It’s beginning to seem unlikely they’ll ever get to their room when a familiar face appears out of the crowd: bearded, attractive John Willison, editor of The Globe. Ever since Wilfrid’s difficult early days as party leader, when Willison headed the Young Men’s Liberal Club in Toronto, he’s been Wilfrid’s most loyal and influential supporter in English Canada. Willison greets them with a broad grin, bowing to Zoë, clasping both Wilfrid’s hands.
“What in heaven’s name are you doing here?” Wilfrid’s voice rings full of pleasure.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Your thoroughly deserved moment of triumph!”
“I’m rather enjoying it. But I was thankful to escape the crowd at the station with my skin intact.”
Zoë knows how grateful Wilfrid feels for Willison’s friendship. But since it’s a political friendship, she wonders what Willison now expects in return. Men, even the most gentlemanly, always have a clear notion of their entitlements. Behind Willison she notices the inevitable presence of Alex “Silent” Smith, the party’s chief bagman for Ontario. Tall and taciturn, Smith exercises excessive influence over party affairs and always seems to hover in the background wherever Willison goes. He raises his homburg to Zoë.
The Russell’s owner, François-Xavier St-Jacques, tells Wilfrid of his very great delight at the election outcome. Zoë is sure St-Jacques would say the same thing to Tupper if the Conservatives had won, but she’s forced to revise her opinion when he tells her, in French, “Imagine, Madame, a Prime Minister from Quebec! I never thought I’d live to see the day!”
Their suite is ready, St-Jacques assures her, and she relishes the thought of undressing and lying down. But the longed-for moment will have to wait: Willison is coming upstairs with them, although thankfully without Silent Smith. Escorting them through the cheerfully inebriated crowd up the staircase, St-Jacques lets them into number sixty-five, reputedly the largest and best-appointed suite in the hotel.
Once the door shuts behind them, everything is blessedly calm. A bundle of letters and another of telegrams, both neatly tied with string, wait on the writing desk. Beside them, a stack of newspapers and a beaded silver pitcher of ice water. Wilfrid goes straight for the telegrams. Tearing them open, he reads them aloud one after the other to Zoë and Willison: congratulations from an assortment of loyal supporters and blatant office-seekers.
Finally he comes to the one he’s been waiting for. “Ah. Mowat is joining us.”
Willison probably knows this already, may even have exerted some influence on the Ontario Premier’s decision to enter the cabinet. Earlier in the campaign, Sir Oliver Mowat accepted a cabinet post in principle, but has been awaiting the official result before committing himself to resigning his office in Toronto.
“And to think Mowat was once Sir John A.’s law partner,” Wilfrid says.
“He’s expecting Justice,” Willison comments dryly, “and not expecting to have to get himself elected.”
“He’ll have Justice and a Senate seat to go with it. We’ll make Sir Oliver as comfortable as we possibly can.”
“Ottawa not being the most comfortable city to live in,” Willison adds, glancing sympathetically at Zoë.
Wilfrid telephones down to the front desk to dictate his reply to Mowat. Turning back to Willison and Zoë, he says, “Our team is nearly complete.” A note of wonderment enters his voice.
“Things come to you more easily,” Willison tells him, “now that you’re in power.”
Wilfrid looks intently at him. “Remember that speech I gave in Toronto years ago?”
“That one.”
“Mowat was against it, Cartwright was against it, and Edgar and Mulock, all our great Ontario Liberals opposed it. Too risky, they said, too dangerous. A French Catholic telling Tory Toronto about equality and harmony would lead to violence. The Orange Order didn’t want harmony—the Protestant Equal Rights Society didn’t want equality. There would be riots! But I went ahead anyway and faced them in that hall you rented. They tried to drown me out, and I sweated under my clothes, but I got my point across. I told them I’d fight bigotry and extremism in Quebec as hard as I’d fight it in Ontario.”
“It was a superb speech,” Willison says. “A speech for the ages.”
“And Premier Mowat was right there behind me on the platform, a man of our own party, with a secure hold on his province and a golden opportunity to stand up and endorse my views—but he said nothing. He did speak, as I recall, but said absolutely nothing. The next day he showered me with praise at our private luncheon, but nobody outside our inner circle ever heard him.”
Zoë has been listening as the pitch of Wilfrid’s emotion rises. She’s heard this outburst before, almost word for word, but only in the privacy of their bedroom.
“I remember what you told me at that lunch,” Willison says. “You leaned over and whispered, ‘Damn him! Why didn’t he say that last night?’”
Wilfrid sits back with a grin of satisfaction. “How things have changed. Now Sir Oliver Mowat is quite happy to join my cabinet.”
Zoë admits the porter with their luggage. The men sip ice water and discuss the civil service, and she hangs up suits and dresses in the big oak wardrobe, listening closely. Willison expects Wilfrid to do a thorough housecleaning to rid Ottawa of Tories, from deputy ministers on down. The Undersecretary of State, Joseph Pope, was once Sir John A. Macdonald’s personal secretary, for heaven’s sake: it won’t do. Wilfrid must be ruthless, must show people who think he’s too much of a gentleman to be Prime Minister how mistaken they are.
Wilfrid isn’t persuaded. Certain individuals may have to go, he concedes, but retirements should be on the basis of old age, and firings on the basis of incompetence, not politics. It’s only natural, after eighteen years of Conservative rule, that senior officials are tinged with Toryism. But those not irredeemably disloyal to the new government deserve a chance.
“Men change, particularly when it’s in their interests. We’ll see how they adapt. In the British tradition, civil servants serve the government of the day impartially. I believe in British traditions. The good ones, anyway.”
Willison is skeptical. “The civil servants may not be expecting your government to last. They’ll bide their time before reverting to their old ways.”
“Then we’ll tell them we intend to remain in power a very long time.”
They move on to the composition of the cabinet. It will contain no fewer than three provincial premiers: W.S. Fielding of Nova Scotia and A.G. Blair of New Brunswick, in addition to Mowat.
“You’ve done a masterful job of cabinet making,” Willison says. “It’s a college of experts, Wilfrid, a cabinet of all the talents.”
“A cabinet of all the talents. May I use that?”
They’re discussing the necessity of inserting Manitoba’s Clifford Sifton into cabinet as soon as possible, speculating on how his astringent personality will clash with the astringent Tarte, when there’s a sharp knock at the door. Zoë answers to a slim officer with a military moustache: Captain Sinclair, Lord Aberdeen’s aide-de-camp. Wilfrid knows him well from private audiences with the Aberdeens, in which Sinclair was a discreet and invariable presence. He bows and announces he’s come from His Excellency with a message for Mr. Laurier.
Willison excuses himself, and Captain Sinclair relaxes a little, apologizing for the lateness of the hour. “His Excellency told me I had better come in person, sir. We sent this morning’s message by telegram, because you and Madame Laurier were still in transit. But as His Excellency says, there is no substitute for the Queen’s messenger. He would like to see you at Rideau Hall at eleven in the morning.”
Wilfrid