The Writing on the Wall by Hilda Glynn-Ward

Author:Hilda Glynn-Ward [Glynn-Ward, Hilda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2010-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

In which Mrs Morley attends a reception

THE ELECTIONS, with all their excitement, were over and forgotten. That Gordon Morley had been returned with a big majority as one of the members for Vancouver was no surprise to any who knew the man, least of all to his wife. Her delight, however, was none the less, and she basked in the reflected glory of his increased importance like a cat in the hot sunshine.

The placards that had become familiar upon hoardings all over Vancouver, beseeching the public to vote for Gordon Morley, the ‘people’s friend,’ and showing below the list of planks that were to be the aims and ideals of his public service, were not pasted over with advertisements for canned milk and future concerts. And this was just as well, for of them all only one was in the way of being carried into force as a result of his promises.

This was ‘Good Roads for Farmers,’ and the sum of money that Morley had persuaded his party to vote for this purpose sounded good and practical in the ears of those worthy British Columbians who favored agricultural progress. Except a very few on the spot who took the trouble to inquire into the matter, no one could know that ninety per cent of the particular farmers who were to benefit directly from these initial roads were Chinamen, and still less did these few guess even remotely at the substantial little sum that found its way through the agency of a certain old reprobate, Chung Lee, from the pockets of the up-country Chinamen into the bank account of Gordon Morley.

The contractor for these roads was, of course, that same George Worrall who had had it in his power to command a certain number of votes for Morley. So it was all worked — on the principle of the old rhyme:

Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ‘em,

And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.

As to the second plank regarding the North Vancouver bridge across the Second Narrows, the credulity of those unhappy owners of lots on the prospective site was such that every cause but the right one was blamed for the failure of the bridge idea. The slump had already set in, the dominion government engineer was blamed for his laggard policy in refusing to sanction the proposal of the bridge, and the newspapers, preferring to uphold the provincial government, printed long and sympathetic accounts of Gordon Morley’s pluck in fighting to the bitter end the lost battle of the bridge with the dominion government.

In nine days’ time both the battle and the bridge were forgotten, and public interest, in a country where fortunes are made and lost in less time than it takes to write about them, was turned toward the next speculation. Somehow or other Gordon Morley escaped all shadow of condemnation, and if anybody but his wife ever suspected that he had made a fortune out of the ‘lost battle of the bridge’ nobody let the cat out of the bag.

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