THE PRIME MINISTER (40 page)

‘Let it the out,’ Mrs Finn had said. ‘The people
will come here
and will go away, and then, when you are up in London, you will soon fall into your old ways.’ But this did not suit the new ambition of the Duchess. She had so fed her mind with daring hopes that she could not bear that ‘it should the out’. She had arranged a course of things in her own mind by which she should come to be known as the great Prime Minister’s wife; and she had, perhaps
unconsciously, applied the epithet more to herself than to her husband. She, too, wished to be written of in memoirs, and to make a niche for herself in history. And now she was told that she was to let it ‘die out’!

‘I suppose he is a little bilious,’ Barrington Erle had said. ‘Don’t you think he’ll forget all about it when he gets up to London?’ The Duchess was sure that her husband would not
forget anything. He never did forget anything. ‘I want him to be told,’ said the Duchess, ‘that everybody thinks that he is doing very well. I don’t mean about politics exactly, but as to keeping the party together. Don’t you think that we have succeeded?’ Barrington Erie thought that upon the whole they had succeeded; but suggested at the same time that there were seeds of weakness. ‘Sir Orlando
and Sir Timothy Beeswax are not sound, you know,’ said Barrington Erie. ‘He can’t make them sounder by shutting himself up like a hermit,’ said the Duchess. Barrington Erie, who had peculiar privileges of his own, promised that if he could by any means make an occasion, he would let the Duke know that their side of the Coalition was more than contented with the way in which he did his work.

‘You don’t think we’ve made a mess of it?’ she said to Phineas, asking him a question. ‘I don’t think that the Duke has made a mess of it, – or you,’ said Phineas, who had come to love the Duchess because his wife loved her. ‘But it won’t go on for ever, Duchess.’ ‘You know what I’ve done,’ said the Duchess, who took it for granted that Mr Finn knew all that his wife knew. ‘Has it answered?’ Phineas
was silent for a moment. ‘Of course you will tell me the truth. You won’t be so bad as to flatter me now that I am so much in earnest.’ ‘I almost think,’ said Phineas, ‘that the time has gone by for what one may call drawing-room influences. They used to be very great. Old Lord Brock used them extensively, though by no means as your Grace has done. But the spirit of the world has changed since then.’
‘The spirit of the world never changes,’ said the Duchess, in her soreness.

But her strongest dependence was on the old Duke. The party at the Castle was almost broken up when she consulted him. She had been so far true to her husband, as not to ask another guest to the house since his command; – but they who had been asked before came and went as had been arranged. Then, when the place was nearly
empty, and when Locock and Millepois and Pritchard were wondering among themselves at this general collapse, she asked her husband’s leave to invite their old friend again for a day or two. ‘I do so want to see him, and I think he’ll come,’ said the Duchess. The Duke gave his permission with a ready smile, – not because the proposed visitor was his own confidential friend, but because it suited
his spirit to grant such a request as to anyone after the order that he had given. Had she named Major Pountney, I think he would have smiled and acceded.

The Duke came, and to him she poured out her whole soul. ‘It has been for him and for his honour that I have done it; – that men and women might know how really gracious he is, and how good. Of course, there has been money spent, but he can
afford it without hurting the children. It has been so necessary that with a Coalition people should know each other! There was some little absurd row here. A man who was a mere nobody, one of the travelling butterfly men that fill up spaces and talk to girls, got hold of him and was impertinent. He is so thin-skinned that he could not shake the creature into the dust as you would have done. It annoyed
him, – that, and, I think, seeing so many strange faces, – so that he came to me and declared, that as long as he remained in office he would not have another person in the house, either here or in London. He meant it literally, and he meant me to understand it literally. I had to get special leave before I could ask so dear an old friend as your Grace.’

‘I don’t think he would object to me,’
said the Duke, laughing.

‘Of course not. He was only too glad to think you would come. But he took the request as being quite the proper thing. It will kill me if this is to be carried out. After all that I have done, I could show myself nowhere. And it will be so injurious to him! Could not you tell him, Duke? No one else in the world can tell him but you. Nothing unfair has been attempted.
No job has been done. I have endeavoured to make his house pleasant to people, in order that they might look upon him with grace and favour. Is that wrong? Is that unbecoming a wife?’

The old Duke patted her on the head as though she were a little girl, and was more comforting to her than her other counsellors. He would say nothing to her husband now; – but they must both be up in London at the
meeting of Parliament, and then he would tell his friend that, in his opinion, no sudden change should be made. ‘This husband of yours is a very peculiar man,’ he said, smiling. ‘His honesty is not like the honesty of other men. It is more downright; – more absolutely honest; less capable of bearing even the shadow which the stain from another’s dishonesty might throw upon it. Give him credit for
all that, and remember that you cannot find everything combined in the same person. He is very practical in some things, but the question is whether he is not too scrupulous to be practical in all things.’ At the close of the interview the Duchess kissed him and promised to be guided by him. The occurrences of the last few weeks had softened the Duchess much.

On his arrival in London Ferdinand Lopez found a letter waiting for him from the Duchess. This came into his hand immediately on his reaching the rooms in Belgrave Mansions, and was of course the first object of his care. ‘That contains my fate,’ he said to his wife, putting his hand down upon the letter. He had talked to her much of the chance that
had come in his way, and had shown himself to be very ambitious of the honour offered to him. She of course had sympathized with him, and was willing to think all good things both of the Duchess and of the Duke, if they would between them put her husband into Parliament He paused a moment, still holding the letter under his hand. ‘You would hardly think that I should be such a coward that I don’t
like to open it,’ he said.

‘You’ve got to do it.’

‘Unless I make you do it for me,’ he said, holding out the letter to her. ‘You will have to learn how weak I am. When I am really anxious I become like a child.’

‘I do not think you are ever weak,’ she said, caressing him. ‘If there were a thing to be done you would do it at once. But I’ll open it if you like.’ Then he tore off the envelope
with an air of comic importance, and stood for a few minutes while he read it.

‘What I first perceive is that there has been a row about it,’ he said.

‘A row about it! What sort of a row?’

‘My dear friend the Duchess has not quite hit it off with my less dear friend the Duke.’

‘She does not say so?’

‘Oh dear, no! My friend the Duchess is much too discreet for that; – but I can see that it
has been so.’

‘Are you to be the new member? If that is arranged I don’t care a bit about the Duke and Duchess.’

‘These things do not settle themselves quite so easily as that. I am not to have the seat at any rate without fighting for it. There’s the letter.’

The Duchess’s letter to her new adherent shall be given, but it must first be understood that many different ideas had passed through
the writer’s mind between the writing of the letter and the order given by the Prime Minister to his wife concerning the borough. She of course became aware at once that Mr Lopez must be informed that she could not do for him what she had suggested that she would do. But there was no necessity of writing at the instant. Mr Grey had not yet vacated the seat, and Mr Lopez was away on his travels.
The month of January was passed in comparative quiet at the Castle, and during that time it became known at Silverbridge that the election would be open. The Duke would not even make a suggestion, and would neither express, nor feel, resentment should a member be returned altogether hostile to his Ministry. By degrees the Duchess accustomed herself to this condition of affairs, and as the consternation
caused by her husband’s very imperious conduct wore off, she began to ask herself whether even yet she need quite give up the game. She could not make a Member of Parliament altogether out of her own hand, as she had once fondly hoped she might do; but still she might do something. She would in nothing disobey her husband, but if Mr Lopez were to stand for Silverbridge, it could not but be known
in the borough that Mr Lopez was her friend. Therefore she wrote the following letter:

Gatherum,—January, 18—.

MY DEAR MR LOPEZ
,

I remember that you said that you would be home at this time, and therefore I write to you about the borough. Things are changed since you went away, and, I fear, not changed for your advantage.

We understand that Mr Grey will apply for the Chiltern Hundreds at the
end of March, and that the election will take place in April. No candidate will appear as favoured from hence. We used to run a favourite, and our favourite would sometimes win, – would sometimes even have a walk over, but those good times are gone. All the good times are going, I think. There is no reason that I know why you should not stand as well as anyone else. You can be early in the field;
– because it is only now known that there will be no Gatherum interest And I fancy it had already leaked out that you would have been the favourite if there had been a favourite; – which might be beneficial.

I need hardly say that I do not wish my name to be mentioned in the matter.

Sincerely yours,

GLENCORA OMNIUM
.

Sprugeon, the ironmonger, would, I do not doubt, be proud to nominate you.

‘I don’t understand much about it,’ said Emily.

‘I dare say not. It is not meant that any novice should understand much about it. Of course you will not mention her Grace’s letter.’

‘Certainly not.’

‘She intends to do the very best she can for me. I have no doubt that some understrapper from the Castle has had some communication with Mr Sprugeon. The fact is that the Duke won’t be seen in it,
but that the Duchess does not mean that the borough shall quite slip through their fingers.’

‘Shall you try it.’

‘If I do I must send an agent down to see Mr Sprugeon on the sly, and the sooner I do so the better. I wonder what your father will say about it.’

‘He is an old Conservative.’

‘But would he not like his son-in-law to be in Parliament?’

‘I don’t know that he would care about it
very much. He seems always to laugh at people who want to get into Parliament But if you have set your heart upon it, Ferdinand –’

‘I have not set my heart on spending a great deal of money. When I first thought of Silverbridge the expense would have been almost nothing. It would have been a walk over, as the Duchess calls it. But now there will certainly be a contest.’

‘Give it up if you cannot
afford it.’

‘Nothing venture nothing have. You don’t think your father would help me in doing it? It would add almost as much to your position as to mine.’ Emily shook her head. She had always heard her father ridicule the folly of men who spent more than they could afford in the vanity of writing two letters after their name, and she now explained that it had always been so with him. ‘You would
not mind asking him,’ he said.

‘I will ask him if you wish it, certainly.’ Ever since their marriage he had been teaching her, – intentionally teaching her, – that it would be the duty of both of them to get all they could from her father. She had learned the lesson, but it had been very distasteful to her. It had not induced her to think ill of her husband. She was too much engrossed with him,
too much in love with him for that. But she was beginning to feel that the world in general was hard and greedy and uncomfortable. If it was proper that a father should give his daughter money when she was married, why did not her father do so without waiting to be asked? And yet, if he were unwilling to do so, would it not be better to leave him to his pleasure in the matter? But now she began
to perceive that her father was to be regarded as a milch cow, and that she was to be the dairy-maid. Her husband at times would become terribly anxious on the subject. On receiving the promise of £3,000 he had been elated, but since that he had continually talked of what more her father ought to do for them.

‘Perhaps I had better take the bull by the horns,’ he said, ‘and do it myself. Then
I shall find out whether he really has our interest at heart, or whether he looks on you as a stranger because you’ve gone away from him.’

‘I don’t think he will look upon me as a stranger.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Lopez.

It was not long before he made the experiment He had called himself a coward as to the opening of the Duchess’s letter, but he
had in truth always courage for perils of this nature.
On the day of their arrival they dined with Mr Wharton in Manchester Square, and certainly the old man had received his daughter with great delight. He had been courteous also to Lopez, and Emily, amidst the pleasure of his welcome, had forgotten some of her troubles. The three were alone together, and when Emily had asked after her brother, Mr Wharton had laughed and said that Everett was an
ass. ‘You have not quarrelled with him?’ she said. He ridiculed the idea of any quarrel, but again said that Everett was an ass.

After dinner Mr Wharton and Lopez were left together, as the old man, whether alone or in company, always sat for half an hour sipping port wine after the manner of his forefathers. Lopez had already determined that he would not let the opportunity escape him, and began
his attack at once. ‘I have been invited, sir,’ he said with his sweetest smile, ‘to stand for Silverbridge.’