Showing How Phineas Bore the Blow
When Phineas received Lady Laura Kennedy’s letter, he was sitting in
his gorgeous apartment in the Colonial Office. It was gorgeous in
comparison with the very dingy room at Mr. Low’s to which he had been
accustomed in his early days,--and somewhat gorgeous also as compared
with the lodgings he had so long inhabited in Mr. Bunce’s house. The
room was large and square, and looked out from three windows on to
St. James’s Park. There were in it two very comfortable arm-chairs
and a comfortable sofa. And the office table at which he sat was of
old mahogany, shining brightly, and seemed to be fitted up with every
possible appliance for official comfort. This stood near one of the
windows, so that he could sit and look down upon the park. And there
was a large round table covered with books and newspapers. And the
walls of the room were bright with maps of all the colonies. And
there was one very interesting map,--but not very bright,--showing
the American colonies, as they used to be. And there was a little
inner closet in which he could brush his hair and wash his hands; and
in the room adjoining there sat,--or ought to have sat, for he was
often absent, vexing the mind of Phineas,--the Earl’s nephew, his
private secretary. And it was all very gorgeous. Often as he looked
round upon it, thinking of his old bedroom at Killaloe, of his little
garrets at Trinity, of the dingy chambers in Lincoln’s Inn, he would
tell himself that it was very gorgeous. He would wonder that anything
so grand had fallen to his lot.
The letter from Scotland was brought to him in the afternoon, having
reached London by some day-mail from Glasgow. He was sitting at his
desk with a heap of papers before him referring to a contemplated
railway from Halifax, in Nova Scotia, to the foot of the Rocky
Mountains. It had become his business to get up the subject, and then
discuss with his principal, Lord Cantrip, the expediency of advising
the Government to lend a company five million of money, in order
that this railway might be made. It was a big subject, and the
contemplation of it gratified him. It required that he should look
forward to great events, and exercise the wisdom of a statesman. What
was the chance of these colonies being swallowed up by those other
regions,--once colonies,--of which the map that hung in the corner
told so eloquent a tale? And if so, would the five million ever be
repaid? And if not swallowed up, were the colonies worth so great an
adventure of national money? Could they repay it? Would they do so?
Should they be made to do so? Mr. Low, who was now a Q.C. and in
Parliament, would not have greater subjects than this before him,
even if he should come to be Solicitor General. Lord Cantrip had
specially asked him to get up this matter,--and he was getting it up
sedulously. Once in nine years the harbour of Halifax was blocked up
by ice. He had just jotted down the fact, which was material, when
Lady Laura’s letter was brought to him. He read it, and putting
it down by his side very gently, went back to his maps as though
the thing would not so trouble his mind as to disturb his work. He
absolutely wrote, automatically, certain words of a note about the
harbour, after he had received the information. A horse will gallop
for some scores of yards, after his back has been broken, before
he knows of his great ruin;--and so it was with Phineas Finn. His
back was broken, but, nevertheless, he galloped, for a yard or two.
“Closed in 1860-61 for thirteen days.” Then he began to be aware that
his back was broken, and that the writing of any more notes about the
ice in Halifax harbour was for the present out of the question. “I
think it best to let you know immediately that she has accepted him.”
These were the words which he read the oftenest. Then it was all
over! The game was played out, and all his victories were as nothing
to him. He sat for an hour in his gorgeous room thinking of it, and
various were the answers which he gave during the time to various
messages;--but he would see nobody. As for the colonies, he did not
care if they revolted to-morrow. He would have parted with every
colony belonging to Great Britain to have gotten the hand of Violet
Effingham for himself. Now,--now at this moment, he told himself with
oaths that he had never loved any one but Violet Effingham.
There had been so much to make such a marriage desirable! I should
wrong my hero deeply were I to say that the weight of his sorrow was
occasioned by the fact that he had lost an heiress. He would never
have thought of looking for Violet Effingham had he not first learned
to love her. But as the idea opened itself out to him, everything
had seemed to be so suitable. Had Miss Effingham become his wife,
the mouths of the Lows and of the Bunces would have been stopped
altogether. Mr. Monk would have come to his house as his familiar
guest, and he would have been connected with half a score of peers.
A seat in Parliament would be simply his proper place, and even
Under-Secretaryships of State might soon come to be below him. He
was playing a great game, but hitherto he had played it with so much
success,--with such wonderful luck! that it had seemed to him that
all things were within his reach. Nothing more had been wanting to
him than Violet’s hand for his own comfort, and Violet’s fortune to
support his position; and these, too, had almost seemed to be within
his grasp. His goddess had indeed refused him,--but not with disdain.
Even Lady Laura had talked of his marriage as not improbable. All the
world, almost, had heard of the duel; and all the world had smiled,
and seemed to think that in the real fight Phineas Finn would be
the victor,--that the lucky pistol was in his hands. It had never
occurred to any one to suppose,--as far as he could see,--that he was
presuming at all, or pushing himself out of his own sphere, in asking
Violet Effingham to be his wife. No;--he would trust his luck, would
persevere, and would succeed. Such had been his resolution on that
very morning,--and now there had come this letter to dash him to the
ground.
There were moments in which he declared to himself that he would not
believe the letter,--not that there was any moment in which there
was in his mind the slightest spark of real hope. But he would tell
himself that he would still persevere. Violet might have been driven
to accept that violent man by violent influence,--or it might be
that she had not in truth accepted him, that Chiltern had simply so
asserted. Or, even if it were so, did women never change their minds?
The manly thing would be to persevere to the end. Had he not before
been successful, when success seemed to be as far from him? But he
could buoy himself up with no real hope. Even when these ideas were
present to his mind, he knew,--he knew well,--at those very moments,
that his back was broken.
Some one had come in and lighted the candles and drawn down the
blinds while he was sitting there, and now, as he looked at his
watch, he found that it was past five o’clock. He was engaged to dine
with Madame Max Goesler at eight, and in his agony he half-resolved
that he would send an excuse. Madame Max would be full of wrath, as
she was very particular about her little dinner-parties;--but, what
did he care now about the wrath of Madame Max Goesler? And yet only
this morning he had been congratulating himself, among his other
successes, upon her favour, and had laughed inwardly at his own
falseness,--his falseness to Violet Effingham,--as he did so. He
had said something to himself jocosely about lovers’ perjuries, the
remembrance of which was now very bitter to him. He took up a sheet
of note-paper and scrawled an excuse to Madame Goesler. News from the
country, he said, made it impossible that he should go out to-night.
But he did not send the note. At about half-past five he opened the
door of his private secretary’s room and found the young man fast
asleep, with a cigar in his mouth. “Halloa, Charles,” he said.
“All right!” Charles Standish was a first cousin of Lady Laura’s,
and, having been in the office before Phineas had joined it, and
being a great favourite with his cousin, had of course become the
Under-Secretary’s private secretary. “I’m all here,” said Charles
Standish, getting up and shaking himself.
“I am going. Just tie up those papers,--exactly as they are. I shall
be here early to-morrow, but I shan’t want you before twelve. Good
night, Charles.”
“Ta, ta,” said his private secretary, who was very fond of his
master, but not very respectful,--unless upon express occasions.
Then Phineas went out and walked across the park; but as he went he
became quite aware that his back was broken. It was not the less
broken because he sang to himself little songs to prove to himself
that it was whole and sound. It was broken, and it seemed to him now
that he never could become an Atlas again, to bear the weight of the
world upon his shoulders. What did anything signify? All that he had
done had been part of a game which he had been playing throughout,
and now he had been beaten in his game. He absolutely ignored his
old passion for Lady Laura as though it had never been, and regarded
himself as a model of constancy,--as a man who had loved, not wisely
perhaps, but much too well,--and who must now therefore suffer a
living death. He hated Parliament. He hated the Colonial Office.
He hated his friend Mr. Monk; and he especially hated Madame Max
Goesler. As to Lord Chiltern,--he believed that Lord Chiltern had
obtained his object by violence. He would see to that! Yes;--let the
consequences be what they might, he would see to that!
He went up by the Duke of York’s column, and as he passed the
Athenæum he saw his chief, Lord Cantrip, standing under the portico
talking to a bishop. He would have gone on unnoticed, had it been
possible; but Lord Cantrip came down to him at once. “I have put your
name down here,” said his lordship.
“What’s the use?” said Phineas, who was profoundly indifferent at
this moment to all the clubs in London.
“It can’t do any harm, you know. You’ll come up in time. And if you
should get into the ministry, they’ll let you in at once.”
“Ministry!” ejaculated Phineas. But Lord Cantrip took the tone of
voice as simply suggestive of humility, and suspected nothing of that
profound indifference to all ministers and ministerial honours which
Phineas had intended to express. “By-the-bye,” said Lord Cantrip,
putting his arm through that of the Under-Secretary, “I wanted to
speak to you about the guarantees. We shall be in the devil’s own
mess, you know--” And so the Secretary of State went on about the
Rocky Mountain Railroad, and Phineas strove hard to bear his burden
with his broken back. He was obliged to say something about the
guarantees, and the railway, and the frozen harbour,--and something
especially about the difficulties which would be found, not in the
measures themselves, but in the natural pugnacity of the Opposition.
In the fabrication of garments for the national wear, the great
thing is to produce garments that shall, as far as possible, defy
hole-picking. It may be, and sometimes is, the case, that garments
so fabricated will be good also for wear. Lord Cantrip, at the
present moment, was very anxious and very ingenious in the stopping
of holes; and he thought that perhaps his Under-Secretary was too
much prone to the indulgence of large philanthropical views without
sufficient thought of the hole-pickers. But on this occasion, by
the time that he reached Brooks’s, he had been enabled to convince
his Under-Secretary, and though he had always thought well of his
Under-Secretary, he thought better of him now than ever he had done.
Phineas during the whole time had been meditating what he could do
to Lord Chiltern when they two should meet. Could he take him by the
throat and smite him? “I happen to know that Broderick is working as
hard at the matter as we are,” said Lord Cantrip, stopping opposite
to the club. “He moved for papers, you know, at the end of last
session.” Now Mr. Broderick was a gentleman in the House looking for
promotion in a Conservative Government, and of course would oppose
any measure that could be brought forward by the Cantrip-Finn
Colonial Administration. Then Lord Cantrip slipped into the club, and
Phineas went on alone.
A spark of his old ambition with reference to Brooks’s was the first
thing to make him forget his misery for a moment. He had asked Lord
Brentford to put his name down, and was not sure whether it had been
done. The threat of Mr. Broderick’s opposition had been of no use
towards the strengthening of his broken back, but the sight of Lord
Cantrip hurrying in at the coveted door did do something. “A man
can’t cut his throat or blow his brains out,” he said to himself;
“after all, he must go on and do his work. For hearts will break, yet
brokenly live on.” Thereupon he went home, and after sitting for an
hour over his own fire, and looking wistfully at a little treasure
which he had,--a treasure obtained by some slight fraud at Saulsby,
and which he now chucked into the fire, and then instantly again
pulled out of it, soiled but unscorched,--he dressed himself for
dinner, and went out to Madame Max Goesler’s. Upon the whole, he was
glad that he had not sent the note of excuse. A man must live, even
though his heart be broken, and living he must dine.
Madame Max Goesler was fond of giving little dinners at this period
of the year, before London was crowded, and when her guests might
probably not be called away by subsequent social arrangements. Her
number seldom exceeded six or eight, and she always spoke of these
entertainments as being of the humblest kind. She sent out no big
cards. She preferred to catch her people as though by chance, when
that was possible. “Dear Mr. Jones. Mr. Smith is coming to tell
me about some sherry on Tuesday. Will you come and tell me too? I
daresay you know as much about it.” And then there was a studious
absence of parade. The dishes were not very numerous. The bill of
fare was simply written out once, for the mistress, and so circulated
round the table. Not a word about the things to be eaten or the
things to be drunk was ever spoken at the table,--or at least no such
word was ever spoken by Madame Goesler. But, nevertheless, they who
knew anything about dinners were aware that Madame Goesler gave very
good dinners indeed. Phineas Finn was beginning to flatter himself
that he knew something about dinners, and had been heard to assert
that the soups at the cottage in Park Lane were not to be beaten in
London. But he cared for no soup to-day, as he slowly made his way up
Madame Goesler’s staircase.
There had been one difficulty in the way of Madame Goesler’s
dinner-parties which had required some patience and great ingenuity
in its management. She must either have ladies, or she must not have
them. There was a great allurement in the latter alternative; but she
knew well that if she gave way to it, all prospect of general society
would for her be closed,--and for ever. This had been in the early
days of her widowhood in Park Lane. She cared but little for women’s
society; but she knew well that the society of gentlemen without
women would not be that which she desired. She knew also that she
might as effectually crush herself and all her aspirations by
bringing to her house indifferent women,--women lacking something
either in character, or in position, or in talent,--as by having none
at all. Thus there had been a great difficulty, and sometimes she had
thought that the thing could not be done at all. “These English are
so stiff, so hard, so heavy!” And yet she would not have cared to
succeed elsewhere than among the English. By degrees, however, the
thing was done. Her prudence equalled her wit, and even suspicious
people had come to acknowledge that they could not put their fingers
on anything wrong. When Lady Glencora Palliser had once dined at
the cottage in Park Lane, Madame Max Goesler had told herself that
henceforth she did not care what the suspicious people said. Since
that the Duke of Omnium had almost promised that he would come. If
she could only entertain the Duke of Omnium she would have done
everything.
But there was no Duke of Omnium there to-night. At this time the Duke
of Omnium was, of course, not in London. But Lord Fawn was there; and
our old friend Laurence Fitzgibbon, who had--resigned his place at
the Colonial Office; and there were Mr. and Mrs. Bonteen. They, with
our hero, made up the party. No one doubted for a moment to what
source Mr. Bonteen owed his dinner. Mrs. Bonteen was good-looking,
could talk, was sufficiently proper, and all that kind of thing,--and
did as well as any other woman at this time of year to keep Madame
Max Goesler in countenance. There was never any sitting after dinner
at the cottage; or, I should rather say, there was never any sitting
after Madame Goesler went; so that the two ladies could not weary
each other by being alone together. Mrs. Bonteen understood quite
well that she was not required there to talk to her hostess, and was
as willing as any woman to make herself agreeable to the gentlemen
she might meet at Madame Goesler’s table. And thus Mr. and Mrs.
Bonteen not unfrequently dined in Park Lane.
“Now we have only to wait for that horrible man, Mr. Fitzgibbon,”
said Madame Max Goesler, as she welcomed Phineas. “He is always
late.”
“What a blow for me!” said Phineas.
“No,--you are always in good time. But there is a limit beyond which
good time ends, and being shamefully late at once begins. But here he
is.” And then, as Laurence Fitzgibbon entered the room, Madame
Goesler rang the bell for dinner.
Phineas found himself placed between his hostess and Mr. Bonteen, and
Lord Fawn was on the other side of Madame Goesler. They were hardly
seated at the table before some one stated it as a fact that Lord
Brentford and his son were reconciled. Now Phineas knew, or thought
that he knew, that this could not as yet be the case; and indeed such
was not the case, though the father had already received the son’s
letter. But Phineas did not choose to say anything at present about
Lord Chiltern.
“How odd it is,” said Madame Goesler; “how often you English fathers
quarrel with your sons!”
“How often we English sons quarrel with our fathers rather,” said
Lord Fawn, who was known for the respect he had always paid to the
fifth commandment.
“It all comes from entail and primogeniture, and old-fashioned
English prejudices of that kind,” said Madame Goesler. “Lord Chiltern
is a friend of yours, Mr. Finn, I think.”
“They are both friends of mine,” said Phineas.
“Ah, yes; but you,--you,--you and Lord Chiltern once did something
odd together. There was a little mystery, was there not?”
“It is very little of a mystery now,” said Fitzgibbon.
“It was about a lady;--was it not?” said Mrs. Bonteen, affecting to
whisper to her neighbour.
“I am not at liberty to say anything on the subject,” said
Fitzgibbon; “but I have no doubt Phineas will tell you.”
“I don’t believe this about Lord Brentford,” said Mr. Bonteen. “I
happen to know that Chiltern was down at Loughlinter three days ago,
and that he passed through London yesterday on his way to the place
where he hunts. The Earl is at Saulsby. He would have gone to Saulsby
if it were true.”
“It all depends upon whether Miss Effingham will accept him,” said
Mrs. Bonteen, looking over at Phineas as she spoke.
As there were two of Violet Effingham’s suitors at table, the subject
was becoming disagreeably personal; and the more so, as every one of
the party knew or surmised something of the facts of the case. The
cause of the duel at Blankenberg had become almost as public as the
duel, and Lord Fawn’s courtship had not been altogether hidden from
the public eye. He on the present occasion might probably be able to
carry himself better than Phineas, even presuming him to be equally
eager in his love,--for he knew nothing of the fatal truth. But he
was unable to hear Mrs. Bonteen’s statement with indifference, and
showed his concern in the matter by his reply. “Any lady will be much
to be pitied,” he said, “who does that. Chiltern is the last man in
the world to whom I would wish to trust the happiness of a woman for
whom I cared.”
“Chiltern is a very good fellow,” said Laurence Fitzgibbon.
“Just a little wild,” said Mrs. Bonteen.
“And never had a shilling in his pocket in his life,” said her
husband.
“I regard him as simply a madman,” said Lord Fawn.
“I do so wish I knew him,” said Madame Max Goesler. “I am fond of
madmen, and men who haven’t shillings, and who are a little wild.
Could you not bring him here, Mr. Finn?”
Phineas did not know what to say, or how to open his mouth without
showing his deep concern. “I shall be happy to ask him if you wish
it,” he replied, as though the question had been put to him in
earnest; “but I do not see so much of Lord Chiltern as I used to do.”
“You do not believe that Violet Effingham will accept him?” asked
Mrs. Bonteen.
He paused a moment before he spoke, and then made his answer in a
deep solemn voice,--with a seriousness which he was unable to
repress. “She has accepted him,” he said.
“Do you mean that you know it?” said Madame Goesler.
“Yes;--I mean that I know it.”
Had anybody told him beforehand that he would openly make this
declaration at Madame Goesler’s table, he would have said that of
all things it was the most impossible. He would have declared that
nothing would have induced him to speak of Violet Effingham in his
existing frame of mind, and that he would have had his tongue cut
out before he spoke of her as the promised bride of his rival. And
now he had declared the whole truth of his own wretchedness and
discomfiture. He was well aware that all of them there knew why he
had fought the duel at Blankenberg;--all, that is, except perhaps
Lord Fawn. And he felt as he made the statement as to Lord Chiltern
that he blushed up to his forehead, and that his voice was strange,
and that he was telling the tale of his own disgrace. But when the
direct question had been asked him he had been unable to refrain from
answering it directly. He had thought of turning it off with some
jest or affectation of drollery, but had failed. At the moment he had
been unable not to speak the truth.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Lord Fawn,--who also forgot
himself.
“I do believe it, if Mr. Finn says so,” said Mrs. Bonteen, who rather
liked the confusion she had caused.
“But who could have told you, Finn?” asked Mr. Bonteen.
“His sister, Lady Laura, told me so,” said Phineas.
“Then it must be true,” said Madame Goesler.
“It is quite impossible,” said Lord Fawn. “I think I may say that
I know that it is impossible. If it were so, it would be a most
shameful arrangement. Every shilling she has in the world would
be swallowed up.” Now, Lord Fawn in making his proposals had been
magnanimous in his offers as to settlements and pecuniary provisions
generally.
For some minutes after that Phineas did not speak another word, and
the conversation generally was not so brisk and bright as it was
expected to be at Madame Goesler’s. Madame Max Goesler herself
thoroughly understood our hero’s position, and felt for him. She
would have encouraged no questionings about Violet Effingham had
she thought that they would have led to such a result, and now she
exerted herself to turn the minds of her guests to other subjects.
At last she succeeded; and after a while, too, Phineas himself was
able to talk. He drank two or three glasses of wine, and dashed
away into politics, taking the earliest opportunity in his power of
contradicting Lord Fawn very plainly on one or two matters. Laurence
Fitzgibbon was of course of opinion that the ministry could not stay
in long. Since he had left the Government the ministers had made
wonderful mistakes, and he spoke of them quite as an enemy might
speak. “And yet, Fitz,” said Mr. Bonteen, “you used to be so staunch
a supporter.”
“I have seen the error of my way, I can assure you,” said Laurence.
“I always observe,” said Madame Max Goesler, “that when any of
you gentlemen resign,--which you usually do on some very trivial
matter,--the resigning gentleman becomes of all foes the bitterest.
Somebody goes on very well with his friends, agreeing most cordially
about everything, till he finds that his public virtue cannot swallow
some little detail, and then he resigns. Or some one, perhaps, on the
other side has attacked him, and in the mêlée he is hurt, and so he
resigns. But when he has resigned, and made his parting speech full
of love and gratitude, I know well after that where to look for the
bitterest hostility to his late friends. Yes, I am beginning to
understand the way in which politics are done in England.”
All this was rather severe upon Laurence Fitzgibbon; but he was a man
of the world, and bore it better than Phineas had borne his defeat.
The dinner, taken altogether, was not a success, and so Madame
Goesler understood. Lord Fawn, after he had been contradicted by
Phineas, hardly opened his mouth. Phineas himself talked rather too
much and rather too loudly; and Mrs. Bonteen, who was well enough
inclined to flatter Lord Fawn, contradicted him. “I made a mistake,”
said Madame Goesler afterwards, “in having four members of Parliament
who all of them were or had been in office. I never will have two men
in office together again.” This she said to Mrs. Bonteen. “My dear
Madame Max,” said Mrs. Bonteen, “your resolution ought to be that you
will never again have two claimants for the same young lady.”
In the drawing-room up-stairs Madame Goesler managed to be alone for
three minutes with Phineas Finn. “And it is as you say, my friend?”
she asked. Her voice was plaintive and soft, and there was a look of
real sympathy in her eyes. Phineas almost felt that if they two had
been quite alone he could have told her everything, and have wept at
her feet.
“Yes,” he said, “it is so.”
“I never doubted it when you had declared it. May I venture to say
that I wish it had been otherwise?”
“It is too late now, Madame Goesler. A man of course is a fool to
show that he has any feelings in such a matter. The fact is, I heard
it just before I came here, and had made up my mind to send you an
excuse. I wish I had now.”
“Do not say that, Mr. Finn.”
“I have made such an ass of myself.”
“In my estimation you have done yourself honour. But if I may venture
to give you counsel, do not speak of this affair again as though you
had been personally concerned in it. In the world now-a-days the only
thing disgraceful is to admit a failure.”
“And I have failed.”
“But you need not admit it, Mr. Finn. I know I ought not to say as
much to you.”
“I, rather, am deeply indebted to you. I will go now, Madame Goesler,
as I do not wish to leave the house with Lord Fawn.”
“But you will come and see me soon.” Then Phineas promised that he
would come soon; and felt as he made the promise that he would have
an opportunity of talking over his love with his new friend at any
rate without fresh shame as to his failure.
Laurence Fitzgibbon went away with Phineas, and Mr. Bonteen, having
sent his wife away by herself, walked off towards the clubs with Lord
Fawn. He was very anxious to have a few words with Lord Fawn. Lord
Fawn had evidently been annoyed by Phineas, and Mr. Bonteen did not
at all love the young Under-Secretary. “That fellow has become the
most consummate puppy I ever met,” said he, as he linked himself on
to the lord, “Monk, and one or two others among them, have contrived
to spoil him altogether.”
“I don’t believe a word of what he said about Lord Chiltern,” said
Lord Fawn.
“About his marriage with Miss Effingham?”
“It would be such an abominable shame to sacrifice the girl,” said
Lord Fawn. “Only think of it. Everything is gone. The man is a
drunkard, and I don’t believe he is any more reconciled to his father
than you are. Lady Laura Kennedy must have had some object in saying
so.”
“Perhaps an invention of Finn’s altogether,” said Mr. Bonteen. “Those
Irish fellows are just the men for that kind of thing.”
“A man, you know, so violent that nobody can hold him,” said Lord
Fawn, thinking of Chiltern.
“And so absurdly conceited,” said Mr. Bonteen, thinking of Phineas.
“A man who has never done anything, with all his advantages in the
world,--and never will.”
“He won’t hold his place long,” said Mr. Bonteen.
“Whom do you mean?”
“Phineas Finn.”
“Oh, Mr. Finn. I was talking of Lord Chiltern. I believe Finn to be
a very good sort of a fellow, and he is undoubtedly clever. They say
Cantrip likes him amazingly. He’ll do very well. But I don’t believe
a word of this about Lord Chiltern.” Then Mr. Bonteen felt himself to
be snubbed, and soon afterwards left Lord Fawn alone.