Retribution
The Duchess had been at work with her husband for the last two months
in the hope of renewing her autumnal festivities, but had been
lamentably unsuccessful. The Duke had declared that there should be
no more rural crowds, no repetition of what he called London turned
loose on his own grounds. He could not forget the necessity which had
been imposed upon him of turning Major Pountney out of his house, or
the change that had been made in his gardens, or his wife's attempt
to conquer him at Silverbridge. "Do you mean," she said, "that we are
to have nobody?" He replied that he thought it would be best to go to
Matching. "And live a Darby and Joan life?" said the Duchess.
"I said nothing of Darby and Joan. Whatever may be my feelings I
hardly think that you are fitted for that kind of thing. Matching is
not so big as Gatherum, but it is not a cottage. Of course you can
ask your own friends."
"I don't know what you mean by my own friends. I endeavour always to
ask yours."
"I don't know that Major Pountney, and Captain Gunner, and Mr. Lopez
were ever among the number of my friends."
"I suppose you mean Lady Rosina?" said the Duchess. "I shall be happy
to have her at Matching if you wish it."
"I should like to see Lady Rosina De Courcy at Matching very much."
"And is there to be nobody else? I'm afraid I should find it rather
dull while you two were opening your hearts to each other." Here
he looked at her angrily. "Can you think of anybody besides Lady
Rosina?"
"I suppose you will wish to have Mrs. Finn?"
"What an arrangement! Lady Rosina for you to flirt with, and Mrs.
Finn for me to grumble to."
"That is an odious word," said the Prime Minister.
"What;--flirting? I don't see anything bad about the word. The thing
is dangerous. But you are quite at liberty if you don't go beyond
Lady Rosina. I should like to know whether you would wish anybody
else to come?" Of course he made no becoming answer to this question,
and of course no becoming answer was expected. He knew that she was
trying to provoke him because he would not let her do this year
as she had done last. The house, he had no doubt, would be full
to overflowing when he got there. He could not help that. But as
compared with Gatherum Castle the house at Matching was small, and
his domestic authority sufficed at any rate for shutting up Gatherum
for the time.
I do not know whether at times her sufferings were not as acute as
his own. He, at any rate, was Prime Minister, and it seemed to her
that she was to be reduced to nothing. At the beginning of it all
he had, with unwonted tenderness, asked her for her sympathy in his
undertaking, and, according to her powers, she had given it to him
with her whole heart. She had thought that she had seen a way by
which she might assist him in his great employment, and she had
worked at it like a slave. Every day she told herself that she did
not, herself, love the Captain Gunners and Major Pountneys, nor the
Sir Orlandos, nor, indeed, the Lady Rosinas. She had not followed
the bent of her own inclination when she had descended to sheets and
towels, and busied herself to establish an archery-ground. She had
not shot an arrow during the whole season, nor had she cared who had
won and who had lost. It had not been for her own personal delight
that she had kept open house for forty persons throughout four months
of the year, in doing which he had never taken an ounce of the labour
off her shoulders by any single word or deed! It had all been done
for his sake,--that his reign might be long and triumphant, that the
world might say that his hospitality was noble and full, that his
name might be in men's mouths, and that he might prosper as a British
Minister. Such, at least, were the assertions which she made to
herself, when she thought of her own grievances and her own troubles.
And now she was angry with her husband. It was very well for him
to ask for her sympathy, but he had none to give her in return! He
could not pity her failures,--even though he had himself caused them!
If he had a grain of intelligence about him he must, she thought,
understand well enough how sore it must be for her to descend from
her princely entertainments to solitude at Matching, and thus to own
before all the world that she was beaten. Then when she asked him
for advice, when she was really anxious to know how far she might go
in filling her house without offending him, he told her to ask Lady
Rosina De Courcy! If he chose to be ridiculous he might. She would
ask Lady Rosina De Courcy. In her active anger she did write to Lady
Rosina De Courcy a formal letter, in which she said that the Duke
hoped to have the pleasure of her ladyship's company at Matching Park
on the 1st of August. It was an absurd letter, somewhat long, written
very much in the Duke's name, with overwhelming expressions of
affection, instigated in the writer's mind partly by the fun of the
supposition that such a man as her husband should flirt with such a
woman as Lady Rosina. There was something too of anger in what she
wrote, some touch of revenge. She sent off this invitation, and she
sent no other. Lady Rosina took it all in good part, and replied
saying that she should have the greatest pleasure in going to
Matching. She had declared to herself that she would ask none but
those he had named, and in accordance with her resolution she sent
out no other written invitations.
He had also told her to ask Mrs. Finn. Now this had become almost a
matter of course. There had grown up from accidental circumstances so
strong a bond between these two women, that it was taken for granted
by both their husbands that they should be nearly always within
reach of one another. And the two husbands were also on kindly, if
not affectionate, terms with each other. The nature of the Duke's
character was such that, with a most loving heart, he was hardly
capable of that opening out of himself to another which is necessary
for positive friendship. There was a stiff reserve about him, of
which he was himself only too conscious, which almost prohibited
friendship. But he liked Mr. Finn both as a man and a member of his
party, and was always satisfied to have him as a guest. The Duchess,
therefore, had taken it for granted that Mrs. Finn would come to
her,--and that Mr. Finn would come also during any time that he might
be able to escape from Ireland. But, when the invitation was verbally
conveyed, Mr. Finn had gone to the Admiralty, and had already made
his arrangements for going to sea, as a gallant sailor should. "We
are going away in the 'Black Watch' for a couple of months," said
Mrs. Finn. Now the "Black Watch" was the Admiralty yacht.
"Heavens and earth!" ejaculated the Duchess.
"It is always done. The First Lord would have his epaulets stripped
if he didn't go to sea in August."
"And must you go with him?"
"I have promised."
"I think it very unkind,--very hard upon me. Of course you knew that
I should want you."
"But if my husband wants me too?"
"Bother your husband! I wish with all my heart I had never helped to
make up the match."
"It would have been made up just the same, Lady Glen."
"You know that I cannot get on without you. And he ought to know it
too. There isn't another person in the world that I can really say a
thing to."
"Why don't you have Mrs. Grey?"
"She's going to Persia after her husband. And then she is not wicked
enough. She always lectured me, and she does it still. What do you
think is going to happen?"
"Nothing terrible, I hope," said Mrs. Finn, mindful of her husband's
new honours at the Admiralty, and hoping that the Duke might not have
repeated his threat of resigning.
"We are going to Matching."
"So I supposed."
"And whom do you think we are going to have?"
"Not Major Pountney?"
"No;--not at my asking."
"Nor Mr. Lopez?"
"Nor yet Mr. Lopez. Guess again."
"I suppose there will be a dozen to guess."
"No," shrieked the Duchess. "There will only be one. I have asked
one,--at his special desire,--and as you won't come I shall ask
nobody else. When I pressed him to name a second he named you. I'll
obey him to the letter. Now, my dear, who do you think is the chosen
one,--the one person who is to solace the perturbed spirit of the
Prime Minister for the three months of the autumn?"
"Mr. Warburton, I should say."
"Oh, Mr. Warburton! No doubt Mr. Warburton will come as a part of
his luggage, and possibly half-a-dozen Treasury clerks. He declares,
however, that there is nothing to do, and therefore Mr. Warburton's
strength may alone suffice to help him to do it. There is to be one
unnecessary guest,--unnecessary, that is, for official purpose;
though,--oh,--so much needed for his social happiness. Guess once
more."
"Knowing the spirit of mischief that is in you,--perhaps it is Lady
Rosina."
"Of course it is Lady Rosina," said the Duchess, clapping her hands
together. "And I should like to know what you mean by a spirit of
mischief! I asked him, and he himself said that he particularly
wished to have Lady Rosina at Matching. Now, I'm not a jealous
woman,--am I?"
"Not of Lady Rosina."
"I don't think they'll do any harm together, but it is particular,
you know. However, she is to come. And nobody else is to come. I did
count upon you." Then Mrs. Finn counselled her very seriously as to
the bad taste of such a joke, explaining to her that the Duke had
certainly not intended that her invitations should be confined to
Lady Rosina. But it was not all joke with the Duchess. She had been
driven almost to despair, and was very angry with her husband. He had
brought the thing upon himself, and must now make the best of it. She
would ask nobody else. She declared that there was nobody whom she
could ask with propriety. She was tired of asking. Let her ask whom
she would, he was dissatisfied. The only two people he cared to see
were Lady Rosina and the old Duke. She had asked Lady Rosina for his
sake. Let him ask his old friend himself if he pleased.
The Duke and Duchess with all the family went down together, and Mr.
Warburton went with them. The Duchess had said not a word more to her
husband about his guests, nor had he alluded to the subject. But each
was labouring under a conviction that the other was misbehaving, and
with that feeling it was impossible that there should be confidence
between them. He busied himself with books and papers,--always
turning over those piles of newspapers to see what evil was said of
himself,--and speaking only now and again to his private Secretary.
She engaged herself with the children or pretended to read a novel.
Her heart was sore within her. She had wished to punish him, but in
truth she was punishing herself.
On the day of their arrival, the father and mother, with Lord
Silverbridge, the eldest son, who was home from Eton, and the private
Secretary dined together. As the Duke sat at table, he began to think
how long it was since such a state of things had happened to him
before, and his heart softened towards her. Instead of being made
angry by the strangeness of her proceeding, he took delight in
it, and in the course of the evening spoke a word to signify his
satisfaction. "I'm afraid it won't last long," she said, "for Lady
Rosina comes to-morrow."
"Oh, indeed."
"You bid me ask her yourself."
Then he perceived it all;--how she had taken advantage of his former
answer to her and had acted upon it in a spirit of contradictory
petulance. But he resolved that he would forgive it and endeavour
to bring her back to him. "I thought we were both joking," he said
good-humouredly.
"Oh, no! I never suspected you of a joke. At any rate she is coming."
"She will do neither of us any harm. And Mrs. Finn?"
"You have sent her to sea."
"She may be at sea,--and he too; but it is without my sending. The
First Lord, I believe, usually does go a cruise. Is there nobody
else?"
"Nobody else,--unless you have asked any one."
"Not a creature. Well;--so much the better. I dare say Lady Rosina
will get on very well."
"You will have to talk to her," said the Duchess.
"I will do my best," said the Duke.
Lady Rosina came and no doubt did think it odd. But she did not say
so, and it really did seem to the Duchess as though all her vengeance
had been blown away by the winds. And she too laughed at the
matter--to herself, and began to feel less cross and less perverse.
The world did not come to an end because she and her husband with
Lady Rosina and her boy and the private Secretary sat down to dinner
every day together. The parish clergyman with the neighbouring squire
and his wife and daughter did come one day,--to the relief of M.
Millepois, who had begun to feel that the world had collapsed. And
every day at a certain hour the Duke and Lady Rosina walked together
for an hour and a half in the park. The Duchess would have enjoyed
it, instead of suffering, could she only have had her friend, Mrs.
Finn, to hear her jokes. "Now, Plantagenet," she said, "do tell me
one thing. What does she talk about?"
"The troubles of her family generally, I think."
"That can't last for ever."
"She wears cork soles to her boots and she thinks a good deal about
them."
"And you listen to her?"
"Why not? I can talk about cork soles as well as anything else.
Anything that may do material good to the world at large, or even to
yourself privately, is a fit subject for conversation to rational
people."
"I suppose I never was one of them."
"But I can talk upon anything," continued the Duke, "as long as the
talker talks in good faith and does not say things that should not be
said, or deal with matters that are offensive. I could talk for an
hour about bankers' accounts, but I should not expect a stranger to
ask me the state of my own. She has almost persuaded me to send to
Mr. Sprout of Silverbridge and get some cork soles myself."
"Don't do anything of the kind," said the Duchess with animation;--as
though she had secret knowledge that cork soles were specially fatal
to the family of the Pallisers.
"Why not, my dear?"
"He was the man who especially, above all others, threw me over at
Silverbridge." Then again there came upon his brow that angry frown
which during the last few days had been dissipated by the innocence
of Lady Rosina's conversation. "Of course I don't mean to ask you
to take any interest in the borough again. You have said that you
wouldn't, and you are always as good as your word."
"I hope so."
"But I certainly would not employ a tradesman just at your elbow who
has directly opposed what was generally understood in the town to be
your interests."
"What did Mr. Sprout do? This is the first I have heard of it."
"He got Mr. Du Boung to stand against Mr. Lopez."
"I am very glad for the sake of the borough that Mr. Lopez did not
get in."
"So am I. But that is nothing to do with it. Mr. Sprout knew at any
rate what my wishes were, and went directly against them."
"You were not entitled to have wishes in the matter, Glencora."
"That's all very well;--but I had, and he knew it. As for the future,
of course, the thing is over. But you have done everything for the
borough."
"You mean that the borough has done much for me."
"I know what I mean very well;--and I shall take it very ill if a
shilling out of the Castle ever goes into Mr. Sprout's pocket again."
It is needless to trouble the reader at length with the sermon which
he preached her on the occasion,--showing the utter corruption which
must come from the mixing up of politics with trade, or with the
scorn which she threw into the few words with which she interrupted
him from time to time. "Whether a man makes good shoes, and at a
reasonable price, and charges for them honestly,--that is what you
have to consider," said the Duke impressively.
"I'd rather pay double for bad shoes to a man who did not thwart me."
"You should not condescend to be thwarted in such a matter. You lower
yourself by admitting such a feeling." And yet he writhed himself
under the lashes of Mr. Slide!
"I know an enemy when I see him," said the Duchess, "and as long as I
live I'll treat an enemy as an enemy."
There was ever so much of it, in the course of which the Duke
declared his purpose of sending at once to Mr. Sprout for ever so
many cork soles, and the Duchess,--most imprudently,--declared her
purpose of ruining Mr. Sprout. There was something in this threat
which grated terribly against the Duke's sense of honour;--that his
wife should threaten to ruin a poor tradesman, that she should do so
in reference to the political affairs of the borough which he all
but owned,--that she should do so in declared opposition to him! Of
course he ought to have known that her sin consisted simply in her
determination to vex him at the moment. A more good-natured woman did
not live;--or one less prone to ruin any one. But any reference to
the Silverbridge election brought back upon him the remembrance of
the cruel attacks which had been made upon him, and rendered him
for the time moody, morose, and wretched. So they again parted ill
friends, and hardly spoke when they met at dinner.
The next morning there reached Matching a letter which greatly added
to his bitterness of spirit against the world in general and against
her in particular. The letter, though marked "private," had been
opened, as were all his letters, by Mr. Warburton, but the private
Secretary thought it necessary to show the letter to the Prime
Minister. He, when he had read it, told Warburton that it did not
signify, and maintained for half-an-hour an attitude of quiescence.
Then he walked forth, having the letter hidden in his hand, and
finding his wife alone, gave it her to read. "See what you have
brought upon me," he said, "by your interference and disobedience."
The letter was as follows:--
Manchester Square, August 3, 187--.
MY LORD DUKE,
I consider myself entitled to complain to your Grace of
the conduct with which I was treated at the last election
at Silverbridge, whereby I was led into very heavy
expenditure without the least chance of being returned for
the borough. I am aware that I had no direct conversation
with your Grace on the subject, and that your Grace can
plead that, as between man and man, I had no authority
from yourself for supposing that I should receive your
Grace's support. But I was distinctly asked by the Duchess
to stand, and was assured by her that if I did so I should
have all the assistance that your Grace's influence could
procure for me;--and it was also explained to me that
your Grace's official position made it inexpedient that
your Grace on this special occasion should have any
personal conference with your own candidate. Under these
circumstances I submit to your Grace that I am entitled to
complain of the hardship I have suffered.
I had not been long in the borough before I found that my
position was hopeless. Influential men in the town who had
been represented to me as being altogether devoted to your
Grace's interests started a third candidate,--a Liberal as
myself,--and the natural consequence was that neither of
us succeeded, though my return as your Grace's candidate
would have been certain had not this been done. That all
this was preconcerted there can be no doubt, but, before
the mine was sprung on me,--immediately, indeed, on my
arrival, if I remember rightly,--an application was made
to me for £500, so that the money might be exacted before
the truth was known to me. Of course I should not have
paid the £500 had I known that your Grace's usual agents
in the town,--I may name Mr. Sprout especially,--were
prepared to act against me. But I did pay the money,
and I think your Grace will agree with me that a very
opprobrious term might be applied without injustice to the
transaction.
My Lord Duke, I am a poor man;--ambitious I will own,
whether that be a sin or a virtue,--and willing, perhaps,
to incur expenditure which can hardly be justified in
pursuit of certain public objects. But I must say, with
the most lively respect for your Grace personally, that I
do not feel inclined to sit down tamely under such a loss
as this. I should not have dreamed of interfering in the
election at Silverbridge had not the Duchess exhorted me
to do so. I would not even have run the risk of a doubtful
contest. But I came forward at the suggestion of the
Duchess, backed by her personal assurance that the seat
was certain as being in your Grace's hands. It was no
doubt understood that your Grace would not yourself
interfere, but it was equally well understood that your
Grace's influence was for the time deputed to the Duchess.
The Duchess herself will, I am sure, confirm my statement
that I had her direct authority for regarding myself as
your Grace's candidate.
I can of course bring an action against Mr. Wise, the
gentleman to whom I paid the money, but I feel that as a
gentleman I should not do so without reference to your
Grace, as circumstances might possibly be brought out in
evidence,--I will not say prejudicial to your Grace,--but
which would be unbecoming. I cannot, however, think that
your Grace will be willing that a poor man like myself,
in his search for an entrance into public life, should be
mulcted to so heavy an extent in consequence of an error
on the part of the Duchess. Should your Grace be able
to assist me in my view of getting into Parliament for
any other seat I shall be willing to abide the loss I
have incurred. I hardly, however, dare to hope for such
assistance. In this case I think your Grace ought to see
that I am reimbursed.
I have the honour to be,
My Lord Duke,
Your Grace's very faithful Servant,
FERDINAND LOPEZ.
The Duke stood over her in her own room upstairs, with his back to
the fireplace and his eyes fixed upon her while she was reading this
letter. He gave her ample time, and she did not read it very quickly.
Much of it indeed she perused twice, turning very red in the face as
she did so. She was thus studious partly because the letter astounded
even her, and partly because she wanted time to consider how she
would meet his wrath. "Well," said he, "what do you say to that?"
"The man is a blackguard,--of course."
"He is so;--though I do not know that I wish to hear him called such
a name by your lips. Let him be what he may he was your friend."
"He was my acquaintance."
"He was the man whom you selected to be your candidate for the
borough in opposition to my wishes, and whom you continued to support
in direct disobedience to my orders."
"Surely, Plantagenet, we have had all that about disobedience out
before."
"You cannot have such things 'out,'--as you call it. Evil-doing will
not bury itself out of the way and be done with. Do you feel no shame
at having your name mentioned a score of times with reprobation as
that man mentions it;--at being written about by such a man as that?"
"Do you want to make me roll in the gutter because I mistook him for
a gentleman?"
"That was not all,--nor half. In your eagerness to serve such a
miserable creature as this you forgot my entreaties, my commands,
my position! I explained to you why I, of all men, and you, of all
women, as a part of me, should not do this thing; and yet you did it,
mistaking such a cur as that for a man! What am I to do? How am I to
free myself from the impediments which you make for me? My enemies I
can overcome,--but I cannot escape the pitfalls which are made for
me by my own wife. I can only retire into private life and hope to
console myself with my children and my books."
There was a reality of tragedy about him which for the moment
overcame her. She had no joke ready, no sarcasm, no feminine
counter-grumble. Little as she agreed with him when he spoke of the
necessity of retiring into private life because a man had written
to him such a letter as this, incapable as she was of understanding
fully the nature of the irritation which tormented him, still she
knew that he was suffering, and acknowledged to herself that she had
been the cause of the agony. "I am sorry," she ejaculated at last.
"What more can I say?"
"What am I to do? What can be said to the man? Warburton read the
letter, and gave it me in silence. He could see the terrible
difficulty."
"Tear it in pieces, and then let there be an end of it."
"I do not feel sure but that he has right on his side. He is, as you
say, certainly a blackguard, or he would not make such a claim. He is
taking advantage of the mistake made by a good-natured woman through
her folly and her vanity;"--as he said this the Duchess gave an
absurd little pout, but luckily he did not see it,--"and he knows
very well that he is doing so. But still he has a show of justice on
his side. There was, I suppose, no chance for him at Silverbridge
after I had made myself fully understood. The money was absolutely
wasted. It was your persuasion and then your continued encouragement
that led him on to spend the money."
"Pay it then. The loss will not hurt you."
"Ah;--if we could but get out of our difficulties by paying! Suppose
that I do pay it. I begin to think that I must pay it;--that after
all I cannot allow such a plea to remain unanswered. But when it is
paid;--what then? Do you think such a payment made by the Queen's
Minister will not be known to all the newspapers, and that I shall
escape the charge of having bribed the man to hold his tongue?"
"It will be no bribe if you pay him because you think you ought."
"But how shall I excuse it? There are things done which are holy as
the heavens,--which are clear before God as the light of the sun,
which leave no stain on the conscience, and which yet the malignity
of man can invest with the very blackness of hell! I shall know why
I pay this £500. Because she who of all the world is the nearest and
the dearest to me,"--she looked up into his face with amazement, as
he stood stretching out both his arms in his energy,--"has in her
impetuous folly committed a grievous blunder, from which she would
not allow her husband to save her, this sum must be paid to the
wretched craven. But I cannot tell the world that. I cannot say
abroad that this small sacrifice of money was the justest means of
retrieving the injury which you had done."
"Say it abroad. Say it everywhere."
"No, Glencora."
"Do you think that I would have you spare me if it was my fault? And
how would it hurt me? Will it be new to any one that I have done a
foolish thing? Will the newspapers disturb my peace? I sometimes
think, Plantagenet, that I should have been the man, my skin is so
thick; and that you should have been the woman, yours is so tender."
"But it is not so."
"Take the advantage, nevertheless, of my toughness. Send him the £500
without a word,--or make Warburton do so, or Mr. Moreton. Make no
secret of it. Then if the papers talk about it--"
"A question might be asked about it in the House."
"Or if questioned in any way,--say that I did it. Tell the exact
truth. You are always saying that nothing but truth ever serves. Let
the truth serve now. I shall not blench. Your saying it all in the
House of Lords won't wound me half so much as your looking at me as
you did just now."
"Did I wound you? God knows I would not hurt you willingly."
"Never mind. Go on. I know you think that I have brought it all on
myself by my own wickedness. Pay this man the money, and then if
anything be said about it, explain that it was my fault, and say that
you paid the money because I had done wrong."
When he came in she had been seated on a sofa, which she constantly
used herself, and he had stood over her, masterful, imperious, and
almost tyrannical. She had felt his tyranny, but had resented it
less than usual,--or rather had been less determined in holding her
own against him and asserting herself as his equal,--because she
confessed to herself that she had injured him. She had, she thought,
done but little, but that which she had done had produced this
injury. So she had sat and endured the oppression of his standing
posture. But now he sat down by her, very close to her, and put his
hand upon her shoulder,--almost round her waist.
"Cora," he said, "you do not quite understand it."
"I never understand anything, I think," she answered.
"Not in this case,--perhaps never,--what it is that a husband feels
about his wife. Do you think that I could say a word against you,
even to a friend?"
"Why not?"
"I never did. I never could. If my anger were at the hottest I would
not confess to a human being that you were not perfect,--except to
yourself."
"Oh, thank you! If you were to scold me vicariously I should feel it
less."
"Do not joke with me now, for I am so much in earnest! And if I could
not consent that your conduct should be called in question even by a
friend, do you suppose it possible that I could contrive an escape
from public censure by laying the blame publicly on you?"
"Stick to the truth;--that's what you always say."
"I certainly shall stick to the truth. A man and his wife are one.
For what she does he is responsible."
"They couldn't hang you, you know, because I committed a murder."
"I should be willing that they should do so. No;--if I pay this money
I shall take the consequences. I shall not do it in any way under the
rose. But I wish you would remember--"
"Remember what? I know I shall never forget all this trouble about
that dirty little town, which I never will enter again as long as I
live."
"I wish you would think that in all that you do you are dealing with
my feelings, with my heartstrings, with my reputation. You cannot
divide yourself from me; nor, for the value of it all, would I wish
that such division were possible. You say that I am thin-skinned."
"Certainly you are. What people call a delicate
organisation,--whereas I am rough and thick and monstrously
commonplace."
"Then should you too be thin-skinned for my sake."
"I wish I could make you thick-skinned for your own. It's the only
way to be decently comfortable in such a coarse, rough-and-tumble
world as this is."
"Let us both do our best," he said, now putting his arm round her and
kissing her. "I think I shall send the man his money at once. It is
the least of two evils. And now let there never be a word more about
it between us."
Then he left her and went back,--not to the study in which he was
wont, when at Matching, to work with his private Secretary,--but
to a small inner closet of his own, in which many a bitter moment
was spent while he thought over that abortive system of decimal
coinage by which he had once hoped to make himself one of the great
benefactors of his nation, revolving in his mind the troubles which
his wife brought upon him, and regretting the golden inanity of the
coronet which in the very prime of life had expelled him from the
House of Commons. Here he seated himself, and for an hour neither
stirred from his seat, nor touched a pen, nor opened a book. He was
trying to calculate in his mind what might be the consequences of
paying the money to Mr. Lopez. But when the calculation slipped
from him,--as it did,--then he demanded of himself whether strict
high-minded justice did not call upon him to pay the money let the
consequences be what they might. And here his mind was truer to him,
and he was able to fix himself to a purpose,--though the resolution
to which he came was not, perhaps, wise.
When the hour was over he went to his desk, drew a cheque for £500 in
favour of Ferdinand Lopez, and then caused his Secretary to send it
in the following note:--
Matching, August 4, 187--.
SIR,--
The Duke of Omnium has read the letter you have addressed to him,
dated the 3rd instant. The Duke of Omnium, feeling that you may
have been induced to undertake the late contest at Silverbridge by
misrepresentations made to you at Gatherum Castle, directs me to
enclose a cheque for £500, that being the sum stated by you to have
been expended in carrying on the contest at Silverbridge.
I am, sir,
Your obedient servant,
ARTHUR WARBURTON.
Ferdinand Lopez, Esq.