 CHAPTER 70 I WILL NOT GO TO LOCKLINTER. The end of July came, and it was settled that Lady Laura Kennedy should go to Locklinter. She had been a widow now for nearly three months, and it was thought right that she should go down and see the house, and the lands and the dependents whom her husband had left in her charge. It was now three years since she had seen Locklinter, and when last she had left it she had made up her mind that she would never place her foot upon the place again. Her wretchedness had all come upon her there. It was there that she had first been subjected to the unendurable tedium of Sabbath-day observances. It was there she had been instructed in the unpalatable duties that had been expected from her. It was there that she had been punished with the doctor from Callender, whenever she attempted escape under the plea of a headache. And it was there, standing by the waterfall, the noise of which could be heard from the front door that Phineas Finn had told her of his love. When she accepted the hand of Robert Kennedy, she had known that she had not loved him. But from the moment in which Phineas had spoken to her, she knew well that her heart had gone one way whereas her hand was to go another. From that moment her whole life had quickly become a blank. She had had no period of married happiness, not a month, not an hour. From the moment in which the thing had been done she had found that the man to whom she had bound herself was odious to her, and that the life before her was distasteful to her, things which before had seemed worthy to her, and full at any rate of interest, became at once dull and vapid. Her husband was in Parliament, as also had been her father and many of her friends. And by weight of his own character and her influence was himself placed high in office. But in his house politics lost all the flavour which they had possessed for her in Portman Square. She had thought that she could at any rate do her duty as the mistress of a great household and as the benevolent lady of a great estate. But household duties under the tutelage of Mr. Kennedy had been impossible to her, and that part of a scotch lady bountiful which she had intended to play seemed to be denied to her. The whole structure had fallen to the ground and nothing had been left to her. But she would not sin, though she could not bring herself to love her husband, she would at any rate be strong enough to get rid of that other love. Having so resolved she became as weak as water. She at one time determined to be the guiding genius of the man she loved, a sort of devoted elder sister intending him to be the intimate friend of her husband. Then she had told him not to come to her house and had been weak enough to let him know why it was that she could not bear his presence. She had failed altogether to keep her secret, and her life during the struggle had become so intolerable to her that she had found herself compelled to desert her husband. She had shown her that he too had discovered the truth, and then she had become indignant and had left him. Every place that she had inhabited with him had become disagreeable to her. The house in London had been so odious that she had asked her intimate friends to come to her in that occupied by her father. But of all spots upon earth, Loch Glinter had been the most distasteful to her. It was there that the sermons had been the longest, the lessons and accounts the most obstinate, the lectures the most persevering, the dullness the most heavy. It was there that her ears had learned the sound of the wheels of Dr. McDutty's gig. It was there that her spirit had been nearly broken. It was there that with spirit not broken she had determined to face all the world might say of her and fly from a tyranny which was insupportable. And now the place was her own, and she was told that she must go there as its owner. Go there and be potential and beneficent and grandly bland with persons all of whom knew what had been the relations between her and her husband. And though she had been indignant with her husband when at last she had left him, throwing it in his teeth as an unmanly offence that he had accused her of the truth, though she had felt him to be a tyrant and herself to be a thrall, though the sermons and the lessons and the doctor had each severally seemed to her to be horrible cruelties, yet she had known through it all that the fault had been hers and not his. He only did that which she should have expected when she married him, but she had done none of that which he was entitled to expect from her. The real fault, the deceit, the fraud, the sin had been with her and she knew it. Her life had been destroyed, but not by him. His life had also been destroyed and she had done it. Now he was gone and she knew that his people, the old mother who was still left alone, his cousins and the tenants who were now to be her tenants, all said that had she done her duty by him, he would still be alive. They must hate her the worse, because she had never sinned after such a fashion as to liberate him from his bond to her. With a husband's perfect faith in his wife, he had, immediately after his marriage, given to her for her life, the lordship over his people, should he be without a child and should she survive him. In his hottest anger he had not halted that. His constant demand had been that she should come back to him and be his real wife, and while making that demand, with a persistency which had driven him mad, he had died. And now the place was hers and they told her that she must go and live there. It is a very sad thing for any human being to have to say to himself, with an earnest belief in his own assertion, that all the joy of this world is over for him, and is the sadder because such conviction is apt to exclude the hope of other joy. This woman had said so to herself very often during the last two years, and had certainly been sincere. What was there in store for her? She was banished from the society of all those she liked. She bore a name that was hateful to her. She loved a man who she could never see. She was troubled about money. Nothing in life had any taste for her. All the joys of the world were over, and had been lost by her own fault. Then Phineas Finn had come to her at Dresden, and now her husband was dead. Could it be that she was entitled to hope that the sun might rise again for her once more and another day be reopened for her with a gorgeous morning? She was now rich and still young, or young enough. She was two and thirty, and had known many women, women still honoured with the name of girls, who had commenced the world successfully at that age. And this man had loved her once, he had told her so, and had afterwards kissed her when informed of her own engagement, how well she remembered it all. He too had gone through vicissitudes in life, had married and retired out of the world, had returned to it, and had gone through fire and water. But now everybody was saying good things of him, and all he wanted was the splendour which wealth would give him. Why should he not take it at her hands, and why should not the world begin again for both of them? But though she would dream that it might be so, she was quite sure that there was no such life in store for her. The nature of the man was too well known to her. Still he might be, or rather, capable of change than fickle. But he was incapable of pretending to love when he did not love. She felt that, in all the moments in which he had been most tender with her. When she had endeavoured to explain to him the state of her feelings at Koenigstein, meaning to be true in what she said, but not having been even then true throughout, she had acknowledged to herself that at every word he spoke she was wounded by his coldness. Had he then professed a passion for her, she would have rebuked him, have told him that he must go from her, but it would have warmed the blood in all her veins and brought back to her a sense of youthful life. It had been the same when she visited him in prison, the same again when he came to her after his acquittal. She had been frank enough to him, but he would not even pretend that he loved her. His gratitude, his friendship, his services were all hers. In every respect he had behaved well to her. All his troubles had come upon him because he would not desert her cause, but he would never again say he loved her. She gazed at herself in the glass, putting aside for the moment the hideous widows cap which she now wore, and told herself that it was natural that it should be so. Though she was young in years her features were hard and worn with care. She had never thought herself to be a beauty, though she had been conscious of a certain aristocratic grace of manner which might stand in the place of beauty. As she examined herself she found that that was not all gone, but she now lacked that roundness of youth which had been hers when first she knew Phineas Finn. She sat opposite the mirror and poured over her own features with an almost skillful scrutiny, and told herself at last aloud that she had become an old woman. He was in the prime of life, but for her was left nothing but its dregs. She was to go to Lachlanter with her brother and her brother's wife, leaving her father at Saltsby on the way. The Chiltons were to remain with her for one week and no more. His presence was demanded in the break country, and it was with difficulty that he had been induced to give her so much of his time. But what was she to do when they should leave her? How could she live alone in that great house, thinking, as she ever must think, of all that had happened to her there? It seemed to her that everybody near to her was cruel and demanding from her such a sacrifice of her comfort. Her father had shuddered when she had proposed to him to accompany her to Lachlanter, but her father was one of those who insisted on the propriety of her going there. Then, in spite of that lesson which she had taught herself while sitting opposite to the glass, she allowed her fancy to revel in the idea of having him with her as she wandered over the braze. She saw him a day or two before her journey when she told him her plans as she might tell them to any friend. Lady children and her father had been present, and there had been no special sign in her outward manner of the mingled tenderness and soreness of her heart within. No allusion had been made to any visit from him to the north. She would not have dared to suggest it in the presence of her brother, and was almost as much cowed by her brother's wife. But when she was alone on the eve of her departure, she wrote him as follows. Sunday, 1st August Dear friend, I thought that perhaps you might have come in this afternoon and I have not left the house all day. I was so wretched that I could not go to church in the morning, and when the afternoon came I preferred the chance of seeing you to going out with Violet. We too were alone all the evening, and I did not give you up till nearly ten. I dare say you were right not to come. I should only have bored you with my complaints and have grumbled to you of evils which you cannot cure. We started nine tomorrow and get to Salisby in the afternoon, such a family party as we shall be. I did fancy that Oswald would escape it, but like everybody else he has changed and has become domestic and dutiful. Not that he is as tyrannous as ever, but his tyranny is now that of the responsible father of a family. Papa cannot understand him at all and is dreadfully afraid of him. We stay two nights at Salisby and then go on to Scotland leaving Papa at home. Of course it is very good in Violet and Oswald to come with me if, as they say, it be necessary for me to go at all. As to living there by myself, it seems to me impossible. You know the place well, and can you imagine me there all alone, surrounded by scotch men and women who of course must hate and despise me, afraid of every face that I see and reminded even by the chairs and tables of all that has passed. I have told Papa that I know I shall be back at Salisby before the middle of the month. He frets and says nothing, but he tells Violet and then she lectures me in that wise way of hers which enables her to say such hard things with so much seeming tenderness. She asked me why I do not take a companion with me as I am so much afraid of solitude. Where on earth should I find a companion who would not be worse than solitude? I do feel now that I have mistaken life in having so little use to myself to the small resources of feminine companionship. I love Violet dearly and I used to be always happy in her society, but even with her now I feel but a half sympathy. That girl that she has with her is more to her than I am, because after the first half hour I grow tired about her babies. I have never known any other woman with whom I cared to be alone. How then shall I content myself with a companion hired by the quarter, perhaps from some advertisement in a newspaper? No companionship of any kind seems possible to me and yet never was a human being more weary of herself. I sometimes wonder whether I could go again and sit in that cage in the House of Commons to hear you and other men speak as I used to do. I do not believe that any eloquence in the world would make it indurable to me. I hardly care who is in or out and do not understand the things which my cousin Barrington tells me. So long does it seem since I was in the midst of them all? Not that I am intensely anxious that you should be back. They tell me that you will certainly be re-elected this week and that all the House will receive you with open arms. I should have liked had it been possible to be once more in the cage to see that, but I am such a coward that I did not even dare to propose to stay for it. Violet would have told me that such manifestation of interest was unfit for my condition as a widow, but in truth, Phineas, there is nothing else now that does interest me. If, looking on from a distance, I can see you succeed, I shall try once more to care for the questions of the day. When you have succeeded, as I know you will, it will be some consolation to me to think that I also helped a little. I suppose I must not ask you to come to Laughletta, but you will know best. If you will do so, I shall care nothing for what anyone may say. Oswald hardly mentions your name in my hearing, and of course I know of what he is thinking. When I am with him, I am afraid of him, because it would add infinitely to my grief where I'd driven to Quaro with him, but I am my own mistress as much as he is his own master, and I will not regulate my conduct by his wishes. If you please to come, you will be as welcome as the flowers in May. Ah, how weak are such words in giving any idea of the joy with which I should see you. God bless you, Phineas, your most affectionate friend, Laura Kennedy. Write to me at Laughletta. I shall long to hear that you have taken your seat immediately on your reelection. Pray do not lose a day. I am sure that all your friends will advise you as I do. Throughout her whole letter, she was struggling to tell him once again of her love, and yet to do it in some way of which she need not be ashamed. It was not till she had come to the last words that she could force her pen to speak of her affection, and then the words did not come freely as she would have had them. She knew that he would not come to Laughletta. She felt that were he to do so, he could come only as a suitor for her hand, and that such a suit in these early days of her widowhood carried on in her late husband's house would be held to be disgraceful. As regarded herself, she would have faced all that for the sake of the thing to be attained, but she knew that he would not come. He had become wise by experience and would perceive the result of such coming and would avoid it. His answer to her letter reached Laughletta before she did. Great Marlborough Street, Monday night, dear Lady Laura. I should have called in at the square last night, only that I feel that Lady Chilter must be weary of the woes of so doleful a person as myself. I dined and spent the evening with the loaves and was quite aware that I had disgraced myself with them by being perpetually lacrimose. As a rule, I do not think that I am more given than other people to talk of myself, but I am conscious of a certain incapability of getting rid of myself, what has grown upon me since those weary weeks in Nugget and those frightful days in the dark, and this makes me unfit for society. Should I again have a seat in the house, I shall be afraid to get up upon my legs lest I should find myself talking of the time in which I stood before the judge with a halter around my neck. I sympathize with you perfectly in what you say about Loch Linter. It may be right that you should go there and show yourself so that those who knew the Kennedys in Scotland should not say that you had not dared to visit the place, but I do not think it possible that you should live there as yet. And why should you do so? I cannot conceive that your presence there should do good unless you took delight in the place. I will not go to Loch Linter myself although I know how warm would be my welcome. When he had got so far with his letter, he found the difficulty of going on with it to be almost insuperable. How could he give her any reasons for his not making the journey to Scotland? People would say that you and I should not be alone together after all the evil that has been spoken of us and would be especially eager in saying so where I now to visit you so lately made a widow and a soldier in with you in the house that did belong to your husband. Only think how eloquent would be the indignation of the people's banner where it known that I were at Loch Linter. Could he have spoken the truth openly such were the reasons that he would have given but it was impossible that such truths should be written by him in a letter to herself. And then it was almost equally difficult for him to tell her of a visit which he had resolved to make but the letter must be completed and at last the words were written. I could be of no real service to you there as will be your brother and your brother's wife even though their stay with you is to be so short where I you I would go out among the people as much as possible even though they should not receive you cordially at first though we hear so much of clanship in the Highlands I think the Highlanders are prone to cling to anyone who has territorial authority among them. They thought a great deal of Mr. Kennedy but they had never heard his name 50 years ago. I suppose you will return to Soulsby soon and then perhaps I may be able to see you. In the meantime I am going to matching. This difficulty was worse even than the other. Both the Duke and the Duchess have asked me and I know that I am bound to make an effort to face my fellow creatures again. The horror I feel it being stared at is the man that was not hung as a murderer is stronger than I can describe and I am well aware that I shall be talked to and made a wonder of on that ground. I am told that I am to be re-elected triumphantly at Tangerville without a penny of cost or the trouble of asking for a vote simply because I didn't knock poor Mr. Bontein on the head. This to me is abominable but I cannot help myself unless I resolve to go away and hide myself. That I know cannot be right and therefore I had better go through it and have done with it. Though I am to be stared at I shall not be stared at very long. Some other monster will come up and take my place and I shall be the only person who will not forget it all. Therefore I have accepted the Duke's invitation and shall go to matching sometime in the end of August. All the world is to be there. This re-election and I believe I shall be re-elected tomorrow would be altogether distasteful to me where it not that I feel I should not allow myself to be cut to pieces by what has occurred. I shall hate to go back to the house and have somehow learned to dislike and distrust all those things that used to be so fine and lively to me. I don't think that I believe any more in the party or rather in the men who lead it. I used to have a faith that now seems to me to be marvelous. Even 12 months ago, when I was beginning to think of standing for Tankerville I believed that on our side the men were patriotic angels and that Dobony and his friends were all fiends or idiots, mostly idiots, but with a strong dash of fiendism to control them. It has all come now to one common level of poor human interest. I doubt where the patriotism can stand to wear and tear and temptation of the front benches in the House of Commons. Men are flying at each other's throats, thrusting and parrying, making false accusations and defenses equally false, lying and slandering, sometimes picking and stealing till they themselves become unaware of the magnificence of their own position and forget that they are expected to be great. Little tricks of sword play engage all their skill and the consequence is that there is no reverence now for any man in the House, none of that feeling which we used to entertain for Mr. Mildmay. Of course I write and feel as a discontented man and what I say to you I would not say to any other human being. I did long most anxiously for office, having made up my mind a second time to look to it as a profession, but I meant to earn my bread honestly and give it up as I did before when I could not keep it with a clear conscience. I knew that I was hustled out of the object of my poor ambition by that unfortunate man who has been hurried to his fate. In such a position I ought to distrust and do partly distrust my own feelings and I am aware that I have been soured by prison indignities, but still the conviction remains with me that parliamentary interests are not those battles of gods and giants which I used to regard them. Our guise with a hundred hands is but a three-fingered jack and I sometimes think that we share our great jove with the Strand Theater. Nevertheless I shall go back and if they will make me a joint lord tomorrow I shall be in heaven. I do not know why I should write all this to you except that there is no one else to whom I can say it. There is no one else who would give a moment of time to such lamentations. My friends will expect me to talk to them of my experiences in the dark rather than politics and will want to know what rations I had in Yuga. I went to call on the governor only yesterday and visited the old room. I could never really bring myself to think that you did it, Mr. Finn, he said. I looked at him and smiled, but I should have liked to fly at his throat. Why did he not know that the charge was a monstrous absurdity? Talking of that, not even you were truer to me than your brother. One expects it from a woman, both the truth and the discernment. I have written to you a cruelly long letter but when one's mind is full such relief is sometimes better than talking. Pray answer it before long and let me know what you intend to do. Yours, most affectionately, Phineas Finn. She did read the letter through, read it probably more than once, but there was only one sentence in it that had for her any enduring interest. I will not go to Laughlet or myself. Though she had known that he would not come, her heart sank within her as though now at this moment the really fatal wound had at last been inflicted. But in truth there was another sentence as a compliment to the first which riveted the dagger in her bosom. In the meantime I am going to matching. Throughout his letter the name of that woman was not mentioned, but of course she would be there. The thing had all been arranged in order that they too might be brought together. She told herself that she had always hated that intriguing woman, Lady Glencora. She read the remainder of the letter and understood it but she read it all in connection with the beauty and the wealth and the art and the cunning of Madame Max Gersler. End of chapter 70. Chapter 71 of Phineas Redux. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Denise Lacey. Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollop. Chapter 71. Phineas Finn is re-elected. The manner in which Phineas Finn was returned a second time for the borough of Tankerville was memorable among the annals of English elections. When the news reached the town that their member was to be tried for murder no doubt every elector believed that he was guilty. It is the natural assumption when police and magistrates and lawyers who have been at work upon the matter carefully have come to that conclusion and nothing but private knowledge or personal affection will stand against such evidence. At Tankerville there was nothing of either and our hero's guilt was taken as a certainty. There was an interest felt in the whole matter which was full of excitement and not altogether without delight to the Tankervillions. Of course the borough as a borough would never again hold up its head. There had never been known such an occurrence in the whole history of this country as the hanging of a member of the House of Commons. And this member of parliament was to be hung for murdering another member which no doubt added much to the importance of the transaction. A large party in the borough declared that it was a judgment. Tankerville had degraded itself among boroughs by sending a Roman Catholic to parliament and had done so at the very moment in which the Church of England was being brought into danger. This was what had come upon the borough by not sticking to honest Mr. Browboro. There was a moment just before the trial was begun in which a large proportion of the electors was desirous of proceeding to work at once and of sending Mr. Browboro back to his own place. It was thought that Phineas Vinge should be made to resign. And the very wise men in Tankerville were much surprised when they were told that a member of parliament cannot resign his seat, that when once returned he is supposed to be as long as that parliament shall endure the absolute slave of his constituency and his country and that he can escape from his servitude only by accepting some office under the crown. Now it was held to be impossible that a man charged with murder should be appointed even to the stewardship of the children hundreds. The house no doubt could expel a member and would as a matter of course expel the member for Tankerville. But the house could hardly proceed to expulsion before the member's guilt could have been absolutely established. So it came to pass that there was no escape for the borough from any part of the disgrace to which it had subjected itself by its unworthy choice. And some Tankervillians of sensitive minds were of opinion that no Tankervillian ever again ought to take part in politics. Then quite suddenly there came into the borough the tidings that Phineas Vinge was an innocent man. This happened on the morning on which the three telegrams from Prague reached London. The news conveyed by the telegrams was at Tankerville almost as soon as in the court at the Old Bailey and was believed as readily. The name of the lady who had traveled all the way to Bohemia on behalf of their handsome young member was on the tongue of every woman in Tankerville and the most delightful romance was composed. Some few Protestant spirits regretted the now assured escape of their Roman Catholic enemy and would not even yet allow themselves to doubt that the whole murder had been arranged by divine providence to bring down the Scarlet Woman. It seemed to them to be so fitting a thing that providence should interfere directly to punish a town in which the sins of the Scarlet Woman were not held to be abominable. But the multitude were soon convinced that their member was innocent and as it was certain that he had been in great peril as it was known that he was still endurance and as it was necessary that the trial should proceed and that he should still stand at least for another day in the dock, he became more than ever a hero. Then came the further delay and at last the triumphant conclusion of the trial. When acquitted, Phineas Finn was still member for Tankerville and might have walked into the house on that very night. Instead of doing so, he had at once asked for the accustomed means of escape from his servitude and the seat for Tankerville was vacant. The most loving friends of Mr. Browborough perceived at once that there was not a chance for him. The borough was all but unanimous in resolving that it would return no one as its member but the man who had been unjustly accused of murder. Mr. Ruddles was at once dispatched to London with two other political spirits so that there might be a real deputation and waited upon Phineas two days after his release from prison. Ruddles was very anxious to carry his member back with him, assuring Phineas of an entry into the borough so triumphant that nothing like to it had ever been known at Tankerville. But to all this Phineas was quite deaf. At first, he declined even to be put in nomination. You can't escape from it, Mr. Finn. You can't indeed, said Ruddles. You don't at all understand the enthusiasm of the borough. Does he, Mr. Gadmeyer? I never knew anything like it in my life before, said Gadmeyer. I believe Mr. Finn would pull two-thirds of the church party tomorrow, said Mr. Trottles, a leading dissenter in Tankerville who on this occasion was the third member of the deputation. I needn't sit for the borough unless I please, I suppose, pleaded Phineas. Well, no, at least I don't know, said Ruddles. It would be throwing us over a good deal and I'm sure you are not the gentleman to do that. And then, Mr. Finn, don't you see that though you have been knocked about a little lately, by George he has most cruel, said Trottles. You'll miss the house if you give it up. You will after a bit, Mr. Finn. You've got to come round again, Mr. Finn, if I may be so bold as to say so and you shouldn't put yourself out of the way of coming round comfortably. Phineas knew that there was wisdom in the words of Mr. Ruddles and Consented, though at this moment he was low in heart, disgusted with the world and sick of humanity, though every joint in his body was still sore from the rack on which he had been stretched. Yet he knew that it would not be so with him always. As others were covered, so would he and it might be that he would live to miss the house should he now refuse the offer made to him. He accepted the offer, but he did so with a positive assurance that no consideration should at present take him to Tancreville. We ain't going to charge you not one penny, said Mr. Gadmeier with enthusiasm. I feel all that I owe to the borough, said Phineas, and to the warm friends there who have espoused my cause, but I am not in a condition at present, either of mind or body, to put myself forward anywhere in public. I have suffered a great deal. Most cruel, said Trottles, and I'm quite willing to confess that I am therefore unfit in my present position to serve the borough. We can't admit that, said Gadmeier, raising his left hand. We mean to have you, said Trottles. There isn't a doubt about your re-election, Mr. Phine, said Ruttles. I am grateful, but I cannot be there. I must trust to one of you gentlemen to explain to the electors that in my present condition I am unable to visit the borough. Monsieur's Ruttles, Gadmeier, and Trottles returned to Tancreville, disappointed no doubt at not bringing with them him, whose company would have made their feet glorious on the pavement of their native town, but still with the comparative sense of their own importance in having seen the great sufferer whose woes forbade that he should be beheld by common eyes. They never even expressed an idea that he ought to have come, alluding even to their past convictions as to the futility of hoping for such a blessing, but spoke of him as a personage made almost sacred by the sufferings which he had been made to endure. As to the election, that would be a matter of course. He was proposed by Mr. Ruttles himself and was absolutely seconded by the rector of Tancreville, the staunchest Tory in the place, who on this occasion made a speech in which he declared that as an Englishman, loving justice, he could not allow any political or even any religious consideration to bias his conduct on this occasion. Mr. Finn had thrown up his seat under the pressure of a false accusation, and it was the rector thought for the honor of the borough that the seat should be restored to him. So Finneas Finn was reelected for Tancreville without opposition and without expense, and for six weeks after the ceremony, parcels were showered upon him by the ladies at the borough who sent him work slippers, scarlet hunting waistcoats, pocket handkerchiefs with PF beautifully embroidered, and chains made of their own hair. In this conjunction of affairs, the editor of the People's Banner found it somewhat difficult to trim his sails. It was a rule of life with Mr. Quintus slide to persecute an enemy. An enemy might at any time become a friend, but while an enemy was an enemy, he should be trotted on and persecuted. Mr. Slide had striven more than once to make a friend of Finneas Finn, but Finneas Finn had been conceited and stiff-necked. Finneas had been to Mr. Slide an enemy of enemies, and by all his ideas of manliness, by all the rules of his life, by every principle which guided him, he was bound to persecute Finneas to the last. During the trial and the few weeks before the trial, he had written various short articles with the view of declaring how improper it would be should a newspaper express any opinion of the guilt or innocence of a suspected person while under trial, and he gave two or three severe blows to contemporaries for having sinned in the matter. But in all these articles, he had contrived to insinuate that the member for Tankerville would, as a matter of course, be dealt with by the hands of justice. He had been very careful to recapitulate all circumstances which had induced Finneas to hate the murdered man and had more than once related the story of the firing of the pistol at McPherson's hotel. Then came the telegram from Prague, and for a day or two Mr. Slide was stricken dumb. The acquittal followed, and Quintus Slide had found himself compelled to join in the general satisfaction events at the escape of an innocent man. Then came the reelection for Tankerville, and Mr. Slide felt that there was opportunity for another reaction. More than enough had been done for Finneas Finn in allowing him to elude the gallows. There could certainly be no need for crowning him with a political chaplet because he had not murdered Mr. Bonteen. Among a few other remarks which Mr. Slide threw together, the following appeared in the columns of the People's Banner. We must confess that we hardly understand the principle on which Mr. Finn has been re-elected for Tankerville with so much enthusiasm, free of expense, and without that usual compliment to the constituency which is implied by the personal appearance of the candidate. We have more than once expressed our belief that he was wrongly accused in the matter of Mr. Bonteen's murder. Indeed, our readers will do us the justice to remember that. During the trial and before the trial, we were always anxious to elade the very strong feeling against Mr. Finn with which the public mind was then imbued, not only by the facts of the murder, but also by the previous conduct of that gentleman. But we cannot understand why the late member should be thought by the electors of Tankerville to be especially worthy of their confidence because he did not murder Mr. Bonteen. He himself, instigated, we hope, by a proper feeling, retired from Parliament as soon as he was acquitted. His career during the last 12 months has not enhanced his credit, and cannot, we should think, have increased his comfort. We venture to suggest that after the affair in Judd Street, as to which the police were so benignly inefficient, that it would not be for the welfare of the nation that a gentleman should be employed in the public service whose public life had been marked by the misfortune which had attended Mr. Finn. Great efforts were made by various ladies of the old Whig Party to obtain official employment for him, but they were made in vain. Mr. Gresham was too wise, and our advice, we will not say was followed, but was found to agree with the decision of the Prime Minister. Mr. Finn was left out in the cold in spite of his great friends, and then came the murder of Mr. Bontein. Can it be that Mr. Finn's fitness for parliamentary duties has been increased by Mr. Bontein's unfortunate death, or by the fact that Mr. Bontein was murdered by other hands than his own? We think not. The wretched husband, who, in the madness of jealousy, fired a pistol at this young man's head, has since died in his madness. Does that incident in the drama give Mr. Finn any special claim to consideration? We think not, and we think also that the electors of Tankerville would have done better had they allowed Mr. Finn to return to that obscurity which he seems to have desired. The electors of Tankerville, however, are responsible only to their borough and may do as they please with the seat in parliament which is at their disposal. We may, however, protest against the employment of an unfit person in the service of his country simply because he has not committed a murder. We say so much now because rumors of an arrangement have reached our ears, which, should it come to pass, would force upon us the extremely disagreeable duty of referring very forcibly to past circumstances which may otherwise, perhaps, be allowed to be forgotten. End of chapter 71. Chapter 72 of Phineas Redux. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are on the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollett. Chapter 72, The End of the Story of Mr. Emilius and Lady Eustis. The interest in the murder by no means came to an end when Phineas Finn was acquitted. The new facts which served so thoroughly to prove him innocent tended with almost equal weight to prove another man guilty. The other man was already in custody on a charge which had subjected him to the peculiar ill will of the British public. He, a foreigner and a Jew by name, Yosef Emilius, as everyone was now careful to call him, had come to England and got himself to be ordained as a clergyman, had called himself Emilius and had married a rich wife with a title, although he had a former wife still living in his own country. Had he called himself Jones, it would have been better for him, but there was something in the name of Emilius which added a peculiar sting to his iniquities. It was now known that the bigamy could certainly be proved and that his last victim, our old friend, poor little Lizzie Eustis, would be rescued from his clutches. She would once more be a free woman and as she had been strong enough to defend her future income from his grasp, she was perhaps as fortunate as she deserved to be. She was still young and pretty and there might come another lover more desirable than Yosef Emilius. That that man would have to undergo the punishment of bigamy in its severest form. There was no doubt, but would law and justice and the prevailing desire for revenge be able to get at him in such a way that he might be hung? There certainly did exist a strong desire to prove Mr. Emilius to have been a murderer so that there might come a fitting termination to his career in Great Britain. The police seemed to think that they could make but little either of the coat or of the key unless other evidence that would be almost sufficient in itself should be found. Lord Fawn was informed that his testimony would probably be required at another trial which intimation affected him so grievously that his friends for a week or two thought that he would altogether sink under his miseries. But he would say nothing which would seem to accriminate Emilius. A man hurrying along with a gray coat was all that he could swear to now, professing himself to be altogether ignorant whether the man as seen by him had been tall or short. And then the manufacturer of the key, then what was that which made everyone feel sure that Emilius was the murderer, did not in truth afford the slightest evidence against him. Even had it been proved that he had certainly used the false key and left Mrs. Meagher's house on the night in question, that would not have suffered at all to prove that therefore he had committed a murder in Berkeley Street. No doubt Mr. Bontein had been his enemy and Mr. Bontein had been murdered by an enemy. But so great had been the man's luck that no real evidence seemed to touch him. Nobody doubted, but then few had doubted before us of the guilt of Phineas then. There was one other fact by which the truth might, it was hoped still be reached. Mr. Bontein had of course been killed by a weapon which had been found in the garden as to that a general certainty prevailed. Mrs. Meagher and Miss Meagher in the made of all work belonging to the Meagher's and even Lady Eustis were examined as to this bludgeon. Had anything of the kind ever been seen in the possession of the clergyman? The clergyman had been so slapped that nothing of the kind had been seen. Of the drawers and covers which he used, Mrs. Meagher had always possessed duplicate keys and Miss Meagher frankly acknowledged that she had a general and fairly accurate acquaintance with the contents of these receptacles. But there had always been a big trunk with an impenetrable lock. A lock which required that even if you had the key you should be acquainted with a certain combination of letters before you could open it. In that trunk no one had seen the inside. As a matter of course the weapon one brought to London had been kept all together hidden in the trunk. Nothing could be easier. But a man cannot be hung because he's had a secret hiding place in which a murderous weapon may have been stowed. But it might not be possible to trace the weapon. Milius on his return from Prague had certainly come through Paris. So much was learned and it was also learned as a certainty that the article was of French and probably of Parisian manufacture. If it could be proved that the man had bought this weapon or even such a weapon in Paris, then so said all the police authorities it might be worthwhile to make an attempt to hang him. Men very skillful and unraveling such mysteries were sent to Paris and the police of that capital entered upon a search with most praiseworthy zeal. But the number of life preservers which have been sold all together baffled them. It seemed that nothing was so common as that gentlemen should walk about with pluggins in their pockets covered with leather and thongs. As young women and old men who thought they could recollect something of a special sale were brought over and saw the splendor of London under very favorable circumstances, the one confronted with Mr. Milius neither could venture to identify him. A large sum of money was expended, no doubt justified by the high position which poor Mr. Bontein had filled in the Councils of the Nation, but it was expended in vain. Mr. Bontein had been murdered in the streets at the west end of London. The murder was known to everybody. He had been seen a minute or two before the murder. The motive which had induced the crime was apparent. The weapon with which it had been perpetrated had been found. The murderer's disguise had been discovered. The cunning with which he had never to prove that he was in bed at home had been unraveled and the criminal purpose of his cunning made altogether manifest. Every man's eye could see the whole thing from the moment in which the murderer crept out Mrs. Meager's house with Mr. Meager's coat upon his shoulders and a life preserver in his pocket. So he was seen by Lord Faun hurrying out of the mews to his prey. The blows from the bludgeon could be counted. The very moment in which they had been struck had been ascertained. His very act in hurling the weapon over the wall was all but seen and yet nothing could be done. It is a very dangerous thing hanging a man on circumstantial evidence said Sir Gregory Grogram who a couple of months then had felt almost sure that his honorable friend Phineas Finn would have to be hung on circumstantial evidence. The police and magistrates and lawyers all agreed that it would be useless and indeed wrong to send the case before a jury. But there had been quite sufficient evidence against Phineas Finn. In the meantime, the trial for Bigamy proceeded in order that poor Lizzie Eustis might be freed from the incubus which afflicted her. Before the end of July, she was made once more a free woman and the Reverend Joseph Amelius, under which name it was thought proper that he should be tried, was convicted and sentenced to penal servitude for five years. A very touching appeal was made for him to the jury by a learned sergeant who declared that his client was to lose his wife and to be punished with extreme severity as a begonness because it was found to be impossible to bring home against him a charge of murder. There was perhaps some truth in what the learned sergeant said but the truth had no effect upon the jury. Mr. Amelius was found guilty as quickly as Phineas had been acquitted and was perhaps treated with a severity which this single crime would hardly have elicited in. But all this happened in the middle of the efforts which were being made to trace the purpose of the bludgeon and when men hoped two or five or 25 years of threatened incarceration might be all the same to Mr. Amelius. Could they have succeeded in discovering where he had bought the weapon his years of penal servitude would have afflicted him but little? They did not succeed and though it cannot be said that any mystery was attached to the Bontein murder, it has remained one of those crimes which aren't unevented by the flagging law. And so the revered Mr. Amelius will pass away from our story. There must be one or two words further respecting poor little Lizzie Eustiff. She still had her income almost untouched having been herself unable to squander during her late married life and having succeeded in saving it from the clutches of her pseudo husband. And she had her title of which no one could rob her in her castle down in Ayrshire which however as the place of residence she had learned to hate most early. Nor had she done anything which of itself must necessarily have put her out of the pale of society. As a married woman she had had no lovers and when a widow very little fault in that line had been brought home against her. But the world at large seemed to be sick of her. Mrs. Bontein had been her best friend and while it was still thought that Phineas Finn had committed the murder with Mrs. Bontein she had remained. But it was impossible that the arrangement should be continued when it became known for it was known that Mr. Bontein had been murdered by the man who was still Lizzie Eustiff's repeated husband. Not that Lizzie perceived this though she was averse to the idea of her husband having been a murderer. But Mrs. Bontein perceived it and told her friend that she must go. It was most unwillingly that the wretched widow changed her faith as to the murderer but at last she found herself bound to believe as the world believed and then she hinted to the wife of Mr. Amelius that she had better find another home. I don't believe it a bit said Lizzie. It is not a subject I can discuss said the widow and I don't see that it makes any difference. He isn't my husband. You have said that yourself very often Mrs. Bontein. It is better that we shouldn't be together Lady Eustiff. Oh I can go of course Mrs. Bontein and even be the slightest trouble about that. I had thought perhaps it might be convenient but of course you know best. She went forth into lodgings in Half Moon Street close to the scene of the murder and was once more alone in the world. She had a child indeed the son of her first husband as to whom it behooved many to be anxious who stood high in rank and high in repute but such had been Lizzie's manner of life and neither her own relations nor those of her husband could put up with her or under her contact. And yet she was conscious of no special sins and regarded herself as one who with a tender heart of her own and a two confiding spirit had been much injured by the cruelty of those with whom she had been thrown. Now she was alone weeping in solitude pitting herself with deepest compassion but it never occurred to her that there was anything in her conduct that she need author. She would still continue to play her game as before would still scheme, would still lie and might still at last land herself in that poor Elysium of life which she had been always dreaming. Poor Lizzie used this, was it nature or education which had made it impossible to her to tell the truth when a lie came to her hand? Lizzie the liar, poor Lizzie. End of Chapter 72. Chapter 73 of Phineas Redux. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Sean Michael Hogan. Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollop. Chapter 73. Phineas Finn Returns to His Duties. The election at Tancreville took place during the last week in July and as Parliament was doomed to sit that year as late as the 10th of August there was ample time for Phineas to present himself and take the oaths before the session was finished. He had calculated that this could hardly be so when the matter of reelection was first proposed to him and had hoped that his reappearance might be deferred till the following year. But there he was, once more a member for Tancreville. While yet there was nearly a fortnight's work to be done, pressed by his friends and told by one or two of those whom he most trusted that he would neglect his duty and show himself to be a coward if he abstained from taking his place. Coward is a hard word, he said to Mr. Low who had used it. So men think when this or that other man is accused of running away in battle or the like. Nobody will charge you with cowardice of that kind but there is moral cowardice as well as physical. As when a man lies, I am telling no lie. But you are afraid to meet the eyes of your fellow creatures. Yes, I am. You may call me a coward if you like. What matters the name if the charge be true. I have been so treated that I am afraid to meet the eyes of my fellow creatures. I am like a man who has had his knees broken or his arms cut off. Of course it cannot be the same afterwards as I was before. Mr. Low said a great deal more to him on the subject and all that Mr. Low said was true. But he was somewhat rough and did not succeed. Barrington Earl and Lord Cantrip also tried their eloquence upon him. But it was Mr. Monk who at last drew from him a promise that he would go down to the house and be sworn in early on a certain Tuesday afternoon. I am quite sure of this, Mr. Monk had said, that the sooner you do it the less will be the annoyance. Indeed there will be no trouble in the doing of it. The trouble is all in the anticipation and is therefore only increased and prolonged by delay. Of course it is your duty to go at once, Mr. Monk had said again when his friend argued that he had never undertaken to sit before the expiration of Parliament. You did consent to be put in nomination and you owe your immediate services just as does any other member. If a man's grandmother dies he is held to be exempted. But your grandmother has not died and your sorrow is not of the kind that requires or is supposed to require a retirement. He gave way at last and on the Tuesday afternoon Mr. Monk called for him at Mrs. Bunce's house and went down with him to Westminster. They reached their destination somewhat too soon and walked the length of Westminster Hall two or three times while Phineas tried to justify himself. I don't think, said he, that Lowe quite understands my position when he calls me a coward. I am sure, Phineas, he did not mean to do that. Do not suppose that I am angry with him. I owe him a great deal too much for that. He is one of the few friends I have who are entitled to say to me just what they please. But I think he mistakes the matter. When a man becomes crooked from age it is no good telling him to be straight. He'd be straight if he could. A man can't eat his dinner with a diseased liver as he could when he was well. But he may follow advice as to getting his liver in order again. And so am I following advice. But Lowe seems to think the disease shouldn't be there. The disease is there and I can't banish it by simply saying that it is not there. If they had hung me outright it would be almost as reasonable to come and tell me afterwards to shake myself and be again alive. I don't think that Lowe realizes what it is to stand in the dock for a week together with the eyes of all men fixed on you and to conviction at your heart that everyone there believes you to have been guilty of an abominable crime of which you know yourself to have been innocent. For weeks I lived under the belief that I was to be made away by the hangman and to leave behind me a name that would make everyone who has known me shudder. God, it is mercy has delivered you from that. He has and I am thankful but my back is not strong enough to bear the weight without bending under it. Did you see Rattler going in? There is a man I dread. He is intimate enough with me to congratulate me but not friend enough to abstain and he will be sure to say something about his murdered colleague. Very well, I'll follow you. Go up rather quick and I'll come close after you. Whereupon Mr. Monk entered between the two lamp posts in the hall and hurrying along the passages when found himself at the door of the house. Finneas, with an effort at composure and a smile that was almost ghastly at the doorkeeper who greeted him with some muttered word of recognition held on his way close behind his friend and walked up the house hardly conscious that the benches on each side were empty. There were not a dozen members present and the speaker had not as yet taken the chair. Mr. Monk stood by him while he took the oath and in two minutes he was on a back seat below the gangway with his friend by him while the members in slowly increasing numbers took their seats. Then there were prayers and as yet not a single man had spoken to him. As soon as the doors were again open gentlemen streamed in and some few whom Finneas knew well came and sat near him. One or two shook hands with him but no one said a word to him of the trial. No one at least did so in this early stage of the day's proceedings and after half an hour he almost ceased to be afraid. Then up came an irregular debate on the great church question of the day as to which there had been no cessation of the badgering with which Mr. Gresham had been attacked since he came into office. He had thrown out Mr. Dobiny by opposing that gentleman's stupendous measure for disestablishing the Church of England altogether although, as was almost daily asserted by Mr. Dobiny and his friends, he was himself in favor of such total disestablishment. Over and over again Mr. Gresham had acknowledged that he was in favor of disestablishment protesting that he had opposed Mr. Dobiny's bill without any reference to its merits, solely on the ground that such a measure should not be accepted from such a quarter. He had been stout enough and, as his enemies had said, insolent enough in making these assurances but still he was accused of keeping his own hand dark and of admitting to say what bill he would himself propose to bring in respecting the Church in the next session. It was essentially necessary, so said Mr. Dobiny and his friends, that the country should know and discuss the proposed measure during the vacation. There was, of course, a good deal of retaliation. Mr. Dobiny had not given the country or even his own party much time to discuss his Church bill. Mr. Gresham assured Mr. Dobiny that he would not feel himself equal to producing a measure that should change the religious position of every individual in the country and annihilate the traditions and systems of centuries altogether complete out of his own unaided brain. And he went on to say that were he to do so, he did not think that he should find himself supported in such an effort by the friends with whom he usually worked. On this occasion, he declared that the magnitude of the subject and the immense importance of the interests concerned forbade him to anticipate the passing of any measure of general Church reform in the next session. He was undoubtedly in favor of Church reform but was by no means sure that the question was one which required immediate settlement. Of this, he was sure that nothing in the way of legislative indiscretion could be so injurious to the country as any attempt at a hasty and ill-considered measure on this most momentous of all questions. The debate was irregular as it originated with a question asked by one of Mr. Dobiny's supporters but it was allowed to proceed for a while. In answer to Mr. Gresham, Mr. Dobiny himself spoke, accusing Mr. Gresham of almost every known parliamentary vice and having talked of a measure coming like Minerva from his Mr. Dobiny's own brain. The plain and simple words by which such an accusation might naturally be refuted would be unparliamentary but it would not be unparliamentary to say that it was reckless, unfounded, absurd, monstrous and incredible. Then there were various very spirited references to Church matters which concern us chiefly because Mr. Dobiny congratulated the House upon seeing a Roman Catholic gentleman with whom they were all well acquainted and whose presence in the House was desired by each side alike, again taking his seat for an English borough. And he hoped that he might at the same time take the liberty of congratulating that gentleman on the courage and manly dignity with which he had endured the unexampled hardships of the cruel position in which he had been placed by an untoward combination of circumstances. It was thought that Mr. Dobiny did the thing very well and that he was right in doing it but during the doing of it poor Finneas winced in agony. Of course every member was looking at him and every stranger in the galleries. He did not know at the moment whether he'd be hoov'd into rise and make some gesture to the House or to say a word or to keep his seat and make no sign. There was a general hum of approval and the Prime Minister turned round and bowed graciously to the newly sworn member. As he said afterwards it was just this which he had feared but there must surely have been something of consolation in the general respect with which he was treated. At the moment he behaved with natural instinctive dignity though himself doubting the propriety of his own conduct. He said not a word and made no sign but sat with his eyes fixed upon the member from whom the compliment had come. Mr. Dobiny went on with his tirade and was called violently to order. The speaker declared that the whole debate had been irregular but had been allowed by him in deference to what seemed to be the general will of the House. Then the two leaders of the parties composed themselves, throwing off their indignation while they covered themselves well up with their hats. And in accordance of the order of the day an honourable member rose to propose a pet measure of his own for preventing the adulteration of beer by the publicans. He had made a calculation the annual average mortality of England would be reduced one and a half percent or in other words that every English subject born would live seven months longer if the action of the legislature could provide the publicans should sell the beer as it came from the brewers. Immediately there was such a rush of members to the door that not a word said by the philanthropic would be purifier of the national beverage could be heard. The quarrels of rival ministers were dearer to the House and as long as they could be continued the benches were crowded by gentlemen enthralled by the interest of the occasion. But to sink from that to private legislation about beer was to fall into a bathos which gentlemen could not endure. And so the House was emptied and at about half past seven there was a countout. That gentleman whose statistics had been procured with so much care and who had been at work for the last 12 months on his effort to prolong the lives of his fellow countrymen was almost brokenhearted. But he knew the world too well to complain. He would try again next year if by dint of energetic perseverance he could procure a day. Mr. Monk and Phineas Finn, behaving no better than the others, slipped out in the crowd. It had indeed been arranged that they should leave the House early so that they might dine together at Mr. Monk's House. Though Phineas had been released from his prison now for nearly a month, he had not as yet once dined out of his own rooms. He had not been inside a club and hardly ventured during the day into the streets about Palm Island Piccadilly. He had been frequently to Portman Square but had not even seen Madame Gessler. Now he was to dine out for the first time but there was to be no guest but himself. It wasn't so bad after all, said Mr. Monk when they were seated together. At any rate it has been done. Yes, and there will be no doing of it over again. I don't like Mr. Dobiny as you know but he is happy at that kind of thing. I hate men who are what you call happy but who are never in earnest, said Phineas. He was earnest enough, I thought. I don't mean about myself, Mr. Monk. I suppose he thought that it was suitable to the occasion that he should say something and he said it neatly. But I hate men who can make capital out of occasions who can be neat and appropriate at the spur of the moment. Having, however, probably had the benefit of some forethought but whose words never savor of truth. If I had happened to have been hung at this time as was so probable, Mr. Dobiny would have devoted one of his half hours to the composition of a dozen tragic words which also would have been neat and appropriate. I can hear him say them now, warning young members around him to abstain from embittered words against each other and I feel sure that the funerial grace of such an occasion would have become him even better than the generosity of his congratulations. It is rather a grim matter for joking, Phineas. Grim enough, but the grimness and the jokes are always running through my mind together. I used to spend hours in thinking what my dear friends would say about it when they found that I had been hung in mistake, how Sir Gregory Grogram would like it and whether men would think about it as they went home from the universe at night. I had various questions to ask and answer for myself. Whether they would pull up my poor body, for instance, from what unhallowed ground is used for gallows' corpses and give it decent burial, placing MP for Tankerville after my name on some more or less explicit tablet. Mr. Dobiny's speech was perhaps preferable on the whole. Perhaps it was, though I used to feel assured that the explicit tablet would be as clear to my eyes and purgatory as Mr. Dobiny's words have been to my ears this afternoon. I never for a moment doubted that the truth would be known before long but did doubt so very much whether it would be known in time. I'll go home now, Mr. Monk, and endeavor to get the matter off my mind. I will resolve at any rate that nothing shall make me talk about it any more. End of Chapter 73, recording by Sean Michael Hogan, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Chapter 74 of Phineas Redux. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Sean Michael Hogan. Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollop, Chapter 74, At Matching. For about a week in the August heat of the hot summer, Phineas attended Parliament with fair average punctuality and then prepared for his journey down to matching Priory. During that week he had spoken no word to anyone as to his past tribulation and answered all illusions to it simply by a smile. He had determined to live exactly as though there had been no such episode in his life as that trial at the Old Bailey and in most respects he did so. During this week he dined at the club and called at Madame Gussler's house in Park Lane, not, however, finding the lady at home. Once and once only did he break down. On the Wednesday evening he met Barrington Earl and it was asked by him to go to the universe. At the moment he became very pale but he had once said that he would go. Had Earl carried him off in a cab the adventure might have been successful but as they walked and as they went together through Clarge Street and Bolton Row and Curson Street and as the scenes which had been so frequently and so graphically described in court appeared before him one after another his heart gave way and he couldn't do it. I know I'm a fool Barrington but if you don't mind I'll go home. Don't mind me but just go on. Then he turned and walked home passing through the passage in which the murder had been committed. I brought him as far as the next street Barrington Earl said to one of their friends at the club but I couldn't get him in. I doubt if he'll ever be here again. It was past six o'clock in the evening when he reached matching Priory. The Duchess had especially assured him that a Brom should be waiting for him at the nearest station and on arriving there he found that he had the Brom to himself. He had thought a great deal about it and had endeavored to make his calculations. He knew that Madame Gussler would be at matching and it would be necessary that he should say something of his thankfulness at their first meeting but how should he meet her and in what way should he greet her when they met? Would any arrangement be made or would all be left to chance? Should he go at once to his own chamber so as to show himself first when dressed for dinner or should he allow himself to be taken into any of the morning rooms in which the other guests would be congregated? He had certainly not sufficiently considered the character of the Duchess when he imagined that she would allow these things to arrange themselves. She was one of those women whose minds were always engaged on such matters and who are able to see how things will go. It must not be asserted of her that her delicacy was untainted or her taste perfect but she was clever, discreet in the midst of indiscretions, thoughtful and good-natured. She had considered it all, arranged it all and given her orders with accuracy. When Phineas entered the hall, the Brom with the luggage heaven been taken around to some back door. He was at once ushered by a silent man in black into the little sitting-room on the ground floor in which the old Duke used to take the light. Here he found two ladies, but only two ladies waiting to receive him. The Duchess came forward to welcome him while Madame Gisler remained in the background with composed face, as though she by no means expected his arrival and he had chance to come upon them as she was standing by the window. He was thinking of her much more than of her companion though he knew also how much he owed to the kindness of the Duchess. But what she had done for him had come from Caprice whereas the other had been instigated and guided by affection. He understood all that and must have shown his feeling on his countenance. Yes, there she is, said the Duchess, laughing. She had already told him that he was welcome to matching and had spoken some short word of congratulation at his safe deliverance from his troubles. If ever one friend was grateful to another, you should be grateful to her, Mr. Phine. He did not speak, but walking across the room to the window by which Marie Gisler stood, took her right hand in his and passing his left arm round her waist, kissed her first on one cheek and then on the other. The blood flew to her face and suffused her forehead, but she did not speak or resist him or make any effort to escape from his embrace. As for him, he had no thought of it at all. He had made no plan. No idea of kissing her when they should meet had occurred to him till the moment came. Excellently well done, said the Duchess, still laughing with silent, pleasant laughter. And now tell us how you are after all your troubles. He remained with them for half an hour till the ladies went to dress, when he was handed over to some groom of the chambers to show him his room. The Duke ought to be here to welcome you, of course, said the Duchess, but you know official matters too well to expect a president of the Board of Trade to do his domestic duties. We dine at eight, five minutes before that time he will begin adding up his last row of figures for the day. You never added up rows of figures, I think. You only managed colonies. So they parted till dinner and Phineus remembered how very little had been spoken by Madame Gisler and how few of the words which he had spoken had been addressed to her. She had sat silent, smiling, radiant, very beautiful as he had thought, but contented to listen to her friend, the Duchess. She, the Duchess, had asked questions of all sorts and made many statements, and he had found that with those two women he could speak without discomfort, almost with pleasure on subjects which he could not bear to have touched by men. Of course you know all along who killed the poor man, the Duchess had said. We did, did we not, Marie? Just as well as if we had seen it. She was quite sure that he had got out of the house and back into it and that he must have had a key. So she started off to Prague to find the key and she found it. And we were quite sure too about the coat, weren't we, that poor blundering Lord Fawn couldn't explain himself, but we knew that the coat he saw was quite different from any coat you would wear in such weather. We discussed it all over so often, every point of it. Poor Lord Fawn. They say it has made quite an old man of him. And as for those policemen who didn't find the life preserver, I only think that something ought to be done to them. I hope that nothing will ever be done to anybody, Duchess. Not to the Reverend Mr. Emilius, poor dear Lady Eustice's Mr. Emilius. I do think that you ought to desire that an end should be put to his enterprising career. I'm sure I do. This was said while the attempt was still being made to trace the purchase of the bludgeon in Paris. We've got Sir Gregory Grogram here on purpose to meet you. You must fraternize with him immediately to show that you bear no grudge. He only did his duty. Exactly, though I think he was an adepated old ass not to see the thing more clearly. As you'll be coming into the government before long, we thought that things would better be made straight between you and Sir Gregory. I wonder how it was that nobody but women did see it clearly. Look at that delightful woman, Mrs. Bunce. You must bring Mrs. Bunce to me some day or take me to her. Lord Chiltern saw it clearly enough, said Phineus. My dear Mr. Phine, Lord Chiltern is the best fellow in the world, but he has only one idea. He was quite sure of your innocence because you ride to Hounds. If it had been possible to accuse poor Mr. Fathergill, he would have been as certain that Mr. Fathergill committed the murder because Mr. Fathergill thinks more of his shooting. However, Lord Chiltern is to be here in a day or two, and I mean to go absolutely down on my knees to him, and all for your sake. If Foxes can be had, he shall have Foxes. We must go undress now, Mr. Phine, and I'll ring for somebody to show you your room. Phineus, as soon as he was alone, thought not of what the Duchess had said, but of the manner in which he had greeted his friends, Madame Gussler, and he remembered what he had done. As he remembered what he had done, he also blushed. Had she been angry with him and intended to show her anger by her silence? And why had he done it? What had he meant? He was quite sure that he would not have given those kisses had he and Madame Gussler been alone in the room together, but Duchess had applauded him, but yet he thought that he regretted it. There had been matters between him and Marie Gussler, of which he was quite sure that the Duchess knew nothing. When he went downstairs, he found a crowd in the drawing room, from among whom the Duke came forward to welcome him. I am particularly happy to see you at matching, said the Duke. I wish we had shooting to offer you, but we were too far south for the Grouse. That was a bitter passage of arms the other day, wasn't it? I am fond of bitterness and debate myself, but I do regret the roughness of the House of Commons. I must confess that I do. The Duke did not say a word about the trial, and the Duke's guest followed their host's example. The House was full of people, most of whom had before been known to Phineas, and many of whom had been asked specially to meet him. Lord and Lady Cantrip were there, and Mr. Monk and Sir Gregory his accuser, and the Home Secretary, Sir Harry Coldfoot, with his wife. Sir Harry had at one time been very keen about hanging our hero, and was now, of course, hot with reactionary zeal. To all those who had been in any way concerned in the prosecution, the accidents by which Phineas had been enabled to escape had been almost as fortunate as to Phineas himself. Sir Gregory himself quite felt that had he prosecuted an innocent and very popular young member of Parliament to the death, he could never afterwards have hoped to wear his ermine in comfort. Barrington Earl was there, of course, intending, however, to return to the duties of his office on the following day. And our old friend Lawrence Fitzgibbon, with a newly married wife, Adelaide possessing a reputed fifty thousand pounds, by which it was hoped that the member for Mayo might be placed steadily upon his legs, forever. And Adelaide Palliser was there also, the Duke's first cousin, on whose behalf the Duchess was anxious to be more than ordinarily good-natured. Mr. Mall, Adelaide's rejected lover, had dined on one occasion with the Duke and Duchess in London. There had been nothing remarkable at the dinner, and he had not at all understood why he had been asked. But when he took his leave, the Duchess had told him that she would hope to see him at matching. We expect a friend of yours to be with us, the Duchess had said. He had afterwards received a written invitation and had accepted it, but he was not to reach matching till the day after that on which Phineas arrived. Adelaide had been told of his coming only on this morning, and had been much flurried by the news. But we have quarreled, she said. Then the best thing you can do is to make it up again, my dear, said the Duchess. Miss Palliser was undoubtedly of that opinion herself, but she hardly believed that so terrible and evil as a quarrel with her lover could be composed by so rough a remedy as this. The Duchess would become used to all the disturbing excitements of life, and who didn't pay so much respect, as some do, to the niceties of young ladies' feelings, thought that it would be only necessary to bring the young people together again. If she could do that and provide them with an income, of course they would marry. On the present occasion, Phineas was told off to take Miss Palliser down to dinner. You saw the children's before they left town, I know, she said. Oh yes, I am constantly in Portman Square. Of course, Lady Laura has gone down to Scotland, has she not, and all alone? She is alone now, I believe. How dreadful! I do not know anyone that I pity so much as I do her. I was in the house with her some time, and she gave me the idea of being the most unhappy woman I had ever met with. Don't you think that she is very unhappy? She has had very much to make her so, said Phineas. She was obliged to leave her husband because of the gloom of his insanity, and now she is a widow. I don't suppose she ever really cared for him, did she? The question was no sooner asked than the poor girl remembered the whole story which she had heard some time back, the rumour of the husband's jealousy and of the wife's love, and she became as red as fire and unable to help herself. She could think of no word to say and confess her confusion by her sudden silence. Phineas saw it all and did his best for her. I am sure she cared for him, he said. Though I do not think it was a well assorted marriage, I had different ideas about religion, I fancy. So you saw the hunting in the break country to the end? I was her old friend, Mr. Spooner. Don't talk of him, Mr. Phine. I rather like Mr. Spooner, and as for hunting in the country, I don't think children could get on without him. What a capital fellow your cousin the Duke is. I hardly know him. He is such a gentleman, and at the same time the most abstract and the most concrete man that I know. Abstract and concrete? You are bound to use adjectives of that sort now, Miss Palliser, if you mean to be anybody in conversation. But how was my cousin concrete? He is always abstracted when I speak to him, I know. No Englishman whom I have met is so broadly and intuitively and unceremoniously imbued with the simplicity of the character of a gentleman. He could know more lie than he could eat grass. Is that abstract or concrete? That's abstract, and I know no one who is so capable of throwing himself into one matter for the sake of accomplishing that one thing at a time. That's concrete. And so the red color faded away from poor Adelaide's face and the unpleasantness was removed. What do you think of Lawrence's wife? Earl said to him late in the evening. I've only just seen her. The money is there, I suppose. Money is there, I believe, but then it will have to remain there. He can't touch it. There's about 2,000 pounds a year, which will have to go back to her family unless they have children. I suppose she's 40? Well, yes, or perhaps 45. You were locked up at the time, poor fellow, and had other things to think of. But all the interest we had for anything beyond you through May and June was devoted to Lawrence and his prospects. He was off and on and on and off and he was in a most wretched condition. At last she wouldn't consent unless she was to be asked here. And who managed it? Lawrence came and told it all to the Duchess and she gave him the invitation at once. Who told you? Not the Duchess, nor yet Lawrence. So it may be untrue, you know, but I believe it. He did ask me whether he'd have to stand another election at his marriage. He has been going in and out of office so often and always going back to the county mayo at the expense of half a year's salary that his mind had got confused and he didn't quite know what did and what did not vacate his seat. We must all come to it sooner or later, I suppose. But the question is whether we could do better than an annuity of 2,000 pounds a year on the life of the lady. Office isn't very permanent, but one has not to attend the house above six months a year while you can't get away from a wife much above a week at a time. It has crippled him in appearance very much, I think. A man always looks changed when he's married. I hope, Mr. Finn, that you owe me no grudge, said Sir Gregory, the Attorney General. Not in the least. Why should I? It was a very painful duty I had to perform, the most painful that ever befell me. I had no alternative but to do it, of course, and to do it in the hope of reaching the truth. But a counsel for the prosecution must always appear to the accused and his friends like a hound running down his game and anxious for blood. The habitual and almost necessary acrimony of the defense creates acrimony in the attack. If you were accustomed as I am to criminal courts, you would observe this constantly. A gentleman gets up and declares in perfect faith that he is simply anxious to lay before the jury such evidence as has been placed in his hands, and he opens his case in that spirit. Then his witnesses are cross-examined with the effected incredulity and assumed indignation which the defending counsel is almost bound to use on behalf of his client, and he finds himself gradually imbued with pugnacity. He becomes strenuous, energetic, and perhaps eager for what must after all be regarded as success, and at last he fights for a verdict rather than for the truth. The judge, I suppose, ought to put all that right? So he does, and it comes outright. Our criminal practice does not sin on the side of severity, but a barrister employed on the prosecution should keep himself free from that personal desire for a verdict which must animate those engaged on the defense. Then I suppose you wanted to hang me, Sir Gregory. Certainly not, I wanted the truth, but you in your position must have regarded me as a bloodhound. I did not. As far as I can analyze my own feelings, I entertained to anger only against those who, though they knew me well, thought that I was guilty. You will allow me at any rate to shake hands with you, said Sir Gregory, and to assure you that I should have lived a broken heart of man if the truth had been known too late, as it is I tremble and shake in my shoes as I walk about and think of what might have been done. Then Phineas gave his hand to Sir Gregory, and from that time forth was inclined to think well of Sir Gregory. Throughout the whole evening he was unable to speak to Madame Gussler, but to the other people around him he found himself talking quite at his ease, as though nothing peculiar had happened to him. Almost everybody, except the Duke, made some slight allusion to his adventure, and he, in spite of his resolution to the contrary, found himself driven to talk of it. But it seemed quite natural that Sir Gregory, who had in truth been eager for his condemnation, thinking him to have been guilty, should come to him and make peace with him by telling him of the nature of the work that had been imposed upon him. And when Sir Harry Coldfoot assured him that never in his life had his mind been relieved of so heavy a weight as when he received the information about the key, that also was natural. A few days ago he had thought that these illusions would kill him. The prospect of them had kept him a prisoner in his lodgings. Now he smiled and chatted, and was quiet and at ease. Good night, Mr. Finn, the duchess said to him. I know the people have been boring you. Not in the least. I saw Sir Gregory at it, and I can guess what Sir Gregory was talking about. I like Sir Gregory, duchess. That shows a very Christian disposition on your part. And then there was Sir Harry. I understood it all, but I could not hinder it. But it had to be done hadn't it, and now there will be an end of it. Everybody has treated me very well, said Phineas, almost in tears. Some people have been so kind to me that I cannot understand why it should have been so. Because some people are your very excellent good friends. We, that is Marie and I, you know, thought it would be the best thing for you to come down and get through it all here. We could see that you weren't driven too hard. By the by, you have seen her, have you? Hardly, since I was upstairs with your grace. My grace will manage better for you tomorrow. I didn't like to tell you to take her out to dinner, because it would have looked a little particular after her very remarkable journey to Prague. If you ain't grateful, you must be a wretch. But I am grateful. Well, we shall see. Good night. You'll find a lot of men going to smoke somewhere, I don't doubt. End of chapter 74, recording by Sean Michael Hogan, St. John's, Ethanland, Canada. Chapter 75 of Phineas Redux. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sean Michael Hogan. Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollop. Chapter 75, The Trumpeton Feud is Settled. In these fine early autumn days spent it matching, the great Trumpeton Wood question was at last settled. During the summer, considerable acerbity had been added to the matter by certain articles which had appeared in certain sporting papers, in which the new Duke of Omnium was accused of neglecting his duty to the county in which a portion of his property lay. The question was argued at considerable length. Is a landed proprietor bound, or is he not, to keep foxes for the amusement of his neighbors? To ordinary thinkers, to unprejudiced outsiders, to Americans, let us say, or Frenchmen, there does not seem to be room even for an argument. By what law of God or man can a man be bound to maintain a parcel of injurious vermin on his property in the pursuit of which he finds no sport himself and which are highly detrimental to another sport in which he takes, perhaps, the keenest interest? Trumpeton Wood was the Duke's own to do just as he pleased with it. Why should foxes be demanded from him, then, any more than a bear to be baited or a badger to be drawn in, let us say, his London dining-room? But a good deal had been said, which, though not perhaps capable of convincing the unprejudiced American or Frenchmen, had been regarded as cogent arguments to country-bred Englishmen. The break hunt had been established for a great many years, and was the central attraction of a district well known for its hunting propensities. The preservation of foxes might be an open question in such counties as Norfolk and Suffolk, but could not be so in the break country. Many things are, no doubt, permissible under the law, which, if done, would show the doer of them to be the enemy of his species, and this destruction of foxes in a hunting country might be named as one of them. The Duke might have his foxes destroyed if he pleased, but he could hardly do so and remain a popular magnet in England. If he chose to put himself in opposition to the desires and very instincts of the people among whom his property was situated, he must live as a man forbid. That was the general argument, and then there was the argument special to this particular case. As it happened, Trumpton Wood was, and always had been, the great nursery of foxes for that side of the break country. Gorse covarts make, no doubt, the charm of hunting, but gorse covarts will not hold foxes unless the woodlands be preserved. The foxes are traveling animal, knowing well that home staying youths have ever homely wits. He goes out and sees the world. He is either born in the woodlands or wanders thither in his early youth. If all foxes so wandering be doomed to death, if poison and wires and traps and hostile keepers await them there, instead of the tender welcome of the loving fox preserver, the gorse covarts will soon be empty and the whole country will be afflicted with a wild dismay. All which Lord Chiltern understood well when he became so loud and his complaint against the duke. But our dear old friend, only the other day a duke, plenty Paul as he was lately called, devoted to work and to parliament, an unselfish, friendly, wise man, who by no means wanted other men to cut their coats according to his pattern, was the last man in England to put himself forward as the enemy of an established delight. He did not hunt himself, but neither did he shoot or fish or play cards. He recreated himself with blue books and speculations on Adam Smith had been his distraction, but he knew that he was himself peculiar and he respected the habits of others. It had fallen out in this wise. As the old duke had become very old, the old duke's agent had gradually acquired more than an agent's proper influence in the property. And as the duke's heir would not shoot himself or pay attention to the shooting, and as the duke would not let the shooting of his wood, Mr. Fathergill, the steward, had gradually become omnipotent. And Mr. Fathergill was not a hunting man, but the mischief did not at all lie there. Lord Children would not communicate with Mr. Fathergill. Lord Children would write to the duke, and Mr. Fathergill became an established enemy. Ink ile irre. From this source sprung all those powerfully argued articles in The Field, Bell's Life, and Land and Water, for on this matter all the sporting papers were of one mind. There is something doubtless, absurd, and the intensity of the worship paid to the fox by hunting communities. The animal becomes sacred, and his preservation is a religion. His irregular destruction is a profanity, and words spoken to his injury are blasphemous. Not long since a gentleman shot a fox running across a woodland ride in a hunting country. He had mistaken it for a hare, and had done the deed in the presence of keepers, owner, and friends. His feelings were so acute, and his remorse so great that in their pity, they had resolved to spare him. And then on the spot entered into a solemn compact that no one should be told. Encouraged by the forbearing tenderness, the unfortunate one ventured to return to the house of his friend, the owner of the wood, hoping that in spite of the sacrilege committed, he might be able to face a world that would be ignorant of his crime. As the vult beside on the afternoon of the day of the deed went along the corridor to his room, one maid servant whispered to another, and the poor victim of an imperfect sight heard the words, that he is shot the fox. The gentleman did not appear at dinner, nor was he ever again seen in those parts. Mr. Fathergill had become angry. Lord Chiltern, as we know, had been very angry, and even the Duke was angry. The Duke was angry because Lord Chiltern had been violent, and Lord Chiltern had been violent because Mr. Fathergill's conduct had been, to his thinking, not only sacrilegious, but one continued course of willful sacrilege. It may be said of Lord Chiltern that in his eagerness as a master of hounds, he had almost abandoned his love of riding. To kill a certain number of foxes in the year, after the legitimate fashion, had become to him the one great study of life, and he did it with an energy equal to that which the Duke devoted to decimal coinage. His huntsman was always well-mounted with two horses, but Lord Chiltern would give up his own to the man and take charge of a weary animal as a common groom when he found that he might thus further the object of the day's sport. He worked as men worked only at pleasure. He never missed a day, even when cub hunting required that he should leave his bed at three a.m. He was constant at his kennel. He was always thinking about it. He devoted his life to the Brake hounds, and it was too much for him that such a one as Mr. Fathergill should be allowed to wire foxes in trumpet and wood. The Duke's property indeed, surely all that was understood in England by this time. Now he had consented to come to matching, bringing his wife with him, in order that the matter might be settled. There had been a threat that he would give up the country, in which case it was declared that it would be impossible to carry on the Brake hunt in a manner satisfactory to masters, subscribers, owners of covarts, or farmers, unless a different order of things should be made to prevail in regard to trumpet and wood. The Duke, however, had declined to interfere personally. He had told his wife that he should be delighted to welcome Lord and Lady Chiltern as he would any other friends of hers. The guests, indeed, at the Duke's house were never his guests, but always hers. But he could not allow himself to be brought into an argument with Lord Chiltern as to the management of his own property. The Duchess was made to understand that she must prevent any such awkwardness, and she did prevent it. And now Lord Chiltern, she said, how about the foxes? She had taken care there would be a council of war around her. Lady Chiltern and Madame Gussler were present, and also Finneas Finn. Well, how about them, said the Lord, showing by the fiery eagerness of his eye and the increased redness of his face that though the matter had been introduced somewhat jocosely, there could not really be any joke about it. Why couldn't you keep it all out of the newspapers? I don't write the newspapers, Duchess. I can't help the newspapers. When 200 men ride through trumpet and wood and see one fox found, and that fox with only three pads, of course the newspapers will say that the foxes are trapped. We may have traps if we like it, Lord Chiltern. Certainly only say so, and we shall know where we are. He looked very angry, and poor Lady Chiltern was covered with dismay. That you can destroy the hunt if he pleases, no doubt, said the Lord. But we don't like traps, Lord Chiltern, nor yet poisons, nor anything that is wicked. I'd go and nurse the foxes myself if I knew how, wouldn't I, Murray? They have robbed the Duchess of her sleep for the last six months, said Madame Gussler. And if they go on being not properly brought up and educated, they'll make an old woman of me. As for the Duke, he can't be comfortable in his arithmetic for thinking of them. But what can one do? Change your keepers, said Lord Chiltern, energetically. It is easy to say, change your keepers. How am I to set about it? To whom can I apply to appoint others? Don't you know what vested interests mean, Lord Chiltern? Then nobody can manage his own property, as he pleases. Nobody can, unless he does the work himself. If I were to go and live in trumpet and wood, I could do it. But you see, I have to live here. I vote that we have an officer of state to go in and out with the government, with a seat in the cabinet or not, according as things go, and that we call him Foxmaster General. It would be just the thing for Mr. Finn. It would be a salary, of course, said Phineas. Then I suppose that nothing can be done, said Lord Chiltern. My dear Lord Chiltern, everything has been done. Vested interests have been attended to. Keepers shall prefer foxes to pheasants. The wires shall be unheard of, and trumpet and wood shall once again be the glory of the break-hunt. It won't cost the duke above a thousand or two a year. I should be very sorry, indeed, to put the duke to any unnecessary expense, said Lord Chiltern solemnly, still fearing that the duchess was only playing with him. It made him angry that he could not imbue other people with his idea of the seriousness of the amusement of a whole county. Do not think of it. We have penchant poor Mr. Fathergill, and he retires from the administration. It'll be all right, said Lord Chiltern. I'm so glad, said his wife. And so the great Mr. Fathergill falls from power and goes down into obscurity, said Madame Gisler. He was an impudent old man, and that's the truth, said the duchess, and he has always been my thorough detestation. But if you only knew what I have gone through to get rid of him, and all on account of trumpet and wood, you'd send me every brush taken in the break-country during the next season. Your grace shall at any rate have one of them, with Lord Chiltern. On the next day Lord and Lady Chiltern went back to Harrington Hall. When the end of August comes, a master of hounds, who is really a master, is wanted at home. Nothing short of an embassy on behalf of the great covarts of his country would have kept this master away at present, and now, his diplomacy having succeeded, he hurried back to make the most of its results. Lady Chiltern, before she went, made a little speech to Phineus Finn. You'll come to us in the winter, Mr. Finn? I should like. You must. No one was truer to you than we were, you know. Indeed, regarding you as we do, how should we not have been true? It was impossible to me that my old friend should have been, oh, Lady Chiltern. Of course you'll come. You owe it to us to come. And may I say this? If there be anybody to come with you, that will make it only so much the better. If it should be so, of course, there will be letters written. To this question, however, Phineus Finn made no answer. End of Chapter 75 Recording by Sean Michael Hogan St. John's Newfoundland, Canada