The Palliser Novels

by Anthony Trollope

  Three years had passed by, and nothing had been done of that which she had intended to do. Three years had passed, which to her, with her desires, were so important. And yet she hardly knew what were her desires, and had never quite defined her intentions. She told herself on this very journey that the time had now gone by, and that in losing these three years she had lost everything. As yet, — so she declared to herself now, — the world had done but little for her. Two old men had loved her; one had become her husband, and the other had asked to become so; — and to both she had done her duty. To both she had been grateful, tender, and self-sacrificing. From the former she had, as his widow, taken wealth which she valued greatly; but the wealth alone had given her no happiness. From the latter, and from his family, she had accepted a certain position. Some persons, high in repute and fashion, had known her before, but everybody knew her now. And yet what had all this done for her? Dukes and duchesses, dinner-parties and drawing-rooms, — what did they all amount to? What was it that she wanted?

  She was ashamed to tell herself that it was love. But she knew this, — that it was necessary for her happiness that she should devote herself to some one. All the elegancies and outward charms of life were delightful, if only they could be used as the means to some end. As an end themselves they were nothing. She had devoted herself to this old man who was now dead, and there had been moments in which she had thought that that sufficed. But it had not sufficed, and instead of being borne down by grief at the loss of her friend, she found herself almost rejoicing at relief from a vexatious burden. Had she been a hypocrite then? Was it her nature to be false? After that she reflected whether it might not be best for her to become a devotee, — it did not matter much in what branch of the Christian religion, so that she could assume some form of faith. The sour strictness of the confident Calvinist or the asceticism of St. Francis might suit her equally, — if she could only believe in Calvin or in St. Francis. She had tried to believe in the Duke of Omnium, but there she had failed. There had been a saint at whose shrine she thought she could have worshipped with a constant and happy devotion, but that saint had repulsed her from his altar.

  Mr. Maule, Senior, not understanding much of all this, but still understanding something, thought that he might perhaps be the saint. He knew well that audacity in asking is a great merit in a middle-aged wooer. He was a good deal older than the lady, who, in spite of all her experiences, was hardly yet thirty. But then he was, — he felt sure, — very young for his age, whereas she was old. She was a widow; he was a widower. She had a house in town and an income. He had a place in the country and an estate. She knew all the dukes and duchesses, and he was a man of family. She could make him comfortably opulent. He could make her Mrs. Maule of Maule Abbey. She, no doubt, was good-looking. Mr. Maule, Senior, as he tied on his cravat, thought that even in that respect there was no great disparity between them. Considering his own age, Mr. Maule, Senior, thought there was not perhaps a better-looking man than himself about Pall Mall. He was a little stiff in the joints and moved rather slowly, but what was wanting in suppleness was certainly made up in dignity.

  He watched his opportunity, and called in Park Lane on the day after Madame Goesler’s return. There was already between them an amount of acquaintance which justified his calling, and, perhaps, there had been on the lady’s part something of that cordiality of manner which is wont to lead to intimate friendship. Mr. Maule had made himself agreeable, and Madame Goesler had seemed to be grateful. He was admitted, and on such an occasion it was impossible not to begin the conversation about the “dear Duke.” Mr. Maule could afford to talk about the Duke, and to lay aside for a short time his own cause, as he had not suggested to himself the possibility of becoming pressingly tender on his own behalf on this particular occasion. Audacity in wooing is a great virtue, but a man must measure even his virtues. “I heard that you had gone to Matching, as soon as the poor Duke was taken ill,” he said.

  She was in mourning, and had never for a moment thought of denying the peculiarity of the position she had held in reference to the old man. She could not have been content to wear her ordinary coloured garments after sitting so long by the side of the dying man. A hired nurse may do so, but she had not been that. If there had been hypocrisy in her friendship the hypocrisy must be maintained to the end.

  “Poor old man! I only came back yesterday.”

  “I never had the pleasure of knowing his Grace,” said Mr. Maule. “But I have always heard him named as a nobleman of whom England might well be proud.”

  Madame Goesler was not at the moment inclined to tell lies on the matter, and did not think that England had much cause to be proud of the Duke of Omnium. “He was a man who held a very peculiar position,” she said.

  “Most peculiar; — a man of infinite wealth, and of that special dignity which I am sorry to say so many men of rank among us are throwing aside as a garment which is too much for them. We can all wear coats, but it is not every one that can carry a robe. The Duke carried his to the last.” Madame Goesler remembered how he looked with his nightcap on, when he had lost his temper because they would not let him have a glass of curaçoa. “I don’t know that we have any one left that can be said to be his equal,” continued Mr. Maule.

  “No one like him, perhaps. He was never married, you know.”

  “But was once willing to marry,” said Mr. Maule, “if all that we hear be true.” Madame Goesler, without a smile and equally without a frown, looked as though the meaning of Mr. Maule’s words had escaped her. “A grand old gentleman! I don’t know that anybody will ever say as much for his heir.”

  “The men are very different.”

  “Very different indeed. I dare say that Mr. Palliser, as Mr. Palliser, has been a useful man. But so is a coal-heaver a useful man. The grace and beauty of life will be clean gone when we all become useful men.”

  “I don’t think we are near that yet.”

  “Upon my word, Madame Goesler, I am not so sure about it. Here are sons of noblemen going into trade on every side of us. We have earls dealing in butter, and marquises sending their peaches to market. There was nothing of that kind about the Duke. A great fortune had been entrusted to him, and he knew that it was his duty to spend it. He did spend it, and all the world looked up to him. It must have been a great pleasure to you to know him so well.”

  Madame Goesler was saved the necessity of making any answer to this by the announcement of another visitor. The door was opened, and Phineas Finn entered the room. He had not seen Madame Goesler since they had been together at Harrington Hall, and had never before met Mr. Maule. When riding home with the lady after their unsuccessful attempt to jump out of the wood, Phineas had promised to call in Park Lane whenever he should learn that Madame Goesler was not at Matching. Since that the Duke had died, and the bond with Matching no longer existed. It seemed but the other day that they were talking about the Duke together, and now the Duke was gone. “I see you are in mourning,” said Phineas, as he still held her hand. “I must say one word to condole with you for your lost friend.”

  “Mr. Maule and I were now speaking of him,” she said, as she introduced the two gentlemen. “Mr. Finn and I had the pleasure of meeting your son at Harrington Hall a few weeks since, Mr. Maule.”

  “I heard that he had been there. Did you know the Duke, Mr. Finn?”

  “After the fashion in which such a one as I would know such a one as the Duke, I knew him. He probably had forgotten my existence.”

  “He never forgot any one,” said Madame Goesler.

  “I don’t know that I was ever introduced to him,” continued Mr. Maule, “and I shall always regret it. I was telling Madame Goesler how profound a reverence I had for the Duke’s character.” Phineas bowed, and Madame Goesler, who was becoming tired of the Duke as a subject of conversation, asked some question as to what had been going on in the House. Mr. Maule, finding it to be improbable that he should be able to advance his cause on that occasi
on, took his leave. The moment he was gone Madame Goesler’s manner changed altogether. She left her former seat and came near to Phineas, sitting on a sofa close to the chair he occupied; and as she did so she pushed her hair back from her face in a manner that he remembered well in former days.

  “I am so glad to see you,” she said. “Is it not odd that he should have gone so soon after what we were saying but the other day?”

  “You thought then that he would not last long.”

  “Long is comparative. I did not think he would be dead within six weeks, or I should not have been riding there. He was a burden to me, Mr. Finn.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “And yet I shall miss him sorely. He had given all the colour to my life which it possessed. It was not very bright, but still it was colour.”

  “The house will be open to you just the same.”

  “I shall not go there. I shall see Lady Glencora in town, of course; but I shall not go to Matching; and as to Gatherum Castle, I would not spend another week there, if they would give it me. You haven’t heard of his will?”

  “No; — not a word. I hope he remembered you, — to mention your name. You hardly wanted more.”

  “Just so. I wanted no more than that.”

  “It was made, perhaps, before you knew him.”

  “He was always making it, and always altering it. He left me money, and jewels of enormous value.”

  “I am so glad to hear it.”

  “But I have refused to take anything. Am I not right?”

  “I don’t know why you should refuse.”

  “There are people who will say that — I was his mistress. If a woman be young, a man’s age never prevents such scandal. I don’t know that I can stop it, but I can perhaps make it seem to be less probable. And after all that has passed, I could not bear that the Pallisers should think that I clung to him for what I could get. I should be easier this way.”

  “Whatever is best to be done, you will do it; — I know that.”

  “Your praise goes beyond the mark, my friend. I can be both generous and discreet; — but the difficulty is to be true. I did take one thing, — a black diamond that he always wore. I would show it you, but the goldsmith has it to make it fit me. When does the great affair come off at the House?”

  “The bill will be read again on Monday, the first.”

  “What an unfortunate day! — You remember young Mr. Maule? Is he not like his father? And yet in manners they are as unlike as possible.”

  “What is the father?” Phineas asked.

  “A battered old beau about London, selfish and civil, pleasant and penniless, and I should think utterly without a principle. Come again soon. I am so anxious to hear that you are getting on. And you have got to tell me all about that shooting with the pistol.” Phineas as he walked away thought that Madame Goesler was handsomer even than she used to be.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  The Duke and Duchess in Town

  At the end of March the Duchess of Omnium, never more to be called Lady Glencora by the world at large, came up to London. The Duke, though he was now banished from the House of Commons, was nevertheless wanted in London; and what funereal ceremonies were left might be accomplished as well in town as at Matching Priory. No old Ministry could be turned out and no new Ministry formed without the assistance of the young Duchess. It was a question whether she should not be asked to be Mistress of the Robes, though those who asked it knew very well that she was the last woman in England to hamper herself by dependence on the Court. Up to London they came; and, though of course they went into no society, the house in Carlton Gardens was continually thronged with people who had some special reason for breaking the ordinary rules of etiquette in their desire to see how Lady Glencora carried herself as Duchess of Omnium. “Do you think she’s altered much?” said Aspasia Fitzgibbon, an elderly spinster, the daughter of Lord Claddagh, and sister of Laurence Fitzgibbon, member for one of the western Irish counties. “I don’t think she was quite so loud as she used to be.”

  Mrs. Bonteen was of opinion that there was a change. “She was always uncertain, you know, and would scratch like a cat if you offended her.”

  “And won’t she scratch now?” asked Miss Fitzgibbon.

  “I’m afraid she’ll scratch oftener. It was always a trick of hers to pretend to think nothing of rank; — but she values her place as highly as any woman in England.”

  This was Mrs. Bonteen’s opinion; but Lady Baldock, who was present, differed. This Lady Baldock was not the mother, but the sister-in-law of that Augusta Boreham who had lately become Sister Veronica John. “I don’t believe it,” said Lady Baldock. “She always seems to me to be like a great schoolgirl who has been allowed too much of her own way. I think people give way to her too much, you know.” As Lady Baldock was herself the wife of a peer, she naturally did not stand so much in awe of a duchess as did Mrs. Bonteen, or Miss Fitzgibbon.

  “Have you seen the young Duke?” asked Mr. Ratler of Barrington Erle.

  “Yes; I have been with him this morning.”

  “How does he like it?”

  “He’s bothered out of his life, — as a hen would be if you were to throw her into water. He’s so shy, he hardly knows how to speak to you; and he broke down altogether when I said something about the Lords.”

  “He’ll not do much more.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Erle. “He’ll get used to it, and go into harness again. He’s a great deal too good to be lost.”

  “He didn’t give himself airs?”

  “What! — Planty Pall! If I know anything of a man he’s not the man to do that because he’s a duke. He can hold his own against all comers, and always could. Quiet as he always seemed, he knew who he was, and who other people were. I don’t think you’ll find much difference in him when he has got over the annoyance.” Mr. Ratler, however, was of a different opinion. Mr. Ratler had known many docile members of the House of Commons who had become peers by the death of uncles and fathers, and who had lost all respect for him as soon as they were released from the crack of the whip. Mr. Ratler rather despised peers who had been members of the House of Commons, and who passed by inheritance from a scene of unparalleled use and influence to one of idle and luxurious dignity.

  Soon after their arrival in London the Duchess wrote the following very characteristic letter: —

  Dear Lord Chiltern,

  Mr. Palliser — [Then having begun with a mistake, she scratched the word through with her pen.] The Duke has asked me to write about Trumpeton Wood, as he knows nothing about it, and I know just as little. But if you say what you want, it shall be done. Shall we get foxes and put them there? Or ought there to be a special fox-keeper? You mustn’t be angry because the poor old Duke was too feeble to take notice of the matter. Only speak, and it shall be done.

  Yours faithfully,

  Glencora O.

  Madame Goesler spoke to me about it; but at that time we were in trouble.

  The answer was as characteristic: —

  Dear Duchess of Omnium,

  Thanks. What is wanted, is that keepers should know that there are to be foxes. When keepers know that foxes are really expected, there always are foxes. The men latterly have known just the contrary. It is all a question of shooting. I don’t mean to say a word against the late Duke. When he got old the thing became bad. No doubt it will be right now.

  Faithfully yours,

  Chiltern.

  Our hounds have been poisoned in Trumpeton Wood. This would never have been done had not the keepers been against the hunting.

  Upon receipt of this she sent the letter to Mr. Fothergill, with a request that there might be no more shooting in Trumpeton Wood. “I’ll be shot if we’ll stand that, you know,” said Mr. Fothergill to one of his underlings. “There are two hundred and fifty acres in Trumpeton Wood, and we’re never to kill another pheasant because Lord Chiltern is Master of the Brake Hounds. Property won’t be w
orth having at that rate.”

  The Duke by no means intended to abandon the world of politics, or even the narrower sphere of ministerial work, because he had been ousted from the House of Commons, and from the possibility of filling the office which he had best liked. This was proved to the world by the choice of his house for a meeting of the party on the 30th of March. As it happened, this was the very day on which he and the Duchess returned to London; but nevertheless the meeting was held there, and he was present at it. Mr. Gresham then repeated his reasons for opposing Mr. Daubeny’s bill; and declared that even while doing so he would, with the approbation of his party, pledge himself to bring in a bill somewhat to the same effect, should he ever again find himself in power. And he declared that he would do this solely with the view of showing how strong was his opinion that such a measure should not be left in the hands of the Conservative party. It was doubted whether such a political proposition had ever before been made in England. It was a simple avowal that on this occasion men were to be regarded, and not measures. No doubt such is the case, and ever has been the case, with the majority of active politicians. The double pleasure of pulling down an opponent, and of raising oneself, is the charm of a politician’s life. And by practice this becomes extended to so many branches, that the delights, — and also the disappointments, — are very widespread. Great satisfaction is felt by us because by some lucky conjunction of affairs our man, whom we never saw, is made Lord-Lieutenant of a county, instead of another man, of whom we know as little. It is a great thing to us that Sir Samuel Bobwig, an excellent Liberal, is seated high on the bench of justice, instead of that time-serving Conservative, Sir Alexander McSilk. Men and not measures are, no doubt, the very life of politics. But then it is not the fashion to say so in public places. Mr. Gresham was determined to introduce that fashion on the present occasion. He did not think very much of Mr. Daubeny’s Bill. So he told his friends at the Duke’s house. The Bill was full of faults, — went too far in one direction, and not far enough in another. It was not difficult to pick holes in the Bill. But the sin of sins consisted in this, — that it was to be passed, if passed at all, by the aid of men who would sin against their consciences by each vote they gave in its favour. What but treachery could be expected from an army in which every officer, and every private, was called upon to fight against his convictions? The meeting passed off with dissension, and it was agreed that the House of Commons should be called upon to reject the Church Bill simply because it was proposed from that side of the House on which the minority was sitting. As there were more than two hundred members present on the occasion, by none of whom were any objections raised, it seemed probable that Mr. Gresham might be successful. There was still, however, doubt in the minds of some men. “It’s all very well,” said Mr. Ratler, “but Turnbull wasn’t there, you know.”