The Duke of St. Bungay in Search of a Minister.
It was the butler who had knocked,--showing that the knock was of
more importance than it would have been had it been struck by the
knuckles of the footman in livery. "If you please, sir, the Duke of
St. Bungay is here."
"The Duke of St. Bungay!" said Mr. Palliser, becoming rather red as he
heard the announcement.
"Yes, sir, his grace is in the library. He bade me tell you that he
particularly wanted to see you; so I told him that you were with my
lady."
"Quite right; tell his grace that I will be with him in two minutes."
Then the butler retired, and Mr. Palliser was again alone with his
wife.
"I must go now, my dear," he said; "and perhaps I shall not see you
again till the evening."
"Don't let me put you out in any way," she answered.
"Oh no;--you won't put me out. You will be dressing, I suppose, about
nine."
"I did not mean as to that," she answered. "You must not think
more of Italy. He has come to tell you that you are wanted in the
Cabinet."
Again he turned very red. "It may be so," he answered, "but though
I am wanted, I need not go. But I must not keep the duke waiting.
Good-bye." And he turned to the door.
She followed him and took hold of him as he went, so that he was
forced to turn to her once again. She managed to get hold of both
his hands, and pressed them closely, looking up into his face with
her eyes laden with tears. He smiled at her gently, returned the
pressure of the hands, and then left her,--without kissing her. It
was not that he was minded not to kiss her. He would have kissed her
willingly enough had he thought that the occasion required it. "He
says that he loves me," said Lady Glencora to herself, "but he does
not know what love means."
But she was quite aware that he had behaved to her with genuine, true
nobility. As soon as she was alone and certain of her solitude, she
took out that letter from her pocket, and tearing it into very small
fragments, without reading it, threw the pieces on the fire. As she
did so, her mind seemed to be fixed, at any rate, to one thing,--that
she would think no more of Burgo Fitzgerald as her future master. I
think, however, that she had arrived at so much certainty as this,
at that moment in which she had been parting with Burgo Fitzgerald,
in Lady Monk's dining-room. She had had courage enough,--or shall we
rather say sin enough,--to think of going with him,--to tell herself
that she would do so; to put herself in the way of doing it; nay, she
had had enough of both to enable her to tell her husband that she had
resolved that it would be good for her to do so. But she was neither
bold enough nor wicked enough to do the thing. As she had said of her
own idea of destroying herself,--she did not dare to take the plunge.
Therefore, knowing now that it was so, she tore up the letter that
she had carried so long, and burnt it in the fire.
She had in truth told him everything, believing that in doing so she
was delivering her own death-warrant as regarded her future position
in his house. She had done this, not hoping thereby for any escape;
not with any purpose as regarded herself, but simply because deceit
had been grievous to her, and had become unendurable as soon as
his words and manner had in them any feeling of kindness. But her
confession had no sooner been made than her fault had been forgiven.
She had told him that she did not love him. She had told him, even,
that she had thought of leaving him. She had justified by her own
words any treatment of his, however harsh, which he might choose
to practise. But the result had been--the immediate result--that
he had been more tender to her than she had ever remembered him to
be before. She knew that he had conquered her. However cold and
heartless his home might be to her, it must be her home now. There
could be no further thought of leaving him. She had gone out into the
tiltyard and had tilted with him, and he had been the victor.
Mr. Palliser himself had not time for much thought before he found
himself closeted with the Duke; but as he crossed the hall and went
up the stairs, a thought or two did pass quickly across his mind. She
had confessed to him, and he had forgiven her. He did not feel quite
sure that he had been right, but he did feel quite sure that the
thing had been done. He recognized it for a fact that, as regarded
the past, no more was to be said. There were to be no reproaches,
and there must be some tacit abandoning of Mrs. Marsham's close
attendance. As to Mr. Bott;--he had begun to hate Mr. Bott, and had
felt cruelly ungrateful, when that gentleman endeavoured to whisper a
word into his ear as he passed through the doorway into Lady Monk's
dining-room. And he had offered to go abroad,--to go abroad and
leave his politics, and his ambition, and his coming honours. He
had persisted in his offer, even after his wife had suggested to
him that the Duke of St. Bungay was now in the house with the object
of offering him that very thing for which he had so longed! As he
thought of this his heart became heavy within him. Such chances,--so
he told himself,--do not come twice in a man's way. When returning
from a twelvemonth's residence abroad he would be nobody in politics.
He would have lost everything for which he had been working all his
life. But he was a man of his word, and as he opened the library door
he was resolute,--he thought that he could be resolute in adhering to
his promise.
"Duke," he said, "I'm afraid I have kept you waiting." And the two
political allies shook each other by the hand.
The Duke was in a glow of delight. There had been no waiting. He was
only too glad to find his friend at home. He had been prepared to
wait, even if Mr. Palliser had been out. "And I suppose you guess why
I'm come?" said the Duke.
"I would rather be told than have to guess," said Mr. Palliser,
smiling for a moment. But the smile quickly passed off his face as he
remembered his pledge to his wife.
"He has resigned at last. What was said in the Lords last night made
it necessary that he should do so, or that Lord Brock should declare
himself able to support him through thick and thin. Of course, I can
tell you everything now. He must have gone, or I must have done so.
You know that I don't like him in the Cabinet. I admire his character
and his genius, but I think him the most dangerous man in England as
a statesman. He has high principles,--the very highest; but they are
so high as to be out of sight to ordinary eyes. They are too exalted
to be of any use for everyday purposes. He is honest as the sun, I'm
sure; but it's just like the sun's honesty,--of a kind which we men
below can't quite understand or appreciate. He has no instinct in
politics, but reaches his conclusions by philosophical deduction.
Now, in politics, I would a deal sooner trust to instinct than to
calculation. I think he may probably know how England ought to be
governed three centuries hence better than any man living, but of the
proper way to govern it now, I think he knows less. Brock half likes
him and half fears him. He likes the support of his eloquence, and he
likes the power of the man; but he fears his restless activity, and
thoroughly dislikes his philosophy. At any rate, he has left us, and
I am here to ask you to take his place."
The Duke, as he concluded his speech, was quite contented, and
almost jovial. He was thoroughly satisfied with the new political
arrangement which he was proposing. He regarded Mr. Palliser as a
steady, practical man of business, luckily young, and therefore with
a deal of work in him, belonging to the race from which English
ministers ought, in his opinion, to be taken, and as being, in some
respects, his own pupil. He had been the first to declare aloud that
Plantagenet Palliser was the coming Chancellor of the Exchequer; and
it had been long known, though no such declaration had been made
aloud, that the Duke did not sit comfortably in the same Cabinet with
the gentleman who had now resigned. Everything had now gone as the
Duke wished; and he was prepared to celebrate some little ovation
with his young friend before he left the house in Park Lane.
"And who goes out with him?" asked Mr. Palliser, putting off the evil
moment of his own decision; but before the Duke could answer him, he
had reminded himself that under his present circumstances he had no
right to ask such a question. His own decision could not rest upon
that point. "But it does not matter," he said; "I am afraid I must
decline the offer you bring me."
"Decline it!" said the Duke, who could not have been more surprised
had his friend talked of declining heaven.
"I fear I must." The Duke had now risen from his chair, and was
standing, with both his hands upon the table. All his contentment,
all his joviality, had vanished. His fine round face had become
almost ludicrously long; his eyes and mouth were struggling to convey
reproach, and the reproach was almost drowned in vexation. Ever since
Parliament had met he had been whispering Mr. Palliser's name into
the Prime Minister's ear, and now--. But he could not, and would not,
believe it. "Nonsense, Palliser," he said. "You must have got some
false notion into your head. There can be no possible reason why you
should not join us. Finespun himself will support us, at any rate
for a time." Mr. Finespun was the gentleman whose retirement from the
ministry the Duke of St. Bungay had now announced.
"It is nothing of that kind," said Mr. Palliser, who perhaps felt
himself quite equal to the duties proposed to him, even though Mr.
Finespun should not support him. "It is nothing of that kind;--it is
no fear of that sort that hinders me."
"Then, for mercy's sake, what is it? My dear Palliser, I looked upon
you as being as sure in this matter as myself; and I had a right
to do so. You certainly intended to join us a month ago, if the
opportunity offered. You certainly did."
"It is true, Duke. I must ask you to listen to me now, and I must
tell you what I would not willingly tell to any man." As Mr. Palliser
said this a look of agony came over his face. There are men who can
talk easily of all their most inmost matters, but he was not such
a man. It went sorely against the grain with him to speak of the
sorrow of his home, even to such a friend as the Duke; but it was
essentially necessary to him that he should justify himself.
"Upon my word," said the Duke, "I can't understand that there should
be any reason strong enough to make you throw your party over."
"I have promised to take my wife abroad."
"Is that it?" said the Duke, looking at him with surprise, but at the
same time with something of returning joviality in his face. "Nobody
thinks of going abroad at this time of the year. Of course, you can
get away for a time when Parliament breaks up."
"But I have promised to go at once."
"Then, considering your position, you have made a promise which it
behoves you to break. I am sure Lady Glencora will see it in that
light."
"You do not quite understand me, and I am afraid I must trouble you
to listen to matters which, under other circumstances, it would
be impertinent in me to obtrude upon you." A certain stiffness of
demeanour, and measured propriety of voice, much at variance with his
former manner, came upon him as he said this.
"Of course, Palliser, I don't want to interfere for a moment."
"If you will allow me, Duke. My wife has told me that, this morning,
which makes me feel that absence from England is requisite for her
present comfort. I was with her when you came, and had just promised
her that she should go."
"But, Palliser, think of it. If this were a small matter, I would
not press you; but a man in your position has public duties. He owes
his services to his country. He has no right to go back, if it be
possible that he should so do."
"When a man has given his word, it cannot be right that he should go
back from that."
"Of course not. But a man may be absolved from a promise. Lady
Glencora--"
"My wife would, of course, absolve me. It is not that. Her happiness
demands it, and it is partly my fault that it is so. I cannot explain
to you more fully why it is that I must give up the great object for
which I have striven with all my strength."
"Oh, no!" said the Duke. "If you are sure that it is imperative--"
"It is imperative."
"I could give you twenty-four hours, you know." Mr. Palliser did
not answer at once, and the Duke thought that he saw some sign of
hesitation. "I suppose it would not be possible that I should speak
to Lady Glencora?"
"It could be of no avail, Duke. She would only declare, at the first
word, that she would remain in London; but it would not be the less
my duty on that account to take her abroad."
"Well; I can't say. Of course, I can't say. Such an opportunity may
not come twice in a man's life. And at your age too! You are throwing
away from you the finest political position that the world can offer
to the ambition of any man. No one at your time of life has had such
a chance within my memory. That a man under thirty should be thought
fit to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and should refuse it,--because
he wants to take his wife abroad! Palliser, if she were dying, you
should remain under such an emergency as this. She might go, but you
should remain."
Mr. Palliser remained silent for a moment or two in his chair; he then
rose and walked towards the window, as he spoke. "There are things
worse than death," he said, when his back was turned. His voice was
very low, and there was a tear in his eye as he spoke them; the words
were indeed whispered, but the Duke heard them, and felt that he
could not press him any more on the subject of his wife.
"And must this be final?" said the Duke.
"I think it must. But your visit here has come so quickly on my
resolution to go abroad,--which, in truth, was only made ten minutes
before your name was brought to me,--that I believe I ought to ask
for a portion of those twenty-four hours which you have offered me. A
small portion will be enough. Will you see me, if I come to you this
evening, say at eight? If the House is up in the Lords I will go to
you in St. James's Square."
"We shall be sitting after eight, I think."
"Then I will see you there. And, Duke, I must ask you to think of me
in this matter as a friend should think, and not as though we were
bound together only by party feeling."
"I will,--I will."
"I have told you what I shall never whisper to any one else."
"I think you know that you are safe with me."
"I am sure of it. And, Duke, I can tell you that the sacrifice to me
will be almost more than I can bear. This thing that you have offered
me to-day is the only thing that I have ever coveted. I have thought
of it and worked for it, have hoped and despaired, have for moments
been vain enough to think that it was within my strength, and have
been wretched for weeks together because I have told myself that it
was utterly beyond me."
"As to that, neither Brock nor I, nor any of us, have any doubt.
Finespun himself says that you are the man."
"I am much obliged to them. But I say all this simply that you may
understand how imperative is the duty which, as I think, requires me
to refuse the offer."
"But you haven't refused as yet," said the Duke. "I shall wait at the
House for you, whether they are sitting or not. And endeavour to join
us. Do the best you can. I will say nothing as to that duty of which
you speak; but if it can be made compatible with your public service,
pray--pray let it be done. Remember how much such a one as you owes
to his country." Then the Duke went, and Mr. Palliser was alone.
He had not been alone before since the revelation which had been made
to him by his wife, and the words she had spoken were still sounding
in his ears. "I do love Burgo Fitzgerald;--I do! I do! I do!" They
were not pleasant words for a young husband to hear. Men there are,
no doubt, whose nature would make them more miserable under the
infliction than it had made Plantagenet Palliser. He was calm,
without strong passion, not prone to give to words a stronger
significance than they should bear;--and he was essentially
unsuspicious. Never for a moment had he thought, even while those
words were hissing in his ears, that his wife had betrayed his
honour. Nevertheless, there was that at his heart, as he remembered
those words, which made him feel that the world was almost too heavy
for him. For the first quarter of an hour after the Duke's departure
he thought more of his wife and of Burgo Fitzgerald than he did of
Lord Brock and Mr. Finespun. But of this he was aware,--that he had
forgiven his wife; that he had put his arm round her and embraced her
after hearing her confession,--and that she, mutely, with her eyes,
had promised him that she would do her best for him. Then something
of an idea of love came across his heart, and he acknowledged to
himself that he had married without loving or without requiring love.
Much of all this had been his own fault. Indeed, had not the whole
of it come from his own wrong-doing? He acknowledged that it was so.
But now,--now he loved her. He felt that he could not bear to part
with her, even if there were no question of public scandal, or of
disgrace. He had been torn inwardly by that assertion that she loved
another man. She had got at his heart-strings at last. There are men
who may love their wives, though they never can have been in love
before their marriage.
When the Duke had been gone about an hour, and when, under ordinary
circumstances, it would have been his time to go down to the House,
he took his hat and walked into the Park. He made his way across Hyde
Park, and into Kensington Gardens, and there he remained for an hour,
walking up and down beneath the elms. The quidnuncs of the town, who
chanced to see him, and who had heard something of the political
movements of the day, thought, no doubt, that he was meditating his
future ministerial career. But he had not been there long before he
had resolved that no ministerial career was at present open to him.
"It has been my own fault," he said, as he returned to his house,
"and with God's help I will mend it, if it be possible."
But he was a slow man, and he did not go off instantly to the Duke.
He had given himself to eight o'clock, and he took the full time.
He could not go down to the House of Commons because men would make
inquiries of him which he would find it difficult to answer. So he
dined at home, alone. He had told his wife that he would see her at
nine, and before that hour he would not go to her. He sat alone till
it was time for him to get into his brougham, and thought it all
over. That seat in the Cabinet and Chancellorship of the Exchequer,
which he had so infinitely desired, were already done with. There was
no doubt about that. It might have been better for him not to have
married; but now that he was married, and that things had brought
him untowardly to this pass, he knew that his wife's safety was his
first duty. "We will go through Switzerland," he said to himself, "to
Baden, and then we will get on to Florence and to Rome. She has seen
nothing of all these things yet, and the new life will make a change
in her. She shall have her own friend with her." Then he went down to
the House of Lords, and saw the Duke.
"Well, Palliser," said the Duke, when he had listened to him, "of
course I cannot argue it with you any more. I can only say that I am
very sorry;--more sorry than perhaps you will believe. Indeed, it
half breaks my heart." The Duke's voice was very sad, and it might
almost have been thought that he was going to shed a tear. In truth
he disliked Mr. Finespun with the strongest political feeling of which
he was capable, and had attached himself to Mr. Palliser almost as
strongly. It was a thousand pities! How hard had he not worked to
bring about this arrangement, which was now to be upset because a
woman had been foolish! "I never above half liked her," said the Duke
to himself, thinking perhaps a little of the Duchess's complaints
of her. "I must go to Brock at once," he said aloud, "and tell him.
God knows what we must do now. Goodbye! good-bye! No; I'm not angry.
There shall be no quarrel. But I am very sorry." In this way the two
politicians parted.
We may as well follow this political movement to its end. The Duke
saw Lord Brock that night, and then those two ministers sent for
another minister,--another noble Lord, a man of great experience
in Cabinets. These three discussed the matter together, and on the
following day Lord Brock got up in the House, and made a strong
speech in defence of his colleague, Mr. Finespun. To the end of the
Session, at any rate, Mr. Finespun kept his position, and held the
seals of the Exchequer while all the quidnuncs of the nation, shaking
their heads, spoke of the wonderful power of Mr. Finespun, and
declared that Lord Brock did not dare to face the Opposition without
him.
In the meantime Mr. Palliser had returned to his wife, and told her of
his resolution with reference to their tour abroad. "We may as well
make up our minds to start at once," said he. "At any rate, there is
nothing on my side to hinder us."