On the very morning after his failure in the House of Commons, when Phineas was reading in the Telegraph — he took the Telegraph not from choice but for economy — the words of that debate which he had heard and in which he should have taken a part, a most unwelcome visit was paid to him. It was near eleven, and the breakfast things were still on the table. He was at this time on a Committee of the House with reference to the use of potted peas in the army and navy, at which he had sat once — at a preliminary meeting — and in reference to which he had already resolved that as he had failed so frightfully in debate, he would certainly do his duty to the utmost in the more easy but infinitely more tedious work of the Committee Room. The Committee met at twelve, and he intended to walk down to the Reform Club, and then to the House. He had just completed his reading of the debate and of the leaders in the Telegraph on the subject. He had told himself how little the writer of the article knew about Mr Turnbull, how little about Mr Monk, and how little about the people — such being his own ideas as to the qualifications of the writer of that leading article — and was about to start. But Mrs Bunce arrested him by telling him that there was a man below who wanted to see him.
“What sort of a man, Mrs Bunce?”
“He ain’t a gentleman, sir.”
“Did he give his name?”
“He did not, sir; but I know it’s about money. I know the ways of them so well. I’ve seen this one’s face before somewhere.”
“You had better show him up,” said Phineas. He knew well the business on which the man was come. The man wanted money for that bill which Laurence Fitzgibbon had sent afloat, and which Phineas had endorsed. Phineas had never as yet fallen so deeply into troubles of money as to make it necessary that he need refuse himself to any callers on that score, and he did not choose to do so now. Nevertheless he most heartily wished that he had left his lodgings for the club before the man had come. This was not the first he had heard of the bill being overdue and unpaid. The bill had been brought to him noted a month since, and then he had simply told the youth who brought it that he would see Mr Fitzgibbon and have the matter settled. He had spoken to his friend Laurence, and Laurence had simply assured him that all should be made right in two days — or, at furthest, by the end of a week. Since that time he had observed that his friend had been somewhat shy of speaking to him when no others were with them. Phineas would not have alluded to the bill had he and Laurence been alone together; but he had been quick enough to guess from his friend’s manner that the matter was not settled. Now, no doubt, serious trouble was about to commence.
The visitor was a little man with grey hair and a white cravat, some sixty years of age, dressed in black, with a very decent hat — which, on entering the room, he at once put down on the nearest chair — with reference to whom, any judge on the subject would have concurred at first sight in the decision pronounced by Mrs Bunce, though none but a judge very well used to sift the causes of his own conclusions could have given the reasons for that early decision. “He ain’t a gentleman,” Mrs Bunce had said. And the man certainly was not a gentleman. The old man in the white cravat was very neatly dressed, and carried himself without any of that humility which betrays one class of uncertified aspirants to gentility, or of that assumed arrogance which is at once fatal to another class. But, nevertheless, Mrs Bunce had seen at a glance that he was not a gentleman — had seen, moreover, that such a man could have come only upon one mission. She was right there too. This visitor had come about money.
“About this bill, Mr Finn,” said the visitor, proceeding to take out of his breast coat-pocket a rather large leathern case, as he advanced up towards the fire. “My name is Clarkson, Mr Finn. If I may venture so far, I’ll take a chair.”
“Certainly, Mr Clarkson,” said Phineas, getting up and pointing to a seat.
“Thankye, Mr Finn, thankye. We shall be more comfortable doing business sitting, shan’t we?” Whereupon the horrid little man drew himself close in to the fire, and spreading out his leathern case upon his knees, began to turn over one suspicious bit of paper after another, as though he were uncertain in what part of his portfolio lay this identical bit which he was seeking. He seemed to be quite at home, and to feel that there was no ground whatever for hurry in such comfortable quarters. Phineas hated him at once — with a hatred altogether unconnected with the difficulty which his friend Fitzgibbon had brought upon him.
“Here it is,” said Mr Clarkson at last. Oh, dear me, dear me! the third of November, and here we are in March! I didn’t think it was so bad as this — I didn’t indeed. This is very bad — very bad! And for Parliament gents, too, who should be more punctual than anybody, because of the privilege. Shouldn’t they now, Mr Finn?”
“All men should be punctual, I suppose,” said Phineas.
“Of course they should; of course they should. I always say to my gents, “Be punctual, and I’ll do anything for you.” But, perhaps, Mr Finn, you can hand me a cheque for this amount, and then you and I will begin square.”
“Indeed I cannot, Mr Clarkson.”
“Not hand me a cheque for it!”
“Upon my word, no.”
“That’s very bad; — very bad indeed. Then I suppose I must take the half, and renew for the remainder, though I don’t like it — I don’t indeed.”
“I can pay no part of that bill, Mr Clarkson.”
“Pay no part of it!” and Mr Clarkson, in order that he might the better express his surprise, arrested his hand in the very act of poking his host’s fire.
“If you’ll allow me, I’ll manage the fire,” said Phineas, putting out his hand for the poker.
But Mr Clarkson was fond of poking fires, and would not surrender the poker. “Pay no part of it!” he said again, holding the poker away from Phineas in his left hand. “Don’t say that, Mr Finn. Pray don’t say that. Don’t drive me to be severe. I don’t like to be severe with my gents. I’ll do anything, Mr Finn, if you’ll only be punctual.”
“The fact is, Mr Clarkson, I have never had one penny of consideration for that bill, and — ”
“Oh, Mr Finn! oh, Mr Finn!” and then Mr Clarkson had his will of the fire.
“I never had one penny of consideration for that bill,” continued Phineas. “Of course, I don’t deny my responsibility.”
“No, Mr Finn; you can’t deny that. Here it is — Phineas Finn — and everybody knows you, because you’re a Parliament gent.”
“I don’t deny it. But I had no reason to suppose that I should be called upon for the money when I accommodated my friend, Mr Fitzgibbon, and I have not got it. That is the long and the short of it. I must see him and take care that arrangements are made.”
“Arrangements!”
“Yes, arrangements for settling the bill.”
“He hasn’t got the money, Mr Finn. You know that as well as I do.”
“I know nothing about it, Mr Clarkson.”
“Oh yes, Mr Finn; you know; you know.”
“I tell you I know nothing about it,” said Phineas, waxing angry.
“As to Mr Fitzgibbon, he’s the pleasantest gent that ever lived. Isn’t he now? I’ve know’d him these ten years. I don’t suppose that for ten years I’ve been without his name in my pocket. But, bless you, Mr Finn, there’s an end to everything. I shouldn’t have looked at this bit of paper if it hadn’t been for your signature. Of course not. You’re just beginning, and it’s natural you should want a little help. You’ll find me always ready, if you’ll only be punctual.”
“I tell you again, sir, that I never had a shilling out of that for myself, and do not want any such help.” Here Mr Clarkson smiled sweetly. “I gave my name to my friend simply to oblige him.”
“I like you Irish gents because you do hang together so close,” said Mr Clarkson.
“Simply to oblige him,” continued Phineas. As I said before, I know that I am responsible; but, as I said before also, I have not the means of taking up that bill. I will see Mr Fitzgibbon, and let you know what we propose to do.” Then Phineas got up from his seat and took his hat. It was full time that he should go down to his Committee. But Mr Clarkson did not get up from his seat. “I’m afraid I must ask you to leave me now, Mr Clarkson, as I have business down at the House.”
“Business at the House never presses, Mr Finn,” said Mr Clarkson. “That’s the best of Parliament. I’ve known Parliament gents this thirty years and more. Would you believe it — I’ve had a Prime Minister’s name in that portfolio; that I have; and a Lord Chancellor’s; that I have — and an Archbishop’s too. I know what Parliament is, Mr Finn. Come, come; don’t put me off with Parliament.”
There he sat before the fire with his pouch open before him, and Phineas had no power of moving him. Could Phineas have paid him the money which was manifestly due to him on the bill, the man would of course have gone; but failing in that, Phineas could not turn him out. There was a black cloud on the young member’s brow, and great anger at his heart — against Fitzgibbon rather than against the man who was sitting there before him. “Sir,” he said, it is really imperative that I should go. I am pledged to an appointment at the House at twelve, and it wants now only a quarter. I regret that your interview with me should be so unsatisfactory, but I can only promise you that I will see Mr Fitzgibbon.”
“And when shall I call again, Mr Finn?”
“Perhaps I had better write to you,” said Phineas.
“Oh dear, no,” said Mr Clarkson. I should much prefer to look in. Looking in is always best. We can get to understand one another in that way. Let me see. I daresay you’re not particular. Suppose I say Sunday morning.”
“Really, I could not see you on Sunday morning, Mr Clarkson.”
“Parliament gents ain’t generally particular — ‘specially not among the Catholics,” pleaded Mr Clarkson.
“I am always engaged on Sundays,” said Phineas.
“Suppose we say Monday — or Tuesday. Tuesday morning at eleven. And do be punctual, Mr Finn. At Tuesday morning I’ll come, and then no doubt I shall find you ready.” Whereupon Mr Clarkson slowly put up his bills within his portfolio, and then, before Phineas knew where he was, had warmly shaken that poor dismayed member of Parliament by the hand. “Only do be punctual, Mr Finn,” he said, as he made his way down the stairs.
It was now twelve, and Phineas rushed off to a cab. He was in such a fervour of rage and misery that he could hardly think of his position, or what he had better do, till he got into the Committee Room; and when there he could think of nothing else. He intended to go deeply into the question of potted peas, holding an equal balance between the assailed Government offices on the one hand, and the advocates of the potted peas on the other. The potters of the peas, who wanted to sell their article to the Crown, declared that an extensive — perhaps we may say, an unlimited — use of the article would save the whole army and navy from the scourges of scurvy, dyspepsia, and rheumatism, would be the best safeguard against typhus and other fevers, and would be an invaluable aid in all other maladies to which soldiers and sailors are peculiarly subject. The peas in question were grown on a large scale in Holstein, and their growth had been fostered with the special object of doing good to the British army and navy. The peas were so cheap that there would be a great saving in money — and it really had seemed to many that the officials of the Horse Guards and the Admiralty had been actuated by some fiendish desire to deprive their men of salutary fresh vegetables, simply because they were of foreign growth. But the officials of the War Office and the Admiralty declared that the potted peas in question were hardly fit for swine. The motion for the Committee had been made by a gentleman of the opposition, and Phineas had been put upon it as an independent member. He had resolved to give it all his mind, and, as far as he was concerned, to reach a just decision, in which there should be no favour shown to the Government side. New brooms are proverbial for thorough work, and in this Committee work Phineas was as yet a new broom. But, unfortunately, on this day his mind was so harassed that he could hardly understand what was going on. It did not, perhaps, much signify, as the witnesses examined were altogether agricultural. They only proved the production of peas in Holstein — a fact as to which Phineas had no doubt. The proof was naturally slow, as the evidence was given in German, and had to be translated into English. And the work of the day was much impeded by a certain member who unfortunately spoke German, who seemed to be fond of speaking German before his brethren of the Committee, and who was curious as to agriculture in Holstein generally. The chairman did not understand German, and there was a difficulty in checking this gentleman, and in making him understand that his questions were not relevant to the issue.
Phineas could not keep his mind during the whole afternoon from the subject of his misfortune. What should he do if this horrid man came to him once or twice a week? He certainly did owe the man the money. He must admit that to himself. The man no doubt was a dishonest knave who had discounted the bill probably at fifty per cent; but, nevertheless, Phineas had made himself legally responsible for the amount. The privilege of the House prohibited him from arrest. He thought of that very often, but the thought only made him the more unhappy. Would it not be said, and might it not be said truly, that he had incurred this responsibility — a responsibility which he was altogether unequal to answer — because he was so protected? He did feel that a certain consciousness of his privilege had been present to him when he had put his name across the paper, and there had been dishonesty in that very consciousness. And of what service would his privilege be to him, if this man could harass every hour of his life? The man was to be with him again in a day or two, and when the appointment had been proposed, he, Phineas, had not dared to negative it. And how was he to escape? As for paying the bill, that with him was altogether impossible. The man had told him — and he had believed the man — that payment by Fitzgibbon was out of the question. And yet Fitzgibbon was the son of a peer, whereas he was only the son of a country doctor! Of course Fitzgibbon must make some effort — some great effort — and have the thing settled. Alas, alas! He knew enough of the world already to feel that the hope was vain.
He went down from the Committee room into the House, and he dined at the House, and remained there until eight or nine at night; but Fitzgibbon did not come. He then went to the Reform Club, but he was not there. Both at the club and in the House many men spoke to him about the debate of the previous night, expressing surprise that he had not spoken — making him more and more wretched. He saw Mr Monk, but Mr Monk was walking arm in arm with his colleague, Mr Palliser, and Phineas could do no more than just speak to them. He thought that Mr Monk’s nod of recognition was very cold. That might be fancy, but it certainly was a fact that Mr Monk only nodded to him. He would tell Mr Monk the truth, and then, if Mr Monk chose to quarrel with him, he at any rate would take no step to renew their friendship.
From the Reform Club he went to the Shakspeare, a smaller club to which Fitzgibbon belonged — and of which Phineas much wished to become a member — and to which he knew that his friend resorted when he wished to enjoy himself thoroughly, and to be at ease in his inn. Men at the Shakspeare could do as they pleased. There were no politics there, no fashion, no stiffness, and no rules — so men said; but that was hardly true. Everybody called everybody by his Christian name, and members smoked all over the house. They who did not belong to the Shakspeare thought it an Elysium upon earth; and they who did, believed it to be among Pandemoniums the most pleasant. Phineas called at the Shakspeare, and was told by the porter that Mr Fitzgibbon was upstairs. He was shown into the strangers’ room, and in five minutes his friend came down to him.
“I want you to come down to the Reform with me,” said Phineas.
“By jingo, my dear fellow, I’m in the middle of a rubber of whist.”
“There has been a man with me about that bill.”
“What — Clarkson?”
“Yes, Clarkson,” said Phineas.
“Don’t mind him,” said Fitzgibbon.
“That’s nonsense. How am I to help minding him? I must mind him. He is coming to me again on Tuesday morning.”
“Don’t see him.”
“How can I help seeing him?”
“Make them say you’re not at home.”
“He has made an appointment. He has told me that he’ll never leave me alone. He’ll be the death of me if this is not settled.”
“It shall be settled, my dear fellow. I’ll see about it. I’ll see about it and write you a line. You must excuse me now, because those fellows are waiting. I’ll have it all arranged.”
Again as Phineas went home he thoroughly wished that he had not seceded from Mr Low.
About the middle of March Lady Baldock came up from Baddingham to London, coerced into doing so, as Violet Effingham declared, in thorough opposition to all her own tastes, by the known wishes of her friends and relatives. Her friends and relatives, so Miss Effingham insinuated, were unanimous in wishing that Lady Baldock should remain at Baddingham Park, and therefore — that wish having been indiscreetly expressed — she had put herself to great inconvenience, and had come to London in March. “Gustavus will go mad,” said Violet to Lady Laura. The Gustavus in question was the Lord Baldock of the present generation, Miss Effingham’s Lady Baldock being the peer’s mother. “Why does not Lord Baldock take a house himself?” asked Lady Laura. “Don’t you know, my dear, Violet answered, “how much we Baddingham people think of money? We don’t like being vexed and driven mad, but even that is better than keeping up two households.” As regarded Violet, the injury arising from Lady Baldock’s early migration was very great, for she was thus compelled to move from Grosvenor Place to Lady Baldock’s house in Berkeley Square. “As you are so fond of being in London, Augusta and I have made up our minds to come up before Easter,” Lady Baldock had written to her.
“I shall go to her now”, Violet had said to her friend, “because I have not quite made up my mind as to what I will do for the future.”
“Marry Oswald, and be your own mistress.”
“I mean to be my own mistress without marrying Oswald, though I don’t see my way quite clearly as yet. I think I shall set up a little house of my own, and let the world say what it pleases. I suppose they couldn’t make me out to be a lunatic.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if they were to try,” said Lady Laura.
“They could not prevent me in any other way. But I am in the dark as yet, and so I shall be obedient and go to my aunt.”
Miss Effingham went to Berkeley Square, and Phineas Finn was introduced to Lady Baldock. He had been often in Grosvenor Place, and had seen Violet frequently. Mr Kennedy gave periodical dinners — once a week — to which everybody went who could get an invitation; and Phineas had been a guest more than once. Indeed, in spite of his miseries he had taken to dining out a good deal, and was popular as an eater of dinners. He could talk when wanted, and did not talk too much, was pleasant in manners and appearance, and had already achieved a certain recognised position in London life. Of those who knew him intimately, not one in twenty were aware from whence he came, what was his parentage, or what his means of living. He was a member of Parliament, a friend of Mr Kennedy’s, was intimate with Mr Monk, though an Irishman did not as a rule herd with other Irishmen, and was the right sort of person to have at your house. Some people said he was a cousin of Lord Brentford’s, and others declared that he was Lord Chiltern’s earliest friend. There he was, however, with a position gained, and even Lady Baldock asked him to her house.
Lady Baldock had evenings. People went to her house, and stood about the room and on the stairs, talked to each other for half an hour, and went away. In these March days there was no crowding, but still there were always enough of people there to show that Lady Baldock was successful. Why people should have gone to Lady Baldock’s I cannot explain — but there are houses to which people go without any reason. Phineas received a little card asking him to go, and he always went.
“I think you like my friend, Mr Finn,” Lady Laura said to Miss Effingham, after the first of these evenings.
“Yes, I do. I like him decidedly.”
“So do I. I should hardly have thought that you would have taken a fancy to him.”
“I hardly know what you call taking a fancy,” said Violet. “I am not quite sure I like to be told that I have taken a fancy for a young man.”
“I mean no offence, my dear.”
“Of course you don’t. But, to speak truth, I think I have rather taken a fancy to him. There is just enough of him, but not too much. I don’t mean materially — in regard to his inches; but as to his mental belongings. I hate a stupid man who can’t talk to me, and I hate a clever man who talks me down. I don’t like a man who is too lazy to make any effort to shine; but I particularly dislike the man who is always striving for effect. I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth, and all that kind of thing.”
“You want to be flattered without plain flattery.”
“Of course I do. A man who would tell me that I am pretty, unless he is over seventy, ought to be kicked out of the room. But a man who can’t show me that he thinks me so without saying a word about it, is a lout. Now in all those matters, your friend, Mr Finn, seems to know what he is about. In other words, he makes himself pleasant, and, therefore, one is glad to see him.”
“I suppose you do not mean to fall in love with him?”
“Not that I know of, my dear. But when I do, I’ll be sure to give you notice.”
I fear that there was more of earnestness in Lady Laura’s last question than Miss Effingham had supposed. She had declared to herself over and over again that she had never been in love with Phineas Finn. She had acknowledged to herself, before Mr Kennedy had asked her hand in marriage, that there had been danger — that she could have learned to love the man if such love would not have been ruinous to her — that the romance of such a passion would have been pleasant to her. She had gone farther than this, and had said to herself that she would have given way to that romance, and would have been ready to accept such love if offered to her, had she not put it out of her own power to marry a poor man by her generosity to her brother. Then she had thrust the thing aside, and had clearly understood — she thought that she had clearly understood — that life for her must be a matter of business. Was it not the case with nine out of every ten among mankind, with nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand, that life must be a matter of business and not of romance? Of course she could not marry Mr Finn, knowing, as she did, that neither of them had a shilling. Of all men in the world she esteemed Mr Kennedy the most, and when these thoughts were passing through her mind, she was well aware that he would ask her to be his wife. Had she not resolved that she would accept the offer, she would not have gone to Loughlinter. Having put aside all romance as unfitted to her life, she could, she thought, do her duty as Mr Kennedy’s wife. She would teach herself to love him. Nay — she had taught herself to love him. She was at any rate so sure of her own heart that she would never give her husband cause to rue the confidence he placed in her. And yet there was something sore within her when she thought that Phineas Finn was fond of Violet Effingham.
It was Lady Baldock’s second evening, and Phineas came to the house at about eleven o’clock. At this time he had encountered a second and a third interview with Mr Clarkson, and had already failed in obtaining any word of comfort from Laurence Fitzgibbon about the bill. It was clear enough now that Laurence felt that they were both made safe by their privilege, and that Mr Clarkson should be treated as you treat the organ-grinders. They are a nuisance and must be endured. But the nuisance is not so great but what you can live in comfort — if only you are not too sore as to the annoyance. “My dear fellow,” Laurence had said to him, I have had Clarkson almost living in my rooms. He used to drink nearly a pint of sherry a day for me. All I looked to was that I didn’t live there at the same time. If you wish it, I’ll send in the sherry.” This was very bad, and Phineas tried to quarrel with his friend; but he found that it was difficult to quarrel with Laurence Fitzgibbon.
But though on this side Phineas was very miserable, on another side he had obtained great comfort. Mr Monk and he were better friends than ever. “As to what Turnbull says about me in the House,” Mr Monk had said, laughing; “he and I understand each other perfectly. I should like to see you on your legs, but it is just as well, perhaps, that you have deferred it. We shall have the real question on immediately after Easter, and then you’ll have plenty of opportunities.” Phineas had explained how he had attempted, how he had failed, and how he had suffered — and Mr Monk had been generous in his sympathy. “I know all about it,” said he, “and have gone through it all myself. The more respect you feel for the House, the more satisfaction you will have in addressing it when you have mastered this difficulty.”
The first person who spoke to Phineas at Lady Baldock’s was Miss Fitzgibbon, Laurence’s sister. Aspasia Fitzgibbon was a warm woman as regarded money, and as she was moreover a most discreet spinster, she was made welcome by Lady Baldock, in spite of the well-known iniquities of her male relatives. “Mr Finn,” said she, “how d’ye do? I want to say a word to ye. Just come here into the corner.” Phineas, not knowing how to escape, did retreat into the corner with Miss Fitzgibbon. “Tell me now, Mr Finn — have ye been lending money to Larrence?”
“No; I have lent him no money,” said Phineas, much astonished by the question.
“Don’t. That’s my advice to ye. Don’t. On any other matter Larrence is the best creature in the world — but he’s bad to lend money to. You ain’t in any hobble with him, then?”
“Well — nothing to speak of. What makes you ask?”
“Then you are in a hobble? Dear, dear! I never saw such a man as Larrence — never. Goodbye. I wouldn’t do it again, if I were you — that’s all.” Then Miss Fitzgibbon came out of the corner and made her way downstairs.
Phineas immediately afterwards came across Miss Effingham. “I did not know”, said she, “that you and the divine Aspasia were such close allies.”
“We are the dearest friends in the world, but she has taken my breath away now.”
“May a body be told how she has done that?” Violet asked.
“Well, no; I’m afraid not, even though the body be Miss Effingham. It was a profound secret — really a secret concerning a third person, and she began about it just as though she were speaking about the weather!”
“How charming! I do so like her. You haven’t heard, have you, that Mr Ratler proposed to her the other day?”
“No!”
“But he did — at least, so she tells everybody. She said she’d take him if he would promise to get her brother’s salary doubled.”
“Did she tell you?”
“No; not me. And of course I don’t believe a word of it. I suppose Barrington Erle made up the story. Are you going out of town next week, Mr Finn?” The week next to this was Easter Week. “I heard you were going into Northamptonshire.”
“From Lady Laura?”
“Yes — from Lady Laura.”
“I intend to spend three days with Lord Chiltern at Willingford. It is an old promise. I am going to ride his horses — that is, if I am able to ride them.”
“Take care what you are about, Mr Finn — they say his horses are so dangerous!”
“I’m rather good at falling, I flatter myself.”
“I know that Lord Chiltern rides anything he can sit, so long as it is some animal that nobody else will ride. It was always so with him. He is so odd; is he not?”
Phineas knew, of course, that Lord Chiltern had more than once asked Violet Effingham to be his wife — and he believed that she, from her intimacy with Lady Laura, must know that he knew it. He had also heard Lady Laura express a very strong wish that, in spite of these refusals, Violet might even yet become her brother’s wife. And Phineas also knew that Violet Effingham was becoming, in his own estimation, the most charming woman of his acquaintance. How was he to talk to her about Lord Chiltern?
“He is odd,” said Phineas; but he is an excellent fellow — whom his father altogether misunderstands.”
“Exactly — just so; I am so glad to hear you say that — you who have never had the misfortune to have anything to do with a bad set. Why don’t you tell Lord Brentford? Lord Brentford would listen to you.”
“To me?”
“Yes — of course he would — for you are just the link that is wanting. You are Chiltern’s intimate friend, and you are also the friend of big-wigs and Cabinet Ministers.”
“Lord Brentford would put me down at once if I spoke to him on such a subject.”
“I am sure he would not. You are too big to be put down, and no man can really dislike to hear his son well spoken of by those who are well spoken of themselves. Won’t you try, Mr Finn?” Phineas said that he would think of it — that he would try if any fit opportunity could be found. “Of course you know how intimate I have been with the Standishes,” said Violet; “that Laura is to me a sister, and that Oswald used to be almost a brother.”
“Why do not you speak to Lord Brentford — you who are his favourite?”
“There are reasons, Mr Finn. Besides, how can any girl come forward and say that she knows the disposition of any man? You can live with Lord Chiltern, and see what he is made of, and know his thoughts, and learn what is good in him, and also what is bad. After all, how is any girl really to know anything of a man’s life?”
“If I can do anything, Miss Effingham, I will,” said Phineas.
“And then we shall all of us be so grateful to you,” said Violet, with her sweetest smile.
Phineas, retreating from this conversation, stood for a while alone, thinking of it. Had she spoken thus of Lord Chiltern because she did love him or because she did not? And the sweet commendations which had fallen from her lips upon him — him, Phineas Finn — were they compatible with anything like a growing partiality for himself, or were they incompatible with any such feeling? Had he most reason to be comforted or to be discomfited by what had taken place? It seemed hardly possible to his imagination that Violet Effingham should love such a nobody as he. And yet he had had fair evidence that one standing as high in the world as Violet Effingham would fain have loved him could she have followed the dictates of her heart. He had trembled when he had first resolved to declare his passion to Lady Laura — fearing that she would scorn him as being presumptuous. But there had been no cause for such fear as that. He had declared his love, and she had not thought him to be presumptuous. That now was ages ago — eight months since; and Lady Laura had become a married woman. Since he had become so warmly alive to the charms of Violet Effingham he had determined, with stern propriety, that a passion for a married woman was disgraceful. Such love was in itself a sin, even though it was accompanied by the severest forbearance and the most rigid propriety of conduct. No — Lady Laura had done wisely to check the growing feeling of partiality which she had admitted; and now that she was married, he would be as wise as she. It was clear to him that, as regarded his own heart, the way was open to him for a new enterprise. But what if he were to fail again, and be told by Violet, when he declared his love, that she had just engaged herself to Lord Chiltern!
“What were you and Violet talking about so eagerly?” said Lady Laura to him, with a smile that, in its approach to laughter, almost betrayed its mistress.
“We were talking about your brother.”
“You are going to him, are you not?”
“Yes; I leave London on Sunday night — but only for a day or two.”
“Has he any chance there, do you think?”
“What, with Miss Effingham?”
“Yes — with Violet. Sometimes I think she loves him.”
“How can I say? In such a matter you can judge better than I can do. One woman with reference to another can draw the line between love and friendship. She certainly likes Chiltern.”
“Oh, I believe she loves him. I do indeed. But she fears him. She does not quite understand how much there is of tenderness with that assumed ferocity. And Oswald is so strange, so unwise, so impolitic, that though he loves her better than all the world beside, he will not sacrifice even a turn of a word to win her. When he asks her to marry him, he almost flies at her throat, as an angry debtor who applies for instant payment. Tell him, Mr Finn, never to give it over — and teach him that he should be soft with her. Tell him, also, that in her heart she likes him. One woman, as you say, knows another woman; and I am certain he would win her if he would only be gentle with her.” Then, again, before they parted, Lady Laura told him that this marriage was the dearest wish of her heart, and that there would be no end to her gratitude if Phineas could do anything to promote it. All which again made our hero unhappy.
Mr Kennedy, though he was a most scrupulously attentive member of Parliament, was a man very punctual to hours and rules in his own house — and liked that his wife should be as punctual as himself. Lady Laura, who in marrying him had firmly resolved that she would do her duty to him in all ways, even though the ways might sometimes be painful — and had been perhaps more punctilious in this respect than she might have been had she loved him heartily — was not perhaps quite so fond of accurate regularity as her husband; and thus, by this time, certain habits of his had become rather bonds than habits to her. He always had prayers at nine, and breakfasted at a quarter past nine, let the hours on the night before have been as late as they might before the time for rest had come. After breakfast he would open his letters in his study, but he liked her to be with him, and desired to discuss with her every application he got from a constituent. He had his private secretary in a room apart, but he thought that everything should be filtered to his private secretary through his wife. He was very anxious that she herself should superintend the accounts of their own private expenditure, and had taken some trouble to teach her an excellent mode of book-keeping. He had recommended to her a certain course of reading — which was pleasant enough; ladies like to receive such recommendations; but Mr Kennedy, having drawn out the course, seemed to expect that his wife should read the books he had named, and, worse still, that she should read them in the time he had allocated for the work. This, I think, was tyranny. Then the Sundays became very wearisome to Lady Laura. Going to church twice, she had learnt, would be a part of her duty; and though in her father’s household attendance at church had never been very strict, she had made up her mind to this cheerfully. But Mr Kennedy expected also that he and she should always dine together on Sundays, that there should be no guests, and that there should be no evening company. After all, the demand was not very severe, but yet she found that it operated injuriously upon her comfort. The Sundays were very wearisome to her, and made her feel that her lord and master was — her lord and master. She made an effort or two to escape, but the efforts were all in vain. He never spoke a cross word to her. He never gave a stern command. But yet he had his way. “I won’t say that reading a novel on a Sunday is a sin,” he said; “but we must at any rate admit that it is a matter on which men disagree, that many of the best of men are against such occupation on Sunday, and that to abstain is to be on the safe side.” So the novels were put away, and Sunday afternoon with the long evening became rather a stumbling-block to Lady Laura.
Those two hours, moreover, with her husband in the morning became very wearisome to her. At first she had declared that it would be her greatest ambition to help her husband in his work, and she had read all the letters from the MacNabs and MacFies, asking to be made gaugers and landing-waiters; with an assumed interest. But the work palled upon her very quickly. Her quick intellect discovered soon that there was nothing in it which she really did. It was all form and verbiage, and pretence at business. Her husband went through it all with the utmost patience, reading every word, giving orders as to every detail, and conscientiously doing that which he conceived he had undertaken to do. But Lady Laura wanted to meddle with high politics, to discuss reform bills, to assist in putting up Mr This and putting down my Lord That. Why should she waste her time in doing that which the lad in the next room, who was called a private secretary, could do as well?
Still she would obey. Let the task be as hard as it might, she would obey. If he counselled her to do this or that, she would follow his counsel — because she owed him so much. If she had accepted the half of all his wealth without loving him, she owed him the more on that account. But she knew — she could not but know — that her intellect was brighter than his; and might it not be possible for her to lead him? Then she made efforts to lead her husband, and found that he was as stiff-necked as an ox. Mr Kennedy was not, perhaps, a clever man; but he was a man who knew his own way, and who intended to keep it.
“I have got a headache, Robert,” she said to him one Sunday after luncheon. “I think I will not go to church this afternoon.”
“It is not serious, I hope.”
“Oh dear no. Don’t you know how one feels sometimes that one has got a head? And when that is the case one’s armchair is the best place.”
“I am not sure of that,” said Mr Kennedy.
“If I went to church I should not attend,” said Lady Laura.
“The fresh air would do you more good than anything else, and we could walk across the park.”
“Thank you — I won’t go out again today.” This she said with something almost of crossness in her manner, and Mr Kennedy went to the afternoon service by himself.
Lady Laura when she was left alone began to think of her position. She was not more than four or five months married, and she was becoming very tired of her life. Was it not also true that she was becoming tired of her husband? She had twice told Phineas Finn that of all men in the world she esteemed Mr Kennedy the most. She did not esteem him less now. She knew no point or particle in which he did not do his duty with accuracy. But no person can live happily with another — not even with a brother or a sister or a friend — simply upon esteem. All the virtues in the calendar, though they exist on each side, will not make a man and woman happy together, unless there be sympathy. Lady Laura was beginning to find out that there was a lack of sympathy between herself and her husband.
She thought of this till she was tired of thinking of it, and then, wishing to divert her mind, she took up the book that was lying nearest to her hand. It was a volume of a new novel which she had been reading on the previous day, and now, without much thought about it, she went on with her reading. There came to her, no doubt, some dim, half-formed idea that, as she was freed from going to church by the plea of a headache, she was also absolved by the same plea from other Sunday hindrances. A child, when it is ill, has buttered toast and a picture-book instead of bread and milk and lessons. In this way, Lady Laura conceived herself to be entitled to her novel.
While she was reading it, there came a knock at the door, and Barrington Erle was shown upstairs. Mr Kennedy had given no orders against Sunday visitors, but had simply said that Sunday visiting was not to his taste. Barrington, however, was Lady Laura’s cousin, and people must be very strict if they can’t see their cousins on Sunday. Lady Laura soon lost her headache altogether in the animation of discussing the chances of the new Reform Bill with the Prime Minister’s private secretary; and had left her chair, and was standing by the table with the novel in her hand, protesting this and denying that, expressing infinite confidence in Mr Monk, and violently denouncing Mr Turnbull, when her husband returned from church and came up into the drawing-room. Lady Laura had forgotten her headache altogether, and had in her composition none of that thoughtfulness of hypocrisy which would have taught her to moderate her political feeling at her husband’s return.
“I do declare”, she said, that if Mr Turnbull opposes the Government measure now, because he can’t have his own way in everything, I will never again put my trust in any man who calls himself a popular leader.”
“You never should,” said Barrington Erle.
“That’s all very well for you, Barrington, who are an aristocratic Whig of the old official school, and who call yourself a Liberal simply because Fox was a Liberal a hundred years ago. My heart’s in it.”
“Heart should never have anything to do with politics; should it?” said Erle, turning round to Mr Kennedy.
Mr Kennedy did not wish to discuss the matter on a Sunday, nor yet did he wish to say before Barrington Erle that he thought it wrong to do so. And he was desirous of treating his wife in some way as though she were an invalid — that she thereby might be, as it were, punished; but he did not wish to do this in such a way that Barrington should be aware of the punishment.
“Laura had better not disturb herself about it now,” he said.
“How is a person to help being disturbed?” said Lady Laura, laughing.
“Well, well; we won’t mind all that now,” said Mr Kennedy, turning away. Then he took up the novel which Lady Laura had just laid down from her hand, and, having looked at it, carried it aside, and placed it on a book shelf which was remote from them. Lady Laura watched him as he did this, and the whole course of her husband’s thoughts on the subject was open to her at once. She regretted the novel, and she regretted also the political discussion. Soon afterwards Barrington Erle went away, and the husband and wife were alone together.
“I am glad that your head is so much better,” said he. He did not intend to be severe, but he spoke with a gravity of manner which almost amounted to severity.
“Yes; it is,” she said, Barrington’s coming in cheered me up.”
“I am sorry that you should have wanted cheering.”
“Don’t you know what I mean, Robert?”
“No; I do not think that I do, exactly.”
“I suppose your head is stronger. You do not get that feeling of dazed, helpless imbecility of brain, which hardly amounts to headache, but which yet — is almost as bad.”
“Imbecility of brain may be worse than headache, but I don’t think it can produce it.”
“Well, well — I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Headache comes, I think, always from the stomach, even when produced by nervous affections. But imbecility of the brain — ”
“Oh, Robert, I am so sorry that I used the word.”
“I see that it did not prevent your reading,” he said, after a pause.
“Not such reading as that. I was up to nothing better.”
Then there was another pause.
“I won’t deny that it may be a prejudice,” he said, “but I confess that the use of novels in my own house on Sundays is a pain to me. My mother’s ideas on the subject are very strict, and I cannot think that it is bad for a son to hang on to the teaching of his mother.” This he said in the most serious tone which he could command.
“I don’t know why I took it up,” said Lady Laura. “Simply, I believe, because it was there. I will avoid doing so for the future.”
“Do, my dear,” said the husband. I shall be obliged and grateful if you will remember what I have said.” Then he left her, and she sat alone, first in the dusk and then in the dark, for two hours, doing nothing. Was this to be the life which she had procured for herself by marrying Mr Kennedy of Loughlinter? If it was harsh and unendurable in London, what would it be in the country?
Phineas left London by a night mail train on Easter Sunday, and found himself at the Willingford Bull — about half an hour after midnight. Lord Chiltern was up and waiting for him, and supper was on the table. The Willingford Bull was an English inn of the old stamp, which had now, in these latter years of railway travelling, ceased to have a road business — for there were no travellers on the road, and but little posting — but had acquired a new trade as a dép?t for hunters and hunting men. The landlord let out horses and kept hunting stables, and the house was generally filled from the beginning of November till the middle of April. Then it became a desert in the summer, and no guests were seen there, till the pink coats flocked down again into the shires.
“How many days do you mean to give us?” said Lord Chiltern, as he helped his friend to a devilled leg of turkey.
“I must go back on Wednesday,” said Phineas.
“That means Wednesday night. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ve the Cottesmore tomorrow. We’ll get into Tailby’s country on Tuesday, and Fitzwilliam will be only twelve miles off on Wednesday. We shall be rather short of horses.”
“Pray don’t let me put you out. I can hire something here, I suppose?”
“You won’t put me out at all. There’ll be three between us each day, and we’ll run our luck. The horses have gone on to Empingham for tomorrow. Tailby is rather a way off — at Somerby; but we’ll manage it. If the worst comes to the worst, we can get back to Stamford by rail. On Wednesday we shall have everything very comfortable. They’re out beyond Stilton and will draw home our way. I’ve planned it all out. I’ve a trap with a fast stepper, and if we start tomorrow at half past nine, we shall be in plenty of time. You shall ride Meg Merrilies, and if she don’t carry you, you may shoot her.”
“Is she one of the pulling ones?”
“She is heavy in hand if you are heavy at her, but leave her mouth alone and she’ll go like flowing water. You’d better not ride more in a crowd than you can help. Now what’ll you drink?”
They sat up half the night smoking and talking, and Phineas learned more about Lord Chiltern then than ever he had learned before. There was brandy and water before them, but neither of them drank. Lord Chiltern, indeed, had a pint of beer by his side from which he sipped occasionally. “I’ve taken to beer,” he said, as being the best drink going. When a man hunts six days a week he can afford to drink beer. I’m on an allowance — three pints a day. That’s not too much.”
“And you drink nothing else?”
“Nothing when I’m alone — except a little cherry-brandy when I’m out. I never cared for drink — never in my life. I do like excitement, and have been less careful than I ought to have been as to what it has come from. I could give up drink tomorrow, without a struggle — if it were worth my while to make up my mind to do it. And it’s the same with gambling. I never do gamble now, because I’ve got no money; but I own I like it better than anything in the world. While you are at it, there is life in it.”
“You should take to politics, Chiltern.”
“And I would have done so, but my father would not help me. Never mind, we will not talk about him. How does Laura get on with her husband?”
“Very happily, I should say.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Lord Chiltern. Her temper is too much like mine to allow her to be happy with such a log of wood as Robert Kennedy. It is such men as he who drive me out of the pale of decent life. If that is decency, I’d sooner be indecent. You mark my words. They’ll come to grief. She’ll never be able to stand it.”
“I should think she had her own way in everything,” said Phineas.
“No, no. Though he’s a prig, he’s a man; and she will not find it easy to drive him.”
“But she may bend him.”
“Not an inch — that is if I understand his character. I suppose you see a good deal of them?”
“Yes — pretty well. I’m not there so often as I used to be in the Square.”
“You get sick of it, I suppose. I should. Do you see my father often?”
“Only occasionally. He is always very civil when I do see him.”
“He is the very pink of civility when he pleases, but the most unjust man I ever met.”
“I should not have thought that.”
“Yes, he is,” said the Earl’s son, and all from lack of judgment to discern the truth. He makes up his mind to a thing on insufficient proof, and then nothing will turn him. He thinks well of you — would probably believe your word on any indifferent subject without thought of a doubt; but if you were to tell him that I didn’t get drunk every night of my life and spend most of my time in thrashing policemen, he would not believe you. He would smile incredulously and make you a little bow. I can see him do it.”
“You are too hard on him, Chiltern.”
“He has been too hard on me, I know. Is Violet Effingham still in Grosvenor Place?”
“No; she’s with Lady Baldock.”
“That old grandmother of evil has come to town — has she? Poor Violet! When we were young together we used to have such fun about that old woman.”
“The old woman is an ally of mine now,” said Phineas.
“You make allies everywhere. You know Violet Effingham of course?”
“Oh yes. I know her.”
“Don’t you think her very charming?” said Lord Chiltern.
“Exceedingly charming.”
“I have asked that girl to marry me three times, and I shall never ask her again. There is a point beyond which a man shouldn’t go. There are many reasons why it would be a good marriage. In the first place, her money would be serviceable. Then it would heal matters in our family, for my father is as prejudiced in her favour as he is against me. And I love her dearly. I’ve loved her all my life — since I used to buy cakes for her. But I shall never ask her again.”
“I would if I were you,” said Phineas — hardly knowing what it might be best for him to say.
“No; I never will. But I’ll tell you what. I shall get into some desperate scrape about her. Of course she’ll marry, and that soon. Then I shall make a fool of myself. When I hear that she is engaged I shall go and quarrel with the man, and kick him — or get kicked. All the world will turn against me, and I shall be called a wild beast.”
“A dog in the manger is what you should be called.”
“Exactly — but how is a man to help it? If you loved a girl, could you see another man take her?” Phineas remembered of course that he had lately come through this ordeal. “It is as though he were to come and put his hand upon me, and wanted my own heart out of me. Though I have no property in her at all, no right to her — though she never gave me a word of encouragement, it is as though she were the most private thing in the world to me. I should be half mad, and in my madness I could not master the idea that I was being robbed. I should resent it as a personal interference.”
“I suppose it will come to that if you give her up yourself,” said Phineas.
“It is no question of giving up. Of course I cannot make her marry me. Light another cigar, old fellow.”
Phineas, as he lit the other cigar, remembered that he owed a certain duty in this matter to Lady Laura. She had commissioned him to persuade her brother that his suit with Violet Effingham would not be hopeless, if he could only restrain himself in his mode of conducting it. Phineas was disposed to do his duty, although he felt it to be very hard that he should be called upon to be eloquent against his own interest. He had been thinking for the last quarter of an hour how he must bear himself if it might turn out that he should be the man whom Lord Chiltern was resolved to kick. He looked at his friend and host, and became aware that a kicking-match with such a one would not be pleasant pastime. Nevertheless, he would be happy enough to be subject to Lord Chiltern’s wrath for such a reason. He would do his duty by Lord Chiltern; and then, when that had been adequately done, he would, if occasion served, fight a battle for himself.
“You are too sudden with her, Chiltern,” he said, after a pause.
“What do you mean by too sudden?” said Lord Chiltern, almost angrily.
“You frighten her by being so impetuous. You rush at her as though you wanted to conquer her by a single blow.”
“So I do.”
“You should be more gentle with her. You should give her time to find out whether she likes you or not.”
“She has known me all her life, and has found that out long ago. Not but what you are right. I know you are right. If I were you, and had your skill in pleasing, I should drop soft words into her ear till I had caught her. But I have no gifts in that way. I am as awkward as a pig at what is called flirting. And I have an accursed pride which stands in my own light. If she were in this house this moment, and if I knew she were to be had for asking, I don’t think I could bring myself to ask again. But we’ll go to bed. It’s half past two, and we must be off at half past nine, if we’re to be at Exton Park gates at eleven.”
Phineas, as he went upstairs, assured himself that he had done his duty. If there ever should come to be anything between him and Violet Effingham, Lord Chiltern might quarrel with him — might probably attempt that kicking encounter to which allusion had been made — but nobody could justly say that he had not behaved honourably to his friend.
On the next morning there was a bustle and a scurry, as there always is on such occasions, and the two men got off about ten minutes after time. But Lord Chiltern drove hard, and they reached the meet before the master had moved off. They had a fair day’s sport with the Cottesmore; and Phineas, though he found that Meg Merrilies did require a good deal of riding, went through his day’s work with credit. He had been riding since he was a child, as is the custom with all boys in Munster, and had an Irishman’s natural aptitude for jumping. When they got back to the Willingford Bull he felt pleased with the day and rather proud of himself. “It wasn’t fast, you know,” said Chiltern, “and I don’t call that a stiff country. Besides, Meg is very handy when you’ve got her out of the crowd. You shall ride Bonebreaker tomorrow at Somerby, and you’ll find that better fun.”
“Bonebreaker? Haven’t I heard you say he rushes like mischief?”
“Well, he does rush. But, by George! you want a horse to rush in that country. When you have to go right through four or five feet of stiff green wood, like a bullet through a target, you want a little force, or you’re apt to be left up a tree.”
“And what do you ride?”
“A brute I never put my leg on yet. He was sent down to Wilcox here, out of Lincolnshire, because they couldn’t get anybody to ride him there. They say he goes with his head up in the air, and won’t look at a fence that isn’t as high as his breast. But I think he’ll do here. I never saw a better made beast, or one with more power. Do you look at his shoulders, He’s to be had for seventy pounds, and these are the sort of horses I like to buy.”
Again they dined alone, and Lord Chiltern explained to Phineas that he rarely associated with the men of either of the hunts in which he rode. “There is a set of fellows down here who are poison to me, and there is another set, and I am poison to them. Everybody is very civil, as you see, but I have no associates. And gradually I am getting to have a reputation as though I were the devil himself. I think I shall come out next year dressed entirely in black.”
“Are you not wrong to give way to that kind of thing?”
“What the deuce am I to do? I can’t make civil little speeches. When once a man gets a reputation as an ogre, it is the most difficult thing in the world to drop it. I could have a score of men here every day if I liked it — my title would do that for me — but they would be men I should loathe, and I should be sure to tell them so, even though I did not mean it. Bonebreaker, and the new horse, and another, went on at twelve today. You must expect hard work tomorrow, as I daresay we shan’t be home before eight.”
The next day’s meet was in Leicestershire, not far from Melton, and they started early. Phineas, to tell the truth of him, was rather afraid of Bonebreaker, and looked forward to the probability of an accident. He had neither wife nor child, and nobody had a better right to risk his neck. “We’ll put a gag on ’im,” said the groom, “and you’ll ride ’im in a ring — so that you may well-nigh break his jaw; but he is a rum un, sir.” “I’ll do my best,” said Phineas. “He’ll take all that, said the groom. “Just let him have his own way at everything,” said Lord Chiltern, as they moved away from the meet to Pickwell Gorse; “and if you’ll only sit on his back, he’ll carry you through as safe as a church.” Phineas could not help thinking that the counsels of the master and of the groom were very different. “My idea is,” continued Lord Chiltern, “that in hunting you should always avoid a crowd. I don’t think a horse is worth riding that will go in a crowd. It’s just like yachting — you should have plenty of sea-room. If you’re to pull your horse up at every fence till somebody else is over, I think you’d better come out on a donkey.” And so they went away to Pickwell Gorse.
There were over two hundred men out, and Phineas began to think that it might not be so easy to get out of the crowd. A crowd in a fast run no doubt quickly becomes small by degrees and beautifully less; but it is very difficult, especially for a stranger, to free himself from the rush at the first start. Lord Chiltern’s horse plunged about so violently, as they stood on a little hillside looking down upon the cover, that he was obliged to take him to a distance, and Phineas followed him. “If he breaks down wind,” said Lord Chiltern, “we can’t be better than we are here. If he goes up wind, he must turn before long, and we shall be all right.” As he spoke an old hound opened true and sharp — an old hound whom all the pack believed — and in a moment there was no doubt that the fox had been found. “There are not above eight or nine acres in it,” said Lord Chiltern, “and he can’t hang long. Did you ever see such an uneasy brute as this in your life? But I feel certain he’ll go well when he gets away.”
Phineas was too much occupied with his own horse to think much of that on which Lord Chiltern was mounted. Bonebreaker, the very moment that he heard the old hound’s note, stretched out his head, and put his mouth upon the bit, and began to tremble in every muscle. “He’s a great deal more anxious for it than you and I are,” said Lord Chiltern. “I see they’ve given you that gag. But don’t you ride him on it till he wants it. Give him lots of room, and he’ll go in the snaffle.” All which caution made Phineas think that any insurance office would charge very dear on his life at the present moment.
The fox took two rings of the gorse, and then he went — up wind. “It’s not a vixen, I’ll swear,” said Lord Chiltern. “A vixen in cub never went away like that yet. Now then, Finn, my boy, keep to the right.” And Lord Chiltern, with the horse out of Lincolnshire, went away across the brow of the hill, leaving the hounds to the left, and selected, as his point of exit into the next field, a stiff rail, which, had there been an accident, must have put a very wide margin of ground between the rider and his horse. “Go hard at your fences, and then you’ll fall clear,” he had said to Phineas. I don’t think, however, that he would have ridden at the rail as he did, but that there was no help for him. “The brute began in his own way, and carried on after in the same fashion all through,” he said afterwards. Phineas took the fence a little lower down, and what it was at which he rode he never knew. Bonebreaker sailed over it, whatever it was, and he soon found himself by his friend’s side.
The ruck of the men were lower down than our two heroes, and there were others far away to the left, and others, again, who had been at the end of the gorse, and were now behind. Our friends were not near the hounds, not within two fields of them, but the hounds were below them, and therefore could be seen. “Don’t be in a hurry, and they’ll be round upon us,” Lord Chiltern said. “How the deuce is one to help being in a hurry?” said Phineas, who was doing his very best to ride Bonebreaker with the snaffle, but had already began to feel that Bonebreaker cared nothing for that weak instrument. “By George, I should like to change with you,” said Lord Chiltern. The Lincolnshire horse was going along with his head very low, boring as he galloped, but throwing his neck up at his fences, just when he ought to have kept himself steady. After this, though Phineas kept near Lord Chiltern throughout the run, they were not again near enough to exchange words; and, indeed, they had but little breath for such purpose.
Lord Chiltern rode still a little in advance, and Phineas, knowing his friend’s partiality for solitude when taking his fences, kept a little to his left. He began to find that Bonebreaker knew pretty well what he was about. As for not using the gag rein, that was impossible. When a horse puts out what strength he has against a man’s arm, a man must put out what strength he has against the horse’s mouth. But Bonebreaker was cunning, and had had a gag rein on before. He contracted his lip here, and bent out his jaw there, till he had settled it to his mind, and then went away after his own fashion. He seemed to have a passion for smashing through big, high-grown ox-fences, and by degrees his rider came to feel that if there was nothing worse coming, the fun was not bad.
The fox ran up wind for a couple of miles or so, as Lord Chiltern had prophesied, and then turned — not to the right, as would best have served him and Phineas, but to the left — so that they were forced to make their way through the ruck of horses before they could place themselves again. Phineas found himself crossing a road, in and out of it, before he knew where he was, and for a while he lost sight of Lord Chiltern. But in truth he was leading now, whereas Lord Chiltern had led before. The two horses having been together all the morning, and on the previous day, were willing enough to remain in company, if they were allowed to do so. They both crossed the road, not very far from each other, going in and out amidst a crowd of horses, and before long were again placed well, now having the hunt on their right, whereas hitherto it had been on their left. They went over large pasture fields, and Phineas began to think that as long as Bonebreaker would be able to go through the thick grown-up hedges, all would be right. Now and again he came to a cut fence, a fence that had been cut and laid, and these were not so pleasant. Force was not sufficient for them, and they admitted of a mistake. But the horse, though he would rush at them unpleasantly, took them when they came without touching them. It might be all right yet — unless the beast should tire with him; and then, Phineas thought, a misfortune might probably occur. He remembered, as he flew over one such impediment, that he rode a stone heavier than his friend. At the end of forty-five minutes Bonebreaker also might become aware of the fact.
The hounds were running well in sight to their right, and Phineas began to feel some of that pride which a man indulges when he becomes aware that he has taken his place comfortably, has left the squad behind, and is going well. There were men nearer the hounds than he was, but he was near enough even for ambition. There had already been enough of the run to make him sure that it would be a “good thing”, and enough to make him aware also that probably it might be too good. When a run is over, men are very apt to regret the termination, who a minute or two before were anxiously longing that the hounds might pull down their game. To finish well is everything in hunting. To have led for over an hour is nothing, let the pace and country have been what they might, if you fall away during the last half mile. Therefore it is that those behind hope that the fox may make this or that cover, while the forward men long to see him turned over in every field. To ride to hounds is very glorious; but to have ridden to hounds is more glorious still. They had now crossed another road, and a larger one, and had got into a somewhat closer country. The fields were not so big, and the fences were not so high. Phineas got a moment to look about him, and saw Lord Chiltern riding without his cap. He was very red in the face, and his eyes seemed to glare, and he was tugging at his horse with all his might. But the animal seemed still to go with perfect command of strength, and Phineas had too much work on his own hands to think of offering Quixotic assistance to any one else. He saw someone, a farmer, as he thought, speak to Lord Chiltern as they rode close together; but Chiltern only shook his head and pulled at his horse.
There were brooks in those parts. The river Eye forms itself thereabouts, or some of its tributaries do so; and these tributaries, though small as rivers, are considerable to men on one side who are called by the exigencies of the occasion to place themselves quickly on the other. Phineas knew nothing of these brooks; but Bonebreaker had gone gallantly over two, and now that there came a third in the way, it was to be hoped that he might go gallantly over that also. Phineas, at any rate, had no power to decide otherwise. As long as the brute would go straight with him he could sit him; but he had long given up the idea of having a will of his own. Indeed, till he was within twenty yards of the brook, he did not see that it was larger than the others. He looked around, and there was Chiltern close to him, still fighting with his horse — but the farmer had turned away. He thought that Chiltern nodded to him, as much as to tell him to go on. On he went at any rate. The brook, when he came to it, seemed to be a huge black hole, yawning beneath him. The banks were quite steep, and just where he was to take off there was an ugly stump. It was too late to think of anything. He stuck his knees against his saddle — and in a moment was on the other side. The brute, who had taken off a yard before the stump, knowing well the danger of striking it with his foot, came down with a grunt, and did, I think, begin to feel the weight of that extra stone. Phineas, as soon as he was safe, looked back, and there was Lord Chiltern’s horse in the very act of his spring — higher up the rivulet, where it was even broader. At that distance Phineas could see that Lord Chiltern was wild with rage against the beast. But whether he wished to take the leap or wished to avoid it, there was no choice left to him. The animal rushed at the brook, and in a moment the horse and horseman were lost to sight. It was well then that that extra stone should tell, as it enabled Phineas to arrest his horse and to come back to his friend.
The Lincolnshire horse had chested the further bank, and of course had fallen back into the stream. When Phineas got down he found that Lord Chiltern was wedged in between the horse and the bank, which was better, at any rate, than being under the horse in the water. “All right, old fellow,” he said, with a smile, when he saw Phineas. “You go on; it’s too good to lose.” But he was very pale, and seemed to be quite helpless where he lay. The horse did not move — and never did move again. He had smashed his shoulder to pieces against a stump on the bank, and was afterwards shot on that very spot.
When Phineas got down he found that there was but little water where the horse lay. The depth of the stream had been on the side from which they had taken off, and the thick black mud lay within a foot of the surface, close to the bank against which Lord Chiltern was propped. “That’s the worst one I ever was on,” said Lord Chiltern; “but I think he’s gruelled now.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Well — I fancy there is something amiss. I can’t move my arms; and I catch my breath. My legs are all right if I could get away from this accursed brute.”
“I told you so,” said the farmer, coming and looking down upon them from the bank. “I told you so, but you wouldn’t be said,” Then he too got down, and between them both they extricated Lord Chiltern from his position, and got him on to the bank.
“That un’s a dead un,” said the farmer, pointing to the horse.
“So much the better,” said his lordship. Give us a drop of sherry, Finn.”
He had broken his collar-bone and three of his ribs. They got a farmer’s trap from Wissindine and took him into Oakham. When there, he insisted on being taken on through Stamford to the Willingford Bull before he would have his bones set — picking up, however, a surgeon at Stamford. Phineas remained with him for a couple of days, losing his run with the Fitzwilliams and a day at the potted peas, and became very fond of his patient as he sat by his bedside.
“That was a good run, though, wasn’t it?” said Lord Chiltern as Phineas took his leave. “And, by George, Phineas, you rode Bonebreaker so well, that you shall have him as often as you’ll come down. I don’t know how it is, but you Irish fellows always ride.”
When Phineas got back to London, a day after his time, he found that there was already a great political commotion in the metropolis. He had known that on Easter Monday and Tuesday there was to be a gathering of the people in favour of the ballot, and that on Wednesday there was to be a procession with a petition which Mr Turnbull was to receive from the hands of the people on Primrose Hill. It had been at first intended that Mr Turnbull should receive the petition at the door of Westminster Hall on the Thursday; but he had been requested by the Home Secretary to put aside this intention, and he had complied with the request made to him. Mr Mildmay was to move the second reading of his Reform Bill on that day, the preliminary steps having been taken without any special notice; but the bill of course included no clause in favour of the ballot; and this petition was the consequence of that omission. Mr Turnbull had predicted evil consequences, both in the House and out of it, and was now doing the best in his power to bring about the verification of his own prophecies. Phineas, who reached his lodgings late on the Thursday, found that the town had been in a state of ferment for three days, that on the Wednesday forty or fifty thousand persons had been collected at Primrose Hill, and that the police had been forced to interfere — and that worse was expected on the Friday. Though Mr Turnbull had yielded to the Government as to receiving the petition, the crowd was resolved that they would see the petition carried into the House. It was argued that the Government would have done better to have refrained from interfering as to the previously intended arrangement. It would have been easier to deal with a procession than with a mob of men gathered together without any semblance of form. Mr Mildmay had been asked to postpone the second reading of his bill; but the request had come from his opponents, and he would not yield to it. He said that it would be a bad expedient to close Parliament from fear of the people, Phineas found at the Reform Club on the Thursday evening that members of the House of Commons were requested to enter on the Friday by the door usually used by the peers, and to make their way thence to their own House. He found that his landlord, Mr Bunce, had been out with the people during the entire three days — and Mrs Bunce, with a flood of tears, begged Phineas to interfere as to the Friday. “He’s that headstrong that he’ll be took if anybody’s took; and they say that all Westminster is to be lined with soldiers.” Phineas on the Friday morning did have some conversation with his landlord; but his first work on reaching London was to see Lord Chiltern’s friends, and tell them of the accident.
The potted peas Committee sat on the Thursday, and he ought to have been there. His absence, however, was unavoidable, as he could not have left his friend’s bedside so soon after the accident. On the Wednesday he had written to Lady Laura, and on the Thursday evening he went first to Portman Square and then to Grosvenor Place.
“Of course he will kill himself some day,” said the Earl — with a tear, however, in each eye.
“I hope not, my lord. He is a magnificent horseman; but accidents of course will happen.”
“How many of his bones are there not broken, I wonder?” said the father. “It is useless to talk, of course. You think he is not in danger?”
“Certainly not.”
“I should fear that he would be so liable to inflammation.”
“The doctor says that there is none. He has been taking an enormous deal of exercise,” said Phineas, “and drinking no wine. All that is in his favour.”
“What does he drink, then?” asked the Earl.
“Nothing. I rather think, my lord, you are mistaken a little about his habits. I don’t fancy he ever drinks unless he is provoked to do it.”
“Provoked! Could anything provoke you to make a brute of yourself? But I am glad that he is in no danger. If you hear of him, let me know how he goes on.”
Lady Laura was of course full of concern. “I wanted to go down to him”, she said, “but Mr Kennedy thought that there was no occasion.”
“Nor is there any — I mean in regard to danger. He is very solitary there.”
“You must go to him again. Mr Kennedy will not let me go unless I can say that there is danger. He seems to think that because Oswald has had accidents before, it is nothing. Of course I cannot leave London without his leave.”
“Your brother makes very little of it, you know.”
“Ah — he would make little of anything. But if I were ill he would be in London by the first train.”
“Kennedy would let you go if you asked him.”
“But he advises me not to go. He says my duty does not require it, unless Oswald be in danger. Don’t you know, Mr Finn, how hard it is for a wife not to take advice when it is so given?” This she said, within six months of her marriage, to the man who had been her husband’s rival!
Phineas asked her whether Violet had heard the news, and learned that she was still ignorant of it. “I got your letter only this morning, and I have not seen her,” said Lady Laura. “Indeed, I am so angry with her that I hardly wish to see her.” Thursday was Lady Baldock’s night, and Phineas went from Grosvenor Place to Berkeley Square. There he saw Violet, and found that she had heard of the accident.
“I am so glad to see you, Mr Finn,” she said. Do tell me — is it much?”
“Much in inconvenience, certainly; but not much in danger.”
“I think Laura was so unkind not to send me word! I only heard it just now. Did you see it?”
“I was close to him, and helped him up. The horse jumped into a river with him, and crushed him up against the bank.”
“How lucky that you should be there! Had you jumped the river?”
“Yes — almost unintentionally, for my horse was rushing so that I could not hold him. Chiltern was riding a brute that no one should have ridden. No one will again.”
“Did he destroy himself?”
“He had to be killed afterwards. He broke his shoulder.”
“How very lucky that you should have been near him — and, again, how lucky that you should not have been hurt yourself!”
“It was not likely that we should both come to grief at the same fence.”
“But it might have been you. And you think there is no danger?”
“None whatever — if I may believe the doctor. His hunting is done for this year, and he will be very desolate. I shall go down again to him in a few days, and try to bring him up to town.”
“Do — do. If he is laid up in his father’s house, his father must see him.” Phineas had not looked at the matter in that light; but he thought that Miss Effingham might probably be right.
Early on the next morning he saw Mr Bunce, and used all his eloquence to keep that respectable member of society at home — but in vain. “What good do you expect to do, Mr Bunce?” he said, with perhaps some little tone of authority in his voice.
“To carry my point,” said Bunce.
“And what is your point?”
“My present point is the ballot, as a part of the Government measure.”
“And you expect to carry that by going out into the streets with all the roughs of London, and putting yourself in direct opposition to the authority of the magistrates? Do you really believe that the ballot will become the law of the land any sooner because you incur this danger and inconvenience?”
“Look here, Mr Finn; I don’t believe the sea will become any fuller because the Piddle runs into it out of the Dorsetshire fields; but I do believe that the waters from all the countries is what makes the ocean. I shall help; and it’s my duty to help.”
“It’s your duty as a respectable citizen, with a wife and family, to stay at home.”
“If everybody with a wife and family was to say so, there’d be none there but roughs, and then where should we be? What would the Government people say to us then? If every man with a wife and family was to show hisself in the streets tonight, we should have the ballot before Parliament breaks up, and if none of ’em don’t do it, we shall never have the ballot. Ain’t that so?” Phineas, who intended to be honest, was not prepared to dispute the assertion on the spur of the moment. “If that’s so,” said Bunce, triumphantly, a man’s duty’s clear enough. He ought to go, though he’d two wives and families.” And he went.
The petition was to be presented at six o’clock, but the crowd, who collected to see it carried into Westminster Hall, began to form itself by noon. It was said afterwards that many of the houses in the neighbourhood of Palace Yard and the Bridge were filled with soldiers; but if so, the men did not show themselves. In the course of the evening three or four companies of the Guards in St James’s Park did show themselves, and had some rough work to do, for many of the people took themselves away from Westminster by that route. The police, who were very numerous in Palace Yard, had a hard time of it all the afternoon, and it was said afterwards that it would have been much better to have allowed the petition to have been brought up by the procession on Wednesday. A procession, let it be who it will that proceeds, has in it, of its own nature, something of order. But now there was no order. The petition, which was said to fill fifteen cabs — though the absolute sheets of signatures were carried into the House by four men — was being dragged about half the day, and it certainly would have been impossible for a member to have made his way into the House through Westminster Hall between the hours of four and six. To effect an entrance at all they were obliged to go round at the back of the Abbey, as all the spaces round St Margaret’s Church and Canning’s monument were filled with the crowd. Parliament Street was quite impassable at five o’clock, and there was no traffic across the bridge from that hour till after eight. As the evening went on, the mob extended itself to Downing Street and the front of the Treasury Chambers, and before the night was over all the hoardings round the new Government offices had been pulled down. The windows also of certain obnoxious members of Parliament were broken, when those obnoxious members lived within reach. One gentleman who unfortunately held a house in Richmond Terrace, and who was said to have said that the ballot was the resort of cowards, fared very badly — for his windows were not only broken, but his furniture and mirrors were destroyed by the stones that were thrown. Mr Mildmay, I say, was much blamed. But after all, it may be a doubt whether the procession on Wednesday might not have ended worse. Mr Turnbull was heard to say afterwards that the number of people collected would have been much greater.
Mr Mildmay moved the second reading of his bill, and made his speech. He made his speech with the knowledge that the Houses of Parliament were surrounded by a mob, and I think that the fact added to its efficacy. It certainly gave him an appropriate opportunity for a display which was not difficult. His voice faltered on two or three occasions, and faltered through real feeling; but this sort of feeling, though it be real, is at the command of orators on certain occasions, and does them yeoman’s service. Mr Mildmay was an old man, nearly worn out in the service of his country, who was known to have been true and honest, and to have loved his country well — though there were of course they who declared that his hand had been too weak for power, and that his services had been naught — and on this evening his virtues were remembered. Once when his voice failed him the whole House got up and cheered. The nature of a Whig Prime Minister’s speech on such an occasion will be understood by most of my readers without further indication. The bill itself had been read before, and it was understood that no objection would be made to the extent of the changes provided in it by the liberal side of the House. The opposition coming from liberal members was to be confined to the subject of the ballot. And even as yet it was not known whether Mr Turnbull and his followers would vote against the second reading, or whether they would take what was given, and declare their intention of obtaining the remainder on a separate motion. The opposition of a large party of Conservatives was a matter of certainty; but to this party Mr Mildmay did not conceive himself bound to offer so large an amount of argument as he would have given had there been at the moment no crowd in Palace Yard. And he probably felt that that crowd would assist him with his old Tory enemies. When, in the last words of his speech, he declared that under no circumstances would he disfigure the close of his political career by voting for the ballot — not though the people, on whose behalf he had been fighting battles all his life, should be there in any number to coerce him — there came another round of applause from the opposition benches, and Mr Daubeny began to fear that some young horses in his team might get loose from their traces. With great dignity Mr Daubeny had kept aloof from Mr Turnbull and from Mr Turnbull’s tactics; but he was not the less alive to the fact that Mr Turnbull, with his mob and his big petition, might be of considerable assistance to him in this present duel between himself and Mr Mildmay. I think Mr Daubeny was in the habit of looking at these contests as duels between himself and the leader on the other side of the House — in which assistance from any quarter might be accepted if offered.
Mr Mildmay’s speech did not occupy much over an hour, and at half past seven Mr Turnbull got up to reply. It was presumed that he would do so, and not a member left his place, though that time of the day is an interesting time, and though Mr Turnbull was accustomed to be long. There soon came to be but little ground for doubting what would be the nature of Mr Turnbull’s vote on the second reading. “How may I dare,” said he, “to accept so small a measure of reform as this with such a message from the country as is now conveyed to me through the presence of fifty thousand of my countrymen, who are at this moment demanding their measure of reform just beyond the frail walls of this chamber? The right honourable gentleman has told us that he will never be intimidated by a concourse of people. I do not know that there was any need that he should speak of intimidation. No one has accused the right honourable gentleman of political cowardice. But, as he has so said, I will follow in his footsteps. Neither will I be intimidated by the large majority which this House presented the other night against the wishes of the people. I will support no great measure of reform which does not include the ballot among its clauses.” And so Mr Turnbull threw down the gauntlet.
Mr Turnbull spoke for two hours, and then the debate was adjourned till the Monday. The adjournment was moved by an independent member, who, as was known, would support the Government, and at once received Mr Turnbull’s assent. There was no great hurry with the bill, and it was felt that it would be well to let the ferment subside. Enough had been done for glory when Mr Mildmay moved the second reading, and quite enough in the way of debate — with such an audience almost within hearing — when Mr Turnbull’s speech had been made. Then the House emptied itself at once. The elderly, cautious members made their exit through the peers’ door. The younger men got out into the crowd through Westminster Hall, and were pushed about among the roughs for an hour or so. Phineas, who made his way through the hall with Laurence Fitzgibbon, found Mr Turnbull’s carriage waiting at the entrance with a dozen policemen round it.
“I hope he won’t get home to dinner before midnight,” said Phineas.
“He understands all about it,” said Laurence. He had a good meal at three, before he left home, and you’d find sandwiches and sherry in plenty if you were to search his carriage. He knows how to remedy the costs of mob popularity.”
At that time poor Bunce was being hustled about in the crowd in the vicinity of Mr Turnbull’s carriage. Phineas and Fitzgibbon made their way out, and by degrees worked a passage for themselves into Parliament Street. Mr Turnbull had been somewhat behind them in coming down the hall, and had not been without a sense of enjoyment in the ovation which was being given to him. There can be no doubt that he was wrong in what he was doing. That affair of the carriage was altogether wrong, and did Mr Turnbull much harm for many a day afterwards. When he got outside the door, where were the twelve policemen guarding his carriage, a great number of his admirers endeavoured to shake hands with him. Among them was the devoted Bunce. But the policemen seemed to think that Mr Turnbull was to be guarded, even from the affection of his friends, and were as careful that he should be ushered into his carriage untouched, as though he had been the favourite object of political aversion for the moment. Mr Turnbull himself, when he began to perceive that men were crowding close upon the gates, and to hear the noise, and to feel, as it were, the breath of the mob, stepped on quickly into his carriage. He said a word or two in a loud voice. “Thank you, my friends. I trust you may obtain all your just demands.” But he did not pause to speak. Indeed, he could hardly have done so, as the policemen were manifestly in a hurry. The carriage was got away at a snail’s pace — but there remained in the spot where the carriage had stood the makings of a very pretty street row.
Bunce had striven hard to shake hands with his hero — Bunce and some other reformers as ardent and as decent as himself. The police were very determinate that there should be no such interruption to their programme for getting Mr Turnbull off the scene. Mr Bunce, who had his own ideas as to his right to shake hands with any gentleman at Westminster Hall who might choose to shake hands with him, became uneasy under the impediments that were placed in his way, and expressed himself warmly as to his civil rights. Now a London policeman in a political row is, I believe, the most forbearing of men. So long as he meets with no special political opposition, ordinary ill-usage does not even put him out of temper. He is paid for rough work among roughs, and takes his rubs gallantly. But he feels himself to be an instrument for the moment of despotic power as opposed to civil rights, and he won’t stand what he calls “jaw.” Trip up a policeman in such a scramble, and he will take it in good spirit; but mention the words “Habeas Corpus,” and he’ll lock you up if he can. As a rule, his instincts are right; for the man who talks about “Habeas Corpus” in a political crowd will generally do more harm than can be effected by the tripping up of any constable. But these instincts may be the means of individual injustice. I think they were so when Mr Bunce was arrested and kept a fast prisoner. His wife had shown her knowledge of his character when she declared that he’d be “took” if anyone was “took.”
Bunce was taken into custody with some three or four others like himself — decent men, who meant no harm, but who thought that as men they were bound to show their political opinions, perhaps at the expense of a little martyrdom — and was carried into a temporary stronghold, which had been provided for the necessities of the police, under the clock-tower.
“Keep me, at your peril!” said Bunce, indignantly.
“We means it,” said the sergeant who had him in custody.
“I’ve done no ha’porth to break the law,” said Bunce.
“You was breaking the law when you was upsetting my men, as I saw you,” said the sergeant.
“I’ve upset nobody,” said Bunce.
“Very well,” rejoined the sergeant; you can say it all before the magistrate, tomorrow.”
“And am I to be locked up all night?” said Bunce.
“I’m afraid you will,” replied the sergeant.
Bunce, who was not by nature a very talkative man, said no more; but he swore in his heart that there should be vengeance. Between eleven and twelve he was taken to the regular police station, and from thence he was enabled to send word to his wife.
“Bunce has been taken,” said she, with something of the tragic queen, and something also of the injured wife in the tone of her voice, as soon as Phineas let himself in with the latchkey between twelve and one. And then, mingled with, and at last dominant over, those severer tones, came the voice of the loving woman whose beloved one was in trouble. “I knew how it’d be, Mr Finn. Didn’t I? And what must we do? I don’t suppose he’d had a bit to eat from the moment he went out — and as for a drop of beer, he never thinks of it, except what I puts down for him at his meals. Them nasty police always take the best, That’s why I was so afeard.”
Phineas said all that he could to comfort her, and promised to go to the police office early in the morning and look after Bunce. No serious evil would, he thought, probably come of it; but still Bunce had been wrong to go.
“But you might have been took yourself,” argued Mrs Bunce, “just as well as he.” Then Phineas explained that he had gone forth in the execution of a public duty. “You might have been took, all the same,” said Mrs Bunce, “for I’m sure Bunce didn’t do nothing amiss.”
On the following morning, which was Saturday, Phineas was early at the police office at Westminster looking after the interests of his landlord; but there had been a considerable number of men taken up during the row, and our friend could hardly procure that attention for Mr Bunce’s case to which he thought the decency of his client and his own position as a member of Parliament were entitled. The men who had been taken up were taken in batches before the magistrates; but as the soldiers in the park had been maltreated, and a considerable injury had been done in the neighbourhood of Downing Street, there was a good deal of strong feeling against the mob, and the magistrates were disposed to be severe. If decent men chose to go out among such companions, and thereby get into trouble, decent men must take the consequences. During the Saturday and Sunday a very strong feeling grew up against Mr Turnbull. The story of the carriage was told, and he was declared to be a turbulent demagogue, only desirous of getting popularity. And together with this feeling there arose a general verdict of “Serve them right” against all who had come into contact with the police in the great Turnbull row; and thus it came to pass that Mr Bunce had not been liberated up to the Monday morning. On the Sunday Mrs Bunce was in hysterics, and declared her conviction that Mr Bunce would be imprisoned for life. Poor Phineas had an unquiet time with her on the morning of that day. In every ecstasy of her grief she threw herself into his arms, either metaphorically or materially, according to the excess of her agony at the moment, and expressed repeatedly an assured conviction that all her children would die of starvation, and that she herself would be picked up under the arches of one of the bridges. Phineas, who was soft-hearted, did what he could to comfort her, and allowed himself to be worked up to strong parliamentary anger against the magistrates and police. “When they think that they have public opinion on their side, there is nothing in the way or arbitrary excess which is too great for them.” This he said to Barrington Erle, who angered him and increased the warmth of his feeling by declaring that a little close confinement would be good for the Bunces of the day. “If we don’t keep the mob down, the mob will keep us down,” said the Whig private secretary. Phineas had no opportunity of answering this, but declared to himself that Barrington Erle was no more a Liberal at heart than was Mr Daubeny. “He was born on that side of the question, and has been receiving Whig wages all his life. That is the history of his politics!”
On the Sunday afternoon Phineas went to Lord Brentford’s in Portman Square, intending to say a word or two about Lord Chiltern, and meaning also to induce, if possible, the Cabinet Minister to take part with him against the magistrates — having a hope also, in which he was not disappointed, that he might find Lady Laura Kennedy with her father. He had come to understand that Lady Laura was not to be visited at her own house on Sundays. So much indeed she had told him in so many words. But he had come to understand also, without any plain telling, that she rebelled in heart against this Sabbath tyranny — and that she would escape from it when escape was possible. She had now come to talk to her father about her brother, and had brought Violet Effingham with her. They had walked together across the park after church, and intended to walk back again. Mr Kennedy did not like to have any carriage out on a Sunday, and to this arrangement his wife made no objection.
Phineas had received a letter from the Stamford surgeon, and was able to report favourably of Lord Chiltern. “The man says that he had better not be moved for a month,” said Phineas. “But that means nothing. They always say that.”
“Will it not be best for him to remain where he is?” said the Earl.
“He has not a soul to speak to,” said Phineas.
“I wish I were with him,” said his sister.
“That is, of course, out of the question,” said the Earl. “They know him at that inn, and it really seems to me best that he should stay there. I do not think he would be so much at his ease here.”
“It must be dreadful for a man to be confined to his room without a creature near him, except the servants,” said Violet. The Earl frowned, but said nothing further. They all perceived that as soon as he had learned that there was no real danger as to his son’s life, he was determined that this accident should not work him up to any show of tenderness, “I do so hope he will come up to London,” continued Violet, who was not afraid of the Earl, and was determined not to be put down.
“You don’t know what you are talking about, my dear,” said Lord Brentford.
After this Phineas found it very difficult to extract any sympathy from the Earl on behalf of the men who had been locked up. He was moody and cross, and could not be induced to talk on the great subject of the day. Violet Effingham declared that she did not care how many Bunces were locked up; nor for how long — adding, however, a wish that Mr Turnbull himself had been among the number of the prisoners. Lady Laura was somewhat softer than this, and consented to express pity in the case of Mr Bunce himself; but Phineas perceived that the pity was awarded to him and not to the sufferer. The feeling against Mr Turnbull was at the present moment so strong among all the upper classes, that Mr Bunce and his brethren might have been kept in durance for a week without commiseration from them.
“It is very hard certainly on a man like Mr Bunce,” said Lady Laura.
“Why did not Mr Bunce stay at home and mind his business?” said the Earl.
Phineas spent the remainder of that day alone, and came to a resolution that on the coming occasion he certainly would speak in the House. The debate would be resumed on the Monday, and he would rise to his legs on the very first moment that it became possible for him to do so. And he would do nothing towards preparing a speech — nothing whatever. On this occasion he would trust entirely to such words as might come to him at the moment — ay, and to such thoughts. He had before burdened his memory with preparations, and the very weight of the burden had been too much for his mind. He had feared to trust himself to speak, because he had felt that he was not capable of performing the double labour of saying his lesson by heart, and of facing the House for the first time. There should be nothing now for him to remember. His thoughts were full of his subject. He would support Mr Mildmay’s bill with all his eloquence, but he would implore Mr Mildmay, and the Home Secretary, and the Government generally, to abstain from animosity against the populace of London, because they desired one special boon which Mr Mildmay did not think that it was his duty to give them. He hoped that ideas and words would come to him. Ideas and words had been free enough with him in the old days of the Dublin debating society. If they failed him now, he must give the thing up, and go back to Mr Low.
On the Monday morning Phineas was for two hours at the police court in Westminster, and at about one on that day Mr Bunce was liberated. When he was brought up before the magistrate, Mr Bunce spoke his mind very freely as to the usage he had received, and declared his intention of bringing an action against the sergeant who had detained him. The magistrate, of course, took the part of the police, and declared that, from the evidence of two men who were examined, Bunce had certainly used such violence in the crowd as had justified his arrest.
“I used no violence,” said Bunce.
“According to your own showing, you endeavoured to make your way up to Mr Turnbull’s carriage,” said the magistrate.
“I was close to the carriage before the police even saw me,” said Bunce.
“But you tried to force your way round to the door.”
“I used no force till a man had me by the collar to push me back; and I wasn’t violent, not then. I told him I was doing what I had a right to do — and it was that as made him hang on to me.”
“You were not doing what you had a right to do. You were assisting to create a riot,” said the magistrate, with that indignation which a London magistrate should always know how to affect.
Phineas, however, was allowed to give evidence as to his landlord’s character, and then Bunce was liberated. But before he went he again swore that that should not be the last of it, and he told the magistrate that he had been ill-used. When liberated, he was joined by a dozen sympathising friends, who escorted him home, and among them were one or two literary gentlemen, employed on those excellent penny papers, the People’s Banner and the Ballot-box. It was their intention that Mr Bunce’s case should not be allowed to sleep. One of these gentlemen made a distinct offer to Phineas Finn of unbounded popularity during life and of immortality afterwards, if he, as a member of Parliament, would take up Bunce’s case with vigour. Phineas, not quite understanding the nature of the offer, and not as yet knowing the profession of the gentleman, gave some general reply.
“You come out strong, Mr Finn, and we’ll see that you are properly reported. I’m on the Banner, sir, and I’ll answer for that.”
Phineas, who had been somewhat eager in expressing his sympathy with Bunce, and had not given very close attention to the gentleman who was addressing him, was still in the dark. The nature of the Banner, which the gentleman was on, did not at once come home to him.
“Something ought to be done, certainly,” said Phineas.
“We shall take it up strong,” said the gentleman, and we shall be happy to have you among us. You’ll find, Mr Finn, that in public life there’s nothing like having a horgan to back you. What is the most you can do in the ‘Ouse? Nothing, if you’re not reported. You’re speaking to the country — ain’t you? And you can’t do that without a horgan, Mr Finn. You come among us on the Banner, Mr Finn. You can’t do better.”
Then Phineas understood the nature of the offer made to him. As they parted, the literary gentleman gave our hero his card. “Mr Quintus Slide.” So much was printed. Then, on the corner of the card was written, “Banner Office, 137, Fetter Lane.” Mr Quintus Slide was a young man, under thirty, not remarkable for clean linen, and who always talked of the “‘Ouse.” But he was a well-known and not undistinguished member of a powerful class of men. He had been a reporter, and as such knew the “‘Ouse” well, and was a writer for the press. And, though he talked of “‘Ouses” and “horgans”, he wrote good English with great rapidity, and was possessed of that special sort of political fervour which shows itself in a man’s work rather than in his conduct. It was Mr Slide’s taste to be an advanced reformer, and in all his operations on behalf of the People’s Banner he was a reformer very much advanced. No man could do an article on the people’s indefeasible rights with more pronounced vigour than Mr Slide. But it had never occurred to him as yet that he ought to care for anything else than the fight — than the advantage of having a good subject on which to write slashing articles. Mr Slide was an energetic but not a thoughtful man; but in his thoughts on politics, as far as they went with him, he regarded the wrongs of the people as being of infinitely greater value than their rights. It was not that he was insincere in all that he was daily saying — but simply that he never thought about it. Very early in life he had fallen among “people’s friends,” and an opening on the liberal press had come in his way. To be a “people’s friend” suited the turn of his ambition, and he was a “people’s friend.” It was his business to abuse Government, and to express on all occasions an opinion that as a matter of course the ruling powers were the “people’s enemies.” Had the ruling powers ceased to be the “people’s enemies,” Mr Slide’s ground would have been taken from under his feet. But such a catastrophe was out of the question. That excellent old arrangement that had gone on since demagogues were first invented was in full vigour. There were the ruling powers and there were the people — devils on one side and angels on the other — and as long as a people’s friend had a pen in his hand all was right.
Phineas, when he left the indignant Bunce to go among his friends, walked to the House thinking a good deal of what Mr Slide had said to him. The potted peas Committee was again on, and he had intended to be in the committee room by twelve punctually: but he had been unable to leave Mr Bunce in the lurch, and it was now past one. Indeed, he had, from one unfortunate circumstance after another, failed hitherto in giving to the potted peas that resolute attention which the subject demanded. On the present occasion his mind was full of Mr Quintus Slide and the People’s Banner. After all, was there not something in Mr Slide’s proposition? He, Phineas, had come into Parliament as it were under the wing of a Government pack, and his friendships, which had been very successful, had been made with Ministers, and with the friends of Ministers. He had made up his mind to be Whig Ministerial, and to look for his profession in that line. He had been specially fortified in this resolution by his dislike to the ballot — which dislike had been the result of Mr Monk’s teaching. Had Mr Turnbull become his friend instead, it may well be that he would have liked the ballot. On such subjects men must think long, and be sure that they have thought in earnest, before they are justified in saying that their opinions are the results of their own thoughts. But now he began to reflect how far this ministerial profession would suit him. Would it be much to be a Lord of the Treasury, subject to the dominion of Mr Ratler? Such lordship and such subjection would be the result of success. He told himself that he was at heart a true Liberal. Would it not be better for him to abandon the idea of office trammels, and go among them on the People’s Banner? A glow of enthusiasm came over him as he thought of it. But what would Violet Effingham say to the People’s Banner and Mr Quintus Slide? And he would have liked the Banner better had not Mr Slide talked about the ‘Ouse.
From the committee room, in which, alas! he took no active part in reference to the potted peas, he went down to the House, and was present when the debate was resumed. Not unnaturally, one speaker after another made some allusion to the row in the streets, and the work which had fallen to the lot of the magistrates. Mr Turnbull had declared that he would vote against the second reading of Mr Mildmay’s bill, and had explained that he would do so because he could consent to no Reform Bill which did not include the ballot as one of its measures. The debate fashioned itself after this speech of Mr Turnbull’s, and turned again very much upon the ballot — although it had been thought that the late debate had settled that question. One or two of Mr Turnbull’s followers declared that they also would vote against the bill — of course, as not going far enough; and one or two gentlemen from the Conservative benches extended a spoken welcome to these new colleagues. Then Mr Palliser got up and addressed the House for an hour, struggling hard to bring back the real subject, and to make the House understand that the ballot, whether good or bad, had been knocked on the head, and that members had no right at the present moment to consider anything but the expediency or inexpediency of so much Reform as Mr Mildmay presented to them in the present bill.
Phineas was determined to speak, and to speak on this evening if he could catch the Speaker’s eye. Again the scene before him was going round before him; again things became dim, and again he felt his blood beating hard at his heart. But things were not so bad with him as they had been before, because he had nothing to remember. He hardly knew, indeed, what he intended to say. He had an idea that he was desirous of joining in earnest support of the measure, with a vehement protest against the injustice which had been done to the people in general, and to Mr Bunce in particular. He had firmly resolved that no fear of losing favour with the Government should induce him to hold his tongue as to the Buncean cruelties. Sooner than do so he would certainly “go among them” at the Banner office.
He started up, wildly, when Mr Palliser had completed his speech; but the Speaker’s eye, not unnaturally, had travelled to the other side of the House, and there was a Tory of the old school upon his legs — Mr Western, the member for East Barsetshire, one of the gallant few who dared to vote against Sir Robert Peel’s bill for repealing the Corn Laws in 1846, Mr Western spoke with a slow, ponderous, unimpressive, but very audible voice, for some twenty minutes, disdaining to make reference to Mr Turnbull and his politics, but pleading against any Reform, with all the old arguments. Phineas did not hear a word that he said — did not attempt to hear. He was keen in his resolution to make another attempt at the Speaker’s eye, and at the present moment was thinking of that, and of that only. He did not even give himself a moment’s reflection as to what his own speech should be. He would dash at it and take his chance, resolved that at least he would not fail in courage. Twice he was on his legs before Mr Western had finished his slow harangue, and twice he was compelled to reseat himself — thinking that he had subjected himself to ridicule. At last the member for East Barset sat down, and Phineas was conscious that he had lost a moment or two in presenting himself again to the Speaker.
He held his ground, however, though he saw that he had various rivals for the right of speech. He held his ground, and was instantly aware that he had gained his point. There was a slight pause, and as some other urgent member did not reseat himself, Phineas heard the president of that august assembly call upon himself to address the House. The thing was now to be done. There he was with the House of Commons at his feet — a crowded House, bound to be his auditors as long as he should think fit to address them, and reporters by tens and twenties in the gallery ready and eager to let the country know what the young member for Loughshane would say in this his maiden speech.
Phineas Finn had sundry gifts, a powerful and pleasant voice, which he had learned to modulate, a handsome presence, and a certain natural mixture of modesty and self-reliance, which would certainly protect him from the faults of arrogance and pomposity, and which, perhaps, might carry him through the perils of his new position. And he had also the great advantage of friends in the House who were anxious that he should do well. But he had not that gift of slow blood which on the former occasion would have enabled him to remember his prepared speech, and which would now have placed all his own resources within his own reach. He began with the expression of an opinion that every true reformer ought to accept Mr Mildmay’s bill, even if it were accepted only as an instalment — but before he had got through these sentences, he became painfully conscious that he was repeating his own words.
He was cheered almost from the outset, and yet he knew as he went on that he was failing. He had certain arguments at his fingers’ ends — points with which he was, in truth, so familiar that he need hardly have troubled himself to arrange them for special use — and he forgot even these. He found that he was going on with one platitude after another as to the benefit of reform, in a manner that would have shamed him six or seven years ago at a debating club. He pressed on, fearing that words would fail him altogether if he paused — but he did in truth speak very much too fast, knocking his words together so that no reporter could properly catch them. But he had nothing to say for the bill except what hundreds had said before, and hundreds would say again. Still he was cheered, and still he went on; and as he became more and more conscious of his failure there grew upon him the idea — the dangerous hope, that he might still save himself from ignominy by the eloquence of his invective against the police.
He tried it, and succeeded thoroughly in making the House understand that he was very angry — but he succeeded in nothing else. He could not catch the words to express the thoughts of his mind. He could not explain his idea that the people out of the House had as much right to express their opinion in favour of the ballot as members in the House had to express theirs against it; and that animosity had been shown to the people by the authorities because they had so expressed their opinion. Then he attempted to tell the story of Mr Bunce in a light and airy way, failed, and sat down in the middle of it. Again he was cheered by all around him — cheered as a new member is usually cheered — and in the midst of the cheer would have blown out his brains had there been a pistol there ready for such an operation.
That hour with him was very bad. He did not know how to get up and go away, or how to keep his place. For some time he sat with his hat off, forgetful of his privilege of wearing it, and then put it on hurriedly, as though the fact of his not wearing it must have been observed by everybody. At last, at about two, the debate was adjourned, and then as he was slowly leaving the House, thinking how he might creep away without companionship, Mr Monk took him by the arm.
“Are you going to walk?” said Mr Monk.
“Yes”, said Phineas; I shall walk.
“Then we may go together as far as Pall Mall. Come along.” Phineas had no means of escape, and left the House hanging on Mr Monk’s arm, without a word. Nor did Mr Monk speak till they were out in Palace Yard. “It was not much amiss,” said Mr Monk; “but you’ll do better than that yet.”
“Mr Monk,” said Phineas, I have made an ass of myself so thoroughly, that there will at any rate be this good result, that I shall never make an ass of myself again after the same fashion.”
“Ah! — I thought you had some such feeling as that, and therefore I was determined to speak to you. You may be sure, Finn, that I do not care to flatter you, and I think you ought to know that, as far as I am able, I will tell you the truth, Your speech, which was certainly nothing great, was about on a par with other maiden speeches in the House of Commons. You have done yourself neither good nor harm, Nor was it desirable that you should. My advice to you now is, never to avoid speaking on any subject that interests you, but never to speak for above three minutes till you find yourself as much at home on your legs as you are when sitting. But do not suppose that you have made an ass of yourself — that is, in any special degree. Now, goodnight.”
Lady Laura Kennedy heard two accounts of her friend’s speech — and both from men who had been present. Her husband was in his place, in accordance with his constant practice, and Lord Brentford had been seated, perhaps unfortunately, in the peers’ gallery.
“And you think it was a failure?” Lady Laura said to her husband.
“It certainly was not a success. There was nothing particular about it. There was a good deal of it you could hardly hear.”
After that she got the morning newspapers, and turned with great interest to the report. Phineas Finn had been, as it were, adopted by her as her own political offspring — or at any rate as her political godchild. She had made promises on his behalf to various personages of high political standing — to her father, to Mr Monk, to the Duke of St Bungay, and even to Mr Mildmay himself. She had thoroughly intended that Phineas Finn should be a political success from the first; and since her marriage, she had, I think, been more intent upon it than before. Perhaps there was a feeling on her part that having wronged him in one way, she would repay him in another. She had become so eager for his success — for a while scorning to conceal her feeling — that her husband had unconsciously begun to entertain a dislike to her eagerness. We know how quickly women arrive at an understanding of the feelings of those with whom they live; and now, on that very occasion, Lady Laura perceived that her husband did not take in good part her anxiety on behalf of her friend. She saw that it was so as she turned over the newspaper looking for the report of the speech. It was given in six lines, and at the end of it there was an intimation — expressed in the shape of advice — that the young orator had better speak more slowly if he wished to be efficacious either with the House or with the country.
“He seems to have been cheered a good deal,” said Lady Laura.
“All members are cheered at their first speech,” said Mr Kennedy.
“I’ve no doubt he’ll do well yet,” said Lady Laura.
“Very likely,” said Mr Kennedy. Then he turned to his newspaper, and did not take his eyes off it as long as his wife remained with him.
Later in the day Lady Laura saw her father, and Miss Effingham was with her at the time, Lord Brentford said something which indicated that he had heard the debate on the previous evening, and Lady Laura instantly began to ask him about Phineas.
“The less said the better,” was the Earl’s reply.
“Do you mean that it was so bad as that?” asked Lady Laura.
“It was not very bad at first — though indeed nobody could say it was very good. But he got himself into a mess about the police and the magistrates before he had done, and nothing but the kindly feeling always shown to a first effort saved him from being coughed down.” Lady Laura had not a word more to say about Phineas to her father; but, womanlike, she resolved that she would not abandon him. How many first failures in the world had been the precursors of ultimate success! “Mildmay will lose his bill,” said the Earl, sorrowfully. “There does not seem to be a doubt about that.”
“And what will you all do?” asked Lady Laura.
“We must go to the country, I suppose,” said the Earl.
“What’s the use? You can’t have a more liberal House than you have now,” said Lady Laura.
“We may have one less liberal — or rather less radical — with fewer men to support Mr Turnbull. I do not see what else we can do. They say that there are no less than twenty-seven men on our side of the House who will either vote with Turnbull against us, or will decline to vote at all.”
“Every one of them ought to lose his seat,” said Lady Laura.
“But what can we do? How is the Queen’s Government to be carried on?” We all know the sad earnestness which impressed itself on the Earl’s brow as he asked these momentous questions. “I don’t suppose that Mr Turnbull can form a Ministry.”
“With Mr Daubeny as whipper-in, perhaps he might,” said Lady Laura.
“And will Mr Finn lose his seat?” asked Violet Effingham.
“Most probably,” said the Earl. He only got it by an accident.”
“You must find him a seat somewhere in England,” said Violet.
“That might be difficult,” said the Earl, who then left the room.
The two women remained together for some quarter of an hour before they spoke again. Then Lady Laura said something about her brother. “If there be a dissolution, I hope Oswald will stand for Loughton.” Loughton was a borough close to Saulsby, in which, as regarded its political interests, Lord Brentford was supposed to have considerable influence. To this Violet said nothing. “It is quite time,” continued Lady Laura, “that old Mr Standish should give way. He has had the seat for twenty-five years, and has never done anything, and he seldom goes to the House now.”
“He is not your uncle, is he?”
“No; he is papa’s cousin; but he is ever so much older than papa — nearly eighty, I believe.”
“Would not that be just the place for Mr Finn?” said Violet.
Then Lady Laura became very serious. “Oswald would of course have a better right to it than anybody else.”
“But would Lord Chiltern go into Parliament? I have heard him declare that he would not.”
“If we could get papa to ask him, I think he would change his mind,” said Lady Laura.
There was again silence for a few moments, after which Violet returned to the original subject of their conversation.
“It would be a thousand pities that Mr Finn should be turned out into the cold. Don’t you think so?”
“I, for one, should be very sorry.”
“So should I— and the more so from what Lord Brentford says about his not speaking well last night. I don’t think that it is very much of an accomplishment for a gentleman to speak well. Mr Turnbull, I suppose, speaks well; and they say that that horrid man, Mr Bonteen, can talk by the hour together. I don’t think that it shows a man to be clever at all. But I believe Mr Finn would do it, if he set his mind to it, and I shall think it a great shame if they turn him out.”
“It would depend very much, I suppose, on Lord Tulla.”
“I don’t know anything about Lord Tulla”, said Violet; “but I’m quite sure that he might have Loughton, if we manage it properly. Of course Lord Chiltern should have it if he wants it, but I don’t think he will stand in Mr Finn’s way.”
“I’m afraid it’s out of the question,” said Lady Laura, gravely. “Papa thinks so much about the borough.” The reader will remember that both Lord Brentford and his daughter were thorough reformers! The use of a little borough of his own, however, is a convenience to a great peer.
“Those difficult things have always to be talked of for a long while, and then they become easy,” said Violet. “I believe if you were to propose to Mr Kennedy to give all his property to the Church Missionaries and emigrate to New Zealand, he’d begin to consider it seriously after a time.”
“I shall not try, at any rate.”
“Because you don’t want to go to New Zealand — but you might try about Loughton for poor Mr Finn.”
“Violet,” said Lady Laura, after a moment’s pause — and she spoke sharply; “Violet, I believe you are in love with Mr Finn.”
“That’s just like you, Laura.”
“I never made such an accusation against you before, or against anybody else that I can remember. But I do begin to believe that you are in love with Mr Finn.”
“Why shouldn’t I be in love with him, if I like?”
“I say nothing about that — only he has not got a penny.”
“But I have, my dear.”
“And I doubt whether you have any reason for supposing that he is in love with you.”
“That would be my affair, my dear.”
“Then you are in love with him?”
“That is my affair also.”
Lady Laura shrugged her shoulders. “Of course it is; and if you tell me to hold my tongue, of course I will do so. If you ask me whether I think it a good match, of course I must say I do not.”
“I don’t tell you to hold your tongue, and I don’t ask you what you think about the match. You are quite welcome to talk as much about me as you please — but as to Mr Phineas Finn, you have no business to think anything.”
“I shouldn’t talk to anybody but yourself.”
“I am growing to be quite indifferent as to what people say. Lady Baldock asked me the other day whether I was going to throw myself away on Mr Laurence Fitzgibbon.”
“No!”
“Indeed she did.”
“And what did you answer?”
“I told her that it was not quite settled; but that as I had only spoken to him once during the last two years, and then for not more than half a minute, and as I wasn’t sure whether I knew him by sight, and as I had reason to suppose he didn’t know my name, there might, perhaps, be a delay of a week or two before the thing came off. Then she flounced out of the room.”
“But what made her ask about Mr Fitzgibbon?”
“Somebody had been hoaxing her. I am beginning to think that Augusta does it for her private amusement. If so, I shall think more highly of my dear cousin than I have hitherto done. But, Laura, as you have made a similar accusation against me, and as I cannot get out of it with you as I do with my aunt, I must ask you to hear my protestation. I am not in love with Mr Phineas Finn. Heaven help me — as far as I can tell, I am not in love with anyone, and never shall be.” Lady Laura looked pleased. “Do you know, continued Violet, “that I think I could be in love with Mr Phineas Finn, if I could be in love with anybody?” Then Lady Laura looked displeased. “In the first place, he is a gentleman,” continued Violet. “Then he is a man of spirit. And then he has not too much spirit — not that kind of spirit which makes some men think that they are the finest things going. His manners are perfect — not Chesterfieldian, and yet never offensive. He never browbeats anyone, and never toadies anyone. He knows how to live easily with men of all ranks, without any appearance of claiming a special status for himself. If he were made Archbishop of Canterbury tomorrow, I believe he would settle down into the place of the first subject in the land without arrogance, and without false shame.”
“You are his eulogist with a vengeance.”
“I am his eulogist; but I am not in love with him. If he were to ask me to be his wife tomorrow, I should be distressed, and should refuse him. If he were to marry my dearest friend in the world, I should tell him to kiss me and be my brother. As to Mr Phineas Finn — those are my sentiments.”
“What you say is very odd.”
“Why odd?”
“Simply because mine are the same.”
“Are they the same? I once thought, Laura, that you did love him — that you meant to be his wife.”
Lady Laura sat for a while without making any reply to this. She sat with her elbow on the table and with her face leaning on her hand — thinking how far it would tend to her comfort if she spoke in true confidence. Violet during the time never took her eyes from her friend’s face, but remained silent as though waiting for an answer. She had been very explicit as to her feelings. Would Laura Kennedy be equally explicit? She was too clever to forget that such plainness of speech would be, must be more difficult to Lady Laura than to herself. Lady Laura was a married woman; but she felt that her friend would have been wrong to search for secrets, unless she were ready to tell her own. It was probably some such feeling which made Lady Laura speak at last.
“So I did, nearly — “ said Lady Laura; very nearly. You told me just now that you had money, and could therefore do as you pleased. I had no money, and could not do as I pleased.”
“And you told me also that I had no reason for thinking that he cared for me.”
“Did I? Well — I suppose you have no reason. He did care for me. He did love me.”
“He told you so?”
“Yes — he told me so.”
“And how did you answer him?”
“I had that very morning become engaged to Mr Kennedy. That was my answer.”
“And what did he say when you told him?”
“I do not know. I cannot remember. But he behaved very well.”
“And now — if he were to love me, you would grudge me his love?”
“Not for that reason — not if I know myself. On no! I would not be so selfish as that.”
“For what reason then?”
“Because I look upon it as written in heaven that you are to be Oswald’s wife.”
“Heaven’s writings then are false,” said Violet, getting up and walking away.
In the meantime Phineas was very wretched at home. When he reached his lodgings after leaving the House — after his short conversation with Mr Monk — he tried to comfort himself with what that gentleman had said to him. For a while, while he was walking, there had been some comfort in Mr Monk’s words. Mr Monk had much experience, and doubtless knew what he was saying — and there might yet be hope. But all this hope faded away when Phineas was in his own rooms. There came upon him, as he looked round them, an idea that he had no business to be in Parliament, that he was an impostor, that he was going about the world under false pretences, and that he would never set himself aright, even unto himself, till he had gone through some terrible act of humiliation. He had been a cheat even to Mr Quintus Slide of the Banner, in accepting an invitation to come among them. He had been a cheat to Lady Laura, in that he had induced her to think that he was fit to live with her. He was a cheat to Violet Effingham, in assuming that he was capable of making himself agreeable to her. He was a cheat to Lord Chiltern when riding his horses, and pretending to be a proper associate for a man of fortune. Why — what was his income? What his birth? What his proper position? And now he had got the reward which all cheats deserve. Then he went to bed, and as he lay there, he thought of Mary Flood Jones. Had he plighted his troth to Mary, and then worked like a slave under Mr Low’s auspices — he would not have been a cheat.
It seemed to him that he had hardly been asleep when the girl came into his room in the morning. “Sir,” said she, there’s that gentleman there.”
“What gentleman?”
“The old gentleman.”
Then Phineas knew that Mr Clarkson was in his sitting-room, and that he would not leave it till he had seen the owner of the room. Nay — Phineas was pretty sure that Mr Clarkson would come into the bedroom, if he were kept long waiting. “Damn the old gentleman,” said Phineas in his wrath — and the maidservant heard him say so.
In about twenty minutes he went out into the sitting-room, with his slippers on and in his dressing-gown. Suffering under the circumstances of such an emergency, how is any man to go through the work of dressing and washing with proper exactness? As to the prayers which he said on that morning, I think that no question should be asked. He came out with a black cloud on his brow, and with his mind half made up to kick Mr Clarkson out of the room. Mr Clarkson, when he saw him, moved his chin round within his white cravat, as was a custom with him, and put his thumb and forefinger on his lips, and then shook his head.
“Very bad, Mr Finn; very bad indeed; very bad ain’t it?”
“You coming here in this way at all times in the day is very bad,” said Phineas.
“And where would you have me go? Would you like to see me down in the lobby of the House?”
“To tell you the truth, Mr Clarkson, I don’t want to see you anywhere.”
“Ah; yes; I daresay! And that’s what you call honest, being a Parliament gent! You had my money, and then you tell me you don’t want to see me any more!”
“I have not had your money,” said Phineas.
“But let me tell you,” continued Mr Clarkson, that I want to see you — and shall go on seeing you till the money is paid.”
“I’ve not had any of your money,” said Phineas.
Mr Clarkson again twitched his chin about on the top of his cravat and smiled. “Mr Finn,” said he, showing the bill, is that your name?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then I want my money.”
“I have no money to give you.”
“Do be punctual now. Why ain’t you punctual? I’d do anything for you if you were punctual. I would indeed.” Mr Clarkson, as he said this, sat down in the chair which had been placed for our hero’s breakfast, and cutting a slice off the loaf, began to butter it with great composure.
“Mr Clarkson,” said Phineas, I cannot ask you to breakfast here. I am engaged.”
“I’ll just take a bit of bread and butter all the same,” said Clarkson. “Where do you get your butter? Now I could tell you a woman who’d give it you cheaper and a deal better than this. This is all lard. Shall I send her to you?”
“No,” said Phineas. There was no tea ready, and therefore Mr Clarkson emptied the milk into a cup and drank it. “After this,” said Phineas, “I must beg, Mr Clarkson, that you will never come to my room any more. I shall not be at home to you.”
“The lobby of the House is the same thing to me,” said Mr Clarkson. “They know me there well. I wish you’d be punctual, and then we’d be the best of friends.” After that Mr Clarkson, having finished his bread and butter, took his leave.
The debate on the bill was prolonged during the whole of that week. Lord Brentford, who loved his seat in the Cabinet and the glory of being a Minister, better even than he loved his borough, had taken a gloomy estimate when he spoke of twenty-seven defaulters, and of the bill as certainly lost. Men who were better able than he to make estimates — the Bonteens and Fitzgibbons on each side of the House, and above all, the Ratlers and Robys, produced lists from day to day which varied now by three names in one direction, then by two in another, and which fluctuated at last by units only. They all concurred in declaring that it would be a very near division. A great effort was made to close the debate on the Friday, but it failed, and the full tide of speech was carried on till the following Monday. On that morning Phineas heard Mr Ratler declare at the club that, as far as his judgment went, the division at that moment was a fair subject for a bet. “There are two men doubtful in the House,” said Ratler, “and if one votes on one side and one on the other, or if neither votes at all, it will be a tie.” Mr Roby, however, the whip on the other side, was quite sure that one at least of these gentlemen would go into his lobby, and that the other would not go into Mr Ratler’s lobby. I am inclined to think that the town was generally inclined to put more confidence in the accuracy of Mr Roby than in that of Mr Ratler; and among betting men there certainly was a point given by those who backed the Conservatives. The odds, however, were lost, for on the division the numbers in the two lobbies were equal, and the Speaker gave his casting vote in favour of the Government. The bill was read a second time, and was lost, as a matter of course, in reference to any subsequent action. Mr Roby declared that even Mr Mildmay could not go on with nothing but the Speaker’s vote to support him. Mr Mildmay had no doubt felt that he could not go on with his bill from the moment in which Mr Turnbull had declared his opposition; but he could not with propriety withdraw it in deference to Mr Turnbull’s opinion.
During the week Phineas had had his hands sufficiently full. Twice he had gone to the potted peas inquiry; but he had been at the office of the People’s Banner more often than that. Bunce had been very resolute in his determination to bring an action against the police for false imprisonment, even though he spent every shilling of his savings in doing so. And when his wife, in the presence of Phineas, begged that bygones might be bygones, reminding him that spilt milk could not be recovered, he called her a mean-spirited woman. Then Mrs Bunce wept a flood of tears, and told her favourite lodger that for her all comfort in this world was over. “Drat the reformers, I say. And I wish there was no Parliament; so I do. What’s the use of all the voting, when it means nothing but dry bread and cross words?” Phineas by no means encouraged his landlord in his litigious spirit, advising him rather to keep his money in his pocket, and leave the fighting of the battle to the columns of the Banner — which would fight it, at any rate, with economy. But Bunce, though he delighted in the Banner, and showed an unfortunate readiness to sit at the feet of Mr Quintus Slide, would have his action at law — in which resolution Mr Slide did, I fear, encourage him behind the back of his better friend, Phineas Finn.
Phineas went with Bunce to Mr Low’s chambers — for Mr Low had in some way become acquainted with the law-stationer’s journeyman — and there some very good advice was given. “Have you asked yourself what is your object, Mr Bunce?” said Mr Low. Mr Bunce declared he had asked himself that question, and had answered it. His object was redress. “In the shape of compensation to yourself,” suggested Mr Low. No; Mr Bunce would not admit that he personally required any compensation. The redress wanted was punishment to the man. “Is it for vengeance?” asked Mr Low. No; it was not for vengeance, Mr Bunce declared. “It ought not to be,” continued Mr Low; “because, though you think that the man exceeded in his duty, you must feel that he was doing so through no personal ill-will to yourself.”
“What I want is, to have the fellows kept in their proper places,” said Mr Bunce.
“Exactly — and therefore these things, when they occur, are mentioned in the press and in Parliament — and the attention of a Secretary of State is called to them. Thank God, we don’t have very much of that kind of thing in England.”
“Maybe we shall have more if we don’t look to it,” said Bunce stoutly.
“We always are looking to it,” said Mr Low — “looking to it very carefully. But I don’t think anything is to be done in that way by indictment against a single man, whose conduct has been already approved by the magistrates. If you want notoriety, Mr Bunce, and don’t mind what you pay for it; or have got anybody else to pay for it; then indeed — ”
“There ain’t nobody to pay for it,” said Bunce, waxing angry.
“Then I certainly should not pay for it myself if I were you,” said Mr Low.
But Bunce was not to be counselled out of his intention. When he was out in the square with Phineas he expressed great anger against Mr Low. “He don’t know what patriotism means,” said the law scrivener. “And then he talks to me about notoriety! It has always been the same way with ’em. If a man shows a spark of public feeling, it’s all ambition. I don’t want no notoriety. I wants to earn my bread peaceable, and to be let alone when I’m about my own business. I pays rates for the police to look after rogues, not to haul folks about and lock ’em up for days and nights, who is doing what they has a legal right to do.” After that, Bunce went to his attorney, to the great detriment of the business at the stationer’s shop, and Phineas visited the office of the People’s Banner. There he wrote a leading article about Bunce’s case, for which he was in due time to be paid a guinea. After all, the People’s Banner might do more for him in this way than ever would be done by Parliament. Mr Slide, however, and another gentleman at the Banner office, much older than Mr Slide, who announced himself as the actual editor, were anxious that Phineas should rid himself of his heterodox political resolutions about the ballot. It was not that they cared much about his own opinions; and when Phineas attempted to argue with the editor on the merits of the ballot, the editor put him down very shortly. “We go in for it, Mr Finn,” he said. If Mr Finn would go in for it too, the editor seemed to think that Mr Finn might make himself very useful at the Banner Office. Phineas stoutly maintained that this was impossible — and was therefore driven to confine his articles in the service of the people to those open subjects on which his opinions agreed with those of the People’s Banner. This was his second article, and the editor seemed to think that, backward as he was about the ballot, he was too useful an aid to be thrown aside. A member of Parliament is not now all that he was once, but still there is a prestige in the letters affixed to his name which makes him loom larger in the eyes of the world than other men. Get into Parliament, if it be but for the borough of Loughshane, and the People’s Banners all round will be glad of your assistance, as will also companies limited and unlimited to a very marvellous extent. Phineas wrote his article and promised to look in again, and so they went on. Mr Quintus Slide continued to assure him that a “horgan” was indispensable to him, and Phineas began to accommodate his ears to the sound which had at first been so disagreeable. He found that his acquaintance, Mr Slide, had ideas of his own as to getting into the ‘Ouse at some future time. “I always look upon the ‘Ouse as my oyster, and ’ere ‘s my sword,” said Mr Slide, brandishing an old quill pen. “And I feel that if once there I could get along. I do indeed. What is it a man wants? It’s only pluck — that he shouldn’t funk because a ‘undred other men are looking at him.” Then Phineas asked him whether he had any idea of a constituency, to which Mr Slide replied that he had no absolutely formed intention. Many boroughs, however, would doubtless be set free from aristocratic influence by the redistribution of seats which must take place, as Mr Slide declared, at any rate in the next session. Then he named the borough of Loughton; and Phineas Finn, thinking of Saulsby, thinking of the Earl, thinking of Lady Laura, and thinking of Violet, walked away disgusted. Would it not be better that the quiet town, clustering close round the walls of Saulsby, should remain as it was, than that it should be polluted by the presence of Mr Quintus Slide?
On the last day of the debate, at a few moments before four o’clock, Phineas encountered another terrible misfortune. He had been at the potted peas since twelve, and had on this occasion targed two or three commissariat officers very tightly with questions respecting cabbages and potatoes, and had asked whether the officers on board a certain ship did not always eat preserved asparagus while the men had not even a bean. I fear that he had been put up to this business by Mr Quintus Slide, and that he made himself nasty. There was, however, so much nastiness of the kind going, that his little effort made no great difference. The conservative members of the Committee, on whose side of the House the inquiry had originated, did not scruple to lay all manner of charges to officers whom, were they themselves in Power, they would be bound to support and would support with all their energies. About a quarter before four the members of the Committee had dismissed their last witness for the day, being desirous of not losing their chance of seats on so important an occasion, and hurried down into the lobby — so that they might enter the House before prayers. Phineas here was buttonholed by Barrington Erle, who said something to him as to the approaching division. They were standing in front of the door of the House, almost in the middle of the lobby, with a crowd of members around them — on a spot which, as frequenters know, is hallowed ground, and must not be trodden by strangers. He was in the act of answering Erle, when he was touched on the arm, and on turning round, saw Mr Clarkson. “About that little bill, Mr Finn,” said the horrible man, turning his chin round over his white cravat. “They always tell me at your lodgings that you ain’t at home.” By this time a policeman was explaining to Mr Clarkson with gentle violence that he must not stand there — that he must go aside into one of the corners. “I know all that,” said Mr Clarkson, retreating. “Of course I do. But what is a man to do when a gent won’t see him at home?” Mr Clarkson stood aside in his corner quietly, giving the policeman no occasion for further action against him; but in retreating he spoke loud, and there was a lull of voices around, and twenty members at least had heard what had been said. Phineas Finn no doubt had his privilege, but Mr Clarkson was determined that the privilege should avail him as little as possible.
It was very hard. The real offender, the Lord of the Treasury, the peer’s son, with a thousand a year paid by the country was not treated with this cruel persecution. Phineas had in truth never taken a farthing from any one but his father; and though doubtless he owed something at this moment, he had no creditor of his own that was even angry with him. As the world goes he was a clear man — but for this debt of his friend Fitzgibbon. He left Barrington Erle in the lobby, and hurried into the House, blushing up to the eyes. He looked for Fitzgibbon in his place, but the Lord of the Treasury was not as yet there. Doubtless he would be there for the division, and Phineas resolved that he would speak a bit of his mind before he let his friend out of his sight.
There were some great speeches made on that evening. Mr Gresham delivered an oration of which men said that it would be known in England as long as there were any words remaining of English eloquence. In it he taunted Mr Turnbull with being a recreant to the people, of whom he called himself so often the champion. But Mr Turnbull was not in the least moved. Mr Gresham knew well enough that Mr Turnbull was not to be moved by any words — but the words were not the less telling to the House and to the country. Men, who heard it, said that Mr Gresham forgot himself in that speech, forgot his party, forgot his strategy, forgot his long-drawn schemes — even his love of applause, and thought only of his cause. Mr Daubeny replied to him with equal genius, and with equal skill — if not with equal heart. Mr Gresham had asked for the approbation of all present and of all future reformers. Mr Daubeny denied him both — the one because he would not succeed, and the other because he would not have deserved success. Then Mr Mildmay made his reply, getting up at about three o’clock, and uttered a prayer — a futile prayer — that this his last work on behalf of his countrymen might be successful. His bill was read a second time, as I have said before, in obedience to the casting vote of the Speaker — but a majority such as that was tantamount to a defeat.
There was, of course, on that night no declaration as to what ministers would do. Without a meeting of the Cabinet, and without some further consideration, though each might know that the bill would be withdrawn, they could not say in what way they would act. But late as was the hour, there were many words on the subject before members were in their beds. Mr Turnbull and Mr Monk left the House together, and perhaps no two gentlemen in it had in former sessions been more in the habit of walking home arm-in-arm and discussing what each had heard and what each had said in that assembly. Latterly these two men had gone strangely asunder in their paths — very strangely for men who had for years walked so closely together. And this separation had been marked by violent words spoken against each other — by violent words, at least, spoken against him in office by the one who had never contaminated his hands by the Queen’s shilling. And yet, on such an occasion as this, they were able to walk away from the House arm-in-arm, and did not fly at each other’s throat by the way.
“Singular enough, is it not,” said Mr Turnbull, that the thing should have been so close?”
“Very odd,” said Mr Monk; but men have said that it would be so all the week.”
“Gresham was very fine,” said Mr Turnbull.
“Very fine, indeed. I never have heard anything like it before.”
“Daubeny was very powerful too,” said Mr Turnbull.
“Yes — no doubt. The occasion was great, and he answered to the spur. But Gresham’s was the speech of the debate.”
“Well — yes; perhaps it was,” said Mr Turnbull, who was thinking of his own flight the other night, and who among his special friends had been much praised for what he had then done. But of course he made no allusion to his own doings — or to those of Mr Monk. In this way they conversed for some twenty minutes, till they parted; but neither of them interrogated the other as to what either might be called upon to do in consequence of the division which had just been effected. They might still be intimate friends, but the days of confidence between them were passed.
Phineas had seen Laurence Fitzgibbon enter the House — which he did quite late in the night, so as to be in time for the division. No doubt he had dined in the House, and had been all the evening in the library — or in the smoking-room. When Mr Mildmay was on his legs making his reply, Fitzgibbon had sauntered in, not choosing to wait till he might be rung up by the bell at the last moment. Phineas was near him as they passed by the tellers, near him in the lobby, and near him again as they all passed back into the House. But at the last moment he thought that he would miss his prey. In the crowd as they left the House he failed to get his hand upon his friend’s shoulder. But he hurried down the members’ passage, and just at the gate leading out into Westminster Hall he overtook Fitzgibbon walking arm-in-arm with Barrington Erle.
“Laurence,” he said, taking hold of his countryman’s arm with a decided grasp, “I want to speak to you for a moment, if you please.”
“Speak away,” said Laurence. Then Phineas, looking up into his face, knew very well that he had been — what the world calls, dining.
Phineas remembered at the moment that Barrington Erle had been close to him when the odious money-lender had touched his arm and made his inquiry about that “little bill.” He much wished to make Erle understand that the debt was not his own — that he was not in the hands of usurers in reference to his own concerns. But there was a feeling within him that he still — even still — owed something to his friendship to Fitzgibbon. “Just give me your arm, and come on with me for a minute,” said Phineas. “Erle will excuse us.”
“Oh, blazes!” said Laurence, what is it you’re after? I ain’t good at private conferences at three in the morning. We’re all out, and isn’t that enough for ye?”
“I have been dreadfully annoyed tonight,” said Phineas, “and I wished to speak to you about it.”
“Bedad, Finn, my boy, and there are a good many of us are annoyed — eh, Barrington?”
Phineas perceived clearly that though Fitzgibbon had been dining, there was as much of cunning in all this as of wine, and he was determined not to submit to such unlimited ill-usage. “My annoyance comes from your friend, Mr Clarkson, who had the impudence to address me in the lobby of the House.”
“And serve you right, too, Finn, my boy. Why the devil did you sport your oak to him? He has told me all about it, There ain’t such a patient little fellow as Clarkson anywhere, if you’ll only let him have his own way. He’ll look in, as he calls it, three times a week for a whole season, and do nothing further. Of course he don’t like to be looked out.”
“Is that the gentleman with whom the police interfered in the lobby?” Erle inquired.
“A confounded bill discounter to whom our friend here has introduced me — for his own purposes,” said Phineas.
“A very gentleman-like fellow,” said Laurence. “Barrington knows him, I daresay. Look here, Finn, my boy, take my advice. Ask him to breakfast, and let him understand that the house will always be open to him.” After this Laurence Fitzgibbon and Barrington Erle got into a cab together, and were driven away.
And now will the Muses assist me while I sing an altogether new song? On the Tuesday the Cabinet met at the First Lord’s official residence in Downing Street, and I will attempt to describe what, according to the bewildered brain of a poor fictionist, was said or might have been said, what was done or might have been done, on so august an occasion.
The poor fictionist very frequently finds himself to have been wrong in his description of things in general, and is told so, roughly by the critics, and tenderly by the friends of his bosom. He is moved to tell of things of which he omits to learn the nature before he tells of them — as should be done by a strictly honest fictionist. He catches salmon in October; or shoots his partridges in March. His dahlias bloom in June, and his birds sing in the autumn. He opens the opera-houses before Easter, and makes Parliament sit on a Wednesday evening. And then those terrible meshes of the Law! How is a fictionist, in these excited days, to create the needed biting interest without legal difficulties; and how again is he to steer his little bark clear of so many rocks — when the rocks and the shoals have been purposely arranged to make the taking of a pilot on board a necessity? As to those law meshes, a benevolent pilot will, indeed, now and again give a poor fictionist a helping hand — not used, however, generally, with much discretion. But from whom is any assistance to come in the august matter of a Cabinet assembly? There can be no such assistance. No man can tell aught but they who will tell nothing. But then, again, there is this safety, that let the story be ever so mistold — let the fiction be ever so far removed from the truth, no critic short of a Cabinet Minister himself can convict the narrator of error.
It was a large dingy room, covered with a Turkey carpet, and containing a dark polished mahogany dinner-table, on very heavy carved legs, which an old messenger was preparing at two o’clock in the day for the use of her Majesty’s Ministers. The table would have been large enough for fourteen guests, and along the side further from the fire, there were placed some six heavy chairs, good comfortable chairs, stuffed at the back as well as the seat — but on the side nearer to the fire the chairs were placed irregularly; and there were four armchairs — two on one side and two on the other. There were four windows to the room, which looked on to St James’s Park, and the curtains of the windows were dark and heavy — as became the gravity of the purposes to which that chamber was appropriated. In old days it had been the dining-room of one Prime Minister after another. To Pitt it had been the abode of his own familiar prandial Penates, and Lord Liverpool had been dull there among his dull friends for long year after year. The Ministers of the present day find it more convenient to live in private homes, and, indeed, not unfrequently carry their Cabinets with them. But, under Mr Mildmay’s rule, the meetings were generally held in the old room at the official residence. Thrice did the aged messenger move each armchair, now a little this way and now a little that, and then look at them as though something of the tendency of the coming meeting might depend on the comfort of its leading members. If Mr Mildmay should find himself to be quite comfortable, so that he could hear what was said without a struggle to his ear, and see his colleagues’ faces clearly, and feel the fire without burning his shins, it might be possible that he would not insist upon resigning. If this were so, how important was the work now confided to the hands of that aged messenger! When his anxious eyes had glanced round the room some half a dozen times, when he had touched each curtain, laid his hand upon every chair, and dusted certain papers which lay upon a side-table — and which had been lying there for two years, and at which no one ever looked or would look — he gently crept away and ensconced himself in an easy chair not far from the door of the chamber. For it might be necessary to stop the attempt of a rash intruder on those secret counsels.
Very shortly there was heard the ring of various voices in the passages — the voices of men speaking pleasantly, the voices of men with whom it seemed, from their tone, that things were doing well in the world. And then a cluster of four or five gentlemen entered the room. At first sight they seemed to be as ordinary gentlemen as you shall meet anywhere about Pall Mall on an afternoon. There was nothing about their outward appearance of the august wiggery of statecraft, nothing of the ponderous dignity of ministerial position. That little man in the square-cut coat — we may almost call it a shooting-coat — swinging an umbrella and wearing no gloves, is no less a person than the Lord Chancellor — Lord Weazeling — who made a hundred thousand pounds as Attorney-General, and is supposed to be the best lawyer of his age. He is fifty, but he looks to be hardly over forty, and one might take him to be, from his appearance — perhaps a clerk in the War Office, well-to-do, and popular among his brother-clerks. Immediately with him is Sir Harry Coldfoot, also a lawyer by profession, though he has never practised. He has been in the House for nearly thirty years, and is now at the Home Office. He is a stout, healthy, grey-haired gentleman, who certainly does not wear the cares of office on his face. Perhaps, however, no minister gets more bullied than he by the press, and men say that he will be very willing to give up to some political enemy the control of the police, and the onerous duty of judging in all criminal appeals. Behind these come our friend Mr Monk, young Lord Cantrip from the colonies next door, than whom no smarter young peer now does honour to our hereditary legislature, and Sir Marmaduke Morecombe, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Why Sir Marmaduke has always been placed in Mr Mildmay’s Cabinets nobody ever knew. As Chancellor of the Duchy he has nothing to do — and were there anything, he would not do it. He rarely speaks in the House, and then does not speak well. He is a handsome man, or would be but for an assumption of grandeur in the carriage of his eyes, giving to his face a character of pomposity which he himself well deserves. He was in the Guards when young, and has been in Parliament since he ceased to be young. It must be supposed that Mr Mildmay has found something in him, for he has been included in three successive liberal Cabinets. He has probably the virtue of being true to Mr Mildmay, and of being duly submissive to one whom he recognises as his superior.
Within two minutes afterwards the Duke followed, with Plantagenet Palliser. The Duke, as all the world knows, was the Duke of St Bungay, the very front and head of the aristocratic old Whigs of the country — a man who has been thrice spoken of as Prime Minister, and who really might have filled the office had he not known himself to be unfit for it. The Duke has been consulted as to the making of Cabinets for the last five-and-thirty years, and is even now not an old man in appearance — a fussy, popular, clever, conscientious man, whose digestion has been too good to make politics a burden to him, but who has thought seriously about his country, and is one who will be sure to leave memoirs behind him. He was born in the semi-purple of ministerial influences, and men say of him that he is honester than his uncle, who was Canning’s friend, but not so great a man as his grandfather, with whom Fox once quarrelled, and whom Burke loved. Plantagenet Palliser, himself the heir to a dukedom, was the young Chancellor of the Exchequer, of whom some statesmen thought much as the rising star of the age. If industry, rectitude of purpose, and a certain clearness of intellect may prevail, Planty Pall, as he is familiarly called, may become a great Minister.
Then came Viscount Thrift by himself — the First Lord of the Admiralty, with the whole weight of a new iron-clad fleet upon his shoulders. He has undertaken the Herculean task of cleansing the dockyards — and with it the lesser work of keeping afloat a navy that may be esteemed by his countrymen to be the best in the world. And he thinks that he will do both, if only Mr Mildmay will not resign — an industrious, honest, self-denying nobleman, who works without ceasing from morn to night, and who hopes to rise in time to high things — to the translating of Homer, perhaps, and the wearing of the Garter.
Close behind him there was a ruck of Ministers, with the much-honoured grey-haired old Premier in the midst of them. There was Mr Gresham, the Foreign Minister, said to be the greatest orator in Europe, on whose shoulders it was thought that the mantle of Mr Mildmay would fall — to be worn, however, quite otherwise than Mr Mildmay had worn it. For Mr Gresham is a man with no feelings for the past, void of historical association, hardly with memories — living altogether for the future which he is anxious to fashion anew out of the vigour of his own brain. Whereas, with Mr Mildmay, even his love of reform is an inherited passion for an old-world Liberalism. And there was with them Mr Legge Wilson, the brother of a peer, Secretary at War, a great scholar and a polished gentleman, very proud of his position as a Cabinet Minister, but conscious that he has hardly earned it by political work. And Lord Plinlimmon is with them, the Comptroller of India — of all working lords the most jaunty, the most pleasant, and the most popular, very good at taking chairs at dinners, and making becoming speeches at the shortest notice, a man apparently very free and open in his ways of life — but cautious enough in truth as to every step, knowing well how hard it is to climb and how easy to fall. Mr Mildmay entered the room leaning on Lord Plinlimmon’s arm, and when he made his way up among the armchairs upon the rug before the fire, the others clustered around him with cheering looks and kindly questions. Then came the Privy Seal, our old friend Lord Brentford, last — and I would say least, but that the words of no councillor could go for less in such an assemblage than will those of Sir Marmaduke Morecombe, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
Mr Mildmay was soon seated in one of the armchairs, while Lord Plinlimmon leaned against the table close at his elbow. Mr Gresham stood upright at the corner of the chimney-piece furthest from Mr Mildmay, and Mr Palliser at that nearest to him. The Duke took the armchair close at Mr Mildmay’s left hand. Lord Plinlimmon was, as I have said, leaning against the table, but the Lord Chancellor, who was next to him, sat upon it. Viscount Thrift and Mr Monk occupied chairs on the further side of the table, near to Mr Mildmay’s end, and Mr Legge Wilson placed himself at the head of the table, thus joining them as it were into a body. The Home Secretary stood before the Lord Chancellor screening him from the fire, and the Chancellor of the Duchy, after waiting for a few minutes as though in doubt, took one of the vacant armchairs. The young lord from the Colonies stood a little behind the shoulders of his great friend from the Foreign Office; and the Privy Seal, after moving about for a while uneasily, took a chair behind the Chancellor of the Duchy. One armchair was thus left vacant, but there was no other comer.
“It is not so bad as I thought it would be,” said the Duke, speaking aloud, but nevertheless addressing himself specially to his chief.
“It was bad enough,” said Mr Mildmay, laughing.
“Bad enough indeed,” said Sir Marmaduke Morecombe, without any laughter.
“And such a good bill lost,” said Lord Plinlimmon. The worst of these failures is, that the same identical bill can never be brought in again.”
“So that if the lost bill was best, the bill that will not be lost can only be second best,” said the Lord Chancellor.
“I certainly did think that after the debate before Easter we should not have come to shipwreck about the ballot,” said Mr Mildmay.
“It was brewing for us all along,” said Mr Gresham, who then with a gesture of his hand and a pressure of his lips withheld words which he was nearly uttering, and which would not, probably, have been complimentary to Mr Turnbull. As it was, he turned half round and said something to Lord Cantrip which was not audible to any one else in the room. It was worthy of note, however, that Mr Turnbull’s name was not once mentioned aloud at that meeting.
“I am afraid it was brewing all along,” said Sir Marmaduke Morecombe gravely.
“Well, gentlemen, we must take it as we get it,” said Mr Mildmay, still smiling. “And now we must consider what we shall do at once.” Then he paused as though expecting that counsel would come to him first from one colleague and then from another. But no such counsel came, and probably Mr Mildmay did not in the least expect that it would come.
“We cannot stay where we are, of course,” said the Duke. The Duke was privileged to say as much as that. But though every man in the room knew that it must be so, no one but the Duke would have said it, before Mr Mildmay had spoken plainly himself.
“No,” said Mr Mildmay; I suppose that we can hardly stay where we are. Probably none of us wish it, gentlemen.” Then he looked round upon his colleagues, and there came a sort of an assent, though there were no spoken words. The sound from Sir Marmaduke Morecombe was louder than that from the others — but yet from him it was no more than an attesting grunt. “We have two things to consider,” continued Mr Mildmay — and though he spoke in a very low voice, every word was heard by all present — “two things chiefly, that is; the work of the country and the Queen’s comfort. I propose to see Her Majesty this afternoon at five — that is, in something less than two hours’ time, and I hope to be able to tell the House by seven what has taken place between Her Majesty and me. My friend, His Grace, will do as much in the House of Lords. If you agree with me, gentlemen, I will explain to the Queen that it is not for the welfare of the country that we should retain our places, and I will place your resignations and my own in Her Majesty’s hands.”
“You will advise Her Majesty to send for Lord de Terrier,” said Mr Gresham.
“Certainly — there will be no other course open to me.”
“Or to her,” said Mr Gresham. To this remark from the rising Minister of the day, no word of reply was made; but of those present in the room three or four of the most experienced servants of the Crown felt that Mr Gresham had been imprudent. The Duke, who had ever been afraid of Mr Gresham, told Mr Palliser afterwards that such an observation should not have been made; and Sir Harry Coldfoot pondered upon it uneasily, and Sir Marmaduke Morecombe asked Mr Mildmay what he thought about it. “Times change so much, and with the times the feelings of men,” said Mr Mildmay. But I doubt whether Sir Marmaduke quite understood him.
There was silence in the room for a moment or two after Mr Gresham had spoken, and then Mr Mildmay again addressed his friends. “Of course it may be possible that my Lord de Terrier may foresee difficulties, or may find difficulties which will oblige him, either at once, or after an attempt has been made, to decline the task which her Majesty will probably commit to him. All of us, no doubt, know that the arrangement of a government is not the most easy task in the world; and that it is not made the more easy by an absence of a majority in the House of Commons.”
“He would dissolve, I presume,” said the Duke.
“I should say so,” continued Mr Mildmay. But it may not improbably come to pass that her Majesty will feel herself obliged to send again for some one or two of us, that we may tender to her Majesty the advice which we owe to her — for me, for instance, or for my friend the Duke. In such a matter she would be much guided probably by what Lord de Terrier might have suggested to her. Should this be so, and should I be consulted, my present feeling is that we should resume our offices so that the necessary business of the session should be completed, and that we should then dissolve Parliament, and thus ascertain the opinion of the country. In such case, however, we should of course meet again.”
“I quite think that the course proposed by Mr Mildmay will be the best,” said the Duke, who had no doubt already discussed the matter with his friend the Prime Minister in private. No one else said a word either of argument or disagreement, and the Cabinet Council was broken up. The old messenger, who had been asleep in his chair, stood up and bowed as the Ministers walked by him, and then went in and rearranged the chairs.
“He has as much idea of giving up as you or I have,” said Lord Cantrip to his friend Mr Gresham, as they walked arm-in-arm together from the Treasury Chambers across St James’s Park towards the clubs.
“I am not sure that he is not right,” said Mr Gresham.
“Do you mean for himself or for the country?” asked Lord Cantrip.
“For his future fame. They who have abdicated and have clung to their abdication have always lost by it. Cincinnatus was brought back again, and Charles V is felt to have been foolish. The peaches of retired ministers of which we hear so often have generally been cultivated in a constrained seclusion — or at least the world so believes.” They were talking probably of Mr Mildmay, as to whom some of his colleagues had thought it probable, knowing that he would now resign, that he would have to-day declared his intention of laying aside for ever the cares of office.
Mr Monk walked home alone, and as he went there was something of a feeling of disappointment at heart, which made him ask himself whether Mr Turnbull might not have been right in rebuking him for joining the Government. But this, I think, was in no way due to Mr Mildmay’s resignation but rather to a conviction on Mr Monk’s part that that he had contributed but little to his country’s welfare by sitting in Mr Mildmay’s Cabinet.
After the holding of that Cabinet Council of which the author has dared to attempt a slight sketch in the last chapter, there were various visits made to the Queen, first by Mr Mildmay, and then by Lord de Terrier, afterwards by Mr Mildmay and the Duke together, and then again by Lord de Terrier; and there were various explanations made to Parliament in each House, and rivals were very courteous to each other, promising assistance — and at the end of it the old men held their seats. The only change made was effected by the retirement of Sir Marmaduke Morecombe, who was raised to the peerage, and by the selection of — Mr Kennedy to fill his place in the Cabinet. Mr Kennedy during the late debate had made one of those speeches, few and far between, by which he had created for himself a Parliamentary reputation; but, nevertheless, all men expressed their great surprise, and no one could quite understand why Mr Kennedy had been made a Cabinet Minister.
“It is impossible to say whether he is pleased or not,” said Lady Laura, speaking of him to Phineas. “I am pleased, of course.”
“His ambition must be gratified,” said Phineas.
“It would be, if he had any,” said Lady Laura.
“I do not believe in a man lacking ambition.”
“It is hard to say. There are men who by no means wear their hearts upon their sleeves, and my husband is one of them. He told me that it would be unbecoming in him to refuse, and that was all he said to me about it.”
The old men held their seats, but they did so as it were only upon further trial. Mr Mildmay took the course which he had indicated to his colleagues at the Cabinet meeting. Before all the explanations and journeyings were completed, April was over, and the much-needed Whitsuntide holidays were coming on. But little of the routine work of the session had been done; and, as Mr Mildmay told the House more than once, the country would suffer were the Queen to dissolve Parliament at this period of the year. The old Ministers would go on with the business of the country, Lord de Terrier with his followers having declined to take affairs into their hands; and at the close of the session, which should be made as short as possible, writs should be issued for new elections. This was Mr Mildmay’s programme, and it was one of which no one dared to complain very loudly.
Mr Turnbull, indeed, did speak a word of caution. He told Mr Mildmay that he had lost his bill, good in other respects, because he had refused to introduce the ballot into his measure. Let him promise to be wiser for the future, and to obey the manifested wishes of the country, and then all would be well with him. In answer to this, Mr Mildmay declared that to the best of his power of reading the country, his countrymen had manifested no such wish; and that if they did so, if by the fresh election it should be shown that the ballot was in truth desired, he would at once leave the execution of their wishes to abler and younger hands. Mr Turnbull expressed himself perfectly satisfied with the Minister’s answers, and said that the coming election would show whether he or Mr Mildmay were right.
Many men, and among them some of his colleagues, thought that Mr Mildmay had been imprudent. “No man ought ever to pledge himself to anything,” said Sir Harry Coldfoot to the Duke — “that is, to anything unnecessary.” The Duke, who was very true to Mr Mildmay, made no reply to this, but even he thought that his old friend had been betrayed into a promise too rapidly. But the pledge was given, and some people already began to make much of it. There appeared leader after leader in the People’s Banner urging the constituencies to take advantage of the Prime Minister’s words, and to show clearly at the hustings that they desired the ballot. “You had better come over to us, Mr Finn; you had indeed,” said Mr Slide. “Now’s the time to do it, and show yourself a people’s friend. You’ll have to do it sooner or later — whether or no. Come to us and we’ll be your horgan.”
But in those days Phineas was something less in love with Mr Quintus Slide than he had been at the time of the great debate, for he was becoming more and more closely connected with people who in their ways of living and modes of expression were very unlike Mr Slide. This advice was given to him about the end of May, and at that time Lord Chiltern was living with him in the lodgings in Great Marlborough Street. Miss Pouncefoot had temporarily vacated her rooms on the first floor, and the Lord with the broken bones had condescended to occupy them. “I don’t know that I like having a Lord,” Bunce had said to his wife. “It’ll soon come to you not liking anybody decent anywhere,” Mrs Bunce had replied; “but I shan’t ask any questions about it. When you’re wasting so much time and money at your dirty law proceedings, it’s well that somebody should earn something at home.”
There had been many discussions about the bringing of Lord Chiltern up to London, in all of which Phineas had been concerned. Lord Brentford had thought that his son had better remain down at the Willingford Bull; and although he said that the rooms were at his son’s disposal should Lord Chiltern choose to come to London, still he said it in such a way that Phineas, who went down to Willingford, could not tell his friend that he would be made welcome in Portman Square. “I think I shall leave those diggings altogether,” Lord Chiltern said to him. “My father annoys me by everything he says and does, and I annoy him by saying and doing nothing.” Then there came an invitation to him from Lady Laura and Mr Kennedy. Would he come to Grosvenor Place? Lady Laura pressed this very much, though in truth Mr Kennedy had hardly done more than give a cold assent. But Lord Chiltern would not hear of it. “There is some reason for my going to my father’s house,” said he, “though he and I are not the best friends in the world; but there can be no reason for my going to the house of a man I dislike so much as I do Robert Kennedy.” The matter was settled in the manner told above. Miss Pouncefoot’s rooms were prepared for him at Mr Bunce’s house, and Phineas Finn went down to Willingford and brought him up. “I’ve sold Bonebreaker”, he said, “to a young fellow whose neck will certainly be the sacrifice if he attempts to ride him. I’d have given him to you, Phineas, only you wouldn’t have known what to do with him.”
Lord Chiltern when he came up to London was still in bandages, though, as the surgeon said, his bones seemed to have been made to be broken and set again; and his bandages of course were a sufficient excuse for his visiting the house neither of his father nor his brother-in-law. But Lady Laura went to him frequently, and thus became acquainted with our hero’s home and with Mrs Bunce. And there were messages taken from Violet to the man in bandages, some of which lost nothing in the carrying. Once Lady Laura tried to make Violet think that it would be right, or rather not wrong, that they two should go together to Lord Chiltern’s rooms.
“And would you have me tell my aunt, or would you have me not tell her?” Violet asked.
“I would have you do just as you pleased,” Lady Laura answered.
“So I shall,” Violet replied, but I will do nothing that I should be ashamed to tell any one. Your brother professes to be in love with me.”
“He is in love with you,” said Lady Laura. Even you do not pretend to doubt his faith.”
“Very well. In those circumstances a girl should not go to a man’s rooms unless she means to consider herself as engaged to him, even with his sister — not though he had broken every bone in his skin. I know what I may do, Laura, and I know what I mayn’t; and I won’t be led either by you or by my aunt.”
“May I give him your love?”
“No — because you’ll give it in a wrong spirit. He knows well enough that I wish him well — but you may tell him that from me, if you please. He has from me all those wishes which one friend owes to another.”
But there were other messages sent from Violet through Phineas Finn which she worded with more show of affection — perhaps as much for the discomfort of Phineas as for the consolation of Lord Chiltern. “Tell him to take care of himself,” said Violet, and bid him not to have any more of those wild brutes that are not fit for any Christian to ride. Tell him that I say so. It’s a great thing to be brave; but what’s the use of being foolhardy?”
The session was to be closed at the end of June, to the great dismay of London tradesmen and of young ladies who had not been entirely successful in the early season. But before the old Parliament was closed, and the writs for the new election were despatched, there occurred an incident which was of very much importance to Phineas Finn. Near the end of June, when the remaining days of the session were numbered by three or four, he had been dining at Lord Brentford’s house in Portman Square in company with Mr Kennedy. But Lady Laura had not been there. At this time he saw Lord Brentford not unfrequently, and there was always a word said about Lord Chiltern. The father would ask how the son occupied himself, and Phineas would hope — though hitherto he had hoped in vain — that he would induce the Earl to come and see Lord Chiltern. Lord Brentford could never be brought to that; but it was sufficiently evident that he would have done so, had he not been afraid to descend so far from the altitude of his paternal wrath. On this evening, at about eleven, Mr Kennedy and Phineas left the house together, and walked from the Square through Orchard Street into Oxford Street. Here their ways parted, but Phineas crossed the road with Mr Kennedy, as he was making some reply to a second invitation to Loughlinter. Phineas, considering what had been said before on the subject, thought that the invitation came late, and that it was not warmly worded. He had, therefore, declined it, and was in the act of declining it, when he crossed the road with Mr Kennedy. In walking down Orchard Street from the Square he had seen two men standing in the shadow a few yards up a mews or small alley that was there, but had thought nothing of them. It was just that period of the year when there is hardly any of the darkness of night; but at this moment there were symptoms of coming rain, and heavy drops began to fall; and there were big clouds coming and going before the young moon. Mr Kennedy had said that he would get a cab, but he had seen none as he crossed Oxford Street, and had put up his umbrella as he made his way towards Park Street. Phineas as he left him distinctly perceived the same two figures on the other side of Oxford Street, and then turning into the shadow of a butcher’s porch, he saw them cross the street in the wake of Mr Kennedy. It was now raining in earnest, and the few passengers who were out were scudding away quickly, this way and that.
It hardly occurred to Phineas to think that any danger was imminent to Mr Kennedy from the men, but it did occur to him that he might as well take some notice of the matter. Phineas knew that Mr Kennedy would make his way down Park Street, that being his usual route from Portman Square towards his own home, and knew also that he himself could again come across Mr Kennedy’s track by going down North Audley Street to the corner of Grosvenor Square, and thence by Brook Street into Park Street. Without much thought, therefore, he went out of his own course down to the corner of the Square, hurrying his steps till he was running, and then ran along Brook Street, thinking as he went of some special word that he might say to Mr Kennedy as an excuse, should he again come across his late companion. He reached the corner of Park Street before that gentleman could have been there unless he also had run; but just in time to see him as he was coming on — and also to see in the dark glimmering of the slight uncertain moonlight that the two men were behind him. He retreated a step backwards in the corner, resolving that when Mr Kennedy came up, they two would go on together; for now it was clear that Mr Kennedy was followed. But Mr Kennedy did not reach the corner. When he was within two doors of it, one of the men had followed him up quickly, and had thrown something round his throat from behind him. Phineas understood well now that his friend was in the act of being garrotted, and that his instant assistance was needed. He rushed forward, and as the second ruffian had been close upon the footsteps of the first, there was almost instantaneously a concourse of the four men. But there was no fight. The man who had already nearly succeeded in putting Mr Kennedy on to his back, made no attempt to seize his prey when he found that so unwelcome an addition had joined the party, but instantly turned to fly. His companion was turning also, but Phineas was too quick for him, and having seized on to his collar, held to him with all his power. “Dash it all,” said the man, didn’t yer see as how I was a-hurrying up to help the gen’leman myself?” Phineas, however, hadn’t seen this, and held on gallantly, and in a couple of minutes the first ruffian was back again upon the spot in the custody of a policeman. “You’ve done it uncommon neat, sir,” said the policeman, complimenting Phineas upon his performance. “If the gen’leman ain’t none the worst for it, it’ll have been a very pretty evening’s amusement.” Mr Kennedy was now leaning against the railings, and hitherto had been unable to declare whether he was really injured or not, and it was not till a second policeman came up that the hero of the night was at liberty to attend closely to his friend.
Mr Kennedy, when he was able to speak, declared that for a minute or two he had thought that his neck had been broken; and he was not quite convinced till he found himself in his own house, that nothing more serious had really happened to him than certain bruises round his throat. The policeman was for a while anxious that at any rate Phineas should go with him to the police office; but at last consented to take the addresses of the two gentlemen. When he found that Mr Kennedy was a member of Parliament, and that he was designated as Right Honourable, his respect for the garrotter became more great, and he began to feel that the night was indeed a night of great importance. He expressed unbounded admiration at Mr Finn’s success in his own line, and made repeated promises that the men should be forthcoming on the morrow. Could a cab be got? Of course a cab could be got. A cab was got, and within a quarter of an hour of the making of the attack, the two members of Parliament were on their way to Grosvenor Place.
There was hardly a word spoken in the cab, for Mr Kennedy was in pain. When, however, they reached the door in Grosvenor Place, Phineas wanted to go, and leave his friend with the servants, but this the Cabinet Minister would not allow, “Of course you must see my wife,” he said. So they went upstairs into the drawing-room, and then upon the stairs, by the lights of the house, Phineas could perceive that his companion’s face was bruised and black with dirt, and that his cravat was gone.
“I have been garrotted,” said the Cabinet Minister to his wife.
“What?”
“Simply that — or should have been, if he had not been there. How he came there, God only knows.”
The wife’s anxiety, and then her gratitude, need hardly be described — nor the astonishment of the husband, which by no means decreased on reflection, at the opportune re-appearance in the nick of time of the man whom three minutes before the attack he had left in the act of going in the opposite direction.
“I had seen the men, and thought it best to run round by the corner of Grosvenor Square,” said Phineas.
“May God bless you,” said Lady Laura.
“Amen,” said the Cabinet Minister.
“I think he was born to be my friend,” said Lady Laura.
The Cabinet Minister said nothing more that night. He was never given to much talking, and the little accident which had just occurred to him did not tend to make words easy to him. But he pressed our hero’s hand, and Lady Laura said that of course Phineas would come to them on the morrow. Phineas remarked that his first business must be to go to the police office, but he promised that he would come down to Grosvenor Place immediately afterwards. Then Lady Laura also pressed his hand, and looked — she looked, I think, as though she thought that Phineas would only have done right had he repeated the offence which he had committed under the waterfall of Loughlinter.
“Garrotted!” said Lord Chiltern, when Phineas told him the story before they went to bed that night. He had been smoking, sipping brandy and water, and waiting for Finn’s return. “Robert Kennedy garrotted!”
“The fellow was in the act of doing it.”
“And you stopped him?”
“Yes — I got there just in time. Wasn’t it lucky?”
“You ought to be garrotted yourself. I should have lent the man a hand had I been there.”
“How can you say anything so horrible? But you are drinking too much, old fellow, and I shall lock the bottle up.”
“If there were no one in London drank more than I do, the wine merchants would have a bad time of it. And so the new Cabinet Minister has been garrotted in the street. Of course I’m sorry for poor Laura’s sake.”
“Luckily he’s not much the worse for it — only a little bruised.”
“I wonder whether it’s on the cards he should be improved by it — worse, except in the way of being strangled, he could not be. However, as he’s my brother-in-law, I’m obliged to you for rescuing him. Come, I’ll go to bed. I must say, if he was to be garrotted I should like to have been there to see it.” That was the manner in which Lord Chiltern received the tidings of the terrible accident which had occurred to his near relative.