THE PRIME MINISTER

by DAVID SKILTON

  ‘I wonder whether it’s true that Sir Orlando complained to the Duke that he was not asked to dinner?’ said Mr Roby to Mr Rattler.

  ‘I should hardly think so. I can’t fancy that he would have the pluck,’ said Mr Rattler. ‘The Duke isn’t the easiest man in the world to speak to about such a thing as that’

  ‘It would be a monstrous thing for a man to do! But Drought’s head is quite turned. You can see that’

  ‘We never thought very much about him, you know, on our side.’

  ‘It was what your side thought about him,’ rejoined Roby, ‘that put him where he is now.’

  ‘It was the fate of accidents, Roby, which puts so many of us in our places, and arranges our work for us, and makes us little men or big men. There are other men besides Drought who have been tossed up in a blanket till they don’t know whether their heads or their heels are highest’

  ‘I quite believe in the Duke,’ said Mr Roby, almost alarmed by the suggestion which his new friend had seemed to make.

  ‘So do I, Roby. He has not the obduracy of Lord Brock, nor the ineffable manner of Mr Mildmay, nor the brilliant intellect of Mr Gresham.’

  ‘Nor the picturesque imagination of Mr Daubeny,’ said Mr Roby, feeling himself bound to support the character of his late chief

  ‘Nor his audacity,’ said Mr Rattler. ‘But he has peculiar gifts of his own, and gifts fitted for the peculiar combination of circumstances, if he will only be content to use them. He is a just, unambitious, intelligent man, in whom after a while the country would come to have implicit confidence. But he is thin-skinned and ungenial.’

  ‘I have got into his boat,’ said Roby enthusiastically, ‘and he will find that I shall be true to him.’

  ‘There is no better boat to be in at present,’ said the slightly sarcastic Rattler. ‘As to the Drought pinnace, it will be more difficult to get it afloat than the four ships themselves. To tell the truth honestly, Roby, we have to rid ourselves of Sir Orlando. I have a great regard for the man.’

  ‘I can’t say I ever liked him,’ said Roby.

  ‘I don’t talk about liking, – but he has achieved success, and is to be regarded. Now he has lost his head, and he is bound to get a fall. The question is, – who shall fall with him?’

  ‘I do not feel myself at all bound to sacrifice myself.’

  ‘I don’t know who does. Sir Timothy Beeswax, I suppose, will resent the injury done him. But I can hardly think that a strong government can be formed by Sir Orlando Drought and Sir Timothy Beeswax. Any secession is a weakness, – of course; but I think we may survive it.’ And so Mr Rattler and Mr Roby made up their minds that the first Lord of the Admiralty might be thrown overboard without much danger to the Queen’s ship.

  Sir Orlando, however, was quite in earnest. The man had spirit enough to feel that no alternative was left to him after he had condescended to suggest that he should be asked to dinner and had been refused. He tried Mr Roby, and found that Mr Roby was a mean fellow, wedded, as he told himself, to his salary. Then he sounded Lord Drummond, urging various reasons. The country was not safe without more ships. Mr Monk was altogether wrong about revenue. Mr Finn’s ideas about Ireland were revolutionary. But Lord Drummond thought that, upon the whole, the present Ministry served the country well, and considered himself bound to adhere to it. ‘He cannot bear the idea of being out of power,’ said Sir Orlando to himself. He next said a word to Sir Timothy; but Sir Timothy was not the man to be led by the nose by Sir Orlando. Sir Timothy had his grievances and meant to have his revenge, but he knew how to choose his own time. ‘The Duke’s not a bad fellow,’ said Sir Timothy, – ‘perhaps a little weak, but well-meaning. I think we ought to stand by him a little longer. As for Finn’s Irish bill, I haven’t troubled myself about it’ Then Sir Orlando declared to himself that Sir Timothy was a coward, and resolved that he would act alone.

  About the middle of July he went to the Duke at the Treasury, was closeted with him, and in a very long narration of his own differences, difficulties, opinions, and grievances, explained to the Duke that his conscience called upon him to resign. The Duke listened and bowed his head, and with one or two very gently-uttered words expressed his regret. Then Sir Orlando, in another long speech, laid bare his bosom to the Chief whom he was leaving, declaring the inexpressible sorrow with which he had found himself called upon to take a step which he feared might be prejudicial to the political status of a man whom he honoured so much as he did the Duke of Omnium. Then the Duke bowed again, but said nothing. The man had been guilty of the impropriety of questioning the way in which the Duke’s private hospitality was exercised, and the Duke could not bring himself to be genially civil to such an offender. Sir Orlando went on to say that he would of course explain his views in the Cabinet, but that he had thought it right to make them known to the Duke as soon as they were formed. ‘The best friends must part, Duke,’ he said as he took his leave. ‘I hope not, Sir Orlando; I hope not,’ said the Duke. But Sir Orlando has been too full of himself and of the words he was to speak, and of the thing he was about to do, to understand either the Duke’s words or his silence.

  And so Sir Orlando resigned, and thus supplied the only morsel of political interest which the Session produced. ‘Take no more notice of him than if your footman was going,’ had been the advice of the old Duke. Of course there was a Cabinet meeting on the occasion, but even there the commotion was very slight, as every member knew before entering the room what it was that Sir Orlando intended to do. Lord Drummond said that the step was one to be much lamented. ‘Very much, indeed,’ said the Duke of St Bungay. His words themselves were false and hypocritical, but the tone of his voice took away all the deceit. ‘I am afraid,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘from what Sir Orlando has said to me privately, that we cannot hope that he will change his mind.’ ‘That I certainly cannot do,’ said Sir Orlando, with all the dignified courage of a modern martyr.

  On the next morning the papers were full of the political fact, and were blessed with a subject on which they could exercise their prophetical sagacity. The remarks made were generally favourable to the Government Three or four of the morning papers were of opinion that though Sir Orlando had been a strong man, and a good public servant, the Ministry might exist without him. But the People’s Banner was able to expound to the people at large, that the only grain of salt by which the Ministry had been kept from putrefaction had been now cast out, and that mortification, death, and corruption, must ensue. It was one of Mr Quintus Slide’s greatest efforts.

  CHAPTER 39

  ‘Get round him’

  Ferdinand Lopez maintained his anger against his wife for more than a week after the scene at Richmond, feeding it with reflections on what he called her disobedience. Nor was it a make-believe anger. She had declared her intention to act in opposition to his expressed orders. He felt that his present condition was prejudicial to his interests, and that he must take his wife back into favour, in order that he might make progress with her father, but could hardly bring himself to swallow his wrath. He thought that it was her duty to obey him in everything, – and that disobedience on a matter touching her old lover was an abominable offence, to be visited with severest marital displeasure, and with a succession of scowls that should make her miserable for a month at least. Nor on her behalf would he have hesitated, though the misery might have continued for three months. But then the old man was the main hope of his life, and must be made its mainstay. Brilliant prospects were before him. He had used to think that Mr Wharton was a hale man, with some terribly vexatious term of life before him. But now, now that he was seen more closely, he appeared to be very old. He would sit half bent in the arm-chair in Stone Buildings, and look as though he were near a hundred. And from day to day he seemed to lean more upon his son-in-law, whose visits to him were continued, and always well taken. The constant subject of discourse between them was Everett Wharton, who had not yet seen his father since the misfortune of their quarrel.
Everett had declared to Lopez a dozen times that he would go to his father if his father wished it, and Lopez as often reported to the father that Everett would not go to him unless the father expressed such a wish. And so they had been kept apart. Lopez did not suppose that the old man would disinherit his son altogether, – did not, perhaps, wish it. But he thought that the condition of the old man’s mind would affect the partition of his property, and that the old man would surely make some new will in the present state of his affairs. The old man always asked after his daughter, begging that she would come to him, and at last it was necessary that an evening should be fixed. ‘We shall be delighted to come to-day or to-morrow,’ Lopez said.

  ‘We had better say to-morrow. There would be nothing to eat today. The house isn’t now what it used to be.’ It was therefore expedient that Lopez should drop his anger when he got home, and prepare his wife to dine in Manchester Square in a proper frame of mind.

  Her misery had been extreme; – very much more bitter than he had imagined. It was not only that his displeasure made her life for the time wearisome, and robbed the only society she had of all its charms. It was not only that her heart was wounded by his anger. Those evils might have been short-lived. But she had seen, – she could not fail to see, – that his conduct was unworthy of her and of her deep love. Though she struggled hard against the feeling, she could not but despise the meanness of his jealousy. She knew thoroughly well that there had been no grain of offence in that letter from Arthur Fletcher, – and she knew that no man, no true man, would have taken offence at it. She tried to quench her judgment, and to silence the verdict which her intellect gave against him, but her intellect was too strong even for her heart. She was beginning to learn that the god of her idolatry was but a little human creature, and that she should not have worshipped at so poor a shrine. But nevertheless the love should be continued, and, if possible, the worship, though the idol had been already found to have feet of clay.23 He was her husband, and she would be true to him. As morning after morning he left her, still with that harsh, unmanly frown upon his face, she would look up at him with entreating eyes, and when he returned would receive him with her fondest smile. At length he, too, smiled. He came to her after that interview with Mr Wharton and told her, speaking with the soft yet incisive voice which she used to love so well, that they were to dine in the Square on the following day. ‘Let there be an end of all this,’ he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her. Of course she did not tell him that ‘all this’ had sprung from his ill-humour and not from hers. ‘I own I have been angry,’ he continued. ‘I will say nothing more about it now; but that man did vex me.’

  ‘I have been so sorry that you should have been vexed.’

  ‘Well; – let it pass away, I don’t think your father is looking very well.’

  ‘He is not ill?’

  ‘Oh no. He feels the loss of your society. He is so much alone. You must be more with him.’

  ‘Has he not seen Everett yet?’

  ‘No. Everett is not behaving altogether well.’ Emily was made unhappy by this, and showed it ‘He is the best fellow in the world. I may safely say there is no other man whom I regard so warmly as I do your brother. But he takes wrong ideas into his head, and nothing will knock them out I wonder what your father has done about his will.’

  ‘I have not an idea. Nothing you may be sure will make him unjust to Everett.’

  ‘Ah! – You don’t happen to know whether he ever made a will?’

  ‘Not at all. He would be sure to say nothing about it to me, – or to anybody.’

  ‘That is a kind of secrecy which I think wrong. It leads to so much uncertainty. You wouldn’t like to ask him?’

  ‘No; – certainly.’

  ‘It is astonishing to me how afraid you are of your father. He hasn’t any land, has he?’

  ‘Land!’

  ‘Real estate. You know what I mean. He couldn’t well have landed property without your knowing it’ She shook her head. ‘It might make an immense difference to us, you know.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘If he were to the without a will, any land, – houses and that kind of property, – would go to Everett. I never knew a man who told his children so little. I want to make you understand these things. You and I will be badly off if he doesn’t do something for us.’

  ‘You don’t think he is really ill?’

  ‘No; – not ill. Men above seventy are apt to die, you know.’

  ‘Oh, Ferdinand, – what a way to talk of it!’

  ‘Well, my love, the thing is so seriously matter-of-fact, that it is better to look at it in a matter-of-fact way. I don’t want your father to die.’

  ‘I hope not I hope not.’

  ‘But I should be very glad to learn what he means to do while he lives. I want to get you into sympathy with me in this matter; – but it is so difficult’

  ‘Indeed I sympathize with you.’

  ‘The truth is he has taken an aversion to Everett.’

  ‘God forbid!’

  ‘I am doing all I can to prevent it. But if he does throw Everett over we ought to have the advantage of it. There is no harm in saying as much as that. Think what it would be if he should take it into his head to leave his money to hospitals. My G—; fancy what my condition would be if I were to hear of such a will as that! If he destroyed an old will, partly because he didn’t like our marriage, and partly in anger against Everett, and then the without making another, the property would be divided, – unless he had bought land. You see how many dangers there are. Oh dear! I can look forward and see myself mad, – or else see myself so proudly triumphant!’ All this horrified her, but he did not see her horror. He knew that she disliked it, but thought that she disliked the trouble, and that she dreaded her father. ‘Now I do think that you could help me a little,’ he continued.

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Get round him when he’s a little down in the mouth. That is the way in which old men are conquered.’ How utterly ignorant he was of the very nature of her mind and disposition! To be told by her husband that she was to ‘get round’ her father! ‘You should see him every day. He would be delighted if you would go to him at his chambers. Or you could take care to be in the Square when he comes home. I don’t know whether we had not better leave this and go and live near him. Would you mind that?’

  ‘I would do anything you would suggest as to living anywhere.’

  ‘But you won’t do anything I suggest as to your father.’

  ‘As to being with him, if I thought he wished it, – though I had to walk my feet off, I would go to him.’

  ‘There’s no need of hurting your feet. There’s the brougham.’

  ‘I do so wish, Ferdinand, you would discontinue the brougham. I don’t at all want it I don’t at all dislike cabs. And I was only joking about walking. I walk very well.’

  ‘Certainly not. You fail altogether to understand my ideas about things. If things were going bad with us, I would infinitely prefer getting a pair of horses for you to putting down the one you have.’ She certainly did not understand his ideas. ‘Whatever we do we must hold our heads up. I think he is coming round to cotton to me.24 He is very close, but I can see that he likes my going to him. Of course, as he grows older from day to day, he’ll constantly want someone to lean on more than heretofore.’

  ‘I would go and stay with him if he wanted me.’

  ‘I have thought of that too. Now that would be a saving, – without any fall. And if we were both there we could hardly fail to know what he was doing. You could offer that, couldn’t you? You could say as much as that?’

  ‘I could ask him if he wished it.’

  Just so. Say that it occurs to you that he is lonely by himself, and that we will both go to the Square at a moment’s notice if he thinks it will make him comfortable. I feel sure that that will be the best step to take. I have already had an offer for these rooms, and could get rid of the things we have boug
ht to advantage.’

  This, too, was terrible to her, and at the same time altogether unintelligible. She had been invited to buy little treasures to make their home comfortable, and had already learned to take that delight in her belongings which is one of the greatest pleasures of a young married woman’s life. A girl in her old home, before she is given up to a husband, has many sources of interest, and probably from day to day sees many people. And the man just married goes out to his work, and occupies his time, and has his thickly-peopled world around him. But the bride, when the bridal honours of the honeymoon are over, when the sweet care of the first cradle has not yet come to her, is apt to be lonely and to be driven to the contemplation of the pretty things with which her husband and her friends have surrounded her. It had certainly been so with this young bride, whose husband left her in the morning and only returned for their late dinner. And now she was told that her household gods had had a price put upon them, and that they were to be sold. She had intended to suggest that she would pay her father a visit, and her husband immediately proposed that they should quarter themselves permanently on the old man! She was ready to give up her brougham, though she liked the comfort of it well enough; but to that he would not consent because the possession of it gave him an air of wealth; but without a moment’s hesitation he could catch at the idea of throwing upon her father the burden of maintaining both her and himself! She understood the meaning of this. She could read his mind so far. She endeavoured not to read the book too closely, – but there it was, opened to her wider day by day, and she knew that the lessons which it taught were vulgar and damnable.