Only the Duke of Omnium
The night of the debate arrived, but before the debate was commenced
Sir Timothy Beeswax got up to make a personal explanation. He thought
it right to state to the House how it came to pass that he found
himself bound to leave the Ministry at so important a crisis in its
existence. Then an observation was made by an honourable member of
the Government,--presumably in a whisper, but still loud enough to
catch the sharp ears of Sir Timothy, who now sat just below the
gangway. It was said afterwards that the gentleman who made the
observation,--an Irish gentleman named Fitzgibbon, conspicuous rather
for his loyalty to his party than his steadiness,--had purposely
taken the place in which he then sat, that Sir Timothy might hear
the whisper. The whisper suggested that falling houses were often
left by certain animals. It was certainly a very loud whisper,--but,
if gentlemen are to be allowed to whisper at all, it is almost
impossible to restrain the volume of the voice. To restrain Mr.
Fitzgibbon had always been found difficult. Sir Timothy, who did not
lack pluck, turned at once upon his assailant, and declared that
words had been used with reference to himself which the honourable
member did not dare to get upon his legs and repeat. Larry
Fitzgibbon, as the gentleman was called, looked him full in the
face, but did not move his hat from his head or stir a limb. It
was a pleasant little episode in the evening's work, and afforded
satisfaction to the House generally. Then Sir Timothy went on with
his explanation. The details of this measure, as soon as they were
made known to him, appeared to him, he said, to be fraught with
the gravest and most pernicious consequences. He was sure that the
members of her Majesty's Government, who were hurrying on this
measure with what he thought was indecent haste,--ministers are
always either indecent in their haste or treacherous in their
delay,--had not considered what they were doing, or, if they had
considered, were blind as to its results. He then attempted to
discuss the details of the measure, but was called to order. A
personal explanation could not be allowed to give him an opportunity
of anticipating the debate. He contrived, however, before he sat
down, to say some very heavy things against his late chief, and
especially to congratulate the Duke on the services of the honourable
gentleman, the member for Mayo,--meaning thereby Mr. Laurence
Fitzgibbon.
It would perhaps have been well for everybody if the measure could
have been withdrawn and the Ministry could have resigned without the
debate,--as everybody was convinced what would be the end of it. Let
the second reading go as it might, the Bill could not be carried.
There are measures which require the hopeful heartiness of a new
Ministry, and the thorough-going energy of a young Parliament,--and
this was one of them. The House was as fully agreed that this change
was necessary, as it ever is agreed on any subject,--but still the
thing could not be done. Even Mr. Monk, who was the most earnest of
men, felt the general slackness of all around him. The commotion
and excitement which would be caused by a change of Ministry might
restore its proper tone to the House, but in its present condition it
was unfit for the work. Nevertheless Mr. Monk made his speech, and
put all his arguments into lucid order. He knew it was for nothing,
but nevertheless it must be done. For hour after hour he went
on,--for it was necessary to give every detail of his contemplated
proposition. He went through it as sedulously as though he had
expected to succeed, and sat down about nine o'clock in the evening.
Then Sir Orlando moved the adjournment of the House till the morrow,
giving as his reason for doing so the expedience of considering the
details he had heard. To this no opposition was made, and the House
was adjourned.
On the following day the clubs were all alive with rumours as to the
coming debate. It was known that a strong party had been formed under
the auspices of Sir Orlando, and that with him Sir Timothy and other
politicians were in close council. It was of course necessary that
they should impart to many the secrets of their conclave, so that it
was known early in the afternoon that it was the intention of the
Opposition not to discuss the Bill, but to move that it be read a
second time that day six months. The Ministry had hardly expected
this, as the Bill was undoubtedly popular both in the House and the
country; and if the Opposition should be beaten in such a course,
that defeat would tend greatly to strengthen the hands of the
Government. But if the foe could succeed in carrying a positive
veto on the second reading, it would under all the circumstances be
tantamount to a vote of want of confidence. "I'm afraid they know
almost more than we do as to the feeling of members," said Mr. Roby
to Mr. Rattler.
"There isn't a man in the House whose feeling in the matter I don't
know," said Rattler, "but I'm not quite so sure of their principles.
On our own side, in our old party, there are a score of men who
detest the Duke, though they would fain be true to the Government.
They have voted with him through thick and thin, and he has not
spoken a word to one of them since he became Prime Minister. What are
you to do with such a man? How are you to act with him?"
"Lupton wrote to him the other day about something," answered the
other, "I forget what, and he got a note back from Warburton as
cold as ice,--an absolute slap in the face. Fancy treating a man
like Lupton in that way,--one of the most popular men in the House,
related to half the peerage, and a man who thinks so much of himself!
I shouldn't wonder if he were to vote against us;--I shouldn't
indeed."
"It has all been the old Duke's doing," said Rattler, "and no doubt
it was intended for the best; but the thing has been a failure from
the beginning to the end. I knew it would be so. I don't think there
has been a single man who has understood what a Ministerial Coalition
really means except you and I. From the very beginning all your men
were averse to it in spirit."
"Look how they were treated!" said Mr. Roby. "Was it likely that they
should be very staunch when Mr. Monk became Leader of the House?"
There was a Cabinet Council that day which lasted but a few minutes,
and it may easily be presumed that the Ministers decided that they
would all resign at once if Sir Orlando should carry his amendment.
It is not unlikely that they were agreed to do the same if he should
nearly carry it,--leaving probably the Prime Minister to judge what
narrow majority would constitute nearness. On this occasion all the
gentlemen assembled were jocund in their manner, and apparently
well satisfied,--as though they saw before them an end to all their
troubles. The Spartan boy did not even make a grimace when the wolf
bit him beneath his frock, and these were all Spartan boys. Even the
Prime Minister, who had fortified himself for the occasion, and who
never wept in any company but that of his wife and his old friend,
was pleasant in his manner and almost affable. "We shan't make this
step towards the millennium just at present," he said to Phineas Finn
as they left the room together,--referring to words which Phineas had
spoken on a former occasion, and which then had not been very well
taken.
"But we shall have made a step towards the step," said Phineas, "and
in getting to a millennium even that is something."
"I suppose we are all too anxious," said the Duke, "to see some great
effects come from our own little doings. Good-day. We shall know all
about it tolerably early. Monk seems to think that it will be an
attack on the Ministry and not on the Bill, and that it will be best
to get a vote with as little delay as possible."
"I'll bet an even five-pound note," said Mr. Lupton at the Carlton,
"that the present Ministry is out to-morrow, and another that no one
names five members of the next Cabinet."
"You can help to win your first bet," said Mr. Beauchamp, a very
old member, who, like many other Conservatives, had supported the
Coalition.
"I shall not do that," said Lupton, "though I think I ought. I won't
vote against the man in his misfortunes, though, upon my soul, I
don't love him very dearly. I shall vote neither way, but I hope that
Sir Orlando may succeed."
"If he do, who is to come in?" said the other. "I suppose you don't
want to serve under Sir Orlando?"
"Nor certainly under the Duke of Omnium. We shall not want a Prime
Minister as long as there are as good fish in the sea as have been
caught out of it."
There had lately been formed a new Liberal club, established on a
broader basis than the Progress, and perhaps with a greater amount of
aristocratic support. This had come up since the Duke had been Prime
Minister. Certain busy men had never been quite contented with the
existing state of things, and had thought that the Liberal party,
with such assistance as such a club could give it, would be strong
enough to rule alone. That the great Liberal party should be impeded
in its work and its triumph by such men as Sir Orlando Drought and
Sir Timothy Beeswax was odious to the club. All the Pallisers had,
from time immemorial, run straight as Liberals, and therefore the
club had been unwilling to oppose the Duke personally, though he was
the chief of the Coalition. And certain members of the Government,
Phineas Finn, for instance, Barrington Erle, and Mr. Rattler were on
the committee of the club. But the club, as a club, was not averse
to a discontinuance of the present state of things. Mr. Gresham
might again become Prime Minister, if he would condescend so far,
or Mr. Monk. It might be possible that the great Liberal triumph
contemplated by the club might not be achieved by the present
House;--but the present House must go shortly, and then, with
that assistance from a well-organised club, which had lately been
so terribly wanting,--the lack of which had made the Coalition
necessary,--no doubt the British constituencies would do their duty,
and a Liberal Prime Minister, pure and simple, might reign,--almost
for ever. With this great future before it, the club was very
lukewarm in its support of the present Bill. "I shall go down and
vote for them of course," said Mr. O'Mahony, "just for the look of
the thing." In saying this Mr. O'Mahony expressed the feeling of
the club, and the feeling of the Liberal party generally. There was
something due to the Duke, but not enough to make it incumbent on his
friends to maintain him in his position as Prime Minister.
It was a great day for Sir Orlando. At half-past four the House was
full,--not from any desire to hear Sir Orlando's arguments against
the Bill, but because it was felt that a good deal of personal
interest would be attached to the debate. If one were asked in these
days what gift should a Prime Minister ask first from the fairies,
one would name the power of attracting personal friends. Eloquence,
if it be too easy, may become almost a curse. Patriotism is
suspected, and sometimes sinks almost to pedantry. A Jove-born
intellect is hardly wanted, and clashes with the inferiorities.
Industry is exacting. Honesty is unpractical. Truth is easily
offended. Dignity will not bend. But the man who can be all things to
all men, who has ever a kind word to speak, a pleasant joke to crack,
who can forgive all sins, who is ever prepared for friend or foe but
never very bitter to the latter, who forgets not men's names, and is
always ready with little words,--he is the man who will be supported
at a crisis such as this that was now in the course of passing. It is
for him that men will struggle, and talk, and, if needs be, fight, as
though the very existence of the country depended on his political
security. The present man would receive no such defence;--but still
the violent deposition of a Prime Minister is always a memorable
occasion.
Sir Orlando made his speech, and, as had been anticipated, it had
very little to do with the Bill, and was almost exclusively an attack
upon his late chief. He thought, he said, that this was an occasion
on which they had better come to a direct issue with as little delay
as possible. If he rightly read the feeling of the House, no Bill of
this magnitude coming from the present Ministry would be likely to
be passed in an efficient condition. The Duke had frittered away his
support in that House, and as a Minister had lost that confidence
which a majority of the House had once been willing to place in him.
We need not follow Sir Orlando through his speech. He alluded to
his own services, and declared that he was obliged to withdraw them
because the Duke would not trust him with the management of his
own office. He had reason to believe that other gentlemen who had
attached themselves to the Duke's Ministry had found themselves
equally crippled by this passion for autocratic rule. Hereupon a loud
chorus of disapprobation came from the Treasury bench, which was
fully answered by opposing noises from the other side of the House.
Sir Orlando declared that he need only point to the fact that the
Ministry had been already shivered by the secession of various
gentlemen. "Only two," said a voice. Sir Orlando was turning round to
contradict the voice when he was greeted by another. "And those the
weakest," said the other voice, which was indubitably that of Larry
Fitzgibbon. "I will not speak of myself," said Sir Orlando pompously;
"but I am authorised to tell the House that the noble lord who is now
Secretary of State for the Colonies only holds his office till this
crisis shall have passed."
After that there was some sparring of a very bitter kind between Sir
Timothy and Phineas Finn, till at last it seemed that the debate was
to degenerate into a war of man against man. Phineas, and Erle, and
Laurence Fitzgibbon allowed themselves to be lashed into anger, and,
as far as words went, had the best of it. But of what use could it
be? Every man there had come into the House prepared to vote for or
against the Duke of Omnium,--or resolved, like Mr. Lupton, not to
vote at all; and it was hardly on the cards that a single vote should
be turned this way or that by any violence of speaking. "Let it
pass," said Mr. Monk in a whisper to Phineas. "The fire is not worth
the fuel."
"I know the Duke's faults," said Phineas; "but these men know nothing
of his virtues, and when I hear them abuse him I cannot stand it."
Early in the night,--before twelve o'clock,--the House divided, and
even at the moment of the division no one quite knew how it would go.
There would be many who would of course vote against the amendment
as being simply desirous of recording their opinion in favour of the
Bill generally. And there were some who thought that Sir Orlando and
his followers had been too forward, and too confident of their own
standing in the House, in trying so violent a mode of opposition. It
would have been better, these men thought, to have insured success
by a gradual and persistent opposition to the Bill itself. But they
hardly knew how thoroughly men may be alienated by silence and a cold
demeanour. Sir Orlando on the division was beaten, but was beaten
only by nine. "He can't go on with his Bill," said Rattler in one of
the lobbies of the House. "I defy him. The House wouldn't stand it,
you know." "No minister," said Roby, "could carry a measure like that
with a majority of nine on a vote of confidence!" The House was of
course adjourned, and Mr. Monk went at once to Carlton Terrace.
"I wish it had only been three or four," said the Duke, laughing.
"Why so?"
"Because there would have been less doubt."
"Is there any at present?"
"Less possibility for doubt, I will say. You would not wish to make
the attempt with such a majority?"
"I could not do it, Duke!"
"I quite agree with you. But there will be those who will say that
the attempt might be made,--who will accuse us of being faint-hearted
because we do not make it."
"They will be men who understand nothing of the temper of the House."
"Very likely. But still, I wish the majority had only been two or
three. There is little more to be said, I suppose."
"Very little, your Grace."
"We had better meet to-morrow at two, and, if possible, I will see
her Majesty in the afternoon. Good night, Mr. Monk."
"Good night, Duke."
"My reign is ended. You are a good deal an older man than I, and
yet probably yours has yet to begin." Mr. Monk smiled and shook his
head as he left the room, not trusting himself to discuss so large a
subject at so late an hour of the night.
Without waiting a moment after his colleague's departure, the Prime
Minister,--for he was still Prime Minister,--went into his wife's
room, knowing that she was waiting up till she should hear the result
of the division, and there he found Mrs. Finn with her. "Is it over?"
asked the Duchess.
"Yes;--there has been a division. Mr. Monk has just been with me."
"Well!"
"We have beaten them, of course, as we always do," said the Duke,
attempting to be pleasant. "You didn't suppose there was anything to
fear? Your husband has always bid you keep up your courage;--has he
not, Mrs. Finn?"
"My husband has lost his senses, I think," she said. "He has taken to
such storming and raving about his political enemies that I hardly
dare to open my mouth."
"Tell me what has been done, Plantagenet," ejaculated the Duchess.
"Don't you be as unreasonable as Mrs. Finn, Cora. The House has voted
against Sir Orlando's amendment by a majority of nine."
"Only nine!"
"And I shall cease to be Prime Minister to-morrow."
"You don't mean to say that it's settled?"
"Quite settled. The play has been played, and the curtain has fallen,
and the lights are being put out, and the poor weary actors may go
home to bed."
"But on such an amendment surely any majority would have done."
"No, my dear. I will not name a number, but nine certainly would not
do."
"And it is all over?"
"My Ministry is all over, if you mean that."
"Then everything is over for me. I shall settle down in the country
and build cottages, and mix draughts. You, Marie, will still be
going up the tree. If Mr. Finn manages well he may come to be Prime
Minister some day."
"He has hardly such ambition, Lady Glen."
"The ambition will come fast enough;--will it not, Plantagenet? Let
him once begin to dream of it as possible, and the desire will soon
be strong enough. How should you feel if it were so?"
"It is quite impossible," said Mrs. Finn, gravely.
"I don't see why anything is impossible. Sir Orlando will be Prime
Minister now, and Sir Timothy Beeswax Lord Chancellor. After that
anybody may hope to be anything. Well,--I suppose we may go to bed.
Is your carriage here, my dear?"
"I hope so."
"Ring the bell, Plantagenet, for somebody to see her down. Come to
lunch to-morrow because I shall have so many groans to utter. What
beasts, what brutes, what ungrateful wretches men are!--worse than
women when they get together in numbers enough to be bold. Why have
they deserted you? What have we not done for them? Think of all the
new bedroom furniture that we sent to Gatherum merely to keep the
party together. There were thousands of yards of linen, and it has
all been of no use. Don't you feel like Wolsey, Plantagenet?"
"Not in the least, my dear. No one will take anything away from me
that is my own."
"For me, I am almost as much divorced as Catherine, and have had my
head cut off as completely as Anne Bullen and the rest of them. Go
away, Marie, because I am going to have a cry by myself."
The Duke himself on that night put Mrs. Finn into her carriage; and
as he walked with her downstairs he asked her whether she believed
the Duchess to be in earnest in her sorrow. "She so mixes up her
mirth and woe together," said the Duke, "that I myself sometimes can
hardly understand her."
"I think she does regret it, Duke."
"She told me but the other day that she would be contented."
"A few weeks will make her so. As for your Grace, I hope I may
congratulate you."
"Oh yes;--I think so. We none of us like to be beaten when we have
taken a thing in hand. There is always a little disappointment at
first. But, upon the whole, it is better as it is. I hope it will not
make your husband unhappy."
"Not for his own sake. He will go again into the middle of the
scramble and fight on one side or the other. For my own part I think
opposition the pleasantest. Good night, Duke. I am so sorry that I
should have troubled you."
Then he went alone to his own room, and sat there without moving for
a couple of hours. Surely it was a great thing to have been Prime
Minister of England for three years,--a prize of which nothing now
could rob him. He ought not to be unhappy; and yet he knew himself
to be wretched and disappointed. It had never occurred to him to be
proud of being a duke, or to think of his wealth otherwise than a
chance incident of his life, advantageous indeed, but by no means
a source of honour. And he had been aware that he had owed his
first seat in Parliament to his birth, and probably also his first
introduction to official life. An heir to a dukedom, if he will only
work hard, may almost with certainty find himself received into one
or the other regiment in Downing Street. It had not in his early days
been with him as it had with his friends Mr. Monk and Phineas Finn,
who had worked their way from the very ranks. But even a duke cannot
become Prime Minister by favour. Surely he had done something of
which he might be proud. And so he tried to console himself.
But to have done something was nothing to him,--nothing to his
personal happiness,--unless there was also something left for him to
do. How should it be with him now,--how for the future? Would men
ever listen to him again, or allow him again to work in their behoof,
as he used to do in his happy days in the House of Commons? He feared
that it was all over for him, and that for the rest of his days he
must simply be the Duke of Omnium.