'What did you have in mind, Jeremy?' Stamper already knew precisely where the conversation was headed.
'Open to suggestion. But obviously the Lords would seem a sensible option. Not for me, so much, but for the little lady. Mean a lot to her after all these years. Particularly when… you know, she might not have very long to enjoy it.'
Colthorpe was still splashing water around to make a pretence at casualness and had succeeded in drenching the front of his trousers. He realized he was beginning to make a fool of himself and turned the taps off with a savage twist, turning directly towards Stamper, hands by his side, water dripping from his soaked cuffs. 'Would I have your support, Tim? The backing of the party machine?'
Stamper turned away and headed for the electric hand dryer, its harsh noise forcing Colthorpe to follow him across the room, and them both to raise their voices.
'There will be quite a few colleagues retiring at the next election, Jeremy. I expect a number of them will want a scat in the Lords.'
'Wouldn't press my own case, but for the wife. I'd work hard at the job, wouldn't skive off like so many of the others.'
'Ultimately, of course, it's up to Francis. He'll have a tough job deciding between the various claims.' 'I voted for Francis…' – that was a lie – 'I'd be loyal.'
'Would you?' Stamper threw over his shoulder. 'Francis does value loyalty above everything.' 'Absolutely. Anything the two of you want, rely on me!'
The hand drier suddenly ceased its raucous huffing and in a moment the atmosphere had grown hushed, almost confessional. Stamper turned to stare at Colthorpe from only a few inches away. 'Can we really rely on you, Jeremy? Loyalty first?' Colthorpe was nodding. 'Even as far as the King is concerned?' 'The King…?' Confusion crept in.
'Yes, Jeremy, the King. You've already seen how he's rocked the boat. And Francis fears it's going to get worse. The Palace needs reminding, very firmly, who's in charge.' 'But I'm not sure…'
'Loyalty, Jeremy. That's what will make the difference between those who get what they want out of this Government, and those who don't. It's an unpleasant business, this thing with the Palace, but somebody has to stand up and defend the important constitutional principles at stake. Francis can't, you see, not formally and publicly as Prime Minister. That would create a constitutional crisis, which he absolutely does not want. The only way to avoid that may be to get someone other than a Minister, someone with great seniority and authority – someone like you, Jeremy – to remind the Palace and the public what's at stake. It's the least Francis has a right to expect from his loyal supporters.'
'Yes, but… Get into the House of Lords by attacking the King?'
'Not attacking. Reminding him of the highest constitutional principles.' 'But it's the King who creates new peers-' 'Solely and exclusively on the advice of the Prime Minister. The King cannot refuse his recommendations.' 'It's a little like Alice In Wonderland-' 'So's a lot of what the Palace has been saying.' 'I'd like to think about it a little.'
'You need to think about loyalty?' Stamper's tone was harsh, accusatory. His lip curled in contempt and there was fire in the sepulchral eyes. Without a further word the Party Chairman turned on his heel and made his way towards the door. His hand was already on the shiny brass door knob, and Colthorpe realized his ambitions were ruined if the door closed on this conversation. 'I'll do it!' he squealed. 'Tim, I know where my loyalties lie. I'll do it.' He was breathing heavily with the tension and confusion, trying to regain his self-control, wiping his hands on his trousers. 'You can rely on me, old chap.'
Stamper held his stare, spreading his lips in the coldest of smiles. Then he closed the door behind him.
The lunch had started excellently. Both Mickey Quillington and his first cousin, Lord Chesholm of Kinsale, appreciated a good claret and the cellar of the House of Lords dining room had a large number from which to choose. They had chosen to drink Leoville-Barton but were unable to decide between the '82 and '85 vintage. So they had ordered a bottle of both and slipped gently into mid-afternoon in the warm embrace of the elegant mahogany panelling and attentive staff. Chesholm was a good twenty years older than Quillington and substantially more wealthy, and the impecunious younger peer had hoped to use the lunch for the launch of an appeal to family solidarity which would involve his relative in leasing several hundred of Quillington's Oxfordshire acres at a generous rate, but sadly his tactics had gone awry. The claret proved too much for the elderly peer to manage and he couldn't concentrate, repeatedly exclaiming that he didn't live in Oxfordshire. The bill, although heavily subsidized, still reflected the exceptional nature of the wine and Quillington felt bruised. Maybe the old bugger would regain his wits by teatime.
They were attending the House to voice objection to a Bill which sought a total ban on fox-hunting, and the debate was well underway by the time they took their places on the deep-red morocco benches in the Gothic chamber. Within minutes Chesholm was asleep while Quillington slouched with his knees tucked beneath his chin as he listened with growing resentment to a former polytechnic lecturer, recently elevated to the life-peerage for his diligence in the study of trade union matters, expounding his belief in the decay and corruption of those who still believed they owned the countryside as if by divine right. Debates in the Lords are conducted in far less pompous and vitriolic style than in the Lower Chamber, as befits its aristocratic and almost familial atmosphere, but the lack of outright rudeness did not prevent the peer from putting across his point of view forcefully and effectively. From around the Chamber, uncharacteristically packed for the occasion by hereditary peers and noble backwoodsmen from distant rural parts, came a growl of wounded pride, like a stuck boar at bay. Such displays of emotion are not commonplace in the Upper Chamber, but such a concentration of hereditary peers was also unusual outside the circumstance of state funeral or Royal wedding. It may not have been the Lords at their norm, nor even at their best, but it was certainly their Lordships at their most decorous.
Quillington cleared his throat; the debate was threatening to spoil the warm glow left by the claret. The poly-peer had broadened his attack from fox-hunting itself to those who hunted, and Quillington took great exception. He was not the type of person who rode roughshod over others' rights; he'd never forced any farm labourer out of a tied cottage, and any damage inadvertently caused while hunting was always paid for. Blast the man, the Quillingtons had been dedicated custodians. It had cost them their fortune and his father's health and had left his mother with little but years of tearful widowhood. Yet here was an oaf who had spent all his working life in some overheated lecture room living off an inflation-proofed salary, accusing him of being no better than a scrounger. It was too much, really too bloody much. This sort of wheedling and insolent insinuation had gone on for too long, harking back to a style of class warfare which was fifty years out of date.
' 'Bout time we put them in their place, don't you think, Chesy?' Almost before he realized it, Quillington was on his feet.
'This debate is only nominally about fox-hunting, that is merely the excuse. Behind it lies an insidious attack on the traditions and values which have not only held our countryside together, not only held this House together, but have held the whole of society together. There are wreckers in the land, some maybe even amongst our number here' – he deliberately avoided looking at the previous speaker, so that everyone would know precisely whom he meant – 'who in the name of democracy would force their own narrow, militant opinions upon the rest, the silent majority which is the true and glorious backbone of Britain.'
He licked his lips, there was a flush in his cheeks, a mixture of Leoville-Barton and real emotion that succeeded in engulfing the unease he customarily felt in public, which on more than one occasion had left him tongue-tied and floundering at the opening of the annual village fete. 'They want revolution, no less. They would abandon our traditions, abolish this Chamber, stamp on our rights.' Quillington waved a finger at the canopied Throne which dominated one end of the hall and stood empty and forlorn. 'They even seek to reduce to silence and insignificance our own Royal Family.'