THE INVITED GUEST

By BLANCHE E. C. DUGDALE

WE were five people, sitting at dirmer in a Scottish country house in August, 1934. At the head of the table sat the Cabinet Minister, at the foot, his wife. Next to her the Playwright, beside him Deborah, and opposite the Elusive Creature. On that side there was space for one more chair, and as the sherry sank in the decanter, and the owls sailed out of the wood on to the moor, a discussion arose. Could that chair be filled by another guest without spoiling the party ? Was there even somebody who could improve it ? Among the living we agreed that there were one or two, but obstacles of time and space kept us from sending for any of them. These difficulties did not apply to the Shades, so to one of them our single invita- tion would have to be confined.

W. Shakespeare was considered, but in Deborah's view the presence of another playwright was a fatal objection to summoning a man whom otherwise all would have been pleased to meet.

Deborah, impatient to be asked to name her own candidate, looked questioningly at her vis-a-vis. Would she ask for Rabelais, or perhaps the Virgin Mary ? Madame de Stael," she said.

Deborah put on her dry voice. "She and I would never get on," she said.

"That," observed the Playwright, "is true. It would be part of the fun."

"I want Voltaire," said Deborah. "He would be so interested in all of us."

"I don't want that prig to be interested in me," said the Playwright.

"All this," said the Cabinet Minister, "is a nuisance for your host and hostess. Nobody can be asked if any of you are going to be rude to them. In fact I doubt if anybody can be asked at all."

"Do you want anybody in particular ? " asked his wife.

" I do," said the Minister. "I want Sarah Jennings."

The hostess shook her head. "Too late," she said. "My invitation was sent before you all began arguing. The guest will be here at any minute."

Even while she spoke we saw a hand lay itself upon the table, a male hand, whose thin fingers were encrusted with glittering rings. Behind it a human figure was taking definite shape in the chair which had appeared in the vacant place. As the features emerged, eyes of a peculiar luminosity appeared, veiled by lids as wrinkled and tired as those of a tortoise. These eyes passed the company in review with an interested courteous rapidity, lingered for an instant upon the Elusive Creature, and finally came to rest upon the hostess.

"Lord Beaconsfield," she announced.

"Benjamin Disraeli," he corrected gently. "The immense majority of my old friends have resumed the habit of calling me by that name—all of them indeed except one, who is a la* to herself—, and I should be glad if my new acquaintance —" He bowed, spreading out his hands with a touch of deprecating humility. Perhaps it was the twinkle of diamonds as he returned to his former pose that distracted his attention from 'the company to the room. • "Charming—charming," he murmured, gazing up at the shaded fittings of the electric lights. "A vast improve- ment since my time. It was introduced, was it not, about the time of the General Election after I —" - He paused. Then turning to his hostess, proceeded : ." You will forgive a natural curiosity. I have been much out of the world lately. The beauty of this illumination exceeds all that I had heard. May I ask whether it has been installed in my own house—in Number Two White- hall Gardens ? "

The Cabinet Minister was the first to pull himself together. . "Yes, Mr. Disraeli—and in the House of Commons," he said.

We saw the dark eyes narrow and scrutinize.

"The House of Commons ? You are in the 1-louse? "He is in the Cabinet," said the Minister's wife. "You must enlighten unpardonable ignorance." said Mr. Disraeli, "and tell me what Party you adorn."

" Your own," said his host.

Ah ! Toryism still uses the old name ? "

" We are coming back to it," said the Minister.

Mr. Disraeli seemed visibly gratified.

" You relieve a certain anxiety," he presently remarked. " which has lingered in my mind since—since I was called elsewhere. Although Salisbury and myself had succeeded in putting the peace of Europe on an enduring basis at Berlin, it was not agreeable to leave the British Empire in charge of Gladstone and that Birmingham Radical—remind me of his name: Ah ! Chamberlain— Joseph Chamberlain. I never heard what became of him."

"Then there was agriculture ! You can have no con- ception of the alarm with which I viewed the future of the land in this country at that time. Am I boring you ? "

"Far from it," said the Cabinet Minister, but Mr. Disraeli's eyes were turned tenderly upon his neighbour, and it was not until she murmured "Do go on," that he spoke again : "No doubt I was a tired old man. But it appeared to me at that time that real and mortal dangers threatened to destroy the very basis of English life—the English countryside. 'Why, I remember as if it were yesterday a talk with one of my own tenants at Hughenden- after church it was—in the July of that shocking wet Summer, my last as it happened. Wheat, he told me, fine wheat from New Zealand, had sold at forty-two shillings a quarter in Wycombe Market. You will hardly credit it, but I remember it as if it were yesterday—" He was silent, and as we watched him, his face became mask-like and the wrinkled eyelids dropped. After a minute he went on : "They could not stand up against-it. No farmer could stand up against it, and the farmers after all are the keystone of the Arch. Au! I am happy to see that you agree with me" (glancing at the Minister). "Well, to conclude, for I fear I must leave you now, I could not at that time see how the economic follies of Liberalism could be corrected before some disaster had occurred, perhaps not until many thousands of men were thrown out of work, not only from our fields, but from the factories as well."

The Cabinet Minister seemed about to speak, but Mr. Disraeli stopped him with a gesture : " No ! I am not curious to hear how the catastrophe was averted. You told me all I care to know when you told the that the Tory Party still lives."

The hunting cry of an owl floated in through the open window from the moor, and as the sound died away we saw that one chair was empty again,