The Duke's Misery
We must go back for a while to Gatherum Castle and see the guests
whom the Duchess had collected there for her Christmas festivities.
The hospitality of the Duke's house had been maintained almost
throughout the autumn. Just at the end of October they went to
Matching, for what the Duchess called a quiet month,--which, however,
at the Duke's urgent request became six weeks. But even here the
house was full all the time, though from deficiency of bedrooms the
guests were very much less numerous. But at Matching the Duchess had
been uneasy and almost cross. Mrs. Finn had gone with her husband to
Ireland, and she had taught herself to fancy that she could not live
without Mrs. Finn. And her husband had insisted upon having round
him politicians of his own sort, men who really preferred work to
archery, or even to hunting, and who discussed the evils of direct
taxation absolutely in the drawing-room. The Duchess was assured
that the country could not be governed by the support of such men as
these, and was very glad to get back to Gatherum,--whither also came
Phineas Finn with his wife, and the St. Bungay people, and Barrington
Erle, and Mr. Monk, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with Lord and
Lady Cantrip, and Lord and Lady Drummond,--Lord Drummond being the
only representative of the other or coalesced party. And Major
Pountney was there, having been urgent with the Duchess,--and having
fully explained to his friend Captain Gunner that he had acceded to
the wishes of his hostess only on the assurance of her Grace that
the house would not be again troubled by the presence of Ferdinand
Lopez. Such assurances were common between the two friends, but were
innocent, as, of course, neither believed the other. And Lady Rosina
was again there,--with many others. The melancholy poverty of Lady
Rosina had captivated the Duke. "She shall come and live here, if you
like," the Duchess had said in answer to a request from her husband
on his new friend's behalf,--"I've no doubt she will be willing." The
place was not crowded as it had been before; but still about thirty
guests sat down to dinner daily, and Locock, Millepois, and Mrs.
Pritchard were all kept hard at work. Nor was our Duchess idle.
She was always making up the party,--meaning the coalition,--doing
something to strengthen the buttresses, writing little letters
to little people, who, little as they were, might become big by
amalgamation. "One has always to be binding one's fagot," she said to
Mrs. Finn, having read her Æsop not altogether in vain. "Where should
we have been without you?" she had whispered to Sir Orlando Drought
when that gentleman was leaving Gatherum at the termination of his
second visit. She had particularly disliked Sir Orlando, and was
aware that her husband had on this occasion been hardly as gracious
as he should have been, in true policy, to so powerful a colleague.
Her husband had been peculiarly shy of Sir Orlando since the day
on which they had walked together in the park,--and, consequently,
the Duchess had whispered to him. "Don't bind your fagot too
conspicuously," Mrs. Finn had said to her. Then the Duchess had
fallen to a seat almost exhausted by labour, mingled with regrets,
and by the doubts which from time to time pervaded even her audacious
spirit. "I'm not a god," she said, "or a Pitt, or an Italian with a
long name beginning with M., that I should be able to do these things
without ever making a mistake. And yet they must be done. And as for
him,--he does not help me in the least. He wanders about among the
clouds of the multiplication table, and thinks that a majority will
drop into his mouth because he does not shut it. Can you tie the
fagot any better?" "I think I would leave it untied," said Mrs. Finn.
"You would not do anything of the kind. You'd be just as fussy as I
am." And thus the game was carried on at Gatherum Castle from week to
week.
"But you won't leave him?" This was said to Phineas Finn by his wife
a day or two before Christmas, and the question was intended to ask
whether Phineas thought of giving up his place.
"Not if I can help it."
"You like the work."
"That has but little to do with the question, unfortunately. I
certainly like having something to do. I like earning money."
"I don't know why you like that especially," said the wife, laughing.
"I do at any rate,--and, in a certain sense, I like authority. But in
serving with the Duke I find a lack of that sympathy which one should
have with one's chief. He would never say a word to me unless I spoke
to him. And when I do speak, though he is studiously civil,--much
too courteous,--I know that he is bored. He has nothing to say to me
about the country. When he has anything to communicate, he prefers to
write a minute for Warburton, who then writes to Morton,--and so it
reaches me."
"Doesn't it do as well?"
"It may do with me. There are reasons which bind me to him, which
will not bind other men. Men don't talk to me about it, because
they know that I am bound to him through you. But I am aware of the
feeling which exists. You can't be really loyal to a king if you
never see him,--if he be always locked up in some almost divine
recess."
"A king may make himself too common, Phineas."
"No doubt. A king has to know where to draw the line. But the Duke
draws no intentional line at all. He is not by nature gregarious or
communicative, and is therefore hardly fitted to be the head of a
ministry."
"It will break her heart if anything goes wrong."
"She ought to remember that Ministries seldom live very long," said
Phineas. "But she'll recover even if she does break her heart. She is
too full of vitality to be much repressed by any calamity. Have you
heard what is to be done about Silverbridge?"
"The Duchess wants to get it for this man, Ferdinand Lopez."
"But it has not been promised yet?"
"The seat is not vacant," said Mrs. Finn, "and I don't know when it
will be vacant. I think there is a hitch about it,--and I think the
Duchess is going to be made very angry."
Throughout the autumn the Duke had been an unhappy man. While the
absolute work of the Session had lasted he had found something
to console him; but now, though he was surrounded by private
secretaries, and though dispatch-boxes went and came twice a day,
though there were dozens of letters as to which he had to give some
instruction,--yet, there was in truth nothing for him to do. It
seemed to him that all the real work of the Government had been
filched from him by his colleagues, and that he was stuck up in
pretended authority,--a kind of wooden Prime Minister, from whom no
real ministration was demanded. His first fear had been that he was
himself unfit;--but now he was uneasy, fearing that others thought
him to be unfit. There was Mr. Monk with his budget, and Lord
Drummond with his three or four dozen half rebellious colonies, and
Sir Orlando Drought with the House to lead and a ship to build, and
Phineas Finn with his scheme of municipal Home Rule for Ireland, and
Lord Ramsden with a codified Statute Book,--all full of work, all
with something special to be done. But for him,--he had to arrange
who should attend the Queen, what ribbons should be given away, and
what middle-aged young man should move the address. He sighed as he
thought of those happy days in which he used to fear that his mind
and body would both give way under the pressure of decimal coinage.
But Phineas Finn had read the Duke's character rightly in saying that
he was neither gregarious nor communicative, and therefore but little
fitted to rule Englishmen. He had thought that it was so himself,
and now from day to day he was becoming more assured of his own
deficiency. He could not throw himself into cordial relations with
the Sir Orlando Droughts, or even with the Mr. Monks. But, though he
had never wished to be put into his present high office, now that
he was there he dreaded the sense of failure which would follow his
descent from it. It is this feeling rather than genuine ambition,
rather than the love of power or patronage or pay, which induces men
to cling to place. The absence of real work, and the quantity of mock
work, both alike made the life wearisome to him; but he could not
endure the idea that it should be written in history that he had
allowed himself to be made a fainéant Prime Minister, and then had
failed even in that. History would forget what he had done as a
working Minister in recording the feebleness of the Ministry which
would bear his name.
The one man with whom he could talk freely, and from whom he could
take advice, was now with him, here at his Castle. He was shy at
first even with the Duke of St. Bungay, but that shyness he could
generally overcome, after a few words. But though he was always sure
of his old friend's sympathy and of his old friend's wisdom, yet he
doubted his old friend's capacity to understand himself. The young
Duke felt the old Duke to be thicker-skinned than himself and
therefore unable to appreciate the thorns which so sorely worried his
own flesh. "They talk to me about a policy," said the host. They were
closeted at this time in the Prime Minister's own sanctum, and there
yet remained an hour before they need dress for dinner.
"Who talks about a policy?"
"Sir Orlando Drought especially." For the Duke of Omnium had never
forgotten the arrogance of that advice given in the park.
"Sir Orlando is of course entitled to speak, though I do not know
that he is likely to say anything very well worth the hearing. What
is his special policy?"
"If he had any, of course, I would hear him. It is not that he wants
any special thing to be done, but he thinks that I should get up some
special thing in order that Parliament may be satisfied."
"If you wanted to create a majority that might be true. Just listen
to him and have done with it."
"I cannot go on in that way. I cannot submit to what amounts to
complaint from the gentlemen who are acting with me. Nor would they
submit long to my silence. I am beginning to feel that I have been
wrong."
"I don't think you have been wrong at all."
"A man is wrong if he attempts to carry a weight too great for his
strength."
"A certain nervous sensitiveness, from which you should free yourself
as from a disease, is your only source of weakness. Think about your
business as a shoemaker thinks of his. Do your best, and then let
your customers judge for themselves. Caveat emptor. A man should
never endeavour to price himself, but should accept the price which
others put on him,--only being careful that he should learn what that
price is. Your policy should be to keep your government together by a
strong majority. After all, the making of new laws is too often but
an unfortunate necessity laid on us by the impatience of the people.
A lengthened period of quiet and therefore good government with a
minimum of new laws would be the greatest benefit the country could
receive. When I recommended you to comply with the Queen's behest I
did so because I thought that you might inaugurate such a period more
certainly than any other one man." This old Duke was quite content
with a state of things such as he described. He had been a Cabinet
Minister for more than half his life. He liked being a Cabinet
Minister. He thought it well for the country generally that his party
should be in power,--and if not his party in its entirety, then as
much of his party as might be possible. He did not expect to be
written of as a Pitt or a Somers, but he thought that memoirs would
speak of him as a useful nobleman,--and he was contented. He was
not only not ambitious himself, but the effervescence and general
turbulence of ambition in other men was distasteful to him. Loyalty
was second nature to him, and the power of submitting to defeat
without either shame or sorrow had become perfect with him by
long practice. He would have made his brother Duke such as he was
himself,--had not his brother Duke been so lamentably thin-skinned.
"I suppose we must try it for another Session?" said the Duke of
Omnium with a lachrymose voice.
"Of course we must,--and for others after that, I both hope and
trust," said the Duke of St. Bungay, getting up. "If I don't go
up-stairs I shall be late, and then her Grace will look at me with
unforgiving eyes."
On the following day after lunch the Prime Minister took a walk with
Lady Rosina De Courcy. He had fallen into a habit of walking with
Lady Rosina almost every day of his life, till the people in the
Castle began to believe that Lady Rosina was the mistress of some
deep policy of her own. For there were many there who did in truth
think that statecraft could never be absent from a minister's mind,
day or night. But in truth Lady Rosina chiefly made herself agreeable
to the Prime Minister by never making any most distant allusion
to public affairs. It might be doubted whether she even knew that
the man who paid her so much honour was the Head of the British
Government as well as the Duke of Omnium. She was a tall, thin,
shrivelled-up old woman,--not very old, fifty perhaps, but looking
at least ten years more,--very melancholy, and sometimes very cross.
She had been notably religious, but that was gradually wearing off as
she advanced in years. The rigid strictness of Sabbatarian practice
requires the full energy of middle life. She had been left entirely
alone in the world, with a very small income, and not many friends
who were in any way interested in her existence. But she knew herself
to be Lady Rosina De Courcy, and felt that the possession of that
name ought to be more to her than money and friends, or even than
brothers and sisters. "The weather is not frightening you," said the
Duke. Snow had fallen, and the paths, even where they had been swept,
were wet and sloppy.
"Weather never frightens me, your Grace. I always have thick
boots;--I am very particular about that;--and cork soles."
"Cork soles are admirable."
"I think I owe my life to cork soles," said Lady Rosina
enthusiastically. "There is a man named Sprout in Silverbridge who
makes them. Did your Grace ever try him for boots?"
"I don't think I ever did," said the Prime Minister.
"Then you had better. He's very good and very cheap too. Those London
tradesmen never think they can charge you enough. I find I can wear
Sprout's boots the whole winter through and then have them resoled. I
don't suppose you ever think of such things?"
"I like to have my feet dry."
"I have got to calculate what they cost." They then passed Major
Pountney, who was coming and going between the stables and the house,
and who took off his hat and who saluted the host and his companion
with perhaps more flowing courtesy than was necessary. "I never have
found out what that gentleman's name is yet," said Lady Rosina.
"Pountney, I think. I believe they call him Major Pountney."
"Oh, Pountney! There are Pountneys in Leicestershire. Perhaps he is
one of them?"
"I don't know where he comes from," said the Duke,--"nor, to tell
the truth, where he goes to." Lady Rosina looked up at him with an
interested air. "He seems to be one of those idle men who get into
people's houses heaven knows why, and never do anything."
"I suppose you asked him?" said Lady Rosina.
"The Duchess did, I dare say."
"How odd it would be if she were to suppose that you had asked him."
"The Duchess, no doubt, knows all about it." Then there was a little
pause. "She is obliged to have all sorts of people," said the Duke
apologetically.
"I suppose so,--when you have so many coming and going. I am sorry
to say that my time is up to-morrow, so that I shall make way for
somebody else."
"I hope you won't think of going, Lady Rosina,--unless you are
engaged elsewhere. We are delighted to have you."
"The Duchess has been very kind, but--"
"The Duchess, I fear, is almost too much engaged to see as much of
her guests individually as she ought to do. To me your being here is
a great pleasure."
"You are too good to me,--much too good. But I shall have stayed
out my time, and I think, Duke, I will go to-morrow. I am very
methodical, you know, and always act by rule. I have walked my two
miles now, and I will go in. If you do want boots with cork soles
mind you go to Sprout's. Dear me; there is that Major Pountney again.
That is four times he has been up and down that path since we have
been walking here."
Lady Rosina went in, and the Duke turned back, thinking of his friend
and perhaps thinking of the cork soles of which she had to be so
careful and which were so important to her comfort. It could not be
that he fancied Lady Rosina to be clever, nor can we imagine that her
conversation satisfied any of those wants to which he and all of us
are subject. But nevertheless he liked Lady Rosina, and was never
bored by her. She was natural, and she wanted nothing from him. When
she talked about cork soles she meant cork soles. And then she did
not tread on any of his numerous corns. As he walked on he determined
that he would induce his wife to persuade Lady Rosina to stay a
little longer at the Castle. In meditating upon this he made another
turn in the grounds, and again came upon Major Pountney as that
gentleman was returning from the stables. "A very cold afternoon," he
said, feeling it to be ungracious to pass one of his own guests in
his own grounds without a word of salutation.
"Very cold indeed, your Grace,--very cold." The Duke had intended
to pass on, but the Major managed to stop him by standing in the
pathway. The Major did not in the least know his man. He had heard
that the Duke was shy, and therefore thought that he was timid. He
had not hitherto been spoken to by the Duke,--a condition of things
which he attributed to the Duke's shyness and timidity. But, with
much thought on the subject, he had resolved that he would have a few
words with his host, and had therefore passed backwards and forwards
between the house and the stables rather frequently. "Very cold,
indeed, but yet we've had beautiful weather. I don't know when I have
enjoyed myself so much altogether as I have at Gatherum Castle."
The Duke bowed, and made a little but a vain effort to get on. "A
splendid pile!" said the Major, stretching his hand gracefully
towards the building.
"It is a big house," said the Duke.
"A noble mansion;--perhaps the noblest mansion in the three
kingdoms," said Major Pountney. "I have seen a great many of the
best country residences in England, but nothing that at all equals
Gatherum." Then the Duke made a little effort at progression, but
was still stopped by the daring Major. "By-the-by, your Grace, if
your Grace has a few minutes to spare,--just half a minute,--I wish
you would allow me to say something." The Duke assumed a look of
disturbance, but he bowed and walked on, allowing the Major to walk
by his side. "I have the greatest possible desire, my Lord Duke, to
enter public life."
"I thought you were already in the army," said the Duke.
"So I am;--was on Sir Bartholomew Bone's staff in Canada for two
years, and have seen as much of what I call home service as any man
going. One of my chief objects is to take up the army."
"It seems that you have taken it up."
"I mean in Parliament, your Grace. I am very fairly off as regards
private means, and would stand all the racket of the expense of a
contest myself,--if there were one. But the difficulty is to get a
seat, and, of course, if it can be privately managed, it is very
comfortable." The Duke looked at him again,--this time without
bowing. But the Major, who was not observant, rushed on to his
destruction. "We all know that Silverbridge will soon be vacant. Let
me assure your Grace that if it might be consistent with your Grace's
plans in other respects to turn your kind countenance towards me,
you would find that you would have a supporter than whom none would
be more staunch, and perhaps I may say, one who in the House would
not be the least useful!" That portion of the Major's speech which
referred to the Duke's kind countenance had been learned by heart,
and was thrown trippingly off the tongue with a kind of twang. The
Major had perceived that he had not been at once interrupted when
he began to open the budget of his political aspirations, and had
allowed himself to indulge in pleasing auguries. "Nothing ask and
nothing have," had been adopted as the motto of his life, and
more than once he had expressed to Captain Gunner his conviction
that,--"By George, if you've only cheek enough, there is nothing you
cannot get." On this emergency the Major certainly was not deficient
in cheek. "If I might be allowed to consider myself your Grace's
candidate, I should indeed be a happy man," said the Major.
"I think, sir," said the Duke, "that your proposition is the most
unbecoming and the most impertinent that ever was addressed to me."
The Major's mouth fell, and he stared with all his eyes as he looked
up into the Duke's face. "Good afternoon," said the Duke, turning
quickly round and walking away. The Major stood for a while
transfixed to the place, and, cold as was the weather, was bathed in
perspiration. A keen sense of having "put his foot into it" almost
crushed him for a time. Then he assured himself that, after all, the
Duke "could not eat him," and with that consolatory reflection he
crept back to the house and up to his own room.
To put the man down had of course been an easy task to the Duke, but
he was not satisfied with that. To the Major it seemed that the Duke
had passed on with easy indifference;--but in truth he was very far
from being easy. The man's insolent request had wounded him at many
points. It was grievous to him that he should have as a guest in his
own house a man whom he had been forced to insult. It was grievous
to him that he himself should not have been held in personal respect
high enough to protect him from such an insult. It was grievous to
him that he should be openly addressed,--addressed by an absolute
stranger,--as a borough-mongering lord, who would not scruple to give
away a seat in Parliament as seats were given away in former days.
And it was especially grievous to him that all these misfortunes
should have come upon him as a part of the results of his wife's
manner of exercising his hospitality. If this was to be Prime
Minister he certainly would not be Prime Minister much longer!
Had any aspirant to political life ever dared so to address Lord
Brock, or Lord De Terrier, or Mr. Mildmay, the old Premiers whom he
remembered? He thought not. They had managed differently. They had
been able to defend themselves from such attacks by personal dignity.
And would it have been possible that any man should have dared so to
speak to his uncle, the late Duke? He thought not. As he shut himself
up in his own room he grieved inwardly with a deep grief. After a
while he walked off to his wife's room, still perturbed in spirit.
The perturbation had indeed increased from minute to minute. He would
rather give up politics altogether and shut himself up in absolute
seclusion than find himself subject to the insolence of any Pountney
that might address him. With his wife he found Mrs. Finn. Now for
this lady personally he entertained what for him was a warm regard.
In various matters of much importance he and she had been brought
together, and she had, to his thinking, invariably behaved well. And
an intimacy had been established which had enabled him to be at ease
with her,--so that her presence was often a comfort to him. But at
the present moment he had not wished to find any one with his wife,
and felt that she was in his way. "Perhaps I am disturbing you," he
said in a tone of voice that was solemn and almost funereal.
"Not at all," said the Duchess, who was in high spirits. "I want to
get your promise now about Silverbridge. Don't mind her. Of course
she knows everything." To be told that any body knew everything was
another shock to him. "I have just got a letter from Mr. Lopez."
Could it be right that his wife should be corresponding on such a
subject with a person so little known as this Mr. Lopez? "May I tell
him that he shall have your interest when the seat is vacant?"
"Certainly not," said the Duke, with a scowl that was terrible even
to his wife. "I wished to speak to you, but I wished to speak to you
alone."
"I beg a thousand pardons," said Mrs. Finn, preparing to go.
"Don't stir, Marie," said the Duchess; "he is going to be cross."
"If Mrs. Finn will allow me, with every feeling of the most perfect
respect and sincerest regard, to ask her to leave me with you for
a few minutes, I shall be obliged. And if, with her usual hearty
kindness, she will pardon my abruptness--" Then he could not go on,
his emotion being too great; but he put out his hand, and taking hers
raised it to his lips and kissed it. The moment had become too solemn
for any further hesitation as to the lady's going. The Duchess for a
moment was struck dumb, and Mrs. Finn, of course, left the room.
"In the name of heaven, Plantagenet, what is the matter?"
"Who is Major Pountney?"
"Who is Major Pountney! How on earth should I know? He is--Major
Pountney. He is about everywhere."
"Do not let him be asked into any house of mine again. But that is a
trifle."
"Anything about Major Pountney must, I should think, be a trifle.
Have tidings come that the heavens are going to fall? Nothing short
of that could make you so solemn."
"In the first place, Glencora, let me ask you not to speak to me
again about the seat for Silverbridge. I am not at present prepared
to argue the matter with you, but I have resolved that I will know
nothing about the election. As soon as the seat is vacant, if it
should be vacated, I shall take care that my determination be known
in Silverbridge."
"Why should you abandon your privileges in that way? It is sheer
weakness."
"The interference of any peer is unconstitutional."
"There is Braxon," said the Duchess energetically, "where the Marquis
of Crumber returns the member regularly, in spite of all their Reform
bills; and Bamford, and Cobblersborough;--and look at Lord Lumley
with a whole county in his pocket, not to speak of two boroughs! What
nonsense, Plantagenet! Anything is constitutional, or anything is
unconstitutional, just as you choose to look at it." It was clear
that the Duchess had really studied the subject carefully.
"Very well, my dear, let it be nonsense. I only beg to assure you
that it is my intention, and I request you to act accordingly. And
there is another thing I have to say to you. I shall be sorry to
interfere in any way with the pleasure which you may derive from
society, but as long as I am burdened with the office which has been
imposed upon me, I will not again entertain any guests in my own
house."
"Plantagenet!"
"You cannot turn the people out who are here now; but I beg that they
may be allowed to go as the time comes, and that their places may not
be filled by further invitations."
"But further invitations have gone out ever so long ago, and have
been accepted. You must be ill, my dear."
"Ill at ease,--yes. At any rate let none others be sent out." Then
he remembered a kindly purpose which he had formed early in the day,
and fell back upon that. "I should, however, be glad if you would
ask Lady Rosina De Courcy to remain here." The Duchess stared at him,
really thinking now that something was amiss with him. "The whole
thing is a failure and I will have no more of it. It is degrading
me." Then without allowing her a moment in which to answer him, he
marched back to his own room.
But even here his spirit was not as yet at rest. That Major must
not go unpunished. Though he hated all fuss and noise he must do
something. So he wrote as follows to the Major:--
The Duke of Omnium trusts that Major Pountney will not
find it inconvenient to leave Gatherum Castle shortly.
Should Major Pountney wish to remain at the Castle over
the night, the Duke of Omnium hopes that he will not
object to be served with his dinner and with his breakfast
in his own room. A carriage and horses will be ready for
Major Pountney's use, to take him to Silverbridge, as soon
as Major Pountney may express to the servants his wish to
that effect.
Gatherum Castle, -- December, 18--.
This note the Duke sent by the hands of his own servant, having said
enough to the man as to the carriage and the possible dinner in the
Major's bedroom, to make the man understand almost exactly what had
occurred. A note from the Major was brought to the Duke while he was
dressing. The Duke having glanced at the note threw it into the fire;
and the Major that evening eat his dinner at the Palliser Arms Inn at
Silverbridge.