It happened that there were at this time certain matters of business to be settled between the Duke of Omnium and his nephew Mr Palliser, respecting which the latter called upon his uncle on the morning after the Duke had committed himself by his offer. Mr Palliser had come by appointment made with Mr Fothergill, the Duke’s man of business, and had expected to meet Mr Fothergill. Mr Fothergill, however, was not with the Duke, and the uncle told the nephew that the business had been postponed. Then Mr Palliser asked some question as to the reason of such postponement, not meaning much by his question — and the Duke, after a moment’s hesitation, answered him, meaning very much by his answer. “The truth is, Plantagenet, that it is possible that I may marry, and if so this arrangement would not suit me.”
“Are you going to be married?” asked the astonished nephew.
“It is not exactly that — but it is possible that I may do so. Since I proposed this matter to Fothergill, I have been thinking over it, and I have changed my mind. It will make but little difference to you; and after all you are a far richer man than I am.”
“I am not thinking of money, Duke,” said Plantagenet Palliser.
“Of what then were you thinking?”
“Simply of what you told me. I do not in the least mean to interfere.”
“I hope not, Plantagenet.”
“But I could not hear such a statement from you without some surprise. Whatever you do I hope will tend to make you happy.”
So much passed between the uncle and the nephew, and what the uncle told to the nephew, the nephew of course told to his wife. “He was with her again, yesterday,” said Lady Glencora, “for more than an hour. And he had been half the morning dressing himself before he went to her.”
“He is not engaged to her, or he would have told me,” said Plantagenet Palliser.
“I think he would, but there is no knowing. At the present moment I have only one doubt — whether to act upon him or upon her.”
“I do not see that you can do good by going to either.”
“Well, we will see. If she be the woman I take her to be, I think I could do something with her. I have never supposed her to be a bad woman — never. I will think of it.” Then Lady Glencora left her husband, and did not consult him afterwards as to the course she would pursue. He had his budget to manage, and his speeches to make. The little affair of the Duke and Madame Goesler, she thought it best to take into her own hands without any assistance from him. “What a fool I was,” she said to herself, to have her down there when the Duke was at Matching!”
Madame Goesler, when she was left alone, felt that now indeed she must make up her mind. She had asked for two days. The intervening day was a Sunday, and on the Monday she must send her answer. She might doubt at any rate for this one night — the Saturday night — and sit playing, as it were, with the coronet of a duchess in her lap. She had been born the daughter of a small country attorney, and now a duke had asked her to be his wife — and a duke who was acknowledged to stand above other dukes! Nothing at any rate could rob her of that satisfaction. Whatever resolution she might form at last, she had by her own resources reached a point of success in remembering which there would always be a keen gratification. It would be much to be Duchess of Omnium; but it would be something also to have refused to be a Duchess of Omnium. During that evening, that night, and the next morning, she remained playing with the coronet in her lap. She would not go to church. What good could any sermon do her while that bauble was dangling before her eyes? After church-time, about two o’clock, Phineas Finn came to her. Just at this period Phineas would come to her often — sometimes full of a new decision to forget Violet Effingham altogether, at others minded to continue his siege let the hope of success be ever so small. He had now heard that Violet and Lord Chiltern had in truth quarrelled, and was of course anxious to be advised to continue the siege. When he first came in and spoke a word or two, in which there was no reference to Violet Effingham, there came upon Madame Goesler a strong wish to decide at once that she would play no longer with the coronet, that the gem was not worth the cost she would be called upon to pay for it. There was something in the world better for her than the coronet — if only it might be had. But within ten minutes he had told her the whole tale about Lord Chiltern, and how he had seen Violet at Lady Baldock’s — and how there might yet be hope for him. What would she advise him to do? “Go home, Mr Finn,” she said, and write a sonnet to her eyebrow. See if that will have any effect.”
“Ah, well! It is natural that you should laugh at me; but somehow, I did not expect it from you.”
“Do not be angry with me. What I mean is that such little things seem to influence this Violet of yours.”
“Do they? I have not found that they do so.”
“If she had loved Lord Chiltern she would not have quarrelled with him for a few words. If she had loved you, she would not have accepted Lord Chiltern. If she loves neither of you, she should say so. I am losing my respect for her.”
“Do not say that, Madame Goesler. I respect her as strongly as I love her.” Then Madame Goesler almost made up her mind that she would have the coronet. There was a substance about the coronet that would not elude her grasp.
Late that afternoon, while she was still hesitating, there came another caller to the cottage in Park Lane. She was still hesitating, feeling that she had as yet another night before her. Should she be Duchess of Omnium or not? All that she wished to be, she could not be — but to be Duchess of Omnium was within her reach. Then she began to ask herself various questions. Would the Queen refuse to accept her in her new rank? Refuse! How could any Queen refuse to accept her? She had not done aught amiss in life. There was no slur on her name; no stain on her character. What though her father had been a small attorney, and her first husband a Jew banker! She had broken no law of God or man, had been accused of breaking no law, which breaking or which accusation need stand in the way of her being as good a duchess as any other woman! She was sitting thinking of this, almost angry with herself at the awe with which the proposed rank inspired her, when Lady Glencora was announced to her.
“Madame Goesler,” said Lady Glencora, I am very glad to find you.”
“And I more than equally so, to be found,” said Madame Goesler, smiling with all her grace.
“My uncle has been with you since I saw you last?”
“Oh yes — more than once if I remember right. He was here yesterday at any rate.”
“He comes often to you then?”
“Not so often as I would wish, Lady Glencora. The Duke is one of my dearest friends.”
“It has been a quick friendship.”
“Yes — a quick friendship,” said Madame Goesler. Then there was a pause for some moments which Madame Goesler was determined that she would not break. It was clear to her now on what ground Lady Glencora had come to her, and she was fully minded that if she could bear the full light of the god himself in all his glory, she would not allow herself to be scorched by any reflected heat coming from the god’s niece. She thought she could endure anything that Lady Glencora might say; but she would wait and hear what might be said.
“I think, Madame Goesler, that I had better hurry on to my subject at once,” said Lady Glencora, almost hesitating as she spoke, and feeling that the colour was rushing up to her cheeks and covering her brow. “Of course what I have to say will be disagreeable. Of course I shall offend you. And yet I do not mean it.”
“I shall be offended at nothing, Lady Glencora, unless I think that you mean to offend me.”
“I protest that I do not. You have seen my little boy.”
“Yes, indeed. The sweetest child! God never gave me anything half so precious as that.”
“He is the Duke’s heir.”
“So I understand.”
“For myself, by my honour as a woman, I care nothing. I am rich and have all that the world can give me. For my husband, in this matter, I care nothing. His career he will make for himself, and it will depend on no title.”
“Why all this to me, Lady Glencora? What have I to do with your husband’s titles?”
“Much — if it be true that there is an idea of marriage between you and the Duke of Omnium.”
“Psha!” said Madame Goesler, with all the scorn of which she was mistress.
“It is untrue, then?” asked Lady Glencora.
“No — it is not untrue. There is an idea of such a marriage.”
“And you are engaged to him?”
“No — I am not engaged to him.”
“Has he asked you?”
“Lady Glencora, I really must say that such a cross-questioning from one lady to another is very unusual. I have promised not to be offended, unless I thought that you wished to offend me. But do not drive me too far.”
“Madame Goesler, if you will tell me that I am mistaken, I will beg your pardon, and offer to you the most sincere friendship which one woman can give another.”
“Lady Glencora, I can tell you nothing of the kind.”
“Then it is to be so! And have you thought what you would gain?”
“I have thought much of what I should gain: and something also of what I should lose.”
“You have money.”
“Yes, indeed; plenty — for wants so moderate as mine.”
“And position.”
“Well, yes; a sort of position. Not such as yours, Lady Glencora. That, if it be not born to a woman, can only come to her from a husband. She cannot win it for herself.”
“You are free as air, going where you like, and doing what you like.”
“Too free, sometimes,” said Madame Goesler.
“And what will you gain by changing all this simply for a title?”
“But for such a title, Lady Glencora! It may be little to you to be Duchess of Omnium, but think what it must be to me!”
“And for this you will not hesitate to rob him of all his friends, to embitter his future life, to degrade him among his peers — ”
“Degrade him! Who dares say that I shall degrade him? He will exalt me, but I shall no whit degrade him. You forget yourself, Lady Glencora.”
“Ask anyone. It is not that I despise you. If I did, would I offer you my hand in friendship? But an old man, over seventy, carrying the weight and burden of such rank as his, will degrade himself in the eyes of his fellows, if he marries a young woman without rank, let her be ever so clever, ever so beautiful. A Duke of Omnium may not do as he pleases, as may another man.”
“It may be well, Lady Glencora, for other dukes, and for the daughters and heirs and cousins of other dukes, that His Grace should try that question. I will, if you wish it, argue this matter with you on many points, but I will not allow you to say that I should degrade any man whom I might marry. My name is as unstained as your own.”
“I meant nothing of that,” said Lady Glencora.
“For him — I certainly would not willingly injure him. Who wishes to injure a friend? And, in truth, I have so little to gain, that the temptation to do him an injury, if I thought it one, is not strong. For your little boy, Lady Glencora, I think your fears are premature.” As she said this, there came a smile over her face, which threatened to break from control and almost become laughter. “But, if you will allow me to say so, my mind will not be turned against this marriage half so strongly by any arguments you can use as by those which I can adduce myself. You have nearly driven me into it by telling me I should degrade his house. It is almost incumbent on me to prove that you are wrong. But you had better leave me to settle the matter in my own bosom. You had indeed.”
After a while Lady Glencora did leave her — to settle the matter within her own bosom — having no other alternative.
Monday morning came and Madame Goesler had as yet written no answer to the Duke of Omnium. Had not Lady Glencora gone to Park Lane on the Sunday afternoon, I think the letter would have been written on that day; but, whatever may have been the effect of Lady Glencora’s visit, it so far disturbed Madame Goesler as to keep her from her writing-table. There was yet another night for thought, and then the letter should be written on the Monday morning.
When Lady Glencora left Madame Goesler she went at once to the Duke’s house. It was her custom to see her husband’s uncle on a Sunday, and she would most frequently find him just at this hour — before he went upstairs to dress for dinner. She usually took her boy with her, but on this occasion she went alone. She had tried what she could do with Madame Goesler, and she found that she had failed. She must now make her attempt upon the Duke. But the Duke, perhaps anticipating some attack of the kind, had fled. “Where is His Grace, Barker?” said Lady Glencora to the porter. “We do not know, your ladyship. His Grace went away yesterday evening with nobody but Lapoule.” Lapoule was the Duke’s French valet. Lady Glencora could only return home and consider in her own mind what batteries might yet be brought to bear upon the Duke, towards stopping the marriage, even after the engagement should have been made — if it were to be made. Lady Glencora felt that such batteries might still be brought up as would not improbably have an effect on a proud, weak old man. If all other resources failed, royalty in some of its branches might be induced to make a request, and every august relation in the peerage should interfere. The Duke no doubt might persevere and marry whom he pleased — if he were strong enough. But it requires much personal strength — that standing alone against the well-armed batteries of all one’s friends. Lady Glencora had once tried such a battle on her own behalf, and had failed. She had wished to be imprudent when she was young; but her friends had been too strong for her. She had been reduced, and kept in order, and made to run in a groove — and was now, when she sat looking at her little boy with his bold face, almost inclined to think that the world was right, and that grooves were best. But if she had been controlled when she was young, so ought the Duke to be controlled now that he was old. It is all very well for a man or woman to boast that he — or she — may do what he likes with his own — or with her own. But there are circumstances in which such self-action is ruinous to so many that coercion from the outside becomes absolutely needed. Nobody had felt the injustice of such coercion when applied to herself more sharply than had Lady Glencora. But she had lived to acknowledge that such coercion might be proper, and was now prepared to use it in any shape in which it might be made available. It was all very well for Madame Goesler to laugh and exclaim, “Psha!” when Lady Glencora declared her real trouble. But should it ever come to pass that a black-browed baby with a yellow skin should be shown to the world as Lord Silverbridge, Lady Glencora knew that her peace of mind would be gone for ever. She had begun the world desiring one thing, and had missed it. She had suffered much, and had then reconciled herself to other hopes. If those other hopes were also to be cut away from her, the world would not be worth a pinch of snuff to her. The Duke had fled, and she could do nothing today; but tomorrow she would begin with her batteries. And she herself had done the mischief! She had invited this woman down to Matching! Heaven and earth! — that such a man as the Duke should be such a fool! — The widow of a Jew banker! He, the Duke of Omnium — and thus to cut away from himself, for the rest of his life, all honour, all peace of mind, all the grace of a noble end to a career which, if not very noble in itself, had received the praise of nobility! And to do this for a thin, black-browed, yellow-visaged woman with ringlets and devil’s eyes, and a beard on her upper lip — a Jewess — a creature of whose habits of life and manners of thought they all were absolutely ignorant; who drank, possibly; who might have been a forger, for what anyone knew; an adventuress who had found her way into society by her art and perseverance — and who did not even pretend to have a relation in the world! That such a one should have influence enough to intrude herself into the house of Omnium, and blot the scutcheon, and — what was worst of all — perhaps be the mother of future dukes! Lady Glencora, in her anger, was very unjust to Madame Goesler, thinking all evil of her, accusing her in her mind of every crime, denying her all charm, all beauty. Had the Duke forgotten himself and his position for the sake of some fair girl with a pink complexion and grey eyes, and smooth hair, and a father, Lady Glencora thought that she would have forgiven it better. It might be that Madame Goesler would win her way to the coronet; but when she came to put it on, she should find that there were sharp thorns inside the lining of it. Not a woman worth the knowing in all London should speak to her — nor a man either of those men with whom a Duchess of Omnium would wish to hold converse. She should find her husband rated as a doting fool, and herself rated as a scheming female adventuress. And it should go hard with Lady Glencora, if the Duke were not separated from his new Duchess before the end of the first year! In her anger Lady Glencora was very unjust.
The Duke, when he left his house without telling his household whither he was going, did send his address to — the top brick of the chimney. His note, which was delivered at Madame Goesler’s house late on the Sunday evening, was as follows: “I am to have your answer on Monday. I shall be at Brighton. Send it by a private messenger to the Bedford Hotel there. I need not tell you with what expectation, with what hope, with what fear I shall await it. — O.” Poor old man! He had run through all the pleasures of life too quickly, and had not much left with which to amuse himself. At length he had set his eyes on a top brick, and being tired of everything else, wanted it very sorely. Poor old man! How should it do him any good, even if he got it? Madame Goesler, when she received the note, sat with it in her hand, thinking of his great want. “And he would be tired of his new plaything after a month,” she said to herself. But she had given herself to the next morning, and she would not make up her mind that night. She would sleep once more with the coronet of a duchess within her reach. She did do so; and woke in the morning with her mind absolutely in doubt. When she walked down to breakfast, all doubt was at an end. The time had come when it was necessary that she should resolve, and while her maid was brushing her hair for her she did make her resolution.
“What a thing it is to be a great lady,” said the maid, who may probably have reflected that the Duke of Omnium did not come here so often for nothing.
“What do you mean by that, Lotta?”
“The women I know, madame, talk so much of their countesses, and ladyships, and duchesses. I would never rest till I had a title in this country, if I were a lady — and rich and beautiful.”
“And can the countesses, and the ladyships, and the duchesses do as they please?”
“Ah, madame — I know not that.”
“But I know. That will do, Lotta. Now leave me.” Then Madame Goesler had made up her mind; but I do not know whether that doubt as to having her own way had much to do with it. As the wife of an old man she would probably have had much of her own way. Immediately after breakfast she wrote her answer to the Duke, which was as follows:
“ Park Lane, Monday
“ MY DEAR DUKE OF OMNIUM,
I find so great a difficulty in expressing myself to Your Grace in a written letter, that since you left me I have never ceased to wish that I had been less nervous, less doubting, and less foolish when you were present with me here in my room. I might then have said in one word what will take so many awkward words to explain.
“Great as is the honour you propose to confer on me, rich as is the gift you offer me, I cannot accept it. I cannot be Your Grace’s wife. I may almost say that I knew it was so when you parted from me; but the surprise of the situation took away from me a part of my judgment, and made me unable to answer you as I should have done. My lord, the truth is, that I am not fit to be the wife of the Duke of Omnium. I should injure you; and though I should raise myself in name, I should injure myself in character. But you must not think, because I say this, that there is any reason why I should not be an honest man’s wife. There is none. I have nothing on my conscience which I could not tell you — or to another man; nothing that I need fear to tell to all the world. Indeed, my lord, there is nothing to tell but this — that I am not fitted by birth and position to be the wife of the Duke of Omnium. You would have to blush for me, and that no man shall ever have to do on my account.
“I will own that I have been ambitious, too ambitious, and have been pleased to think that one so exalted as you are, one whose high position is so rife in the eyes of all men, should have taken pleasure in my company. I will confess to a foolish woman’s silly vanity in having wished to be known to be the friend of the Duke of Omnium. I am like the other moths that flutter near the light and have their wings burned. But I am wiser than they in this, that having been scorched, I know that I must keep my distance. You will easily believe that a woman such as I am does not refuse to ride in a carriage with Your Grace’s arms on the panels without a regret. I am no philosopher. I do not pretend to despise the rich things of the world, or the high things. According to my way of thinking a woman ought to wish to be Duchess of Omnium — but she ought to wish also to be able to carry her coronet with a proper grace. As Madame Goesler I can live, even among my superiors, at my ease. As Your Grace’s wife, I should be easy no longer — nor would Your Grace.
“You will think perhaps that what I write is heartless, that I speak altogether of your rank, and not at all of the affection you have shown me, or of that which I might possibly bear towards you. I think that when the first flush of passion is over in early youth men and women should strive to regulate their love, as they do their other desires, by their reason. I could love Your Grace, fondly, as your wife, if I thought it well for Your Grace or for myself that we should be man and wife. As I think it would be ill for both of us, I will restrain that feeling, and remember Your Grace ever with the purest feeling of true friendship.
“Before I close this letter, I must utter a word of gratitude. In the kind of life which I have led as a widow, a life which has been very isolated as regards true fellowship, it has been my greatest effort to obtain the good opinion of those among whom I have attempted to make my way. I may, perhaps, own to you now that I have had many difficulties. A woman who is alone in the world is ever regarded with suspicion. In this country a woman with a foreign name, with means derived from foreign sources, with a foreign history, is specially suspected. I have striven to live that down, and I have succeeded. But in my wildest dreams I never dreamed of such success as this — that the Duke of Omnium should think me the worthiest of the worthy. You may be sure that I am not ungrateful — that I never will be ungrateful. And I trust it will not derogate from your opinion of my worth, that I have known what was due to Your Grace’s highness.
“I have the honour to be,
“My Lord Duke,
“Your most obliged and faithful servant,
“ MARIE MAX GOESLER
“How many unmarried women in England are there would do the same?” she said to herself, as she folded the paper, and put it into an envelope, and sealed the cover. The moment that the letter was completed she sent it off, as she was directed to send it, so that there might be no possibility of repentance and subsequent hesitation. She had at last made up her mind, and she would stand by the making. She knew that there would come moments in which she would deeply regret the opportunity that she had lost — the chance of greatness that she had flung away from her. But so would she have often regretted it, also, had she accepted the greatness. Her position was one in which there must be regret, let her decision have been what it might. But she had decided, and the thing was done. She would still be free — Marie Max Goesler — unless in abandoning her freedom she would obtain something that she might in truth prefer to it. When the letter was gone she sat disconsolate, at the window of an upstairs room in which she had written, thinking much of the coronet, much of the name, much of the rank, much of that position in society which she had flattered herself she might have won for herself as Duchess of Omnium by her beauty, her grace, and her wit. It had not been simply her ambition to be a duchess, without further aim or object. She had fancied that she might have been such a duchess as there is never another, so that her fame might have been great throughout Europe, as a woman charming at all points. And she would have had friends, then — real friends, and would not have lived alone as it was now her fate to do. And she would have loved her ducal husband, old though he was, and stiff with pomp and ceremony. She would have loved him, and done her best to add something of brightness to his life. It was indeed true that there was one whom she loved better; but of what avail was it to love a man who, when he came to her, would speak to her of nothing but of the charms which he found in another woman!
She had been sitting thus at her window, with a book in her hand, at which she never looked, gazing over the park which was now beautiful with its May verdure, when on a sudden a thought struck her. Lady Glencora Palliser had come to her, trying to enlist her sympathy for the little heir, behaving, indeed, not very well, as Madame Goesler had thought, but still with an earnest purpose which was in itself good. She would write to Lady Glencora and put her out of her misery. Perhaps there was some feeling of triumph in her mind as she returned to the desk from which her epistle had been sent to the Duke — not of that triumph which would have found its gratification in boasting of the offer that had been made to her, but arising from a feeling that she could now show the proud mother of the bold-faced boy that though she would not pledge herself to any woman as to what she might do or not do, she was nevertheless capable of resisting such a temptation as would have been irresistible to many. Of the Duke’s offer to her she would have spoken to no human being, had not this woman shown that the Duke’s purpose was known at least to her, and now, in her letter, she would write no plain word of that offer. She would not state, in words intelligible to anyone who might read, that the Duke had offered her his hand and his coronet. But she would write so that Lady Glencora should understand her. And she would be careful that there should be no word in the letter to make Lady Glencora think that she supposed herself to be unfit for the rank offered to her. She had been very humble in what she had written to the Duke, but she would not be at all humble in what she was about to write to the mother of the bold-faced boy. And this was the letter when it was written:
“ MY DEAR LADY GLENCORA,
“I venture to send you a line to put you out of your misery — for you were very miserable when you were so good as to come here yesterday. Your dear little boy is safe from me — and, what is more to the purpose, so are you and your husband — and your uncle, whom, in truth, I love. You asked me a downright question which I did not then choose to answer by a downright answer. The downright answer was not at that time due to you. It has since been given, and as I like you too well to wish you to be in torment, I send you a line to say that I shall never be in the way of you or your boy.
“And now, dear Lady Glencora, one word more. Should it ever again appear to you to be necessary to use your zeal for the protection of your husband or your child, do not endeavour to dissuade a woman by trying to make her think that she, by her alliance, would bring degradation into any house, or to any man. If there could have been an argument powerful with me, to make me do that which you wished to prevent, it was the argument which you used. But my own comfort, and the happiness of another person whom I value almost as much as myself, were too important to be sacrificed even to a woman’s revenge. I take mine by writing to you and telling you that I am better and more rational and wiser than you took me to be.
“If, after this, you choose to be on good terms with me, I shall be happy to be your friend. I shall want no further revenge. You owe me some little apology; but whether you make it or not, I will be contented, and will never do more than ask whether your darling’s prospects are still safe. There are more women than one in the world, you know, and you must not consider yourself to be out of the wood because you have escaped from a single danger. If there arise another, come to me, and we will consult together.
“Dear Lady Glencora, yours always sincerely,
“ MARIE M. G .”
There was a thing or two besides which she longed to say, laughing as she thought of them. But she refrained, and her letter, when finished, was as it is given above.
On the day following, Lady Glencora was again in Park Lane. When she first read Madame Goesler’s letter, she felt herself to be annoyed and angry, but her anger was with herself rather than with her correspondent. Ever since her last interview with the woman whom she had feared, she had been conscious of having been indiscreet. All her feelings had been too violent, and it might well have been that she should have driven this woman to do the very thing that she was so anxious to avoid. “You owe me some little apology,” Madame Goesler had said. It was true — and she would apologise. Undue pride was not a part of Lady Glencora’s character. Indeed, there was not enough of pride in her composition. She had been quite ready to hate this woman, and to fight her on every point as long as the danger existed; but she was equally willing to take the woman to her heart now that the danger was over. Apologise! Of course she would apologise. And she would make a friend of the woman if the woman wished it. But she would not have the woman and the Duke at Matching together again, lest, after all, there might be a mistake. She did not show Madame Goesler’s letter to her husband, or tell him anything of the relief she had received. He had cared but little for the danger, thinking more of his budget than of the danger; and would be sufficiently at his ease if he heard no more rumours of his uncle’s marriage. Lady Glencora went to Park Lane early on the Tuesday morning, but she did not take her boy with her. She understood that Madame Goesler might perhaps indulge in a little gentle raillery at the child’s expense, and the mother felt that this might be borne the more easily if the child were not present.
“I have come to thank you for your letter, Madame Goesler,” said Lady Glencora, before she sat down.
“Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, or to dance at our bridal?” said Madame Goesler, standing up from her chair and laughing, as she sang the lines.
“Certainly not to dance at your bridal,” said Lady Glencora.
“Alas! no. You have forbidden the banns too effectually for that, and I sit here wearing the willow all alone. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to get married as well as another woman, I wonder? I think you have been very hard upon me among you. But sit down, Lady Glencora. At any rate you come in peace.”
“Certainly in peace, and with much admiration — and a great deal of love and affection, and all that kind of thing, if you will only accept it.”
“I shall be too proud, Lady Glencora — for the Duke’s sake, if for no other reason.”
“And I have to make my apology.”
“It was made as soon as your carriage stopped at my door with friendly wheels. Of course I understand. I can know how terrible it all was to you — even though the dear little Plantagenet might not have been in much danger. Fancy what it would be to disturb the career of a Plantagenet! I am far too well read in history, I can assure you.”
“I said a word for which I am sorry, and which I should not have said.”
“Never mind the word. After all, it was a true word. I do not hesitate to say so now myself, though I will allow no other woman to say it — and no man either. I should have degraded him — and disgraced him.” Madame Goesler now had dropped the bantering tone which she had assumed, and was speaking in sober earnest. “I, for myself, have nothing about me of which I am ashamed. I have no history to hide, no story to be brought to light to my discredit. But I have not been so born, or so placed by circumstances, as make me fit to be the wife of the Duke of Omnium. I should not have been happy, you know.”
“You want nothing, dear Madame Goesler. You have all that society can give you.”
“I do not know about that. I have much given to me by society, but there are many things that I want — a bright-faced little boy, for instance, to go about with me in my carriage. Why did you not bring him, Lady Glencora?”
“I came out in my penitential sheet, and when one goes in that guise, one goes alone. I had half a mind to walk.”
“You will bring him soon?”
“Oh, yes. He was very anxious to know the other day who was the beautiful lady with the black hair.”
“You did not tell him that the beautiful lady with the black hair was a possible aunt, was a possible —? But we will not think any more of things so horrible.”
“I told him nothing of my fears, you may be sure.”
“Some day when I am a very old woman, and when his father is quite an old duke, and when he has a dozen little boys and girls of his own, you will tell him the story. Then he will reflect what a madman his great-uncle must have been, to have thought of making a duchess out of such a wizened old woman as that.”
They parted the best of friends, but Lady Glencora was still of opinion that if the lady and the Duke were to be brought together at Matching, or elsewhere, there might still be danger.
Mr Low the barrister, who had given so many lectures to our friend Phineas Finn, lectures that ought to have been useful, was now himself in the House of Commons, having reached it in the legitimate course of his profession. At a certain point of his career, supposing his career to have been sufficiently prosperous, it becomes natural to a barrister to stand for some constituency, and natural for him also to form his politics at that period of his life with a view to his further advancement, looking, as he does so, carefully at the age and standing of the various candidates for high legal office. When a man has worked as Mr Low had worked, he begins to regard the bench wistfully, and to calculate the profits of a two years’ run in the Attorney-Generalship. It is the way of the profession, and thus a proper and sufficient number of real barristers finds its way into the House. Mr Low had been angry with Phineas because he, being a barrister, had climbed into it after another fashion, having taken up politics, not in the proper way as an assistance to his great profession, but as a profession in itself. Mr Low had been quite sure that his pupil had been wrong in this, and that the error would at last show itself, to his pupil’s cost. And Mrs Low had been more sure than Mr Low, having not unnaturally been jealous that a young whipper-snapper of a pupil — as she had once called Phineas — should become a Parliament man before her husband, who had worked his way up gallantly, in the usual course. She would not give way a jot even now — not even when she heard that Phineas was going to marry this and that heiress. For at this period of his life such rumours were afloat about him, originating probably in his hopes as to Violet Effingham and his intimacy with Madame Goesler. “Oh, heiresses!” said Mrs Low. I don’t believe in heiresses’ money till I see it. Three or four hundred a year is a great fortune for a woman, but it don’t go far in keeping a house in London. And when a woman has got a little money she generally knows how to spend it. He has begun at the wrong end, and they who do that never get themselves right at the last.”
At this time Phineas had become somewhat of a fine gentleman, which made Mrs Low the more angry with him. He showed himself willing enough to go to Mrs Low’s house, but when there he seemed to her to give himself airs. I think that she was unjust to him, and that it was natural that he should not bear himself beneath her remarks exactly as he had done when he was nobody. He had certainly been very successful. He was always listened to in the House, and rarely spoke except on subjects which belonged to him, or had been allotted to him as part of his business. He lived quite at his ease with people of the highest rank — and those of his own mode of life who disliked him did so simply because they regarded with envy his too rapid rise. He rode upon a pretty horse in the park, and was careful in his dress, and had about him an air of comfortable wealth which Mrs Low thought he had not earned. When her husband told her of his sufficient salary, she would shake her head and express her opinion that a good time was coming. By which she perhaps meant to imply a belief that a time was coming in which her husband would have a salary much better than that now enjoyed by Phineas, and much more likely to be permanent. The Radicals were not to have office for ever, and when they were gone, what then? “I don’t suppose he saves a shilling,” said Mrs Low. How can he, keeping a horse in the park, and hunting down in the country, and living with lords? I shouldn’t wonder if he isn’t found to be over head and ears in debt when things come to be looked into.” Mrs Low was fond of an assured prosperity, of money in the funds, and was proud to think that her husband lived in a house of his own. “￡19 10s ground-rent to the Portman estate is what we pay, Mr Bunce,” she once said to that gallant Radical, “and that comes of beginning at the right end. Mr. Low had nothing when he began the world, and I had just what made us decent the day we married. But he began at the right end, and let things go as they may he can’t get a fall.” Mr Bunce and Mrs Low, though they differed much in politics, sympathised in reference to Phineas.
“I never believes, ma’am, in nobody doing any good by getting a place,” said Mr Bunce. “Of course I don’t mean judges and them like, which must be. But when a young man has ever so much a year for sitting in a big room down at Whitehall, and reading a newspaper with his feet up on a chair, I don’t think it honest, whether he’s a Parliament man or whether he ain’t.” Whence Mr Bunce had got his notions as to the way in which officials at Whitehall pass their time, I cannot say; but his notions are very common notions. The British world at large is slow to believe that the great British housekeeper keeps no more cats than what kill mice.
Mr Low, who was now frequently in the habit of seeing Phineas at the House, had somewhat changed his opinions, and was not so eager in condemning Phineas as was his wife. He had begun to think that perhaps Phineas had shown some knowledge of his own aptitudes in the career which he had sought, and was aware, at any rate, that his late pupil was somebody in the House of Commons. A man will almost always respect him whom those around him respect, and will generally look up to one who is evidently above himself in his own daily avocation. Now Phineas was certainly above Mr Low in parliamentary reputation. He sat on a front bench. He knew the leaders of parties. He was at home amidst the forms of the House. He enjoyed something of the prestige of Government power. And he walked about familiarly with the sons of dukes and the brothers of earls in a manner which had its effect even on Mr Low. Seeing these things Mr Low could not maintain his old opinion as stoutly as did his wife. It was almost a privilege to Mr Low to be intimate with Phineas Finn. How then could he look down upon him?
He was surprised, therefore, one day when Phineas discussed the matter with him fully. Phineas had asked him what would be his chance of success if even now he were to give up politics and take to the Bar as the means of earning his livelihood, “You would have uphill work at first, as a matter of course,” said Mr Low.
“But it might be done, I suppose. To have been in office would not be fatal to me?”
“No, not fatal. Nothing of the kind need be fatal. Men have succeeded, and have sat on the bench afterwards, who did not begin till they were past forty. You would have to live down a prejudice created against yourself; that is all. The attorneys do not like barristers who are anything else but barristers.”
“The attorneys are very arbitrary, I know,” said Phineas.
“Yes — and there would be this against you — that it is so difficult for a man to go back to the verdure and malleability of pupildom, who has once escaped from the necessary humility of its conditions. You will find it difficult to sit and wait for business in a Vice-Chancellor’s Court, after having had Vice-Chancellors, or men as big as Vice-Chancellors, to wait upon you.”
“I do not think much of that.”
“But others would think of it, and you would find that there were difficulties. But you are not thinking of it in earnest?”
“Yes, in earnest.”
“Why so? I should have thought that every day had removed you further and further from any such idea.”
“The ground I’m on at present is so slippery.”
“Well, yes. I can understand that. But yet it is less slippery than it used to be.”
“Ah — you do not exactly see. What if I were to lose my seat?”
“You are safe at least for the next four years, I should say.”
“Ah — no one can tell. And suppose I took it into my head to differ from the Government?”
“You must not do that. You have put yourself into a boat with these men, and you must remain in the boat. I should have thought all that was easy to you.”
“It is not so easy as it seems. The very necessity of sitting still in the boat is in itself irksome — very irksome. And then there comes some crisis in which a man cannot sit still.”
“Is there any such crisis at hand now?”
“I cannot say that — but I am beginning to find that sitting still is very disagreeable to me. When I hear those fellows below having their own way, and saying just what they like, it makes me furious. There is Robson. He tried office for a couple of years, and has broken away; and now, by George, there is no man they think so much of as they do of Robson. He is twice the man he was when he sat on the Treasury Bench.”
“He is a man of fortune — is he not?”
“I suppose so. Of course he is, because he lives. He never earns anything. His wife had money.”
“My dear Finn, that makes all the difference. When a man has means of his own he can please himself. Do you marry a wife with money, and then you may kick up your heels, and do as you like about the Colonial Office. When a man hasn’t money, of course he must fit himself to the circumstances of a profession.”
“Though his profession may require him to be dishonest.”
“I did not say that.”
“But I say it, my dear Low. A man who is ready to vote black white because somebody tells him, is dishonest. Never mind, old fellow. I shall pull through, I daresay. Don’t go and tell your wife all this, or she’ll be harder upon me than ever when she sees me.” After that Mr Low began to think that his wife’s judgment in this matter had been better than his own.
Robson could do as he liked because he had married a woman with money. Phineas told himself that that game was also open to him. He, too, might marry money. Violet Effingham had money — quite enough to make him independent were he married to her. And Madame Goesler had money — plenty of money. And an idea had begun to creep upon him that Madame Goesler would take him were he to offer himself. But he would sooner go back to the Bar as the lowest pupil, sooner clean boots for barristers — so he told himself — than marry a woman simply because she had money, than marry any other woman as long as there was a chance that Violet might be won. But it was very desirable that he should know whether Violet might be won or not. It was now July, and everybody would be gone in another month. Before August would be over he was to start for Ireland with Mr Monk, and he knew that words would be spoken in Ireland which might make it indispensable for him to be, at any rate, able to throw up his office. In these days he became more anxious than he used to be about Miss Effingham’s fortune.
He had never spoken as yet to Lord Brentford since the day on which the Earl had quarrelled with him, nor had he ever been at the house in Portman Square. Lady Laura he met occasionally, and had always spoken to her. She was gracious to him, but there had been no renewal of their intimacy. Rumours had reached him that things were going badly with her and her husband; but when men repeated such rumours in his presence, he said little or nothing on the subject. It was not for him, at any rate, to speak of Lady Laura’s unhappiness. Lord Chiltern he had seen once or twice during the last month, and they had met cordially as friends. Of course he could ask no question from Lord Chiltern as to Violet; but he did learn that his friend had again patched up some reconciliation with his father. “He has quarrelled with me, you know,” said Phineas.
“I am very sorry, but what could I do? As things went, I was obliged to tell him.”
“Do not suppose for a moment that I am blaming you. It is, no doubt, much better that he should know it all.”
“And it cannot make much difference to you, I should say.”
“One doesn’t like to quarrel with those who have been kind to one,” said Phineas.
“But it isn’t your doing. He’ll come right again after a time. When I can get my own affairs settled, you may be sure I’ll do my best to bring him round. But what’s the reason you never see Laura now?”
“What’s the reason that everything goes awry?” said Phineas, bitterly.
“When I mentioned your name to Kennedy the other day, he looked as black as thunder. But it is not odd that anyone should quarrel with him. I can’t stand him. Do you know, I sometimes think that Laura will have to give it up. Then there will be another mess in the family!”
This was all very well as coming from Lord Chiltern; but there was no word about Violet, and Phineas did not know how to get a word from anyone. Lady Laura could have told him everything, but he could not go to Lady Laura. He did go to Lady Baldock’s house as often as he thought he could with propriety, and occasionally he saw Violet. But he could do no more than see her, and the days and weeks were passing by, and the time was coming in which he would have to go away, and be with her no more. The end of the season, which was always to other men — to other working men such as our hero — a period of pleasurable anticipation, to him was a time of sadness, in which he felt that he was not exactly like to, or even equal to, the men with whom he lived in London. In the old days, in which he was allowed to go to Loughlinter or to Saulsby, when all men and women were going to their Loughlinters and their Saulsbys, it was very well with him; but there was something melancholy to him in his yearly journey to Ireland. He loved his father and mother and sisters as well as do other men; but there was a falling off in the manner of his life which made him feel that he had been in some sort out of his own element in London. He would have liked to have shot grouse at Loughlinter, or pheasants at Saulsby, or to have hunted down at Willingford — or better still, to have made love to Violet Effingham wherever Violet Effingham might have placed herself. But all this was closed to him now; and there would be nothing for him but to remain at Killaloe, or to return to his work in Downing Street, from August to February. Mr Monk, indeed, was going with him for a few weeks; but even this association did not make up for that sort of society which he would have preferred.
The session went on very quietly. The question of the Irish Reform Bill was postponed till the next year, which was a great thing gained. He carried his bill about the Canada Railway, with sundry other small bills appertaining to it, through the House in a manner which redounded infinitely to his credit. There was just enough of opposition to give a zest to the work, and to make the affair conspicuous among the affairs of the year. As his chief was in the other House, the work fell altogether into his hands, so that he came to be conspicuous among Under-Secretaries. It was only when he said a word to any leaders of his party about other matters — about Irish Tenant Right, for instance, which was beginning to loom very large, that he found himself to be snubbed. But there was no room for action this year in reference to Irish Tenant Right, and therefore any deep consideration of that discomfort might be legitimately postponed. If he did by chance open his mouth on the subject to Mr Monk, even Mr Monk discouraged him.
In the early days of July, when the weather was very hot, and people were beginning to complain of the Thames, and members were becoming thirsty after grouse, and the remaining days of parliamentary work were being counted up, there came to him news — news that was soon known throughout the fashionable world — that the Duke of Omnium was going to give a garden party at a certain villa residence on the banks of the Thames above Richmond. It was to be such a garden party as had never been seen before. And it would be the more remarkable because the Duke had never been known to do such a thing. The villa was called The Horns, and had, indeed, been given by the Duke to Lady Glencora on her marriage; but the party was to be the Duke’s party, and The Horns, with all its gardens, conservatories, lawns, shrubberies, paddocks, boat-houses, and boats, was to be made bright and beautiful for the occasion. Scores of workmen were about the place through the three first weeks of July. The world at large did not at all know why the Duke was doing so unwonted a thing — why he should undertake so new a trouble. But Lady Glencora knew, and Madame Goesler shrewdly guessed, the riddle. When Madame Goesler’s unexpected refusal had reached his Grace, he felt that he must either accept the lady’s refusal, or persevere, After a day’s consideration, he resolved that he would accept it. The top brick of the chimney was very desirable; but perhaps it might be well that he should endeavour to live without it. Then, accepting this refusal, he must either stand his ground and bear the blow — or he must run away to that villa at Como, or elsewhere. The running away seemed to him at first to be the better, or at least the more pleasant, course; but at last he determined that he would stand his ground and bear the blow. Therefore he gave his garden party at The Horns.
Who was to be invited? Before the first week in July was over, many a bosom in London was fluttering with anxiety on that subject. The Duke, in giving his short word of instruction to Lady Glencora, made her understand that he would wish her to be particular in her invitations. Her Royal Highness the Princess and his Royal Highness the Prince had both been so gracious as to say that they would honour his fête. The Duke himself had made out a short list, with not more than a dozen names. Lady Glencora was employed to select the real crowd — the five hundred out of the ten thousand who were to be blessed. On the Duke’s own private list was the name of Madame Goesler. Lady Glencora understood it all. When Madame Goesler got her card, she thought that she understood it too. And she thought also that the Duke was behaving in a gallant way.
There was, no doubt, much difficulty about the invitations, and a considerable amount of ill-will was created. And they who considered themselves entitled to be asked, and were not asked, were full of wrath against their more fortunate friends, instead of being angry with the Duke or with Lady Glencora, who had neglected them. It was soon known that Lady Glencora was the real dispenser of the favours, and I fancy that her ladyship was tired of her task before it was completed. The party was to take place on Wednesday, the 27th of July, and before the day had come, men and women had become so hardy in the combat that personal applications were made with unflinching importunity; and letters were written to Lady Glencora putting forward this claim and that claim with a piteous clamour. “No, that is too bad,” Lady Glencora said to her particular friend, Mrs Grey, when a letter came from Mrs Bonteen, stating all that her husband had ever done towards supporting Mr Palliser in Parliament — and all that he ever would do. “She shan’t have it, even though she could put Plantagenet into a minority tomorrow.”
Mrs Bonteen did not get a card; and when she heard that Phineas Finn had received one, her wrath against Phineas was very great. He was “an Irish adventurer,” and she regretted deeply that Mr Bonteen had ever interested himself in bringing such an upstart forward in the world of politics. But as Mr Bonteen never had done anything towards bringing Phineas forward, there was not much cause for regret on this head. Phineas, however, got his card, and, of course, accepted the invitation.
The grounds were opened at four. There was to be an early dinner out in tents at five; and after dinner men and women were to walk about, or dance, or make love — or hay, as suited them. The haycocks, however, were ready prepared, while it was expected that they should bring the love with them. Phineas, knowing that he should meet Violet Effingham, took a great deal with him ready made.
For an hour and a half Lady Glencora kept her position in a saloon through which the guests passed to the grounds, and to every comer she imparted the information that the Duke was on the lawn — to every comer but one. To Madame Goesler she said no such word. “So glad to see you, my dear,” she said, as she pressed her friend’s hand: “if I am not killed by this work, I’ll make you out again by and by.” Then Madame Goesler passed on, and soon found herself amidst a throng of acquaintance. After a few minutes she saw the Duke seated in an armchair, close to the river-bank, and she bravely went up to him, and thanked him for the invitation. “The thanks are due to you for gracing our entertainment,” said the Duke, rising to greet her. There were a dozen people standing round, and so the thing was done without difficulty. At that moment there came a notice that their royal highnesses were on the ground, and the Duke, of course, went off to meet them. There was not a word more spoken between the Duke and Madame Goesler on that afternoon.
Phineas did not come till late — till seven, when the banquet was over, I think he was right in this, as the banqueting in tents loses in comfort almost more than it gains in romance. A small picnic may be very well, and the distance previously travelled may give to a dinner on the ground the seeming excuse of necessity. Frail human nature must be supported — and human nature, having gone so far in pursuit of the beautiful, is entitled to what best support the unaccustomed circumstances will allow. Therefore, out with the cold pies, out with the salads, and the chickens, and the champagne. Since no better may be, let us recruit human nature sitting upon this moss, and forget our discomforts in the glory of the verdure around us. And dear Mary, seeing that the cushion from the waggonet is small, and not wishing to accept the too generous offer that she should take it all for her own use, will admit a contact somewhat closer than the ordinary chairs of a dining-room render necessary. That in its way is very well — but I hold that a banquet on narrow tables in a tent is displeasing.
Phineas strolled into the grounds when the tent was nearly empty, and when Lady Glencora, almost sinking beneath her exertions, was taking rest in an inner room. The Duke at this time was dining with their royal highnesses, and three or four others, specially selected, very comfortably within doors. Out of doors the world had begun to dance — and the world was beginning to say that it would be much nicer to go and dance upon the boards inside as soon as possible. For, though of all parties a garden party is the nicest, everybody is always anxious to get out of the garden as quick as may be. A few ardent lovers of suburban picturesque effect were sitting beneath the haycocks, and four forlorn damsels were vainly endeavouring to excite the sympathy of manly youth by playing croquet in a corner. I am not sure, however, that the lovers beneath the haycocks and the players at croquet were not actors hired by Lady Glencora for the occasion.
Phineas had not been long on the lawn before he saw Lady Laura Kennedy. She was standing with another lady, and Barrington Erle was with them. “So you have been successful?” said Barrington, greeting him.
“Successful in what?”
“In what? In getting a ticket. I have had to promise three tide-waiterships, and to give deep hints about a bishopric expected to be vacant, before I got in. But what matters? Success pays for everything. My only trouble now is how I’m to get back to London.”
Lady Laura shook hands with Phineas, and then as he was passing on, followed him for a step and whispered a word to him. “Mr Finn,” she said, “if you are not going yet, come back to me presently. I have something to say to you. I shall not be far from the river, and shall stay here for about an hour.”
Phineas said that he would, and then went on, not knowing exactly where he was going. He had one desire — to find Violet Effingham, but when he should find her he could not carry her off, and sit with her beneath a haycock.
While looking for Violet Effingham, Phineas encountered Madame Goesler, among a crowd of people who were watching the adventurous embarkation of certain daring spirits in a pleasure-boat. There were watermen there in the Duke’s livery, ready to take such spirits down to Richmond or up to Teddington lock, and many daring spirits did take such trips — to the great peril of muslins, ribbons, and starch, to the peril also of ornamental summer white garments, so that when the thing was over, the boats were voted to have been a bore.
“Are you going to venture?” said Phineas to the lady.
“I should like it of all things if I were not afraid for my clothes. Will you come?”
“I was never good upon the water. I should be seasick to a certainty. They are going down beneath the bridge too, and we should be splashed by the steamers. I don’t think my courage is high enough.” Thus Phineas excused himself, being still intent on prosecuting his search for Violet.
“Then neither will I,” said Madame Goesler. One dash from a peccant oar would destroy the whole symmetry of my dress. Look. That green young lady has already been sprinkled.”
“But the blue young gentleman has been sprinkled also,” said Phineas, “and they will be happy in a joint baptism.” Then they strolled along the river path together, and were soon alone. “You will be leaving town soon, Madame Goesler?”
“Almost immediately.”
“And where do you go?”
“Oh — to Vienna. I am there for a couple of months every year, minding my business. I wonder whether you would know me, if you saw me — sometimes sitting on a stool in a counting-house, sometimes going about among old houses, settling what must be done to save them from tumbling down. I dress so differently at such times, and talk so differently, and look so much older, that I almost fancy myself to be another person.”
“Is it a great trouble to you?”
“No — I rather like it. It makes me feel that I do something in the world.”
“Do you go alone?”
“Quite alone. I take a German maid with me, and never speak a word to anyone else on the journey.”
“That must be very bad,” said Phineas.
“Yes; it is the worst of it. But then I am so much accustomed to be alone. You see me in society, and in society only, and therefore naturally look upon me as one of a gregarious herd; but I am in truth an animal that feeds alone and lives alone. Take the hours of the year all through, and I am a solitary during four-fifths of them. And what do you intend to do?”
“I go to Ireland.”
“Home to your own people. How nice! I have no people to go to. I have one sister, who lives with her husband at Riga. She is my only relation, and I never see her.”
“But you have thousands of friends in England.”
“Yes — as you see them,” — and she turned and spread out her hands towards the crowded lawn, which was behind them. “What are such friends worth? What would they do for me?”
“I do not know that the Duke would do much,” said Phineas laughing.
Madame Goesler laughed also. “The Duke is not so bad,” she said. “The Duke would do as much as anyone else. I won’t have the Duke abused.”
“He may be your particular friend, for what I know,” said Phineas.
“Ah — no. I have no particular friend. And were I to wish to choose one, I should think the Duke a little above me.”
“Oh, yes — and too stiff, and too old, and too pompous, and too cold, and too make-believe, and too gingerbread.”
“Mr Finn!”
“The Duke is all buckram, you know.”
“Then why do you come to his house?”
“To see you, Madame Goesler.”
“Is that true, Mr Finn?”
“Yes — it is true in its way. One goes about to meet those whom one likes, not always for the pleasure of the host’s society. I hope I am not wrong because I go to houses at which I like neither the host nor the hostess.” Phineas as he said this was thinking of Lady Baldock, to whom of late he had been exceedingly civil — but he certainly did not like Lady Baldock.
“I think you have been too hard upon the Duke of Omnium. Do you know him well?”
“Personally? certainly not. Do you? Does anybody?”
“I think he is a gracious gentleman,” said Madame Goesler, “and though I cannot boast of knowing him well, I do not like to hear him called buckram. I do not think he is buckram. It is not very easy for a man in his position to live so as to please all people. He has to maintain the prestige of the highest aristocracy in Europe.”
“Look at his nephew, who will be the next Duke, and who works as hard as any man in the country. Will he not maintain it better? What good did the present man ever do?”
“You believe only in motion, Mr Finn — and not at all in quiescence. An express train at full speed is grander to you than a mountain with heaps of snow. I own that to me there is something glorious in the dignity of a man too high to do anything — if only he knows how to carry that dignity with a proper grace. I think that there should be breasts made to carry stars.”
“Stars which they have never earned,” said Phineas.
“Ah — well; we will not fight about it. Go and earn your star, and I will say that it becomes you better than any glitter on the coat of the Duke of Omnium.” This she said with an earnestness which he could not pretend not to notice or not to understand. “I too may be able to see that the express train is really greater than the mountain.”
“Though, for your own life, you would prefer to sit and gaze upon the snowy peaks?”
“No — that is not so. For myself, I would prefer to be of use somewhere — to someone, if it were possible. I strive sometimes.”
“And I am sure successfully.”
“Never mind. I hate to talk about myself. You and the Duke are fair subjects for conversation; you as the express train, who will probably do your sixty miles an hour in safety, but may possibly go down a bank with a crash.”
“Certainly I may,” said Phineas.
“And the Duke, as the mountain, which is fixed in its stateliness, short of the power of some earthquake, which shall be grander and more terrible than any earthquake yet known. Here we are at the house again. I will go in and sit down for a while.”
“If I leave you, Madame Goesler, I will say goodbye till next winter.”
“I shall be in town again before Christmas, you know. You will come and see me?”
“Of course I will.”
“And then this love trouble of course will be over — one way or the other — will it not?”
“Ah! — who can say?”
“Faint heart never won fair lady. But your heart is never faint. Farewell.”
Then he left her. Up to this moment he had not seen Violet, and yet he knew that she was to be there. She had herself told him that she was to accompany Lady Laura, whom he had already met. Lady Baldock had not been invited, and had expressed great animosity against the Duke in consequence. She had gone so far as to say that the Duke was a man at whose house a young lady such as her niece ought not to be seen. But Violet had laughed at this, and declared her intention of accepting the invitation. “Go,” she had said; of course I shall go. I should have broken my heart if I could not have got there.” Phineas therefore was sure that she must be in the place. He had kept his eyes ever on the alert, and yet he had not found her. And now he must keep his appointment with Lady Laura Kennedy. So he went down to the path by the river, and there he found her seated close by the water’s edge. Her cousin Barrington Erle was still with her, but as soon as Phineas joined them, Erle went away. “I had told him,” said Lady Laura, “that I wished to speak to you, and he stayed with me till you came. There are worse men than Barrington a great deal.”
“I am sure of that.”
“Are you and he still friends, Mr Finn?”
“I hope so. I do not see so much of him as I did when I had less to do.”
“He says that you have got into altogether a different set.”
“I don’t know that. I have gone as circumstances have directed me, but I have certainly not intended to throw over so old and good a friend as Barrington Erle.”
“Oh — he does not blame you. He tells me that you have found your way among what he calls the working men of the party, and he thinks you will do very well — if you can only be patient enough. We all expected a different line from you, you know — more of words and less of deeds, if I may say so — more of liberal oratory and less of government action; but I do not doubt that you are right.”
“I think that I have been wrong,” said Phineas. I am becoming heartily sick of officialities.”
“That comes from the fickleness about which papa is so fond of quoting his Latin. The ox desires the saddle. The charger wants to plough.”
“And which am I?”
“Your career may combine the dignity of the one with the utility of the other. At any rate you must not think of changing now. Have you seen Mr Kennedy lately?” She asked the question abruptly, showing that she was anxious to get to the matter respecting which she had summoned him to her side, and that all that she had said hitherto had been uttered as it were in preparation of that subject.
“Seen him? yes; I see him daily. But we hardly do more than speak.”
“Why not?” Phineas stood for a moment in silence, hesitating. “Why is it that he and you do not speak?”
“How can I answer that question, Lady Laura?”
“Do you know any reason? Sit down, or, if you please, I will get up and walk with you. He tells me that you have chosen to quarrel with him, and that I have made you do so. He says that you have confessed to him that I have asked you to quarrel with him.”
“He can hardly have said that.”
“But he has said it — in so many words. Do you think that I would tell you such a story falsely?”
“Is he here now?”
“No — he is not here. He would not come. I came alone.”
“Is not Miss Effingham with you?”
“No — she is to come with my father later. She is here no doubt, now. But answer my question, Mr Finn — unless you find that you cannot answer it. What was it that you did say to my husband?”
“Nothing to justify what he has told you.”
“Do you mean to say that he has spoken falsely?”
“I mean to use no harsh word — but I think that Mr Kennedy when troubled in his spirit looks at things gloomily, and puts meaning upon words which they should not bear.”
“And what has troubled his spirit?”
“You must know that better than I can do, Lady Laura. I will tell you all that I can tell you. He invited me to his house and I would not go, because you had forbidden me. Then he asked me some questions about you. Did I refuse because of you — or of anything that you had said? If I remember right, I told him that I did fancy that you would not be glad to see me — and that therefore I would rather stay away. What was I to say?”
“You should have said nothing.”
“Nothing with him would have been worse than what I did say. Remember that he asked me the question point-blank, and that no reply would have been equal to an affirmation. I should have confessed that his suggestion was true.”
“He could not then have twitted me with your words.”
“If I have erred, Lady Laura, and brought any sorrow on you, I am indeed grieved.”
“It is all sorrow. There is nothing but sorrow. I have made up my mind to leave him.”
“Oh, Lady Laura!”
“It is very bad — but not so bad, I think, as the life I am now leading. He has accused me — of what do you think? He says that you are my lover!”
“He did not say that — in those words?”
“He said it in words which made me feel that I must part from him.”
“And how did you answer him?”
“I would not answer him at all. If he had come to me like a man — not accusing me, but asking me — I would have told him everything. And what was there to tell? I should have broken my faith to you, in speaking of that scene at Loughlinter, but women always tell such stories to their husbands when their husbands are good to them, and true, and just. And it is well that they should be told. But to Mr Kennedy I can tell nothing. He does not believe my word.”
“Not believe you, Lady Laura?”
“No! Because I did not blurt out to him all that story about your foolish duel — because I thought it best to keep my brother’s secret, as long as there was a secret to be kept, he told me that I had — lied to him!”
“What! — with that word?”
“Yes — with that very word. He is not particular about his words,when he thinks it necessary to express himself strongly. And he has told me since that because of that he could never believe me again. How is it possible that a woman should live with such a man?” But why did she come to him with this story — to him whom she had been accused of entertaining as a lover — to him who of all her friends was the last whom she should have chosen as the recipient for such a tale? Phineas as he thought how he might best answer her, with what words he might try to comfort her, could not but ask himself this question. “The moment that the word was out of his mouth,” she went on to say, “I resolved that I would tell you. The accusation is against you as it is against me, and is equally false to both. I have written to him, and there is my letter.”
“But you will see him again?”
“No — I will go to my father’s house. I have already arranged it. Mr Kennedy has my letter by this time, and I go from hence home with my father.”
“Do you wish that I should read the letter?”
“Yes — certainly. I wish that you should read it. Should I ever meet him again, I shall tell him that you saw it.”
They were now standing close upon the river’s bank, at a corner of the grounds, and, though the voices of people sounded near to them, they were alone. Phineas had no alternative but to read the letter, which was as follows:
“After what you have said to me it is impossible that I should return to your house. I shall meet my father at the Duke of Omnium’s, and have already asked him to give me an asylum. It is my wish to remain wherever he may be, either in town or in the country. Should I change my purpose in this, and change my residence, I will not fail to let you know where I go and what I propose to do. You I think must have forgotten that I was your wife; but I will never forget it.
“You have accused me of having a lover. You cannot have expected that I should continue to live with you after such an accusation. For myself I cannot understand how any man can have brought himself to bring such a charge against his wife. Even had it been true the accusation should not have been made by your mouth to my ears.
“That it is untrue I believe you must be as well aware as I am myself. How intimate I was with Mr Finn, and what were the limits of my intimacy with him you knew before I married you. After our marriage I encouraged his friendship till I found that there was something in it that displeased you — and, after learning that, I discouraged it. You have said that he is my lover, but you have probably not defined for yourself that word very clearly. You have felt yourself slighted because his name has been mentioned with praise — and your jealousy has been wounded because you have thought that I have regarded him as in some way superior to yourself. You have never really thought that he was my lover — that he spoke words to me which others might not hear, that he claimed from me aught that a wife may not give, that he received aught which a friend should not receive. The accusation has been a coward’s accusation.
“I shall be at my father’s tonight, and tomorrow I will get you to let my servant bring to me such things as are my own — my clothes, namely, and desk, and a few books. She will know what I want. I trust you may be happier without a wife, than ever you have been with me. I have felt almost daily since we were married that you were a man who would have been happier without a wife than with one.
“Yours affectionately,
“ LAURA KENNEDY
“It is at any rate true,” she said, when Phineas had read the letter.
“True! Doubtless it is true,” said Phineas, except that I do not suppose he was ever really angry with me, or jealous, or anything of the sort — because I got on well. It seems absurd even to think it.”
“There is nothing too absurd for some men. I remember your telling me that he was weak, and poor, and unworthy. I remember your saying so when I first thought that he might become my husband. I wish I had believed you when you told me so. I should not have made such a shipwreck of myself as I have done. That is all I had to say to you. After what has passed between us I did not choose that you should hear how I was separated from my husband from any lips but my own. I will go now and find papa. Do not come with me. I prefer being alone.” Then he was left standing by himself, looking down upon the river as it glided by. How would it have been with both of them if Lady Laura had accepted him three years ago, when she consented to join her lot with that of Mr Kennedy, and had rejected him? As he stood he heard the sound of music from the house, and remembered that he had come there with the one sole object of seeing Violet Effingham. He had known that he would meet Lady Laura, and it had been in his mind to break through that law of silence which she had imposed upon him, and once more to ask her to assist him — to implore her for the sake of their old friendship to tell him whether there might yet be for him any chance of success. But in the interview which had just taken place it had been impossible for him to speak a word of himself or of Violet. To her, in her great desolation, he could address himself on no other subject than that of her own misery. But not the less when she was talking to him of her own sorrow, of her regret that she had not listened to him when in years past he had spoken slightingly of Mr Kennedy, was he thinking of Violet Effingham. Mr Kennedy had certainly mistaken the signs of things when he had accused his wife by saying that Phineas was her lover. Phineas had soon got over that early feeling; and as far as he himself was concerned had never regretted Lady Laura’s marriage.
He remained down by the water for a few minutes, giving Lady Laura time to escape, and then he wandered across the grounds towards the house. It was now about nine o’clock, and though there were still many walking about the grounds, the crowd of people were in the rooms. The musicians were ranged out on a verandah, so that their music might have been available for dancing within or without; but the dancers had found the boards pleasanter than the lawn, and the Duke’s garden party was becoming a mere ball, with privilege for the dancers to stroll about the lawn between the dances. And in this respect the fun was better than at a ball — that let the engagements made for partners be what they might, they could always be broken with ease. No lady felt herself bound to dance with a cavalier who was displeasing to her; and some gentlemen were left sadly in the lurch. Phineas felt himself to be very much in the lurch, even after he had discovered Violet Effingham standing up to dance with Lord Fawn.
He bided his time patiently, and at last he found his opportunity. “Would she dance with him?” She declared that she intended to dance no more, and that she had promised to be ready to return home with Lord Brentford before ten o’clock. “I have pledged myself not to be after ten,” she said, laughing. Then she put her hand upon his arm, and they stepped out upon the terrace together. “Have you heard anything?” she asked him, almost in a whisper.
“Yes,” he said. I have heard what you mean. I have heard it all.”
“Is it not dreadful?”
“I fear it is the best thing she can do. She has never been happy with him.”
“But to be accused after that fashion — by her husband!” said Violet. “One can hardly believe it in these days. And of all women she is the last to deserve such accusation.”
“The very last,” said Phineas, feeling that the subject was one upon which it was not easy for him to speak.
“I cannot conceive to whom he can have alluded,” said Violet. Then Phineas began to understand that Violet had not heard the whole story; but the difficulty of speaking was still very great.
“It has been the result of ungovernable temper,” he said.
“But a man does not usually strive to dishonour himself because he is in a rage. And this man is incapable of rage. He must be cursed with one of those dark gloomy minds in which love always leads to jealousy. She will never return to him.”
“One cannot say. In many respects it would be better that she should,” said Phineas.
“She will never return to him,” repeated Violet — “never. Would you advise her to do so?”
“How can I say? If one were called upon for advice, one would think so much before one spoke.”
“I would not — not for a minute. What! to be accused of that! How are a man and woman to live together after there have been such words between them? Poor Laura! What a terrible end to all her high hopes! Do you not grieve for her?”
They were now at some distance from the house, and Phineas could not but feel that chance had been very good to him in giving him his opportunity. She was leaning on his arm, and they were alone, and she was speaking to him with all the familiarity of old friendship. “I wonder whether I may change the subject,” said he, “and ask you a word about yourself?”
“What word?” she said sharply.
“I have heard — ”
“What have you heard?”
“Simply this — that you are not now as you were six months ago. Your marriage was then fixed for June.”
“It has been unfixed since then,” she said.
“Yes — it has been unfixed. I know it. Miss Effingham, you will not be angry with me if I say that when I heard it was so, something of a hope — no, I must not call it a hope — something that longed to form itself into hope returned to my breast and from that hour to this has been the only subject on which I have cared to think.”
“Lord Chiltern is your friend, Mr Finn?”
“He is so, and I do not think that I have ever been untrue to my friendship for him.”
“He says that no man has ever had a truer friend. He will swear to that in all companies. And I, when it was allowed to me to swear with him, swore it too. As his friend, let me tell you one thing — one thing which I would never tell to any other man — one thing which I know I may tell you in confidence. You are a gentleman, and will not break my confidence?”
“I think I will not.”
“I know you will not, because you are a gentleman. I told Lord Chiltern in the autumn of last year that I loved him. And I did love him. I shall never have the same confession to make to another man. That he and I are not now — on those loving terms — which once existed, can make no difference in that. A woman cannot transfer her heart. There have been things which have made me feel — that I was perhaps mistaken — in saying that I would be — his wife. But I said so, and cannot now give myself to another. Here is Lord Brentford, and we will join him.” There was Lord Brentford with Lady Laura on his arm, very gloomy — resolving on what way he might be avenged on the man who had insulted his daughter. He took but little notice of Phineas as he resumed his charge of Miss Effingham; but the two ladies wished him goodnight.
“Goodnight, Lady Laura,” said Phineas, standing with his hat in his hand — “goodnight, Miss Effingham.” Then he was alone — quite alone. Would it not be well for him to go down to the bottom of the garden, and fling himself into the quiet river, so that there might be an end of him? Or would it not be better still that he should create for himself some quiet river of life, away from London, away from politics, away from lords, and titled ladies, and fashionable squares, and the parties given by dukes, and the disappointments incident to a small man in attempting to make for himself a career among big men? There had frequently been in the mind of this young man an idea that there was something almost false in his own position — that his life was a pretence, and that he would ultimately be subject to that ruin which always comes, sooner or later, on things which are false; and now as he wandered alone about Lady Glencora’s gardens, this feeling was very strong within his bosom, and robbed him altogether of the honour and glory of having been one of the Duke of Omnium’s guests.
Phineas did not throw himself into the river from the Duke’s garden; and was ready, in spite of Violet Effingham, to start for Ireland with Mr Monk at the end of the first week in August. The close of that season in London certainly was not a happy period of his life. Violet had spoken to him after such a fashion that he could not bring himself not to believe her. She had given him no hint whether it was likely or unlikely that she and Lord Chiltern would be reconciled; but she had convinced him that he could not be allowed to take Lord Chiltern’s place. “A woman cannot transfer her heart,” she had said. Phineas was well aware that many women do transfer their hearts; but he had gone to this woman too soon after the wrench which her love had received; he had been too sudden with his proposal for a transfer; and the punishment for such ill judgment must be that success would now be impossible to him. And yet how could he have waited, feeling that Miss Effingham, if she were at all like other girls whom he had known, might have promised herself to some other lover before she would return within his reach in the succeeding spring? But she was not like some other girls. Ah — he knew that now, and repented him of his haste.
But he was ready for Mr Monk on the 7th of August, and they started together. Something less than twenty hours took them from London to Killaloe, and during four or five of those twenty hours Mr Monk was unfitted for any conversation by the uncomfortable feelings incidental to the passage from Holyhead to Kingstown. Nevertheless, there was a great deal of conversation between them during the journey. Mr Monk had almost made up his mind to leave the Cabinet. “It is sad to me to have to confess it,” he said, “but the truth is that my old rival, Turnbull, is right. A man who begins his political life as I began mine, is not the man of whom a Minister should be formed. I am inclined to think that Ministers of Government require almost as much education in their trade as shoemakers or tallow-chandlers. I doubt whether you can make a good public servant of a man simply because he has got the ear of the House of Commons.”
“Then you mean to say,” said Phineas, that we are altogether wrong from beginning to end, in our way of arranging these things?”
“I do not say that at all. Look at the men who have been leading statesmen since our present mode of government was formed — from the days in which it was forming itself, say from Walpole down, and you will find that all who have been of real use had early training as public servants.”
“Are we never to get out of the old groove?”
“Not if the groove is good,” said Mr Monk. Those who have been efficient as ministers sucked in their efficacy with their mother’s milk. Lord Brock did so, and Lord de Terrier, and Mr Mildmay. They seated themselves in office chairs the moment they left college. Mr Gresham was in office before he was eight-and-twenty. The Duke of St Bungay was at work as a Private Secretary when he was three-and-twenty. You, luckily for yourself, have done the same.”
“And regret it every hour of my life.”
“You have no cause for regret, but it is not so with me. If there be any man unfitted by his previous career for office, it is he who has become, or who has endeavoured to become, a popular politician — an exponent, if I may say so, of public opinion. As far as I can see, office is offered to such men with one view only — that of clipping their wings.”
“And of obtaining their help.”
“It is the same thing. Help from Turnbull would mean the withdrawal of all power of opposition from him. He could not give other help for any long term, as the very fact of his accepting power and patronage would take from him his popular leadership. The masses outside require to have their minister as the Queen has hers; but the same man cannot be minister to both. If the people’s minister chooses to change his master, and to take the Queen’s shilling, something of temporary relief may be gained by government in the fact that the other place will for a time be vacant. But there are candidates enough for such places, and the vacancy is not a vacancy long. Of course the Crown has this pull, that it pays wages, and the people do not.”
“I do not think that that influenced you,” said Phineas.
“It did not influence me. To you I will make bold to state so much positively, though it would be foolish, perhaps, to do so to others. I did not go for the shilling, though I am so poor a man that the shilling is more to me than it would be to almost any man in the House. I took the shilling, much doubting, but guided in part by this, that I was ashamed of being afraid to take it. They told me — Mr Mildmay and the Duke — that I could earn it to the benefit of the country. I have not earned it, and the country has not been benefited — unless it be for the good of the country that my voice in the House should be silenced. If I believe that, I ought to hold my tongue without taking a salary for holding it. I have made a mistake, my friend. Such mistakes made at my time of life cannot be wholly rectified; but, being convinced of my error, I must do the best in my power to put myself right again.”
There was a bitterness in all this to Phineas himself of which he could not but make plaint to his companion. “The truth is,” he said, “that a man in office must be a slave, and that slavery is distasteful.”
“There I think you are wrong. If you mean that you cannot do joint work with other men altogether after your own fashion the same may be said of all work. If you had stuck to the Bar you must have pleaded your causes in conformity with instructions from the attorneys.”
“I should have been guided by my own lights in advising those attorneys.”
“I cannot see that you suffer anything that ought to go against the grain with you. You are beginning young, and it is your first adopted career. With me it is otherwise. If by my telling you this I shall have led you astray, I shall regret my openness with you. Could I begin again, I would willingly begin as you began.”
It was a great day in Killaloe, that on which Mr Monk arrived with Phineas at the doctor’s house. In London, perhaps, a bishop inspires more awe than a Cabinet Minister. In Killaloe, where a bishop might be seen walking about every day, the mitred dignitary of the Church, though much loved, was thought of, I fear, but lightly; whereas a Cabinet Minister coming to stay in the house of a townsman was a thing to be wondered at, to be talked about, to be afraid of, to be a fruitful source of conversation for a year to come. There were many in Killaloe, especially among the elder ladies, who had shaken their heads and expressed the saddest doubts when young Phineas Finn had first become a Parliament man. And though by degrees they had been half brought round, having been driven to acknowledge that he had been wonderfully successful as a Parliament man, still they had continued to shake their heads among themselves, and to fear something in the future — until he appeared at his old home leading a Cabinet Minister by the hand. There was such assurance in this that even old Mrs Callaghan, at the brewery, gave way, and began to say all manner of good things, and to praise the doctor’s luck in that he had a son gifted with parts so excellent. There was a great desire to see the Cabinet Minister in the flesh, to be with him when he ate and drank, to watch the gait and countenance of the man, and to drink water from this fountain of state lore which had been so wonderfully brought among them by their young townsman. Mrs Finn was aware that it behoved her to be chary of her invitations, but the lady from the brewery had said such good things of Mrs Finn’s black swan, that she carried her point, and was invited to meet the Cabinet Minister at dinner on the day after his arrival.
Mrs Flood Jones and her daughter were invited also to be of the party. When Phineas had been last at Killaloe, Mrs Flood Jones, as the reader may remember, had remained with her daughter at Floodborough — feeling it to be her duty to keep her daughter away from the danger of an unrequited attachment. But it seemed that her purpose was changed now, or that she no longer feared the danger — for both Mary and her mother were now again living in Killaloe, and Mary was at the doctor’s house as much as ever.
A day or two before the coming of the god and the demigod to the little town, Barbara Finn and her friend had thus come to understand each other as they walked along the Shannon side. “I am sure, my dear, that he is engaged to nobody,” said Barbara Finn.
“And I am sure, my dear,” said Mary, that I do not care whether he is or is not.”
“What do you mean, Mary?”
“I mean what I say. Why should I care? Five years ago I had a foolish dream, and now I am awake again. Think how old I have got to be!”
“Yes — you are twenty-three. What has that to do with it?”
“It has this to do with it — that I am old enough to know better. Mamma and I quite understand each other. She used to be angry with him, but she has got over all that foolishness now. It always made me so vexed — the idea of being angry with a man because — because —! You know one can’t talk about it, it is so foolish. But that is all over now.”
“Do you mean to say you don’t care for him, Mary? Do you remember what you used to swear to me less than two years ago?”
“I remember it all very well, and I remember what a goose I was. As for caring for him, of course I do — because he is your brother, and because I have known him all my life. But if he were going to be married tomorrow, you would see that it would make no difference to me.”
Barbara Finn walked on for a couple of minutes in silence before she replied, “Mary,” she said at last, I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Very well — then all that I shall ask of you is, that we may not talk about him any more. Mamma believes it, and that is enough for me.” Nevertheless, they did talk about Phineas during the whole of that day, and very often talked about him afterwards, as long as Mary remained at Killaloe.
There was a large dinner party at the doctor’s on the day after Mr Monk’s arrival. The bishop was not there, though he was on terms sufficiently friendly with the doctor’s family to have been invited on so grand an occasion; but he was not there, because Mrs Finn was determined that she would be taken out to dinner by a Cabinet Minister in the face of all her friends. She was aware that had the bishop been there, she must have taken the bishop’s arm. And though there would have been glory in that, the other glory was more to her taste. It was the first time in her life that she had ever seen a Cabinet Minister, and I think that she was a little disappointed at finding him so like other middle-aged gentlemen. She had hoped that Mr Monk would have assumed something of the dignity of his position; but he assumed nothing. Now the bishop, though he was a very mild man, did assume something by the very facts of his apron and knee-breeches.
“I am sure, sir, it is very good of you to come and put up with our humble way of living,” said Mrs Finn to her guest, as they sat down at table. And yet she had resolved that she would not make any speech of the kind — that she would condescend to no apology — that she would bear herself as though a Cabinet Minister dined with her at least once a year. But when the moment came, she broke down, and made this apology with almost abject meekness, and then hated herself because she had done so.
“My dear madam,” said Mr Monk, I live myself so much like a hermit that your house is a palace of luxury to me.” Then he felt that he had made a foolish speech, and he also hated himself. He found it very difficult to talk to his hostess upon any subject, until by chance he mentioned his young friend Phineas. Then her tongue was unloosed. “Your son, madam,” he said, is going with me to Limerick and back to Dublin. It is a shame, I know, taking him so soon away from home, but I should not know how to get on without him.”
“Oh, Mr Monk, it is such a blessing for him, and such an honour for us, that you should be so good to him.” Then the mother spoke out all her past fears and all her present hopes, and acknowledged the great glory which it was to her to have a son sitting in Parliament, holding an office with a stately name and a great salary, and blessed with the friendship of such a man as Mr Monk. After that Mr Monk got on better with her.
“I don’t know any young man,” said he, in whose career I have taken so strong an interest.”
“He was always good,” said Mrs Finn, with a tear forcing itself into the corner of each eye. “I am his mother, and of course I ought not to say so — not in this way; but it is true, Mr Monk.” And then the poor lady was obliged to raise her handkerchief and wipe away the drops.
Phineas on this occasion had taken out to dinner the mother of his devoted Mary, Mrs Flood Jones. “What a pleasure it must be to the doctor and Mrs Finn to see you come back in this way,” said Mrs Flood Jones.
“With all my bones unbroken?” said he, laughing.
“Yes; with all your bones unbroken. You know, Phineas, when we first heard that you were to sit in Parliament, we were afraid that you might break a rib or two — since you choose to talk about the breaking of bones.”
“Yes, I know. Everybody thought I should come to grief; but nobody felt so sure of it as I did myself.”
“But you have not come to grief.”
“I am not out of the wood yet, you know, Mrs Flood Jones. There is plenty of possibility for grief in my way still.”
“As far as I can understand it, you are out of the wood. All that your friends here want to see now is, that you should marry some nice English girl, with a little money, if possible. Rumours have reached us, you know.”
“Rumours always lie,” said Phineas.
“Sometimes they do, of course; and I am not going to ask any indiscreet questions. But that is what we all hope. Mary was saying, only the other day, that if you were once married, we should all feel quite safe about you. And you know we all take the most lively interest in your welfare. It is not every day that a man from County Clare gets on as you have done, and therefore we are bound to think of you.” Thus Mrs Flood Jones signified to Phineas Finn that she had forgiven him the thoughtlessness of his early youth — even though there had been something of treachery in that thoughtlessness to her own daughter; and showed him, also, that whatever Mary’s feelings might have been once, they were not now of a nature to trouble her. “Of course you will marry?” said Mrs Flood Jones.
“I should think very likely not,” said Phineas, who perhaps looked farther into the mind of the lady than the lady intended.
“Oh, do,” said the lady. Every man should marry as soon as he can, and especially a man in your position.”
When the ladies met together in the drawing-room after dinner, it was impossible but that they should discuss Mr Monk. There was Mrs Callaghan from the brewery there, and old Lady Blood, of Bloodstone — who on ordinary occasions would hardly admit that she was on dining-out terms with anyone in Killaloe except the bishop, but who had found it impossible to decline to meet a Cabinet Minister — and there was Mrs Stackpoole from Sixmiletown, a far-away cousin of the Finns, who hated Lady Blood with a true provincial hatred.
“I don’t see anything particularly uncommon in him, after all,” said Lady Blood.
“I think he is very nice indeed,” said Mrs Flood Jones.
“So very quiet, my dear, and just like other people,” said Mrs Callaghan, meaning to pronounce a strong eulogium on the Cabinet Minister.
“Very like other people indeed,” said Lady Blood.
“And what would you expect, Lady Blood?” said Mrs Stackpoole. “Men and women in London walk upon two legs, just as they do in Ennis.” Now Lady Blood herself had been born and bred in Ennis, whereas Mrs Stackpoole had come from Limerick, which is a much more considerable town, and therefore there was a satire in this allusion to the habits of the men of Ennis which Lady Blood understood thoroughly.
“My dear Mrs Stackpoole, I know how the people walk in London quite as well as you do.” Lady Blood had once passed three months in London while Sir Patrick had been alive, whereas Mrs Stackpoole had never done more than visit the metropolis for a day or two.
“Oh, no doubt,” said Mrs Stackpoole; but I never can understand what it is that people expect. I suppose Mr. Monk ought to have come with his stars on the breast of his coat, to have pleased Lady Blood.”
“My dear Mrs Stackpoole, Cabinet Ministers don’t have stars,” said Lady Blood.
“I never said they did,” said Mrs Stackpoole.
“He is so nice and gentle to talk to,” said Mrs Finn. “You may say what you will, but men who are high up do very often give themselves airs. Now I must say that this friend of my son’s does not do anything of that kind.”
“Not the least,” said Mrs Callaghan.
“Quite the contrary,” said Mrs Stackpoole. I dare say he is a wonderful man,” said Lady Blood. “All I say is, that I didn’t hear anything wonderful come out of his mouth; and as for people in Ennis walking on two legs, I have seen donkeys in Limerick doing just the same thing.” Now it was well known that Mrs Stackpoole had two sons living in Limerick, as to neither of whom was it expected that he would set the Shannon on fire. After this little speech there was no further mention of Mr Monk, as it became necessary that all the good nature of Mrs Finn and all the tact of Mrs Flood Jones and all the energy of Mrs Callaghan should be used, to prevent the raging of an internecine battle between Mrs Stackpoole and Lady Blood.
Mr Monk”s holiday programme allowed him a week at Killaloe, and from thence he was to go to Limerick, and from Limerick to Dublin, in order that, at both places, he might be entertained at a public dinner and make a speech about tenant-right. Foreseeing that Phineas might commit himself if he attended these meetings, Mr Monk had counselled him to remain at Killaloe. But Phineas had refused to subject himself to such cautious abstinence. Mr Monk had come to Ireland as his friend, and he would see him through his travels. “I shall not, probably, be asked to speak,” said Phineas, “and if I am asked, I need not say more than a few words. And what if I did speak out?”
“You might find it disadvantageous to you in London.”
“I must take my chance of that. I am not going to tie myself down for ever and ever for the sake of being Under-Secretary to the Colonies.” Mr Monk said very much to him on the subject — was constantly saying very much to him about it; but in spite of all that Mr Monk said, Phineas did make the journey to Limerick and Dublin.
He had not, since his arrival at Killaloe, been a moment alone with Mary Flood Jones till the evening before he started with Mr Monk. She had kept out of his way successfully, though she had constantly been with him in company, and was beginning to plume herself on the strength and valour of her conduct. But her self-praise had in it nothing of joy, and her glory was very sad. Of course she would care for him no more — more especially as it was so very evident that he cared not at all for her. But the very fact of her keeping out of his way, made her acknowledge to herself that her position was very miserable. She had declared to her mother that she might certainly go to Killaloe with safety — that it would be better for her to put herself in the way of meeting him as an old friend — that the idea of the necessity of shutting herself up because of his approach, was the one thing that gave her real pain. Therefore her mother had brought her to Killaloe and she had met him; but her fancied security had deserted her, and she found herself to be miserable, hoping for something she did not know what, still dreaming of possibilities, feeling during every moment of his presence with her that some special conduct was necessary on her part. She could not make further confession to her mother and ask to be carried back to Floodborough; but she knew that she was very wretched at Killaloe.
As for Phineas, he had felt that his old friend was very cold to him. He was in that humour with reference to Violet Effingham which seemed especially to require consolation. He knew now that all hope was over there. Violet Effingham could never be his wife. Even were she not to marry Lord Chiltern for the next five years, she would not, during those five years, marry any other man. Such was our hero’s conviction; and, suffering under this conviction, he was in want of the comfort of feminine sympathy. Had Mary known all this, and had it suited her to play such a part, I think she might have had Phineas at her feet before he had been a week at home. But she had kept aloof from him and had heard nothing of his sorrows. As a natural consequence of this, Phineas was more in love with her than ever.
On the evening before he started with Mr Monk for Limerick, he managed to be alone with her for a few minutes. Barbara may probably have assisted in bringing about this arrangement, and had, perhaps, been guilty of some treachery — sisters in such circumstances will sometimes be very treacherous to their friends. I feel sure, however, that Mary herself was quite innocent of any guile in the matter. “Mary,” Phineas said to her suddenly, it seems to me that you have avoided me purposely ever since I have been at home.” She smiled and blushed, and stammered and said nothing. “Has there been any reason for it, Mary?”
“No reason at all that I know of,” she said.
“We used to be such great friends.”
“That was before you were a great man, Phineas. It must necessarily be different now. You know so many people now, and people of such a different sort, that of course I fall a little into the background.”
“When you talk in that way, Mary, I know that you are laughing at me.”
“Indeed, indeed I am not.”
“I believe there is no one in the whole world,” he said, after a pause, “whose friendship is more to me than yours is. I think of it so often, Mary. Say that when we come back it shall be between us as it used to be.” Then he put out his hand for hers, and she could not help giving it to him. “Of course there will be people,” he said, “who talk nonsense, and one cannot help it; but I will not put up with it from you.”
“I did not mean to talk nonsense, Phineas!” Then there came someone across them, and the conversation was ended; but the sound of his voice remained on her ears, and she could not help but remember that he had declared that her friendship was dearer to him than the friendship of anyone else.
Phineas went with Mr Monk first to Limerick and then to Dublin, and found himself at both places to be regarded as a hero only second to the great hero. At both places the one subject of debate was tenant-right — could anything be done to make it profitable for men with capital to put their capital into Irish land? The fertility of the soil was questioned by no one — nor the sufficiency of external circumstances, such as railroads and the like — nor the abundance of labour — nor even security for the wealth to be produced. The only difficulty was in this, that the men who were to produce the wealth had no guarantee that it would be theirs when it was created. In England and elsewhere such guarantees were in existence. Might it not be possible to introduce them into Ireland? That was the question which Mr Monk had in hand; and in various speeches which he made both before and after the dinners given to him, he pledged himself to keep it well in hand when Parliament should meet. Of course Phineas spoke also. It was impossible that he should be silent when his friend and leader was pouring out his eloquence. Of course he spoke, and of course he pledged himself. Something like the old pleasures of the debating society returned to him, as standing upon a platform before a listening multitude, he gave full vent to his words. In the House of Commons, of late he had been so cabined, cribbed, and confined by office as to have enjoyed nothing of this. Indeed, from the commencement of his career, he had fallen so thoroughly into the decorum of Government ways, as to have missed altogether the delights of that wild irresponsible oratory of which Mr Monk had spoken to him so often. He had envied men below the gangway, who, though supporting the Government on main questions, could get up on their legs whenever the House was full enough to make it worth their while, and say almost whatever they pleased. There was that Mr Robson, who literally did say just what came uppermost; and the thing that came uppermost was often ill-natured, often unbecoming the gravity of the House, was always startling; but men listened to him and liked him to speak. But Mr Robson had — married a woman with money. Oh, why — why, had not Violet Effingham been kinder to him? He might even yet, perhaps, marry a woman with money. But he could not bring himself to do so unless he loved her.
The upshot of the Dublin meeting was that he also positively pledged himself to support during the next session of Parliament a bill advocating tenant-right. “I am sorry you went so far as that,” Mr Monk said to him almost as soon as the meeting was over. They were standing on the pier at Kingstown, and Mr Monk was preparing to return to England.
“And why not I as far as you?”
“Because I had thought about it, and I do not think that you have. I am prepared to resign my office tomorrow; and directly that I can see Mr Gresham and explain to him what I have done, I shall offer to do so.”
“He won’t accept your resignation.”
“He must accept it, unless he is prepared to instruct the Irish Secretary to bring in such a bill as I can support.”
“I shall be exactly in the same boat.”
“But you ought not to be in the same boat — nor need you. My advice to you is to say nothing about it till you get back to London, and then speak to Lord Cantrip. Tell him that you will not say anything on the subject in the House, but that in the event of there being a division you hope to be allowed to vote as on an open question. It may be that I shall get Gresham’s assent, and if so we shall be all right. If I do not, and if they choose to make it a point with you, you must resign also.”
“Of course I shall,” said Phineas.
“But I do not think they will. You have been too useful, and they will wish to avoid the weakness which comes to a ministry from changing its team. Goodbye, my dear fellow; and remember this — my last word of advice to you is to stick by the ship. I am quite sure it is a career which will suit you. I did not begin it soon enough.”
Phineas was rather melancholy as he returned alone to Killaloe. It was all very well to bid him stick to the ship, and he knew as well as anyone could tell him how material the ship was to him; but there are circumstances in which a man cannot stick to his ship — cannot stick, at least, to this special Government ship. He knew that whither Mr Monk went, in this session, he must follow. He had considerable hope that when Mr Monk explained his purpose to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister would feel himself obliged to give way. In that case Phineas would not only be able to keep his office, but would have such an opportunity of making a speech in Parliament as circumstances had never yet given to him. When he was again at home he said nothing to his father or to the Killaloeians as to the danger of his position. Of what use would it be to make his mother and sisters miserable, or to incur the useless counsels of the doctor? They seemed to think his speech at Dublin very fine, and were never tired of talking of what Mr Monk and Phineas were going to do; but the idea had not come home to them that if Mr Monk or Phineas chose to do anything on their own account, they must give up the places which they held under the Crown.
It was September when Phineas found himself back at Killaloe, and he was due to be at his office in London in November. The excitement of Mr Monk’s company was now over, and he had nothing to do but to receive pouches full of official papers from the Colonial Office, and study all the statistics which came within his reach in reference to the proposed new law for tenant-right. In the meantime Mary was still living with her mother at Killaloe, and still kept herself somewhat aloof from the man she loved. How could it be possible for him not to give way in such circumstances as those?
One day he found himself talking to her about himself, and speaking to her of his own position with more frankness than he ever used with his own family. He had begun by reminding her of that conversation which they had had before he went away with Mr Monk, and by reminding her also that she had promised to return to her old friendly ways with him.
“Nay, Phineas; there was no promise,” she said.
“And are we not to be friends?”
“I only say that I made no particular promise. Of course we are friends. We have always been friends.”
“What would you say if you heard that I had resigned my office and given up my seat?” he asked. Of course she expressed her surprise, almost her horror, at such an idea, and then he told her everything. It took long in the telling, because it was necessary that he should explain to her the working of the system which made it impossible for him, as a member of the Government, to entertain an opinion of his own.
“And do you mean that you would lose your salary?” she asked.
“Certainly I should.”
“Would not that be very dreadful?”
He laughed as he acknowledged that it would be dreadful. “It is very dreadful, Mary, to have nothing to eat and drink. But what is a man to do? Would you recommend me to say that black is white?”
“I am sure you will never do that.”
“You see, Mary, it is very nice to be called by a big name and to have a salary, and it is very comfortable to be envied by one’s friends and enemies — but there are drawbacks. There is this especial drawback.” Then he paused for a moment before he went on.
“What especial drawback, Phineas?”
“A man cannot do what he pleases with himself. How can a man marry, so circumstanced as I am?”
She hesitated for a moment, and then she answered him — “A man may be very happy without marrying, I suppose.”
He also paused for many moments before he spoke again, and she then made a faint attempt to escape from him. But before she succeeded he had asked her a question which arrested her. “I wonder whether you would listen to me if I were to tell you a history?” Of course she listened, and the history he told her was the tale of his love for Violet Effingham.
“And she has money of her own?” Mary asked.
“Yes — she is rich. She has a large fortune.”
“Then, Mr Finn, you must seek someone else who is equally blessed.”
“Mary, that is untrue — that is ill-natured. You do not mean that. Say that you do not mean it. You have not believed that I loved Miss Effingham because she was rich.”
“But you have told me that you could love no one who is not rich.”
“I have said nothing of the kind. Love is involuntary. It does not often run in a yoke with prudence. I have told you my history as far as it is concerned with Violet Effingham. I did love her very dearly.”
“Did love her, Mr Finn?”
“Yes — did love her. Is there any inconstancy in ceasing to love when one is not loved? Is there inconstancy in changing one’s love, and in loving again?”
“I do not know,” said Mary, to whom the occasion was becoming so embarrassing that she no longer was able to reply with words that had a meaning in them.
“If there be, dear, I am inconstant.” He paused, but of course she had not a syllable to say. “I have changed my love. But I could not speak of a new passion till I had told the story of that which has passed away. You have heard it all now, Mary. Can you try to love me, after that?” It had come at last — the thing for which she had been ever wishing. It had come in spite of her imprudence, and in spite of her prudence. When she had heard him to the end she was not a whit angry with him — she was not in the least aggrieved — because he had been lost to her in his love for this Miss Effingham, while she had been so nearly lost by her love for him. For women such episodes in the lives of their lovers have an excitement which is almost pleasurable, whereas each man is anxious to hear his lady swear that until he appeared upon the scene her heart had been fancy free. Mary, upon the whole, had liked the story — had thought that it had been finely told, and was well pleased with the final catastrophe. But, nevertheless, she was not prepared with her reply. “Have you no answer to give me, Mary?” he said, looking up into her eyes. I am afraid that he did not doubt what would be her answer — as it would be good that all lovers should do. “You must vouchsafe me some word, Mary.”
When she essayed to speak she found that she was dumb. She could not get her voice to give her the assistance of a single word. She did not cry, but there was a motion as of sobbing in her throat which impeded all utterance. She was as happy as earth — as heaven could make her; but she did not know how to tell him that she was happy. And yet she longed to tell it, that he might know how thankful she was to him for his goodness. He still sat looking at her, and now by degrees he had got her hand in his. “Mary,” he said, will you be my wife — my own wife?”
When half an hour had passed, they were still together, and now she had found the use of her tongue. “Do whatever you like best,” she said. “I do not care which you do. If you came to me tomorrow and told me you had no income, it would make no difference. Though to love you and to have your love is all the world to me — though it makes all the difference between misery and happiness — I would sooner give up that than be a clog on you.” Then he took her in his arms and kissed her. “Oh, Phineas!” she said, I do love you so entirely!”
“My own one!”
“Yes; your own one. But if you had known it always! Never mind. Now you are my own — are you not?”
“Indeed yes, dearest.”
“Oh, what a thing it is to be victorious at last.”
“What on earth are you two doing here these two hours together?” said Barbara, bursting into the room.
“What are we doing?” said Phineas.
“Yes — what are you doing?”
“Nothing in particular,” said Mary.
“Nothing at all in particular,” said Phineas. Only this — that we have engaged ourselves to marry each other. It is quite a trifle — is it not, Mary?”
“Oh, Barbara!” said the joyful girl, springing forward into her friend’s arms; “I do believe I am the happiest creature on the face of this earth!”
Before Phineas had returned to London his engagement with Mary Flood Jones was known to all his family, was known to Mrs Flood Jones, and was indeed known generally to all Killaloe. That other secret of his, which had reference to the probability of his being obliged to throw up his office, was known only to Mary herself. He thought that he had done all that honour required of him in telling her of his position before he had proposed — so that she might on that ground refuse him if she were so minded. And yet he had known very well that such prudence on her part was not to be expected. If she loved him, of course she would say so when she was asked. And he had known that she loved him. “There may be delay, Mary,” he said to her as he was going; “nay, there must be delay, if I am obliged to resign.”
“I do not care a straw for delay if you will be true to me,” she said.
“Do you doubt my truth, dearest?”
“Not in the least. I will swear by it as the one thing that is truest in the world.”
“You may, dearest. And if this should come to pass I must go to work and put my shoulder to the wheel, and earn an income for you by my old profession before I can make you my wife. With such a motive before me I know that I shall earn an income.” And thus they parted. Mary, though of course she would have preferred that her future husband should remain in his high office, that he should be a member of Parliament and an Under-Secretary of State, admitted no doubt into her mind to disturb her happiness; and Phineas, though he had many misgivings as to the prudence of what he had done, was not the less strong in his resolution of constancy and endurance. He would throw up his position, resign his seat, and go to work at the Bar instantly, if he found that his independence as a man required him to do so. And, above all, let come what might, he would be true to Mary Flood Jones. December was half over before he saw Lord Cantrip. “Yes — yes;” said Lord Cantrip, when the Under-Secretary began to tell his story; “I saw what you were about. I wish I had been at your elbow.”
“If you knew the country as I know it, you would be as eager about it as I am.”
“Then I can only say that I am very glad that I do not know the country as you know it. You see, Finn, it’s my idea that if a man wants to make himself useful he should stick to some special kind of work. With you it’s a thousand pities that you should not do so.”
“You think, then, I ought to resign?”
“I don’t say anything about that. As you wish it, of course I’ll speak to Gresham. Monk, I believe, has resigned already.”
“He has written to me, and told me so,” said Phineas.
“I always felt afraid of him for your sake, Finn. Mr Monk is a clever man, and as honest a man as any in the House, but I always thought that he was a dangerous friend for you. However, we will see. I will speak to Gresham after Christmas. There is no hurry about it.”
When Parliament met the first great subject of interest was the desertion of Mr Monk from the Ministry. He at once took his place below the gangway, sitting as it happened exactly in front of Mr Turnbull, and there he made his explanation. Someone opposite asked a question whether a certain right honourable gentleman had not left the Cabinet. Then Mr Gresham replied that to his infinite regret his right honourable friend who lately presided at the Board of Trade had resigned; and he went on to explain that this resignation had, according to his ideas, been quite unnecessary. His right honourable friend entertained certain ideas about Irish Tenant Right, as to which he himself and his right honourable friend the Secretary for Ireland could not exactly pledge themselves to be in unison with him; but he had thought that the motion might have rested at any rate over this session. Then Mr Monk explained, making his first great speech on Irish Tenant Right. He found himself obliged to advocate some immediate measure for giving security to the Irish farmer; and as he could not do so as a member of the Cabinet, he was forced to resign the honour of that position. He said something also as to the great doubt which had ever weighed on his own mind as to the inexpediency of a man at his time of life submitting himself for the first time to the trammels of office. This called up Mr Turnbull, who took the opportunity of saying that he now agreed cordially with his old friend for the first time since that old friend had listened to the blandishments of the ministerial seducer, and that he welcomed his old friend back to those independent benches with great satisfaction. In this way the debate was very exciting. Nothing was said which made it then necessary for Phineas to get upon his legs or to declare himself; but he perceived that the time would rapidly come in which he must do so. Mr Gresham, though he strove to speak with gentle words, was evidently very angry with the late President of the Board of Trade; and, moreover, it was quite clear that a bill would be introduced by Mr Monk himself, which Mr Gresham was determined to oppose. If all this came to pass and there should be a close division, Phineas felt that his fate would be sealed. When he again spoke to Lord Cantrip on the subject, the Secretary of State shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “I can only advise you,” said Lord Cantrip, to forget all that took place in Ireland. If you will do so, nobody else will remember it.” “As if it were possible to forget such things,” he said in the letter which he wrote to Mary that night. “Of course I shall go now. If it were not for your sake, I should not in the least regret it.”
He had been with Madame Goesler frequently in the winter, and had discussed with her so often the question of his official position that she had declared that she was coming at last to understand the mysteries of an English Cabinet. “I think you are quite right, my friend,” she said — “quite right. What — you are to be in Parliament and say that this black thing is white, or that this white thing is black, because you like to take your salary! That cannot be honest!” Then, when he came to talk to her of money — that he must give up Parliament itself, if he gave up his place — she offered to lend him money. “Why should you not treat me as a friend?” she said. When he pointed out to her that there would never come a time in which he could pay such money back, she stamped her foot and told him that he had better leave her. “You have high principle,” she said, but not principle sufficiently high to understand that this thing could be done between you and me without disgrace to either of us.” Then Phineas assured her with tears in his eyes that such an arrangement was impossible without disgrace to him.
But he whispered to this new friend no word of the engagement with his dear Irish Mary. His Irish life, he would tell himself, was a thing quite apart and separate from his life in England. He said not a word about Mary Flood Jones to any of those with whom he lived in London. Why should he, feeling as he did that it would so soon be necessary that he should disappear from among them? About Miss Effingham he had said much to Madame Goesler. She had asked him whether he had abandoned all hope, “That affair, then, is over?” she had said.
“Yes — it is all over now.”
“And she will marry the red-headed, violent lord?”
“Heaven knows. I think she will. But she is exactly the girl to remain unmarried if she takes it into her head that the man she likes is in any way unfitted to her.”
“Does she love this lord?”
“Oh yes — there is no doubt of that.” And Phineas, as he made this acknowledgment, seemed to do so without much inward agony of soul. When he had been last in London he could not speak of Violet and Lord Chiltern together without showing that his misery was almost too much for him.
At this time he received some counsel from two friends. One was Laurence Fitzgibbon, and the other was Barrington Erle. Laurence had always been true to him after a fashion, and had never resented his intrusion at the Colonial Office. “Phineas, me boy,” he said, “if all this is true, you’re about up a tree.”
“It is true that I shall support Monk’s motion.”
“Then, me boy, you’re up a tree as far as office goes. A place like that niver suited me, because, you see, that poker of a young lord expected so much of a man but you don’t mind that kind of thing, and I thought you were as snug as snug.”
“Troubles will come, you see, Laurence.”
“Bedad, yes. It’s all throubles, I think, sometimes. But you’ve a way out of all your throubles.”
“What way?”
“Pop the question to Madame Max. The money’s all thrue, you know.”
“I don’t doubt the money in the least,” said Phineas.
“And it’s my belief she’ll take you without a second word. Anyways, thry it, Phinny, my boy. That’s my advice.” Phineas so far agreed with his friend Laurence that he thought it possible that Madame Goesler might accept him were he to propose marriage to her. He knew, of course, that that mode of escape from his difficulties was out of the question for him, but he could not explain this to Laurence Fitzgibbon.
“I am sorry to hear that you have taken up a bad cause,” said Barrington Erle to him.
“It is a pity — is it not?”
“And the worst of it is that you’ll sacrifice yourself and do no good to the cause. I never knew a man break away in this fashion, and not feel afterwards that he had done it all for nothing.”
“But what is a man to do, Barrington? He can’t smother his convictions.”
“Convictions! There is nothing on earth that I’m so much afraid of in a young member of Parliament as convictions. There are ever so many rocks against which men get broken. One man can’t keep his temper. Another can’t hold his tongue. A third can’t say a word unless he has been priming himself half a session. A fourth is always thinking of himself, and wanting more than he can get. A fifth is idle, and won’t be there when he’s waited. A sixth is always in the way. A seventh lies so that you never can trust him. I’ve had to do with them all, but a fellow with convictions is the worst of all.”
“I don’t see how a fellow is to help himself,” said Phineas. “When a fellow begins to meddle with politics they will come.”
“Why can’t you grow into them gradually as your betters and elders have done before you? It ought to be enough for any man, when he begins, to know that he’s a Liberal. He understands which side of the House he’s to vote, and who is to lead him. What’s the meaning of having a leader to a party, if it’s not that? Do you think that you and Mr Monk can go and make a government between you?”
“Whatever I think, I’m sure he doesn’t.”
“I’m not so sure of that. But look here, Phineas. I don’t care two straws about Monk’s going. I always thought that Mildmay and the Duke were wrong when they asked him to join. I knew he’d go over the traces — unless, indeed, he took his money and did nothing for it, which is the way with some of those Radicals. I look upon him as gone.”
“He has gone.”
“The devil go along with him, as you say in Ireland. But don’t you be such a fool as to ruin yourself for a crotchet of Monk’s. It isn’t too late yet for you to hold back. To tell you the truth, Gresham has said a word to me about it already.”
“He is most anxious that you should stay, but of course you can’t stay and vote against us.”
“Of course I cannot.”
“I look upon you, you know, as in some sort my own child. I’ve tried to bring other fellows forward who seemed to have something in them, but I have never succeeded as I have with you. You’ve hit the thing off, and have got the ball at your foot. Upon my honour, in the whole course of my experience I have never known such good fortune as yours.”
“And I shall always remember how it began, Barrington,” said Phineas, who was greatly moved by the energy and solicitude of his friend.
“But, for God’s sake, don’t go and destroy it all by such mad perversity as this. They mean to do something next session. Morrison is going to take it up.” Sir Walter Morrison was at this time Secretary for Ireland. “But of course we can’t let a fellow like Monk take the matter into his own hands just when he pleases. I call it d — d treachery.”
“Monk is no traitor, Barrington.”
“Men will have their own opinions about that. It’s generally understood that when a man is asked to take a seat in the Cabinet he is expected to conform with his colleagues, unless something very special turns up. But I am speaking of you now, and not of Monk. You are not a man of fortune. You cannot afford to make ducks and drakes. You are excellently placed, and you have plenty of time to hark back, if you’ll only listen to reason. All that Irish stump balderdash will never be thrown in your teeth by us, if you will just go on as though it had never been uttered.”
Phineas could only thank his friend for his advice, which was at least disinterested, and was good of its kind, and tell him that he would think of it. He did think of it very much. He almost thought that, were it to do again, he would allow Mr Monk to go upon his tour alone, and keep himself from the utterance of anything that so good a judge as Erle could call stump balderdash. As he sat in his armchair in his room at the Colonial Office, with despatch-boxes around him, and official papers spread before him — feeling himself to be one of those who in truth managed and governed the affairs of this great nation, feeling also that if he relinquished his post now he could never regain it — he did wish that he had been a little less in love with independence, a little quieter in his boastings that no official considerations should ever silence his tongue. But all this was too late now. He knew that his skin was not thick enough to bear the arrows of those archers who would bend their bows against him if he should now dare to vote against Mr Monk’s motion. His own party might be willing to forgive and forget; but there would be others who would read those reports, and would appear in the House with the odious tell-tale newspapers in their hands.
Then he received a letter from his father. Some good-natured person had enlightened the doctor as to the danger in which his son was placing himself. Dr Finn, who in his own profession was a very excellent and well-instructed man, had teen so ignorant of Parliamentary tactics as to have been proud at his son’s success at the Irish meetings. He had thought that Phineas was carrying on his trade as a public speaker with proper energy and continued success. He had cared nothing himself for tenant-right, and had acknowledged to Mr Monk that he could not understand in what it was that the farmers were wronged. But he knew that Mr Monk was a Cabinet Minister, and he thought that Phineas was earning his salary. Then there came someone who undeceived him, and the paternal bosom of the doctor was dismayed. “I don’t mean to interfere,” he said in his letter, but I can hardly believe that you really intend to resign your place. Yet I am told that you must do so if you go on with this matter. My dear boy, pray think about it. I cannot imagine you are disposed to lose all that you have won for nothing.” Mary also wrote to him. Mrs Finn had been talking to her, and Mary had taught herself to believe that after the many sweet conversations she had had with a man so high in office as Phineas, she really did understand something about the British Government. Mrs Finn had interrogated Mary, and Mary had been obliged to own that it was quite possible that Phineas would be called upon to resign.
“But why, my dear? Heaven and earth! Resign two thousand a year!”
“That he may maintain his independence,” said Mary proudly.
“Fiddlestick!” said Mrs Finn. How is he to maintain you, or himself either, if he goes on in that way? I shouldn’t wonder if he didn’t get himself all wrong, even now.” then Mrs Finn began to cry; and Mary could only write to her lover, pointing out to him how very anxious all his friends were that he should do nothing in a hurry. But what if the thing were done already! Phineas in his great discomfort went to seek further counsel from Madame Goesler. Of all his counsellors, Madame Goesler was the only one who applauded him for what he was about to do.
“But, after all, what is it you give up? Mr Gresham may be out tomorrow, and then where will be your place?”
“There does not seem to be much chance of that at present.”
“Who can tell? Of course I do not understand — but it was only the other day when Mr Mildmay was there, and only the day before that when Lord de Terrier was there, and again only the day before that when Lord Brock was there.” Phineas endeavoured to make her understand that of the four Prime Ministers whom she had named three were men of the same party as himself, under whom it would have suited him to serve. “I would not serve under any man if I were an English gentleman in Parliament,” said Madame Goesler.
“What is a poor fellow to do?” said Phineas, laughing.
“A poor fellow need not be a poor fellow unless he likes,” said Madame Goesler. Immediately after this Phineas left her, and as he went along the street he began to question himself whether the prospects of his own darling Mary were at all endangered by his visits to Park Lane; and to reflect what sort of a blackguard he would be — a blackguard of how deep a dye — were he to desert Mary and marry Madame Max Goesler. Then he also asked himself as to the nature and quality of his own political honesty if he were to abandon Mary in order that he might maintain his parliamentary independence. After all, if it should ever come to pass that his biography should be written, his biographer would say very much more about the manner in which he kept his seat in Parliament than of the manner in which he kept his engagement with Miss Mary Flood Jones. Half a dozen people who knew him and her might think ill of him for his conduct to Mary, but the world would not condemn him! And when he thundered forth his liberal eloquence from below the gangway as an independent member, having the fortune of his charming wife to back him, giving excellent dinners at the same time in Park Lane, would not the world praise him very loudly?
When he got to his office he found a note from Lord Brentford inviting him to dine in Portman Square.
The note from Lord Brentford surprised our hero not a little. He had had no communication with the Earl since the day on which he had been so savagely scolded about the duel, when the Earl had plainly told him that his conduct had been as bad as it could be. Phineas had not on that account become at all ashamed of his conduct in reference to the duel, but he had conceived that any reconciliation between him and the Earl had been out of the question. Now there had come a civilly-worded invitation, asking him to dine with the offended nobleman. The note had been written by Lady Laura, but it had purported to come from Lord Brentford himself. He sent back word to say that he should be happy to have the honour of dining with Lord Brentford.
Parliament at this time had been sitting nearly a month, and it was already March. Phineas had heard nothing of Lady Laura, and did not even know that she was in London till he saw her handwriting. He did not know that she had not gone back to her husband, and that she had remained with her father all the winter at Saulsby. He had also heard that Lord Chiltern had been at Saulsby. All the world had been talking of the separation of Mr Kennedy from his wife, one half of the world declaring that his wife, if not absolutely false to him, had neglected all her duties; and the other half asserting that Mr Kennedy’s treatment of his wife had been so bad that no woman could possibly have lived with him. There had even been a rumour that Lady Laura had gone off with a lover from the Duke of Omnium’s garden party, and some indiscreet tongue had hinted that a certain unmarried Under-Secretary of State was missing at the same time. But Lord Chiltern upon this had shown his teeth with so strong a propensity to do some real biting that no one had ventured to repeat that rumour. Its untruth was soon established by the fact that Lady Laura Kennedy was living with her father at Saulsby. Of Mr Kennedy, Phineas had as yet seen nothing since he had been up in town. That gentleman, though a member of the Cabinet, had not been in London at the opening of the session, nor had he attended the Cabinet meetings during the recess. It had been stated in the newspapers that he was ill, and stated in private that he could not bear to show himself since his wife had left him. At last, however, he came to London, and Phineas saw him in the House. Then, when the first meeting of the Cabinet was summoned after his return, it became known that he also had resigned his office. There was nothing said about his resignation in the House. He had resigned on the score of ill-health, and that very worthy peer, Lord Mount Thistle, formerly Sir Marmaduke Morecombe, came back to the Duchy of Lancaster in his place. A Prime Minister sometimes finds great relief in the possession of a serviceable stick who can be made to go in and out as occasion may require; only it generally happens that the stick will expect some reward when he is made to go out. Lord Mount Thistle immediately saw his way to a viscount’s coronet, when he was once more summoned to the august councils of the Ministers.
A few days after this had been arranged, in the interval between Lord Brentford’s invitation and Lord Brentford’s dinner, Phineas encountered Mr Kennedy so closely in one of the passages of the House that it was impossible that they should not speak to each other, unless they were to avoid each other as people do who have palpably quarrelled. Phineas saw that Mr Kennedy was hesitating, and therefore took the bull by the horns. He greeted his former friend in a friendly fashion, shaking him by the hand, and then prepared to pass on. But Mr Kennedy, though he had hesitated at first, now detained his brother member. “Finn,” he said, if you are not engaged I should like to speak to you for a moment.” Phineas was not engaged, and allowed himself to be led out arm-in-arm by the late Chancellor of the Duchy into Westminster Hall. “Of course you know what a terrible thing has happened to me,” said Mr Kennedy.
“Yes — I have heard of it,” said Phineas.
“Everybody has heard of it. That is one of the terrible cruelties of such a blow.”
“All those things are very bad of course. I was very much grieved — because you have both been intimate friends of mine.”
“Yes — yes; we were. Do you ever see her now?”
“Not since last July — at the Duke’s party, you know.”
“Ah, yes; the morning of that day was the last on which I spoke to her. It was then she left me.”
“I am going to dine with Lord Brentford tomorrow, and I dare say she will be there.”
“Yes — she is in town. I saw her yesterday in her father’s carriage. I think that she had no cause to leave me.”
“Of course I cannot say anything about that.”
“I think she had no cause to leave me.” Phineas as he heard this could not but remember all that Lady Laura had told himself, and thought that no woman had ever had a better reason for leaving her husband. “There were things I did not like, and I said so.”
“I suppose that is generally the way,” replied Phineas.
“But surely a wife should listen to a word of caution from her husband.”
“I fancy they never like it,” said Phineas.
“But are we all of us to have all that we like? I have not found it so. Or would it be good for us if we had?” Then he paused; but as Phineas had no further remark to make, he continued speaking after they had walked about a third of the length of the hall. “It is not of my own comfort I am thinking now so much as of her name and her future conduct. Of course it will in every sense be best for her that she should come back to her husband’s roof.”
“Well; yes — perhaps it would,” said Phineas.
“Has she not accepted that lot for better or for worse?” said Mr Kennedy, solemnly.
“But incompatibility of temper, you know, is always — always supposed — You understand me?”
“It is my intention that she should come back to me. I do not wish to make any legal demand — at any rate, not as yet. Will you consent to be the bearer of a message from me both to herself and to the Earl?”
Now it seemed to Phineas that of all the messengers whom Mr Kennedy could have chosen he was the most unsuited to be a Mercury in this cause — not perceiving that he had been so selected with some craft, in order that Lady Laura might understand that the accusation against her was, at any rate, withdrawn, which had named Phineas as her lover. He paused again before he answered. “Of course,” he said, “I should be most willing to be of service, if it were possible. But I do not see how I can speak to the Earl about it. Though I am going to dine with him I don’t know why he has asked me — for he and I are on very bad terms. He heard that stupid story about the duel, and has not spoken to me since.”
“I heard that, too,” said Mr Kennedy, frowning blackly as he remembered his wife’s duplicity.
“Everybody heard of it. But it has made such a difference between him and me, that I don’t think I can meddle. Send for Lord Chiltern, and speak to him.”
“Speak to Chiltern! Never! He would probably strike me on the head with his club.”
“Call on the Earl yourself.”
“I did, and he would not see me.”
“Write to him.”
“I did, and he sent back my letter unopened.”
“Write to her.”
“I did — and she answered me, saying only thus; “Indeed, indeed, it cannot be so.” But it must be so. The laws of God require it, and the laws of man permit it. I want someone to point out that to them more softly than I could do if I were simply to write to that effect. To the Earl, of course, I cannot write again.” The conference ended by a promise from Phineas that he would, if possible, say a word to Lady Laura.
When he was shown into Lord Brentford’s drawing-room he found not only Lady Laura there, but her brother. Lord Brentford was not in the room. Barrington Erle was there, and so also were Lord and Lady Cantrip.
“Is not your father going to be here?” he said to Lady Laura, after their first greeting.
“We live in that hope,” said she, and do not at all know why he should be late. What has become of him, Oswald?”
“He came in with me half an hour ago, and I suppose he does not dress as quickly as I do,” said Lord Chiltern; upon which Phineas immediately understood that the father and the son were reconciled, and he rushed to the conclusion that Violet and her lover would also soon be reconciled, if such were not already the case. He felt some remnant of a soreness that it should be so, as a man feels where his headache has been when the real ache itself has left him. Then the host came in and made his apologies. “Chiltern kept me standing about”, he said, “till the east wind had chilled me through and through. The only charm I recognise in youth is that it is impervious to the east wind.” Phineas felt quite sure now that Violet and her lover were reconciled, and he has a distinct feeling of the place where the ache had been. Dear Violet! But, after all, Violet lacked that sweet, clinging, feminine softness which made Mary Flood Jones so pre-eminently the most charming of her sex. The Earl, when he had repeated his general apology, especially to Lady Cantrip, who was the only lady present except his daughter, came up to our hero and shook him kindly by the hand. He took him up to one of the windows and then addressed him in a voice of mock solemnity.
“Stick to the colonies, young man,” he said, and never meddle with foreign affairs — especially not at Blankenberg.”
“Never again, my Lord — never again.”
“And leave all questions of fire-arms to be arranged between the Horse Guards and the War Office. I have heard a good deal about it since I saw you, and I retract a part of what I said. But a duel is a foolish thing — a very foolish thing. Come — here is dinner.” And the Earl walked off with Lady Cantrip, and Lord Cantrip walked off with Lady Laura. Barrington Erle followed, and Phineas had an opportunity of saying a word to his friend, Lord Children, as they went down together.
“It’s all right between you and your father?”
“Yes — after a fashion. There is no knowing how long it will last. He wants me to do three things, and I won’t do any one of them.”
“What are the three?”
“To go into Parliament, to be an owner of sheep and oxen, and to hunt in his own country. I should never attend the first, I should ruin myself with the second, and I should never get a run in the third.” But there was not a word said about his marriage.
There were only seven who sat down to dinner, and the six were all people with whom Phineas was or had been on most intimate terms. Lord Cantrip was his official chief, and, since that connection had existed between him, Lady Cantrip had been very gracious to him. She quite understood the comfort which it was to her husband to have under him, as his representative in the House of Commons, a man whom he could thoroughly trust and like, and therefore she had used her woman’s arts to bind Phineas to her lord in more than mere official bondage. She had tried her skill also upon Laurence Fitzgibbon — but altogether in vain. He had eaten her dinners and accepted her courtesies, and had given for them no return whatever. But Phineas had possessed a more grateful mind, and had done all that had been required of him — had done all that had been required of him till there had come that terrible absurdity in Ireland. “I knew very well what sort of things would happen when they brought such a man as Mr Monk into the Cabinet,” Lady Cantrip had said to her husband.
But though the party was very small, and though the guests were all his intimate friends, Phineas suspected nothing special till an attack was made upon him as soon as the servants had left the room. This was done in the presence of the two ladies, and, no doubt, had been preconcerted. There was Lord Cantrip there, who had already said much to him, and Barrington Erle who had said more even than Lord Cantrip. Lord Brentford, himself a member of the Cabinet, opened the attack by asking whether it was actually true that Mr Monk meant to go on with his motion. Barrington Erle asserted that Mr Monk positively would do so. “And Gresham will oppose it?” asked the Earl. Of course he will,” said Barrington. “Of course he will, said Lord Cantrip. “I know what I should think of him if he did not,” said Lady Cantrip. “He is the last man in the world to be forced into a thing,” said Lady Laura. Then Phineas knew pretty well what was coming on him.
Lord Brentford began again by asking how many supporters Mr Monk would have in the House. “That depends upon the amount of courage which the Conservatives may have,” said Barrington Erle. “If they dare to vote for a thoroughly democratic measure, simply for the sake of turning us out, it is quite on the cards that they may succeed.” “But of our own people? asked Lord Cantrip. “You had better inquire that of Phineas Finn,” said Barrington. And then the attack was made.
Our hero had a bad half hour of it, though many words were said which must have gratified him much. They all wanted to keep him — so Lord Cantrip declared, “except one or two whom I could name, and who are particularly anxious to wear his shoes,” said Barrington, thinking that certain reminiscences of Phineas with regard to Mr Bonteen and others might operate as strongly as any other consideration to make him love his place. Lord Brentford declared that he could not understand it — that he should find himself lost in amazement if such a man as his young friend allowed himself to be led into the outer wilderness by such an ignis-fatuus of light as this. Lord Cantrip laid down the unwritten traditional law of Government officials very plainly. A man in office — in an office which really imposed upon him as much work as he could possibly do with credit to himself or his cause — was dispensed from the necessity of a conscience with reference to other matters. It was for Sir Walter Morrison to have a conscience about Irish Tenant-Right, as no doubt he had — just as Phineas Finn had a conscience about Canada, and Jamaica, and the Cape. Barrington Erle was very strong about parties in general, and painted the comforts of official position in glowing colours. But I think that the two ladies were more efficacious than even their male relatives in the arguments which they used. “We have been so happy to have you among us,” said Lady Cantrip, looking at him with beseeching, almost loving eyes. “Mr Finn knows,” said Lady Laura, “that since he first came into Parliament I have always believed in his success, and I have been very proud to see it.” “We shall weep over him, as over a fallen angel, if he leaves us,” said Lady Cantrip. “I won’t say that I will weep,” said Lady Laura, “but I do not know anything of the kind that would so truly make me unhappy.”
What was he to say in answer to applications so flattering and so pressing? He would have said nothing, had that been possible, but he felt himself obliged to reply. He replied very weakly — of course, not justifying himself, but declaring that as he had gone so far he must go further. He must vote for the measure now. Both his chief and Barrington Erle proved or attempt to prove, that he was wrong in this. Of course he would not speak on the measure, and his vote for his party would probably be allowed to pass without notice. One or two newspapers might perhaps attack him; but what public man cared for such attacks as those? His whole party would hang by him, and in that he would find ample consolation. Phineas could only say that he would think of it — and this he said in so irresolute a tone of voice that all the men then present believed that he was gained. The two ladies, however, were of a different opinion. “In spite of anything that anybody may say, he will do what he thinks right when the time comes,” said Laura to her father afterwards. But then Lady Laura had been in love with him — was perhaps almost in love with him still. “I’m afraid he is a mule,” said Lady Cantrip to her husband. “He’s a good mule up a hill with a load on his back,” said his lordship. “But with a mule there always comes a time when you can’t manage him,” said Lady Cantrip. But Lady Cantrip had never been in love with Phineas.
Phineas found a moment, before he left Lord Brentford’s house, to say a word to Lady Laura as to the commission that had been given to him. “It can never be,” said Lady Laura, shuddering — “never, never, never!”
“You are not angry with me for speaking?”
“Oh, no — not if he told you.”
“He made me promise that I would.”
“Tell him it cannot be. Tell him that if he has any instruction to send me as to what he considers to be my duty, I will endeavour to comply, if that duty can be done apart. I will recognize him so far, because of my vow. But not even for the sake of my vow, will I endeavour to live with him. His presence would kill me!”
When Phineas repeated this, or as much of this as he judged to be necessary, to Mr Kennedy a day or two afterwards, that gentleman replied that in such case he would have no alternative but to seek redress at law. “I have done nothing to my wife,” said he, “of which I need be ashamed. It will be sad, no doubt, to have all our affairs bandied about in court, and made the subject of comment in newspapers, but a man must go through that, or worse than that, in the vindication of his rights, and for the performance of his duty to his Maker.” That very day Mr Kennedy went to his lawyer, and desired that steps might be taken for the restitution to him of his conjugal rights.
Mr Monk’s bill was read the first time before Easter, and Phineas Finn still held his office. He had spoken to the Prime Minister once on the subject, and had been surprised at that gentleman’s courtesy — for Mr Gresham had the reputation of being unconciliatory in his manners, and very prone to resent anything like desertion from that allegiance which was due to himself as the leader of his party. “You had better stay where you are and take no step that may be irretrievable, till you have quite made up your mind,” said Mr Gresham.
“I fear I have made up my mind,” said Phineas.
“Nothing can be done till after Easter”, replied the great man, “and there is no knowing how things may go then. I strongly recommend you to stay with us. If you can do this it will be only necessary that you shall put your resignation in Lord Cantrip’s hands before you speak or vote against us. See Monk and talk it over with him.” Mr Gresham possibly imagined that Mr Monk might be moved to abandon his bill, when he saw what injury he was about to do.
At this time Phineas received the following letter from his darling Mary:
“ Floodborough, Thursday
“ DEAREST PHINEAS
“We have just got home from Killaloe, and mean to remain here all through the summer. After leaving your sisters this house seems so desolate; but I shall have the more time to think of you. I have been reading Tennyson, as you told me, and I fancy that I could in truth be a Mariana here, if it were not that I am so quite certain that you will come — and that makes all the difference in the world in a moated grange. Last night I sat at the window and tried to realise what I should feel if you were to tell me that you did not want me; and I got myself into such an ecstatic state of mock melancholy that I cried for half an hour. But when one has such a real living joy at the back of one’s romantic melancholy, tears are very pleasant — they water and do not burn.
“I must tell you about them all at Killaloe. They certainly are very unhappy at the idea of your resigning. Your father says very little, but I made him own that to act as you are acting for the sake of principle is very grand. I would not leave him till he had said so, and he did say it. Dear Mrs Finn does not understand it as well, but she will do so. She complains mostly for my sake, and when I tell her that I will wait twenty years if it is necessary, she tells me I do not know what waiting means. But I will — and will be happy, and will never really think myself a Mariana. Dear, dear, dear Phineas, indeed I won’t. The girls are half sad and half proud, But I am wholly proud, and know that you are doing just what you ought to do. I shall think more of you as a man who might have been a Prime Minister than if you were really sitting in the Cabinet like Lord Cantrip. As for mamma, I cannot make her quite understand it. She merely says that no young man who is going to be married ought to resign anything. Dear mamma — sometimes she does say such odd things.
“You told me to tell you everything, and so I have. I talk to some of the people here, and tell them what they might do if they had tenant-right. One old fellow, Mike Dufferty — I don’t know whether you remember him — asked if he would have to pay the rent all the same. When I said certainly he would, then he shook his head. But as you said once, when we want to do good to people one has no right to expect that they should understand it. It is like baptising little infants.
“I got both your notes — seven words in one, Mr Under-Secretary, and nine in the other! But the one little word at the end was worth a whole sheet full of common words. How nice it is to write letters without paying postage, and to send them about the world with a grand name in the corner. When Barney brings me one he always looks as if he didn’t know whether it was a love letter or an order to go to Botany Bay. If he saw the inside of them, how short they are, I don’t think he’d think much of you as a lover nor yet as an Under-Secretary.
“But I think ever so much of you as both — I do, indeed; and I am not scolding you a bit. As long as I can have two or three dear, sweet, loving words, I shall be as happy as a queen. Ah, if you knew it all! But you never can know it all. A man has so many other things to learn that he cannot understand it.
“Goodbye, dear, dear, dearest man. Whatever you do I shall be quite sure you have done the best.
“Ever your own, with all the love of her heart,
“ MARY F. JONES
This was very nice. Such a man as was Phineas Finn always takes a delight which he cannot express even to himself in the receipt of such a letter as this. There is nothing so flattering as the warm expression of the confidence of a woman’s love, and Phineas thought that no woman ever expressed this more completely than did his Mary. Dear, dearest Mary. As for giving her up, as for treachery to one so trusting, so sweet, so well beloved, that was out of the question. But nevertheless the truth came home to him more clearly day by day, that he of all men was the last who ought to have given himself up to such a passion. For her sake he ought to have abstained. So he told himself now. For her sake he ought to have kept aloof from her — and for his own sake he ought to have kept aloof from Mr Monk. That very day, with Mary’s letter in his pocket, he went to the livery stables and explained that he would not keep his horse any longer. There was no difficulty about the horse. Mr Howard Macleod of the Treasury would take him from that very hour. Phineas, as he walked away, uttered a curse upon Mr Howard Macleod. Mr Howard Macleod was just beginning the glory of his life in London, and he, Phineas Finn, was bringing his to an end.
With Mary’s letter in his pocket he went up to Portman Square. He had again got into the habit of seeing Lady Laura frequently, and was often with her brother, who now again lived at his father’s house. A letter had reached Lord Brentford, through his lawyer, in which a demand was made by Mr Kennedy for the return of his wife. She was quite determined that she would never go back to him; and there had come to her a doubt whether it would not be expedient that she should live abroad so as to be out of the way of persecution from her husband. Lord Brentford was in great wrath, and Lord Chiltern had once or twice hinted that perhaps he had better “see” Mr Kennedy. The amenities of such an interview, as this would be, had up to the present day been postponed; and, in a certain way, Phineas had been used as a messenger between Mr Kennedy and his wife’s family.
“I think it will end”, she said, in my going to Dresden, and settling myself there. Papa will come to me when Parliament is not sitting.”
“It will be very dull.”
“Dull! What does dullness amount to when one has come to such a pass as this? When one is in the ruck of fortune, to be dull is very bad; but when misfortune comes, simple dullness is nothing. It sounds almost like relief.”
“It is so hard that you should be driven away.” She did not answer him for a while, and he was beginning to think of his own case also. Was it not hard that he too should be driven away? “It is odd enough that we should both be going at the same time.”
“But you will not go?”
“I think I shall. I have resolved upon this — that if I give up my place, I will give up my seat too. I went into Parliament with the hope of office, and how can I remain there when I shall have gained it and then have lost it?”
“But you will stay in London, Mr Finn?”
“I think not. After all that has come and gone I should not be happy here, and I should make my way easier and on cheaper terms in Dublin. My present idea is that I shall endeavour to make a practice over in my own country. It will be hard work beginning at the bottom — will it not?”
“And so unnecessary.”
“Ah, Lady Laura — if it only could be avoided! But it is of no use going through all that again.”
“How much we would both of us avoid if we could only have another chance!” said Lady Laura. “If I could only be as I was before I persuaded myself to marry a man whom I never loved, what a paradise the earth would be to me! With me all regrets are too late.”
“And with me as much so.”
“No, Mr Finn. Even should you resign your office, there is no reason why you should give up your seat.”
“Simply that I have no income to maintain me in London.”
She was silent for a few moments, during which she changed her seat so as to come nearer to him, placing herself on a corner of a sofa close to the chair on which he was seated. “I wonder whether I may speak to you plainly,” she said.
“Indeed you may.”
“On any subject?”
“Yes — on any subject.”
“I trust you have been able to rid your bosom of all remembrances of Violet Effingham.”
“Certainly not of all remembrances, Lady Laura.”
“Of all hope, then?”
“I have no such hope.”
“And of all lingering desires?”
“Well, yes — and of all lingering desires. I know now that it cannot be. Your brother is welcome to her.”
“Ah — of that I know nothing. He, with his perversity, has estranged her. But I am sure of this — that if she do not marry him, she will marry no one. But it is not on account of him that I speak. He must fight his own battles now.”
“I shall not interfere with him, Lady Laura.”
“Then why should you not establish yourself by a marriage that will make place a matter of indifference to you? I know that it is within your power to do so.” Phineas put his hand up to his breast coat pocket, and felt that Mary’s letter — her precious letter — was there safe. It certainly was not in his power to do this thing which Lady Laura recommended to him, but he hardly thought that the present was a moment suitable for explaining to her the nature of the impediment which stood in the way of such an arrangement. He had so lately spoken to Lady Laura with an assurance of undying constancy of his love for Miss Effingham, that he could not as yet acknowledge the force of another passion. He shook his head by way of reply. “I tell you that it is so,” she said with energy.
“I am afraid not.”
“Go to Madame Goesler, and ask her. Hear what she will say.
“Madame Goesler would laugh at me, no doubt.”
“Psha! You do not think so. You know that she would not laugh. And are you the man to be afraid of a woman’s laughter? I think not.”
Again he did not answer her at once, and when he did speak the tone of his voice was altered. “What was it you said of yourself, just now?”
“What did I say of myself?”
“You regretted that you had consented to marry a man — whom you did not love.”
“Why should you not love her? And it is so different with a man! A woman is wretched if she does not love her husband, but I fancy that a man gets on very well without any such feeling. She cannot domineer over you. She cannot expect you to pluck yourself out of your own soil, and begin a new growth together in accordance with the laws of her own. It was that which Mr Kennedy did.”
“I do not for a moment think that she would take me, if I were to offer myself.”
“Try her,” said Lady Laura energetically. Such trials cost you but little — we both of us know that!” Still he said nothing of the letter in his pocket. “It is everything that you should go on now that you have once begun. I do not believe in you working at the Bar. You cannot do it. A man who has commenced life as you have done with the excitement of politics, who has known what it is to take a prominent part in the control of public affairs, cannot give it up and be happy at other work. Make her your wife, and you may resign or remain in office just as you choose. Office will be much easier to you than it is now, because it will not be a necessity. Let me at any rate have the pleasure of thinking that one of us can remain here — that we need not both fall together.”
Still he did not tell her of the letter in his pocket. He felt that she moved him — that she made him acknowledge to himself how great would be the pity of such a failure as would be his. He was quite as much alive as she could be to the fact that work at the Bar, either in London or in Dublin, would have no charms for him now. The prospect of such a life was very dreary to him. Even with the comfort of Mary’s love such a life would be very dreary to him. And then he knew — he thought that he knew — that were he to offer himself to Madame Goesler he would not in truth be rejected. She had told him that if poverty was a trouble to him he need be no longer poor. Of course he had understood this. Her money was at his service if he should choose to stoop and pick it up. And it was not only money that such a marriage would give him. He had acknowledged to himself more than once that Madame Goesler was very lovely, that she was clever, attractive in every way, and as far as he could see, blessed with a sweet temper. She had a position, too, in the world that would help him rather than mar him. What might he not do with an independent seat in the House of Commons, and as joint owner of the little house in Park Lane? Of all careers which the world could offer to a man the pleasantest would then be within his reach. “You appear to me as a tempter,” he said at last to Lady Laura.
“It is unkind of you to say that, and ungrateful. I would do anything on earth in my power to help you.”
“Nevertheless you are a tempter.”
“I know how it ought to have been,” she said, in a low voice. “I know very well how it ought to have been. I should have kept myself free till that time when we met on the braes of Loughlinter, and then all would have been well with us.”
“I do not know how that might have been,” said Phineas, hoarsely.
“You do not know! But I know. Of course you have stabbed me with a thousand daggers when you have told me from time to time of your love for Violet. You have been very cruel — needlessly cruel. Men are so cruel! But for all that I have known that I could have kept you — had it not been too late when you spoke to me. Will you not own as much as that?”
“Of course you would have been everything to me. I should never have thought of Violet then.”
“That is the only kind word you have said to me from that day to this. I try to comfort myself in thinking that it would have been so. But all that is past and gone, and done. I have had my romance and you have had yours. As you are a man, it is natural that you should have been disturbed by a double image — it is not so with me.”
“And yet you can advise me to offer marriage to a woman — a woman whom I am to seek merely because she is rich?”
“Yes — I do so advise you. You have had your romance and must now put up with reality. Why should I so advise you but for the interest that I have in you? Your prosperity will do me no good. I shall not even be here to see it. I shall hear of it only as so many a woman banished out of England hears a distant misunderstood report of what is going on in the country she has left. But I still have regard enough — I will be bold, and, knowing that you will not take it amiss, will say love enough for you — to feel a desire that you should not be shipwrecked. Since we first took you in hand between us, Barrington and I, I have never swerved in my anxiety on your behalf. When I resolved that it would be better for us both that we should be only friends, I did not swerve. When you would talk to me so cruelly of your love for Violet, I did not swerve. When I warned you from Loughlinter because I thought there was danger, I did not swerve. When I bade you not to come to me in London because of my husband, I did not swerve. When my father was hard upon you, I did not swerve then. I would not leave him till he was softened. When you tried to rob Oswald of his love, and I thought you would succeed — for I did think so — I did not swerve. I have ever been true to you. And now that I must hide myself and go away, and be seen no more, I am true still.”
“Laura — dearest Laura!” he exclaimed.
“Ah, no!” she said, speaking with no touch of anger, but all in sorrow — “it must not be like that. There is no room for that. Nor do you mean it. I do not think so ill of you. But there may not be even words of affection between us — only such as I may speak to make you know that I am your friend.”
“You are my friend,” he said, stretching out his hand to her as he turned away his face. “You are my friend, indeed.”
“Then do as I would have you do.”
He put his hand into his pocket, and had the letter between his fingers with the purport of showing it to her. But at the moment the thought occurred to him that were he to do so, then, indeed, he would be bound for ever. He knew that he was bound for ever — bound for ever to his own Mary; but he desired to have the privilege of thinking over such bondage once more before he proclaimed it even to his dearest friend. He had told her that she tempted him, and she stood before him now as a temptress. But lest it might be possible that she should not tempt in vain — that letter in his pocket must never be shown to her. In that case Lady Laura must never hear from his lips the name of Mary Flood Jones.
He left her without any assured purpose — without, that is, the assurance to her of any fixed purpose. There yet wanted a week to the day on which Mr Monk’s bill was to be read — or not to be read — the second time; and he had still that interval before he need decide. He went to his club, and before he dined he strove to write a line to Mary — but when he had the paper before him he found that it was impossible to do so. Though he did not even suspect himself of an intention to be false, the idea that was in his mind made the effort too much for him. He put the paper away from him and went down and eat his dinner.
It was a Saturday, and there was no House in the evening. He had remained in Portman Square with Lady Laura till near seven o’clock, and was engaged to go out in the evening to a gathering at Mrs Gresham’s house. Everybody in London would be there, and Phineas was resolved that as long as he remained in London he would be seen at places where everybody was seen. He would certainly be at Mrs Gresham’s gathering; but there was an hour or two before he need go home to dress, and as he had nothing to do, he went down to the smoking-room of his club. The seats were crowded, but there was one vacant; and before he had looked about him to scrutinise his neighbourhood, he found that he had placed himself with Bonteen on his right hand and Ratler on his left. There were no two men in all London whom he more thoroughly disliked; but it was too late for him to avoid them now.
They instantly attacked him, first on one side and then on the other. “So I am told you are going to leave us,” said Bonteen.
“Who can have been ill-natured enough to whisper such a thing?” replied Phineas.
“The whispers are very loud, I can tell you,” said Ratler. “I think I know already pretty nearly how every man in the House will vote, and I have not got your name down on the right side.”
“Change it for heaven’s sake,” said Phineas.
“I will, if you’ll tell me seriously that I may,” said Ratler.
“My opinion is,” said Bonteen, that a man should be known either as a friend or foe. I respect a declared foe.”
“Know me as a declared foe then,” said Phineas, and respect me.”
“That’s all very well,” said Ratler, but it means nothing. I’ve always had a sort of fear about you, Finn, that you would go over the traces some day. Of course it’s a very grand thing to be independent.”
“The finest thing in the world,” said Bonteen; only so d — d useless.”
“But a man shouldn’t be independent and stick to the ship at the same time. You forget the trouble you cause, and how you upset all calculations.”
“I hadn’t thought of the calculations,” said Phineas.
“The fact is, Finn,” said Bonteen, you are made of clay too fine for office. I’ve always found it has been so with men from your country. You are the grandest horses in the world to look at out on a prairie, but you don’t like the slavery of harness.”
“And the sound of a whip over our shoulders sets us kicking — does it not, Ratler?”
“I shall show the list to Gresham tomorrow,” said Ratler, “and of course he can do as he pleases; but I don’t understand this kind of thing.”
“Don’t you be in a hurry,” said Bonteen. I’ll bet you a sovereign Finn votes with us yet. There’s nothing like being a little coy to set off a girl’s charms. I’ll bet you a sovereign, Ratler, that Finn goes out into the lobby with you and me against Monk’s bill.”
Phineas, not being able to stand any more of this most unpleasant raillery, got up and went away. The club was distasteful to him, and he walked off and sauntered for a while about the park. He went down by the Duke of York’s column as though he were going to his office, which of course was closed at this hour, but turned round when he got beyond the new public buildings — buildings which he was never destined to use in their completed state — and entered the gates of the enclosure, and wandered on over the bridge across the water. As he went his mind was full of thought. Could it be good for him to give up everything for a fair face? He swore to himself that of all women whom he had ever seen Mary was the sweetest and the dearest and the best. If it could be well to lose the world for a woman, it would be well to lose it for her. Violet, with all her skill, and all her strength, and all her grace, could never have written such a letter as that which he still held in his pocket. The best charm of a woman is that she should be soft, and trusting, and generous; and who ever had been more soft, more trusting, and more generous than his Mary? Of course he would be true to her, though he did lose the world.
But to yield such a triumph to the Ratlers and Bonteens whom he left behind him — to let them have their will over him — to know that they would rejoice scurrilously behind his back over his downfall! The feeling was terrible to him. The last words which Bonteen had spoken made it impossible to him now not to support his old friend Mr Monk. It was not only what Bonteen had said, but that the words of Mr Bonteen so plainly indicated what would be the words of all the other Bonteens. He knew that he was weak in this. He knew that had he been strong, he would have allowed himself to be guided — if not by the firm decision of his own spirit — by the counsels of such men as Mr Gresham and Lord Cantrip, and not by the sarcasms of the Bonteens and Ratlers of official life. But men who sojourn amidst savagery fear the mosquito more than they do the lion. He could not bear to think that he should yield his blood to such a one as Bonteen.
And he must yield his blood, unless he could vote for Mr Monk’s motion, and hold his ground afterwards among them all in the House of Commons. He would at any rate see the session out, and try a fall with Mr Bonteen when they should be sitting on different benches — if ever fortune should give him an opportunity. And in the meantime, what should he do about Madame Goesler? What a fate was his to have the handsomest woman in London with thousands and thousands a year at his disposal! For — so he now swore to himself — Madame Goesler was the handsomest woman in London, as Mary Flood Jones was the sweetest girl in the world.
He had not arrived at any decision so fixed as to make him comfortable when he went home and dressed for Mrs Gresham’s party. And yet he knew — he thought that he knew that he would be true to Mary Flood Jones.
The rooms and passages and staircases at Mrs Gresham’s house were very crowded when Phineas arrived there. Men of all shades of politics were there, and the wives and daughters of such men; and there was a streak of royalty in one of the saloons, and a whole rainbow of foreign ministers with their stars, and two blue ribbons were to be seen together on the first landing-place, with a stout lady between them carrying diamonds enough to load a pannier. Everybody was there. Phineas found that even Lord Chiltern was come, as he stumbled across his friend on the first foot-ground that he gained in his ascent towards the rooms. “Halloa — you here?” said Phineas. “Yes, by George!” said the other, but I am going to escape as soon as possible. I’ve been trying to make my way up for the last hour, but could never get round that huge promontory there. Laura was more persevering.” “Is Kennedy here? Phineas whispered. “I do not know,” said Chiltern, but she was determined to run the chance.”
A little higher up — for Phineas was blessed with more patience than Lord Chiltern possessed — he came upon Mr Monk. “So you are still admitted privately,” said Phineas.
“Oh dear yes — and we have just been having a most friendly conversation about you. What a man he is! He knows everything. He is so accurate; so just in the abstract — and in the abstract so generous!”
“He has been very generous to me in detail as well as in abstract,” said Phineas.
“Ah, yes; I am not thinking of individuals exactly. His want of generosity is to large masses — to a party, to classes, to a people; whereas his generosity is for mankind at large. He assumes the god, affects to nod, and seems to shake the spheres. But I have nothing against him. He has asked me here tonight, and has talked to me most familiarly about Ireland.”
“What do you think of your chance of a second reading?” asked Phineas.
“What do you think of it? — you hear more of those things than I do.”
“Everybody says it will be a close division.”
“I never expected it,” said Mr Monk.
“Nor I, till I heard what Daubeny said at the first reading. They will all vote for the bill en masse — hating it in their hearts all the time.”
“Let us hope they are not so bad as that.”
“It is the way with them always. They do all our work for us — sailing either on one tack or the other. That is their use in creation, that when we split among ourselves, as we always do, they come in and finish our job for us. It must be unpleasant for them to be always doing that which they always say should never be done at all.”
“Wherever the gift horse may come from, I shall not look it in the mouth,” said Mr Monk. “There is only one man in the House whom I hope I may not see in the lobby with me, and that is yourself.”
“The question is decided now,” said Phineas.
“And how is it decided?”
Phineas could not tell his friend that a question of so great magnitude to him had been decided by the last sting which he had received from an insect so contemptible as Mr Bonteen, but he expressed the feeling as well as he knew how to express it. “Oh, I shall be with you. I know what you are going to say, and I know how good you are. But I could not stand it. Men are beginning already to say things which almost make me get up and kick them. If I can help it, I will give occasion to no man to hint anything to me which can make me be so wretched as I have been today. Pray do not say anything more. My idea is that I shall resign tomorrow.”
“Then I hope that we may fight the battle side by side,” said Mr Monk, giving him his hand.
“We will fight the battle side by side,” replied Phineas.
After that he pushed his way still higher up the stairs, having no special purpose in view, not dreaming of any such success as that of reaching his host or hostess — merely feeling that it should be a point of honour with him to make a tour through the rooms before he descended the stairs. The thing, he thought, was to be done with courage and patience, and this might, probably, be the last time in his life that he would find himself in the house of a Prime Minister. Just at the turn of the balustrade at the top of the stairs, he found Mr Gresham in the very spot on which Mr Monk had been talking with him. “Very glad to see you,” said Mr Gresham, You, I find, are a persevering man, with a genius for getting upwards.”
“Like the sparks,” said Phineas.
“Not quite so quickly,” said Mr Gresham.
“But with the same assurance of speedy loss of my little light.”
It did not suit Mr Gresham to understand this, so he changed the subject. “Have you seen the news from America?”
“Yes, I have seen it, but do not believe it,” said Phineas.
“Ah, you have such faith in a combination of British colonies, properly backed in Downing Street, as to think them strong against a world in arms. In your place I should hold to the same doctrine — hold to it stoutly.”
“And you do now, I hope, Mr Gresham?”
“Well — yes — I am not downhearted. But I confess to a feeling that the world would go on even though we had nothing to say to a single province in North America. But that is for your private ear. You are not to whisper that in Downing Street.” Then there came up somebody else, and Phineas went on upon his slow course. He had longed for an opportunity to tell Mr Gresham that he could go to Downing Street no more, but such opportunity had not reached him.
For a long time he found himself stuck close by the side of Miss Fitzgibbon — Miss Aspasia Fitzgibbon — who had once relieved him from terrible pecuniary anxiety by paying for him a sum of money which was due by him on her brother’s account. “It’s a very nice thing to be here, but one does get tired of it,” said Miss Fitzgibbon.
“Very tired,” said Phineas.
“Of course it is a part of your duty, Mr Finn. You are on your promotion and are bound to be here. When I asked Laurence to come, he said there was nothing to be got till the cards were shuffled again.”
“They’ll be shuffled very soon,” said Phineas.
“Whatever colour comes up, you’ll hold trumps, I know,” said the lady. “Some hands always hold trumps.” He could not explain to Miss Fitzgibbon that it would never again be his fate to hold a single trump in his hand; so he made another fight, and got on a few steps farther.
He said a word as he went to half a dozen friends — as friends went with him. He was detained for five minutes by Lady Baldock, who was very gracious and very disagreeable. She told him that Violet was in the room, but where she did not know. “She is somewhere with Lady Laura, I believe; and really, Mr Finn, I do not like it.” Lady Baldock had heard that Phineas had quarrelled with Lord Brentford, but had not heard of the reconciliation. “Really, I do not like it. I am told that Mr Kennedy is in the house, and nobody knows what may happen.”
“Mr Kennedy is not likely to say anything.”
“One cannot tell. And when I hear that a woman is separated from her husband, I always think that she must have been imprudent. It may be uncharitable, but I think it is most safe so to consider.”
“As far as I have heard the circumstances, Lady Laura was quite right,” said Phineas.
“It may be so. Gentlemen will always take the lady’s part — of course. But I should be very sorry to have a daughter separated from her husband — very sorry.”
Phineas, who had nothing now to gain from Lady Baldock’s favour, left her abruptly, and went on again. He had a great desire to see Lady Laura and Violet together, though he could hardly tell himself why. He had not seen Miss Effingham since his return from Ireland, and he thought that if he met her alone he could hardly have talked to her with comfort; but he knew that if he met her with Lady Laura, she would greet him as a friend, and speak to him as though there were no cause for embarrassment between them. But he was so far disappointed, that he suddenly encountered Violet alone. She had been leaning on the arm of Lord Baldock, and Phineas saw her cousin leave her. But he would not be such a coward as to avoid her, especially as he knew that she had seen him, “Oh, Mr Finn!” she said, do you see that?”
“See what?”
“Look. There is Mr Kennedy. We had heard that it was possible, and Laura made me promise that I would not leave her.” Phineas turned his head, and saw Mr Kennedy standing with his back bolt upright against a door-post, with his brow as black as thunder. “She is just opposite to him, where he can see her,” said Violet. “Pray take me to her. He will think nothing of you, because I know that you are still friends with both of them. I came away because Lord Baldock wanted to introduce me to Lady Mouser. You know he is going to marry Miss Mouser.”
Phineas, not caring much about Lord Baldock and Miss Mouser, took Violet’s hand upon his arm, and very slowly made his way across the room to the spot indicated. There they found Lady Laura alone, sitting under the upas-tree influence of her husband’s gaze. There was a concourse of people between them, and Mr Kennedy did not seem inclined to make any attempt to lessen the distance. But Lady Laura had found it impossible to move while she was under her husband’s eyes.
“Mr Finn,” she said, could you find Oswald? I know he is here.”
“He has gone,” said Phineas. I was speaking to him downstairs.”
“You have not seen my father? He said he would come.”
“I have not seen him, but I will search.”
“No — it will do no good. I cannot stay. His carriage is there, I know — waiting for me.” Phineas immediately started off to have the carriage called, and promised to return with as much celerity as he could use. As he went, making his way much quicker through the crowd than he had done when he had no such object for haste, he purposely avoided the door by which Mr Kennedy had stood. It would have been his nearest way, but his present service, he thought, required that he should keep aloof from the man. But Mr Kennedy passed through the door and intercepted him in his path.
“Is she going?” he asked.
“Well. Yes. I dare say she may before long. I shall look for Lord Brentford’s carriage by and by.”
“Tell her she need not go because of me. I shall not return. I shall not annoy her here. It would have been much better that a woman in such a plight should not have come to such an assembly.”
“You would not wish her to shut herself up.”
“I would wish her to come back to the home that she has left, and, if there be any law in the land, she shall be made to do so. You tell her that I say so.” Then Mr Kennedy fought his way down the stairs, and Phineas Finn followed in his wake.
About half an hour afterwards Phineas returned to the two ladies with tidings that the carriage would be at hand as soon as they could be below. “Did he see you?” said Lady Laura.
“Yes, he followed me.”
“And did he speak to you?”
“Yes — he spoke to me.”
“And what did he say?” And then, in the presence of Violet, Phineas gave the message. He thought it better that it should be given; and were he to decline to deliver it now, it would never be given. “Whether there be law in the land to protect me or whether there be none, I will never live with him,” said Lady Laura. “Is a woman like a head of cattle, that she can be fastened in her crib by force? I will never live with him though all the judges of the land should decide that I must do so.”
Phineas thought much of all this as he went to his solitary lodgings. After all, was not the world much better with him than it was with either of those two wretched married beings? And why? He had not, at any rate as yet, sacrificed for money or social gains any of the instincts of his nature. He had been fickle, foolish, vain, uncertain, and perhaps covetous — but as yet he had not been false. Then he took out Mary’s last letter and read it again.