 CHAPTER 73 ONLY THE DUKE OF OMNIUM The night of the debate arrived, but before the debate was commenced, Sir Timothy V's wax got up to make a personal explanation. He thought it right to state to the house how it came to pass that he found himself bound to leave the ministry at so important a crisis in its existence. Then an observation was made by an honourable member of the government, presumably in a whisper, but still loud enough to catch the sharp ears of Sir Timothy, who now sat just below the gangway. It was said afterwards that the gentleman who made the observation, an Irish gentleman named Fitzgibbon, conspicuous rather for his loyalty to his party than his steadiness, had purposely taken the place in which he then sat that Sir Timothy might hear the whisper. The whisper suggested that falling houses were often left by certain animals. It was certainly a very loud whisper, but if gentlemen are to be allowed to whisper at all, it is almost impossible to restrain the volume of the voice. To restrain Mr. Fitzgibbon had always been found difficult. Sir Timothy, who did not lack pluck, turned at once upon his assailant, and declared that words had been used with reference to himself, which the honourable member did not dare to get upon his legs and repeat. Larry Fitzgibbon, as the gentleman was called, looked him full in the face, but did not move his hat from his head or stir a limb. It was a pleasant little episode in the evening's work, and afforded satisfaction to the house generally. Then Sir Timothy went on with his explanation. The details of this measure, as soon as they were made known to him, appeared to him, he said, to be fraught with the gravest and most pernicious consequences. He was sure that the members of Her Majesty's government who were hurrying on this measure, with what he thought was indecent haste, and ministers are always either indecent in their haste or treacherous in their delay, had not considered what they were doing, or if they had considered were blind as to its results. He then attempted to discuss the details of the measure but was called to order. A personal explanation could not be allowed to give him an opportunity of anticipating the debate. He contrived, however, before he sat down to say some very heavy things against his late chief, and especially to congratulate the Duke on the services of the honourable gentleman to member for Mayo, meaning thereby Mr. Lawrence's Gibbon. It would perhaps have been well for everybody if the measure could have been withdrawn and the ministry could have resigned without the debate, as everybody was convinced what would be the end of it. Let the second reading go as it might, the bill could not be carried. There are measures which require the hopeful heartiness of a new ministry, and the thoroughgoing energy of a young Parliament, and this was one of them. The House was as fully agreed that this change was necessary as it ever is agreed on any subject, but still the thing could not be done. Even Mr. Monk, who was the most earnest of men, felt the general slackness of all around him. The commotion and excitement which would be caused by a change of ministry might restore its proper tone to the House, but in its present condition it was unfit for the work. Nevertheless Mr. Monk made his speech and put all his arguments into lucid order. He knew it was for nothing, but nevertheless it must be done. For hour after hour he went on, for it was necessary to give every detail of his contemplated proposition, he went through it as sedulously as though he had expected to succeed, and sat down about nine o'clock in the evening. Then Sir Orlando moved the adjournment of the House till the morrow, giving as his reason for doing so the expedience of considering the details he had heard. To this no opposition was made, and the House was adjourned. On the following day the clubs were all alive with rumours as to the coming debate. It was known that a strong party had been formed under the auspices of Sir Orlando, and that with him Sir Timothy and other politicians were in close counsel. It was, of course, necessary that they should impart to many the secrets of their conclave, so that it was known early in the afternoon that it was the intention of the opposition not to discuss the bill, but to move that it be read a second time that day six months. The ministry had hardly expected this, as the bill was undoubtedly popular both in the House and the country, and if the opposition should be beaten in such a course, that defeat would tend greatly to strengthen the hands of the government. But if the foe could succeed in carrying a positive veto on the second reading, it would under all the circumstances be tantamount to a vote of want of confidence. I'm afraid they know almost more than we do as to the feeling of members," said Mr. Roby to Mr. Rattler. There isn't a man in the House who's feeling in the matter, I don't know, said Rattler, but I'm not quite so sure of their principles. On our own side, in our own party, there are a score of men who detests the due, though they will soon be true to the government. They have voted with him through thick and thin, and he's not spoken a word to one of them since he became Prime Minister. What are you to do with such a man? How are you to act with him? Lupton wrote to him the other day about something, answered the other. I forget what. And he got a note back from Warburton as cold as ice, an absolute slap in the face. Fancy treating a man like Lupton in that way, one of the most popular men in the House, related to half the peerage, and a man who thinks so much of himself. I shouldn't wonder if he would have voted against us. I shouldn't, indeed. It has been all the old dukes doing, said Rattler, and no doubt it was intended for the best, but the thing has been a failure from the beginning to the end. I knew it would be so. I don't think there's been a single man who's understood what a ministerial coalition really means, except you and I. From the very beginning all your men were averse to it in spirit. Look how they were treated, said Mr. Roby. Was it likely that they should be very staunch when Mr. Monk became leader of the House? There was a cabinet council that day which lasted but a few minutes, and it may easily be presumed that the ministers decided that they would all resign at once if Sir Orlando should carry his amendment. It is not unlikely that they were agreed to do the same if he should nearly carry it, leaving probably the Prime Minister to judge what narrow majority would constitute nearness. On this occasion all the gentlemen assembled were jockoned in their manner and apparently well satisfied, as though they saw before them an end to all their troubles. The Spartan boy did not even make a grimace when the wolf bit him beneath his frock, and these were all Spartan boys. Even the Prime Minister, who had fortified himself for the occasion and who never wept in any company but that of his wife and his old friend, was pleasant in his manner and almost affable. We shan't make this step towards the millennium just at present, he said to Phineus Finn as they left the room together, referring to words which Phineus had spoken on a former occasion and which then had not been very well taken. But we shall have made a step towards the step, said Phineus, and in getting to a millennium even that is something. I suppose we are all too anxious, said the Duke, to see some great effects from our own little doings. Good day! We shall know all about it tolerably early. Monk seems to think that it will be an attack on the ministry and not on the bill, and that it will be best to get a vote with as little delay as possible. I'll bet an even five-pound note, said Mr. Lupton at the carton, that the present ministry is out to-morrow, and another that no-one names five members of the next cabinet. You can help to win your first bet, said Mr. Beecham, a very old member who, like many other conservatives, had supported the coalition. I shall not do that, said Lupton, though I think I ought. I won't vote against the man it is misfortune, so upon my soul I don't love him very dearly. I shall vote neither way, but I hope that Sir Orlando may succeed. If he do, who is to come in? said the other. I suppose you don't want to serve under Sir Orlando. Nor certainly under the Duke of Omnium. We shall not want a prime minister as long as there are as good fish in the sea as have been caught out of it. There had lately been formed a new liberal club, established on a broader basis than the progress, and perhaps with a greater amount of aristocratic support. This had come up since the Duke had been prime minister. Even busy men had never been quite contented with the existing state of things, and had thought that the liberal party, with such assistance as such a club could give it, would be strong enough to rule alone. That the great liberal party should be impeded in its work, and its triumph by such men as Sir Orlando Drought and Sir Timothy Beeswax, was odious to the club. All the palaces had from time immemorial run straight as liberals, and therefore the club had been unwilling to oppose the Duke personally, though he was the chief of the coalition, and certain members of the government, Phineas Finn for instance, Barrington Earl and Mr. Rattler, were on the committee of the club. But the club, as a club, was not averse to a discontinuance of the present state of things. Mr. Gresham might again become prime minister, if he would condescend so far, or Mr. Monk. It might be possible that the great liberal triumph contemplated by the club might not be achieved by the present house, but the present house must go shortly, and then, with that assistance from a well-organized club, which had lately been so terribly wanting, the lack of which has made the coalition necessary, no doubt the British constituencies would do their duty, and a liberal prime minister, pure and simple, might reign almost forever. With this great future before it, the club was very lukewarm in its support of the present bill. I shall go down and vote for them, of course, said Mr. Omehoney, just for the look of the thing. In saying this, Mr. Omehoney expressed the feeling of the club, and the feeling of the liberal party generally. There was something due to the duke, but not enough to make it incumbent on his friends to maintain him in his position as prime minister. It was a great day for Sir Orlando. At our past fall the house was full—not from any desire to hear Sir Orlando's arguments against the bill, but because it was felt that a good deal of personal interest would be attached to the debate. If one were asked in these days what gift should a prime minister ask first from the fairies, one would name the power of attracting personal friends. Elegance, if it be too easy, may become almost a curse. Patriotism is suspected, and sometimes sinks almost to pedantry. A jove-born intellect is hardly wanted and clashes with the inferiorities. Industry is exacting. Honesty is unpractical. Truth is easily offended. Dignity will not bend. But the man who can be all things to all men, who has ever a kind word to speak, a pleasant joke to crack, who can forgive all sins, who is ever prepared for friend or foe, but never very bitter to the latter, who forgets not men's names, and is always ready with little words—he is the man who will be supported at a crisis such as this that was now in the course of passing. It is for him that men will struggle and talk, and if needs be, fight, as though the very existence of the country depended on his political security. The present man would receive no such defence, but still the violent deposition of a prime minister is always a memorable occasion. Sir Orlando made his speech, and, as had been anticipated, it had very little to do with the bill, and was almost exclusively an attack upon his late chief. He thought he said that this was an occasion on which they had better come to a direct issue with as little delay as possible. If he rightly read the feeling of the house, no bill of this magnitude coming from the present ministry would be likely to be passed in an efficient condition. The Duke had frittered away his support in that house, and as a minister had lost that confidence which a majority of the house had once been willing to place in him. We need not follow Sir Orlando through his speech. He alluded to his own services, and declared that he was obliged to withdraw them because the Duke would not trust him with the management of his own office. He had reason to believe that other gentlemen who had attached themselves to the Duke's ministry had found themselves equally crippled by this passion for autocratic rule. Hereupon a loud chorus of disapprobation came from the treasury bench, which was fully answered by opposing voices from the other side of the house. Sir Orlando declared that he need only point to the fact that the ministry had been already shivered by the secession of various gentlemen. Only two, said a voice. Sir Orlando was turning round to contradict the voice when he was greeted by another, and those the weakest, said the other voice, which was indubitably that of Larry Fitzgibbon. I will not speak of myself, said Sir Orlando pompously, but I am authorised to tell the house that the noble Lord, who is now Secretary of State for the Colonies, only holds his office till this crisis shall have passed. After that there was some sparring of a very bitter kind between Satimathy and Phineas Finn, till at last it seemed that the debate was to degenerate into a war of man against man. Phineas and Earl and Lawrence Fitzgibbon allowed themselves to be lashed into anger, and, as far as words went, had the best of it. But of what use could it be? Every man there had come into the house prepared to vote for or against the Duke of Omnium, or resolved like Mr. Lupton not to vote at all, and it was hardly on the cards that a single vote should be turned this way or that by any violence of speaking. Let it pass, said Mr. Monk in a whisper to Phineas. The fire is not worth the fuel. I know the Duke's faults, said Phineas, but these men know nothing of his virtues, and when I hear them abuse him I cannot stand it. Early in the night, before twelve o'clock, the house divided, and even at the moment of the division no one quite knew how it would go. There would be many who would, of course, vote against the amendment as being simply desirous of recording their opinion in favour of the Bill generally, and there were some who thought that Sir Orlando and his followers had been too forward, and who confident of their own standing in the house in trying so violent a mode of opposition. It would have been better, these men thought, to have ensured success by a gradual and persistent opposition to the Bill itself. But they hardly knew how thoroughly men may be alienated by silence and a cold demeanour. Sir Orlando on the division was beaten, but was beaten only by nine. He can't go on with his Bill, said Rattler in one of the lobbies of the house. I defy him, the house wouldn't stand it, you know. No minister, said Roby, could carry a measure like that with a majority of nine on a vote of confidence. The house was, of course, adjourned, and Mr. Monk went at once to Cullton Terrace. I wish it had been only three or four, said the Duke, laughing. Why so? Because then there would have been less doubt. Is there any at present? Less possibility for doubt, I will say. You would not wish to make the attempt with such a majority. I could not do it, Duke. I quite agree with you. But there will be those who will say that the attempt might be made, who will accuse us of being faint-hearted because we do not make it. They will be men who understand nothing of the temper of the house. Very likely. But still, I wish the majority had been only two or three. There is little more to be said, I suppose. Very little, you grace. We had better meet to-morrow at two, and, if possible, I will see her majesty in the afternoon. Good night, Mr. Monk. Good night, Duke. My reign is ended. You are a good deal an older man than I, and yet probably yours has yet to begin. Mr. Monk smiled, and shook his head as he left the room, not trusting himself to discuss so large a subject at so late an hour of the night. Without waiting a moment after his colleague's departure, the Prime Minister, for he was still Prime Minister, went into his wife's room, knowing that she was waiting up till she should hear the result of the division, and there he found Mrs. Finn with her. Is it over? asked the Duchess. Yes, there has been a division, Mr. Monk has just been with me. Well— We have beaten them, of course, as we always do. Said the Duke, attempting to be pleasant. You didn't suppose there was anything to fear? Your husband has always bid you keep up your courage, has he not, Mrs. Finn? My husband has lost his senses, I think. She said, he has taken to such storming and raving about his political enemies that I hardly dare to open my mouth. Tell me what he has done, Plantagenet, ejaculated the Duchess. Don't you be as unreasonable as Mrs. Finn, Cora. The House has voted against Sir Orlando's amendment by a majority of nine. Only nine. And I shall cease to be Prime Minister to-morrow. You don't mean to say that it's settled? Quite settled. The play has been played, and the curtain has fallen, and the lights are being put out, and the poor, weary actors may go home to bed. But on such an amendment surely any majority would have done. No, my dear. I will not name a number, but nine certainly would not do. And is it all over? My ministry is all over, if you mean that. Then everything is over for me. I shall settle down in the country and build cottages and mixed draughts. You, Marie, will still be going up the tree. If Mr. Finn manages well, he may come to be Prime Minister some day. He has hardly such ambition, Lady Glen. The ambition will come fast enough. Will it not, Plantagenet? Let him once begin to dream of it as possible, and the desire will soon be strong enough. How should you feel if it were so? It is quite impossible, said Mrs. Finn gravely. I don't see why anything is impossible. Sir Orlando will be Prime Minister now, and Sir Timothy Beeswax, Lord Chancellor. After that anybody may hope to be anything. Well, I suppose we may go to bed. Is your carriage here, my dear? I hope so. Ring the bell, Plantagenet, for somebody to see her down. Come to lunch to-morrow, because I shall have so many groans to utter. What beasts, what brutes, what ungrateful wretches men are, worse than women when they get together in numbers enough to be bold? Why have they deserted you? Why have we not done for them? Think of all the new bedroom furniture that we sent together and merely to keep the party together. There were thousands of yards of linen, and it has all been of no use. Don't you feel like Woolsey, Plantagenet? Not in the least, my dear. No one will take anything away from me that is my own. For me I am almost as much divorced as Catherine, and have had my head cut off as completely as Anne Bullen and the rest of them. Go away, Marie, because I am going to have a cry by myself. The Duke himself on that night put Mrs. Finn into her carriage, and as he walked with her downstairs he asked her whether she believed the Duchess to be earnest in her sorrow. She so mixes up her mirth and woe together, said the Duke, that I myself sometimes can hardly understand her. I think she does regret it, Duke. She told me but the other day that she would be contented. A few weeks will make her so. As for your grace, I hope I may congratulate you. Oh yes, I think so. We none of us like to be beaten when we have a thing in hand. There is always a little disappointment at first. But upon the whole it is better as it is. I hope it will not make your husband unhappy. Or not for his own sake. He will go again into the middle of the scramble and fight on one side or the other. For my own part I think opposition the pleasantest. Good night, Duke. I am so sorry that I should have troubled you. Then he went alone to his own room, and sat there without moving for a couple of hours. Surely it was a great thing to have been Prime Minister of England for three years, a prize of which nothing now could rob him. He ought not to be unhappy. And yet he knew himself to be wretched and disappointed. It had never occurred to him to be proud of being a Duke, or to think of his wealth otherwise than a chance incident of his life, advantageous indeed, but by no means a source of honour. And he had been aware that he had owed his first seat in Parliament to his birth, and probably also his first introduction to official life. An heir to a dukedom, if he will only work hard, may almost with certainty find himself received into one or the other regiment in Downing Street. It had not in his early days been with him, as it had been with his friends Mr. Monk and Finneas Finn, who would work their way from the very ranks. But even a duk cannot become Prime Minister by favour. Surely he had done something of which he might be proud. And so he tried to console himself. But to have done something was nothing to him, nothing to his personal happiness, unless there was also something left for him to do. How should it be with him now? How for the future? Would a man ever listen to him again, or allow him again to work in their behoof, as he used to do in his happy days in the House of Commons? He feared that it was all over for him, and that for the rest of his days he must simply be the Duke of Omnium. End of Chapter 73. Recording by Nicholas Clifford. Soon after the commencement of the session, Arthur Fletcher became a constant visitor in Manchester Square, dining with the old barrister almost constantly on Sundays, and not unfrequently on other days when the House and his general engagements would permit it. Between him and Emily's father there was no secret and no misunderstanding. Mr. Wharton quite understood the young member of Parliament was earnestly purposed to marry his daughter, and Fletcher was sure of all the assistance and support which Mr. Wharton could give him. The name of Lopez was very rarely used between them. It had been tacitly agreed that there was no need that it should be mentioned. The man had come like a destroying angel between them, and their fondest hopes. Neither could ever be what he would have been had that man never appeared to destroy their happiness. But the man had gone away, not without a tragedy that was appalling, and each thought that, as regarded him, he and the tragedy might be, if not forgotten, at least put aside, if only that other person in whom they were interested could be taught the seam to forget him. It is not love, said the father, but a feeling of shame. Arthur Fletcher shook his head, not quite agreeing with this. It was not that he feared that she loved the memory of her late husband. Such love was, he thought, impossible. But there was, he believed, something more than the feeling which her father described as shame. There was pride also—a determination in her own bosom not to confess the faults she had made, in giving herself to him whom she must now think to have been so much the least worthy of her two suitors. Her fortune will not be what I once promised you, said the old man plaintively. I do not remember that I ever asked you as to her fortune, Arthur replied. Certainly not. If you had, I should not have told you. But as I named a sum, it is right that I should explain to you that that man succeeded in lessening it by six or seven thousand pounds. If that were all. And I have promised Sir Allured that Everett, as his heir, should have the use of a considerable portion of his share without waiting for my death. It is odd that the one of my children from whom I certainly expected the greater trouble should have fallen so entirely on his feet, and that the other, well, let us hope for the best, Everett seems to have taken up with Wharton as though it belonged to him already, and Emily— Well, my dear boy, let us hope that it may come right yet. You are not drinking your wine. Yes, past the bottle. I'll have another glass before I go upstairs. In this way the time went by till Emily returned to town. The ministry had just then resigned, but I think that this great reactionary success, as it was called by the writer in the People's Banner, affected one member of the lower house much less than the return to London of Mrs. Lopez. Arthur Fletcher had determined that he would renew his suit as soon as a year should have expired since the tragedy which had made his love a widow, and that year had now passed away. He had known the day well, as had she, when she passed the morning weeping in her own room at Wharton. Now he questioned himself whether a year would suffice, whether both in mercy to her and with the view of realizing his own hopes, he should give her some longer time for recovery. But he had told himself that it should be done at the end of a year, and as he had allowed no one to talk him out of his word, so neither would he be untrue to it himself. But it became with him a deep matter of business, a question of great difficulty, how he should arrange the necessary interview, whether he should plead his case with her at their first meeting, or whether he had better allow her to become accustomed to his presence in the house. His mother had attempted to ridicule him, because he was, as she said, afraid of a woman. He well remembered that he had never been afraid of Emily Wharton when they had been quite young, little more than a boy and girl together. Then he had told her of his love over and over again, and had found almost a comfortable luxury in urging her to say a word which she had never indeed said, but which probably in those days he still hoped that she would say. And occasionally he had feigned to be angry with her, and had tempted her onto little quarrels, with a boyish idea that quick reconciliation would perhaps throw her into his arms. But it now seemed to him that an age had passed in those days. His love had certainly not faded. There had never been a moment when that had been on the wing. But now the azure plumage of his love had become gray as the wings of a dove, and the gorgeousness of his dreams had sobered into hopes and fears which were a constant burden to his heart. There was time enough, still time enough for happiness if she would yield, and time enough for the dull pressure of unsatisfied aspirations should she persist in her refusal. At last he saw her, almost by accident, and that meeting certainly was not fit for the purpose of his suit. He called at stone buildings the day after her arrival, and found her at her father's chambers. She had come there keeping some appointment with him, and certainly had not expected to meet her lover. He was confused and hardly able to say a word to account for his presence. But she greeted him with almost sisterly affection, saying some word of long-barns in his family, telling him how ever it, to Sir Allure's great delight, had been sworn in as a magistrate for the county, and how, at the last hunt meeting, John Fletcher had been asked to take the county hounds, because old Lord Webley at seventy-five had declared himself to be unable any longer to ride as a master of hounds ought to ride. All these things Arthur had of course heard, such dues being too important to be kept long from him, but on none of these subjects had he much to say. He stuttered and stammered and quickly went away, not, however, before he had promised to come and dine as usual on the next Sunday, and not without observing that the anniversary of that fatal day of release had done something to lighten the sombre load of mourning which the widow had hitherto worn. Yes, he would dine there on the Sunday, but how would it be with him then? Mr. Wharton never went out of the house on the Sunday evening, and could hardly be expected to leave his own drawing-room for the sake of giving a lover an opportunity. No, he must wait till that evening should have passed, and then make the occasion for himself as best he might. The Sunday came, and the dinner was eaten, and after dinner there was a single bottle of port and the single bottle of claret. How do you think she is looking? asked the father. She was as pale as death before we got her down into the country. Upon my word, sir, said he, I've hardly looked at her. It is not a matter of looks now as it used to be. It has got beyond that. It is not that I am indifferent to seeing a pretty face, or that I have no longer an opinion of my own about a woman's figure. But there grows up, I think, a longing which almost kills that consideration. To me she is as beautiful as ever, said the father proudly. Fletcher did manage, when in the drawing-room, to talk for a while about John and the hounds, and then went away having resolved that he would come again on the very next day. Surely she would not give an order that he should be denied admittance. She had been too calm, too even, too confident in herself for that. Yes, he would come and tell her plainly what he had to say. He would tell it with all the solemnity of which he was capable, with a few words and those the strongest which he could use. Should she refuse him, as he almost knew that she would at first, then he would tell her of her father and of the wishes of all their joint friends. Nothing, he would say to her, nothing but personal dislike can justify you in refusing to heal so many wounds. As he fixed on these words, he failed to remember how little probable it is that a lover should ever be able to use the phrases he arranges. On Monday he came and asked for Mrs. Lopez slurring over the word as best he could. The butler said his mistress was at home. Since the death of the man he had so thoroughly despised, the old servant had never called her Mrs. Lopez. Arthur was shown upstairs and found the lady he sought, but he found Mrs. Roby also. It may be remembered that Mrs. Roby, after the tragedy, had been refused admittance into Mr. Wharton's house. Since that there had been some correspondence, and a feeling had prevailed that the woman was not to be quarreled with forever. I did not do it, papa, because of her, Emily had said with some scorn, and that scorn had procured Mrs. Roby's pardon. She was now making a morning call and shooting her conversation to the black dress of her niece. Arthur was horrified at seeing her there. Mrs. Roby had always been to him odious, not only as a personal enemy but as a vulgar woman. He, at any rate, attributed to her a great part of the evil that had been done, feeling sure that had there been no house round the corner, Emily Wharton would never have become Mrs. Lopez. As it was, he was forced to shake hands with her, and forced to listen to the funereal tone in which Mrs. Roby asked him if he did not think that Mrs. Lopez looked much improved by her sojourn and herofiture. He shrank at the sound, and then, in order that it might not be repeated, took occasion to show that he was allowed to call his early playmate by her Christian name. Mrs. Roby, thinking that she ought to check him, remarked that Mrs. Lopez's return was a great thing for Mr. Wharton. Thereupon Arthur Fletcher seized his hat off the ground, wished them both good-bye, and hurried out of the room. What a very odd manner he has taken up since he became a member of Parliament, said Mrs. Roby. Emily was silent for a moment, and then, with an effort, with intense pain, she said a word or two which he thought had better be at once spoken. He went because he does not like to hear that name. Good gracious! And Papa does not like it. Don't say a word about it, and pray don't, but call me Emily. Are you going to be ashamed of your name? Never mind, and if you think it wrong you must stay away, but I will not have Papa wounded. Oh, if Mr. Wharton wishes it, of course. That evening Mrs. Roby told Dick Roby, her husband, what an old fool Mr. Wharton was. The next day quite early Fletcher was again at the house and was again admitted upstairs. The butler, no doubt, knew well enough why he came, and also knew that the purport of his coming had at any rate the sanction of Mr. Wharton. The room was empty when he was shown into it, but she came to him very soon. I went away yesterday rather abruptly, he said. I hope you did not think me rude. Oh, no. Your aunt was here, and I had something I wished to say but could not say very well before her. I knew that she had driven you away. You and Aunt Harriet were never great friends. Never, but I will forgive her everything. I will forgive all the injuries that have been done me, if you will do now as I ask you. Of course she knew what it was that he was about to ask, when he had left her at long-barns without saying a word of his love, without giving her any hint whereby she might allow herself to think that he intended to renew his suit, then she had wept because it was so. Though her resolution had been quite firm as to the duty which was incumbent on her of remaining in her desolate condition of almost nameless widowhood, yet she had been unable to refrain from bitter tears because he also had seemed to see that such was her duty. But now again, knowing that the request was coming, feeling once more confident of the constancy of his love, she was urgent with herself as to that heavy duty. She would be unwomenly, dead to all shame, almost inhuman, were she to allow herself again to indulge in love after all the havoc she had made. She had been little more than a bride, with that husband, for whom she had so often been forced to blush, had been driven by the weight of his misfortunes and disgraces to destroy himself. By the marriage she had made she had overwhelmed her whole family with dishonour. She had done it with a persistency of perverse self-will, which she herself could not now look back upon without wonder and horror. She too should have died as well as he. Only the death had not been within the compass of her powers as of his. How then could she forget it all and wipe it away from her mind as she would figures from a slate with a wet towel? How could it be fit that she should again be a bride with such a spectre of a husband haunting her memory? She had known that the request was to be made when he had come so quickly and had not doubted it for a moment when he took his sudden departure. She had known it well when just now the servant told her that Mr. Fletcher was in the drawing-room below, but she was quite certain of the answer she must make. I should be sorry you should ask me anything I cannot do, she said, in a very low voice. I will ask you for nothing for which I have not your father's sanction. The time has gone by, Arthur, in which I might well have been guided by my father. There comes a time when personal feelings must be stronger than a father's authority. Papa cannot see me with my own eyes. He cannot understand what I feel. It is simply this that he would have me be other than I am, but I am what I have made myself. You have not heard me as yet. You will hear me? Oh yes. I have loved you ever since I was a boy. He paused as though he expected that she should make some answer to this, but of course it was nothing that she could say. I have been true to you since we were together, almost as children. It is your nature to be true. In this matter at any rate I shall never change. I never for a moment had a doubt about my love. There never has been anyone else whom I have ventured to compare with you. Then came that great trouble. Emily, you must let me speak freely this once, as so much to me at least depends on it. Say what you will, Arthur. Do not wound me more than you can help. God knows how willingly I would heal every wound without a word if it could be done. I don't know whether you ever thought what I suffered when he came among us and robbed me. Well, I will not say robbed me of your love because it was not mine, but took away with him that which I had been trying to win. I did not think a man would feel it like that. Why shouldn't a man feel as well as a woman? I had set my heart on having you for my wife. Can any desire be dearer to a man than that? Then he came. Well, dearest, surely I may say that he was not worthy of you. We were neither of us worthy, she said. I need not tell you that we all grieved. It seemed to us down in Herefordshire, as though a black cloud had come upon us. We could not speak of you, nor yet could we be altogether silent. Of course you condemn me as an outcast. Did I write to you as though you were an outcast? Did I treat you when I saw you as an outcast? When I came to you today is that proof that I think you to be an outcast? I have never deceived you, Emily. Never. Then will you believe me when I say that through it all not one word of reproach or consumely has ever passed my lips in regard to you, that you should have given yourself to one whom I could not think to be worthy of you was, of course, a great sorrow. Had he been a prince of men, it would of course have been a sorrow to me. How it went with you during your married life I will not ask. I was unhappy. I would tell you everything if I could. I was very unhappy. Then came the end. She was now weeping with her face buried in her handkerchief. I would spare you if I knew how, but there are some things which must be said. No, no, I will bear it all from you. Well, his success had not lessened my love. Though then I could have had no hope, though you were utterly removed from me, all that could not change me. There it was, as though my arm or my leg had been taken from me. It was bad to live without an arm or leg, but there was no help. I went on with my life and tried not to look like a whipped cur, though John from time to time would tell me that I failed. But now, now that it has all changed, what would you have me do now? It may be that after all my limb may be restored to me, that I may be again as other men are, whole and sound and happy, so happy. When it may possibly be within my reach, am I not to look for my happiness? He paused, but she wept on without speaking a word. There were those who will say that I should wait till all these signs of woe have been laid aside. But why should I wait? There has come a great blot upon your life, and is it not well that it should be covered as quickly as possible? It can never be covered. You mean that it can never be forgotten. No doubt there are passages in our life which we cannot forget, though we bury them in the deepest silence. All this can never be driven out of your memory, nor from mine, but it need not therefore blacken all our lives. In such a condition we should not be ruled by what the world thinks. Not at all. I care nothing for what the world thinks. I am below all that. It is what I think, I myself, of myself. Will you think of no one else, or any of your thoughts for me, or your father? Oh yes, for my father. I need hardly tell you what he wishes. You must know how you can best give him back the comfort he has lost. But, Arthur, even for him I cannot do everything. There is one question to be asked, he said, rising from her feet and standing before her, but one, and what you do should depend entirely on the answer which you may be able truly to make to that. This he said so solemnly that he startled her. What question, Arthur? Do you love me? To this question at the moment she could make no reply. Of course I know that you did not love me when you married him. Love is not all of one kind. You know what love I mean. You did not love me then. You could not have loved me, though perhaps I thought I had deserved your love. But love will change, and memory will sometimes bring back old fancies when the world has been stern and hard. When we were very young, I think you loved me. Do you remember seven years ago at Long Barnes when they parted us and sent me away because, because we were so young? They did not tell us then, but I think you knew. I know that I knew, and went nigh to swear that I would drown myself. You loved me then, Emily. I was a child then. Now you are not a child. Do you love me now, today? If so, give me your hand and let the past be buried in silence. All this is common gone and has nearly made us old, but there is life before us yet, and if you are to me as I am to you, it is better that our lives should be lived together. And he stood before her with his hand stretched out. I cannot do it, she said. And why? I cannot be other than the wretched thing I have made myself. But do you love me? I cannot analyze my heart. Love you? Yes, I have always loved you. Everything about you is dear to me. I can triumph in your triumphs. I rejoice in your joy. Weep at your sorrows. Be ever anxious that all good things may come to you. But, Arthur, I cannot be your wife. Not though it would make us happy, Fletcher's and Wharton's all alike. Do you think I have not thought it over? Do you think that I have forgotten your first letter? Knowing your heart, as I do know it, do you imagine that I have spent a day, an hour, for months past, without asking myself what answer I should make to you if the sweet constancy of your nature should bring you again to me? I have trembled when I have heard your voice. My heart is beat at the sound of your footstep, as though it would burst. Do you think I have never told myself what I had thrown away? But it is gone, and it is not now within my reach. It is, it is, he said, throwing himself on his knees and twining his arms round her. No, no, no, never. I am disgraced and shamed. I have lain among the pots till I am foul and blackened. Take your arms away. They shall not be defiled, she said, as she sprang to her feet. You shall not have the thing that he has left. Emily, it is the only thing in the world that I crave. Be a man and conquer your love, as I will. Get it under your feet and press it to death. Tell yourself that it is shameful and must be abandoned, that you, Arthur Fletcher, should marry the widow of that man, the woman that he had thrust so far into the mire, that she can never again be clean. You, the chosen one, the bright star among us all, you, whose wife should be the fairest, the purest, the tenderest of us all, a flower that has yet hardly been breathed on. While I, Arthur, she said, I know my duty better than that. I will not seek an escape from any punishment in that way, nor will I allow you to destroy yourself. You have my word as a woman that it shall not be so. Now I do not mind your knowing whether I love you or know. He stood silent before her, not able for the moment to go on with his prayer. And now go, she said, God bless you and give you some day a fair and happy wife. And Arthur, do not come again to me. If you will let it be so, I shall have a delight in seeing you, but not if you come as you have come now. And Arthur, spare me with papa, do not let him think that it is all my fault that I cannot do the thing which he wishes. Then she left the room before he could say another word to her. But it was all her fault. No, in that direction he could not spare her. It must be told her, her father, though he doubted his own power of describing all that had been said. Do not come again to me, she had said. At the moment he had been left speechless, but if there was one thing fixed in his mind it was the determination to come again. He was sure now not only of love that might have sufficed, but of hot, passionate love. She had told him that her heart had beat at his footsteps and that she had trembled as she listened to his voice, and yet she expected that he would not come again. But there was a violence of decision about the woman which made him dread that he might still come in vain. She was so warped from herself by the conviction of her great mistake, so prone to take shame to herself for her own error, so keenly alive to the degradation to which she had been submitted, that it might yet be impossible to teach her that, though her husband had been vile and she mistaken, yet she had not been soiled by his baseness. He went at once to the old Barrister's chambers and told him the result of the meeting. She is still a fool, said the father, not understanding at second hand the depths of his daughter's feeling. No, sir, not that. She feels herself degraded by his degradation. If it be possible, we must save her from that. She did degrade herself. Not as she means it. She is not degraded in my eyes. Why should she not take the only means in her power of rescuing herself and rescuing us from all the evil she did? She owes it to you, to me, and to her brother? I would hardly wish her to come to me in payment of such a debt. There is no room left, said Mr. Wharton angrily, for soft sentimentality. Well, she must take her bed as she makes it. It is very hard on me, I know. Considering what she used to be, it is marvellous to me that she should have so little idea left of doing her duty to others. Arthe Fletcher found that the Barrister was at the moment too angry to hear reason, or to be made to understand anything of the feelings of mixed love and admiration with which he himself was animated at the moment. He was obliged, therefore, to content himself with assuring the Father that he did not intend to give up the pursuit of his daughter. Chapter 75 The Great Wharton Alliance When Mr. Wharton got home on that day he said not a word to Emily as to Arthe Fletcher. He had resolved to take various courses, first to tell her roundly that she was neglecting her duty to herself and to her family, and that he would no longer take her part and be her good friend unless she would consent to marry the man whom she had confessed that she loved. But as he thought of this he became aware, first that he could not carry out such a threat, and then that he would lack even the firmness to make it. There was something in her face, something even in her dress, something in her whole manner to himself which softened him and reduced him to vassalage directly he saw her. Then he determined to throw himself on her compassion and to implore her to put an end to all this misery by making herself happy. But as he drew near home he found himself unable to do even this. How is a father to beseech his widowed daughter to give herself away in a second marriage? And therefore when he entered the house and found her waiting for him he said nothing. At first she looked at him wistfully, anxious to learn by his face whether her lover had been with him. But when he spoke not a word, simply kissing her in his usual quiet way, she became cheerful in manner and communicative. Papa, she said, I have had a letter from Mary. Well, my dear, just a nice chatty letter, full of Everett, of course. Everett is a great man now. I am sure that you are very glad that he is what he is. Will you see Mary's letter? Mr. Wharton was not specially given to reading young lady's correspondence and did not know why this particular letter should be offered to him. You don't suspect anything at Wharton, do you, she asked? Suspect anything? No, I don't suspect anything. But now having had his curiosity aroused he took the letter which was offered to him and read it. The letter was as follows. Wharton, Thursday, dearest Emily, we all hope that you had a pleasant journey up to London and that Mr. Wharton is quite well. Your brother Everett came over to Long Barns the day after you started and drove me back to Wharton in the dog cart. It was such a pleasant journey, though now I remember it rained all the way. But Everett has always so much to say that I didn't mind the rain. I think it will end in John taking the hounds. He says he won't because he does not wish to be the slave of the whole county, but he says it in that sort of way that we all think he means to do it. Everett tells him that he ought because he is the only hunting man on this side of the county who can afford to do it without feeling it much. And, of course, whatever it says will go a long way with him. Sarah, Sarah was John Fletcher's wife, is rather against it. But if he makes up his mind she'll be sure to turn round. Of course it makes us all very anxious at present to know how it is to end, for the master of the hounds always is the leading man in our part of the world. Papa went to the bench at Ross yesterday and took Everett with him. It was the first time that Everett had sat there. He says I am to tell his father he has not hung anybody as yet. They have already begun to cut down, or what they call stub up, Barnton's spinnies. Everett said that it is no good keeping it as a wood, and Papa agreed, so it is to go into the home farm and Griffith's is to pay rent for it. I don't like having it cut down as the boys always used to get nuts there, but Everett says it won't do to keep woods for little boys to get nuts. Mary's talking has been very ill since you went, and I'm afraid she won't last long. When they get to be so very bad with rheumatism I almost think it's wrong to pray for them because they are in so much pain. We thought at one time that Mama's ointment had done her good, but when we came to inquire we found she had swallowed it. Wasn't it dreadful? But it didn't seem to do her any harm. Everett says that it wouldn't make any difference which she did. Papa is beginning to be afraid that Everett is a radical, but I'm sure he's not. He says he is as good a conservative as there is in all Herefordshire, only that he likes to know what is to be conserved. Papa said after dinner yesterday that everything English ought to be maintained. Everett said that according to that we should have kept the star chamber. Of course I would, said Papa. Then they went at it hammer and tongs. Everett had the best of it, at any rate he talked the longest. But I do hope he is not a radical. No country gentleman ought to be a radical ought he, dear. Mrs. Fletcher says you are to get the lozenges at Squires in Oxford Street and be sure to ask for the Vadi Meekam lozenges. She is all in a flutter about the hounds. She says she hopes John will do nothing of the kind because of the expense, but we all know that she would like him to have them. The subscription is not very good, only fifteen hundred pounds, and it would cost him ever so much a year. But everybody says that he is very rich and that he ought to do it. If you see Arthur give him our love. Of course a member of Parliament is too busy to write letters, but I don't think Arthur ever was good at writing. Everett says that men never ought to write letters. Give my love to Mr. Wharton. I am, dearest Demily, your most affectionate cousin, Mary Wharton. Everett is a fool, said Mr. Wharton, as soon as he had read the letter. Why is he a fool, papa? Because he will quarrel with Sir Al you read about politics before he knows where he is. What business has a young fellow like that to have an opinion either one side or the other before his betters? But Everett always had strong opinions. It didn't matter as long as he only talked nonsense at a club in London, but now he'll break that old man's heart. But, papa, don't you see anything else? I see that John Fletcher is going to make an ass of himself and spend a thousand a year in keeping up a pack of hounds for other people to ride after. I think I see something else besides that. What do you see? Would it annoy you if Everett were to become engaged to Mary? Then Mr. Wharton whistled. To be sure she does put his name into every line of her letter. No, it wouldn't annoy me. I don't see why he shouldn't marry his second cousin if he likes. Only if he is engaged to her, I think it odd that he shouldn't write and tell us. I'm sure he's not engaged to her yet. She wouldn't write at all in that way if they were engaged. Everybody would be told at once, and Sir Al you read would never be able to keep it a secret. Why should there be a secret? But I'm sure she is very fond of him. Mary would never write about any man in that way unless she were beginning to be attached to him. About ten days after this there came two letters from Wharton Hall to Manchester Square, the shortest of which shall be given first. It ran as follows. My dear father, I have proposed to my cousin Mary and she has accepted me. Everybody here seems to like the idea. I hope it will not displease you. Of course you and Emily will come down. I will tell you when the day is fixed. Your affectionate son, Everett Wharton. This the old man read as he sat at breakfast with his daughter opposite to him, while Emily was reading a very much longer letter from the same house. So it's going to be just as you guessed, he said. I was quite sure of it, Papa. Is that from Everett? Is he very happy? Upon my word I can't say whether he's happy or not. If he had got a new horse he would have written at much greater length about it. It seems, however, to be quite fixed. Oh yes! This is from Mary. She is happy at any rate. I suppose men never say so much about these things as women. May I see Mary's letter? I don't think it would be quite fair, Papa. It's only a girl's rhapsody about the man she loves. Very nice and womanly, but not intended for anyone but me. It does not seem that they mean to wait very long. Why should they wait? Is any day fixed? Mary says that Everett talks about the middle of May. Of course you will go down. We must both go. You will, at any rate, don't promise for me just at present. It must make Sir Al Ured very happy. It is almost the same as finding himself at last with the son of his own. I suppose they will live at Wharton altogether now, unless Everett gets into Parliament. But the reader may see the young lady's letter, though her future father-in-law was not permitted to do so, and will perceive that there was a paragraph at the close of it which perhaps was more conducive to Emily's secrecy than her feelings as to the sacred obligations of female correspondence. Monday, Wharton, dearest Emily, I wonder whether you will be much surprised at the news I have to tell you. You cannot be more so than I am at having to write it. It has all been so very sudden that I almost feel ashamed of myself. Everett has proposed to me and I have accepted him. There, now you know it all, though you never can know how very dearly I love him and how thoroughly I admire him. I do think that he is everything that a man ought to be and that I am the most fortunate young woman in the world. Only, isn't it odd that I should always have to live all my life in the same house and never change my name, just like a man or an old maid. But I don't mind that, because I do love him so dearly and because he is so good. I hope he will write to you and tell you that he likes me. He has written to Mr. Wharton, I know. I was sitting by him and his letter didn't take him a minute. But he says that long letters about such things only give trouble. I hope you won't think my letter troublesome. He is not sitting by me now but has gone over to long barns to help to settle about the hounds. John is going to have them after all. I wish it hadn't happened just at this time because all the gentlemen do think so much about it. Of course, Everett is one of the committee. Papa and Mama are both very, very glad of it. Of course it is nice for them as it will keep Everett and me here. If I had married anybody else, though I am sure I never should, she would have been very lonely. And of course Papa likes to think that Everett is already one of us. I hope they never will quarrel about politics, but as Everett says the world does change as it goes on and young men and old men never will think quite the same about things. Everett told Papa the other day that if he could be put back a century he would be a radical. Then there were ever so many words. But Everett always laughs and at last Papa comes round. I can't tell you, my dear, what a fuss we are in already about it all. Everett wants to have our marriage early in May so that we may have two months in Switzerland before London is what he calls turned loose. And Papa says that there is no use in delaying because he gets older every day. Of course that is true of everybody, so that we are on a flutter about getting things. Mama did talk of going up to town, but I believe they have things now quite as good at Hereford. Sarah, when she was married, had all her things from London, but they say that there has been a great change since that. I am sure that I think that you may get anything you want at Muddocks and Crambles, but Mama says I am to have my veil from Howell and James's. Of course you and Mr. Wharton will come. I shan't think it any marriage without. Papa and Mama talk of it as quite of course. You know how fond Papa is of the bishop. I think he will marry us. I own I should like to be married by a bishop. It would make it so sweet and so solemn. Mr. Higginbottom could of course assist, but he is such an odd old man with his snuff and his spectacles always tumbling off, that I shouldn't like to have no one else. I have often thought that if it were only for marrying people we ought to have a nicer rector at Wharton. Almost all the tenants have been to wish me joy. They are very fond of Everett already, and now they feel that there will never be any very great change. I do think it is the very best thing that could be done, even if it were not that I am so thoroughly in love with him. I didn't think I should ever be able to own that I was in love with the man, but now I feel quite proud of it. I don't mind telling you because he is your brother, and I think that you will be glad of it. He talks very often about you. Of course you know what it is that we all wish. I love Arthur Fletcher almost as much as if he were my brother. He is my sister's brother-in-law, and if he could become my husband's brother-in-law too, I should be so happy. Of course we all know that he wishes it. Write immediately to wish me joy. Perhaps you could go to Howell and James's about the veil, and promise to come to us in May. Sarah says the veil ought to cost about thirty pounds. Dearest, dearest Emily, I shall so soon be your most affectionate sister, Mary Wharton. Emily's answer was full of warm affectionate congratulations. She had much to say in favour of Everett. She promised to use all her little skill at Howell and James's. She expressed a hope that the overtures to be made in regard to the bishop might be successful, and she made some kind remarks even as two muddocks and cramble. But she would not promise that she herself would be at Wharton on the happy day. Dear Mary, she said, remember what I have suffered and that I cannot be quite as other people are. I could not stand at your marriage in black clothes, nor should I have the courage even if I had the will to dress myself in others. None of the Whartons had come to her wedding. There was no feeling of anger now left as to that. She was quite aware that they had done right to stay away. But the very fact that it had been right that they should stay away would make it wrong that the widow of Ferdinand Lopez should now assist at the marriage of one Wharton to another. This was all that a marriage ought to be, whereas that had been all that a marriage ought not to be. In answer to the paragraph about Arthur Fletcher, Emily Lopez had not a word to say. Soon after this, early in April, Everett came up to town. Though his bride might be content to get her bridal clothes in Hereford, none but a London tailor could decorate him properly for such an occasion. During these last weeks Arthur Fletcher had not been seen in Manchester Square, nor had his name been mentioned there by Mr Wharton. Of anything that may have passed between them Emily was altogether ignorant. She observed, or thought that she observed, that her father was more silent with her, perhaps less tender than he had been since the day on which her husband had perished. His manner of life was the same. He almost always dined at home in order that she might not be alone and made no complaint as to her conduct, but she could see that he was unhappy and she knew the cause of his grief. I think, papa, she said one day, that it would be better that I should go away. This was on the day before Everett's arrival, of which, however, he had given no notice. Go away! Where would you go to? It does not matter. I do not make you happy. What do you mean? Who says that I am not happy? Why do you talk like that? Do not be angry with me. Nobody says so. I can see it well enough. I know how good you are to me, but I am making your life wretched. I am a wet blanket to you, and yet I cannot help myself. If I could only go somewhere where I could be of use. I do not know what you mean. This is your proper home. No, it is not my home. I ought to have forfeited it. I ought to go where I could work and be of some use in the world. You might be of use if you chose, my dear. Your proper career is before you if you would condescend to accept it. It is not for me to persuade you, but I can see and feel the truth. Till you bring yourself to do that your days will be blighted and so will mine. You have made one great mistake in life. Stop a moment. I do not speak often, but I wish you to listen to me now. Such mistakes do generally produce misery and ruin to all who are concerned. With you it chances that it may be otherwise. You can put your foot again upon the firm ground and recover everything. Of course there must be a struggle. One person has to struggle with circumstances, another with his foes, and a third with his own feelings. I can understand that there should be such a struggle with you. But it ought to be made. You ought to be brave enough and strong enough to conquer your regrets and to begin again. In no other way can you do anything for me or for yourself. To talk of going away as childish nonsense, wither would you go. I shall not urge you any more, but I would not have you talk to me in that way. Then he got up and left the room and the house and went down to his club, in order that she might think of what he had said in solitude. And she did think of it, but still continually with an assurance to herself that her father did not understand her feelings. The career of which he spoke was no doubt open to her, but she could not regard it as that which it was proper that she should fulfill as he did. When she told her lover that she had lain among the pots till she was black and defiled, she expressed in the strongest language that which was her real conviction. He did not think her to have been defiled, or at any rate thought that she might again bear the wings of a dove. But she felt it and therefore knew herself to be unfit. She had said it all to her lover in the strongest words she could find, but she could not repeat them to her father. The next morning when he came into the parlor where she was already sitting, she looked up at him almost reproachfully. Did he think that a woman was a piece of furniture which you can mend and re-varnish and fit out with new ornaments and then send out for you second hand indeed, but for all purposes as good as new? Then, while she was in this frame of mind, Everett came in upon her unawares, and with his almost boisterous happiness succeeded for a while in changing the current of her thoughts. He was, of course, now uppermost in his own thoughts. The last few months had made so much of him that he might be excused for being unable to sink himself in the presence of others. He was the heir to the baronetcy and to the double fortunes of the two old men, and he was going to be married in a manner, as everyone told him, to increase the glory and stability of the family. It's all nonsense about your not coming down, he said. She smiled and shook her head. I can only tell you that it will give the greatest defence to everyone. If you knew how much they talk about you down there, I don't think you would like to hurt them. Of course I would not like to hurt them. And considering that you have no other brother... Oh, Everett! I think more about it perhaps than you do. I think you owe it to me to come down. You will never probably have another chance of being present at your brother's marriage. This, he said in a tone that was almost lacrimose. A wedding, Everett, should be Mary. I don't know about that. It is a very serious sort of thing to my way of thinking. When Mary got your letter it nearly broke her heart. I think I have the right to expect it, and if you don't come I shall feel myself injured. I don't see what is the use of having a family if the members of it do not stick together. What would you think if I were to desert you? Desert you, Everett? Well, yes, it is something of the kind. I have made my request, and you can comply with it or not as you please. I will go, she said very slowly. Then she left him and went to her own room to think in what description of garment she could appear at a wedding with the least violence to the conditions of her life. I have got her to say she'll come, he said to his father that evening, if you leave her to me I'll bring her round. Soon after that, within a day or two, there came out a paragraph in one of the fashionable newspapers of the day, saying that an alliance had been arranged between the heir to the Wharton title and property and the daughter of the present baronet. I think that this had probably originated in the club gossip. I trust it did not spring directly from the activity or ambition of Everett himself. The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollop. Chapter 76. Who will it be? For the first day or two after the resignation of the ministry, the Duchess appeared to take no further notice of the matter. An ungrateful world had repudiated her and her husband, and he had foolishly assisted and given way to the repudiation. All her grand aspirations were at an end. All her triumphs were over, and worse than that, there was present to her a conviction that she never had really triumphed. There never had come the happy moment in which she had felt herself to be dominant over other women. She had toiled and struggled, she had battled, and occasionally submitted, and yet there was present to her a feeling that she had stood higher in public estimation, as Lady Glencora Palliser, whose position had been all her own and had not depended on her husband, then now she had done as Duchess of Omnium and wife of the Prime Minister of England. She had meant to be something, she knew not what, greater than had been the wives of other Prime Ministers and other dukes, and now she felt that in her failure she had been almost ridiculous, and the failure she thought had been his or hers rather than that of circumstances. If he had been less scrupulous and more persistent it might have been different, or if she had been more discreet. Sometimes she felt her own failing so violently as to acquit him almost entirely. At other times she was almost beside herself with anger, because all her losses seemed to have arisen from want of stubbornness on his part. When he had told her that he and his followers had determined to resign, because they had beaten their foes by a majority of only nine, she took it into her head that he was in fault. Why should he go while his supporters were more numerous than his opponents? It was useless to bid him think it over again. Though she was far from understanding all the circumstances of the game, she did know that he could not remain after having arranged with his colleagues that he would go. So she became cross and sullen, and while he was going to Windsor and back and setting his house in order and preparing the way for his successor, whoever that successor might be, she was moody and silent, dreaming over some impossible condition of things in accordance with which he might have remained Prime Minister almost forever. On the Sunday after the fatal division, the division which the Duchess would not allow to have been fatal, she came across him somewhere in the house. She had hardly spoken to him since he had come into her room that night and told her that all was over. She had said that she was unwell and had kept out of sight, and he had been here and there between Windsor and the Treasury Chambers, and had been glad to escape from her ill-humour. But she could not endure any longer the annoyance of having to get all her news through Mrs. Finn, second hand or third hand, and now found herself driven to capitulate. Well, she said, how is it all going to be? I suppose you do not know, or you would have told me. There is very little to tell. Mr. Monk is to be Prime Minister, she asked. I did not say so, but it is not impossible. Has the Queen sent for him? Not as yet. Her Majesty has seen both Mr. Gresham and Mr. Dobney as well as myself. It does not seem a very easy thing to make a ministry just at present. Why should not you go back? I do not think that is on the cards. Why not, ever so many men have done it, after going out, and why not you? I remember Mr. Mildmay doing it twice. It is always the thing when the man who has been sent for makes a mess of it for the old minister to have another chance. But what if the old minister will not take the chance? Then it is the old minister's fault. Why shouldn't you take the chance as well as another? It isn't many days ago since you were quite anxious to remain in. I thought you were going to break your heart because people even talked of your going. I was going to break my heart, as you call it, he said, smiling, not because people talked of my ceasing to be minister, but because the feeling of the House of Commons justified people in so saying. I hope you see the difference. No, I don't. And there is no difference. The people we are talking about are the members, and they have supported you. You could go on if you chose. I'm sure Mr. Monk wouldn't leave you. It is just what Mr. Monk would do and ought to do. No one is less likely than Mr. Monk to behave badly in such an emergency. The more I see of Mr. Monk, the higher I think of him. He has his own game to play as well as others. I think he has no game to play but that of his country. It is no use our discussing it, Cora. Of course, I understand nothing because I'm a woman. You understand a great deal, but not quite all. You may at any rate understand this, that our troubles are at an end. You were saying but the other day that the labours of being a Prime Minister's wife had been almost too many for you. I never said so. As long as you didn't give way, no labour was too much for me. I would have done anything, slaved morning and night, so that we might have succeeded. I hate being beat. I'd sooner be cut in pieces. There is no help for it now, Cora. The Lord Mayor, you know, is only Lord Mayor for one year and then must go back to private life. But men have been Prime Minister for ten years at a time. If you have made up your mind, I suppose we may as well give up. I shall always think it your own fault. He still smiled. I shall, she said. Oh, Cora! I can only speak as I feel. I don't think you would speak as you do if you knew how much your words hurt me. In a matter such as this I should not be justified in allowing your opinions to have weight with me, but your sympathy would be so much to me. When I thought it was making you ill, I wished that you might be spared. My illness would be nothing, but my honour is everything. I too have something to bear as well as you, and if you cannot approve of what I do, at any rate, be silent. Yes, I can be silent. Then he slowly left her. As he went she was almost tempted to yield and to throw herself into his arms and to promise that she would be soft to him and to say that she was sure that all he did was for the best. But she could not bring herself as yet to be good-humoured. If he had only been a little stronger, a little thicker skinned, made of clay a little coarser, a little other than he was, it might all have been so different. Early on that Sunday afternoon she had herself driven to Mrs. Finn's house in Park Lane instead of waiting for her friend. Laterally she had but seldom done this, finding that her presence at home was much wanted. She had been filled with perhaps foolish ideas of the necessity of doing something, of adding something to the strength of her husband's position, and had certainly been diligent in her work. But now she might run about like any other woman. This is an honour, Duchess, said Mrs. Finn. Don't be sarcastic, Marie. We have nothing further to do with the bestowal of honours. Why didn't he make everybody appear or a baronet while he was about it? Lord Finn, I don't see why he shouldn't have been Lord Finn. I'm sure he deserved it for the way in which he attacked Sir Timothy beeswax. I don't think he'd like it. They all say so, but I suppose they do like it or they wouldn't take it. And I'd have made Lowcock a knight, Sir James Lowcock. He'd make a more nightly knight than Sir Timothy. When a man has power he ought to use it. It makes people respect him. Mr. Dobney made a duke, and people think more of that than anything he did. Is Mr. Finn going to join the new ministry? If you can tell me, Duchess, who is to be the new minister, I can give a guess. Mr. Monk? Then he certainly will. Or Mr. Dobney? Then he certainly won't. Or Mr. Gresham? That I could not answer. Or the Duke of Omnium? That would depend upon his grace. If the Duke came back, Mr. Finn's services would be at his disposal, whether in or out of office. Very prettily said, my dear. I never look round this room without thinking of the first time I came here. Do you remember when I found the old man sitting there? The old man alluded to was the late Duke. I am not likely to forget it, Duchess. How I hated you when I saw you. What a fright I thought you were. I pictured you to myself as a sort of ogre, willing to eat up everybody for the gratification of your own vanity. I was very vain, but there was a little pride with it. And now it has come to pass that I can't very well live without you. How he did love you. His grace was very good to me. It would have done no great harm after all if he had made you Duchess of Omnium. Very great harm to me, Lady Glen, as it is I got a friend that I loved dearly, and a husband that I loved dearly too. In the other case I should have had neither. Perhaps I may say that in that other case my life would not have been brightened by the affection of the present Duchess. One can't tell how it would have gone, but I will remember the state I was in then. The door was opened and Phineas Finn entered the room. What, Mr. Finn, are you at home? I thought everybody was crowding down at the clubs to know who is to be what. We are settled, we are quiet, we have nothing to do to disturb ourselves, but you ought to be in all the flutter of renewed expectation. I am awaiting my destiny in calm seclusion. I hope the Duke is well. As well as can be expected, he doesn't walk about his room with a ponyard in his hand, ready for himself or Sir Orlando, nor is he sitting crowned like Bacchus drinking the health of the new ministry with Lord Drummond and Sir Timothy. He is probably sipping a cup of coffee over a blue book in dignified retirement. You should go and see him. I should be unwilling to trouble him when he is so much occupied. That is just what has done him all the harm in the world. Everybody presumes that he has so much to think of that nobody goes near him. Then he is left to booty over everything by himself till he becomes a sort of political hermit or ministerial llama whom human eyes are not to look upon. It doesn't matter now, does it? Visitor after visitor came in and the Duchess chatted to them all, leaving the impression on everybody that heard her that she at least was not sorry to be relieved from the troubles attending her husband's late position. She sat there over an hour and as she was taking her leave she had a few words to whisper to Mrs. Finn. When this is all over she said, I mean to call on that Mrs. Lopez. I thought you did go there. That was soon after the poor man had killed himself when she was going away. Of course I only left a card, but I shall see her now if I can. We want to get her out of her melancholy if possible. I have a sort of feeling, you know, that among us we made the train run over him. I don't think that. He got so horribly abused for what he did at Silverbridge and I really don't see why he wasn't to have his money. It was I that made him spend it. He was, I fancy, a thoroughly bad man. But a wife doesn't always want to be made a widow even if her husband be bad. I think I owe her something and I would pay my debt if I knew how. I shall go and see her and if she will marry this other man we'll take her by the hand. Goodbye, dear. You better come to me early tomorrow as I suppose we shall know something by eleven o'clock. In the course of that evening the Duke of St. Bungay came to Carleton Terrace and was closeted for some time with the late Prime Minister. He had been engaged during that in the last two previous days in lending his aid to various political maneuvers and ministerial attempts from which our Duke had kept himself altogether aloof. He did not go to Windsor, but as each successive competitor journeyed thither and returned, someone either sent for the old Duke or went to seek his counsel. He was the nester of the occasion and strove heartily to compose all quarrels and so to arrange matters that a wholesome, moderately liberal ministry might again be installed for the good of the country and the comfort of all true wigs. In such moments he almost ascended to the grand heights of patriotism, being always indifferent as to himself. Now he came to his late chief with a new project. Mr. Gresham would attempt to form a ministry if the Duke of Omnium would join him. It is impossible, said the younger politician, folding his hands together and throwing himself back in his chair. Listen to me before you answer me with such certainty. There are three or four gentlemen who, after the work of the last three years, bearing in mind the manner in which our defeat has just been accomplished, feel themselves disinclined to join Mr. Gresham unless you will do so also. I may specially name Mr. Monk and Mr. Finn. I might perhaps add myself were it not that I had hoped that in any event I might at length regard myself as exempt from further service. The old horse should be left to graze out his last days, nay pettit add extremum redendus. But you can't consider yourself absolved on that score. There are other reasons. But the Queen's service should count before everything. Gresham and Cantrip with their own friends can hardly make a ministry as things are now unless Mr. Monk will join them. I do not think that any other Chancellor of the Exchequer is at present possible. I will beseech Mr. Monk not to let any feeling as to me stand in his way. Why should it? It is not only what you may think and he may think, but what others will think and say. The coalition will have done all that ought to have been expected from it if our party in it can now join Mr. Gresham. By all means, but I could give them no strength, they may be sure at any rate of what little I can do for them out of office. Mr. Gresham has made his acceptance of office, while I will not say strictly conditional on your joining him. That would hardly be correct. But he has expressed himself quite willing to make the attempt with your aid and doubtful whether he can succeed without it. He suggests that you should join him as President of the Council. And you? If I were wanted at all I should take the privy seal. Certainly not, my friend, if there were any question of my return we would reverse the offices. But I think I may say that my mind is fixed. If you wish it I will see Mr. Monk and do all that I can to get him to go with you. But for myself I feel that it would be useless. Last, at the Duke's pressing request, he agreed to take twenty-four hours before he gave his final answer to the proposition. CHAPTER 77 OF THE PRIME MINISTER This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. THE DUPES SAID NOT A WORD TO HIS WIFE AS TO THIS NEW PROPOSITION, AND WHEN SHE ASKED HIM WHAT TIDINGS THEIR OLD FRIEND HAD BROUGHT AS TO THE STATE OF AFFAIRS, HE ALMOST TOLD A FIB IN HIS ANXIITY TO ESCAPE FROM HER PERSECUTION. He is in some doubt what he means to do himself, said the Duke. The Duchess asked many questions but got no satisfactory reply to any of them. Nor did Mrs. Finn learn anything from her husband, whom however she did not interrogate very closely. She would be contented to know when the proper time might come for ladies to be informed. The Duke, however, was determined to take his twenty-four hours all alone, or at any rate not to be driven to his decision by feminine interference. In the meantime the Duchess went to Manchester Square, intent on performing certain good offices on behalf of the poor widow. It may be doubted whether she had clearly made up her mind what it was she could do, though she was clear that some debt was due by her to Mrs. Lopez, and she knew too in what direction assistance might be serviceable, if only it could in this case be given. She had heard that the present member for Silverbridge had been the lady's lover long before Mr. Lopez had come upon the scene, and with those feminine wiles of which she was a perfect mistress, she had extracted from him a confession that his mind was unaltered. She liked Arthur Fletcher, as indeed she had for a time liked Ferdinand Lopez, and felt that her conscience would be easier if she could assist in this good work. She built castles in the air as to the presence of the bride and bridegroom at matching, thinking how she might thus repair the evil she had done. But her heart misgave her a little as she drew near to the house, and remembered how very slight was her acquaintance, and how extremely delicate the mission on which she had come. But she was not the woman to turn back when she had once put her foot to any work, and she was driven up to the door in Manchester Square without any expressed hesitation on her own part. Yes, his mistress was at home, said the butler, still shrinking at the sound of the name which he hated. The Duchess was then shown upstairs and was left alone for some minutes in the drawing-room. It was a large, handsome apartment hung round with valuable pictures, and having signs of considerable wealth. Since she had first invited Lopez to stand for Silverbridge, she had heard much about him, and had wondered how he had gained possession of such a girl as Emily Wharton. And now, as she looked about her, her wonder was increased. She knew enough of such people as the Whartons and the Fletchers to be aware that as a class they are more impregnable, more closely guarded by their feelings and prejudices against strangers than any other. None keep their daughters to themselves with greater care or are less willing to see their rules of life changed or abolished. And yet this man, half foreigner, half Jew, and as it now appeared, whole pauper, had stepped in and carried off a prize for which such a one as Arthur Fletcher was contending. The Duchess had never seen Emily but once, so as to observe her well, and had then thought her to be a very handsome woman. It had been at the Garden Party at Richmond, and Lopez had then insisted that his wife should be well-dressed. It would perhaps have been impossible in the whole of that assembly to find a more beautiful woman than Mrs. Lopez then was, or one who carried herself with a finer air. Now when she entered the room in her deep morning it would have been difficult to recognize her. Her face was much thinner, her eyes apparently larger, and her colour faded. And there had come a settled seriousness on her face which seemed to rob her of her youth. Arthur Fletcher had declared that as he saw her now she was more beautiful than ever, but Arthur Fletcher in looking at her saw more than her mere features. To his eyes there was a tenderness added by her sorrow which had its own attraction for him. And he was so well versed in every line of her countenance that he could see there the old loveliness behind the sorrow, the loveliness which would come forth again as bright as ever if the sorrow could be removed. But the Duchess, though she remembered the woman's beauty as she might that of any other lady, now saw nothing but a thing of woe wrapped in customary widow's weeds. I hope, she said, I am not intruding in coming to you, but I have been anxious to renew our acquaintance for reasons which I am sure you will understand. Emily at that moment hardly knew how to address her august visitor. Though her father had lived all his life in what is called good society, he had not consorted much with dukes and duchesses. She herself had indeed on one occasion been for an hour or two the guest of this grand lady, but on that occasion she had hardly been called upon to talk to her. Now she doubted how to name the Duchess, and with some show of hesitation, decided at last upon not naming her at all. It is very good of you to come, she said, in a faltering voice. I told you that I would when I wrote, you know. That is many months ago, but I have not forgotten it. You have been in the country since that, I think? Yes, in Herefordshire. Herefordshire is our county. I know all about it, said the Duchess, smiling. She generally did contrive to learn all about the people whom she chose to take by the hand. We have a Herefordshire gentleman sitting for, I must not say, our borough of Silverbridge. She was anxious to make some allusion to Arthur Fletcher, but it was difficult to travel on that Silverbridge ground, as Lopez had been her chosen candidate when she still wished to claim the borough as an upnage of the palacer family. Emily, however, kept her countenance and did not show by any sign that her thoughts were running in that direction. And though we don't presume to regard Mr. Fletcher continued the Duchess as in any way connected with our local interests, he has always supported the Duke, and I hope has become a friend of ours. I think he is a neighbor of yours in the country. Oh yes, my cousin is married to his brother. I knew there was something of that kind. He told me that there was some close alliance. The Duchess, as she looked at the woman to whom she wanted to be kind, did not as yet dare to express a wish that there might at some not very distant time be a closer alliance. She had come there intending to do so, and had still some hope that she might do it before the interview was over. But at any rate she would not do it yet. Have I not heard, she said, something of another marriage? My brother is going to marry his cousin, Sir Al Ured Warton's daughter. Ah, I thought it had been one of the Fletchers. It was our member who told me, and he spoke as though they were all his very dear friends. They are dear friends, very. Poor Emily still didn't know whether to call her Duchess, my lady, or your Grace, and yet felt the need of calling her by some special name. Exactly, I supposed it was so. They tell me Mr. Fletcher will become quite a favourite in the house. At this present moment nobody knows on which side anybody is going to sit to-morrow. It may be that Mr. Fletcher will become the dire enemy of all the Duke's friends. I hope not. Of course I'm speaking of political enemies. Political enemies are often the best friends in the world, and I can assure you from my own experience that political friends are often the bitterest enemies. I never hated any people so much as some of our supporters. The Duchess made a grimace, and Emily could not refrain from smiling. Yes, indeed, there's an old saying that misfortune makes strange bedfellows, but political friendship makes stranger alliances than misfortune. Perhaps you never met Sir Timothy B's wax? Never. Well, don't. But, as I was saying, there is no knowing who may support whom now. If I were asked who would be Prime Minister to-morrow I should take half a dozen names and shake them in a bag. It is not settled, then? Settled? No indeed. Nothing is settled. At that moment indeed everything was settled, though the Duchess did not know it. And so we none of us can tell how Mr. Fletcher may stand with us when things are arranged. I suppose he calls himself a conservative? Oh, yes. All the Whartons, I suppose, are conservatives, and all the Fletchers? Very nearly. Papa calls himself a Tory. A very much better name to my thinking. We are all Whigs, of course. A palacer who was not a Whig would be held to have disgraced himself forever. Are not politics odd? A few years ago I only barely knew what the word meant and that not correctly. Lately I have been so eager about it that there hardly seems to be anything else left worth living for. I suppose it's wrong, but a state of pugnacity seems to me the greatest bliss which we can reach here on earth. I shouldn't like to be always fighting. That's because you haven't known Sir Timothy Beeswax and two or three other gentlemen whom I could name. The day will come, I dare say, when you will care for politics. Emily was about to answer, hardly knowing what to say when the door was opened and Mrs. Robie came into the room. The lady was not announced, and Emily had heard no knock at the door. She was forced to go through some ceremony of introduction. This is my aunt, Mrs. Robie, she said, Aunt Harriet, the Duchess of Omnium. Mrs. Robie was beside herself, not all with joy. That feeling would come afterwards as she would boast to her friends of her new acquaintance. At present there was the embarrassment of not quite knowing how to behave herself. The Duchess bowed from her seat and smiled sweetly as she had learned to smile since her husband had become Prime Minister. Mrs. Robie curtsied and then remembered that in these days only housemates ought to curtsy. Anything to our Mr. Robie, said the Duchess, continuing her smile, ours as he was till yesterday at least, this she said in an absurd wail of mock sorrow. My brother-in-law, your Grace, said Mrs. Robie, delighted. Oh, indeed! And what does Mr. Robie think about it, I wonder? But I daresay you have found, Mrs. Robie, that when a crisis comes, a real crisis, the ladies are told nothing. I have. I don't think your Grace that Mr. Robie ever divulges political secrets. Doesn't he indeed? What a dull man your brother-in-law must be to live with, that is, as a politician. Goodbye, Mrs. Lopez, you must come and see me and let me come to you again. I hope you know. I hope the time may come when things may once more be bright with you. These last words she murmured almost in a whisper as she held the hand of the woman she wished to be friend. Then she bowed to Mrs. Robie and left the room. What was it she said to you, asked Mrs. Robie? Nothing in particular, Aunt Harriet. She seems to be very friendly, what made her come? She wrote some time ago to say she would call. But why? I cannot tell you. I don't know. Don't ask me, Aunt, about things that are past. You cannot do it without wounding me. I don't want to wound you, Emily, but I really think that that is nonsense. She is a very nice woman, though I don't think she ought to have said that Mr. Robie is dull. Did Mr. Wharton know that she was coming? He knew that she said she would come, replied Emily, very sternly, so that Mrs. Robie found herself compelled to pass on to some other subject. Mrs. Robie had heard the wish expressed that something once more might be bright, and when she got home told her husband that she was sure that Emily Lopez was going to marry Arthur Fletcher. And why the D shouldn't she, said Dick? And that poor man destroying himself not much more than twelve months ago. I couldn't do it, said Mrs. Robie. I don't mean to give you the chance, said Dick. The Duchess, when she went away, suffered under a sense of failure. She had intended to bring about some crisis of female tenderness in which she might have rushed into future hopes and joyous anticipations, and with the freedom which will come from ebullitions of feelings have told the widow that the peculiar circumstances of her position would not only justify her in marrying this other man, but absolutely called upon her to do it. Unfortunately she had failed in her attempt to bring the interview to a condition in which this would have been possible, and while she was still making the attempt that odious aunt had come in. I have been on my mission, she said to Mrs. Thin afterwards. Have you done any good? I don't think I've done any harm. Women, you know, are so very different. There are some who would delight to have an opportunity of opening their hearts to a Duchess, and who might almost be talked into anything in an ecstasy. Hardly women of the best sort, Lady Glen. Not of the best sort, but then one doesn't come across the very best, very often. But that kind of thing does have an effect, and as I only wanted to do good, I wish she had been one of the sort for the occasion. Was she offended? Oh dear no, you don't suppose I attacked her with a husband at the first word. Indeed I didn't attack her at all. She didn't give me an opportunity. Such a nioby you never saw. Was she weeping? Not actual tears, but her gown and her cap and her strings were weeping. Her voice wept and her hair and her nose and her mouth. Don't you know that look of subdued mourning? And yet they say that that man is dying for love. How beautiful it is to see that there is such a thing as constancy left in the world. When she got home she found that her husband had just returned from the old Duke's house where he had met Mr. Monk, Mr. Gresham, and Lord Cantrip. It's all settled at last, he said cheerfully.