THE PRIME MINISTER (91 page)

‘Not at all,’ said Phineas.

‘I came here because of that bend of the river. I am always very fond of that bend. We don’t go over the river. That is Mr Upjohn’s property.’

‘The member for the county?’

‘Yes; and a very good member he is too, though he doesn’t support us; – an old-school Tory, but a great friend of my uncle, who after all had a good deal of the Tory about him. I wonder
whether he is at home. I must remind the Duchess to ask him to dinner. You know him, of course.’

‘Only by just seeing him in the House.’

‘You’d like him very much. When in the country he always wears knee breeches and gaiters, which I think a very comfortable dress.’

‘Troublesome, Duke; isn’t it?’

‘I never tried it, and I shouldn’t dare now. Goodness me; it’s past five o’clock, and we’ve got
two miles to get home. I haven’t looked at a letter, and Warburton will think that I’ve thrown myself into the river because of Sir Timothy Beeswax.’ Then they started to go home at a fast pace.

‘I shan’t forget, Duke,’ said Phineas, ‘your definition of Conservatives and Liberals.’

‘I don’t think I ventured on a definition; – only a few loose ideas which had been troubling me lately. I say,
Finn!’

‘Your Grace?’

‘Don’t you go and tell Ramsden and Drummond that I have been preaching equality, or we shall have a pretty mess. I don’t know that it would serve me with my dear friend, the Duke.’

‘I will be discretion itself.’

‘Equality is a dream. But sometimes one likes to dream, – especially as there is no danger that Matching will fly from me in a dream. I doubt whether I could bear
the test that has been attempted in other countries.’

‘That poor ploughman would hardly get his share, Duke.’

‘No; – that’s where it is. We can only do a little and a little to bring it nearer to us; – so little that it won’t touch Matching in our day. Here is her ladyship and the ponies. I don’t think her ladyship would like to lose her ponies by my doctrine.’

The two wives of the two men
were in the pony carriage, and the little Lady Glencora, the Duchess’s eldest daughter, was sitting between them. ‘Mr Warburton has sent three messengers to demand your presence,’ said the Duchess, ‘and, as I live by bread, I believe that you and Mr Finn have been amusing yourselves!’

‘We have been talking politics,’ said the Duke.

‘Of course. What other amusement was possible? But what business
have you to indulge in idle talk when Mr Warburton wants you in the library? There has come a box,’ she said, ‘big enough to contain the resignations of all the traitors of the party.’ This was strong language, and the Duke frowned; – but there was no one there to hear it but Phineas Finn and his wife, and they, at least, were trustworthy. The Duke suggested that he had better get back to the
house as soon as possible. There might be something to be done requiring time before dinner. Mr Warburton might, at any rate, want to smoke a tranquil cigar after his day’s work. The Duchess therefore left the carriage, as did Mrs Finn, and the Duke undertook to drive the little girl back to the house. ‘He’ll surely go against a tree,’ said the Duchess. But, – as a fact, – the Duke did take himself
and the child home in safety.

‘And what do you think about it, Mr Finn?’ said her Grace. ‘I suppose you and the Duke have been settling what is to be done.’

‘We have certainly settled nothing.’

‘Then you must have disagreed.’

‘That we as certainly have not done. We have in truth not once been out of cloud-land.’

‘Ah; – then there is no hope. When once grown-up politicians get into cloud-land
it is because the realities of the world have no longer any charm for them.’

The big box did not contain the resignations of any of the objectionable members of the Coalition. Ministers do not often resign in September, – nor would it be expedient that they should do so. Lord Drummond and Sir Timothy were safe, at any rate till next February, and might live without any show either of obedience
or mutiny. The Duke remained in comparative quiet at Matching. There was not very much to do, except to prepare the work of the next Session. The great work of the coming year was to be the assimilation, or something very near to the assimilation, of the county suffrages with those of the boroughs. The measure was one which had now been promised by statesmen for the last two years, – promised at
first with that half promise which would mean nothing, were it not that such promises always lead to more defined assurances. The Duke of St Bungay, Lord Drummond, and other Ministers
had wished to stave it off. Mr Monk was eager for its adoption, and was of course supported by Phineas Finn. The Prime Minister had at first been inclined to be led by the old Duke. There was no doubt to him but
that the measure was desirable and would come, but there might well be a question as to the time at which it should be made to come. The old Duke knew that the measure would come, – but believing it to be wholly undesirable, thought that he was doing good work in postponing it from year to year. But Mr Monk had become urgent, and the old Duke had admitted the necessity. There must surely have been
a shade of melancholy on that old man’s mind as, year after year, he assisted in pulling down institutions which he in truth regarded as the safeguards of the nation; but which he knew that, as a Liberal, he was bound to assist in destroying! It must have occurred to him, from time to time, that it would be well for him to depart and be at peace before everything was gone.

When he went from Matching
Mr Monk took his place, and Phineas Finn, who had gone up to London for a while, returned; and then the three between them, with assistance from Mr Warburton and others, worked out the proposed scheme of the new county franchise, with the new divisions and the new constituencies. But it could hardly have been hearty work, as they all of them felt that whatever might be their first proposition
they would be beat upon it in a House of Commons which thought that this Aristides
²¹
had been long enough at the Treasury.

Lopez had now been dead more than five months, and not a word had been heard by his widow of Mrs Parker and her children. Her own sorrows had been so great that she had hardly thought of those of the poor woman who had come to her but a few days before her husband’s death, telling her of ruin caused by her husband’s treachery. But late on the evening before her departure
for Herefordshire,
– very shortly after Everett had left the house, – there was a ring at the door, and a poorly-clad female asked to see Mrs Lopez. The poorly-clad female was Sexty Parker’s wife. The servant, who did not remember her, would not leave her alone in the hall, having an eye to the coats and umbrellas, but called up one of the maids to carry the message. The poor woman understood
the insult and resented it in her heart. But Mrs Lopez recognized the name in a moment, and went down to her in the parlour, leaving Mr Wharton upstairs. Mrs Parker, smarting from her present grievance, had bent her mind on complaining at once of the treatment she had received from the servant, but the sight of the widow’s weeds quelled her. Emily had never been much given to fine clothes, either
as a girl or as a married woman; but it had always been her husband’s pleasure that she should be well dressed, – though he had never carried his trouble so far as to pay the bills; and Mrs Parker’s remembrance of her friend at Dovercourt had been that of a fine lady in bright apparel. Now a black shade, – something almost like a dark ghost, – glided into the room, and Mrs Parker forgot her recent
injury. Emily came forward and offered her hand, and was the first to speak. ‘I have had a great sorrow since we met,’ she said.

‘Yes, indeed, Mrs Lopez. I don’t think there is anything left in the world now except sorrow.’

‘I hope Mr Parker is well. Will you not sit down, Mrs Parker?’

‘Thank you, ma’am. Indeed, then, he is not well at all. How should he be well? Everything, – everything has
been taken away from him.’ Poor Emily groaned as she heard this. ‘I wouldn’t say a word against them as is gone, Mrs Lopez, if I could help it. I know it is bad to bear when him who once loved you isn’t no more. And perhaps it is all the worse when things didn’t go well with him, and it was, maybe, his own fault I wouldn’t do it, Mrs Lopez, if I could help it.’

‘Let me hear what you have to say,’
said Emily, determined to suffer everything patiently.

‘Well; – it is just this. He has left us that bare that there is nothing left. And that, they say, isn’t the worst of all, – though what can be worse than doing that, how is a woman to think? Parker was that soft, and he had that way with him of talking, that he has talked me and mine out of the very linen on our backs.’

‘What do you mean
by saying that that is not the worst?’

‘They’ve come upon Sexty for a bill for four hundred and fifty, – something to do with that stuff they call Bios, – and Sexty says it isn’t his name at all. But he’s been in that state he don’t hardly know how to swear to anything. But he’s sure he didn’t sign it. The bill was brought to him by Lopez, and there was words between them, and he wouldn’t have
nothing to do with it. How is he to go to law? And it don’t make much difference neither, for they can’t take much more from him than they have taken.’ Emily as she heard all this sat shivering, trying to repress her groans. ‘Only,’ continued Mrs Parker, ‘they hadn’t sold the furniture, and I was thinking they might let me stay in the house, and try to do with letting lodgings, – and now they’re
seizing everything along of this bill. Sexty is like a mad man, swearing this and swearing that; – but what can he do, Mrs Lopez? It’s as like his hand as two peas; but he was clever at everything was, – was – you know who I mean, ma’am.’ Then Emily covered her face with her hands and burst into violent tears. She had not determined whether she did or did not believe this last accusation made against
her husband. She had had hardly time to realize the criminality of the offence imputed. But she did believe that the woman before her had been ruined by her husband’s speculations. ‘It’s very bad, ma’am; isn’t it?’ said Mrs Parker, crying for company. ‘It’s bad all round. If you had five children as hadn’t bread you’d know how it is that I feel. I’ve got to go back by the 10.15 to-night, and
when I’ve paid for a third-class ticket I shan’t have but twopence left in the world.’

This utter depth of immediate poverty, this want of bread for the morrow and the next day, Emily could relieve out of her own pocket. And, thinking of this and remembering that her purse was not with her at the moment, she started up with the idea of getting it. But it occurred to her that that would not suffice;
that her duty required more of her than that. And yet, by her own power, she could do no more. From month to month, almost from week to week, since her husband’s death, her father had been called upon to satisfy claims for money which he would not resist, lest by doing so he should add to her misery. She had felt that she ought to bind herself to the strictest personal economy because of the
miserable losses to which she had subjected him by her ill-starred marriage. ‘What would you wish me to do?’ she said, resuming her seat.

‘You are rich,’ said Mrs Parker. Emily shook her head. ‘They say your papa is rich. I thought you would not like to see me in want like this.’

‘Indeed, indeed, it makes me very unhappy.’

‘Wouldn’t your papa do something? It wasn’t Sexty’s fault nigh so much
as it was his. I wouldn’t say it to you if it wasn’t for starving. I wouldn’t say it to you if it wasn’t for the children. I’d lie in the ditch and the if it was only myself, because – because I know what your feelings is. But what wouldn’t you do, and what wouldn’t you say, if you had five children at home as hadn’t a loaf of bread among ‘em?’ Hereupon Emily got up and left the room, bidding her
visitor wait for a few minutes. Presently the offensive butler came in, who had wronged Mrs Parker by watching his master’s coats, and brought a tray with meat and wine. Mr Wharton, said the altered man, hoped that Mrs Parker would take a little refreshment, and he would be down himself very soon. Mrs Parker, knowing that strength for her journey home would be necessary to her, remembering that
she would have to walk all through the city to the Bishopgate Street station, did take some refreshment, and permitted herself to drink the glass of sherry that her late enemy had benignantly poured out for her.

Emily had been nearly half an hour with her father before Mr Wharton’s heavy step was heard upon the stairs. And when he reached the dining-room door he paused a moment before he ventured
to turn the lock. He had not told Emily what he would do, and had hardly as yet made up his own mind. As every fresh call was made upon him, his hatred for the memory of the man who had stepped in and disturbed his whole life, and turned all the mellow satisfaction of his evening into storm and gloom, was of course increased. The scoundrel’s name was so odious to him that he could hardly keep
himself from shuddering visibly before his daughter even when the servants called her by it. But yet he had determined that he would devote himself to save her from further suffering. It had been her fault, no doubt. But she was expiating it in very sackcloth and ashes, and he would add nothing to the burden on her back. He would pay, and pay, and pay, merely remembering that what he paid must be
deducted from her share of his property. He had never intended to make what is called an elder son of Everett,
and now there was less necessity than ever that he should do so, as Everett had become an elder son in another direction. He could satisfy almost any demand that might be made without material injury to himself. But these demands, one after another, scalded him by their frequency, and
by the baseness of the man who had occasioned them. His daughter had now repeated to him with sobbings and wailings the whole story as it had been told to her by the woman downstairs. ‘Papa,’ she had said, ‘I don’t know how to tell you or how not.’ Then he had encouraged her, and had listened without saying a word. He had endeavoured not even to shrink as the charge of forgery was repeated to him
by his own child, – the widow of the guilty man. He endeavoured not to remember at the moment that she had claimed this wretch as the chosen one of her maiden heart, in opposition to all his wishes. It hardly occurred to him to disbelieve the accusation. It was so probable! What was there to hinder the man from forgery, if he could only make it believed that his victim had signed the bill when intoxicated?
He heard it all; – kissed his daughter, and then went down to the dining-room.