THE PRIME MINISTER

by DAVID SKILTON

  About an hour before lunch John Fletcher, who had been hanging about the house all the morning in a manner very unusual to him, caught Emily Wharton as she was passing through the hall, and told her that Arthur was in a certain part of the grounds and wished to speak to her. ‘Alone?’ she asked. ‘Yes, certainly alone.’ ‘Ought I to go to him, John?’ she asked again. ‘Certainly I think you ought.’ Then he had done his commission and was able to apply himself to whatever business he had on hand.

  Emily at once put on her hat, took her parasol, and left the house. There was something distasteful to her in the idea of this going out at a lover’s bidding, to meet him; but like all Whartons and all Fletchers, she trusted John Fletcher. And then she was aware that there were circumstances which might make such a meeting as this serviceable. She knew nothing of what had taken place during the last four-and-twenty hours. She had no idea that in consequence of words spoken to him by her father and his brother, Arthur Fletcher was about to abandon his suit There would have been no doubt about her going to meet him had she thought this. She supposed that she would have to hear again the old story. If so, she would hear it, and would then have an opportunity of telling him that her heart had been given entirely to another. She knew all that she owed to him. After a fashion she did love him. He was entitled to all kindest consideration from her hands. But he should be told the truth.

  As she entered the shrubbery he came out to meet her, giving her his hand with a frank, easy air and a pleasant smile. His smile was as bright as the ripple of the sea, and his eye would then gleam, and the slightest sparkle of his white teeth would be seen between his lips, and the dimple of his chin would show itself deeper than at other times. ‘It is very good of you. I thought you’d come. John asked you, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes; – he told me you were here, and he said I ought to come.’

  ‘I don’t know about ought, but I think it better. Will you mind walking on, as I’ve got something that I want to say?’ Then he turned and she turned with him into the little wood. ‘I’m not going to bother you any more, my darling,’ he said. ‘You are still my darling, though I will not call you so after this.’ Her heart sank almost in her bosom as she heard this, – though it was exactly what she would have wished to hear. But now there must be some close understanding between them and some tenderness. She knew how much she had owed him, how good he had been to her, how true had been his love; and she felt that words would fail her to say that which ought to be said. ‘So you have given yourself to – one Ferdinand Lopez!’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, in a hard, dry voice. ‘Yes; I have. I do not know who told you; but I have.’

  ‘Your father told me. It was better, – was it not? – that I should know. You are not sorry that I should know?’

  ‘It is better.’

  ‘I am not going to say a word against him.’

  ‘No; – do not do that.’

  ‘Nor against you. I am simply here now to let you know that – I retire.’

  ‘You will not quarrel with me, Arthur?’

  ‘Quarrel with you! I could not quarrel with you, if I would. No; – there shall be no quarrel. But I do not suppose we shall see each other very often.’

  ‘I hope we may.’

  ‘Sometimes, perhaps. A man should not, I think, affect to be friends with a successful rival. I dare say he is an excellent fellow, but how is it possible that he and I should get on together? But you will always have one, – one besides him, – who will love you best in this world.’

  ‘No; – no; – no.’

  ‘It must be so. There will be nothing wrong in that Everyone has some dearest friend, and you will always be mine. If anything of evil should ever happen to you, – which of course there won’t, – there would be someone who would –. But I don’t want to talk buncum; I only want you to believe me. Good-bye, and God bless you.’ Then he put out his right hand, holding his hat under his left arm.

  ‘You are not going away?’

  ‘To-morrow, perhaps. But I will say my real good-bye to you here, now, to-day. I hope you may be happy. I hope it with all my heart. Good-bye. God bless you!’

  ‘Oh, Arthur!’ Then she put her hand in his.

  ‘Oh, I have loved you so dearly. It has been with my whole heart You have never quite understood me, but it has been as true as heaven. I have thought sometimes that had I been a little less earnest about it, I should have been a little less stupid. A man shouldn’t let it get the better of him, as I have done. Say good-bye to me, Emily.’

  ‘Good-bye,’ she said, still leaving her hand in his.

  ‘I suppose that’s about all. Don’t let them quarrel with you here if you can help it. Of course at Longbarns they won’t like it for a time. Oh, – if it could have been different!’ Then he dropped her hand, and turning his back quickly upon her, went away along the path.

  She had expected and had almost wished that he should kiss her. A girl’s cheek is never so holy to herself as it is to her lover, – if he do love her. There would have been something of reconciliation, something of a promise of future kindness in a kiss, which even Ferdinand would not have grudged. It would, for her, have robbed the parting of that bitterness of pain which his words had given to it. As to all that he had made no calculation; but the bitterness was there for him, and he could have done nothing that would have expelled it.

  She wept bitterly as she returned to the house. There might have been cause for joy. It was clear enough that her father, though he had shown no sign to her of yielding, was nevertheless prepared to yield. It was her father who had caused Arthur Fletcher to take himself off, as a lover really dismissed. But, at this moment, she could not bring herself to look at that aspect of the affair. Her mind would revert to all those choicest moments in her early years in which she had been happy with Arthur Fletcher, in which she had first learned to love him, and had then taught herself to understand by some confused and perplexed lesson that she did not love him as men and women love. But why should she not so have loved him? Would she not have done so could she then have understood how true and firm he was? And then, independently of herself, throwing herself aside for the time as she was bound to do when thinking of one so good to her as Arthur Fletcher, she found that no personal joy could drown the grief which she shared with him. For a moment the idea of a comparison between the men forced itself upon her, – but she drove it from her as she hurried back to the house.

  CHAPTER l8

  The Duke of Omnium Thinks of Himself

  The blaze made by the Duchess of Omnium during the three months of the season up in London had been very great, but it was little in comparison with the social coruscation expected to be achieved at Gatherum Castle, – little at least as far as public report went, and the general opinion of the day. No doubt the house in Carlton Gardens had been thrown open as the house of no Prime Minister, perhaps of no duke, had been opened before in this country; but it had been done by degrees, and had not been accompanied by such a blowing of trumpets as was sounded with reference to the entertainments at Gatherum. I would not have it supposed that the trumpets were blown by the direct order of the Duchess. The trumpets were blown by the customary trumpeters as it became known that great things were to be done, – all newspapers and very many tongues lending their assistance, till the sounds of the instruments almost frightened the Duchess herself. ‘Isn’t it odd,’ she said to her friend, Mrs Finn, ‘that one can’t have a few friends down in the country without such a fuss about it as the people are making?’ Mrs Finn did not think that it was odd, and so she said. Thousands of pounds were being spent in a very conspicuous way. Invitations to the place even for a couple of days, – for twenty-four hours, – had been begged for abjectly. It was understood everywhere that the Prime Minister was bidding for greatness and popularity. Of course the trumpets were blown very loudly. ‘If people don’t take care,’ said the Duchess, ‘I’ll put everybody off and have the whole place shut up. I’d do it for sixpence, now.
’

  Perhaps of all the persons, much or little concerned, the one who heard the least of the trumpets, – or rather who was the last to hear them, – was the Duke himself. He could not fail to see something in the newspapers, but what he did see did not attract him so frequently or so strongly as it did others. It was a pity, he thought, that a man’s social and private life should be made subject to so many remarks, but this misfortune was one of those to which wealth and rank are liable. He had long recognized that fact, and for a time endeavoured to believe that his intended sojourn at Gatherum Castle was not more public than are the autumn doings of other dukes and other prime ministers. But gradually the trumpets did reach even his ears. Blind as he was to many things himself, he always had near to him that other duke who was never blind to anything. ‘You are going to do great things at Gatherum this year,’ said the Duke.

  ‘Nothing particular, I hope,’ said the Prime Minister, with an inward trepidation, – for gradually there had crept upon him a fear that his wife was making a mistake.

  ‘I thought it was going to be very particular.’

  ‘It’s Glencora’s doing.’

  ‘I don’t doubt but that her Grace is right. Don’t suppose that I am criticizing your hospitality. We are to be at Gatherum ourselves about the end of the month. It will be the first time I shall have seen the place since your uncle’s time.’

  The Prime Minister at this moment was sitting in his own particular room at the Treasury Chambers, and before the entrance of his friend had been conscientiously endeavouring to define for himself, not a future policy, but the past policy of the last month or two. It had not been for him a very happy occupation. He had become the Head of the Government, – and had not failed, for there he was, still the Head of the Government, with a majority at his back, and the six months’ vacation43 before him. They who were entitled to speak to him confidentially as to his position, were almost vehement in declaring his success. Mr Rattler, about a week ago, had not seen any reason why the Ministry should not endure at least for the next four years. Mr Roby, from the other side, was equally confident. But, on looking back at what he had done, and indeed on looking forward into his future intentions, he could not see why he, of all men, should be Prime Minister. He had once been Chancellor of the Exchequer, filling that office through two halcyon sessions, and he had known the reason why he had held it. He had ventured to assure himself at the time that he was the best man whom his party could then have found for that office, and he had been satisfied. But he had none of that satisfaction now. There were men under him who were really at work. The Lord Chancellor had legal reforms on foot. Mr Monk was busy, heart and soul, in regard to income tax and brewers’ licences, – making our poor Prime Minister’s mouth water. Lord Drummond was active among the colonies. Phineas Finn had at any rate his ideas about Ireland. But with the Prime Minister, – so at least the Duke told himself, – it was all a blank. The policy confided to him and expected at his hands was that of keeping together a Coalition Ministry. That was a task that did not satisfy him. And now, gradually, – very slowly indeed at first, but still with a sure step, – there was creeping upon him the idea that this power of cohesion was sought for, and perhaps found not in his political capacity, but in his rank and wealth. It might, in fact, be the case that it was his wife the Duchess – that Lady Glencora, of whose wild impulses and general impracticability he had always been in dread, – that she with her dinner parties and receptions, with her crowded saloons, her music, her picnics, and social temptations, was Prime Minister rather than he himself. It might be that this had been understood by the coalesced parties; – by everybody, in fact, except himself It had, perhaps, been found that in the state of things then existing, a ministry could be best kept together, not by parliamentary capacity, but by social arrangements, such as his Duchess, and his Duchess alone, could carry out. She and she only would have the spirit and the money and the sort of cleverness required. In such a state of things he of course, as her husband, must be the nominal Prime Minister.

  There was no anger in his bosom as he thought of this. It would be hardly just to say that there was jealousy. His nature was essentially free from jealousy. But there was shame, – and self-accusation at having accepted so great an office with so little fixed purpose as to great work. It might be his duty to subordinate even his pride to the service of his country, and to consent to be a faineant minister, a gilded Treasury log,44 because by remaining in that position he would enable the Government to be carried on. But how base the position, how mean, how repugnant to that grand idea of public work which had hitherto been the motive power of all his life! How would he continue to live if this thing were to go on from year to year, – he pretending to govern while others governed, – stalking about from one public hall to another in a blue ribbon, taking the highest place at all tables, receiving mock reverence, and known to all men as faineant First Lord of the Treasury? Now, as he had been thinking of all this, the most trusted of his friends had come to him, and had at once alluded to the very circumstances which had been pressing so heavily on his mind. ‘I was delighted,’ continued the elder Duke, ‘when I heard that you had determined to go to Gatherum Castle this year.’

  ‘If a man has a big house I suppose he ought to live in it, sometimes.’

  ‘Certainly. It was for such purposes as this now intended that your uncle built it. He never became a public man, and therefore, though he went there, every year I believe, he never really used it.’

  ‘He hated it, – in his heart. And so do I. And so does Glencora. I don’t see why any man should have his private life interrupted by being made to keep a huge caravansary open for persons he doesn’t care a straw about.’

  ‘You would not like to live alone.’

  ‘Alone, – with my wife and children, – I would certainly, during a portion of the year at least.’

  ‘I doubt whether such a life, even for a month, even for a week, is compatible with your duties. You would hardly find it possible. Could you do without your private secretaries? Would you know enough of what is going on, if you did not discuss matters with others? A man cannot be both private and public at the same time.’

  ‘And therefore one has to be chopped up, like a reed out of the river, as the poet said, and yet not give sweet music afterwards.’45 The Duke of St Bungay said nothing in answer to this, as he did not understand the chopping of the reed. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been wrong about this collection of people down at Gatherum,’ continued the younger Duke. ‘Glencora is impulsive, and has overdone the thing. Just look at that.’ And he handed a letter to his friend. The old Duke put on his spectacles and read the letter through, – which ran as follows:

  Private

  MY LORD DUKE,

  I do not doubt but that your Grace is aware of my position in regard to the public press of the country, and I beg to assure your Grace that my present proposition is made, not on account of the great honour and pleasure which would be conferred upon myself should your Grace accede to it, but because I feel assured that I might so be best enabled to discharge an important duty for the benefit of the public generally.

  Your Grace is about to receive the whole fashionable world of England and many distinguished foreign ambassadors at your ancestral halls, not solely for social delight, – for a man in your Grace’s high position is not able to think only of a pleasant life, – but in order that the prestige of your combined Ministry may be so best maintained. That your Grace is thereby doing a duty to your country no man who understands the country can doubt. But it must be the case that the country at large should interest itself in your festivities, and should demand to have accounts of the gala doings of your ducal palace. Your Grace will probably agree with me that these records could be better given by one empowered by yourself to give them, by one who had been present, and who would write in your Grace’s interest, than by some interloper who would receive his tale only at second hand.

  It is my purpor
t now to inform your Grace that should I be honoured by an invitation to your Grace’s party at Gatherum, I should obey such a call with the greatest alacrity, and would devote my pen and the public organ which is at my disposal to your Grace’s service with the readiest good-will.

  I have the honour to be,

  My Lord Duke,

  Your Grace’s most obedient

  And very humble servant,

  QUINTUS SLIDE.

  The old Duke, when he had read the letter, laughed heartily. ‘Isn’t that a terribly bad sign of the times?’ said the younger.

  ‘Well; – hardly that, I think. The man is both a fool and a blackguard; but I don’t think we are therefore to suppose that there are many fools and blackguards like him. I wonder what he really has wanted.’

  ‘He has wanted me to ask him to Gatherum.’

  ‘He can hardly have expected that. I don’t think he can have been such a fool. He may have thought that there was a possible off chance, and that he would not lose even that for want of asking. Of course you won’t notice it.’

  ‘I have asked Warburton to write to him, saying that he cannot be received at my house. I have all letters answered unless they seem to have come from insane persons. Would it not shock you if your private arrangements were invaded in that way?’