THE PRIME MINISTER

by DAVID SKILTON

  ‘Psha! How am I to kiss and make pretty speeches with my mind harassed as it is now?’ But he did touch her brow with his lips before he went away.

  The infant was buried, and then there was not much show of mourning in the house. The poor mother would sit gloomily alone day after day, telling herself that it was perhaps better that she should have been robbed of her treasure than have gone forth with him into the wide, unknown, harsh world with such a father as she had given him. Then she would look at all the preparations she had made, – the happy work of her fingers when her thoughts of their future use were her sweetest consolation, – and weep till she would herself feel that there never could be an end to her tears.

  The second week in January had come and yet nothing further had been settled as to this Guatemala project. Lopez talked about it as though it was certain, and even told his wife that as they would move so soon it would not be now worth while for him to take other lodgings for her. But when she asked as to her own preparations, – the wardrobe necessary for the long voyage and her general outfit, – he told her that three weeks or a fortnight would be enough for all, and that he would give her sufficient notice. ‘Upon my word he is very kind to honour my poor house as he does,’ said Mr Wharton.

  ‘Papa, we will go at once if you wish it,’ said his daughter.

  ‘Nay, Emily; do not turn upon me. I cannot but be sensible to the insult of his daily presence; but even that is better than losing you.’

  Then there occurred a ludicrous incident, – or combination of incidents, – which, in spite of their absurdity, drove Mr Wharton almost frantic. First there came to him the bill from Messrs Stewam and Sugarscraps for the dinner. At this time he kept nothing back from his daughter. ‘Look at that!’ he said. The bill was absolutely made out in his name.

  ‘It is a mistake, papa.’

  ‘Not at all. The dinner was given in my house, and I must pay for it. I would sooner do so than that he should pay it, – even if he had the means.’ So he paid Messrs Stewam and Sugarscraps £25 9s. 6d., begging them as he did so never to send another dinner into his house, and observing that he was in the habit of entertaining his friends at less than three guineas a head. ‘But Château Yquem and Côte d’Or!’ said Mr Sugarscraps. ‘Château fiddlesticks!’ said Mr Wharton, walking out of the house with his receipt.

  Then came the bill for the brougham, – for the brougham from the very day of their return to town after their wedding trip. This he showed to Lopez. Indeed the bill had been made out to Lopez and sent to Mr Wharton with an apologetic note. ‘I didn’t tell him to send it,’ said Lopez.

  ‘But will you pay it?’

  ‘I certainly shall not ask you to pay it.’ But Mr Wharton at last did pay it, and he also paid the rent of the rooms in the Belgrave Mansions, and between £30 and £40 for dresses which Emily had got at Lewes and Allenby’s under her husband’s orders in the first days of their married life in London.

  ‘Oh, papa, I wish I had not gone there,’ she said.

  ‘My dear, anything that you may have had I do not grudge in the least. And even for him, if he would let you remain here, I would pay willingly. I would supply all his wants if he would only – go away.’

  CHAPTER 50

  Mr Slide’s Revenge

  ‘Do you mean to say, my lady, that the Duke paid his electioneering bill down at Silverbridge?’

  ‘I do mean to say so, Mr Slide.’ Lady Eustace nodded her head, and Mr Quintus Slide opened his mouth.

  ‘Goodness gracious!’ said Mrs Leslie, who was sitting with them. They were in Lady Eustace’s drawing-room, and the patriotic editor of the People’s Banner was obtaining from a new ally information which might be useful to the country.

  ‘But ’ow do you know, Lady Eustace? You’ll pardon the persistency of my inquiries, but when you come to public information accuracy is everything. I never trust myself to mere report. I always travel up to the very fountain ’ead of truth.’

  ‘I know it,’ said Lizzy Eustace oracularly.

  ‘Um – m!’ The Editor as he ejaculated the sound looked at her ladyship with admiring eyes, – with eyes that were intended to flatter. But Lizzie had been looked at so often in so many ways, and was so well accustomed to admiration, that this had no effect on her at all. ‘’E didn’t tell you himself, did ’e, now?’

  ‘Can you tell me the truth as to trusting him with my money?’

  ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘Shall I be safe if I take the papers which he calls bills of sale?’

  ‘One good turn deserves another, my lady.’

  ‘I don’t want to make a secret of it, Mr Slide. Pountney found it out. You know the Major?’

  ‘Yes, I know Major Pountney. He was at Gatherum ’imself, and got a little bit of cold shoulder; – didn’t he?’

  ‘I dare say he did. What has that to do with it? You may be sure that Lopez applied to the Duke for his expenses at Silverbridge, and that the Duke sent him the money.’

  ‘There’s no doubt about it, Mr Slide,’ said Mrs Leslie. ‘We got it all from Major Pountney. There was some bet between him and Pountney, and he had to show Pountney the cheque.’

  ‘Pountney saw the money,’ said Lady Eustace.

  Mr Slide stroked his hand over his mouth and chin as he sat thinking of the tremendous national importance of this communication. The man who had paid the money was the Prime Minister of England, – and was, moreover, Mr Slide’s enemy! ‘When the right ’and of fellowship has been rejected, I never forgive,’ Mr Slide has been heard to say. Even Lady Eustace, who was not particular as to the appearance of people, remarked afterwards to her friend that Mr Slide had looked like the devil as he was stroking his face. ‘It’s very remarkable,’ said Mr Slide; ‘very remarkable!’

  ‘You won’t tell the Major that we told you,’ said her Ladyship.

  ‘Oh dear no. I only just wanted to ‘ear how it was. And as to embarking your money, my lady, with Ferdinand Lopez, – I wouldn’t do it.’

  ‘Not if I get the bills of sale? It’s for rum, and they say rum will go up to any price.’

  ‘Don’t, Lady Eustace. I can’t say any more, – but don’t. I never mention names. But don’t.’

  Then Mr Slide went at once in search of Major Pountney, and having found the Major at his club extracted from him all that he knew about the Silverbridge payment. Pountney had really seen the Duke’s cheque for £500. ‘There was some bet, – eh, Major?’ asked Mr Slide.

  ‘No, there wasn’t I know who has been telling you. That’s Lizzie Eustace, and just like her mischief. The way of it was this; – Lopez, who was very angry, had boasted that he would bring the Duke down on his marrow-bones. I was laughing at him as we sat at dinner one day afterwards, and he took out the cheque and showed it me. There was the Duke’s own signature for £500, – “Omnium”, as plain as letters could make it.’ Armed with this full information, Mr Slide felt that he had done all that the most punctilious devotion to accuracy could demand of him, and immediately shut himself up in his cage at the People’s Banner office and went to work.

  This occurred about the first week in January. The Duke was then at Matching with his wife and a very small party. The singular arrangement which had been effected by the Duchess in the early autumn had passed off without any wonderful effects. It had been done by her in pique, and the result had been apparently so absurd that it had at first frightened her. But in the end it answered very well. The Duke took great pleasure in Lady Rosina’s company, and enjoyed the comparative solitude which enabled him to work all day without interruption. His wife protested that it was just what she liked, though it must be feared that she soon became weary of it. To Lady Rosina it was of course a Paradise on earth. In September, Phineas Finn and his wife came to them, and in October there were other relaxations and other business. The Prime Minister and his wife visited their Sovereign, and he made some very useful speeches through the country on his old favourite subject of decimal coinage. At Christm
as, for a fortnight, they went to Gatherum Castle and entertained the neighbourhood, – the nobility and squirearchy dining there on one day, and the tenants and other farmers on another. All this went very smoothly, and the Duke did not become outrageously unhappy because the Peoples Banner made sundry severe remarks on the absence of Cabinet Councils through the autumn.

  After Christmas they returned to Matching, and had some of their old friends with them. There was the Duke of St Bungay and the Duchess, and Phineas Finn and his wife, and Lord and Lady Cantrip, Barrington Erle, and one or two others. But at this period there came a great trouble. One morning as the Duke sat in his own room after breakfast he read an article in the People’s Banner of which the following sentences were a part. ‘We wish to know by whom were paid the expenses incurred by Mr Ferdinand Lopez during the late contest at Silverbridge. It may be that they were paid by that gentleman himself, – in which case we shall have nothing further to say, not caring at the present moment to inquire whether those expenses were or were not excessive. It may be that they were paid by subscription among his political friends, – and if so, again we shall be satisfied. Or it is possible that funds were supplied by a new political club of which we have lately heard much, and with the action of such a body we of course have nothing to do. If an assurance can be given to us by Mr Lopez or his friends that such was the case we shall be satisfied.

  ‘But a report has reached us, and we may say more than a report, which makes it our duty to ask this question. Were those expenses paid out of the private pocket of the present Prime Minister? If so, we maintain that we have discovered a blot in that nobleman’s character which it is our duty to the public to expose. We will go farther and say that if it be so, – if these expenses were paid out of the private pocket of the Duke of Omnium, it is not fit that that nobleman should any longer hold the high office which he now fills.

  ‘We know that a peer should not interfere in elections for the House of Commons. We certainly know that a Minister of the Crown should not attempt to purchase parliamentary support We happen to know also the almost more than public manner, – are we not justified in saying the ostentation? – with which at the last election the Duke repudiated all that influence with the borough which his predecessors, and we believe he himself, had so long exercised. He came forward telling us that he, at least, meant to have clean hands; – that he would not do as his forefathers had done; – that he would not even do as he himself had done in former years. What are we to think of the Duke of Omnium as a Minister of this country, if, after such assurances, he has out of his own pocket paid the electioneering expenses of a candidate at Silverbridge?’ There was much more in the article, but the passages quoted will suffice to give the reader a sufficient idea of the accusation made, and which the Duke read in the retirement of his own chamber.

  He read it twice before he allowed himself to think of the matter. The statement made was at any rate true to the letter. He had paid the man’s electioneering expenses. That he had done so from the purest motives he knew and the reader knows; – but he could not even explain those motives without exposing his wife. Since the cheque was sent he had never spoken of the occurrence to any human being, – but he had thought of it very often. At the time his private Secretary, with much hesitation, almost with trepidation, had counselled him not to send the money. The Duke was a man with whom it was very easy to work, whose courtesy to all dependent on him was almost exaggerated, who never found fault, and was anxious as far as possible to do everything for himself The comfort of those around him was always a matter of interest to him. Everything he held, he held as it were in trust for the enjoyment of others. But he was a man whom it was very difficult to advise. He did not like advice. He was so thin-skinned that any counsel offered to him took the form of criticism. When cautioned what shoes he should wear, – as had been done by Lady Rosina; or what wine or what horses he should buy, as was done by his butler and coachman, he was thankful, taking no pride to himself for knowledge as to shoes, wine, or horses. But as to his own conduct, private or public, as to any question of politics, as to his opinions and resolutions, he was jealous of interference. Mr Warburton therefore had almost trembled when asking the Duke whether he was quite sure about sending the money to Lopez. ‘Quite sure,’ the Duke had answered, having at that time made up his mind. Mr Warburton had not dared to express a further doubt, and the money had been sent. But from the moment of sending it doubts had repeated themselves in the Prime Minister’s mind.

  Now he sat with the newspaper in his hand thinking of it. Of course it was open to him to take no notice of the matter, – to go on as though he had not seen the article, and to let the thing the if it would die. But he knew Mr Quintas Slide and his paper well enough to be sure that it would not die. The charge would be repeated in the People’s Banner till it was copied into other papers; and then the further question would be asked, – why had the Prime Minister allowed such an accusation to remain unanswered? But if he did notice it, what notice should he take of it? It was true. And surely he had a right to do what he liked with his own money so long as he disobeyed no law. He had bribed no one. He had spent his money with no corrupt purpose. His sense of honour had taught him to think that the man had received injury through his wife’s imprudence, and that he therefore was responsible as far as the pecuniary loss was concerned. He was not ashamed that it should be discussed in public.

  Why had he allowed himself to be put into a position in which he was subject to such grievous annoyance? Since he had held his office he had not had a happy day, nor, – so he told himself, – had he received from it any slightest gratification, nor could he buoy himself up with the idea that he was doing good service for his country. After a while he walked into the next room and showed the paper to Mr Warburton. ‘Perhaps you were right,’ he said, ‘when you told me not to send that money.’

  ‘It will matter nothing,’ said the private Secretary when he had read it, – thinking, however, that it might matter much, but wishing to spare the Duke.

  ‘I was obliged to repay the man as the Duchess had, – had encouraged him. The Duchess had not quite, – quite understood my wishes.’ Mr Warburton knew the whole history now, having discussed it all with the Duchess more than once.

  ‘I think your Grace should take no notice of the article.’

  No notice was taken of it, but three days afterwards there appeared a short paragraph in large type, – beginning with a question. ‘Does the Duke of Omnium intend to answer the question asked by us last Friday? Is it true that he paid the expenses of Mr Lopez when that gentleman stood for Silverbridge? The Duke may be assured that the question shall be repeated till it is answered.’ This the Duke also saw and took to his private Secretary.

  ‘I would do nothing at any rate till it be noticed in some other paper,’ said the private Secretary. ‘The People’s Banner is known to be scandalous.’

  ‘Of course it is scandalous. And, moreover, I know the motives and the malice of the wretched man who is the editor. But the paper is read, and the foul charge if repeated will become known, and the allegation made is true. I did pay the man’s election expenses; – and, moreover, to tell the truth openly as I do not scruple to do to you, I am not prepared to state publicly the reason why I did so. And nothing but that reason could justify me.’

  ‘Then I think your Grace should state it.’

  ‘I cannot do so.’

  ‘The Duke of St Bungay is here. Would it not be well to tell the whole affair to him?’

  ‘I will think of it. I do not know why I should have troubled you.’

  ‘Oh, my lord!’

  ‘Except that there is always some comfort in speaking even of one’s trouble. I will think about it. In the meantime you need perhaps not mention it again.’

  ‘Who? I? Oh, certainly not’

  ‘I did not mean to others, – but to myself. I will turn it in my mind and speak of it when I have decided anything.’ And he did think abo
ut it, – thinking of it so much that he could hardly get the matter out of his mind day or night. To his wife he did not allude to it at all. Why trouble her with it? She had caused the evil, and he had cautioned her as to the future. She could not help him out of the difficulty she had created. He continued to turn the matter over in his thoughts till he so magnified it, and built it up into such proportions, that he again began to think that he must resign. It was, he thought, true that a man should not remain in office as Prime Minister who in such a matter could not clear his own conduct.

  Then there was a third attack in the People’s Banner, and after that the matter was noticed in the Evening Pulpit. This notice the Duke of St Bungay saw and mentioned to Mr Warburton. ‘Has the Duke spoken to you of some allegations made in the press as to the expenses of the late election at Silverbridge?’ The old Duke was at this time, and had been for some months, in a state of nervous anxiety about his friend. He had almost admitted to himself that he had been wrong in recommending a politician so weakly organized to take the office of Prime Minister. He had expected the man to be more manly, – had perhaps expected him to be less conscientiously scrupulous. But now, as the thing had been done, it must be maintained. Who else was there to take the office? Mr Gresham would not. To keep Mr Daubeny out was the very essence of the Duke of St Bungay’s life, – the turning-point of his political creed, the one grand duty the idea of which was always present to him. And he had, moreover; a most true and most affectionate regard for the man whom he now supported, appreciating the sweetness of his character, – believing still in the Minister’s patriotism, intelligence, devotion, and honesty; though he was forced to own to himself that the strength of a man’s heart was wanting.

  ‘Yes,’ said Warburton; ‘he did mention it.’

  ‘Does it trouble him?’

  ‘Perhaps you had better speak to him about it’ Both the old Duke and the private Secretary were as fearful and nervous about the Prime Minister as a mother is for a weakly child. They could hardly tell their opinions to each other, but they understood one another, and between them they coddled their Prime Minister. They were specially nervous as to what might be done by the Prime Minister’s wife, nervous as to what was done by everyone who came in contact with him. It had been once suggested by the private Secretary that Lady Rosina should be sent for, as she had a soothing effect upon the Prime Minister’s spirit.