 Chapter 76 of Phineas Finn. 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 Paradise Camouflage. Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollup. Chapter 76. Conclusion. We are told that it is a bitter moment with the Lord Mayor when he leaves the mansion house and becomes once more Alderman Jones of number 75 Bucklersby. Lord Chancellors going out of office have a great foal though they take pensions with them for their consolation. And the President of the United States when he leaves the glory of the White House and once more becomes a simple citizen must feel the change severely. But our hero Phineas Finn as he turned his back upon the scene of his many successes and prepared himself for permanent residence in his own country was I think in a worse plight than any of the reduced divinities to whom I have alluded. They at any rate had known that their fall would come. He like Icarus had flown up towards the sun hoping that his wings of wax would bear him steadily aloft among the gods. Seeing that his wings were wings of wax we must acknowledge that they were very good but the celestial lights had been too strong for them. And now having lived for five years with lords and countesses with ministers and orators with beautiful women and men of fashion he must start again in a little lodging in Dublin and hope that the attorneys of that litigious city might be good to him. On his journey home he made but one resolution. He would make the change or attempt to make it with manly strength. During his last month in London he had allowed himself to be sad, depressed and melancholy. There should be an end of all that now. Nobody at home should see that he was depressed and Mary, his own Mary, should at any rate have no cause to think that her love and his own engagement had ever been the cause to him of depression. Did he not value her love more than anything in the world? A thousand times he told himself that he did. She was there in the old house of Killaloe to greet him. Her engagement was an affair known to all the county and she had no idea that would become her to be coy in her love. She was in his arms before he had spoken to his father and mother and I made her little speech to him very inaudibly indeed while he was covering her sweet face with kisses. Oh Phineas, I am so proud of you and I think you are so right and I am so glad you have done it. Again he covered her face with kisses. Could he ever have had such satisfaction as this? Had he allowed Madame Goose's hand to remain in his? On the first night of his arrival he sat for an hour downstairs with his father talking over his plans. He felt he could not but feel that he was not the hero now that he had been when he was last at Killaloe, when he had come thither with a cabinet minister under his wing and yet his father did his best to prevent the growth of any such feeling. The old doctor was not quite as well off as he had been when Phineas first started with his high hopes for London. Since that day he had abandoned his profession and was now living on the fruits of his life's labour. For the last two years he had been absolved from the necessity of providing an income for his son and had probably allowed himself to feel that no such demand upon him would again be made. Now however it was necessary that he should do so. Could his son manage to live on 200 a year? There would then be 400 a year left for the wants of the family at home. Phineas swore that he could fight his battle on 150 and they ended the argument by splitting the difference. He had been paying exactly the same sum of money for the rooms he had just left in London but then when he left those rooms his income had been 2,000 a year. Tenant ride was a very fine thing but could it be worth such a fall as this? And about dear Mary? said the father. I hope it may not be very long said Phineas. I've not spoken to her about it but your mother says that Mrs. Flood Jones is very adverse to long engagement. What can I do? She would not wish me to marry her daughter with no other income than allowance made by you. Your mother says that she has some idea that you and she might live together. That if they let Flood Burry you might take a small house in Dublin. Remember Phineas, I'm not proposing it myself. Then Phineas bethought himself that he was not even yet so low in the world that he needs to submit himself to terms dictated to him by Mrs. Flood Jones. I'm glad that you do not propose it sir. Why so Phineas? Because I should have been obliged to propose the plan even if it had come from you. Mother-in-laws are never a comfort in the house. I never tried it myself said the doctor and I will never try it. I'm quite sure that Mary does not expect any such thing and that she is willing to wait. If I can shorten the term of waiting by hard work I will do so. The decision to which Phineas had come on this matter was probably made known to Mrs. Flood Jones after some mild fashion by old Mrs. Finn. Nothing more was said to Phineas about a joint household but he was quite able to perceive from the manner of the lady towards him that his proposed mother-in-law wished him to understand that he was treating her daughter very badly. What did it signify? None of them knew the story of Madame Gusto and of course none of them would know it. None of them would ever hear how well he had behaved to his little Mary. But Mary did know it all before he left her to go up to London. The two lovers allowed themselves or were allowed by their elders one week of exquisite bliss together and during this week Phineas told her I think everything. He told her everything as far as he could do so without seeming to boast of his own successes. How is a man not to tell such tales when he has on his arm close to him a girl who tells him her little everything of life and only asks for his confidence in return and then his secrets are so precious to her and so sacred that he feels as sure of her fidelity as though she were a very goddess of faith and trust and the temptation to tell is so great for all that he has to tell she loves him the better and still the better. A man desires to win a virgin heart and is happy to know or at least to believe that he has won it. With a woman every former rival is an added victim to the wheels of the triumphant chariot in which she is sitting. All these, has he known and loved curling sweets from each of them but now he has come to me and I am the sweetest of them all. And so Mary was taught to believe of Laura and of Violet and of Madame Gauchelot that though they had charms to please his lover had never been so charmed as he was now while she was hanging to his breast and I think that she was right in her belief during those lovely summer evening walks along the shores of Loch Derck Phineas was as happy as he had ever been at any moment of his life. I shall never be impatient, never! she said to him on the last evening all I want is that you should write to me I shall want more than that Mary then you must come down and see me when you do come they will be happy days for me but of course we cannot be married for the next twenty years say forty Mary I will say anything that you like you will know what I mean just as well and Phineas I must tell you one thing though it makes me sad to think of it and will make me sad to speak of it I will not have you sad on our last night Mary I must say it I am beginning to understand how much you have given up for me I have given up nothing for you if I had not been a killer low when Mr. Monk was there and if we had not had not, oh dear if I had not loved you so very much you might have remained in London and that lady would have been your wife never said Phineas, stoutly would she not? she must not be your wife now Phineas I am not going to pretend that I will give you up that is unkind Mary oh well you may say what you please if that is unkind I am unkind it would kill me to lose you had he done right? how could there be a doubt about it how could there be a question about it which of them had loved him or was capable of loving him as Mary loved him what girl was ever so sweet so gracious, so angelic as his own Mary he swore to her that he was prouder of winning her than of anything he had ever done in all his life and that of all the treasures that had ever come in his way she was the most precious she went to bed that night the happiest girl in all Connacht although when she parted from him she understood that she was not to see him again till Christmas Eve but she did see him again before the summer was over and the manner of their meeting was in this wise immediately after the passing of that scrambled Irish reform bill Parliament as the reader knows was dissolved this was in the early days of June and before the end of July the new members were again assembled in Westminster this session late in summer was very terrible but it was not very long and then it was essentially necessary there was something of the year's business which must yet be done and the country would require to know who were to be the ministers of the government it is not needed that the reader should be troubled any further with the strategy of one political leader or another or that more should be said of Mr Monk and his tenant right the House of Commons had offended Mr Gresham by voting in a majority against him and Mr Gresham had punished the House of Commons by subjecting it to the expense and usance of a new election all this is constitutional and rational enough to Englishmen though it may be unintelligible to strangers the upshot on the present occasion was that the ministers remained in their places and that Mr Monk's bill though it had received the substantial honour of a second reading passed away for the present to the limbo of abortive legislation all this would not concern us at all not our poor hero much were it not that the great men with whom he had been for two years so pleasant a colleague remembered him with something of affectionate regret whether it began with Mr Gresham or with Lord Cantrip I will not say or whether Mr Monk though now a political enemy may have said a word that brought about the good deed be that as it may just before the summer session was brought to a close Phineas received the following letter from Lord Cantrip Downing Street August the first 1860 something my dear Mr Finn Mr Gresham has been talking to me and we both think that possibly a permanent government appointment may be acceptable to you we have no doubt that should this be the case your services would be very valuable to the country there is a vacancy for a poor law inspector at present in Ireland whose residence I believe should be in Cork the salary is a thousand a year should the appointment suit you Mr Gresham will be most happy to nominate you to the office let me have a line at your early convenience believe me most sincerely yours Cantrip he received the letter one morning in Dublin and within three hours he was on his route to Killlow of course he would accept the appointment but he would not even do that without telling Mary of his new prospect of course he would accept the appointment though he had been as yet barely two months in Dublin though he had hardly been long enough settled to his work to have hoped to be able to see in which way there might be a vis to open leading to success still he had fancied that he had seen that success was impossible he didn't know how to begin and men were afraid of him thinking that he was unsteady, arrogant and prone to failure he had not seen his way to the possibility of a guinea a thousand a year said Mary flood Jones opening her eyes wide with wonder at the golden future before them there is nothing very great for a perpetuity said Phineas oh Phineas surely a thousand a year will be very nice it'll be certain said Phineas and then we can be married tomorrow but I have been making up my mind to wait ever so long said Mary then your mind must be unmade said Phineas what was the nature of the reply to Lord Cantrip the reader may imagine and thus we will leave our hero and inspector of poor houses in the county of Cork end of Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollup recording by Andy from Inveraunan M-E-L-Y-S dot W-S