E-text prepared by Kenneth David Cooper
and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
THE PRIME MINISTER
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
First published in monthly installments in 1875 and 1876 and in book
form in 1876
CONTENTS
VOLUME I
I. Ferdinand Lopez
II. Everett Wharton
III. Mr. Abel Wharton, Q.C.
IV. Mrs. Roby
V. "No One Knows Anything About Him"
VI. An Old Friend Goes to Windsor
VII. Another Old Friend
VIII. The Beginning of a New Career
IX. Mrs. Dick's Dinner Party.--No. I
X. Mrs. Dick's Dinner Party.--No. II
XI. Carlton Terrace
XII. The Gathering of Clouds
XIII. Mr. Wharton Complains
XIV. A Lover's Perseverance
XV. Arthur Fletcher
XVI. Never Run Away!
XVII. Good-Bye
XVIII. The Duke of Omnium Thinks of Himself
XIX. Vulgarity
XX. Sir Orlando's Policy
XXI. The Duchess's New Swan
XXII. St. James's Park
XXIII. Surrender
XXIV. The Marriage
XXV. The Beginning of the Honeymoon
XXVI. The End of the Honeymoon
XXVII. The Duke's Misery
XXVIII. The Duchess Is Much Troubled
XXIX. The Two Candidates for Silverbridge
XXX. "Yes;--a Lie!"
XXXI. "Yes;--with a Horsewhip in My Hand"
XXXII. "What Business Is It of Yours?"
XXXIII. Showing That a Man Should Not Howl
XXXIV. The Silverbridge Election
XXXV. Lopez Back in London
XXXVI. The Jolly Blackbird
XXXVII. The Horns
XXXVIII. Sir Orlando Retires
XXXIX. "Get Round Him"
XL. "Come and Try It"
VOLUME II
XLI. The Value of a Thick Skin
XLII. Retribution
XLIII. Kauri Gum
XLIV. Mr. Wharton Intends to Make a New Will
XLV. Mrs. Sexty Parker
XLVI. "He Wants to Get Rich Too Quick"
XLVII. As for Love!
XLVIII. "Has He Ill-treated You?"
XLIX. "Where Is Guatemala?"
L. Mr. Slide's Revenge
LI. Coddling the Prime Minister
LII. "I Can Sleep Here To-night, I Suppose?"
LIII. Mr. Hartlepod
LIV. Lizzie
LV. Mrs. Parker's Sorrows
LVI. What the Duchess Thought of Her Husband
LVII. The Explanation
LVIII. "Quite Settled"
LIX. "The First and the Last"
LX. The Tenway Junction
LXI. The Widow and Her Friends
LXII. Phineas Finn Has a Book to Read
LXIII. The Duchess and Her Friend
LXIV. The New K.G.
LXV. "There Must Be Time"
LXVI. The End of the Session
LXVII. Mrs. Lopez Prepares to Move
LXVIII. The Prime Minister's Political Creed
LXIX. Mrs. Parker's Fate
LXX. At Wharton
LXXI. The Ladies at Longbarns Doubt
LXXII. "He Thinks That Our Days Are Numbered"
LXXIII. Only the Duke of Omnium
LXXIV. "I Am Disgraced and Shamed"
LXXV. The Great Wharton Alliance
LXXVI. Who Will It Be?
LXXVII. The Duchess in Manchester Square
LXXVIII. The New Ministry
LXXIX. The Wharton Wedding
LXXX. The Last Meeting at Matching
VOLUME I
CHAPTER I
Ferdinand Lopez
It is certainly of service to a man to know who were his grandfathers
and who were his grandmothers if he entertain an ambition to move in
the upper circles of society, and also of service to be able to speak
of them as of persons who were themselves somebodies in their time.
No doubt we all entertain great respect for those who by their own
energies have raised themselves in the world; and when we hear that
the son of a washerwoman has become Lord Chancellor or Archbishop
of Canterbury we do, theoretically and abstractedly, feel a higher
reverence for such self-made magnate than for one who has been as it
were born into forensic or ecclesiastical purple. But not the less
must the offspring of the washerwoman have had very much trouble on
the subject of his birth, unless he has been, when young as well as
when old, a very great man indeed. After the goal has been absolutely
reached, and the honour and the titles and the wealth actually
won, a man may talk with some humour, even with some affection, of
the maternal tub;--but while the struggle is going on, with the
conviction strong upon the struggler that he cannot be altogether
successful unless he be esteemed a gentleman, not to be ashamed,
not to conceal the old family circumstances, not at any rate to be
silent, is difficult. And the difficulty is certainly not less if
fortunate circumstances rather than hard work and intrinsic merit
have raised above his natural place an aspirant to high social
position. Can it be expected that such a one when dining with a
duchess shall speak of his father's small shop, or bring into the
light of day his grandfather's cobbler's awl? And yet it is difficult
to be altogether silent! It may not be necessary for any of us to be
always talking of our own parentage. We may be generally reticent as
to our uncles and aunts, and may drop even our brothers and sisters
in our ordinary conversation. But if a man never mentions his
belongings among those with whom he lives, he becomes mysterious,
and almost open to suspicion. It begins to be known that nobody
knows anything of such a man, and even friends become afraid. It is
certainly convenient to be able to allude, if it be but once in a
year, to some blood relation.
Ferdinand Lopez, who in other respects had much in his circumstances
on which to congratulate himself, suffered trouble in his mind
respecting his ancestors such as I have endeavoured to describe. He
did not know very much himself, but what little he did know he kept
altogether to himself. He had no father or mother, no uncle, aunt,
brother or sister, no cousin even whom he could mention in a cursory
way to his dearest friend. He suffered, no doubt;--but with Spartan
consistency he so hid his trouble from the world that no one knew
that he suffered. Those with whom he lived, and who speculated often
and wondered much as to who he was, never dreamed that the silent
man's reticence was a burden to himself. At no special conjuncture of
his life, at no period which could be marked with the finger of the
observer, did he glaringly abstain from any statement which at the
moment might be natural. He never hesitated, blushed, or palpably
laboured at concealment; but the fact remained that though a great
many men and not a few women knew Ferdinand Lopez very well, none of
them knew whence he had come, or what was his family.
He was a man, however, naturally reticent, who never alluded to his
own affairs unless in pursuit of some object the way to which was
clear before his eyes. Silence therefore on a matter which is common
in the mouths of most men was less difficult to him than to another,
and the result less embarrassing. Dear old Jones, who tells his
friends at the club of every pound that he loses or wins at the
races, who boasts of Mary's favours and mourns over Lucy's coldness
almost in public, who issues bulletins on the state of his purse, his
stomach, his stable, and his debts, could not with any amount of care
keep from us the fact that his father was an attorney's clerk, and
made his first money by discounting small bills. Everybody knows
it, and Jones, who likes popularity, grieves at the unfortunate
publicity. But Jones is relieved from a burden which would have
broken his poor shoulders, and which even Ferdinand Lopez, who is a
strong man, often finds it hard to bear without wincing.
It was admitted on all sides that Ferdinand Lopez was a "gentleman."
Johnson says that any other derivation of this difficult word than
that which causes it to signify "a man of ancestry" is whimsical.
There are many, who in defining the term for their own use, still
adhere to Johnson's dictum;--but they adhere to it with certain
unexpressed allowances for possible exceptions. The chances are very
much in favour of the well-born man, but exceptions may exist. It
was not generally believed that Ferdinand Lopez was well born;--but
he was a gentleman. And this most precious rank was acceded to
him although he was employed,--or at least had been employed,--on
business which does not of itself give such a warrant of position as
is supposed to be afforded by the bar and the church, by the military
services and by physic. He had been on the Stock Exchange, and still
in some manner, not clearly understood by his friends, did business
in the City.
At the time with which we are now concerned Ferdinand Lopez was
thirty-three years old, and as he had begun life early he had been
long before the world. It was known of him that he had been at a good
English private school, and it was reported, on the solitary evidence
of one who had there been his schoolfellow, that a rumour was current
in the school that his school bills were paid by an old gentleman
who was not related to him. Thence at the age of seventeen he had
been sent to a German University, and at the age of twenty-one
had appeared in London, in a stockbroker's office, where he was
soon known as an accomplished linguist, and as a very clever
fellow,--precocious, not given to many pleasures, apt for work, but
hardly trustworthy by employers, not as being dishonest, but as
having a taste for being a master rather than a servant. Indeed his
period of servitude was very short. It was not in his nature to be
active on behalf of others. He was soon active for himself, and at
one time it was supposed that he was making a fortune. Then it was
known that he had left his regular business, and it was supposed that
he had lost all that he had ever made or had ever possessed. But
nobody, not even his own bankers or his own lawyer,--not even the old
woman who looked after his linen,--ever really knew the state of his
affairs.
He was certainly a handsome man,--his beauty being of a sort which
men are apt to deny and women to admit lavishly. He was nearly six
feet tall, very dark, and very thin, with regular, well-cut features
indicating little to the physiognomist unless it be the great gift of
self-possession. His hair was cut short, and he wore no beard beyond
an absolutely black moustache. His teeth were perfect in form and
whiteness,--a characteristic which, though it may be a valued item
in a general catalogue of personal attraction, does not generally
recommend a man to the unconscious judgment of his acquaintance.
But about the mouth and chin of this man there was a something of
softness, perhaps in the play of the lips, perhaps in the dimple,
which in some degree lessened the feeling of hardness which was
produced by the square brow and bold, unflinching, combative eyes.
They who knew him and liked him were reconciled by the lower face.
The greater number who knew him and did not like him felt and
resented,--even though in nine cases out of ten they might express no
resentment even to themselves,--the pugnacity of his steady glance.
For he was essentially one of those men who are always, in the inner
workings of their minds, defending themselves and attacking others.
He could not give a penny to a woman at a crossing without a look
which argued at full length her injustice in making her demand, and
his freedom from all liability let him walk the crossing as often as
he might. He could not seat himself in a railway carriage without a
lesson to his opposite neighbour that in all the mutual affairs of
travelling, arrangement of feet, disposition of bags, and opening
of windows, it would be that neighbour's duty to submit and his to
exact. It was, however, for the spirit rather than for the thing
itself that he combatted. The woman with the broom got her penny. The
opposite gentleman when once by a glance he had expressed submission
was allowed his own way with his legs and with the window. I would
not say that Ferdinand Lopez was prone to do ill-natured things; but
he was imperious, and he had learned to carry his empire in his eye.
The reader must submit to be told one or two further and still
smaller details respecting the man, and then the man shall be allowed
to make his own way. No one of those around him knew how much care he
took to dress himself well, or how careful he was that no one should
know it. His very tailor regarded him as being simply extravagant in
the number of his coats and trousers, and his friends looked upon him
as one of those fortunate beings to whose nature belongs a facility
of being well dressed, or almost an impossibility of being ill
dressed. We all know the man,--a little man generally who moves
seldom and softly,--who looks always as though he had just been sent
home in a bandbox. Ferdinand Lopez was not a little man, and moved
freely enough; but never, at any moment,--going into the city or
coming out of it, on horseback or on foot, at home over his book or
after the mazes of the dance,--was he dressed otherwise than with
perfect care. Money and time did it, but folk thought that it grew
with him, as did his hair and his nails. And he always rode a horse
which charmed good judges of what a park nag should be;--not a
prancing, restless, giggling, sideway-going, useless garran, but an
animal well made, well bitted, with perfect paces, on whom a rider if
it pleased him could be as quiet as a statue on a monument. It often
did please Ferdinand Lopez to be quiet on horseback; and yet he did
not look like a statue, for it was acknowledged through all London
that he was a good horseman. He lived luxuriously too,--though
whether at his ease or not nobody knew,--for he kept a brougham of
his own, and during the hunting season he had two horses down at
Leighton. There had once been a belief abroad that he was ruined, but
they who interest themselves in such matters had found out,--or at
any rate believed that they had found out,--that he paid his tailor
regularly: and now there prevailed an opinion that Ferdinand Lopez
was a monied man.
It was known to some few that he occupied rooms in a flat at
Westminster,--but to very few exactly where the rooms were situate.
Among all his friends no one was known to have entered them. In a
moderate way he was given to hospitality,--that is to infrequent but,
when the occasion came, to graceful hospitality. Some club, however,
or tavern, or perhaps, in the summer, some river bank would be chosen
as the scene of these festivities. To a few,--if, as suggested,
amidst summer flowers on the water's edge to men and women mixed,--he
would be a courtly and efficient host; for he had the rare gift of
doing such things well.
Hunting was over, and the east wind was still blowing, and a great
portion of the London world was out of town taking its Easter
holiday, when, on an unpleasant morning, Ferdinand Lopez travelled
into the city by the Metropolitan railway from Westminster Bridge. It
was his custom to go thither when he did go,--not daily like a man of
business, but as chance might require, like a capitalist or a man of
pleasure,--in his own brougham. But on this occasion he walked down
to the river side, and then walked from the Mansion House into a
dingy little court called Little Tankard Yard, near the Bank of
England, and going through a narrow dark long passage got into a
little office at the back of a building, in which there sat at a desk
a greasy gentleman with a new hat on one side of his head, who might
perhaps be about forty years old. The place was very dark, and the
man was turning over the leaves of a ledger. A stranger to city
ways might probably have said that he was idle, but he was no doubt
filling his mind with that erudition which would enable him to earn
his bread. On the other side of the desk there was a little boy
copying letters. These were Mr. Sextus Parker,--commonly called Sexty
Parker,--and his clerk. Mr. Parker was a gentleman very well known
and at the present moment favourably esteemed on the Stock Exchange.
"What, Lopez!" said he. "Uncommon glad to see you. What can I do for
you?"
"Just come inside,--will you?" said Lopez. Now within Mr. Parker's
very small office there was a smaller office in which there were
a safe, a small rickety Pembroke table, two chairs, and an old
washing-stand with a tumbled towel. Lopez led the way into this
sanctum as though he knew the place well, and Sexty Parker followed
him.
"Beastly day, isn't it?" said Sexty.
"Yes,--a nasty east wind."
"Cutting one in two, with a hot sun at the same time. One ought to
hybernate at this time of the year."
"Then why don't you hybernate?" said Lopez.
"Business is too good. That's about it. A man has to stick to it when
it does come. Everybody can't do like you;--give up regular work,
and make a better thing of an hour now and an hour then, just as it
pleases you. I shouldn't dare go in for that kind of thing."
"I don't suppose you or any one else know what I go in for," said
Lopez, with a look that indicated offence.
"Nor don't care," said Sexty;--"only hope it's something good for
your sake." Sexty Parker had known Mr. Lopez well, now for some
years, and being an overbearing man himself,--somewhat even of a
bully if the truth be spoken,--and by no means apt to give way unless
hard pressed, had often tried his "hand" on his friend, as he himself
would have said. But I doubt whether he could remember any instance
in which he could congratulate himself on success. He was trying his
hand again now, but did it with a faltering voice, having caught a
glance of his friend's eye.
"I dare say not," said Lopez. Then he continued without changing his
voice or the nature of the glance of his eye, "I'll tell you what I
want you to do now. I want your name to this bill for three months."
Sexty Parker opened his mouth and his eyes, and took the bit of paper
that was tendered to him. It was a promissory note for £750, which,
if signed by him, would at the end of the specified period make him
liable for that sum were it not otherwise paid. His friend Mr. Lopez
was indeed applying to him for the assistance of his name in raising
a loan to the amount of the sum named. This was a kind of favour
which a man should ask almost on his knees,--and which, if so asked,
Mr. Sextus Parker would certainly refuse. And here was Ferdinand
Lopez asking it,--whom Sextus Parker had latterly regarded as an
opulent man,--and asking it not at all on his knees, but, as one
might say, at the muzzle of a pistol. "Accommodation bill!" said
Sexty. "Why, you ain't hard up; are you?"
"I'm not going just at present to tell you much about my affairs, and
yet I expect you to do what I ask you. I don't suppose you doubt my
ability to raise £750."
"Oh, dear, no," said Sexty, who had been looked at and who had not
borne the inspection well.
"And I don't suppose you would refuse me even if I were hard up, as
you call it." There had been affairs before between the two men in
which Lopez had probably been the stronger, and the memory of them,
added to the inspection which was still going on, was heavy upon poor
Sexty.
"Oh, dear, no;--I wasn't thinking of refusing. I suppose a fellow may
be a little surprised at such a thing."
"I don't know why you need be surprised, as such things are very
common. I happen to have taken a share in a loan a little beyond my
immediate means, and therefore want a few hundreds. There is no one I
can ask with a better grace than you. If you ain't--afraid about it,
just sign it."
"Oh, I ain't afraid," said Sexty, taking his pen and writing his name
across the bill. But even before the signature was finished, when
his eye was taken away from the face of his companion and fixed upon
the disagreeable piece of paper beneath his hand, he repented of
what he was doing. He almost arrested his signature half-way. He did
hesitate, but had not pluck enough to stop his hand. "It does seem to
be a d----d odd transaction all the same," he said as he leaned back
in his chair.
"It's the commonest thing in the world," said Lopez picking up
the bill in a leisurely way, folding it and putting it into his
pocket-book. "Have our names never been together on a bit of paper
before?"
"When we both had something to make by it."
"You've nothing to make and nothing to lose by this. Good day and
many thanks;--though I don't think so much of the affair as you seem
to do." Then Ferdinand Lopez took his departure and Sexty Parker was
left alone in his bewilderment.
"By George,--that's queer," he said to himself. "Who'd have thought
of Lopez being hard up for a few hundred pounds? But it must be all
right. He wouldn't have come in that fashion, if it hadn't been all
right. I oughtn't to have done it though! A man ought never to do
that kind of thing;--never,--never!" And Mr. Sextus Parker was much
discontented with himself, so that when he got home that evening to
the wife of his bosom and his little family at Ponders End, he by
no means made himself agreeable to them. For that sum of £750 sat
upon his bosom as he ate his supper, and lay upon his chest as he
slept,--like a nightmare.