‘But we shall have made a step towards the step,’ said Phineas, ‘and in getting to a millennium even that is something.’
‘I suppose we are all too anxious,’ said the Duke, ‘to see some great effects come from our own little doings. Good day. We shall know all about it tolerably early. Monk seems to think that it will be an attack on the Ministry and not on the bill, and that it will be best to get a vote with as little delay as possible.’
‘I’ll bet an even five-pound note,’ said Mr Lupton at the Carlton, ‘that the present Ministry is out to-morrow, and another that no one names five members of the next Cabinet’.
‘You can help to win your first bet,’ said Mr Beauchamp, a very old member, who, like many other Conservatives, had supported the Coalition.
‘I shall not do that,’ said Lupton, ‘though I think I ought. I won’t vote against the man in his misfortunes, though, upon my soul, I don’t love him very dearly. I shall vote neither way, but I hope that Sir Orlando may succeed.’
‘If he do, who is to come in?’ said the other. ‘I suppose you don’t want to serve under Sir Orlando?’
‘Nor certainly under the Duke of Omnium. We shall not want a Prime Minister as long as there are as good fish in the sea as have been caught out of it’
There had lately been formed a new Liberal club, established on a broader basis than the Progress, and perhaps with a greater amount of aristocratic support This had come up since the Duke had been Prime Minister. Certain busy men had never been quite contented with the existing state of things, and had thought that the Liberal party, with such assistance as such club could give it, would be strong enough to rule alone. That the great Liberal party should be impeded in its work and its triumph by such men as Sir Orlando Drought and Sir Timothy Beeswax was odious to the club. All the Pallisers had, from time immemorial, run straight as Liberals, and therefore the club had been unwilling to oppose the Duke personally, though he was the chief of the Coalition. And certain members of the Government, Phineas Finn, for instance, Barrington Erle, and Mr Rattler were on the committee of the club. But the club, as a club, was not averse to a discontinuance of the present state of things. Mr Gresham might again become Prime Minister, if he would condescend so far, or Mr Monk. It might be possible that the great Liberal triumph contemplated by the club might not be achieved by the present House; – but the present House must go shortly, and then, with that assistance from a well-organized club, which had lately been so terribly wanting, – the lack of which had made the Coalition necessary, – no doubt the British constituencies would do their duty, and a Liberal Prime Minister, pure and simple, might reign – almost for ever. With this great future before it, the club was very lukewarm in its support of the present bill. ‘I shall go down and vote for them of course,’ said Mr O’Mahony, ‘just for the look of the thing.’ In saying this Mr O’Mahony expressed the feeling of the club, and the feeling of the Liberal party generally. There was something due to the Duke, but not enough to make it incumbent on his friends to maintain him in his position as Prime Minister.
It was a great day for Sir Orlando. At half-past four the House was full, – not from any desire to hear Sir Orlando’s arguments against the bill, but because it was felt that a good deal of personal interest would be attached to the debate. If one were asked in these days what gift should a Prime Minister ask first from the fairies, one would name the power of attracting personal friends. Eloquence, if it be too easy, may become almost a curse. Patriotism is suspected, and sometimes sinks almost to pedantry. A Jove-born intellect is hardly wanted, and clashes with the inferiorities. Industry is exacting. Honesty is unpractical. Truth is easily offended. Dignity will not bend. But the man who can be all things to all men, who has ever a kind word to speak, a pleasant joke to crack, who can forgive all sins, who is ever prepared for friend or foe but never very bitter to the latter, who forgets not men’s names, and is always ready with little words, – he is the man who will be supported at a crisis such as this that was now in the course of passing. It is for him that men will struggle, and talk, and, if needs be, fight, as though the very existence of the country depended on his political security. The present man would receive no such defence; but still the violent deposition of a Prime Minister is always a memorable occasion.
Sir Orlando made his speech, and, as had been anticipated, it had very little to do with the bill, and was almost exclusively an attack upon his late chief. He thought, he said, that this was an occasion on which they had better come to a direct issue with as little delay as possible. If he rightly read the feeling of the House, no bill of this magnitude coming from the present Ministry would be likely to be passed in an efficient condition. The Duke had frittered away his support in that House, and as a Minister had lost that confidence which a majority of the House had once been willing to place in him. We need not follow Sir Orlando through his speech. He alluded to his own services, and declared that he was obliged to withdraw them because the Duke would not trust him with the management of his own office. He had reason to believe that other gentlemen who had attached themselves to the Duke’s Ministry had found themselves equally crippled by this passion for autocratic rule. Hereupon a loud chorus of disapprobation came from the Treasury bench, which was fully answered by opposing noises from the other side of the House. Sir Orlando declared that he need only point to the fact that the Ministry had been already shivered by the secession of various gentlemen. ‘Only two,’ said a voice. Sir Orlando was turning round to contradict the voice when he was greeted by another. ‘And those the weakest,’ said the other voice, which was indubitably that of Larry Fitzgibbon. ‘I will not speak of myself,’ said Sir Orlando pompously; ‘but I am authorized to tell the House that the noble lord who is now Secretary of State for the Colonies only holds his office till this crisis shall have passed.’
After that there was some sparring of a very bitter kind between Sir Timothy and Phineas Finn, till at last it seemed that the debate was to degenerate into a war of man against man. Phineas, and Erie, and Laurence Fitzgibbon allowed themselves to be lashed into anger, and, as far as words went, had the best of it. But of what use could it be? Every man there had come into the House prepared to vote for or against the Duke of Omnium, – or resolved, like Mr Lupton, not to vote at all; and it was hardly on the cards that a single vote should be turned this way or that by any violence of speaking. ‘Let it pass,’ said Mr Monk in a whisper to Phineas. ‘The fire is not worth the fuel.’
‘I know the Duke’s faults,’ said Phineas; ‘but these men know nothing of his virtues, and when I hear them abuse him I cannot stand it’
Early in the night, – before twelve o’clock, – the House divided, and even at the moment of the division no one quite knew how it would go. There would be many who would of course vote against the amendment as being simply desirous of recording their opinion in favour of the bill generally. And there were some who thought that Sir Orlando and his followers had been too forward, and too confident of their own standing in the House, in trying so violent a mode of opposition. It would have been better, these men thought, to have insured success by a gradual and persistent opposition to the bill itself. But they hardly knew how thoroughly men may be alienated by silence and a cold demeanour. Sir Orlando on the division was beaten, but was beaten only by nine. ‘He can’t go on with his bill,’ said Rattler in one of the lobbies of the House. ‘I defy him. The House wouldn’t stand it, you know.’ ‘No minister,’ said Roby, ‘could carry a measure like that with a majority of nine on a vote of confidence!’ The House was of course adjourned, and Mr Monk went at once to Carlton Terrace.
‘I wish it had only been three or four,’ said the Duke, laughing.
‘Why so?’
‘Because there would have been less doubt.’
‘Is there any at present?’
‘Less possibility for doubt, I will say. You would not wish to make the attempt with such a majority.’
‘I could not d
o it, Duke!’
‘I quite agree with you. But there will be those who will say that the attempt might be made, – who will accuse us of being fainthearted because we do not make it’.
‘They will be men who understand nothing of the temper of the House.’
‘Very likely. But still, I wish the majority had only been two or three. There is little more to be said, I suppose.’
‘Very little, your Grace.’
‘We had better meet to-morrow at two, and, if possible, I will see her Majesty in the afternoon. Good night, Mr Monk.’
‘Good night, Duke.’
‘My reign is ended. You are a good deal an older man than I, and yet probably yours has yet to begin.’ Mr Monk smiled and shook his head as he left the room, not trusting himself to discuss so large a subject at so late an hour of the night.
Without waiting a moment after his colleague’s departure, the Prime Minister, – for he was still Prime Minister, – went into his wife’s room, knowing that she was waiting up till she should hear the result of the division, and there he found Mrs Finn with her. ‘Is it over?’ asked the Duchess.
‘Yes; – there has been a division. Mr Monk has just been with me.’
‘Well!’
‘We have beaten them, of course, as we always do,’ said the Duke, attempting to be pleasant. ‘You didn’t suppose there was anything to fear? Your husband has always bid you keep up your courage; – has he not, Mrs Finn?’
‘My husband has lost his senses, I think,’ she said. ‘He has taken to such storming and raving about his political enemies that I hardly dare to open my mouth.’
‘Tell me what has been done, Plantagenet,’ ejaculated the Duchess.
‘Don’t you be as unreasonable as Mrs Finn, Cora. The House has voted against Sir Orlando’s amendment by a majority of nine.’
‘Only nine!’
‘And I shall cease to be Prime Minister to-morrow.’
‘You don’t mean to say that it’s settled?’
‘Quite settled. The play has been played, and the curtain has fallen, and the lights are being put out, and the poor weary actors may go home to bed.’
‘But on such an amendment surely any majority would have done.’
‘No, my dear. I will not name a number, but nine certainly would not do.’
‘And it is all over?’
‘My Ministry is all over, if you mean that.’
‘Then everything is over for me. I shall settle down in the country and build cottages, and mix draughts. You, Marie, will still be going up the tree. If Mr Finn manages well he may come to be Prime Minister some day.’
‘He has hardly such ambition, Lady Glen.’
‘The ambition will come fast enough; – will it not, Plantagenet? Let him once begin to dream of it as possible, and the desire will soon be strong enough. How should you feel if it were so?’
‘It is quite impossible,’ said Mrs Finn, gravely.
‘I don’t see why anything is impossible. Sir Orlando will be Prime Minister now, and Sir Timothy Beeswax Lord Chancellor. After that anybody may hope to be anything. Well, – I suppose we may go to bed. Is your carriage here, my dear?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Ring the bell, Plantagenet, for somebody to see her down. Come to lunch to-morrow because I shall have so many groans to utter. What beasts, what brutes, what ungrateful wretches men are! – worse than women when they get together in numbers enough to be bold. Why have they deserted you? What have we not done for them? Think of all the new bedroom furniture that we sent to Gatherum merely to keep the party together. There were thousands of yards of linen, and it has all been of no use. Don’t you feel like Wolsey, Plantagenet.’
‘Not in the least, my dear. No one will take anything away from me that is my own.’
‘For me, I am almost as much divorced as Catherine, and have had my head cut off as completely as Anne Bullen and the rest of them.32 Go away, Marie, because I am going to have a cry by myself.’
The Duke himself on that night put Mrs Finn into her carriage; and as he walked with her downstairs he asked her whether she believed the Duchess to be in earnest in her sorrow. ‘She so mixes up her mirth and woe together,’ said the Duke, ‘that I myself sometimes can hardly understand her.’
‘I think she does regret it, Duke.’
‘She told me but the other day that she would be contented.’
‘A few weeks will make her so. As for your Grace, I hope I may congratulate you.’
‘Oh yes; – I think so. We none of us like to be beaten when we have taken a thing in hand. There is always a little disappointment at first. But, upon the whole, it is better as it is. I hope it will not make your husband unhappy.’
‘Not for his own sake. He will go again into the middle of the scramble and fight on one side or the other. For my own part I think opposition the pleasantest. Good night, Duke. I am so sorry that I should have troubled you.’
Then he went alone to his own room, and sat there without moving for a couple of hours. Surely it was a great thing to have been Prime Minister of England for three years, – a prize of which nothing now could rob him. He ought not to be unhappy; and yet he knew himself to be wretched and disappointed. It had never occurred to him to be proud of being a duke, or to think of his wealth otherwise than a chance incident of his life, advantageous indeed, but by no means a source of honour. And he had been aware that he had owed his first seat in Parliament to his birth, and probably also his first introduction to official life. An heir to a dukedom, if he will only work hard, may almost with certainty find himself received into one or the other regiment in Downing Street It had not in his early days been with him as it had with his friends Mr Monk and Phineas Finn, who had worked their way from the very ranks. But even a duke cannot become Prime Minister by favour. Surely he had done something of which he might be proud. And so he tried to console himself.
But to have done something was nothing to him, – nothing to his personal happiness, – unless there was also something left for him to do. How should it be with him now, – how for the future? Would men ever listen to him again, or allow him again to work in their behoof, as he used to do in his happy days in the House of Commons? He feared that it was all over for him, and that for the rest of his days he must simply be the Duke of Omnium.
CHAPTER 74
‘I am disgraced and shamed’
Soon after the commencement of the Session Arthur Fletcher became a constant visitor in Manchester Square, dining with the old barrister almost constantly on Sundays, and not unfrequently on other days when the House and his general engagements would permit it. Between him and Emily’s father there was no secret and no misunderstanding. Mr Wharton quite understood that the young member of Parliament was earnestly purposed to marry his daughter, and Fletcher was sure of all the assistance and support which Mr Wharton could give him. The name of Lopez was very rarely used between them. It had been tacitly agreed that there was no need that it should be mentioned. The man had come like a destroying angel between them and their fondest hopes. Neither could ever be what he would have been had that man never appeared to destroy their happiness. But the man had gone away, not without a tragedy that was appalling; – and each thought that, as regarded him, he and the tragedy might be, if not forgotten at least put aside, if only that other person in whom they were interested could be taught to seem to forget him. ‘It is not love,’ said the father, ‘but a feeling of shame.’ Arthur Fletcher shook his head, not quite agreeing with this. It was not that he feared that she loved the memory of her late husband. Such love was, he thought, impossible. But there was, he believed, something more than the feeling which her father described as shame. There was pride also; – a determination in her own bosom not to confess the fault she had made in giving herself to him whom she must now think to have been so much the least worthy of her two suitors. ‘Her fortune will not be what I once promised you,’ said the old man plaintively.
&nbs
p; ‘I do not remember that I ever asked you as to her fortune,’ Arthur replied.
‘Certainly not. If you had I should not have told you. But as I named a sum, it is right that I should explain to you that that man succeeded in lessening it by six or seven thousand pounds.’
‘If that were all!’
‘And I have promised Sir Alured that Everett, as his heir, should have the use of a considerable portion of his share without waiting for my death. It is odd that the one of my children from whom I certainly expected the greater trouble should have fallen so entirely on his feet; and that the other – ; well, let us hope for the best Everett seems to have taken up with Wharton as though it belonged to him already. And Emily –! Well, my dear boy, let us hope that it may come right yet. You are not drinking your wine. Yes, – pass the bottle; I’ll have another glass before I go upstairs.’
In this way the time went by till Emily returned to town. The Ministry had just then resigned, but I think that ‘this great reactionary success’, as it was called by the writer in the Peoples Banner, affected one member of the Lower House much less than the return to London of Mrs Lopez. Arthur Fletcher had determined that he would renew his suit as soon as a year should have expired since the tragedy which had made his love a widow, – and that year had now passed away. He had known the day well, – as had she, when she passed the morning weeping in her own room at Wharton. Now he questioned himself whether a year would suffice, – whether both in mercy to her and with the view of realizing his own hopes he should give her some longer time for recovery. But he had told himself that it should be done at the end of a year, and as he had allowed no one to talk him out of his word, so neither would he be untrue to it himself. But it became with him a deep matter of business, a question of great difficulty, how he should arrange the necessary interview, – whether he should plead his case with her at their first meeting, or whether he had better allow her to become accustomed to his presence in the house. His mother had attempted to ridicule him, because he was, as she said, afraid of a woman. He well remembered that he had never been afraid of Emily Wharton when they had been quite young, – little more than a boy and girl together. Then he had told her of his love over and over again, and had found almost a comfortable luxury in urging her to say a word, which she had never indeed said, but which probably in those days he still hoped that she would say. And occasionally he had feigned to be angry with her, and had tempted her on to little quarrels with a boyish idea that quick reconciliation would perhaps throw her into his arms. But now it seemed to him that an age had passed since those days. His love had certainly not faded. There had never been a moment when that had been on the wing. But now the azure plumage of his love had become grey as the wings of a dove, and the gorgeousness of his dreams had sobered into hopes and fears which were a constant burden to his heart. There was time enough, still time enough for happiness if she would yield; – and time enough for the dull pressure of unsatisfied aspirations should she persist in her refusal.
THE PRIME MINISTER Page 77