The Palliser Novels (194 page)

He bided his time patiently, and at last he found his opportunity. “Would she dance with him?” She declared that she intended to dance no more, and that she had promised to be ready to return home with Lord Brentford before ten o’clock. “I have pledged myself not to be after ten,” she said, laughing. Then she put her hand upon his arm, and they stepped out upon the terrace together. “Have you heard anything?” she asked him, almost in a whisper.

“Yes,” he said. “I have heard what you mean. I have heard it all.”

“Is it not dreadful?”

“I fear it is the best thing she can do. She has never been happy with him.”

“But to be accused after that fashion, — by her husband!” said Violet. “One can hardly believe it in these days. And of all women she is the last to deserve such accusation.”

“The very last,” said Phineas, feeling that the subject was one upon which it was not easy for him to speak.

“I cannot conceive to whom he can have alluded,” said Violet. Then Phineas began to understand that Violet had not heard the whole story; but the difficulty of speaking was still very great.

“It has been the result of ungovernable temper,” he said.

“But a man does not usually strive to dishonour himself because he is in a rage. And this man is incapable of rage. He must be cursed with one of those dark gloomy minds in which love always leads to jealousy. She will never return to him.”

“One cannot say. In many respects it would be better that she should,” said Phineas.

“She will never return to him,” repeated Violet, — “never. Would you advise her to do so?”

“How can I say? If one were called upon for advice, one would think so much before one spoke.”

“I would not, — not for a minute. What! to be accused of that! How are a man and woman to live together after there have been such words between them? Poor Laura! What a terrible end to all her high hopes! Do you not grieve for her?”

They were now at some distance from the house, and Phineas could not but feel that chance had been very good to him in giving him his opportunity. She was leaning on his arm, and they were alone, and she was speaking to him with all the familiarity of old friendship. “I wonder whether I may change the subject,” said he, “and ask you a word about yourself?”

“What word?” she said sharply.

“I have heard — “

“What have you heard?”

“Simply this, — that you are not now as you were six months ago. Your marriage was then fixed for June.”

“It has been unfixed since then,” she said.

“Yes; — it has been unfixed. I know it. Miss Effingham, you will not be angry with me if I say that when I heard it was so, something of a hope, — no, I must not call it a hope, — something that longed to form itself into hope returned to my breast, and from that hour to this has been the only subject on which I have cared to think.”

“Lord Chiltern is your friend, Mr. Finn?”

“He is so, and I do not think that I have ever been untrue to my friendship for him.”

“He says that no man has ever had a truer friend. He will swear to that in all companies. And I, when it was allowed to me to swear with him, swore it too. As his friend, let me tell you one thing, — one thing which I would never tell to any other man, — one thing which I know I may tell you in confidence. You are a gentleman, and will not break my confidence?”

“I think I will not.”

“I know you will not, because you are a gentleman. I told Lord Chiltern in the autumn of last year that I loved him. And I did love him. I shall never have the same confession to make to another man. That he and I are not now, — on those loving terms, — which once existed, can make no difference in that. A woman cannot transfer her heart. There have been things which have made me feel, — that I was perhaps mistaken, — in saying that I would be, — his wife. But I said so, and cannot now give myself to another. Here is Lord Brentford, and we will join him.” There was Lord Brentford with Lady Laura on his arm, very gloomy, — resolving on what way he might be avenged on the man who had insulted his daughter. He took but little notice of Phineas as he resumed his charge of Miss Effingham; but the two ladies wished him good night.

“Good night, Lady Laura,” said Phineas, standing with his hat in his hand, — “good night, Miss Effingham.” Then he was alone, — quite alone. Would it not be well for him to go down to the bottom of the garden, and fling himself into the quiet river, so that there might be an end of him? Or would it not be better still that he should create for himself some quiet river of life, away from London, away from politics, away from lords, and titled ladies, and fashionable squares, and the parties given by dukes, and the disappointments incident to a small man in attempting to make for himself a career among big men? There had frequently been in the mind of this young man an idea that there was something almost false in his own position, — that his life was a pretence, and that he would ultimately be subject to that ruin which always comes, sooner or later, on things which are false; and now as he wandered alone about Lady Glencora’s gardens, this feeling was very strong within his bosom, and robbed him altogether of the honour and glory of having been one of the Duke of Omnium’s guests.

Phineas did not throw himself into the river from the Duke’s garden; and was ready, in spite of Violet Effingham, to start for Ireland with Mr. Monk at the end of the first week in August. The close of that season in London certainly was not a happy period of his life. Violet had spoken to him after such a fashion that he could not bring himself not to believe her. She had given him no hint whether it was likely or unlikely that she and Lord Chiltern would be reconciled; but she had convinced him that he could not be allowed to take Lord Chiltern’s place. “A woman cannot transfer her heart,” she had said. Phineas was well aware that many women do transfer their hearts; but he had gone to this woman too soon after the wrench which her love had received; he had been too sudden with his proposal for a transfer; and the punishment for such ill judgment must be that success would now be impossible to him. And yet how could he have waited, feeling that Miss Effingham, if she were at all like other girls whom he had known, might have promised herself to some other lover before she would return within his reach in the succeeding spring? But she was not like some other girls. Ah; — he knew that now, and repented him of his haste.

But he was ready for Mr. Monk on the 7th of August, and they started together. Something less than twenty hours took them from London to Killaloe, and during four or five of those twenty hours Mr. Monk was unfitted for any conversation by the uncomfortable feelings incidental to the passage from Holyhead to Kingstown. Nevertheless, there was a great deal of conversation between them during the journey. Mr. Monk had almost made up his mind to leave the Cabinet. “It is sad to me to have to confess it,” he said, “but the truth is that my old rival, Turnbull, is right. A man who begins his political life as I began mine, is not the man of whom a Minister should be formed. I am inclined to think that Ministers of Government require almost as much education in their trade as shoemakers or tallow-chandlers. I doubt whether you can make a good public servant of a man simply because he has got the ear of the House of Commons.”

“Then you mean to say,” said Phineas, “that we are altogether wrong from beginning to end, in our way of arranging these things?”

“I do not say that at all. Look at the men who have been leading statesmen since our present mode of government was formed, — from the days in which it was forming itself, say from Walpole down, and you will find that all who have been of real use had early training as public servants.”

“Are we never to get out of the old groove?”

“Not if the groove is good,” said Mr. Monk, “Those who have been efficient as ministers sucked in their efficacy with their mother’s milk. Lord Brock did so, and Lord de Terrier, and Mr. Mildmay. They seated themselves in office chairs the moment they left college. Mr. Gresham was in office before he was eight-and-twenty. The Duke of St. Bungay was at work as a Private Secretary when he was three-and-twenty. You, luckily for yourself, have done the same.”

“And regret it every hour of my life.”

“You have no cause for regret, but it is not so with me. If there be any man unfitted by his previous career for office, it is he who has become, or who has endeavoured to become, a popular politician, — an exponent, if I may say so, of public opinion. As far as I can see, office is offered to such men with one view only, — that of clipping their wings.”

“And of obtaining their help.”

“It is the same thing. Help from Turnbull would mean the withdrawal of all power of opposition from him. He could not give other help for any long term, as the very fact of his accepting power and patronage would take from him his popular leadership. The masses outside require to have their minister as the Queen has hers; but the same man cannot be minister to both. If the people’s minister chooses to change his master, and to take the Queen’s shilling, something of temporary relief may be gained by government in the fact that the other place will for a time be vacant. But there are candidates enough for such places, and the vacancy is not a vacancy long. Of course the Crown has this pull, that it pays wages, and the people do not.”

“I do not think that that influenced you,” said Phineas.

“It did not influence me. To you I will make bold to state so much positively, though it would be foolish, perhaps, to do so to others. I did not go for the shilling, though I am so poor a man that the shilling is more to me than it would be to almost any man in the House. I took the shilling, much doubting, but guided in part by this, that I was ashamed of being afraid to take it. They told me, — Mr. Mildmay and the Duke, — that I could earn it to the benefit of the country. I have not earned it, and the country has not been benefited, — unless it be for the good of the country that my voice in the House should be silenced. If I believe that, I ought to hold my tongue without taking a salary for holding it. I have made a mistake, my friend. Such mistakes made at my time of life cannot be wholly rectified; but, being convinced of my error, I must do the best in my power to put myself right again.”

There was a bitterness in all this to Phineas himself of which he could not but make plaint to his companion. “The truth is,” he said, “that a man in office must be a slave, and that slavery is distasteful.”

“There I think you are wrong. If you mean that you cannot do joint work with other men altogether after your own fashion the same may be said of all work. If you had stuck to the Bar you must have pleaded your causes in conformity with instructions from the attorneys.”

“I should have been guided by my own lights in advising those attorneys.”

“I cannot see that you suffer anything that ought to go against the grain with you. You are beginning young, and it is your first adopted career. With me it is otherwise. If by my telling you this I shall have led you astray, I shall regret my openness with you. Could I begin again, I would willingly begin as you began.”

It was a great day in Killaloe, that on which Mr. Monk arrived with Phineas at the doctor’s house. In London, perhaps, a bishop inspires more awe than a Cabinet Minister. In Killaloe, where a bishop might be seen walking about every day, the mitred dignitary of the Church, though much loved, was thought of, I fear, but lightly; whereas a Cabinet Minister coming to stay in the house of a townsman was a thing to be wondered at, to be talked about, to be afraid of, to be a fruitful source of conversation for a year to come. There were many in Killaloe, especially among the elder ladies, who had shaken their heads and expressed the saddest doubts when young Phineas Finn had first become a Parliament man. And though by degrees they had been half brought round, having been driven to acknowledge that he had been wonderfully successful as a Parliament man, still they had continued to shake their heads among themselves, and to fear something in the future, — until he appeared at his old home leading a Cabinet Minister by the hand. There was such assurance in this that even old Mrs. Callaghan, at the brewery, gave way, and began to say all manner of good things, and to praise the doctor’s luck in that he had a son gifted with parts so excellent. There was a great desire to see the Cabinet Minister in the flesh, to be with him when he ate and drank, to watch the gait and countenance of the man, and to drink water from this fountain of state lore which had been so wonderfully brought among them by their young townsman. Mrs. Finn was aware that it behoved her to be chary of her invitations, but the lady from the brewery had said such good things of Mrs. Finn’s black swan, that she carried her point, and was invited to meet the Cabinet Minister at dinner on the day after his arrival.

Mrs. Flood Jones and her daughter were invited also to be of the party. When Phineas had been last at Killaloe, Mrs. Flood Jones, as the reader may remember, had remained with her daughter at Floodborough, — feeling it to be her duty to keep her daughter away from the danger of an unrequited attachment. But it seemed that her purpose was changed now, or that she no longer feared the danger, — for both Mary and her mother were now again living in Killaloe, and Mary was at the doctor’s house as much as ever.

A day or two before the coming of the god and the demigod to the little town, Barbara Finn and her friend had thus come to understand each other as they walked along the Shannon side. “I am sure, my dear, that he is engaged to nobody,” said Barbara Finn.

“And I am sure, my dear,” said Mary, “that I do not care whether he is or is not.”

“What do you mean, Mary?”

“I mean what I say. Why should I care? Five years ago I had a foolish dream, and now I am awake again. Think how old I have got to be!”

“Yes; — you are twenty-three. What has that to do with it?”

“It has this to do with it; — that I am old enough to know better. Mamma and I quite understand each other. She used to be angry with him, but she has got over all that foolishness now. It always made me so vexed; — the idea of being angry with a man because, — because — ! You know one can’t talk about it, it is so foolish. But that is all over now.”