Who Will It Be?
For the first day or two after the resignation of the Ministry
the Duchess appeared to take no further notice of the matter. An
ungrateful world had repudiated her and her husband, and he had
foolishly assisted and given way to the repudiation. All her grand
aspirations were at an end. All her triumphs were over. And worse
than that, there was present to her a conviction that she never had
really triumphed. There never had come the happy moment in which she
had felt herself to be dominant over other women. She had toiled and
struggled, she had battled and occasionally submitted; and yet there
was present to her a feeling that she had stood higher in public
estimation as Lady Glencora Palliser,--whose position had been all
her own and had not depended on her husband,--than now she had done
as Duchess of Omnium, and wife of the Prime Minister of England. She
had meant to be something, she knew not what, greater than had been
the wives of other Prime Ministers and other Dukes; and now she
felt that in her failure she had been almost ridiculous. And the
failure, she thought, had been his,--or hers,--rather than that of
circumstances. If he had been less scrupulous and more persistent
it might have been different,--or if she had been more discreet.
Sometimes she felt her own failing so violently as to acquit him
almost entirely. At other times she was almost beside herself with
anger because all her losses seemed to have arisen from want of
stubbornness on his part. When he had told her that he and his
followers had determined to resign because they had beaten their foes
by a majority only of nine, she took it into her head that he was in
fault. Why should he go while his supporters were more numerous than
his opponents? It was useless to bid him think it over again. Though
she was far from understanding all the circumstances of the game,
she did know that he could not remain after having arranged with
his colleagues that he would go. So she became cross and sullen;
and while he was going to Windsor and back and setting his house
in order, and preparing the way for his successor,--whoever that
successor might be,--she was moody and silent, dreaming over some
impossible condition of things in accordance with which he might have
remained Prime Minister--almost for ever.
On the Sunday after the fatal division,--the division which the
Duchess would not allow to have been fatal,--she came across him
somewhere in the house. She had hardly spoken to him since he had
come into her room that night and told her that all was over. She had
said that she was unwell and had kept out of sight; and he had been
here and there, between Windsor and the Treasury Chambers, and had
been glad to escape from her ill-humour. But she could not endure
any longer the annoyance of having to get all her news through Mrs.
Finn,--second hand, or third hand, and now found herself driven to
capitulate. "Well," she said; "how is it all going to be? I suppose
you do not know or you would have told me?"
"There is very little to tell."
"Mr. Monk is to be Prime Minister?" she asked.
"I did not say so. But it is not impossible."
"Has the Queen sent for him?"
"Not as yet. Her Majesty has seen both Mr. Gresham and Mr. Daubeny as
well as myself. It does not seem a very easy thing to make a Ministry
just at present."
"Why should not you go back?"
"I do not think that is on the cards."
"Why not? Ever so many men have done it, after going out,--and why
not you? I remember Mr. Mildmay doing it twice. It is always the
thing when the man who has been sent for makes a mess of it, for the
old minister to have another chance."
"But what if the old minister will not take the chance?"
"Then it is the old minister's fault. Why shouldn't you take the
chance as well as another? It isn't many days ago since you were
quite anxious to remain in. I thought you were going to break your
heart because people even talked of your going."
"I was going to break my heart, as you call it," he said, smiling,
"not because people talked of my ceasing to be minister, but because
the feeling of the House of Commons justified people in so saying. I
hope you see the difference."
"No, I don't. And there is no difference. The people we are talking
about are the members,--and they have supported you. You could go on
if you chose. I'm sure Mr. Monk wouldn't leave you."
"It is just what Mr. Monk would do, and ought to do. No one is less
likely than Mr. Monk to behave badly in such an emergency. The more I
see of Mr. Monk, the higher I think of him."
"He has his own game to play as well as others."
"I think he has no game to play but that of his country. It is no use
our discussing it, Cora."
"Of course I understand nothing, because I'm a woman."
"You understand a great deal,--but not quite all. You may at any rate
understand this,--that our troubles are at an end. You were saying
but the other day that the labours of being a Prime Minister's wife
had been almost too many for you."
"I never said so. As long as you didn't give way no labour was
too much for me. I would have done anything,--slaved morning and
night,--so that we might have succeeded. I hate being beat. I'd
sooner be cut in pieces."
"There is no help for it now, Cora. The Lord Mayor, you know, is only
Lord Mayor for one year, and must then go back to private life."
"But men have been Prime Ministers for ten years at a time. If you
have made up your mind, I suppose we may as well give up. I shall
always think it your own fault." He still smiled. "I shall," she
said.
"Oh, Cora!"
"I can only speak as I feel."
"I don't think you would speak as you do, if you knew how much your
words hurt me. In such a matter as this I should not be justified in
allowing your opinions to have weight with me. But your sympathy
would be so much to me!"
"When I thought it was making you ill, I wished that you might be
spared."
"My illness would be nothing, but my honour is everything. I, too,
have something to bear as well as you, and if you cannot approve of
what I do, at any rate be silent."
"Yes;--I can be silent." Then he slowly left her. As he went she was
almost tempted to yield, and to throw herself into his arms, and to
promise that she would be soft to him, and to say that she was sure
that all he did was for the best. But she could not bring herself as
yet to be good-humoured. If he had only been a little stronger, a
little thicker-skinned, made of clay a little coarser, a little other
than he was, it might all have been so different!
Early on that Sunday afternoon she had herself driven to Mrs. Finn's
house in Park Lane, instead of waiting for her friend. Latterly she
had but seldom done this, finding that her presence at home was much
wanted. She had been filled with, perhaps, foolish ideas of the
necessity of doing something,--of adding something to the strength of
her husband's position,--and had certainly been diligent in her work.
But now she might run about like any other woman. "This is an honour,
Duchess," said Mrs. Finn.
"Don't be sarcastic, Marie. We have nothing further to do with the
bestowal of honours. Why didn't he make everybody a peer or a baronet
while he was about it? Lord Finn! I don't see why he shouldn't have
been Lord Finn. I'm sure he deserved it for the way in which he
attacked Sir Timothy Beeswax."
"I don't think he'd like it."
"They all say so, but I suppose they do like it, or they wouldn't
take it. And I'd have made Locock a knight;--Sir James Locock. He'd
make a more knightly knight than Sir Timothy. When a man has power
he ought to use it. It makes people respect him. Mr. Daubeny made a
duke, and people think more of that than anything he did. Is Mr. Finn
going to join the new ministry?"
"If you can tell me, Duchess, who is to be the new minister, I can
give a guess."
"Mr. Monk."
"Then he certainly will."
"Or Mr. Daubeny."
"Then he certainly won't."
"Or Mr. Gresham."
"That I could not answer."
"Or the Duke of Omnium."
"That would depend upon his Grace, If the Duke came back, Mr. Finn's
services would be at his disposal, whether in or out of office."
"Very prettily said, my dear. I never look round this room without
thinking of the first time I came here. Do you remember, when I found
the old man sitting there?" The old man alluded to was the late Duke.
"I am not likely to forget it, Duchess."
"How I hated you when I saw you! What a fright I thought you were! I
pictured you to myself as a sort of ogre, willing to eat up everybody
for the gratification of your own vanity."
"I was very vain, but there was a little pride with it."
"And now it has come to pass that I can't very well live without you.
How he did love you!"
"His Grace was very good to me."
"It would have done no great harm, after all, if he had made you
Duchess of Omnium."
"Very great harm to me, Lady Glen. As it is I got a friend that I
loved dearly, and a husband that I love dearly too. In the other case
I should have had neither. Perhaps I may say, that in that other
case my life would not have been brightened by the affection of the
present Duchess."
"One can't tell how it would have gone, but I well remember the
state I was in then." The door was opened and Phineas Finn entered
the room. "What, Mr. Finn, are you at home? I thought everybody
was crowding down at the clubs, to know who is to be what. We are
settled. We are quiet. We have nothing to do to disturb ourselves.
But you ought to be in all the flutter of renewed expectation."
"I am waiting my destiny in calm seclusion. I hope the Duke is well?"
"As well as can be expected. He doesn't walk about his room with a
poniard in his hand,--ready for himself or Sir Orlando; nor is he
sitting crowned like Bacchus, drinking the health of the new Ministry
with Lord Drummond and Sir Timothy. He is probably sipping a cup of
coffee over a blue-book in dignified retirement. You should go and
see him."
"I should be unwilling to trouble him when he is so much occupied."
"That is just what has done him all the harm in the world. Everybody
presumes that he has so much to think of that nobody goes near him.
Then he is left to boody over everything by himself till he becomes
a sort of political hermit, or ministerial Lama, whom human eyes are
not to look upon. It doesn't matter now; does it?" Visitor after
visitor came in, and the Duchess chatted to them all, leaving the
impression on everybody that heard her that she at least was not
sorry to be relieved from the troubles attending her husband's late
position.
She sat there over an hour, and as she was taking her leave she had a
few words to whisper to Mrs. Finn. "When this is all over," she said,
"I mean to call on that Mrs. Lopez."
"I thought you did go there."
"That was soon after the poor man had killed himself,--when she was
going away. Of course I only left a card. But I shall see her now if
I can. We want to get her out of her melancholy if possible. I have a
sort of feeling, you know, that among us we made the train run over
him."
"I don't think that."
"He got so horribly abused for what he did at Silverbridge; and I
really don't see why he wasn't to have his money. It was I that made
him spend it."
"He was, I fancy, a thoroughly bad man."
"But a wife doesn't always want to be made a widow even if her
husband be bad. I think I owe her something, and I would pay my debt
if I knew how. I shall go and see her, and if she will marry this
other man we'll take her by the hand. Good-bye, dear. You'd better
come to me early to-morrow, as I suppose we shall know something by
eleven o'clock."
In the course of that evening the Duke of St. Bungay came to Carlton
Terrace and was closeted for some time with the late Prime Minister.
He had been engaged during that and the last two previous days in
lending his aid to various political manoeuvres and ministerial
attempts, from which our Duke had kept himself altogether aloof. He
did not go to Windsor, but as each successive competitor journeyed
thither and returned, some one either sent for the old Duke or went
to seek his counsel. He was the Nestor of the occasion, and strove
heartily to compose all quarrels, and so to arrange matters that a
wholesome, moderately Liberal Ministry might be again installed for
the good of the country and the comfort of all true Whigs. In such
moments he almost ascended to the grand heights of patriotism, being
always indifferent as to himself. Now he came to his late chief with
a new project. Mr. Gresham would attempt to form a Ministry if the
Duke of Omnium would join him.
"It is impossible," said the younger politician, folding his hands
together and throwing himself back in his chair.
"Listen to me before you answer me with such certainty. There are
three or four gentlemen who, after the work of the last three
years, bearing in mind the manner in which our defeat has just been
accomplished, feel themselves disinclined to join Mr. Gresham unless
you will do so also. I may specially name Mr. Monk and Mr. Finn. I
might perhaps add myself, were it not that I had hoped that in any
event I might at length regard myself as exempt from further service.
The old horse should be left to graze out his last days, Ne peccet ad
extremum ridendus. But you can't consider yourself absolved on that
score."
"There are other reasons."
"But the Queen's service should count before everything. Gresham and
Cantrip with their own friends can hardly make a Ministry as things
are now unless Mr. Monk will join them. I do not think that any other
Chancellor of the Exchequer is at present possible."
"I will beseech Mr. Monk not to let any feeling as to me stand in his
way. Why should it?"
"It is not only what you may think and he may think,--but what others
will think and say. The Coalition will have done all that ought
to have been expected from it if our party in it can now join Mr.
Gresham."
"By all means. But I could give them no strength. They may be sure at
any rate of what little I can do for them out of office."
"Mr. Gresham has made his acceptance of office,--well, I will not
say strictly conditional on your joining him. That would hardly be
correct. But he has expressed himself quite willing to make the
attempt with your aid, and doubtful whether he can succeed without
it. He suggests that you should join him as President of the
Council."
"And you?"
"If I were wanted at all I should take the Privy Seal."
"Certainly not, my friend. If there were any question of my return
we would reverse the offices. But I think I may say that my mind is
fixed. If you wish it I will see Mr. Monk, and do all that I can to
get him to go with you. But for myself,--I feel that it would be
useless."
At last, at the Duke's pressing request, he agreed to take
twenty-four hours before he gave his final answer to the proposition.