The Rose and the Yew Tree

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I urged him to do so.

‘I’m going to dinner at the Castle,’ he explained. ‘That old bitch fairly puts the wind up me!’

We might have been Lady St Loo’s dearest friends, but I suppose he knew quite well that we weren’t. John Gabriel seldom made mistakes.

‘Lady St Loo?’ I asked. ‘Or all of them?’

‘I don’t mind the fat one. She’s the kind you can soon get where you want them, and Mrs Bigham Charteris is practically a horse. You’ve only got to neigh at her. But that St Loo woman is the kind that can see through you and out the other side. You can’t put on any fancy frills with her!

‘Not that I’d try,’ he added.

‘You know,’ he went on thoughtfully, ‘when you come up against a real aristocrat you’re licked—there isn’t anything you can do about it.’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said, ‘that I understand you.’

He smiled.

‘Well, in a way, you see, I’m in the wrong camp.’

‘You mean that you’re not really a Tory in politics?’

‘No, no. I mean I’m not their kind. They like, they can’t help liking, the old school tie. Of course, they can’t be too choosy nowadays, they’ve got to have blokes like me.’ He added meditatively, ‘My old man was a plumber—not a very good plumber either.’

He looked at me and twinkled. I grinned back at him. In that moment I fell under his charm.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Labour’s really my ticket.’

‘But you don’t believe in their programme?’ I suggested.

He said easily, ‘Oh, I’ve no beliefs. With me it’s purely a matter of expediency. I’ve got to have a job. The war’s as good as over, and the plums will soon be snapped up. I’ve always thought I could make a name for myself in politics. You see if I don’t.’

‘So that’s why you’re a Tory? You prefer to be in the party that will be in power?’

‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘You don’t think the Tories are going to get in, do you?’

I said I certainly did think so. With a reduced majority.

‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘Labour’s going to sweep the country. Their majority’s going to be terrific.’

‘But then—if you think so—’

I stopped.

‘Why don’t I want to be on the winning side?’ He grinned. ‘My dear chap. That’s why I’m not Labour. I don’t want to be swamped in a crowd. The Opposition’s the place for me. What is the Tory Party anyway? Taken by and large it’s the most muddle-headed crowd of gentlemanly inefficients combined with unbusinesslike business men. They’re hopeless. They haven’t got a policy, and they’re all at sixes and sevens. Anyone with any ability at all will stick out a mile. You watch. I shall shoot up like a rocket!’

‘If you get in,’ I said.

‘Oh, I shall get in all right.’

I looked at him curiously.

‘You really think so?’