That evening Lord Chiltern took Miss Effingham out to dinner. Phineas told himself that this was of course so arranged by Lady Glencora, with the express view of serving the Saulsby interest. It was almost nothing to him at the moment that Madame Max Goesler was intrusted to him. He had his ambition respecting Madame Max Goesler; but that for the time was in abeyance. He could hardly keep his eyes off Miss Effingham. And yet, as he well knew, his observation of her must be quite useless. He knew beforehand, with absolute accuracy, the manner in which she would treat her lover. She would be kind, genial, friendly, confidential, nay, affectionate; and yet her manner would mean nothing, – would give no clue to her future decision either for or against Lord Chiltern. It was, as Phineas thought, a peculiarity with Violet Effingham that she could treat her rejected lovers as dear familiar friends immediately after her rejection of them.
‘Mr Finn,’ said Madame Max Goesler, ‘your eyes and ears are tell-tales of your passion.’
‘I hope not,’ said Phineas, ‘as I certainly do not wish that any one should guess how strong is my regard for you.’
‘That is prettily turned, – very prettily turned; and shows more readiness of wit than I gave you credit for under your present suffering. But of course we all know where your heart is. Men do not undertake perilous journeys to Belgium for nothing.’
‘That unfortunate journey to Belgium! But, dear Madame Max, really nobody knows why I went.’
‘You met Lord Chiltern there?’
‘Oh yes; – I met Lord Chiltern there.’
‘And there was a duel?’
‘Madame Max, – you must not ask me to criminate myself.’
‘Of course there was, and of course it was about Miss Effingham, and of course the lady thinks herself bound to refuse both the gentlemen who were so very wicked, and of course -’
‘Well, – what follows?’
‘Ah! – if you have not wit enough to see, I do not think it can be my duty to tell you. But I wished to caution you as a friend that your eyes and ears should be more under your command.’
‘You will go to Saulsby?’ Violet said to Lord Chiltern.
‘I cannot possibly tell as yet,’ said he, frowning.
‘Then I can tell you that you ought to go. I do not care a bit for your frowns. What does the fifth commandment say?’
‘If you have no better arguments than the commandments, Violet–’
‘There can be none better. Do you mean to say that the commandments are nothing to you?’
‘I mean to say that I shan't go to Saulsby because I am told in the twentieth chapter of Exodus to honour my father and mother, – and that I shouldn't believe anybody who told me that he did anything because of the commandments.’
‘Oh, Lord Chiltern!’
‘People are so prejudiced and so used to humbug that for the most part they do not in the least know their own motives for what they do. I will go to Saulsby to-morrow, – for a reward.’
‘For what reward?’ said Violet, blushing.
‘For the only one in the world that could tempt me to do anything.’
‘You should go for the sake of duty. I should not even care to see you go, much as I long for it, if that feeling did not take you there.’
It was arranged that Phineas and Lord Chiltern were to leave Matching together. Phineas was to remain at his office all October, and in November the general election was to take place. What he had hitherto heard about a future seat was most vague, but he was to meet Ratler and Barrington Erle in London, and it had been understood that Barrington Erle, who was now at Saulsby, was to make some inquiry as to that group of boroughs of which Loughton at this moment formed one. But as Loughton was the smallest of four boroughs, and as one of the four had for many years had a representative of its own, Phineas feared that no success would be found there. In his present agony he began to think that there might be a strong plea made for a few private seats in the House of Commons, and that the propriety of throwing Loughton into the melting-pot was, after all, open to question. He and Lord Chiltern were to return to London together, and Lord Chiltern, according to his present scheme, was to proceed at once to Willingford to look after the cub-hunting. Nothing that either Violet or Phineas could say to him would induce him to promise to go to Saulsby. When Phineas pressed it, he was told by Lord Chiltern that he was a fool for his pains, – by which Phineas understood perfectly well that when Lord Chiltern did go to Saulsby, he, Phineas, was to take that as strong evidence that everything was over for him as regarded Violet Effingham. When Violet expressed her eagerness that the visit should be made, she was stopped with an assurance that she could have it done at once if she pleased. Let him only be enabled to carry with him the tidings of his betrothal, and he would start for his father's house without an hour's delay. But this authority Violet would not give him. When he answered her after this fashion she could only tell him that he was ungenerous. ‘At any rate I am not false,’ he replied on one occasion. ‘What I say is the truth.’
There was a very tender parting between Phineas and Madame Max Goesler. She had learned from him pretty nearly all his history, and certainly knew more of the reality of his affairs than any of those in London who had been his most staunch friends. ‘Of course you'll get a seat,’ he said as he took his leave of her. ‘If I understand it at all, they never throw over an ally so useful as you are.’
‘But the intention is that in this matter nobody shall any longer have the power of throwing over, or of not throwing over, anybody.’
‘That is all very well, my friend; but cakes will still be hot in the mouth, even though Mr Daubeny turn purist, with Mr Turnbull to help him. If you want any assistance in finding a seat you will not go to the People's Banner, – even yet.’
‘Certainly not to the People's Banner.’
‘I don't quite understand what the franchise is,’ continued Madame Max Goesler.
‘Household in boroughs,’ said Phineas with some energy.
‘Very well; – household in boroughs. I daresay that is very fine and very liberal, though I don't comprehend it in the least. And you want a borough. Very well. You won't go to the households. I don't think you will; – not at first, that is.’
‘Where shall I go then?’
‘Oh, – to some great patron of a borough; – or to a club; – or perhaps to some great firm. The households will know nothing about it till they are told. Is not that it?’
‘The truth is, Madame Max, I do not know where I shall go. I am like a child lost in a wood. And you may understand this; – if you do not see me in Park Lane before the end of January, I shall have perished in the wood.’
‘Then I will come and find you, – with a troop of householders.74 You will come. You will be there. I do not believe in death coming without signs. You are full of life.’ As she spoke, she had hold of his hand, and there was nobody near them. They were in a little book-room inside the library at Matching, and the door, though not latched, was nearly closed. Phineas had flattered himself that Madame Goesler had retreated there in order that this farewell might be spoken without interruption. ‘And, Mr Finn; – I wonder whether I may say one thing,’ she continued.
‘You may say anything to me,’ he replied.
‘No, – not in this country, in this England. There are things one may not say here, – that are tabooed by a sort of consent, – and that without any reason.’ She paused again, and Phineas was at a loss to think what was the subject on which she was about to speak. Could she mean –? No; she could not mean to give him any outward plain-spoken sign that she was attached to him. It was the peculiar merit of this man that he was not vain, though much was done to him to fill him with vanity; and as the idea crossed his brain, he hated himself because it had been there.
‘To me you may say anything, Madame Goesler,’ he said, – ‘here in England, as plainly as though we were in Vienna.’
‘But I cannot say it in English,’ she said. Then in French, blushing an
d laughing as she spoke, – almost stammering in spite of her usual self-confidence, – she told him that accident had made her rich, full of money. Money was a drug with her. Money she knew was wanted, even for householders. Would he not understand her, and come to her, and learn from her how faithful a woman could be?
He still was holding her by the hand, and he now raised it to his lips and kissed it. ‘The offer from you,’ he said, ‘is as high-minded, as generous, and as honourable as its acceptance by me would be mean-spirited, vile, and ignoble. But whether I fail or whether I succeed, you shall see me before the winter is over.’
CHAPTER 50
Again Successful
PHINEAS also said a word of farewell to Violet before he left Matching, but there was nothing peculiar in her little speech to him, or in his to her. ‘Of course we shall see each other in London. Don't talk of not being in the House. Of course you will be in the House.’ Then Phineas had shaken his head and smiled. Where was he to find a requisite number of householders prepared to return him? But as he went up to London he told himself that the air of the House of Commons was now the very breath of his nostrils. Life to him without it would be no life. To have come within the reach of the good things of political life, to have made his mark so as to have almost insured future success, to have been the petted young official aspirant of the day, – and then to sink down into the miserable platitudes of private life, to undergo daily attendance in law-courts without a brief, to listen to men who had come to be much below him in estimation and social intercourse, to sit in a wretched chamber up three pairs of stairs at Lincoln's Inn, whereas he was now at this moment provided with a gorgeous apartment looking out into the park from the Colonial Office in Downing Street, to be attended by a mongrel between a clerk and an errand boy at 17s 6d a week instead of by a private secretary who was the son of an earl's sister, and was petted by countesses' daughters innumerable, – all this would surely break his heart. He could have done it, so he told himself, and could have taken glory in doing it, had not these other things come in his way. But the other things had come. He had run the risk, and had thrown the dice. And now when the game was so nearly won, must it be that everything should be lost at last?
He knew that nothing was to be gained by melancholy looks at his club, or by show of wretchedness at his office. London was very empty; but the approaching elections still kept some there who otherwise would have been looking after the first flush of pheasants. Barrington Erle was there, and was not long in asking Phineas what were his views.
‘Ah; – that is so hard to say. Ratler told me that he would be looking about.’
‘Ratler is very well in the House,’ said Barrington, ‘but he is of no use for anything beyond it. I suppose you were not brought up at the London University?’
‘Oh no, said Phineas, remembering the glories of Trinity.
‘Because there would have been an opening. What do you say to Stratford, – the new Essex borough?’75
‘Broadbury the brewer is there already!’
‘Yes; – and ready to spend any money you like to name. Let me see. Loughton is grouped with Smotherem, and Walker is a deal too strong at Smotherem to hear of any other claim. I don't think we could dare to propose it. There are the Chelsea hamlets, but it will take a wack of money.’
‘I have not got a wack of money,’ said Phineas, laughing.
‘That's the devil of it. I think, if I were you, I should hark back upon some place in Ireland. Couldn't you get Laurence to give you up his seat?’
‘What! Fitzgibbon?’
‘Yes. He has not a ghost of a chance of getting into office again. Nothing on earth would induce him to look at a paper during all those weeks he was at the Colonial Office; and when Cantrip spoke to him, all he said was, “Ah, bother!” Cantrip did not like it, I can tell you.’
‘But that wouldn't make him give up his seat.’
‘Of course you'd have to arrange it.’ By which Phineas understood Barrington Erle to mean that he, Phineas, was in some way to give to Laurence Fitzgibbon some adequate compensation for the surrender of his position as a county member.
‘I'm afraid that's out of the question,’ said Phineas. ‘If he were to go, I should not get it.’
‘Would you have a chance at Loughshane?’
‘I was thinking of trying it,’ said Phineas.
‘Of course you know that Morris is very ill.’ This Mr Morris was the brother of Lord Tulla, and was the sitting member for Loughshane. ‘Upon my word I think I should try that. I don't see where we're to put our hands on a seat in England. I don't indeed.' Phineas, as he listened to this, could not help thinking that Barrington Erle, though he had certainly expressed a great deal of solicitude, was not as true a friend as he used to be. Perhaps he, Phineas, had risen too fast, and Barrington Erle was beginning to think that he might as well be out of the way.
He wrote to his father, asking after the borough, and asking after the health of Mr Morris. And in his letter he told his own story very plainly, – almost pathetically. He perhaps had been wrong to make the attempt which he had made. He began to believe that he had been wrong. But at any rate he had made it so far successfully, and failure now would be doubly bitter. He thought that the party to which he belonged must now remain in office. It would hardly be possible that a new election would produce a House of Commons favourable to a conservative ministry. And with a liberal ministry he, Phineas, would be sure of his place, and sure of an official income, – if only he could find a seat. It was all very true, and was almost pathetic. The old doctor, who was inclined to be proud of his son, was not unwilling to make a sacrifice. Mrs Finn declared before her daughters that if there was a seat in all Ireland, Phineas ought to have it. And Mary Flood Jones stood by listening, and wondering what Phineas would do if he lost his seat. Would he come back and live in County Clare, and be like any other girl's lover? Poor Mary had come to lose her ambition, and to think that girls whose lovers stayed at home were the happiest. Nevertheless, she would have walked all the way to Lord Tulla's house and back again, might that have availed to get the seat for Phineas. Then there came an express over from Castlemorris. The doctor was wanted at once to see Mr Morris. Mr Morris was very bad with gout in his stomach. According to the messenger it was supposed that Mr Morris was dying. Before Dr Finn had had an opportunity of answering his son's letter, Mr Morris, the late member for Loughshane, had been gathered to his fathers.
Dr Finn understood enough of elections for Parliament, and of the nature of boroughs, to be aware that a candidate's chance of success is very much improved by being early in the field; and he was aware, also, that the death of Mr Morris would probably create various aspirants for the honour of representing Loughshane. But he could hardly address the Earl on the subject while the dead body of the late member was lying in the house at Castlemorris. The bill which had been passed in the late session for reforming the constitution of the House of Commons had not touched Ireland, a future measure having been promised to the Irish for their comfort; and Loughshane therefore was, as to Lord Tulla's influence, the same as it had ever been. He had not there the plenary power which the other lord had held in his hands in regard to Loughton; – but still the Castlemorris interest would go a long way. It might be possible to stand against it, but it would be much more desirable that the candidate should have it at his back. Dr Finn was fully alive to this as he sat opposite to the old lord, saying now a word about the old lord's gout in his legs and arms, and then about the gout in the stomach, which had carried away to another world the lamented late member for the borough.
‘Poor Jack!’ said Lord Tulla, piteously. ‘If I'd known it, I needn't have paid over two thousand pounds for him last year; – need I, doctor?’
‘No, indeed,’ said Dr Finn, feeling that his patient might perhaps approach the subject of the borough himself.
‘He never would live by any rule, you know,’ said the desolate brother.
‘Very hard to g
uide; – was he not, my lord?’
‘The very devil. Now, you see, I do do what I'm told pretty well, – don't I, doctor?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘By George, I do nearly always. I don't know what you mean by sometimes. I've been drinking brandy-and-water till I'm sick of it, to oblige you, and you tell me about – sometimes. You doctors expect a man to be a slave. Haven't I kept it out of my stomach?’
‘Thank God, yes.’
‘It's all very well thanking God, but I should have gone as poor Jack has gone, if I hadn't been the most careful man in the world. He was drinking champagne ten days ago; – would do it, you know.’ Lord Tulla could talk about himself and his own ailments by the hour together, and Dr Finn, who had thought that his noble patient was approaching the subject of the borough, was beginning again to feel that the double interest of the gout that was present, and the gout that had passed away, would be too absorbing. He, however, could say but little to direct the conversation.
‘Mr Morris, you see, lived more in London than you do, and was subject to temptation.’
‘I don't know what you call temptation. Haven't I the temptation of a bottle of wine under my nose every day of my life?’
‘No doubt you have.’
‘And I don't drink it. I hardly ever take above a glass or two of brown sherry. By George! when I think of it, I wonder at my own courage. I do, indeed.’
‘But a man in London, my lord –’
‘Why the deuce would he go to London? By-the-bye, what am I to do about the borough now?’
‘Let my son stand for it, if you will, my lord.’
‘They've clean swept away Brentford's seat at Loughton, haven't they? Ha, ha, ha! What a nice game for him, – to have been forced to help to do it himself! There's nobody on earth I pity so much as a radical peer who is obliged to work like a nigger with a spade to shovel away the ground from under his own feet. As for me, I don't care who sits for Loughshane. I did care for poor Jack while he was alive. I don't think I shall interfere any longer. I am glad it lasted Jack's time.’ Lord Tulla had probably already forgotten that he himself had thrown Jack over for the last session but one.
Phineas Finn, the Irish Member Page 52