18

The accustomed early morning hush in the parkland of the Earl of Rosebery’s Dalmeny estate was broken by the biting sound of an axe on wood.

A sycamore tree shuddered under the weight of the assault as the blade cut deep, wielded with great force by a man whose white hair waved accompaniment to each precise and fearsome blow.

The face was a mask of concentration while he hewed at the timber as if his very life depended upon the process.

Shirtsleeves rolled up above the elbow, the left hand gloved, but his weskit more than held its own, fob chain aglitter, as he lifted up the axe and crashed it home.

William Ewart Gladstone, three score years and ten with the vigorous strength of a man half that time-span, wrenched the blade free from the deep wound inflicted, sighted down the edge, then once more swung with such desperate, savage energy that it seemed as if he were trying to eradicate some insult perceived in the innocent grain of the tree.

It being spring, the sap oozed from the wounds of the tree like arboreal stigmata but he cared not a fig for such fancy. Up went the blade and down it chopped.

The splinters of wood flew over his shoulder and fell brokenly to the ground.

There had been times when enthusiastic followers collected these splinters like holy relics, but for this moment he was observed only by a gentleman, one of his private secretaries, and a woman who had the great man’s frock-coat draped over her arm, lightly pressed against her body.

‘The forest suffers Mr Gladstone’s desire to work up a righteous sweat,’ murmured the secretary.

The woman made no response except to press the grey frock-coat a little more firmly to her angular frame. The secretary glanced down at her with no great relish.

Jane Salter suited her name. She was a stooped skinny virgo intacta, he observed. Lank brown hair scraped in a middle parting, pointing the way to a sharp nose which sniffed a little dismally in the dank dew of early morning. Perched on the nose was a pair of pebble glasses without which she was practically blind.

The secretary, Horace Prescott, took a deep draught of air, exhaled, and watched with interest as the released breath smoked from his mouth like ectoplasm.

He was tall, languid, silver locks swept over the brow, adopting the aristocratic air of his master the Earl of Rosebery. Prescott had been affiliated to Gladstone’s staff to help with the campaign and under his ironic affected tones could be discerned a certain bitterness.

He had the appearance of a leader of men, but not the power. That lay elsewhere.

Jane Salter studied him from beneath lowered lids. How deep did that bitterness go? Despite Rosebery’s apparent total commitment to the Liberal champion, she could detect a tension from the earl and his followers.

Nothing in politics was what it seemed and friendship only lasted till the next broken promise. Treachery was rife. Like the plague.

The Great Man, she knew, held himself above such venality, but it only made him the more vulnerable to betrayal. High moral ground. A slippery slope.

The figure, silhouetted by morning sun, raised the blade like a pagan priest at a sacrificial offering.

Gladstone’s energy was astounding. He had arrived by carriage this early hour from Edinburgh almost in a frenzy, woke the whole household, then grabbed an axe and got to work as if the Furies were after him.

One more blow would suffice, calculated the People’s William, as the sycamore lurched. The knack was in knowing when to strike and escape the consequence. One more blow. A look of almost fiendish glee fell over his countenance and he peeled back his lips to show his teeth as if prepared to bite through the very bark of the tree.

Some four years before, Disraeli had calculated he was secure, that Gladstone was too old and would never again lead the House of Commons. Disraeli therefore considered it safe to accept the offer of a peerage from his adoring queen. He would still remain prime minister of course. But lead from above.

Lord Beaconsfield, he was thus dubbed. But much good it had done him. At the opening of Parliament, this very February, his emaciated figure had struggled to carry the Sword of State in the official procession. Could the Jew not carry a sword? Then Gladstone would swing the axe.

From the french windows of Dalmeny House, the stately figure of Catherine Gladstone emerged, a woman of some humour, great loyalty, and an ability to ignore what she did not wish to contemplate.

‘William?’ she called. ‘The kidneys will congeal on your plate and I cannot be held responsible.’

He straightened up. For a moment he looked like a predator cheated of its quarry.

‘I shall arrive,’ he announced, stood back, then delivered the final coup d’etat. The axe chopped in and, after some hesitation, as if yet holding on to its green life, what had once been a proud growth of nature crashed to earth, shuddered like a stricken animal, then was still.

All four people watched, then Gladstone raised his right fist in the air like a triumphant pugilist.

‘The arm of the Lord is bared for work!’ His resonant tones echoed in the silence.

Catherine Gladstone shook her head in exasperated amusement and disappeared back inside.

William rolled down his sleeves and, with measured tread, approached Jane Salter who held out the frock-coat for him to don as if he were a medieval knight who had just slain the dragon. He nodded a dignified thanks.

‘Have you partaken of breakfast, Miss Salter?’ he asked.

Prescott concealed a slight shudder of distaste. For some reason the old man had a soft spot for this desiccated creature who had attached herself to the campaign in the last few months. A volunteer. An amateur.

‘I rose early and broke my fast with some bread, Mr Gladstone,’ she replied, her voice low-pitched, a pleasant and merciful contradiction to the rest of her as far as Prescott was concerned.

William’s face, which was deeply fissured in lines like the cracked side of a cliff, frowned in some concern, the mouth down-turned to indicate gravity of situation.

‘Bread is not enough. We shall need all our strength in the days ahead.’

His right hand, he felt, might blister up tomorrow, but it was worth the pain. With suffering came release.

He glanced back at the felled and fallen tree.

‘The Tories are incorrigible, impotent for reformation, a parasitic growth. But they will cling. You cannot cut them down without sinews of iron.’

He shot out his sleeves in a strangely flamboyant gesture, perhaps even in the manner of a Mississippi gambler, but the faint smell of his morning soap, the disinfectant odour of phenol, discouraged further comparison.

Prescott had thought Gladstone’s flight of fancy a mite overburdened but William’s fierce gaze precluded any niceties of discrimination. The statesman turned and stomped off towards Dalmeny House.

‘Fuel in the boiler, Miss Salter,’ he called back. ‘Politics is a field of Christian action. Action cannot sustain itself without fuel in the boiler. Although …’

He came to a halt as if struck by a sudden insight.

‘What Mr Disraeli nourishes himself upon these days is open to conjecture, wouldn’t you think?’

Gladstone suddenly emitted a harsh laugh and then continued on his way pursued by a rather flustered Prescott.

‘I have mapped out your timetable for the day, sir.’

‘And I shall observe it, sir, but I must warn you that at the hour of five I address the good people of West Calder and I shall need a quiet interlude for preparation. I have a long speech fomenting and I feel …’

He turned back again and looked at the woman who was watching them both.

‘I feel … not unlike a loaf in the oven.’

His mouth quirked in what might even have been the ghost of a smile. She lowered her gaze and the same ghost crept across her lips.

He resumed his march and Prescott though longer in the legs, struggled to keep up with the energetic steps of the older man as they breasted the hill.

Jane Salter observed them leave, then walked slowly over to peer down at the tree. The sap was still flowing and the axe had been driven into the bark so that it stood up at an oddly phallic angle, which she affected to ignore.

The second time this week William Gladstone had cut a sycamore down. It gave him life, he said.

Fuel in the boiler.