The Palliser Novels (191 page)

“You will bring him soon?”

“Oh, yes. He was very anxious to know the other day who was the beautiful lady with the black hair.”

“You did not tell him that the beautiful lady with the black hair was a possible aunt, was a possible — ? But we will not think any more of things so horrible.”

“I told him nothing of my fears, you may be sure.”

“Some day, when I am a very old woman, and when his father is quite an old duke, and when he has a dozen little boys and girls of his own, you will tell him the story. Then he will reflect what a madman his great-uncle must have been, to have thought of making a duchess out of such a wizened old woman as that.”

They parted the best of friends, but Lady Glencora was still of opinion that if the lady and the Duke were to be brought together at Matching, or elsewhere, there might still be danger.

Mr. Low the barrister, who had given so many lectures to our friend Phineas Finn, lectures that ought to have been useful, was now himself in the House of Commons, having reached it in the legitimate course of his profession. At a certain point of his career, supposing his career to have been sufficiently prosperous, it becomes natural to a barrister to stand for some constituency, and natural for him also to form his politics at that period of his life with a view to his further advancement, looking, as he does so, carefully at the age and standing of the various candidates for high legal office. When a man has worked as Mr. Low had worked, he begins to regard the bench wistfully, and to calculate the profits of a two years’ run in the Attorney-Generalship. It is the way of the profession, and thus a proper and sufficient number of real barristers finds its way into the House. Mr. Low had been angry with Phineas because he, being a barrister, had climbed into it after another fashion, having taken up politics, not in the proper way as an assistance to his great profession, but as a profession in itself. Mr. Low had been quite sure that his pupil had been wrong in this, and that the error would at last show itself, to his pupil’s cost. And Mrs. Low had been more sure than Mr. Low, having not unnaturally been jealous that a young whipper-snapper of a pupil, — as she had once called Phineas, — should become a Parliament man before her husband, who had worked his way up gallantly, in the usual course. She would not give way a jot even now, — not even when she heard that Phineas was going to marry this and that heiress. For at this period of his life such rumours were afloat about him, originating probably in his hopes as to Violet Effingham and his intimacy with Madame Goesler. “Oh, heiresses!” said Mrs. Low. “I don’t believe in heiresses’ money till I see it. Three or four hundred a year is a great fortune for a woman, but it don’t go far in keeping a house in London. And when a woman has got a little money she generally knows how to spend it. He has begun at the wrong end, and they who do that never get themselves right at the last.”

At this time Phineas had become somewhat of a fine gentleman, which made Mrs. Low the more angry with him. He showed himself willing enough to go to Mrs. Low’s house, but when there he seemed to her to give himself airs. I think that she was unjust to him, and that it was natural that he should not bear himself beneath her remarks exactly as he had done when he was nobody. He had certainly been very successful. He was always listened to in the House, and rarely spoke except on subjects which belonged to him, or had been allotted to him as part of his business. He lived quite at his ease with people of the highest rank, — and those of his own mode of life who disliked him did so simply because they regarded with envy his too rapid rise. He rode upon a pretty horse in the park, and was careful in his dress, and had about him an air of comfortable wealth which Mrs. Low thought he had not earned. When her husband told her of his sufficient salary, she would shake her head and express her opinion that a good time was coming. By which she perhaps meant to imply a belief that a time was coming in which her husband would have a salary much better than that now enjoyed by Phineas, and much more likely to be permanent. The Radicals were not to have office for ever, and when they were gone, what then? “I don’t suppose he saves a shilling,” said Mrs. Low. “How can he, keeping a horse in the park, and hunting down in the country, and living with lords? I shouldn’t wonder if he isn’t found to be over head and ears in debt when things come to be looked into.” Mrs. Low was fond of an assured prosperity, of money in the funds, and was proud to think that her husband lived in a house of his own. “£19 10s. ground-rent to the Portman estate is what we pay, Mr. Bunce,” she once said to that gallant Radical, “and that comes of beginning at the right end. Mr. Low had nothing when he began the world, and I had just what made us decent the day we married. But he began at the right end, and let things go as they may he can’t get a fall.” Mr. Bunce and Mrs. Low, though they differed much in politics, sympathised in reference to Phineas.

“I never believes, ma’am, in nobody doing any good by getting a place,” said Mr. Bunce. “Of course I don’t mean judges and them like, which must be. But when a young man has ever so much a year for sitting in a big room down at Whitehall, and reading a newspaper with his feet up on a chair, I don’t think it honest, whether he’s a Parliament man or whether he ain’t.” Whence Mr. Bunce had got his notions as to the way in which officials at Whitehall pass their time, I cannot say; but his notions are very common notions. The British world at large is slow to believe that the great British housekeeper keeps no more cats than what kill mice.

Mr. Low, who was now frequently in the habit of seeing Phineas at the House, had somewhat changed his opinions, and was not so eager in condemning Phineas as was his wife. He had begun to think that perhaps Phineas had shown some knowledge of his own aptitudes in the career which he had sought, and was aware, at any rate, that his late pupil was somebody in the House of Commons. A man will almost always respect him whom those around him respect, and will generally look up to one who is evidently above himself in his own daily avocation. Now Phineas was certainly above Mr. Low in parliamentary reputation. He sat on a front bench. He knew the leaders of parties. He was at home amidst the forms of the House. He enjoyed something of the prestige of Government power. And he walked about familiarly with the sons of dukes and the brothers of earls in a manner which had its effect even on Mr. Low. Seeing these things Mr. Low could not maintain his old opinion as stoutly as did his wife. It was almost a privilege to Mr. Low to be intimate with Phineas Finn. How then could he look down upon him?

He was surprised, therefore, one day when Phineas discussed the matter with him fully. Phineas had asked him what would be his chance of success if even now he were to give up politics and take to the Bar as the means of earning his livelihood. “You would have uphill work at first, as a matter of course,” said Mr. Low.

“But it might be done, I suppose. To have been in office would not be fatal to me?”

“No, not fatal, Nothing of the kind need be fatal. Men have succeeded, and have sat on the bench afterwards, who did not begin till they were past forty. You would have to live down a prejudice created against yourself; that is all. The attorneys do not like barristers who are anything else but barristers.”

“The attorneys are very arbitrary, I know,” said Phineas.

“Yes; — and there would be this against you — that it is so difficult for a man to go back to the verdure and malleability of pupildom, who has once escaped from the necessary humility of its conditions. You will find it difficult to sit and wait for business in a Vice-Chancellor’s Court, after having had Vice-Chancellors, or men as big as Vice-Chancellors, to wait upon you.”

“I do not think much of that.”

“But others would think of it, and you would find that there were difficulties. But you are not thinking of it in earnest?”

“Yes, in earnest.”

“Why so? I should have thought that every day had removed you further and further from any such idea.”

“The ground I’m on at present is so slippery.”

“Well, yes. I can understand that. But yet it is less slippery than it used to be.”

“Ah; — you do not exactly see. What if I were to lose my seat?”

“You are safe at least for the next four years, I should say.”

“Ah; — no one can tell. And suppose I took it into my head to differ from the Government?”

“You must not do that. You have put yourself into a boat with these men, and you must remain in the boat. I should have thought all that was easy to you.”

“It is not so easy as it seems. The very necessity of sitting still in the boat is in itself irksome, — very irksome. And then there comes some crisis in which a man cannot sit still.”

“Is there any such crisis at hand now?”

“I cannot say that; — but I am beginning to find that sitting still is very disagreeable to me. When I hear those fellows below having their own way, and saying just what they like, it makes me furious. There is Robson. He tried office for a couple of years, and has broken away; and now, by George, there is no man they think so much of as they do of Robson. He is twice the man he was when he sat on the Treasury Bench.”

“He is a man of fortune; — is he not?”

“I suppose so. Of course he is, because he lives. He never earns anything. His wife had money.”

“My dear Finn, that makes all the difference. When a man has means of his own he can please himself. Do you marry a wife with money, and then you may kick up your heels, and do as you like about the Colonial Office. When a man hasn’t money, of course he must fit himself to the circumstances of a profession.”

“Though his profession may require him to be dishonest.”

“I did not say that.”

“But I say it, my dear Low. A man who is ready to vote black white because somebody tells him, is dishonest. Never mind, old fellow. I shall pull through, I daresay. Don’t go and tell your wife all this, or she’ll be harder upon me than ever when she sees me.” After that Mr. Low began to think that his wife’s judgment in this matter had been better than his own.

Robson could do as he liked because he had married a woman with money. Phineas told himself that that game was also open to him. He, too, might marry money. Violet Effingham had money; — quite enough to make him independent were he married to her. And Madame Goesler had money; — plenty of money. And an idea had begun to creep upon him that Madame Goesler would take him were he to offer himself. But he would sooner go back to the Bar as the lowest pupil, sooner clean boots for barristers, — so he told himself, — than marry a woman simply because she had money, than marry any other woman as long as there was a chance that Violet might be won. But it was very desirable that he should know whether Violet might be won or not. It was now July, and everybody would be gone in another month. Before August would be over he was to start for Ireland with Mr. Monk, and he knew that words would be spoken in Ireland which might make it indispensable for him to be, at any rate, able to throw up his office. In these days he became more anxious than he used to be about Miss Effingham’s fortune.

He had never spoken as yet to Lord Brentford since the day on which the Earl had quarrelled with him, nor had he ever been at the house in Portman Square. Lady Laura he met occasionally, and had always spoken to her. She was gracious to him, but there had been no renewal of their intimacy. Rumours had reached him that things were going badly with her and her husband; but when men repeated such rumours in his presence, he said little or nothing on the subject. It was not for him, at any rate, to speak of Lady Laura’s unhappiness. Lord Chiltern he had seen once or twice during the last month, and they had met cordially as friends. Of course he could ask no question from Lord Chiltern as to Violet; but he did learn that his friend had again patched up some reconciliation with his father. “He has quarrelled with me, you know,” said Phineas.

“I am very sorry, but what could I do? As things went, I was obliged to tell him.”

“Do not suppose for a moment that I am blaming you. It is, no doubt, much better that he should know it all.”

“And it cannot make much difference to you, I should say.”

“One doesn’t like to quarrel with those who have been kind to one,” said Phineas.

“But it isn’t your doing. He’ll come right again after a time. When I can get my own affairs settled, you may be sure I’ll do my best to bring him round. But what’s the reason you never see Laura now?”

“What’s the reason that everything goes awry?” said Phineas, bitterly.

“When I mentioned your name to Kennedy the other day, he looked as black as thunder. But it is not odd that any one should quarrel with him. I can’t stand him. Do you know, I sometimes think that Laura will have to give it up. Then there will be another mess in the family!”

This was all very well as coming from Lord Chiltern; but there was no word about Violet, and Phineas did not know how to get a word from any one. Lady Laura could have told him everything, but he could not go to Lady Laura. He did go to Lady Baldock’s house as often as he thought he could with propriety, and occasionally he saw Violet. But he could do no more than see her, and the days and weeks were passing by, and the time was coming in which he would have to go away, and be with her no more. The end of the season, which was always to other men, — to other working men such as our hero, — a period of pleasurable anticipation, to him was a time of sadness, in which he felt that he was not exactly like to, or even equal to, the men with whom he lived in London. In the old days, in which he was allowed to go to Loughlinter or to Saulsby, when all men and women were going to their Loughlinters and their Saulsbys, it was very well with him; but there was something melancholy to him in his yearly journey to Ireland. He loved his father and mother and sisters as well as do other men; but there was a falling off in the manner of his life which made him feel that he had been in some sort out of his own element in London. He would have liked to have shot grouse at Loughlinter, or pheasants at Saulsby, or to have hunted down at Willingford, — or better still, to have made love to Violet Effingham wherever Violet Effingham might have placed herself. But all this was closed to him now; and there would be nothing for him but to remain at Killaloe, or to return to his work in Downing Street, from August to February. Mr. Monk, indeed, was going with him for a few weeks; but even this association did not make up for that sort of society which he would have preferred.