THE PRIME MINISTER (102 page)

‘I am waiting
my destiny in calm seclusion. I hope the Duke is well?’

‘As well as can be expected. He doesn’t walk about his room with a poniard in his hand, – ready for himself or Sir Orlando; nor is he sitting crowned like Bacchus, drinking the health of the new Ministry with Lord Drummond and Sir Timothy. He is probably sipping a cup of coffee over a blue-book in dignified retirement. You should go and
see him.’

‘I should be unwilling to trouble him when he is so much occupied.’

‘That is just what has done him all the harm in the world. Everybody presumes that he has so much to think of that nobody goes near him. Then he is left to boody
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over everything by himself till he becomes a sort of political hermit, or ministerial Lama, whom human eyes are not to look upon. It doesn’t matter now;
does it?’ Visitor after visitor came in, and the Duchess chatted to them all, leaving the impression on everybody that heard her that she at least
was not sorry to be relieved from the troubles attending her husband’s late position.

She sat there over an hour, and as she was taking her leave she had a few words to whisper to Mrs Finn. ‘When this is all over,’ she said, ‘I mean to call on that
Mrs Lopez.’

‘I thought you did go there.’

‘That was soon after the poor man had killed himself, – when she was going away. Of course I only left a card. But I shall see her now if I can. We want to get her out of her melancholy if possible. I have a sort of feeling, you know, that among us we made the train run over him.’

‘I don’t think that.’

‘He got so horribly abused for what he did at
Silverbridge; and I really don’t see why he wasn’t to have his money. It was I that made him spend it.’

‘He was, I fancy, a thoroughly bad man.’

‘But a wife doesn’t always want to be made a widow even if her husband be bad. I think I owe her something, and I would pay my debt if I knew how. I shall go and see her, and if she will marry this other man we’ll take her by the hand. Good-bye, dear.
You’d better come to me early to-morrow, as I suppose we shall know something by eleven o’clock.’

In the course of that evening the Duke of St Bungay came to Carlton Terrace, and was closeted for some time with the late Prime Minister. He had been engaged during that and the last two previous days in lending his aid to various political manoeuvres and ministerial attempts, from which our Duke
had kept himself altogether aloof He did not go to Windsor, but as each successive competitor journeyed thither and returned, someone either sent for the old Duke or went to seek his council. He was the Nestor
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of the occasion, and strove heartily to compose all quarrels, and so to arrange matters that a wholesome, moderately Liberal Ministry might be again installed for the good of the country
and the comfort of all true Whigs. In such moments he almost ascended to the grand heights of patriotism, being always indifferent as to himself. Now he came to his late chief with a new project. Mr Gresham would attempt to form a Ministry if the Duke of Omnium would join him.

‘It is impossible,’ said the younger politician, folding his hands together and throwing himself back in his chair.

‘Listen to me before you answer me with such certainty. There are three or four gentlemen who, after the work of the last three years, bearing in mind the manner in which our defeat has just been accomplished, feel themselves disinclined to join Mr Gresham unless you will do so also. I may specially name Mr Monk and Mr Finn. I might perhaps add myself, were it not that I had hoped that in any event
I might at length regard myself as exempt from further service. The old horse should be left to graze out his last days,
ne peccet ad extremum ridendus.
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But you can’t consider yourself absolved on that score.’

‘There are other reasons.’

‘But the Queen’s service should count before everything. Gresham and Cantrip with their own friends can hardly make a Ministry as things are now unless Mr
Monk will join them. I do not think that any other Chancellor of the Exchequer is at present possible.’

‘I will beseech Mr Monk not to let any feeling as to me stand in his way. Why should it?’

‘It is not only what you may think and he may think, – but what others will think and say. The Coalition will have done all that ought to have been expected from it if our party in it can now join Mr
Gresham.’

‘By all means. But I could give them no strength. They may be sure at any rate of what little I can do for them out of office.’

‘Mr Gresham has made his acceptance of office, – well, I will not say strictly conditional on your joining him. That would hardly be correct. But he has expressed himself quite willing to make the attempt with your aid, and doubtful whether he can succeed
without it. He suggests that you should join him as President of the Council.’

‘And you?’

‘If I were wanted at all I should take the Privy Seal.’

‘Certainly not, my friend. If there were any question of my return we would reverse the offices. But I think I may say that my mind is fixed. If you wish it I will see Mr Monk and do all that I can to get him to go with you. But, for myself, – I feel
that it would be useless.’

At last, at the Duke’s pressing request, he agreed to take twenty-four hours before he gave his final answer to the proposition.

The Duke said not a word to his wife as to this new proposition, and when she asked him what tidings their old friend had brought as to the state of affairs, he almost told a fib in his anxiety to escape from her persecution. ‘He is in some doubt what he means to do himself,’ said the Duke. The Duchess asked many questions, but got no satisfactory reply
to any of them. Nor did Mrs Finn learn anything from her husband, whom, however, she did not interrogate very closely. She would be contented to know when the proper time might come for ladies to be informed. The Duke, however, was determined to take his twenty-four hours all alone, – or at any rate not to be driven to his decision by feminine interference.

In the meantime the Duchess went to
Manchester Square intent on performing certain good offices on behalf of the poor widow. It may be doubted whether she had clearly made up her mind what it was that she could do, though she was clear that some debt was due by her to Mrs Lopez. And she knew too in what direction assistance might be serviceable, if only it could in this case be given. She had heard that the present member for Silverbridge
had been the lady’s lover long before Mr Lopez had come upon the scene, and with those feminine wiles of which she was a perfect mistress she had extracted from him a confession that his mind was unaltered. She liked Arthur Fletcher, – as indeed she had for a time liked Ferdinand Lopez, – and felt that her conscience would be easier if she could assist in this good work. She built castles
in the air as to the presence of the bride and bridegroom at Matching, thinking how she might thus repair the evil she had done. But her heart misgave her a little as she drew near to the house, and remembered how very slight was her acquaintance and how extremely delicate the mission on which she had come. But she was not the woman to turn back when she had once put her foot to any work; and she
was driven up to the door in Manchester Square without any expressed hesitation on her own part. ‘Yes, – his mistress was at home,’ said the butler, still
shrinking at the sound of the name which he hated. The Duchess was then shown upstairs, and was left alone for some minutes in the drawing-room. It was a large handsome apartment, hung round with valuable pictures, and having signs of considerable
wealth. Since she had first invited Lopez to stand for Silverbridge she had heard much about him, and had wondered how he had gained possession of such a girl as Emily Wharton. And now, as she looked about, her wonder was increased. She knew enough of such people as the Whartons and the Fletchers to be aware that as a class they are more impregnable, more closely guarded by their feelings and
prejudices against strangers than any other. None keep their daughters to themselves with greater care, or are less willing to see their rules of life changed or abolished. And yet this man, half foreigner half Jew, – and as it now appeared, – whole pauper, had stepped in and carried off a prize of which such a one as Arthur Fletcher was contending! The Duchess had never seen Emily but once, –
so as to observe her well, – and had then thought her to be a very handsome woman. It had been at the garden party at Richmond, and Lopez had then insisted that his wife should be well dressed. It would perhaps have been impossible in the whole of that assembly to find a more beautiful woman than Mrs Lopez then was, – or one who carried herself with a finer air. Now when she entered the room in her
deep mourning it would have been difficult to recognize her. Her face was much thinner, her eyes apparently larger, and her colour faded. And there had come a settled seriousness on her face which seemed to rob her of her youth. Arthur Fletcher had declared that as he saw her now she was more beautiful than ever. But Arthur Fletcher, in looking at her, saw more than her mere features. To his eyes
there was a tenderness added by her sorrow which had its own attraction for him. And he was so well versed in every line of her countenance, that he could see there the old loveliness behind the sorrow; the loveliness which would come forth again, as bright as ever, if the sorrow could be removed. But the Duchess, though she remembered the woman’s beauty as she might that of any other lady, now
saw nothing but a thing of woe wrapped in customary widow’s weeds. ‘I hope,’ she said, ‘I am not intruding in coming to you; but I have been anxious to renew our acquaintance for reasons which I am sure you will understand.’

Emily at the moment hardly knew how to address her august
visitor. Though her father had lived all his life in what is called good society, he had not consorted much with
dukes and duchesses. She herself had indeed on one occasion been for an hour or two the guest of this grand lady, but on that occasion she had hardly been called upon to talk to her. Now she doubted how to name the Duchess, and with some show of hesitation decided at last upon not naming her at all. ‘It is very good of you to come,’ she said in a faltering voice.

‘I told you that I would when
I wrote, you know. That is many months ago, but I have not forgotten it. You have been in the country since that, I think?’

‘Yes, in Herefordshire. Herefordshire is our county.’

‘I know all about it,’ said the Duchess, smiling. She generally did contrive to learn ‘all about’ the people whom she chose to take by the hand. ‘We have a Herefordshire gentleman sitting for, – I must not say our borough
of Silverbridge.’ She was anxious to make some allusion to Arthur Fletcher; but it was difficult to travel on that Silverbridge ground, as Lopez had been her chosen candidate when she still wished to claim the borough as an appanage of the Palliser family. Emily, however, kept her countenance and did not show by any sign that her thoughts were running in that direction. ‘And though we don’t
presume to regard Mr Fletcher,’ continued the Duchess, ‘as in any way connected with our local interests, he has always supported the Duke, and I hope has become a friend of ours. I think he is a neighbour of yours in the country.’

‘Oh yes. My cousin is married to his brother.’

‘I knew there was something of that kind. He told me that there was some close alliance.’ The Duchess as she looked
at the woman to whom she wanted to be kind did not as yet dare to express a wish that there might at some not very distant time be a closer alliance. She had come there intending to do so; and had still some hope that she might do it before the interview was over. But at any rate she would not do it yet ‘Have I not heard,’ she said, ‘something of another marriage?’

‘My brother is going to marry
his cousin, Sir Alured Wharton’s daughter.’

‘Ah; – I thought it had been one of the Fletchers. It was our member who told me, and he spoke as though they were all his very dear friends.’

‘They are dear friends, – very.’ Poor Emily still didn’t know whether to call her Duchess, my Lady, or Grace, – and yet felt the need of calling her by some special name.

‘Exactly. I supposed it was so. They
tell me Mr Fletcher will become quite a favourite in the House. At this present moment nobody knows on which side anybody is going to sit to-morrow. It may be that Mr Fletcher will become the dire enemy of all the Duke’s friends.’

‘I hope not’

‘Of course I’m speaking of political enemies. Political enemies are often the best friends in the world; and I can assure you from my own experience that
political friends are often the bitterest enemies. I never hated any people so much as some of our supporters.’ The Duchess made a grimace, and Emily could not refrain from smiling. ‘Yes, indeed. There’s an old saying that misfortune makes strange bedfellows, but political friendship makes stranger alliances than misfortune. Perhaps you never met Sir Timothy Beeswax.’

‘Never.’

‘Well; – don’t.
But, as I was saying, there is no knowing who may support whom now. If I were asked who would be Prime Minister tomorrow, I should take half-a-dozen names and shake them in a bag.’

‘Is it not settled then?’

‘Settled! No, indeed. Nothing is settled.’ At that moment indeed everything was settled, though the Duchess did not know it. ‘And so we none of us can tell how Mr Fletcher may stand with
us when things are arranged. I suppose he calls himself a Conservative?’

‘Oh yes!’

‘All the Whartons, I suppose, are Conservatives, – and all the Fletchers.’

‘Very nearly. Papa calls himself a Tory.’

‘A very much better name, to my thinking. We are all Whigs, of course. A Palliser who was not a Whig would be held to have disgraced himself for ever. Are not politics odd? A few years ago I only
barely knew what the word meant, and that not correctly. Lately I have been so eager about it, that there hardly seems to be anything else left worth living for. I suppose it’s wrong, but a state of pugnacity seems to me the greatest bliss which we can reach here on earth.’