Phineas on his return to London wrote a line to Lady Chiltern in accordance with a promise which had been exacted from him. She was anxious to learn something as to the real condition of her husband’s brother-in-law, and, when she heard that Phineas was going to Loughlinter, had begged that he would tell her the truth. “He has become eccentric, gloomy, and very strange,” said Phineas. “I do not believe that he is really mad, but his condition is such that I think no friend should recommend Lady Laura to return to him. He seems to have devoted himself to a gloomy religion — and to the saving of money. I had but one interview with him, and that was essentially disagreeable.” Having remained two days in London, and having participated, as far as those two days would allow him, in the general horror occasioned by the wickedness and success of Mr Daubeny, he started for Dresden.
He found Lord Brentford living in a spacious house, with a huge garden round it, close upon the northern confines of the town. Dresden, taken altogether, is a clean cheerful city, and strikes the stranger on his first entrance as a place in which men are gregarious, busy, full of merriment, and pre-eminently social. Such is the happy appearance of but few towns either in the old or the new world, and is hardly more common in Germany than elsewhere. Leipsig is decidedly busy, but does not look to be social. Vienna is sufficiently gregarious, but its streets are melancholy. Munich is social, but lacks the hum of business. Frankfurt is both practical and picturesque, but it is dirty, and apparently averse to mirth. Dresden has much to recommend it, and had Lord Brentford with his daughter come abroad in quest of comfortable easy social life, his choice would have been well made. But, as it was, any of the towns above named would have suited him as well as Dresden, for he saw no society, and cared nothing for the outward things of the world around him. He found Dresden to be very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer, and he liked neither heat nor cold; but he had made up his mind that all places, and indeed all things, are nearly equally disagreeable, and therefore he remained at Dresden, grumbling almost daily as to the climate and manners of the people.
Phineas, when he arrived at the hall door, almost doubted whether he had not been as wrong in visiting Lord Brentford as he had in going to Loughlinter. His friendship with the old Earl had been very fitful, and there had been quarrels quite as pronounced as the friendship. He had often been happy in the Earl’s house, but the happiness had not sprung from any love for the man himself. How would it be with him if he found the Earl hardly more civil to him than the Earl’s son-in-law had been? In former days the Earl had been a man quite capable of making himself disagreeable, and probably had not yet lost the power of doing so. Of all our capabilities this is the one which clings longest to us. He was thinking of all this when he found himself at the door of the Earl’s house. He had travelled all night, and was very cold. At Leipsig there had been a nominal twenty minutes for refreshment, which the circumstances of the station had reduced to five. This had occurred very early in the morning, and had sufficed only to give him a bowl of coffee. It was now nearly ten, and breakfast had become a serious consideration with him. He almost doubted whether it would not have been better for him to have gone to an hotel in the first instance.
He soon found himself in the hall amidst a cluster of servants, among whom he recognised the face of a man from Saulsby. He had, however, little time allowed him for looking about. He was hardly in the house before Lady Laura Kennedy was in his arms. She had run forward, and before he could look into her face, she had put up her cheek to his lips and had taken both his hands. “Oh, my friend,” she said; “oh, my friend! How good you are to come to me! How good you are to come!” And then she led him into a large room, in which a table had been prepared for breakfast, close to an English-looking open fire. “How cold you must be, and how hungry! Shall I have breakfast for you at once, or will you dress first? You are to be quite at home, you know; exactly as though we were brother and sister. You are not to stand on any ceremonies.” And again she took him by the hand. He had hardly looked her yet in the face, and he could not do so now because he knew that she was crying. “Then I will show you to your room,” she said, when he had decided for a tub of water before breakfast. “Yes, I will — my own self. And I’d fetch the water for you, only I know it is there already. How long will you be? Half an hour? Very well. And you would like tea best, wouldn’t you?”
“Certainly, I should like tea best.”
“I will make it for you. Papa never comes down till near two, and we shall have all the morning for talking. Oh, Phineas, it is such a pleasure to hear your voice again. You have been at Loughlinter?”
“Yes, I have been there.”
“How very good of you; but I won’t ask a question now. You must put up with a stove here, as we have not open fires in the bed-rooms. I hope you will be comfortable. Don’t be more than half an hour, as I shall be impatient.”
Though he was thus instigated to haste he stood a few minutes with his back to the warm stove that he might be enabled to think of it all. It was two years since he had seen this woman, and when they had parted there had been more between them of the remembrances of old friendship than of present affection. During the last few weeks of their intimacy she had made a point of telling him that she intended to separate herself from her husband; but she had done so as though it were a duty, and an arranged part of her own defence of her own conduct. And in the latter incidents of her London life — that life with which he had been conversant — she had generally been opposed to him, or, at any rate, had chosen to be divided from him. She had said severe things to him — telling him that he was cold, heartless, and uninterested, never trying even to please him with that sort of praise which had once been so common with her in her intercourse with him, and which all men love to hear from the mouths of women. She had then been cold to him, though she would make wretched allusions to the time when he, at any rate, had not been cold to her. She had reproached him, and had at the same time turned away from him. She had repudiated him, first as a lover, then as a friend; and he had hitherto never been able to gauge the depth of the affection for him which had underlaid all her conduct. As he stood there thinking of it all, he began to understand it.
How natural had been her conduct on his arrival, and how like that of a genuine, true-hearted, honest woman! All her first thoughts had been for his little personal wants — that he should be warmed, and fed, and made outwardly comfortable. Let sorrow be ever so deep, and love ever so true, a man will be cold who travels by winter, and hungry who has travelled by night. And a woman, who is a true, genuine woman, always takes delight in ministering to the natural wants of her friend. To see a man eat and drink, and wear his slippers, and sit at ease in his chair, is delightful to the feminine heart that loves. When I heard the other day that a girl had herself visited the room prepared for a man in her mother’s house, then I knew that she loved him, though I had never before believed it. Phineas, as he stood there, was aware that this woman loved him dearly. She had embraced him, and given her face to him to kiss. She had clasped his hands, and clung to him, and had shown him plainly that in the midst of all her sorrow she could be made happy by his coming. But he was a man far too generous to take all this as meaning aught that it did not mean — too generous, and intrinsically too manly. In his character there was much of weakess, much of vacillation, perhaps some deficiency of strength and purpose; but there was no touch of vanity. Women had loved him, and had told him so; and he had been made happy, and also wretched, by their love. But he had never taken pride, personally, to himself because they had loved him. It had been the accident of his life. Now he remembered chiefly that this woman had called herself his sister, and he was grateful.
Then he thought of her personal appearance. As yet he had hardly looked at her, but he felt that she had become old and worn, angular and hard-visaged. All this had no effect upon his feelings towards her, but filled him with ineffable regret. When he had first known her she had been a woman with a noble presence — not soft and feminine as had been Violet Effingham, but handsome and lustrous, with a healthy youth. In regard to age he and she were of the same standing. That he knew well. She had passed her thirty-second birthday, but that was all. He felt himself to be still a young man, but he could not think of her as of a young woman.
When he went down she had been listening for his footsteps, and met him at the door of the room. “Now sit down,” she said, “and be comfortable — if you can, with German surroundings. They are almost always late, and never give one any time. Everybody says so. The station at Leipsig is dreadful, I know. Good coffee is very well, but what is the use of good coffee if you have no time to drink it? You must eat our omelette. If there is one thing we can do better than you it is to make an omelette. Yes — that is genuine German sausage. There is always some placed upon the table, but the Germans who come here never touch it themselves. You will have a cutlet, won’t you? I breakfasted an hour ago, and more. I would not wait because then I thought I could talk to you better, and wait upon you. I did not think that anything would ever please me so much again as your coming has done. Oh, how much we shall have to say! Do you remember when we last parted — when you were going back to Ireland?”
“I remember it well.”
“Ah me; as I look back upon it all, how strange it seems, I daresay you don’t remember the first day I met you, at Mr Mildmay’s — when I asked you to come to Portman Square because Barrington had said that you were clever?”
“I remember well going to Portman Square.”
“That was the beginning of it all. Oh dear, oh dear; when I think of it I find it so hard to see where I have been right, and where I have been wrong. If I had not been very wrong all this evil could not have come upon me.”
“Misfortune has not always been deserved.”
“I am sure it has been so with me. You can smoke here if you like.” This Phineas persistently refused to do. “You may if you please. Papa never comes in here, and I don’t mind it. You’ll settle down in a day or two, and understand the extent of your liberties. Tell me first about Violet. She is happy?”
“Quite happy, I think.”
“I knew he would be good to her. But does she like the kind of life?”
“Oh, yes.”
“She has a baby, and therefore of course she is happy. She says he is the finest fellow in the world.”
“I daresay he is. They all seem to be contented with him, but they don’t talk much about him.”
“No; they wouldn’t. Had you a child you would have talked about him, Phineas. I should have loved my baby better than all the world, but I should have been silent about him. With Violet of course her husband is the first object. It would certainly be so from her nature. And so Oswald is quite tame?”
“I don’t know that he is very tame out hunting.”
“But to her?”
“I should think always. She, you know, is very clever.”
“So clever!”
“And would be sure to steer clear of all offence,” said Phineas, enthusiastically.
“While I could never for an hour avoid it. Did they say anything about the journey to Flanders?”
“Chiltern did, frequently. He made me strip my shoulder to show him the place where he hit me.”
“How like Oswald!”
“And he told me that he would have given one of his eyes to kill me, only Colepepper wouldn’t let him go on. He half quarrelled with his second, but the man told him that I had not fired at him, and the thing must drop. “It’s better as it is, you know,” he said. And I agreed with him,”
“And how did Violet receive you?”
“Like an angel — as she is.”
“Well, yes. I’ll grant she is an angel now. I was angry with her once, you know. You men find so many angels in your travels. You have been honester than some. You have generally been off with the old angel before you were on with the new — as far at least as I knew.”
“Is that meant for rebuke, Lady Laura?”
“No, my friend; no. That is all over. I said to myself when you told me that you would come, that I would not utter one ill-natured word. And I told myself more than that!”
“What more?”
“That you had never deserved it — at least from me. But surely you were the most simple of men.”
“I daresay.”
“Men when they are true are simple. They are often false as hell, and then they are crafty as Lucifer. But the man who is true judges others by himself — almost without reflection. A woman can be true as steel and cunning at the same time. How cunning was Violet, and yet she never deceived one of her lovers, even by a look. Did she?”
“She never deceived me — if you mean that. She never cared a straw about me, and told me so to my face very plainly.”
“She did care — many straws. But I think she always loved Oswald. She refused him again and again, because she thought it wrong to run a great risk, but I knew she would never marry anyone else. How little Lady Baldock understood her. Fancy your meeting Lady Baldock at Oswald’s house!”
“Fancy Augusta Boreham turning nun!”
“How exquisitely grotesque it must have been when she made her complaint to you.”
“I pitied her with all my heart.”
“Of course you did — because you are so soft. And now, Phineas, we will put it off no longer. Tell me all that you have to tell me about him.”
Phineas Finn and Lady Laura Kennedy sat together discussing the affairs of the past till the servant told them that “My Lord” was in the next room, and ready to receive Mr Finn. “You will find him much altered,” said Lady Laura, “even more than I am.”
“I do not find you altered at all.”
“Yes, you do — in appearance. I am a middle-aged woman, and conscious that I may use my privileges as such. But he has become quite an old man — not in health so much as in manner. But he will be very glad to see you.” So saying she led him into a room, in which he found the Earl seated near the fireplace, and wrapped in furs. He got up to receive his guest, and Phineas saw at once that during the two years of his exile from England Lord Brentford had passed from manhood to senility. He almost tottered as he came forward, and he wrapped his coat around him with that air of studious self-preservation which belongs only to the infirm.
“It is very good of you to come and see me, Mr Finn,” he said.
“Don’t call him Mr Finn, Papa. I call him Phineas.”
“Well, yes; that’s all right, I daresay. It’s a terrible long journey from London, isn’t it, Mr Finn?”
“Too long to be pleasant, my lord.”
“Pleasant! Oh, dear. There’s no pleasantness about it. And so they’ve got an autumn session, have they? That’s always a very stupid thing to do, unless they want money.”
“But there is a money bill which must be passed. That’s Mr Daubeny’s excuse.”
“Ah, if they’ve a money bill of course it’s all right. So you’re in Parliament again?”
“I’m sorry to say I’m not.” Then Lady Laura explained to her father, probably for the third or fourth time, exactly what was their guest’s position. “Oh, a scrutiny. We didn’t use to have any scrutinies at Loughton, did we? Ah, me; well, everything seems to be going to the dogs. I’m told they’re attacking the Church now.” Lady Laura glanced at Phineas; but neither of them said a word. “I don’t quite understand it; but they tell me that the Tories are going to disestablish the Church. I’m very glad I’m out of it all. Things have come to such a pass that I don’t see how a gentleman is to hold office now-a-days. Have you seen Chiltern lately?”
After a while, when Phineas had told the Earl all that there was to tell of his son and his grandson, and all of politics and of Parliament, Lady Laura suddenly interrupted them. “You knew, Papa, that he was to see Mr Kennedy. He has been to Loughlinter, and has seen him.”
“Oh, indeed!”
“He is quite assured that I could not with wisdom return to live with my husband.”
“It is a very grave decision to make,” said the Earl.
“But he has no doubt about it,” continued Lady Laura.
“Not a shadow of doubt,” said Phineas. “I will not say that Mr Kennedy is mad; but the condition of his mind is such in regard to Lady Laura that I do not think she could live with him in safety. He is crazed about religion.”
“Dear, dear, dear,” exclaimed the Earl.
“The gloom of his house is insupportable. And he does not pretend that he desires her to return that he and she may be happy together.”
“What for then?”
“That we might be unhappy together,” said Lady Laura.
“He repudiates all belief in happiness. He wishes her to return to him chiefly because it is right that a man and wife should live together.
“So it is,” said the Earl.
“But not to the utter wretchedness of both of them,” said Lady Laura. “He says,” and she pointed to Phineas, “that were I there he would renew his accusation against me. He has not told me all. Perhaps he cannot tell me all. But I certainly will not return to Loughlinter.”
“Very well, my dear.”
“It is not very well, Papa; but, nevertheless, I will not return to Loughlinter. What I suffered there neither of you can understand.”
That afternoon Phineas went out alone to the galleries, but the next day she accompanied him, and showed him whatever of glory the town had to offer in its winter dress. They stood together before great masters, and together examined small gems. And then from day to day they were always in each other’s company. He had promised to stay a month, and during that time he was petted and comforted to his heart’s content. Lady Laura would have taken him into the Saxon Switzerland, in spite of the inclemency of the weather and her father’s rebukes, had he not declared vehemently that he was happier remaining in the town. But she did succeed in carrying him off to the fortress of K?nigstein; and there as they wandered along the fortress constructed on that wonderful rock there occurred between them a conversation which he never forgot, and which it would not have been easy to forget. His own prospects had of course been frequently discussed. He had told her everything, down to the exact amount of money which he had to support him till he should again be enabled to earn an income, and had received assurances from her that everything would be just as it should be after a lapse of a few months. The Liberals would, as a matter of course, come in, and equally as a matter of course, Phineas would be in office. She spoke of this with such certainty that she almost convinced him. Having tempted him away from the safety of permanent income, the party could not do less than provide for him. If he could only secure a seat he would be safe; and it seemed that Tankerville would be a certain seat. This certainty he would not admit; but, nevertheless, he was comforted by his friend. When you have done the rashest thing in the world it is very pleasant to be told that no man of spirit could have acted otherwise. It was a matter of course that he should return to public life — so said Lady Laura — and doubly a matter of course when he found himself a widower without a child. “Whether it be a bad life or a good life,” said Lady Laura, “you and I understand equally well that no other life is worth having after it. We are like the actors, who cannot bear to be away from the gaslights when once they have lived amidst their glare.” As she said this they were leaning together over one of the parapets of the great fortress, and the sadness of the words struck him as they bore upon herself. She also had lived amidst the gaslights, and now she was self-banished into absolute obscurity. “You could not have been content with your life in Dublin,” she said.
“Are you content with your life in Dresden?”
“Certainly not. We all like exercise; but the man who has had his leg cut off can’t walk. Some can walk with safety; others only with a certain peril; and others cannot at all. You are in the second position, but I am in the last.”
“I do not see why you should not return.”
“And if I did what would come of it? In place of the seclusion of Dresden, there would be the seclusion of Portman Square or of Saulsby. Who would care to have me at their houses, or to come to mine? You know what a hazardous, chancy, short-lived thing is the fashion of a woman. With wealth, and wit, and social charm, and impudence, she may preserve it for some years, but when she has once lost it she can never recover it. I am as much lost to the people who did know me in London as though I had been buried for a century. A man makes himself really useful, but a woman can never do that.”
“All those general rules mean nothing,” said Phineas. “I should try it.”
“No, Phineas. I know better than that. It would only be disappointment. I hardly think that after all you ever did understand when it was that I broke down utterly and marred my fortunes for ever.”
“I know the day that did it,”
“When I accepted him?”
“Of course it was. I know that, and so do you. There need be no secret between us.”
“There need be no secret between us certainly — and on my part there shall be none. On my part there has been none.”
“Nor on mine.”
“There has been nothing for you to tell — since you blurted out your short story of love that day over the waterfall, when I tried so hard to stop you.”
“How was I to be stopped then?”
“No; you were too simple. You came there with but one idea, and you could not change it on the spur of the moment. When I told you that I was engaged you could not swallow back the words that were not yet spoken. Ah, how well I remember it. But you are wrong, Phineas. It was not my engagement or my marriage that has made the world a blank for me.” A feeling came upon him which half-choked him, so that he could also ask her no further question. “You know that, Phineas.”
“It was your marriage,” he said, gruffly.
“It was, and has been, and still will be my strong, unalterable, unquenchable love for you. How could I behave to that other man with even seeming tenderness when my mind was always thinking of you, when my heart was always fixed upon you? But you have been so simple, so little given to vanity,” — she leaned upon his arm as she spoke — “so pure and so manly, that you have not believed this, even when I told you. Has it not been so?”
“I do not wish to believe it now.”
“But you do believe it? You must and shall believe it. I ask for nothing in return. As my God is my judge, if I thought it possible that your heart should be to me as mine is to you, I could have put a pistol to my ear sooner than speak as I have spoken.” Though she paused for some word from him he could not utter a word. He remembered many things, but even to her in his present mood he could not allude to them — how he had kissed her at the Falls, how she had bade him not come back to the house because his presence to her was insupportable; how she had again encouraged him to come, and had then forbidden him to accept even an invitation to dinner from her husband. And he remembered too the fierceness of her anger to him when he told her of his love for Violet Effingham. “I must insist upon it”, she continued, “that you shall take me now as I really am — as your dearest friend, your sister, your mother, if you will. I know what I am. Were my husband not still living it would be the same. I should never under any circumstances marry again. I have passed the period of a woman’s life when as a woman she is loved; but I have not outlived the power of loving. I shall fret about you, Phineas, like an old hen after her one chick; and though you turn out to be a duck, and get away into waters where I cannot follow you, I shall go cackling round the pond, and always have my eye upon you.” He was holding her now by the hand, but he could not speak for the tears were trickling down his cheeks. “When I was young,” she continued, “I did not credit myself with capacity for so much passion. I told myself that love after all should be a servant and not a master, and I married my husband fully intending to do my duty to him. Now we see what has come of it.”
“It has been his fault; not yours,” said Phineas.
“It was my fault — mine; for I never loved him. Had you not told me what manner of man he was before? And I had believed you, though I denied it. And I knew when I went to Loughlinter that it was you whom I loved. And I knew too — I almost knew that you would ask me to be your wife were not that other thing settled first. And I declared to myself that, in spite of both our hearts, it should not be so. I had no money then — nor had you.”
“I would have worked for you.”
“Ah, yes; but you must not reproach me now, Phineas. I never deserted you as regarded your interests, though what little love you had for me was short-lived indeed. Nay; you are not accused, and shall not excuse yourself. You were right — always right. When you had failed to win one woman your heart with a true natural spring went to another. And so entire had been the cure, that you went to the first woman with the tale of your love for the second.”
“To whom was I to go but to a friend?”
“You did come to a friend, and though I could not drive out of my heart the demon of jealousy, though I was cut to the very bone, I would have helped you had help been possible. Though it had been the fixed purpose of my life that Violet and Oswald should be man and wife, I would have helped you because that other purpose of serving you in all things had become more fixed. But it was to no good end that I sang your praises. Violet Effingham was not the girl to marry this man or that at the bidding of anyone — was she?”
“No, indeed.”
“It is of no use now talking of it; is it? But I want you to understand me from the beginning — to understand all that was evil, and anything that was good. Since first I found that you were to me the dearest of human beings I have never once been untrue to your interests, though I have been unable not to be angry with you. Then came that wonderful episode in which you saved my husband’s life.”
“Not his life.”
“Was it not singular that it should come from your hand? It seemed like Fate. I tried to use the accident, to make his friendship for you as thorough as my own. And then I was obliged to separate you, because — because, after all I was so mere a woman that I could not bear to have you near me. I can bear it now.”
“Dear Laura!”
“Yes; as your sister. I think you cannot but love me a little when you know how entirely I am devoted to you. I can bear to have you near me now and think of you only as the hen thinks of her duckling. For a moment you are out of the pond, and I have gathered you under my wing. You understand?”
“I know that I am unworthy of what you say of me.”
“Worth has nothing to do with it — has no bearing on it. I do not say that you are more worthy than all whom I have known. But when did worth create love? What I want is that you should believe me, and know that there is one bound to you who will never be unbound, one whom you can trust in all things — one to whom you can confess that you have been wrong if you go wrong, and yet be sure that you will not lessen her regard. And with this feeling you must pretend to nothing more than friendship. You will love again, of course.”
“Oh, no.”
“Of course you will. I tried to blaze into power by a marriage, and I failed — because I was a woman. A woman should marry only for love. You will do it yet, and will not fail. You may remember this too — that I shall never be jealous again. You may tell me everything with safety. You will tell me everything?”
“If there be anything to tell, I will.”
“I will never stand between you and your wife — though I would fain hope that she should know how true a friend I am. Now we have walked here till it is dark, and the sentry will think we are taking plans of the place. Are you cold?”
“I have not thought about the cold.”
“Nor have I. We will go down to the inn and warm ourselves before the train comes. I wonder why I should have brought you here to tell you my story. Oh, Phineas.” Then she threw herself into his arms, and he pressed her to his heart, and kissed first her forehead and then her lips. “It shall never be so again,” she said. “I will kill it out of my heart even though I should crucify my body. But it is not my love that I will kill. When you are happy I will be happy. When you prosper I will prosper. When you fail I will fail. When you rise — as you will rise — I will rise with you. But I will never again feel the pressure of your arm round my waist. Here is the gate, and the old guide. So, my friend, you see that we are not lost.” Then they walked down the very steep hill to the little town below the fortress, and there they remained till the evening train came from Prague, and took them back to Dresden.
Two days after this was the day fixed for Finn’s departure. On the intermediate day the Earl begged for a few minutes’ private conversation with him, and the two were closeted together for an hour. The Earl, in truth, had little or nothing to say. Things had so gone with him that he had hardly a will of his own left, and did simply that which his daughter directed him to do. He pretended to consult Phineas as to the expediency of his returning to Saulsby. Did Phineas think that his return would be of any use to the party? Phineas knew very well that the party would not recognise the difference whether the Earl lived at Dresden or in London. When a man has come to the end of his influence as the Earl had done he is as much a nothing in politics as though he had never rise above that quantity. The Earl had never risen very high, and even Phineas, with all his desire to be civil, could not say that the Earl’s presence would materially serve the interests of the Liberal party. He made what most civil excuses he could, and suggested that if Lord Brentford should choose to return, Lady Laura would very willingly remain at Dresden alone. “But why shouldn’t she come too?” asked the Earl. And then, with the tardiness of old age, he proposed his little plan. “Why should she not make an attempt to live once more with her husband?”
“She never will,” said Phineas.
“But think how much she loses,” said the Earl.
“I am quite sure she never will. And I am quite sure that she ought not to do so. The marriage was a misfortune. As it is they are better apart.” After that the Earl did not dare to say another word about his daughter; but discussed his son’s affairs. Did not Phineas think that Chiltern might now be induced to go into Parliament? “Nothing would make him do so,” said Phineas.
“But he might farm?”
“You see he has his hands full.”
“But other men keep hounds and farm too,” said the Earl.
“But Chiltern is not like other men. He gives his whole mind to it, and finds full employment. And then he is quite happy, and so is she. What more can you want for him? Everybody respects him.”
“That goes a very great way,” said the Earl. Then he thanked Phineas cordially, and felt that now as ever he had done his duty by his family.
There was no renewal of the passionate conversation which had taken place on the ramparts, but much of tenderness and of sympathy arose from it. Lady Laura took upon herself the tone and manners of an elder sister — of a sister very much older than her brother — and Phineas submitted to them not only gracefully but with delight to himself. He had not thanked her for her love when she expressed it, and he did not do so afterwards. But he accepted it, and bowed to it, and recognised it as constituting one of the future laws of his life. He was to do nothing of importance without her knowledge, and he was to be at her command should she at any time want assistance in England. “I suppose I shall come back some day,” she said, as they were sitting together late on the evening before his departure.
“I cannot understand why you should not do so now. Your father wishes it.”
“He thinks he does; but were he told that he was to go tomorrow, or next summer, it would fret him. I am assured that Mr Kennedy could demand my return — by law.”
“He could not enforce it.”
“He would attempt it. I will not go back until he consents to my living apart from him. And, to tell the truth, I am better here for awhile. They say that the sick animals always creep somewhere under cover. I am a sick animal, and now that I have crept here I will remain till I am stronger. How terribly anxious you must be about Tankerville!”
“I am anxious.”
“You will telegraph to me at once? You will be sure to do that?”
“Of course I will, the moment I know my fate.”
“And if it goes against you?”
“Ah — what then?”
“I shall at once write to Barrington Erle. I don’t suppose he would do much now for his poor cousin, but he can at any rate say what can be done. I should bid you come here — only that stupid people would say that you were my lover. I should not mind, only that he would hear it, and I am bound to save him from annoyance. Would you not go down to Oswald again?”
“With what object?”
“Because anything will be better than returning to Ireland. Why not go down and look after Saulsby? It would be a home, and you need not tie yourself to it. I will speak to Papa about that. But you will get the seat.”
“I think I shall,” said Phineas.
“Do — pray do! If I could only get hold of that judge by the ears! Do you know what time it is? It is twelve, and your train starts at eight.” Then he arose to bid her adieu. “No,” she said; “I shall see you off”
“Indeed you will not. It will be almost night when I leave this, and the frost is like iron.”
“Neither the night nor the frost will kill me. Do you think I will not give you your last breakfast? God bless you, dear.”
And on the following morning she did give him his breakfast by candle-light, and went down with him to the station. The morning was black, and the frost was, as he had said, as hard as iron, but she was thoroughly good-humoured, and apparently happy. “It has been so much to me to have you here, that I might tell you everything,” she said. “You will understand me now.”
“I understand, but I know not how to believe,” he said.
“You do believe. You would be worse than a Jew if you did not believe me. But you understand also. I want you to marry, and you must tell her all the truth. If I can I will love her almost as much as I do you. And if I live to see them, I will love your children as dearly as I do you. Your children shall be my children — or at least one of them shall be mine. You will tell me when it is to be.”
“If I ever intend such a thing, I will tell you.”
“Now, goodbye. I shall stand back there till the train starts, but do not you notice me. God bless you, Phineas.” She held his hand tight within her own for some seconds, and looked into his face with an unutterable love. Then she drew down her veil, and went and stood apart till the train had left the platform.
“He has gone, Papa,” Lady Laura said, as she stood afterwards by her father’s bedside.
“Has he? Yes; I know he was to go, of course. I was very glad to see him, Laura.”
“So was I, Papa — very glad indeed. Whatever happens to him, we must never lose sight of him again.”
“We shall hear of him, of course, if he is in the House.”
“Whether he is in the House or out of it we must hear of him. While we have aught he must never want.” The Earl stared at his daughter. The Earl was a man of large possessions, and did not as yet understand that he was to be called upon to share them with Phineas Finn. “I know, Papa, you will never think ill of me.”
“Never, my dear.”
“I have sworn that I will be a sister to that man, and I will keep my oath.”
“I know you are a very good sister to Chiltern,” said the Earl. Lady Laura had at one time appropriated her whole fortune, which had been large, to the payment of her brother’s debts. The money had been returned, and had gone to her husband. Lord Brentford now supposed that she intended at some future time to pay the debts of Phineas Finn.
When Phineas returned to London, the autumn Session, though it has been carried on so near to Christmas as to make many members very unhappy, had already been over for a fortnight. Mr Daubeny had played his game with consummate skill to the last. He had brought in no bill, but had stated his intention of doing so early in the following Session. He had, he said, of course been aware from the first that it would have been quite impossible to carry such a measure as that proposed during the few weeks in which it had been possible for them to sit between the convening of Parliament and the Christmas holidays; but he thought that it was expedient that the proposition should be named to the House and ventilated as it had been, so that members on both sides might be induced to give their most studious attention to the subject before a measure, which must be so momentous, should be proposed to them. As had happened, the unforeseen division to which the House had been pressed on the Address had proved that the majority of the House was in favour of the great reform, which it was the object of his ambition to complete. They were aware that they had been assembled at a somewhat unusual and inconvenient period of the year, because the service of the country had demanded that certain money bills should be passed. He, however, rejoiced greatly that this earliest opportunity had been afforded to him of explaining the intentions of the Government with which he had the honour of being connected. In answer to this there arose a perfect torrent of almost vituperative antagonism from the opposite side of the House. Did the Right Honourable gentleman dare to say that the question had been ventilated in the country, when it had never been broached by him or any of his followers till after the general election had been completed? Was it not notorious to the country that the first hint of it had been given when the Right Honourable gentleman was elected for East Barsetshire, and was it not equally notorious that that election had been so arranged that the marvellous proposition of the Right Honourable gentleman should not be known even to his own party till there remained no possibility of the expression of any condemnation from the hustings?. It might be that the Right Honourable could so rule his own followers in that House as to carry them with him even in a matter so absolutely opposite to their own most cherished convictions. It certainly seemed that he had succeeded in doing so for the present. But would anyone believe that he would have carried the country, had he dared to face the country with such a measure in his hands? Ventilation, indeed! He had not dared to ventilate his proposition. He had used this short Session in order that he might keep his clutch fastened on power, and in doing so was indifferent alike to the Constitution, to his party, and to the country. Harder words had never been spoken in the House than were uttered on this occasion. But the Minister was successful. He had been supported on the Address; and he went home to East Barsetshire at Christmas, perhaps with some little fear of the parsons around him; but with a full conviction that he would at least carry the second reading of his bill.
London was more than usually full and busy this year immediately after Christmas. It seemed as though it were admitted by all the Liberal party generally that the sadness of the occasion ought to rob the season of its usual festivities. Who could eat mince pies or think of Twelfth Night while so terribly wicked a scheme was in progress for keeping the real majority out in the cold? It was the injustice of the thing that rankled so deeply — that, and a sense of inferiority to the cleverness displayed by Mr Daubeny! It was as when a player is checkmated by some audacious combination of two pawns and a knight, such being all the remaining forces of the victorious adversary, when the beaten man has two castles and a queen upon the board. It was, indeed, worse than this — for the adversary had appropriated to his own use the castles and the queen of the unhappy vanquished one. This Church Reform was the legitimate property of the Liberals, and had not been as yet used by then? only because they had felt it right to keep in the background for some future great occasion so great and so valuable a piece of ordnance. It was theirs so safely that they could afford to bide their time. And then — so they all said, and so some of them believed — the country was not ready for so great a measure. It must come; but there must be tenderness in the mode of producing it. The parsons must be respected, and the great Church-of-England feeling of the people must be considered with affectionate regard. Even the most rabid Dissenter would hardly wish to see a structure so nearly divine attacked and destroyed by rude hands. With grave and slow and sober earnestness, with loving touches and soft caressing manipulation let the beautiful old Church be laid to its rest, as something too exquisite, too lovely, too refined for the present rough manners of the world! Such were the ideas as to Church Reform of the leading Liberals of the day; and now this man, without even a majority to back him, this audacious Cagliostro among statesmen, this destructive leader of all declared Conservatives, had come forward without a moment’s warning, and pretended that he would do the thing out of hand! Men knew that it had to be done. The country had begun to perceive that the old Establishment must fall; and, knowing this, would not the Liberal backbone of Great Britain perceive the enormity of this Cagliostro’s wickedness — and rise against him and bury him beneath its scorn as, it ought to do? This was the feeling that made a real Christmas impossible to Messrs Ratler and Bonteen.
“The one thing incredible to me,” said Mr Ratler, “is that Englishmen should be so mean.” He was alluding to the Conservatives who had shown their intention of supporting Mr Daubeny, and whom he accused of doing so, simply with a view to power and patronage, without any regard to their own consistency or to the welfare of the country. Mr Ratler probably did not correctly read the minds of the men whom he was accusing, and did not perceive, as he should have done with his experience, how little there was among them of concerted action. To defend the Church was a duty to each of them; but then, so also was it a duty to support his party. And each one could see his way to the one duty, whereas the other was vague, and too probably ultimately impossible. If it were proper to throw off the incubus of this conjuror’s authority, surely some wise, and great, and bold man would get up and so declare. Some junto of wise men of the party would settle that he should be deposed. But where were they to look for the wise and bold men? where even for the junto? Of whom did the party consist? — Of honest, chivalrous, and enthusiastic men, but mainly of men who were idle, and unable to take upon their own shoulders the responsibility of real work. Their leaders had been selected from the outside — clever, eager, pushing men, but of late had been hardly selected from among themselves. As used to be the case with Italian Powers, they entrusted their cause to mercenary foreign generals, soldiers of fortune, who carried their good swords whither they were wanted; and, as of old, the leaders were ever ready to fight, but would themselves declare what should be and what should not be the casus belli. There was not so much meanness as Mr Ratler supposed in the Conservative ranks, but very much more unhappiness. Would it not be better to go home and live at the family park all the year round, and hunt, and attend Quarter Sessions, and be able to declare morning and evening with a clear conscience that the country was going to the dogs? Such was the mental working of many a Conservative who supported Mr Daubeny on this occasion.
At the instance of Lady Laura, Phineas called upon the Duke of St Bungay soon after his return, and was very kindly received by His Grace. In former days, when there were Whigs instead of Liberals, it was almost a rule of political life that all leading Whigs should be uncles, brothers-in-law, or cousins to each other. This was pleasant and gave great consistency to the party; but the system has now gone out of vogue. There remain of it, however, some traces, so that among the nobler born Liberals of the day there is still a good deal of agreeable family connection. In this way the St Bungay FitzHowards were related to the Mildmays and Standishes, and such a man as Barrington Erle was sure to be cousin to all of them. Lady Laura had thus only sent her friend to a relation of her own, and as the Duke and Phineas had been in the same Government, His Grace was glad enough to receive the returning aspirant. Of course there was something said at first as to the life of the Earl at Dresden. The Duke recollected the occasion of such banishment, and shook his head; and attempted to look unhappy when the wretched condition of Mr Kennedy was reported to him. But he was essentially a happy man, and shook off the gloom at once when Phineas spoke of politics. “So you are coming back to us, Mr Finn?”
“They tell me I may perhaps get the seat.”
“I am heartily glad, for you were very useful. I remember how Cantrip almost cried when he told me you were going to leave him. He had been rather put upon, I fancy, before.”
“There was perhaps something in that, Your Grace.”
“There will be nothing to return to now beyond barren honours.”
“Not for a while.”
“Not for a long while,” said the Duke — “for a long while, that is, as candidates for office regard time. Mr Daubeny will be safe for this Session at least. I doubt whether he will really attempt to carry his measure this year. He will bring it forward, and after the late division he must get his second reading. He will then break down gracefully in Committee, and declare that the importance of the interests concerned demands further inquiry. It wasn’t a thing to be done in one year.”
“Why should he do it at all?” asked Phineas.
“That’s what everybody asks, but the answer seems to be so plain! Because he can do it, and we can’t. He will get from our side much support, and we should get none from his.”
“There is something to me sickening in their dishonesty,” said Phineas energetically.
“The country has the advantage; and I don’t know that they are dishonest. Ought we to come to a deadlock in legislation in order that parties might fight out their battle till one had killed the other?”
“I don’t think a man should support a measure which he believes to be destructive.”
“He doesn’t believe it to be destructive. The belief is theoretic — or not even quite that. It is hardly more than romantic. As long as acres are dear, and he can retain those belonging to him, the country gentleman will never really believe his country to be in danger. It is the same with commerce. As long as the Three per Cents do not really mean Four per Cent — I may say as long as they don’t mean Five per Cent — the country will be rich, though everyone should swear that it be ruined.”
“I’m very glad, at the same time, that I don’t call myself a Conservative,” said Phineas.
“That shows how disinterested you are, as you certainly would be in office. Goodbye. Come and see the Duchess when she comes to town. And if you’ve nothing better to do, give us a day or two at Longroyston at Easter.” Now Longroyston was the Duke’s well-known country seat, at which Whig hospitality had been dispensed with a lavish hand for two centuries.
On the 20th January Phineas travelled down to Tankerville again in obedience to a summons served upon him at the instance of the judge who was to try his petition against Browborough. It was the special and somewhat unusual nature of this petition that the complainants not only sought to oust the sitting member, but also to give the seat to the late unsuccessful candidate. There was to be a scrutiny, by which, if it should be successful, so great a number of votes would be deducted from those polled on behalf of the unfortunate Mr Browborough as to leave a majority for his opponent, with the additional disagreeable obligation upon him of paying the cost of the transaction by which he would thus lose his seat. Mr Browborough, no doubt, looked upon the whole thing with the greatest disgust. He thought that a battle when once won should be regarded as over till the occasion should come for another battle. He had spent his money like a gentleman, and hated these mean ways. No one could ever say that he had ever petitioned. That was his way of looking at it. That Shibboleth of his as to the prospects of England and the Church of her people had, no doubt, made the House less agreeable to him during the last Short session than usual; but he had stuck to his party, and voted with Mr Daubeny on the Address — the obligation for such vote having inconveniently pressed itself upon him before the presentation of the petition had been formally completed. He had always stuck to his party. It was the pride of his life that he had been true and consistent. He also was summoned to Tankerville, and he was forced to go, although he knew that the Shibboleth would be thrown in his teeth.
Mr Browborough spent two or three very uncomfortable days at Tankerville, whereas Phineas was triumphant. There were worse things in store for poor Mr Browborough than his repudiated Shibboleth, or even than his lost seat. Mr Ruddles, acting with wondrous energy, succeeded in knocking off the necessary votes, and succeeded also in proving that these votes were void by reason of gross bribery. He astonished Phineas by the cool effrontery with which he took credit to himself for not having purchased votes in the Fallgate on the Liberal side, but Phineas was too wise to remind him that he himself had hinted at one time that it would be well to lay out a little money in that way. No one at the present moment was more clear than was Ruddles as to the necessity of purity at elections. Not a penny had been misspent by the Finnites. A vote or two from their score was knocked off on grounds which did not touch the candidate or his agents. One man had personated a vote, but this appeared to have been done at the instigation of some very cunning Browborough partisan. Another man had been wrongly described. This, however, amounted to nothing. Phineas Finn was seated for the borough, and the judge declared his purpose of recommending the House of Commons to issue a commission with reference to the expediency of instituting a prosecution. Mr Browborough left the town in great disgust, not without various publicly expressed intimations from his opponents that the prosperity of England depended on the Church of her people. Phineas was gloriously entertained by the Liberals of the borough, and then informed that as so much had been done for him it was hoped that he would now open his pockets on behalf of the charities of the town. “Gentlemen,” said Phineas, to one or two of the leading Liberals, “it is as well that you should know at once that I am a very poor man.” The leading Liberals made wry faces, but Phineas was member for the borough.
The moment that the decision was announced, Phineas, shaking off for the time his congratulatory friends, hurried to the post-office and sent his message to Lady Laura Standish at Dresden: “I have got the seat.” He was almost ashamed of himself as the telegraph boy looked up at him when he gave in the words, but this was a task which he could not have entrusted to anyone else. He almost thought that this was in truth the proudest and happiest moment of his life. She would so thoroughly enjoy his triumph, would receive from it such great and unselfish joy, that he almost wished that he could have taken the message himself. Surely had he done so there would have been fit occasion for another embrace.
He was again a member of the British House of Commons — was again in possession of that privilege for which he had never ceased to sigh since the moment in which he lost it. A drunkard or a gambler may be weaned from his ways, but not a politician. To have been in the House and not to be there was, to such a one as Phineas Finn, necessarily, a state of discontent. But now he had worked his way up again, and he was determined that no fears for the future should harass him. He would give his heart and soul to the work while his money lasted. It would surely last him for the Session. He was all alone in the world, and would trust to the chapter of accidents for the future.
“I never knew a fellow with such luck as yours,” said Barrington Erle to him, on his return to London. “A seat always drops into your mouth when the circumstances seem to be most forlorn.”
“I have been lucky, certainly.”
“My cousin, Laura Kennedy, has been writing to me about you.”
“I went over to see them, you know.”
“So I heard. She talks some nonsense about the Earl being willing to do anything for you. What could the Earl do? He has no more influence in the Loughton borough than I have, All that kind of thing is clean done for — with one or two exceptions. We got much better men while it lasted than we do now.”
“I should doubt that.”
“We did — much truer men — men who went straighter. By the bye, Phineas, we must have no tricks on this Church matter. We mean to do all we can to throw out the second reading.”
“You know what I said at the hustings.”
“D— the hustings. I know what Browborough said, and Browborough voted like a man with his party. You were against the Church at the hustings, and he was for it. You will vote just the other way. There will be a little confusion, but the people of Tankerville will never remember the particulars.”
“I don’t know that I can do that.”
“By heavens, if you don’t, you shall never more be officer of ours — though Laura Kennedy should cry her eyes out.”
In the meantime the hunting season was going on in the Brake country with chequered success. There had arisen the great Trumpeton Wood question, about which the sporting world was doomed to hear so much for the next twelve months — and Lord Chiltern was in an unhappy state of mind. Trumpeton Wood belonged to that old friend of ours, the Duke of Omnium, who had now almost fallen into second childhood. It was quite out of the question that the Duke should himself interfere in such a matter, or know anything about it; but Lord Chiltern, with headstrong resolution, had persisted in writing to the Duke himself. Foxes had always hitherto been preserved in Trumpeton Wood, and the earths had always been stopped on receipt of due notice by the keepers. During the cubbing season there had arisen quarrels. The keepers complained that no effort was made to kill the foxes. Lord Chiltern swore that the earths were not stopped. Then there came tidings of a terrible calamity. A dying fox, with a trap to its pad, was found in the outskirts of the Wood; and Lord Chiltern wrote to the Duke. He drew the Wood in regular course before any answer could be received — and three of his hounds picked up poison, and died beneath his eyes. He wrote to the Duke again — a cutting letter; and then came from the Duke’s man of business, Mr Fothergill, a very short reply, which Lord Chiltern regarded as an insult. Hitherto the affair had not got into the sporting papers, and was simply a matter of angry discussion at every meet in the neighbouring counties. Lord Chiltern was very full of wrath, and always looked as though he desired to avenge those poor hounds on the Duke and all belonging to him. To a Master of Hounds the poisoning of one of his pack is murder of the deepest dye. There probably never was a Master who in his heart of hearts would not think it right that a detected culprit should be hung for such an offence. And most Masters would go further than this, and declare that in the absence of such detection the owner of the covert in which the poison had been picked up should be held to be responsible. In this instance the condition of ownership was unfortunate. The Duke himself was old, feeble, and almost imbecile. He had never been eminent as a sportsman; but, in a not energetic manner, he had endeavoured to do his duty by the country. His heir, Plantagenet Palliser, was simply a statesman, who, as regarded himself, had never a day to spare for amusement; and who, in reference to sport, had unfortunate fantastic notions that pheasants and rabbits destroyed crops, and that foxes were injurious to old women’s poultry. He, however, was not the owner, and had refused to interfere. There had been family quarrels too, adverse to the sporting interests of the younger Palliser scions, so that the shooting of this wood had drifted into the hands of Mr Fothergill and his friends. Now, Lord Chiltern had settled it in his own mind that the hounds had been poisoned, if not in compliance with Mr Fothergill’s orders, at any rate in furtherance of his wishes, and, could he have had his way, he certainly would have sent Mr Fothergill to the gallows. Now, Miss Palliser, who was still staying at Lord Chiltern’s house, was niece to the old Duke, and first cousin to the heir. “They are nothing to me,” she said once, when Lord Chiltern had attempted to apologise for the abuse he was heaping on her relatives. “I haven’t seen the Duke since I was a little child, and I shouldn’t know my cousin were I to meet him.”
“So much the more gracious is your condition,” said Lady Chiltern — “at any rate in Oswald’s estimation.”
“I know them, and once spent a couple of days at Matching with them,” said Lord Chiltern. “The Duke is an old fool, who always gave himself greater airs than any other man in England — and as far as I can see, with less to excuse them. As for Planty Pall, he and I belong so essentially to different orders of things, that we can hardly be reckoned as being both men.”
“And which is the man, Lord Chiltern?”
“Whichever you please, my dear; only not both. Doggett was over there yesterday, and found three separate traps.”
“What did he do with the traps?” said Lady Chiltern.
“I wasn’t fool enough to ask him, but I don’t in the least doubt that he threw them into the water — or that he’d throw Palliser there too if he could get hold of him. As for taking the hounds to Trumpeton again, I wouldn’t do it if there were not another covert in the country.”
“Then leave it so, and have done with it,” said his wife. “I wouldn’t fret as you do for what another man did with his own property, for all the foxes in England.”
“That is because you understand nothing of hunting, my dear. A man’s property is his own in one sense, but isn’t his own in another. A man can’t do what he likes with his coverts.”
“He can cut them down.”
“But he can’t let another pack hunt them, and he can’t hunt them himself. If he’s in a hunting county he is bound to preserve foxes.”
“What binds him, Oswald? A man can’t be bound without a penalty.”
“I should think it penalty enough for everybody to hate me. What are you going to do about Phineas Finn?”
“I have asked him to come on the 1st and stay till Parliament meets.”
“And is that woman coming?”
“There are two or three women coming.”
“She with the German name, whom you made me dine with in Park Lane?”
“Madame Max Goesler is coming. She brings her own horses, and they will stand at Doggett’s.”
“They can’t stand here, for there is not a stall.”
“I am so sorry that my poor little fellow should incommode you,” said Miss Palliser.
“You’re a licensed offender — though, upon my honour, I don’t know whether I ought to give a feed of oats to anyone having a connection with Trumpeton Wood. And what is Phineas to ride?”
“He shall ride my horses,” said Lady Chiltern, whose present condition in life rendered hunting inopportune to her.
“Neither of them would carry him a mile. He wants about as good an animal as you can put him upon. I don’t know what I’m to do. It’s all very well for Laura to say that he must be mounted.”
“You wouldn’t refuse to give Mr Finn a mount!” said Lady Chiltern, almost with dismay.
“I’d give him my right hand to ride, only it wouldn’t carry him. I can’t make horses. Harry brought home that brown mare on Tuesday with an overreach that she won’t get over this season. What the deuce they do with their horses to knock them about so, I can’t understand. I’ve killed horses in my time, and ridden them to a stand-still, but I never bruised them and battered them about as these fellows do.”
“Then I’d better write to Mr Finn, and tell him,” said Lady Chiltern, very gravely.
“Oh, Phineas Finn!” said Lord Chiltern; “oh, Phineas Finn! what a pity it was that you and I didn’t see the matter out when we stood opposite to each other on the sands at Blankenberg!”
“Oswald,” said his wife, getting up, and putting her arm over his shoulder, “you know you would give your best horse to Mr Finn, as long as he chose to stay here, though you rode upon a donkey yourself.”
“I know that if I didn’t, you would,” said Lord Chiltern. And so the matter was settled.
At night, when they were alone together, there was further discussion as to the visitors who were coming to Harrington Hall. “Is Gerard Maule to come back?” asked the husband.
“I have asked him. He left his horses at Doggett’s, you know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I certainly told you, Oswald. Do you object to his coming? You can’t really mean that you care about his riding?”
“It isn’t that. You must have some whipping post, and he’s as good as another. But he shilly-shallies about that girl. I hate all that stuff like poison.”
“All men are not so — abrupt shall I say? — as you were.”
“I had something to say, and I said it. When I had said it a dozen times, I got to have it believed. He doesn’t say it as though he meant to have it believed.”
“You were always in earnest, Oswald.”
“I was.”
“To the extent of the three minutes which you allowed yourself. It sufficed, however — did it not? You are glad you persevered?”
“What fools women are.”
“Never mind that. Say you are glad. I like you to tell me so. Let me be a fool if I will.”
“What made you so obstinate?”
“I don’t know. I never could tell. It wasn’t that I didn’t dote upon you, and think about you, and feel quite sure that there never could be any other one than you.”
“I’ve no doubt it was all right — only you very nearly made me shoot a fellow, and now I’ve got to find horses for him. I wonder whether he could ride Dandolo?”
“Don’t put him up on anything very hard.”
“Why not? His wife is dead, and he hasn’t got a child, nor yet an acre of property. I don’t know who is entitled to break his neck if he is not. And Dandolo is as good a horse as there is in the stable, if you can once get him to go. Mind, I have to start tomorrow at nine, for it’s all eighteen miles.” And so the Master of the Brake Hounds took himself to his repose.
Lady Laura Kennedy had written to Barrington Erle respecting her friend’s political interests, and to her sister-in-law, Lady Chiltern, as to his social comfort. She could not bear to think that he should be left alone in London till Parliament should meet, and had therefore appealed to Lady Chiltern as to the memory of many past events. The appeal had been unnecessary and superfluous. It cannot be said that Phineas and his affairs were matters of as close an interest to Lady Chiltern as to Lady Laura. If any woman loved her husband beyond all things Lord Chiltern’s wife did, and ever had done so. But there had been a tenderness in regard to the young Irish Member of Parliament, which Violet Effingham had in old days shared with Lady Laura, and which made her now think that all good things should be done for him. She believed him to be addicted to hunting, and therefore horses must be provided for him. He was a widower, and she remembered of old that he was fond of pretty women, and she knew that in coming days he might probably want money — and therefore she had asked Madame Max Goesler to spend a fortnight at Harrington Hall. Madame Max Goesler and Phineas Finn had been acquainted before, as Lady Chiltern was well aware. But perhaps Lady Chiltern, when she summoned Madame Max into the country, did not know how close the acquaintance had been.
Madame Max came a couple of days before Phineas, and was taken out hunting on the morning after her arrival. She was a lady who could ride to hounds — and who, indeed, could do nearly anything to which she set her mind. She was dark, thin, healthy, good-looking, clever, ambitious, rich, unsatisfied, perhaps unscrupulous — but not without a conscience. As has been told in a former portion of this chronicle, she could always seem to be happy with her companion of the day, and yet there was ever present a gnawing desire to do something more and something better than she had as yet achieved. Of course, as he took her to the meet, Lord Chiltern told her his grievance respecting Trumpeton Wood. “But, my dear Lord Chiltern, you must not abuse the Duke of Omnium to me.”
“Why not to you?”
“He and I are sworn friends.”
“He’s a hundred years old,”
“And why shouldn’t I have a friend a hundred years old? And as for Mr Palliser, he knows no more of your foxes than I know of his taxes. Why don’t you write to Lady Glencora? She understands everything.”
“Is she a friend of yours, too?”
“My particular friend. She and I, you know, look after the poor dear Duke between us.”
“I can understand why she should sacrifice herself.”
“But not why I do. I can’t explain it myself; but so it has come to pass, and I must not hear the Duke abused. May I write to Lady Glencora about it?”
“Certainly — if you please; but not as giving her any message from me. Her uncle’s property is mismanaged most damnably. If you choose to tell her that I say so you can. I’m not going to ask anything as a favour. I never do ask favours. But the Duke or Planty Palliser among them should do one of two things. They should either stand by the hunting, or they should let it alone — and they should say what they mean. I like to know my friends, and I like to know my enemies.”
“I am sure the Duke is not your enemy, Lord Chiltern.”
“These Pallisers have always been running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. They are great aristocrats, and yet are always going in for the people. I’m told that Planty Pall calls fox-hunting barbarous. Why doesn’t he say so out loud, and stub up Trumpeton Wood and grow corn?”
“Perhaps he will when Trumpeton Wood belongs to him.”
“I should like that much better than poisoning hounds and trapping foxes.” When they got to the meet, conclaves of men might be seen gathered together here and there, and in each conclave they were telling something new or something old as to the iniquities perpetrated at Trumpeton Wood.
On that evening before dinner Madame Goesler was told by her hostess that Phineas Finn was expected on the following day. The communication was made quite as a matter of course; but Lady Chiltern had chosen a time in which the lights were shaded, and the room was dark. Adelaide Palliser was present, as was also a certain Lady Baldock — not that Lady Baldock who had abused all Papists to poor Phineas, but her son’s wife. They were drinking tea together over the fire, and the dim lights were removed from the circle. This, no doubt, was simply an accident; but the gloom served Madame Goesler during one moment of embarrassment. “An old friend of yours is coming here tomorrow,” said Lady Chiltern.
“An old friend of mine! Shall I call my friend he or she?”
“You remember Mr Finn?”
That was the moment in which Madame Goesler rejoiced that no strong glare of light fell upon her face. But she was a woman who would not long leave herself subject to any such embarrassment. “Surely,” she said, confining herself at first to the single word.
“He is coming here. He is a great friend of mine.”
“He always was a good friend of yours, Lady Chiltern.”
“And of yours, too, Madame Max. A sort of general friend, I think, was Mr Finn in the old days. I hope you will be glad to see him.”
“Oh, dear, yes.”
“I thought him very nice,” said Adelaide Palliser.
“I remember mamma saying, before she was mamma, you know,” said Lady Baldock, “that Mr Finn was very nice indeed, only he was a Papist, and only he had got no money, and only he would fall in love with everybody. Does he go on falling in love with people, Violet?”
“Never with married women, my dear. He has had a wife himself since that, Madame Goesler, and the poor thing died.”
“And now here he is beginning all over again,” said Lady Baldock.
“And as pleasant as ever,” said her cousin. “You know he has done all manner of things for our family. He picked Oswald up once after one of those terrible hunting accidents; and he saved Mr Kennedy when men were murdering him.”
“That was questionable kindness,” said Lady Baldock.
“And he sat for Lord Brentford’s borough,”
“How good of him!” said Miss Palliser.
“And he has done all manner of things,” said Lady Chiltern.
“Didn’t he once fight a duel?” asked Madame Goesler.
“That was the grandest thing of all,” said his friend, “for he didn’t shoot somebody whom perhaps he might have shot had he been as bloodthirsty as somebody else, And now he has come back to Parliament, and all that kind of thing, and he’s coming here to hunt. I hope you’ll be glad to see him, Madame Goesler.”
“I shall be very glad to see him,” said Madame Goesler, slowly; “I heard about his success at that town, and I knew that I should meet him somewhere.”
It was necessary also that some communication should be made to Phineas, so that he might not come across Madame Goesler unawares. Lady Chiltern was more alive to that necessity than she had been to the other, and felt that the gentleman, if not warned of what was to take place, would be much more likely than the lady to be awkward at the trying moment, Madame Goesler would in any circumstances be sure to recover her self-possession very quickly, even were she to lose it for a moment; but so much could hardly be said for the social powers of Phineas Finn. Lady Chiltern therefore contrived to see him alone for a moment on his arrival. “Who do you think is here?”
“Lady Laura has not come!”
“Indeed, no; I wish she had. An old friend, but not so old as Laura!”
“I cannot guess — not Lord Fawn?”
“Lord Fawn! What would Lord Fawn do here? Don’t you know that Lord Fawn goes nowhere since his last matrimonial trouble? It’s a friend of yours, not of mine.”
“Madame Goesler?” whispered Phineas.
“How well you knew when I said it was a friend of yours. Madame Goesler is here — not altered in the least.”
“Madame Goesler!”
“Does it annoy you?”
“Oh, no. Why should it annoy me?”
“You never quarrelled with her?”
“Never!”
“There is no reason why you should not meet her?”
“None at all — only I was surprised. Did she know that I was coming?”
“I told her yesterday. I hope that I have not done wrong or made things unpleasant. I knew that you used to be friends.”
“And as friends we parted, Lady Chiltern.” He had nothing more to say in the matter; nor had she. He could not tell the story of what had taken place between himself and the lady, and she could not keep herself from surmising that something had taken place, which, had she known it, would have prevented her from bringing the two together at Harrington.
Madame Goesler, when she was dressing, acknowledged to herself that she had a task before her which would require all her tact and all her courage. She certainly would not have accepted Lady Chiltern’s invitation had she known that she would encounter Phineas Finn at the house. She had twenty-four hours to think of it, and at one time had almost made up her mind that some sudden business should recall her to London. Of course, her motive would be suspected. Of course Lady Chiltern would connect her departure with the man’s arrival. But even that, bad as it would be, might be preferable to the meeting! What a fool had she been — so she accused herself — in not foreseeing that such an accident might happen, knowing as she did that Phineas Finn had reappeared in the political world, and that he and the Chiltern people had ever been fast friends! As she had thought about it, lying awake at night, she had told herself that she must certainly be recalled back to London by business. She would telegraph up to town, raising a question about any trifle, and on receipt of the answer she could be off with something of an excuse. The shame of running away from the man seemed to be a worse evil than the shame of meeting him. She had in truth done nothing to disgrace herself. In her desire to save a man whom she had loved from the ruin which she thought had threatened him, she had — offered him her hand. She had made the offer, and he had refused it! That was all. No; she would not be driven to confess to herself that she had ever fled from the face of man or woman. This man would be again in London, and she could not always fly. It would be only necessary that she should maintain her own composure, and the misery of the meeting would pass away after the first few minutes. One consolation was assured to her. She thoroughly believed in the man — feeling certain that he had not betrayed her, and would not betray her. But now, as the time for the meeting drew near, as she stood for a moment before the glass — pretending to look at herself in order that her maid might not remark her uneasiness, she found that her courage, great as it was, hardly sufficed her. She almost plotted some scheme of a headache, by which she might be enabled not to show herself till after dinner. “I am so blind that I can hardly see out of my eyes,” she said to the maid, actually beginning the scheme. The woman assumed a look of painful solicitude, and declared that “Madame did not look quite her best.” “I suppose I shall shake it off,” said Madame Goesler; and then she descended the stairs.
The condition of Phineas Finn was almost as bad, but he had a much less protracted period of anticipation than that with which the lady was tormented. He was sent up to dress for dinner with the knowledge that in half an hour he would find himself in the same room with Madame Goesler. There could be no question of his running away, no possibility even of his escaping by a headache. But it may be doubted whether his dismay was not even more than hers. She knew that she could teach herself to use no other than fitting words; but he was almost sure that he would break down if he attempted to speak to her. She would be safe from blushing, but he would assuredly become as red as a turkey-cock’s comb up to the roots of his hair. Her blood would be under control, but his would be coursing hither and thither through his veins, so as to make him utterly unable to rule himself. Nevertheless, he also plucked up his courage and descended, reaching the drawing-room before Madame Goesler had entered it. Chiltern was going on about Trumpeton Wood to Lord Baldock, and was renewing his fury against all the Pallisers, while Adelaide stood by and laughed. Gerard Maule was lounging on a chair, wondering that any man could expend such energy on such a subject. Lady Chiltern was explaining the merits of the case to Lady Baldock — who knew nothing about hunting; and the other guests were listening with eager attention: A certain Mr Spooner, who rode hard and did nothing else, and who acted as an unacknowledged assistant-master under Lord Chiltern — there is such a man in every hunt — acted as chorus, and indicated, chiefly with dumb show, the strong points of the case.
“Finn, how are you?” said Lord Chiltern, stretching out his left hand. “Glad to have you back again, and congratulate you about the seat. It was put down in red herrings, and we found nearly a dozen of them afterwards — enough to kill half the pack.”
“Picked up nine,” said Mr Spooner.
“Children might have picked them up quite as well — and eaten them,” said Lady Chiltern.
“They didn’t care about that,” continued the Master. “And now they’ve wires and traps over the whole place. Palliser’s a friend of yours — isn’t he, Finn?”
“Of course I knew him — when I was in office.”
“I don’t know what he may be in office, but he’s an uncommon bad sort of fellow to have in a county.”
“Shameful!” said Mr Spooner, lifting up both his hands.
“This is my first cousin, you know,” whispered Adelaide, to Lady Baldock.
“If he were my own brother, or my grandmother, I should say the same,” continued the angry lord. “We must have a meeting about it, and let the world know it — that’s all.” At this moment the door was again opened, and Madame Goesler entered the room.
When one wants to be natural, of necessity one comes the reverse of natural. A clever actor — or more frequently a clever actress — will assume the appearance; but the very fact of the assumption renders the reality impossible. Lady Chiltern was generally very clever in the arrangement of all little social difficulties, and, had she thought less about it, might probably have managed the present affair in an easy and graceful manner. But the thing had weighed upon her mind, and she had decided that it would be expedient that she should say something when those two old friends first met each other again in her drawing-room. “Madame Max,” she said, “you remember Mr Finn.” Lord Chiltern for a moment stopped the torrent of his abuse. Lord Baldock made a little effort to look uninterested, but quite in vain. Mr Spooner stood on one side. Lady Baldock stared with all her eyes — with some feeling of instinct that there would be something to see; and Gerard Maule, rising from the sofa, joined the circle. It seemed as though Lady Chiltern’s words had caused the formation of a ring in the midst of which Phineas and Madame Goesler were to renew their acquaintance.
“Very well indeed,” said Madame Max, putting out her hand and looking full into our hero’s face with her sweetest smile. “And I hope Mr Finn will not have forgotten me.” She did it admirably — so well that surely she need not have thought of running away.
But poor Phineas was not happy. “I shall never forget you,” said he; and then that unavoidable blush suffused his face, and the blood began to career through his veins.
“I am so glad you are in Parliament again,” said Madame Max.
“Yes — I’ve got in again, after a struggle. Are you still living in Park Lane?”
“Oh, yes — and shall be most happy to see you.” Then she seated herself — as did also Lady Chiltern by her side. “I see the poor Duke’s iniquities are still under discussion. I hope Lord Chiltern recognises the great happiness of having a grievance. It would be a pity that so great a blessing should be thrown away upon him.” For the moment Madame Max had got through her difficulty, and, indeed, had done so altogether till the moment should come in which she should find herself alone with Phineas. But he slunk back from the gathering before the fire, and stood solitary and silent till dinner was announced. It became his fate to take an old woman into dinner who was not very clearsighted. “Did you know that lady before?” she asked.
“Oh, yes; I knew her two or three years ago in London.”
“Do you think she is pretty?”
“Certainly.”
“All the men say so, but I never can see it. They have been saying ever so long that the old Duke of Omnium means to marry her on his deathbed, but I don’t suppose there can be anything in it.”
“Why should he put it off for so very inopportune an occasion?” asked Phineas.
After all, the thing had not been so very bad. With a little courage and hardihood we can survive very great catastrophes, and go through them even without broken bones. Phineas, when he got up to his room, found that he had spent the evening in company with Madame Goesler, and had not suffered materially, except at the very first moment of the meeting. He had not said a word to the lady, except such as were spoken in mixed conversation with her and others; but they had been together, and no bones had been broken. It could not be that his old intimacy should be renewed, but he could now encounter her in society, as the Fates might direct, without a renewal of that feeling of dismay which had been so heavy on him.
He was about to undress when there came a knock at the door, and his host entered the room. “What do you mean to do about smoking?” Lord Chiltern asked.
“Nothing at all.”
“There’s a fire in the smoking-room, but I’m tired, and I want to go to bed, Baldock doesn’t smoke, Gerard Maule is smoking in his own room, I take it. You’ll probably find Spooner at this moment established somewhere in the back slums, having a pipe with old Doggett, and planning retribution. You can join them if you please.”
“Not tonight, I think. They wouldn’t trust me — and I should spoil their plans.”
“They certainly wouldn’t trust you — or any other human being. You don’t mind a horse that baulks a little, do you?”
“I’m not going to hunt, Chiltern.”
“Yes, you are. I’ve got it all arranged. Don’t you be a fool, and make us all uncomfortable. Everybody rides here — every man, woman, and child about the place. You shall have one of the best horses I’ve got — only you must be particular about your spurs.”
“Indeed, I’d rather not. The truth is, I can’t afford to ride my own horses, and therefore I’d rather not ride my friends’.”
“That’s all gammon. When Violet wrote she told you you’d be expected to come out. Your old flame, Madame Max, will be there, and I tell you she has a very pretty idea of keeping to hounds. Only Dandolo has that little defect.”
“Is Dandolo the horse?”
“Yes — Dandolo is the horse. He’s up to a stone over your weight, and can do any mortal thing within a horse’s compass. Cox won’t ride him because he baulks, and so he has come into my stable. If you’ll only let him know that you’re on his back, and have got a pair of spurs on your heels with rowels in them, he’ll take you anywhere. Goodnight, old fellow. You can smoke if you choose, you know.”
Phineas had resolved that he would not hunt; but, nevertheless, he had brought boots with him, and breeches, fancying that if he did not he would be forced out without those comfortable appurtenances. But there came across his heart a feeling that he had reached a time of life in which it was no longer comfortable for him to live as a poor man with men who were rich. It had been his lot to do so when he was younger, and there had been some pleasure in it; but now he would rather live alone and dwell upon the memories of the past. He, too, might have been rich, and have had horses at command, had he chosen to sacrifice himself for money.
On the next morning they started in a huge waggonette for Copperhouse Cross — a meet that was suspiciously near to the Duke’s fatal wood. Spooner had explained to Phineas over night that they never did draw Trumpeton Wood on Copperhouse Cross days, and that under no possible circumstances would Chiltern now draw Trumpeton Wood. But there is no saying where a fox may run. At this time of the year, just the beginning of February, dog-foxes from the big woods were very apt to be away from home, and when found would go straight for their own earths. It was very possible that they might find themselves in Trumpeton Wood, and then certainly there would be a row. Spooner shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head, and seemed to insinuate that Lord Chiltern would certainly do something very dreadful to the Duke or to the Duke’s heir if any law of venery should again be found to have been broken on this occasion.
The distance to Copperhouse Cross was twelve miles, and Phineas found himself placed in the carriage next to Madame Goesler. It had not been done of fixed design; but when a party of six are seated in a carriage, the chances are that one given person will be next to or opposite to any other given person. Madame Max had remembered this, and had prepared herself, but Phineas was taken aback when he found how close was his neighbourhood to the lady. “Get in, Phineas,” said his lordship. Gerard Maule had already seated himself next to Miss Palliser, and Phineas had no alternative but to take the place next to Madame Max.
“I didn’t know that you rode to hounds?” said Phineas.
“Oh, yes; I have done so for years. When we met it was always in London, Mr Finn; and people there never know what other people do. Have you heard of this terrible affair about the Duke?”
“Oh, dear, yes.”
“Poor Duke! He and I have seen a great deal of each other since — since the days when you and I used to meet. He knows nothing about all this, and the worst of it is, he is not in a condition to be told.”
“Lady Glencora could put it all right.”
“I’ll tell Lady Glencora, of course,” said Madame Max. “It seems so odd in this country that the owner of a property does not seem at all to have any exclusive right to it. I suppose the Duke could shut up the wood if he liked.”
“But they poisoned the hounds.”
“Nobody supposes the Duke did that — or even the Duke’s servants, I should think. But Lord Chiltern will hear us if we don’t take care.”
“I’ve heard every word you’ve been saying,” exclaimed Lord Chiltern.
“Has it been traced to anyone?”
“No — not traced, I suppose.”
“What then, Lord Chiltern? You may speak out to me. When I’m wrong I like to be told so.”
“Then you’re wrong now,” said Lord Chiltern, “if you take the part of the Duke or of any of his people. He is bound to find foxes for the Brake hunt. It is almost a part of his title deeds. Instead of doing so he has had them destroyed.”
“It’s as bad as voting against the Church establishment,” said Madame Goesler.
There was a very large meet at Copperhouse Cross, and both Madame Goesler and Phineas Finn found many old acquaintances there. As Phineas had formerly sat in the House for five years, and had been in office, and had never made himself objectionable either to his friends or adversaries, he had been widely known. He now found half a dozen men who were always members of Parliament — men who seem, though commoners, to have been born legislators — who all spoke to him as though his being member for Tankerville and hunting with the Brake hounds were equally matters of course. They knew him, but they knew nothing, of the break in his life. Or if they remembered that he had not been seen about the House for the last two or three years they remembered also that accidents do happen to some men. It will occur now and again that a regular denizen of Westminster will get a fall in the political hunting-field, and have to remain about the world for a year or two without a seat. That Phineas had lately triumphed over Browborough at Tankerville was known, the event having been so recent; and men congratulated him, talking of poor Browborough — whose heavy figure had been familiar to them for many a year — but by no means recognising that the event of which they spoke had been, as it were, life and death to their friend. Roby was there, who was at this moment Mr Daubeny’s head whip and patronage secretary. If anyone should have felt acutely the exclusion of Mr Browborough from the House — anyone beyond the sufferer himself — it should have been Mr Roby; but he made himself quite pleasant, and even condescended to be jocose upon the occasion. “So you’ve beat poor Browborough in his own borough,” said Mr Roby.
“I’ve beat him,” said Phineas; “but not, I hope, in a borough of his own.”
“He’s been there for the last fifteen years. Poor old fellow! He’s awfully cut up about this Church Question. I shouldn’t have thought he’d have taken anything so much to heart. There are worse fellows than Browborough, let me tell you. What’s all this I hear about the Duke poisoning the foxes?” But the crowd had begun to move, and Phineas was not called upon to answer the question.
Copperhouse Cross in the Brake Hunt was a very popular meet. It was easily reached by a train from London, was in the centre of an essentially hunting country, was near to two or three good coverts, and was in itself a pretty spot. Two roads intersected each other on the middle of Copperhouse Common, which, as all the world knows, lies just on the outskirts of Copperhouse Forest. A steep winding hill leads down from the Wood to the Cross, and there is no such thing within sight as an enclosure. At the foot of the hill, running under the wooden bridge, straggles the Copperhouse Brook — so called by the hunting men of the present day, though men who know the country of old, or rather the county, will tell you that it is properly called the river Cobber, and that the spacious old farm buildings above were once known as the Cobber Manor House. He would be a vain man who would now try to change the name, as Copperhouse Cross has been printed in all the lists of hunting meets for at least the last thirty years; and the Ordnance map has utterly rejected the two b’s. Along one of the cross-roads there was a broad extent of common, some seven or eight hundred yards in length, on which have been erected the butts used by those well-known defenders of their country, the Copperhouse Volunteer Rifles; and just below the bridge the sluggish water becomes a little lake, having probably at some time been artificially widened, and there is a little island and a decoy for ducks. On the present occasion carriages were drawn up on all the roads, and horses were clustered on each side of the brook, and the hounds sat stately on their haunches where riflemen usually kneel to fire, and there was a hum of merry voices, and the bright colouring of pink coats, and the sheen of ladies’ hunting toilettes, and that mingled look of business and amusement which is so peculiar to our national sports. Two hundred men and women had come there for the chance of a run after a fox — for a chance against which the odds are more than two to one at every hunting day — for a chance as to which the odds are twenty to one against the success of the individuals collected; and yet, for every horseman and every horsewoman there, not less than oe5 a head will have been spent for this one day’s amusement. When we give a guinea for a stall at the opera we think that we pay a large sum; but we are fairly sure of having our music. When you go to Copperhouse Cross you are by no means sure of your opera.
Why is it that when men and women congregate, though the men may beat the women in numbers by ten to one, and though they certainly speak the louder, the concrete sound that meets the ears of any outside listener is always a sound of women’s voices? At Copperhouse Cross almost everyone was talking, but the feeling left upon the senses was that of an amalgam of feminine laughter, feminine affectation, and feminine eagerness. Perhaps at Copperhouse Cross the determined perseverance with which Lady Gertrude Fitzaskerley addressed herself to Lord Chiltern, to Cox the huntsman, to the two whips, and at last to Mr Spooner, may have specially led to the remark on this occasion. Lady Chiltern was very short with her, not loving Lady Gertrude. Cox bestowed upon her two “my lady’s,” and then turned from her to some peccant hound. But Spooner was partly gratified, and partly incapable, and underwent a long course of questions about the Duke and the poisoning. Lady Gertrude, whose father seemed to have owned half the coverts in Ireland, had never before heard of such enormity. She suggested a round robin, and would not be at all ashamed to put her own name to it. “Oh, for the matter of that,” said Spooner, “Chiltern can be round enough himself without any robin.” “He can’t be too round,” said Lady Gertrude, with a very serious aspect.
At last they moved away, and Phineas found himself riding by the side of Madame Goesler. It was natural that he should do so, as he had come with her. Maule had, of course, remained with Miss Palliser, and Chiltern and Spooner had taken themselves to their respective duties. Phineas might have avoided her, but in doing so he would have seemed to avoid her. She accepted his presence apparently as a matter of course, and betrayed by her words and manner no memory of past scenes. It was not customary with them to draw the forest, which indeed, as it now stood, was a forest only in name, and they trotted off to a gorse a mile and a half distant. This they drew blank — then another gorse also blank — and two or three little fringes of wood, such as there are in every country, and through which huntsmen run their hounds, conscious that no fox will lie there. At one o’clock they had not found, and the hilarity of the really hunting men as they ate their sandwiches and lit their cigars was on the decrease. The ladies talked more than ever, Lady Gertrude’s voice was heard above them all, and Lord Chiltern trotted on close behind his hounds in obdurate silence. When things were going bad with him no one in the field dared to speak to him.
Phineas had never seen his horse till he reached the meet, and there found a fine-looking, very strong, bay animal, with shoulders like the top of a hay-stack, short-backed, short-legged, with enormous quarters, and a wicked-looking eye. “He ought to be strong,” said Phineas to the groom. “Oh, sir; strong ain’t no word for him,” said the groom; “‘e can carry a ’ouse.” “I don’t know whether he’s fast?” inquired Phineas. “He’s fast enough for any ‘ounds, sir,” said the man with that tone of assurance which always carries conviction. “And he can jump?” “He can jump!” continued the groom; “no ‘orse in my lord’s stables can’t beat him.” “But he won’t?” said Phineas. “It’s only sometimes, sir, and then the best thing is to stick him at it till he do. He’ll go, he will, like a shot at last; and then he’s right for the day.” Hunting men will know that all this was not quite comfortable. When you ride your own horse, and know his special defects, you know also how far that defect extends, and what real prospect you have of overcoming it. If he be slow through the mud, you keep a good deal on the road in heavy weather, and resolve that the present is not an occasion for distinguishing yourself. If he be bad at timber, you creep through a hedge. If he pulls, you get as far from the crowd as may be. You gauge your misfortune, and make your little calculation as to the best mode of remedying the evil. But when you are told that your friend’s horse is perfect — only that he does this or that — there comes a weight on your mind from which you are unable to release it. You cannot discount your trouble at any percentage. It may amount to absolute ruin, as far as that day is concerned; and in such a circumstance you always look forward to the worst. When the groom had done his description, Phineas Finn would almost have preferred a day’s canvass at Tankerville under Mr Ruddles’s authority to his present position.
When the hounds entered Broughton Spinnies, Phineas and Madame Goesler were still together. He had not been riding actually at her side all the morning. Many men and two or three ladies had been talking to her. But he had never been far from her in the ruck, and now he was again close by her horse’s head. Broughton Spinnies were in truth a series of small woods, running one into another almost without intermission, never thick, and of no breadth. There was always a litter or two of cubs at the place, and in no part of the Brake country was greater care taken in the way of preservation and encouragement to interesting vixens; but the lying was bad; there was little or no real covert; and foxes were very apt to travel and get away into those big woods belonging to the Duke — where, as the Brake sportsmen now believed, they would almost surely come to an untimely end. “If we draw this blank I don’t know what we are to do,” said Mr Spooner, addressing himself to Madame Goesler with lachrymose anxiety.
“Have you nothing else to draw?” asked Phineas.
“In the common course of things we should take Muggery Gorse, and so on to Trumpeton Wood. But Muggery is on the Duke’s land, and Chiltern is in such a fix! He won’t go there unless he can’t help it. Muggery Gorse is only a mile this side of the big wood.”
“And foxes of course go to the big wood?” asked Madame Max.
“Not always. They often come here — and as they can’t hang here, we have the whole country before us. We get as good runs from Muggery as from any covert in the country. But Chiltern won’t go there today unless the hounds show a line. By George, that’s a fox! That’s Dido. That’s a find!” And Spooner galloped away, as though Dido could do nothing with the fox she had found unless he was there to help her.
Spooner was quite right, as he generally was on such occasions. He knew the hounds even by voice, and knew what hound he could believe. Most hounds will lie occasionally, but Dido never lied. And there were many besides Spooner who believed in Dido. The whole pack rushed to her music, though the body of them would have remained utterly unmoved at the voice of any less reverenced and less trustworthy colleague. The whole wood was at once in commotion — men and women riding hither and thither, not in accordance with any judgment; but as they saw or thought they saw others riding who were supposed to have judgment. To get away well is so very much! And to get away well is often so very difficult! There are so many things of which the horseman is bound to think in that moment. Which way does the wind blow? And then, though a fox will not long run up wind, he will break covert up wind, as often as not. From which of the various rides can you find a fair exit into the open country, without a chance of breaking your neck before the run begins? When you hear some wild halloa, informing you that one fox has gone in the direction exactly opposite to that in which the hounds are hunting, are you sure that the noise is not made about a second fox? On all these matters you are bound to make up your mind without losing a moment; and if you make up your mind wrongly the five pounds you have invested in that day’s amusement will have been spent for nothing. Phineas and Madame Goesler were in the very centre of the wood when Spooner rushed away from them down one of the rides on hearing Dido’s voice; and at that time they were in a crowd. Almost immediately the fox was seen to cross another ride, and a body of horsemen rushed away in that direction, knowing that the covert was small, and there the animal must soon leave the wood. Then there was a shout of “Away!” repeated over and over again, and Lord Chiltern, running up like a flash of lightning, and passing our two friends, galloped down a third ride to the right of the others. Phineas at once followed the master of the pack, and Madame Goesler followed Phineas. Men were still riding hither and thither; and a farmer, meeting them, with his horse turned back towards the centre of the wood which they were leaving, halloaed out as they passed that there was no way out at the bottom. They met another man in pink, who screamed out something as to “the devil of a bank down there’. Chiltern, however, was still going on, and our hero had not the heart to stop his horse in its gallop and turn back from the direction in which the hounds were running. At that moment he hardly remembered the presence of Madame Goesler, but he did remember every word that had been said to him about Dandolo. He did not in the least doubt but that Chiltern had chosen his direction rightly, and that if he were once out of the wood he would find himself with the hounds; but what if this brute should refuse to take him out of the wood? That Dandolo was very fast he soon became aware, for he gained upon his friend before him as they neared the fence. And then he saw what there was before him. A new broad ditch had been cut, with the express object of preventing egress or ingress at that point; and a great bank had been constructed with the clay. In all probability there might be another ditch on the other side. Chiltern, however, had clearly made up his mind about it. The horse he was riding went at it gallantly, cleared the first ditch, balanced himself for half a moment on the bank, and then, with a fresh spring, got into the field beyond. The tail hounds were running past outside the covert, and the master had placed himself exactly right for the work in hand. How excellent would be the condition of Finn if only Dandolo would do just as Chiltern’s horse had done before him!
And Phineas almost began to hope that it might be so. The horse was going very well, and very willingly. His head was stretched out, he was pulling, not more, however, than pleasantly, and he seemed to be as anxious as his rider. But there was a little twitch about his ears which his rider did not like, and then it was impossible not to remember that awful warning given by the groom, “It’s only sometimes, sir.” And after what fashion should Phineas ride him at the obstacle? He did not like to strike a horse that seemed to be going well, and was unwilling, as are all good riders, to use his heels. So he spoke to him, and proposed to lift him at the ditch. To the very edge the horse galloped — too fast, indeed, if he meant to take the bank as Chiltern’s horse had done — and then stopping himself so suddenly that he must have shaken every joint in his body, he planted his fore feet on the very brink, and there he stood, with his head down, quivering in every muscle. Phineas Finn, following naturally the momentum which had been given to him, went over the brute’s neck head-foremost into the ditch. Madame Max was immediately off her horse. “Oh, Mr Finn, are you hurt?”
But Phineas, happily, was not hurt. He was shaken and dirty, but not so shaken, and not so dirty, but that he was on his legs in a minute, imploring his companion not to mind him but go on. “Going on doesn’t seem to be so easy,” said Madame Goesler, looking at the ditch as she held her horse in her hand. But to go back in such circumstances is a terrible disaster. It amounts to complete defeat; and is tantamount to a confession that you must go home, because you are unable to ride to hounds. A man, when he is compelled to do this, is almost driven to resolve at the spur of the moment that he will give up hunting for the rest of his life. And if one thing be more essential than any other to the horseman in general, it is that he, and not the animal which he rides, shall be the master. “The best thing is to stick him at it till he do,” the groom had said; and Phineas resolved to be guided by the groom.
But his first duty was to attend on Madame Goesler. With very little assistance she was again in her saddle, and she at once declared herself certain that her horse could take the fence. Phineas again instantly jumped into his saddle, and turning Dandolo again at the ditch, rammed the rowels into the horse’s sides. But Dandolo would not jump yet. He stood with his fore feet on the brink, and when Phineas with his whip struck him severely over the shoulders, he went down into the ditch on all fours, and then scrambled back again to his former position. “What an infernal brutei” said Phineas, gnashing his teeth.
“He is a little obstinate, Mr Finn; I wonder whether he’d jump if I gave him a lead.” But Phineas was again making the attempt, urging the horse with spurs, whip, and voice. He had brought himself now to that condition in which a man is utterly reckless as to falling himself — or even to the kind of fall he may get — if he can only force his animal to make the attempt. But Dandolo would not make the attempt. With ears down and head outstretched, he either stuck obstinately on the brink, or allowed himself to be forced again and again into the ditch. “Let me try it once, Mr Finn,” said Madame Goesler in her quiet way.
She was riding a small horse, very nearly thoroughbred, and known as a perfect hunter by those who habitually saw Madame Goesler ride. No doubt he would have taken the fence readily enough had his rider followed immediately after Lord Chiltern; but Dandolo had baulked at the fence nearly a dozen times, and evil communications will corrupt good manners. Without any show of violence, but still with persistent determination, Madame Goesler’s horse also declined to jump. She put him at it again and again, and he would make no slightest attempt to do his business. Phineas raging, fuming, out of breath, miserably unhappy, shaking his reins, plying his whip, rattling himself about in the saddle, and banging his legs against the horse’s sides, again and again plunged away at the obstacle. But it was all to no purpose. Dandolo was constantly in the ditch, sometimes lying with his side against the bank, and had now been so hustled and driven that, had he been on the other side, he would have had no breath left to carry his rider, even in the ruck of the hunt. In the meantime the hounds and the leading horsemen were far away — never more to be seen on that day by either Phineas Finn or Madame Max Goesler. For a while, during the frantic efforts that were made, an occasional tardy horseman was viewed galloping along outside the covert, following the tracks of those who had gone before. But before the frantic efforts had been abandoned as utterly useless every vestige of the morning’s work had left the neighbourhood of Broughton Spinnies, except these two unfortunate ones. At last it was necessary that the defeat should be acknowledged. “We’re beaten, Madame Goesler,” said Phineas, almost in tears.
“Altogether beaten, Mr Finn.”
“I’ve a good mind to swear that I’ll never come out hunting again.”
“Swear what you like, if it will relieve you, only don’t think of keeping such an oath. I’ve known you before this to be depressed by circumstances quite as distressing as these, and to be certain that all hope was over — but yet you have recovered.” This was the only allusion she had yet made to their former acquaintance. “And now we must think of getting out of the wood.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea of the direction of anything.”
“Nor have I; but as we clearly can’t get out this way we might as well try the other. Come along. We shall find somebody to put us in the right road. For my part I’m glad it is no worse. I thought at one time that you were going to break your neck.” They rode on for a few minutes in silence, and then she spoke again. “Is it not odd, Mr Finn, that after all that has come and gone you and I should find ourselves riding about Broughton Spinnies together?”
“After all that has come and gone, is it not odd that you and I should find ourselves riding about Broughton Spinnies together?” That was the question which Madame Goesler asked Phineas Finn when they had both agreed that it was impossible to jump over the bank out of the wood, and it was, of course, necessary that some answer should be given to it.
“When I saw you last in London,” said Phineas, with a voice that was gruff and a manner that was abrupt, “I certainly did not think that we should meet again so soon.”
“No — I left you as though I had grounds for quarrelling; but there was no quarrel. I wrote to you, and tried to explain that.”
“You did — and though my answer was necessarily short, I was very grateful.”
“And here you are back among us; and it does seem so odd. Lady Chiltern never told me that I was to meet you.”
“Nor did she tell me.”
“It is better so, for otherwise I should not have come, and then, perhaps, you would have been all alone in your discomfiture at the bank.”
“That would have been very bad.”
“You see I can be quite frank with you, Mr Finn. I am heartily glad to see you, but I should not have come had I been told. And when I did see you, it was quite improbable that we should be thrown together as we are now — was it not? Ah — here is a man, and he can tell us the way back to Copperhouse Cross. But I suppose we had better ask for Harrington Hall at once.”
The man knew nothing at all about Harrington Hall, and very little about Copperhouse; but he did direct them on to the road, and they found that they were about sixteen miles from Lord Chiltern’s house. The hounds had gone away in the direction of Trumpeton Wood, and it was agreed that it would be useless to follow them. The waggonette had been left at an inn about two miles from Copperhouse Cross, but they resolved to abandon that and to ride direct to Harrington Hall. It was now nearly three o’clock, and they would not be subjected to the shame which falls upon sportsmen who are seen riding home very early in the day. To get oneself lost before twelve, and then to come home, is a very degrading thing; but at any time after two you may be supposed to have ridden the run of the season, and to be returning after an excellent day’s work.
Then Madame Goesler began to talk about herself, and to give a short history of her life during the last two-and-a-half years. She did this in a frank natural manner, continuing her tale in a low voice, as though it were almost a matter of course that she should make the recital to so old a friend. And Phineas soon began to feel that it was natural that she should do so. “It was just before you left us,” she said, “that the Duke took to coming to my house.” The duke spoken of was the Duke of Omnium, and Phineas well remembered to have heard some rumours about the Duke and Madame Max. It had been hinted to him that the Duke wanted to marry the lady, but that rumour he had never believed. The reader, if he has duly studied the history of the age, will know that the Duke did make an offer to Madame Goesler, pressing it with all his eloquence, but that Madame Goesler, on mature consideration, thought it best to decline to become a duchess. Of all this, however, the reader who understands Madame Goesler’s character will be quite sure that she did not say a word to Phineas Finn. Since the business had been completed she had spoken of it to no one but to Lady Glencora Palliser, who had forced herself into a knowledge of all the circumstances while they were being acted.
“I met the Duke once at Matching,” said Phineas.
“I remember it well. I was there, and first made the Duke’s acquaintance on that occasion. I don’t know how it was that we became intimate — but we did, and then I formed a sort of friendship with Lady Glencora; and somehow it has come about that we have been a great deal together since.”
“I suppose you like Lady Glencora?”
“Very much indeed — and the Duke, too. The truth is, Mr Finn, that let one boast as one may of one’s independence — and I very often do boast of mine to myself — one is inclined to do more for a Duke of Omnium than for a Mr Jones.”
“The Dukes have more to offer than the Joneses — I don’t mean in the way of wealth only, but of what one enjoys most in society generally.”
“I suppose they have. At any rate, I am glad that you should make some excuse for me. But I do like the man. He is gracious and noble in his bearing. He is now very old, and sinking fast into the grave; but even the wreck is noble.”
“I don’t know that he ever did much,” said Phineas.
“I don’t know that he ever did anything according to your idea of doing. There must be some men who do nothing.”
“But a man with his wealth and rank has opportunities so great! Look at his nephew!”
“No doubt Mr Palliser is a great man. He never has a moment to speak to his wife or to anybody else; and is always thinking so much about the country that I doubt if he knows anything about his own affairs. Of course he is a man of a different stamp — and of a higher stamp, if you will. But I have an idea that such characters as those of the present Duke are necessary to the maintenance of a great aristocracy. He has had the power of making the world believe in him simply because he has been rich and a duke. His nephew, when he comes to the title, will never receive a tithe of the respect that has been paid to this old fainéant .”
“But he will achieve much more than ten times the reputation,” said Phineas.
“I won’t compare them, nor will I argue; but I like the Duke. Nay — I love him. During the last two years I have allowed the whole fashion of my life to be remodelled by this intimacy. You knew what were my habits. I have only been in Vienna for one week since I last saw you, and I have spent months and months at Matching.”
“What do you do there?”
“Read to him — talk to him — give him his food, and do all that in me lies to make his life bearable. Last year, when it was thought necessary that very distinguished people should be entertained at the great family castle — in Barsetshire, you know — ”
“I have heard of the place.”
“A regular treaty or agreement was drawn up. Conditions were sealed and signed. One condition was that both Lady Glencora and I should be there. We put our heads together to try to avoid this; as, of course, the Prince would not want to see me particularly — and it was altogether so grand an affair that things had to be weighed. But the Duke was inexorable. Lady Glencora at such a time would have other things to do, and I must be there, or Gatherum Castle should not be opened. I suggested whether I could not remain in the background and look after the Duke as a kind of upper nurse — but Lady Glencora said it would not do.”
“Why should you subject yourself to such indignity?”
“Simply from love of the man. But you see I was not subjected. For two days I wore my jewels beneath royal eyes — eyes that will sooner or later belong to absolute majesty. It was an awful bore, and I ought to have been at Vienna. You ask me why I did it. The fact is that things sometimes become too strong for one, even when there is no real power of constraint. For years past I have been used to have my own way, but when there came a question of the entertainment of royalty I found myself reduced to blind obedience. I had to go to Gatherum Castle, to the absolute neglect of my business; and I went.”
“Do you still keep it up?”
“Oh, dear, yes. He is at Matching now, and I doubt whether he will ever leave it again. I shall go there from here as a matter of course, and relieve guard with Lady Glencora.”
“I don’t see what you get for it all.”
“Get — what should I get? You don’t believe in friendship, then?”
“Certainly I do — but this friendship is so unequal. I can hardly understand that it should have grown from personal liking on your side.”
“I think it has,” said Madame Goesler, slowly. “You see, Mr Finn, that you as a young man can hardly understand how natural it is that a young woman — if I may call myself young — should minister to an old man.”
“But there should be some bond to the old man.”
“There is a bond.”
“You must not be angry with me,” said Phineas.
“I am not in the least angry.”
“I should not venture to express any opinion, of course — only that you ask me.”
“I do ask you, and you are quite welcome to express your opinion. And were it not expressed, I should know what you thought just the same. I have wondered at it myself sometimes — that I should have become as it were engulfed in this new life, almost without will of my own. And when he dies, how shall I return to the other life? Of course I have the house in Park Lane still, but my very maid talks of Matching as my home.”
“How will it be when he has gone?”
“Ah — how indeed? Lady Glencora and I will have to curtsey to each other, and there will be an end of it. She will be a duchess then, and I shall no longer be wanted.”
“But even if you were wanted —?”
“Oh, of course. It must last the Duke’s time, and last no longer. It would not be a healthy kind of life were it not that I do my very best to make the evening of his days pleasant for him, and in that way to be of some service in the world. It has done me good to think that I have in some small degree sacrificed myself. Let me see — we are to turn here to the left. That goes to Copperhouse Cross, no doubt. Is it not odd that I should have told you all this history?”
“Just because this brute would not jump over the fence.”
“I dare say I should have told you, even if he had jumped over; but certainly this has been a great opportunity. Do you tell your friend Lord Chiltern not to abuse the poor Duke any more before me. I daresay our host is all right in what he says; but I don’t like it. You’ll come and see me in London, Mr Finn?”
“But you’ll be at Matching?”
“I do get a few days at home sometimes. You see I have escaped for the present — or otherwise you and I would not have come to grief together in Broughton Spinnies.”
Soon after this they were overtaken by others who were returning home, and who had been more fortunate than they in getting away with the hounds. The fox had gone straight for Trumpeton Wood, not daring to try the gorse on the way, and then had been run to ground. Chiltern was again in a towering passion, as the earths, he said, had been purposely left open. But on this matter the men who had overtaken our friends were both of opinion that Chiltern was wrong. He had allowed it to be understood that he would not draw Trumpeton Wood, and he had therefore no right to expect that the earths should be stopped. But there were and had been various opinions on this difficult point, as the laws of hunting are complex, recondite, numerous, traditional, and not always perfectly understood. Perhaps the day may arrive in which they shall be codified under the care of some great and laborious master of hounds.
“And they did nothing more?” asked Phineas.
“Yes — they chopped another fox before they left the place — so that in point of fact they have drawn Trumpeton. But they didn’t mean it.”
When Madame Max Goesler and Phineas had reached Harrington Hall they were able to give their own story of the day’s sport to Lady Chiltern, as the remainder of the party had not as yet returned.
Adelaide Palliser was a tall, fair girl, exquisitely made, with every feminine grace of motion, highly born, and carrying always the warranty of her birth in her appearance; but with no special loveliness of face. Let nor any reader suppose that therefore she was plain. She possessed much more than a sufficiency of charm to justify her friends in claiming her as a beauty, and the demand had been generally allowed by public opinion. Adelaide Palliser was always spoken of as a girl to be admired; but she was not one whose countenance would strike with special admiration any beholder who did not know her. Her eyes were pleasant and bright, and, being in truth green, might, perhaps with propriety, be described as grey. Her nose was well formed. Her mouth was, perhaps, too small. Her teeth were perfect. Her chin was somewhat too long, and was on this account the defective feature of her face. Her hair was brown and plentiful; but in no way peculiar. No doubt she wore a chignon; but if so she wore it with the special view of being in no degree remarkable in reference to her head-dress. Such as she was — beauty or no beauty — her own mind on the subject was made up, and she had resolved long since that the gift of personal loveliness had not been bestowed upon her. And yet after a fashion she was proud of her own appearance. She knew that she looked like a lady, and she knew also that she had all that command of herself which health and strength can give to a woman when she is without feminine affectation.
Lady Chiltern, in describing her to Phineas Finn, had said that she talked Italian, and wrote for the Times . The former assertion was, no doubt, true, as Miss Palliser had passed some years of her childhood in Florence; but the latter statement was made probably with reference to her capability rather than her performance. Lady Chiltern intended to imply that Miss Palliser was so much better educated than young ladies in general that she was able to express herself intelligibly in her own language. She had been well educated, and would, no doubt, have done the Times credit had the Times chosen to employ her.
She was the youngest daughter of the youngest brother of the existing Duke of Omnium, and the first cousin, therefore, of Mr Plantagenet Palliser, who was the eldest son of the second brother. And as her mother had been a Bavilard there could be no better blood. But Adelaide had been brought up so far away from the lofty Pallisers and lofty Bavilards as almost to have lost the flavour of her birth. Her father and mother had died when she was an infant, and she had gone to the custody of a much older half-sister, Mrs Atterbury, whose mother had been not a Bavilard, but a Brown. And Mr Atterbury was a mere nobody, a rich, erudite, highly-accomplished gentleman, whose father had made his money at the bar, and whose grandfather had been a country clergyman. Mrs Atterbury, with her husband, was still living at Florence; but Adelaide Palliser had quarrelled with Florence life, and had gladly consented to make a long visit to her friend Lady Chiltern.
In Florence she had met Gerard Maule, and the acquaintance had not been viewed with favour by the Atterburys. Mrs Atterbury knew the history of the Maule family, and declared to her sister that no good could come from any intimacy. Old Mr Maule, she said, was disreputable. Mrs Maule, the mother — who, according to Mr Atterbury, had been the only worthy member of the family — was long since dead. Gerard Maule’s sister had gone away with an Irish cousin, and they were now living in India on the professional income of a captain in a foot regiment. Gerard Maule’s younger brother had gone utterly to the dogs, and nobody knew anything about him. Maule Abbey, the family seat in Herefordshire, was — so said Mrs Atterbury — absolutely in ruins. The furniture, as all the world knew, had been sold by the squire’s creditors under the sheriff’s order ten years ago, and not a chair or a table had been put into the house since that time. The property, which was small — oe2,000 a year at the outside — was, no doubt, entailed on the eldest son; and Gerard, fortunately, had a small fortune of his own, independent of his father. But then he was also a spendthrift — so said Mrs Atterbury — keeping a stable full of horses, for which he could not afford to pay; and he was, moreover, the most insufferably idle man who ever wandered about the world without any visible occupation for his hours. “But he hunts,” said Adelaide. “Do you call that an occupation?” asked Mrs Atterbury with scorn. Now Mrs Atterbury painted pictures, copied Madonnas, composed sonatas, corresponded with learned men in Rome, Berlin, and Boston, had been the intimate friend of Cavour, had paid a visit to Garibaldi on his island with the view of explaining to him the real condition of Italy — and was supposed to understand Bismarck. Was it possible that a woman who so filled her own life should accept hunting as a creditable employment for a young man, when it was admitted to be his sole employment? And, moreover, she desired that her sister Adelaide should marry a certain Count Brudi, who, according to her belief, had more advanced ideas about things in general than any other living human being. Adelaide Palliser had determined that she would not marry Count Brudi; had, indeed, almost determined that she would marry Gerard Maule, and had left her brother-in-law’s house in Florence after something like a quarrel. Mrs Atterbury had declined to authorise the visit to Harrington Hall, and then Adelaide had pleaded her age and independence. She was her own mistress if she so chose to call herself, and would not, at any rate, remain in Florence at the present moment to receive the attentions of Signor Brudi. Of the previous winter she had passed three months with some relatives in England, and there she had learned to ride to hounds, had first met Gerard Maule, and had made acquaintance with Lady Chiltern. Gerard Maule had wandered to Italy after her, appearing at Florence in his desultory way, having no definite purpose, not even that of asking Adelaide to be his wife — but still pursuing her, as though he wanted her without knowing what he wanted. In the course of the Spring, however, he had proposed, and had been almost accepted. But Adelaide, though she would not yield to her sister, had been frightened. She knew that she loved the man, and she swore to herself a thousand times that she would not be dictated to by her sister — but was she prepared to accept the fate which would at once be hers were she now to marry Gerard Maule? What could she do with a man who had no ideas of his own as to what he ought to do with himself?
Lady Chiltern was in favour of the marriage. The fortune, she said, was as much as Adelaide was entitled to expect, the man was a gentleman, was tainted by no vices, and was truly in love. “You had better let them fight it out somewhere else,” Lord Chiltern had said when his wife proposed that the invitation to Gerard Maule should be renewed; but Lady Chiltern had known that if “fought out” at all, it must be fought out at Harrington Hall. “We have asked him to come back,” she said to Adelaide, “in order that you may make up your mind. If he chooses to come, it will show that he is in earnest; and then you must take him, or make him understand that he is not to be taken.” Gerard Maule had chosen to come; but Adelaide Palliser had not as yet quite made up her mind.
Perhaps there is nothing so generally remarkable in the conduct of young ladies in the phase of life of which we are now speaking as the facility — it may almost be said audacity — with which they do make up their minds. A young man seeks a young woman’s hand in marriage, because she has waltzed stoutly with him, and talked pleasantly between the dances — and the young woman gives it, almost with gratitude. As to the young man, the readiness of his action is less marvellous than hers. He means to be master, and, by the very nature of the joint life they propose to lead, must take her to his sphere of life, not bind himself to hers. If he worked before he will work still. If he was idle before he will be idle still; and he probably does in some sort make a calculation and strike a balance between his means and the proposed additional burden of a wife and children. But she, knowing nothing, takes a monstrous leap in the dark, in which everything is to be changed, and in which everything is trusted to chance. Miss Palliser, however, differing in this from the majority of her friends and acquaintances, frightened, perhaps by those representations of her sister to which she would not altogether yield, had paused, and was still pausing. “Where should we go and live if I did marry him?” she said to Lady Chiltern.
“I suppose he has an opinion of his own on that subject?”
“Not in the least, I should think.”
“Has he never said anything about it?”
“Oh dear no. Matters have not got so far as that at all — nor would they ever, out of his own head. If we were married and taken away to the train he would only ask what place he should take the tickets for when he got to the station.”
“Couldn’t you manage to live at Maule Abbey?”
“Perhaps we might; only there is no furniture, and, as I am told, only half a roof.”
“It does seem to be absurd that you two should not make up your mind, just as other people do,” said Lady Chiltern. “Of course he is not a rich man, but you have known that all along.”
“It is not a question of wealth or poverty, but of an utterly lack-a-daisical indifference to everything in the world.”
“He is not indifferent to you.”
“That is the marvellous part of it,” said Miss Palliser.
This was said on the evening of the famous day at Broughton Spinnies, and late on that night Lord Chiltern predicted to his wife that another episode was about to occur in the life of their friend.
“What do you think Spooner has just asked me?”
“Permission to fight the Duke, or Mr Palliser?”
“No — it’s nothing about the hunting. He wants to know if you’d mind his staying here three or four days longer.”
“What a very odd request!”
“It is odd, because he was to have gone tomorrow. I suppose there’s no objection.”
“Of course not if you like to have him.”
“I don’t like it a bit,” said Lord Chiltern; “but I couldn’t turn him out. And I know what it means.”
“What does it mean?”
“You haven’t observed anything?”
“I have observed nothing in Mr Spooner, except an awestruck horror at the trapping of a fox.”
“He’s going to propose to Adelaide Palliser.”
“Oswald! You are not in earnest.”
“I believe he is. He would have told me if he thought I could give him the slightest encouragement. You can’t very well turn him out now.”
“He’ll get an answer that he won’t like if he does,” said Lady Chiltern.
Miss Palliser had ridden well on that day, and so had Gerard Maule. That Mr Spooner should ride well to hounds was quite a matter of course. It was the business of his life to do so, and he did it with great judgment. He hated Maule’s style of riding, considering it to be flashy, injurious to hunting, and unsportsmanlike; and now he had come to hate the man. He had, of course, perceived how close were the attentions paid by Mr Maule to Miss Palliser, and he thought that he perceived that Miss Palliser did not accept them with thorough satisfaction. On his way back to Harrington Hall he made some inquiries, and was taught to believe that Mr Maule was not a man of very high standing in the world. Mr Spooner himself had a very pretty property of his own — which was all his own. There was no doubt about his furniture, or about the roof at Spoon Hall. He was Spooner of Spoon Hall, and had been High Sheriff for his county. He was not so young as he once had been — but he was still a young man, only just turned forty, and was his own master in everything. He could read, and he always looked at the country newspaper; but a book was a thing that he couldn’t bear to handle. He didn’t think he had ever seen a girl sit a horse better than Adelaide Palliser sat hers, and a girl who rode as she did would probably like a man addicted to hunting. Mr Spooner knew that he understood hunting, whereas that fellow Maule cared for nothing but jumping over flights of rails. He asked a few questions that evening of Phineas Finn respecting Gerard Maule, but did not get much information. “I don’t know where he lives;” said Phineas; “I never saw him till I met him here.”
“Don’t you think he seems sweet upon that girl?”
“I shouldn’t wonder if he is.”
“She’s an uncommonly clean-built young woman, isn’t she?” said Mr Spooner; “but it seems to me she don’t care much for Master Maule. Did you see how he was riding today?”
“I didn’t see anything, Mr Spooner.”
“No, no; you didn’t get away. I wish he’d been with you, But she went uncommon well.” After that he made his request to Lord Chiltern, and Lord Chiltern, with a foresight quite unusual to him, predicted the coming event to his wife.
There was shooting on the following day, and Gerard Maule and Mr Spooner were both out. Lunch was sent down to the covert side, and the ladies walked down and joined the sportsmen. On this occasion Mr Spooner’s assiduity was remarkable, and seemed to be accepted with kindly grace. Adelaide even asked a question about Trumpeton Wood, and expressed an opinion that her cousin was quite wrong because he did not take the matter up. “You know it’s the keepers do it all,” said Mr Spooner, shaking his head with an appearance of great wisdom. “You never can have foxes unless you keep your keepers well in hand. If they drew the Spoon Hall coverts blank I’d dismiss my man the next day.”
“It mightn’t be his fault.”
“He knows my mind, and he’ll take care that there are foxes. They’ve been at my stick covert three times this year, and put a brace out each time. A leash went from it last Monday week. When a man really means a thing, Miss Palliser, he can pretty nearly always do it.” Miss Palliser replied with a smile that she thought that to be true, and Mr Spooner was not slow at perceiving that this afforded good encouragement to him in regard to that matter which was now weighing most heavily upon his mind.
On the next day there was hunting again, and Phineas was mounted on a horse more amenable to persuasion than old Dandolo. There was a fair run in the morning, and both Phineas and Madame Max were carried well. The remarkable event in the day, however, was the riding of Dandolo in the afternoon by Lord Chiltern himself. He had determined that the horse should go out, and had sworn that he would ride him over a fence if he remained there making the attempt all night. For two weary hours he did remain, with a groom behind him, spurring the brute against a thick hedge, with a ditch at the other side of it, and at the end of the two hours he succeeded. The horse at last made a buck leap and went over with a loud grunt. On his way home Lord Chiltern sold the horse to a farmer for fifteen pounds — and that was the end of Dandolo as far as the Harrington Hall stables were concerned. This took place on the Friday, the 8th of February. It was understood that Mr Spooner was to return to Spoon Hall on Saturday, and on Monday, the 11th, Phineas was to go to London. On the 12th the Session would begin, and he would once more take his seat in Parliament.
“I give you my word and honour, Lady Chiltern,” Gerard Maule said to his hostess, “I believe that oaf of a man is making up to Adelaide.” Mr Maule had not been reticent about his love towards Lady Chiltern, and came to her habitually in all his troubles.
“Chiltern has told me the same thing.”
“No!”
“Why shouldn’t he see it, as well as you? But I wouldn’t believe it.”
“Upon my word I believe it’s true. But, Lady Chiltern — ”
“Well, Mr Maule.”
“You know her so well.”
“Adelaide, you mean?”
“You understand her thoroughly. There can’t be anything in it; is there?”
“How anything?”
“She can’t really — like him?”
“Mr Maule, if I were to tell her that you had asked such a question as that I don’t believe that she’d ever speak a word to you again; and it would serve you right. Didn’t you call him an oaf?”
“I did.”
“And how long has she known him?”
“I don’t believe she ever spoke to him before yesterday.”
“And yet you think that she will be ready to accept this oaf as her husband tomorrow! Do you call that respect?”
“Girls do such wonderful strange things. What an impudent ass he must be!”
“I don’t see that at all. He may be an ass and yet not impudent, or impudent and yet not an ass. Of course he has a right to speak his mind — and she will have a right to speak hers.”
The Brake hounds went out four days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday; but the hunting party on this Saturday was very small. None of the ladies joined in it, and when Lord Chiltern came down to breakfast at half-past eight he met no one but Gerard Maule. “Where’s Spooner?” he asked. But neither Maule nor the servant could answer the question. Mr Spooner was a man who never missed a day from the beginning of cubbing to the end of the season, and who, when April came, could give you an account of the death of every fox killed. Chiltern cracked his eggs, and said nothing more for the moment, but Gerard Maule had his suspicions. “He must be coming,” said Maule; “suppose you send up to him.” The servant was sent, and came down with Mr Spooner’s compliments. Mr Spooner didn’t mean to hunt today. He had something of a headache. He would see Lord Chiltern at the meet on Monday.
Maule immediately declared that neither would he hunt; but Lord Chiltern looked at him, and he hesitated. “I don’t care about your knowing,” said Gerard.
“Oh — I know. Don’t you be an ass.”
“I don’t see why I should give him an opportunity.”
“You’re to go and pull your boots and breeches off because he has not put his on, and everybody is to be told of it! Why, shouldn’t he have an opportunity, as you call it? If the opportunity can do him any good, you may afford to be very indifferent.”
“It’s a piece of d — impertinence,” said Maule, with most unusual energy.
“Do you finish your breakfast, and come and get into the trap. We’ve twenty miles to go. You can ask Spooner on Monday how he spent his morning.”
At ten o’clock the ladies came down to breakfast, and the whole party were assembled. “Mr Spooner!” said Lady Chiltern to that gentleman, who was the last to enter the room, “This is a marvel!” He was dressed in a dark-blue frock-coat, with a coloured silk handkerchief round his neck, and had brushed his hair down close to his head. He looked quite unlike himself, and would hardly have been known by those who had never seen him out of the hunting field. In his dress clothes of an evening, or in his shooting coat, he was still himself. But in the garb he wore on the present occasion he was quite unlike Spooner of Spoon Hall, whose only pride in regard to clothes had hitherto been that he possessed more pairs of breeches than any other man in the county. It was ascertained afterwards, when the circumstances came to be investigated, that he had sent a man all the way across to Spoon Hall for that coat and the coloured neck-handkerchief on the previous day; and someone, most maliciously, told the story abroad. Lady Chiltern, however, always declared that her secrecy on the matter had always been inviolable.
“Yes, Lady Chiltern; yes,” said Mr Spooner, as he took a seat at the table; “wonders never cease, do they?” He had prepared himself even for this moment, and had determined to show Miss Palliser that he could be sprightly and engaging even without his hunting habiliments.
“What will Lord Chiltern do without you?” one of the ladies asked.
“He’ll have to do his best.”
“He’ll never kill a fox,” said Miss Palliser.
“Oh, yes; he knows what he’s about. I was so fond of my pillow this morning that I thought I’d let the hunting slide for once. A man should not make a toil of his pleasure.”
Lady Chiltern knew all about it, but Adelaide Palliser knew nothing. Madame Goesler, when she observed the light-blue necktie, at once suspected the execution of some great intention. Phineas was absorbed in his observation of the difference in the man. In his pink coat he always looked as though he had been born to wear it, but his appearance was now that of all amateur actor got up in a miscellaneous middle-age costume. He was sprightly, but the effort was painfully visible. Lady Baldock said something afterwards, very ill-natured, about a hog in armour, and old Mrs Burnaby spoke the truth when she declared that all the comfort of her tea and toast was sacrificed to Mr Spooner’s frock coat. But what was to be done with him when breakfast was over? For a while he was fixed upon poor Phineas, with whom he walked across to the stables. He seemed to feel that he could hardly hope to pounce upon his prey at once, and that he must bide his time.
Out of the full heart the mouth speaks. “Nice girl, Miss Palliser,” he said to Phineas, forgetting that he had expressed himself nearly in the same way to the same man on a former occasion.
“Very nice, indeed. It seems to me that you are sweet upon her yourself.”
“Who? I! Oh, no — I don’t think of those sort of things. I suppose I shall marry some day. I’ve a house fit for a lady tomorrow, from top to bottom, linen and all. And my property’s my own.”
“That’s a comfort.”
“I believe you. There isn’t a mortgage on an acre of it, and that’s what very few men can say. As for Miss Palliser, I don’t know that a man could do better; only I don’t think much of those things. If ever I do pop the question, I shall do it on the spur of the moment. There’ll be no preparation with me, nor yet any beating about the bush. “Would it suit your views, my dear, to be Mrs Spooner?” that’s about the long and the short of it. A clean-made little mare, isn’t she?” This last observation did not refer to Adelaide Palliser, but to an animal standing in Lord Chiltern’s stables. “He bought her from Charlie Dickers for a twenty pound note last April. The mare hadn’t a leg to stand upon. Charlie had been stagging with her for the last two months, and knocked her all to pieces. She’s a screw of course, but there isn’t anything carries Chiltern so well. There’s nothing like a good screw. A man’ll often go with two hundred and fifty guineas between his legs, supposed to be all there because the animal’s sound, and yet he don’t know his work. If you like schooling a young ’un, that’s all very well. I used to be fond of it myself; but I’ve come to feel that being carried to hounds without much thinking about it is the cream of hunting, after all. I wonder what the ladies are at? Shall we go back and see?” Then they turned to the house, and Mr Spooner began to be a little fidgety. “Do they sit altogether mostly all the morning?”
“I fancy they do.”
“I suppose there’s some way of dividing them. They tell me you know all about women. If you want to get one to yourself how do you manage it?”
“In perpetuity, do you mean, Mr Spooner?”
“Anyway — in the morning, you know.”
“Just to say a few words to her?”
“Exactly that — just to say a few words. I don’t mind asking you, because you’ve done this kind of thing before.”
“I should watch my opportunity,” said Phineas, remembering a period of his life in which he had watched much and had found it very difficult to get an opportunity.
“But I must go after lunch,” said Mr Spooner; “I’m expected home to dinner, and I don’t know much whether they’ll like me to stop over Sunday.”
“If you were to tell Lady Chiltern — ”
“I was to have gone on Thursday, you know. You won’t tell anybody?”
“Oh dear no.”
“I think I shall propose to that girl. I’ve about made up my mind to do it, only a fellow can’t call her out before half a dozen of them. Couldn’t you get Lady C. to trot her out into the garden? You and she are as thick as thieves.”
“I should think Miss Palliser was rather difficult to be managed.”
Phineas declined to interfere, taking upon himself to assure Mr Spooner that attempts to arrange matters in that way never succeeded. He went in and settled himself to the work of answering correspondents at Tankerville, while Mr Spooner hung about the drawing-room, hoping that circumstances and time might favour him. It is to be feared that he made himself extremely disagreeable to poor Lady Chiltern, to whom he was intending to open his heart could he only find an opportunity for so much as that. But Lady Chiltern was determined not to have his confidence, and at last withdrew from the scene in order that she might not be entrapped. Before lunch had come all the party knew what was to happen — except Adelaide herself. She, too, perceived that something was in the wind, that there was some stir, some discomfort, some secret affair forward, or some event expected which made them all uneasy — and she did connect it with the presence of Mr Spooner. But, in pitiable ignorance of the facts that were clear enough to everybody else, she went on watching and wondering, with a half-formed idea that the house would be more pleasant as soon as Mr Spooner should have taken his departure. He was to go after lunch. But on such occasions there is, of course, a latitude, and “after lunch” may be stretched at any rate to the five o’clock tea. At three o’clock Mr Spooner was still hanging about. Madame Goesler and Phineas, with an openly declared intention of friendly intercourse, had gone out to walk together. Lord and Lady Baldock were on horseback. Two or three old ladies hung over the fire and gossiped. Lady Chiltern had retired to her baby — when on a sudden Adelaide Palliser declared her intention of walking into the village. “Might I accompany you, Miss Palliser?” said Mr Spooner; “I want a walk above all things.” He was very brave, and persevered though it was manifest that the lady did not desire his company. Adelaide said something about an old woman whom she intended to visit; whereupon Mr Spooner declared that visiting old women was the delight of his life. He would undertake to give half a sovereign to the old woman if Miss Palliser would allow him to come. He was very brave, and persevered in such a fashion that he carried his point. Lady Chiltern from her nursery window saw them start through the shrubbery together.
“I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning,” said Mr Spooner, gallantly.
But in spite of his gallantry, and although she had known, almost from breakfast time, that he had been waiting for something, still she did not suspect his purpose. It has been said that Mr Spooner was still young, being barely over forty years of age; but he had unfortunately appeared to be old to Miss Palliser. To himself it seemed as though the fountains of youth were still running through all his veins. Though he had given up schooling young horses, he could ride as hard as ever. He could shoot all day. He could take “his whack of wine,” as he called it, sit up smoking half the night, and be on horseback the next morning after an early breakfast without the slightest feeling of fatigue. He was a red-faced little man, with broad shoulders, clean shaven, with small eyes, and a nose on which incipient pimples began to show themselves. To himself and the comrades of his life he was almost as young as he had ever been; but the young ladies of the county called him Old Spooner, and regarded him as a permanent assistant unpaid huntsman to the Brake hounds. It was not within the compass of Miss Palliser’s imagination to conceive that this man should intend to propose himself to her as her lover.
“I have been waiting for this opportunity all the morning,” said Mr Spooner. Adelaide Palliser turned round and looked at him, still understanding nothing. Ride at any fence hard enough, and the chances are you’ll get over. The harder you ride the heavier the fall, if you get a fall; but the greater the chance of your getting over. This had been a precept in the life of Mr Spooner, verified by much experience, and he had resolved that he would be guided by it on this occasion. “Ever since I first saw you, Miss Palliser, I have been so much taken by you that — that — in point of fact, I love you better than all the women in the world I ever saw; and will you — will you be Mrs Spooner?”
He had at any rate ridden hard at his fence. There had been no craning — no looking about for an easy place, no hesitation as he brought his horse up to it. No man ever rode straighter than he did on this occasion. Adelaide stopped short on the path, and he stood opposite to her, with his fingers inserted between the closed buttons of his frock-coat. “Mr Spooner!” exclaimed Adelaide.
“I am quite in earnest, Miss Palliser; no man ever was more in earnest. I can offer you a comfortable well-furnished home, an undivided heart, a good settlement, and no embarrassment on the property. I’m fond of a country life myself, but I’ll adapt myself to you in everything reasonable.”
“You are mistaken, Mr Spooner; you are indeed.”
“How mistaken?”
“I mean that it is altogether out of the question. You have surprised me so much that I couldn’t stop you sooner; but pray do not speak of it again.”
“It is a little sudden, but what is a man to do? If you will only think of it — ”
“I can’t think of it at all. There is no need for thinking. Really, Mr Spooner, I can’t go on with you. If you wouldn’t mind turning back I’ll walk into the village by myself.” Mr Spooner, however, did not seem inclined to obey this injunction, and stood his ground, and, when she moved on, walked on beside her. “I must insist on being left alone,” she said.
“I haven’t done anything out of the way,” said the lover.
“I think it’s very much out of the way. I have hardly ever spoken to you before. If you will only leave me now there shall not be a word more said about it.”
But Mr Spooner was a man of spirit. “I’m not in the least ashamed of what I’ve done,” he said.
“But you might as well go away, when it can’t be of any use.”
“I don’t know why it shouldn’t be of use. Miss Palliser, I’m a man of good property. My great-great-grandfather lived at Spoon Hall, and we’ve been there ever since. My mother was one of the Platters of Platter House. I don’t see that I’ve done anything out of the way. As for shilly-shallying, and hanging about, I never knew any good come from it. Don’t let us quarrel, Miss Palliser. Say that you’ll take a week to think of it.”
“But I won’t think of it at all; and I won’t go on walking with you. If you’ll go one way, Mr Spooner, I’ll go the other.”
Then Mr Spooner waxed angry. “Why am I to be treated with disdain?” he said.
“I don’t want to treat you with disdain. I only want you to go away.”
“You seem to think that I’m something — something altogether beneath you.”
And so in truth she did. Miss Palliser had never analysed her own feelings and emotions about the Spooners whom she met in society; but she probably conceived that there were people in the world who, from certain accidents, were accustomed to sit at dinner with her, but who were no more fitted for her intimacy than were the servants who waited upon her. Such people were to her little more than the tables and chairs with which she was brought in contact. They were persons with whom it seemed to her to be impossible that she should have anything in common — who were her inferiors, as completely as were the menials around her. Why she should thus despise Mr Spooner, while in her heart of hearts she loved Gerard Maule, it would be difficult to explain. It was not simply an affair of age — nor of good looks, nor altogether of education. Gerard Maule was by no means wonderfully erudite. They were both addicted to hunting. Neither of them did anything useful. In that respect Mr Spooner stood the higher, as he managed his own property successfully. But Gerard Maule so wore his clothes, and so carried his limbs, and so pronounced his words that he was to be regarded as one entitled to make love to any lady; whereas poor Mr Spooner was not justified in proposing to marry any woman much more gifted than his own housemaid. Such, at least, were Adelaide Palliser’s ideas. “I don’t think anything of the kind,” she said, “only I want you to go away, I shall go back to the house, and I hope you won’t accompany me. If you do, I shall turn the other way.” Whereupon she did retire at once, and he was left standing in the path.
There was a seat there, and he sat down for a moment to think of it all. Should he persevere in his suit, or should he rejoice that he had escaped from such an ill-conditioned minx? He remembered that he had read, in his younger days, that lovers in novels generally do persevere, and that they are almost always successful at last. In affairs of the heart, such perseverance was, he thought, the correct thing. But in this instance the conduct of the lady had not given him the slightest encouragement. When a horse balked with him at a fence, it was his habit to force the animal till he jumped it — as the groom had recommended Phineas to do. But when he had encountered a decided fall, it was not sensible practice to ride the horse at the same place again. There was probably some occult cause for failure. He could not but own that he had been thrown on the present occasion — and upon the whole, he thought, that he had better give it up. He found his way back to the house, put up his things, and got away to Spoon Hall in time for dinner, without seeing Lady Chiltern or any of her guests.
“What has become of Mr Spooner?” Maule asked, as soon as he returned to Harrington Hall.
“Nobody knows,” said Lady Chiltern, “but I believe he has gone.”
“Has anything happened?”
“I have heard no tidings; but, if you ask for my opinion, I think something has happened. A certain lady seems to have been ruffled, and a certain gentleman has disappeared. I am inclined to think that a few unsuccessful words have been spoken.” Gerard Maule saw that there was a smile in her eye, and he was satisfied.
“My dear, what did Mr Spooner say to you during his walk?” This question was asked by the ill-natured old lady in the presence of nearly all the party.
“We were talking of hunting,” said Adelaide.
“And did the poor old woman get her half-sovereign?”
“No — he forgot that. We did not go into the village at all. I was tired and came back.”
“Poor old woman — and poor Mr Spooner!”
Everybody in the house knew what had occurred, as Mr Spooner’s discretion in the conduct of this affair had not been equal to his valour; but Miss Palliser never confessed openly, and almost taught herself to believe that the man had been mad or dreaming during that special hour.
Phineas, on his return to London, before he had taken his seat in the House, received the following letter from Lady Laura Kennedy
“Dresden, 8th February, 1870 “ DEAR FRIEND—
“I thought that perhaps you would have written to me from Harrington. Violet has told me of the meeting between you and Madame Goesler, and says that the old friendship seems to have been perfectly re-established. She used to think once that there might be more than friendship, but I never quite believed that. She tells me that Chiltern is quarrelling with the Pallisers. You ought not to let him quarrel with people. I know that he would listen to you. He always did.
“I write now especially because I have just received so dreadful a letter from Mr Kennedy! I would send it you were it not that there are in it a few words which on his behalf I shrink from showing even to you. It is full of threats. He begins by quotations from the Scriptures, and from the Prayer Book, to show that a wife has no right to leave her husband — and then he goes on to the law. One knows all that of course. And then he asks whether he ever ill-used me? Was he ever false to me? Do I think, that were I to choose to submit the matter to the iniquitous practices of the present Divorce Court, I could prove anything against him by which even that low earthly judge would be justified in taking from him his marital authority? And if not — have I no conscience? Can I reconcile it to myself to make his life utterly desolate and wretched simply because duties which I took upon myself at my marriage have become distasteful to me?
“These questions would be very hard to answer, were there not other questions that I could ask. Of course I was wrong to marry him. I know that now, and I repent my sin in sack-cloth and ashes. But I did not leave him after I married him till he had brought against me horrid accusations — accusations which a woman could not bear, which, if he believed them himself, must have made it impossible for him to live with me. Could any wife live with a husband who declared to her face that he believed that she had a lover? And in this very letter he says that which almost repeats the accusation. He has asked me how I can have dared to receive you, and desires me never either to see you or to wish to see you again. And yet he sent for you to Loughlinter before you came, in order that you might act as a friend between us. How could I possibly return to a man whose power of judgment has so absolutely left him?
“I have a conscience in the matter, a conscience that is very far from being at ease. I have done wrong, and have shipwrecked every hope in this world. No woman was ever more severely punished. My life is a burden to me, and I may truly say that I look for no peace this side the grave. I am conscious, too, of continued sin — a sin unlike other sins — not to be avoided, of daily occurrence, a sin which weighs me to the ground. But I should not sin the less were I to return to him. Of course he can plead his marriage. The thing is done. But it can’t be right that a woman should pretend to love a man whom she loathes. I couldn’t live with him. If it were simply to go and die, so that his pride would be gratified by my return, I would do it; but I should not die. There would come some horrid scene, and I should be no more a wife to him than I am while living here.
“He now threatens me with publicity. He declares that unless I return to him he will put into some of the papers a statement of the whole case. Of course this would be very bad. To be obscure and untalked of is all the comfort that now remains to me. And he might say things that would be prejudicial to others — especially to you. Could this in anyway be prevented? I suppose the papers would publish anything; and you know how greedily people will read slander about those whose names are in anyway remarkable. In my heart I believe he is insane; but it is very hard that one’s privacy should be at the mercy of a madman. He says that he can get an order from the Court of Queen’s Bench which will oblige the judges in Saxony to send me back to England in the custody of the police, but that I do not believe. I had the opinion of Sir Gregory Grogram before I came away, and he told me that it was not so. I do not fear his power over my person, while I remain here, but that the matter should be dragged forward before the public.
“I have not answered him yet, nor have I shown his letter to Papa. I hardly liked to tell you when you were here, but I almost fear to talk to Papa about it. He never urges me to go back, but I know that he wishes that I should do so. He has ideas about money, which seem singular to me, knowing, as I do, how very generous he has been himself. When I married, my fortune, as you knew, had been just used in paying Chiltern’s debts. Mr Kennedy had declared himself to be quite indifferent about it, though the sum was large. The whole thing was explained to him, and he was satisfied. Before a year was over he complained to Papa, and then Papa and Chiltern together raised the money — oe40,000 — and it was paid to Mr Kennedy. He has written more than once to Papa’s lawyer to say that, though the money is altogether useless to him, he will not return a penny of it, because by doing so he would seem to abandon his rights. Nobody has asked him to return it. Nobody has asked him to defray a penny on my account since I left him. But Papa continues to say that the money should not be lost to the family. I cannot, however, return to such a husband for the sake of oe40,000. Papa is very angry about the money, because he says that if it had been paid in the usual way at my marriage, settlements would have been required that it should come back to the family after Mr Kennedy’s death in the event of my having no child. But, as it is now, the money would go to his estate after my death. I don’t understand why it should be so, but Papa is always harping upon it, and declaring that Mr Kennedy’s pretended generosity has robbed us all. Papa thinks that were I to return this could be arranged; but I could not go back to him for such a reason. What does it matter? Chiltern and Violet will have enough; and of what use would it be to such a one as I am to have a sum of money to leave behind me? I should leave it to your children, Phineas, and not to Chiltern’s.
“He bids me neither see you nor write to you — but how can I obey a man whom I believe to be mad? And when I will not obey him in the greater matter by returning to him it would be absurd were I to attempt to obey him in smaller details. I don’t suppose I shall see you very often. His letter has, at any rate, made me feel that it would be impossible for me to return to England, and it is not likely that you will soon come here again. I will not even ask you to do so, though your presence gave a brightness to my life for a few days which nothing else could have produced. But when the lamp for a while burns with special brightness there always comes afterwards a corresponding dullness. I had to pay for your visit, and for the comfort of my confession to you at K?nigstein. I was determined that you should know it all; but, having told you, I do not want to see you again. As for writing, he shall not deprive me of the consolation — nor I trust will you.
“Do you think that I should answer his letter, or will it be better that I should show it to Papa? I am very averse to doing this, as I have explained to you; but I would do so if I thought that Mr Kennedy really intended to act upon his threats. I will not conceal from you that it would go nigh to kill me if my name were dragged through the papers. Can anything be done to prevent it? If he were known to be mad of course the papers would not publish his statements; but I suppose that if he were to send a letter from Loughlinter with his name to it they would print it. It would be very, very cruel.
“God bless you. I need not say how faithfully I am “Your friend, “L. K.”
This letter was addressed to Phineas at his club, and there he received it on the evening before the meeting of Parliament. He sat up for nearly an hour thinking of it after he read it. He must answer it at once. That was a matter of course. But he could give her no advice that would be of any service to her. He was, indeed, of all men the least fitted to give her counsel in her present emergency. It seemed to him that as she was safe from any attack on her person, she need only remain at Dresden, answering his letter by what softest negatives she could use. It was clear to him that in his present condition she could take no steps whatever in regard to the money. That must be left to his conscience, to time, and to chance. As to the threat of publicity, the probability, he thought, was that it would lead to nothing. He doubted whether any respectable newspaper would insert such a statement as that suggested. Were it published, the evil must be borne. No diligence on her part, or on the part of her lawyers, could prevent it.
But what had she meant when she wrote of continual sin, sin not to be avoided, of sin repeated daily which nevertheless weighed her to the ground? Was it expected of him that he should answer that portion of her letter? It amounted to a passionate renewal of that declaration of affection for himself which she had made at K?nigstein, and which had pervaded her whole life since some period antecedent to her wretched marriage. Phineas, as he thought of it, tried to analyse the nature of such a love. He also, in those old days, had loved her, and had at once resolved that he must tell her so, though his hopes of success had been poor indeed. He had taken the first opportunity, and had declared his purpose. She, with the imperturbable serenity of a matured kind-hearted woman, had patted him on the back, as it were, as she told him of her existing engagement with Mr Kennedy. Could it be that at that moment she could have loved him as she now said she did, and that she should have been so, cold, so calm, and so kind; while, at that very moment, this coldness, calmness, and kindness was but a thin crust over so strong a passion? How different had been his own love! He had been neither calm nor kind. He had felt himself for a day or two to be so terribly knocked about that the world was nothing to him. For a month or two he had regarded himself as a man peculiarly circumstanced — marked for misfortune and for a solitary life. Then he had retricked his beams, and before twelve months were passed had almost forgotten his love. He knew now, or thought that he knew — that the continued indulgence of a hopeless passion was a folly opposed to the very instincts of man and woman — a weakness showing want of fibre and of muscle in the character. But here was a woman who could calmly conceal her passion in its early days and marry a man whom she did not love in spite of it, who could make her heart, her feelings, and all her feminine delicacy subordinate to material considerations, and nevertheless could not rid herself of her passion in the course of years, although she felt its existence to be an intolerable burden on her conscience. On which side lay strength of character and on which side weakness? Was he strong or was she?
And he tried to examine his own feelings in regard to her. The thing was so long ago that she was to him as some aunt, or sister, so much the elder as to be almost venerable. He acknowledged to himself a feeling which made it incumbent upon him to spend himself in her service, could he serve her by any work of his. He was — or would be, devoted to her. He owed her a never-dying gratitude. But were she free to marry again tomorrow, he knew that he could not marry her. She herself had said the same thing. She had said that she would be his sister. She had specially required of him that he should make known to her his wife, should he ever marry again. She had declared that she was incapable of further jealousy — and yet she now told him of daily sin of which her conscience could not assoil itself.
“Phineas,” said a voice close to his ears, “are you repenting your sins?”
“Oh, certainly — what sins?”
It was Barrington Erle. “You know that we are going to do nothing tomorrow,” continued he.
“So I am told.”
“We shall let the Address pass almost without a word. Gresham will simply express his determination to oppose the Church Bill to the knife. He means to be very plain-spoken about it. Whatever may be the merits of the Bill, it must be regarded as an unconstitutional effort to retail power in the hands of the minority, coming from such hands as those of Mr Daubeny. I take it he will go at length into the question of majorities, and show how inexpedient it is on behalf of the nation that any Ministry should remain in power who cannot command a majority in the House on ordinary questions. I don’t know whether he will do that tomorrow or at the second reading of the Bill.”
“I quite agree with him.”
“Of course you do. Everybody agrees with him. No gentleman can have a doubt on the subject. Personally, I hate the idea of Church Reform. Dear old Mildmay, who taught me all I know, hates it too. But Mr Gresham is the head of our party now, and much as I may differ from him on many things, I am bound to follow him. If he proposes Church Reform in my time, or anything else, I shall support him.”
“I know those are your ideas.”
“Of course they are. There are no other ideas on which things can be made to work. Were it not that men get drilled into it by the force of circumstances any government in this country would be impossible. Were it not so, what should we come to? The Queen would find herself justified in keeping in any set of Ministers who could get her favour, and ambitious men would prevail without any support from the country. The Queen must submit to dictation from some quarter.”
“She must submit to advice, certainly,”
“Don’t cavil at a word when you know it to be true,” said Barrington, energetically. “The constitution of the country requires that she should submit to dictation. Can it come safely from any other quarter than that of a majority of the House of Commons?”
“I think not.”
“We are all agreed about that. Not a single man in either House would dare to deny it. And if it be so, what man in his senses can think of running counter to the party which he believes to be right in its general views? A man so burthened with scruples as to be unable to act in this way should keep himself aloof from public life. Such a one cannot serve the country in Parliament, though he may possibly do so with pen and ink in his closet.”
“I wonder then that you should have asked me to come forward again after what I did about the Irish land question,” said Phineas.
“A first fault may be forgiven when the sinner has in other respects been useful. The long and the short of it is that you must vote with us against Daubeny’s bill. Browborough sees it plainly enough. He supported his chief in the teeth of all his protestations at Tankerville.”
“I am not Browborough.”
“Nor half so good a man if you desert us,” said Barrington Erle, with anger.
“I say nothing about that. He has his ideas of duty, and I have mine. But I will go so far as this. I have not yet made up my mind. I shall ask advice; but you must not quarrel with me if I say that I must seek it from someone who is less distinctly a partisan than you are.”
“From Monk?”
“Yes — from Mr Monk. I do think it will be bad for the country that this measure should come from the hands of Mr Daubeny.”
“Then why the d — should you support it, and oppose your own party at the same time? After that you can’t do it. Well, Ratler, my guide and philosopher, how is it going to be?”
Mr Ratler had joined them, but was still standing before the seat they occupied, not condescending to sit down in amicable intercourse with a man as to whom he did not yet know whether to regard him as a friend or foe. “We shall be very quiet for the next month or six weeks,” said Ratler.
“And then?” asked Phineas.
“Well, then it will depend on what may be the number of a few insane men who never ought to have seats in the House.”
“Such as Mr Monk and Mr Turnbull?” Now it was well known that both those gentlemen, who were recognised as leading men, were strong Radicals, and it was supposed that they both would support any bill, come whence it might, which would separate Church and State.
“Such as Mr Monk,” said Ratler. “I will grant that Turnbull may be an exception. It is his business to go in for everything in the way of agitation, and he at any rate is consistent. But when a man has once been in office — why then — ”
“When he has taken the shilling?” said Phineas.
“Just so. I confess I do not like a deserter.”
“Phineas will be all right,” said Barrington Erle.
“I hope so,” said Mr Ratler, as he passed on.
“Ratler and I run very much in the same groove,” said Barrington, “but I fancy there is some little difference in the motive power.”
“Ratler wants place.”
“And so do I.”
“He wants it just as most men want professional success,” said Phineas. “But if I understand your object, it is chiefly the maintenance of the old-established political power of the Whigs. You believe in families?”
“I do believe in the patriotism of certain families. I believe that the Mildmays, FitzHowards, and Pallisers have for some centuries brought up their children to regard the well-being of their country as their highest personal interest, and that such teaching has been generally efficacious. Of course, there have been failures. Every child won’t learn its lesson however well it may be taught. But the school in which good training is most practised will, as a rule, turn out the best scholars. In this way I believe in families. You have come in for some of the teaching, and I expect to see you a scholar yet.”
The House met on the following day, and the Address was moved and seconded; but there was no debate. There was not even a full House. The same ceremony had taken place so short a time previously, that the whole affair was flat and uninteresting. It was understood that nothing would in fact be done. Mr Gresham, as leader of his side of the House, confined himself to asserting that he should give his firmest opposition to the proposed measure, which was, it seemed, so popular with the gentlemen who sat on the other side, and who supported the so-called Conservative Government of the day. His reasons for doing so had been stated very lately, and must unfortunately be repeated very soon, and he would not, therefore, now trouble the House with them. He did not on this occasion explain his ideas as to majorities, and the Address was carried by seven o’clock in the evening. Mr Daubeny named a day a month hence for the first reading of his bill, and was asked the cause of the delay by some member on a back bench. “Because it cannot be ready sooner,” said Mr Daubeny. “When the honourable gentleman has achieved a position which will throw upon him the responsibility of bringing forward some great measure for the benefit of his country, he will probably find it expedient to devote some little time to details. If he do not, he will be less anxious to avoid attack than I am.” A Minister can always give a reason; and, if he be clever, he can generally when doing so punish the man who asks for it. The punishing of an influential enemy is an indiscretion; but an obscure questioner may often be crushed with good effect.
Mr Monk’s advice to Phineas was both simple and agreeable. He intended to support Mr Gresham, and of course counselled his friend to do the same.
“But you supported Mr Daubeny on the Address before Christmas,” said Phineas.
“And shall therefore be bound to explain why I oppose him now — but the task will not be difficult. The Queen’s speech to Parliament was in my judgment right, and therefore I concurred in the Address. But I certainly cannot trust Mr Daubeny with Church Reform. I do not know that many will make the same distinction, but I shall do so.”
Phineas soon found himself sitting in the House as though he had never left it. His absence had not been long enough to make the place feel strange to him. He was on his legs before a fortnight was over asking some question of some Minister, and of course insinuating as he did so that the Minister in question had been guilty of some enormity of omission or commission. It all came back upon him as though he had been born to the very manner. And as it became known to the Ratlers that he meant to vote right on the great coming question — to vote right and to speak right in spite of his doings at Tankerville — everybody was civil to him. Mr Bonteen did express an opinion to Mr Ratler that it was quite impossible that Phineas Finn should ever again accept office, as of course the Tankervillians would never replace him in his seat after manifest apostasy to his pledge; but Mr Ratler seemed to think very little of that. “They won’t remember, Lord bless you — and then he’s one of those fellows that always get in somewhere. He’s not a man I particularly like; but you’ll always see him in the House — up and down, you know. When a fellow begins early, and has got it in him, it’s hard to shake him off.” And thus even Mr Ratler was civil to our hero.
Lady Laura Kennedy’s letter had, of course, been answered — not without very great difficulty. “My dear Laura,” he had begun — for the first time in his life. She had told him to treat her as a brother would do, and he thought it best to comply with her instructions. But beyond that, till he declared himself at the end to be hers affectionately, he made no further protestation of affection. He made no allusion to that sin which weighed so heavily on her, but answered all her questions. He advised her to remain at Dresden. He assured her that no power could be used to enforce her return. He expressed his belief that Mr Kennedy would abstain from making any public statement, but suggested that if any were made the answering of it should be left to the family lawyer. In regard to the money, he thought it impossible that any step should be taken. He then told her all there was to tell of Lord and Lady Chiltern, and something also of himself. When the letter was written he found that it was cold and almost constrained. To his own ears it did not sound like the hearty letter of a generous friend. It savoured of the caution with which it had been prepared. But what could he do? Would he not sin against her and increase her difficulties if he addressed her with warm affection? Were he to say a word that ought not to be addressed to any woman he might do her an irreparable injury; and yet the tone of his own letter was odious to him.