Sick Heart River

Leithen had been too busy all day to concern himself with the
thoughts which hung heavily at the back of his mind. In the
morning he had visited his bankers to look into his money affairs.
These were satisfactory enough: for years he had been earning a
large income and spending little of it; his investments were mostly
in trustee stocks; he found that he possessed, at a safe
computation, a considerable fortune, while his Cotswold estate
would find a ready sale. Next came his solicitors, for he was too
wise a man to make the mistake of many barristers and tinker with
his own will. He gave instructions for bringing the old one up to
date. There were a few legacies by way of mementoes to old
friends, a considerable gift to his college, donations to certain
charities, and the residue to his nephew Charles, his only near
relation.

He forced himself to lunch at one of his clubs, in a corner where
no one came near him, though Archie Roylance waved a greeting
across the dining-room. Then he spent a couple of hours with his
clerk in his Temple chambers, looking through the last of his
briefs. There were not a great many, since, for some months, he
had been steadily refusing work. The batch of cases for opinion he
could soon clear off, and one big case in the Lords he must argue
next week, for it involved a point of law in which he had always
taken a special interest. The briefs for the following term would
be returned. The clerk, who had been with him for thirty years,
was getting on in life and would be glad to retire on an ample
pension. Still, it was a painful parting.

"It's a big loss to the Bar, Sir Edward, sir," old Mellon said,
"and it's pretty well the end of things for me. You have been a
kind master to me, sir, and I'm proud to have served you. I hope
you are going to have many happy years yet."

But there had been a look of pain in the old man's eyes which told
Leithen that he had guessed what he dared not hint at.

He had tea at the House of Commons with the Chief Whip, a youngish
man named Ritson, who in the War had been a subaltern in his own
battalion. Ritson listened to him with a wrinkled brow and
troubled eyes.

"Have you told your local people?" he asked.

"I'll write to them tomorrow. I thought I ought to tell you first.
There's no fear of losing the seat. My majority has never been
less than six thousand, and there's an excellent candidate ready in
young Walmer."

"We shall miss you terribly, you know. There's no one to take your
place."

Leithen smiled. "I haven't been pulling my weight lately."

"Perhaps not. But I'm thinking of what's coming. If there's an
election, we're going to win all right, and we'll want you badly in
the new Government. It needn't be a law office. You can have your
pick of half a dozen jobs. Only yesterday the Chief was speaking
to me about you." And he repeated a conversation he had had with
the man who would be the next Prime Minister.

"You're all very kind. But I don't think I want anything. I've
done enough, as Napoleon said, 'pour chauffer la gloire.'"