to Randolph, I met Louis Jennings frequently and got to like him really; and after the quarrel over the amendment I saw still more of him. He wanted me to take up the New York Herald in London and edit it. But I had good reason to distrust Gordon Bennett,! as I may tell later, and so nothing came of Jennings' well meant proposal. But it brought us close together, and in his anger over what he called Randolph's traitorism, we often discussed Randolph and his future. Jennings was an excellent, kind fellow, with brains enough to appreciate Randolph's brains, and dowered besides with perfect unselfish loyalty. Speaking of Randolph once he said,
"You know he doesn't like you, don't you?"
"No," I replied. "I thought he rather liked me, not that it matters much: his likings and dislikings are not reasonable."
"He has great charm of manner," said Jennings, "when he likes, and he uses it and reckons on it. But he's done for; we're wasting time talking about him."
"What do you mean?" I cried. "He's in his prime, has twenty years before him and unique parliamentary genius. If he'd give up gambling and playing the fool, he could be Leader of the House and Prime Minister again within a couple of years."
Jennings shook his head: "He's not so strong as you think; in my opinion he's doomed."
"What on earth do you mean?" I exclaimed.
"I oughtn't to tell it, I suppose," he said, "but Randolph told it to me casually enough once when trying to explain a headache and a fit of depression, and it's an interesting story."
Here it is as I heard it from Jennings that evening in Kensington Gore.
"Randolph was not a success at Oxford at first," Jennings began. "He never studied or read; he rode to hounds at every opportunity and he was always as imperious as the devil. But after all, he was the son of a Duke and Blenheim was near and the best set made up to him, as Englishmen do. He was made a member of the Bullingdon Club, the smartest club in Oxford, and one evening he held forth there on his pet idea that the relationship of master and servant in the home of an English gentlemen was almost ideal. 'Any talent in the child of a butler or gardener,' he said, 'would be noticed by the master, and of course he'd be glad to give the gifted boy an education and opportunity such as his father could not possibly afford. Something like this should be the relationship between the aristocratic class and the workmen in England: that is Tory-democracy as I conceive it.' Of course the youths all cheered him and complimented him and made much of him, and when the party was breaking up, one insisted on a 'stirrup-cup.' He poured out a glass of old brandy and filled it up with champagne and gave it to Randolph to drink. Nothing loath, Randolph drained the cup, and with many good wishes all the youths went out into the night. Randolph assured me that after he had got into the air he remembered nothing more. I must now let Randolph tell his own story."
"Next morning," Randolph began, "I woke up with a dreadful taste in my mouth, and between waking and sleeping was thunder-struck. The paper on the walls was hideous-dirty-and, as I turned in bed, I started up gasping: there was an old woman lying beside me; one thin strand of dirty grey hair was on the pillow. How had I got there? What had happened to bring me to such a den? I slid out of bed and put on shirt and trousers as quietly as I could, but suddenly the old woman in the bed awoke and said, smiling at me, 'Oh, Lovie, you're not going to leave me like that?' "She had one long yellow tooth in her top jaw that waggled as she spoke.
Speechless with horror, I put my hand in my pocket and threw all the money I had loose on the bed. I could not say a word. She was still smiling at me; I put on my waistcoat and coat and fled from the room. 'Lovie, you're not kind!' I heard her say as I closed the door after me. Downstairs I fled in livid terror. In the street I found a hansom and gave the jarvy the address of a doctor I had heard about. As soon as I got to him, he told me he knew my 'brother and…" I broke out in wild excitement, 'I want you to examine me at once. I got drunk last night and woke up in bed with an appalling old prostitute. Please examine me and apply some disinfectant.' Well, he went to work and said he could find no sign of any abrasion, but he made up a strong disinfectant and I washed the parts with it; and all the time he kept on trying to console me, I suppose, with cheap commonplaces. "There isn't much serious disease in Oxford. Of course there should be licensed houses, as in France, and weekly or bi-weekly examination of the inmates. But then we hate grandmotherly legislation in England and really, my dear Lord Randolph, I don't think you have serious cause for alarm.' Cause for alarm, indeed; I hated myself for having been such a fool! At the end I carried away a couple of books on venereal diseases and set at work to devour them. My next week was a nightmare. I made up my mind at once that I deserved gonorrhea for my stupidity. I even prayed to God, as to a maleficent deity, that he might give me that; I deserved that, but no more, no worse: not a chancre, not syphilis!
"There was nothing, not a sign, for a week. I breathed again. Yet I'd have to wait till the twenty-first day before I could be sure that I had escaped syphilis. Syphilis! Think of it, at my age, I, who was so proud of my wisdom. On the fateful day nothing, not a sign. On the next the fool doctor examined me again: 'Nothing, Lord Randolph, nothing! I congratulate you. You've got off, to all appearance, scot-free.' "A day later I was to dine with Jowett, the Master of Balliol. It was a Sunday and he had three or four people of importance to meet me. He put me on his left hand; he was always very kind to me, was Jowett. I talked a lot but drank very sparingly. After that first mad excess, I resolved never to take more than two glasses of wine at any dinner and one small glass of liqueur or brandy with my coffee. I wouldn't risk being caught a second tune. I was so thankful to God for my immunity that vows of reform were easy.
"In the middle of dinner suddenly I felt a little tickling. Strange! At once I was alarmed, and cold with fear, excused myself and left the room. Outside I asked a footman for the lavatory, went in and looked at myself. Yes! There was a little, round, very red pimple that tickled. I went out and begged the butler to excuse me to the Master. 'I am feeling very ill,' I said, 'and must go home.' "'You don't look well,' he replied, and in a minute I was in a hansom and on the way to the doctor's. Luckily he was in and willing to see me. I told him what brought me and showed him the peccant member. At once he took out his most powerful lens and examined me carefully. When he had finished I asked him, 'Well?' "'Well,' he said dispassionately, 'we have there a perfect example of a syphilitic sore!' Why I didn't kill him, I don't know.
"Inwardly I raged that I should have been such a fool. I, who prided myself on my brains, I was going to do such great things in the world, to have caught syphilis! I! It was too horrible to think of. Again the fool doctor: 'We must cure it,' he was saying. 'It's incurable,' I retorted; 'all the books admit that.' "'No, no,' he purred on. 'Taken in time we can make it innocuous. Mercury is a sovereign remedy, nothing equal to it, though very, very depressing. Have you resolution enough to persevere with it? That's the question.' "'You'll see,' I replied. 'Any other advice?'
"'Absolute abstention from all alcoholic drink,' he said. 'I'll write you out a regimen, and if you follow it, in a year you will be cured and have no further ill effect.' "To cut a long story short, I did what he told me to do, but I was young and heedless and did not stop drinking in moderation and soon got reckless.
Damn it, one can't grieve forever. Yet I have had very few symptoms since and before my marriage. The Oxford doctor and a London man said I was quite clear of all weakness and perfectly cured."
I was thrilled by the story: was there another chapter to it? Was this what Jennings meant when he said that Randolph was doomed? What else did he know or fear? I had just found about Maupassant, had begun to attribute his ghastly fears to syphilis. But then Maupassant had taken little or no care to cure himself, while Randolph asserted that he had done everything he was told to do. I could not but ask, "Do you think it has injured Randolph's health?"
"I'm sure of it," Jennings nodded. "He has fits of excessive irritability and depression which I don't like. In spite of what he told me, I don't think he took much care. He laughed at secondary symptoms, but now I hear he's going for a long holiday to South Africa under Beit's auspices and that may cure him.
At any rate, his fate no longer concerns me."
A couple more stories and Randolph Churchill's life is told so far as I am concerned. I have already said that I met him in Monte Carlo a good many times in almost successive years. At first he amused me by his childish belief that he could make money gambling at the tables. I told him that at Baden- Baden, Blanc, the proprietor, had only half the odds in his favor and yet had managed to make a great fortune. But he insisted that the power of varying the stake gave the punter an advantage; I was of use to him because I had known Monte Carlo for years, as well as it could be known, croupiers and directors and all. He was childishly self-confident and I found I was wasting my time trying to dissuade him from playing, so I showed him what they call "Labby's system," which is a very slow progression if you lose and therefore less dangerous than most systems, which are usually modifications of the silly doubling game which quickly kills or cures, as your maximum stake is limited.
After several meetings at Monte Carlo Randolph became more friendly to me and talked more frankly with me than he had ever done in the days of his success.
One evening after dinner in the Hotel de Paris we had a really serious talk about politics and I found we were poles apart. I pointed out that just as village communities were superseded by nations, so nations now were in process of being superseded by world empires; already two were being formed, Russia and the United States, which must soon dwarf all nations. The question for England was; would she bring about a union with the colonies and become an English confederation of states with an imperial senate drawn from all her colonies, instead of that potty House of Lords? To my astonishment he got angry. "I know the House of Lords," he exclaimed, "and there's a lot of good sense in it and good feeling and I hate your imperial senate of jumped-up grocers from Ballarat and shopkeepers from Sydney!" I found nothing to say: he lived still in feudal times and his brains were an accident.
I then talked to him of socialism and the part it should play in a well ordered community. Randolph would not have socialism at any price, did not really understand the first word of the modem problem. He would not acknowledge that the prosperity of the working classes in France came from the partition of the land of France during the Revolution. "The comparative prosperity of the French peasants has its drawbacks," he insisted. "Look at their narrow, sordid lives!" he cried, "I prefer England with its wider freedom and one class at least that gets all the best out of life and sets a great example."
After that evening I took little interest in his possible return to power. His want of education maimed him; he could never be a Mazzini, let alone a Bismarck. As he ate and drank and spoke of the well dressed women that came and went, I understood how "illiterate" had come to mean "lewd." I noticed now too for the first time that he was terribly nervous: his hands twitched; he started and shook at every sudden sound. I could only hope that his trip to South Africa would bring him back to health and strength.
He went out in a Donald Currie liner and contributed articles to an English journal, in which he condemned the food and drink as that of a second class lodging house. He was amply justified but he was bitterly attacked for his well founded criticism. All the mercantile world, whose patriotism is mainly self-interest, and their champions in the press, kept on ridiculing him month in month out till they had seriously damaged his reputation with the many.
Yet the food on board ship was bad everywhere till Ballin with the help of Harris established a Ritz restaurant on the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria and at once lifted all ocean travel into a higher category of comfort. He was the first to make sea life luxurious.
Randolph came back from South Africa bearded like a pard, a grey-haired old man. Others have told how he tried to regain his place and influence in Parliament and his ghastly failure. The House filled to hear him: he got up and after the first few words began to mumble and hesitate and repeat himself incoherently, while frequent emphatic gestures emphasized the grotesqueness of the exhibition. Balfour sat beside him with his head bent forward, buried in his hands. "Randolph's finished," was the universal verdict.
"What's happened to him?" everyone was asking. "Who would have believed it?"
I heard from Beit that Randolph had made money by following his advice and investing in the deep levels; indeed, it is known that when he died he left a great many thousands of pounds to his widow, all derived from this source.
Jennings' words recurred to me again and again: "Randolph's doomed," I was soon to learn the reason.
His brother died and at once I announced that I was going to publish in the Fortnightly Review an article on "The Art of Living" by the late Duke. I showed phrases of it to reporters, and as everyone knew the brains and frankness of the Duke, it was easy to work up a tremendous sensation, for indeed the article was almost too outspoken to be published. My readers will remember that I got the article by publishing, at the Duke's request, a paper written by Lady Colin Campbell, who was the Duke's mistress at the time, and a very pretty mistress, too. I only consented to publish her outpouring on condition that the Duke would write me a perfectly frank paper giving his real views of life and living. He certainly did what I asked: in the paper he declared that women were the only things in life worth winning. "A good dinner and the good talk of able men is interesting, but without women and the pleasure they give, life would be stale, flat and unprofitable, a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing."
Some years after I had published Lady Colin's paper, the Duke told me that she had insisted on being invited to spend a week at Blenheim by his new wife, formerly the rich Mrs. Hammersley of New York. The Duchess consented at once in all innocence, and in due course Lady Colin appeared and insisted on flaunting her intimacy with the Duke, whom she always called by his Christian name. In huge glee he told me that the devil of a woman would take him for a walk in the morning alone and keep him till they were late for lunch. "We are such old friends," she said to the Duchess,
"and I haven't seen him for so long. You must really forgive us: when we are together time flies."
The Duke said, "My wife is far from being a fool: indeed, no woman is blind in such a case and Lady Colin'll never get another invitation to Blenheim."
That was as much as I knew when I got a letter from Randolph, asking me to come to see him in his mother's house in Grosvenor Street, where he was staying at the time. I went all unsuspecting. I had often had similar notes from him in the past. When he came across the room to shake hands with me, I was appalled by his appearance. In a couple of years he had changed out of character, had become an old man instead of a young one. His face was haggard; his hair greyish and very thin on top; his thick beard, also half-grey, changed him completely. He held himself well, which added dignity, but the old boyish smile had gone. "Sit down, sit down," he said. "We must have a talk! You don't know the Duchess of Marlborough, do you?" he began. "She would like to know you and I think you would be friends. I'm going to bring about a meeting. She's really a remarkable woman and my brother's death has been a dreadful blow to her; she loved him, as good women love us, in spite of our faults. When she read about the article he had written for you and that it was going to be published she was appalled, shocked. She had read the article and hated it, believed it was written under the influence of Lady Colin Campbell, whom she disliked, and she burned the article and the proof you had sent him before my brother-and thought it was done with forever. When she saw the announcement that that hateful article was going to appear, she was beside herself. She sent for her solicitors; they told her nothing could be done. Finally she wired for me and I went to see her. I must tell exactly what I said to this poor, grief-stricken woman. 'We have no power,' I said, 'but it was lucky that you sent for me, because I know the editor of the Fortnightly well, and I'm sure that as soon as Frank Harris understands the position and your rooted objection, he'll suppress the article. I know him and I can promise for him. Make your mind easy: the article will never appear.' Was I not right, Harris?" he added, getting up and holding out his hand.
There was a suspicion of the theatre in the appeal, which chilled me a little. It was manifestly prepared, but it was excellently done. Still I hesitated. "You see, I am only a trustee, so to speak," I began. "I don't own the Review: this article of the late Duke was bought and paid for at a very high price."
"Of course," Randolph broke in, "it goes without saying that the Duchess will pay whatever's needed, will pay eagerly. That's understood."
"But no money payment will do it," I said, and explained how I had only consented to load the Review with Lady Colin's paper because his brother had promised me a contribution so interesting as to atone for the dullness of Lady Colin.
"She was very good-looking," Randolph remarked, "with an extraordinary figure. My brother was a good judge…"and he smiled.
"I'm sure you'll see," I went on, "that I can't pleasure you In this matter. I'm not free, you understand…"
"I know Frank Harris," he replied. "You can do it, if you will, and I have promised on your behalf. You won't refuse an old friend's last request," and he held out his hand again. As I took his hand and looked at him I felt sick: the deep lines on his face, the heavy gummy bags under his miserable eyes, the shaking hand-it might well be his last request!
He misunderstood my silence: he feared it meant refusal. Not knowing he had won, he played his last card. "Come, Harris," he began in the most appealing way, "do what I wish and I'll write you an article on any subject you like in exchange for my brother's! Come, say 'Yes'." A moment later he put his hand over his eyes and sat down heavily. "I have slept badly and I don't feel well today," he went on in trembling, indistinct tones. I could not leave him in doubt a moment longer: he filled me with pity and regret- such an end to such a great career!
"It shall be as you wish," I said. He looked at me profoundly, and when he liked, his prominent eyes had something piercing in them. "I was sure of you," he said. "I knew you had only to understand the position to do as we wished! I thank you with all my heart and the Duchess will thank you, too, when she hears the good news. I promised to telegraph her," and he turned towards a side table. Then, bethinking himself, he turned to me, "But what am I to write about for you?" he began. "I'm avoiding all hard tasks, but I'll do my best!"
"Forget it!" I said. "Get well and strong; that's what your friends all want of you and nothing more."
"I'll do my best," he said, "but sometimes I fear the dice are loaded against me."
They were loaded indeed and more heavily than either of us dreamed.
The rest of his tragic history is soon told. In the eighties and nineties Sir Henry Thompson, the famous doctor, used to give "octave" dinners, as he called them, from the number of the guests. He was a good doctor, I believe, and knew a great deal about stricture and the prostate gland, but he was prouder of the fact that he had written two dull novels and had had paintings hung in the Academy exhibitions. He loved to show two or three pictures of Alma Taddema in his drawing-room, which in itself defines his taste and proscribes his talent. He was kindly, however, and at seventy kindliness is a proof of virtue. His wines, too, were sound without being extraordinary and his guests were often interesting. At one such dinner I remember Randolph was the guest of honor and sat on our host's right. Lord Morris sat on Thompson's left and I came next, and on my left was Sir Richard Holmes, the genial librarian of Windsor. He was kind enough to ask me to come down and pay him a visit and inspect the collection, and I would have accepted eagerly had he not first talked to me of his water color sketches, which also could be seen from time to time gracing the anemic walls of the Academy. The amateur artist, like the amateur writer, is to me almost as boring as the actor or singer.
When we sat down at table I was almost opposite Randolph and could not but notice that he bowed very glumly to Lord Morris, who was on my right, and still more coldly to me. He looked far worse now than when I had seen him in Grosvenor Street only a couple of months before: his face was drawn and his skin leaden grey; there were gleams of hate, anger and fear in his eyes, the dreadful fear of those who have learned how close madness is.
The soup had come and gone when I said something about Ireland to Lord Morris, who agreed with me. To my amazement Randolph suddenly broke in angrily. "You know a great deal about Europe, Mr. Harris, and of course all there's to be known about America," he barked at me, "but what do you know about Ireland?"
"I was born in Galway," I replied, "and brought up in the Royal School at Armagh, and one gets from childhood a certain flair difficult to acquire in later years."
"Impossible to acquire," chimed in Lord Morris. "No Saxon ever gets it. I knew without asking that you were a native of my dear, distressful country." Lord Morris spoke with a brogue that would bear, but he always showed me a great deal of kindness, perhaps because I learned very early in our acquaintance that he had a foot in both the Irish camps and was one of the very few men whose opinion on Irish matters could be accepted without misgiving. I believe that he was only "scored" off once in his life, and that was by the notorious Father Healy, a great friend of his. One day Lord Morris was describing a wedding he had witnessed, and carried away by the beauty of the bride, he added, "And there was I with not even a slipper to throw after her."
"Why on earth didn't you throw your brogue?" whipped in Healy, brogue being also the name given to the Irish peasant's stout shoe!
All through the next course Lord Randolph didn't speak a word. As the game was being taken round, the footman noticed that it was not properly cut, so he passed Lord Randolph quickly to get it dispieced at the sideboard. At once Randolph pointing with outstretched hand, squealed out as if in pain, "E-ee- e-e-e!"
"What is it, Lord Randolph?" asked the host in utter solicitude.
"E-e-e-e!" He repeated the high squeal, while pointing with his finger after the footman. "I want that-e-e-e! Some of that-e-e!"
"It shall be brought back," said Sir Henry. "I'm very glad you like it." The grouse was brought back: Randolph helped himself and began to eat greedily. Suddenly he stopped, put down his knife and fork and glared at each face round the table, apparently suspecting that his strange behavior had been remarked. He was insane, that was clear. From that moment on I could drink but not eat. Randolph Churchill mad! Like Maupassant!
When the table broke up, I asked Holmes had he noticed the incident with the game. "No, I didn't remark anything, but the grouse was excellent," he said. Later I asked Lord Morris had he remarked anything strange in Randolph's behavior. "No," he replied, "except that he seems to be in a d… bad temper. "
"Didn't you notice how he squealed and pointed?" I went on. "He's mad!" "Was he ever sane?" countered Morris, laughing, and therewith I had to be content, but ever afterwards I knew I had seen Randolph Churchill in what I called "the malignant monkey stage" of insanity. His shrill prolonged squeal is always in my ears when I think of him.
Years later, after he had returned to London and died there, I happened to be at dinner once, and beside Mrs. Jack Leslie, his wife's sister. I told her of my experience at Sir Henry Thompson's "octave."
"Randolph was quite mad," she said, "when my sister took him on that last trip round the world. We all knew it. No one but Jenny would have trusted herself to go with him, but she's afraid of nothing and very strong. Yet from things she has" let drop, she must have had a trying time with him. Why once, she told me, he drew out a loaded revolver in the cabin and threatened her, but she snatched it from him at once, pushed him back in his berth, and left the cabin, locking the door behind her. Jenny is the bravest woman I ever knew."
No wonder Winston has proved his courage time and again.
One day, some years later, I was at dinner with Lady Randolph, as I always called her, at Lady Cunard's. I told her something of what Mrs. Jack Leslie had told me and expressed my admiration of her courage in taking Randolph round the world. "At first," she said, "when he was practically a maniac and very strong it was bad enough, but as soon as he became weak and idiotic, I didn't mind."
What an epitaph!