AT MATCHING.
For about a week in the August heat of a hot summer, Phineas attended
Parliament with fair average punctuality, and then prepared for his
journey down to Matching Priory. During that week he spoke no word
to any one as to his past tribulation, and answered all allusions to
it simply by a smile. He had determined to live exactly as though
there had been no such episode in his life as that trial at the Old
Bailey, and in most respects he did so. During this week he dined at
the club, and called at Madame Goesler's house in Park Lane,--not,
however, finding the lady at home. Once, and once only, did he break
down. On the Wednesday evening he met Barrington Erle, and was asked
by him to go to The Universe. At the moment he became very pale, but
he at once said that he would go. Had Erle carried him off in a cab
the adventure might have been successful; but as they walked, and
as they went together through Clarges Street and Bolton Row and
Curzon Street, and as the scenes which had been so frequently and so
graphically described in Court appeared before him one after another,
his heart gave way, and he couldn't do it. "I know I'm a fool,
Barrington; but if you don't mind I'll go home. Don't mind me, but
just go on." Then he turned and walked home, passing through the
passage in which the murder had been committed.
"I brought him as far as the next street," Barrington Erle said to
one of their friends at the club, "but I couldn't get him in. I doubt
if he'll ever be here again."
It was past six o'clock in the evening when he reached Matching
Priory. The Duchess had especially assured him that a brougham should
be waiting for him at the nearest station, and on arriving there he
found that he had the brougham to himself. He had thought a great
deal about it, and had endeavoured to make his calculations. He knew
that Madame Goesler would be at Matching, and it would be necessary
that he should say something of his thankfulness at their first
meeting. But how should he meet her,--and in what way should he
greet her when they met? Would any arrangement be made, or would all
be left to chance? Should he go at once to his own chamber,--so as
to show himself first when dressed for dinner, or should he allow
himself to be taken into any of the morning rooms in which the other
guests would be congregated? He had certainly not sufficiently
considered the character of the Duchess when he imagined that she
would allow these things to arrange themselves. She was one of those
women whose minds were always engaged on such matters, and who are
able to see how things will go. It must not be asserted of her
that her delicacy was untainted, or her taste perfect; but she was
clever,--discreet in the midst of indiscretions,--thoughtful, and
good-natured. She had considered it all, arranged it all, and given
her orders with accuracy. When Phineas entered the hall,--the
brougham with the luggage having been taken round to some back
door,--he was at once ushered by a silent man in black into the
little sitting-room on the ground floor in which the old Duke
used to take delight. Here he found two ladies,--but only two
ladies,--waiting to receive him. The Duchess came forward to welcome
him, while Madame Goesler remained in the background, with composed
face,--as though she by no means expected his arrival and he had
chanced to come upon them as she was standing by the window. He was
thinking of her much more than of her companion, though he knew
also how much he owed to the kindness of the Duchess. But what she
had done for him had come from caprice, whereas the other had been
instigated and guided by affection. He understood all that, and must
have shown his feeling on his countenance. "Yes, there she is," said
the Duchess, laughing. She had already told him that he was welcome
to Matching, and had spoken some short word of congratulation at his
safe deliverance from his troubles. "If ever one friend was grateful
to another, you should be grateful to her, Mr. Finn." He did not
speak, but walking across the room to the window by which Marie
Goesler stood, took her right hand in his, and passing his left arm
round her waist, kissed her first on one cheek and then on the other.
The blood flew to her face and suffused her forehead, but she did not
speak, or resist him or make any effort to escape from his embrace.
As for him, he had no thought of it at all. He had made no plan. No
idea of kissing her when they should meet had occurred to him till
the moment came. "Excellently well done," said the Duchess, still
laughing with silent pleasant laughter. "And now tell us how you are,
after all your troubles."
[Illustration: "Yes, there she is."]
He remained with them for half an hour, till the ladies went to
dress, when he was handed over to some groom of the chambers to show
him his room. "The Duke ought to be here to welcome you, of course,"
said the Duchess; "but you know official matters too well to expect
a President of the Board of Trade to do his domestic duties. We dine
at eight; five minutes before that time he will begin adding up his
last row of figures for the day. You never added up rows of figures,
I think. You only managed colonies." So they parted till dinner, and
Phineas remembered how very little had been spoken by Madame Goesler,
and how few of the words which he had spoken had been addressed to
her. She had sat silent, smiling, radiant, very beautiful as he had
thought, but contented to listen to her friend the Duchess. She, the
Duchess, had asked questions of all sorts, and made many statements;
and he had found that with those two women he could speak without
discomfort, almost with pleasure, on subjects which he could not bear
to have touched by men. "Of course you knew all along who killed the
poor man," the Duchess had said. "We did;--did we not, Marie?--just
as well as if we had seen it. She was quite sure that he had got out
of the house and back into it, and that he must have had a key. So
she started off to Prague to find the key; and she found it. And we
were quite sure too about the coat;--weren't we. That poor blundering
Lord Fawn couldn't explain himself, but we knew that the coat he saw
was quite different from any coat you would wear in such weather.
We discussed it all over so often;--every point of it. Poor Lord
Fawn! They say it has made quite an old man of him. And as for those
policemen who didn't find the life-preserver; I only think that
something ought to be done to them."
"I hope that nothing will ever be done to anybody, Duchess."
"Not to the Reverend Mr. Emilius;--poor dear Lady Eustace's Mr.
Emilius? I do think that you ought to desire that an end should
be put to his enterprising career! I'm sure I do." This was said
while the attempt was still being made to trace the purchase of the
bludgeon in Paris. "We've got Sir Gregory Grogram here on purpose to
meet you, and you must fraternise with him immediately, to show that
you bear no grudge."
"He only did his duty."
"Exactly;--though I think he was an addle-pated old ass not to see
the thing more clearly. As you'll be coming into the Government
before long, we thought that things had better be made straight
between you and Sir Gregory. I wonder how it was that nobody but
women did see it clearly? Look at that delightful woman, Mrs. Bunce.
You must bring Mrs. Bunce to me some day,--or take me to her."
"Lord Chiltern saw it clearly enough," said Phineas.
"My dear Mr. Finn, Lord Chiltern is the best fellow in the world, but
he has only one idea. He was quite sure of your innocence because
you ride to hounds. If it had been found possible to accuse poor
Mr. Fothergill, he would have been as certain that Mr. Fothergill
committed the murder, because Mr. Fothergill thinks more of his
shooting. However, Lord Chiltern is to be here in a day or two, and
I mean to go absolutely down on my knees to him,--and all for your
sake. If foxes can be had, he shall have foxes. We must go and dress
now, Mr. Finn, and I'll ring for somebody to show you your room."
Phineas, as soon as he was alone, thought, not of what the Duchess
had said, but of the manner in which he had greeted his friend,
Madame Goesler. As he remembered what he had done, he also blushed.
Had she been angry with him, and intended to show her anger by her
silence? And why had he done it? What had he meant? He was quite sure
that he would not have given those kisses had he and Madame Goesler
been alone in the room together. The Duchess had applauded him,--but
yet he thought that he regretted it. There had been matters between
him and Marie Goesler of which he was quite sure that the Duchess
knew nothing.
When he went downstairs he found a crowd in the drawing-room, from
among whom the Duke came forward to welcome him. "I am particularly
happy to see you at Matching," said the Duke. "I wish we had shooting
to offer you, but we are too far south for the grouse. That was
a bitter passage of arms the other day, wasn't it? I am fond of
bitterness in debate myself, but I do regret the roughness of the
House of Commons. I must confess that I do." The Duke did not say a
word about the trial, and the Duke's guests followed their host's
example.
The house was full of people, most of whom had before been known
to Phineas, and many of whom had been asked specially to meet him.
Lord and Lady Cantrip were there, and Mr. Monk, and Sir Gregory his
accuser, and the Home Secretary, Sir Harry Coldfoot, with his wife.
Sir Harry had at one time been very keen about hanging our hero,
and was now of course hot with reactionary zeal. To all those who
had been in any way concerned in the prosecution, the accidents by
which Phineas had been enabled to escape had been almost as fortunate
as to Phineas himself. Sir Gregory himself quite felt that had he
prosecuted an innocent and very popular young Member of Parliament to
the death, he could never afterwards have hoped to wear his ermine in
comfort. Barrington Erle was there, of course, intending, however,
to return to the duties of his office on the following day,--and our
old friend Laurence Fitzgibbon with a newly-married wife, a lady
possessing a reputed fifty thousand pounds, by which it was hoped
that the member for Mayo might be placed steadily upon his legs
for ever. And Adelaide Palliser was there also,--the Duke's first
cousin,--on whose behalf the Duchess was anxious to be more than
ordinarily good-natured. Mr. Maule, Adelaide's rejected lover, had
dined on one occasion with the Duke and Duchess in London. There
had been nothing remarkable at the dinner, and he had not at all
understood why he had been asked. But when he took his leave the
Duchess had told him that she would hope to see him at Matching. "We
expect a friend of yours to be with us," the Duchess had said. He had
afterwards received a written invitation and had accepted it; but he
was not to reach Matching till the day after that on which Phineas
arrived. Adelaide had been told of his coming only on this morning,
and had been much flurried by the news.
"But we have quarrelled," she said. "Then the best thing you can do
is to make it up again, my dear," said the Duchess. Miss Palliser was
undoubtedly of that opinion herself, but she hardly believed that so
terrible an evil as a quarrel with her lover could be composed by so
rough a remedy as this. The Duchess, who had become used to all the
disturbing excitements of life, and who didn't pay so much respect as
some do to the niceties of a young lady's feelings, thought that it
would be only necessary to bring the young people together again. If
she could do that, and provide them with an income, of course they
would marry. On the present occasion Phineas was told off to take
Miss Palliser down to dinner. "You saw the Chilterns before they left
town, I know," she said.
"Oh, yes. I am constantly in Portman Square."
"Of course. Lady Laura has gone down to Scotland;--has she not;--and
all alone?"
"She is alone now, I believe."
"How dreadful! I do not know any one that I pity so much as I do her.
I was in the house with her some time, and she gave me the idea of
being the most unhappy woman I had ever met with. Don't you think
that she is very unhappy?"
"She has had very much to make her so," said Phineas. "She was
obliged to leave her husband because of the gloom of his
insanity;--and now she is a widow."
"I don't suppose she ever really--cared for him; did she?" The
question was no sooner asked than the poor girl remembered the
whole story which she had heard some time back,--the rumour of the
husband's jealousy and of the wife's love, and she became as red as
fire, and unable to help herself. She could think of no word to say,
and confessed her confusion by her sudden silence.
Phineas saw it all, and did his best for her. "I am sure she cared
for him," he said, "though I do not think it was a well-assorted
marriage. They had different ideas about religion, I fancy. So you
saw the hunting in the Brake country to the end? How is our old
friend, Mr. Spooner?"
"Don't talk of him, Mr. Finn."
"I rather like Mr. Spooner;--and as for hunting the country, I don't
think Chiltern could get on without him. What a capital fellow your
cousin the Duke is."
"I hardly know him."
"He is such a gentleman;--and, at the same time, the most abstract
and the most concrete man that I know."
"Abstract and concrete!"
"You are bound to use adjectives of that sort now, Miss Palliser, if
you mean to be anybody in conversation."
"But how is my cousin concrete? He is always abstracted when I speak
to him, I know."
"No Englishman whom I have met is so broadly and intuitively and
unceremoniously imbued with the simplicity of the character of a
gentleman. He could no more lie than he could eat grass."
"Is that abstract or concrete?"
"That's abstract. And I know no one who is so capable of throwing
himself into one matter for the sake of accomplishing that one thing
at a time. That's concrete." And so the red colour faded away from
poor Adelaide's face, and the unpleasantness was removed.
"What do you think of Laurence's wife?" Erle said to him late in the
evening.
"I have only just seen her. The money is there, I suppose."
"The money is there, I believe; but then it will have to remain
there. He can't touch it. There's about £2,000 a-year, which will
have to go back to her family unless they have children."
"I suppose she's--forty?"
"Well; yes, or perhaps forty-five. You were locked up at the time,
poor fellow,--and had other things to think of; but all the interest
we had for anything beyond you through May and June was devoted to
Laurence and his prospects. It was off and on, and on and off, and he
was in a most wretched condition. At last she wouldn't consent unless
she was to be asked here."
"And who managed it?"
"Laurence came and told it all to the Duchess, and she gave him the
invitation at once."
"Who told you?"
"Not the Duchess,--nor yet Laurence. So it may be untrue, you
know;--but I believe it. He did ask me whether he'd have to stand
another election at his marriage. He has been going in and out of
office so often, and always going back to the Co. Mayo at the expense
of half a year's salary, that his mind had got confused, and he
didn't quite know what did and what did not vacate his seat. We
must all come to it sooner or later, I suppose, but the question is
whether we could do better than an annuity of £2,000 a year on the
life of the lady. Office isn't very permanent, but one has not to
attend the House above six months a year, while you can't get away
from a wife much above a week at a time. It has crippled him in
appearance very much, I think."
"A man always looks changed when he's married."
"I hope, Mr. Finn, that you owe me no grudge," said Sir Gregory, the
Attorney-General.
"Not in the least; why should I?"
"It was a very painful duty that I had to perform,--the most painful
that ever befel me. I had no alternative but to do it, of course, and
to do it in the hope of reaching the truth. But a counsel for the
prosecution must always appear to the accused and his friends like
a hound running down his game, and anxious for blood. The habitual
and almost necessary acrimony of the defence creates acrimony in the
attack. If you were accustomed as I am to criminal courts you would
observe this constantly. A gentleman gets up and declares in perfect
faith that he is simply anxious to lay before the jury such evidence
as has been placed in his hands. And he opens his case in that
spirit. Then his witnesses are cross-examined with the affected
incredulity and assumed indignation which the defending counsel is
almost bound to use on behalf of his client, and he finds himself
gradually imbued with pugnacity. He becomes strenuous, energetic, and
perhaps eager for what must after all be regarded as success, and at
last he fights for a verdict rather than for the truth."
"The judge, I suppose, ought to put all that right?"
"So he does;--and it comes right. Our criminal practice does not sin
on the side of severity. But a barrister employed on the prosecution
should keep himself free from that personal desire for a verdict
which must animate those engaged on the defence."
"Then I suppose you wanted to--hang me, Sir Gregory."
"Certainly not. I wanted the truth. But you in your position must
have regarded me as a bloodhound."
"I did not. As far as I can analyse my own feelings, I entertained
anger only against those who, though they knew me well, thought that
I was guilty."
"You will allow me, at any rate, to shake hands with you," said Sir
Gregory, "and to assure you that I should have lived a broken-hearted
man if the truth had been known too late. As it is I tremble and
shake in my shoes as I walk about and think of what might have been
done." Then Phineas gave his hand to Sir Gregory, and from that time
forth was inclined to think well of Sir Gregory.
Throughout the whole evening he was unable to speak to Madame
Goesler, but to the other people around him he found himself talking
quite at his ease, as though nothing peculiar had happened to him.
Almost everybody, except the Duke, made some slight allusion to his
adventure, and he, in spite of his resolution to the contrary, found
himself driven to talk of it. It had seemed quite natural that Sir
Gregory,--who had in truth been eager for his condemnation, thinking
him to have been guilty,--should come to him and make peace with him
by telling him of the nature of the work that had been imposed upon
him;--and when Sir Harry Coldfoot assured him that never in his life
had his mind been relieved of so heavy a weight as when he received
the information about the key,--that also was natural. A few days ago
he had thought that these allusions would kill him. The prospect of
them had kept him a prisoner in his lodgings; but now he smiled and
chatted, and was quiet and at ease.
"Good-night, Mr. Finn," the Duchess said to him, "I know the people
have been boring you."
"Not in the least."
"I saw Sir Gregory at it, and I can guess what Sir Gregory was
talking about."
"I like Sir Gregory, Duchess."
"That shows a very Christian disposition on your part. And then there
was Sir Harry. I understood it all, but I could not hinder it. But it
had to be done, hadn't it?--And now there will be an end of it."
"Everybody has treated me very well," said Phineas, almost in tears.
"Some people have been so kind to me that I cannot understand why it
should have been so."
"Because some people are your very excellent good friends. We,--that
is, Marie and I, you know,--thought it would be the best thing for
you to come down and get through it all here. We could see that you
weren't driven too hard. By the bye, you have hardly seen her,--have
you?"
"Hardly, since I was upstairs with your Grace."
"My Grace will manage better for you to-morrow. I didn't like to tell
you to take her out to dinner, because it would have looked a little
particular after her very remarkable journey to Prague. If you ain't
grateful you must be a wretch."
"But I am grateful."
"Well; we shall see. Good-night. You'll find a lot of men going to
smoke somewhere, I don't doubt."