Three Politicians.
Mr. Palliser was one of those politicians in possessing whom England
has perhaps more reason to be proud than of any other of her
resources, and who, as a body, give to her that exquisite combination
of conservatism and progress which is her present strength and best
security for the future. He could afford to learn to be a statesman,
and had the industry wanted for such training. He was born in the
purple, noble himself, and heir to the highest rank as well as one of
the greatest fortunes of the country, already very rich, surrounded
by all the temptations of luxury and pleasure; and yet he devoted
himself to work with the grinding energy of a young penniless
barrister labouring for a penniless wife, and did so without any
motive more selfish than that of being counted in the roll of
the public servants of England. He was not a brilliant man, and
understood well that such was the case. He was now listened to in
the House, as the phrase goes; but he was listened to as a laborious
man, who was in earnest in what he did, who got up his facts with
accuracy, and who, dull though he be, was worthy of confidence. And
he was very dull. He rather prided himself on being dull, and on
conquering in spite of his dullness. He never allowed himself a
joke in his speeches, nor attempted even the smallest flourish of
rhetoric. He was very careful in his language, labouring night and
day to learn to express himself with accuracy, with no needless
repetition of words, perspicuously with regard to the special object
he might have in view. He had taught himself to believe that oratory,
as oratory, was a sin against that honesty in politics by which he
strove to guide himself. He desired to use words for the purpose of
teaching things which he knew and which others did not know; and he
desired also to be honoured for his knowledge. But he had no desire
to be honoured for the language in which his knowledge was conveyed.
He was an upright, thin, laborious man; who by his parts alone could
have served no political party materially, but whose parts were
sufficient to make his education, integrity, and industry useful in
the highest degree. It is the trust which such men inspire which
makes them so serviceable;--trust not only in their labour,--for any
man rising from the mass of the people may be equally laborious; nor
yet simply in their honesty and patriotism. The confidence is given
to their labour, honesty, and patriotism joined to such a personal
stake in the country as gives them a weight and ballast which no
politician in England can possess without it.
If he was dull as a statesman he was more dull in private life, and
it may be imagined that such a woman as his wife would find some
difficulty in making his society the source of her happiness. Their
marriage, in a point of view regarding business, had been a complete
success,--and a success, too, when on the one side, that of Lady
Glencora, there had been terrible dangers of shipwreck, and when
on his side also there had been some little fears of a mishap. As
regards her it has been told how near she went to throwing herself,
with all her vast wealth, into the arms of a young man, whom no
father, no guardian could have regarded as a well-chosen husband for
any girl;--one who as yet had shown no good qualities, who had been
a spendthrift, unprincipled, and debauched. Alas, she had loved him!
It is possible that her love and her wealth might have turned him
from evil to good. But who would have ventured to risk her,--I will
not say her and her vast inheritances,--on such a chance? That evil,
however, had been prevented, and those about her had managed to marry
her to a young man, very steady by nature, with worldly prospects as
brilliant as her own, and with a station than which the world offers
nothing higher. His little threatened mischance,--a passing fancy for
a married lady who was too wise to receive vows which were proffered
not in the most ardent manner,--had, from special reasons, given some
little alarm to his uncle, which had just sufficed at the time to
make so very judicious a marriage doubly pleasant to that noble duke.
So that all things and all people had conspired to shower substantial
comforts on the heads of this couple, when they were joined together,
and men and women had not yet ceased to declare how happy were both
in the accumulated gifts of fortune.
And as regards Mr. Palliser, I think that his married life, and the
wife, whom he certainly had not chosen, but who had dropped upon him,
suited him admirably. He wanted great wealth for that position at
which he aimed. He had been rich before his marriage with his own
wealth,--so rich that he could throw thousands away if he wished it;
but for him and his career was needed that colossal wealth which
would make men talk about it,--which would necessitate an expansive
expenditure, reaching far and wide, doing nothing, or less than
nothing, for his own personal comfort, but giving to him at once that
rock-like solidity which is so necessary to our great aristocratic
politicians. And his wife was, as far as he knew, all that he
desired. He had not dabbled much in the fountains of Venus, though
he had forgotten himself once, and sinned in coveting another man's
wife. But his sin then had hardly polluted his natural character,
and his desire had been of a kind which was almost more gratified in
its disappointment than it would have been in its fruition. On the
morning after the lady had frowned on him he had told himself that he
was very well out of that trouble. He knew that it would never be for
him to hang up on the walls of a temple a well-worn lute as a votive
offering when leaving the pursuits of love. _Idoneus puellis_ he
never could have been. So he married Lady Glencora and was satisfied.
The story of Burgo Fitzgerald was told to him, and he supposed that
most girls had some such story to tell. He thought little about it,
and by no means understood her when she said to him, with all the
impressiveness which she could throw into the words, "You must know
that I have really loved him." "You must love me now," he had replied
with a smile; and then as regarded his mind, the thing was over. And
since his marriage he had thought that things matrimonial had gone
well with him, and with her too. He gave her almost unlimited power
of enjoying her money, and interfered but little in her way of
life. Sometimes he would say a word of caution to her with reference
to those childish ways which hardly became the dull dignity of
his position; and his words then would have in them something of
unintentional severity,--whether instigated or not by the red-haired
Radical Member of Parliament, I will not pretend to say;--but on
the whole he was contented and loved his wife, as he thought, very
heartily, and at least better than he loved any one else. One cause
of unhappiness, or rather one doubt as to his entire good fortune,
was beginning to make itself felt, as his wife had to her sorrow
already discovered. He had hoped that before this he might have heard
that she would give him a child. But the days were young yet for that
trouble, and the care had not become a sorrow.
But this judicious arrangement as to properties, this well-ordered
alliance between families, had not perhaps suited her as well as it
had suited him. I think that she might have learned to forget her
early lover, or to look back upon it with a soft melancholy hardly
amounting to regret, had her new lord been more tender in his ways
with her. I do not know that Lady Glencora's heart was made of that
stern stuff which refuses to change its impressions; but it was a
heart, and it required food. To love and fondle someone,--to be
loved and fondled, were absolutely necessary to her happiness. She
wanted the little daily assurance of her supremacy in the man's
feelings, the constant touch of love, half accidental half contrived,
the passing glance of the eye telling perhaps of some little joke
understood only between them two rather than of love, the softness of
an occasional kiss given here and there when chance might bring them
together, some half-pretended interest in her little doings, a nod, a
wink, a shake of the head, or even a pout. It should have been given
to her to feed upon such food as this daily, and then she would have
forgotten Burgo Fitzgerald. But Mr. Palliser understood none of these
things; and therefore the image of Burgo Fitzgerald in all his beauty
was ever before her eyes.
But not the less was Mr. Palliser a prosperous man, as to the success
of whose career few who knew him had much doubt. It might be written
in the book of his destiny that he would have to pass through some
violent domestic trouble, some ruin in the hopes of his home, of a
nature to destroy then and for ever the worldly prospects of other
men. But he was one who would pass through such violence, should
it come upon him, without much scathe. To lose his influence with
his party would be worse to him than to lose his wife, and public
disgrace would hit him harder than private dishonour.
And the present was the very moment in which success was, as was
said, coming to him. He had already held laborious office under the
Crown, but had never sat in the Cabinet. He had worked much harder
than Cabinet Ministers generally work,--but hitherto had worked
without any reward that was worth his having. For the stipend which
he had received had been nothing to him,--as the great stipend which
he would receive, if his hopes were true, would also be nothing to
him. To have ascendancy over other men, to be known by his countrymen
as one of their real rulers, to have an actual and acknowledged voice
in the management of nations,--those were the rewards for which he
looked; and now in truth it seemed as though they were coming to him.
It was all but known that the existing Chancellor of the Exchequer
would separate himself from the Government, carrying various others
with him, either before or immediately consequent on the meeting
of Parliament;--and it was all but known, also, that Mr. Palliser
would fill his place, taking that high office at once, although he
had never hitherto sat in that august assembly which men call the
Cabinet. He could thus afford to put up with the small everyday
calamity of having a wife who loved another man better than she loved
him.
The presence of the Duke of St. Bungay at Matching was assumed to be a
sure sign of Mr. Palliser's coming triumph. The Duke was a statesman
of a very different class, but he also had been eminently successful
as an aristocratic pillar of the British Constitutional Republic. He
was a minister of very many years' standing, being as used to cabinet
sittings as other men are to their own armchairs; but he had never
been a hard-working man. Though a constant politician, he had ever
taken politics easy whether in office or out. The world had said
before now that the Duke might be Premier, only that he would not
take the trouble. He had been consulted by a very distinguished
person,--so the papers had said more than once,--as to the making of
Prime Ministers. His voice in council was esteemed to be very great.
He was regarded as a strong rock of support to the liberal cause, and
yet nobody ever knew what he did; nor was there much record of what
he said. The offices which he held, or had held, were generally those
to which no very arduous duties were attached. In severe debates he
never took upon himself the brunt of opposition oratory. What he said
in the House was generally short and pleasant,--with some slight,
drolling, undercurrent of uninjurious satire running through it. But
he was a walking miracle of the wisdom of common sense. He never lost
his temper. He never made mistakes. He never grew either hot or cold
in a cause. He was never reckless in politics, and never cowardly. He
snubbed no man, and took snubbings from no man. He was a Knight of
the Garter, a Lord Lieutenant of his county, and at sixty-two had
his digestion unimpaired and his estate in excellent order. He was a
great buyer of pictures, which, perhaps, he did not understand, and a
great collector of books which certainly he never read. All the world
respected him, and he was a man to whom the respect of all the world
was as the breath of his nostrils.
But even he was not without his peacock on the wall, his skeleton
in the closet, his thorn in his side; though the peacock did not
scream loud, the skeleton was not very terrible in his anatomical
arrangement, nor was the thorn likely to fester to a gangrene. The
Duke was always in awe about his wife.
He was ever uneasy about his wife, but it must not be supposed
that he feared the machinations of any Burgo Fitzgerald as being
destructive of his domestic comfort. The Duchess was and always
had been all that is proper. Ladies in high rank, when gifted with
excelling beauty, have often been made the marks of undeserved
calumny;--but no breath of slander had ever touched her name. I doubt
if any man alive had ever had the courage even to wink at her since
the Duke had first called her his own. Nor was she a spendthrift, or
a gambler. She was not fast in her tastes, or given to any pursuit
that was objectionable. She was simply a fool, and as a fool was ever
fearing that she was the mark of ridicule. In all such miseries she
would complain sorrowfully, piteously, and occasionally very angrily,
to her dear Duke and protector; till sometimes her dear Duke did not
quite know what to do with her or how to protect her. It did not suit
him, a Knight of the Garter and a Duke of St. Bungay, to beg mercy
for that poor wife of his from such a one as Mrs. Conway Sparkes; nor
would it be more in his way to lodge a formal complaint against that
lady before his host or hostess,--as one boy at school may sometimes
do as regards another. "If you don't like the people, my dear, we
will go away," he said to her late on that evening of which we have
spoken. "No," she replied, "I do not wish to go away. I have said
that we would stay till December, and Longroyston won't be ready
before that. But I think that something ought to be done to silence
that woman." And the accent came strong upon "something," and then
again with terrific violence upon "woman."
The Duke did not know how to silence Mrs. Conway Sparkes. It was
a great principle of his life never to be angry with any one. How
could he get at Mrs. Conway Sparkes? "I don't think she is worth your
attention," said the husband. "That's all very well, Duke," said the
wife, "and perhaps she is not. But I find her in this house, and I
don't like to be laughed at. I think Lady Glencora should make her
know her place."
"Lady Glencora is very young, my dear."
"I don't know about being so very young," said the Duchess, whose ear
had perhaps caught some little hint of poor Lady Glencora's almost
unintentional mimicry. Now as appeals of this kind were being made
frequently to the Duke, and as he was often driven to say some word,
of which he himself hardly approved, to some one in protection of his
Duchess, he was aware that the matter was an annoyance, and at times
almost wished that her Grace was at--Longroyston.
And there was a third politician staying at Matching Priory who had
never yet risen to the rank of a statesman, but who had his hopes.
This was Mr. Bott, the member for St. Helens, whom Lady Glencora had
described as a man who stood about, with red hair,--and perhaps told
tales of her to her husband. Mr. Bott was a person who certainly had
had some success in life and who had won it for himself. He was not
very young, being at this time only just on the right side of fifty.
He was now enjoying his second session in Parliament, having been
returned as a pledged disciple of the Manchester school. Nor had he
apparently been false to his pledges. At St. Helens he was still held
to be a good man and true. But they who sat on the same side with
him in the House and watched his political manoeuvres, knew that he
was striving hard to get his finger into the public pie. He was not
a rich man, though he had made calico and had got into Parliament.
And though he claimed to be a thoroughgoing Radical, he was a man
who liked to live with aristocrats, and was fond of listening to the
whispers of such as the Duke of St. Bungay or Mr. Palliser. It was
supposed that he did understand something of finance. He was at any
rate great in figures; and as he was possessed of much industry, and
was obedient withal, he was a man who might make himself useful to a
Chancellor of the Exchequer ambitious of changes.
There are men who get into such houses as Matching Priory and whose
presence there is a mystery to many;--as to whom the ladies of the
house never quite understand why they are entertaining such a guest.
"And Mr. Bott is coming," Mr. Palliser had said to his wife. "Mr.
Bott!" Lady Glencora had answered. "Goodness me! who is Mr. Bott?"
"He is member for St. Helens," said Mr. Palliser. "A very serviceable
man in his way." "And what am I to do with him?" asked Lady Glencora.
"I don't know that you can do anything with him. He is a man who
has a great deal of business, and I dare say he will spend most of
his time in the library." So Mr. Bott arrived. But though a huge
pile of letters and papers came to him every morning by post, he
unfortunately did not seem to spend much of his time in the library.
Perhaps he had not found the clue to that lost apartment. Twice he
went out shooting, but as on the first day he shot the keeper, and
on the second very nearly shot the Duke, he gave that up. Hunting he
declined, though much pressed to make an essay in that art by Jeffrey
Palliser. He seemed to spend his time, as Lady Glencora said, in
standing about,--except at certain times when he was closeted with
Mr. Palliser, and when, it may be presumed, he made himself useful.
On such days he would be seen at the hour of lunch with fingers
much stained with ink, and it was generally supposed that on those
occasions he had been counting up taxes and calculating the effect
of great financial changes. He was a tall, wiry, strong man, with a
bald head and bristly red beard, which, however, was cut off from his
upper and under lip. This was unfortunate, as had he hidden his mouth
he would not have been in so marked a degree an ugly man. His upper
lip was very long, and his mouth was mean. But he had found that
without the help of a razor to these parts he could not manage his
soup to his satisfaction, and preferring cleanliness to beauty had
shaved himself accordingly.
"I shouldn't dislike Mr. Bott so much," Lady Glencora said to her
husband, "if he didn't rub his hands and smile so often, and seem
to be going to say something when he really is not going to say
anything."
"I don't think you need trouble yourself about him, my dear," Mr.
Palliser had answered.
"But when he looks at me in that way, I can't help stopping, as
I think he is going to speak; and then he always says, 'Can I do
anything for you, Lady Glen-cowrer?'"
She instantly saw that her husband did not like this. "Don't be angry
with me, dear," she said. "You must admit that he is rather a bore."
"I am not at all angry, Glencora," said the husband; "and if you
insist upon it, I will see that he leaves;--and in such case will
of course never ask him again. But that might be prejudicial to me,
as he is a man whom I trust in politics, and who may perhaps be
serviceable to me."
Of course Lady Glencora declared that Mr. Bott might remain as long as
he and her husband desired, and of course she mentioned his name no
more to Mr. Palliser; but from that time forth she regarded Mr. Bott as
an enemy, and felt also that Mr. Bott regarded her in the same light.
When it was known among outside politicians that the Duke of St.
Bungay was staying at Matching Priory, outside politicians became
more sure than ever that Mr. Palliser would be the new Chancellor of
the Exchequer. The old minister and the young minister were of course
arranging matters together. But I doubt whether Mr. Palliser and the
Duke ever spoke on any such topic during the entire visit. Though
Mr. Bott was occasionally closeted with Mr. Palliser, the Duke never
troubled himself with such closetings. He went out shooting--on his
pony, read his newspaper, wrote his notes, and looked with the eye
of a connoisseur over all Mr. Palliser's farming apparatus. "You seem
to have a good man, I should say," said the Duke. "What! Hubbings?
Yes;--he was a legacy from my uncle when he gave me up the Priory."
"A very good man, I should say. Of course he won't make it pay; but
he'll make it look as though it did;--which is the next best thing.
I could never get rent out of land that I farmed myself,--never." "I
suppose not," said Mr. Palliser, who did not care much about it. The
Duke would have talked to him by the hour together about farming had
Mr. Palliser been so minded; but he talked to him very little about
politics. Nor during the whole time of his stay at Matching did the
Duke make any other allusion to Mr. Palliser's hopes as regarded
the ministry, than that in which he had told Lady Glencora at the
dinner-table that her husband's ambition was the highest by which
any man could be moved.
But Mr. Bott was sometimes honoured by a few words with the Duke.
"We shall muster pretty strong, your Grace," Mr. Bott had said to him
one day before dinner.
"That depends on how the changes go," said the Duke.
"I suppose there will be a change?"
"Oh yes; there'll be a change,--certainly, I should say. And it will
be in your direction."
"And in Palliser's?"
"Yes; I should think so;--that is, if it suits him. By-the-by, Mr.
Bott--" Then there was a little whispered communication, in which
perhaps Mr. Bott was undertaking some commission of that nature which
Lady Glencora had called "telling."