Letter XXIII - Loses the Whip
WELL Trix my rustic little lamb if you only knew how I sometimes envy you, ignoring the world’s news, not caring a twopenny hoot about the Gold Standard or anything, and merely living for the death of the next fox, my dear I do see how elemental and satisfying it must be, whereas here am I darling hip-deep in acrimony and correspondence and brain-strain, my dear I think I told you how I had words with the Whips because I would put sulphuric Questions to the Right Honourable HICKS, well my dear they said I was quite undermining the Cabinet because the whole of the Cabinet utterly agreed with me but they thought it was too perilous to even discuss my pet questions however cardinal, so they wanted them all to be left in a state of purulent placidity till after the Election, my dear too pussilanimous, and especially it seems because of the new virgin voters, though my dear why they should think that all the flappers are Nonconformists and wouldn’t like to see some sanitary Betting Laws for instance I merely can’t imagine, however and of course they said that anyhow it was the done thing to treat JIX as a joke so I said that’s just the danger because the man HICKS and his herd were serious menaces to the character of the race and the happiness of the people, my dear too eloquent, my dear I do think my style is a bit more dynamic and fluid than it used to be, don’t you, though of course what do YOU care, well anyhow darling they said if I put down one more irreverent Question I should definitely lose the Whip, but they said if I was honeyed and obedient I might be a Parliamentary Sec. or something in the next Parliament, and I rather gathered I should probably rise to Cabinet rank in the first few weeks, well darling poor shrinking doe though I am I did not propose to be bribed or brow-battered because my dear they knew too clearly what the little platform was when I was elected, not to mention my Haddock, so the next day I put down the most mutinous questions to half the Cabinet, I forget what about but nearly everything, and sure enough I got the most pompifical letter to say that in future I should not receive the Party Whip, my dear too paltry, so I wrote back tersely who wants your tiresome Whip, and my dear as a matter of fact it is rather a boon to be Whipless, because normally you have to get absolute leave to leave the House, and if they say you can’t go out to dinner or anything my dear you merely can’t, too galling, but now of course I prance out airily whenever inclined, cocking a phantom snook at the Whips as I pass darling, my dear too satisfactory.
However my dear what I faintly forgot was my obese and woolly-witted constituency, because of course the faithful commons of Burbleton are always titilated to see their little Member in the papers, whatever she does, but my dear my Executive Committee, being all quite circular and mediaevil were too unamused, because they said it meant they were practically de-franchised and anyhow it was giving Burbleton (West) a bad name, my dear too sensitive, and anyhow it’s rather a tender moment because everyone’s busy adopting candidates for this promiscuous General Election, and my dear it seems there’s a toxic clique on the Executive which is beavering away to have a pursy business man called Poop instead of me, my dear too rotund but merely dripping with dividends and bonds and things, so they’ve been quite nosing about in what they call my record, my dear totting up my divisions and speeches and everything, and likewise of course, and my dear this is the real rankle, how much money I’ve spent in the blood-sucking Borough, because between you and I darling we haven’t spent too much, not having too much, and my dear it was an absolute plank in the little platform at the Bye-Election that they were not to regard me as a kind of milch-elephant like most of the Tories, because I said if you must have clubs and bazaars and new wings to the library and everything I’m too throbbed about it but you’ll have to pay for them yourselves, because I said my motto and maxiom is service not shekels, so don’t elect me if what you want is an animated cash-box, which of course is exactly what they do want, and that my dear is going to be the penultimate bane of the Conservative Party, my dear they expect their Member to be a sort of Fairy Godmother, with birthdays weekly, however to continue the sombre story I was summoned to Burbleton to give an account of myself at a sort of secret Inquisition, where my dear it was hinted too nudely that I should have to spend better and behave more balmily, because my dear another complication is that now I’m in such swampy odour with the Whips and Government the Central Office are threatening delicately that funds perhaps will not be forthcoming at the next Election like they did at the last, my dear too despotical, because that of course has radically shaken some of my orbicular Committee, so that what with everything unless I become both rich and respectable it rather looks as if the next Member will be Sir Horace Poop, who sells bowler-hats and hose darling and already I gather has busily manured the entire constituency with life-subscriptions and new wings and has quite sworn to build chapels and wash-houses all over Burbleton, well of course it’s all too salubrious for Burbleton, but my dear what is the good of my poor little PRIME making those sweet speeches about yearning for Youth in the Party if any mature but mindless merchant is allowed to buy a constituency with two chapels and a public library?
However my dear I faced up to them after dinner like a hen-bison at bay darling in the arresting black-and-gold I told you about, and Haddock says looking rather like the Queen of Sheba at the first Solomon party, anyhow whether it was the frock, my dear there’s the phantom touch of a hoop in the skirt which gives a dominant effect but at the same time rather a nun-like note, if you know what I mean, and I carried a fan for imperious gestures, well I told them tersely my compassionate opinion about them and the Poop creature, and I said If you want a dead hatter have Horace by all means, and if you want a live Member behold your immutable Topsy, but don’t expect any free sewers or public brine-baths from me, well don’t you think I was right darling?
Anyhow my dear a little on the cowed side they agreed to a sort of armistice, and I think all would have been well, only meanwhile my dear I’ve made the most luminous but alienating speech in the House, my dear we had a debate about Afghanistan and that fatiguing ULLAH family, well you wouldn’t understand darling but it was all about black men wearing bowler-hats and trousers, well my dear I rose up and said there ought to be an absolute law of the League of Nations to stamp out the trouser traffic, and I said all these missionaries and people ought to be too discouraged who go about the fair places of the earth spreading plus fours and braces and celluloid collars, because my dear it only means that the blameless black man gets tuberculosis and a swelled head, my dear if you could see some of the nigger-girls in Jamaica covered with face-powder and pink cotton tea-gowns, my dear too unsuitable, well I’ll tell you more later, but my dear when I tell you that Burbleton mainly exists by exporting bowler-hats and trousers and other degrading garments to the innocent blacks you’ll understand that I’ve rather inserted the pretty little foot again, and you’ll also gather the kind of bunkers which beset the course of an independent girl not constructed to pattern, my dear the only thing these days is to be mass-produced, farewell now our excommunicated little TOPSY.