Phineas Redux
by Anthony Trollope · English · Gutenberg #18640 · 1,447,741 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Phineas Redux
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Phineas Redux
Author: Anthony Trollope
Release date: June 21, 2006 [eBook #18640]
Most recently updated: April 5, 2014
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18640
Credits: E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHINEAS REDUX ***
E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
The original illustrations were generously provided by
Internet Archive (https://archive.org).
Editorial Note:
_Phineas Redux_ was published first in serial form in the
_Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper_ from July, 1873,
to January, 1874, and then in book form by Chapman and Hall
in 1874.
The _Graphic_ version contained 26 illustrations by Frank
(Francis Montague) Holl (1845-1888). Twenty-four of those
were published in the Chapman and Hall first edition and are
included in this e-book. They can be seen by viewing the
HTML version of this file. See 18640-h.htm or 18640-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18640/pg18640-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18640/18640-h.zip)
Images of the original illustrations are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/phineasredux00trolrich
PHINEAS REDUX
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
I. TEMPTATION
II. HARRINGTON HALL
III. GERARD MAULE
IV. TANKERVILLE
V. MR. DAUBENY'S GREAT MOVE
VI. PHINEAS AND HIS OLD FRIENDS
VII. COMING HOME FROM HUNTING
VIII. THE ADDRESS
IX. THE DEBATE
X. THE DESERTED HUSBAND
XI. THE TRUANT WIFE
XII. KÖNIGSTEIN
XIII. "I HAVE GOT THE SEAT"
XIV. TRUMPETON WOOD
XV. "HOW WELL YOU KNEW!"
XVI. COPPERHOUSE CROSS AND BROUGHTON SPINNIES
XVII. MADAME GOESLER'S STORY
XVIII. SPOONER OF SPOON HALL
XIX. SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY
XX. PHINEAS AGAIN IN LONDON
XXI. MR. MAULE, SENIOR
XXII. "PURITY OF MORALS, FINN"
XXIII. MACPHERSON'S HOTEL
XXIV. MADAME GOESLER IS SENT FOR
XXV. "I WOULD DO IT NOW"
XXVI. THE DUKE'S WILL
XXVII. AN EDITOR'S WRATH
XXVIII. THE FIRST THUNDERBOLT
XXIX. THE SPOONER CORRESPONDENCE
XXX. REGRETS
XXXI. THE DUKE AND DUCHESS IN TOWN
XXXII. THE WORLD BECOMES COLD
XXXIII. THE TWO GLADIATORS
XXXIV. THE UNIVERSE
XXXV. POLITICAL VENOM
XXXVI. SEVENTY-TWO
XXXVII. THE CONSPIRACY
XXXVIII. ONCE AGAIN IN PORTMAN SQUARE
XXXIX. CAGLIOSTRO
XL. THE PRIME MINISTER IS HARD PRESSED
VOLUME II
XLI. "I HOPE I'M NOT DISTRUSTED"
XLII. BOULOGNE
XLIII. THE SECOND THUNDERBOLT
XLIV. THE BROWBOROUGH TRIAL
XLV. SOME PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MR. EMILIUS
XLVI. THE QUARREL
XLVII. WHAT CAME OF THE QUARREL
XLVIII. MR. MAULE'S ATTEMPT
XLIX. SHOWING WHAT MRS. BUNCE SAID TO THE POLICEMAN
L. WHAT THE LORDS AND COMMONS SAID ABOUT THE MURDER
LI. "YOU THINK IT SHAMEFUL"
LII. MR. KENNEDY'S WILL
LIII. NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FAIR
LIV. THE DUCHESS TAKES COUNSEL
LV. PHINEAS IN PRISON
LVI. THE MEAGER FAMILY
LVII. THE BEGINNING OF THE SEARCH FOR THE KEY AND THE COAT
LVIII. THE TWO DUKES
LIX. MRS. BONTEEN
LX. TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRIAL
LXI. THE BEGINNING OF THE TRIAL
LXII. LORD FAWN'S EVIDENCE
LXIII. MR. CHAFFANBRASS FOR THE DEFENCE
LXIV. CONFUSION IN THE COURT
LXV. "I HATE HER!"
LXVI. THE FOREIGN BLUDGEON
LXVII. THE VERDICT
LXVIII. PHINEAS AFTER THE TRIAL
LXIX. THE DUKE'S FIRST COUSIN
LXX. "I WILL NOT GO TO LOUGHLINTER"
LXXI. PHINEAS FINN IS RE-ELECTED
LXXII. THE END OF THE STORY OF MR. EMILIUS AND LADY EUSTACE
LXXIII. PHINEAS FINN RETURNS TO HIS DUTIES
LXXIV. AT MATCHING
LXXV. THE TRUMPETON FEUD IS SETTLED
LXXVI. MADAME GOESLER'S LEGACY
LXXVII. PHINEAS FINN'S SUCCESS
LXXVIII. THE LAST VISIT TO SAULSBY
LXXIX. AT LAST--AT LAST
LXXX. CONCLUSION
ILLUSTRATIONS
LADY CHILTERN AND HER BABY. CHAPTER II.
"WELL, THEN, I WON'T MENTION HER NAME AGAIN." CHAPTER VI.
ADELAIDE PALLISER. CHAPTER VII.
THE LAIRD OF LOUGHLINTER. CHAPTER X.
"I SUPPOSE I SHALL SHAKE IT OFF." CHAPTER XV.
"YOU KNOW IT'S THE KEEPERS DO IT ALL." CHAPTER XVIII.
HE SAT DOWN FOR A MOMENT TO THINK OF IT ALL. CHAPTER XIX.
"THEN, SIR, YOU SHALL ABIDE MY WRATH." CHAPTER XXIII.
"I WOULD; I WOULD." CHAPTER XXV.
"LADY GLEN WILL TELL YOU THAT I CAN BE CHAPTER XXX.
VERY OBSTINATE WHEN I PLEASE."
"I SHOULD HAVE HAD SOME ENJOYMENT, CHAPTER XXXI.
I SUPPOSE."
"I MUST HAVE ONE WORD WITH YOU." CHAPTER XXXVIII.
"THEY SEEM TO THINK THAT MR. BONTEEN MUST CHAPTER XLV.
BE PRIME MINISTER."
"WHAT IS THE USE OF STICKING TO A MAN WHO CHAPTER XLVIII.
DOES NOT WANT YOU?"
"HE HAS BEEN MURDERED," SAID MR. LOW. CHAPTER XLIX.
"HE MAY SOFTEN HER HEART." CHAPTER LII.
OF COURSE IT WAS LADY LAURA. CHAPTER LV.
LIZZIE EUSTACE. CHAPTER LIX.
"VIOLET, THEY WILL MURDER HIM." CHAPTER LXI.
THE BOY WHO FOUND THE BLUDGEON. CHAPTER LXVI.
AND SHE SAT WEEPING ALONE IN HER CHAPTER LXVIII.
FATHER'S HOUSE.
LADY LAURA AT THE GLASS. CHAPTER LXX.
"YES, THERE SHE IS." CHAPTER LXXIV.
THEN SHE SUDDENLY TURNED UPON HIM, CHAPTER LXXIX.
THROWING HER ARMS ROUND HIS NECK.
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
TEMPTATION.
The circumstances of the general election of 18-- will be well
remembered by all those who take an interest in the political
matters of the country. There had been a coming in and a going out
of Ministers previous to that,--somewhat rapid, very exciting, and,
upon the whole, useful as showing the real feeling of the country
upon sundry questions of public interest. Mr. Gresham had been Prime
Minister of England, as representative of the Liberal party in
politics. There had come to be a split among those who should have
been his followers on the terribly vexed question of the Ballot. Then
Mr. Daubeny for twelve months had sat upon the throne distributing
the good things of the Crown amidst Conservative birdlings, with
beaks wide open and craving maws, who certainly for some years
previous had not received their share of State honours or State
emoluments. And Mr. Daubeny was still so sitting, to the infinite
dismay of the Liberals, every man of whom felt that his party
was entitled by numerical strength to keep the management of the
Government within its own hands.
Let a man be of what side he may in politics,--unless he be
much more of a partisan than a patriot,--he will think it well
that there should be some equity of division in the bestowal
of crumbs of comfort. Can even any old Whig wish that every Lord
Lieutenant of a county should be an old Whig? Can it be good for the
administration of the law that none but Liberal lawyers should become
Attorney-Generals, and from thence Chief Justices or Lords of Appeal?
Should no Conservative Peer ever represent the majesty of England
in India, in Canada, or at St. Petersburgh? So arguing, moderate
Liberals had been glad to give Mr. Daubeny and his merry men a
chance. Mr. Daubeny and his merry men had not neglected the chance
given them. Fortune favoured them, and they made their hay while the
sun shone with an energy that had never been surpassed, improving
upon Fortune, till their natural enemies waxed impatient. There had
been as yet but one year of it, and the natural enemies, who had at
first expressed themselves as glad that the turn had come, might
have endured the period of spoliation with more equanimity. For to
them, the Liberals, this cutting up of the Whitehall cake by the
Conservatives was spoliation when the privilege of cutting was found
to have so much exceeded what had been expected. Were not they, the
Liberals, the real representatives of the people, and, therefore, did
not the cake in truth appertain to them? Had not they given up the
cake for a while, partly, indeed, through idleness and mismanagement,
and quarrelling among themselves; but mainly with a feeling that
a moderate slicing on the other side would, upon the whole, be
advantageous? But when the cake came to be mauled like that--oh,
heavens! So the men who had quarrelled agreed to quarrel no more,
and it was decided that there should be an end of mismanagement and
idleness, and that this horrid sight of the weak pretending to be
strong, or the weak receiving the reward of strength, should be
brought to an end. Then came a great fight, in the last agonies of
which the cake was sliced manfully. All the world knew how the fight
would go; but in the meantime lord-lieutenancies were arranged; very
ancient judges retired upon pensions; vice-royal Governors were sent
out in the last gasp of the failing battle; great places were filled
by tens, and little places by twenties; private secretaries were
established here and there; and the hay was still made even after the
sun had gone down.
In consequence of all this the circumstances of the election of 18--
were peculiar. Mr. Daubeny had dissolved the House, not probably
with any idea that he could thus retrieve his fortunes, but feeling
that in doing so he was occupying the last normal position of a
properly-fought Constitutional battle. His enemies were resolved,
more firmly than they were resolved before, to knock him altogether
on the head at the general election which he had himself called
into existence. He had been disgracefully out-voted in the House of
Commons on various subjects. On the last occasion he had gone into
his lobby with a minority of 37, upon a motion brought forward by Mr.
Palliser, the late Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, respecting
decimal coinage. No politician, not even Mr. Palliser himself, had
expected that he would carry his Bill in the present session. It
was brought forward as a trial of strength; and for such a purpose
decimal coinage was as good a subject as any other. It was Mr.
Palliser's hobby, and he was gratified at having this further
opportunity of ventilating it. When in power, he had not succeeded
in carrying his measure, awed, and at last absolutely beaten, by the
infinite difficulty encountered in arranging its details. But his
mind was still set upon it, and it was allowed by the whole party
to be as good as anything else for the purpose then required. The
Conservative Government was beaten for the third or fourth time, and
Mr. Daubeny dissolved the House.
The whole world said that he might as well have resigned at once. It
was already the end of July, and there must be an autumn Session with
the new members. It was known to be impossible that he should find
himself supported by a majority after a fresh election. He had been
treated with manifest forbearance; the cake had been left in his
hands for twelve months; the House was barely two years old; he
had no "cry" with which to meet the country; the dissolution was
factious, dishonest, and unconstitutional. So said all the Liberals,
and it was deduced also that the Conservatives were in their hearts
as angry as were their opponents. What was to be gained but the poor
interval of three months? There were clever men who suggested that
Mr. Daubeny had a scheme in his head--some sharp trick of political
conjuring, some "hocus-pocus presto" sleight of hand, by which he
might be able to retain power, let the elections go as they would.
But, if so, he certainly did not make his scheme known to his own
party.
He had no cry with which to meet the country, nor, indeed, had
the leaders of the Opposition. Retrenchment, army reform, navy
excellence, Mr. Palliser's decimal coinage, and general good
government gave to all the old-Whig moderate Liberals plenty of
matter for speeches to their future constituents. Those who were more
advanced could promise the Ballot, and suggest the disestablishment
of the Church. But the Government of the day was to be turned out
on the score of general incompetence. They were to be made to go,
because they could not command majorities. But there ought to have
been no dissolution, and Mr. Daubeny was regarded by his opponents,
and indeed by very many of his followers also, with an enmity that
was almost ferocious. A seat in Parliament, if it be for five or six
years, is a blessing; but the blessing becomes very questionable if
it have to be sought afresh every other Session.
One thing was manifest to thoughtful, working, eager political
Liberals. They must have not only a majority in the next Parliament,
but a majority of good men--of men good and true. There must be no
more mismanagement; no more quarrelling; no more idleness. Was it to
be borne that an unprincipled so-called Conservative Prime Minister
should go on slicing the cake after such a fashion as that lately
adopted? Old bishops had even talked of resigning, and Knights of the
Garter had seemed to die on purpose. So there was a great stir at the
Liberal political clubs, and every good and true man was summoned to
the battle.
Now no Liberal soldier, as a young soldier, had been known to be more
good and true than Mr. Finn, the Irishman, who had held office two
years ago to the satisfaction of all his friends, and who had retired
from office because he had found himself compelled to support a
measure which had since been carried by those very men from whom he
had been obliged on this account to divide himself. It had always
been felt by his old friends that he had been, if not ill-used, at
least very unfortunate. He had been twelve months in advance of his
party, and had consequently been driven out into the cold. So when
the names of good men and true were mustered, and weighed, and
discussed, and scrutinised by some active members of the Liberal
party in a certain very private room not far removed from our
great seat of parliamentary warfare; and when the capabilities,
and expediencies, and possibilities were tossed to and fro among
these active members, it came to pass that the name of Mr. Finn
was mentioned more than once. Mr. Phineas Finn was the gentleman's
name--which statement may be necessary to explain the term of
endearment which was occasionally used in speaking of him.
"He has got some permanent place," said Mr. Ratler, who was living
on the well-founded hope of being a Treasury Secretary under the new
dispensation; "and of course he won't leave it."
It must be acknowledged that Mr. Ratler, than whom no judge in such
matters possessed more experience, had always been afraid of Phineas
Finn.
"He'll lave it fast enough, if you'll make it worth his while," said
the Honourable Laurence Fitzgibbon, who also had his expectations.
"But he married when he went away, and he can't afford it," said Mr.
Bonteen, another keen expectant.
"Devil a bit," said the Honourable Laurence; "or, anyways, the poor
thing died of her first baby before it was born. Phinny hasn't an
impidiment, no more than I have."
"He's the best Irishman we ever got hold of," said Barrington
Erle--"present company always excepted, Laurence."
"Bedad, you needn't except me, Barrington. I know what a man's made
of, and what a man can do. And I know what he can't do. I'm not bad
at the outside skirmishing. I'm worth me salt. I say that with a just
reliance on me own powers. But Phinny is a different sort of man.
Phinny can stick to a desk from twelve to seven, and wish to come
back again after dinner. He's had money left him, too, and 'd like to
spend some of it on an English borough."
"You never can quite trust him," said Bonteen. Now Mr. Bonteen had
never loved Mr. Finn.
"At any rate we'll try him again," said Barrington Erle, making a
little note to that effect. And they did try him again.
Phineas Finn, when last seen by the public, was departing from
parliamentary life in London to the enjoyment of a modest place
under Government in his own country, with something of a shattered
ambition. After various turmoils he had achieved a competency, and
had married the girl of his heart. But now his wife was dead, and he
was again alone in the world. One of his friends had declared that
money had been left to him. That was true, but the money had not been
much. Phineas Finn had lost his father as well as his wife, and had
inherited about four thousand pounds. He was not at this time much
over thirty; and it must be acknowledged in regard to him that, since
the day on which he had accepted place and retired from London, his
very soul had sighed for the lost glories of Westminster and Downing
Street.
There are certain modes of life which, if once adopted, make
contentment in any other circumstances almost an impossibility. In
old age a man may retire without repining, though it is often beyond
the power even of the old man to do so; but in youth, with all the
faculties still perfect, with the body still strong, with the hopes
still buoyant, such a change as that which had been made by Phineas
Finn was more than he, or than most men, could bear with equanimity.
He had revelled in the gas-light, and could not lie quiet on a sunny
bank. To the palate accustomed to high cookery, bread and milk is
almost painfully insipid. When Phineas Finn found himself discharging
in Dublin the routine duties of his office,--as to which there was
no public comment, no feeling that such duties were done in the face
of the country,--he became sick at heart and discontented. Like
the warhorse out at grass he remembered the sound of the battle
and the noise of trumpets. After five years spent in the heat and
full excitement of London society, life in Ireland was tame to
him, and cold, and dull. He did not analyse the difference between
metropolitan and quasi-metropolitan manners; but he found that men
and women in Dublin were different from those to whom he had been
accustomed in London. He had lived among lords, and the sons and
daughters of lords; and though the official secretaries and assistant
commissioners among whom his lot now threw him were for the most part
clever fellows, fond of society, and perhaps more than his equals in
the kind of conversation which he found to be prevalent, still they
were not the same as the men he had left behind him,--men alive with
the excitement of parliamentary life in London. When in London he had
often told himself that he was sick of it, and that he would better
love some country quiet life. Now Dublin was his Tibur, and the
fickle one found that he could not be happy unless he were back again
at Rome. When, therefore, he received the following letter from
his friend, Barrington Erle, he neighed like the old warhorse, and
already found himself shouting "Ha, ha," among the trumpets.
---- Street, 9th July, 18--.
MY DEAR FINN,
Although you are not now immediately concerned in such
trifling matters you have no doubt heard that we are
all to be sent back at once to our constituents, and
that there will be a general election about the end of
September. We are sure that we shall have such a majority
as we never had before; but we are determined to make it
as strong as possible, and to get in all the good men that
are to be had. Have you a mind to try again? After all,
there is nothing like it.
Perhaps you may have some Irish seat in your eye for
which you would be safe. To tell the truth we know very
little of the Irish seats--not so much as, I think,
we ought to do. But if you are not so lucky I would
suggest Tankerville in Durham. Of course there would
be a contest, and a little money will be wanted; but the
money would not be much. Browborough has sat for the place
now for three Parliaments, and seems to think it all his
own. I am told that nothing could be easier than to turn
him out. You will remember the man--a great, hulking,
heavy, speechless fellow, who always used to sit just over
Lord Macaw's shoulder. I have made inquiry, and I am told
that he must walk if anybody would go down who could talk
to the colliers every night for a week or so. It would
just be the work for you. Of course, you should have all
the assistance we could give you, and Molescroft would put
you into the hands of an agent who wouldn't spend money
for you. £500 would do it all.
I am very sorry to hear of your great loss, as also was
Lady Laura, who, as you are aware, is still abroad with
her father. We have all thought that the loneliness of
your present life might perhaps make you willing to come
back among us. I write instead of Ratler, because I
am helping him in the Northern Counties. But you will
understand all about that.
Yours, ever faithfully,
BARRINGTON ERLE.
Of course Tankerville has been dirty. Browborough has
spent a fortune there. But I do not think that that need
dishearten you. You will go there with clean hands. It
must be understood that there shall not be as much as a
glass of beer. I am told that the fellows won't vote for
Browborough unless he spends money, and I fancy he will be
afraid to do it heavily after all that has come and gone.
If he does you'll have him out on a petition. Let us have
an answer as soon as possible.
He at once resolved that he would go over and see; but, before he
replied to Erle's letter, he walked half-a-dozen times the length
of the pier at Kingston meditating on his answer. He had no one
belonging to him. He had been deprived of his young bride, and left
desolate. He could ruin no one but himself. Where could there be a
man in all the world who had a more perfect right to play a trick
with his own prospects? If he threw up his place and spent all his
money, who could blame him? Nevertheless, he did tell himself that,
when he should have thrown up his place and spent all his money,
there would remain to him his own self to be disposed of in a manner
that might be very awkward to him. A man owes it to his country, to
his friends, even to his acquaintance, that he shall not be known to
be going about wanting a dinner, with never a coin in his pocket. It
is very well for a man to boast that he is lord of himself, and that
having no ties he may do as he pleases with that possession. But it
is a possession of which, unfortunately, he cannot rid himself when
he finds that there is nothing advantageous to be done with it.
Doubtless there is a way of riddance. There is the bare bodkin. Or a
man may fall overboard between Holyhead and Kingston in the dark, and
may do it in such a cunning fashion that his friends shall think that
it was an accident. But against these modes of riddance there is a
canon set, which some men still fear to disobey.
The thing that he was asked to do was perilous. Standing in his
present niche of vantage he was at least safe. And added to his
safety there were material comforts. He had more than enough for his
wants. His work was light; he lived among men and women with whom he
was popular. The very fact of his past parliamentary life had caused
him to be regarded as a man of some note among the notables of the
Irish capital. Lord Lieutenants were gracious to him, and the wives
of judges smiled upon him at their tables. He was encouraged to talk
of those wars of the gods at which he had been present, and was so
treated as to make him feel that he was somebody in the world of
Dublin. Now he was invited to give all this up; and for what?
He answered that question to himself with enthusiastic eloquence.
The reward offered to him was the thing which in all the world he
liked best. It was suggested to him that he should again have within
his reach that parliamentary renown which had once been the very
breath of his nostrils. We all know those arguments and quotations,
antagonistic to prudence, with which a man fortifies himself in
rashness. "None but the brave deserve the fair." "Where there's a
will there's a way." "Nothing venture nothing have." "The sword is
to him who can use it." "Fortune favours the bold." But on the other
side there is just as much to be said. "A bird in the hand is worth
two in the bush." "Look before you leap." "Thrust not out your hand
further than you can draw it back again." All which maxims of life
Phineas Finn revolved within his own heart, if not carefully, at
least frequently, as he walked up and down the long pier of Kingston
Harbour.
But what matter such revolvings? A man placed as was our Phineas
always does that which most pleases him at the moment, being but poor
at argument if he cannot carry the weight to that side which best
satisfies his own feelings. Had not his success been very great when
he before made the attempt? Was he not well aware at every moment
of his life that, after having so thoroughly learned his lesson in
London, he was throwing away his hours amidst his present pursuits
in Dublin? Did he not owe himself to his country? And then, again,
what might not London do for him? Men who had begun as he begun had
lived to rule over Cabinets, and to sway the Empire. He had been
happy for a short twelvemonth with his young bride,--for a short
twelvemonth,--and then she had been taken from him. Had she been
spared to him he would never have longed for more than Fate had given
him. He would never have sighed again for the glories of Westminster
had his Mary not gone from him. Now he was alone in the world; and,
though he could look forward to possible and not improbable events
which would make that future disposition of himself a most difficult
question for him, still he would dare to try.
As the first result of Erle's letter Phineas was over in London early
in August. If he went on with this matter, he must, of course, resign
the office for holding which he was now paid a thousand a year. He
could retain that as long as he chose to earn the money, but the
earning of it would not be compatible with a seat in Parliament. He
had a few thousand pounds with which he could pay for the contest at
Tankerville, for the consequent petition which had been so generously
suggested to him, and maintain himself in London for a session or two
should he be so fortunate as to carry his election. Then he would be
penniless, with the world before him as a closed oyster to be again
opened, and he knew,--no one better,--that this oyster becomes harder
and harder in the opening as the man who has to open it becomes
older. It is an oyster that will close to again with a snap, after
you have got your knife well into it, if you withdraw your point but
for a moment. He had had a rough tussle with the oyster already, and
had reached the fish within the shell. Nevertheless, the oyster which
he had got was not the oyster which he wanted. So he told himself
now, and here had come to him the chance of trying again.
Early in August he went over to England, saw Mr. Molescroft, and
made his first visit to Tankerville. He did not like the look of
Tankerville; but nevertheless he resigned his place before the
month was over. That was the one great step, or rather the leap in
the dark,--and that he took. Things had been so arranged that the
election at Tankerville was to take place on the 20th of October.
When the dissolution had been notified to all the world by Mr.
Daubeny an earlier day was suggested; but Mr. Daubeny saw reasons for
postponing it for a fortnight. Mr. Daubeny's enemies were again very
ferocious. It was all a trick. Mr. Daubeny had no right to continue
Prime Minister a day after the decided expression of opinion as to
unfitness which had been pronounced by the House of Commons. Men
were waxing very wrath. Nevertheless, so much power remained in Mr.
Daubeny's hand, and the election was delayed. That for Tankerville
would not be held till the 20th of October. The whole House could not
be chosen till the end of the month,--hardly by that time--and yet
there was to be an autumn Session. The Ratlers and Bonteens were at
any rate clear about the autumn Session. It was absolutely impossible
that Mr. Daubeny should be allowed to remain in power over Christmas,
and up to February.
Mr. Molescroft, whom Phineas saw in London, was not a comfortable
counsellor. "So you are going down to Tankerville?" he said.
"They seem to think I might as well try."
"Quite right;--quite right. Somebody ought to try it, no doubt. It
would be a disgrace to the whole party if Browborough were allowed
to walk over. There isn't a borough in England more sure to return a
Liberal than Tankerville if left to itself. And yet that lump of a
legislator has sat there as a Tory for the last dozen years by dint
of money and brass."
"You think we can unseat him?"
"I don't say that. He hasn't come to the end of his money, and as to
his brass that is positively without end."
"But surely he'll have some fear of consequences after what has been
done?"
"None in the least. What has been done? Can you name a single
Parliamentary aspirant who has been made to suffer?"
"They have suffered in character," said Phineas. "I should not like
to have the things said of me that have been said of them."
"I don't know a man of them who stands in a worse position among his
own friends than he occupied before. And men of that sort don't want
a good position among their enemies. They know they're safe. When the
seat is in dispute everybody is savage enough; but when it is merely
a question of punishing a man, what is the use of being savage? Who
knows whose turn it may be next?"
"He'll play the old game, then?"
"Of course he'll play the old game," said Mr. Molescroft. "He doesn't
know any other game. All the purists in England wouldn't teach him to
think that a poor man ought not to sell his vote, and that a rich man
oughtn't to buy it. You mean to go in for purity?"
"Certainly I do."
"Browborough will think just as badly of you as you will of him.
He'll hate you because he'll think you are trying to rob him of what
he has honestly bought; but he'll hate you quite as much because
you try to rob the borough. He'd tell you if you asked him that he
doesn't want his seat for nothing, any more than he wants his house
or his carriage-horses for nothing. To him you'll be a mean, low
interloper. But you won't care about that."
"Not in the least, if I can get the seat."
"But I'm afraid you won't. He will be elected. You'll petition. He'll
lose his seat. There will be a commission. And then the borough will
be disfranchised. It's a fine career, but expensive; and then there
is no reward beyond the self-satisfaction arising from a good action.
However, Ruddles will do the best he can for you, and it certainly
is possible that you may creep through." This was very disheartening,
but Barrington Erle assured our hero that such was Mr. Molescroft's
usual way with candidates, and that it really meant little or
nothing. At any rate, Phineas Finn was pledged to stand.
CHAPTER II.
HARRINGTON HALL.
Phineas, on his first arrival in London, found a few of his old
friends, men who were still delayed by business though the Session
was over. He arrived on the 10th of August, which may be considered
as the great day of the annual exodus, and he remembered how he,
too, in former times had gone to Scotland to shoot grouse, and what
he had done there besides shooting. He had been a welcome guest at
Loughlinter, the magnificent seat of Mr. Kennedy, and indeed there
had been that between him and Mr. Kennedy which ought to make him a
welcome guest there still. But of Mr. Kennedy he had heard nothing
directly since he had left London. From Mr. Kennedy's wife, Lady
Laura, who had been his great friend, he had heard occasionally; but
she was separated from her husband, and was living abroad with her
father, the Earl of Brentford. Has it not been written in a former
book how this Lady Laura had been unhappy in her marriage, having
wedded herself to a man whom she had never loved, because he was rich
and powerful, and how this very Phineas had asked her to be his bride
after she had accepted the rich man's hand? Thence had come great
trouble, but nevertheless there had been that between Mr. Kennedy and
our hero which made Phineas feel that he ought still to be welcomed
as a guest should he show himself at the door of Loughlinter Castle.
The idea came upon him simply because he found that almost every man
for whom he inquired had just started, or was just starting, for the
North; and he would have liked to go where others went. He asked a
few questions as to Mr. Kennedy from Barrington Erle and others, who
had known him, and was told that the man now lived quite alone. He
still kept his seat in Parliament, but had hardly appeared during
the last Session, and it was thought that he would not come forward
again. Of his life in the country nothing was known. "No one fishes
his rivers, or shoots his moors, as far as I can learn," said
Barrington Erle. "I suppose he looks after the sheep and says his
prayers, and keeps his money together."
"And there has been no attempt at a reconciliation?" Phineas asked.
"She went abroad to escape his attempts, and remains there in order
that she may be safe. Of all hatreds that the world produces, a
wife's hatred for her husband, when she does hate him, is the
strongest."
In September Finn was back in Ireland, and about the end of that
month he made his first visit to Tankerville. He remained there for
three or four days, and was terribly disgusted while staying at the
"Yellow" inn, to find that the people of the town would treat him as
though he were rolling in wealth. He was soon tired of Tankerville,
and as he could do nothing further, on the spot, till the time for
canvassing should come on, about ten days previous to the election,
he returned to London, somewhat at a loss to know how to bestir
himself. But in London he received a letter from another old friend,
which decided him:--
"My dear Mr. Finn," said the letter,
of course you know that Oswald is now master of the Brake
hounds. Upon my word, I think it is the place in the world
for which he is most fit. He is a great martinet in the
field, and works at it as though it were for his bread. We
have been here looking after the kennels and getting up
the horses since the beginning of August, and have been
cub-hunting ever so long. Oswald wants to know whether you
won't come down to him till the election begins in earnest.
We were so glad to hear that you were going to appear
again. I have always known that it would be so. I have
told Oswald scores of times that I was sure you would
never be happy out of Parliament, and that your real
home must be somewhere near the Treasury Chambers. You
can't alter a man's nature. Oswald was born to be a master
of hounds, and you were born to be a Secretary of State.
He works the hardest and gets the least pay for it; but
then, as he says, he does not run so great a risk of being
turned out.
We haven't much of a house, but we have plenty of room for
you. As for the house, it was a matter of course, whether
good or bad. It goes with the kennels, and I should as
little think of having a choice as though I were one of
the horses. We have very good stables, and such a stud!
I can't tell you how many there are. In October it seems
as though their name were legion. In March there is
never anything for any body to ride on. I generally find
then that mine are taken for the whips. Do come and take
advantage of the flush. I can't tell you how glad we shall
be to see you. Oswald ought to have written himself, but
he says--; I won't tell you what he says. We shall take no
refusal. You can have nothing to do before you are wanted
at Tankerville.
I was so sorry to hear of your great loss. I hardly know
whether to mention it or to be silent in writing. If you
were here of course I should speak of her. And I would
rather renew your grief for a time than allow you to think
that I am indifferent. Pray come to us.
Yours ever most sincerely,
VIOLET CHILTERN.
Harrington Hall, Wednesday.
Phineas Finn at once made up his mind that he would go to Harrington
Hall. There was the prospect in this of an immediate return to some
of the most charming pleasures of the old life, which was very
grateful to him. It pleased him much that he should have been so
thought of by this lady,--that she should have sought him out
at once, at the moment of his reappearance. That she would have
remembered him, he was quite sure, and that her husband, Lord
Chiltern, should remember him also, was beyond a doubt. There had
been passages in their joint lives which people cannot forget. But
it might so well have been the case that they should not have cared
to renew their acquaintance with him. As it was, they must have
made close inquiry, and had sought him at the first day of his
reappearance. The letter had reached him through the hands of
Barrington Erle, who was a cousin of Lord Chiltern, and was at once
answered as follows:--
Fowler's Hotel, Jermyn Street,
October 1st.
MY DEAR LADY CHILTERN,
I cannot tell you how much pleasure the very sight of
your handwriting gave me. Yes, here I am again, trying my
hand at the old game. They say that you can never cure a
gambler or a politician; and, though I had very much to
make me happy till that great blow came upon me, I believe
that it is so. I am uneasy till I can see once more the
Speaker's wig, and hear bitter things said of this "right
honourable gentleman," and of that noble friend. I want to
be once more in the midst of it; and as I have been left
singularly desolate in the world, without a tie by which
I am bound to aught but an honourable mode of living, I
have determined to run the risk, and have thrown up the
place which I held under Government. I am to stand for
Tankerville, as you have heard, and I am told by those to
whose tender mercies I have been confided by B. E. that I
have not a chance of success.
Your invitation is so tempting that I cannot refuse it.
As you say, I have nothing to do till the play begins.
I have issued my address, and must leave my name and my
fame to be discussed by the Tankervillians till I make
my appearance among them on the 10th of this month. Of
course, I had heard that Chiltern has the Brake, and I
have heard also that he is doing it uncommonly well. Tell
him that I have hardly seen a hound since the memorable
day on which I pulled him out from under his horse in the
brook at Wissindine. I don't know whether I can ride a
yard now. I will get to you on the 4th, and will remain if
you will keep me till the 9th. If Chiltern can put me up
on anything a little quieter than Bonebreaker, I'll go out
steadily, and see how he does his cubbing. I may, perhaps,
be justified in opining that Bonebreaker has before this
left the establishment. If so I may, perhaps, find myself
up to a little very light work.
Remember me very kindly to him. Does he make a good nurse
with the baby?
Yours, always faithfully,
PHINEAS FINN.
I cannot tell you with what pleasure I look forward to
seeing you both again.
The next few days went very heavily with him. There had, indeed,
been no real reason why he should not have gone to Harrington Hall
at once, except that he did not wish to seem to be utterly homeless.
And yet were he there, with his old friends, he would not scruple
for a moment in owning that such was the case. He had fixed his day,
however, and did remain in London till the 4th. Barrington Erle and
Mr. Ratler he saw occasionally, for they were kept in town on the
affairs of the election. The one was generally full of hope; but the
other was no better than a Job's comforter. "I wouldn't advise you to
expect too much at Tankerville, you know," said Mr. Ratler.
"By no means," said Phineas, who had always disliked Ratler, and had
known himself to be disliked in return. "I expect nothing."
"Browborough understands such a place as Tankerville so well! He has
been at it all his life. Money is no object to him, and he doesn't
care a straw what anybody says of him. I don't think it's possible to
unseat him."
"We'll try at least," said Phineas, upon whom, however, such remarks
as these cast a gloom which he could not succeed in shaking off,
though he could summon vigour sufficient to save him from showing
the gloom. He knew very well that comfortable words would be spoken
to him at Harrington Hall, and that then the gloom would go. The
comforting words of his friends would mean quite as little as the
discourtesies of Mr. Ratler. He understood that thoroughly, and felt
that he ought to hold a stronger control over his own impulses. He
must take the thing as it would come, and neither the flatterings of
friends nor the threatenings of enemies could alter it; but he knew
his own weakness, and confessed to himself that another week of life
by himself at Fowler's Hotel, refreshed by occasional interviews with
Mr. Ratler, would make him altogether unfit for the coming contest at
Tankerville.
He reached Harrington Hall in the afternoon about four, and found
Lady Chiltern alone. As soon as he saw her he told himself that she
was not in the least altered since he had last been with her, and yet
during the period she had undergone that great change which turns
a girl into a mother. She had the baby with her when he came into
the room, and at once greeted him as an old friend,--as a loved and
loving friend who was to be made free at once to all the inmost
privileges of real friendship, which are given to and are desired by
so few. "Yes, here we are again," said Lady Chiltern, "settled, as
far as I suppose we ever shall be settled, for ever so many years to
come. The place belongs to old Lord Gunthorpe, I fancy, but really I
hardly know. I do know that we should give it up at once if we gave
up the hounds, and that we can't be turned out as long as we have
them. Doesn't it seem odd to have to depend on a lot of yelping
dogs?"
[Illustration: Lady Chiltern and her baby.]
"Only that the yelping dogs depend on you."
"It's a kind of give and take, I suppose, like other things in the
world. Of course, he's a beautiful baby. I had him in just that
you might see him. I show Baby, and Oswald shows the hounds. We've
nothing else to interest anybody. But nurse shall take him now.
Come out and have a turn in the shrubbery before Oswald comes back.
They're gone to-day as far as Trumpeton Wood, out of which no fox was
ever known to break, and they won't be home till six."
"Who are 'they'?" asked Phineas, as he took his hat.
"The 'they' is only Adelaide Palliser. I don't think you ever knew
her?"
"Never. Is she anything to the other Pallisers?"
"She is everything to them all; niece and grand-niece, and first
cousin and grand-daughter. Her father was the fourth brother, and as
she was one of six her share of the family wealth is small. Those
Pallisers are very peculiar, and I doubt whether she ever saw the
old duke. She has no father or mother, and lives when she is at home
with a married sister, about seventy years older than herself, Mrs.
Attenbury."
"I remember Mrs. Attenbury."
"Of course you do. Who does not? Adelaide was a child then, I
suppose. Though I don't know why she should have been, as she calls
herself one-and-twenty now. You'll think her pretty. I don't. But
she is my great new friend, and I like her immensely. She rides to
hounds, and talks Italian, and writes for the _Times_."
"Writes for the _Times_!"
"I won't swear that she does, but she could. There's only one other
thing about her. She's engaged to be married."
"To whom?"
"I don't know that I shall answer that question, and indeed I'm not
sure that she is engaged. But there's a man dying for her."
"You must know, if she's your friend."
"Of course I know; but there are ever so many ins and outs, and I
ought not to have said a word about it. I shouldn't have done so to
any one but you. And now we'll go in and have some tea, and go to
bed."
"Go to bed!"
"We always go to bed here before dinner on hunting days. When the
cubbing began Oswald used to be up at three."
"He doesn't get up at three now."
"Nevertheless we go to bed. You needn't if you don't like, and I'll
stay with you if you choose till you dress for dinner. I did know
so well that you'd come back to London, Mr. Finn. You are not a bit
altered."
"I feel to be changed in everything."
"Why should you be altered? It's only two years. I am altered because
of Baby. That does change a woman. Of course I'm thinking always of
what he will do in the world; whether he'll be a master of hounds
or a Cabinet Minister or a great farmer;--or perhaps a miserable
spendthrift, who will let everything that his grandfathers and
grandmothers have done for him go to the dogs."
"Why do you think of anything so wretched, Lady Chiltern?"
"Who can help thinking? Men do do so. It seems to me that that is the
line of most young men who come to their property early. Why should I
dare to think that my boy should be better than others? But I do; and
I fancy that he will be a great statesman. After all, Mr. Finn, that
is the best thing that a man can be, unless it is given him to be a
saint and a martyr and all that kind of thing,--which is not just
what a mother looks for."
"That would only be better than the spendthrift and gambler."
"Hardly better you'll say, perhaps. How odd that is! We all profess
to believe when we're told that this world should be used merely as
a preparation for the next; and yet there is something so cold and
comfortless in the theory that we do not relish the prospect even for
our children. I fancy your people have more real belief in it than
ours."
Now Phineas Finn was a Roman Catholic. But the discussion was stopped
by the noise of an arrival in the hall.
"There they are," said Lady Chiltern; "Oswald never comes in without
a sound of trumpets to make him audible throughout the house." Then
she went to meet her husband, and Phineas followed her out of the
drawing-room.
Lord Chiltern was as glad to see him as she had been, and in a very
few minutes he found himself quite at home. In the hall he was
introduced to Miss Palliser, but he was hardly able to see her as she
stood there a moment in her hat and habit. There was ever so much
said about the day's work. The earths had not been properly stopped,
and Lord Chiltern had been very angry, and the owner of Trumpeton
Wood, who was a great duke, had been much abused, and things had not
gone altogether straight.
"Lord Chiltern was furious," said Miss Palliser, laughing, "and
therefore, of course, I became furious too, and swore that it was
an awful shame. Then they all swore that it was an awful shame, and
everybody was furious. And you might hear one man saying to another
all day long, 'By George, this is too bad.' But I never could quite
make out what was amiss, and I'm sure the men didn't know."
"What was it, Oswald?"
"Never mind now. One doesn't go to Trumpeton Wood expecting to be
happy there. I've half a mind to swear I'll never draw it again."
"I've been asking him what was the matter all the way home," said
Miss Palliser, "but I don't think he knows himself."
"Come upstairs, Phineas, and I'll show you your room," said Lord
Chiltern. "It's not quite as comfortable as the old 'Bull,' but we
make it do."
Phineas, when he was alone, could not help standing for awhile with
his back to the fire thinking of it all. He did already feel himself
to be at home in that house, and his doing so was a contradiction to
all the wisdom which he had been endeavouring to teach himself for
the last two years. He had told himself over and over again that
that life which he had lived in London had been, if not a dream, at
any rate not more significant than a parenthesis in his days, which,
as of course it had no bearing on those which had gone before, so
neither would it influence those which were to follow. The dear
friends of that period of feverish success would for the future
be to him as--nothing. That was the lesson of wisdom which he had
endeavoured to teach himself, and the facts of the last two years had
seemed to show that the lesson was a true lesson. He had disappeared
from among his former companions, and had heard almost nothing from
them. From neither Lord Chiltern or his wife had he received any
tidings. He had expected to receive none,--had known that in the
common course of things none was to be expected. There were many
others with whom he had been intimate--Barrington Erle, Laurence
Fitzgibbon, Mr. Monk, a politician who had been in the Cabinet, and
in consequence of whose political teaching he, Phineas Finn, had
banished himself from the political world;--from none of these had he
received a line till there came that letter summoning him back to the
battle. There had never been a time during his late life in Dublin at
which he had complained to himself that on this account his former
friends had forgotten him. If they had not written to him, neither
had he written to them. But on his first arrival in England he had,
in the sadness of his solitude, told himself that he was forgotten.
There would be no return, so he feared, of those pleasant intimacies
which he now remembered so well, and which, as he remembered them,
were so much more replete with unalloyed delights than they had ever
been in their existing realities. And yet here he was, a welcome
guest in Lord Chiltern's house, a welcome guest in Lady Chiltern's
drawing-room, and quite as much at home with them as ever he had been
in the old days.
Who is there that can write letters to all his friends, or would not
find it dreary work to do so even in regard to those whom he really
loves? When there is something palpable to be said, what a blessing
is the penny post! To one's wife, to one's child, one's mistress,
one's steward if there be a steward; one's gamekeeper, if there be
shooting forward; one's groom, if there be hunting; one's publisher,
if there be a volume ready or money needed; or one's tailor
occasionally, if a coat be required, a man is able to write. But
what has a man to say to his friend,--or, for that matter, what has
a woman? A Horace Walpole may write to a Mr. Mann about all things
under the sun, London gossip or transcendental philosophy, and if
the Horace Walpole of the occasion can write well and will labour
diligently at that vocation, his letters may be worth reading by
his Mr. Mann, and by others; but, for the maintenance of love and
friendship, continued correspondence between distant friends is
naught. Distance in time and place, but especially in time, will
diminish friendship. It is a rule of nature that it should be so,
and thus the friendships which a man most fosters are those which he
can best enjoy. If your friend leave you, and seek a residence in
Patagonia, make a niche for him in your memory, and keep him there
as warm as you may. Perchance he may return from Patagonia and the
old joys may be repeated. But never think that those joys can be
maintained by the assistance of ocean postage, let it be at never
so cheap a rate. Phineas Finn had not thought this matter out very
carefully, and now, after two years of absence, he was surprised to
find that he was still had in remembrance by those who had never
troubled themselves to write to him a line during his absence.
When he went down into the drawing-room he was surprised to find
another old friend sitting there alone. "Mr. Finn," said the old
lady, "I hope I see you quite well. I am glad to meet you again. You
find my niece much changed, I dare say?"
"Not in the least, Lady Baldock," said Phineas, seizing the proffered
hand of the dowager. In that hour of conversation, which they had had
together, Lady Chiltern had said not a word to Phineas of her aunt,
and now he felt himself to be almost discomposed by the meeting. "Is
your daughter here, Lady Baldock?"
Lady Baldock shook her head solemnly and sadly. "Do not speak of her,
Mr. Finn. It is too sad! We never mention her name now." Phineas
looked as sad as he knew how to look, but he said nothing. The
lamentation of the mother did not seem to imply that the daughter was
dead; and, from his remembrance of Augusta Boreham, he would have
thought her to be the last woman in the world to run away with the
coachman. At the moment there did not seem to be any other sufficient
cause for so melancholy a wagging of that venerable head. He had been
told to say nothing, and he could ask no questions; but Lady Baldock
did not choose that he should be left to imagine things more terrible
than the truth. "She is lost to us for ever, Mr. Finn."
"How very sad."
"Sad, indeed! We don't know how she took it."
"Took what, Lady Baldock?"
"I am sure it was nothing that she ever saw at home. If there is
a thing I'm true to, it is the Protestant Established Church of
England. Some nasty, low, lying, wheedling priest got hold of her,
and now she's a nun, and calls herself--Sister Veronica John!" Lady
Baldock threw great strength and unction into her description of the
priest; but as soon as she had told her story a sudden thought struck
her. "Oh, laws! I quite forgot. I beg your pardon, Mr. Finn; but
you're one of them!"
"Not a nun, Lady Baldock." At that moment the door was opened, and
Lord Chiltern came in, to the great relief of his wife's aunt.
CHAPTER III.
GERARD MAULE.
"Why didn't you tell me?" said Phineas that night after Lady Baldock
was gone to bed. The two men had taken off their dress coats, and had
put on smoking caps,--Lord Chiltern, indeed, having clothed himself
in a wonderful Chinese dressing-gown, and they were sitting round the
fire in the smoking-room; but though they were thus employed and thus
dressed the two younger ladies were still with them.
"How could I tell you everything in two minutes?" said Lady Chiltern.
"I'd have given a guinea to have heard her," said Lord Chiltern,
getting up and rubbing his hands as he walked about the room. "Can't
you fancy all that she'd say, and then her horror when she'd remember
that Phineas was a Papist himself?"
"But what made Miss Boreham turn nun?"
"I fancy she found the penances lighter than they were at home," said
the lord. "They couldn't well be heavier."
"Dear old aunt!"
"Does she never go to see Sister Veronica?" asked Miss Palliser.
"She has been once," said Lady Chiltern.
"And fumigated herself first so as to escape infection," said the
husband. "You should hear Gerard Maule imitate her when she talks
about the filthy priest."
"And who is Gerard Maule?" Then Lady Chiltern looked at her friend,
and Phineas was almost sure that Gerard Maule was the man who was
dying for Adelaide Palliser.
"He's a great ally of mine," said Lady Chiltern.
"He's a young fellow who thinks he can ride to hounds," said Lord
Chiltern, "and who very often does succeed in riding over them."
"That's not fair, Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser.
"Just my idea of it," replied the Master. "I don't think it's at all
fair. Because a man has plenty of horses, and nothing else to do, and
rides twelve stone, and doesn't care how he's sworn at, he's always
to be over the scent, and spoil every one's sport. I don't call it at
all fair."
"He's a very nice fellow, and a great friend of Oswald's. He is to be
here to-morrow, and you'll like him very much. Won't he, Adelaide?"
"I don't know Mr. Finn's tastes quite so well as you do, Violet. But
Mr. Maule is so harmless that no one can dislike him very much."
"As for being harmless, I'm not so sure," said Lady Chiltern. After
that they all went to bed.
Phineas remained at Harrington Hall till the ninth, on which day he
went to London so that he might be at Tankerville on the tenth. He
rode Lord Chiltern's horses, and took an interest in the hounds, and
nursed the baby. "Now tell me what you think of Gerard Maule," Lady
Chiltern asked him, the day before he started.
"I presume that he is the young man that is dying for Miss Palliser."
"You may answer my question, Mr. Finn, without making any such
suggestion."
"Not discreetly. Of course if he is to be made happy, I am bound at
the present moment to say all good things of him. At such a crisis it
would be wicked to tinge Miss Palliser's hopes with any hue less warm
than rose colour."
"Do you suppose that I tell everything that is said to me?"
"Not at all; but opinions do ooze out. I take him to be a good sort
of a fellow; but why doesn't he talk a bit more?"
"That's just it."
"And why does he pretend to do nothing? When he's out he rides
hard; but at other times there's a ha-ha, lack a-daisical air about
him which I hate. Why men assume it I never could understand. It
can recommend them to nobody. A man can't suppose that he'll gain
anything by pretending that he never reads, and never thinks, and
never does anything, and never speaks, and doesn't care what he has
for dinner, and, upon the whole, would just as soon lie in bed all
day as get up. It isn't that he is really idle. He rides and eats,
and does get up, and I daresay talks and thinks. It's simply a poor
affectation."
"That's your rose colour, is it?"
"You've promised secrecy, Lady Chiltern. I suppose he's well off?"
"He is an eldest son. The property is not large, and I'm afraid
there's something wrong about it."
"He has no profession?"
"None at all. He has an allowance of £800 a year, which in some sort
of fashion is independent of his father. He has nothing on earth to
do. Adelaide's whole fortune is four thousand pounds. If they were to
marry what would become of them?"
"That wouldn't be enough to live on?"
"It ought to be enough,--as he must, I suppose, have the property
some day,--if only he had something to do. What sort of a life would
he lead?"
"I suppose he couldn't become a Master of Hounds?"
"That is ill-natured, Mr. Finn."
"I did not mean it so. I did not indeed. You must know that I did
not."
"Of course Oswald had nothing to do, and, of course, there was a time
when I wished that he should take to Parliament. No one knew all that
better than you did. But he was very different from Mr. Maule."
"Very different, indeed."
"Oswald is a man full of energy, and with no touch of that
affectation which you described. As it is, he does work hard. No
man works harder. The learned people say that you should produce
something, and I don't suppose that he produces much. But somebody
must keep hounds, and nobody could do it better than he does."
"You don't think that I meant to blame him?"
"I hope not."
"Are he and his father on good terms now?"
"Oh, yes. His father wishes him to go to Saulsby, but he won't do
that. He hates Saulsby."
Saulsby was the country seat of the Earl of Brentford, the name of
the property which must some day belong to this Lord Chiltern, and
Phineas, as he heard this, remembered former days in which he had
ridden about Saulsby Woods, and had thought them to be anything but
hateful. "Is Saulsby shut up?" he asked.
"Altogether, and so is the house in Portman Square. There never was
anything more sad or desolate. You would find him altered, Mr. Finn.
He is quite an old man now. He was here in the spring, for a week or
two;--in England, that is; but he stayed at an hotel in London. He
and Laura live at Dresden now, and a very sad time they must have."
"Does she write?"
"Yes; and keeps up all her interest about politics. I have already
told her that you are to stand for Tankerville. No one,--no other
human being in the world will be so interested for you as she is.
If any friend ever felt an interest almost selfish for a friend's
welfare, she will feel such an interest for you. If you were to
succeed it would give her a hope in life." Phineas sat silent,
drinking in the words that were said to him. Though they were true,
or at least meant to be true, they were full of flattery. Why should
this woman of whom they were speaking love him so dearly? She was
nothing to him. She was highly born, greatly gifted, wealthy, and a
married woman, whose character, as he well knew, was beyond the taint
of suspicion, though she had been driven by the hard sullenness of
her husband to refuse to live under his roof. Phineas Finn and Lady
Laura Kennedy had not seen each other for two years, and when they
had parted, though they had lived as friends, there had been no signs
of still living friendship. True, indeed, she had written to him,
but her letters had been short and cold, merely detailing certain
circumstances of her outward life. Now he was told by this woman's
dearest friend that his welfare was closer to her heart than any
other interest!
"I daresay you often think of her?" said Lady Chiltern.
"Indeed, I do."
"What virtues she used to ascribe to you! What sins she forgave you!
How hard she fought for you! Now, though she can fight no more, she
does not think of it all the less."
"Poor Lady Laura!"
"Poor Laura, indeed! When one sees such shipwreck it makes a woman
doubt whether she ought to marry at all."
"And yet he was a good man. She always said so."
"Men are so seldom really good. They are so little sympathetic. What
man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men
expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they
are married, and girls think that they can do so. Look at this
Mr. Maule, who is really over head and ears in love with Adelaide
Palliser. She is full of hope and energy. He has none. And yet he has
the effrontery to suppose that she will adapt herself to his way of
living if he marries her."
"Then they are to be married?"
"I suppose it will come to that. It always does if the man is
in earnest. Girls will accept men simply because they think it
ill-natured to return the compliment of an offer with a hearty 'No.'"
"I suppose she likes him?"
"Of course she does. A girl almost always likes a man who is in love
with her,--unless indeed she positively dislikes him. But why should
she like him? He is good-looking, is a gentleman, and not a fool.
Is that enough to make such a girl as Adelaide Palliser think a man
divine?"
"Is nobody to be accepted who is not credited with divinity?"
"The man should be a demigod, at least in respect to some part of his
character. I can find nothing even demi-divine about Mr. Maule."
"That's because you are not in love with him, Lady Chiltern."
Six or seven very pleasant days Phineas Finn spent at Harrington
Hall, and then he started alone, and very lonely, for Tankerville.
But he admitted to himself that the pleasure which he had received
during his visit was quite sufficient to qualify him in running
any risk in an attempt to return to the kind of life which he had
formerly led. But if he should fail at Tankerville what would become
of him then?
CHAPTER IV.
TANKERVILLE.
The great Mr. Molescroft himself came over to Tankerville for the
purpose of introducing our hero to the electors and to Mr. Ruddles,
the local Liberal agent, who was to be employed. They met at the
Lambton Arms, and there Phineas established himself, knowing well
that he had before him ten days of unmitigated vexation and misery.
Tankerville was a dirty, prosperous, ungainly town, which seemed to
exude coal-dust or coal-mud at every pore. It was so well recognised
as being dirty that people did not expect to meet each other with
clean hands and faces. Linen was never white at Tankerville, and
even ladies who sat in drawing-rooms were accustomed to the feel and
taste and appearance of soot in all their daintiest recesses. We hear
that at Oil City the flavour of petroleum is hardly considered to be
disagreeable, and so it was with the flavour of coal at Tankerville.
And we know that at Oil City the flavour of petroleum must not be
openly declared to be objectionable, and so it was with coal at
Tankerville. At Tankerville coal was much loved, and was not thought
to be dirty. Mr. Ruddles was very much begrimed himself, and some
of the leading Liberal electors, upon whom Phineas Finn had already
called, seemed to be saturated with the product of the district. It
would not, however, in any event be his duty to live at Tankerville,
and he had believed from the first moment of his entrance into the
town that he would soon depart from it, and know it no more. He felt
that the chance of his being elected was quite a forlorn hope, and
could hardly understand why he had allowed himself to be embarrassed
by so very unprofitable a speculation.
Phineas Finn had thrice before this been chosen to sit in
Parliament--twice for the Irish borough of Loughshane, and once for
the English borough of Loughton; but he had been so happy as hitherto
to have known nothing of the miseries and occasional hopelessness of
a contested election. At Loughton he had come forward as the nominee
of the Earl of Brentford, and had been returned without any chance of
failure by that nobleman's influence. At Loughshane things had nearly
been as pleasant with him. He had almost been taught to think that
nothing could be easier than getting into Parliament if only a man
could live when he was there. But Loughton and Loughshane were gone,
with so many other comfortable things of old days, and now he found
himself relegated to a borough to which, as it seemed to him, he was
sent to fight, not that he might win, but because it was necessary
to his party that the seat should not be allowed to be lost without
fighting. He had had the pleasant things of parliamentary adventure,
and now must undergo those which were unpleasant. No doubt he could
have refused, but he had listened to the tempter, and could not now
go back, though Mr. Ruddles was hardly more encouraging than Mr.
Molescroft.
"Browborough has been at work for the last three days," said Mr.
Ruddles, in a tone of reproach. Mr. Ruddles had always thought that
no amount of work could be too heavy for his candidates.
"Will that make much difference?" asked Mr. Molescroft.
"Well, it does. Of course, he has been among the colliers,--when we
ought to have been before him."
"I came when I was told," said Phineas.
"I'd have telegraphed to you if I'd known where you were. But there's
no help for spilt milk. We must get to work now,--that's all. I
suppose you're for disestablishing the Church?"
"Not particularly," said Phineas, who felt that with him, as a Roman
Catholic, this was a delicate subject.
"We needn't go into that, need we?" said Mr. Molescroft, who, though
a Liberal, was a good Churchman.
Mr. Ruddles was a Dissenter, but the very strong opinion which Mr.
Ruddles now expressed as to the necessity that the new candidate
should take up the Church question did not spring at all from his own
religious convictions. His present duty called upon him to have a
Liberal candidate if possible returned for the borough with which he
was connected, and not to disseminate the doctrines of his own sect.
Nevertheless, his opinion was very strong. "I think we must, Mr.
Molescroft," said he; "I'm sure we must. Browborough has taken up
the other side. He went to church last Sunday with the Mayor and two
of the Aldermen, and I'm told he said all the responses louder than
anybody else. He dined with the Vicar of Trinity on Monday. He has
been very loud in denouncing Mr. Finn as a Roman Catholic, and has
declared that everything will be up with the State if Tankerville
returns a friend and supporter of the Pope. You'll find that the
Church will be the cry here this election. You can't get anything by
supporting it, but you may make a strong party by pledging yourself
to disendowment."
"Wouldn't local taxation do?" asked Mr. Molescroft, who indeed
preferred almost any other reform to disendowment.
"I have made up my mind that we must have some check on municipal
expenditure," said Phineas.
"It won't do--not alone. If I understand the borough, the feeling at
this election will altogether be about the Church. You see, Mr. Finn,
your being a Roman Catholic gives them a handle, and they're already
beginning to use it. They don't like Roman Catholics here; but if
you can manage to give it a sort of Liberal turn,--as many of your
constituents used to do, you know,--as though you disliked Church and
State rather than cared for the Pope, may be it might act on our side
rather than on theirs. Mr. Molescroft understands it all."
"Oh, yes; I understand."
Mr. Ruddles said a great deal more to the same effect, and though Mr.
Molescroft did not express any acquiescence in these views, neither
did he dissent. The candidate said but little at this interview, but
turned the matter over in his mind. A seat in Parliament would be
but a barren honour, and he could not afford to offer his services
for barren honour. Honest political work he was anxious to do, but
for what work he did he desired to be paid. The party to which he
belonged had, as he knew, endeavoured to avoid the subject of the
disendowment of the Church of England. It is the necessary nature
of a political party in this country to avoid, as long as it can be
avoided, the consideration of any question which involves a great
change. There is a consciousness on the minds of leading politicians
that the pressure from behind, forcing upon them great measures,
drives them almost quicker than they can go, so that it becomes a
necessity with them to resist rather than to aid the pressure which
will certainly be at last effective by its own strength. The best
carriage horses are those which can most steadily hold back against
the coach as it trundles down the hill. All this Phineas knew, and
was of opinion that the Barrington Erles and Ratlers of his party
would not thank him for ventilating a measure which, however certain
might be its coming, might well be postponed for a few years. Once
already in his career he had chosen to be in advance of his party,
and the consequences had been disastrous to him. On that occasion his
feelings had been strong in regard to the measure upon which he broke
away from his party; but, when he first thought of it, he did not
care much about Church disendowment.
But he found that he must needs go as he was driven or else depart
out of the place. He wrote a line to his friend Erle, not to ask
advice, but to explain the circumstances. "My only possible chance
of success will lie in attacking the Church endowments. Of course I
think they are bad, and of course I think that they must go. But I
have never cared for the matter, and would have been very willing to
leave it among those things which will arrange themselves. But I have
no choice here." And so he prepared himself to run his race on the
course arranged for him by Mr. Ruddles. Mr. Molescroft, whose hours
were precious, soon took his leave, and Phineas Finn was placarded
about the town as the sworn foe to all Church endowments.
In the course of his canvass, and the commotions consequent upon
it, he found that Mr. Ruddles was right. No other subject seemed at
the moment to have any attraction in Tankerville. Mr. Browborough,
whose life had not been passed in any strict obedience to the Ten
Commandments, and whose religious observances had not hitherto
interfered with either the pleasures or the duties of his life,
repeated at every meeting which he attended, and almost to every
elector whom he canvassed, the great Shibboleth which he had now
adopted--"The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her
people." He was not an orator. Indeed, it might be hard to find a
man, who had for years been conversant with public life, less able
to string a few words together for immediate use. Nor could he learn
half-a-dozen sentences by rote. But he could stand up with unabashed
brow and repeat with enduring audacity the same words a dozen times
over--"The prosperity of England depends on the Church of her
people." Had he been asked whether the prosperity which he promised
was temporal or spiritual in its nature, not only could he not have
answered, but he would not in the least have understood the question.
But the words as they came from his mouth had a weight which seemed
to ensure their truth, and many men in Tankerville thought that Mr.
Browborough was eloquent.
Phineas, on the other hand, made two or three great speeches every
evening, and astonished even Mr. Ruddles by his oratory. He had
accepted Mr. Ruddles's proposition with but lukewarm acquiescence,
but in the handling of the matter he became zealous, fiery,
and enthusiastic. He explained to his hearers with gracious
acknowledgment that Church endowments had undoubtedly been most
beneficent in past times. He spoke in the interests of no special
creed. Whether in the so-called Popish days of Henry VIII and his
ancestors, or in the so-called Protestant days that had followed,
the state of society had required that spiritual teaching should be
supplied from funds fixed and devoted to the purpose. The increasing
intelligence and population of the country made this no longer
desirable,--or, if desirable, no longer possible. Could these
endowments be increased to meet the needs of the increasing millions?
Was it not the fact that even among members of the Church of England
they were altogether inefficient to supply the wants of our great
towns? Did the people of Tankerville believe that the clergymen of
London, of Liverpool, and of Manchester were paid by endowments? The
arguments which had been efficacious in Ireland must be efficacious
in England. He said this without reference to one creed or to
another. He did believe in religious teaching. He had not a word to
say against a Protestant Episcopal Church. But he thought, nay he
was sure, that Church and State, as combined institutions, could no
longer prevail in this country. If the people of Tankerville would
return him to Parliament it should be his first object to put an end
to this anomaly.
The Browboroughites were considerably astonished by his success. The
colliers on this occasion did not seem to regard the clamour that
was raised against Irish Papists. Much dirt was thrown and some
heads were broken; but Phineas persevered. Mr. Ruddles was lost in
admiration. They had never before had at Tankerville a man who could
talk so well. Mr. Browborough without ceasing repeated his well-worn
assurance, and it was received with the loudest exclamations of
delight by his own party. The clergymen of the town and neighbourhood
crowded round him and pursued him, and almost seemed to believe in
him. They were at any rate fighting their battle as best they knew
how to fight it. But the great body of the colliers listened to
Phineas, and every collier was now a voter. Then Mr. Ruddles, who
had many eyes, began to perceive that the old game was to be played.
"There'll be money going to-morrow after all," he whispered to Finn
the evening before the election.
"I suppose you expected that."
"I wasn't sure. They began by thinking they could do without it. They
don't want to sacrifice the borough."
"Nor do I, Mr. Ruddles."
"But they'll sooner do that than lose the seat. A couple of dozen of
men out of the Fallgate would make us safe." Mr. Ruddles smiled as he
said this.
And Phineas smiled as he answered, "If any good can be done by
talking to the men at the Fallgate, I'll talk to them by the hour
together."
"We've about done all that," said Mr. Ruddles.
Then came the voting. Up to two o'clock the polling was so equal that
the numbers at Mr. Browborough's committee room were always given in
his favour, and those at the Liberal room in favour of Phineas Finn.
At three o'clock Phineas was acknowledged to be ten ahead. He himself
was surprised at his own success, and declared to himself that his
old luck had not deserted him.
"They're giving £2 10_s._ a vote at the Fallgate this minute," said
Ruddles to him at a quarter-past three.
"We shall have to prove it."
"We can do that, I think," said Ruddles.
At four o'clock, when the poll was over, Browborough was declared
to have won on the post by seven votes. He was that same evening
declared by the Mayor to have been elected sitting member for the
borough, and he again assured the people in his speech that the
prosperity of England depends on the Church of her people.
"We shall carry the seat on a scrutiny as sure as eggs," said Mr.
Ruddles, who had been quite won by the gallant way in which Phineas
had fought his battle.
CHAPTER V.
MR. DAUBENY'S GREAT MOVE.
The whole Liberal party was taken very much by surprise at the course
which the election ran. Or perhaps it might be more proper to say
that the parliamentary leaders of the party were surprised. It had
not been recognised by them as necessary that the great question of
Church and State should be generally discussed on this occasion. It
was a matter of course that it should be discussed at some places,
and by some men. Eager Dissenters would, of course, take advantage
of the opportunity to press their views, and no doubt the entire
abolition of the Irish Church as a State establishment had taught
Liberals to think and Conservatives to fear that the question would
force itself forward at no very distant date. But it had not been
expected to do so now. The general incompetence of a Ministry who
could not command a majority on any measure was intended to be the
strong point of the Liberal party, not only at the election, but at
the meeting of Parliament. The Church question, which was necessarily
felt by all statesmen to be of such magnitude as to dwarf every
other, was not wanted as yet. It might remain in the background as
the future standing-point for some great political struggle, in which
it would be again necessary that every Liberal should fight, as
though for life, with his teeth and nails. Men who ten years since
regarded almost with abhorrence, and certainly with distrust, the
idea of disruption between Church and State in England, were no
doubt learning to perceive that such disruption must come, and were
reconciling themselves to it after that slow, silent, inargumentative
fashion in which convictions force themselves among us. And from
reconciliation to the idea some were advancing to enthusiasm on its
behalf. "It is only a question of time," was now said by many who
hardly remembered how devoted they had been to the Established Church
of England a dozen years ago. But the fruit was not yet ripe, and the
leaders of the Liberal party by no means desired that it should be
plucked. They were, therefore, surprised, and but little pleased,
when they found that the question was more discussed than any other
on the hustings of enthusiastically political boroughs.
Barrington Erle was angry when he received the letter of Phineas
Finn. He was at that moment staying with the Duke of St. Bungay,
who was regarded by many as the only possible leader of the Liberal
party, should Mr. Gresham for any reason fail them. Indeed the old
Whigs, of whom Barrington Erle considered himself to be one, would
have much preferred the Duke to Mr. Gresham, had it been possible
to set Mr. Gresham aside. But Mr. Gresham was too strong to be set
aside; and Erle and the Duke, with all their brethren, were minded to
be thoroughly loyal to their leader. He was their leader, and not to
be loyal was, in their minds, treachery. But occasionally they feared
that the man would carry them whither they did not desire to go. In
the meantime heavy things were spoken of our poor friend, Finn.
"After all, that man is an ass," said Erle.
"If so, I believe you are altogether responsible for him," said the
Duke.
"Well, yes, in a measure; but not altogether. That, however, is a
long story. He has many good gifts. He is clever, good-tempered, and
one of the pleasantest fellows that ever lived. The women all like
him."
"So the Duchess tells me."
"But he is not what I call loyal. He cannot keep himself from running
after strange gods. What need had he to take up the Church question
at Tankerville? The truth is, Duke, the thing is going to pieces.
We get men into the House now who are clever, and all that sort
of thing, and who force their way up, but who can't be made to
understand that everybody should not want to be Prime Minister." The
Duke, who was now a Nestor among politicians, though very green in
his age, smiled as he heard remarks which had been familiar to him
for the last forty years. He, too, liked his party, and was fond of
loyal men; but he had learned at last that all loyalty must be built
on a basis of self-advantage. Patriotism may exist without it, but
that which Erle called loyalty in politics was simply devotion to the
side which a man conceives to be his side, and which he cannot leave
without danger to himself.
But if discontent was felt at the eagerness with which this subject
was taken up at certain boroughs, and was adopted by men whose votes
and general support would be essentially necessary to the would-be
coming Liberal Government, absolute dismay was occasioned by a speech
that was made at a certain county election. Mr. Daubeny had for many
years been member for East Barsetshire, and was as sure of his seat
as the Queen of her throne. No one would think of contesting Mr.
Daubeny's right to sit for East Barsetshire, and no doubt he might
have been returned without showing himself to the electors. But he
did show himself to the electors; and, as a matter of course, made
a speech on the occasion. It so happened that the day fixed for the
election in this division of the county was quite at the close of
this period of political excitement. When Mr. Daubeny addressed his
friends in East Barsetshire the returns throughout the kingdom were
nearly complete. No attention had been paid to this fact during the
elections, but it was afterwards asserted that the arrangement had
been made with a political purpose, and with a purpose which was
politically dishonest. Mr. Daubeny, so said the angry Liberals,
had not chosen to address his constituents till his speech at the
hustings could have no effect on other counties. Otherwise,--so said
the Liberals,--the whole Conservative party would have been called
upon to disavow at the hustings the conclusion to which Mr. Daubeny
hinted in East Barsetshire that he had arrived. The East Barsetshire
men themselves,--so said the Liberals,--had been too crass to catch
the meaning hidden under his ambiguous words; but those words, when
read by the light of astute criticism, were found to contain an
opinion that Church and State should be dissevered. "By G----! he's
going to take the bread out of our mouths again," said Mr. Ratler.
The speech was certainly very ambiguous, and I am not sure that the
East Barsetshire folk were so crass as they were accused of being,
in not understanding it at once. The dreadful hint was wrapped up in
many words, and formed but a small part of a very long oration. The
bucolic mind of East Barsetshire took warm delight in the eloquence
of the eminent personage who represented them, but was wont to
extract more actual enjoyment from the music of his periods than from
the strength of his arguments. When he would explain to them that
he had discovered a new, or rather hitherto unknown, Conservative
element in the character of his countrymen, which he could best
utilise by changing everything in the Constitution, he manipulated
his words with such grace, was so profound, so broad, and so exalted,
was so brilliant in mingling a deep philosophy with the ordinary
politics of the day, that the bucolic mind could only admire. It
was a great honour to the electors of that agricultural county that
they should be made the first recipients of these pearls, which
were not wasted by being thrown before them. They were picked up
by the gentlemen of the Press, and became the pearls, not of East
Barsetshire, but of all England. On this occasion it was found that
one pearl was very big, very rare, and worthy of great attention;
but it was a black pearl, and was regarded by many as an abominable
prodigy. "The period of our history is one in which it becomes
essential for us to renew those inquiries which have prevailed since
man first woke to his destiny, as to the amount of connection which
exists and which must exist between spiritual and simply human forms
of government,--between our daily religion and our daily politics,
between the Crown and the Mitre." The East Barsetshire clergymen and
the East Barsetshire farmers like to hear something of the mitre in
political speeches at the hustings. The word sounds pleasantly in
their ears, as appertaining to good old gracious times and good old
gracious things. As honey falls fast from the mouth of the practised
speaker, the less practised hearer is apt to catch more of the words
than of the sense. The speech of Mr. Daubeny was taken all in good
part by his assembled friends. But when it was read by the quidnuncs
on the following day it was found to contain so deep a meaning that
it produced from Mr. Ratler's mouth those words of fear which have
been already quoted.
Could it really be the case that the man intended to perform so
audacious a trick of legerdemain as this for the preservation of his
power, and that if he intended it he should have the power to carry
it through? The renewal of inquiry as to the connection which exists
between the Crown and the Mitre, when the bran was bolted, could only
mean the disestablishment of the Church. Mr. Ratler and his friends
were not long in bolting the bran. Regarding the matter simply in its
own light, without bringing to bear upon it the experience of the
last half-century, Mr. Ratler would have thought his party strong
enough to defy Mr. Daubeny utterly in such an attempt. The ordinary
politician, looking at Mr. Daubeny's position as leader of the
Conservative party, as a statesman depending on the support of the
Church, as a Minister appointed to his present place for the express
object of defending all that was left of old, and dear, and venerable
in the Constitution, would have declared that Mr. Daubeny was
committing political suicide, as to which future history would record
a verdict of probably not temporary insanity. And when the speech was
a week old this was said in many a respectable household through the
country. Many a squire, many a parson, many a farmer was grieved for
Mr. Daubeny when the words had been explained to him, who did not for
a moment think that the words could be portentous as to the great
Conservative party. But Mr. Ratler remembered Catholic emancipation,
had himself been in the House when the Corn Laws were repealed, and
had been nearly broken-hearted when household suffrage had become
the law of the land while a Conservative Cabinet and a Conservative
Government were in possession of dominion in Israel.
Mr. Bonteen was disposed to think that the trick was beyond the
conjuring power even of Mr. Daubeny. "After all, you know, there is
the party," he said to Mr. Ratler. Mr. Ratler's face was as good
as a play, and if seen by that party would have struck that party
with dismay and shame. The meaning of Mr. Ratler's face was plain
enough. He thought so little of that party, on the score either of
intelligence, honesty, or fidelity, as to imagine that it would
consent to be led whithersoever Mr. Daubeny might choose to lead
it. "If they care about anything, it's about the Church," said Mr.
Bonteen.
"There's something they like a great deal better than the Church,"
said Mr. Ratler. "Indeed, there's only one thing they care about at
all now. They've given up all the old things. It's very likely that
if Daubeny were to ask them to vote for pulling down the Throne and
establishing a Republic they'd all follow him into the lobby like
sheep. They've been so knocked about by one treachery after another
that they don't care now for anything beyond their places."
"It's only a few of them get anything, after all."
"Yes, they do. It isn't just so much a year they want, though those
who have that won't like to part with it. But they like getting
the counties, and the Garters, and the promotion in the army. They
like their brothers to be made bishops, and their sisters like the
Wardrobe and the Bedchamber. There isn't one of them that doesn't
hang on somewhere,--or at least not many. Do you remember Peel's bill
for the Corn Laws?"
"There were fifty went against him then," said Bonteen.
"And what are fifty? A man doesn't like to be one of fifty. It's
too many for glory, and not enough for strength. There has come up
among them a general feeling that it's just as well to let things
slide,--as the Yankees say. They're down-hearted about it enough
within their own houses, no doubt. But what can they do, if they hold
back? Some stout old cavalier here and there may shut himself up in
his own castle, and tell himself that the world around him may go to
wrack and ruin, but that he will not help the evil work. Some are
shutting themselves up. Look at old Quin, when they carried their
Reform Bill. But men, as a rule, don't like to be shut up. How they
reconcile it to their conscience,--that's what I can't understand."
Such was the wisdom, and such were the fears of Mr. Ratler. Mr.
Bonteen, however, could not bring himself to believe that the
Arch-enemy would on this occasion be successful. "It mayn't be too
hot for him," said Mr. Bonteen, when he reviewed the whole matter,
"but I think it'll be too heavy."
They who had mounted higher than Mr. Ratler and Mr. Bonteen on the
political ladder, but who had mounted on the same side, were no
less astonished than their inferiors; and, perhaps, were equally
disgusted, though they did not allow themselves to express their
disgust as plainly. Mr. Gresham was staying in the country with his
friend, Lord Cantrip, when the tidings reached them of Mr. Daubeny's
speech to the electors of East Barsetshire. Mr. Gresham and Lord
Cantrip had long sat in the same Cabinet, and were fast friends,
understanding each other's views, and thoroughly trusting each
other's loyalty. "He means it," said Lord Cantrip.
"He means to see if it be possible," said the other. "It is thrown
out as a feeler to his own party."
"I'll do him the justice of saying that he's not afraid of his party.
If he means it, he means it altogether, and will not retract it, even
though the party should refuse as a body to support him. I give him
no other credit, but I give him that."
Mr. Gresham paused for a few moments before he answered. "I do not
know," said he, "whether we are justified in thinking that one man
will always be the same. Daubeny has once been very audacious, and he
succeeded. But he had two things to help him,--a leader, who, though
thoroughly trusted, was very idle, and an ill-defined question. When
he had won his leader he had won his party. He has no such tower of
strength now. And in the doing of this thing, if he means to do it,
he must encounter the assured conviction of every man on his own
side, both in the upper and lower House. When he told them that he
would tap a Conservative element by reducing the suffrage they did
not know whether to believe him or not. There might be something
in it. It might be that they would thus resume a class of suffrage
existing in former days, but which had fallen into abeyance, because
not properly protected. They could teach themselves to believe that
it might be so, and those among them who found it necessary to free
their souls did so teach themselves. I don't see how they are to free
their souls when they are invited to put down the State establishment
of the Church."
"He'll find a way for them."
"It's possible. I'm the last man in the world to contest the
possibility, or even the expediency, of changes in political opinion.
But I do not know whether it follows that because he was brave and
successful once he must necessarily be brave and successful again. A
man rides at some outrageous fence, and by the wonderful activity and
obedient zeal of his horse is carried over it in safety. It does not
follow that his horse will carry him over a house, or that he should
be fool enough to ask the beast to do so."
"He intends to ride at the house," said Lord Cantrip; "and he means
it because others have talked of it. You saw the line which my rash
young friend Finn took at Tankerville."
"And all for nothing."
"I am not so sure of that. They say he is like the rest. If Daubeny
does carry the party with him, I suppose the days of the Church are
numbered."
"And what if they be?" Mr. Gresham almost sighed as he said this,
although he intended to express a certain amount of satisfaction.
"What if they be? You know, and I know, that the thing has to be
done. Whatever may be our own individual feelings, or even our
present judgment on the subject,--as to which neither of us can
perhaps say that his mind is not so made up that it may not soon
be altered,--we know that the present union cannot remain. It is
unfitted for that condition of humanity to which we are coming, and
if so, the change must be for good. Why should not he do it as well
as another? Or rather would not he do it better than another, if he
can do it with less of animosity than we should rouse against us? If
the blow would come softer from his hands than from ours, with less
of a feeling of injury to those who dearly love the Church, should we
not be glad that he should undertake the task?"
"Then you will not oppose him?"
"Ah;--there is much to be considered before we can say that. Though
he may not be bound by his friends, we may be bound by ours. And
then, though I can hint to you at a certain condition of mind,
and can sympathise with you, feeling that such may become the
condition of your mind, I cannot say that I should act upon it as an
established conviction, or that I can expect that you will do so. If
such be the political programme submitted to us when the House meets,
then we must be prepared."
Lord Cantrip also paused a moment before he answered, but he had his
answer ready. "I can frankly say that I should follow your leading,
but that I should give my voice for opposition."
"Your voice is always persuasive," said Mr. Gresham.
But the consternation felt among Mr. Daubeny's friends was infinitely
greater than that which fell among his enemies, when those wonderful
words were read, discussed, criticised, and explained. It seemed to
every clergyman in England that nothing short of disestablishment
could be intended by them. And this was the man to whom they had
all looked for protection! This was the bulwark of the Church, to
whom they had trusted! This was the hero who had been so sound and
so firm respecting the Irish Establishment, when evil counsels
had been allowed to prevail in regard to that ill-used but still
sacred vineyard! All friends of the Church had then whispered
among themselves fearfully, and had, with sad looks and grievous
forebodings, acknowledged that the thin edge of the wedge had been
driven into the very rock of the Establishment. The enemies of
the Church were known to be powerful, numerous, and of course
unscrupulous. But surely this Brutus would not raise a dagger against
this Cæsar! And yet, if not, what was the meaning of those words?
And then men and women began to tell each other,--the men and women
who are the very salt of the earth in this England of ours,--that
their Brutus, in spite of his great qualities, had ever been
mysterious, unintelligible, dangerous, and given to feats of
conjuring. They had only been too submissive to their Brutus.
Wonderful feats of conjuring they had endured, understanding nothing
of the manner in which they were performed,--nothing of their
probable results; but this feat of conjuring they would not endure.
And so there were many meetings held about the country, though the
time for combined action was very short.
Nothing more audacious than the speaking of those few words to the
bucolic electors of East Barsetshire had ever been done in the
political history of England. Cromwell was bold when he closed the
Long Parliament. Shaftesbury was bold when he formed the plot for
which Lord Russell and others suffered. Walpole was bold when, in
his lust for power, he discarded one political friend after another.
And Peel was bold when he resolved to repeal the Corn Laws. But in
none of these instances was the audacity displayed more wonderful
than when Mr. Daubeny took upon himself to make known throughout
the country his intention of abolishing the Church of England. For
to such a declaration did those few words amount. He was now the
recognised parliamentary leader of that party to which the Church
of England was essentially dear. He had achieved his place by skill,
rather than principle,--by the conviction on men's minds that he was
necessary rather than that he was fit. But still, there he was; and,
though he had alarmed many,--had, probably, alarmed all those who
followed him by his eccentric and dangerous mode of carrying on the
battle; though no Conservative regarded him as safe; yet on this
question of the Church it had been believed that he was sound. What
might be the special ideas of his own mind regarding ecclesiastical
policy in general, it had not been thought necessary to consider.
His utterances had been confusing, mysterious, and perhaps purposely
unintelligible; but that was matter of little moment so long as he
was prepared to defend the establishment of the Church of England
as an institution adapted for English purposes. On that point it
was believed that he was sound. To that mast it was supposed he had
nailed his own colours and those of his party. In defending that
fortress it was thought that he would be ready to fall, should the
defence of it require a fall. It was because he was so far safe that
he was there. And yet he spoke these words without consulting a
single friend, or suggesting the propriety of his new scheme to a
single supporter. And he knew what he was doing. This was the way in
which he had thought it best to make known to his own followers, not
only that he was about to abandon the old Institution, but that they
must do so too!
As regarded East Barsetshire itself, he was returned, and fêted, and
sent home with his ears stuffed with eulogy, before the bucolic mind
had discovered his purpose. On so much he had probably calculated.
But he had calculated also that after an interval of three or four
days his secret would be known to all friends and enemies. On the day
after his speech came the report of it in the newspapers; on the next
day the leading articles, in which the world was told what it was
that the Prime Minister had really said. Then, on the following day,
the startled parsons, and the startled squires and farmers, and,
above all, the startled peers and members of the Lower House, whose
duty it was to vote as he should lead them, were all agog. Could it
be that the newspapers were right in this meaning which they had
attached to these words? On the day week after the election in East
Barsetshire, a Cabinet Council was called in London, at which it
would, of course, be Mr. Daubeny's duty to explain to his colleagues
what it was that he did purpose to do.
In the meantime he saw a colleague or two.
"Let us look it straight in the face," he said to a noble colleague;
"we must look it in the face before long."
"But we need not hurry it forward."
"There is a storm coming. We knew that before, and we heard the sound
of it from every husting in the country. How shall we rule the storm
so that it may pass over the land without devastating it? If we bring
in a bill--"
"A bill for disestablishing the Church!" said the horror-stricken
lord.
"If we bring in a bill, the purport of which shall be to moderate the
ascendancy of the Church in accordance with the existing religious
feelings of the population, we shall save much that otherwise must
fall. If there must be a bill, would you rather that it should be
modelled by us who love the Church, or by those who hate it?"
That lord was very wrath, and told the right honourable gentleman
to his face that his duty to his party should have constrained him
to silence on that subject till he had consulted his colleagues. In
answer to this Mr. Daubeny said with much dignity that, should such
be the opinion of his colleagues in general, he would at once abandon
the high place which he held in their councils. But he trusted that
it might be otherwise. He had felt himself bound to communicate his
ideas to his constituents, and had known that in doing so some minds
must be shocked. He trusted that he might be able to allay this
feeling of dismay. As regarded this noble lord, he did succeed in
lessening the dismay before the meeting was over, though he did not
altogether allay it.
Another gentleman who was in the habit of sitting at Mr. Daubeny's
elbow daily in the House of Commons was much gentler with him, both
as to words and manner. "It's a bold throw, but I'm afraid it won't
come up sixes," said the right honourable gentleman.
"Let it come up fives, then. It's the only chance we have; and if
you think, as I do, that it is essentially necessary for the welfare
of the country that we should remain where we are, we must run the
risk."
With another colleague, whose mind was really set on that which
the Church is presumed to represent, he used another argument.
"I am convinced at any rate of this," said Mr. Daubeny; "that by
sacrificing something of that ascendancy which the Establishment is
supposed to give us, we can bring the Church, which we love, nearer
to the wants of the people." And so it came about that before the
Cabinet met, every member of it knew what it was that was expected
of him.
CHAPTER VI.
PHINEAS AND HIS OLD FRIENDS.
Phineas Finn returned from Tankerville to London in much better
spirits than those which had accompanied him on his journey thither.
He was not elected; but then, before the election, he had come to
believe that it was quite out of the question that he should be
elected. And now he did think it probable that he should get the seat
on a petition. A scrutiny used to be a very expensive business, but
under the existing law, made as the scrutiny would be in the borough
itself, it would cost but little; and that little, should he be
successful, would fall on the shoulders of Mr. Browborough. Should he
knock off eight votes and lose none himself, he would be member for
Tankerville. He knew that many votes had been given for Browborough
which, if the truth were known of them, would be knocked off; and he
did not know that the same could be said of any one of those by which
he had been supported. But, unfortunately, the judge by whom all this
would be decided might not reach Tankerville in his travels till
after Christmas, perhaps not till after Easter; and in the meantime,
what should he do with himself?
As for going back to Dublin, that was now out of the question. He had
entered upon a feverish state of existence in which it was impossible
that he should live in Ireland. Should he ultimately fail in regard
to his seat he must--vanish out of the world. While he remained in his
present condition he would not even endeavour to think how he might
in such case best bestow himself. For the present he would remain
within the region of politics, and live as near as he could to the
whirl of the wheel of which the sound was so dear to him. Of one club
he had always remained a member, and he had already been re-elected
a member of the Reform. So he took up his residence once more at the
house of a certain Mr. and Mrs. Bunce, in Great Marlborough Street,
with whom he had lodged when he first became a member of Parliament.
"So you're at the old game, Mr. Finn?" said his landlord.
"Yes; at the old game. I suppose it's the same with you?" Now Mr.
Bunce had been a very violent politician, and used to rejoice in
calling himself a Democrat.
"Pretty much the same, Mr. Finn. I don't see that things are much
better than they used to be. They tell me at the People's Banner
office that the lords have had as much to do with this election as
with any that ever went before it."
"Perhaps they don't know much about it at the People's Banner office.
I thought Mr. Slide and the People's Banner had gone over to the
other side, Bunce?"
"Mr. Slide is pretty wide-awake whatever side he's on. Not but what
he's disgraced himself by what he's been and done now." Mr. Slide
in former days had been the editor of the People's Banner, and
circumstances had arisen in consequence of which there had been some
acquaintance between him and our hero. "I see you was hammering away
at the Church down at Tankerville."
"I just said a word or two."
"You was all right, there, Mr. Finn. I can't say as I ever saw very
much in your religion; but what a man keeps in the way of religion
for his own use is never nothing to me;--as what I keeps is nothing
to him."
"I'm afraid you don't keep much, Mr. Bunce."
"And that's nothing to you, neither, is it, sir?"
"No, indeed."
"But when we read of Churches as is called State Churches,--Churches
as have bishops you and I have to pay for, as never goes into them--"
"But we don't pay the bishops, Mr. Bunce."
"Oh yes, we do; because, if they wasn't paid, the money would come to
us to do as we pleased with it. We proved all that when we pared them
down a bit. What's an Ecclesiastical Commission? Only another name
for a box to put the money into till you want to take it out again.
When we hear of Churches such as these, as is not kept up by the
people who uses them,--just as the theatres are, Mr. Finn, or the gin
shops,--then I know there's a deal more to be done before honest men
can come by their own. You're right enough, Mr. Finn, you are, as far
as churches go, and you was right, too, when you cut and run off the
Treasury Bench. I hope you ain't going to sit on that stool again."
Mr. Bunce was a privileged person, and Mrs. Bunce made up for his
apparent rudeness by her own affectionate cordiality. "Deary me,
and isn't it a thing for sore eyes to have you back again! I never
expected this. But I'll do for you, Mr. Finn, just as I ever did in
the old days; and it was I that was sorry when I heard of the poor
young lady's death; so I was, Mr. Finn; well, then, I won't mention
her name never again. But after all there's been betwixt you and us
it wouldn't be natural to pass it by without one word; would it, Mr.
Finn? Well, yes; he's just the same man as ever, without a ha'porth
of difference. He's gone on paying that shilling to the Union every
week of his life, just as he used to do; and never got so much out
of it, not as a junketing into the country. That he didn't. It makes
me that sick sometimes when I think of where it's gone to, that I
don't know how to bear it. Well, yes; that is true, Mr. Finn. There
never was a man better at bringing home his money to his wife than
Bunce, barring that shilling. If he'd drink it, which he never does,
I think I'd bear it better than give it to that nasty Union. And
young Jack writes as well as his father, pretty nigh, Mr. Finn,
which is a comfort,"--Mr. Bunce was a journeyman scrivener at a law
stationer's,--"and keeps his self; but he don't bring home his money,
nor yet it can't be expected, Mr. Finn. I know what the young 'uns
will do, and what they won't. And Mary Jane is quite handy about the
house now,--only she do break things, which is an aggravation; and
the hot water shall be always up at eight o'clock to a minute, if I
bring it with my own hand, Mr. Finn."
[Illustration: "Well, then, I won't mention her name again."]
And so he was established once more in his old rooms in Great
Marlborough Street; and as he sat back in the arm-chair, which he
used to know so well, a hundred memories of former days crowded back
upon him. Lord Chiltern for a few months had lived with him; and then
there had arisen a quarrel, which he had for a time thought would
dissolve his old life into ruin. Now Lord Chiltern was again his
very intimate friend. And there had used to sit a needy money-lender
whom he had been unable to banish. Alas! alas! how soon might he now
require that money-lender's services! And then he recollected how he
had left these rooms to go into others, grander and more appropriate
to his life when he had filled high office under the State. Would
there ever again come to him such cause for migration? And would he
again be able to load the frame of the looking-glass over the fire
with countless cards from Countesses and Ministers' wives? He had
opened the oyster for himself once, though it had closed again with
so sharp a snap when the point of his knife had been withdrawn. Would
he be able to insert the point again between those two difficult
shells? Would the Countesses once more be kind to him? Would
drawing-rooms be opened to him, and sometimes opened to him and to
no other? Then he thought of certain special drawing-rooms in which
wonderful things had been said to him. Since that he had been a
married man, and those special drawing-rooms and those wonderful
words had in no degree actuated him in his choice of a wife. He had
left all those things of his own free will, as though telling himself
that there was a better life than they offered to him. But was he
sure that he had found it to be better? He had certainly sighed for
the gauds which he had left. While his young wife was living he had
kept his sighs down, so that she should not hear them; but he had
been forced to acknowledge that his new life had been vapid and
flavourless. Now he had been tempted back again to the old haunts.
Would the Countesses' cards be showered upon him again?
One card, or rather note, had reached him while he was yet at
Tankerville, reminding him of old days. It was from Mrs. Low, the
wife of the barrister with whom he had worked when he had been a
law student in London. She had asked him to come and dine with them
after the old fashion in Baker Street, naming a day as to which she
presumed that he would by that time have finished his affairs at
Tankerville, intimating also that Mr. Low would then have finished
his at North Broughton. Now Mr. Low had sat for North Broughton
before Phineas left London, and his wife spoke of the seat as a
certainty. Phineas could not keep himself from feeling that Mrs. Low
intended to triumph over him; but, nevertheless, he accepted the
invitation. They were very glad to see him, explaining that, as
nobody was supposed to be in town, nobody had been asked to meet
him. In former days he had been very intimate in that house, having
received from both of them much kindness, mingled, perhaps, with some
touch of severity on the part of the lady. But the ground for that
was gone, and Mrs. Low was no longer painfully severe. A few words
were said as to his great loss. Mrs. Low once raised her eyebrows in
pretended surprise when Phineas explained that he had thrown up his
place, and then they settled down on the question of the day. "And
so," said Mrs. Low, "you've begun to attack the Church?" It must be
remembered that at this moment Mr. Daubeny had not as yet electrified
the minds of East Barsetshire, and that, therefore, Mrs. Low was not
disturbed. To Mrs. Low, Church and State was the very breath of her
nostrils; and if her husband could not be said to live by means of
the same atmosphere it was because the breath of his nostrils had
been drawn chiefly in the Vice-Chancellor's Court in Lincoln's Inn.
But he, no doubt, would be very much disturbed indeed should he ever
be told that he was required, as an expectant member of Mr. Daubeny's
party, to vote for the Disestablishment of the Church of England.
"You don't mean that I am guilty of throwing the first stone?" said
Phineas.
"They have been throwing stones at the Temple since first it was
built," said Mrs. Low, with energy; "but they have fallen off its
polished shafts in dust and fragments." I am afraid that Mrs. Low,
when she allowed herself to speak thus energetically, entertained
some confused idea that the Church of England and the Christian
religion were one and the same thing, or, at least, that they had
been brought into the world together.
"You haven't thrown the first stone," said Mr. Low; "but you have
taken up the throwing at the first moment in which stones may be
dangerous."
"No stones can be dangerous," said Mrs. Low.
"The idea of a State Church," said Phineas, "is opposed to my theory
of political progress. What I hope is that my friends will not
suppose that I attack the Protestant Church because I am a Roman
Catholic. If I were a priest it would be my business to do so; but
I am not a priest."
Mr. Low gave his old friend a bottle of his best wine, and in all
friendly observances treated him with due affection. But neither did
he nor did his wife for a moment abstain from attacking their guest
in respect to his speeches at Tankerville. It seemed, indeed, to
Phineas that as Mrs. Low was buckled up in such triple armour that
she feared nothing, she might have been less loud in expressing her
abhorrence of the enemies of the Church. If she feared nothing,
why should she scream so loudly? Between the two he was a good
deal crushed and confounded, and Mrs. Low was very triumphant when
she allowed him to escape from her hands at ten o'clock. But, at
that moment, nothing had as yet been heard in Baker Street of Mr.
Daubeny's proposition to the electors of East Barsetshire! Poor Mrs.
Low! We can foresee that there is much grief in store for her, and
some rocks ahead, too, in the political career of her husband.
Phineas was still in London, hanging about the clubs, doing nothing,
discussing Mr. Daubeny's wonderful treachery with such men as came up
to town, and waiting for the meeting of Parliament, when he received
the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy:--
Dresden, November 18, ----.
MY DEAR MR. FINN,
I have heard with great pleasure from my sister-in-law
that you have been staying with them at Harrington Hall.
It seems so like old days that you and Oswald and Violet
should be together,--so much more natural than that you
should be living in Dublin. I cannot conceive of you as
living any other life than that of the House of Commons,
Downing Street, and the clubs. Nor do I wish to do so. And
when I hear of you at Harrington Hall I know that you are
on your way to the other things.
Do tell me what life is like with Oswald and Violet. Of
course he never writes. He is one of those men who, on
marrying, assume that they have at last got a person to do
a duty which has always hitherto been neglected. Violet
does write, but tells me little or nothing of themselves.
Her letters are very nice, full of anecdote, well
written,--letters that are fit to be kept and printed;
but they are never family letters. She is inimitable in
discussing the miseries of her own position as the wife
of a Master of Hounds; but the miseries are as evidently
fictitious as the art is real. She told me how poor dear
Lady Baldock communicated to you her unhappiness about her
daughter in a manner that made even me laugh; and would
make thousands laugh in days to come were it ever to be
published. But of her inside life, of her baby, or of her
husband as a husband, she never says a word. You will have
seen it all, and have enough of the feminine side of a
man's character to be able to tell me how they are living.
I am sure they are happy together, because Violet has more
common sense than any woman I ever knew.
And pray tell me about the affair at Tankerville. My
cousin Barrington writes me word that you will certainly
get the seat. He declares that Mr. Browborough is almost
disposed not to fight the battle, though a man more
disposed to fight never bribed an elector. But Barrington
seems to think that you managed as well as you did by
getting outside the traces, as he calls it. We certainly
did not think that you would come out strong against the
Church. Don't suppose that I complain. For myself I hate
to think of the coming severance; but if it must come, why
not by your hands as well as by any other? It is hardly
possible that you in your heart should love a Protestant
ascendant Church. But, as Barrington says, a horse won't
get oats unless he works steady between the traces.
As to myself, what am I to say to you? I and my father
live here a sad, sombre, solitary life, together. We have
a large furnished house outside the town, with a pleasant
view and a pretty garden. He does--nothing. He reads the
English papers, and talks of English parties, is driven
out, and eats his dinner, and sleeps. At home, as you
know, not only did he take an active part in politics, but
he was active also in the management of his own property.
Now it seems to him to be almost too great a trouble to
write a letter to his steward; and all this has come upon
him because of me. He is here because he cannot bear that
I should live alone. I have offered to return with him to
Saulsby, thinking that Mr. Kennedy would trouble me no
further,--or to remain here by myself; but he will consent
to neither. In truth the burden of idleness has now fallen
upon him so heavily that he cannot shake it off. He dreads
that he may be called upon to do anything.
To me it is all one tragedy. I cannot but think of things
as they were two or three years since. My father and my
husband were both in the Cabinet, and you, young as you
were, stood but one step below it. Oswald was out in the
cold. He was very poor. Papa thought all evil of him.
Violet had refused him over and over again. He quarrelled
with you, and all the world seemed against him. Then of a
sudden you vanished, and we vanished. An ineffable misery
fell upon me and upon my wretched husband. All our good
things went from us at a blow. I and my poor father became
as it were outcasts. But Oswald suddenly retricked his
beams, and is flaming in the forehead of the morning sky.
He, I believe, has no more than he has deserved. He won
his wife honestly;--did he not? And he has ever been
honest. It is my pride to think I never gave him up. But
the bitter part of my cup consists in this,--that as he
has won what he has deserved, so have we. I complain of no
injustice. Our castle was built upon the sand. Why should
Mr. Kennedy have been a Cabinet Minister;--and why should
I have been his wife? There is no one else of whom I can
ask that question as I can of you, and no one else who can
answer it as you can do.
Of Mr. Kennedy it is singular how little I know, and how
little I ever hear. There is no one whom I can ask to tell
me of him. That he did not attend during the last Session
I do know, and we presume that he has now abandoned his
seat. I fear that his health is bad,--or perhaps, worse
still, that his mind is affected by the gloom of his life.
I suppose that he lives exclusively at Loughlinter. From
time to time I am implored by him to return to my duty
beneath his roof. He grounds his demand on no affection of
his own, on no presumption that any affection can remain
with me. He says no word of happiness. He offers no
comfort. He does not attempt to persuade with promises of
future care. He makes his claim simply on Holy Writ, and
on the feeling of duty which thence ought to weigh upon
me. He has never even told me that he loves me; but he is
persistent in declaring that those whom God has joined
together nothing human should separate. Since I have been
here I have written to him once,--one sad, long, weary
letter. Since that I am constrained to leave his letters
unanswered.
And now, my friend, could you not do for me a great
kindness? For a while, till the inquiry be made at
Tankerville, your time must be vacant. Cannot you come and
see us? I have told Papa that I should ask you, and he
would be delighted. I cannot explain to you what it would
be to me to be able to talk again to one who knows all
the errors and all the efforts of my past life as you do.
Dresden is very cold in the winter. I do not know whether
you would mind that. We are very particular about the
rooms, but my father bears the temperature wonderfully
well, though he complains. In March we move down south
for a couple of months. Do come if you can.
Most sincerely yours,
LAURA KENNEDY.
If you come, of course you will have yourself brought
direct to us. If you can learn anything of Mr. Kennedy's
life, and of his real condition, pray do. The faint
rumours which reach me are painfully distressing.
CHAPTER VII.
COMING HOME FROM HUNTING.
Lady Chiltern was probably right when she declared that her husband
must have been made to be a Master of Hounds,--presuming it to be
granted that somebody must be Master of Hounds. Such necessity
certainly does exist in this, the present condition of England.
Hunting prevails; hunting men increase in numbers; foxes are
preserved; farmers do not rebel; owners of coverts, even when they
are not hunting men themselves, acknowledge the fact, and do not dare
to maintain their pheasants at the expense of the much better-loved
four-footed animal. Hounds are bred, and horses are trained specially
to the work. A master of fox hounds is a necessity of the period.
Allowing so much, we cannot but allow also that Lord Chiltern must
have been made to fill the situation. He understood hunting, and,
perhaps, there was nothing else requiring acute intelligence that he
did understand. And he understood hunting, not only as a huntsman
understands it,--in that branch of the science which refers simply to
the judicious pursuit of the fox, being probably inferior to his own
huntsman in that respect,--but he knew exactly what men should do,
and what they should not. In regard to all those various interests
with which he was brought in contact, he knew when to hold fast to
his own claims, and when to make no claims at all. He was afraid of
no one, but he was possessed of a sense of justice which induced him
to acknowledge the rights of those around him. When he found that the
earths were not stopped in Trumpeton Wood,--from which he judged that
the keeper would complain that the hounds would not or could not kill
any of the cubs found there,--he wrote in very round terms to the
Duke who owned it. If His Grace did not want to have the wood drawn,
let him say so. If he did, let him have the earths stopped. But when
that great question came up as to the Gartlow coverts--when that
uncommonly disagreeable gentleman, Mr. Smith, of Gartlow, gave notice
that the hounds should not be admitted into his place at all,--Lord
Chiltern soon put the whole matter straight by taking part with the
disagreeable gentleman. The disagreeable gentleman had been ill
used. Men had ridden among his young laurels. If gentlemen who did
hunt,--so said Lord Chiltern to his own supporters,--did not know
how to conduct themselves in a matter of hunting, how was it to be
expected that a gentleman who did not hunt should do so? On this
occasion Lord Chiltern rated his own hunt so roundly that Mr. Smith
and he were quite in a bond together, and the Gartlow coverts were
re-opened. Now all the world knows that the Gartlow coverts, though
small, are material as being in the very centre of the Brake country.
It is essential that a Master of Hounds should be somewhat feared by
the men who ride with him. There should be much awe mixed with the
love felt for him. He should be a man with whom other men will not
care to argue; an irrational, cut and thrust, unscrupulous, but yet
distinctly honest man; one who can be tyrannical, but will tyrannise
only over the evil spirits; a man capable of intense cruelty to those
alongside of him, but who will know whether his victim does in truth
deserve scalping before he draws his knife. He should be savage and
yet good-humoured; severe and yet forbearing; truculent and pleasant
in the same moment. He should exercise unflinching authority, but
should do so with the consciousness that he can support it only by
his own popularity. His speech should be short, incisive, always
to the point, but never founded on argument. His rules are based
on no reason, and will never bear discussion. He must be the most
candid of men, also the most close;--and yet never a hypocrite. He
must condescend to no explanation, and yet must impress men with an
assurance that his decisions will certainly be right. He must rule
all as though no man's special welfare were of any account, and yet
must administer all so as to offend none. Friends he must have, but
not favourites. He must be self-sacrificing, diligent, eager, and
watchful. He must be strong in health, strong in heart, strong in
purpose, and strong in purse. He must be economical and yet lavish;
generous as the wind and yet obdurate as the frost. He should be
assured that of all human pursuits hunting is the best, and that of
all living things a fox is the most valuable. He must so train his
heart as to feel for the fox a mingled tenderness and cruelty which
is inexplicable to ordinary men and women. His desire to preserve the
brute and then to kill him should be equally intense and passionate.
And he should do it all in accordance with a code of unwritten laws,
which cannot be learnt without profound study. It may not perhaps be
truly asserted that Lord Chiltern answered this description in every
detail; but he combined so many of the qualities required that his
wife showed her discernment when she declared that he seemed to have
been made to be a Master of Hounds.
Early in that November he was riding home with Miss Palliser by his
side, while the huntsmen and whips were trotting on with the hounds
before him. "You call that a good run, don't you?"
[Illustration: Adelaide Palliser.]
"No; I don't."
"What was the matter with it? I declare it seems to me that something
is always wrong. Men like hunting better than anything else, and yet
I never find any man contented."
"In the first place we didn't kill."
"You know you're short of foxes at Gartlow," said Miss Palliser, who,
as is the manner with all hunting ladies, liked to show that she
understood the affairs of the hunt.
"If I knew there were but one fox in a county, and I got upon that
one fox, I would like to kill that one fox,--barring a vixen in
March."
"I thought it very nice. It was fast enough for anybody."
"You might go as fast with a drag, if that's all. I'll tell you
something else. We should have killed him if Maule hadn't once ridden
over the hounds when we came out of the little wood. I spoke very
sharply to him."
"I heard you, Lord Chiltern."
"And I suppose you thought I was a brute."
"Who? I? No, I didn't;--not particularly, you know. Men do say such
things to each other!"
"He doesn't mind it, I fancy."
"I suppose a man does not like to be told that directly he shows
himself in a run the sport is all over and the hounds ought to be
taken home."
"Did I say that? I don't remember now what I said, but I know he made
me angry. Come, let us trot on. They can take the hounds home without
us."
"Good night, Cox," said Miss Palliser, as they passed by the pack.
"Poor Mr. Maule! I did pity him, and I do think he does care for
it, though he is so impassive. He would be with us now, only he is
chewing the cud of his unhappiness in solitude half a mile behind
us."
"That is hard upon you."
"Hard upon me, Lord Chiltern! It is hard upon him, and, perhaps, upon
you. Why should it be hard upon me?"
"Hard upon him, I should have said. Though why it shouldn't be the
other way I don't know. He's a friend of yours."
"Certainly."
"And an especial friend, I suppose. As a matter of course Violet
talks to me about you both."
"No doubt she does. When once a woman is married she should be
regarded as having thrown off her allegiance to her own sex. She is
sure to be treacherous at any rate in one direction. Not that Lady
Chiltern can tell anything of me that might not be told to all the
world as far as I am concerned."
"There is nothing in it, then?"
"Nothing at all."
"Honour bright?"
"Oh,--honour as bright as it ever is in such matters as these."
"I am sorry for that,--very sorry."
"Why so, Lord Chiltern?"
"Because if you were engaged to him I thought that perhaps you might
have induced him to ride a little less forward."
"Lord Chiltern," said Miss Palliser, seriously; "I will never again
speak to you a word on any subject except hunting."
At this moment Gerard Maule came up behind them, with a cigar in his
mouth, apparently quite unconscious of any of that displeasure as
to which Miss Palliser had supposed that he was chewing the cud in
solitude. "That was a goodish thing, Chiltern," he said.
"Very good."
"And the hounds hunted him well to the end."
"Very well."
"It's odd how the scent will die away at a moment. You see they
couldn't carry on a field after we got out of the copse."
"Not a field."
"Considering all things I am glad we didn't kill him."
"Uncommon glad," said Lord Chiltern. Then they trotted on in silence
a little way, and Maule again dropped behind. "I'm blessed if he
knows that I spoke to him, roughly," said Chiltern. "He's deaf, I
think, when he chooses to be."
"You're not sorry, Lord Chiltern."
"Not in the least. Nothing will ever do any good. As for offending
him, you might as well swear at a tree, and think to offend it.
There's comfort in that, anyway. I wonder whether he'd talk to you if
I went away?"
"I hope that you won't try the experiment."
"I don't believe he would, or I'd go at once. I wonder whether you
really do care for him?"
"Not in the least."
"Or he for you."
"Quite indifferent, I should say; but I can't answer for him, Lord
Chiltern, quite as positively as I can for myself. You know, as
things go, people have to play at caring for each other."
"That's what we call flirting."
"Just the reverse. Flirting I take to be the excitement of love,
without its reality, and without its ordinary result in marriage.
This playing at caring has none of the excitement, but it often
leads to the result, and sometimes ends in downright affection."
"If Maule perseveres then you'll take him, and by-and-bye you'll come
to like him."
"In twenty years it might come to that, if we were always to live in
the same house; but as he leaves Harrington to-morrow, and we may
probably not meet each other for the next four years, I think the
chance is small."
Then Maule trotted up again, and after riding in silence with the
other two for half an hour, he pulled out his case and lit a fresh
cigar from the end of the old one, which he threw away. "Have a
baccy, Chiltern?" he said.
"No, thank you, I never smoke going home; my mind is too full. I've
all that family behind to think of, and I'm generally out of sorts
with the miseries of the day. I must say another word to Cox, or I
should have to go to the kennels on my way home." And so he dropped
behind.
Gerard Maule smoked half his cigar before he spoke a word, and Miss
Palliser was quite resolved that she would not open her mouth till he
had spoken. "I suppose he likes it?" he said at last.
"Who likes what, Mr. Maule?"
"Chiltern likes blowing fellows up."
"It's a part of his business."
"That's the way I look at it. But I should think it must be
disagreeable. He takes such a deal of trouble about it. I heard him
going on to-day to some one as though his whole soul depended on it."
"He is very energetic."
"Just so. I'm quite sure it's a mistake. What does a man ever get by
it? Folks around you soon discount it till it goes for nothing."
"I don't think energy goes for nothing, Mr. Maule."
"A bull in a china shop is not a useful animal, nor is he ornamental,
but there can be no doubt of his energy. The hare was full of energy,
but he didn't win the race. The man who stands still is the man who
keeps his ground."
"You don't stand still when you're out hunting."
"No;--I ride about, and Chiltern swears at me. Every man is a fool
sometimes."
"And your wisdom, perfect at all other times, breaks down in the
hunting-field?"
"I don't in the least mind your chaffing. I know what you think of me
just as well as though you told me."
"What do I think of you?"
"That I'm a poor creature, generally half asleep, shallow-pated,
slow-blooded, ignorant, useless, and unambitious."
"Certainly unambitious, Mr. Maule."
"And that word carries all the others. What's the good of ambition?
There's the man they were talking about last night,--that Irishman."
"Mr. Finn?"
"Yes; Phineas Finn. He is an ambitious fellow. He'll have to starve,
according to what Chiltern was saying. I've sense enough to know I
can't do any good."
"You are sensible, I admit."
"Very well, Miss Palliser. You can say just what you like, of course.
You have that privilege."
"I did not mean to say anything severe. I do admit that you are
master of a certain philosophy, for which much may be said. But you
are not to expect that I shall express an approval which I do not
feel."
"But I want you to approve it."
"Ah!--there, I fear, I cannot oblige you."
"I want you to approve it, though no one else may."
"Though all else should do so, I cannot."
"Then take the task of curing the sick one, and of strengthening
the weak one, into your own hands. If you will teach, perhaps I may
learn."
"I have no mission for teaching, Mr. Maule."
"You once said that,--that--"
"Do not be so ungenerous as to throw in my teeth what I once
said,--if I ever said a word that I would not now repeat."
"I do not think that I am ungenerous, Miss Palliser."
"I am sure you are not."
"Nor am I self-confident. I am obliged to seek comfort from such
scraps of encouragement as may have fallen in my way here and there.
I once did think that you intended to love me."
"Does love go by intentions?"
"I think so,--frequently with men, and much more so with girls."
"It will never go so with me. I shall never intend to love any one.
If I ever love any man it will be because I am made to do so, despite
my intentions."
"As a fortress is taken?"
"Well,--if you like to put it so. Only I claim this advantage,--that
I can always get rid of my enemy when he bores me."
"Am I boring you now?"
"I didn't say so. Here is Lord Chiltern again, and I know by the
rattle of his horse's feet that something is the matter."
Lord Chiltern came up full of wrath. One of the men's horses was
thoroughly broken down, and, as the Master said, wasn't worth the
saddle he carried. He didn't care a ---- for the horse, but the man
hadn't told him. "At this rate there won't be anything to carry
anybody by Christmas."
"You'll have to buy some more," said Gerard Maule.
"Buy some more!" said Lord Chiltern, turning round, and looking at
the man. "He talks of buying horses as he would sugar plums!" Then
they trotted in at the gate, and in two minutes were at the hall
door.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ADDRESS.
Before the 11th of November, the day on which Parliament was to meet,
the whole country was in a hubbub. Consternation and triumph were
perhaps equally predominant, and equally strong. There were those who
declared that now at length was Great Britain to be ruined in actual
present truth; and those who asserted that, of a sudden, after a
fashion so wholly unexpected as to be divine,--as great fires, great
famines, and great wars are called divine,--a mighty hand had been
stretched out to take away the remaining incubus of superstition,
priestcraft, and bigotry under which England had hitherto been
labouring. The proposed disestablishment of the State Church of
England was, of course, the subject of this diversity of opinion.
And there was not only diversity, but with it great confusion. The
political feelings of the country are, as a rule, so well marked that
it is easy, as to almost every question, to separate the sheep from
the goats. With but few exceptions one can tell where to look for the
supporters and where for the opponents of one measure or of another.
Meetings are called in this or in that public hall to assist or to
combat the Minister of the day, and men know what they are about. But
now it was not so. It was understood that Mr. Daubeny, the accredited
leader of the Conservatives, was about to bring in the bill, but
no one as yet knew who would support the bill. His own party, to a
man,--without a single exception,--were certainly opposed to the
measure in their minds. It must be so. It could not but be certain
that they should hate it. Each individual sitting on the Conservative
side in either House did most certainly within his own bosom cry
Ichabod when the fatal news reached his ears. But such private
opinions and inward wailings need not, and probably would not, guide
the body. Ichabod had been cried before, though probably never with
such intensity of feeling. Disestablishment might be worse than Free
Trade or Household Suffrage, but was not more absolutely opposed to
Conservative convictions than had been those great measures. And yet
the party, as a party, had swallowed them both. To the first and
lesser evil, a compact little body of staunch Commoners had stood
forth in opposition,--but nothing had come of it to those true
Britons beyond a feeling of living in the cold shade of exclusion.
When the greater evil arrived, that of Household Suffrage,--a measure
which twenty years since would hardly have been advocated by the
advanced Liberals of the day,--the Conservatives had learned to
acknowledge the folly of clinging to their own convictions, and had
swallowed the dose without serious disruption of their ranks. Every
man,--with but an exception or two,--took the measure up, some with
faces so singularly distorted as to create true pity, some with an
assumption of indifference, some with affected glee. But in the
double process the party had become used to this mode of carrying on
the public service. As poor old England must go to the dogs, as the
doom had been pronounced against the country that it should be ruled
by the folly of the many foolish, and not by the wisdom of the few
wise, why should the few wise remain out in the cold,--seeing, as
they did, that by so doing no good would be done to the country?
Dissensions among their foes did, when properly used, give them
power,--but such power they could only use by carrying measures which
they themselves believed to be ruinous. But the ruin would be as
certain should they abstain. Each individual might have gloried
in standing aloof,--in hiding his face beneath his toga, and in
remembering that Rome did once exist in her splendour. But a party
cannot afford to hide its face in its toga. A party has to be
practical. A party can only live by having its share of Garters,
lord-lieutenants, bishops, and attorney-generals. Though the country
were ruined, the party should be supported. Hitherto the party had
been supported, and had latterly enjoyed almost its share of stars
and Garters,--thanks to the individual skill and strategy of that
great English political Von Moltke Mr. Daubeny.
And now what would the party say about the disestablishment of the
Church? Even a party must draw the line somewhere. It was bad to
sacrifice things mundane; but this thing was the very Holy of Holies!
Was nothing to be conserved by a Conservative party? What if Mr.
Daubeny were to explain some day to the electors of East Barsetshire
that an hereditary peerage was an absurdity? What if in some rural
nook of his Boeotia he should suggest in ambiguous language to the
farmers that a Republic was the only form of Government capable of
a logical defence? Duke had already said to Duke, and Earl to Earl,
and Baronet to Baronet that there must be a line somewhere. Bishops
as a rule say but little to each other, and now were afraid to
say anything. The Church, which had been, which was, so truly
beloved;--surely that must be beyond the line! And yet there crept
through the very marrow of the party an agonising belief that Mr.
Daubeny would carry the bulk of his party with him into the lobby of
the House of Commons.
But if such was the dismay of the Conservatives, how shall any writer
depict the consternation of the Liberals? If there be a feeling
odious to the mind of a sober, hardworking man, it is the feeling
that the bread he has earned is to be taken out of his mouth. The
pay, the patronage, the powers, and the pleasure of Government were
all due to the Liberals. "God bless my soul," said Mr. Ratler, who
always saw things in a practical light, "we have a larger fighting
majority than any party has had since Lord Liverpool's time. They
have no right to attempt it. They are bound to go out." "There's
nothing of honesty left in politics," said Mr. Bonteen, declaring
that he was sick of the life. Barrington Erle thought that the whole
Liberal party should oppose the measure. Though they were Liberals
they were not democrats; nor yet infidels. But when Barrington Erle
said this, the great leaders of the Liberal party had not as yet
decided on their ground of action.
There was much difficulty in reaching any decision. It had been
asserted so often that the disestablishment of the Church was only a
question of time, that the intelligence of the country had gradually
so learned to regard it. Who had said so, men did not know and did
not inquire;--but the words were spoken everywhere. Parsons with
sad hearts,--men who in their own parishes were enthusiastic, pure,
pious, and useful,--whispered them in the dead of the night to the
wives of their bosoms. Bishops, who had become less pure by contact
with the world at clubs, shrugged their shoulders and wagged their
heads, and remembered comfortably the sanctity of vested interests.
Statesmen listened to them with politeness, and did not deny that
they were true. In the free intercourse of closest friendships the
matter was discussed between ex-Secretaries of State. The Press
teemed with the assertion that it was only a question of time. Some
fervent, credulous friends predicted another century of life;--some
hard-hearted logical opponents thought that twenty years would put an
end to the anomaly:--a few stout enemies had sworn on the hustings
with an anathema that the present Session should see the deposition
from her high place of this eldest daughter of the woman of Babylon.
But none had expected the blow so soon as this; and none certainly
had expected it from this hand.
But what should the Liberal party do? Ratler was for opposing Mr.
Daubeny with all their force, without touching the merits of the
case. It was no fitting work for Mr. Daubeny, and the suddenness of
the proposition coming from such a quarter would justify them now and
for ever, even though they themselves should disestablish everything
before the Session were over. Barrington Erle, suffering under a real
political conviction for once in his life, was desirous of a positive
and chivalric defence of the Church. He believed in the twenty years.
Mr. Bonteen shut himself up in disgust. Things were amiss; and, as he
thought, the evil was due to want of party zeal on the part of his
own leader, Mr. Gresham. He did not dare to say this, lest, when
the house door should at last be opened, he might not be invited to
enter with the others; but such was his conviction. "If we were all
a little less in the abstract, and a little more in the concrete, it
would be better for us." Laurence Fitzgibbon, when these words had
been whispered to him by Mr. Bonteen, had hardly understood them;
but it had been explained to him that his friend had meant "men,
not measures." When Parliament met, Mr. Gresham, the leader of the
Liberal party, had not as yet expressed any desire to his general
followers.
The Queen's Speech was read, and the one paragraph which seemed
to possess any great public interest was almost a repetition of
the words which Mr. Daubeny had spoken to the electors of East
Barsetshire. "It will probably be necessary for you to review the
connection which still exists between, and which binds together,
the Church and the State." Mr. Daubeny's words had of course been
more fluent, but the gist of the expression was the same. He had
been quite in earnest when addressing his friends in the country.
And though there had been but an interval of a few weeks, the
Conservative party in the two Houses heard the paragraph read
without surprise and without a murmur. Some said that the gentlemen
on the Treasury Bench in the House of Commons did not look to be
comfortable. Mr. Daubeny sat with his hat over his brow, mute,
apparently impassive and unapproachable, during the reading of
the Speech and the moving and seconding of the Address. The House
was very full, and there was much murmuring on the side of the
Opposition;--but from the Government benches hardly a sound was
heard, as a young gentleman, from one of the Midland counties, in
a deputy-lieutenant's uniform, who had hitherto been known for no
particular ideas of his own, but had been believed to be at any rate
true to the Church, explained, not in very clear language, that the
time had at length come when the interests of religion demanded a
wider support and a fuller sympathy than could be afforded under that
system of Church endowment and State establishment for which the
country had hitherto been so grateful, and for which the country
had such boundless occasion for gratitude. Another gentleman, in
the uniform of the Guards, seconded the Address, and declared that
in nothing was the sagacity of a Legislature so necessary as in
discerning the period in which that which had hitherto been good
ceased to be serviceable. The status pupillaris was mentioned, and
it was understood that he had implied that England was now old enough
to go on in matters of religion without a tutor in the shape of a
State Church.
Who makes the speeches, absolutely puts together the words, which
are uttered when the Address is moved and seconded? It can hardly be
that lessons are prepared and sent to the noble lords and honourable
gentlemen to be learned by heart like a school-boy's task. And
yet, from their construction, style, and general tone,--from the
platitudes which they contain as well as from the general safety
and good sense of the remarks,--from the absence of any attempt to
improve a great occasion by the fire of oratory, one cannot but be
convinced that a very absolute control is exercised. The gorgeously
apparelled speakers, who seem to have great latitude allowed them in
the matter of clothing, have certainly very little in the matter of
language. And then it always seems that either of the four might
have made the speech of any of the others. It could not have been
the case that the Hon. Colonel Mowbray Dick, the Member for West
Bustard, had really elaborated out of his own head that theory of
the status pupillaris. A better fellow, or a more popular officer,
or a sweeter-tempered gentleman than Mowbray Dick does not exist;
but he certainly never entertained advanced opinions respecting the
religious education of his country. When he is at home with his
family, he always goes to church, and there has been an end of it.
And then the fight began. The thunderbolts of opposition were
unloosed, and the fires of political rancour blazed high. Mr. Gresham
rose to his legs, and declared to all the world that which he had
hitherto kept secret from his own party. It was known afterwards that
in discussion with his own dearly-beloved political friend, Lord
Cantrip, he had expressed his unbounded anger at the duplicity, greed
for power, and want of patriotism displayed by his opponent; but he
had acknowledged that the blow had come so quick and so unexpectedly
that he thought it better to leave the matter to the House without
instruction from himself. He now revelled in sarcasm, and before
his speech was over raged into wrath. He would move an amendment to
the Address for two reasons,--first because this was no moment for
bringing before Parliament the question of the Church establishment,
when as yet no well-considered opportunity of expressing itself on
the subject had been afforded to the country, and secondly because
any measure of reform on that matter should certainly not come to
them from the right honourable gentleman opposite. As to the first
objection, he should withhold his arguments till the bill suggested
had been presented to them. It was in handling the second that he
displayed his great power of invective. All those men who then sat in
the House, and who on that night crowded the galleries, remember his
tones as, turning to the dissenters who usually supported him, and
pointing over the table to his opponents, he uttered that well-worn
quotation, _Quod minime reris_,--then he paused, and began again;
_Quod minime reris,--Graiâ pandetur ab urbe_. The power and inflexion
of his voice at the word _Graiâ_ were certainly very wonderful. He
ended by moving an amendment to the Address, and asking for support
equally from one side of the House as from the other.
When at length Mr. Daubeny moved his hat from his brow and rose to
his legs he began by expressing his thankfulness that he had not
been made a victim to the personal violence of the right honourable
gentleman. He continued the same strain of badinage throughout,--in
which he was thought to have been wrong, as it was a method of
defence, or attack, for which his peculiar powers hardly suited him.
As to any bill that was to be laid upon the table, he had not as yet
produced it. He did not doubt that the dissenting interests of the
country would welcome relief from an anomaly, let it come whence
it might, even _Graiâ ab urbe_, and he waved his hand back to
the clustering Conservatives who sat behind him. That the right
honourable gentleman should be angry he could understand, as the
return to power of the right honourable gentleman and his party had
been anticipated, and he might almost say discounted as a certainty.
Then, when Mr. Daubeny sat down, the House was adjourned.
CHAPTER IX.
THE DEBATE.
The beginning of the battle as recorded in the last chapter took
place on a Friday,--Friday, 11th November,--and consequently two
entire days intervened before the debate could be renewed. There
seemed to prevail an opinion during this interval that Mr. Gresham
had been imprudent. It was acknowledged by all men that no finer
speech than that delivered by him had ever been heard within the
walls of that House. It was acknowledged also that as regarded the
question of oratory Mr. Daubeny had failed signally. But the strategy
of the Minister was said to have been excellent, whereas that of
the ex-Minister was very loudly condemned. There is nothing so
prejudicial to a cause as temper. This man is declared to be unfit
for any position of note, because he always shows temper. Anything
can be done with another man,--he can be made to fit almost any
hole,--because he has his temper under command. It may, indeed, be
assumed that a man who loses his temper while he is speaking is
endeavouring to speak the truth such as he believes it to be, and
again it may be assumed that a man who speaks constantly without
losing his temper is not always entitled to the same implicit faith.
Whether or not this be a reason the more for preferring the calm
and tranquil man may be doubted; but the calm and tranquil man is
preferred for public services. We want practical results rather than
truth. A clear head is worth more than an honest heart. In a matter
of horseflesh of what use is it to have all manner of good gifts if
your horse won't go whither you want him, and refuses to stop when
you bid him? Mr. Gresham had been very indiscreet, and had especially
sinned in opposing the Address without arrangements with his party.
And he made the matter worse by retreating within his own shell
during the whole of that Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning.
Lord Cantrip was with him three or four times, and he saw both Mr.
Palliser, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer under him, and Mr.
Ratler. But he went amidst no congregation of Liberals, and asked
for no support. He told Ratler that he wished gentlemen to vote
altogether in accordance with their opinions; and it came to be
whispered in certain circles that he had resigned, or was resigning,
or would resign, the leadership of his party. Men said that his
passions were too much for him, and that he was destroyed by feelings
of regret, and almost of remorse.
The Ministers held a Cabinet Council on the Monday morning, and it
was supposed afterwards that that also had been stormy. Two gentlemen
had certainly resigned their seats in the Government before the House
met at four o'clock, and there were rumours abroad that others would
do so if the suggested measure should be found really to amount to
disestablishment. The rumours were, of course, worthy of no belief,
as the transactions of the Cabinet are of necessity secret. Lord
Drummond at the War Office, and Mr. Boffin from the Board of Trade,
did, however, actually resign; and Mr. Boffin's explanations in
the House were heard before the debate was resumed. Mr. Boffin had
certainly not joined the present Ministry,--so he said,--with the
view of destroying the Church. He had no other remark to make, and he
was sure that the House would appreciate the course which had induced
him to seat himself below the gangway. The House cheered very loudly,
and Mr. Boffin was the hero of ten minutes. Mr. Daubeny detracted
something from this triumph by the overstrained and perhaps ironic
pathos with which he deplored the loss of his right honourable
friend's services. Now this right honourable gentleman had never been
specially serviceable.
But the wonder of the world arose from the fact that only two
gentlemen out of the twenty or thirty who composed the Government did
give up their places on this occasion. And this was a Conservative
Government! With what a force of agony did all the Ratlers of the
day repeat that inappropriate name! Conservatives! And yet they
were ready to abandon the Church at the bidding of such a man as Mr.
Daubeny! Ratler himself almost felt that he loved the Church. Only
two resignations;--whereas it had been expected that the whole House
would fall to pieces! Was it possible that these earls, that marquis,
and the two dukes, and those staunch old Tory squires, should remain
in a Government pledged to disestablish the Church? Was all the
honesty, all the truth of the great party confined to the bosoms of
Mr. Boffin and Lord Drummond? Doubtless they were all Esaus; but
would they sell their great birthright for so very small a mess of
pottage? The parsons in the country, and the little squires who but
rarely come up to London, spoke of it all exactly as did the Ratlers.
There were parishes in the country in which Mr. Boffin was canonised,
though up to that date no Cabinet Minister could well have been less
known to fame than was Mr. Boffin.
What would those Liberals do who would naturally rejoice in the
disestablishment of the Church,--those members of the Lower House,
who had always spoken of the ascendancy of Protestant episcopacy with
the bitter acrimony of exclusion? After all, the success or failure
of Mr. Daubeny must depend, not on his own party, but on them.
It must always be so when measures of Reform are advocated by a
Conservative Ministry. There will always be a number of untrained men
ready to take the gift without looking at the giver. They have not
expected relief from the hands of Greeks, but will take it when it
comes from Greeks or Trojans. What would Mr. Turnbull say in this
debate,--and what Mr. Monk? Mr. Turnbull was the people's tribune, of
the day; Mr. Monk had also been a tribune, then a Minister, and now
was again--something less than a tribune. But there were a few men in
the House, and some out of it, who regarded Mr. Monk as the honestest
and most patriotic politician of the day.
The debate was long and stormy, but was peculiarly memorable for the
skill with which Mr. Daubeny's higher colleagues defended the steps
they were about to take. The thing was to be done in the cause of
religion. The whole line of defence was indicated by the gentlemen
who moved and seconded the Address. An active, well-supported Church
was the chief need of a prosperous and intelligent people. As to the
endowments, there was some confusion of ideas; but nothing was to be
done with them inappropriate to religion. Education would receive
the bulk of what was left after existing interests had been amply
guaranteed. There would be no doubt,--so said these gentlemen,--that
ample funds for the support of an Episcopal Church would come from
those wealthy members of the body to whom such a Church was dear.
There seemed to be a conviction that clergymen under the new order
of things would be much better off than under the old. As to the
connection with the State, the time for it had clearly gone by. The
Church, as a Church, would own increased power when it could appoint
its own bishops, and be wholly dissevered from State patronage. It
seemed to be almost a matter of surprise that really good Churchmen
should have endured so long to be shackled by subservience to the
State. Some of these gentlemen pleaded their cause so well that they
almost made it appear that episcopal ascendancy would be restored in
England by the disseverance of the Church and State.
Mr. Turnbull, who was himself a dissenter, was at last upon his legs,
and then the Ratlers knew that the game was lost. It would be lost as
far as it could be lost by a majority in that House on that motion;
and it was by that majority or minority that Mr. Daubeny would be
maintained in his high office or ejected from it. Mr. Turnbull began
by declaring that he did not at all like Mr. Daubeny as a Minister
of the Crown. He was not in the habit of attaching himself specially
to any Minister of the Crown. Experience had taught him to doubt
them all. Of all possible Ministers of the Crown at this period, Mr.
Daubeny was he thought perhaps the worst, and the most dangerous. But
the thing now offered was too good to be rejected, let it come from
what quarter it would. Indeed, might it not be said of all the good
things obtained for the people, of all really serviceable reforms,
that they were gathered and garnered home in consequence of the
squabbles of Ministers? When men wanted power, either to grasp at
it or to retain it, then they offered bribes to the people. But in
the taking of such bribes there was no dishonesty, and he should
willingly take this bribe.
Mr. Monk spoke also. He would not, he said, feel himself justified
in refusing the Address to the Crown proposed by Ministers, simply
because that Address was founded on the proposition of a future
reform, as to the expediency of which he had not for many years
entertained a doubt. He could not allow it to be said of him that he
had voted for the permanence of the Church establishment, and he must
therefore support the Government. Then Ratler whispered a few words
to his neighbour: "I knew the way he'd run when Gresham insisted on
poor old Mildmay's taking him into the Cabinet." "The whole thing has
gone to the dogs," said Bonteen. On the fourth night the House was
divided, and Mr. Daubeny was the owner of a majority of fifteen.
Very many of the Liberal party expressed an opinion that the battle
had been lost through the want of judgment evinced by Mr. Gresham.
There was certainly no longer that sturdy adherence to their chief
which is necessary for the solidarity of a party. Perhaps no leader
of the House was ever more devoutly worshipped by a small number of
adherents than was Mr. Gresham now; but such worship will not support
power. Within the three days following the division the Ratlers had
all put their heads together and had resolved that the Duke of St.
Bungay was now the only man who could keep the party together. "But
who should lead our House?" asked Bonteen. Ratler sighed instead of
answering. Things had come to that pass that Mr. Gresham was the only
possible leader. And the leader of the House of Commons, on behalf
of the Government, must be the chief man in the Government, let the
so-called Prime Minister be who he may.
CHAPTER X.
THE DESERTED HUSBAND.
Phineas Finn had been in the gallery of the House throughout the
debate, and was greatly grieved at Mr. Daubeny's success, though
he himself had so strongly advocated the disestablishment of the
Church in canvassing the electors of Tankerville. No doubt he had
advocated the cause,--but he had done so as an advanced member of the
Liberal party, and he regarded the proposition when coming from Mr.
Daubeny as a horrible and abnormal birth. He, however, was only a
looker-on,--could be no more than a looker-on for the existing short
session. It had already been decided that the judge who was to try
the case at Tankerville should visit that town early in January; and
should it be decided on a scrutiny that the seat belonged to our
hero, then he would enter upon his privilege in the following Session
without any further trouble to himself at Tankerville. Should this
not be the case,--then the abyss of absolute vacuity would be open
before him. He would have to make some disposition of himself, but he
would be absolutely without an idea as to the how or where. He was in
possession of funds to support himself for a year or two; but after
that, and even during that time, all would be dark. If he should get
his seat, then again the power of making an effort would at last be
within his hands.
He had made up his mind to spend the Christmas with Lord Brentford
and Lady Laura Kennedy at Dresden, and had already fixed the day of
his arrival there. But this had been postponed by another invitation
which had surprised him much, but which it had been impossible for
him not to accept. It had come as follows:--
November 9th, Loughlinter.
DEAR SIR,
I am informed by letter from Dresden that you are in
London on your way to that city with the view of spending
some days with the Earl of Brentford. You will, of course,
be once more thrown into the society of my wife, Lady
Laura Kennedy.
I have never understood, and certainly have never
sanctioned, that breach of my wife's marriage vow which
has led to her withdrawal from my roof. I never bade her
go, and I have bidden her return. Whatever may be her
feelings, or mine, her duty demands her presence here,
and my duty calls upon me to receive her. This I am and
always have been ready to do. Were the laws of Europe
sufficiently explicit and intelligible I should force her
to return to my house,--because she sins while she remains
away, and I should sin were I to omit to use any means
which the law might place in my hands for the due control
of my own wife. I am very explicit to you although we
have of late been strangers, because in former days you
were closely acquainted with the condition of my family
affairs.
Since my wife left me I have had no means of communicating
with her by the assistance of any common friend. Having
heard that you are about to visit her at Dresden I feel a
great desire to see you that I may be enabled to send by
you a personal message. My health, which is now feeble,
and the altered habits of my life render it almost
impossible that I should proceed to London with this
object, and I therefore ask it of your Christian charity
that you should visit me here at Loughlinter. You, as a
Roman Catholic, cannot but hold the bond of matrimony
to be irrefragable. You cannot, at least, think that it
should be set aside at the caprice of an excitable woman
who is not able and never has been able to assign any
reason for leaving the protection of her husband.
I shall have much to say to you, and I trust you will
come. I will not ask you to prolong your visit, as I have
nothing to offer you in the way of amusement. My mother is
with me; but otherwise I am alone. Since my wife left me I
have not thought it even decent to entertain guests or to
enjoy society. I have lived a widowed life. I cannot even
offer you shooting, as I have no keepers on the mountains.
There are fish in the river doubtless, for the gifts of
God are given let men be ever so unworthy; but this, I
believe, is not the month for fishermen. I ask you to come
to me, not as a pleasure, but as a Christian duty.
Yours truly,
ROBERT KENNEDY.
Phineas Finn, Esq.
As soon as he had read the letter Phineas felt that he had no
alternative but to go. The visit would be very disagreeable, but it
must be made. So he sent a line to Robert Kennedy naming a day; and
wrote another to Lady Laura postponing his time at Dresden by a week,
and explaining the cause of its postponement. As soon as the debate
on the Address was over he started for Loughlinter.
A thousand memories crowded on his brain as he made the journey.
Various circumstances had in his early life,--in that period of his
life which had lately seemed to be cut off from the remainder of his
days by so clear a line,--thrown him into close connection with this
man, and with the man's wife. He had first gone to Loughlinter, not
as Lady Laura's guest,--for Lady Laura had not then been married, or
even engaged to be married,--but on her persuasion rather than on
that of Mr. Kennedy. When there he had asked Lady Laura to be his own
wife, and she had then told him that she was to become the wife of
the owner of that domain. He remembered the blow as though it had
been struck but yesterday, and yet the pain of the blow had not been
long enduring. But though then rejected he had always been the chosen
friend of the woman,--a friend chosen after an especial fashion. When
he had loved another woman this friend had resented his defection
with all a woman's jealousy. He had saved the husband's life, and had
then become also the husband's friend, after that cold fashion which
an obligation will create. Then the husband had been jealous, and
dissension had come, and the ill-matched pair had been divided, with
absolute ruin to both of them, as far as the material comforts and
well-being of life were concerned. Then he, too, had been ejected,
as it were, out of the world, and it had seemed to him as though
Laura Standish and Robert Kennedy had been the inhabitants of another
hemisphere. Now he was about to see them both again, both separately;
and to become the medium of some communication between them. He knew,
or thought that he knew, that no communication could avail anything.
It was dark night when he was driven up to the door of Loughlinter
House in a fly from the town of Callender. When he first made the
journey, now some six or seven years since, he had done so with Mr.
Ratler, and he remembered well that circumstance. He remembered also
that on his arrival Lady Laura had scolded him for having travelled
in such company. She had desired him to seek other friends,--friends
higher in general estimation, and nobler in purpose. He had done so,
partly at her instance, and with success. But Mr. Ratler was now
somebody in the world, and he was nobody. And he remembered also how
on that occasion he had been troubled in his mind in regard to a
servant, not as yet knowing whether the usages of the world did or
did not require that he should go so accompanied. He had taken the
man, and had been thoroughly ashamed of himself for doing so. He had
no servant now, no grandly developed luggage, no gun, no elaborate
dress for the mountains. On that former occasion his heart had been
very full when he reached Loughlinter, and his heart was full now.
Then he had resolved to say a few words to Lady Laura, and he had
hardly known how best to say them. Now he would be called upon to
say a few to Lady Laura's husband, and the task would be almost as
difficult.
The door was opened for him by an old servant in black, who proposed
at once to show him to his room. He looked round the vast hall,
which, when he had before known it, was ever filled with signs of
life, and felt at once that it was empty and deserted. It struck him
as intolerably cold, and he saw that the huge fireplace was without a
spark of fire. Dinner, the servant said, was prepared for half-past
seven. Would Mr. Finn wish to dress? Of course he wished to dress.
And as it was already past seven he hurried up stairs to his room.
Here again everything was cold and wretched. There was no fire, and
the man had left him with a single candle. There were candlesticks on
the dressing-table, but they were empty. The man had suggested hot
water, but the hot water did not come. In his poorest days he had
never known discomfort such as this, and yet Mr. Kennedy was one of
the richest commoners of Great Britain.
But he dressed, and made his way down stairs, not knowing where
he should find his host or his host's mother. He recognised the
different doors and knew the rooms within them, but they seemed
inhospitably closed against him, and he went and stood in the cold
hall. But the man was watching for him, and led him into a small
parlour. Then it was explained to him that Mr. Kennedy's state of
health did not admit of late dinners. He was to dine alone, and Mr.
Kennedy would receive him after dinner. In a moment his cheeks became
red, and a flash of wrath crossed his heart. Was he to be treated
in this way by a man on whose behalf,--with no thought of his own
comfort or pleasure,--he had made this long and abominable journey?
Might it not be well for him to leave the house without seeing Mr.
Kennedy at all? Then he remembered that he had heard it whispered
that the man had become bewildered in his mind. He relented,
therefore, and condescended to eat his dinner.
A very poor dinner it was. There was a morsel of flabby white fish,
as to the nature of which Phineas was altogether in doubt, a beef
steak as to the nature of which he was not at all in doubt, and a
little crumpled-up tart which he thought the driver of the fly must
have brought with him from the pastry-cook's at Callender. There was
some very hot sherry, but not much of it. And there was a bottle of
claret, as to which Phineas, who was not usually particular in the
matter of wine, persisted in declining to have anything to do with
it after the first attempt. The gloomy old servant, who stuck to him
during the repast, persisted in offering it, as though the credit
of the hospitality of Loughlinter depended on it. There are so many
men by whom the tenuis ratio saporum has not been achieved, that the
Caleb Balderstones of those houses in which plenty does not flow
are almost justified in hoping that goblets of Gladstone may pass
current. Phineas Finn was not a martyr to eating or drinking. He
played with his fish without thinking much about it. He worked
manfully at the steak. He gave another crumple to the tart, and left
it without a pang. But when the old man urged him, for the third
time, to take that pernicious draught with his cheese, he angrily
demanded a glass of beer. The old man toddled out of the room, and
on his return he proffered to him a diminutive glass of white spirit,
which he called usquebaugh. Phineas, happy to get a little whisky,
said nothing more about the beer, and so the dinner was over.
He rose so suddenly from his chair that the man did not dare to ask
him whether he would not sit over his wine. A suggestion that way was
indeed made, would he "visit the laird out o' hand, or would he bide
awee?" Phineas decided on visiting the laird out of hand, and was
at once led across the hall, down a back passage which he had never
before traversed, and introduced to the chamber which had ever been
known as the "laird's ain room." Here Robert Kennedy rose to receive
him.
Phineas knew the man's age well. He was still under fifty, but he
looked as though he were seventy. He had always been thin, but he was
thinner now than ever. He was very grey, and stooped so much, that
though he came forward a step or two to greet his guest, it seemed
as though he had not taken the trouble to raise himself to his
proper height. "You find me a much altered man," he said. The change
had been so great that it was impossible to deny it, and Phineas
muttered something of regret that his host's health should be so
bad. "It is trouble of the mind,--not of the body, Mr. Finn. It is
her doing,--her doing. Life is not to me a light thing, nor are
the obligations of life light. When I married a wife, she became
bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Can I lose my bones and
my flesh,--knowing that they are not with God but still subject
elsewhere to the snares of the devil, and live as though I were a
sound man? Had she died I could have borne it. I hope they have made
you comfortable, Mr. Finn?"
"Oh, yes," said Phineas.
"Not that Loughlinter can be comfortable now to any one. How can a
man, whose wife has deserted him, entertain his guests? I am ashamed
even to look a friend in the face, Mr. Finn." As he said this he
stretched forth his open hand as though to hide his countenance, and
Phineas hardly knew whether the absurdity of the movement or the
tragedy of the feeling struck him the more forcibly. "What did I do
that she should leave me? Did I strike her? Was I faithless? Had she
not the half of all that was mine? Did I frighten her by hard words,
or exact hard tasks? Did I not commune with her, telling her all my
most inward purposes? In things of this world, and of that better
world that is coming, was she not all in all to me? Did I not make
her my very wife? Mr. Finn, do you know what made her go away?" He
had asked perhaps a dozen questions. As to the eleven which came
first it was evident that no answer was required; and they had been
put with that pathetic dignity with which it is so easy to invest
the interrogatory form of address. But to the last question it was
intended that Phineas should give an answer, as Phineas presumed
at once; and then it was asked with a wink of the eye, a low eager
voice, and a sly twist of the face that were frightfully ludicrous.
"I suppose you do know," said Mr. Kennedy, again working his eye,
and thrusting his chin forward.
[Illustration: The Laird of Loughlinter.]
"I imagine that she was not happy."
"Happy? What right had she to expect to be happy? Are we to believe
that we should be happy here? Are we not told that we are to look
for happiness there, and to hope for none below?" As he said this he
stretched his left hand to the ceiling. "But why shouldn't she have
been happy? What did she want? Did she ever say anything against me,
Mr. Finn?"
"Nothing but this,--that your temper and hers were incompatible."
"I thought at one time that you advised her to go away?"
"Never!"
"She told you about it?"
"Not, if I remember, till she had made up her mind, and her father
had consented to receive her. I had known, of course, that things
were unpleasant."
"How were they unpleasant? Why were they unpleasant? She wouldn't let
you come and dine with me in London. I never knew why that was. When
she did what was wrong, of course I had to tell her. Who else should
tell her but her husband? If you had been her husband, and I only
an acquaintance, then I might have said what I pleased. They rebel
against the yoke because it is a yoke. And yet they accept the yoke,
knowing it to be a yoke. It comes of the devil. You think a priest
can put everything right."
"No, I don't," said Phineas.
"Nothing can put you right but the fear of God; and when a woman
is too proud to ask for that, evils like these are sure to come.
She would not go to church on Sunday afternoon, but had meetings of
Belial at her father's house instead." Phineas well remembered those
meetings of Belial, in which he with others had been wont to discuss
the political prospects of the day. "When she persisted in breaking
the Lord's commandment, and defiling the Lord's day, I knew well what
would come of it."
"I am not sure, Mr. Kennedy, that a husband is justified in demanding
that a wife shall think just as he thinks on matters of religion. If
he is particular about it, he should find all that out before."
"Particular! God's word is to be obeyed, I suppose?"
"But people doubt about God's word."
"Then people will be damned," said Mr. Kennedy, rising from his
chair. "And they will be damned."
"A woman doesn't like to be told so."
"I never told her so. I never said anything of the kind. I never
spoke a hard word to her in my life. If her head did but ache, I hung
over her with the tenderest solicitude. I refused her nothing. When
I found that she was impatient I chose the shortest sermon for our
Sunday evening's worship, to the great discomfort of my mother."
Phineas wondered whether this assertion as to the discomfort of old
Mrs. Kennedy could possibly be true. Could it be that any human being
really preferred a long sermon to a short one,--except the being who
preached it or read it aloud? "There was nothing that I did not do
for her. I suppose you really do know why she went away, Mr. Finn?"
"I know nothing more than I have said."
"I did think once that she was--"
"There was nothing more than I have said," asserted Phineas sternly,
fearing that the poor insane man was about to make some suggestion
that would be terribly painful. "She felt that she did not make you
happy."
"I did not want her to make me happy. I do not expect to be made
happy. I wanted her to do her duty. You were in love with her once,
Mr. Finn?"
"Yes, I was. I was in love with Lady Laura Standish."
"Ah! Yes. There was no harm in that, of course; only when any thing
of that kind happens, people had better keep out of each other's way
afterwards. Not that I was ever jealous, you know."
"I should hope not."
"But I don't see why you should go all the way to Dresden to pay her
a visit. What good can that do? I think you had much better stay
where you are, Mr. Finn; I do indeed. It isn't a decent thing for a
young unmarried man to go half across Europe to see a lady who is
separated from her husband, and who was once in love with him;--I
mean he was once in love with her. It's a very wicked thing, Mr.
Finn, and I have to beg that you will not do it."
Phineas felt that he had been grossly taken in. He had been asked to
come to Loughlinter in order that he might take a message from the
husband to the wife, and now the husband made use of his compliance
to forbid the visit on some grotesque score of jealousy. He knew that
the man was mad, and that therefore he ought not to be angry; but the
man was not too mad to require a rational answer, and had some method
in his madness. "Lady Laura Kennedy is living with her father," said
Phineas.
"Pshaw;--dotard!"
"Lady Laura Kennedy is living with her father," repeated Phineas;
"and I am going to the house of the Earl of Brentford."
"Who was it wrote and asked you?"
"The letter was from Lady Laura."
"Yes;--from my wife. What right had my wife to write to you when
she will not even answer my appeals? She is my wife;--my wife! In
the presence of God she and I have been made one, and even man's
ordinances have not dared to separate us. Mr. Finn, as the husband
of Lady Laura Kennedy, I desire that you abstain from seeking her
presence." As he said this he rose from his chair, and took the poker
in his hand. The chair in which he was sitting was placed upon the
rug, and it might be that the fire required his attention. As he
stood bending down, with the poker in his right hand, with his eye
still fixed on his guest's face, his purpose was doubtful. The motion
might be a threat, or simply have a useful domestic tendency. But
Phineas, believing that the man was mad, rose from his seat and stood
upon his guard. The point of the poker had undoubtedly been raised;
but as Phineas stretched himself to his height, it fell gradually
towards the fire, and at last was buried very gently among the coals.
But he was never convinced that Mr. Kennedy had carried out the
purpose with which he rose from his chair. "After what has passed,
you will no doubt abandon your purpose," said Mr. Kennedy.
"I shall certainly go to Dresden," said Phineas. "If you have a
message to send, I will take it."
"Then you will be accursed among adulterers," said the laird of
Loughlinter. "By such a one I will send no message. From the first
moment that I saw you I knew you for a child of Apollyon. But the sin
was my own. Why did I ask to my house an idolater, one who pretends
to believe that a crumb of bread is my God, a Papist, untrue alike
to his country and to his Saviour? When she desired it of me I knew
that I was wrong to yield. Yes;--it is you who have done it all, you,
you, you;--and if she be a castaway, the weight of her soul will be
doubly heavy on your own."
To get out of the room, and then at the earliest possible hour of the
morning out of the house, were now the objects to be attained. That
his presence had had a peculiarly evil influence on Mr. Kennedy,
Phineas could not doubt; as assuredly the unfortunate man would
not have been left with mastery over his own actions had his usual
condition been such as that which he now displayed. He had been told
that "poor Kennedy" was mad,--as we are often told of the madness
of our friends when they cease for awhile to run in the common
grooves of life. But the madman had now gone a long way out of
the grooves;--so far, that he seemed to Phineas to be decidedly
dangerous. "I think I had better wish you good night," he said.
"Look here, Mr. Finn."
"Well?"
"I hope you won't go and make more mischief."
"I shall not do that, certainly."
"You won't tell her what I have said?"
"I shall tell her nothing to make her think that your opinion of her
is less high than it ought to be."
"Good night."
"Good night," said Phineas again; and then he left the room. It was
as yet but nine o'clock, and he had no alternative but to go to bed.
He found his way back into the hall, and from thence up to his own
chamber. But there was no fire there, and the night was cold. He went
to the window, and raised it for a moment, that he might hear the
well-remembered sound of the Fall of Linter. Though the night was
dark and wintry, a dismal damp November night, he would have crept
out of the house and made his way up to the top of the brae, for
the sake of auld lang syne, had he not feared that the inhospitable
mansion would be permanently closed against him on his return. He
rang the bell once or twice, and after a while the old serving man
came to him. Could he have a cup of tea? The man shook his head, and
feared that no boiling water could be procured at that late hour of
the night. Could he have his breakfast the next morning at seven, and
a conveyance to Callender at half-past seven? When the old man again
shook his head, seeming to be dazed at the enormity of the demand,
Phineas insisted that his request should be conveyed to the master of
the house. As to the breakfast, he said he did not care about it, but
the conveyance he must have. He did, in fact, obtain both, and left
the house early on the following morning without again seeing Mr.
Kennedy, and without having spoken a single word to Mr. Kennedy's
mother. And so great was his hurry to get away from the place which
had been so disagreeable to him, and which he thought might possibly
become more so, that he did not even run across the sward that
divided the gravel sweep from the foot of the waterfall.
CHAPTER XI.
THE TRUANT WIFE.
Phineas on his return to London wrote a line to Lady Chiltern in
accordance with a promise which had been exacted from him. She was
anxious to learn something as to the real condition of her husband's
brother-in-law, and, when she heard that Phineas was going to
Loughlinter, had begged that he would tell her the truth. "He has
become eccentric, gloomy, and very strange," said Phineas. "I do not
believe that he is really mad, but his condition is such that I think
no friend should recommend Lady Laura to return to him. He seems to
have devoted himself to a gloomy religion,--and to the saving of
money. I had but one interview with him, and that was essentially
disagreeable." Having remained two days in London, and having
participated, as far as those two days would allow him, in the
general horror occasioned by the wickedness and success of Mr.
Daubeny, he started for Dresden.
He found Lord Brentford living in a spacious house, with a huge
garden round it, close upon the northern confines of the town.
Dresden, taken altogether, is a clean cheerful city, and strikes
the stranger on his first entrance as a place in which men are
gregarious, busy, full of merriment, and pre-eminently social. Such
is the happy appearance of but few towns either in the old or the
new world, and is hardly more common in Germany than elsewhere.
Leipsic is decidedly busy, but does not look to be social. Vienna is
sufficiently gregarious, but its streets are melancholy. Munich is
social, but lacks the hum of business. Frankfort is both practical
and picturesque, but it is dirty, and apparently averse to mirth.
Dresden has much to recommend it, and had Lord Brentford with his
daughter come abroad in quest of comfortable easy social life, his
choice would have been well made. But, as it was, any of the towns
above named would have suited him as well as Dresden, for he saw no
society, and cared nothing for the outward things of the world around
him. He found Dresden to be very cold in the winter and very hot in
the summer, and he liked neither heat nor cold; but he had made up
his mind that all places, and indeed all things, are nearly equally
disagreeable, and therefore he remained at Dresden, grumbling almost
daily as to the climate and manners of the people.
Phineas, when he arrived at the hall door, almost doubted whether
he had not been as wrong in visiting Lord Brentford as he had in
going to Loughlinter. His friendship with the old Earl had been
very fitful, and there had been quarrels quite as pronounced as the
friendship. He had often been happy in the Earl's house, but the
happiness had not sprung from any love for the man himself. How would
it be with him if he found the Earl hardly more civil to him than the
Earl's son-in-law had been? In former days the Earl had been a man
quite capable of making himself disagreeable, and probably had not
yet lost the power of doing so. Of all our capabilities this is the
one which clings longest to us. He was thinking of all this when he
found himself at the door of the Earl's house. He had travelled all
night, and was very cold. At Leipsic there had been a nominal twenty
minutes for refreshment, which the circumstances of the station had
reduced to five. This had occurred very early in the morning, and had
sufficed only to give him a bowl of coffee. It was now nearly ten,
and breakfast had become a serious consideration with him. He almost
doubted whether it would not have been better for him to have gone to
an hotel in the first instance.
He soon found himself in the hall amidst a cluster of servants, among
whom he recognised the face of a man from Saulsby. He had, however,
little time allowed him for looking about. He was hardly in the house
before Lady Laura Kennedy was in his arms. She had run forward, and
before he could look into her face, she had put up her cheek to his
lips and had taken both his hands. "Oh, my friend," she said; "oh,
my friend! How good you are to come to me! How good you are to come!"
And then she led him into a large room, in which a table had been
prepared for breakfast, close to an English-looking open fire. "How
cold you must be, and how hungry! Shall I have breakfast for you at
once, or will you dress first? You are to be quite at home, you know;
exactly as though we were brother and sister. You are not to stand on
any ceremonies." And again she took him by the hand. He had hardly
looked her yet in the face, and he could not do so now because he
knew that she was crying. "Then I will show you to your room," she
said, when he had decided for a tub of water before breakfast. "Yes,
I will,--my own self. And I'd fetch the water for you, only I know it
is there already. How long will you be? Half an hour? Very well. And
you would like tea best, wouldn't you?"
"Certainly, I should like tea best."
"I will make it for you. Papa never comes down till near two, and we
shall have all the morning for talking. Oh, Phineas, it is such a
pleasure to hear your voice again. You have been at Loughlinter?"
"Yes, I have been there."
"How very good of you; but I won't ask a question now. You must put
up with a stove here, as we have not open fires in the bed-rooms. I
hope you will be comfortable. Don't be more than half an hour, as I
shall be impatient."
Though he was thus instigated to haste he stood a few minutes with
his back to the warm stove that he might be enabled to think of it
all. It was two years since he had seen this woman, and when they had
parted there had been more between them of the remembrances of old
friendship than of present affection. During the last few weeks of
their intimacy she had made a point of telling him that she intended
to separate herself from her husband; but she had done so as though
it were a duty, and an arranged part of her own defence of her own
conduct. And in the latter incidents of her London life,--that life
with which he had been conversant,--she had generally been opposed
to him, or, at any rate, had chosen to be divided from him. She had
said severe things to him,--telling him that he was cold, heartless,
and uninterested, never trying even to please him with that sort of
praise which had once been so common with her in her intercourse with
him, and which all men love to hear from the mouths of women. She
had then been cold to him, though she would make wretched allusions
to the time when he, at any rate, had not been cold to her. She had
reproached him, and had at the same time turned away from him. She
had repudiated him, first as a lover, then as a friend; and he had
hitherto never been able to gauge the depth of the affection for him
which had underlaid all her conduct. As he stood there thinking of it
all, he began to understand it.
How natural had been her conduct on his arrival, and how like that
of a genuine, true-hearted, honest woman! All her first thoughts had
been for his little personal wants,--that he should be warmed, and
fed, and made outwardly comfortable. Let sorrow be ever so deep,
and love ever so true, a man will be cold who travels by winter,
and hungry who has travelled by night. And a woman, who is a true,
genuine woman, always takes delight in ministering to the natural
wants of her friend. To see a man eat and drink, and wear his
slippers, and sit at ease in his chair, is delightful to the feminine
heart that loves. When I heard the other day that a girl had herself
visited the room prepared for a man in her mother's house, then
I knew that she loved him, though I had never before believed it.
Phineas, as he stood there, was aware that this woman loved him
dearly. She had embraced him, and given her face to him to kiss. She
had clasped his hands, and clung to him, and had shown him plainly
that in the midst of all her sorrow she could be made happy by
his coming. But he was a man far too generous to take all this as
meaning aught that it did not mean,--too generous, and intrinsically
too manly. In his character there was much of weakness, much of
vacillation, perhaps some deficiency of strength and purpose; but
there was no touch of vanity. Women had loved him, and had told him
so; and he had been made happy, and also wretched, by their love. But
he had never taken pride, personally, to himself because they had
loved him. It had been the accident of his life. Now he remembered
chiefly that this woman had called herself his sister, and he was
grateful.
Then he thought of her personal appearance. As yet he had hardly
looked at her, but he felt that she had become old and worn, angular
and hard-visaged. All this had no effect upon his feelings towards
her, but filled him with ineffable regret. When he had first known
her she had been a woman with a noble presence--not soft and feminine
as had been Violet Effingham, but handsome and lustrous, with a
healthy youth. In regard to age he and she were of the same standing.
That he knew well. She had passed her thirty-second birthday, but
that was all. He felt himself to be still a young man, but he could
not think of her as of a young woman.
When he went down she had been listening for his footsteps, and
met him at the door of the room. "Now sit down," she said, "and be
comfortable--if you can, with German surroundings. They are almost
always late, and never give one any time. Everybody says so. The
station at Leipsic is dreadful, I know. Good coffee is very well, but
what is the use of good coffee if you have no time to drink it? You
must eat our omelette. If there is one thing we can do better than
you it is to make an omelette. Yes,--that is genuine German sausage.
There is always some placed upon the table, but the Germans who come
here never touch it themselves. You will have a cutlet, won't you?
I breakfasted an hour ago, and more. I would not wait because then
I thought I could talk to you better, and wait upon you. I did not
think that anything would ever please me so much again as your coming
has done. Oh, how much we shall have to say! Do you remember when we
last parted;--when you were going back to Ireland?"
"I remember it well."
"Ah me; as I look back upon it all, how strange it seems. I dare say
you don't remember the first day I met you, at Mr. Mildmay's,--when I
asked you to come to Portman Square because Barrington had said that
you were clever?"
"I remember well going to Portman Square."
"That was the beginning of it all. Oh dear, oh dear; when I think of
it I find it so hard to see where I have been right, and where I have
been wrong. If I had not been very wrong all this evil could not have
come upon me."
"Misfortune has not always been deserved."
"I am sure it has been so with me. You can smoke here if you like."
This Phineas persistently refused to do. "You may if you please. Papa
never comes in here, and I don't mind it. You'll settle down in a day
or two, and understand the extent of your liberties. Tell me first
about Violet. She is happy?"
"Quite happy, I think."
"I knew he would be good to her. But does she like the kind of life?"
"Oh, yes."
"She has a baby, and therefore of course she is happy. She says he is
the finest fellow in the world."
"I dare say he is. They all seem to be contented with him, but they
don't talk much about him."
"No; they wouldn't. Had you a child you would have talked about him,
Phineas. I should have loved my baby better than all the world, but I
should have been silent about him. With Violet of course her husband
is the first object. It would certainly be so from her nature. And so
Oswald is quite tame?"
"I don't know that he is very tame out hunting."
"But to her?"
"I should think always. She, you know, is very clever."
"So clever!"
"And would be sure to steer clear of all offence," said Phineas,
enthusiastically.
"While I could never for an hour avoid it. Did they say anything
about the journey to Flanders?"
"Chiltern did, frequently. He made me strip my shoulder to show him
the place where he hit me."
"How like Oswald!"
"And he told me that he would have given one of his eyes to kill me,
only Colepepper wouldn't let him go on. He half quarrelled with his
second, but the man told him that I had not fired at him, and the
thing must drop. 'It's better as it is, you know,' he said. And I
agreed with him."
"And how did Violet receive you?"
"Like an angel,--as she is."
"Well, yes. I'll grant she is an angel now. I was angry with her
once, you know. You men find so many angels in your travels. You have
been honester than some. You have generally been off with the old
angel before you were on with the new,--as far at least as I knew."
"Is that meant for rebuke, Lady Laura?"
"No, my friend; no. That is all over. I said to myself when you told
me that you would come, that I would not utter one ill-natured word.
And I told myself more than that!"
"What more?"
"That you had never deserved it,--at least from me. But surely you
were the most simple of men."
"I dare say."
"Men when they are true are simple. They are often false as hell,
and then they are crafty as Lucifer. But the man who is true judges
others by himself,--almost without reflection. A woman can be true as
steel and cunning at the same time. How cunning was Violet, and yet
she never deceived one of her lovers, even by a look. Did she?"
"She never deceived me,--if you mean that. She never cared a straw
about me, and told me so to my face very plainly."
"She did care,--many straws. But I think she always loved Oswald. She
refused him again and again, because she thought it wrong to run a
great risk, but I knew she would never marry any one else. How little
Lady Baldock understood her. Fancy your meeting Lady Baldock at
Oswald's house!"
"Fancy Augusta Boreham turning nun!"
"How exquisitely grotesque it must have been when she made her
complaint to you."
"I pitied her with all my heart."
"Of course you did,--because you are so soft. And now, Phineas, we
will put it off no longer. Tell me all that you have to tell me about
him."
CHAPTER XII.
KÖNIGSTEIN.
Phineas Finn and Lady Laura Kennedy sat together discussing the
affairs of the past till the servant told them that "My Lord" was in
the next room, and ready to receive Mr. Finn. "You will find him much
altered," said Lady Laura, "even more than I am."
"I do not find you altered at all."
"Yes, you do,--in appearance. I am a middle-aged woman, and conscious
that I may use my privileges as such. But he has become quite an old
man,--not in health so much as in manner. But he will be very glad to
see you." So saying she led him into a room, in which he found the
Earl seated near the fireplace, and wrapped in
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/18640