It would, perhaps, be difficult to decide — between Lord Chiltern and Miss Effingham — which had been most wrong, or which had been nearest to the right, in the circumstances which had led to their separation. The old lord, wishing to induce his son to undertake work of some sort, and feeling that his own efforts in this direction were worse than useless, had closeted himself with his intended daughter-in-law, and had obtained from her a promise that she would use her influence with her lover. “Of course I think it right that he should do something,” Violet had said. “And he will if you bid him,” replied the Earl. Violet expressed a great doubt as to this willingness of obedience; but, nevertheless, she promised to do her best, and she did her best. Lord Chiltern, when she spoke to him, knit his brows with an apparent ferocity of anger which his countenance frequently expressed without any intention of ferocity on his part. He was annoyed, but was not savagely disposed to Violet. As he looked at her, however, he seemed to be very savagely disposed. “What is it you would have me do?” he said.
“I would have you choose some occupation, Oswald.”
“What occupation? What is it that you mean? Ought I to be a shoemaker?”
“Not that by preference, I should say; but that if you please.” When her lover had frowned at her, Violet had resolved — had strongly determined, with inward assertions of her own rights — that she would not be frightened by him.
“You are talking nonsense, Violet. You know that I cannot be a shoemaker.”
“You may go into Parliament.”
“I neither can, nor would I if I could. I dislike the life.”
“You might farm.”
“I cannot afford it.”
“You might — might do anything. You ought to do something. You know that you ought. You know that your father is right in what he says.”
“That is easily asserted, Violet; but it would, I think, be better that you should take my part than my father’s, if it be that you intend to be my wife.”
“You know that I intend to be your wife; but would you wish that I should respect my husband?”
“And will you not do so if you marry me?” he asked.
Then Violet looked into his face and saw that the frown was blacker than ever. The great mark down his forehead was deeper and more like an ugly wound than she had ever seen it; and his eyes sparkled with anger; and his face was red as with fiery wrath. If it was so with him when she was no more than engaged to him, how would it be when they should be man and wife? At any rate, she would not fear him — not now at least. “No, Oswald,” she said. If you resolve upon being an idle man, I shall not respect you. It is better that I should tell you the truth.”
“A great deal better,” he said.
“How can I respect one whose whole life will be — will be —?”
“Will be what?” he demanded with a loud shout.
“Oswald, you are very rough with me.”
“What do you say that my life will be?”
Then she again resolved that she would not fear him. “It will be discreditable,” she said.
“It shall not discredit you,” he replied. I will not bring disgrace on one I have loved so well. Violet, after what you have said, we had better part.” She was still proud, still determined, and they did part. Though it nearly broke her heart to see him leave her, she bid him go. She hated herself afterwards for her severity to him; but, nevertheless, she would not submit to recall the words which she had spoken. She had thought him to be wrong, and, so thinking, had conceived it to be her duty and her privilege to tell him what she thought. But she had no wish to lose him — no wish not to be his wife even, though he should be as idle as the wind. She was so constituted that she had never allowed him or any other man to be master of her heart — till she had with a full purpose given her heart away. The day before she had resolved to give it to one man, she might, I think, have resolved to give it to another. Love had not conquered her, but had been taken into her service. Nevertheless, she could not now rid herself of her servant, when she found that his services would stand her no longer in good stead. She parted from Lord Chiltern with an assent, with an assured brow, and with much dignity in her gait; but as soon as she was alone she was a prey to remorse. She had declared to the man who was to have been her husband that his life was discreditable — and, of course, no man would bear such language. Had Lord Chiltern borne it, he would not have been worthy of her love.
She herself told Lady Laura and Lord Brentford what had occurred — and had told Lady Baldock also. Lady Baldock had, of course, triumphed — and Violet sought her revenge by swearing that she would regret for ever the loss of so inestimable a gentleman. “Then why have you given him up, my dear?” demanded Lady Baldock. “Because I found that he was too good for me,” said Violet. It may be doubtful whether Lady Baldock was not justified, when she declared that her niece was to her a care so harassing that no aunt known in history had ever been so troubled before.
Lord Brentford had fussed and fumed, and had certainly made things worse. He had quarrelled with his son, and then made it up, and then quarrelled again — swearing that the fault must all be attributed to Chiltern’s stubbornness and Chiltern’s temper. Latterly, however, by Lady Laura’s intervention, Lord Brentford and his son had again been reconciled, and the Earl endeavoured manfully to keep his tongue from disagreeable words, and his face from evil looks, when his son was present. “They will make it up,” Lady Laura had said, “if you and I do not attempt to make it up for them. If we do, they will never come together.” The Earl was convinced, and did his best. But the task was very difficult to him. How was he to keep his tongue off his son while his son was daily saying things of which any father — any such father as Lord Brentford — could not but disapprove? Lord Chiltern professed to disbelieve even in the wisdom of the House of Lords, and on one occasion asserted that it must be a great comfort to any Prime Minister to have three or four old women in the Cabinet. The father, when he heard this, tried to rebuke his son tenderly, strove even to be jocose. It was the one wish of his heart that Violet Effingham should be his daughter-in-law. But even with this wish he found it very hard to keep his tongue off Lord Chiltern.
When Lady Laura discussed the matter with Violet, Violet would always declare that there was no hope. “The truth is,” she said on the morning of that day on which they both went to Mrs Gresham’s, “that though we like each other — love each other, if you choose to say so — we are not fit to be man and wife.”
“And why not fit?”
“We are too much alike. Each is too violent, too headstrong, and too masterful.”
“You, as the woman, ought to give way,” said Lady Laura.
“But we do not always do just what we ought.”
“I know how difficult it is for me to advise, seeing to what a pass I have brought myself.”
“Do not say that, dear — or rather do say it, for we have, both of us, brought ourselves to what you call a pass — to such a pass that we are like to be able to live together and discuss it for the rest of our lives. The difference is, I take it, that you have not to accuse yourself and that I have.”
“I cannot say that I have not to accuse myself,” said Lady Laura. “I do not know that I have done much wrong to Mr Kennedy since I married him; but in marrying him I did him a grievous wrong.”
“And he has avenged himself.”
“We will not talk of vengeance. I believe he is wretched, and I know that I am — and that has come of the wrong that I have done.”
“I will make no man wretched,” said Violet.
“Do you mean that your mind is made up against Oswald?”
“I mean that, and I mean much more. I say that I will make no man wretched. Your brother is not the only man who is so weak as to be willing to run the hazard.”
“There is Lord Fawn.”
“Yes, there is Lord Fawn, certainly. Perhaps I should not do him much harm; but then I should do him no good.”
“And poor Phineas Finn.”
“Yes — there is Mr Finn. I will tell you something, Laura. The only man I ever saw in the world whom I have thought for a moment that it was possible that I should like — like enough to love as my husband — except your brother, was Mr Finn.”
“And now?”
“Oh: now; of course that is over,” said Violet.
“It is over?”
“Quite over. Is he not going to marry Madame Goesler? I suppose all that is fixed by this time. I hope she will be good to him, and gracious, and let him have his own way, and give him his tea comfortably when he comes up tired from the House; for I confess that my heart is a little tender towards Phineas still. I should not like to think that he had fallen into the hands of a female Philistine.”
“I do not think he will marry Madame Goesler.”
“Why not?”
“I can hardly tell you — but I do not think he will. And you loved him once — eh, Violet?”
“Not quite that, my dear. It has been difficult with me to love. The difficulty with most girls, I fancy, is not to love. Mr Finn, when I came to measure him in my mind, was not small, but he was never quite tall enough. One feels oneself to be a sort of recruiting sergeant, going about with a standard of inches. Mr Finn was just half an inch too short. He lacks something in individuality. He is a little too much a friend to everybody.”
“Shall I tell you a secret, Violet?”
“If you please, dear; though I fancy it is one I know already.”
“He is the only man whom I ever loved,” said Lady Laura.
“But it was too late when you learned to love him,” said Violet.
“It was too late, when I was so sure of it as to wish that I had never seen Mr Kennedy. I felt it coming on me, and I argued with myself that such a marriage would be bad for us both. At that moment there was trouble in the family, and I had not a shilling of my own.”
“You had paid it for Oswald.”
“At any rate, I had nothing — and he had nothing. How could I have dared to think even of such a marriage?”
“Did he think of it, Laura?”
“I suppose he did.”
“You know he did. Did you not tell me before?”
“Well — yes. He thought of it. I had come to some foolish, half-sentimental resolution as to friendship, believing that he and I could be knit together by some adhesion of fraternal affection that should be void of offence to my husband; and in furtherance of this he was asked to Loughlinter when I went there, just after I had accepted Robert. He came down, and I measured him too, as you have done. I measured him, and I found that he wanted nothing to come up to the height required by my standard, I think I knew him better than you did.”
“Very possibly — but why measure him at all, when such measurement was useless?”
“Can one help such things? He came to me one day as I was sitting up by the Linter. You remember the place, where it makes its first leap.”
“I remember it very well.”
“So do I. Robert had shown it me as the fairest spot in all Scotland.”
“And there this lover of ours sang his song to you?”
“I do not know what he told me then; but I know that I told him that I was engaged; and I felt when I told him so that my engagement was a sorrow to me. And it has been a sorrow from that day to this.”
“And the hero, Phineas — he is still dear to you?”
“Dear to me?”
“Yes. You would have hated me, had he become my husband? And you will hate Madame Goesler when she becomes his wife?”
“Not in the least. I am no dog in the manger. I have even gone so far as almost to wish, at certain moments, that you should accept him.”
“And why?”
“Because he has wished it so heartily.”
“One can hardly forgive a man for such speedy changes,” said Violet.
“Was I not to forgive him — I, who had turned myself away from him with a fixed purpose the moment that I found that he had made a mark upon my heart? I could not wipe off the mark, and yet I married. Was he not to try to wipe off his mark?”
“It seems that he wiped it off very quickly — and since that he has wiped off another mark. One doesn’t know how many marks he has wiped off. They are like the innkeeper’s score which he makes in chalk. A damp cloth brings them all away, and leaves nothing behind.”
“What would you have?”
“There should be a little notch on the stick — to remember by,” said Violet. “Not that I complain, you know. I cannot complain, as I was not notched myself.”
“You are silly, Violet.”
“In not having allowed myself to be notched by this great champion?”
“A man like Mr Finn has his life to deal with — to make the most of it, and to divide it between work, pleasure, duty, ambition, and the rest of it as best he may. If he have any softness of heart, it will be necessary to him that love should bear a part in all these interests. But a man will be a fool who will allow love to be the master of them all. He will be one whose mind is so ill-balanced as to allow him to be the victim of a single wish. Even in a woman passion such as that is evidence of weakness, and not of strength.”
“It seems, then, Laura, that you are weak.”
“And if I am, does that condemn him? He is a man, if I judge him rightly, who will be constant as the sun, when constancy can be of service.”
“You mean that the future Mrs Finn will be secure?”
“That is what I mean — and that you or I, had either of us chosen to take his name, might have been quite secure. We have thought it right to refuse to do so.”
“And how many more, I wonder?”
“You are unjust, and unkind, Violet. So unjust and unkind that it is clear to me he has just gratified your vanity, and has never touched your heart. What would you have had him do, when I told him that I was engaged?”
“I suppose that Mr Kennedy would not have gone to Blankenberg with him.”
“Violet!”
“That seems to be the proper thing to do. But even that does not adjust things finally — does it?” Then someone came upon them, and the conversation was brought to an end.
When Phineas Finn left Mr Gresham’s house he had quite resolved what he would do. On the next morning he would tell Lord Cantrip that his resignation was a necessity, and that he would take that nobleman’s advice as to resigning at once, or waiting till the day on which Mr Monk’s Irish Bill would be read for the second time.
“My dear Finn, I can only say that I deeply regret it,” said Lord Cantrip.
“So do I. I regret to leave office, which I like — and which indeed I want. I regret specially to leave this office, as it has been a thorough pleasure to me; and I regret, above all, to leave you. But I am convinced that Monk is right, and I find it impossible not to support him.”
“I wish that Mr Monk was at Bath,” said Lord Cantrip.
Phineas could only smile, and shrug his shoulders, and say that even though Mr Monk were at Bath it would not probably make much difference. When he tendered his letter of resignation, Lord Cantrip begged him to withdraw it for a day or two. He would, he said, speak to Mr Gresham. The debate on the second reading of Mr Monk’s bill would not take place till that day week, and the resignation would be in time if it was tendered before Phineas either spoke or voted against the Government. So Phineas went back to his room, and endeavoured to make himself useful in some work appertaining to his favourite Colonies.
That conversation had taken place on a Friday, and on the following Sunday, early in the day, he left his rooms after a late breakfast — a prolonged breakfast, during which he had been studying tenant-right statistics, preparing his own speech, and endeavouring to look forward into the future which that speech was to do so much to influence — and turned his face towards Park Lane. There had been a certain understanding between him and Madame Goesler that he was to call in Park Lane on this Sunday morning, and then declare to her what was his final resolve as to the office which he held. “It is simply to bid her adieu,” he said to himself, “for I shall hardly see her again.” And yet, as he took off his morning easy coat, and dressed himself for the streets, and stood for a moment before his looking-glass, and saw that his gloves were fresh and that his boots were properly polished, I think there was a care about his person which he would have hardly taken had he been quite assured that he simply intended to say goodbye to the lady whom he was about to visit. But if there were any such conscious feeling, he administered to himself an antidote before he left the house. On returning to the sitting-room he went to a little desk from which he took out the letter from Mary which the reader has seen, and carefully perused every word of it. “She is the best of them all,” he said to himself, as he refolded the letter and put it back into his desk. I am not sure that it is well that a man should have any large number from whom to select a best; as, in such circumstances, he is so very apt to change his judgment from hour to hour. The qualities which are the most attractive before dinner sometimes become the least so in the evening.
The morning was warm, and he took a cab. It would not do that he should speak even his last farewell to such a one as Madame Goesler with all the heat and dust of a long walk upon him. Having been so careful about his boots and gloves he might as well use his care to the end. Madame Goesler was a very pretty woman, who spared herself no trouble in making herself as pretty as Nature would allow, on behalf of those whom she favoured with her smiles; and to such a lady some special attention was due by one who had received so many of her smiles as had Phineas. And he felt, too, that there was something special in this very visit. It was to be made by appointment, and there had come to be an understanding between them that Phineas should tell her on this occasion what was his resolution with reference to his future life. I think that he had been very wise in fortifying himself with a further glance at our dear Mary’s letter, before he trusted himself within Madame Goesler’s door.
Yes — Madame Goesler was at home. The door was opened by Madame Goesler’s own maid, who, smiling, explained that the other servants were all at church. Phineas had become sufficiently intimate at the cottage in Park Lane to be on friendly terms with Madame Goesler’s own maid, and now made some little half-familiar remark as to the propriety of his visit during church time. “Madame will not refuse to see you, I am thinking,” said the girl, who was a German. “And she is alone?” asked Phineas. Alone? Yes — of course she is alone. Who should be with her now?” Then she took him up into the drawing-room; but, when there, he found that Madame Goesler was absent, “She shall be down directly,” said the girl. “I shall tell her who is here, and she will come.”
It was a very pretty room. It may almost be said that there could be no prettier room in all London. It looked out across certain small private gardens — which were as bright and gay as money could make them when brought into competition with London smoke — right on to the park. Outside and inside the window, flowers and green things were so arranged that the room itself almost looked as though it were a bower in a garden. And everything in that bower was rich and rare; and there was nothing there which annoyed by its rarity or was distasteful by its richness. The seats, though they were costly as money could buy, were meant for sitting, and were comfortable as seats. There were books for reading, and the means of reading them. Two or three gems of English art were hung upon the walls, and could be seen backwards and forwards in the mirrors. And there were precious toys lying here and there about the room — toys very precious, but placed there not because of their price, but because of their beauty. Phineas already knew enough of the art of living to be aware that the woman who had made that room what it was had charms to add a beauty to everything she touched. What would such a life as his want, if graced by such a companion — such a life as his might be, if the means which were hers were at his command? It would want one thing, he thought — the self-respect which he would lose if he were false to the girl who was trusting him with such sweet trust at home in Ireland.
In a very few minutes Madame Goesler was with him, and, though he did not think about it, he perceived that she was bright in her apparel, that her hair was as soft as care could make it, and that every charm belonging to her had been brought into use for his gratification. He almost told himself that he was there in order that he might ask to have all those charms bestowed upon himself. He did not know who had lately come to Park Lane and been a suppliant for the possession of those rich endowments; but I wonder whether they would have been more precious in his eyes had he known that they had so moved the heart of the great Duke as to have induced him to lay his coronet at the lady’s feet. I think that had he known that the lady had refused the coronet, that knowledge would have enhanced the value of the prize.
“I am so sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said, as she gave him her hand. “I was an owl not to be ready for you when you told me that you would come.”
“No — but a bird of paradise to come to me so sweetly, and at an hour when all the other birds refuse to show the feather of a single wing.”
“And you — you feel like a naughty boy, do you not, in thus coming out on a Sunday morning?”
“Do you feel like a naughty girl?”
“Yes — just a little so. I do not know that I should care for everybody to hear that I received visitors — or worse still, a visitor — at this hour on this day. But then it is so pleasant to feel oneself to be naughty! There is a Bohemian flavour of picnic about it which, though it does not come up to the rich gusto of real wickedness, makes one fancy that one is on the border of that delightful region in which there is none of the constraint of custom — where men and women say what they like, and do what they like.”
“It is pleasant enough to be on the borders,” said Phineas.
“That is just it. Of course decency, morality, and propriety, all made to suit the eye of the public; are the things which are really delightful. We all know that, and live accordingly — as well as we can. I do at least.”
“And do not I, Madame Goesler?”
“I know nothing about that, Mr Finn, and want to ask no questions. But if you do, I am sure you agree with me that you often envy the improper people — the Bohemians — the people who don’t trouble themselves about keeping any laws except those for breaking which they would be put into nasty, unpleasant prisons. I envy them. Oh, how I envy them!”
“But you are free as air.”
“The most cabined, cribbed, and confined creature in the world! I have been fighting my way up for the last four years, and have not allowed myself the liberty of one flirtation — not often even the recreation of a natural laugh. And now I shouldn’t wonder if I don’t find myself falling back a year or two, just because I have allowed you to come and see me on a Sunday morning. When I told Lotta that you were coming, she shook her head at me in dismay. But now that you are here, tell me what you have done.”
“Nothing as yet, Madame Goesler.”
“I thought it was to have been settled on Friday?”
“It was settled — before Friday. Indeed, as I look back at it all now, I can hardly tell when it was not settled. It is impossible, and has been impossible, that I should do otherwise. I still hold my place, Madame Goesler, but I have declared that I shall give it up before the debate comes on.”
“It is quite fixed?”
“Quite fixed, my friend.”
“And what next?” Madame Goesler, as she thus interrogated him, was leaning across towards him from the sofa on which she was placed, with both her elbows resting on a small table before her. We all know that look of true interest which the countenance of a real friend will bear when the welfare of his friend is in question. There are doubtless some who can assume it without feeling — as there are actors who can personate all the passions. But in ordinary life we think that we can trust such a face, and that we know the true look when we see it. Phineas, as he gazed into Madame Goesler’s eyes, was sure that the lady opposite him was not acting. She at least was anxious for his welfare, and was making his cares her own. “What next?” said she, repeating her words in a tone that was somewhat hurried.
“I do not know that there will be any next. As far as public life is concerned, there will be no next for me, Madame Goesler.”
“That is out of the question,” she said. You are made for public life.”
“Then I shall be untrue to my making, I fear. But to speak plainly — “
“Yes; speak plainly. I want to understand the reality.”
“The reality is this. I shall keep my seat to the end of the session, as I think I may be of use. After that I shall give it up.”
“Resign that too?” she said in a tone of chagrin.
“The chances are, I think, that there will be another dissolution. If they hold their own against Mr Monk’s motion, then they will pass an Irish Reform Bill. After that I think they must dissolve.”
“And you will not come forward again?”
“I cannot afford it.”
“Psha! Some five hundred pounds or so!”
“And, besides that, I am well aware that my only chance at my old profession is to give up all idea of Parliament. The two things are not compatible for a beginner at the law. I know it now, and have bought my knowledge by a bitter experience.”
“And where will you live?”
“In Dublin, probably.”
“And you will do — will do what?”
“Anything honest in a barrister’s way that may be brought to me. I hope that I may never descend below that.”
“You will stand up for all the blackguards, and try to make out that the thieves did not steal?”
“It may be that that sort of work may come in my way.”
“And you will wear a wig and try to look wise?”
“The wig is not universal in Ireland, Madame Goesler.”
“And you will wrangle, as though your very soul were in it, for somebody’s twenty pounds?”
“Exactly.”
“You have already made a name in the greatest senate in the world, and have governed other countries larger than your own — ”
“No — I have not done that. I have governed no country.
“I tell you, my friend, that you cannot do it. It is out of the question. Men may move forward from little work to big work; but they cannot move back and do little work, when they have had tasks which were really great. I tell you, Mr Finn, that the House of Parliament is the place for you to work in. It is the only place — that and the abodes of Ministers. Am not I your friend who tell you this?”
“I know that you are my friend.”
“And will you not credit me when I tell you this? What do you fear, that you should run away? You have no wife — no children. What is the coming misfortune that you dread?” She paused a moment as though for an answer, and he felt that now had come the time in which it would be well that he should tell her of his engagement with his own Mary. She had received him very playfully; but now within the last few minutes there had come upon her a seriousness of gesture, and almost a solemnity of tone, which made him conscious that he should in no way trifle with her. She was so earnest in her friendship that he owed it to her to tell her everything. But before he could think of the words in which his tale should be told, she had gone on with her quick questions. “Is it solely about money that you fear?” she said.
“It is simply that I have no income on which to live.”
“Have I not offered you money?”
“But, Madame Goesler, you who offer it would yourself despise me if I took it.”
“No — I do deny it.” As she said this — not loudly but with much asis — she came and stood before him where he was sitting. And as he looked at her he could perceive that there was a strength about her of which he had not been aware. She was stronger, larger, more robust physically than he had hitherto conceived. “I do deny it,” she said. “Money is neither god nor devil, that it should make one noble and another vile, It is an accident, and, if honestly possessed, may pass from you to me, or from me to you, without a stain. You may take my dinner from me if I give it you, my flowers, my friendship, my — my — my everything, but my money! Explain to me the cause of the phenomenon. If I give to you a thousand pounds, now this moment, and you take it, you are base — but if I leave it you in my will — and die — you take it, and are not base. Explain to me the cause of that.”
“You have not said it quite all,” said Phineas hoarsely.
“What have I left unsaid? If I have left anything unsaid, do you say the rest.”
“It is because you are a woman, and young, and beautiful, that no man may take wealth from your hands.”
“Oh, it is that!”
“It is that partly.”
“If I were a man you might take it, though I were young and beautiful as the morning?”
“No — presents of money are always bad. They stain and load the spirit, and break the heart.”
“And specially when given by a woman’s hand?”
“It seems so to me. But I cannot argue of it. Do not let us talk of it any more.”
“Nor can I argue. I cannot argue, but I can be generous — very generous. I can deny myself for my friend — can even lower myself in my own esteem for my friend. I can do more than a man can do for a friend. You will not take money from my hand?”
“No, Madame Goesler — I cannot do that.”
“Take the hand then first. When it and all that it holds are your own, you can help yourself as you list.” So saying, she stood before him with her right hand stretched out towards him.
What man will say that he would not have been tempted? Or what woman will declare that such temptation should have had no force? The very air of the room in which she dwelt was sweet in his nostrils, and there hovered around her a halo of grace and beauty which greeted all his senses. She invited him to join his lot to hers, in order that she might give to him all that was needed to make his life rich and glorious. How would the Ratlers and the Bonteens envy him when they heard of the prize which had become his! The Cantrips and the Greshams would feel that he was a friend doubly valuable, if he could be won back; and Mr Monk would greet him as a fitting ally — an ally strong with the strength which he had before wanted. With whom would he not be equal? Whom need he fear? Who would not praise him? The story of his poor Mary would be known only in a small village, out beyond the Channel. The temptation certainly was very strong.
But he had not a moment in which to doubt. She was standing there with her face turned from him, but with her hand still stretched towards him. Of course he took it. What man so placed could do other than take a woman’s hand?
“My friend,” he said.
“I will be called friend by you no more,” she said. “You must call me Marie, your own Marie, or you must never call me by any name again. Which shall it be, sir?” He paused a moment, holding her hand, and she let it lie there for an instant while she listened. But still she did not look at him, “Speak to me! Tell me! Which shall it be?” Still he paused. “Speak to me. Tell me!” she said again.
“It cannot be as you have hinted to me,” he said at last. His words did not come louder than a low whisper; but they were plainly heard, and instantly the hand was withdrawn.
“Cannot be!” she exclaimed. Then I have betrayed myself.”
“No — Madame Goesler.”
“Sir; I say yes! If you will allow me I will leave you. You will, I know, excuse me if I am abrupt to you.” Then she strode out of the room, and was no more seen of the eyes of Phineas Finn.
He never afterwards knew how he escaped out of that room and found his way into Park Lane. In after days he had some memory that he remained there, he knew not how long, standing on the very spot on which she had left him; and that at last there grew upon him almost a fear of moving, a dread lest he should be heard, an inordinate desire to escape without the sound of a footfall, without the clicking of a lock. Everything in that house had been offered to him. He had refused it all, and then felt that of all human beings under the sun none had so little right to be standing there as he. His very presence in that drawing-room was an insult to the woman whom he had driven from it.
But at length he was in the street, and had found his way across Piccadilly into the Green Park. Then, as soon as he could find a spot apart from the Sunday world, he threw himself upon the turf, and tried to fix his thoughts upon the thing that he had done. His first feeling, I think, was one of pure and unmixed disappointment — of disappointment so bitter, that even the vision of his own Mary did not tend to comfort him. How great might have been his success, and how terrible was his failure! Had he taken the woman’s hand and her money, had he clenched his grasp on the great prize offered to him, his misery would have been ten times worse the first moment that he would have been away from her. Then, indeed — it being so that he was a man with a heart within his breast — there would have been no comfort for him, in his outlooks on any side. But even now, when he had done right — knowing well that he had done right — he found that comfort did not come readily within his reach.
Miss Effingham’s life at this time was not the happiest in the world. Her lines, as she once said to her friend Lady Laura, were not laid for her in pleasant places. Her residence was still with her aunt, and she had come to find that it was almost impossible any longer to endure Lady Baldock, and quite impossible to escape from Lady Baldock. In former days she had had a dream that she might escape, and live alone if she chose to be alone; that she might be independent in her life, as a man is independent, if she chose to live after that fashion; that she might take her own fortune in her own hand, as the law certainly allowed her to do, and act with it as she might please. But latterly she had learned to understand that all this was not possible for her. Though one law allowed it, another law disallowed it, and the latter law was at least as powerful as the former. And then her present misery was enhanced by the fact that she was now banished from the second home which she had formerly possessed. Hitherto she had always been able to escape from Lady Baldock to the house of her friend, but now such escape was out of the question. Lady Laura and Lord Chiltern lived in the same house, and Violet could not live with them.
Lady Baldock understood all this, and tortured her niece accordingly. It was not premeditated torture. The aunt did not mean to make her niece’s life a burden to her, and, so intending, systematically work upon a principle to that effect, Lady Baldock, no doubt, desired to do her duty conscientiously. But the result was torture to poor Violet, and a strong conviction on the mind of each of the two ladies that the other was the most unreasonable being in the world.
The aunt, in these days, had taken it into her head to talk of poor Lord Chiltern. This arose partly from a belief that the quarrel was final, and that, therefore, there would be no danger in aggravating Violet by this expression of pity — partly from a feeling that it would be better that her niece should marry Lord Chiltern than that she should not marry at all — and partly, perhaps, from the general principle that, as she thought it right to scold her niece on all occasions, this might be best done by taking an opposite view of all questions to that taken by the niece to be scolded. Violet was supposed to regard Lord Chiltern as having sinned against her, and therefore Lady Baldock talked of “poor Lord Chiltern.” As to the other lovers, she had begun to perceive that their conditions were hopeless. Her daughter Augusta had explained to her that there was no chance remaining either for Phineas, or for Lord Fawn, or for Mr Appledom. “I believe she will be an old maid, on purpose to bring me to my grave,” said Lady Baldock. When, therefore, Lady Baldock was told one day that Lord Chiltern was in the house, and was asking to see Miss Effingham, she did not at once faint away, and declare that they would all be murdered — as she would have done some months since. She was perplexed by a double duty. If it were possible that Violet should relent and be reconciled, then it would be her duty to save Violet from the claws of the wild beast. But if there was no such chance, then it would be her duty to poor Lord Chiltern to see that he was not treated with contumely and ill-humour.
“Does she know that he is here?” Lady Baldock asked her daughter.
“Not yet, mamma.”
“Oh dear, oh dear! I suppose she ought to see him. She has given him so much encouragement!”
“I suppose she will do as she pleases, mamma.”
“Augusta, how can you talk in that way? Am I to have no control in my own house?” It was, however, soon apparent to her that in this matter she was to have no control.
“Lord Chiltern is downstairs,” said Violet, coming into the room abruptly.
“So Augusta tells me. Sit down, my dear.”
“I cannot sit down, aunt — not just now. I have sent down to say that I would be with him in a minute. He is the most impatient soul alive, and I must not keep him waiting.”
“And you mean to see him?”
“Certainly I shall see him,” said Violet, as she left the room.
“I wonder that any woman should ever take upon herself the charge of a niece!” said Lady Baldock to her daughter in a despondent tone, as she held up her hands in dismay. In the meantime, Violet had gone downstairs with a quick step, and had then boldly entered the room in which her lover was waiting to receive her.
“I have to thank you for coming to me, Violet,” said Lord Chiltern. There was still in his face something of savagery — an expression partly of anger and partly of resolution to tame the thing with which he was angry. Violet did not regard the anger half so keenly as she did that resolution of taming. An angry lord, she thought, she could endure, but she could not bear the idea of being tamed by anyone.
“Why should I not come?” she said. Of course I came when I was told that you were here. I do not think that there need be a quarrel between us, because we have changed our minds.”
“Such changes make quarrels,” said he.
“It shall not do so with me, unless you choose that it shall,” said Violet. “Why should we be enemies — we who have known each other since we were children? My dearest friends are your father and your sister. Why should we be enemies?”
“I have come to ask you whether you think that I have ill-used you?”
“Ill-used me! Certainly not. Has anyone told you that I have accused you?”
“No-one has told me so.”
“Then why do you ask me?”
“Because I would not have you think so — if I could help it. I did not intend to be rough with you. When you told me that my life was disreputable — ”
“Oh, Oswald, do not let us go back to that. What good will it do?”
“But you said so.”
“I think not.”
“I believe that that was your word — the harshest word that you could use in all the language.”
“I did not mean to be harsh. If I used it, I will beg your pardon. Only let there be an end of it. As we think so differently about life in general, it was better that we should not be married. But that is settled, and why should we go back to words that were spoken in haste, and which are simply disagreeable?”
“I have come to know whether it is settled.”
“Certainly. You settled it yourself, Oswald. I told you what I thought myself bound to tell you. Perhaps I used language which I should not have used. Then you told me that I could not be your wife — and I thought you were right, quite right.”
“I was wrong, quite wrong,” he said impetuously. So wrong, that I can never forgive myself, if you do not relent. I was such a fool, that I cannot forgive myself my folly. I had known before that I could not live without you; and when you were mine, I threw you away for an angry word.”
“It was not an angry word,” she said.
“Say it again, and let me have another chance to answer it.”
“I think I said that idleness was not — respectable, or something like that, taken out of a copy-book probably. But you are a man who do not like rebukes, even out of copy-books. A man so thin-skinned as you are must choose for himself a wife with a softer tongue than mine.”
“I will choose none other!” he said. But still he was savage in his tone and in his gestures. “I made my choice long since, as you know well enough. I do not change easily. I cannot change in this. Violet, say that you will be my wife once more, and I will swear to work for you like a coal-heaver.”
“My wish is that my husband — should I ever have one — should work, not exactly as a coal-heaver.”
“Come, Violet,” he said — and now the look of savagery departed from him, and there came a smile over his face, which, however, had in it more of sadness than of hope or joy — “treat me fairly — or rather, treat me generously if you can. I do not know whether you ever loved me much.”
“Very much — years ago, when you were a boy.”
“But not since? If it be so, I had better go. Love on one side only is a poor affair at best.”
“A very poor affair.”
“It is better to bear anything than to try and make out life with that. Some of you women never want to love anyone.”
“That was what I was saying of myself to Laura but the other day. With some women it is so easy. With others it is so difficult, that perhaps it never comes to them.”
“And with you?”
“Oh, with me — . But it is better in these matters to confine oneself to generalities. If you please, I will not describe myself personally. Were I to do so, doubtless I should do it falsely.”
“You love no-one else, Violet?”
“That is my affair, my lord.”
“By heavens, and it is mine too. Tell me that you do, and I will go away and leave you at once. I will not ask his name, and I will trouble you no more. If it is not so, and if it is possible that you should forgive me — ”
“Forgive you! When have I been angry with you?”
“Answer me my question, Violet.”
“I will not answer you your question — not that one.”
“What question will you answer?”
“Any that may concern yourself and myself. None that may concern other people.”
“You told me once that you loved me.”
“This moment I told you that I did so — years ago.”
“But now?”
“That is another matter.”
“Violet do you love me now?”
“That is a point-blank question at any rate,” she said.
“And you will answer it?”
“I must answer it — I suppose.”
“Well, then?”
“Oh, Oswald, what a fool you are! Love you! of course I love you. If you can understand anything, you ought to know that I have never loved anyone else — that after what has passed between us, I never shall love anyone else. I do love you. There. Whether you throw me away from you, as you did the other day — with great scorn, mind you — or come to me with sweet, beautiful promises, as you do now, I shall love you all the same. I cannot be your wife, if you will not have me; can I? When you run away in your tantrums because I quote something out of the copy-book, I can’t run after you. It would not be pretty. But as for loving you, if you doubt that, I tell you, you are a — fool.” As she spoke the last words she pouted out her lips at him, and when he looked into her face he saw that her eyes were full of tears. He was standing now with his arm round her waist, so that it was not easy for him to look into her face.
“I am a fool,” he said,
“Yes — you are; but I don’t love you the less on that account.”
“I will never doubt it again.”
“No — do not; and, for me, I will not say another word, whether you choose to heave coals or not. You shall do as you please. I meant to be very wise — I did indeed.”
“You are the grandest girl that ever was made.”
“I do not want to be grand at all, and I never will be wise any more. Only do not frown at me and look savage.” Then she put up her hand to smooth his brow. “I am half afraid of you still, you know. There. That will do. Now let me go, that I may tell my aunt. During the last two months she has been full of pity for poor Lord Chiltern.”
“It has been poor Lord Chiltern with a vengeance!” said he.
“But now that we have made it up, she will be horrified again at all your wickednesses. You have been a turtle dove lately — now you will be an ogre again. But, Oswald, you must not be an ogre to me.”
As soon as she could get quit of her lover, she did tell her tale to Lady Baldock. “You have accepted him again!” said her aunt, holding up her hands. “Yes — I have accepted him again,” replied Violet. “Then the responsibility must be on your own shoulders,” said her aunt; “I wash my hands of it. That evening, when she discussed the matter with her daughter, Lady Baldock spoke of Violet and Lord Chiltern, as though their intended marriage were the one thing in the world which she most deplored.
The day of the debate had come, and Phineas Finn was still sitting in his room at the Colonial Office. But his resignation had been sent in and accepted, and he was simply awaiting the coming of his successor. About noon his successor came, and he had the gratification of resigning his armchair to Mr Bonteen. It is generally understood that gentlemen leaving offices give up either seals or a portfolio. Phineas had been put in possession of no seal and no portfolio; but there was in the room which he had occupied a special armchair, and this with much regret he surrendered to the use and comfort of Mr Bonteen. There was a glance of triumph in his enemy’s eyes, and an exultation in the tone of his enemy’s voice, which were very bitter to him. “So you are really going?” said Mr Bonteen. “Well; I dare say it is all very proper. I don’t quite understand the thing myself, but I have no doubt you are right.” “It isn’t easy to understand; is it? said Phineas, trying to laugh. But Mr Bonteen did not feel the intended satire, and poor Phineas found it useless to attempt to punish the man he hated. He left him as quickly as he could, and went to say a few words of farewell to his late chief.
“Goodbye, Finn,” said Lord Cantrip, It is a great trouble to me that we should have to part in this way.”
“And to me also, my lord. I wish it could have been avoided.”
“You should not have gone to Ireland with so dangerous a man as Mr Monk. But it is too late to think of that now.”
“The milk is spilt; is it not?”
“But these terrible rendings asunder never last very long,” said Lord Cantrip, “unless a man changes his opinions altogether. How many quarrels and how many reconciliations we have lived to see! I remember when Gresham went out of office, because he could not sit in the same room with Mr Mildmay, and yet they became the fastest of political friends. There was a time when Plinlimmon and the Duke could not stable their horses together at all; and don’t you remember when Palliser was obliged to give up his hopes of office because he had some bee in his bonnet?” I think, however, that the bee in Mr Palliser’s bonnet to which Lord Cantrip was alluding made its buzzing audible on some subject that was not exactly political. “We shall have you back again before long, I don’t doubt. Men who can really do their work are too rare to be left long in the comfort of the benches below the gangway.” This was very kindly said, and Phineas was flattered and comforted. He could not, however, make Lord Cantrip understand the whole truth. For him the dream of a life of politics was over for ever. He had tried it, and had succeeded beyond his utmost hopes; but, in spite of his success, the ground had crumbled to pieces beneath has feet, and he knew that he could never recover the niche in the world’s gallery which he was now leaving.
That same afternoon he met Mr Gresham in one of the passages leading to the House, and the Prime Minister put his arm through that of our hero as they walked together into the lobby. “I am sorry that we are losing you,” said Mr Gresham.
“You may be sure that I am sorry to be so lost,” said Phineas.
“These things will occur in political life,” said the leader; “but I think that they seldom leave rancour behind them when the purpose is declared, and when the subject of disagreement is marked and understood. The defalcation which creates angry feeling is that which has to be endured without previous warning — when a man votes against his party — or a set of men, from private pique or from some cause which is never clear.” Phineas, when he heard this, knew well how terribly this very man had been harassed, and driven nearly wild, by defalcation, exactly of that nature which he was attempting to describe. “No doubt you and Mr Monk think you are right,” continued Mr Gresham.
“We have given strong evidence that we think so,” said Phineas. “We give up our places, and we are, both of us, very poor men.”
“I think you are wrong, you know, not so much in your views on the question itself — which, to tell the truth, I hardly understand as yet.”
“We will endeavour to explain them.”
“And will do so very clearly, no doubt. But I think that Mr Monk was wrong in desiring, as a member of a Government, to force a measure which, whether good or bad, the Government as a body does not desire to initiate — at any rate, just now.”
“And therefore he resigned,” said Phineas.
“Of course. But it seems to me that he failed to comprehend the only way in which a great party can act together, if it is to do any service in this country. Don’t for a moment think that I am blaming him or you.”
“I am nobody in this matter,” said Phineas.
“I can assure you, Mr Finn, that we have not regarded you in that light, and I hope that the time may come when we may be sitting together again on the same bench.”
Neither on the Treasury bench nor on any other in that House was he to sit again after this fashion! That was the trouble which was crushing his spirit at this moment, and not the loss of his office! He knew that he could not venture to think of remaining in London as a member of Parliament with no other income than that which his father could allow him, even if he could again secure a seat in Parliament. When he had first been returned for Loughshane he had assured his friends that his duty as a member of the House of Commons would not be a bar to his practice in the Courts. He had now been five years a member, and had never once made an attempt at doing any part of a barrister’s work. He had gone altogether into a different line of life, and had been most successful — so successful that men told him, and women more frequently than men, that his career had been a miracle of success. But there had been, as he had well known from the first, this drawback in the new profession which he had chosen, that nothing in it could be permanent. They who succeed in it may probably succeed again; but then the success is intermittent, and there may be years of hard work in opposition, to which, unfortunately, no pay is assigned. It is almost imperative, as he now found, that they who devote themselves to such a profession should be men of fortune. When he had commenced his work — at the period of his first return for Loughshane — he had had no thought of mending his deficiency in this respect by a rich marriage. Nor had it ever occurred to him that he would seek a marriage for that purpose. Such an idea would have been thoroughly distasteful to him. There had been no stain of premeditated mercenary arrangement upon him at any time. But circumstances had so fallen out with him, that as he won his spurs in Parliament, as he became known, and was placed first in one office and then in another, prospects of love and money together were opened to him, and he ventured on, leaving Mr Low and the law behind him — because these prospects were so alluring. Then had come Mr Monk and Mary Flood Jones — and everything around him had collapsed.
Everything around him had collapsed — with, however, a terrible temptation to him to inflate his sails again, at the cost of his truth and his honour. The temptation would have affected him not at all, had Madame Goesler been ugly, stupid, or personally disagreeable. But she was, he thought, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, the most witty, and in many respects the most charming. She had offered to give him everything that she had, so to place him in the world that opposition would be more pleasant to him than office, to supply every want, and had done so in a manner that had gratified all his vanity. But he had refused it all, because he was bound to the girl at Floodborough. My readers will probably say that he was not a true man unless he could do this without a regret. When Phineas thought of it all, there were many regrets.
But there was at the same time a resolve on his part, that if any man had ever loved the girl he promised to love, he would love Mary Flood Jones. A thousand times he had told himself that she had not the spirit of Lady Laura, or the bright wit of Violet Effingham, or the beauty of Madame Goesler. But Mary had charms of her own that were more valuable than them all. Was there one among the three who had trusted him as she trusted him — or loved him with the same satisfied devotion? There were regrets, regrets that were heavy on his heart — for London, and Parliament, and the clubs, and Downing Street, had become dear to him. He liked to think of himself as he rode in the park, and was greeted by all those whose greeting was the most worth having. There were regrets — sad regrets. But the girl whom he loved better than the parks and the clubs — better even than Westminster and Downing Street, should never know that they had existed.
These thoughts were running through his mind even while he was listening to Mr Monk, as he propounded his theory of doing justice to Ireland. This might probably be the last great debate in which Phineas would be able to take a part, and he was determined that he would do his best in it. He did not intend to speak on this day, if, as was generally supposed, the House would be adjourned before a division could be obtained. But he would remain on the alert and see how the thing went. He had come to understand the forms of the place, and was as well-trained a young member of Parliament as any there. He had been quick at learning a lesson that is not easily learned, and knew how things were going, and what were the proper moments for this question or that form of motion. He could anticipate a count-out, understood the tone of men’s minds, and could read the gestures of the House. It was very little likely that the debate should be over tonight. He knew that; and as the present time was the evening of Tuesday, he resolved at once that he would speak as early as he could on the following Thursday. What a pity it was, that with one who had learned so much, all his learning should be in vain!
At about two o’clock, he himself succeeded in moving the adjournment of the debate. This he did from a seat below the gangway, to which he had removed himself from the Treasury bench. Then the House was up, and he walked home with Mr Monk. Mr Monk, since he had been told positively by Phineas that he had resolved upon resigning his office, had said nothing more of his sorrow at his friend’s resolve, but had used him as one political friend uses another, telling him all his thoughts and all his hopes as to this new measure of his, and taking counsel with him as to the way in which the fight should be fought. Together they had counted over the list of members, marking these men as supporters, those as opponents, and another set, now more important than either, as being doubtful. From day to day those who had been written down as doubtful were struck off that third list, and put in either the one or the other of those who were either supporters or opponents. And their different modes of argument were settled between these two allied orators, how one should take this line and the other that. To Mr Monk this was very pleasant. He was quite assured now that opposition was more congenial to his spirit, and more fitting for him than office. There was no doubt to him as to his future sitting in Parliament, let the result of this contest be what it might. The work which he was now doing, was the work for which he had been training himself all his life. While he had been forced to attend Cabinet Councils from week to week, he had been depressed. Now he was exultant, Phineas seeing and understanding all this, said but little to his friend of his own prospects. As long as this pleasant battle was raging, he could fight in it shoulder to shoulder with the man he loved. After that there would be a blank.
“I do not see how we are to fail to have a majority after Daubeny’s speech tonight,” said Mr Monk, as they walked together down Parliament Street through the bright moonlight.
“He expressly said that he only spoke for himself,” said Phineas.
“But we know what that means. He is bidding for office, and of course those who want office with him will vote as he votes. We have already counted those who would go into office, but they will not carry the whole party.”
“It will carry enough of them.”
“There are forty or fifty men on his side of the House, and as many perhaps on ours,” said Mr Monk, “who have no idea of any kind on any bill, and who simply follow the bell, whether into this lobby or that. Argument never touches them. They do not even look to the result of a division on their own interests, as the making of any calculation would be laborious to them. Their party leader is to them a Pope whom they do not dream of doubting. I never can quite make up my mind whether it is good or bad that there should be such men in Parliament.”
“Men who think much want to speak often,” said Phineas.
“Exactly so — and of speaking members, God knows that we have enough. And I suppose that these purblind sheep do have some occult weight that is salutary. They enable a leader to be a leader, and even in that way they are useful. We shall get a division on Thursday.”
“I understand that Gresham has consented to that.”
“So Ratler told me. Palliser is to speak, and Barrington Erle. And they say that Robson is going to make an onslaught specially on me. We shall get it over by one o’clock.”
“And if we beat them?” asked Phineas.
“It will depend on the numbers. Everybody who has spoken to me about it, seems to think that they will dissolve if there be a respectable majority against them.”
“Of course he will dissolve,” said Phineas, speaking of Mr Gresham; “what else can he do?”
“He is very anxious to carry his Irish Reform Bill first, if he can do so. Goodnight, Phineas. I shall not be down tomorrow as there is nothing to be done. Come to me on Thursday, and we will go to the House together.”
On the Wednesday Phineas was engaged to dine with Mr Low. There was a dinner party in Bedford Square, and Phineas met half-a-dozen barristers and their wives — men to whom he had looked up as successful pundits in the law some five or six years ago, but who since that time had almost learned to look up to him. And now they treated him with that courteousness of manner which success in life always begets. There was a judge there who was very civil to him; and the judge’s wife whom he had taken down to dinner was very gracious to him. The judge had got his prize in life, and was therefore personally indifferent to the fate of ministers; but the judge’s wife had a brother who wanted a County Court from Lord de Terrier, and it was known that Phineas was giving valuable assistance towards the attainment of this object. “I do think that you and Mr Monk are so right,” said the judge’s wife. Phineas, who understood how it came to pass that the judge’s wife should so cordially approve his conduct, could not help thinking how grand a thing it would be for him to have a County Court for himself.
When the guests were gone he was left alone with Mr and Mrs Low, and remained awhile with them, there having been an understanding that they should have a last chat together over the affairs of our hero. “Do you really mean that you will not stand again?” asked Mrs Low.
“I do mean it. I may say that I cannot do so. My father is hardly so well able to help me as he was when I began this game, and I certainly shall not ask him for money to support a canvass.”
“It’s a thousand pities,” said Mrs Low.
“I really had begun to think that you would make it answer,” said Mr Low.
“In one way I have made it answer. For the last three years I have lived upon what I have earned, and I am not in debt. But now I must begin the world again. I am afraid I shall find the drudgery very hard.”
“It is hard no doubt,” said the barrister, who had gone through it all, and was now reaping the fruits of it. “But I suppose you have not forgotten what you learned?”
“Who can say? I dare say I have. But I did not mean the drudgery of learning, so much as the drudgery of looking after work — of expecting briefs which perhaps will never come. I am thirty years old now, you know.”
“Are you indeed?” said Mrs Low — who knew his age to a day. “How the time passes. I’m sure I hope you’ll get on, Mr Finn. I do indeed.”
“I am sure he will, if he puts his shoulder to it,” said Mr Low.
Neither the lawyer nor his wife repeated any of those sententious admonitions, which had almost become rebukes, and which had been so common in their mouths. The fall with which they had threatened Phineas Finn had come upon him, and they were too generous to remind him of their wisdom and sagacity. Indeed, when he got up to take his leave, Mrs Low, who probably might not see him again for years, was quite affectionate in her manners to him, and looked as if she were almost minded to kiss him as she pressed his hand. “We will come and see you,” she said, “when you are Master of the Rolls in Dublin.”
“We shall see him before then thundering at us poor Tories in the House,” said Mr Low. “He will be back again sooner or later.” And so they parted.
On the Thursday morning before Phineas went to Mr Monk, a gentleman called upon him at his lodgings. Phineas requested the servant to bring up the gentleman’s name, but tempted perhaps by a shilling the girl brought up the gentleman instead. It was Mr Quintus Slide from the office of the “Banner of the People.”
“Mr Finn,” said Quintus, with his hand extended, I have come to offer you the calumet of peace.” Phineas certainly desired no such calumet. But to refuse a man’s hand is to declare active war after a fashion which men do not like to adopt except on deliberation. He had never cared a straw for the abuse which Mr Slide had poured upon him, and now he gave his hand to the man of letters. But he did not sit down, nor did he offer a seat to Mr Slide. “I know that as a man of sense who knows the world, you will accept the calumet of peace,” continued Mr Slide.
“I don’t know why I should be asked particularly to accept war or peace,” said Phineas.
“Well, Mr Finn — I don’t often quote the Bible; but those who are not for us must be against us. You will agree to that. Now that you’ve freed yourself from the iniquities of that sink of abomination in Downing Street, I look upon you as a man again.”
“Upon my word you are very kind.”
“As a man and also a brother. I suppose you know that I’ve got the Banner into my own ‘ands now.” Phineas was obliged to explain that he had not hitherto been made acquainted with this great literary and political secret. “Oh dear, yes, altogether so. We’ve got rid of old Rusty as I used to call him. He wouldn’t go the pace, and so we stripped him. He’s doing the West of England Art Journal now, and he ‘angs out down at Bristol.”
“I hope he’ll succeed, Mr Slide.”
“He’ll earn his wages. He’s a man who will always earn his wages, but nothing more. Well, now, Mr Finn, I will just offer you one word of apology for our little severities.”
“Pray do nothing of the kind.”
“Indeed I shall. Dooty is dooty. There was some things printed which were a little rough, but if one isn’t a little rough there ain’t no flavour. Of course I wrote ’em. You know my ‘and, I dare say.”
“I only remember that there was some throwing of mud.”
“Just so. But mud don’t break any bones; does it? When you turned against us I had to be down on you, and I was down upon you — that’s just about all of it. Now you’re coming among us again, and so I come to you with a calumet of peace.”
“But I am not coming among you.”
“Yes you are, Finn, and bringing Monk with you.” It was now becoming very disagreeable, and Phineas was beginning to perceive that it would soon be his turn to say something rough. “Now I’ll tell you what my proposition is. If you’ll do us two leaders a week through the session, you shall have a cheque for ￡16 on the last day of every month. If that’s not honester money than what you got in Downing Street, my name is not Quintus Slide.”
“Mr Slide,” said Phineas — and then he paused.
“If we are to come to business, drop the Mister. It makes things go so much easier.”
“We are not to come to business, and I do not want things to go easy. I believe you said some things of me in your newspaper that were very scurrilous.”
“What of that? If you mind that sort of thing — ”
“I did not regard it in the least. You are quite welcome to continue it. I don’t doubt but you will continue it. But you are not welcome to come here afterwards.”
“Do you mean to turn me out?”
“Just that. You printed a heap of lies — ”
“Lies, Mr Finn! Did you say lies, sir?”
“I said lies — lies — lies!” And Phineas walked over at him as though he were going to pitch him instantly out of the window. “You may go and write as many more as you like. It is your trade, and you must do it or starve. But do not come to me again.” Then he opened the door and stood with it in his hand.
“Very well, sir. I shall know how to punish this.”
“Exactly. But if you please you’ll go and do your punishment at the office of the Banner — unless you like to try it here. You want to kick me and spit at me, but you will prefer to do it in print.”
“Yes, sir,” said Quintus Slide. I shall prefer to do it in print — though I must own that the temptation to adopt the manual violence of a ruffian is great, very great, very great indeed.” But he resisted the temptation and walked down the stairs, concocting his article as he went.
Mr Quintus Slide did not so much impede the business of his day but what Phineas was with Mr Monk by two, and in his place in the House when prayers were read at four. As he sat in his place, conscious of the work that was before him, listening to the presentation of petitions, and to the formal reading of certain notices of motions, which with the asking of sundry questions occupied over half an hour, he looked back and remembered accurately his own feelings on a certain night on which he had intended to get up and address the House. The ordeal before him had then been so terrible, that it had almost obliterated for the moment his senses of hearing and of sight. He had hardly been able to perceive what had been going on around him, and had vainly endeavoured to occupy himself in recalling to his memory the words which he wished to pronounce. When the time for pronouncing them had come, he had found himself unable to stand upon his legs. He smiled as he recalled all this in his memory, waiting impatiently for the moment in which he might rise. His audience was assured to him now, and he did not fear it. His opportunity for utterance was his own, and even the Speaker could not deprive him of it. During these minutes he thought not at all of the words that he was to say. He had prepared his matter but had prepared no words. He knew that words would come readily enough to him, and that he had learned the task of turning his thoughts quickly into language while standing with a crowd of listeners around him — as a practised writer does when seated in his chair. There was no violent beating at his heart now, no dimness of the eyes, no feeling that the ground was turning round under his feet. If only those weary vain questions would get themselves all asked, so that he might rise and begin the work of the night. Then there came the last thought as the House was hushed for his rising. What was the good of it all, when he would never have an opportunity of speaking there again?
But not on that account would he be slack in his endeavour now. He would be listened to once at least, not as a subaltern of the Government but as the owner of a voice prominent in opposition to the Government. He had been taught by Mr Monk that that was the one place in the House in which a man with a power of speaking could really enjoy pleasure without alloy. He would make the trial — once, if never again. Things had so gone with him that the rostrum was his own, and a House crammed to overflowing was there to listen to him. He had given up his place in order that he might be able to speak his mind, and had become aware that many intended to listen to him while he spoke. He had observed that the rows of strangers were thick in the galleries, that peers were standing in the passages, and that over the reporter’s head, the ribbons of many ladies were to be seen through the bars of their cage. Yes — for this once he would have an audience.
He spoke for about an hour, and while he was speaking he knew nothing about himself, whether he was doing it well or ill. Something of himself he did say soon after he had commenced — not quite beginning with it, as though his mind had been laden with the matter. He had, he said, found himself compelled to renounce his happy allegiance to the First Lord of the Treasury, and to quit the pleasant company in which, humble as had been his place, he had been allowed to sit and act, by his unfortunate conviction in this great subject. He had been told, he said, that it was a misfortune in itself for one so young as he to have convictions. But his Irish birth and Irish connection had brought this misfortune of his country so closely home to him that he had found the task of extricating himself from it to be impossible. Of what further he said, speaking on that terribly unintelligible subject, a tenant-right proposed for Irish farmers, no English reader will desire to know much. Irish subjects in the House of Commons are interesting or are dull, are debated before a crowded audience composed of all who are leaders in the great world of London, or before empty benches, in accordance with the importance of the moment and the character of the debate. For us now it is enough to know that to our hero was accorded that attention which orators love — which will almost make an orator if it can be assured. A full House with a promise of big type on the next morning would wake to eloquence the propounder of a Canadian grievance, or the mover of an Indian budget.
Phineas did not stir out of the House till the division was over, having agreed with Mr Monk that they two would remain through it all and hear everything that was to be said. Mr Gresham had already spoken, and to Mr Palliser was confided the task of winding up the argument for the Government. Mr Robson spoke also, greatly enlivening the tedium of the evening, and to Mr Monk was permitted the privilege of a final reply. At two o’clock the division came, and the Ministry were beaten by a majority of twenty-three. “And now,” said Mr Monk, as he again walked home with Phineas, “the pity is that we are not a bit nearer tenant-right than we were before.”
“But we are nearer to it.”
“In one sense, yes. Such a debate and such a majority will make men think. But no — think is too high a word; as a rule men don’t think. But it will make them believe that there is something in it. Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable — and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made.”
“It is no loss of time,” said Phineas, to have taken the first great step in making it.”
“The first great step was taken long ago,” said Mr Monk — “taken by men who were looked upon as revolutionary demagogues, almost as traitors, because they took it. But it is a great thing to take any step that leads us onwards.”
Two days after this Mr Gresham declared his intention of dissolving the House because of the adverse division which had been produced by Mr Monk’s motion, but expressed a wish to be allowed to carry an Irish Reform Bill through Parliament before he did so. He explained how expedient this would be, but declared at the same time that if any strong opposition were made, he would abandon the project. His intention simply was to pass with regard to Ireland a measure which must be passed soon, and which ought to be passed before a new election took place. The bill was ready, and should be read for the first time on the next night, if the House were willing. The House was willing, though there were very many recalcitrant Irish members. The Irish members made loud opposition, and then twitted Mr Gresham with his promise that he would not go on with his bill, if opposition were made. But, nevertheless, he did go on, and the measure was hurried through the two Houses in a week. Our hero who still sat for Loughshane, but who was never to sit for Loughshane again, gave what assistance he could to the Government, and voted for the measure which deprived Loughshane for ever of its parliamentary honours.
“And very dirty conduct I think it was,” said Lord Tulla, when he discussed the subject with his agent. “After being put in for the borough twice, almost free of expense, it was very dirty.” It never occurred to Lord Tulla that a member of Parliament might feel himself obliged to vote on such a subject in accordance with his judgment.
This Irish Reform Bill was scrambled through the two Houses, and then the session was over. The session was over, and they who knew anything of the private concerns of Mr Phineas Finn were aware that he was about to return to Ireland, and did not intend to reappear on the scene which had known him so well for the last five years. “I cannot tell you how sad it makes me,” said Mr Monk.
“And it makes me sad too,” said Phineas. I try to shake off the melancholy, and tell myself from day to day that it is unmanly. But it gets the better of me just at present.”
“I feel quite certain that you will come back among us again,” said Mr Monk.
“Everybody tells me so; and yet I feel quite certain that I shall never come back — never come back with a seat in Parliament. As my old tutor, Low, has told me scores of times, I began at the wrong end. Here I am, thirty years of age, and I have not a shilling in the world, and I do not know how to earn one.”
“Only for me you would still be receiving ever so much a year, and all would be pleasant,” said Mr Monk.
“But how long would it have lasted? The first moment that Daubeny got the upper hand I should have fallen lower than I have fallen now. If not this year, it would have been the next. My only comfort is in this — that I have done the thing myself, and have not been turned out.” To the very last, however, Mr Monk continued to express his opinion that Phineas would come back, declaring that he had known no instance of a young man who had made himself useful in Parliament, and then had been allowed to leave it in early life.
Among those of whom he was bound to take a special leave, the members of the family of Lord Brentford were, of course, the foremost. He had already heard of the reconciliation of Miss Effingham and Lord Chiltern, and was anxious to offer his congratulation to both of them. And it was essential to him that he should see Lady Laura. To her he wrote a line, saying how much he hoped that he should be able to bid her adieu, and a time was fixed for his coming at which she knew that she would meet him alone. But, as chance ruled it, he came upon the two lovers together, and then remembered that he had hardly ever before been in the same room with both of them at the same time.
“Oh, Mr Finn, what a beautiful speech you made. I read every word of it,” said Violet.
“And I didn’t even look at it, old fellow,” said Chiltern, getting up and putting his arm on the other’s shoulder in a way that was common with him when he was quite intimate with the friend near him.
“Laura went down and heard it,” said Violet. I could not do that, because I was tied to my aunt. You can’t conceive how dutiful I am during this last month.”
“And is it to be in a month, Chiltern?” said Phineas.
“She says so. She arranges everything — in concert with my father. When I threw up the sponge, I simply asked for a long day. “A long day, my lord,” I said. But my father and Violet between them refused me any mercy.”
“You do not believe him,” said Violet.
“Not a word. If I did he would want to see me on the coast of Flanders again, I don’t doubt. I have come to congratulate you both.”
“Thank you, Mr Finn,” said Violet, taking his hand with hearty kindness. “I should not have been quite happy without one nice word from you.”
“I shall try and make the best of it,” said Chiltern. “But, I say, you’ll come over and ride Bonebreaker again. He’s down there at the Bull, and I’ve taken a little box close by. I can’t stand the governor’s county for hunting.”
“And will your wife go down to Willingford?”
“Of course she will, and ride to hounds a great deal closer than I can ever do. Mind you come, and if there’s anything in the stable fit to carry you, you shall have it.”
Then Phineas had to explain that he had come to bid them farewell, and that it was not at all probable that he should ever be able to see Willingford again in the hunting season. “I don’t suppose that I shall make either of you quite understand it, but I have got to begin again. The chances are that I shall never see another foxhound all my life.”
“Not in Ireland!” exclaimed Lord Chiltern.
“Not unless I should have to examine one as a witness. I have nothing before me but downright hard work; and a great deal of that must be done before I can hope to earn a shilling.”
“But you are so clever,” said Violet. Of course it will come quickly.”
“I do not mean to be impatient about it, nor yet unhappy,” said Phineas. “Only hunting won’t be much in my line.”
“And will you leave London altogether?” Violet asked.
“Altogether. I shall stick to one club — Brooks’s; but I shall take my name off all the others.”
“What a deuce of a nuisance!” said Lord Chiltern.
“I have no doubt you will be very happy,” said Violet; “and you’ll be a Lord Chancellor in no time. But you won’t go quite yet.”
“Next Sunday.”
“You will return. You must be here for our wedding — indeed you must. I will not be married unless you do.”
Even this, however, was impossible. He must go on Sunday, and must return no more. Then he made his little farewell speech, which he could not deliver without some awkward stuttering. He would think of her on the day of her marriage, and pray that she might be happy. And he would send her a little trifle before he went, which he hoped she would wear in remembrance of their old friendship.
“She shall wear it, whatever it is, or I’ll know the reason why,” said Chiltern.
“Hold your tongue, you rough bear!” said Violet. Of course I’ll wear it. And of course I’ll think of the giver. I shall have many presents, but few that I will think of so much.” Then Phineas left the room, with his throat so full that he could not speak another word.
“He is still broken-hearted about you,” said the favoured lover as soon as his rival had left the room.
“It is not that,” said Violet. He is broken-hearted about everything. The whole world is vanishing away from him. I wish he could have made up his mind to marry that German woman with all the money.” It must be understood, however, that Phineas had never spoken a word to anyone as to the offer which the German woman had made to him.
It was on the morning of the Sunday on which he was to leave London that he saw Lady Laura. He had asked that it might be so, in order that he might then have nothing more upon his mind. He found her quite alone, and he could see by her eyes that she had been weeping. As he looked at her, remembering that it was not yet six years since he had first been allowed to enter that room, he could not but perceive how very much she was altered in appearance. Then she had been three-and-twenty, and had not looked to be a day older. Now she might have been taken to be nearly forty, so much had her troubles preyed upon her spirit, and eaten into the vitality of her youth. “So you have come to say goodbye,” she said, smiling as she rose to meet him.
“Yes, Lady Laura — to say goodbye. Not for ever, I hope, but probably for long.”
“No, not for ever. At any rate, we will not think so.” Then she paused; but he was silent, sitting with his hat dangling in his two hands, and his eyes fixed upon the floor. “Do you know, Mr Finn,” she continued, “that sometimes I am very angry with myself about you.”
“Then it must be because you have been too kind to me.”
“It is because I fear that I have done much to injure you. From the first day that I knew you — do you remember, when we were talking here, in this very room, about the beginning of the Reform Bill — from that day I wished that you should come among us and be one of us.”
“I have been with you, to my infinite satisfaction — while it lasted.”
“But it has not lasted, and now I fear that it has done you harm.”
“Who can say whether it has been for good or evil? But of this I am sure you will be certain — that I am very grateful to you for all the goodness you have shown me.” Then again he was silent.
She did not know what it was that she wanted, but she did desire some expression from his lips that should be warmer than an expression of gratitude. An expression of love — of existing love — she would have felt to be an insult, and would have treated it as such. Indeed, she knew that from him no such insult could come. But she was in that morbid, melancholy state of mind which requires the excitement of more than ordinary sympathy, even though that sympathy be all painful; and I think that she would have been pleased had he referred to the passion for herself which he had once expressed. If he would have spoken of his love, and of her mistake, and have made some half-suggestion as to what might have been their lives had things gone differently — though she would have rebuked him even for that — still it would have comforted her. But at this moment, though he remembered much that had passed between them, he was not even thinking of the Braes of Linter. All that had taken place four years ago — and there had been so many other things since which had moved him even more than that! “You have heard what I have arranged for myself?” she said at last.
“Your father has told me that you are going to Dresden.”
“Yes — he will accompany me — coming home of course for Parliament. It is a sad break-up, is it not? But the lawyer says that if I remain here I may be subject to very disagreeable attempts from Mr Kennedy to force me to go back again. It is odd, is it not, that he should not understand how impossible it is?”
“He means to do his duty.”
“I believe so. But he becomes more stern every day to those who are with him. And then, why should I remain here? What is there to tempt me? As a woman separated from her husband I cannot take an interest in those things which used to charm me. I feel that I am crushed and quelled by my position, even though there is no disgrace in it.”
“No disgrace, certainly,” said Phineas.
“But I am nobody — or worse than nobody.”
“And I also am going to be a nobody,” said Phineas, laughing.
“Ah; you are a man and will get over it, and you have many years before you will begin to be growing old. I am growing old already. Yes, I am. I feel it, and know it, and see it. A woman has a fine game to play; but then she is so easily bowled out, and the term allowed to her is so short.”
“A man’s allowance of time may be short too,” said Phineas.
“But he can try his hand again.” Then there was another pause. “I had thought, Mr Finn, that you would have married,” she said in her very lowest voice.
“You knew all my hopes and fears about that.”
“I mean that you would have married Madame Goesler.”
“What made you think that, Lady Laura?”
“Because I saw that she liked you, and because such a marriage would have been so suitable. She has all that you want. You know what they say of her now?”
“What do they say?”
“That the Duke of Omnium offered to make her his wife, and that she refused him for your sake.”
“There is nothing that people won’t say — nothing on earth,” said Phineas. Then he got up and took his leave of her. He also wanted to part from her with some special expression of affection, but he did not know how to choose his words. He had wished that some allusion should be made, not to the Braes of Linter, but to the close confidence which had so long existed between them; but he found that the language to do this properly was wanting to him. Had the opportunity arisen he would have told her now the whole story of Mary Flood Jones; but the opportunity did not come, and he left her, never having mentioned the name of his Mary or having hinted at his engagement to any one of his friends in London. “It is better so,” he said to himself. “My life in Ireland is to be a new life, and why should I mix two things together that will be so different?”
He was to dine at his lodgings, and then leave them for good at eight o’clock. He had packed up everything before he went to Portman Square, and he returned home only just in time to sit down to his solitary mutton chop. But as he sat down he saw a small note addressed to himself lying on the table among the crowd of books, letters, and papers, of which he had still to make disposal. It was a very small note in an envelope of a peculiar tint of pink, and he knew the handwriting well. The blood mounted all over his face as he took it up, and he hesitated for a moment before he opened it. It could not be that the offer should be repeated to him. Slowly, hardly venturing at first to look at the enclosure, he opened it, and the words which it contained were as follows:
“I learn that you are going today, and I write a word which you will receive just as you are departing. It is to say merely this — that when I left you the other day I was angry, not with you, but with myself. Let me wish you all good wishes and that prosperity which I know you will deserve, and which I think you will win.
“Yours very truly,
“M. M. G.”
“ Sunday morning .”
Should he put off his journey and go to her this very evening and claim her as his friend? The question was asked and answered in a moment. Of course he would not go to her. Were he to do so there would be only one possible word for him to say, and that word should certainly never be spoken. But he wrote to her a reply, shorter even than her own short note.
“Thanks, dear friend. I do not doubt but that you and I understand each other thoroughly, and that each trusts the other for good wishes and honest intentions.
“Always yours,
“P. F.”
“I write these as I am starting.
When he had written this, he kept it till the last moment in his hand, thinking that he would not send it. But as he slipped into the cab, he gave the note to his late landlady to post.
At the station Bunce came to him to say a word of farewell, and Mrs Bunce was on his arm.
“Well done, Mr Finn, well done,” said Bunce. I always knew there was a good drop in you.”
“You always told me I should ruin myself in Parliament, and so I have,” said Phineas.
“Not at all. It takes a deal to ruin a man if he’s got the right sperrit. I’ve better hopes of you now than ever I had in the old days when you used to be looking out for Government place — and Mr Monk has tried that too. I thought he would find the iron too heavy for him.” “God bless you, Mr Finn, said Mrs Bunce with her handkerchief up to her eyes. “There’s not one of ’em I ever had as lodgers I’ve cared about half as much as I did for you.” Then they shook hands with him through the window, and the train was off.
We are told that it is a bitter moment with the Lord Mayor when he leaves the Mansion House and becomes once more Alderman Jones, of No. 75, Bucklersbury. Lord Chancellors going out of office have a great fall though they take pensions with them for their consolation. And the President of the United States when he leaves the glory of the White House and once more becomes a simple citizen must feel the change severely. But our hero, Phineas Finn, as he turned his back upon the scene of his many successes, and prepared himself for permanent residence in his own country, was, I think, in a worse plight than any of the reduced divinities to whom I have alluded. They at any rate had known that their fall would come. He, like Icarus, had flown up towards the sun, hoping that his wings of wax would bear him steadily aloft among the gods. Seeing that his wings were wings of wax, we must acknowledge that they were very good. But the celestial lights had been too strong for them, and now, having lived for five years with lords and countesses, with Ministers and orators, with beautiful women and men of fashion, he must start again in a little lodging in Dublin, and hope that the attorneys of that litigious city might be good to him. On his journey home he made but one resolution. He would make the change, or attempt to make it, with manly strength. During his last month in London he had allowed himself to be sad, depressed, and melancholy. There should be an end of all that now. Nobody at home should see that he was depressed. And Mary, his own Mary, should at any rate have no cause to think that her love and his own engagement had ever been the cause to him of depression. Did he not value her love more than anything in the world? A thousand times he told himself that he did.
She was there in the old house at Killaloe to greet him. Her engagement was an affair known to all the county, and she had no idea that it would become her to be coy in her love. She was in his arms before he had spoken to his father and mother, and had made her little speech to him — very inaudibly indeed — while he was covering her sweet face with kisses. “Oh, Phineas, I am so proud of you; and I think you are so right, and I am so glad you have done it.” Again he covered her face with kisses. Could he ever have had such satisfaction as this had he allowed Madame Goesler’s hand to remain in his?
On the first night of his arrival he sat for an hour downstairs with his father talking over his plans. He felt — he could not but feel — that he was not the hero now that he had been when he was last at Killaloe — when he had come thither with a Cabinet Minister under his wing. And yet his father did his best to prevent the growth of any such feeling. The old doctor was not quite as well off as he had been when Phineas first started with his high hopes for London. Since that day he had abandoned his profession and was now living on the fruits of his life’s labour. For the last two years he had been absolved from the necessity of providing an income for his son, and had probably allowed himself to feel that no such demand upon him would again be made. Now, however, it was necessary that he should do so. Could his son manage to live on two hundred a year? There would then be four hundred a year left for the wants of the family at home. Phineas swore that he could fight his battle on a hundred and fifty, and they ended the argument by splitting the difference. He had been paying exactly the same sum of money for the rooms he had just left in London; but then, while he held those rooms, his income had been two thousand a year. Tenant-right was a very fine thing, but could it be worth such a fall as this?
“And about dear Mary?” said the father.
“I hope it may not be very long,” said Phineas.
“I have not spoken to her about it, but your mother says that Mrs Flood Jones is very averse to a long engagement.”
“What can I do? She would not wish me to marry her daughter with no other income than an allowance made by you.”
“Your mother says that she has some idea that you and she might live together — that if they let Floodborough you might take a small house in Dublin. Remember, Phineas, I am not proposing it myself.”
Then Phineas bethought himself that he was not even yet so low in the world that he need submit himself to terms dictated to him by Mrs Flood Jones. “I am glad that you do not propose it, sir.”
“Why so, Phineas?”
“Because I should have been obliged to oppose the plan even if it had come from you. Mothers-in-law are never a comfort in a house.”
“I never tried it myself,” said the doctor.
“And I never will try it. I am quite sure that Mary does not expect any such thing, and that she is willing to wait. If I can shorten the term of waiting by hard work, I will do so.” The decision to which Phineas had come on this matter was probably made known to Mrs Flood Jones after some mild fashion by old Mrs Finn. Nothing more was said to Phineas about a joint household; but he was quite able to perceive from the manner of the lady towards him that his proposed mother-in-law wished him to understand that he was treating her daughter very badly. What did it signify? None of them knew the story of Madame Goesler, and of course none of them would know it. None of them would ever hear how well he had behaved to his little Mary.
But Mary did know it all before he left her to go up to Dublin. The two lovers allowed themselves — or were allowed by their elders, one week of exquisite bliss together; and during this week, Phineas told her, I think, everything. He told her everything as far as he could do so without seeming to boast of his own successes. How is a man not to tell such tales when he has on his arm, close to him, a girl who tells him her little everything of life, and only asks for his confidence in return? And then his secrets are so precious to her and so sacred, that he feels as sure of her fidelity as though she were a very goddess of faith and trust. And the temptation to tell is so great. For all that he has to tell she loves him the better and still the better. A man desires to win a virgin heart, and is happy to know — or at least to believe — that he has won it. With a woman every former rival is an added victim to the wheels of the triumphant chariot in which she is sitting. “All these has he known and loved, culling sweets from each of them. But now he has come to me, and I am the sweetest of them all.” And so Mary was taught to believe of Laura and of Violet and of Madame Goesler — that though they had had charms to please, her lover had never been so charmed as he was now while she was hanging to his breast. And I think that she was right in her belief. During those lovely summer evening walks along the shores of Lough Derg, Phineas was as happy as he had ever been at any moment of his life.
“I shall never be impatient — never,” she said to him on the last evening. “All I want is that you should write to me.”
“I shall want more than that, Mary.”
“Then you must come down and see me. When you do come they will be happy, happy days for me. But of course we cannot be married for the next twenty years.”
“Say forty, Mary.”
“I will say anything that you like — you will know what I mean just as well. And, Phineas, I must tell you one thing — though it makes me sad to think of it, and will make me sad to speak of it.”
“I will not have you sad on our last night, Mary.”
“I must say it. I am beginning to understand how much you have given up for me.”
“I have given up nothing for you.”
“If I had not been at Killaloe when Mr Monk was here, and if we had not — had not — oh dear, if I had not loved you so very much, you might have remained in London, and that lady would have been your wife.”
“Never!” said Phineas stoutly.
“Would she not? She must not be your wife now, Phineas. I am not going to pretend that I will give you up.”
“That is unkind, Mary.”
“Oh, well; you may say what you please. If that is unkind, I am unkind. It would kill me to lose you.”
Had he done right? How could there be a doubt about it? How could there be a question about it? Which of them had loved him, or was capable of loving him as Mary loved him? What girl was ever so sweet, so gracious, so angelic, as his own Mary? He swore to her that he was prouder of winning her than of anything he had ever done in all his life, and that of all the treasures that had ever come in his way she was the most precious. She went to bed that night the happiest girl in all Connaught, although when she parted from him she understood that she was not to see him again till Christmas Eve.
But she did see him again before the summer was over, and the manner of their meeting was in this wise. Immediately after the passing of that scrambled Irish Reform Bill, Parliament, as the reader knows, was dissolved. This was in the early days of June, and before the end of July the new members were again assembled at Westminster. This session, late in summer, was very terrible; but it was not very long, and then it was essentially necessary. There was something of the year’s business which must yet be done, and the country would require to know who were to be the Ministers of the Government. It is not needed that the reader should be troubled any further with the strategy of one political leader or of another, or that more should be said of Mr Monk and his tenant-right. The House of Commons had offended Mr Gresham by voting in a majority against him, and Mr Gresham had punished the House of Commons by subjecting it to the expense and nuisance of a new election. All this is constitutional, and rational enough to Englishmen, though it may be unintelligible to strangers. The upshot on the present occasion was that the Ministers remained in their places and that Mr Monk’s bill, though it had received the substantial honour of a second reading, passed away for the present into the limbo of abortive legislation.
All this would not concern us at all, nor our poor hero much, were it not that the great men with whom he had been for two years so pleasant a colleague, remembered him with something of affectionate regret. Whether it began with Mr Gresham or with Lord Cantrip, I will not say — or whether Mr Monk, though now a political enemy, may have said a word that brought about the good deed. Be that as it may, just before the summer session was brought to a close Phineas received the following letter from Lord Cantrip:
“ Downing Street, August 4, 186 —
MY DEAR MR FINN,
“Mr Gresham has been talking to me, and we both think that possibly a permanent Government appointment may be acceptable to you. We have no doubt, that should this be the case, your services would be very valuable to the country. There is a vacancy for a poor-law inspector at present in Ireland, whose residence I believe should be in Cork. The salary is a thousand a-year. Should the appointment suit you, Mr Gresham will be most happy to nominate you to the office. Let me have a line at your early convenience.
“Believe me,
“Most sincerely yours,
CANTRIP ”
He received the letter one morning in Dublin, and within three hours he was on his route to Killaloe. Of course he would accept the appointment, but he would not even do that without telling Mary of his new prospect. Of course he would accept the appointment. Though he had been as yet barely two months in Dublin, though he had hardly been long enough settled to his work to have hoped to be able to see in which way there might be a vista open leading to success, still he had fancied that he had seen that success was impossible. He did not know how to begin — and men were afraid of him, thinking that he was unsteady, arrogant, and prone to failure. He had not seen his way to the possibility of a guinea.
“A thousand a year!” said Mary Flood Jones, opening her eyes wide with wonder at the golden future before them.
“It is nothing very great for a perpetuity,” said Phineas.
“Oh, Phineas; surely a thousand a year will be very nice.”
“It will be certain,” said Phineas, and then we can be married tomorrow.”
“But I have been making up my mind to wait ever so long,” said Mary.
“Then your mind must be unmade,” said Phineas.
What was the nature of the reply to Lord Cantrip the reader may imagine, and thus we will leave our hero an Inspector of Poor Houses in the County of Cork.
The End