For an hour and a half Lady Glencora kept her position in a saloon through which the guests passed to the grounds, and to every comer she imparted the information that the Duke was on the lawn; – to every comer but one. To Madame Goesler she said no such word. ‘So glad to see you, my dear,’ she said, as she pressed her friend's hand; ‘if I am not killed by this work, I'll make you out again by-and-by.’ Then Madame Goesler passed on, and soon found herself amidst a throng of acquaintance. After a few minutes she saw the Duke seated in an arm-chair, close to the river-bank, and she bravely went up to him, and thanked him for the invitation. ‘The thanks are due to you for gracing our entertainment,’ said the Duke, rising to greet her. There were a dozen people standing round, and so the thing was done without difficulty. At that moment there came a notice that their royal highnesses were on the ground, and the Duke, of course, went off to meet them. There was not a word more spoken between the Duke and Madame Goesler on that afternoon.
Phineas did not come till late, – till seven, when the banquet was over. I think he was right in this, as the banqueting in tents loses in comfort almost more than it gains in romance. A small picnic may be very well, and the distance previously travelled may give to a dinner on the ground the seeming excuse of necessity. Frail human nature must be supported, – and human nature, having gone so far in pursuit of the beautiful, is entitled to what best support the unaccustomed circumstances will allow. Therefore, out with the cold pies, out with the salads, and the chickens, and the champagne. Since no better may be, let us recruit human nature sitting upon this moss, and forget our discomforts in the glory of the verdure around us. And dear Mary, seeing that the cushion from the waggonet is small, and not wishing to accept the too generous offer that she should take it all for her own use, will admit a contact somewhat closer than the ordinary chairs of a dining-room render necessary. That in its way is very well; – but I hold that a banquet on narrow tables in a tent is displeasing.
Phineas strolled into the grounds when the tent was nearly empty, and when Lady Glencora, almost sinking beneath her exertions, was taking rest in an inner room. The Duke at this time was dining with their royal highnesses, and three or four others, specially selected, very comfortably within doors. Out of doors the world had begun to dance, – and the world was beginning to say that it would be much nicer to go and dance upon the boards inside as soon as possible. For, though of all parties a garden party is the nicest, everybody is always anxious to get out of the garden as quick as may be. A few ardent lovers of suburban picturesque effect were sitting beneath the haycocks, and four forlorn damsels were vainly endeavouring to excite the sympathy of manly youth by playing croquet in a corner. I am not sure, however, that the lovers beneath the haycocks and the players at croquet were not actors hired by Lady Glencora for the occasion.
Phineas had not been long on the lawn before he saw Lady Laura Kennedy. She was standing with another lady, and Barrington Erle was with them. ‘So you have been successful?’ said Barrington, greeting him.
‘Successful in what?’
‘In what? In getting a ticket. I have had to promise three tide-waiterships, and to give deep hints about a bishopric expected to be vacant, before I got in. But what matters? Success pays for everything. My only trouble now is, how I'm to get back to London.’
Lady Laura shook hands with Phineas, and then, as he was passing on, followed him for a step and whispered a word to him. ‘Mr Finn,’ she said, ‘if you are not going yet, come back to me presently. I have something to say to you. I shall not be far from the river, and shall stay here for about an hour.’
Phineas said that he would, and then went on, not knowing exactly where he was going. He had one desire, – to find Violet Effingham; but when he should find her, he could not carry her off, and sit with her beneath a haycock.
CHAPTER 64
The Horns
WHILE looking for Violet Effingham, Phineas encountered Madame Goesler among a crowd of people who were watching the adventurous embarkation of certain daring spirits in a pleasure-boat. There were watermen there in the Duke's livery, ready to take such spirits down to Richmond or up to Teddington lock, and many daring spirits did take such trips, – to the great peril of muslins, ribbons, and starch, to the peril also of ornamental summer white garments, so that when the thing was over, the boats were voted to have been a bore.
‘Are you going to venture?’ said Phineas to the lady.
‘I should like it of all things if I were not afraid for my clothes. Will you come?’
‘I was never good upon the water. I should be sea-sick to a certainty. They are going down beneath the bridge too, and we should be splashed by the steamers. I don't think my courage is high enough.’ Thus Phineas excused himself, being still intent on prosecuting his search for Violet.
‘Then neither will I,’ said Madame Goesler. ‘One dash from a peccant oar would destroy the whole symmetry of my dress. Look. That green young lady has already been sprinkled.’
‘But the blue young gentleman has been sprinkled also,’ said Phineas, ‘and they will be happy in a joint baptism.’ Then they strolled along the river path together, and were soon alone. ‘You will be leaving town soon, Madame Goesler?’
‘Almost immediately.’
‘And where do you go?’
‘Oh, – to Vienna. I am there for a couple of months every year, minding my business. I wonder whether you would know me, if you saw me; – sometimes sitting on a stool in a counting-house, sometimes going about among old houses, settling what must be done to save them from tumbling down. I dress so differently at such times, and talk so differently, and look so much older, that I almost fancy myself to be another person.’
‘Is it a great trouble to you?’
‘No, – I rather like it. It makes me feel that I do something in the world.’
‘Do you go alone?’
‘Quite alone. I take a German maid with me, and never speak a word to any one else on the journey.’
‘That must be very bad,’ said Phineas.
‘Yes; it is the worst of it. But then I am so much accustomed to be alone. You see me in society, and in society only, and therefore naturally look upon me as one of a gregarious herd; but I am in truth an animal that feeds alone and lives alone. Take the hours of the year all through, and I am a solitary during four-fifths of them. And what do you intend to do?’
‘I go to Ireland.’
‘Home to your own people. How nice. I have no people to go to. I have one sister, who lives with her husband at Riga. She is my only relation, and I never see her.’
‘But you have thousands of friends in England.’
‘Yes, – as you see them,’ – and she turned and spread out her hands towards the crowded lawn, which was behind them. ‘What are such friends worth? What would they do for me?’
‘I do not know that the Duke would do much,’ said Phineas laughing.
Madame Goesler laughed also. ‘The Duke is not so bad,’ she said. ‘The Duke would do as much as any one else. I won't have the Duke abused.’
‘He may be your particular friend, for what I know,’ said Phineas.
‘Ah; – no. I have no particular friend. And were I to wish to choose one, I should think the Duke a little above me.’
‘Oh, yes; – and too stiff, and too old, and too pompous, and too cold, and too make-believe, and too gingerbread.’
‘Mr Finn!’
‘The Duke is all buckram, you know.’
‘Then why do you come to his house?’
‘To see you, Madame Goesler.’
‘Is that true, Mr Finn?’
‘Yes; – it is true in its way. One goes about to meet those whom one likes, not always for the pleasure of the host's society. I hope I am not wrong, because I go to houses at which I like neither the host nor the hostess.’ Phineas as he said this was thinking of Lady Baldock, to whom of late he had been exceedingly civil, – but he certainly did not like Lady Baldock.
‘I think you have been too hard upon the Duke of Omnium. Do you know him well?’
‘Personally? certainly not. Do you? Does anybody?’
‘I think he is a gracious gentleman,’ said Madame Goesler, ‘and though I cannot boast of knowing him well, I do not like to hear him called buckram. I do not think he is buckram. It is not very easy for a man in his position to live so as to please all people. He has to maintain the prestige of the highest aristocracy in Europe.’
‘Look at his nephew, who will be the next Duke, and who works as hard as any man in the country. Will he not maintain it better? What good did the present man ever do?’
‘You believe only in motion, Mr Finn; – and not at all in quiescence. An express train at full speed is grander to you than a mountain with heaps of snow. I own that to me there is something glorious in the dignity of a man too high to do anything, – if only he knows how to carry that dignity with a proper grace. I think that there should be breasts made to carry stars.’
‘Stars which they have never earned,’ said Phineas.
‘Ah; – well; we will not fight about it. Go and earn your star, and I will say that it becomes you better than any glitter on the coat of the Duke of Omnium.’ This she said with an earnestness which he could not pretend not to notice or not to understand. ‘I too may be able to see that the express train is really greater than the mountain.’
‘Though, for your own life, you would prefer to sit and gaze upon the snowy peaks?’
‘No; – that is not so. For myself, I would prefer to be of use somewhere, – to some one, if it were possible. I strive sometimes.’
‘And I am sure successfully.’
‘Never mind. I hate to talk about myself. You and the Duke are fair subjects for conversation; you as the express train, who will probably do your sixty miles an hour in safety, but may possibly go down a bank with a crash.’
‘Certainly I may,’ said Phineas.
‘And the Duke, as the mountain, which is fixed in its stateliness, short of the power of some earthquake, which shall be grander and more terrible than any earthquake yet known. Here we are at the house again. I will go in and sit down for a while.’
‘If I leave you, Madame Goesler, I will say good-bye till next winter.’
‘I shall be in town again before Christmas, you know. You will come and see me?’
‘Of course I will.’
‘And then this love trouble of yours will be over, – one way or the other; – will it not?’
‘Ah! – who can say?’
‘Faint heart never won fair lady. But your heart is never faint. Farewell.’
Then he left her. Up to this moment he had not seen Violet, and yet he knew that she was to be there. She had herself told him that she was to accompany Lady Laura, whom he had already met. Lady Baldock had not been invited, and had expressed great animosity against the Duke in consequence. She had gone so far as to say that the Duke was a man at whose house a young lady such as her niece ought not to be seen. But Violet had laughed at this, and declared her intention of accepting the invitation. ‘Go,’ she had said; ‘of course I shall go. I should have broken my heart if I could not have got there.’ Phineas therefore was sure that she must be in the place. He had kept his eyes ever on the alert, and yet he had not found her. And now he must keep his appointment with Lady Laura Kennedy. So he went down to the path by the river, and there he found her seated close by the water's edge. Her cousin Barrington Erle was still with her, but as soon as Phineas joined them, Erle went away. ‘I had told him,’ said Lady Laura, ‘that I wished to speak to you, and he stayed with me till you came. There are worse men than Barrington a great deal.’
‘I am sure of that.’
‘Are you and he still friends, Mr Finn?’
‘I hope so. I do not see so much of him as I did when I had less to do.’
‘He says that you have got into altogether a different set.’
‘I don't know that. I have gone as circumstances have directed me, but I have certainly not intended to throw over so old and good a friend as Barrington Erle.’
‘Oh, – he does not blame you. He tells me that you have found your way among what he calls the working men of the party, and he thinks you will do very well, – if you can only be patient enough. We all expected a different line from you, you know, – more of words and less of deeds, if I may say so; – more of liberal oratory and less of government action; but I do not doubt that you are right.’
‘I think that I have been wrong,’ said Phineas. ‘I am becoming heartily sick of officialities.’
‘That comes from the fickleness about which papa is so fond of quoting his Latin. The ox desires the saddle. The charger wants to plough.’91
‘And which am I?’
‘Your career may combine the dignity of the one with the utility of the other. At any rate you must not think of changing now. Have you seen Mr Kennedy lately?’ She asked this question abruptly, showing that she was anxious to get to the matter respecting which she had summoned him to her side, and that all that she had said hitherto had been uttered as it were in preparation of that subject.
‘Seen him? yes; I see him daily. But we hardly do more than speak.’
‘Why not?’ Phineas stood for a moment in silence, hesitating. ‘Why is it that he and you do not speak?’
‘How can I answer that question, Lady Laura?’
‘Do you know any reason? Sit down, or, if you please, I will get up and walk with you. He tells me that you have chosen to quarrel with him, and that I have made you do so. He says that you have confessed to him that I have asked you to quarrel with him.’
‘He can hardly have said that.’
‘But he has said it, – in so many words. Do you think that I would tell you such a story falsely?’
‘Is he here now?’
‘No; – he is not here. He would not come. I came alone.’
‘Is not Miss Effingham with you?’
‘No; – she is to come with my father later. She is here no doubt, now. But answer my question, Mr Finn; – unless you find that you cannot answer it. What was it that you did say to my husband?’
‘Nothing to justify what he has told you.’
‘Do you mean to say that he has spoken falsely?’
‘I mean to use no harsh word, – but I think that Mr Kennedy when troubled in his spirit looks at things gloomily, and puts meaning upon words which they should not bear.’
‘And what has troubled his spirit?’
‘You must know that better than I can do, Lady Laura. I will tell you all that I can tell you. He invited me to his house and I would not go, because you had forbidden me. Then he asked me some questions about you. Did I refuse because of you, – or of any thing that you had said? If I remember right, I told him that I did fancy that you would not be glad to see me, – and that therefore I would rather stay away. What was I to say?’
‘You should have said nothing.’
‘Nothing with him would have been worse than what I did say. Remember that he asked me the question point-blank, and that no reply would have been equal to an affirmation. I should have confessed that his suggestion was true.’
‘He could not then have twitted me with your words.’
‘If I have erred, Lady Laura, and brought any sorrow on you, I am indeed grieved.’
‘It is all sorrow. There is nothing but sorrow. I have made up my mind to leave him.’
‘Oh, Lady Laura!’
‘It is very bad, – but not so bad, I think, as the life I am now leading. He has accused me –, of what do you think? He says that you are my lover!’
‘He did not say that, – in those words?’
‘He said it in words which made me feel that I must part from him.’
‘And how did you answer him?’
‘I would not answer him at all. If he had come to me like a man, – not accusing me, but asking me, – I would have told him every thing. And
what was there to tell? I should have broken my faith to you, in speaking of that scene at Loughlinter, but women always tell such stories to their husbands when their husbands are good to them, and true, and just. And it is well that they should be told. But to Mr Kennedy I can tell nothing. He does not believe my word.’
‘Not believe you, Lady Laura?’
‘No! Because I did not blurt out to him all that story about your foolish duel, – because I thought it best to keep my brother's secret, as long as there was a secret to be kept, he told me that I had, – lied to him!’
‘What! – with that word?’
‘Yes, – with that very word. He is not particular about his words, when he thinks it necessary to express himself strongly. And he has told me since that because of that he could never believe me again. How is it possible that a woman should live with such a man?’ But why did she come to him with this story, – to him whom she had been accused of entertaining as a lover; – to him who of all her friends was the last whom she should have chosen as the recipient for such a tale? Phineas as he thought how he might best answer her, with what words he might try to comfort her, could not but ask himself this question. ‘The moment that the word was out of his mouth,’ she went on to say, ‘I resolved that I would tell you. The accusation is against you as it is against me, and is equally false to both. I have written to him, and there is my letter.’
‘But you will see him again?’
‘No; – I will go to my father's house. I have already arranged it. Mr Kennedy has my letter by this time, and I go from hence home with my father.’
‘Do you wish that I should read the letter?’
‘Yes, – certainly. I wish that you should read it. Should I ever meet him again, I shall tell him that you saw it.’
They were now standing close upon the river's bank, at a corner of the grounds, and, though the voices of people sounded near to them, they were alone. Phineas had no alternative but to read the letter which was as follows:–
Phineas Finn, the Irish Member Page 67