E-text prepared by Kenneth David Cooper and revised by Joseph E.
Loewenstein, M.D.
THE DUKE'S CHILDREN
by
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
First published in serial form in _All the Year Round_
in 1879 and 1880 and in book form in 1880
CONTENTS
I. When the Duchess Was Dead
II. Lady Mary Palliser
III. Francis Oliphant Tregear
IV. Park Lane
V. "It Is Impossible"
VI. Major Tifto
VII. Conservative Convictions
VIII. "He Is a Gentleman"
IX. "In Medias Res"
X. "Why Not Like Romeo If I Feel Like Romeo?"
XI. "Cruel"
XII. At Richmond
XIII. The Duke's Injustice
XIV. The New Member for Silverbridge
XV. The Duke Receives a Letter,--and Writes One
XVI. "Poor Boy"
XVII. The Derby
XVIII. One of the Results of the Derby
XIX. "No; My Lord, I Do Not"
XX. "Then He Will Come Again"
XXI. Sir Timothy Beeswax
XXII. The Duke in His Study
XXIII. Frank Tregear Wants a Friend
XXIV. "She Must Be Made to Obey"
XXV. A Family Breakfast-Table
XXVI. Dinner at the Beargarden
XXVII. Major Tifto and the Duke
XXVIII. Mrs. Montacute Jones's Garden-Party
XXIX. The Lovers Meet
XXX. What Came of the Meeting
XXXI. Miss Boncassen's River-Party. No. 1
XXXII. Miss Boncassen's River-Party. No. 2
XXXIII. The Langham Hotel
XXXIV. Lord Popplecourt
XXXV. "Don't You Think--?"
XXXVI. Tally-Ho Lodge
XXXVII. Grex
XXXVIII. Crummie-Toddie
XXXIX. Killancodlem
XL. "And Then!"
XLI. Ischl
XLII. Again at Killancodlem
XLIII. What Happened at Doncaster
XLIV. How It Was Done
XLV. "There Shall Not Be Another Word About It"
XLVI. Lady Mary's Dream
XLVII. Miss Boncassen's Idea of Heaven
XLVIII. The Party at Custins Is Broken Up
XLIX. The Major's Fate
L. The Duke's Arguments
LI. The Duke's Guests
LII. Miss Boncassen Tells the Truth
LIII. "Then I Am As Proud As a Queen"
LIV. "I Don't Think She Is a Snake"
LV. Polpenno
LVI. The News Is Sent to Matching
LVII. The Meeting at "The Bobtailed Fox"
LVIII. The Major Is Deposed
LIX. No One Can Tell What May Come to Pass
LX. Lord Gerald in Further Trouble
LXI. "Bone of My Bone"
LXII. The Brake Country
LXIII. "I've Seen 'Em Like That Before"
LXIV. "I Believe Him to Be a Worthy Young Man"
LXV. "Do You Ever Think What Money Is?"
LXVI. The Three Attacks
LXVII. "He Is Such a Beast"
LXVIII. Brook Street
LXIX. "Pert Poppet!"
LXX. "Love May Be a Great Misfortune"
LXXI. "What Am I to Say, Sir?"
LXXII. Carlton Terrace
LXXIII. "I Have Never Loved You"
LXXIV. "Let Us Drink a Glass of Wine Together"
LXXV. The Major's Story
LXXVI. On Deportment
LXXVII. "Mabel, Good-Bye"
LXXVIII. The Duke Returns to Office
LXXIX. The First Wedding
LXXX. The Second Wedding
CHAPTER I
When the Duchess Was Dead
No one, probably, ever felt himself to be more alone in the world
than our old friend, the Duke of Omnium, when the Duchess died. When
this sad event happened he had ceased to be Prime Minister. During
the first nine months after he had left office he and the Duchess
remained in England. Then they had gone abroad, taking with them
their three children. The eldest, Lord Silverbridge, had been at
Oxford, but had had his career there cut short by some more than
ordinary youthful folly, which had induced his father to agree with
the college authorities that his name had better be taken off the
college books,--all which had been cause of very great sorrow to
the Duke. The other boy was to go to Cambridge; but his father had
thought it well to give him a twelvemonth's run on the Continent,
under his own inspection. Lady Mary, the only daughter, was the
youngest of the family, and she also had been with them on the
Continent. They remained the full year abroad, travelling with a
large accompaniment of tutors, lady's-maids, couriers, and sometimes
friends. I do not know that the Duchess or the Duke had enjoyed it
much; but the young people had seen something of foreign courts and
much of foreign scenery, and had perhaps perfected their French. The
Duke had gone to work at his travels with a full determination to
create for himself occupation out of a new kind of life. He had
studied Dante, and had striven to arouse himself to ecstatic joy
amidst the loveliness of the Italian lakes. But through it all he
had been aware that he had failed. The Duchess had made no such
resolution,--had hardly, perhaps, made any attempt; but, in truth,
they had both sighed to be back among the war-trumpets. They had both
suffered much among the trumpets, and yet they longed to return. He
told himself from day to day, that though he had been banished from
the House of Commons, still, as a peer, he had a seat in Parliament,
and that, though he was no longer a minister, still he might be
useful as a legislator. She, in her career as a leader of fashion,
had no doubt met with some trouble,--with some trouble but with no
disgrace; and as she had been carried about among the lakes and
mountains, among the pictures and statues, among the counts and
countesses, she had often felt that there was no happiness except in
that dominion which circumstances had enabled her to achieve once,
and might enable her to achieve again--in the realms of London
society.
Then, in the early spring of 187--, they came back to England, having
persistently carried out their project, at any rate in regard to
time. Lord Gerald, the younger son, was at once sent up to Trinity.
For the eldest son a seat was to be found in the House of Commons,
and the fact that a dissolution of Parliament was expected served to
prevent any prolonged sojourn abroad. Lady Mary Palliser was at that
time nineteen, and her entrance into the world was to be her mother's
great care and great delight. In March they spent a few days in
London, and then went down to Matching Priory. When she left town the
Duchess was complaining of cold, sore throat, and debility. A week
after their arrival at Matching she was dead.
Had the heavens fallen and mixed themselves with the earth, had the
people of London risen in rebellion with French ideas of equality,
had the Queen persistently declined to comply with the constitutional
advice of her ministers, had a majority in the House of Commons lost
its influence in the country,--the utter prostration of the bereft
husband could not have been more complete. It was not only that his
heart was torn to pieces, but that he did not know how to look out
into the world. It was as though a man should be suddenly called upon
to live without hands or even arms. He was helpless, and knew himself
to be helpless. Hitherto he had never specially acknowledged to
himself that his wife was necessary to him as a component part of his
life. Though he had loved her dearly, and had in all things consulted
her welfare and happiness, he had at times been inclined to think
that in the exuberance of her spirits she had been a trouble
rather than a support to him. But now it was as though all outside
appliances were taken away from him. There was no one of whom he
could ask a question.
For it may be said of this man that, though throughout his life he
had had many Honourable and Right Honourable friends, and that though
he had entertained guests by the score, and though he had achieved
for himself the respect of all good men and the thorough admiration
of some few who knew him, he had hardly made for himself a single
intimate friend--except that one who had now passed away from him. To
her he had been able to say what he thought, even though she would
occasionally ridicule him while he was declaring his feelings. But
there had been no other human soul to whom he could open himself.
There were one or two whom he loved, and perhaps liked; but his
loving and his liking had been exclusively political. He had so
habituated himself to devote his mind and his heart to the service of
his country, that he had almost risen above or sunk below humanity.
But she, who had been essentially human, had been a link between him
and the world.
There were his three children, the youngest of whom was now nearly
nineteen, and they surely were links! At the first moment of his
bereavement they were felt to be hardly more than burdens. A more
loving father there was not in England, but nature had made him so
undemonstrative that as yet they had hardly known his love. In all
their joys and in all their troubles, in all their desires and all
their disappointments, they had ever gone to their mother. She had
been conversant with everything about them, from the boys' bills
and the girl's gloves to the innermost turn in the heart and the
disposition of each. She had known with the utmost accuracy the
nature of the scrapes into which Lord Silverbridge had precipitated
himself, and had known also how probable it was that Lord Gerald
would do the same. The results of such scrapes she, of course,
deplored; and therefore she would give good counsel, pointing out how
imperative it was that such evil-doings should be avoided; but with
the spirit that produced the scrapes she fully sympathised. The
father disliked the spirit almost worse than the results; and was
therefore often irritated and unhappy.
And the difficulties about the girl were almost worse to bear than
those about the boys. She had done nothing wrong. She had given no
signs of extravagance or other juvenile misconduct. But she was
beautiful and young. How was he to bring her out into the world? How
was he to decide whom she should or whom she should not marry? How
was he to guide her through the shoals and rocks which lay in the
path of such a girl before she can achieve matrimony?
It was the fate of the family that, with a world of acquaintance,
they had not many friends. From all close connection with relatives
on the side of the Duchess they had been dissevered by old feelings
at first, and afterwards by want of any similitude in the habits
of life. She had, when young, been repressed by male and female
guardians with an iron hand. Such repression had been needed, and had
been perhaps salutary, but it had not left behind it much affection.
And then her nearest relatives were not sympathetic with the Duke. He
could obtain no assistance in the care of his girl from that source.
Nor could he even do it from his own cousins' wives, who were his
nearest connections on the side of the Pallisers. They were women
to whom he had ever been kind, but to whom he had never opened his
heart. When, in the midst of the stunning sorrow of the first week,
he tried to think of all this, it seemed to him that there was
nobody.
There had been one lady, a very dear ally, staying in the house with
them when the Duchess died. This was Mrs. Finn, the wife of Phineas
Finn, who had been one of the Duke's colleagues when in office.
How it had come to pass that Mrs. Finn and the Duchess had become
singularly bound together has been told elsewhere. But there had been
close bonds,--so close that when the Duchess on their return from the
Continent had passed through London on her way to Matching, ill at
the time and very comfortless, it had been almost a thing of course,
that Mrs. Finn should go with her. And as she had sunk, and then
despaired, and then died, it was this woman who had always been at
her side, who had ministered to her, and had listened to the fears
and the wishes and hopes she had expressed respecting the children.
At Matching, amidst the ruins of the old Priory, there is a parish
burying-ground, and there, in accordance with her own wish, almost
within sight of her own bedroom-window, she was buried. On the day
of the funeral a dozen relatives came, Pallisers and M'Closkies, who
on such an occasion were bound to show themselves, as members of the
family. With them and his two sons the Duke walked across to the
graveyard, and then walked back; but even to those who stayed the
night at the house he hardly spoke. By noon on the following day they
had all left him, and the only stranger in the house was Mrs. Finn.
On the afternoon of the day after the funeral the Duke and his guest
met, almost for the first time since the sad event. There had been
just a pressure of the hand, just a glance of compassion, just some
murmur of deep sorrow,--but there had been no real speech between
them. Now he had sent for her, and she went down to him in the room
in which he commonly sat at work. He was seated at his table when she
entered, but there was no book open before him, and no pen ready to
his hand. He was dressed of course in black. That, indeed, was usual
with him, but now the tailor by his funereal art had added some
deeper dye of blackness to his appearance. When he rose and turned to
her she thought that he had at once become an old man. His hair was
grey in parts, and he had never accustomed himself to use that skill
in managing his outside person by which many men are able to preserve
for themselves a look, if not of youth, at any rate of freshness.
He was thin, of an adust complexion, and had acquired a habit of
stooping which, when he was not excited, gave him an appearance of
age. All that was common to him; but now it was so much exaggerated
that he who was not yet fifty might have been taken to be over sixty.
He put out his hand to greet her as she came up to him.
"Silverbridge," he said, "tells me that you go back to London
to-morrow."
"I thought it would be best, Duke. My presence here can be of no
comfort to you."
"I will not say that anything can be of comfort. But of course it
is right that you should go. I can have no excuse for asking you to
remain. While there was yet a hope for her--" Then he stopped, unable
to say a word further in that direction, and yet there was no sign of
a tear and no sound of a sob.
"Of course I would stay, Duke, if I could be of any service."
"Mr. Finn will expect you to return to him."
"Perhaps it would be better that I should say that I would stay were
it not that I know that I can be of no real service."
"What do you mean by that, Mrs. Finn?"
"Lady Mary should have with her at such a time some other friend."
"There was none other whom her mother loved as she loved you--none,
none." This he said almost with energy.
"There was no one lately, Duke, with whom circumstances caused
her mother to be so closely intimate. But even that perhaps was
unfortunate."
"I never thought so."
"That is a great compliment. But as to Lady Mary, will it not
be as well that she should have with her, as soon as possible,
someone,--perhaps someone of her own kindred if it be possible, or,
if not that, at least one of her own kind?"
"Who is there? Whom do you mean?"
"I mean no one. It is hard, Duke, to say what I do mean, but perhaps
I had better try. There will be,--probably there have been,--some
among your friends who have regretted the great intimacy which chance
produced between me and my lost friend. While she was with us no such
feeling would have sufficed to drive me from her. She had chosen for
herself, and if others disapproved her choice that was nothing to me.
But as regards Lady Mary, it will be better, I think, that from the
beginning she should be taught to look for friendship and guidance to
those--to those who are more naturally connected with her."
"I was not thinking of any guidance," said the Duke.
"Of course not. But with one so young, where there is intimacy there
will be guidance. There should be somebody with her. It was almost
the last thought that occupied her mother's mind. I could not tell
her, Duke, but I can tell you, that I cannot with advantage to your
girl be that somebody."
"Cora wished it."
"Her wishes, probably, were sudden and hardly fixed."
"Who should it be, then?" asked the father, after a pause.
"Who am I, Duke, that I should answer such a question?"
After that there was another pause, and then the conference was ended
by a request from the Duke that Mrs. Finn would stay at Matching for
yet two days longer. At dinner they all met,--the father, the three
children, and Mrs. Finn. How far the young people among themselves
had been able to throw off something of the gloom of death need not
here be asked; but in the presence of their father they were sad and
sombre, almost as he was. On the next day, early in the morning, the
younger lad returned to his college, and Lord Silverbridge went up to
London, where he was supposed to have his home.
"Perhaps you would not mind reading these letters," the Duke said to
Mrs. Finn, when she again went to him, in compliance with a message
from him asking for her presence. Then she sat down and read two
letters, one from Lady Cantrip, and the other from a Mrs. Jeffrey
Palliser, each of which contained an invitation for his daughter,
and expressed a hope that Lady Mary would not be unwilling to spend
some time with the writer. Lady Cantrip's letter was long, and went
minutely into circumstances. If Lady Mary would come to her, she
would abstain from having other company in the house till her young
friend's spirits should have somewhat recovered themselves. Nothing
could be more kind, or proposed in a sweeter fashion. There had,
however, been present to the Duke's mind as he read it a feeling that
a proposition to a bereaved husband to relieve him of the society
of an only daughter, was not one which would usually be made to
a father. In such a position a child's company would probably
be his best solace. But he knew,--at this moment he painfully
remembered,--that he was not as are other men. He acknowledged the
truth of this, but he was not the less grieved and irritated by the
reminder. The letter from Mrs. Jeffrey Palliser was to the same
effect, but was much shorter. If it would suit Mary to come to them
for a month or six weeks at their place in Gloucestershire, they
would both be delighted.
"I should not choose her to go there," said the Duke, as Mrs. Finn
refolded the latter letter. "My cousin's wife is a very good woman,
but Mary would not be happy with her."
"Lady Cantrip is an excellent friend for her."
"Excellent. I know no one whom I esteem more than Lady Cantrip."
"Would you wish her to go there, Duke?"
There came a wistful piteous look over the father's face. Why should
he be treated as no other father would be treated? Why should it
be supposed that he would desire to send his girl away from him?
But yet he felt that it would be better that she should go. It was
his present purpose to remain at Matching through a portion of the
summer. What could he do to make a girl happy? What comfort would
there be in his companionship?
"I suppose she ought to go somewhere," he said.
"I had not thought of it," said Mrs. Finn.
"I understood you to say," replied the Duke, almost angrily, "that
she ought to go to someone who would take care of her."
"I was thinking of some friend coming to her."
"Who would come? Who is there that I could possibly ask? You will not
stay."
"I certainly would stay, if it were for her good. I was thinking,
Duke, that perhaps you might ask the Greys to come to you."
"They would not come," he said, after a pause.
"When she was told that it was for her sake, she would come, I
think."
Then there was another pause. "I could not ask them," he said; "for
his sake I could not have it put to her in that way. Perhaps Mary had
better go to Lady Cantrip. Perhaps I had better be alone here for a
time. I do not think that I am fit to have any human being here with
me in my sorrow."