‘Has it irritated him?’ asked the Duke.
‘Well; – yes, it has; – a little, you know. I think your Grace had better speak to him; – and not perhaps mention my name.’ The Duke of St Bungay nodded his head, and said that he would speak to the great man and would not mention anyone’s name.
And he did speak. ‘Has anyone said anything to you about it?’ asked the Prime Minister.
‘I saw it in the Evening Pulpit myself. I have not heard it mentioned anywhere.’
‘I did pay the man’s expenses.’
‘You did!’
‘Yes, – when the election was over, and, as far as I can remember, some time after it was over. He wrote to me saying that he had incurred such and such expenses, and asking me to repay him. I sent him a cheque for the amount.’
‘But why?’
‘I was bound in honour to do it’
‘But why?’
There was a short pause before this second question was answered. ‘The man had been induced to stand by representations made to him from my house. He had been, I fear, promised certain support which certainly was not given him when the time came.’
‘You had not promised it?’
‘No; – not I.’
‘Was it the Duchess?’
‘Upon the whole, my friend, I think I would rather not discuss it further, even with you. It is right that you should know that I did pay the money, – and also why I paid it. It may also be necessary that we should consider whether there may be any further probable result from my doing so. But the money has been paid, by me myself, – and was paid for the reason I have stated.’
‘A question might be asked in the House.’
‘If so, it must be answered as I have answered you. I certainly shall not shirk any responsibility that may be attached to me.’
‘You would not like Warburton to write a line to the newspaper?’
‘What; – to the People’s Banner!’
‘It began there, did it? No, not to the People’s Banner, but to the Evening Pulpit. He could say, you know, that the money was paid by you, and that the payment had been made because your agents had misapprehended your instructions.’
‘It would not be true,’ said the Prime Minister slowly.
‘As far as I can understand that was what occurred,’ said the other Duke.
‘My instructions were not misapprehended. They were disobeyed. I think that perhaps we had better say no more about it.’
‘Do not think that I wish to press you,’ said the old man tenderly; ‘but I fear that something ought to be done; – I mean for your own comfort.’
‘My comfort!’ said the Prime Minister. ‘That has vanished long ago; – and my peace of mind, and my happiness.’
‘There has been nothing done which cannot be explained with perfect truth. There has been no impropriety.’
‘I do not know.’
‘The money was paid simply from an over-nice sense of honour.’
‘It cannot be explained. I cannot explain it even to you; and how then can I do it to all the gaping fools of the country who are ready to trample upon a man simply because he is in some way conspicuous among them?’
After that the old Duke again spoke to Mr Warburton, but Mr Warburton was very loyal to his chief. ‘Could one do anything by speaking to the Duchess?’ said the old Duke.
‘I think not.’
‘I suppose it was her Grace who did it all.’
‘I cannot say. My own impression is that he had better wait till the Houses meet, and then, if any question is asked, let it be answered. He himself would do it in the House of Lords, or Mr Finn or Barrington Erle, in our House. It would surely be enough to explain that his Grace had been made to believe that the man had received encouragement at Silverbridge from his own agents, which he himself had not intended should be given, and that therefore he had thought it right to pay the money. After such an explanation what more could anyone say?’
‘You might do it yourself.’
‘I never speak.’
‘But in such a case as that you might do so; and then there would be no necessity for him to talk to another person on the matter.’
So the affair was left for the present, though the allusions to it in the People’s Banner were still continued. Nor did any other of the Prime Minister’s colleagues dare to speak to him on the subject. Barrington Erle and Phineas Finn talked of it among themselves, but they did not mention it even to the Duchess. She would have gone to her husband at once; and they were too careful of him to risk such a proceeding. It certainly was the case that among them they coddled the Prime Minister.
CHAPTER 51
Coddling the Prime Minister
Parliament was to meet on the 12th of February, and it was of course necessary that there should be a Cabinet Council before that time. The Prime Minister, about the end of the third week in January, was prepared to name a day for this, and did so, most unwillingly. But he was then ill, and talked both to his friend the old Duke and his private Secretary of having the meeting held without him. ‘Impossible!’ said the old Duke.
‘If I could not go it would have to be possible.’
‘We could all come here if it were necessary.’
‘Bring fourteen or fifteen ministers out of town because a poor creature such as I am is ill!’ But in truth the Duke of St Bungay hardly believed in this illness. The Prime Minister was unhappy rather than ill.
By this time everybody in the House, – and almost everybody in the country who read the newspapers, – had heard of Mr Lopez and his election expenses, – except the Duchess. No one had yet dared to tell her. She saw the newspapers daily, but probably did not read them very attentively. Nevertheless she knew that something was wrong. Mr Warburton hovered about the Prime Minister more tenderly than usual; the Duke of St Bungay was more concerned; the world around her was more mysterious, and her husband more wretched. ‘What is it that’s going on?’ she said one day to Phineas Finn.
‘Everything, – in the same dull way as usual.’
‘If you don’t tell me I’ll never speak to you again. I know there is something wrong.’
‘The Duke, I’m afraid, is not quite well.’
‘What makes him ill? I know well when he’s ill and when he’s well. He’s troubled by something.’
‘I think he is, Duchess. But as he has not spoken to me I am loath to make guesses. If there be anything, I can only guess at it.’
Then she questioned Mrs Finn, and got an answer which, if not satisfactory, was at any rate explanatory. ‘I think he is uneasy about that Silverbridge affair.’
‘What Silverbridge affair?’
‘You know that he paid the expenses which that man Lopez says that he incurred.’
‘Yes; – I know that’
‘And you know that that other man Slide has found it out, and published it all in the People’s Banner?
‘No!’
‘Yes, indeed. And a whole army of accusations has been brought against him. I have never liked to tell you, and yet I do not think that you should be left in the dark-’
‘Everybody deceives me,’ said the Duchess angrily.
‘Nay; – there has been no deceit’
‘Everybody keeps things from me. I think you will kill me among you. It was my doing. Why do they attack him? I will write to the papers. I encouraged the man after Plantagenet had determined that he should not be assisted, – and, because I had done so, he paid the man his beggarly money. What is there to hurt him in that? Let me bear it. My back is broad enough.’
‘The Duke is very sensitive.’
‘I hate people to be sensitive. It makes them cowards. A man when he is afraid of being blamed, dares not at last even show himself, and has to be wrapped up in lamb’s-wool.’
‘Of course men are differently organized.’
‘Yes; – but the worst of it is, that when they suffer from this weakness, which you call sensitiveness, they think that t
hey are made of finer material than other people. Men shouldn’t be made of Sèvres china, but of good stone earthenware. However, I don’t want to abuse him, poor fellow.’
‘I don’t think you ought’
‘I know what that means. You do want to abuse me. So they’ve been bullying him about the money he paid to that man Lopez. How did anybody know anything about it?’
‘Lopez must have told of it,’ said Mrs Finn.
‘The worst, my dear, of trying to know a great many people is, that you are sure to get hold of some that are very bad. Now that man is very bad. Yet they say he has married a nice wife.’
‘That’s often the case, Duchess.’
‘And the contrary; – isn’t it, my dear? But I shall have it out with Plantagenet. If I have to write letters to all the newspapers myself, I’ll put it right’ She certainly coddled her husband less than the others; and, indeed, in her heart of hearts disapproved altogether of the coddling system. But she was wont at this particular time to be somewhat tender to him because she was aware that she herself had been imprudent Since he had discovered her interference at Silver-bridge, and had made her understand its pernicious results, she had been, – not, perhaps, shamefaced, for that word describes a condition to which hardly any series of misfortunes could have reduced the Duchess of Omnium, – but inclined to quiescence by feelings of penitence. She was less disposed than heretofore to attack him with what the world of yesterday calls ‘chaff’, or with what the world of to-day calls ‘cheek’. She would not admit to herself that she was cowed; – but the greatness of the game and the high interest attached to her husband’s position did in some degree dismay her. Nevertheless she executed her purpose of ‘having it out with Planta-genet’. ‘I have just heard,’ she said, having knocked at the door of his own room, and having found him alone, – ‘I have just heard, for the first time, that there is a row about the money you paid to Mr Lopez.’
‘Who told you?’
‘Nobody told me, – in the usual sense of the word. I presumed that something was the matter, and then I got it out from Marie. Why had you not told me?’
‘Why should I tell you?’
‘But why not? If anything troubled me I should tell you. That is, if it troubled me much.’
‘You take it for granted that this does trouble me much.’ He was smiling as he said this, but the smile passed very quickly from his face. ‘I will not, however, deceive you. It does trouble me.’
‘I knew very well that something was wrong.’
‘I have not complained.’
‘One can see as much as that without words. What is it that you fear? What can the man do to you? What matter is it to you if such a one as that pours out his malice on you? Let it run off like the rain from the housetops. You are too big even to be stung by such a reptile as that.’ He looked into her face, admiring the energy with which she spoke to him. ‘As for answering him,’ she continued to say, ‘that may or may not be proper. If it should be done, there are people to do it. But I am speaking of your own inner self. You have a shield against your equals, and a sword to attack them with if necessary. Have you no armour of proof against such a creature as that? Have you nothing inside you to make you feel that he is too contemptible to be regarded?’
‘Nothing,’ he said.
‘Oh, Plantagenet!’
‘Cora, there are different natures which have each their own excellencies and their own defects. I will not admit that I am a coward, believing as I do that I could dare to face necessary danger. But I cannot endure to have my character impugned, – even by Mr Slide and Mr Lopez.’
‘What matter, – if you are in the right? Why blench if your conscience accuses you of no fault? I would not blench even if it did. What; – is a man to be put in the front of everything, and then to be judged as though he could give all his time to the picking of his steps?’
‘Just so! And he must pick them more warily than another.’
‘I do not believe it. You see all this with jaundiced eyes. I read somewhere the other day that the great ships have always little worms attached to them, but that the great ships swim on and know nothing of the worms.’
‘The worms conquer at last.’
‘They shouldn’t conquer me! After all, what is it that they say about the money? That you ought not to have had it?’
‘I begin to think that I was wrong to pay it.’
‘You certainly were not wrong. I had led the man on. I had been mistaken. I had thought that he was a gentleman. Having led him on at first, before you had spoken to me, I did not like to go back from my word. I did go to the man at Silverbridge who sells the pots, and no doubt the man, when thus encouraged, told it all to Lopez. When Lopez went to the town he did suppose that he would have what the people call the Castle interest.’
‘And I had done so much to prevent it!’
‘What’s the use of going back to that now, unless you want me to put my neck down to be trodden on? I am confessing my own sins as fast as I can.’
‘God knows I would not have you trodden on.’
‘I am willing, – if it be necessary. Then came the question; – as I had done this evil, how was it to be rectified? Any man with a particle of spirit would have taken his rubs and said nothing about it. But as this man asked for the money, it was right that he should have it. If it is all made public he won’t get very well out of it.’
‘What does that matter to me?’
‘Nor shall I; – only luckily I do not mind it’
‘But I mind it for you.’
‘You must throw me to the whale.8 Let somebody say in so many words that the Duchess did so and so. It was very wicked no doubt; but they can’t kill me, – nor yet dismiss me. And I won’t resign. In point of fact I shan’t be a penny the worse for it’
‘But I should resign.’
‘If all the Ministers in England were to give up as soon as their wives do foolish things, that question about the Queen’s Government would become very difficult.’
‘They may do foolish things, dear; and yet–’
‘And yet what?’
‘And yet not interfere in politics.’
‘That’s all you know about it, Plantagenet Doesn’t everybody know that Mrs Daubeny got Dr MacFuzlem made a bishop, and that Mrs Gresham got her husband to make that hazy speech about women’s rights, so that nobody should know which way he meant to go? There are others just as bad as me, only I don’t think they get blown up so much. You do now as I ask you.’
‘I couldn’t do it, Cora. Though the stain were but a little spot, and the thing to be avoided political destruction, I could not ride out of the punishment by fixing that stain on my wife. I will not have your name mentioned. A man’s wife should be talked about by no one.’
‘That’s high-foluting, Plantagenet’
‘Glencora, in these matters you must allow me to judge for myself, and I will judge. I will never say that I didn’t do it; – but that it was my wife who did.’
‘Adam said so, – because he chose to tell the truth.’
‘And Adam has been despised ever since, – not because he ate the apple, but because he imputed the eating of it to a woman. I will not do it. We have had enough of this now.’ Then she turned to go away; – but he called her back. ‘Kiss me, dear,’ he said. Then she stooped over him and kissed him. ‘Do not think I am angry with you because the thing vexes me. I am dreaming always of some day when we may go away together with the children, and rest in some pretty spot, and live as other people live.’
‘It would be very stupid,’ she muttered to herself as she left the room.
He did go up to town for the Cabinet meeting. Whatever may have been done at that august assembly there was certainly no resignation, or the world would have heard it. It is probable, too, that nothing was said about these newspaper articles. Things if left to themselves will generally the at last. The old Duke and Phineas Finn and Barrington Erle were all of opinion that the best
plan for the present was to do nothing. ‘Has anything been settled?’ the Duchess asked Phineas when he came back.
‘Oh yes; – the Queen’s Speech. But there isn’t very much in it’
‘But about the payment of this money?’
‘I haven’t heard a word about it,’ said Phineas.
‘You’re just as bad as all the rest, Mr Finn, with your pretended secrecy. A girl with her first sweetheart isn’t half so fussy as a young Cabinet Minister.’
‘The Cabinet Ministers get used to it sooner, I think,’ said Phineas Finn.
Parliament had already met before Mr Slide had quite determined in what way he would carry on the war. He could indeed go on writing pernicious articles about the Prime Minister ad infinitum, – from year’s end to year’s end. It was an occupation in which he took delight, and for which he imagined himself to be peculiarly well suited. But readers will become tired even of abuse if it be not varied. And the very continuation of such attacks would seem to imply that they were not much heeded. Other papers had indeed taken the matter up, – but they had taken it up only to drop it. The subject had not been their own. The little discovery had been due not to their acumen, and did not therefore bear with them the highest interest. It had almost seemed as though nothing would come of it; – for Mr Slide in his wildest ambition could have hardly imagined the vexation and hesitation, the nervousness and serious discussions which his words had occasioned among the great people at Matching. But certainly the thing must not be allowed to pass away as a matter of no moment. Mr Slide had almost worked his mind up to real horror as he thought of it. What! A prime minister, a peer, a great duke, – put a man forward as a candidate for a borough, and, when the man was beaten, pay his expenses! Was this to be done, – to be done and found out and then nothing come of it in these days of purity, when a private member of Parliament, some mere nobody, loses his seat because he has given away a few bushels of coals or a score or two of rabbits! Mr Slide’s energetic love of public virtue was scandalized as he thought of the probability of such a catastrophe. To his thinking public virtue consisted in carping at men high placed, in abusing ministers and judges and bishops, – and especially in finding out something for which they might be abused. His own public virtue was in this matter very great, for it was he who had ferreted out the secret. For his intelligence and energy in that matter the country owed him much. But the country would pay him nothing, would give him none of the credit he desired, would rob him of this special opportunity of declaring a dozen times that the People’s Banner was the surest guardian of the people’s liberty, – unless he could succeed in forcing the matter further into public notice. ‘How terrible is the apathy of the people at large,’ said Mr Slide to himself, ‘when they cannot be wakened by such a revelation as this!’
THE PRIME MINISTER Page 54