Can You Forgive Her? (38 page)

And as regards Mr Palliser, I think that his married life, and the wife, whom he certainly had not chosen, but who had dropped upon him, suited him admirably. He wanted great wealth for that position at which he aimed. He had been rich before his marriage with his own wealth, – so rich that he could throw thousands away if he wished it; but for him and his career
was needed that colossal wealth which would make men talk about it, – which would necessitate an expansive expenditure, reaching far and wide, doing nothing, or less than nothing, for his own personal comfort, but giving to him at once that rock-like solidity which is so necessary to our great aristocratic politicians. And his wife was, as far as he knew, all that he desired. He had not dabbled
much in the fountains of Venus, though he had forgotten himself once, and sinned in coveting another man’s wife. But his sin then had hardly polluted his natural character, and his desire had been of a kind which was almost more gratified in its disappointment than it would have been in its fruition. On the morning after the lady had frowned on him he had told himself that he was very well out
of that trouble. He knew that it would never be for him to hang up on the walls of a temple a well-worn lute as a votive offering when leaving the pursuits of love. I doneus puellis
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he never could have been. So he married Lady Glencora and was satisfied. The story of Burgo Fitzgerald was told to him, and he supposed that most girls had some such story to tell. He thought little about it, and
by no means understood her when she said to him, with all the impressiveness which she could throw into the words, ‘You must know that I have really loved him.’ ‘You must love me now,’
he had replied with a smile; and then, as regarded his mind, the thing was over. And since his marriage he had thought that things matrimonial had gone well with him, and with her too. He gave her almost unlimited
power of enjoying her money, and interfered but little in her way of life. Sometimes he would say a word of caution to her with reference to those childish ways which hardly became the dull dignity of his position; and his words then would have in them something of unintentional severity, – whether instigated or not by the red-haired Radical Member of Parliament, I will not pretend to say; – but
on the whole he was contented and loved his wife, as he thought, very heartily, and at least better than he loved any one else. One cause of unhappiness, or rather one doubt as to his entire good fortune, was beginning to make itself felt, as his wife had to her sorrow already discovered. He had hoped that before this he might have heard that she would give him a child. But the days were young yet
for that trouble, and the care had not become a sorrow.

But this judicious arrangement as to properties, this well-ordered alliance between families, had not perhaps suited her as well as it had suited him. I think that she might have learned to forget her early lover, or to look back upon it with a soft melancholy hardly amounting to regret, had her new lord been more tender in his ways with
her. I do not know that Lady Glencora’s heart was made of that stern stuff which refuses to change its impressions; but it was a heart, and it required food. To love and fondle someone, – to be loved and fondled, were absolutely necessary to her happiness. She wanted the little daily assurance of her supremacy in the man’s feelings, the constant touch of love, half accidental half contrived, the
passing glance of the eye telling perhaps of some little joke understood only between them two rather than of love, the softness of an occasional kiss given here and there when chance might bring them together, some half-pretended interest in her little doings, a nod, a wink, a shake of the head, or even a pout It should have been given to her to feed upon such food as this daily, and then she would
have forgotten Burgo Fitzgerald. But Mr Palliser understood none of these things;
and therefore the image of Burgo Fitzgerald in all his beauty was ever before her eyes.

But not the less was Mr Palliser a prosperous man, as to the success of whose career few who knew him had much doubt It might be written in the book of his destiny that he would have to pass through some violent domestic trouble,
some ruin in the hopes of his home, of a nature to destroy then and for ever the worldly prospects of other men. But he was one who would pass through such violence, should it come upon him, without much scathe. To lose his influence with his party would be worse to him than to lose his wife, and public disgrace would hit him harder than private dishonour.

And the present was the very moment
in which success was, as was said, coming to him. He had already held laborious office under the Crown, but had never sat in the Cabinet He had worked much harder than Cabinet Ministers generally work, – but hitherto had worked without any reward that was worth his having. For the stipend which he had received had been nothing to him, – as the great stipend which he would receive, if his hopes were
true, would also be nothing to him. To have ascendancy over other men, to be known by his countrymen as one of their real rulers, to have an actual and acknowledged voice in the management of nations, – those were the rewards for which he looked; and now in truth it seemed as though they were coming to him. It was all but known that the existing Chancellor of the Exchequer would separate himself
from the Government, carrying various others with him, either before or immediately consequent on the meeting of Parliament; – and it was all but known, also, that Mr Palliser would fill his place, taking that high office at once, although he had never hitherto sat in that august assembly which men call the Cabinet. He could thus afford to put up with the small everyday calamity of having a wife
who loved another man better than she loved him.

The presence of the Duke of St Bungay at Matching was assumed to be a sure sign of Mr Palliser’s coming triumph. The Duke was a statesman of a very different class, but he also had been eminently successful as an aristocratic pillar of the British
Constitutional Republic. He was a minister of very many years’ standing, being as used to cabinet
sittings as other men are to their’ own armchairs; but he had never been a hard-working man. Though a constant politician, he had ever taken politics easy whether in office or out. The world had said before now that the Duke might be Premier, only that he would not take the trouble. He had been consulted by a very distinguished person, – so the papers had said more than once, – as to the making of
Prime Ministers. His voice in council was esteemed to be very great He was regarded as a strong rock of support to the liberal cause, and yet nobody ever knew what he did; nor was there much record of what he said. The offices which he held, or had held, were generally those to which no very arduous duties were attached. In severe debates he never took upon himself the brunt of opposition oratory.
What he said in the House was generally short and pleasant, – with some slight, drolling, undercurrent of uninjurious satire running through it. But he was a walking miracle of the wisdom of common sense. He never lost his temper. He never made mistakes. He never grew either hot or cold in a cause. He was never reckless in politics, and never cowardly. He snubbed no man, and took snubbings from
no man. He was a Knight of the Garter, a Lord Lieutenant of his county, and at sixty-two had his digestion unimpaired and his estate in excellent order. He was a great buyer of pictures, which, perhaps, he did not understand, and a great collector of books which certainly he never read. All the world respected him, and he was a man to whom the respect of all the world was as the breath of his nostrils.

But even he was not without his peacock on the wall, his skeleton in the closet, his thorn in his side; though the peacock did not scream loud, the skeleton was not very terrible in his anatomical arrangement, nor was the thorn likely to fester to a gangrene. The Duke was always in awe about his wife.

He was ever uneasy about his wife, but it must not be supposed that he feared the machinations
of any Burgo Fitzgerald as being destructive of his domestic comfort. The Duchess was and always had been all that is proper. Ladies in high rank, when gifted with excelling beauty, have often been made the marks of undeserved
calumny; – but no breath of slander had ever touched her name. I doubt if any man alive had ever had the courage even to wink at her since the Duke had first called her
his own. Nor was she a spendthrift, or a gambler. She was not fast in her tastes, or given to any pursuit that was objectionable. She was simply a fool, and as a fool was ever fearing that she was the mark of ridicule. In all such miseries she would complain sorrowfully, piteously, and occasionally very angrily, to her dear Duke and protector; till sometimes her dear Duke did not quite know what to
do with her or how to protect her. It did not suit him, a Knight of the Garter and a Duke of St Bungay, to beg mercy for that poor wife of his from such a one as Mrs Conway Sparkes; nor would it be more in his way to lodge a formal complaint against that lady before his host or hostess, – as one boy at school may sometimes do as regards another. ‘If you don’t like the people, my dear, we will go
away,’ he said to her late on that evening of which we have spoken. ‘No,’ she replied, ‘I do not wish to go away. I have said that we would stay till December, and Longroyston won’t be ready before that. But I think that something ought to be done to silence that woman.’ And the accent came strong upon ‘something’, and then again with terrific violence upon ‘woman’.

The Duke did not know how
to silence Mrs Conway Sparkes. It was a great principle of his life never to be angry with any one. How could he get at Mrs Conway Sparkes? ‘I don’t think she is worth your attention,’ said the husband. ‘That’s all very well, Duke,’ said the wife, ‘and perhaps she is not. But I find her in this house, and I don’t like to be laughed at. I think Lady Glencora should make her know her place.’

‘Lady
Glencora is very young, my dear.’

‘I don’t know about being so very young,’ said the Duchess, whose ear had perhaps caught some little hint of poor Lady Glencora’s almost unintentional mimicry. Now as appeals of this kind were being made frequently to the Duke, and as he was often driven to say some word, of which he himself hardly approved, to some one in protection of his Duchess, he was aware
that the matter was an annoyance, and at times almost wished that her Grace was at – Longroyston.

And there was a third politician staying at Matching Priory who had never yet risen to the rank of a statesman, but who had his hopes. This was Mr Bott, the member for St Helens, whom Lady Glencora had described as a man who stood about, with red hair, – and perhaps told tales of her to her husband.
Mr Bott was a person who certainly had had some success in life and who had won it for himself. He was not very young, being at this time only just on the right side of fifty. He was now enjoying his second session in Parliament, having been returned as a pledged disciple of the Manchester school
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. Nor had he apparently been false to his pledges. At St Helens he was still held to be a good man
and true. But they who sat on the same side with him in the House and watched his political manoeuvres, knew that he was striving hard to get his finger into the public pie. He was not a rich man, though he had made calico and had got into Parliament And though he claimed to be a thoroughgoing Radical, he was a man who liked to live with aristocrats, and was fond of listening to the whispers of such
as the Duke of St Bungay or Mr Palliser. It was supposed that he did understand something of finance. He was at any rate great in figures; and as he was possessed of much industry, and was obedient withal, he was a man who might make himself useful to a Chancellor of the Exchequer ambitious of changes.

There are men who get into such houses as Matching Priory and whose presence there is a mystery
to many; – as to whom the ladies of the house never quite understand why they are entertaining such a guest. ‘And Mr Bott is coming,’ Mr Palliser had said to his wife. ‘Mr Bott!’ Lady Glencora had answered. ‘Goodness me! who is Mr Bott?’ ‘He is member for St Helens,’ said Mr Palliser. ‘A very serviceable man in his way.’ ‘And what am I to do with him?’ asked Lady Glencora. ‘I don’t know that
you can do anything with him. He is a man who has a great deal of business, and I dare say he will spend most of his time in the library.’ So Mr Bott arrived. But though a huge pile of letters and papers came to him every morning by post, he unfortunately did not seem to spend much of his time in the library. Perhaps he had not found the clue to that lost apartment Twice he went out shooting, but
as on the
first day he shot the keeper, and on the second very nearly shot the Duke, he gave that up. Hunting he declined, though much pressed to make an essay in that art by Jeffrey Palliser. He seemed to spend his time, as Lady Glencora said, in standing about, – except at certain times when he was closeted with Mr Palliser, and when, it may be presumed, he made himself useful. On such days
he would be seen at the hour of lunch with fingers much stained with ink, and it was generally supposed that on those occasions he had been counting up taxes and calculating the effect of great financial changes. He was a tall, wiry, strong man, with a bald head and bristly red beard, which, however, was cut off from his upper and under lip. This was unfortunate, as had he hidden his mouth he would
not have been in so marked a degree an ugly man. His upper lip was very long, and his mouth was mean. But he had found that without the help of a razor to these parts he could not manage his soup to his satisfaction, and preferring cleanliness to beauty had shaved himself accordingly.

‘I shouldn’t dislike Mr Bott so much,’ Lady Glencora said to her husband, ‘if he didn’t rub his hands and smile
so often, and seem to be going to say something when he really is not going to say anything.’

‘I don’t think you need trouble yourself about him, my dear,’ Mr Palliser had answered.

‘But when he looks at me in that way, I can’t help stopping, as I think he is going to speak; and then he always says, “Can I do anything for you, Lady Glen-cowrer?” ’