THE PRIME MINISTER (41 page)

‘You too!’ said Mr Wharton. But though there was a certain amount of satire in the exclamation, it had been good-humoured satire.

‘Yes, sir. We all get bit sooner or later, I suppose.’

‘I never was bit.’

‘Your sagacity and philosophy have been the wonder of the world, sir. There can
be no doubt that in my profession a seat in the House would be of the greatest possible advantage to me. It enables a man to do a great many things which he could not touch without it.’

‘It may be so. I don’t know anything about it.’

‘And then it is a great honour.’

‘That depends on how you get it, and how you use it; – very much also on whether you are fit for it.’

‘I shall get it honestly
if I do get it. I hope I may use it well. And as for my fitness, I must leave that to be ascertained when I am there. I am sorry to say there will probably be a contest.’

‘I suppose so. A seat in Parliament without a contest does not drop into every young man’s mouth.’

‘It very nearly dropped into mine.’ Then he told his father-in-law almost all the particulars of the offer which had been made
him, and of the manner in which the seat was now suggested to him. He somewhat hesitated in the use of the name of the Duchess, leaving an impression on Mr Wharton that the offer had in truth come from the Duke. ‘Should there be a contest, would you help me?’

‘In what way? I could not canvass at Silverbridge, if you mean that.’

‘I was not thinking of giving you personal trouble.’

‘I don’t know
a soul in the place. I shouldn’t know that there was such a place except that it returns a member of Parliament.’

‘I meant with money, sir.’

‘To pay the election bills! No; certainly not. Why should I?’

‘For Emily’s sake.’

‘I don’t think it would do Emily any good, or you either. It would certainly do me none. It is a kind of luxury that a man should not attempt to enjoy unless he can afford
it easily.’

‘A luxury!’

‘Yes, a luxury; just as much as a four-in-hand coach or a yacht. Men go into Parliament because it gives them fashion, position, and power.’

‘I should go to serve my country.’

‘Success in your profession I thought you said was your object Of course you must do as you please. If you ask me for advice, I advise you not to try it. But certainly I will not help you with
money. That ass Everett is quarrelling with me at this moment because I won’t give him money to go and stand somewhere.’

‘Not at Silverbridge!’

‘I’m sure I can’t say. But don’t let me do him an injury. To give him his due, he is more reasonable than you, and only wants a promise from me that I will pay electioneering bills for him at the next general election. I have refused him, – though for
reasons which I need not mention I think him better fitted for Parliament than you. I must certainly also refuse you. I cannot imagine any circumstances which would induce me to pay a shilling towards getting you into Parliament. If you won’t drink any more wine, we’ll join Emily upstairs.’

This had been very plain speaking, and by no means comfortable to Lopez. What of personal discourtesy there
had been in the lawyer’s words, – and they had not certainly been flattering, – he could throw off from him as meaning nothing. As he could not afford to quarrel with his father-in-law, he thought it probable that he might have to bear a good deal of incivility from the old man. He was quite prepared to bear it as long as he could see a chance of a
reward; – though, should there be no such chance,
he would be ready to avenge it. But there had been a decision in the present refusal which made him quite sure that it would be vain to repeat his request. ‘I shall find out, sir,’ he said, ‘whether it may probably be a costly affair, and if so I shall give it up. You are rather hard upon me as to my motives.’

‘I only repeated what you told me yourself.’

‘I am quite sure of my own intentions,
and know that I need not be ashamed of them.’

‘Not if you have plenty of money. It all depends on that. If you have plenty of money, and your fancy goes that way, it is all very well. Come, we’ll go upstairs.’

The next day he saw Everett Wharton, who welcomed him back with warm affection. ‘He’ll do nothing for me; – nothing at all. I am almost beginning to doubt whether he’ll ever speak to me
again.’

‘Nonsense!’

‘I tell you everything, you know,’ said Everett ‘In January I lost a little money at whist. They got plunging at the club, and I was in it I had to tell him, of course. He keeps me so short that I can’t stand any blow without going to him like a school-boy.’

‘Was it much?’

‘No; – to him no more than half-a-crown to you. I had to ask him for a hundred and fifty.’

‘He refused
it!’

‘No; – he didn’t do that. Had it been ten times as much, if I owed the money, he would pay it. But he blew me up, and talked about gambling, – and – and –’

‘I should have taken that as a matter of course.’

‘But I’m not a gambler. A man now and then may fall into a thing of that kind, and if he’s decently well off and don’t do it often, he can bear it.’

‘I thought your quarrel had been
altogether about Parliament.’

‘Oh no! He has been always the same about that He told me that I was going head foremost to the dogs, and I couldn’t stand that I shouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t lost more at cards than I have during the last two years.’ Lopez made an offer to act as go-between, to effect a reconciliation; but Everett declined the offer. ‘It would be making too much of an absurdity,’
he said. ‘When he wants to see me, I suppose he’ll send for me.’

Lopez did dispatch an agent down to Mr Sprugeon at Silverbridge, and the agent found that Mr Sprugeon was a very discreet man. Mr Sprugeon at first knew little or nothing, – seemed hardly to be aware that there was a member of Parliament for Silverbridge, and declared himself to be indifferent as to the parliamentary character of
the borough. But at last he melted a little, and by degrees, over a glass of hot brandy-and-water with the agent at the Palliser Arms, confessed to a shade of an opinion that the return of Mr Lopez for the borough would not be disagreeable to some person or persons who did not live quite a hundred miles away. The instructions given by Lopez to his agent were of the most cautious kind. The agent
was merely to feel the ground, make a few inquiries, and do nothing. His client did not intend to stand unless he could see the way to almost certain success with very little outlay. But the agent, perhaps liking the job, did a little outstep his employer’s orders. Mr Sprugeon, when the frost of his first modesty had been thawed, introduced the agent to Mr Sprout, the maker of cork soles, and Mr Sprugeon
and Mr Sprout between them had soon decided that Mr Ferdinand Lopez should be run for the borough as the ‘Castle’ candidate. ‘The Duke won’t interfere,’ said Sprugeon; ‘and, of course, the Duke’s man of business can’t do anything openly; – but the Duke’s people will know.’ Then Mr Sprout told the agent that there was already another candidate in the field, and in a whisper communicated the
gentleman’s name. When the agent got back to London, he gave Lopez to understand that he must certainly put himself forward. The borough expected him. Sprugeon and Sprout considered themselves pledged to bring him forward and support him, – on behalf of the Castle. Sprugeon was quite sure that the Castle influence was predominant. The Duke’s name had never been mentioned at Silverbridge, – hardly
even that of the Duchess. Since the Duke’s declaration ‘The Castle’ had taken the part which the old Duke used to play. The agent was quite sure that no one could get in for Silverbridge without having the Castle on his side. No doubt the Duke’s declaration had had the ill effect of bringing up a competitor, and thus of causing expense. That could not now be helped. The agent was of opinion that
the Duke had had no alternative. The agent hinted that times were changing, and that though dukes were still dukes, and could still exercise ducal influences, they were
driven by these changes to act in an altered form. The proclamation had been especially necessary because the Duke was Prime Minister. The agent did not think that Mr Lopez should be in the least angry with the Duke. Everything
would be done that the Castle could do, and Lopez would be no doubt returned, – though, unfortunately, not without some expense. How much would it cost? Any accurate answer to such a question would be impossible, but probably about £600. It might be £800; – could not possibly be above £1,000. Lopez winced as he heard these sums named, but he did not decline the contest.

Then the name of the opposition
candidate was whispered to Lopez. It was Arthur Fletcher! Lopez started, and asked some question as to Mr Fletcher’s interest in the neighbourhood. The Fletchers were connected with the De Courcys, and as soon as the declaration of the Duke had been made known, the De Courcy interest had aroused itself, and had invited that rising young barrister, Arthur Fletcher, to stand for the borough
on strictly conservative views. Arthur Fletcher had acceded, and a printed declaration of his purpose and political principles had been just published. ‘I have beaten him once,’ said Lopez to himself, ‘and I think I can beat him again.’

‘So you went to Happerton after all,’ said Lopez to his ally, Mr Sextus Parker. ‘You couldn’t believe me when I told you the money was all right! What a cur you are!’

‘That’s right; – abuse me.’

‘Well, it was horrid. Didn’t I tell you that it must necessarily injure me with the house? How are two fellows to get on together unless they can put some trust in each other?
Even if I did run you into a difficulty, do you really think I’m ruffian enough to tell you that the money was there if it were untrue?’

Sexty looked like a cur and felt like a cur, as he was being thus abused. He was not angry with his friend for calling him bad names, but only anxious to excuse himself. ‘I was out of sorts,’ he said, ‘and so d—d hippish
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I didn’t know what I was about.’

‘Brandy-and-soda!’ suggested Lopez.

‘Perhaps a little of that; – though, by Jove, it isn’t often I do that kind of thing. I don’t know a fellow who works harder for his wife and children than I do. But when one sees such things all round one, – a fellow utterly smashed here who had a string of hunters yesterday, and another fellow buying a house in Piccadilly and pulling it down because it isn’t
big enough, who was contented with a little box at Hornsey last summer, one doesn’t quite know how to keep one’s legs.’

‘If you want to learn a lesson look at the two men, and see where the difference lies. The one has had some heart about him, and the other has been a coward.’

Parker scratched his head, balanced himself on the hind legs of his stool, and tacitly acknowledged the truth of all
that his enterprising friend said to him. ‘Has old Wharton come down well?’ at last he asked.

‘I have never said a word to old Wharton about money,’ Lopez replied, – ‘except as to the cost of this election I was telling you of.’

‘And he wouldn’t do anything in that?’

‘He doesn’t approve of the thing itself. I don’t doubt but that the old gentleman and I shall understand each other before long.’

‘You’ve got the length of his foot.’

‘But I don’t mean to drive him. I can get along without that. He’s an old man, and he can’t take his money along with him when he goes the great journey.’

‘There’s a brother, Lopez, – isn’t there?’

‘Yes, – there’s a brother; but Wharton has enough for two; and if he were to put either out of his will it wouldn’t be my wife. Old men don’t like parting with
their money, and he’s like other old men. If it were not so I shouldn’t bother myself coming into the city at all.’

‘Has he enough for that, Lopez?’

‘I suppose he’s worth a quarter of a million.’

‘By Jove! And where did he get it?’

‘Perseverance, sir. Put by a shilling a day, and let it have its
natural increase, and see what it will come to at the end of fifty years. I suppose old Wharton
has been putting by two or three thousand out of his professional income, at any rate for the last thirty years, and never for a moment forgetting its natural increase. That’s one way to make a fortune.’

‘It ain’t rapid enough for you and me, Lopez.’

‘No. That was the old-fashioned way, and the most sure. But, as you say, it is not rapid enough; and it robs a man of the power of enjoying his
money when he has made it. But it’s a very good thing to be closely connected with a man who has already done that kind of thing. There’s no doubt about the money when it is there. It does not take to itself wings and fly away.’

‘But the man who has it sticks to it uncommon hard.’

‘Of course he does; – but he can’t take it away with him.’

‘He can leave it to hospitals, Lopez. That’s the devil!’

‘Sexty, my boy, I see you have taken an outlook into human life which does you credit Yes, he can leave it to hospitals. But why does he leave it to hospitals?’

‘Something of being afraid about his soul, I suppose.’

‘No; I don’t believe in that. Such a man as this, who has been hard-fisted all his life, and who has had his eyes thoroughly open, who has made his own money in the sharp intercourse
of man to man, and who keeps it to the last gasp, – he doesn’t believe that he’ll do his soul any good by giving it to hospitals when he can’t keep it himself any longer. His mind has freed itself from those cobwebs long since. He gives his money to hospitals because the last pleasure of which he is capable is that of spiting his relations. And it is a great pleasure to an old man, when his relations
have been disgusted with him for being old and loving his money. I rather think I should do it myself.’

‘I’d give myself a chance of going to heaven, I think,’ said Parker.

‘Don’t you know that men will rob and cheat on their death-beds, and say their prayers all the time? Old Wharton won’t leave his money to hospitals if he’s well handled by those about him.’

‘And you’ll handle him well; –
eh, Lopez?’